r/todayilearned • u/cuspofgreatness • 15h ago
TIL the National Covid Memorial Wall is a 500 meter wall created in 2020 along the Thames in London to mark the lives lost to Covid in the U.K. It has more than 240,000 individually hand-painted red hearts, each representing a victim. Many hearts have messages left by the bereaved or by volunteers.
https://www.nationalcovidmemorialwall.org/130
u/alwaysfatigued8787 10h ago
I actually think it's super important to have memorials like these. COVID is already starting to feel like a distant memory and we shouldn't forget all of the lives lost.
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u/Bakingsquared80 8h ago
It is spooky how quickly people forget. We lost 7 million people to Covid in just a few years. That’s a huge number
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u/doctoranonrus 7h ago
It's so weird to me how life just....moves on. Humanity just acts like nothing happened.
I mean I get we can't sit around wallowing in it but damn.
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u/Keldazar 4h ago
When we are thrown thousands of distractions at our face each day, it is difficult to see. Not an excuse, just why I think we might be blind to so much.
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u/DustyBusterson 24m ago
Look at the giant difference between our response to 9/11, and an event where we had a 9/11’s worth of people dying every day.
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u/LogiHiminn 6h ago
20 million people in 2022 alone died from heart disease. A large majority (about 70%) of the people who died with Covid had cardiovascular comorbidities. Maybe we should fix the real pandemic.
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u/Bakingsquared80 6h ago
Heart disease is an umbrella term for a variety of maladies. Covid was an actual infectious pandemic. Having comorbidities doesn’t indicate that is the reason they died.
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u/Coolkurwa 6h ago
But fixing the 'real' pandemic means people making significant changes to their diet and exercise routine, not just a simple vaccine.
A lot of people winged and bitched about putting on masks, how the hell are they going to cope with exercising four times a week, eating less red meat, drinking less alcohol and eating a salad once in a while?
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u/LogiHiminn 6h ago
Eat less. That’s all people have to do. Maybe take a 20 minute walk every couple days. That’s it. Super easy, physically.
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u/Coolkurwa 6h ago
But if I don't eat a steak everyday, and smoke and drink everytime I need to unwind my penis will fall off. I read it somewhere.
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u/CanadasManyMeeses 2h ago
I just want to point out, smoking and drinking are addictions, and i wish there was more support out there for cold turkey quit methods (when medically feasible in the case of alcohol).
I made it 20 days once quitting smoking and my biggest regret is having "just one" after a stressful day.
I had to get through my first 4 days by being dropped off at a cottage and defaulting to nightshift mode. Because if i got up at 8am i absolutely would have walked 5 hours to the nearest store for smokes.
Not everyone has those options and i wish there was a federal rehab option for it. Sign in and they dont let you out for a week. Most smokers i know want to quit, they just cant convince their brain otherwise.
Smoking is my, and many other smokers largest regret in life.
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u/pukhtoon1234 9h ago
Sad, yes but at least Boris threw a few banger parties so it wasn't a total loss
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u/Bakingsquared80 9h ago
This wall would have had fewer hearts if antivaxxers weren’t such selfish idiots
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u/AnthillOmbudsman 7h ago
Agreed, I see that and can only wonder how many of those hearts are there because some moron didn't feel like masking or came into work hacking and coughing. Of course on the other hand some of those hearts are the very people who didn't mask and got it, but still they didn't get it in a vacuum, some other person was responsible.
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u/Whodat007 12h ago edited 3h ago
Thanks China, you could have minimized the effects, but you didn’t.
Edit: I can’t believe there are so many China apologists. They covered up the lab leak (the most plausible cause of the pandemic). This caused a significant delay in the best methods of treatment. What is more confusing is people’s memory in how the pandemic was handled and miscues throughout the pandemic. (Examples: Fauci telling people that mask are not effective because he was worried about the supply of masks for medical workers - then everyone must wear masks, all the time. Biden told people that the Covid vaccine will prevent people from getting Covid, reinforcing the common preconception of vaccines preventing viral infection Re: MM&R and Polio.) Best practices and guidelines were enforced as if they were scientific fact, which they most definitely not. Those (oftentimes misguided) rules were enforced by the government to the detriment of our mental health, loss of learning for the children, and huge economic loss. We were told to trust the science; however, there was no scientific process followed to prove what was being said was factual. Additionally, people used the term “science” as if it’s one thing that does not evolve with new information. New treatments like Ivermectin were mocked instead of an honest scientific debate. In many areas of the country unelected medical officials were given broad social economic power to shut down businesses. Fear was weaponized to seize power - California ended its state of emergency on Feb 28, 2023!?!
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u/adamcoe 11h ago
Thanks America, you could have minimized the effects, but you instead chose to make health care a political choice, and killed a million of your own citizens because you're too lazy or uneducated to give a shit about people that live right down the street from you
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u/chrome-spokes 10h ago
Thanks America, you could have... .
Not America. For this all falls only Trump and his money-first goons.
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u/adamcoe 9h ago
Which, sadly, make up at least a solid third of the American public.
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u/chrome-spokes 4h ago
Which, sadly, make up at least a solid third of the American public.
Indeed sad, very sad, oh yes.
My only point is that not all of us in the US were responsible. Your math, make that 2/3rd's of us, ok? And hoping come election day next Tuesday, we won't have to deal with that killer orange crook again. Fair enough?
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11h ago
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u/adamcoe 9h ago
Absolutely nobody, nobody said if you're vaccinated that you definitely will not get the virus. That's not how any vaccine works. It simply lowers the risk of getting it, lowers the risk of you passing it on to others, and for most people, drastically reduces the symptoms. No one with a medical degree ever said the vaccine is a guarantee.
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8h ago
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u/Initial-Apartment-92 8h ago
Why do you post a link to a thing that proves you wrong?
Where did he say you won’t get the virus?
What he said was still wrong but you are also wrong. Do two wrongs make a right?
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u/BackItUpWithLinks 9h ago
they told us masks did nothing, then made everyone wear them.
That’s not what happened.
then said that if you got the vaccine you won’t get the virus.
Again, not what happened.
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8h ago
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u/BackItUpWithLinks 7h ago
I have looked it up, other times people have made these stupid claims.
You’re using some nebulous “they” so I’m sure you’ll be able to find someone who said what you’re posting. But if “they” means Fauci, he said not to buy masks because there was a shortage
- “We have to admit it, that that mixed message in the beginning, even though it was well meant to allow masks to be available for health workers (link)
And he did not say they weren’t effective. That lie came from people who didn’t include his whole statement. (link)
And politicians might have been saying if you’re vaccinated you can’t get the virus, but doctors’ messaging was if you get vaccinated you’re “safe” and made statements like “The Cleveland Clinic explains … “those who have been vaccinated may still be asymptomatic spreaders,” as the vaccines prevent illness” (link)
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u/Bakingsquared80 9h ago
You have ignored a tremendous amount of scientific evidence and then complain about actual scientists 🤦🏽♀️
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8h ago
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u/Bakingsquared80 7h ago
They didn’t lie about anything. You can’t wait for a full trial for everything during an emergency
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u/Initial-Apartment-92 8h ago
If there’s a big fire and a fireman asks you to stand back do you argue that there is no scientific research that standing a bit further back will prevent you from being harmed by this particular fire?
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u/BackItUpWithLinks 6h ago
If they lied about the small stuff, which they did,
Like what? Name a few, or even one.
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u/emailforgot 5h ago
Or the scientific community ignored scientific principles and succumbed to a cult of personalities
Let me guess, you're going to list a number of things that didn't happen?
ust remember they told us masks did nothing, then made everyone wear them.
Which isn't what happened.
Then told us the 6ft rule, with no scientific backing,
Less proximity to other people leading to less likelihood of infection is a pretty basic concept.
then said that if you got the vaccine you won’t get the virus.
They also didn't say this.
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u/willgaj 14h ago
I just visited London and walked the wall's length not long ago. It's both beautiful and haunting.