How do you talk to corona deniers?

[Eagly456]

If they are actually your friend and you like them but they follow conspiracy theories?

@SerenityNowwwww They do not deny that there is a virus but they deny that this virus causes any harm to people younger than 80 or 90. They say it’s just like the flu or even milder and everybody who dies from it is at least 80 or has multiple severe pre existing conditions... and those people would have died two months later anyway.
I told them of young healthy people dying and they say they must have had severe pre existing conditions they didn’t know about.

I told them about exes mortality. They don’t seem to get it.

They also say coronavirus is very rare and there is no risk to catch it unless you go to hospital - they believe everybody who has it is isolating or in hospital.

They also say it is not airborne and you only get it if somebody coughs straight into your face. That’s it not really contagious and most of those who have it don’t even infect close contacts. I wonder why anybody has it then and spread around the world. How did it manage to do this if it is not really contagious?

They say the government overreacted and know by now and in order to hide that fact they keep pretending the virus is contagious and worse then the flue.

And, Yes, they think everybody else are sheeple.

ResumetonormalASAP that sounds dangerous!

Plus as someone who’s reported on politicians for decades - the idea of a concerted, secret world order is just not something they’re capable of. They can’t even get child maintenance to work, launch a contact tracing app for Covid or get NHS computers to talk to each other.

See now I'm really scared

You seem to think you're 100% right and they're 100% wrong and neither of you are 100% right.

I have an ex who was a stoner, he was also a massive conspiracy theorist, the two often go hand in hand I think. Enough said.

@ICouldBeTheOne
I believe what scientists and expert on the topic say. They believe what somebody said on youtube. Yes, of course I think that I am right and that they are wrong.

Yes, there are different opinions. One is held by a college professor with years of expertise in his field. The other is held by Joe on youTube.

Is it really so hard to figure out whom to believe?

I cannot understand those scientists. Why do they spend years in college and years on their studies. What a waste of time! Don’t they know that everybody can become an expert within ten minutes by watching YouTube and reading those pages where the text neon green on black background and sheeple is a very popular word (which @Iwalkinmyclothing mentioned)?

@eagly456 you say you believe what scientists are saying but the reality is, there are a wide range of opinions amongst various types of scientists based on different models. To say that you believe what scientists are saying suggests that there is a homogenous, settled scientific view which there is not. Clearly your friend has a fairly left field view of things but that somewhat reflects the polarised level of discourse that we seem to have in society at present.

As to how you approach it with your friend, it really depends what outcome you want to achieve and how you are discussing things. If you are discussing things online/via social media you are unlikely to be able to have a sufficiently nuanced conversation. If you discuss things in person, you could tease the conversation out in a non-confrontational way or you could agree to disagree and talk about something else.

I just don't engage with them - pointless.

I have an old friend who has embraced this shit hook, line and sinker. Thankfully I don't see her really so don't have to talk about it but her Facebook posts on it are quite disturbing. Scary mixture of hippy woo and pro Trump libertarianism.

I just don't react to it but it would be difficult if I had to see her. Not sure how I'd do it then. I think it would just be the old "agree to disagree" position. And then quietly back away.

I don't really care - friend could be right, she thinks conspiracy to control the world , I think scary virus. I can't do anything about either so let's just see how it pans out....

@MaryThorne I think that scientist might differ about a few things but I never heard a scientist say coronavirus is not really contagious or that you can only catch it in hospital or that you can only catch it if someone coughs straight into your face.
If someone can point me to a source proofing credible scientists say so I stand corrected.
It’s also contrary to common sense that a pathogen that is not really contagious could make its way around the world in no time. How is it possible for the coronavirus to spread to all countries world wide if it is hardly contagious?
Why do millions worldwide have it? Have all those people been hanging out in hospital where somebody cought right into their face?

Also while there is no consensus how deadly it actually is, somebody who is actually an epidemiologist, told me studies come up with an IFR (infected facility rate, not to be confused with the case fatality rate) between 0,3 and 1,5 for a country with good medical care. That means why there is no consensus on how deadly it is it is possibly 30 to 150 times as deadly as the flu - and there is no vaccine.

@MaryThorne And the outcome i want to achieve: Basically those friends say other friends, who are more careful then them, are cowards and that they cannot call themselves patriotic. That they are sheeple.

They make fun of people who wear face masks when they do not have to. They are offended when we do not want to meet them face-to-face.

@Eagly456 The overwhelming majority of deaths have been in the elderly and if in those younger, overwhelming majority of deaths had underlying conditions.

Do you think that's false?

There is very little community transmission now in England, most has been in hospitals or nursing homes. Or in sweat shops/factories with poor H and S and infection control.

Do you think that's false?

The majority of people who do contract it do not become very ill and many are asymptomatic.

Do you think that's false?

There's very little evidence (if any) of people contracting it from surfaces or it being 'airbourne' sufficiently for anyone to contract it from someone they don't share an enclosed space with for extended periods just breathing or talking and not coughing or sneezing.

Do you think that's false?

All this is backed up by scientific and epidemiological studies btw.

They don't sound like a CV 'denier' to me. You made it sound like they didn't think it's real or something. You sound a bit OTT and they're not. You can back up your opinions with a study or two and they can back up theirs.

That's what I meant by neither of you are 100% 'right' and none of us will really know for a long time exactly who was most right in the end. But nothing they've said is outrageous or not backed up by statistics or studies.

As someone who really believes the risks to younger people and children are overblown, masks are largely a virtue signalling placebo and just wants our kids back to having a fucking childhood.

Please just don't talk to me. We'll all get on much better if you don't - you can carry on tutting and I don't have to listen to how we all need to stay at home till the year 3000 and not breathe.

I have friends who are deeply concerned about Covid and we manage to get along fine - because we respect that we hold different viewpoints - but when you're blanket labelling anyone who doesn't agree with you as mentally ill and deniers... we wouldn't get along so you just distance yourself by about 2 light years from me please.

I claimed non of those things. Please don’t twist my words.

Sorry I am in a hurry. So I just take an example:

Yes, the majority of death has been in the elderly - but that doesn’t mean that young people cannot and do not die or get very sick from COVID.
It doesn’t mean that those more careful for then them are cowards.

I never claimed most young people die from Covid. They clearly don’t - but everybody should have the right to be careful without being called names. That’s especially true for some of our friends who have preexisting conditions (nothing bad, nothing that will kill them but nobody knows what their reaction to Covid will be).

BTW young people also keep the elderly safe by not taking any risks. So even if the risk of young people to die/experience servere illness was zero those who do not expose to it are not cowards but simply saving their grandparents.

Also the fact that you don’t die from something doesn’t mean you have to do it in order not to be a coward. I enjoy bungee jumping. It’s actually very safe. I just looked up, how often deadly accidents occur: In less then 0,01 percent of cases it results in death making it as deadly as the flue and far less deadly then the coronavirus.
Yet I would never call that people have to be bungee jumping in order to prove they aren’t a coward.

Yes, you most likely are not gonna die from it but I understand there are people who simply don’t enjoy it and it doesn’t feel safe for them.

There also is a difference between “much of the transmission is going on in hospitals“ and ““you can only catch it in a hospital“ as proven by numerous cases of people who caught it outside of hospital an so on...

DONT. it’s ibvsiously a sore point so just don’t go there.

Sorry to interrupt - I thought this was a thread about stockings or tights!!!!
Bye....

Are we talking about outright denial that there is a virus?

What's being patriotic got to do with it, OP?

Very strange thread.

Well then this isn't about facts and studies is it? It's about you being far more cautious than many people, having been criticised for it by friends, getting your knickers in a bunch and claiming they're 'deniers' or mentally ill.

When they're not, and you're just being whiny because they've pissed you off.

At least start a thread honestly FFS.

I don't think i could continue to be friends with someone like that, different well thought out opinions are fine and I normally enjoy a good debate, but denial of facts and evidence and science, I think we would just have too little in common to actually be friends. If it was family or a colleague or something that I had to still speak to I'd be distant and polite and agree to disagree or not speak about certain emotive subjects together

@DominaShantotto Nobody said we all need to stay at home. I said people shouldn’t be called names for choosing to wear a mask, for choosing not to go to a pub and so on.

To take me for example. I never went to the pub because I hate it. I hardly ever drink, cannot stand to be around drunken people. I haven’t been to a pub for years. Now I have to go to the pub in order to proof I am not a coward. How very silly.

The point is I do not care or those friends opinion - but other friends I do care about do... and I care about those other friends.

Well I am not a flat earther or an anti vaxxer but if you don't think we are being lied to then you are foolish.
It's too easy just to scoff at 'conspiracy theirists'.
Probably the best thing you can do is switch off your TV and stop watching the news.
Yes we are all being brainwashed.

I dont enjoy any kind of illness but I don't live abnormally to avoid it. Theres always going to be disease and viruses. Hysteria or not.