My husband refuses to believe in coronavirus

grumppa

Any chance of an executive summary?

It would be a good idea! Reading it all has been quite a few minutes of my life I'll never get back!

Iam64

Flygirl - conspiracy theorists seem to believe the rest of us are bonkers. Works both ways

Bonkers ... and usually of an inferior intellect (according to them).

Alegrias2

There was a question about conspiracy theories at FMQs in Scotland today, and apparently 1/4 of people surveyed believed in one or other of the conspiracy theories they had read on the net.

The links that other Grans have posted look very helpful, I have nothing to add but I hope you find a solution nightrider.

I've read that from a number of sources about a 25% of people believe in conspiracy theories.

It's horrifying.

Sir Jeramy Farrar ( Sage advisor) has stated today that:
This virus is now in my view, part of humanity. It is an endemic infection now
Exactly what Dr Mike Yeadon said months ago.

quizqueen, I know it's a waste of time telling you, but for the umpteenth time, Covid is caused by a coronavirus, which is related to the common cold, not a kind of flu, which is caused by a totally different kind of virus. It's like saying that a mouse is the same as an orang-utan as they are both mammals, or a bicycle is the same as a bulldozer as they are both vehicles whose names begin with a B.

Okay why would all these people on tv such as Mps, doctors, professors, so many professionals be so brainwashed discussing it I cannot imagine the doctors in my place of work being controlled by Bill Gates? Nhs staff are getting the flu jabs and we have clinical trials for COVID vaccine but it’s not compulsory so no big pharma is benefiting from it. It’s actually an insult to these professionals to suggest they are so weak in character as to be controlled by Bill Gates.

There may be some people who regard themselves as having good brains, superior education, impressive credentials as "researchers" but I would be amazed if many of these people have a solid scientific background, including a good grasp of statistics, epidemiology, virology and vaccine development.

"Do your research" has become a mantra for the deluded who understand nothing about scientific research, and the rigorous standards of peer-reviewed journals.

I would go further and say that anyone posting "do your research" has already gone a long way down the internet rabbithole.

I go to an online discussion group where there are two or three contributors who refuse to wear masks or get a vaccine, and they believe Mr Trump.

I think I will ask " do you believe public health and hygiene have been enforced by law for more than a hundred years?"

For grumppa
My attempt to make it more readable. I don’t think I have done it very well. Sorry.

“*as they really cannot cope with reality*”

But what do we actually mean by this?

Previously you will see I found all the people called “Conspiracy Theorists” (CPs) I was asked about by complaining members of the family actually knew a lot of facts. The term has become pejorative, a "crazy trouble-maker, spreader of *misinformation".

I learned a lot of facts from the people the families were complaining about. All facts were verifiable. The statistics were from the Office of National Statistics (hatched, matched and dispatched)

Our reality is actually that which we want to believe. We usually are convinced we are right, especially if it is an official line from our Government. The vast majority of us are law abiding. It is unpalatable to think the government might be wrong and we tend to reject the idea. We like to be led with clear rules. Even though our Government breaks Laws, our PM lies, and other people leading us and making Rules at this time have broken their own rules, we still like to show how law abiding we are.

We are in “unprecedented times” we are told several times a day. This apparently has allowed our govt to do things never known to happen before. Things not allowed by the Magna Carta, I am told.

People turn against the minority who start to think independently. These minority have rocked the boat by finding anomalies in what the Govt says. We label them as CTs which has become a severely critical and belittling term. We keep the rules and like to be good citizens. So we denounce anyone who disagrees with anything that is said by the government. We know we are superior to these dissenters and we make our separation from them clear. We are not one of them. We hate them.

It’s a shock when a family member ‘jumps ship’ and disagrees with the status quo. As now when they disagree about Covid etc. We show in this discussion how we regard these people as crazy and also mentally unstable.

But I have reason to believe many of these people speak facts and are intelligent. I have checked many facts and statistics and found the so-called CT is right. I found that the BBC* and PM were more likely to state misinformation.

Therefore the person troubling you has their own reality which, were you to take time to check, I’m sure you might find many examples you could not refute. I think it is judgemental and wrong to regard them as silly, stupid or as “comforting themselves because they are scared”. To say a list of numbers shows more deaths from flu than Covid or to show that the number of deaths from all causes is lower this year than last year as we went into lockdown in March is neither escaping reality nor being scared in my book. It sounds like a very good point and intelligent.

To query why Ferguson was cosen to make a predictive model, a man who ruined Farmers, caused suicides, was wildly wrong on so many times costing the country so much money, is a very sensible question in my book.

To keep an eye on the stats and ask why the Govt’s CMO and CSO are lying is correct. Watch Sir Desmond Swayne MP Cons youtu.be/jqIYDTIdg2o

All new discoveries in science were not met with understanding at first. It is not for us to think that we know everything and that those who disagree are wrong, even though they may sound extremely “way out” to us. I looked up Gates’ under skin ID chips in people in West Africa. It exists. Later I looked again. How interesting. The many articles had gone! He obviously got to hear people were not keen. But it does exist. So does censorship of the WWW.

The people I feel lucky to have met and whom their family member thought were getting demented, were highly intelligent. The things they were saying that the family did not like turned out to be true. Even the Bill Gates evidence. The idea that there is a plan to crash the monetary system in order to start the “Great Reset” was immensely plausible. The work on the Great Reset had clearly begun many years ago and incorporated Covid apparently before 2019.

I could go on.

The heavily contemptuous language used to put down the CT in this discussion reveal a phenomenom of human nature. Circumstances have made it even more important to demonstrate allegiance to the status quo. Publicly denouncing the chosen ‘enemy’ (here the minority who are not in full approval of all that is being done,) raises our position as a good citizen.

Consider where this has happened before in an authoritarian society. Also, when were books burned, just as scientific research and articles have been disappeared from the internet? When were neighbours asked to report misdemeanours of others?

I cannot join the chorus of denigration of those who have different points of view, nor agree that seeing a conspiracy is necessarily a bad thing. I think everybody has the right to their own thoughts without being stigmatised for them. So long as nobody is harmed we do not have the right to judge another’s “reality” as less real than our own, or say ours is right and theirs is wrong.

* BBC 'fact check by our Scientists' in which they said the nasopharyngeal swab or any other thing could not get to the brain, among other reasons because the "brain is completely surrounded by bone" and" it would have to drill through bone." I'm a Neuro-Psychologist trained by leading Neurologists at the Institute of Neurology. What the BBC "Scientists" wrote was incredibly wrong. So obviously wrong a six year old could show why (and did). They ignored that the skull has holes in it, eg for the nose, eyes, ears, mouth. Indeed Surgeons sometimes perform brain surgery through the nose (endoscopic endonasal surgery). They ignored the cribriform plate which is penetrable with a quite soft instrument. It's another subject but again it tells you why the people labelled Conspiracy Theorists get so irked because a lot of lies like this have been blatantly purveyed by public entities such as 'Aunty Beeb' and the public are believing them.
For evidence that the BBC is largely a propaganda machine see 'The FakeNews Factory: Tales from BBC-land' and
'BBC: Brainwashing Britain?: How and why the BBC controls your mind'
Both by David Sedgwick

It makes you realise what a slow process evolution is. It was only 400 years ago that people believed in witch trials - some people don't appear to have evolved their thinking that much.

I could go on.

Please don't!

growstuff
Well I really do appreciate you reading it, though. Really! Many thanks! I'd be the first to say it's too long - sorry ! It would put me off....

Sometimes it's so difficult to get something across without it sounding like an attack on the person I quoted. I appreciated her point of view and thought it showed how kind she is. I simply couldn't match it to anybody I know or match the CT descriptions here to the people I know who are so worried we are being led to the downfall of civilisation. I am talking about beautiful highly educated spiritual and very intelligent people who have spent so many years as Doctors, doing research learning, caring...

There is a wonderful man on Triggernometry which is a lovely interview program on YT where the two interviewers allow the Speaker to speak. They let the speaker speak and don't interrupt. Please listen to him. Please. He is lovely. So kind and gentle and wise. Even my background education in Neuropsychology tells me he's right because I worked in the hospital where I studied and I learned so much.

There are so many Professors, Doctors with distinguished careers Scientists who really do know about stats Economists, you know what I'm saying, all worried about what is happening to us. I am part of a group now of academics and medics who are truly concerned about some decisions being made and things happening. But more people are beginning to understand.

The truth is this virus is no more deadly than a seasonal flu. Especially for <70s.

See youtu.be/ZnpnBYgGARE note the recent research paper he talks about.

Please watch the above

grump - your contribution made me laugh, so thanks for that

nightwriter started this thread asking for advice on how to deal with her husband's distorted belief system around the covid virus. I hope she found some suggestions useful. I do hope she dismissed the overly long, over detailed nonsense from people who should possibly be wearing tin foil hats.

I feel very guilty that I simply don’t read spectacularly long comments ........

Especially when I see a line like this “ The truth is this virus is no more deadly than a seasonal flu. Especially for <70s. ”
That honestly infuriates me

Lucca - confession time. I read the first few lines and concluded I was in conspiracy central, so wasted no more time.
I expect the long posters to return and tell me I can't possibly have reached a considered opinion. Yes I did.

563 deaths have been reported today. I expect they're all fake news. I bet the relatives wish it was all a big scam.

I think it likely that many of these 563 poor folk were under 70 and I think it very unlikely that the same number of people died of seasonal flu yesterday.

For goodness sake, stop swallowing the nonsense of the conspiracy theorists.

I've been wondering that too varian. Presumably many of the most vulnerable have been locked up in their care homes since March and have been reasonably well protected, so I would imagine that many of the new deaths are younger people. The figures are only published every month.

Not that it matters how old or vulnerable somebody is. Any unnecessary death is still a lost life.

The claim that Covid is less deadly than seasonal flu is a load of rubbish. Again it's been fact-checked and it's just tosh.

growstuff
Ok ZZzzzzzzzzz

I always squirm when I see the nasal swab done on TV. Now I know why! Do they have to go up so far? Thank you for your posts, Tillybelle. I appreciate all you say and taking the time to support those who question. I can never forget the care home scandal. My 93 year old mother thought this was done deliberately to eradicate old people. She's not in a care home, but earlier this year was in hospital and horrified to be on a ward which several friends never came out of. It was ward G, the 'God ward' she called it. She told the staff a out this! I agree that Matt Hancock seems clueless. He's got a difficult job of course, but doesn't inspire confidence. To cancel all those cancer treatments, for example, was totally wrong and unforgivable. I remember one sufferer saying, "I hope I live long enough to die of cancer and not Covid". I'm glad my own treatment was finished before this all started. Do people break the Covid rules on distancing, masks etc because they believe the theories? Hopefully not. Are all those separated from loved ones being duped? I miss my grandchild while the other grandparents break the rules and see them regularly. As you say, people usually believe things because they want to. My family members get almost aggressive when they start and tie me up in knots when I respond. That is off putting to say the least and quite depressing. No wonder people get upset. Hoping to look at some of your references, nevertheless. Most of us just want to be good and have a quiet life, but perhaps that is burying our heads in the sand.

It’s a difficult one. My older brother became caught up in a cult religion when he was very depressed and they seemed to offer him hope and comfort. Fortunately he did get proper medical attention and cut contact with them before he’d gone too deep.

Is your husband in touch with other conspiracy theorists nightwriter? I wonder if someone is feeding his obsession. I would give non-committal answers to his attempts to convert you and carry on protecting yourself against this virus.

growstuff

I don't know which "fact check". you used. They are notoriously mendacious, being mouthpieces of the people running this show.

The most recent research shows that the virus is less deadly than flu. It has had a lower death rate than flu most of the year using the Govt's own figures. The govt has been struggling to find ways to boost the death figures for it so as to use its control measures.

For current figures see youtu.be/ZnpnBYgGARE where he mentions it near the beginning. Lockdowns are killing more people round the world than lives they claim to save. There will be court cases. In India people are starving to death. It is inhuman.

The numbers of deaths from this coronavirus are 5 out of 10,000 for people under 70yrs old. At that figure you will not need a vaccine.

Iam64

grump - your contribution made me laugh, so thanks for that

nightwriter started this thread asking for advice on how to deal with her husband's distorted belief system around the covid virus. I hope she found some suggestions useful. I do hope she dismissed the overly long, over detailed nonsense from people who should possibly be wearing tin foil hats.

Hear, hear Iam64

nightwriter has to find a way of dealing with a close relative's conspiracy theories. The rest of us have the luxury of ignoring anything daft we see on forums that we believe to be conspiracy theories, that way we don't help them spread or give them any more credence than they deserve.

This is a hint.