Originally posted by
Aragorn
Please stop calling it influenza, Amanda. It is not ─ I repeat: not ─ influenza. It is a coronavirus, which influenza is not. Furthermore, the SARS-CoV-2 virus responsible for Covid-19 has elements of HIV in it, which influenza most certainly does not. Covid-19 is not even a respiratory disease, but a pervasive cardiovascular disease with both neurological and respiratory effects.
Insisting on untruths out of a knee-jerk rejection of anything mainstream is dishonest and a sign of neuroticism. There, I've said it. Hate me if you must, but I would rather be hated than help perpetrate a tenacious and vicious lie.
"Draining the swamp" is merely an alt-right slang for "let's get those fucking commie-wannabes from the US Democratic Party lynched out in the streets, because they are all baby-eating reptilian satanic pedophiles." It is a form of mass psychosis, Amanda, created by ruthless and shameless psychopaths as a ruse for getting their political candidate into the White House and keeping him there ─ the latter of which has luckily failed. Besides, the whole Q nonsense ─ whence the expression came ─ has already long been exposed as a LARP and an (unfortunately fairly successful) hijacking and transformation of the grassroots opinion into a psychotic cult that worships and supports a fascist/despotic quasi-dictatorship.
And Donald J. Trump is not a Messiah, he's not a saint, he's not a "stable genius" that plays a game of 12-dimensional chess against any Deep State™ of reptilian communists who worship Satan and eat babies for breakfast, he is not a man of honor, and he doesn't give a flying fuck about anything other than himself and his public image. He exhibits all of the hallmarks of a capricious narcissist, and if there's anything esoteric about him, then it's probably that he stands a very good chance at being the reincarnation of Benito Mussolini, who spoke, behaved and had the exact same political convictions as Donald Trump does.
I am not saying that the western governments have all handled the pandemic well. On the contrary, it would appear that economic interests and pressure groups have prevailed over common sense and expert scientific advice ─ as was to be expected, because capitalism always wins out due to its dirty tricks ─ but that's still a long stretch from seeing a global tyranny on the rise. The fact that so many governments are resorting to this kind of (sadly enough) unpleasant measures is due to the fact that the goddamn virus is everywhere, and that it has already mutated several times, so that there are now different strains of the same disease going round. And different strains means that it's going to be very hard to develop an adequate immunity against it. The vaccines that have been rushed into existence appear to work, but with some very nasty side-effects, and especially for people with allergies.
I myself have been infected with this virus twice in only six months, and on both occasions, the infection consisted of three distinct phases. First there was a phase of about three to four days with mild symptoms, then there was a dormant phase of about two weeks during which I had no symptoms worth mentioning, and then there was a third phase with far more severe symptoms, including but not limited to headaches, pain in the lungs, pain in the heart, pain in joints, painful coughing, sneezing, a sensation as if my neck was all swollen and about to burst out of its skin, a strangely enough only mild fever, nausea and diarrhea.
And even now, six to seven weeks after my second infection, I am still experiencing the damage that it did to my body ─ autoimmune issues, feeling nauseous after eating, pain in the heart and occasionally also pain in one of my lungs. I also have blood clots everywhere because of how this virus operates ─ it makes your blood vessels leak, and it uses that mechanism to cross the blood-brain barrier and fill your lungs with goo.
So don't you dare call this a fucking influenza, because then you're insulting my intelligence, my education and my humanity all at the same time. And I don't give a hoot about how nobody in your rural hometown appears to have been infected. The virus can remain alive on surfaces for hours, even up to three days, and it can travel quite far ─ up to 8.5 meters! ─ via the airborne droplets we exhale. That's why we disinfect our hands and wear those goddamn masks ─ and yes, I'm just as tired as you are of putting that thing on and breathing my own carbon dioxide instead of fresh air. But if nobody ever comes within the vicinity of another person because everybody lives several kilometers apart ─ as is the case in most of Australia and in much of the territory covered by the USA ─ then indeed there won't be a need for a lockdown. But that's a luxury we Europeans don't have ─ Belgium is only about 30'000 km² in size, and there are 11'000'000 people living here ─ and neither do the people in the cities and metropolitan areas of the USA and Australia.
P.S.: Now that I'm in a foul mood ─ thanks to you ─ I might as well throw this one out on the table as well...: If I catch you (or anyone else) calling SARS-CoV-2 an influenza once again, then I'll ban you (or whoever it concerns) from this thread, and there will be no more warnings, nor any explanation given afterwards, whether publicly or privately.