🎓 Dr. Freemo 🇳🇱 @freemo@social.cleverlibre.org

@rbe_expert yes when it comes to retirement funds we are talking about personal responsibility. It is only marginally socially responsible in the sense that it helps ensure you wont be a burden to others and will be in a better position to help others who are.

Though againw hile I enjoy conversations like this and welcome it I do think this is best in its own thread (which I will happily continue with you). We are just way off course from talking about COVID is all.

@rbe_expert Sounds like you mean socialism in the way americans refer to european countries as socialism? I think I see why I misunderstood you, thats a term only americans use really. European countries arent socialisms, they are capitalisms with strong welfare systems. Sounds like what your suggesting, correct me if im wrong please, is not anything anti-capitalism at all, you just want to see better welfare and social services in the USA like they do in europe... On that we would agree, though it wouldnt really change much about the points I made regarding coronavirus, but as a tangent, sure, I completely support better social programs and stronger welfare support.

@rbe_expert The reason it muddies the water is its not on the table for any politicians or by the majority of the general public.

If would be like a baseball player training with his coach to hit more homeruns and spend all that training time coming up with blueprints to make the stadium smaller so he hits more homeruns that way... Sure it would work, but its not a solution that will be realized by the next baseball game.

@rbe_expert No quite the other way around. Because the lockdown and face masks have become dogmatic,and because the general populace rarely undertands the rational and factual side of an issue that illicits fear in them you'd see the exact opposite.

You would hear nothing or very little about a vaccine even being impossible, that would be avoided in the news because 1) it doesnt sell news because its not what people want to hear and 2) it would incite panic and be avoided anyway.

So if anything if a politician tried to completely end lockdowns you'd be more likely to see protests to keep it going despite evidence that they arent helping anything.

@rbe_expert I am not claiming every company will contriube to a 401K as a pension plan. I am only stating that most middle class and up adults have a 401K or similar retirement fund/plan (Such as a Roth IRA).. no not **everyone** has enough money to save, nor did I claim that to be the case. But the vast majority of lower-middle class and up do, and pressuming you arent so far in poverty you cant afford savings it is the responsible thing to have.

@rbe_expert Thanks for the link, I will give it a read. But I am not eligible to vote for Gov of california so really not much need for me to have an opinion about him either way right now.

@rbe_expert You keep wanting to go on this tangent of anti-capitalism. That is a discussion I'd be happy to have with you but it deserves its own thread not to muddy the watters here. The truth is, no one is going to abolish every nation in europe, the USA, and 90% of the world and enact communism or whatever non-capitalist form of government you feel is ideal in response to COVID. So it really isnt a viable conversation when we talk about workable realizable solutions in the short term. So lets keep that for a seperate thread (one you are most welcome to start and I would be happy to discuss with you if you really want).

@rbe_expert No one can say with abolute certainty if a vaccine is viable or not. But all the evidence very strongly points to the fact that it isnt, but of course we should keep trying.

Sadly, however no, they wont just end a lockdown once no vaccine is possible. For starters, humans arent very rational, particularly during times of fear. People have made the lockdown and masks a political issue and as such it is virtually dogmatic at this point that it is the "right thing to do", evidence wont really change their minds, even with a vaccine being impossible they will likely continue to perpetuate it as necessary for some time anyway.

The other point is, even through a vaccine is very unlikely (I wont say completely impossible, but the chances are slim to none), we wont really say weve exhasted every trial and did everything in our ability, ever.. There will always be some long-shot thing people want to try in the one in a million chance maybe it will work. Science is wonderful, and horrible for the fact that there is always something else to try, you dont have abslutes in science. Right now there may be a 98% chance vaccine isnt possible, in a year reason might make that 99%, in 5 years 99.9% .. but we can never say with 100% certainty science could never come up with a vaccine under any circumstances. Hell someone might create a DNA retrovirus that rewrites our dna and makes us immune in 1000 years... It is that small sliver of a hope that people will always hang onto and they will never conclude it is "impossible" even if the odds are so slim it virtually is.

@rbe_expert So you dont think it is responsible for a nation to have garunteed-benefit pension plans? That sounds like you are contradicting yourself, sounds like responsible choices as a nation has everything to do with it.

@rbe_expert I dont know Gov. Newsome well enough to comment on his decisions. Sounds like he sucks. Not sure the relevance to the conversation though.

Green stocks are basically stocks in companies trying to get our infrastructure converted over to green energy. Companies building, and distributing (often through tax dollars) things like windmills, solar, electric or hydrogen based cars, stuff like that.

@rbe_expert I mostly invest in ethical stocks.. green energy mostly. Though i also do some algorithmic trading.

Any responsible person not living in poverty should, and often does, have stocks. A 401K is pretty standard among the lower-middle class and above, anyone with a savings account really

@rbe_expert because without a vaccine that means people would be in lockdown forever. Not really a viable solution.

@rbe_expert Yes it has, which is why being a free market the last thing we want to do is put people in a position of poverty where they are denied their basic needs and die...

So yea I agree, and that is an argument for, not against, what im saying.

@rbe_expert Well two points of data 1) past research on corona class viruses that all have a similar pattern to them (I've read through hundreds of lab reports on this topic).. and 2) the evidence we have regarding infected people with the COVID-19 strain of coronavirus, which we see following the same pattern in terms of immune response (there are dozens of reports of people showing the anti-body who were asymptomatic and then a few weeks later no longer registering the anti-body)

The two combined make for a pretty compelling pattern.

@rbe_expert You are welcome to think that, but its wrong..

Peoples lives are more important, and poverty kills just as sure as a virus. Which is why I dont want to see more people die by increasing the poverty line in a lockdown that is wishful thinking we will have a vaccine to save us that is almost certainly never going to come.

@rbe_expert The mutations are very minor as such things go. They arent likely to effect the vaccine actually. The reason we would need a shot every 2 weeks has nothing to do with mutation.

@rbe_expert The thing is, its not likely to be even as workable as the flu vaccine.

Keep in mind the reason we need reformulated flu vaccines isnt because a weak immune response produces only short term immunity, as is the case with coronaviruses. In fact the immunity you receive from a flu vaccine lasts for life **on that particular strain**. The reason we need multiple shots is very different, its a process called recombination where flu vaccines in the wild essentially exchange dna with each other and produce entirely new strains every year. New strain new vaccine.

Coronavirus is very different, it doesn't recombinant or change strains, instead our immune system does not retain immunity for it. When you have a cery severe infection your immune system retains immunity for only about a year, but for mild or asymptomatic infections with a mild immune response it lasts on the order of weeks.

So if we created a Coronavirus vaccine it wouldn't need to be reformulated every year, the same vaccine would work with injections. Because vaccines by their nature elicit a weak immune response (you don't actually get sick) the real problem is you'd need to get a new vaccine so often (probably something like every 2 weeks) that it wouldn't be feasible, effective, or affordable. Not to mention with that sort of frequency there is a real risk of complications we don't usually see with viruses such as developing an allergic reaction to the proteins or something as of yet unforeseen.

Either way you cut it even if we create a vaccine at all it isnt likely to be viable if everyone int he country needs to take a shot every 2 weeks for it to work.

@mpjgregoire@mamot.fr Depends what we are trying to measure. Since we are trying to measure the effect of a policy change (lockdown opening up quickly and early) we would care mainly about how the infection rate changed after that policy change occured.

I agree long term will be more telling, but so far the pattern has held out for several months consistently.