1 minute ago, Excel said:

And as I said, death of family or friends is a catastrophe by your definition or any moral definition. This sudden upward trend in covid infections  and deaths indeed an impending catastrophe to the Thai people.

As the examples produced show, that is not how catastrophe is generally used in English. And as another poster pointed out, if you're going to use that word for a single person, then you'd better come up with a new one for events that affect thousands.

52 minutes ago, placeholder said:

Clearly your understanding of what catastrophe means differs from what is commonly understood and used:

 

a sudden event that causes very great trouble or destruction:

They were warned of the ecological catastrophe to come.

 

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/catastrophe

a sudden and widespread disaster:the catastrophe of war.

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/catastrophe

 

A catastrophe is an unexpected event that causes great suffering or damage.

From all points of view, war would be a catastrophe.

...the economic and environmental catastrophe that the oil leak has caused. 

https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/catastrophe

 

Feel free at any time to dismount from your moral high horse.

(They were warned of the ecological virus outbreak catastrophe to come.)

 

Sounds about right to me, they were indeed warned from their top virologists and health experts of this disaster.

 

"1,209 are severe cases, including 389 who are on ventilators"

 

It's quite surprising that those numbers have hardly moved within the last few weeks, although the overall number of people receiving treatment has grown significantly. I wonder why?

7 hours ago, brewsterbudgen said:

I don't really see your point.  Surely any death from whatever cause is a catastrophe to the friends and family, and any death caused by government inaction or incompetence is equally catastrophic and immoral.  My point is that when compared to the catastrophe of Covid elsewhere in the world, Thailand hasn't reached the same level, although of course it could still happen.   If you call the current situation in Thailand "catastrophic" (like the article did) what adjective will you use if the situation gets much worse and tens of thousands are dying?

And in reality when measured by excess deaths this pandemic is historically far from being among the worst. It certainly is not the Black Death. For example, the 1968 flu outbreak caused 80,000+ extra deaths in the UK alone; others since have been nearly as bad. The 1918 flu pandemic took 50 million lives world wide.The fact is that expectations of health systems are now much higher; perhaps unrealistically so. At some point we have to realise that governments can't guarantee our total invulnerability, and then get on with or lives.

Here's something silly....

 

A Thai woman told me she heard a govt spokesman on the news, trying to justify the significantly inferior Sinovac vaccine on which the Thai govt hung its hat, that "Sinovac is best for Asian people, while Pfizer is the best for farangs".

 

Of course the govt spokesman did not provide any data to 'prove' his face-saving assertion that somehow 'race' and 'vaccine' are related, nor did he offer any data from the US, where the millions of Asian people who have received the Pfizer vaccine have had great success.....nor why hi-so Thais have gone to the US on "Vaccine Tourism" tours to get the Pfizer jab..

 

When obfuscation and lies are official policy, little good can come of it.

9 hours ago, DoctorB said:

And in reality when measured by excess deaths this pandemic is historically far from being among the worst. It certainly is not the Black Death. For example, the 1968 flu outbreak caused 80,000+ extra deaths in the UK alone; others since have been nearly as bad. The 1918 flu pandemic took 50 million lives world wide.The fact is that expectations of health systems are now much higher; perhaps unrealistically so. At some point we have to realise that governments can't guarantee our total invulnerability, and then get on with or lives.

Also the Asian Flu in the late 1950s killed well over a million. 

Edited June 1, 20215 yr by brewsterbudgen

11 minutes ago, brewsterbudgen said:

Also the Asian Flu in the late 1950s killed well over a million. 

Probably not a good idea to equate deaths when no mitigation measures were taken to deaths when mitigation measures were taken and vaccines quickly developed.

 

Can you say that had no mitigation measures been taken, and no race to develop vaccines, Covid deaths would still have 'only' been 3.5 million so far?

 

Isn't it at least a possibility that Covid is worse than the other viruses you note, and that absent the many measures taken to combat it, deaths could have been much higher?

 

Some try to equate Covid to the common flu. In the US. In the last ten years, 360,000 have died from the common flu. In the last year along 594,000 have died of Covid.....and that despite mitigation measures.

4 minutes ago, Walker88 said:

Probably not a good idea to equate deaths when no mitigation measures were taken to deaths when mitigation measures were taken and vaccines quickly developed.

 

Can you say that had no mitigation measures been taken, and no race to develop vaccines, Covid deaths would still have 'only' been 3.5 million so far?

 

Isn't it at least a possibility that Covid is worse than the other viruses you note, and that absent the many measures taken to combat it, deaths could have been much higher?

 

Some try to equate Covid to the common flu. In the US. In the last ten years, 360,000 have died from the common flu. In the last year along 594,000 have died of Covid.....and that despite mitigation measures.

And to give an idea of how contagious covid-19 is compared to the flu, the measures adopted to control covid19 have made the flu virtually disappear.

11 minutes ago, brewsterbudgen said:

Also the Asian Flu in the late 1950s killed well over a million. 

Probably not a good idea to equate deaths when no mitigation measures were taken to deaths when mitigation measures were taken and vaccines quickly developed.

 

Can you say that had no mitigation measures been taken, and no race to develop vaccines, Covid deaths would still have 'only' been 3.5 million so far?

 

Isn't it at least a possibility that Covid is worse than the other viruses you note, and that absent the many measures taken to combat it, deaths could have been much higher?

 

Some try to equate Covid to the common flu. In the US. In the last ten years, 360,000 have died from the common flu. In the last year along 594,000 have died of Covid.....and that despite mitigation measures.