Honestly, I'm more interested in the continuing actions of #anti-vaxers & #anti-maskers, especially those who are #pollies. They're doing more to spread #2019-nCoV / #COVID-19 NOW than any efforts to keep things secret in late 2019.
I don't recall how the discussion got there, but we were talking about shutting down schools due to the #COVID-19 pandemic and he said that "we knew from the beginning that it basically did not affect children and that we didn't need to do that". I pointed out that we did not know any such thing, and that despite generally less severe effects, those kids live with parents, grandparents, and other adults ... sending them into germ factories unmasked (as he'd have wanted) would have been a death sentence for many of the adults in these kids' lives.
Then I mentioned that most schools have ventilation issues and many are in buildings that date back 50-100 years. (And in fact, one of the facilities we were supporting was in an old school that was probably built in the late 1940s or early 1950s. In this case, it was an area of small towns where almost everyone under 50 had left to find jobs, so most of the schools closed.) He insisted that all schools had done ventilation upgrades in 2020 as the pandemic spread across the nation.
At that point, I understood that this person likely ingested too much propaganda from a certain "news" channel, much of which is probably originally designed in Moscow, so I stopped responding.
He was probably a normal or nearly-normal person until the fear that #2019-nCoV was a plot by #China and the #Democrats to displace #Trump came about. I don't have any indication that this is what he believed / believes, but I think a lot of #anti-vaxxers and #anti-maskers started there and moved on to their extreme beliefs afterward.
NOTE: this is the #UK. In the #USA, we've had a significant number of #anti-maskers all along, who will not suddenly become conscious that their behaviors can increase or decrease the spread of disease (whether #2019-nCoV or #influenza or something else).
Also, spending several days with my 1.5 year old grandson last month really improved the way I feel. I can now understand why some people are going to have family gatherings regardless of the rules. (I'm not counting #anti-maskers and "COVID is fake" people.)
#Sweden approached #COVID-19 differently. Here's why ... and how their respinse is changing. A good article for #anti-maskers to read if they're open to learning something.
Researchers found that anti-social behaviour is a common trait amongst those who prefer not to wear coverings amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Professor Fabiano Koich Miguel and colleagues at the Universidade Estadual de Londrina researched the link between compliance with face mask wearing and ‘anti-social traits’ in a survey of around 1,600 people in Brazil. " -- https://nu.federati.net/url/274497 [metro co uk]
Among our #anti-maskers: The former USNavy SEAL who shot Osama bin Laden ... banned from Delta Airlines because of it.
Mr O'Neill, you don't have to be a p***y to wear a mask. You have to have compassion for your fellow passengers and the courage to do the right thing, even when it isn't comfortable.
@geniusmusing The list of other damage the disease causes gets longer and more serious, even as head-in-sand #anti-maskers get more resistant to measures meant to curtail #COVID-19's spread.
#anti-maskers pretend to be government agents to disuade employees from enforcing store policies ... if anything, they should be celebrating the fact that business owners & managers are able to establish policies that apply when one is on their property.
Violent #anti-maskers. I sincerely hope this person is caught. If you don't like mask rules in privately-owned "public" places, stay home. If you can't control your anger, go see a counselor before you end up in jail.