For that someone:
That's 20% of all mammal species.
It will be impossible (now) to estimate how that will disturb our eco-system.
The Mao action to kill small birds comes to mind. It had devastating effects on cereal and other food production.
For that someone:
That's 20% of all mammal species.
It will be impossible (now) to estimate how that will disturb our eco-system.
The Mao action to kill small birds comes to mind. It had devastating effects on cereal and other food production.
After further discussions and consultations the order of vaccinations has slightly changed:
More mentally handicapped in care houses (now 78,000) and the care employees of the care houses of elderly and mentally handicapped (407,000) are now in the first batch of vaccinations.
https://nos.nl/liveblog/2359218-rut...00-mensen-eerste-prioriteit-bij-inenting.html
More mentally handicapped in care houses (now 78,000) and the care employees of the care houses of elderly and mentally handicapped (407,000) are now in the first batch of vaccinations.
https://nos.nl/liveblog/2359218-rut...00-mensen-eerste-prioriteit-bij-inenting.html
We weren't allowed to kill mosquitoes to stop malaria, because of the knock-on ecological risks.
But if we're killing bats, we're definitely killing mosquitoes.
I read that according to current research, mosquitos can't get you infected with covid-19.
Not that what I read (it was on some greek newspaper, of the local mainstream kind) has to be the end word on this.
Thorgalaeg
Deity
They can infect you with malaria, which is worse.
Afaik they spray and contain their population in swamps each summer, so the risk of contagion of known diseases is kept in check.
I am not sure if mosquitos play that great a role in the food-chain, but in the countryside they might
Yeah, fun-fact, people were already dying of a preventable infection at about a quarter the rate that people are currently dying of covid-19. Usually at a much younger age, and much more expensively.
It's always been possible to forgo all restaurant meals and all vacations to save oodles of lives.
It's always been possible to forgo all restaurant meals and all vacations to save oodles of lives.
Around my home there are many bats since a couple of years. I see them almost every evening except inthe cold months.
They sleep in the air gaps between our usual double walls (brick-brick, brick-gypsium or brick-concrete) used to ventilate moisture from inside away. This needs very small entries and exits to those gaps for a vertical ventilation, but 1 cm is enough for the small bat species),
Perhaps I should now be worried with this Covid issue.
The advantage however that since a couple of years there are far less mosquitos as well.
That could have other causes ofc but I don't think so.
A question: won't the complete focus (for practical reasons too) on Covid19 lead to notably more deaths this year by (eg) Hepatitis? (or TB for that matter).
Though afaik both of those are very contained in first world nations, illegal immigration has created pockets (certainly there was one about hepatitis here among illegal immigrants).
Well, transmissibility might go down if the disease requires contact to spread. Plus, we've all diverted funding from other things to fund covid-19 efforts. Polio, our next useful extinction, has probably been pushed back a few years.
This isn't entirely true.
Trump doesn't run the states, but in many cases, a republican governor does. Said governors are pretty much forced to be subservient to Trump and abide by whatever he declares reality to be, at the risk of being voted out for being "too liberal" by their constituencies. If Trump took a harder stance, these governors would be forced to take a harder stance as well; conversely, they aren't realistically able to be much harder on it than Trump is.
Meanwhile, even states run by blue governors likely have large populations of republicans -- within their constituencies, if not within the remainder of their houses of government. These people are also usually going to be subservient to Trump, and can readily sabotage any efforts made to contain the virus if Trump decrees that such efforts infringe upon their personal liberties. Things like mask mandates or lockdowns only matter if they're actually being enforced, and if the people who would enforce them (i.e. police) skew heavily toward republicans, then the effective leaders of the republican party would have an enormous impact on whether or not they make a difference.
Trump may not directly run the states, but the reality is that he has indirect methods of holding them hostage regardless. His stance isn't just a symbolic gesture, but something that will impact (and has impacted) control of the virus at all levels of government. If he doesn't want to be held responsible, he should not have sought leadership in an extremely partisan system of government; his doing so is his consent, and cannot be taken back.
Most of those people live in this country and cross the border on a regular basis, you can't require that residents of your own country remain in perpetual isolation because of their job.
Probably more likely immunity wanes and you need a new shot regularly because of that. Can't double up on adenoviral vectors though, any adenovirus is only good for one vaccination per person.
Fwiw I think it is cruel to just kill all stray animals in the hope some fewer people may be infected from them, but some people just have no heartLuckily, those beings don't have many rights, so eroding what's left should be straightforward.
Killing all the stray animals is probably equivalent to only a few days of factory meat farming.
Are we really not allowed to kill the mosquitoes? I think that is the only reason gene drive technology should not be banned by the UN.
We are not killing bats. We could consider not eating them though, and considering working in bat occupied lofts and such areas high risk.
Zardnaar
Deity
You can do basic isolation deliveries though. Minimise contact, social distancing etc.
innonimatu
the resident Cassandra
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I very much doubt it, s @El_Machinae mentioned infections disease must be having a hard time with transmission now. TB especially as it goes by the air also.
The greater concert are things like cancer or hearth disease, because of people avoiding hospitals until it's too late or preventive medicine being reduced as most staff are busy attending to the damage from the virus.
We should kill the mosquitoes and damn the ecological effects. Can you imagine telling someone in Europe or the US: "we can't drain that malaria infested swamp because ecology"? It would not be accepted. It hasn't. We've drained the swamps or done whatever was necessary to get rid of malaria. The Italians did it, the greeks did it, the french did it...
But if it's in Africa, in some poor country, it's "think of the environment"... humans there are just one more animal apparently.
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How is that relevant? You have trucks driving for days on either side of the border, with their drivers eating at restaurants and staying at hotels/motels, and then returning home to where they live. Pickups and deliveries are only a fraction of contacts.
I lean this way, as well.
We have a billion optimists who think that generalized 'economic growth' can offset the risks and damages of global warming, even from the perspectives of the victims. I would wonder if the liberation from malaria would allow sufficient growth to offset the damages done by wiping out mosquito populations?
If you'd do, you'd also wipe out lots of birds and bats, and whatever is connected to them, so you'd probably get overgrowth later of other insects, which might lead to other pests again, etc.
It's not predictable.
It's not predictable.
I know, and the bulkwark we have against this unpredictability is 400k deaths annually.
I haven't created any of the zingers or quips necessary, but gods I hope that covid-19 shakes us out of our placidity of "letting people die, cuz ehn, whachya gonna do?"
My actual thesis is that we're afraid of covid-19, and that's why we're reacting so strongly. But we tell ourselves that we're reacting so strongly because 'we care'. Maybe that self-delusion can be tapped in the future to encourage more investments in preventing defeatable deaths.
I haven't created any of the zingers or quips necessary, but gods I hope that covid-19 shakes us out of our placidity of "letting people die, cuz ehn, whachya gonna do?"
My actual thesis is that we're afraid of covid-19, and that's why we're reacting so strongly. But we tell ourselves that we're reacting so strongly because 'we care'. Maybe that self-delusion can be tapped in the future to encourage more investments in preventing defeatable deaths.
No. We don't have any vaccines. What has happened (it seems that you haven't been reading the thread) is that Argentina signed a deal with capitalist countries™ to eventually manufacture the vaccine.
Since Argentina a) owes a crapton of money and b) has a government with vocal delusions of lefthood they started announcing that Russia this and Russia that.
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What is scarier is how Argentina has quickyl devolved into a wild-west scenario in which each local mayor and/or police chief is the authority, with legislative bodies mostly suspended and likewise for courts of law, human rights and so on. Emergency situations have created a crapton of Palpatines.
