gmase
Nattering Nabob of Negativism
You can keep repeating that "COVID restrictions have forced the greatest number of people into unemployment and starvation in the history of mankind", but it does not make it a true statement. Over the last two centuries there have been much worse periods of starvation. Unemployment is a made-up statistic only applicable to developed countries. Even then it only indicates trends over time and is not a precise number.The science is that the overwhelming majority of people worldwide who tested positive for COVID did not die, or even get sick. The world wide mortality rate for COVID is less than 2%, with or without a vaccination, and the worldwide mortality rate from COVID never exceeded 6% on average, even at the height of the pandemic. You have a better chance of dying from heart disease, or cancer, than dying from COVID.
Despite this minimal risk of death, COVID restrictions have forced the greatest number of people into unemployment and starvation in the history of mankind. The freedom to make an honest living is the most basic need of human existence. Without this freedom, many people have no choice but poverty. It is the government of each country who dictated these restrictions without debate. And these restrictions have been uniformly exercised in a discriminatory manner, especially against religious expressions and gatherings in America, and around the world. Hence the importance of the Cuomo Supreme Court ruling.
I am more concerned with heart disease than gun violence, COVID, et al. You must have noted my March 29th post in another thread:
We should actually be more worried about dying from heart disease than random gun violence. [Full disclosure: I have been more worried about heart disease than guns for most of my existence.
You quote a 2-6% mortality rate, so I will use 2% here. The restrictions are meant to limit the exposure to the overall population. Let's say there are ~8 billion people on the planet exposed directly to coronavirus. At a 2% mortality rate, that is 160 million people. For each 10% reduction in the number of exposures, 16 million excess deaths are potentially averted. https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsa...ckdowns-saved-millions-from-dying-of-covid-19
In addition to excess deaths, how much misery would be inflicted by strained healthcare systems. Do you really want to inflict an India-style crisis on the world? I would suggest the lack of healthcare access at that point would have caused the excess deaths to hover closer to 6%. That would meant nearly 500 million deaths worldwide. But, hey, Black Death killed half of Europe so we're good!
Yes, science is killing god. Church attendance in the US has been declining for the past couple decades - as in, pre-COVID. Why? People are beginning to realize the planet is millions of years old, the earth is not the center of the universe, man evolved over millennia, etc. Is there a god? I certainly do not have any special knowledge if there is or not. Neither does anyone else.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/341963/church-membership-falls-below-majority-first-time.aspx