Coronavirus and faith

[Gord_in_Toronto]

Originally Posted by Thor 2

Well it does sound somewhat dubious.

OK. So this time I Googled.

Seems like what he most likely said was “common sense is nothing more than a deposit of prejudices laid down in the mind before you reach eighteen.”

[dann]

Originally Posted by Thor 2

Thanks for the input dann. I am stunned by this excerpt:

"Lockdowns can lower the prevalence of disease, but in the end, they do not affect the number of sick or dead people,” said Dr. Yoav Yehezkelli, member of the Common Sense Model and the PECC who helped design Israel’s programs for dealing with an epidemic.

This is an example of common sense?

It has nothing to do with common sense, obviously. He is one of the lockdown opponents and seems to believe in the idea that the pandemic kills only the old and frail people who were just about to die anyway. There's a name for the idea, dry firewood or something: The pandemic will rage until it has run out of dry wood. Then the the most vulnerable are dead and the rest are immune. It's one of the ideas that has been popular in Sweden's pandemic strategy, 'herd immunity' (which should be called the herd infection strategy).

It is absurd to believe in this idea when Israel is on the verge of achieving actual herd immunity by means of vaccinations. He should also know that SARS-CoV-2 isn't about to 'run out of firewood' since the immunity it provides after infection doesn't seem to last very long.

However, he is probably inspired more by Sweden's Tegnell than by the Torah.

[dann]

Nio inom Svenska kyrkan i Umeå sjuka i covid-19 (VK.se, Feb. 21-22, 2021)

Quote:

Outbreak in Umeå Church with 9 infected after physical meeting. They are puzzled because the room was large and they kept distance. Followed recommendations. How many more stories we need to hear? 10 months into pandemic and people are still misinformed.
Alexandr Talyzin on Twitter (Feb. 21, 2021)

To the vicar and eight other church employees, it may seem as if God works in mysterious way, but there is no mystery here at all.
The recommendations in Sweden still don't include face masks.

[Thor 2]

Originally Posted by dann

Nio inom Svenska kyrkan i Umeå sjuka i covid-19 (VK.se, Feb. 21-22, 2021)


To the vicar and eight other church employees, it may seem as if God works in mysterious way, but there is no mystery here at all.
The recommendations in Sweden still don't include face masks.

The stubbornness of the religious to accept they are in danger is troublesome. "I am washed in the blood of Jesus," was the response of one challenged after attending a service I heard. Not too many churchgoers in Sweden however, thankfully.

When I speak to relations of mine in Sweden they are quite supportive of the line taken by the authorities. I also note that World statistics show 20 plus countries with worse figures of infection and deaths than Sweden. Many of those countries have taken a more aggressive approach of control.

[Tom Palven]

Originally Posted by Thor 2

When I speak to relations of mine in Sweden they are quite supportive of the line taken by the authorities. I also note that World statistics show 20 plus countries with worse figures of infection and deaths than Sweden. Many of those countries have taken a more aggressive approach of control.

Why is it that it Orthodox Covidism seems to have never really caught on in Sweden to the extent it has in much of the rest of the world?

What is different about the Swedes?

[dann]

Pope, on Palm Sunday, says devil taking advantage of pandemic (Reuters, March 28, 2021)

[Steve]

Originally Posted by dann

Pope, on Palm Sunday, says devil taking advantage of pandemic (Reuters, March 28, 2021)

That devil, eh!? Smart little bugger! Got it all over the god that created the virus in the first place and then had no idea what to do next.

[dann]

Originally Posted by Thor 2

The stubbornness of the religious to accept they are in danger is troublesome. "I am washed in the blood of Jesus," was the response of one challenged after attending a service I heard. Not too many churchgoers in Sweden however, thankfully.

No, Sweden is pretty irreligious - much like Denmark and Norway. Society without God is based on studies and interviews in Denmark and Sweden.

Quote:

When I speak to relations of mine in Sweden they are quite supportive of the line taken by the authorities. I also note that World statistics show 20 plus countries with worse figures of infection and deaths than Sweden. Many of those countries have taken a more aggressive approach of control.

The confidence in the Swedish strategy peaked in September before the second wave hit the country. Swedes had been promised that it was all behind them, there would be no second wave because Sweden now had herd immunity, so Swedes could lean back and enjoy the sight of their struggling neighbors without the fabled herd immunity. We know what happened instead: The second wave hit all countries, Sweden had no herd immunity and was completely unprepared for the second wave as they had been for the first wave. Sweden's death toll is several times higher than Denmark's, Finland's, Iceland's and Norway's - combined!

The people responsible for Sweden's pandemic response have spent most of the time making up excuses for their disastrous strategy, for instance that Sweden is not an island, has a high population density (only a fifth of Denmark's, actually, and only slightly larger than Finland's and Norway's), and the media have supported them by printing their lies and reporting about the apparent disastrous situation in other countries, even when those countries are much the same or not even worse off than Sweden. If you hear about Australia or New Zealand, you can bet that it's because there's been another outbreak. That they have been Covid-19 free for most of the pandemic is uninteresting. Many Swedes probably don't know - and many Swedes don't want to know. That part of the strategy has worked: In September the confidence in the strategy was 62 percent, now it's 47 percent. It's down, but not nearly as much as could be expected - all things considered.
Poll reproduced on Twitter

Only people who read the foreign press are actually aware how bad the situation is in Sweden. At this point, the pandemic situation in Sweden is worse than in all other Western European countries. You have to go to Eastern Europe to find numbers as bad or worse as those in Sweden. Criticizing Sweden's pandemic strategy is considered to be a crime against Sweden's image, which the media and the rest of the population is supposed to back up - and for the most part do.

[dann]

Originally Posted by Steve

That devil, eh!? Smart little bugger! Got it all over the god that created the virus in the first place and then had no idea what to do next.

I'm surprised the devil didn't create the virus. Just taking advantage of it is a little lame. Any troll factory can do that.

[Steve]

Originally Posted by dann

I'm surprised the devil didn't create the virus. Just taking advantage of it is a little lame. Any troll factory can do that.

I understood that creation is the exclusive domain of gods. They are just particularly poor at having their creations work as expected. COVID -19 seems to be something a devil could really sink his teeth into - death, pestilence, much wailing and gnashing of teeth.

[dann]

No wonder he needs all those advocates.