For a guy his age and generally poor condition, he might just as well have played Russian roulette with a couple bullets in the gun. Foolish people.

Because it isn't true

@Tejas according to Wikipedia death notice:

"Meat Loaf died on the evening of January 20, 2022, at the age of 74. No official cause of death has been released, but many news outlets reported that he had been seriously ill with Covid-19."

While official confirmation may yet be needed, I don't think saying it isn't true is correct. I was referring to the MSNBC type mainstream shows that didn't even note the possibility.

Exactly

You believe what you want to believe. I believe the story and the reported cause of death. He was a Covid denier. Are you one of those as well?
Meat Loaf—whose real name was Marvin Lee Aday—died after falling “seriously ill” with COVID-19 in recent weeks.

@barjoe If I was Meatloaf, Risk Vs Benefit, would have taken it.

Ummm, who's denying Powell died of covid?? The first 3 results when you Google search are from NPR, CNN, and MilitaryTimes and they all clearly state he died from covid...

@JeffMurray Clearly state he died "from covid"?
Not what I read, which is "of Covid-19 complications".

@puff That's what "dying from covid means"... HIV doesn't kill you, you die from complications of it. This may just be a result of you not being in the medical field, but your reading of that verbiage is incorrect.

@JeffMurray Depends what you mean by "clearly states" I suppose.

There is a pandemic on and people are dying early. It's sad.
Vaccine would be nice, but don't have one that stops transmission or lasts.
Do have medicine that should help save you, with some even wanting to force people to take it with the belief it is a societal duty, even though it doesn't stop transmission.
If you support consent required you don't agree with mandates. If you do not support mandates you are classed as antivax.

Vale Meatloaf. As lives go, it was a good one.

@puff I disagree. A mandate doesn't remove consent. It isn't forced vaccination. Any reasonable person could understand the principle of a vaccine mandate given the appropriate conditions though. If the pandemic was caused be an aerodolized ebola, with the same scenario (the shot wouldn't prevent transmission, but it would prevent death >90% of cases, decrease the likelihood of someone you gave it to dying, and reduce the likelihood it would mutate and keep the pandemic going longer) but contraction without the shot is almost certain spread of the disease and death. Do you really think people with ebola should be allowed to walk around and participate in society? Of course not. So we agree in principle, we just disagree on where to draw the line.

@JeffMurray You have rights in the US, Australia never drafted a bill of rights.
I can assure you, mandates are enforced here. The vast majority I know didn't vaccinate to protect themselves, didn't vaccinate to slow transmission for public good. They vaccinated otherwise they would lose their job. Sorry, but that is not a choice when you have a young family and debts. Consent equates choice and it has been taken away here via mandates made under emergency powers..

@puff You completely ignored everything I said.

@JeffMurray I'm saying your experience of mandates in the states is not the same as Australia; we are reading different books.
You have never had snap state border closures with no warning, residents locked out of their home states unable to go home for months (one guy died camped at the border for 4 months, trying to go home), not in the US. You have exemptions for religious beliefs, something I totally agree with btw as freedom of belief is as important as consent is. Your expats were able to return home, ours were abandoned until very recently. We were unable to leave the country for 2 years and if able, unable to return. All this because of orders by the chief medical officer(s) aka mandates.
The way we treat refugees, let Julian Assange rot whilst entering new big boy war game pacts with the two cunts detaining our citizen, the place is fucked now and not worth defending.
Sorry for ignoring what you said but can answer in 4 words. It is not Ebola.
.
Do a little research and see what triggered border closures here in Aust eg how many infections made them slam borders shut or lockdown with no warning? I know it is really hard for most Americans to comprehend other peoples lives happening in the rest of the world, but I encourage you to try and imagine you live 2km from a state border with family other side. They wouldn't even let farmers visit paddocks across dirt roads which happened to be on a state border. It is really that bad here.

@puff
Yes, fair point that it's not ebola, but we do agree in principle that the governing body should be granted certain powers to restrict freedoms to protect its own interests and the interests of its people. And let us also look at some statistics that may speak to how well our policies did for each group of citizenry.

US has had 2,657 out of every million people die, you've only had 118. We've also had between 2.5-3 times as many cases per million people as well. I don't even know how to begin to assess the differences in the economic impact between our countries as a result of the differences in how we handled it.

I know it sucks there. I've heard from a number of people. But the benefits of the restrictions show.

As for authoritarian governments, don't you worry, we'll be living under one very soon. It's about to get real bad for everyone when the US has a dictator in the next couple of election cycles.

@JeffMurray Australia is extremely lucky we decided to open up just as Omicron became dominant. We just delayed things and if Delta was still the dominant strain our figures would be far worse.
Let us see which countries remove all the emergency measures put in place.

@puff I don't exactly know what you're trying to say, but congrats?

I made this, but I can't actually find a source that claims he was an anti-vaxxer.

Oh, he was controlled alright.

@Organist1 what else would you call a mandate? Control.

@Tejas What would you call death?

@Tejas Crawling out of the woodwork like a cockroach.

@barjoe not in the mood to own up to misinformation today? Typical

Sometimes you get what you wish for!

@Tejas I posted a link. To the best of my knowledge the link is true. Do you have any credible evidence that the link is false? I didn't think so. 🪳

Be careful what you ask for, I guess.

@barjoe I quoted an interview with meatloaf saying he was scared of covid, proving he is not a "covid denier". He was against mandates and wearing a mask but not saying the virus was a hoax. I know facts don't matter to you but heres a link to said quote. [thesun.co.uk]

@Tejas I saw that. Well. He got his wish.