Look at this.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...n_U.S._by_year

I never suggested such, and neither did the person who wrote that article.

You throw together several things that don't necessarily belong together.
It is known that children have a higher likelihood of developing e.g. allergies if they grow up in a near-sterile environment; they do need to eat, touch & breathe a non-sterile environment to build up their immune system.
There's less drastic steps to ensure a healthy dose of microbes than not washing your hands, granted. I say that as someone who knows how quickly children's hands get very, very grubby, and you don't even want to know where that hand has been in the past hours...
But from that to vaccines (or being against them) is a pretty large step.
If you knew one person that has stated all this in this exact fashion, then I feel for your forehead (triple facepalm), but generalising this into "those anti-vaccers" is wrong.

Your post exemplifies quite well what is wrong with these discussions:

• There's usually only 2 positions (as the term anti-vaxxer suggests: you're either pro or against vaccines)
• Consequently, what was a whole range of opinions is now separated into two sides, and if you e.g. use essential oils you suddenly find yourself grouped with "those anti-vaxxers" even though one has nothing to do with the other.
• Discussions are easily reduced to resentment against all of "those" from the other "side"...
• ...and further reduced to what isn't much more than a knee-jerk reaction, an expression of antipathy

So, while I'm pro vaccine (and even more so pro Covid19 vaccine), I can see some of the arguments being made against vaccination in general, but feel less understanding when people apply those arguments to the current pandemic & its vaccine.
That's a complex opinion that doesn't try to align itself along existing divides. I wish more people would do that.

All acceptable where there is profit to be had...

As with taxable causes of death

https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_sta...lity/index.htm

Always amusing to see the smokers pulling their covid masks down to take a drag...

Spending perfectly good money to poison one's body and smell like an ashtray. What'a plan.

8bit

I'm not suggesting the government does nothing about it, but there is a difference between "feel good" measures and measures that are justified. I also wasn't suggesting that it's an easy process, but each country is different, the same as each state in Australia has different risks/conditions and rates of infection. That's why measures have to be specific to the conditions in the respective country and state, not just "well this makes us feel better, so we'll just violate people's privacy because it makes it look like we are doing everything we can". All the "community transmission" I'm aware of that's occurred here has been a result of people from overseas or interstate bringing the virus into the state and infecting others, who then in turn infect others as well. I'm not aware of any case that has any "unknown source" of infection, and the contact tracing has held up quite well (WITHOUT invading people's privacy needlessly), with no "second wave" occurring as far as I'm aware.

My point was that, any measures/restrictions put in place must be able to be justified and be clear. Just putting in "feel good" measures to "make people feel better" doesn't do much if anything to actually deal with any outbreaks. The reason why Victoria had their "second wave" was because they didn't get their contact tracing and hotel quarantine right, and therefore caused their "second wave". The reason why it's out of control in the US of A is because they have a so-called "president" that downplayed it from the start, and had no coordinated plan to deal with it, and thought "it was going to go away like a miracle". Not to mention making the response political rather than just doing what needed to be done to begin with, so it's hardly surprising the US finds itself in the position it currently does.

$Trillions? Wow.

Ecclesiastes 8:9 says (in part) "…during the time that man has dominated man to his injury." I feel a rant coming on. I had better stop.

Oh you lucky one. In my small country of about 16 mio people, we had 9000 new infections only yesterday.

It's probably worth noting that the Federal Government here has banned international travel for both people coming in and people leaving Australia, unless you have a "valid reason" and can get an exemption (which are apparently hard to get). It's also worth noting that unlike a lot of other countries, Australia is more isolated than other countries, and has a universal health care system. The federal and state governments have also, for once, actually tried to come up with a uniform approach to the pandemic, rather than one state doing one thing, and another state doing something completely different. So all of that has helped.

Thank you for your well written respons to my remark. And you might think I throw different people on one pile. However when I talk with these people they pile up all these different things themselves (even in one sentence). Washing your hands after using the WC is still recommended and while I have no problem whatsoever with the kids swimming in outdoor water and play around in the mud, not washing your hands after wiping your bottom is one step further. If you look at medical history you can see that the introduction of the sewer did more to prevent death than the medical profession.

Vaccination has been preventing death in the last 2,5 century. As a clinician I have now treated multiple COVID-19 patients that "should not have COVID-19", coughed in my face, tested COVID-19 positive later on, and eventually died. Although the rushed development of the upcoming vaccines does worry me somewhat and even as (or maybe: because) I am a medical doctor I have some reservations, I will take the vaccine because this will help to protect both me and my family AND my patients. Now I hope I will entitle to receive the vaccine, my government's health department has made some strange recommendations in which I would be all the way back in the line to receive a vaccination while working on the COVID-19 front line. I just hope I can get my hands on one of those Pfizer vaccines - in my experience with other medication I trust Pfizer to produce quality products..

So when we hear people talk like "Yeah for my kids getting corona is not bad just like not washing their hands is good for their immune system so why should I get a dangerous vaccine made by a greedy pharmaceutical firm??!" we get a little cranky.

I'm not sure what the definition of "second wave" is, but Australia appears to have had two peaks, March-April and July-August, so maybe it's more that Australia got their second in early (and kept it more under control)?

https://ourworldindata.org/coronavir...ickerSort=desc

My understanding of the definition of a "second wave" is "a large number of people, with significant community transmission", but that's only my understanding though. So I don't know if that's also any "official definition" of a "second wave". Maybe the WHO has a clear definition, I don't know.

But yes, Australia has largely kept it under control, New Zealand has virtually wiped covid out from what I understand. In both cases, it's amazing what you can do when you leave the politics out of it and just focus on dealing with the problem.

I should also say that I meant there has been no "second wave" in the state I live in (which isn't Victoria), but in Victoria it was a different matter. And therefore the second peak in your link would have been for Victoria's "second wave".

And thank you for staying reasonable. Still, I wonder why you cut my quote at that point, after which I essentially say the same things about washing hands as you...

That must be infuriating. I say that without malice or irony. Reminds me of that nurse who was blogging (or tweeting) about this.

I understand. But please try not to generalise, esp. not with commonly used labels that only serve to divide people.
I guess, at moments like these, and if you have spare energy/time (which you probably don't) one should try to start a constructive discussion/explanation - after all, deep inside, hardly anyone is 100% for all vaccines, or 100% against all. And most people are receptive to learning about things that frighten them but they know very little about.

We don't want to push people further into the divide, even if it looks like they're doing that all by themselves...

Poor community behaviour in terms of "It's nothing to worry about, I can continue as normal" also had a lot to do with it.

I'm in Victoria, and I'm seeing, in a small minority of people, the same public behaviour again. I'm expecting a third wave because of it (though it probably won't be as bad) and worried enough to still keep three weeks' supply of essentials on hand.

Which was, for me, a very pleasant surprise. It appears that all governments generally did well, making mistakes along the way but usually making U-turns in time. Some oppositions behaved less well.

I'd like to see more frequent online National Cabinet meetings as the norm.

The Australian second wave was more or less restricted to a single state (Victoria). Sloppy procedures at a quarantine hotel allowed a small outbreak, enough people believing there was no problem let it get bigger and a tracing mechanism that was a bit too much Mark I spent too much time playing catch-up. We've fixed the first and third; we've greatly improved on the second but too many people still think things are back to normal, and they're a problem.

Yeah, I've noticed that, it seems to be mostly the young that think "it's not as if I'm going to die from it [because I'm young]" that carry on as normal. The problem is that, to a large extent that's true, but if you pass it on to someone who's old, or has a weak immune system, or other health conditions already, then they could die from it.

While I can understand people buying enough essentials for say a month or so; I still fail to understand hoarding god only knows how much toilet paper people can get their hands on. It would make more sense to hoard food that you can actually eat, and need to survive than stripping supermarkets of all their toilet paper - it's ridiculous, how much toilet paper does one person need??! I've never understood that, let alone in a state that doesn't have any major outbreaks, they are morons.

Yeah, never thought we'd see the day hey? Pity it takes a "crisis" for them to put the politics away for once - although it seems they've started taking pot shots at each other about other issues again.

Many years ago (THAT long ago?)... many, many years ago a uni student I knew moved into a new boarding house:

"What's it like?"

"We're up to J in the phone book".