Cyprus-Forum.com

[Get Real!]

Erolz. I don't normally get involved in these "debates" but indulge me in a short rewind.....

Erol, was an excellent debater in the CyProb section in its heydays and certainly the best debater the TC camp had to offer by a mile!

I’ve also met him personally once, maybe twice… many years ago and he’s quite a likable character.

Putting his hair-splitting tendencies aside, he’s a very good guy and I consider him an old friend.

[Londonrake]

Erolz. I don't normally get involved in these "debates" but indulge me in a short rewind.....

Erol, was an excellent debater in the CyProb section in its heydays and certainly the best debater the TC camp had to offer by a mile!

I’ve also met him personally once, maybe twice… many years ago and he’s quite a likable character.

Putting his hair-splitting tendencies aside, he’s a very good guy and I consider him an old friend.

I've been told - I think by Paphitis (?) some time ago that you are also an OK guy. I think I "met" you on a bad hair night originally and I certainly chose a poor forum name and debut subject. So, I can understand what you say about Erolz - and, let's be honest, without the likes of him and Paphitis there really wouldn't be much at all left of this forum. I'll get back in my box then.

Picks up popcorn. Ding, ding! Seconds out!

[erolz66]

Erolz. I don't normally get involved in these "debates" but indulge me in a short rewind.

At 1239 today, in response to your claim that "Sweden currently has the highest mortality rate in the world per head of population." CG posted a link to disprove it: Worldmeter. Basically a rolling, live updated spreadsheet showing a full array of Covid-19 stats for every country in the world. Let me help:

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries

If you have the time - and I'm talking here not only to a man who gives the impression of sitting, fingers hovering over the keyboard awaiting the next post to challenge, all and every day, but also somebody who regularly trawls back through page after page to dig up quotes which he thinks trip up an adversary. Let's not mention taking the trouble to count smileys over umpteen pages - here's one for you- Anyway, if you have the time you will find that his list of countries in Europe with worse records than Sweden is valid. Invest more and you might discover others outside of Europa with pretty horrendous records. Why would you though?

I get the impression you gave it no more than a passing glance. You didn't try to refute or even refer to it. Thus my observation that it was an absolutely typical Erolz response. It proved you wrong - so you ignored it. What you in fact did was to post 4 links to news sheets, which, with banner headlines, at face value would seem to reinforce your point. Two, masters of hyperbole tabloids, the DM/DE and the FT/DT. All 4 actually talking about "a rolling average over the past 7 days".

I realised, quite early on in the Brexit saga, that you're a man who enjoys absolutely any argument, with absolutely any person, and usually absolutely interminably. To you the subject isn't really what matters, it's winning the argument. Were it not for the spelling and (mostly) lack of foul-mouthed posts I would suspect you of being the reincarnated Lordo in a spa.

I admire Tim's tenacity but have thought for quite a while that where you're concerned he's just wasting his time. There will never been any sort of accord. You're somebody who never gives up - a master of the long, boring impenetrable obfuscation when cornered - and, sooner or later I suspect he will give up the effort. At which point I imagine you'll think that you've won something. It's a depressingly familiar scenario.

The discrepancy was obvious. Sweden is not highest if you take total figures to date. It has just become highest if you take last 7 days there are figures from. This whole 'you were , he was right' is pathetic. You ignore the point of what is being said entirely and zoom in on one thing that you claim 'proves I was wrong' and then say I am only interested in winning the argument. Sweden has the highest deaths in the latest 7 day period. I was sloppy. Big deal. The point remains but you have no interest in that do you. In any normal sane environment I would have Sweden highest, someone else said not in to date figures but it is in most recent 7 days period, I would have agreed and we would all have moved on to the actual points we were trying to make. Not here. here YOU turn it in to 'nah nah you lost'. To be honest Londonrake I have yet to see you contribute anything of value.

Re Tim and my discussion with him, you are correct that I will not concede that the measure of total deaths all causes is of a materially different nature to things like R and IFR. Not because I must win but because it is just plain fact. I may well give up making that point but I may not.

[erolz66]

Erolz. I don't normally get involved in these "debates" but indulge me in a short rewind.....

Erol, was an excellent debater in the CyProb section in its heydays and certainly the best debater the TC camp had to offer by a mile!

I’ve also met him personally once, maybe twice… many years ago and he’s quite a likable character.

Putting his hair-splitting tendencies aside, he’s a very good guy and I consider him an old friend.

I've been told - I think by Paphitis (?) some time ago that you are also an OK guy. I think I "met" you on a bad hair night originally and I certainly chose a poor forum name and debut subject. So, I can understand what you say about Erolz - and, let's be honest, without the likes of him and Paphitis there really wouldn't be much at all left of this forum. I'll get back in my box then.

Picks up popcorn. Ding, ding! Seconds out!

You take the time to accuse me of having to 'win'. No comment on Paphitis in these terms. Kind of shows YOUR bias do you not think ?

[erolz66]

There is a simple guide of if someone is looking for truth or just looking to confirm a position they took at the start. If over time they never change from their starting position , then the chances are they are not looking for truth. If they do then the chances are they are. All as ever with relative degrees and the pattern becomes clearer with more time.

[erolz66]

Balance the human suffering under each option against the benefits, and you decide which one comes out on top.

With lock down generically with the objective to slow spread there is a linear relationship. 10 % lock down, 10% slow the spread. 50% - 50%. With the concept of locking down only high risk groups until the rest reach 'herd immunity' (that it is still unclear if it is even possible) there is no gain until herd immunity is reached. The lock down for the vulnerable groups has to remain until the 'tipping point' is reached. That is the fundamental difference between the two scenarios that you seem to ignore. How long will you lock down the high risk groups ? The answer is until herd immunity is reached, otherwise there is no point. So how long is that Tim ? 6 months ? 1 year ? 2 years ? never ? The only lock down high risk until herd immunity is an all or nothing strategy. Generic lock down is an infinity variable strategy delivering infinity variable gains.

So how do you decide which option is better between one that has incremental gains with incremental implementation or one that has all or nothing gain, with unknown timescale and not even know if the all gain is even possible ? I know how YOU make such a judgement. You just decide you know best. But how would others make such a judgement and especially governments, Hopefully it a slightly more circumspect way that you appear to do so.

[Kikapu]

When the lockdowns were proposed and then implemented, many here who were/are anti lockdown, considered lockdowns as being Human Rights violations. However, they proposing lockdown only on the high risk groups, whomever they may be as there is no definite class of high risk groups and non high risk groups, we are now no longer hearing violation of Human Rights by the anti lockdown groups. I don’t believe anyone is for a lockdown, but what options did we have when so little was know on Covid-19, and after Wuhan was under a lockdown and as we believed that the virus was contained within the boundaries of Wuhan, we all had to try out the lockdown.

Has it worked? We don’t know as we still had deaths. Would it have been worse without the lockdown? Probably. Was it worth shutting down the economy for the sake of lockdown? It remains to be seen as we are still no where near having a vaccine for Covid-19. Personally, anti lockdown groups have over used Sweden as an example model what what we should have all done, and it may have been warranted in the early days, but as Erol pointed out, in the last 7 days, Sweden has become the worst case example in the question of lockdown or no lockdown. The trajectory of Sweden is only heading in the wrong direction as the case with Brazil.

The situation with Covid-19 is very fluid as the numbers keep shifting rapidly, therefore anyone maintaining constant accuracy what will happen next from what had already happened cannot be 100% right all the time. Only couple of weeks ago the percentage of death on the Case Fatality Rate (CFR) has gone up from 7% to 14%. What will it be two weeks from now? I don’t know, but the trajectory doesn’t look good on those who might now or in the near future get infected with Covid-19.

Actually, the 14% is from the John Hopkins data, but as to my calculations, it is still around 7%.

[repulsewarrior]

[cyprusgrump]

There is a simple guide of if someone is looking for truth or just looking to confirm a position they took at the start. If over time they never change from their starting position , then the chances are they are not looking for truth. If they do then the chances are they are. All as ever with relative degrees and the pattern becomes clearer with more time.

You should get Google to help you look up the meaning of 'Hypocrite' ErLolz...

[Tim Drayton]

As to how long it takes to attain herd immunity, I will leave the answer to an expert, Dr. Knut M. Wittkowski, the former chief biostatistician and epidemiologist at Rockefeller University Hospital:

All respiratory epidemics end when 80 percent of all people have become immune. Then if a new person gets infected, the person doesn’t find anybody else to infect. The best strategy you can do is isolate the old and fragile people — make sure that nobody visits the nursing homes — then let the children go to school and let people go to work. … They have a mild disease. Then they become immune, and after two or three weeks the epidemic is over.

https://nypost.com/2020/03/28/new-yorke ... eakeasies/

If he’s right, you just need to isolate the vulnerable for two to three weeks.

It’s interesting to ponder why Wittkowski’s opinions are being censored:

https://nypost.com/2020/05/16/youtube-c ... -lockdown/

Who doesn’t want you to know and why?