eekee wrote:Police are trained by a different method to be prepared to shoot people. This is a necessary part of their job in any country, and has been going on for more than half a century, possibly a lot more. Where have the rampaging policemen been all this time?
Pretty much everywhere, really, but that only undermined bzt's point further: in any police force, there have always been a handful of officers who abuse their power, and a much larger percentage who are incompetent in wielding it, even where the majority of officers being both honest and capable (which is certainly not always the case, though it is more often so than one might think based on popular news articles - "if it bleeds, it leads", after all).
Any time there is a chance to wield coercive force over others, there will be some who are drawn to that out of socioopathy or some other malignant personality issue. This doesn't mean that most cops are sociopaths (there have been times when that was the case, but usually not), but it does mean that there are always a few who are. Similarly, there are always some who end up in law enforcement who aren't suited to it for other reasons - ones who are too panicky, too careless, too reckless, whatever. Again, this isn't a police problem, it is a human being problem.
I'd rather avoid this conversation beyond this, but there is one more thing I should add: pneumonia is something a lot of people are confused about, and at least one comment here (I forget who said it, but that hardly matters) seemed to reflect that confusion. This is going to be another one of my walls of text, I am afraid, so bear with me.
Pneumonia is not a single infection (and isn't necessarily caused by an infection at all), or a single disease; it is a collection of several related syndromes resulting from several possible sources. The defining characteristic of pneumonia is inflammation the alveoli, usually accompanied by a build-up of bodily fluids (as opposed to liquids from external sources) within one or more areas of the lung.
Most of the deaths caused by lung infections of all sorts - ranging from influenza to pneumocystis, and including the various coronaviruses such as the common cold, SARS, and COVID-19 - are actually caused by the subsequent pneumonia. This pneumonia usually isn't caused by the primary infection, however, but by opportunistic pathogens already in the patient's system. These include
Streptococcus pneumoniae (the aforementioned 'pneumococcus'),
Haemophilus influenzae,
Mycoplasma pneumoniae,
Chlamydophila pneumoniae (you may be noticing a pattern here),
Staphylococcus aureus, and
Histoplasma capsulatum. While there are highly-contagious infections which cause it, such as
Legionella pneumophila, several hantaviruses, and yes, several coronaviruses, the majority of cases are from opportunists.
It is also the most common immediate cause of death due to old age, with many deaths listed as 'natural causes' being a result of pneumonia due to senescence. This is why the figures for pneumonia are sometimes listed as being so high - anyone who lives long enough has a high chance that it will be a pneumonia that finally kills them, but in the end, their deaths were inevitable simply because of their age, and this will remain the case into the foreseeable future, barring some sort of advanced regenerative medicine being developed which halts aging entirely.
While
S. pneumoniae is the most common cause of pneumonia, it is actually a common part of the human nasal microflora, being an opportunistic pathogen - while it is pathogenic, a healthy immune system is more than able to keep it in check, normally. This is the infection which most pneumonia vaccines are meant to protect from, though many are combined vaccines with antigen markers for several infections bacteria and viruses.
Now, one thing to understand here is that COVID-19 can both causes pneumonia itself, or weaken the immune system sufficiently to cause other infections to cause it, or
both. My understanding - which may be incorrect, but bear with me - is that most of the deaths from COVID-19 are a result of multiple forms of pneumonia arising in people who are already immunocompromised, whether from age or from pre-existing illnesses. However, this is only a statistical trend, not an absolute - from what I've heard, a significant percentage of deaths (sorry if I don't have any figures) have occurred in otherwise healthy adults under 65, with a third cohort arising in those who had previously diagnosed illnesses which made them more susceptible to the resulting pneumonia.
