COVID-19 ... how we cope :)

[Vlad Drkulec]

Yes, that interview with Byrd certainly leaves a bad impression. His overall record with respect to race/racism was muddied. I'm not sure why he is being defended so vigorously by some, however, to balance things out a bit (i.e. file under 'He Wasn't All Bad'), here's some info from Wikipedia:

We have Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton praising a man who was a racist. They are racists. Trump is not.

[Tom O'Donnell]

I don't know if Biden is a racist but consider the response in the press if Trump had said what Biden said at about 17:25.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOIF...ubPower105.1FM

[Hans Jung]

India has over 5 million cases. I think India will eventually surpass USA's caseload.
Brazil, India, and US combined have more than half the worlds cases.

[Peter McKillop]

We have Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton praising a man who was a racist. They are racists. Trump is not.

You're slipping, Vlad. You left out the part about Biden and Clinton running a pedophile prostitution ring out of the back room in a D.C. pizzeria.

[Garland Best]

More bullshit. Lincoln himself said that his only purpose was to "preserve the union." Slavery was not the issue at all. In fact, Lincoln was quite content to allow the South to continue with slavery if that would preserve the union. The Emancipation Proclamation was a political move designed to help in the war effort, it was not out of sympathy for the slaves. I will waste no more time on your lies and arrogance.

It's fascinating reading this thread, in the same way it is fascinating to see a multiple car accident at the side of the road as you drive by.

Regarding the whole Republican vs Democrat / slavery topic, everyone keeps pointing to history. Actually reading about the history, it's pretty clear that the Republican Party was first founded in the 1850's to limit slavery to only the slave states, while not abolishing slavery.Meanwhile the Democrats were content to allow slavery to spread to the new states. Equal rights for blacks was not even on the table then for any party. Such were the times. But one cannot claim that slavery was not the issue at all, given the reason that the Republican Party was founded. So point to Vlad.

However to use this point to try to prove that Republicans are pro-minority while Democrats are the slaver party seems stretching it to the breaking point. The fact is that the constituents and policies of parties change over time, and roughly 100 years ago the shift occurred between the two parties, and the changes continued until we reached the point where we are today. And somehow through this we have people like Vlad and Neil, trying to tell us that both parties think the same way they did 160 years ago, while Brad and to a lesser degree Pargat arguing that they were never like that.

I personally think that if the average 20 year old from 1970 met their 70 year old self in 2020, they would hardly recognize that person and would probably identify more with the average 20 year old today. I'm not saying that is good or bad, just that it indicates how people, societies and political parties change over time.

So yes, look at history and follow it to where we are today. But judge by what is being said and done today.

[Vlad Drkulec]

You're slipping, Vlad. You left out the part about Biden and Clinton running a pedophile prostitution ring out of the back room in a D.C. pizzeria.

I never heard that. Probably fake news though when Gavin Newsome attempts to change the laws of California to obliterate age of consent, I might understand why such rumours might get started..

[Vlad Drkulec]

It's fascinating reading this thread, in the same way it is fascinating to see a multiple car collision at the side of the road as you drive by.

Regarding the whole Republican vs Democrat / slavery topic, everyone keeps pointing to history. Actually reading about the history, it's pretty clear that the Republican Party was first founded in the 1850's to limit slavery to only the slave states, while not abolishing slavery.Meanwhile the Democrats were content to allow slavery to spread to the new states. Equal rights for blacks was not even on the table then for any party. Such were the times. But one cannot claim that slavery was not the issue at all, given the reason that the Republican Party was founded. So point to Vlad.

However to use this point to try to prove that Republicans are pro-minority while Democrats are the slaver party seems stretching it to the breaking point. The fact is that the constituents and policies of parties change over time, and roughly 100 years ago the shift occurred between the two parties, and the changes continued until we reached the point where we are today. And somehow through this we have people like Vlad and Neil, trying to tell us that both parties think the same way they did 160 years ago, while Brad and to a lesser degree Pargat arguing that they were never like that.

It was not 100 years ago. Fifty years ago the Dems opposed integration of schools. Biden was recorded saying that he didn't want his kids attending a racial jungle in 1977. That was less than fifty years ago. Even the leftist Snopes fact checkers declined to deny it.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/bi...-jungle-quote/

[Sid Belzberg]

India has over 5 million cases. I think India will eventually surpass USA's caseload.
Brazil, India, and US combined have more than half the worlds cases.

My original degree was in Molecular Biology so I would like to comment on these statistics. In the United States and Canada they use the Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to detect viral load.

This involves taking a small RNA sample and amplifying it to see if you have any viral RNA in your system. If you have a large viral load normally you go through 30 cycles of amplification to detect this and that has been the international standard for decades as per Oxford Professor Dr. Carl Heneghan editor of the prestigious British Medical Journal (BMJ)

Keep in mind that for each amplification cycle you double the amount of viral RNA from the previous cycle. So effectively it is an exponential scale of amplification. Currently the FDA and CDC guidelines for PCR amplification cycles is 47. Health Canada goes by CDC standards. At 47 cycles compared to 30 even the slightest trace of non infectious dead attenuated viral particles will leave behind traces of viral RNA.

So we are seeing millions of false positives being counted. Asymptomatic carriers of viral RNA do not spread COVID as per Dr. Fauci himself. Counting people who have been infected but their Tcells took care of it and they have traces of dead viral particles is completely irrelevant.

Effectively we do not need lockdowns or masks and the basis to do this is not based on science. The statistics you are quoting are meaningless. Detecting a true positive is done using an amplification rate of 30, not 47.

In Canada recently the number of new COVID Deaths recently is nill despite rising "cases". The PCR tests that are overly sensitive is the reason for this.

[Neil Frarey]

Chinese virologist whistleblower says COVID-19 was 'intentionally' created in a Chinese lab and released onto to the world.

https://www.foxnews.com/media/chines...ly-coronavirus

[Garland Best]

It was not 100 years ago. Fifty years ago the Dems opposed integration of schools. Biden was recorded saying that he didn't want his kids attending a racial jungle in 1977. That was less than fifty years ago. Even the leftist Snopes fact checkers declined to deny it.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/bi...-jungle-quote/

Ok, looking it up.

1) It was the Democrats under Johnson that put through the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which effectively put an end to school segregation.
2) At the time of Biden's quote, the other key politician opposing the busing was Jesse Helms, one of the key Republican Senators during the Reagan era. His views on race and sexual orientation were far more racist and homophobic, and was a leading figure in bringing those views into the Republican party.

So yeah, Biden's stance on active desegregation at the time does not read well. And that interview that Tom gave a link to is painful to watch, smacks of pandering to the black vote. But to use his personal political stance in 1977, forty three years ago to frame the democrats as the ones against minority rights while republicans under Trump protector of minority lights is definitely pot calling the kettle black.

[Tony Boron]

...Asymptomatic carriers of viral RNA do not spread COVID as per Dr. Fauci himself.

Reference please

[Sid Belzberg]

Reference please

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrAvjU2LBkg

and here is another from the WHO itself.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQTBlbx1Xjs

[Tom O'Donnell]

Look, Neil, look! Donald J. Trump has won the highly-coveted Bay of Pigs Award!!

https://amp-theguardian-com.cdn.ampp...ida-cuba-biden

When Trump lies like this, it shows a particular cunning genius, imo. His lie was easily disproven, but in getting "caught" the press writes an article with things like:

"Trump visited in 1999, when he was flirting with a run for president on the Reform party ticket. He was given gifts, if not awards: a brigade pin and, the Associated Press reported, “a plaque of the shoulder patch worn during the invasion”."

and

"Trump visited the museum again in October 2016, receiving “a hand-painted Brigade 2506 shield” which his campaign insisted on Sunday was the award in question.

Receiving the endorsement of the Bay of Pigs Veterans Association, Trump said: “You were fighting for the values of freedom and liberty that unite us all. The same values that are at stake in our election.”"

If you're a casual reader, what can you conclude? Trump paid attention to this group from as far back as 20 years ago. He also received the endorsement of a Veterans Association last election. Much better than an endorsement from Richard Spencer or David Duke if you want to garner votes. Further, the article goes on to mention Sanders as a Castro-lover, something which I should imagine isn't exactly popular amongst veterans of the Bay of Pigs nor Florida's former Cuban population who risked their lives to leave the place.

All politicians lie. Trump, however, mostly lies in a way that creates articles like this one. For better or worse, I don't know of any other politician who uses the press like this.

[Peter McKillop]

I never heard that. Probably fake news though when Gavin Newsome attempts to change the laws of California to obliterate age of consent, I might understand why such rumours might get started..

Yes, it was fake news and actually did not involve Biden (although I thought you might toss him in there given your penchant for right-wing fringe nonsense). It was known as pizzagate.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pizz...spiracy_theory

[Peter McKillop]

...

So we are seeing millions of false positives being counted. Asymptomatic carriers of viral RNA do not spread COVID as per Dr. Fauci himself. Counting people who have been infected but their Tcells took care of it and they have traces of dead viral particles is completely irrelevant.

Effectively we do not need lockdowns or masks and the basis to do this is not based on science. The statistics you are quoting are meaningless. Detecting a true positive is done using an amplification rate of 30, not 47.

...

Sid, when you say "millions of false positives" are you referring just to USA and Canada? If there are millions of false positives, regardless of whether you're talking Can/USA or worldwide, then doesn't this imply that covid-19 is more lethal than has previously been suggested? Also, as a layperson, I find your use of the term 'false positive' confusing. If someone had covid-19 but beat it, asymptomatically, with their own immune system, then why shouldn't they still be counted? If you have/had it then you have/had it, right? And shouldn't these so-called false positives be of interest to the scientific community? If you had it and you beat it without a lot of fuss, wouldn't it be good to know why? How does a less rigorous testing regime help us?