Be wary of reports that the new Imperial College modeling on Coronavirus has downgraded the threat. With headlines like these (below), you could be forgiven for thinking Coronavirus posed less of a problem. The updated model talked of UK deaths being “only” 20,000, not 500,000, but because they were modeling two totally different scenarios. The update assumed that drastic action had started.
The headlines could have said “Draconian Shutdown could save 480,000 lives”.
If Ferguson has any confidence now that the virus will peak a lot sooner — in mid-April — and the UK will not crash their hospital ICU bed supply, it’s only because the country is finally taking serious action and because “the UK should have the testing capacity “within a few weeks” to copy what South Korea has done and aggressively test and trace the general population.
The full Imperial College report by Neil Ferguson’s team doesn’t suggest anything like these headlines imply. Ferguson himself has responded on twitter that the transmission of the virus is slightly faster than they thought, but the lethality is the same.
He now thinks the Ro (rate of infection) is over 3, up from 2.5.
UK has enough intensive care units for coronavirus, expert predicts
David Adam, New Scientist
and like this:
Epidemiologist Behind Highly-Cited Coronavirus Model Drastically Downgrades Projection
By Amanda Prestgiacomo, Daily Wire
Ferguson’s model projected 2.2 million dead people in the United States and 500,000 in the U.K. from COVID-19 if no action were taken to slow the virus and blunt its curve.
However, after just one day of ordered lockdowns in the U.K., Ferguson is presenting drastically downgraded estimates, revealing that far more people likely have the virus than his team figured.
Now, the epidemiologist predicts, hospitals will be just fine taking on COVID-19 patients and estimates 20,000 or far fewer people will die from the virus itself or from its agitation of other ailments, as reported by New Scientist Wednesday.
Given these results, the only approaches that can avert health system failure in the coming months are likely to be the intensive social distancing measures currently being implemented in many of the most affected countries, preferably combined with high levels of testing. These approaches are likely to have the largest impact when implemented early
Let me be clear. This virus has a lethality substantially in excess of “seasonal” flu. Yes, up to half of those infected might not show symptoms. But that is accounted for in our estimates and always was. There is no credible data supporting the idea that 90% are asymptomatic.
There are people who really struggle with making decisions based on incomplete evidence.
Horowitz: Man who spooked the world with coronavirus model walks back his prediction
Before we cause irreparable harm to our lives, liberty, and economy, shouldn’t we first study the nature of the virus, how many people really have it, when it started, and what really works in containing it?
Before we allow the exponential curve to overrun our hospitals, kill patients, doctors and nurses, shouldn’t we make a decision while we still can? If it turns out that our hospitals are protected for some reason from the fate in Italy, Iran and Spain, we can always restart the whole economy after our unplanned three week holiday (h/t TdeF for that analogy).
These are the questions some of us have already been asking, but our voices were silenced because of the Imperial College of London’s study that said this would kill 2.2 million people in the U.S. and 500,000 in the U.K. Now, the author of that study himself has essentially recanted his projection, whether he admits it or not.
Yada, yada, claims of silencing is only corroborating evidence if there is actual data that the virus is not much of a threat. I’ve seen many claims of vast asymptomatic spread but no data to support that. Testing on the Diamond Princess, in Vo, and South Korea still suggest mortality rates of 0.5 – 1% are likely in situations where we don’t run out of Hospitals. Asymptomatic incidence was 50% on the Diamond Princess and most people were tested — though until we get antibody tests en masse we won’t really know who got a short asymptomatic case that resolved even before it could be tested. We would love to have that data, but we have to decide without it.
REFERENCES
Walker et al (March 26, 2020) The Global Impact of COVID-19 and Strategies for Mitigation and Suppression,
WHO Collaborating Centre for Infectious Disease Modelling, MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis, Abdul Latif Jameel Institute for Disease and Emergency Analytics, Imperial College London (2020) doi:
March 16th, 2020, Earlier Imperial College Report
______________________________________________
Coronavirus Background: ☀ The Demographics ☀ The Ro is 2 – 3 and exponential curves are steep. How Coronavirus kills: why the number of ICU units matters so much. ☀ Illness progression ☀Singapore: calculations of how fast the ICU beds may run out. ☀ We should have stopped all flights so much earlier. ☀ American Samoa avoided Flu Deaths with quarantine in 1918. ☀ Vo, the Italian town that stopped the virus. ☀ Delay = Death, statistics show mortality rates rise tenfold if hospitals are overwhelmed. ☀
Economics: ☀ The huge impact on the Chinese economy, the awful case of Iran.☀
Beware UN advice: ☀ Ethiopian WHO chief was part of China’s debt trap diplomacy ☀
Stats and Data: ☀ John Hopkins Live Map ☀ Worldometer ☀ Coronavirus data in Australia ☀
Thanks Jo for trying to keep perspective and for encouraging people to read the news more carefully. With the dearth of scientific expertise in the media, any information needs to be checked and cross checked.
Don’t believe something because you heard it from multiple sources. They could be using the same original source. Check the origin not the messenger, it might be right. It might not.
I actually think that people/media/govt are trying to do the right thing by providing as much information as possible, while the intent might be good, their ability to choose the best advice/ information might be lacking.
Use the same advice I am giving and apply it to me, Jo, your favourite climate blogger or world leader. In fact, this is what your education should have been teaching you to do from the time you needed to lead independent lives. It actually defines independence.
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Err, Umm.
What was that you were trying to say Professor?
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Isnt Ferguson, who has a long history of wrong models, making exactly the same assumptions, based on a lack of evidence, that hes claiming others are making .
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Models??…Assumptions?? Gain-Of-Function?? Maybe we could forgiven for a draconian shutting down Gain-Of-Function research for a second time. The research could go on holidays..…
From: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(18)30006-9/fulltext
“Ban on gain-of-function studies ends
Talha Burki
Published:February, 2018
“The debate is focused on a subset of gain-of-function studies that manipulate deadly viruses to increase their transmissibility or virulence. “This is what happens to viruses in the wild”, explains Carrie Wolinetz, head of the NIH Office of Science Policy. “Gain-of-function experiments allow us to understand how pandemic viruses evolve, so that we can make predictions, develop countermeasures, and do disease surveillance”. ………..
From: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/scientists-given-green-light-resume-research-lethal-flu-pathogen/
“Scientists given green light to resume research on lethal flu pathogen
“The researchers modified the avian virus so that it could spread between ferrets in a bid to understand what mutations were required for it to become transmissible between humans. Ferrets are often used as a surrogate for humans in the study of airborne diseases because their respiratory tracts are remarkably similar and they contract the same viruses.
“One of the researchers, Ron Fouchier, from Erasmus Medical Centre in the Netherlands, told the journal Science at the time his research was published that the modified strain was “probably one of the most dangerous viruses you can make”.
“The threat of a “weaponised” pathogen spreading around the world has long been the stuff of nightmares. In 2017, Microsoft founder turned philanthropist Bill Gates warned that “a fast-moving airborne pathogen could kill more than 30 million people in less than a year”. [My bolding] …………
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You mean always be sceptical?
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Reply to Geeble.
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Just looking at a Facebook post from a family in the U.K. And the picture is from one of their kids very sick , one other is in the same condition now and the third has been diagnosed as positive for the covid virus .
Always hard to actually prove GA but makes you take stock of things .
Just wondering why you don’t use that same logic when it comes to climate change Gee Aye ?
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thanks I’ll try harder
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” but we have to decide without it.[the data]”
Sorry Jo , but that scares the hell out of me . That’s why I fought AGW , for years and years.
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Unlike Climate Change models, we have early partial data backed up with hundreds of observations that something truly seismic happened in China — something that shut 80% of their economy, that changed the air above their cities, that caused people to throw their pets to their deaths in the streets and barricade their neighbours.
Due to the speed of viral growth (long known, proven many times) we know we have to take action early and hard.
And yet people want to wait for certainty, guaranteeing it’s too late to take easy and cheap (and reversible) action.
We could have stopped the flights for one month and waited for more data, but we killed people instead.
That should scare the hell…
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Of course this is anecdotal only,
But in my small State in Australia the average of all deaths per week usually runs around 13 (from all causes), but since our State and Federal governments have implemented strict social controls & the media reports (that have extensively scare-mongered) – deaths from all causes have more than halved.
People are taking precautions all on their own and surviving.
(My source was a local Police Sergeant, so make of that what you will)
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That’s an interesting observation by your local copper, debunker. Less movement and the people are more aware of their safety, perhaps?
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There are less people on the roads and fatalities no doubt will follow suit. The other point worth noting, with all this distancing and isolating its almost a certainty that the influenza death toll will be the lowest on record.
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A rather good point, Gordo. After all…the Flu kills quite a few Australians.
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About 4000 flu deaths in Australia in 2017
It’s seasonal, mainly in winter
Ie well over 100 a week during peak of season
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Comment in the paper today – the coronavirus thing has created the greenist dream – a destroyed economy, no polution, big govt and killing of people…
Makes you wonder…
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The roads in the Adelaide Hills have far fewer vehicles on them
Especially the South Eastern Freeway.
Today the park & ride at Mt Barker had 3 cars in it at 8.30 am with space for about 250 cars.
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Nationwide, on average, there are about 84 road deaths each week.
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Yeah Kieth, in these anti-social times, pubs and the like closed, there will be definitely less traffic deaths caused by drink driving.
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‘Chinese mainland reports 54 new COVID-19 infections on Friday, with 54 being imported cases; 3 new deaths. Chinese mainland also reports zero increase in domestic COVID-19 cases.’
China Daily
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“Urns in Wuhan far exceed death toll, raising more questions about China’s tally
A single mortuary has had 5,000 urns delivered over the past two days, double the city’s reported coronavirus death toll”
by Alex Linder March 27, 2020 in News, Shanghaiist
http://shanghaiist.com/2020/03/27/urns-in-wuhan-far-exceed-death-toll-raising-more-questions-about-chinas-tally/
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Hi there, Gordo. It is hard to believe in any report from China. It is true that the first casualty in war (pandemic) is the truth.
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Of course, but on this issue they have lost face and Beijing has no alternative other than tell the truth.
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What ‘Face” ?
They are still lying about the 1989 massacre !
They are still lying about Mao Tse Dung !
They still lie about the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution
They have lied always and forever since 1949.
This has not seen them change their ways.
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And I hear a rumour Bill, that the local stock market rallies have been because the Chinese have been snapping up bargains. I have no idea how to verify or refute this rumour but I guess its feasible. I also did not realize that some of our large private hospitals are Chinese owned, as declared on the news tonight. The same hospitals that might be closing down due to a lack of government assistance. I fear the general population will never know the true extent of Chinese involvement in owning Australia from top to bottom. Ports, Real Estate developments, private hospitals, farm land the list is long, and worrying.
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Yeah, its going to be hard for Beijing to escape the past, but on this matter they are telling the truth.
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It is not in their DNA or anything else, to tell the truth e g.
They lie habitually, systemically and pathologically.
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Beijing is a fascist state and has blundered badly, exhibiting signs of blatant incompetence and ignorance. Still, some good should come out of this, they have lost face and the whole world can see.
https://www.nationalreview.com/the-morning-jolt/chinas-devastating-lies/
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This Chinese virus seems to exhibit one thing that is different to all the other Chinese viruses that we in the west seem to get every other year. This one appears to be highly contagious. The Japanese have been wearing masks, as they always seem to, and have a lower rate of infection than elsewhere. However, how much can we trust any of the data. We don’t know how many people have been infected, therefore we don’t know the %tage of deaths relative to other ‘flu’ viruses. What we do know is that isolating china until they clean their markets and culture of eating anything and everything will have a major impact on future pandemics. It might also be a good idea to shut the UN and all their agencies. They are worse than useless and frighteningly dishonest.
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The World Health Organisation should be the first UN agency to be shut down.
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why is this racist drivel here?
If this person can prove virus nationality so be it, otherwise this is just yuck
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Virus came out of Wuhan which is in China , hardly racist Gee Aye .
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The virus came to Wuhan from somewhere surely?
Unless it was made there.
I’m not sure what you’re saying there.
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Last I heard China is a country not a race.
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Very true. And yet …
“It is not in their DNA or anything else, to tell the truth e g.
They lie habitually, systemically and pathologically.”
Now this may not refer to the Chinese as a race, the commenter may be referring to the DNA that expresses itself most strongly in Politicians who achieve power.
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But Fred, if the time stamp is correct, Gee said her piece before that which you quoted.
However I can’t imagine so much lying among the average people for society to be able to function. Surely it is the politicians and maybe their DNA is different?
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But Fred, if the time stamp is correct, Gee said her piece before that which you quoted.
But Mark, I was merely referring to a comment that appeared to claim that “They” (i.e. “Beijing”, the individual members of the Chinese Government) share a similar snippet of DNA which renders them unable to tell the truth.
Was he implying that all Chinese had this snippet, or that its presence in any human tends to determine a political career?
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Yes, it seems that the habitual, systemic and pathological lying has more to do with Communism, than race.
Communism itself is based on lies, and it is sustained by continual lies.
The same applies to Russia too, whose reported numbers are also in question. Their reported numbers seem to be unusually and unexpectedly low.
It probably applies to all Communist countries, regardless of race.
Actually, it also applies to any tyrannical government, regardless of which kind it is.
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virtue signaling garbage
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I wouldn’t worry too much about the Chinese virus Gee Aye. You have another contagion called leftism. Unfortunately this cultural disease makes uou virtue signal at the expense of recognising certain truths relating to the human species.
Best to shut yourself up til you grow a spine and call reality as it exists – not as the herd have cowed you into thinking.
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The most reliable data is the number of deaths. Almost everything else is speculation based on skewed data. I have seen people suggesting that only aged and impaired are vulnerable based on information on deaths in China and Italy. That will change as the US deaths mount because their access to healthcare is more a function of wealth than triage decisions as in Europe.
This New York Times data is updated twice daily:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/03/21/upshot/coronavirus-deaths-by-country.html
It is not demanding to count bodies and there will be high confidence that they succumb to CV19 in the circumstances.
US situation looks dire. No sign yet that it is turning a corner. Death toll in US should exceed that of China by the end of this weekend or Monday.
Many people in the US have been conned by the press stating that it is an old person’s disease without giving a thought to the numbers. They are then surprised by the death of a teenager as they were not dying in China or Italy where the young were treated preferentially.
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The reason there won’t be 500000 deaths in the UK is not because of any Govt action taken, but that there were never going to be 500,000 directly related CV deaths.
The Imperial College study was flawed and never took into account all the various factors that differentiates one nation from another . This same group a decade or so ago were forecasting 400,000 deaths in the UK from BSE. 175 actually did die.
Politicians are blown by the winds of mainstream media, social media and a variety of experts suggesting ill thought out policies that have no rationale to them. The trouble is that people have lost the power of critical thinking and common sense aided and abetted by computer modelling which are often so absurd they are laughable (see climate change)
Let’s take confining people to their homes. Aren’t people better off in Parks (acting sensibly of course) or on the beaches staying well away from people?
The home is a very dangerous place to be ensconced in and we need the physical and mental stimulation of walking and regular exercise (also think of the wrecking of personal relationships by close confinement for many weeks).
In the UK every year, almost 6,000 people die in home accidents and 2.7 million visit their local accident and emergency departments seeking help. ” (ROSPA.22.08.2019) 698 people died from falling down the stairs.” Allowing for the length of time of a close down, but setting it against the far greater amount of time people will spend in their homes, that will equate to roughly the number of people now expected to die of CV in the UK.(5700) (all highly theoretical of course to the nth degree)
In an extraordinary roll of the dice of fate, many of the tens of thousands who would have died of flu this year in the UK likely won’t because they are not out and about, many who would have died in road accidents or murder or other causes won’t, many of whom may have drunk or gorged themselves to death likely won’t due to lack of opportunity. At the end of all this I suspect that the overall additional mortality rates from CV won’t show up as a significant factor in the UK tally of 6000,000 deaths a year of which 140,000 are ‘avoidable’
It does raise the wider point, if we are closing down the economy to save 5700 people, of whom up to two thirds would have died in 2020 anyway from other causes-Prof Neil Ferguson’s words on both stats not mine-why are we not addressing the 140,000 annual ‘avoidable’ deaths in the UK?
As an aside, Thankfully people seem to be realising that idiotic celebrities such as Harry and Meghan are a waste of space. Using a private jet to relocate to LA when movement is restricted is hardly the rational action of a climate change campaigner concerned for ordinary people.
I think the Internet will be ok over here but I understand there are concerns in Oz. There is a planned upgrade supposed to be taking place right outside our house next week that will involve digging up the road, then a couple of days later to reinstate the road. Lets hope if the first does go ahead the second will also! Earlier this week they were re painting the white traffic lines and also the no parking yellow lines.
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yay
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Here is a report from the perfectly respectable Daily Telegraph
https://www.pressreader.com/uk/the-daily-telegraph/20200328/281483573479170/textview
You may need to scroll along to the extreme right or alternatively search for a link elsewhere entitled ‘burning question; how accurate was science that led to lockdown?’
The Imperial college team has got form for wildly inaccurate reports. The trouble is that it may become a self fulfilling prophecy. if you coop large numbers of people up in small houses, sooner or later if anyone has it then everyone might get it to some degree or other.
This was of the type of hysterical stuff we have come to expect from Climate change modelling
IPCC; our warnings have saved hundreds of millions of lives and stopped ten degrees of warming
sceptic; but there was never going to be hundreds of millions of lives lost nor ten degrees of warming
IPCC AH yes, not now that everyone is heeding our warnings!
Which is not to say that we should not take sensible and wide ranging precautions against CV, nor that it is a killer, but that does not include shutting down entire economies nor drastically curtailing peoples freedoms and locking them up and thereby destroy their physical, mental and financial health whilst providing fertile ground for divorce lawyers.
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No one has a time machine to travel to alternative futures to see which one is the right path. Experts can and do get things wrong. What we do know to a reasonable degree is the number of deaths due to the virus over real time. That’s the only way we can gauge as to whether the path we have chosen is the correct one, and if found wanting we change path. We might never know whether we could have done it better from the start and avoided say the economic crisis. Now that the mess is with us we just have to move on and rebuild. In fact it is an opportunity to do things better once the crises are over. For example, our PM ought to be pragmatic and get out of the Paris Agreement, drop his Wizard of Oz act on emissions and implement a strategy to re-build Australia. Do that and he will be remembered as one of the greatest PMs of all time. If he doesn’t he might be remembered as a nation destroyer.
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“what really works in containing it?”
These words from Horowitz still contain his fundamental pessimism. We in Australia do not want to ‘contain it’. Nor should the British Isles.
Nothing less than extermination, island by island. Contain, reduce, isolate, starve. That’s all we have to do.
This is likely not a natural pandemic. It is a military creation which escaped. It’s happened before with anthrax. At the end of WWII the Japanese were going to infect the whole of California by air. The bomb stopped it.
And for the first time in human history, we are all working together and know exactly what we have to do. This one is not coming back.
Those who vacillate from Que sera, sera to terror or woe is us and what is going to happen to our economy, have to vacate the stage. This is straightforward extremination. And for a world war of this magnitude, amazingly Isolation is all that is required. We must not miss this opportunity to turn disaster into victory. There is no other option.
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“MEET THE MAGIC WEAPON AGAINST THE CORONAVIRUS: SOAP”
https://www.heraldsun.com.au/blogs/andrew-bolt/meet-the-magic-weapon-against-the-coronavirus-soap/news-story/072f8524c18a3a9b37567c77d8d857d4
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Here is the latest video by Dr John Campbell in the UK.
I suspect that his videos since late January have had far more impact on the British people & government policy
Than anything else !
It’s . a pity more people here in Oz do not watch them
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGZpSn1tr54
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Very useful video Bill
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Seems to fit here
“COVID-19 And Some Thoughts on Data Analysis”
http://coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2020/03/covid-19-and-some-thoughts-on-data-analysis.html
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Its worse and more basic than poor data analysis.
Australias “New Cases” for Friday have been reported at 393,.. up 11 on Thursdays report.
But what has been completely overlooked is the dramatic increase in testing on Friday … roughly double…such thst the actual % of positive test results has dramatically reduced .
And this false analysis is being used by our leaders to scare and justify further actions.
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Trump throwing an extra million military reservists at the fight….question is what proportion is medical vs other military?
Wondering if the US has determined if its time for retribution for the authors of the virus?
Guess we will see.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-usa-military-idUSKBN21E3I1
“WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday signed an executive order authorizing the secretaries of homeland security and defense to call up military and Coast Guard reservists to active duty, the White House said.
“Under the order, the two secretaries are authorized to order reservists from the Army, Navy, Air Force and Coast Guard to active duty for up to two years “not to exceed 1,000,000 members on active duty at any one time.”
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a million more people to combat a million more guns.
Great to be in Australia
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I doubt its a gun thing. There are like as many guns as people in the US…1 million is a drop in the ocean. Nice try though….
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GA:
I’ve seen figures of 70 million gun owners in the USA (legal ones, that is) and about 200 million firearms in civilian hands.
I haven’t personally counted them, but you may get some idea of the problem in removing weaponry from the population.
P.S. and the cities with the highest death rate from firearms all have very strong laws restricting guns.
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What is this post actually about?
Gee Aye has a guess at #1, but did not read it in his haste to get the No.1 response.
My best Guess: Jo still thinks the Coronavirus Threat is Serious.
She is calling out a supposed expert ie Daniel Horowitz to actually produce some data to support his claim that the virus is not serious.
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no haste just lucky timing. The point is always to treat what you read with caution and double that caution if you are going to repeat it publically
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publicly
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There are many young people in severe condition in Great Britain. This is the result of incorrect information that young people are not at risk. You can’t keep people in quarantine without medical attention.
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Self Isolation is not Quarantine!
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And when we have stopped it. We can look back on a flu free year. That’s 60,000 lives in the US alone. Our passive acceptance attitude needs to change. I am going to enjoy not getting the flu.
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Looks like the slow response of this site to posting, caught you out again TdeF. Done it a couple of times myself.
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And when we have stopped it. We can look back on a flu free year. That’s 60,000 lives in the US alone. Our passive acceptance attitude needs to change. I am going to enjoy not getting the flu.
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TdeF:
I am told that the first sign of flu infection is when you start repeating yourself.
I am also told that you can get flu at a very low cost at Harvey Norman or Bunnings.
One thing is certain, you won’t get it from the NBN. Their “service” won’t deliver (if ever) until some months have gone by.
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If we do not test for Sars-Covid-19 virus and antibodies to this virus, we know nothing. Germany sets a good example.
30
March 27 (GMT)
alert 18691 new cases and 401 new deaths in the United States
NEW YORK (from New York Governor Cuomo daily briefing):
Apex of hospital need could be in 21 days from now in New York
All hospitals need to increase capacity by 50%, some by 100%
Need a total of 140,000 hospital beds. Currently have 53,000 (an additional 87,000 hospital beds are needed)
Need a total of 40,000 ICU beds. Currently have 3,000, with 3,000 ventilators. An additional 37,000 ICU beds are needed
Will use college dormitories, hotels, nursing homes, and all possible space by converting it to hospitals if needed in April
138,376 people have been tested
Schools will stay closed for an additional 2 weeks after April 1, to then reassess the situation and extend again if needed. 180 days requirement has been waived
“This is not going to be a short deployment […] This is going to be weeks, and weeks, and weeks […] This is a rescue mission you are on, to save lives. […] You are living a moment in history that will change and forge character”
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/
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Could be. It’s always possible to model catastrophe but the data remain poor. My bet is they wint need anything g like that number of extra ICU beds.
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The Imperial modellers are an utter disgrace. They were the panic-hysteria-mongers in chief and came out with that absurd scenario of 500,000 deaths in the UK. How many people have lost their jobs because of them ? How many now face financial ruin ? How many now have to wonder where the next meal will come from instead of where they might spend their summer vacation. The entire lot of them should be bloody locked up !! Seriously !
It was transparently obvious to anybody with an 8th grade education that:
1) this disease must be HIGHLY infectious and millions of us in the UK must already have had it.
2) the death rates are MUCH MUCH LOWER than were being postulated. Yes, it’s dangerous for the elderly … but FFS .. what isn’t ??
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🙂 🙂
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Keith, you need to keep your smiles further apart. 😉
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Watch that space.
30
It is more dangerous for the young in USA than Italy and China. The level of health care available in USA is a function of wealth. In Italy and China it was triage decisions where elderly were taken off respirators to give them to the young.
US is an unfolding disaster with many undocumented citizens still working or looking for work while they spread the virus through the general population.
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The issue for me is that one group of modelers should not dictate policy on this.
If you start with a very large number (65 million) you are very likely to end up with seemingly very large number. But small variations in assumptions also then produce huge differences. The UK was doing it right, then got panicked into extreme measures.
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The Mount Sinai Health System this week plans to initiate a procedure known as plasmapheresis, where the antibodies from patients who have recovered from COVID-19 will be transferred into critically ill patients with the disease, with the expectation that the antibodies will neutralize it.
The process of using antibody-rich plasma from COVID-19 patients to help others was used successfully in China, according to a state-owned organization, which reported that some patients improved within 24 hours, with reduced inflammation and viral loads, and better oxygen levels in the blood.
https://inside.mountsinai.org/blog/mount-sinai-to-begin-the-transfer-of-covid-19-antibodies-into-critically-ill-patients/
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Can anyone in the UK count on medical help like the prime minister? Will the UK Prime Minister receive plasma with antibodies?
30
I think the opposition want him to have plasma with arsenic.
20
Australia = 459 new cases today
The previous highest day was 382 new cases three days ago.
Our proportion of new cases as a percent of active cases is +13.3%.
We’re taking plenty of test swabs but they can’t be processed as needed so we won’t be getting the data quality we want.
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Assuming the rate of positives stays the same, a 50% increase in the number of tests done gives a significant increase in cases without the infection increasing at all.
E.g. test for the Y chromosome in the population. Start with 5,000 tests and increase by 34% each day. Rampant Y infection!
Better, tell all men they should get tested if they have certain symptoms. Lo and behold the Y infection increases still more!
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Look at the weather in the northeast US and you will understand that the virus will hit hard.
https://files.tinypic.pl/i/01001/yzzkz7r6f7vm.png
20
I’m not sure what point you are making? There are two different scenarios modeled. Both cannot be right. As for Ferguson’s claims about the death rate, he has no evidence for his number either. What we do know is that deaths in the UK so far are well within “normal” daily deaths for all causes.
It is fine to be cautious about thus virus, but your apocalyptic stuff is wearing a bit thin in the light of Japan, the UK, Sweden, Germany and Korea. The claim that Korea’s testing saved it is absurd – the test may have only 70% accuracy as a snapshot of those tested, so the chances are high that there’s large numbers of infections not being caught. So something else is going on.
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Not sure who you are addressing Phoenix44.
20
Nobody claims that all infected people will have damaged lungs, heart and liver. It can be below 20%. Only the number of severe cases is approximately reliable.
20
The observed global daily death curve is increasing at 1.133 per day. It’s been steepening since the 1st of March when it was 1.042. It’s of course much higher for individual overwhelmed countries so the projected numbers below are conservative. Based on the UK’s current 759 total-deaths today this is what will occur with that current global death curve:
Date | Deaths/Day
28-Mar-20 | 101
29-Mar-20 | 114
30-Mar-20 | 130
31-Mar-20 | 147
01-Apr-20 | 166
02-Apr-20 | 188
03-Apr-20 | 214
04-Apr-20 | 242
05-Apr-20 | 274
06-Apr-20 | 311
07-Apr-20 | 352
08-Apr-20 | 399
09-Apr-20 | 452
10-Apr-20 | 512
11-Apr-20 | 580
12-Apr-20 | 657
13-Apr-20 | 744
14-Apr-20 | 843
15-Apr-20 | 956
16-Apr-20 | 1,083
17-Apr-20 | 1,227
18-Apr-20 | 1,390
19-Apr-20 | 1,575
20-Apr-20 | 1,784
21-Apr-20 | 2,021
22-Apr-20 | 2,290
23-Apr-20 | 2,595
24-Apr-20 | 2,940
25-Apr-20 | 3,331
26-Apr-20 | 3,774
27-Apr-20 | 4,276
28-Apr-20 | 4,844
40,507 UK citizens die of COVID-19 during the next month. Hope the Isolation takes effect before that. The UK moved much, much later than China did.
What’s not in dispute is that Hospitals are being overwhelmed with serious-critical cases and the numbers in these overwhelmed countries show that very few of the serious cases survive. Right now Netherlands, Belgium, France and Portugal are joining Spain and Italy.
Indeed the top-20 most infected subgroup of countries currently has a combined death rate of 5.94% in known cases (included Germany and S.Korea btw). As hospitals are overwhelmed this percentage will keep rising towards 10% or higher.
The “something else” which is happening in South Korea is they managed to isolate most of the clustered cases and prevented the hospitals from being overwhelmed by this first wave of localized infections. But South Korea had 146 new cases today, they don’t have it beaten either. Now it’s less localized and harder to detect and isolate.
Deaths, not tests.
30
UK seems to be about 6-9 days ahead of the prediction, according to Coronavirus worldometer
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
UK deaths on 28 March – 260.
00
Random interesting tidbit.
The video is self explanatory.
Just one more menial task that you don’t need to occupy a nurse with in a crisis. Not bad for a room that can be closed off, but I don’t see it being safe in these tent and basketball court hospitals that are being jury rigged in some places.
30
I remember when the European Wasp came to Australia, about 15 years ago. The CSIRO advised that it should be tracked down and exterminated before it became established and extermination impossible. People wrote into the papers and said the wasp was one of God’s creatures and should come to no harm. And it wasn’t worth the effort. So now we have to live with the awful thing.
What we are fighting as much is a tendency to do nothing about anything, with elaborate rationalization. Think of the cost. Thankfully as more and more countries go into extreme lockdown, no one is daring to push that barrow.
And what is pleasing is that most people agree their lives matter. The terrible suffering in Italy has done a great deal of good in showing how it grows out of control in a few weeks. No one wants to be the next Italy. Otherwise we may have seen more acceptance instead of resistance, more softly softly or in Australian, ‘She’ll be right’.
And the papers are full of what journalists think of medical advice, interpreting it for us when so many people can understand it without the opinions of the purveyors of news. The economics writers debate the ‘cost’ of resistance and the impact on shares. The property writers talk about damage to property prices. Stocks experts worry about stocks. And political pundits argue about how it will affect political careers and the US election and Donald Trump. So I skip the lot.
As with Climate Change aka Global Warming. We are heartily sick of being told what to think and what taxes to pay and what our priorities should be.
Which makes us deniers, which simply means we are better informed than the journalists. And they are just making it up because they have no idea.
80
Just a small point here.
I had been hearing that Taiwan, with its SARs experience, was far better prepared and has few cases. And life pretty much goes on as normal except they all have face masks…
They use extensive temperature monitoring which will quickly identify potential cases. And its obviously working.
Here – no temperature monitors at all, face masks not available and in fact only now are we compulsorily isolating incoming travellers, but no temperature monitoring. And trying to crash the economy at every turn.
I am a lazy bugger, I just copy what works rather than try to do things myself. And it usually works. Here we are copying everybody who is trashing their economy and not getting the results they have in Taiwan. Its not too late to deviate here and start using temperature monitors. Maybe we could start to reopen the economy if we did.
80
I think the reason the governments ae thrashing their economies is that they have not been suitably prepared. Taiwan was suitably prepared. Once you are in the situation it is too late to prepare.
Trump has started finding out that Obama had run down the country’s preparedness.
30
Why the need for ventilators?
The medical machines that keep patients breathing are much in demand amid the respiratory illness’ outbreak, which in the most serious cases attacks the lungs.
Louisiana’s governor said on Friday that New Orleans could run out of ventilators by 2 April.
The Society of Critical Care Medicine has estimated that 960,000 intensive care patients will require a ventilator at some point during the US coronavirus outbreak.
New York has requested 30,000 ventilators, but Mr Trump said during Friday’s briefing he felt that was a “high” estimate.
https://www.bbc.com/news/52071611
20
Experts starting to speak out-
“Dr Sucharit Bhakdi is a specialist in microbiology. He was a professor at the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz and head of the Institute for Medical Microbiology and Hygiene and one of the most cited research scientists in German history”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=9&v=JBB9bA-gXL4&feature=emb_logo
00
The problem is the ease of transmission of the virus from person to person and a large number of people who need medical help at the same time. In Italy, the virus was the cause of death for 46 doctors.
20
” the virus was the cause of death for 46 doctors.”
You seem to be implying that it was the sole cause.
I do not believe that.
13
it has “moderate transmissibility and relatively low pathogenicity” – Lancet
“Dr Sucharit Bhakdi is a specialist in microbiology. He was a professor at the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz and head of the Institute for Medical Microbiology and Hygiene and one of the most cited research scientists in German history.
What he says:
We are afraid that 1 million infections with the new virus will lead to 30 deaths per day over the next 100 days. But we do not realise that 20, 30, 40 or 100 patients positive for normal coronaviruses are already dying every day’
20
Ran across an interesting report submitted to The Lancet:
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3544826
Supposing this is confirmed, then a factor, maybe a big factor, in old people dying is due to the huge numbers of old people taking statins. Especially those with conditions where the MDs try to get LDL to almost disappear. Cholesterol w.r.t. the immune system(s) has long been discussed, etc. (see PubMed for examples).
Supposing this is confirmed. Simply put, for the novice, this implies (actually, let’s call it conjecture) that there is s casual chain (aka “pathway”) explaining the reason old people are such a high risk group:
1. These viruses deplete cholesterol
2. Old people are on statins in huge numbers (over 50% in most Western nations)
3. The old people on statins with drug induced low levels of cholesterol cannot put up an adequate defense to these virus attacks
4. Without reserves of cholesterol to draw from, they have very poor outcomes.
Some bio-trained person might want to run a clinical trial of old people on statins divided into the usual double blind trial where one group is given a placebo instead of their statin during the flu season since no trial would be sanctioned to intentionally expose them to the virus. (May other animals, mice, etc.).
An observation: Even if there were overwhelming evidence that statins set up old people to be hugely at risk of these viruses, one predicts it will never happen due to the billions being made from the drug. Even though, if one researches the subject, statin eficacy is, on a good day, in the best of times, in the right groups, maybe 3% effectiveand then would have to offset that with the 1% or 2% that develop diabetes and further factor in that statins don’t impact all cause mortality.
70
One of my favourite books which I’ve mentioned previously is ;
https://play.google.com/store/audiobooks/details?id=AQAAAEAM206bUM&gl=AU&hl=en-AU&source=productsearch&utm_source=HA&utm_medium=SEM&utm_campaign=PLA&pcampaignid=MKT-DR-na-us-1000189-Med-hasem-bk-Evergreen-Nov1417-PLA-audiobookspla*AQAAAEAM206bUM&gclid=Cj0KCQjw6_vzBRCIARIsAOs54z6CBcfiZRchIGDth57LJS56yhBnqn_oGmSViyNqth2sTqiDwczK0n8aAo_mEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds
Susan Allports, The Queen of Fats. 2006.
It examines the problems created when the ratio of hdl to ldl is messed up.
I’ve never tried to look into statins but from comments here it’s starting to sound a bit like the pharmac mess up involving antianxiety medication based on the SSRI theory.
There’s lots of ways to make money in the modern world and not all of them are ethical.
KK
30
Many people have proved to themselves that just taking four foods largely out of the diet, improves several numbers that might indicate a requirement for pharmaceutical products.
The four being bread , rice , pasta , and potatoes.
It’s a given that nearly all sugars have already been eliminated as far as possible.
America is dying of corn syrup poisoning.
30
That is an interesting hypothesis !
There is a huge debate about statins online.
For example see Dr Malcolm Kendrick’s blog site in the UK
He has already posted about COVID 19 here
https://drmalcolmkendrick.org/2020/03/18/coronavirus-covid-19/
So there are already a lot of older folk who refuse to take statins because they are so dangerous.
I am one of them.
It will be interesting to see how many such older folk Survive this disease
Compared to how many who are on Statins
10
Fauci suggests that the overall clinical consequences of Covid-19 may ultimately be more akin to those of a severe seasonal influenza (which has a case fatality rate of approximately 0.1%) or a pandemic influenza (similar to those in 1957 and 1968) rather than a disease similar to SARS or MERS, which have had case fatality rates of 9 to 10% and 36%, respectively.2“
30
Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19)
Daily Data Summary
The data in this report reflect events and activities as of March 27, 2020 at 4:00 PM.
All data in this report are preliminary and subject to change as cases continue to be investigated.
These data include cases in NYC residents and foreign residents treated in NYC facilities.
https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/doh/downloads/pdf/imm/covid-19-daily-data-summary.pdf
10
“It takes you five, seven, 10 days — usually more than one week to develop a robust antibody response,” said Isabella Eckerle, a virologist at Geneva Centre for Emerging Viral Diseases. “And the first week is the week when people shed the virus in the highest concentrations.”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/03/28/the-next-frontier-in-coronavirus-testing-identifying-the-full-scope-of-the-pandemic-not-just-individual-infections/#comment-2949288
00
This illness is (mostly) bringing forward, by a few years, deaths that would have happened during those few years in any event.
The fact that those deaths have not occurred before now is a tribute to modern medicine and national health systems.
After this disease has died down it is likely that death rates will then drop for those same few future years.
Averaged out across the period there will be little increase in death rates.
Still, terribly painful for those affected and those having to deal with them.
Events such as this are likely to occur from time to time, entirely naturally, in the constant struggle between humans and a hostile environment.
As a general rule,human life is nasty, brutish and short but we have constructed a civilisation which greatly mitigates the natural world’s attacks on humanity.
Most of the time we gain ground and for short periods of time we lose ground and this event is one such short period of losing ground.
The darkest time is just before dawn and we will see dawn in due course.
41
Thank you Stephen.
Obviously, as Jo points out, the immediate effects of this on the ground, in hospitals, for loved ones in pain, for medical staff, it’s horrific, but if we are going to understand this we need to pull back and approach it scientifically.
One of the disturbing aspects of the CV19 thing has been the use of “Data” that has been gleaned from the blogosphere with no attempts made to identify confounding factors that make data from multiple sources dangerously incompatible.
Then we have politics and Jacinderella, Gladys and Dan all vying to see who can “come down hardest” on this terrible disease, for the sake of their electorates.
Now that their sense of duty has been awoken I look forward to their responses to fixing Australia’s woeful education system, the unpleasant national road toll and Australia’s disgustingly high youth suicide rate.
KK
31
The system in Oz and Godzone long ago ceased to be educational.
The road toll will plummet .
Not going near the third issue.
20
Are you a prophet Steven Wilde ?
If so for for whom or what ?
The Virus is here now.
Your thoughts are ‘forecasts’
Which if made into policy mean death for many.
Stuff that mate !
23
I totally agree,
but really. I thought that you might have given him the usual crown of thorns;
Idiot?
00
One should still do whatever is reasonably possible to reduce the death rate.
Lockdown is one component of the available range of responses.
10
” bringing forward, by a few years, ”
Years ? more likely months, weeks.
00
If what you have alleged is true, and I believe that it is, then our response ought to have been the quarantining of those vulnerable that we wished to protect temporarily.
10
This comment was mis- numbered . It was a reply to Stephen Wilde.
00
“Doubts Cast on Story About ‘Britain’s Youngest Coronavirus Victim’ ”
https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2020/03/28/doubts-cast-on-tragic-tale-of-britains-youngest-coronavirus-victim/
”
So, a sophisticated summary of COVID19 fatality in both symptomatic & asymptomatic patients (via https://t.co/F4CIJU22kU ) is:
Age 0-9: 0.0094%
Age 10-19: 0.022%
Age 20-29: 0.091%
Age 30-39: 0.18%
Age 40-49: 0.4%
Age 50-59: 1.3%
Age 60-69: 4.6%
Age 70-79: 9.8%
Age 80+: 18%
16/ pic.twitter.com/CeH8RyS8o2
— Nicholas A. Christakis (@NAChristakis) March 28, 2020″
10
“The next frontier in coronavirus testing: Identifying the full scope of the pandemic, not just individual infections”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/03/28/the-next-frontier-in-coronavirus-testing-identifying-the-full-scope-of-the-pandemic-not-just-individual-infections/
20
Want to trade toilet paper?
https://realclimatescience.com/2020/03/printing-rolls-of-money/
10
I have had a few days of pondering this situation. And have read a few articles that cast a different complexion on this from what we get from the MSM.
I seems to me that there is an alternative approach to the total shutdown and potential to crash the world economy. (The result of that could be some centralised power taking over and we concede a lot of our freedoms becasuse “nothing is more important than your health”. I also think this whole collective responsibility leads to people looking too much to the government and insufficient personal responsibility). If the economy crashes then there will be even greater loss of life from poverty, suicide and crime.
My approach would be to stratify the population based on vulnerability factors. To determine those factors the WHO needs to release a whole heap of anonymised data on every covid-19 case, with as much data, health history etc as possible. They would need to update daily with “outcome” – recovered or died. Around the world there will be many statisticians with some extra time on their hands who could analyse the data “every way from Tuesday”. Without a presupposition or some political “axe to grind” they may find in the data some correlation that is not evident to those who are starting from an a priori hypothesis that they are unknowingly confirming with a confirmation bias.
I have a theory that vulnerability will differ for people based on household size and age range. There may be a difference between rural and urban vulnerability. There could be a difference in vulnerability as to whether the individual was vaccinated or whether they contracted measles, mumps, chickenpox etc as a child have have developed a more broad spectrum natural immunity.
More cases are going to be discovered as testing increases and more undetected cases that have resolved themselves without symptoms need to be known so we get a fuller picture of how this family of viri behaves and can be coped with.
31
Jo, Look at the data for the UK: https://hectordrummond.com/ (retired Professor)
The UK’s list of notifiable diseases has been updated to include Covid-19 (but not flu),which may now be giving the appearance of Covid-19 causing increasing numbers of deaths, simply because of the way deaths are recorded.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/The-evidence-on-Covid-19-is-not-as-clear-as-we-think
Similar data distortion issues for Italy & Germany: “swprs.org/a-swiss-doctor-on-covid-19/”
20
The time has come to make China a pariah state, take back all the Chinese owned oz assets and cease trade with them to teach their dictator government a valuable lesson.
Trumps action maybe a prelude to that, if the poor population of China can get rid of their dictator government well and good. In the long term that would solve the problem
of rich communists in the know buying assets all over the world because of the ban on private ownership in China.
The first world war killed a lot of people but the Spanish flu in 1918 -1920 killed between 50 to 100 million poor souls.
This virus is nasty but not as bad as that.The woman researcher that collected corona viruses from bat caves and small animals that carried them suggests that it came from her lab
as the first cases were in the courtyard below her lab.
20
Ah well, we should probably cop it sweet and write it off to Opium Wars payback; although, like you Wayne Job, I’d rather we expelled all Chinese nationals and seized their assets.
10
Tearing up treaties! Hmm.
You mean , except for trade?
10
If half of the British population already has the virus, there’s no point to these lockdowns. There’s good reason to believe that the virus has been around for longer than we think.
20
I’m a knee-jerk contrarian with the best of them, but the data from Vo (where everyone was tested) on asymptomatic cases in conjunction with the level of negative tests in the general tested population really doesn’t leave much room for hypotheses of a hidden low virulence viral epidemic that has been running around the world for some time.
Of course one can construct convoluted scenarios where the low virulence parameters of the Oxford model and the like are true, but sometimes Occam is right. Ferguson’s 500,000 prediction, although hard to get one’s head around, in my opinion, was conservative if the virus was allowed to let rip.
10
big breakthru: Lombardy, Italy and pig coronaviruses
https://aumladder.blogspot.com/2020/03/lombardy-pig-farms-and-coronavirus.html
10
I’m no epidemiologist but the bottom line is, simple math and discernment (I hope) shows we’re risking economic collapse when it’s clear the COVID mortality rate in the worst off country, Italy, is within range, or no worse than this season’s American flu mortality rate when comparing apples to apples, if the CDC range estimates for this season are to be believed, over which no one panics with insane reactions and policies.
This is just looking at numbers, regardless how each country is handling (or mishandling) the pandemic.
Prior to the COVID panic the CDC reported over 100 children died (ACTUAL INSTANCES) from the flu this season. No collective panic and economic destruction. I didn’t even know about it.
Poke holes, if there are any. I include source links at bottom.
1) *Less than 1/8* of reported COVID deaths have *direct COVID causality*. Prof Walter Ricciardi, “scientific adviser” to Italy’s minister of health, says “On re-evaluation by the National Institute of Health, only 12 per cent of death certificates have shown a direct causality from coronavirus, while 88 per cent of patients who have died have at least one pre-morbidity – many had two or three”. Source at bottom.
*2)* Italian Civil Protection chief Angelo Borrelli estimates the number of infections in the population is *10x the number of confirmed cases*. Source at bottom.
– There are 92K known COVID cases in Italy. Per Borrelli above, this means there are as many as 920K people infected in Italy. The second oldest population on earth, unhealthy, low vit D (source at bottom), heavy smokers who live with their younger family members.
– There are 10K reported COVID deaths in Italy. Per the above, 1,200 deaths have direct causality from COVID.
Therefore,
= 1,200 deaths with direct COVID causality / 920K estimated cases
= 0.13% COVID mortality rate in Italy. None of this 10% mortality rate garbage. Compare that to a 0.1% flu mortality rate in the US.
Is this a reason to risk economic destruction? Looks like the solution is to lock up the old and infirm, quarantine the sick, bring in the Chinese to build massive temporary hospitals and help with the care, and the rest of us go back to work and continue the economy. Otherwise, when the fragile economy is destroyed, health care will not exist either.
Interesting excerpts:
Regarding how COVID deaths are tallied in Italy:
– But Prof Ricciardi added that Italy’s death rate may also appear high because of how doctors record fatalities.
“The way in which we code deaths in our country is very generous in the sense that all the people who die in hospitals with the coronavirus are deemed to be dying of the coronavirus.
“On re-evaluation by the National Institute of Health, only 12 per cent of death certificates have shown a direct causality from coronavirus, while 88 per cent of patients who have died have at least one pre-morbidity – many had two or three,” he says.
– This does not mean that Covid-19 did not contribute to a patient’s death, rather it demonstrates that Italy’s fatality toll has surged as a large proportion of patients have underlying health conditions. Experts have also warned against making direct comparisons between countries due to discrepancies in testing.
– But there are other factors that may have contributed to Italy’s fatality rates, experts say. This includes a high rate of smoking and pollution – the majority of deaths have been in the northern region Lombardy region, which is notorious for poor air quality.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/have-many-coronavirus-patients-died-italy/
Regarding child flu deaths:
https://www.businessinsider.com/cdc-child-deaths-flu-record-number-amid-coronavirus-news-2020-3
Regarding estimated number of infected in Italy:
– Health chief Angelo Borrelli said it was ‘credible’ that 640,000 could be infected
– Testing for the coronavirus has often been limited to those seeking hospital care
– Italy’s tally of coronavirus cases is probably ten times higher than the official figure of 64,000, the head of the agency collecting the data said today.
Angelo Borrelli said it was ‘credible’ to suggest that as many as 640,000 people could have been infected, because only a fraction of them have received the necessary tests.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8146715/Number-Italian-coronavirus-cases-ten-times-higher.html
Regarding what actually brought the COVID numbers down in Wuhan:
– The latest data from Hubei province, where the virus emerged, suggests this is also the policy that has brought the virus under control there. China is now ending its lockdowns, gradually, with no surge in disease. And a recent study by scientists at Huazhong and Harvard universities, based on data from more than 30,000 cases in Wuhan, suggests that although the lockdown and a traffic ban slowed the virus, it was not enough to stop the epidemic from growing. What really brought the numbers down was the decision to introduce targeted quarantines. All suspected cases went to hotels and all confirmed cases went to in-field hospitals, where they could be monitored. Only the most severe were then transferred to real hospitals.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/03/27/staying-homeis-not-enough-tobeat-virus
Regarding low vit D in Italy:
– Therefore, based on the previous considerations it could be hypothesized that low vitamin D could be the link between age, comorbidities and increased susceptibility to complications and mortality due to Covid19 infection in the northern regions in Italy.
– Two other further general considerations may contribute to the argument of contribution of low vitamin D to the impact of Covid19: a) in severely compromised patients: patients with acute illness, whether they are in the intensive care unit or not, have very low levels of 25(OH)vitaminD (11) Moreover, some authors think that poor vitamin D status may aggravate the health outcome of ICU patients and correction with (high doses) of vitamin D of poor vitamin D status could decrease morbidity and mortality (12); b) in general population: home confinement is the most used preventive measure against the spreading of Covid19 infection in many Countries and in Italy in particular. Total absence of sunlight exposure may cause in large part also of the younger population a decrease or worsening in the vitamin D status. (13)
https://www.bmj.com/content/368/bmj.m810/rr-36
20
Phil, sorry, those are not “numbers” — most of them are estimates or wild guesses — all done at the top of their range and ignoring the evidence on the ground and the reports from doctors in the wards. We know for a fact that the flu season is nothing like what’s happening in Italy.
We can’t call it apples to apples then compare the entire deaths from one season of the flu with a new disease that’s been around for a month. Within only weeks of it arriving, many Italians have lost the ability to go to hospital for stroke, and heart failure, let alone elective surgery. Bodies are being carried away in Army trucks. The death rate is 900 per day and to keep it to that level the entire nation is locked down.
On March 21, the daily new cases were 6,500. Without a lockdown that would have doubled two to three times since then. So daily cases would now between 25,000 and 50,000 new cases. That’s added every single day. Instead of having only 900 deaths a day (only!) Italy would have 4000 to 8000 deaths every day.
If we could wave a magic wand and “kill” 1% of the population, sure I buy that the economy would survive just fine and it would be cheaper than a lockdown. But there are two big problems with this — one is that the death toll is more like 5% once hospitals are overwhlemed, and two, if you think humans will sit by and watch 10% – 15% of a generation being picked off one by one you’re hoping humans will be inhuman — and will not shut the economy down out of desperation and fear.
The economy is going to stop even if the government doesn’t do it. People won’t go to work. They won’t send kids to school. (Here in WA with barely 1 death, 80% of parents had already withdrawn their kids, even though the government told them not to).
Therefore — the lockdown is coming anyhow — but we can save the economy if we stop the virus.
Yes, you are probably right on Vitamin D, so lets’ give people a tablet not sun-plus-a-virus. (At least in high density winter locations where the sun ain’t much use anyhow).
20
I lost you past “Without a lockdown that would have doubled two to three times since then.”
You have a fertile imagination.
Italy is a special case, the worst case. The northern European countries are doing very little and have nowhere near the results of Italy.
00
Phil, the doubling rate in total infections Italy was about 3 days so two doublings in a week is expected. But thanks for drawing my attention to it. I had put in the total infections when I meant to put in the daily growth, so it starts at 6,500 (not 9,000) and based on teh 2.7 fold growth in the ten days before that would have reached 17,000 in the ten days after (very loosely) had it continued. I have amended the post.
00
(1) We cannot trust the Chinese figures. e.g. the photos of urns for collection (circa 6000) in one funeral home out of 8 in the Wuhan area together with their reaction in January suggests that the true data from China is being hidden.
(2) Again, the estimates of asymptomatic infections from Vo and elsewhere seem to run at 50%. For the Oxford model to be correct many symptomatic (but not critical) people must be failing to be tested.
20
“Experts have also warned against making direct comparisons between countries due to discrepancies in testing.”
No self respecting analyst could say otherwise.
KK
00
Australia is Not Italy.
The vulnerability of these two countries is too different to justify statistics of Italy being applied to Australia.
Just one item alone, the vast ongoing movement of persons between Wuhan and Italy and back and forth. Many would be poorly documented and make up a floating workforce.
TB, Wuflu: no worries mate.
Makes Australia’s less than perfect border control look almost functional.
And they will find those twenty doctors.
KK
00