I've been thinking the past few days about the similarities with cults/LGATs and our present situation with the Coronavirus.

Seems an odd parallel to draw but bear with me...

Depending on what country you live in - I'm in the UK and the situation is this:

Confined to home all day - emergency laws only allow people to leave once a day to buy food (i.e. basic necessities and as infrequently as possible), exercise or walk dogs (unless you're a categorised key worker and you have to travel to work). This is likely to continue for three months or more.

We're being told by the government we can only shop for basic essentials, but not what counts as basic essentials. Essentially we're being gaslighted over this. And one senior police officer has suggested they may start randomly searching peoples' groceries leaving supermarkets to make sure they're only buying essentials if people keep flouting the rules.

Police have powers to issue on the spot penalties to people breaking lockdown rules.

You're not allowed to visit family/friends and if you've been dating someone new recently you won't be meeting them in person for the forseeable future unless you've already moved in with them (unless you want a criminal record that is).

Every day (unless also isolating from TV and the internet) we're costantly hearing about how serious this disease is. We're getting updates on how many people have died (but now how many people have recovered, have mild symptoms or are asymptomatic - i.e. about 90% of the confirmed cases).

Essentially what's happening is a state of fear is being ramped up to the max. And many people have been physically separated from their support networks.

We also have a group dynamic being created. Since the lockdown started, every Thursday at 8pm people are standing on their doorspteps or where ever they are to clap (or bang pots and pans whatever) to "show their support" for hospital and other care workers.

We're in a situation of free, democratic (until recently) countries living under emergency laws and surveillance that are leaning towards totalitarianism. With no certainty over when (or even if) these emergency laws will be fully repealed to what was the status quo pre-coronavirus. No one is really objecting to this or even demanding safeguards to ensure these laws will be repealed.

No one can doubt that the health protection measures are necessary but does anyone else see ways in which the crisis is going beyond that?



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/13/2020 06:16AM by StopLGATs.

I am an American living in a Spanish-speaking country south of the border. I am surprised not only by the restrictions but how quickly people have given into the fear and control. We have to wear a facemask when we leave the house. Only one person can drive in a car unless taking someone to the hospital. There are police checkpoints everywhere and many streets are closed. There is a weird dystopian feeling about it.

As near as I can tell there is little chance of a big outbreak here. The population density is low. The heat and strong direct sunlight that we have here are bad for the virus. And after 6 weeks of the restrictions, we have little more than 300 COVID cases and perhaps a dozen registered deaths. And we are stuck in house until the end of May! Insane.

You could say that the restrictions "worked." I suppose. But at what cost? So many poor people here are even poorer now. And the economy is crashing. It seems like a huge price to pay.

The restrictions are much the same all over the world. I really don't know what to think.

I've been following medical updates, and it seems that the frontline people are desperately trying to learn as they go. It is a novel virus, with features they haven't seen before. The ARDS syndrome looks different from the usual ARDS, on X-Rays. There is a clotting syndrome associated with it, (anti-phospholipid antibody syndrome), and they are talking about how the usual doses of anticoagulants are not working.

At the same time, many politicians are trying to cram unrelated agendas into whatever measures are being taken to help. There are many opportunists at work.

On researching most business marketing ‘guru’ type people they will all mention how a climate of fear is their best friend.

Covid 19 is the ideal global climate to get things moving in the way that governments want, as many of the old systems such as oil sales and high street shopping are now fast becoming defunct ways of making money and keeping the people busy (oil due to its increasing lack of availability, shopping doing better online rather than high street,etc).

Whilst it would be silly of me to speculate the origin and purpose of the virus existence even at this point, it is definitely fair to say that the situation is being used to shape the general public.

I say this after looking (very briefly) at the differing ways the virus has been dealt with by global leaders and governments, what rules and regulation they put in place and do not put in place (the diversity of that globally) is a behaviour that speaks loud and clear for itself.

We do a disservice to ourselves in not questioning these things at all.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 06/11/2020 07:44PM by facet.

A nice question I asked myself on this was “why is the science different globally for the same issue” - science on something is science on something, there is no variation in this situation aside from different governments, the “virus” remains the same and thus would be dealt with in the same manner globally.

As we can all see this same dealing has not been and is not the case. It would be very kind hearted of any of us to put that down to a simple definition between different levels of intelligence in leaders.

England, Wales, and Scotland (uk) have been increasingly interesting to look at due to the wide diversity in rules and measures between them, and particularly the rising of a competition between England and Wales seemingly supported by the UK media.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/11/2020 07:48PM by facet.

>It would be very kind hearted
> of any of us to put that down to a simple
> definition between different levels of
> intelligence in leaders.
>

Correcting myself here that’s modes of thinking, not levels ! :-D

Well, there's science, and then there's what people will tolerate. There are also cultural differences. The Japanese have been wearing masks for years, so that's no big deal to them, but they don't like having their businesses shut down. In the U.S., not only do we have people refusing to wear masks, but some of them move through the grocery store without regard for social distancing.

kdag Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Well, there's science, and then there's what
> people will tolerate. There are also cultural
> differences. The Japanese have been wearing masks
> for years, so that's no big deal to them, but they
> don't like having their businesses shut down. In
> the U.S., not only do we have people refusing to
> wear masks, but some of them move through the
> grocery store without regard for social
> distancing.

True, very true, all of these are factors to consider.

Another question to ponder, if the virus (new strain of flu, which will likely follow other flu strains in life span and remain with humanity) is as dangerous to all as posed (I mean as dangerous enough to shut the entire economy down, aside from supermarkets) why has widespread antibody testing not been put into place as well as testing symptom presenting individuals?

It will be interesting to see what happens in the upcoming months, especially with concerns to public gatherings which as you say, have been the usual.

Personally, I believe that antibody testing would reveal that this strain has been around for many years previously, yet not quite as widespread so it remained largely undiscovered / unrecognised.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/17/2020 01:27AM by facet.