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17 hours ago, Cet Homme Charmant said:

I find it amusing that you think stating facts means I have 'anti-British agenda', aye. 

Scotland makes up 8.2% of the UK population, and has to date accounted for 5.5% of the UK death toll (2,458 out of 44.198). That is, by any reasonable assessment, a significant difference. The Scottish government have made mistakes for sure, but overall they handled it much better than the Westminster government - the facts prove that. And bear in mind that a lot of potential measures to limit the spread of the virus, like limiting who can enter the UK, are outwith the control of the Scottish government. So the fact that they have achieved this improved outcome with only limited powers at their disposal, is even more to their credit. Just a shame that you and the other Brit-Nats are so obsessed with your Anti-Scottish agenda that you can't acknowledge that. . 

The problem with statistics is that you can often find another that challenges your point of view. The reality is Scotland's excess deaths rate and Covid-19 related death rates are amongst the highest in the world and not that dissimilar to the rest of the UK. I am sure I have also seen that Belgium has the highest level of Covid-19 related death rates in Europe. 

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56 minutes ago, HamCam said:

The problem with statistics is that you can often find another that challenges your point of view. The reality is Scotland's excess deaths rate and Covid-19 related death rates are amongst the highest in the world and not that dissimilar to the rest of the UK. I am sure I have also seen that Belgium has the highest level of Covid-19 related death rates in Europe. 

That's exactly the point which I was making to CHC.  

Other countries may have fared better than others during this pandemic, but overall this is tragic for Scotland and the rest of the UK.  It shouldn't be used as a cue for a Flemish smart-arse to gloat because he hates the country of his birth so much.

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1 hour ago, HamCam said:

There is no such thing as the English Government. You already know my view that the UK and Scotland have mishandled the Covid-19 pandemic. From the nonsense of herd immunity to a lack of PPE to a failure to protect care homes to air bridges the list goes on and on. One thing in Scotland's favour is we have at least had more consistent messaging. People ahead of politics every time for me.  

Well the UK Government who are governing England = English Government.

PPE - there was huge efforts to mitigate any shortages of protective equipment including companies retooling at short notice to make supplies for those in need.  Overall, there was a real 'Dunkirk spirit' to help and protect the NHS throughout the UK.

The attitude towards care homes in the UK (including Scotland) is a disgraceful one and this pandemic serves to highlight this.  They are often seen as places to 'shove the elderly' into, and once there they're someone else's problem.  That's not really a dignified way to treat older people.

 

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11 hours ago, capitanus said:

To be honest with you, I am hard pushed to find fault with how either the Scottish Government or the English Government has managed this pandemic, with perhaps maybe the Dominic Cummings incident where Boris should have given him a real public flogging instead of backing him to the hilt.

Other than that, the NHS in both sides of the border have done a great job and worked very hard and tirelessly to manage the outcomes during what has been a very difficult time - it's a tragic and traumatic time for our nation/our nation's - we've lost nearly 50,000 of our fellow countrymen, other countries may have had less fatalities but that shouldn't be used as a point scoring exercise for some Brit-hating expat to put the boot in to further his own agenda.

 

Both were far too slow in dealing with the outbreak of the pandemic around January/February time. I flew back to Scotland from Singapore in mid-February. Admittedly Singapore had an outbreak earlier than the UK, but they also acted far more quickly and effectively. The week that I left was the seventh week of restrictions in Singapore. Between leaving my apartment block to go to the airport and boarding the flight, I had my temperature checked four times, two of which were full body screenings. Compare that to transferring at Heathrow and arriving at Glasgow and the difference was stark. Neither airport had any hand gel or masks available for the public, either for free or for sale. In the six hours I spent in Heathrow waiting for my connection I didn't see or hear any signage/messages regarding social distancing or anything COVID related. 

There are plenty of valid criticisms to be made of the UK Government's handling of the pandemic. Off the top of my head; 'herd immunity', both a lack of PPE and spending millions of pounds buying unusable PPE, dithering over an EU support mechanism regarding the supply of ventilators, inadequate messaging such as 'control the virus' and 'stay alert' and the entire Cummings fiasco. There are probably a dozen more that could be listed. The infection and death rate in care homes across the UK has been abysmal. Scotland's administration acted too slowly initially, but they've made less fatal errors than England. I'm fearful of a second wave hitting soon, and I think it will hit England far harder than rUK. 

You address me by my proper title, you little bollocks! 


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2 hours ago, HamCam said:

I am sure I have also seen that Belgium has the highest level of Covid-19 related death rates in Europe. 

Belgium was indeed badly affected and has on the face of it, a shockingly high death toll. However, there is a large caveat in those statistics. In the early stages of the pandemic, when testing capacity was still very limited and deaths were at their highest, Belgium also included all deaths from those who had covid symptoms in their statistics, even if they hadn't been tested. Most (maybe all?) other countries only included those who has tested positive in their statistics, meaning that a lot of covid deaths in the early stages at home and in care homes were not counted in their statistics. I'm not minimising the impact the virus had here, but while the Belgian statistics are more representative of the actual death rate, in countries that only included those who tested positive in their statistics, it will be a significant under-estimation.

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2 hours ago, Cet Homme Charmant said:

Belgium was indeed badly affected and has on the face of it, a shockingly high death toll. However, there is a large caveat in those statistics. In the early stages of the pandemic, when testing capacity was still very limited and deaths were at their highest, Belgium also included all deaths from those who had covid symptoms in their statistics, even if they hadn't been tested. Most (maybe all?) other countries only included those who has tested positive in their statistics, meaning that a lot of covid deaths in the early stages at home and in care homes were not counted in their statistics. I'm not minimising the impact the virus had here, but while the Belgian statistics are more representative of the actual death rate, in countries that only included those who tested positive in their statistics, it will be a significant under-estimation.

And that is the point I was trying to make - a statistic is just a number. Until you are certain you are comparing like with like you can almost always find a 'fact' that supports your position. I remember reading how different countries count Covid-19 numbers including some who do not register asymmetric individuals in their statistics. I even have some sympathy with Trump in his assertion that the more people you test the more likely you are to find those with Covid-19.

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3 hours ago, capitanus said:

Well the UK Government who are governing England = English Government.

PPE - there was huge efforts to mitigate any shortages of protective equipment including companies retooling at short notice to make supplies for those in need.  Overall, there was a real 'Dunkirk spirit' to help and protect the NHS throughout the UK.

The attitude towards care homes in the UK (including Scotland) is a disgraceful one and this pandemic serves to highlight this.  They are often seen as places to 'shove the elderly' into, and once there they're someone else's problem.  That's not really a dignified way to treat older people.

 

Well no - while the devolved government in Scotland has certain powers the UK Government is responsible for most of the 'big-ticket' issues hence the UK Government does not equal the English Government.

No-one is questioning the 'Dunkirk spirit' or the fortitude of the British people they are rightly questioning the management or should I say mismanagement of the crisis including the failings in providing PPE. This applies equally to Scotland, as it does to the rest of the UK, especially in terms of the failed promises to protect front-line staff and the care sector. The attitude to the elderly in the care sector has been shameful - out of sight and out of mind.

None of this is a points scoring exercise. What is important is that we learn the lessons from the first wave of Covid-19 and ensure we are better prepared for future waves or any other pandemic.

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On 7/5/2020 at 7:03 AM, Cet Homme Charmant said:

The bit in bold interested me, because I think Western attachment to restoring long-dead manufacturing industries is purely an emotional one, rather than economic. Jobs in mass-manufacturing industries are largely boring and repetitive. And, to compete with countries like China and India, where the gap in efficiency and productivity is narrowing by the day, it will be inherently low paid. There will be some exceptions of course, e.g., in very hi-tech or in low-volume, high-margin specialist 'niche' manufacturing, but as a generalisation, this is true. Trying to artificially level that playing field by introducing tariffs will ultimately lead to increased costs and higher inflation. And tariffs will of course be reciprocated in other areas of the economy, e.g., agriculture, weakening their export viability, so their net effectiveness in terms of creating jobs and wealth will be the square-root of hee-haw. Western economies will have to continue to evolve into other methods of wealth generation, and trying to buck that trend may in the short term win some votes in the blue collar states with high unemployment, but ultimately it's a policy that's doomed to failure, IMO. The investment made in trying to restore manufacturing industries would be far better spent on other job and wealth creation initiatives. Another strong  counter argument is of course environmental air and river pollution.

I liken that emotional attachment for manufacturing industry to that the British have for the NHS (I'm referring to the institution, not the NHS workers, who do fully deserve the affection and appreciation they're rightly receiving). In the 21st century, funding a healthcare system pretty much solely through direct taxation is not fit for purpose, yet it's seen by most Brits as utterly sacrosanct. There are far more efficient and effective ways of providing world-class universal healthcare, as can be demonstrated by many countries in mainland Europe, but trying to explain that to your average Brit will almost inevitably be dismissed by most as 'privatisation by the back door'. 

I'm familiar with these arguments because I used to make a variant of this one myself, with the emphasis on the knowledge economy (what you'd probably call job and wealth creation initiatives.) I'm now firmly on the other side of the fence, and I'll try to articulate that:

1) Yes, they're boring and repetitive. So is a lot of knowledge work. So is nappy-changing. These are still things worth doing. And also, if they're boring and repetitive for a guy in Langbank, they're boring and repetitive for a guy in Lahore. This doesn't seem to be a sound argument for not having jobs in Langbank.

2) Increased costs are not an unqualified evil. We could reduce costs on all kinds of goods tomorrow if, for example, the EU repealed anti-dumping legislation, but anti-dumping legislation is a net good because it protects competition and keeps supply chains pure of short-term manipulation. Decreased costs can couple with unneeded extra consumption, meaning more pollution. (We will one day look back on the amount of plastic garbage sent to the West by China and wonder why we gave up half the planet in the name of trinkets that break after three uses.) I would far rather we still made televisions in the US than make more televisions in China of inferior quality with increased shipping (meaning fuel consumption), for example.

3) Similarly, air and river pollution is an inevitable by-product of production. If the Clyde is clean, it means the Chi is not; and as the West is the only industrialized part of the world to give the slightest damn about environmental protection, having our countries do it is ultimately a net win (as long as we insist on consumption in the first place.)

4) There is no one-to-one relationship between the implementation of tariffs and net employment. There is, however, a clear and obvious relationship between labor arbitrage and net employment. To wit, when Ross Perot talked about the 'giant sucking sound' of jobs leaving the United States if NAFTA was adopted, he was exactly correct: the US manufacturing industry almost en masse fled to Mexico on the day of, meaning endless maquiladoras across the border and the decimation of entire segments of the US economy. This raised GDP but has eminently and completely failed to replace the specific losses to the specific sectors and the specific communities in which they operate. 

My main argument is that if we're going to consume manufactured goods anyway, it's better to be in the manufacturing tent pissing out.

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On 7/5/2020 at 8:11 AM, HamCam said:

The problem with the US and other parties being involved in global affairs is it is almost always driven by narrow self-interest - what is in it for us? Too often, involvement on the global stage is viewed through the prism of military engagement and on that basis, I agree  there is little, if any evidence, that this produces a successful outcome. Acting collectively for the greater good should, however, be seen as a positive including membership of bodies such as the WHO. Turning inwards just seems to promote an unhealthy nationalism which is how I perceive the US under Trump and the UK under the Tories. 

The WHO has completely and utterly failed in virtually every aspect of its COVID-19 response. I can forgive uncertainty in the fog of war against an illness that is still not completely understood - I cannot forgive its feckless disregard for reality in the early days of the disease's public reporting in China. As an organization, like so many others, it is beholden to the CCP to a disgusting degree, and as such is not fit for purpose. The US has not been a tenth as strong in its response to this failed organization as it should have been - as is often the case, Trump will talk a good game but ultimately sign the check anyway - but that we're now starting to imagine a world after the WHO is an unalloyed net good for global health.

The US within its own hemisphere is pretty cooperative and I think our relationship with Mexico is exemplary. I couldn't give the slightest fuck what the WHO thinks of the matter because it's proven to be run by duplicitous CCP lackeys.

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5 hours ago, HamCam said:

There is no such thing as the English Government. You already know my view that the UK and Scotland have mishandled the Covid-19 pandemic. From the nonsense of herd immunity to a lack of PPE to a failure to protect care homes to air bridges the list goes on and on. One thing in Scotland's favour is we have at least had more consistent messaging. People ahead of politics every time for me.  

This isn't nonsense - minus a vaccine, it's the only way we're getting out of our houses. The idea behind restrictions of movement and commerce was to slow the spread and prevent the overloading of the health system. There are three options for "beating" COVID-19:

1) A literal, absolute, 24/7, no-contact lockdown, for a period of several weeks, with ruthless enforcement and forced isolation for both those who breach the other and those who enforce isolation against those who breach the order (this isn't happening).

2) A vaccine.

3) Managed herd immunity.

These are literally the only three options. There isn't a fourth. And 3 might not even be that effective, depending on antibody effectiveness. But there's no other way out of this.

Again, this seems to have been forgotten by the people who were actually saying it, but the purpose of the lockdowns we've had was not to eradicate the Wu flu, but to slow its spread and flatten the curve, allowing hospitals to remain within capacity and to allow the healthcare infrastructure (drugs, vents etc.) to be amassed.

That certain metro areas are now seeing antibody prevalence of around 10% is both encouraging and discouraging in equal measure, but the fact remains that unless we keep bumping that number upwards, we're relying on either options 1 or 2 to handle this pandemic.

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1 hour ago, HamCam said:

And that is the point I was trying to make - a statistic is just a number. Until you are certain you are comparing like with like you can almost always find a 'fact' that supports your position. I remember reading how different countries count Covid-19 numbers including some who do not register asymmetric individuals in their statistics. I even have some sympathy with Trump in his assertion that the more people you test the more likely you are to find those with Covid-19.

True when comparing country to country, but when comparing Scotland with the rest of the rest of the UK, I think it's fair to say that we're comparing like-for-like. Does Scotland count its deaths differently from rUK?

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1 hour ago, TRVMP said:

I'm familiar with these arguments because I used to make a variant of this one myself, with the emphasis on the knowledge economy (what you'd probably call job and wealth creation initiatives.) I'm now firmly on the other side of the fence, and I'll try to articulate that:

1) Yes, they're boring and repetitive. So is a lot of knowledge work. So is nappy-changing. These are still things worth doing. And also, if they're boring and repetitive for a guy in Langbank, they're boring and repetitive for a guy in Lahore. This doesn't seem to be a sound argument for not having jobs in Langbank.

2) Increased costs are not an unqualified evil. We could reduce costs on all kinds of goods tomorrow if, for example, the EU repealed anti-dumping legislation, but anti-dumping legislation is a net good because it protects competition and keeps supply chains pure of short-term manipulation. Decreased costs can couple with unneeded extra consumption, meaning more pollution. (We will one day look back on the amount of plastic garbage sent to the West by China and wonder why we gave up half the planet in the name of trinkets that break after three uses.) I would far rather we still made televisions in the US than make more televisions in China of inferior quality with increased shipping (meaning fuel consumption), for example.

3) Similarly, air and river pollution is an inevitable by-product of production. If the Clyde is clean, it means the Chi is not; and as the West is the only industrialized part of the world to give the slightest damn about environmental protection, having our countries do it is ultimately a net win (as long as we insist on consumption in the first place.)

4) There is no one-to-one relationship between the implementation of tariffs and net employment. There is, however, a clear and obvious relationship between labor arbitrage and net employment. To wit, when Ross Perot talked about the 'giant sucking sound' of jobs leaving the United States if NAFTA was adopted, he was exactly correct: the US manufacturing industry almost en masse fled to Mexico on the day of, meaning endless maquiladoras across the border and the decimation of entire segments of the US economy. This raised GDP but has eminently and completely failed to replace the specific losses to the specific sectors and the specific communities in which they operate. 

My main argument is that if we're going to consume manufactured goods anyway, it's better to be in the manufacturing tent pissing out.

Food for thought as always!

1) Fair point

2) Increased cost isn't in itself an unqualified evil, I agree. But increased cost would require protectionist polices to insulate them from cheaper imports, which I assume you would also advocate. But of course protectionist policies will block exports as well as imports. And then demand for the product would inevitably be reduced because of cost, which would then stifle the economy in other ways. Bear in mind that imports also create wealth and jobs..I have no idea how many people in the US are employed in Toyota/Honda/Nissan/Hyundai dealerships, but I'd be prepared to bet it's more than those employed in Detroit car factories.

I think your argument about the poor quality of Chinse televisions and other consumer electronics was probably valid 10 years ago, but the quality gap is closing by the day, and today it would say it's already negligible. Didn't Americans used to use the same quality argument against Japanese cars 50 years ago? Same thing will happen here, it won't be long before Chinese quality matches and then surpasses Western consumer electronic goods. So I think that argument is null and void, I'm afraid.

I totally agree with your comments about unneeded consumption.

3) Again you're of course right, the pollution has to go somewhere and I'm pleasantly surprised by your globalist approach on this, but it does seem to contradict your erstwhile 'I'm alright Jack', America-First approach. :) 

4) I bow to your far greater knowledge of NAFTA and manufacturing jobs being exported to Mexico. But trying to undo that and import them back to the States, where salaries and overheads will be much higher (I assume that's why they went there in the first place), would again rely of course on protectionist polices to make them viable. The problem there is that all Presidents who succeeded the one who implemented such protectionist policies would have to continue supporting them ad infinitum, and that just ain't going to happen. That approach may work in a dictatorship like China, but not in a democracy where leaderships and ideologies are fluid. You're pissing against the wind I'm afraid on that, best to invest in new diverse and innovative ways of wealth generation rather ran waste money on trying to turn the clock back 50 years. I have some really great examples of this that I bore you with another day. :)

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On 7/4/2020 at 8:34 AM, HamCam said:

Scotland has been more consistent in its messaging and cautious in unlocking lockdown but that aside, the powers that be, have made the same mistakes as the UK government in handling Covid-19. 

TRVMP, do you think your namesake's handling of the crisis will materially impact on the election later in the year? From a distance and even allowing for media bias, the Donald appears to have mishandled Covid-19.

Missed this: the answer is an unqualified Yes. Trump is slipping hugely with elderly voters (who vote in large numbers, and are disproportionately white and hence disproportionately Republican) and it's in large part due to Covid. Once again he's been his own worst enemy with some parts of his messaging but in general it's important to remember a few key points:

1) His early attempts to shut down travel were bitterly, bitterly opposed.
2) His hydrochloroquine comments have ultimately been proven correct, despite pro-Gilead reportage to the contrary
3) Huge parts of the US response are decided at the municipal, county, and state level, long before they become federal issues. This is very different to the constituent countries of the UK, and to many other centralized countries. Put it this way - I check what the Dallas County judge has to say before I look at what the President has to say.

None of this is to exculpate him for his failings, but it's beside the point anyway because perception is reality and the perception among olds is that he's fucked it badly.

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2 hours ago, TRVMP said:

Missed this: the answer is an unqualified Yes. Trump is slipping hugely with elderly voters (who vote in large numbers, and are disproportionately white and hence disproportionately Republican) and it's in large part due to Covid. Once again he's been his own worst enemy with some parts of his messaging but in general it's important to remember a few key points:

1) His early attempts to shut down travel were bitterly, bitterly opposed.
2) His hydrochloroquine comments have ultimately been proven correct, despite pro-Gilead reportage to the contrary
3) Huge parts of the US response are decided at the municipal, county, and state level, long before they become federal issues. This is very different to the constituent countries of the UK, and to many other centralized countries. Put it this way - I check what the Dallas County judge has to say before I look at what the President has to say.

None of this is to exculpate him for his failings, but it's beside the point anyway because perception is reality and the perception among olds is that he's fucked it badly.

I must have missed the revised assessment on the positive benefits of hydrochloroquine as almost everything I have read has suggested otherwise especially in regard to side affects. Did the US Food and Drug body not recently withdraw approval for usage of the drug for Covid-19 patients? I do know the UK trial was abandoned due to no evidence of a positive benefit - if I remember correctly the researchers described the drug as "useless' rather than a "game-changer".

As for the perception of Trump in regard to Covid-19, I just cannot see how he can come back from the comment on the benefits of injecting disinfectant into the body.

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4 hours ago, Cet Homme Charmant said:

True when comparing country to country, but when comparing Scotland with the rest of the rest of the UK, I think it's fair to say that we're comparing like-for-like. Does Scotland count its deaths differently from rUK?

It shouldn't but it is worrying how often the numbers do not add up. I accept the percentage of deaths is lower for Scotland in terms of the population ratio but the other metrics of the excess death rate and Covid-19 related death rates are broadly comparable for Scotland and the rest of the UK.

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8 minutes ago, HamCam said:

I must have missed the revised assessment on the positive benefits of hydrochloroquine as almost everything I have read has suggested otherwise especially in regard to side affects. Did the US Food and Drug body not recently withdraw approval for usage of the drug for Covid-19 patients? I do know the UK trial was abandoned due to no evidence of a positive benefit - if I remember correctly the researchers described the drug as "useless' rather than a "game-changer".

As for the perception of Trump in regard to Covid-19, I just cannot see how he can come back from the comment on the benefits of injecting disinfectant into the body.

The media coverage of hydrochloroquine was driven almost uniformly by three things:

1) Orange Man Bad
2) The inability of know-nothing, callow youths on trust funds who increasingly (wo)man the "science" desks in the media to not "Ackshully," in response to everything
3) The reliance of legacy media on pharmaceutical advertising.

So I'm leaving that completely to one side and focusing on what passed for the official response.

I'm not going to relitigate the entire thing - I've done it elsewhere and it's all so tiresome - but the FDA's emergency authorization was expired last week, after which the Michigan study dropped, showing what the French study showed in the first place - certain low-risk patients presenting early with symptoms respond very, very well to chloro. But because Orange Man Bad we have to rely on failed publications like the "Lancet", which are absolutely rife with irreproducible studies.

This is aside from the fact that nobody in the first place wanted these drugs administered in a cavalier way, and that the much-touted Gilead solution (see point 3) is itself - much like chloro - pretty useless for saving lives but pretty great at shortening recovery time. But because Gilead is expensive and pays for advertising, we don't talk about its drawbacks.

(Incidentally, the US has massive stockpiles of Remdesivir. Nobody else does. India will soon, China soon after that. Don't know what Europe will end up doing.)

Let's put that aside for just a minute:

Regarding "injecting disinfectant into the body" and the fact that he can't possibly come back from that (and that the walls are closing in for approximately the billionth time) - in 2016 the journalist Salina Zito made one of the most incisive comments about Donald Trump, and of course she was completely ignored because it was spot on. She said, Donald Trump's supporters take him seriously but not literally. Donald Trump's enemies take him literally but not seriously.

With that in mind, I'll ask you to do three things:

1) Reflect on why you have in your head the two words "game changer"
2) Look up where those two words came from and see if you can divine some context around them
3) Ask yourself if you might have missed something in both cases.

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7 hours ago, TheGoon said:

When you’ve ended up in a situation where a President apparently isn’t supposed to be taken literally in the middle of a pandemic, I...uh, yeah. Not good.

Thank you for your contribution.

 

Next.

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11 hours ago, TheGoon said:

When you’ve ended up in a situation where a President apparently isn’t supposed to be taken literally in the middle of a pandemic, I...uh, yeah. Not good.

If you want to be 100% literal, then be 100% literal, but that involves reading everything he says and parsing it word-by-word, which isn't what anyone is doing (because they know it would be pointless, because nobody speaks literally all of the time.) They do it to get 105-IQ people upset, which, to be fair, works most of the time.

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