Welcome LocalYokel!
Interesting and thought provoking first post. No more lurking!
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Loads of good points on this thread, and loads of evidence that what we once knew as the Left is a largely washed up, spent forceā¦
I would add three further points that I think have a specific bearing on the covid business:
1 - in general the left have been fighting on the side of āthe scienceā when if comes to climate change, pollution, environmentalism and many other health and social issues. Itās a very common thing to see left wingers siding with scientists against corporations, media and government. Think about how Media Lens have castigated media outlets about climate change or the war dead in Iraq etc. There is a strong tradition of leftists supporting scientists. Is it any wonder that (for better or worse) they stand with scientists like Sage or (the much better) Independent Sage?
2 - The left in general have a much stronger predilection to support collective rights over individual rights. What benefits the community as a whole tends to outweigh the drive for individual liberties. This strongly favours a community led response to a crisis like covid - including mask wearing, vaccinations and even lockdowns (if workers had been properly supported). The fight for individual liberties over community is the rallying cry of the right wing, hence the name throwing at - for example - the great Barrington people. In general I think the left are uncomfortable under the flag of individual rights. If something inconveniences me a little but ends up being better for society as a whole, Iām likely to accept it. Thatās the theory anyway.
3 - There has been such a stigma attached to anything the smells like conspiracy theory, that many otherwise intelligent people will just close their eyes rather than deal with it. This is true of obvious conspiracies (9/11, the Iraq WMD etc). As @rippon said above, this might very well be playing a part.
To my mind, the most left wing approach to covid was put forward in March/April last year by Anthony Costello and Gabriel Scally. Had we followed their advice we would be living in a different world. Cuba is another example showing what a science based, left wing approach might look like, to my mind.
Iād prefer either of those approaches to the shit storm weāve had in this country.
Cheers
PP
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I agree with your three points on how the left often sees things, especially with your remark that the left often supports collective over individual rights. I think that plays a big role.
However, in 1. I would draw a big distinction between the science you mention re climate change, pollution and such, and ācovidā science. The former have all on the whole been developed over many years, corroborated by different scientists at different times, challenged by others, until eventually a clear consensus emerges. (eg that climate change really is happening).
āCovidā science, on the other hand seems to be made up on the spur of the moment. Lockdowns and mass mask wearing are unprecedented. Standard procedure has been to isolate and treat the sick, not quarantine the healthy. It seems to have just become accepted fact (amongst MSM views) that lockdowns effectively stopped the virus last May/June and masks reduce transmission. Thatās not science, and rather akin to the āSaddam had WMDā mantra.
Also, as I mentioned earlier in the thread, I find the complete abscence of concern for huge damage done to society by the measures rather baffling ā especially from the left.
I agree with your If something inconveniences me a little but ends up being better for society as a whole, Iām likely to accept it. But none of the measures Iāve seen has in my view been better for society as a whole.
Anthony Costello from independent SAGE that you mention says in January 2021 "We should have a total clampdown now because we have no health service functioning. Weāve got to get on top of this pandemic and the longer we allow it to go transmitting as we are at the moment the quicker weāre going to get a resistant virus to a vaccine.ā (see Covid-19: Data on vaccination rollout and its effects are vital to gauge progress, say scientists | The BMJ ). Itās as if (i) weāre dealing with the black death and (ii) there are no harmful consequences of a lockdown.
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Hi @Willem,
Iām not sure I agree that covid science is less solid than climate science. Virology, DNA sequencing, epidemiology for example, are all well established. Thatās one reason why I know very few leftists who question whether there actually is a virus and whether it has been sequenced. Those sciences are very strong and the tendency of left leaning folk to follow established science will mean they just accept those things and move on. Itās interesting to me that there is a bit of an overlap between those who do question the science down to this level and those who also have a history of questioning climate science.
The data on two points - lockdowns and masks - are patchy at best, and Iām not sure that we can draw strong conclusions from them. There have been numerous reports on both subjects of varying quality and showing varying efficacy.
I would ask those who believe that lockdowns are completely ineffective, what caused the virus to accelerate or slow its spread? The only thing I know of that causes a virus to stop spreading is lack of available new hosts. If keeping people apart by locking down didnāt result in a lack of new hosts, then what did? Iāve not seen a good answer to that question.
Yes, and this has consistently been the primary advice of Indy SAGE for a year. Track, trace, isolate and support have been their mantra. Costello was the first person I heard making the case back in march last year.
Do you watch the Indy SAGE briefings every Friday? Iāve posted about them here a couple times. The concern about the damage that lockdowns do has been high on their agenda. Sadly they have no power to really affect change.
The Costello quote you cite doesnāt really bother me, as I know the greater context in which he views the usefulness of lockdowns etc. I know that he favours them as a temporary measure to get to a point where we can implement other more effective measures for controlling the spread. Both lockdowns and vaccines are seen as stepping stones to a more effective solution for managing the virus, and both are examined in a more holistic (although not perfect by any means) way. I also know that he and Indy SAGE are very concerned about the socio-economic and mental health effects of such measures on the whole of society, including ethnic minorities, disabled people and those with existing mental health issues. They view every lockdown as a failure of government policy. Had we followed their advice last year, I have no doubt that we would have had far fewer deaths, far fewer lockdowns and a much more freely moving society.
As I recall, we had no health service in Jan due to a horrendous covid spike. That spike was a measure of government failure in managing the virus, and was intolerable. I had no trouble then, or now, following the advice that Indy SAGE came up with.
Well, I canāt remember the last time a disease killed something like 150K people in this country in a year. And it could have undoubtedly been worse. Not the black death, but definitely very serious.
And Indy SAGE were about the only group in this country who did take seriously the effects of lockdown. Sadly almost no one was listening to them.
Cheers
EDIT: I talk a little bit more about my thoughts on Indy SAGE vs Great Barrington here if youāre interested.
P, if this alleged virus really has been sequenced, why is no-one able to show chapter and verse of itās genetic signature. Numerous apparently qualified commentators are insisting that no-one has actually isolated and purified the virus and tried its alleged pathogenicity experimentally. They all say that when you look in nitty gritty detail at all the publications claiming to have purified and sequenced the genetics, the assertions all evaporate, and in sober reality no-one can demonstrate conclusively that theyāve really done it.
I wouldnāt know. But I do know that there are appropriately-qualified people who are saying this most insistently, and reporting their own inability to find anywhere any true genetic information which hasnāt just been āmade upā - a frequent comment - by computer modelling, which as we know as a commonplace always works on the GIGO principle.
Where are the purified (let alone Koch-proven) samples? Can anyone find a source anywhere at all? Apparently not.
That alone says loudly to me that weāre being subjected to a monstrous scam.
Hi RG
I feel like weāve had this discussion beforeā¦
I havenāt looked, but Iām sure more groups have done this successfully since thenā¦
EDIT: Had a quick look. According to the Lancet Covidās RNA has been sequenced thousands and thousands of times in countries across the globe.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)00257-9/fulltext
hereās a database collating this data
@PontiusPrimate and @RhisiartGwilym
Thomas Cowan in several interviews linked on other threads here, refers to some work done by someone (I canāt remember who). Mr Anonomous wrote to all (or most of those) that allegedly had sequenced the virus. None of them had actually isolated it. And Cowan gives a great analogy of what isolation actually means. But for the avoidance of doubt, none of those who claimed to have sequenced the virus, had actually isolated it.
As a science numpty, it seems to me that if it has not been isolated, it cannot have been sequenced, correctly and accurately at least.
PS: I know from the evidence of my lying 80-year-old eyes that the climate is changing. But I too am less than utterly convinced that all the predictions of why, and of how apocalyptically-bad itās bound to get, are fully sound - rather than somewhat [sarky understatement! 
] GIGO-contaminated.
My guesstimate at the moment is: 1) Climate is always changing, both cyclically and originally. 2) Itās unreasonable to pretend that the current huge human-population overshoot, with our equally huge destabilising demands on the ecosphere, is having no effect at all. Of course it must be. And 3) any system as enormously-complex as the Earthās total Gaia-sphere is still far, far beyond the capacity of any human enterprise to model and predict exactly; and probably always will be.
Ergo, yes climate is shifting. But we have no authoritative idea where itās going to go, and how Mam Gaiaās multiple, complex and very imperfectly-understood control system is going to affect it all, with her long-established homeostasis strategies, and the immense inventiveness - and, on the microscopic scale, the swiftness - of her hyper-responsive evolutionary abilities. (Jim Lovelock opines that the bulk of Mamās life is still carried on at the micro-organism level, and the disappearance of large multicellular creations is of little more than marginal import - however emotionally dreadful it may seem to us.)
Weāre stuck with another - rather long-period - waitandsee, Iām afraid. Meanwhile, Iām highly resistant to panic and existential despair about it all (despite all the private grief about the disappearance of such glorious kindred as elephants and tigers). I leave that Chicken Little indulgence to the rabidly certain true believers. I think Mam will surprise us, and life will pick itself up from the damage being done right now, and get going with its inventive re-fecundation, yet again.
Donāt know whether hom sap as an Earth species will survive, though. But fairly convinced as I am of the reality of constant re-incarnation in pursuit of Big Mindās high purpose - not necessarily as the same species every time - I find myself less than spiritually shattered by the prospect of our extinction. Life - and mind - seem bound to survive, in many places in this particular holodeck physical-material reality. And elsewhereā¦
So yes - a measure of open-minded scepticism about climate apocalypse too, as also about the covid scam. Goes with the worldviewā¦
Pat, one of the Mr. Anonymouses is Dr. Andrew Kaufman. Heās very adamant that in every single case where heās been through the papers claiming purification and genetic mapping, exhaustive close inspection shows that the claims are baseless. No-one has a sample. No-one can give an actually-provable genetic sequence for SARS-COV2. He insists heās followed these trails exhaustively, and found nothing. I donāt know whether thatās an accurate judgement. But I know qualified people are insisting on it. What to do, but remain undecided?
Sure, Virology, DNA sequencing and so on are properly established as far as I can tell. That for me is not the issue. Itās what happens to the various statistics and bits of science that are interpreted by politicians and other scientists who then tell us what what measures must be taken. There is no scientific consensus with different virologists/epidemiologists saying different things. In much of Europe, āscienceā apparently says they need curfews, while restaurants remain open.
On the subject of trusting medical professionals, we should always bear in mind how badly wrong they can be ā even without the help of politicians! Faith in Quick Test Leads to Epidemic That Wasnāt - The New York Times . These doctors truly believed there was a whooping cough epidemic in their medical centre, insisting on all sorts of measures, yet 8 months down the line find there was no whooping cough ā it was just a cold going round.
Sure, lockdowns can slow its spread. Iāve not come across anyone who thinks theyāre completely ineffective. Just that theyāre not very effective and that they give rise to many new problems: when you relax the lockdown how are you going to cope?; how long does it need to stay (two weeks we were told initially); the horrendous consequences of lockdowns; the loss of basic human rights (eg going to visit your father). Bullet-proof vests may help reduce gun deaths but I wouldnāt advocate getting everyone to wear one.
Iāve had similar discussions with Dan about this. If you (or rather Indy SAGE) realises that this government will not (or more likely cannot) really do anything much about this damage, is it still better to have lockdowns? There would need to be some sort of cost-benefit analysis.
Well, maybe. Much of Europe is having very similar statistics. Iām also not convinced about the counting of covid deaths. When we look at overall deaths, 2020 doesnāt look out of place (unlike eg the asian/hong kong flu years in the 60/70s).
Cheers
Ah yes ā just noticed that other thread. Iāll have a read.
Thanks @Willem
I think you make some great points here. And I donāt disagree with you about how āthe scienceā became a political bludgeon early on. The only point that I was making is that traditionally, left leaning people are more likely to accept whatever they think itās the scientific consensus on any particular issue than right leaning folk are. Right wing people have a decades long suspicion of scientists and science, preferring to trust their own individual instincts, or maybe the Bible.
That is not to say that there even is a strong consensus on the best way to handle our situation. Indy SAGE have been very critical of the Govt Sage, for example.
But I think that there will naturally be less criticism of things that are seen as mainstream science (like the virus sequencing question) from the left then from the right - which was the question I was trying to answer.
Cheers
PP
PS
Ivor Cummins has said this many times. And, I believe, the good folks at UKC. And Iām sure youāll find that view on this board if you ask folk
PPS: youāve raised this point several times now
And I kept meaning to say what an important point that is and how it should be more widely referenced. Many thanks for bringing that to my attention
Thanks Rhis. I think one of the ones quoted by Thomas Cowan (but canāt easily locate it), is Dr. Claus Kƶhnlein (joint author of the book Virus Mania). As I recall, Cowan said Kƶhnlein had written to numerous authors who alleged virus sequencing and none of them, NONE, had actually isolated the virus.