What's worse? The disease or the cure?

[Logostician]

Throughout the Covid pandemic, Japan has done a good job of preventing Covid deaths.  Less than 2000 people have died of Covid.  In the month of October 2020, 2153 people committed suicide.  For the year, 17,000 people have committed suicide.  So what's more deadly Covid or the shutdown of all previously normal life in response to it?

These people have lost their jobs.  They have lost hope.  And they are losing their lives.  But not to Covid.  They have lost their lives to a Covid response that denies the ability to live a meaningful life.

Children everywhere are not going to school, and are being raised in an psychological and sociological vacuum.  Their intellectual development has been suspended and their psychological, and spiritual well being has been assaulted.  The scars from this deprivation will linger beyond this pandemic.  Isn't the cure worse than the disease for them?  Especially with such a low incidence of infection in children?

A vaccine is on the horizon.  There is hope.  Hope that opportunistic "leaders" will stop destroying our lives under the premise of saving our lives, once their excuse for doing so is removed.

My biggest concern with the vaccine is that it will be required by government to resume normal life (eg. employment, school, travel, etc.).  If this happens, especially on a worldwide scale, the mark of the beast becomes a concern to me.  I don't want to scare anyone away from getting the vaccine, when it becomes available.  I urge people to get it voluntarily when they can.  But if it is required by a governments throughout the world, it takes on a different meaning.  It becomes a whole different beast, if you will.  Trump would not have required it.  But times are changing.

I have already had Covid and recovered.  My symptoms were like the mildest 3 day flu in my life.  I may or may not get the vaccine when it becomes available in a voluntary basis, because I beleive I have at least temporary immunity and could wait for herd immunity, without fear of infecting others.  If a vaccine is required by government to participate in society, I would have to do some serious praying, and soul searching.  It would no longer be about Covid.  It would be about life in this world, and the next.

[leah777]

I have long covid. I still cant work. Covid dint kill me, but it has caused economic hardship. Lets not talk as if its death or perfect health. Some of the variables:

Get covid and die, family faces economic ruin

Get covid and remain ill for months with economic ruin

Dont get covid and have economic ruin.

There is not solution which is a winner. However, avoiding others dying from covid or getting long covid is important. There is no answer which works for all. I have such pain and prayerfulness for all of us caught up in this. All is in Gods hands.

[teddyv]

In about April of 2015, the number of suicides was almost the same.

[leah777]

2 hours ago, Logostician said:

In the month of October 2020, 2153 people committed suicide.  For the year, 17,000 people have committed suicide. 

are these Japanese figures, going from your previous sentence, or figures from somewhere else?

suicide rates in Japan have been falling year on year for the past decade.

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/01/17/national/suicides-japan-record-low-20000/

Edited December 1, 2020 by leah777

[teddyv]

1 minute ago, leah777 said:

are these Japanese figures, going from your previous sentence, or figures from somewhere else?

This CNN article includes a graph. They report that Japan reports up-to-date suicide numbers routinely.

[Dennis1209]

I don't think it a stretch of the imagination; that to attend daycare, school, sporting events, conventions, government buildings, public gatherings, and the like. Proof of vaccination will be required to enter the premises. 

For speed, efficiency, convenience and keeping track of; what means and method's will be implemented? What technologies might be used as possibly a preamble of what's eventually coming? We're being conditioned as it is. 

[Guest kingdombrat]

6 minutes ago, Chicken coop2 said:

Suicides have traditionally been this high in Japan.  Has nothing to do with Covid19. 

Agreed, traditionally it has been seen as an honor to kill your own self.   All we have to do is study the Ancient Samurai Warriors.   In defeat it was an honor to kill oneself.   I read where there is a hilly portion where they automatically look at when someone comes up missing because chances are high they went and committed suicide.   When it is both Culturally accepted and at times seen as an honor it's difficult to speak ill against it.   Even if your own Culture is more about self preservation.   I totally agree these numbers of suicide do not in any way reflect Covid at all.

[Logostician]

1 hour ago, leah777 said:

I have long covid. I still cant work. Covid dint kill me, but it has caused economic hardship. Lets not talk as if its death or perfect health. Some of the variables:

Get covid and die, family faces economic ruin

Get covid and remain ill for months with economic ruin

Dont get covid and have economic ruin.

There is not solution which is a winner. However, avoiding others dying from covid or getting long covid is important. There is no answer which works for all. I have such pain and prayerfulness for all of us caught up in this. All is in Gods hands.

Very true   Nobody but God really has all the answers.  Nobody knows whose Covid cases will be severe, like yours, or extremely light like mine, or deadly for some.  But death of the heart, soul, and mind of people that could lead them to suicide is far worse than the death of the body, in my opinion.  Obviously, Jesus is the answer to this as well.  If you're in Christ, your heart, mind, and soul will not fall into despair.

I thought ahead about what to do if I got Covid or thought I might have it.  I didn't, and still don't care about dying.  I don't court death.  Jesus wants me to live for him as long as I am alive.  And then I will be with him.  But I was concerned for others and possibly spreading it to them.  So when I got potential symptoms, I got tested immediately, took a leave from my employment, and quarantined for a month until I finally got my negative test back.  I honestly don't know how to do it better than that.  So many people have so much advice, but my my trusted advisor is Jesus.  And I did pray all along the way, mostly for others.  Next week, I will go back to work.  And I will live until Jesus calls me to him.

I am sorry that Covid has disrupted your life more than mine.  I sincerely pray for God's speed in totally healing you.  While we are both alive we can live and pray for each other.  And Jesus will do the healing.  Because he's the only one that really can.

[Logostician]

40 minutes ago, Dennis1209 said:

I don't think it a stretch of the imagination; that to attend daycare, school, sporting events, conventions, government buildings, public gatherings, and the like. Proof of vaccination will be required to enter the premises. 

For speed, efficiency, convenience and keeping track of; what means and method's will be implemented? What technologies might be used as possibly a preamble of what's eventually coming? We're being conditioned as it is. 

Will you get it?

Freely getting the vaccine vs being forced to get the vaccine are starkly different options to me.  The vaccine itself is a wonderful thing.  What could be wrong with healing?  The question is if it will be used as a tool of oppression by an increasingly one world government, or if we will allow freedom to work.

Even good things can be used in evil ways.  The thief can always say I was just supporting my family with what they needed.  And governments throughout history have long histories of saying we're smarter than you, we'll decide for you, but it is rarely a benevolent gesture.  It is almost always a power grab.  And this particular power grab, might have very serious spiritual consequences beyond the ideal of freedom.  Let's face it.  None of us is really free.  You either serve Jesus, or you serve the world, and it's prince.

I'm not challenging you in an adversarial way.  I'm asking you as a brother would.  What will you do?

[Marathoner]

@Chicken coop2 is correct in asserting that the suicide rate in Japan is due to factors which aren't related to COVID. I was a child living in Japan when I first laid eyes on a dead body. I was visiting the beach with my family and I wandered off as usual. I came to the edge of a cliff overlooking the ocean and looking down, I spotted people who had jumped off the cliff laying on the rocks below. It was a popular location to commit suicide. 

I wandered a great deal while I lived in Japan and I learned much about the Japanese people as a result. Some knowledge of their culture in helpful when interpreting statistics like suicide rates.  

The suicide rate also has nothing to do with the bushido codes of the feudal samurai caste which was abolished in 1870 with the commencement of the Meiji Restoration. The Meiji Restoration deposed the last shogunate of Japan and restored governmental power to the emperor. The samurai are often glamorized in film and fiction but rest assured this military caste was brutal, sometimes to the extreme. Their history isn't a matter for this topic so I apologize for the minor rabbit hole. 

The suicide rate was high during the years I lived in Japan (early 1970's).