If you only read one serious page about how to deal with this crisis read Coronavirus: The Hammer and the Dance. The countries that “get this” approach will be the first to recover.
It’s all the things I’ve been suggesting but done on big scale with an expert team.
What I call the Slow Bleed is officially known as Mitigation. It’s the 6 month Flu strategy that kills people and the economy.
When I said Crush the Curve, they call it The Hammer, the hardest form of suppression. The Dance is the delicate recovery process until we get a vaccine, a treatment or a nicer mutant version of the virus.
1. Hammer and Dance — there is a better plan (click to enlarge)
Eventually we’ll all get to the Hammer Crush approach because the alternative is so horrible.
Even Imperial College concludes that slow “Mitigation” is just not viable: in the UK the demand for ICU beds would exceed capacity 8-fold, and there would be something like a quarter of a million UK deaths, and over a million in the US. They conclude that epidemic suppression is the only strategy, yet their predictions on that are dire. Their March 16 report has a chilling dystopian graph that hammers the infection then bounces up and down through cycles of suppression and release. But it ignores the key advantages of buying us time. We are not doomed to repeat each infection cycle. Right now we are unprepared, unarmoured, but some are headed into battle already — there aren’t enough beds, ventilators, specialists, drugs, masks, results, trials, or anything but guesses and hints. A two month pause would help so much more. Even a two week pause would.
Stanford Engineer Tomas Pueyo and a “group of normal citizens” which includes epidemiologists and experts have spelled it out in detail. It’s already been translated into 30 languages, and almost 35,000 people have signed their Petition to the Whitehouse.
At the moment Spain, Italy are facing the fight of their lives, but some of the rest of the West are almost giving up without a fight.
The red line in the graph below is not an error
The red line marks the size of the ICU capacity. This is the size of the challenge we face and it’s why there is no other realistic choice. Would we like to have a hospital system, or would we rather stone age luck?
2. Hospitals will be overwhelmed (click to enlarge)
Their summary:
When you’re done reading the article, this is what you’ll take away:
- Our healthcare system is already collapsing.
- Countries have two options: either they fight it hard now, or they will suffer a massive epidemic.
- If they choose the epidemic, hundreds of thousands will die. In some countries, millions.
- And that might not even eliminate further waves of infections.
- If we fight hard now, we will curb the deaths.
- We will relieve our healthcare system.
- We will prepare better.
- We will learn.
- The world has never learned as fast about anything, ever.
- And we need it, because we know so little about this virus.
- All of this will achieve something critical: Buy Us Time.
- If we choose to fight hard, the fight will be sudden, then gradual.
- We will be locked in for weeks, not months.
- Then, we will get more and more freedoms back.
- It might not be back to normal immediately.
- But it will be close, and eventually back to normal.
- And we can do all that while considering the rest of the economy too.
Ok, let’s do this.
Spain, Germany, France and the US all have more cases than Italy when it ordered the lockdown.
Collateral damage could mean 1.5m more deaths in the US
There are 4 million admissions to the ICU in the US every year, and 500k (~13%) of them die. Without ICU beds, that share would likely go much closer to 80%. Even if only 50% died, in a year-long epidemic you go from 500k deaths a year to 2M, so you’re adding 1.5M deaths, just with collateral damage.
The case for South Korea
Because it was started so fast, the hard part was done in three weeks, and it wasn’t as hard as it will be in slower countries.
3. South Korea, case-load managed and is now doing the dance to keep it under control. (click to enlarge)
Feeding this virus comes with a risk
The more mutations there are the more versions of this virus we get:
Not only that, but the best way for this virus to mutate is to have millions of opportunities to do so, which is exactly what a mitigation strategy would provide: hundreds of millions of people infected.
Under a suppression strategy, after the first wave is done, the death toll is in the thousands, and not in the millions.
It’s a no brainer, but
Suppression would get us:
- Fewer total cases of Coronavirus
- Immediate relief for the healthcare system and the humans who run it
- Reduction in fatality rate
- Reduction in collateral damage
- Ability for infected, isolated and quarantined healthcare workers to get better and back to work. In Italy, healthcare workers represent 8% of all contagions.
4. Imperial College estimates of the effect of various forms of mitigation. (click to enlarge)
My favourite quote:
What if it turned out that in two months we discovered a treatment for the coronavirus? How stupid would we look if we already had millions of deaths following a mitigation strategy?
The speed of medical research is unprecedented. Labs all over the world are onto this, and because of the huge cost — there is a huge incentive to solve this. Note that the most promising avenues are in mass testing approaches and anti-virals or anti-inflammatory lines. Vaccine research can not be sped up to the same extent. There are inevitable bottlenecks in testing and waiting for humans to react and in being sure that all risks are being checked. Testing of other approaches is much faster.
We have The Code. We understand the biological alphabet. We will find a way to treat or neutralize this virus. It’s just a question of when.
5. The escalation of medical knowledge (click to enlarge)
This is no time to just give up
On one side, countries can go the mitigation route: create a massive epidemic, overwhelm the healthcare system, drive the death of millions of people, and release new mutations of this virus in the wild.
On the other, countries can fight. They can lock down for a few weeks to buy us time, create an educated action plan, and control this virus until we have a vaccine.
If you agree with this article and want the US Government to take action, please sign the White House petition to implement a Hammer-and-Dance Suppression strategy.
Here’s the latest mutation map. Many of these changes are just “decoration” — they don’t necessarily change the virus in a meaningful way, but they do mark the “heritage” of each subgroup of viruses.
Evolution is at work in the virus world. We know the virus will mutate to become more infectious, but we don’t know whether it will be more or less deadly.
6. The branching chains of Coronavirus around the world. (click to enlarge)
Buy Us Time to Fight the Coronavirus and Save Millions of Lives with a Hammer-and-Dance Suppression…
Our healthcare system is collapsing. It will only get worse. Mitigation-“flattening the curve”-isn’t enough. We must…
Compare these two scenarios
7. Mitigation — The Slow Bleed (click to enlarge)
Don’t miss that the whole scale changes here
This is not just a bit better, it’s an order of magnitude (or three) better.
Every day we delay starting the hammer means more total deaths and many more days on the other side before the hammer ends and the dance begins. Exponential curves are so unforgiving when they are rising, but they can collapse just as fast on the downside. The further we drag the Ro (rate of infection) down, the faster we bring new cases down.
The payoffs from making Ro close to zero are astronomical at this point. We ought be prepared to throw everything at hammering this flat.
8. The Hammer and Dance (click to enlarge)
This is the group to follow, to share, to discuss:
This article has been the result of a herculean effort by a group of normal citizens working around the clock to find all the relevant research available to structure it into one piece, in case it can help others process all the information that is out there about the coronavirus.
See all the endorsements from Professors, experts and commentators, if you are interested in that sort of thing. Doesn’t show they are right, just that they are not crazy.
On Modelling: It’s still wrong. These are estimated projections, based on assumptions and incomplete information. But data from nations all over the world already shows the trends and patterns are correct. The nations that got on top of things fast are already doing the dance — like South Korea and Taiwan. The nations that tried the slow bleed reactive approach have had catastrophic outcomes (if not in actual total death — its been measured in disruption and pain, and we have not even tried to count the collateral losses).
And all the nations that tried mitigating get overwhelmed and end up doing the hammer anyway. It’s inevitable so do it now. It’ll never be faster or more effective than starting today.
There’s a lot more detail at the original — read it all there. Hammer and the Dance
According to Worldometers there are 23 serious cases (ICU?) in Australia and the PM says the daily rate of infection is decreasing.
91
You forgot to mention that known infections due to C-19 in Australia are increasing.
Mar 7: 74
Mar 14: 244
Mar 21: 1072
Mar 28: 3635
This is not beaten because a politician states the ROI is decreasing.
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Morrison will have access to more and better data than we have. If these are arriving infected people still coming home, cruise ships, people landing, visitors who need urgent care then the underlying ROI can be dropping even though the numbers are rising. Thousands of people a day arriving by plane and 30,000 people on 14 cruise ships off Australia, some offloading sick Australians and others.
It’s very hard to close the doors on sick people who have nowhere else to go. I hope the doors will be closed soon.
And demographics too. New infections in existing clusters rather than in new areas, so at least we have containment rather than rapid geographic spread. At this rate we hope some suburbs will never have a coronavirus infected person.
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This the other technique of pandemic control, geographic isolation. Towns, cities, states. By getting people to stay in their homes, you stop geographic spread to a still 99.999% uninfected population. Only 1 in in 10,000. In Italy, infected people constitute 1 in 1,000 or 0.1% of the population. In the US, one in 3,000.
If you are going to stop something, you stop it as soon as you possibly can. Political dithering has caused the level of problem in most countries. In others it is the utterly wrong notion of herd immunity, which ultimately is only very short term anyway with viruses as we already know well.
And stalling is good. Giving us time to develop treatments and immunizations unlike any time in human history. A century ago we did not even have antibiotics. 67 years ago in 1953 Watson and Crick saw the structure of DNA. We have come a long way but what we have to do to stop this is so simple. Stay home.
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From the Australian and confirming the growth in numbers is from overseas..
“Police .. are bracing for more than 20,000 airport arrivals over the next week”
“two-thirds of confirmed coronavirus cases in Australia linked to overseas travellers”
This is not domestic infection. It is overseas infection. You can fly home from anywhere in under 24 hours, infected.
As some are coming from Italy, our numbers of infected people could soar, which is nothing to do with the success of our isolation response, which I expect is excellent.
And I hope that in two weeks we are horizontal on the graph. Fingers crossed.
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All of which could be because of increased testing (plus of course case numbers are cumulative, so case numbers increase even if you don’t increase testing).
Imagine an epidemic of Y chromosome. Each day you increase the number ifctests by 15%. Each day cases grow by 15%. Is the number if people with Y chromosome increasing?
Testing tells you nothing unless you do it randomly of a representative sample. That simple fact holds true even when people are getting hysterical.
52
“Data” attached to this epidemic is dodgy and may be used carelessly and give a wrong impression of what’s happening and misrepresent action needed.
KK
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3873 positive cases at 1am, 30th march.
does seem to be a reduced ROI.
We are not over the hump by any means.
take care everyone.
40
Wrong graph, people! The exact same graph as the South Korean one…new daily infections! We have been dropping at a steadily increasing rate for the last six days days..
Contact tracking and population testing to crack the history of this code and we will have this beaten within another two weeks. Now is not the time to lift our collective foot of this virus’s neck. Understand Toorak, the electorate of Wentworth and the Barossa are our hotspots. Why did we let our guard down over arrivals from the US? The power of hindsight says this thing was alive and spreading way earlier than the CCP let on. The power of hindsight says we should have started checking temps of everyone entering the country, not just Asia.
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Oops!!! Have you looked at the graph today Mark.
00
Out of dat and inaccurate !
Grrrrrrrr !
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Out of date and inaccurate !
Grrrrrrrr !
31
https://youtu.be/h5FHQDpzkMw
https://atmosphere.copernicus.eu/air-quality-information-confirms-reduced-activity-levels-due-lockdown-italy
CV-19 will be miscible in heavy oils.
Northern Italy currently has a high level of heavy oil (diesel) based air pollutants. The virus is airborne. EU policy of promoting diesel versus petrol engines is the root cause. Diesel particulates coat the lung linings. Many buildings do not have capacitative filtering. An office block or housing next to a northern Italian freeway will not be good.
The epidiemeology of those with the disease has been poor. The fact that soap and other detergents are the best method of transmission prevention should have been a BIG alarm bell.
The Global Warming religion is now deadly.
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Interesting slant on the issue.
10
Explains the cruise ship problem. All those cabins…… and a BIG diesel source.
What energy source will SA’s gas turbines use? I do hope its not diesel.
Coal will not have this problem as it has capacitive cleaners and burns lighter oils (in the coal). Brown coal will be best (C6-C20). It also gasifies the oils.
30
South Korea …Japan and others touted as success stories have in some cases managed to limit total case numbers…but not the numbers of deaths from those cases.
Were more of their small case numbers in bad health…or was their health system less capable?
We probably won’t know which country had the right regime until there’s some uniformity in testing rates…and health systems are comprehensively studied.
20
Australia has unique advantages.
It is an island.
70% of people own their own freestanding home. Extraordinary. Home isolation is real isolation.
For a lot of Australia there is no deep winter, snow, freezing conditions. Houses, offices often do not have recirculating air systems.
Clean, fresh air even in the big cities of Melbourne and Sydney.
Lots and lots of open areas, even in big cities.
Advanced medical institutions and medical research
Low population density, even in two cities of five million.
High education levels.
No slums, except perhaps for Toorak and Point Piper.
We can isolate ourselves and stop infection. If we stop it, it is over. It will stop reproducing and so vanish completely, as quickly as it came.
Why wouldn’t we just stop it? What really is so hard about staying home?
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It is much harder to breathe under a respirator than in your own home.
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If you’ve ever been under an iron lung, you’ll know the truth of that, ren.
10
In Australia the companies are reacting relatively quickly. The slower response is Government, with thousands and thousands of non-essential workers still going to crowded open-plan office buildings. There was one ABC article criticising the Government over this last week, but since not a peep. You cannot ‘hammer’ as long as the public service (non front line) keeps having to turn up to work.
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Is Italy inflating death numbers from the virus?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXlHXmfDDnc
A quirk of their reporting may be confounding statistics.
20
The message was poorly delivered. Staying home means staying in your block , as in “a walk around the block”.
We hope in NZ to achieve that by the end of this week.
You leave your block only for food , fuel and pharmacy.
Unless you’re essential , in which case you keep calm and carry on .
30
Viruses are not living organisms or living microbes. They do not have a respiratory system, nor do they have a nucleus or digestive system. Viruses are not alive and viruses are not contagious. The fear behind Coronavirus, for instance, is wholly unwarranted.Thoughts,am i missing some crucial piece of info that negates this?
00
Except for not being contagious. Is the virus moving around of its own volition? No. But it is sure as shinola contagious in the sense that it passes from human to human. The fact that it multiplies like nobody’s business if unimpeded in your body and can cause serious lung problems, sometimes fatal … yeah that’s a problem. Not bad for a string of RNA only ~80kb long (as in bits).
Much like a virus can take out your expensive PC, so this can take out your body, permanently. Not sue what is not moderately concerning. the only question is how many will die. If it ends up in the low thousands (in Oz) then the reaction might have been overblown. Clearly people are working on the basis that it could be far worse than that.
The other key info is that this is novel. We have no inherent immunity to the virus, unlike a lot of the colds and flus in general circulation. Just like your anti-virus software is great against old known viruses, it is defenseless against new unknown ones.
10
I beg to differ,Viruses help consume and eliminate substances into small particles that can then be expelled via mucous membranes, out through the skin, or through the intestinal tract. Cells produce viruses when their tissues are so toxic that phagocytes, parasites, bacteria, and fungi cannot help cleanse, repair and regenerate their tissues and fluids. Science states, incorrectly without proof, that viruses originate outside the body, then ‘hijack’ the RNA or DNA of the cell, and then replicate whilst attacking cells indiscriminately. If this were true, viruses would replicate endlessly, eventually attacking all healthy cells, but they do not. We know that antibodies, a type of white blood cell, regulates the virus. There exists no video evidence of viruses hijacking cells, except for 3D renders, and animations based on theory.
10
The Imperial modeling is pure fantasy. It is far more likely that millions in the UK are already infected asymptomatically and millions recovered. The claims about hospital beds are ludicrous. There is no evidence that will happen, even under a do nothing scenario. ICU is a real issue, but in many ways it is a false dilemma. A large proportion of those going into ICU die anyway. It may be saving some people, but if we were brave, we would save them anyway by identifying those for whom ICU is a needless and often painful delay of the inevitable. As they used to say, pneumonia is the old man’s friend. There is no evidence this virus will kill millions no evidence it kills anybody (in anything other than tiny numbers) but those who will be carried off by the next infection. The Imperial modeling ignores the reality of all of this.
1415
The evidence indicates that 18% of people infected have no symptoms through the infection, not just for the first 5 days.
So if you were right that ‘millions in the UK are already infected asymptomatically and millions recovered’ then 5x as many, tens of millions would have shown symptoms and 20% of those, a few millions would have been severe. It means you are completely wrong. And what you are saying is extremely dangerous for the lives of millions not yet infected and hopefully never infected.
154
but much more have mild symptoms no ? unnoticable from mundaine winter virus
30
but even the mild symptoms are different. Fever is the major one. Then the loss of taste, a metallic taste. The dry cough, not wet. Shortness of breath is the scary one but may be rare.
There is a difference between thinking you have the corona virus but you have a flu and having the flu and thinking you have coronoavirus which may be common. It seems the big difference is the inevitable fever of corona virus. Conversely if you have a runny nose or sneezing, you do not have the corona virus.
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For a healthy person , the fever is low level. It’s not like burning with a type A influenza, or a nasty zoonosis like leptospirosis.
But it lasts a good week , and you are best to nail it with an extended warm sleep for 12 hours while remaining hydrated and nourished.
And don’t get cold as evening damp settles or you may develop pneumonia.
50
‘ … you may develop pneumonia.’
In the old days that would mean the end of the road, but modern medical science can bring people back from the brink. The 2017 flu was a nasty bout, a mutation of some sort, the grim reaper was lurking and almost took me, but chose my dad instead.
Pneumonia is deadly to old, unhealthy people.
31
The Phoenix burned to ash
To be reborn.
No one here minds that happening to you
If that’ s what you prefer.
But none of us here in Oz
Wants that fate for ourselves !
And what about stating where you sit observing all this ?
In the midst of Italy, Spain, Iran, or the USA’s chaos ?
I doubt it.
51
Nic Lewis has analysed the statistics from the Diamond Princess to conclude that UK modelling is hugely overestimated:
https://judithcurry.com/2020/03/25/covid-19-updated-data-implies-that-uk-modelling-hugely-overestimates-the-expected-death-rates-from-infection/
00
If only the borders had been shut much earlier…. I cant decide if was ignorance, or something worse….
110
Something worse.
Either avarice or greed.
41
I didn’t mean to imply corroption there.
Planes would still be landing and taking off and boats would be docking and unloading regardless.
Forgot, some lucky hotel owners are having their empty hotels restocked at taxpayers expense.
KK
30
Politicians try to please everyone and until the facts in Italy were better known, a lot of people thought it was all wild exaggeration. That everything will be fine. Just carry on.
Now with the world in lockdown, even India the politicians no longer push this stupidity. Of course we have never had this before on this scale in living memory.
Even the head of the EU who criticized border closures now admits the EU/she ‘underestimated’ the problem. That’s a lot of understatement. This one issue shows how utterly useless the EU is. And the UN for that matter.
On the positive note, never has a course of action been so popular as lock down. Thanks to TV and the internet, everyone now knows their own lives are at stake. It motivates them. And there are enough stories of people under 30 dying to motivate the invulnerables.
Why anyone was allowed to fly out of the country on business or holiday or get on a cruise ship in February is beyond me.
140
The following links explain Italy.
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/03/how_did_italy_become_the_new_ground_zero_of_coronavirus.html
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/03/why_is_italy_in_so_much_trouble__its_more_than_icu_beds.html
and a study of treatment using hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin.
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/03/once_again_trump_was_right_and_the_media_were_wrong.html
00
The Barossa Valley in SA is now under complete Lockdown.
Before the borders were sealed two tour groups from the USA & Switzerland were there for a few days.
Wining dining and staying in local motels
Both had members who were asymptomatic.
No one knew until some in each group developed major symptoms.
And now the Sh#t has hit the fan.
Even the schools are closed NOW !
151
Australia came very close to hosting the F1 Grand Prix. If it was not for the vocal and influential calls of the reigning world driver’s champion it is likely Melbourne would be the new “epicentre” of CV19 deaths.
Generally the west underestimated China’s ability to crush it. The arrogance and class system in the US health care will result in a very large death toll in the USA. There is a good chance it will cripple US armed forces. It is already infecting crew on an aircraft carrier.
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” The arrogance and class system in the US health care will result in a very large death toll in the USA”
Not to mention the comorbidities of an obese nation.
Still, it beats a slum in India with 700,000 people per square mile.
20
Australia DID host the F1 Grand Prix in all but name. They did everything except actually run the race. All the teams and hangers on came to Australia, including many people who flew in from Northern Italy (like Ferrari) without even cursory health checks.
They might as well have run the race (without spectators). They were all here already and the authorities did nothing to monitor them.
10
Much worse than ignorance. Pure incompetence. The saga with the “loose” ship is typical of many negligent moves taken by state and federal departments. Given our governments have been negligent on a number of fronts for years when we didn’t have a crisis is it any wonder they stuffed up big time now? In the armed forces they would be performing training exercise regularly to improve their processes. The rest of us need to do something similar. Certainly this pandemic crisis will force may to re-think a lot of things. We should take stock and learn from this. I doubt we will though but that’s due to another failing on the part of our politicians. They are clueless.
10
I don’t think that too many people here would disagree with the basic concept outlined, isolation and containment.
The Big concern is that when this shutdown ends there are going to be casualties outside of the CV19 area that don’t seem to be getting much thought from governments.
Consideration must be given to the maintenance of businesses and industry during the downturn to avoid an aftermath that has more heartbreak than the disease might have caused.
Problem is that politicians don’t seem to be able to think this through, it is possible.
KK
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I think Morrison’s hibernation idea is a good one.
Good grief, that’s the first time I given him a complement on this whole crisis !
81
I just got back from the supermarket.
At the checkout I asked for the bill to be “hibernated” but the manager said No.
The aftermath of this is going to be sad.
There’s a strong possibility that steel and aluminium smelters in Australia will shut permanently with the loss of several tens of thousands of jobs.
Scomo probably knows that there’s no such thing as Hibernation with this.
83
Not so sure…..China and its mess has shown us how vulnerable we are to relying on cheap globalist-supplied labour.
We need to reboot our manufacturing sector, here.
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“China and its mess has shown us how vulnerable we are to relying on cheap globalist-supplied labour”
Do you really believe that our politicians are going to act on that?
We need the existing industry and much more but the way this shutdown is headed we may end up down the drain.
40
Can I suggest you read ‘the road to somewhere’ by David Goodhart?
Basically there are two groups of people, the ‘nowhere’s ‘ who believe they are citizens of the world and endorse free borders, international travel at will and it doesn’t matter where things are made. Then you have the ‘somewheres’ rooted in their locality and proud of their nation.
That is essentially what brexit was about. As you would have seen from the gigantic tussle by the people with the state, the establishment, the global elite, they are very firmly nowhere’s who look down on the somewheres as parochial bigoted and idiotic,
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The second option is preferable but incomplete. There is a third and far more preferable and complete option. Each nation looks after itself and is as self-sufficient as possible but where it can’t be then they work with the rest of the word to make up for what they can’t do by themselves. Then everyone is happy and wars become unnecessary. When someone starts to make a fuss and tries to muscle in on a nation then the rest of the world jumps on them like a ton of bricks. Obviously such a proposal will never happen. I’m just dreaming.
20
The greens in NZ have long wanted the closure of our only smelter which has its electric power subsidised by the taxpayer.
The mayor of the affected district has been knighted so I’m presuming that closure is a done deal.
What will we do with all the renewable energy that would become available?
40
The knighthood is in hope of pushing him into retirement …
A mayor on the way to fossilization is not a pleasant aroma.
00
I’m thinking that too. Some businesses are difficult to shutdown and expensive to restart. If marginal and or old technology already, they won’t reopen.
But thats Ok, Jo will pay the wages from her tip jar….hmmmm.
Morrison is navigating this like goldilocks… Just right.
Not too hard, not too soft, flexible ramping and time for the masses to modify behaviours and play along instead of hoarding rabid panic.
Hmmm, porridge.!!!
00
Heartbreak from business collapses? I hope not. Problems yes but not on the scale of mass deaths like all the plagues of history kill 30% of the population we have to wear that cost.
And governments around the world are working furiously to make sure that doesn’t happen. And Banks. And landlords. You see we are all connected. If everyone is out of work, everything collapses anyway. Sure people might lose a few weeks rent but if they get an interest holiday, they can continue too.
Interest drives the modern world, an invention really banned by the Catholic church as the sin of usury. It was cursed by Elizabethans as the work of J*wish people and the basis of the Merchant of Venice. And in Italy, which is why J*wish people were banned also from Venice. It is still a sin in the m*slim world, which has held them back for hundreds of years and poses particular problems in hiding the fact of interest.
However if everyone stops paying and collecting rents for a few weeks. And paying government taxes. Largely businesses will start up again very quickly. Especially if their workers and clients are still alive and not at endless funerals.
I am hoping governments around the world work this one out. We are supposed to be the masters of money now. If we give each other a break on interest and taxes, there will be few problems, I hope.
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And for interest, there was an accommodation in Venice, the commercial capital after Florence. Bankers. J*wish people could come back on three conditions. Not to marry Italians. To be home before sunset. And to live on one island only, near the railway station. The name of the island? The Ghetto.
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They had railways in that time?
20
Of course. It was in Michael Portillo’s Bradshaws.
20
Truly amazing.
🙂
00
A nice concise read about testing kit, expertise, and processes, and what is missing at the moment.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/29/the-two-tests-that-will-help-to-predict-spread-of-covid-19
My local lock down (Inner/Outer London border territory) still improving things like air quality, quietness (no background noise), and ability to improve my creative writing process. There may be a good book from me coming soon, but please don’t hold your breaths …
Meanwhile control of my shopping trips (not in place last week when I had my good shop) not quite so helpful as it has not been thought through and may have made matters worse but we shall see.
20
In New York, most people are infected in the 18-44 age group.
https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/doh/downloads/pdf/imm/covid-19-daily-data-summary.pdf
50
Half under 50.
30
And what percentage of population is that?
Doug
00
And Venice was also devasted multiple times by the Black Death. As its principal business was the slave trade, it was the hardest hit. However hundreds of years before then, the first settlement was in 452 on another island called Torcello. Only a part of it remains. After the Black Death, on Torcello nearly everyone died in a plague of malaria and those who survived went to the other islands Murano, Burano or Venice.
All this is in the history books, but not the modern history. Even the cholera plagues of London and Melbourne. Fixed with good sanitation and especially sewerage. We are unused to dealing with plagues. This is our first real test. I am hopeful.
90
Yes Mitigation – what I called the ‘british disease’ but some , and as a Scot, may call it the “english disease”. I gave up on Statistics years ago: too much fakery to be of serious credible use – just look at the various opposing views generated by the Great and the Good of notoriously, whether corrupt or what can I say about political views, Universities. I listen to the Professors who State How & What will happen if… , not Could. ( I have a car that says 160mph on the Speedo – but on its own does nothing and with me in it does max around 100)
When you hear or see stuff about conspiracy theories – you Take Note … so now that our Boris is going to send EVERY HOUSEHOLD a letter to tell us what we already hear: that it’s a serious matter .. Yes going to cost US around £5 mill. to send the Postie to every Household -at a time when there’s been talk of a strike to do with being a vital service yet has to do door to door delivery of Junk Mail, this now. You couldn’t make it up except in Englandshire. AsI was saying -Conspiracy theories -Send a Letter to every household – from a sick PM or picked up on the way from someone else OR has a dose of some lethal antidote (ref stories about a certain WmGates and Sore-ass) enclosed. So to stay on the safe side, as a rural bumpkin with no grass to chew yet after a very difficult winter and no sign of spring yet. The Soil is so cold and wet and forecast frosts and wind will knock the stuffing out of our fruit tree blossoms.
All is part of the recipe for a Perfect Storm.NO Broadband Comms this morning fora while set the Alarm bells ringing. Winter storms bringing down the Power lines – no electric car Transportation and Supermarket Fresh food counters closed down – only Pre-packed (IN PLASTIC -Ohh Noses)
All I can say is as Big Joe does-Enjoy -it’s the only Life you’ve got – Stay safe
90
you gave up on statistics?
01
Yes -Kind of…. Who are they aimed at? Joe Blogz doesn’t always fully understand simple Maths, %’s, Fractions ,etc. Averages, Median, etc and so on. and of course a lot of people DO UNDERSTAND that Rubbish in =Rubbish out, NO?
Statistically I could have or should be /have done this , that or other…. but it didn’t happen. So which School of Economics, Medicine,Pathology,Politics or whatever did ‘you’go to? Understanding Statistics is one thing, having to live in the real world which as I have often said,is NOT a Model with Toys – WE are not TOYS. That’s the whole trouble with Politics/Governance in recent times …. they act on a model. WE as subjects have to have an appetite for COMPLIANCE …… think about it …. Police on the street when ALL YOU WANT is some Sunshine and Fresh air – been a Long winter since October not getting away from work ( No 10-12 week term time without a break in between – ask students how they feel at the end of it)
20
Live long and prosper
02
@Gee Aye and others: I do hope to live long, but whilst there are Clowns around who would “care to burn my firewood”, well who knowsabout prosperity.
AS for giving up on Statisics,
see for yourself: https://www.gov.scot/coronavirus-covid-19/
Scottish test numbers: 05 April 2020
‘ Please note: as highlighted by the First Minister today, these figures are not fully representative of developments this weekend as we continue to move to a new process for reporting deaths’ so what figures do I make my models from? … and so on it goes. … and further to that, the former Bank of England governor, Lord King had something to say, see https://www.melaniephillips.com/why-experts-make-disastrous-errors/
AND ALSO
the UK Gov (and others) are trying ( ie have no idea) methods. The man who tries methods, ignoring principles, is sure to have trouble.”
Read well and Understand Stay away, stay safe, stay secure.
00
I have little faith in the notion that we took action that turned us from 22.5% to 9% new infections (as a proportion of active) in the past ten days. We simply have not done enough for long enough to have such a slowing effect. So this will be lab and testing noise. It’s the weekend, when the weekend occurs the data trend gets noisy. Lab capacity falls as half the people take a day off, and the other half take the following day off. We still get data but the numbers are low-side, it just makes for a noisy confusing plot. The 7-day trend line is what we need to project because reality will be closer to it than to any daily result.
What the virus is really doing will be progressive, not abrupt. It’s not going to suddenly change direction, until it peaks, and we’re a long way from such a peak, particularly if it’s a shallow low peak. The 22.5% earlier in the week, plus our consistently being about #17th most infected country in the list suggests it won’t be a shallow peak. It also suggests that we’re not actually at +9%. For instance, yesterday it was 13.3%. It just isn’t going to change that much so this 9% is noise, the 13.3% probably is as well.
At best I would say we’re seeing the tail of the foreign infection sourcing, as the local infections ramp. Now is the time to go hard, and we just may manage to keep most hospitals functional if that is so, but even if the numbers are saying we are being effective I think it’s much more appropriate to presume the worst, and act that way until we’re absolutely certain there are no new cases. Because I think we’ll discover in a 7 to 10 days that we were never at 9%.
Italy has been at 9% for several days after dropping from 11.5%, but right now they are 10.84%. It’s not success, it’s just failing more slowly. We have achieved something only when the daily recoveries exceed the new cases, and that will be when the new cases we can detect as a proportion of active cases is more like less than 1%.
That’s when we’ll finally be getting somewhere and are doing things right.
80
How does locking people up in small flats with tightly shut windows with lots of family members of all ages do anything other than send the virus round to each in turn and make a bad matter worse?
This is all without even talking about the way it affects people’s physical, mental and financial situation nor the impact on their personal relationships
50
I give up Tony. The recommendations here are to not do that, 1 toilet and separate residence per ill case. OK if you’re single and childless. For a family the risk is going to be much higher.
10
Well said WX. Especially when we have experts that believe that 9% of 3,500 is less than 22.4% of 300.
00
What must it have been like when no one understood anything. Now if you go to the doctor, you can get a hundred different test. You know what is wrong, a prognosis and often a cure or just advice. Either way it is not matter of faith, but of science and facts.
But consider what would have happened in 1918 with the Spanish Flu.
And thanks to the advances in science, DNA, virology, chemistry and so much more, we can operate on viruses. While that is probably how this virus came to exist, it is also the means to deal with it. It is, after all, not alive and cannot live with a new host. Personally I would prefer to kill it dead by starving it of fresh meat. Then we do not need the innoculation unless it returns.
60
Would it be possible to starve it to death by locking everyone up at home? I doubt it. We would need to find a medicine that would kill it outright everywhere. That’s a tall order, more so than finding a cure or a vaccine. A cure would be nice. A vaccine the next best thing. Although I’m not one of those who are against all vaccines, the fewer we need to take the better.
30
In the first instance they would be looking for an off the shelf product that can minimise the ill effects by treating the symptoms.
Meanwhile they will be looking for a vaccine to give the world a breathing space, enough time to exterminate bats in China.
00
Hubei is the epicentre for ‘patient zero’ and they think bats passed it to an intermediary, which then gave the virus to humans.
https://www.livescience.com/first-case-coronavirus-found.html
00
Why do you doubt it? Really. Do you have an actual reason to doubt it?
A virus cannot live long outside a host. Most die within hours but some in the right conditions in shelter and on metal can live for up to three weeks maximum, if the surface is not cleaned.
And isolation means no more hosts and no more infected people means no more virus.
It came from somewhere. It can cease to exist.
A virus is chemical misinformation and passed from person to person. It’s only product it itself but it also will kill you because it needs you to cough or sneeze. If there is no one else to be infected, the virus ceases to exist. The host kills the virus or the virus kills the host. Either way the virus dies.
If you disagree with any of this, please explain.
11
Viruses don’t do very well if they kill their hosts. That’s not an absolute rule, but it’s a pretty good guideline. Public understanding of these things is about as simplistic as our understanding of statistics.
30
As with ‘the selfish gene’ and all humans and animals, the job is done when the gene is passed. What happens to the host is irrelevant after that. A female octopus dies. A female grasshopper bites the head off the male. Salmon make a mighty effort to swim against the current, lay eggs and die. The carrier becomes disposable.
Then are humans any different? They remain vital until they have borne, nurtured, taught, supported and defended their young and then a gene switch sends them into old age. That was not necessary but it does increase the food supply for the offspring.
The virus, if it was alive, could not care less what happens to us. The explosion in humans across the the planet in the last 70 years is unsustainable. Does the human gene care?
02
Yes a very good reason. It takes just one contagious person to emerge from the lock down to start spreading it all over again. Not everyone would have developed an immunity. Do you really think we will wipe out all traces of the virus in just a few weeks or months of isolation?
00
anti-virals are on the whole not very nice.
21
Never let a good crisis go to waste…
turn off your smart phone….
This is creepy.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-8125355/US-government-talks-Facebook-Google-track-coronavirus.html
“US government is ‘in talks with Facebook and Google’ about tracking the location of citizens using their smartphones during the coronavirus pandemic to ensure they are practicing social distancing
“The US government is talking to tech giants like Facebook and Google to see if users’ location data could help track and slow the spread of COVID-19.
“The data would be anonymous and could allow officials to see whether groups of people are keeping enough distance from each other.
“Officials wants to see if private-sector companies could compile the data in a way that would allow them to map the spread of the deadly virus.
“Data collected on users’ locations would be used to track patterns and groups, rather than monitor any single individual, according to a report by the Washington Post.
“We’re exploring ways that aggregated anonymised location information could help in the fight against COVID-19,’ said Johnny Luu from Google in a statement.
“‘One example could be helping health authorities determine the impact of social distancing, similar to the way we show popular restaurant times and traffic patterns in Google Maps.
“He said any partnership with the government ‘would not involve sharing data about any individual’s location, movement, or contacts.’
“Jon Crowcroft, the creator of FluPhone, an app designed to track the flu in the UK, said it is possible to use anonymized data to track COVID-19.
“‘The health protection agencies could use it to populate anonymized map data, which might help reduce transmission,’ Crowcroft told Wired.
“This would allow researchers to find out ‘how long the virus survives on a surface, what fraction of the population are asymptomatic carriers, and where to target critical medical resources.’
30
Sounds like B.S. and the response should be No, No and No.
On top of the escape by twenty or thirty doctors and medical staff from Australian Customs and Border Security, this would be just another insult.
KK
20
I’d seen videos of US data companies who appeared to “harvest” the IMEI numbers of phones of uni students on spring break on Florida beaches, and they then followed these IMEI numbers across the USA to see where the phones wound up and whether cov19 clusters developed as a result.
So in terms of privacy, clearly this data can be acquired by companies, but the tracking bit is creepy.
I’d also heard rumours of 5G being rolled out across chunks of the US – while everyone is safely locked in their homes out of the way, so this might happen potentially unreported.
Just wondering what is coming next? 5G has the ability to pinpoint phone locations….its enough to want to “go bush” and stay there.
https://www.fastcompany.com/90314058/5g-means-youll-have-to-say-goodbye-to-your-location-privacy
Can apps spoof IMEI numbers and GPS locations? Just wondering…..
20
Simply won’t work.
20
But wait…now Australia is kite flying on it…and if we think its temporary..think again….
No no no…No!
Wrap your phone in 2 layers of aluminium foil ( cooking alfoil )…..DIY faraday cage….
Job done.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-30/coronavirus-track-infection-spread-mobile-phone-technology/12101960
“But could telecommunications technology offer a more targeted approach to controlling the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus?
“One possibility is to use location history data from the mobile phones of confirmed cases, to help track and trace the spread of infection.
“Some people can be contagious without knowing, either because they have not yet developed symptoms, or because their symptoms are mild. These individuals cannot be identified until they become sufficiently unwell to seek medical assistance.
“Finding them more quickly could help curb the spread of the disease.
“This suggestion clearly raises complex privacy issues.
“All mobile service providers in Australia are required to hold two years of data relating to the use of each mobile phone on their network, including location information.
“For anyone who tests positive with COVID-19, this data could be used to list every location where they (or, more accurately, their phone) had been over the preceding few weeks.
Yep..and I doubt it will stop there….
A proper court order and warrant, maybe.
10
I rarely take the phone outside, it’s a pest. I usually turn it off if not home or asleep. So this won’t track me as the smartphone is a replacement landline plus a data tether. I have a 34 inch monitor and can’t stand reading the phone. For those addicted to smartphones it might assist, but I bet a lot of people don’t carry a phone.
00
I had one of the first smartphones around 2007 but after a couple of years decided it added nothing to my life except constant interruptions. We also refused a smart meter. So hopefully we can neither be tracked nor have our power switched off by big govt
50
(Peculiar how I feel almost an obsessive inclination to washing down my computer)
Not being expert at epidemiology I can’t criticise nor add much to the conversation.
However, Australia seems to be a lot further into heavy mitigation path than this paper puts the USA and Britain, tho’ Boris seems on the move.
Am I wrong in saying Australia’s main deficiency – forgetting PPE for the moment – is, we are not active enough in the full testing of the population
to find the degree of infection in the community, remembering that until a few days ago it seemed such testing took days between sampling and getting
results. Daily charting of diagnosis shows such rapid rates of increase as to then render such testing a bit useless one would think. Also, in these
early stages the population sampled need not be the one currently infective.
Things have moved quickly in the testing stakes, with both testing for the virus and antibodies seem to have already been condensed in time to a couple of days
for the antibody results and a few minutes for the antigen test.
We seem to be chasing down contacts as best we can but the evidence is that many in the population are not serious enough to self isolate, even in these
cases. Even worse are the ones found infected and infectious that don’t take it seriously. The nation is suffering from the initial gospel that youths
don’t get much sick, if at all. Full quarantine in official holding sites would probably be overwhelmed fairly quickly. Then there is the matter of actually
servicing the quarantined. Home isolation – hospital – ICU for the patently very sick. WA has already stopped regional travels.
Having already disrupted the economy, unlike South Korea, we may as well go for broke for a few weeks with chasing down and testing the maybe infected, their contacts
and people living around the few infected individuals we know of particularly if they are concentrated or travellers. Once that’s been done for a couple of
weeks perhaps we could then look at the lie of the land and slowly get businesses back to opening their doors while holding on to the block on concentrated big gatherings
a little longer.
The bottom line of that paper seems to say we may not have been able to do the China welding of doors to keep people in, but we could have done the South Korean thing
without shutting down the economy but instead chase down infected and contacts. The question I have is, how come South Korea had so many test kits ready to go while we
seem to have had almost none.
PS Just Had a friend whose offspring runs a pub on the Mornington Pen. She says the coffee shops and pubs are full down there!!!!! Not taking it seriously is obviously the
understatement of the year.
50
Remember how just 3 days back there were only 23 serious/critical cases listed, and 87 deaths in Germany?
As of now it’s 1,581 serious/critical and 455 dead.
Overwhelmed hospitals and growing dead numbers are much less ambiguous indicators.
70
Yes I was surprised at their complacency as inherently there was no reason for them to buck the trends of their neighbours
20
“On Modelling: It’s still wrong. These are estimated projections, based on assumptions and incomplete information. But data from nations all over the world already shows the trends and patterns are correct. The nations that got on top of things fast are already doing the dance — like South Korea and Taiwan. The nations that tried the slow bleed reactive approach have had catastrophic outcomes (if not in actual total death – its been measured in disruption and pain, and we have not even tried to count the collateral losses).”
The trouble is that people have become too reliant on experts, and lost touch with common sense, the blindingly obvious.
Dealing with threats like this virus isn’t complicated, but you do need to act decisively.
Experts, their opinions (often wrong) and egos and disagreements and processes and procedures and worse-than-guesswork ‘models’, the whole consultation process, it is all just too damn slow.
40
According to the Age, there are two camps in the federal, and national cabinets. One camp is advocating the hammer, but the larger group likes mitigation. That is why we are seeing half measures, and even those change on a daily basis. You can have a hair cut, but not get your nails done. You are limited to gatherings of 2, unless you go to school, then it can be 30 or more. Testing kits, masks and sanitiser are scarcer than toilet paper. We now have the army on the streets. So much for civil liberties
60
Peter, I think our civil liberties are being pretty well looked after. They are the third matter
after the disease and the economy that are being considered. They are also one of the
problems that make taming this epidemic so difficult. The army is not on the street
to control general disorder. It is called out to assist where needed, and yes it is bolstering an
overstretched police force. No doubt if may also be called upon to build field hospitals if
necessary. It’s all hands to the wheel at the moment, even to the extent of calling retired
doctors and nurses back to work, and no doubt the same will happen anywhere that the need arises.
And this is just early days yet.
40
Early days yet.
Yep.
But where is the Hydroxychloroquine? Where’s the Australian discussion about its efficacy?
The evidence is mounting that it is not only an effective cure but also a strong prophylactic.
Went and had my flu shot last Thursday. Might have been a good thing. Might not. We’ll see (the usual reaction that I get is building at the moment).
My doctor said they had no HCQ and asked what the dosage was for CV-19. They had no masks either.
Where are the masks?
The chemist (pharmacist), next door to the medical practice, advised me he had no HCQ either and asked why I was asking. They were all wearing masks and changing them every three hours. But none for sale.
Something is seriously wrong here.
40
Haven’t you heard? Our masks among other items have been shipped to China weeks ago in huge quantities. I call it theft on a mass scale. At least it’s now banned and is a criminal offence. It should have been made retrospective.
40
Or making sure your “opposition” is sufficiently knobbled….
10
Perhaps. Alternatively, they might have tried their best to stop the virus from spreading and kept it secret to avoid the rest of the world from finding out what happened. Typical communist behaviour. They failed to realise it would have been better for everyone if they were open and honest about it and warned the world back around December last year. Of course honesty and openness goes contrary to them. It is however incumbent of the rest of the world to inform China in no uncertain terms they grow up and not do it again. There will undoubtedly be future similar outbreaks. We can’t afford any more of these, at least in the short to medium term.
30
Tweet byStephen McIntyre@ClimateAudit
·
… ‘that’s good enough for me. I don’t want any more dithering from public health authorities. I say that they’ve got enough to go on to mandate hydroxychloroquine (plus zinc or Z-pac) right now and, if the clinical trials bust, then they can cancel it.
Stephen McIntyre
@ClimateAudit
·
…’given the low cost and low risk of hydroxychloroquine and the insane explosion of caseload, the onus on health authorities is reversed. Unless they can show that hydroxychloroquine has negative consequences, it should be used.
20
But to have good serfs, you need absolute power over the population.
Right now this “emergency” gives them that.
Why would they want to cut it short?
20
In relation to civil liberties – we have had the restrictions slapped on us, the army is patrolling the streets, the police have the power to fine you for walking around with 2 other people. Did you agree to that? When were you asked?
52
Don’t be silly man. Nobody ever asked me if I wanted to live in a zoo , so that tourists could come and see the inhabitants.
20
‘Did you agree to that? When were you asked?’
Our state and federal representatives (the ones we have chosen in democratic elections) have decided for us.
30
I think you miss the point el gordo. There has to be a declaration of emergency of some sort, and most of the States have made that a public health declaration, but not the Federal Government – that is why Mr Morrison stressed that it was up to the states to enforce the 2 person rule. So we have a Federal Stricture, but it is implemented at the State’s benevolence. The Fed should also declare an emergency, and they are going to bottle it, which is the anthisis of what Jo would like to see enacted (and the reason for this post)
So without that declaration, your rights are being stripped by the State gov’s, while the fed calls the tune – which is a classic authoritarian ploy. The fact that it is not being discussed is a major cause for concern.
As to the ‘but they are our elected reps’ argument, when did your rep ask you, or your electorate about this proposed cause of action, or explain to you what the declaration would mean – again a classic Authoritarian ploy
01
I think you miss the point el gordo. There has to be a declaration of emergency of some sort, and most of the States have made that a public health declaration, but not the Federal Government – that is why Mr Morrison stressed that it was up to the states to enforce the 2 person rule. So we have a Federal Stricture, but it is implemented at the State’s benevolence. The Fed should also declare an emergency, and they are going to bottle it, which is the anthisis of what Jo would like to see enacted (and the reason for this post)
So without that declaration, your rights are being stripped by the State gov’s, while the fed calls the tune – which is a classic authoritarian ploy. The fact that it is not being discussed is a major cause for concern.
As to the ‘but they are our elected reps’ argument, when did your rep ask you, or your electorate about this proposed cause of action, or explain to you what the declaration would mean – again a classic Authoritarian ploy
01
You can take a line through the last time I was asked.
“There will be no Carbon (Dioxide) tax under a government that I lead”.
Remember?
20
Got nothing to do with civil liberties PF, so don’t politicise.
00
The diverging strains are interesting, I have assumed for the last two weeks there were two distinct strains the Chinese strain and the Iranian strain, so far we seem to have the less aggressive Chinese strain but Iran, Italy, Spain and New York seem to have the more aggressive Iranian strain. This makes sense as Italy is a favoured destination for Iranians and Italians have cultural links with Spain and New York.
The big concern for us is we also have strong cultural ties to Italy, especially Melbourne. Did the aggressive strain make it to Melbourne before the boarders were closed?
And can we now make a vaccine or will it be like the Flu where you need to be vaccinated each season for the new identified strains? Or worst like the common cold where there are hundreds of strains that you can never vaccinate for?
But the probability is it will develop like influenza, the first strain, Spanish flu was so deadly it killed itself off, only the mild mutations survived. So maybe in a year or two it will just be another group of common cold viruses, which is what it started out as.
21
I caught a piece in the Daily Mail last night Oz time bearing on this. Chaps at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF, the single branch that’s a research med school only), Charles Chiu. He says that they have discovered 8 strains of virus. All are infectious, none noticeably less so, and all may kill.
But, more significantly, the virus appears relatively stable. Therefore a single vaccine can be made, and a seasonal one like influenza will not be required.
If so, this is good news. Easier to hit a single target than a moving one!
00
You’re an optimist. There are about half a dozen corona viruses which infect humans other than the big-bad Covid-19. The result is a “common cold.” You have probably had all of those six viruses more than six times each during your lifetime. Because they keep changing so fast and so much, your immunity from when you last caught a particular virus in that pack just didn’t work and you caught it again to become immune to it for another few years.
Now there is a new (Novel) one on the block.
00
I caught a piece in the Daily Mail last night Oz time bearing on this. Chaps at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF, the single branch that’s a research med school only), Charles Chiu. He says that they have discovered 8 strains of virus. All are infectious, none noticeably less so, and all may kill.
But, more significantly, the virus appears relatively stable. Therefore a single vaccine can be made, and a seasonal one like influenza will not be required.
If so, this is good news. Easier to hit a single target than a moving one!
20
The Army is supposed to be on the streets Pete, it’s an integral part of a State of emergency. We see them regularly after severe cyclones, same for the bush fires. Nothing new, when they’re on the streets things generally go better, people realize it’s not a normal situation so they behave better and become more constructive. They will earn their pay this year.
100
The army on the streets augurs well for Anzac commemorations.
What’s your problem Fritz?
10
Woopsie. Jungian slip. 🙂
10
Dr John Campbell’s latest 20 minute video has a section about Australia.
With a video from a nurse in Melbourne providing her view form the inside of our medical system.
Sweden is a basket case !
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsce2GLH_Dw
40
At risk of aggravating the resident Sinophile here, China is at it again. Nothing learned.
The “wet markets” have reopened to celebrate the end of coronavirus with business as usual, complete with bats, cats, blood and entrails strewn about. Dog and cat are the big sellers because they are “warming” meats. Get yours quickly before the next plague strikes.
https://www.michaelsmithnews.com/2020/03/disgusting-chinese-live-animal-markets-reopen-selling-bats-from-blood-soaked-floorscats-dogs-and-oth.html
70
Developed countries simply need to organize an indefinite boycott of targeted Chinese goods worldwide until the CCP pledges and enacts cultural reforms against CTM and wet markets.
It can’t be allowed to continue, especially with the damn bats!!
All the CCP would need to do is severely fine anyone selling bats or bat derived products and offer a reward for snitch citizens who can get camera.video footage of a particular vendor or individual partaking in such a trade.
The world cannot allow this to continue.
30
Never!
No snitches in Communist China. It would be unCommunistic for people to snitch on each other.
Ask the Confucius Centres at our universities, if you want corroboration.
30
To be honest I would not feed a dog with some of the stuff they sell over there. Unless China and several other Asian nations change their dietary habits there will always be new virus outbreaks. One might eventually come along and kill billions. It’s only a matter of time.
20
I think look closer to a lab than a market as the source of this thing….this thing is too good at what it does to be natually occurring imho…
10
and in America, are you proposing to ban deer hunting?
https://www.cdc.gov/prions/cwd/index.html
01
No. Peter, you have to eat infected meat or contact body fluids to catch CWD. It is not transmissible to others, just like Creutzfeldt-Jacob or Mad Cow or Kuru amongst the cannibals. It cannot start a pandemic, so your point is what exactly?
I do favour a ban on cannibalism however.
20
Firstly my point is that every culture includes hunting. To Say China is bad is to ignore that.
01
Yes, but we’re talking the source of pandemics, not hunting rabbits or deer on the weekend. China doesn’t hunt. This is wildlife farmed under appalling conditions, and the authorities encouraged these wildlife farms as a get rich scheme for the peasants.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/feb/25/coronavirus-closures-reveal-vast-scale-of-chinas-secretive-wildlife-farm-industry
They now think farmed pangolins were the intermediate host between bats and humans for this virus, as farmed civet cats were for SARS. You couldn’t design a more conducive environment for pathogen cross-over between species than a Chinese wet market with a multitude of different species crammed together in tiny squalid cages, one on top of the other. We have every reason to criticise such behaviour on a number of grounds.
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/coronavirus-pangolins-may-have-spread-the-disease-to-humans#A-99%-DNA-match
In the US you’re more likely to catch Lyme Disease out hunting deer than you are to catch CWD. It also has endemic Bubonic Plague in its wild rodent populations. Squirrels are heavily hunted in some areas yet are a major host. If the BP crosses over into urban rats then the big rat-infested cities on the east and west coasts are in huge trouble.
As you know, bats are critical for our forest ecosystems, but they are also a furry mass of viruses that we need to steer clear of. These admirable Aussie carers for baby orphaned flying foxes, who are vaccinated for one or two bat diseases, are playing with fire when bats carry dozens and dozens of viruses yet unknown to the human immune system. I’m of two minds about the carers’ activities.
00
An interesting article including how Covid-19 death stats simply will likely to never be comparable to other respiratory virus death stats. In fact, it’s an incredible way of determining cause of death in the UK. Making Italy’s method something of the standard method to grossly distort past reality.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-8163587/PETER-HITCHENS-Great-Panic-foolish-freedom-broken-economy-crippled.html
80
Good post.
Been concerned about this: a conflation of ideas and memes that is used to justify this Ultimate Political Solution.
The Shutdown.
I live in fear of this poorly implemented Shutdown where Political and Academic and Media hubs come out the other side without a scratch while the rest of us try to locate the remains of a torn, trampled and dislocated society.
Beware of Politicians carrying Magic Puddings.
KK
61
Many people will die with coronavirus. But this does not mean that they died of it.
31
Many people will die with coronavirus. But this does not mean that they died of it.
21
Can someone please explain:
1. I have severe lung problems. If I die from pneumonia after getting influenza, have I died from the lung problem of the ‘flu?
2. I have a severe lung problem and die from pneumonia after contracting Coronavirus, have I died from pneumonia or from the Coronavirus?
My understanding is that most that have died have died from chronic illnesses and their condition deteriorated because of the Coronavirus. A similar outcome would have resulted from a severe bout of flu.
10
Can someone please answer this. I suspect it is a common dilemma in cases of death with multiple contributing factors.
00
The French have replicated the initial results this time in 80 patients
https://www.mediterranee-infection.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/COVID-IHU-2-1.pdf
50
Thanks Eliza,
Not being a medico I found it heavy going, but picked out two sections which may be of general interest.
…
The study was completed over three weeks just this month:
” A total of 80 patients with confirmed COVID-19 were hospitalised at the Méditerranée Infection University Hospital Institute (N=77) and at a temporary COVID-19 unit (N=3) with dates of entry from 3–21 March 2020. All patients who received treatment with hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin (16) for at least three days and who were followed-up…” (Page 9)
…
and the graphs and tables start on page 20. Fascinating and compelling results.
Cheers
Dave B
00
Great article Jo.
Very happy to have quality information I can send to relatives and friends who are still finding it hard to come to grips with the gravity of this crisis.
Pray for India … I predict that the virus and the collateral damage to India will be unforeseen in world history.
Even if India wanted to perform the Hammer properly, it has a peculiar mix of demographic, class, economic and health system issues which have primed it for a situation where not even managed chaos will be possible. If this does unfold, there will be a big case for China paying reparations to repair India which is in many ways China’s largest economic rival as their global economic functions target the exact same sectors as China. What a great way to destroy your economic competition? Even if accidental, it’s still going to create massive dissent within the BRICS nations if India goes down in this fashion at the hand of China.
60
The worry in India is probably not at the endless distributed village level, but the big cities like Delhi in particular. Still India has not had the mass exodus to megacities though like China where 40% of the people have left the country to go to the entirely new giant cities. Shanghai alone is 37 million people and there are many cities between 10 and 20 million. So I hope isolation is easier for the bulk of the population in India. And that the very dry and much higher temperatures are helpful as always in killing viruses and stopping contagion. There is simply not the rapid movement. The trains though are a real concern. Social distancing on trains is impossible but I wonder how crowded they would be without unnecessary travel and businesses shut? What would India be like for six weeks if the trains stopped? We will probably find out.
40
Have you been watching the video coming out of India over the last day?
It’s total chaos.
41
No. Where would I see this? As at the start of this, you see very different video when you are out of Australia.
11
There was a news report on SkyNews this morning about India, massive migrations across multiple closed state borders, close crowds almost stampeding, no social distancing at all. The police had no hope. Spread there will approximate the “do nothing” result.
40
Please supply the links for these videos
20
One of the perplexing anomalies with the data in relation to Australia is the very low level of serious cases relative to the active cases. In Australia if I’m not mistaken we have tested approx 180,000 people and have around 4000 positive cases of which some have recovered and 16 have died. Of the approx 3700 active cases only 23 are serious approx .7%. Presumably only people who are serious require an ICU so with those sorts of figures you would need approximately 280,000 people testing positive before the hospitals 2000 bed capacity overloads. Seeing that we have plans to go to 4000 beds that would require 560,000 people to test positive. To make it even more unlikely based on the people tested and the rate of positives and negatives we would need to test 25,000,000 people of which 24,400,000 would not have the virus. There is nothing to suggest that based on the positive/ negative rate on testing , death rate and serious rate on active cases it is impossible that our hospitals will be swamped in the next two weeks.
The argument seems to be that we are heading down the Italy path but besides the fact that Italy may have demographic and health issues that have caused a great acceleration of the spread there is nothing about our data that suggests we are heading down Italy’s path. Australia and Italy recorded there first positive tests on Feb 15 yet where Italy went to and where we’ve gone are poles apart.
Italy may have had the virus spreading before that but either way our situation and Italy’s are comparable in terms of when the existence of the virus first became evident.
I suspect that my assumptions may underestimate the real situation as time goes on but it does suggest that the worst case scenario which politicians base their policies on is not based on data in relation to Australia .
My suspicion is that whether it’s the climate, the type of strain that’s here or the overall health of the people together with the steps taken already that Australia is unlikely to be confronted with some of the issues that are evident elsewhere and as that becomes clearer we may well be in a position to get back to some normalcy quicker than people expect.
Put this in perspective even though we are 18 th in terms of active cases , we 39th in terms of deaths , and 35th in terms of serious cases yet we have tested a lot more people per capita than most other nations.
When it comes to Global warming we always state that we need to compare the data to the models and whilst it’s not totally accurate because of disruptive actions taken so far ,at least as far as I can see data for most countries is falling way short of the alarmist numbers that have been modelled. I know that at the end of this ,and the actual number of deaths comes in at say 100,000 or even 200,000 when this is compared with the flu which according to WHO kills between 290,000and 650,000 each year everyone will congratulate themselves for having averted an even bigger disaster. Whether the measures which have destroyed the global economies were worthwhile we will never know because in reality the ‘ let the virus spread and carry on like normal ‘ placebo doesn’t exist. Whilst experts have recommended a scorched earth approach we will never really know whether this was indeed the right approach. If as I fear the global economic damage caused may assist China to increase its global influence we may in the end regret the actions we took.
Jo, can you please explain to me why my interpretation of the data and my conclusions are wrong.
90
President Trump just added gun shops to the List of Businesses Permitted to Operate under Covid-19 Crisis.
Smart move.
Here, there and everywhere a rush to buy seeds, especially vegetables.
As the man said: “the only thing to fear is fear itself” and the Covid Cops.
22
Smart move. At least armed citizens can be deputized by local law enforcement if needed.
30
Does anyone know if the 23 people with a serious case of Carona are being treated with Hydroxychloroquine? Or are there typical Australian bureaucracies at work preventing its use?
30
I’ve been searching for an answer to that kentfc.
It’s a piece of information that needs to be provided, especially to the medicos.
If I find out, I’ll post it.
20
From the article: “Then, we will get more and more freedoms back.”
But will we?
20
Of course not.
20
Celeste Solum – “COVID-19: Disruption By Design – The One World Government Cometh” – Update 3/27/20 – YouTube
Watch sooner rather than later in case it is taken down.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ESBl3GTbTo
12
Yes…
Problem….Reaction…Solution
Gordon Brown in the UK was spriuking “temporary” world govt…..ha ha…temporary…yeah like fun….
Like temporary Patriot Act & TSA etc etc
They are idiots.
30
Celeste Solum ‘disruption by design’, I found this video all rather vague, conspiritorial, and altogther unbelievable.
GeoffW
10
Oh dear God, if you think legislation can somehow fix reality then best of luck.
Go sit with the climate alarmist squad.
Nature and reality always win. Period.
Grab your popcorn and sit back and watch reality unfold.
50
A document by the Carlos III public health institute which EL PAÍS has seen took recent civil registry death records and compared them with the average number of deaths in Spain’s regions since 2008, finding significant surges in deaths in Madrid, Castilla-La Mancha and Castilla y León during this month of March. Yet many of those deaths, even when coronavirus symptoms were present, did not get added to the national tally because no formal test was ever conducted on the victims.
Regional governments only notify the Health Ministry about a coronavirus death if the patient was previously tested and the test came back positive, said two health officials at two regional governments. “This leaves out many people who died in residences or in their own homes, and who were never tested,” said one of these sources.
This means that the figures offered daily by Simón, the health emergency coordination chief, are only providing a partial picture of the true extent of the pandemic.
https://english.elpais.com/spanish_news/2020-03-28/coronavirus-death-toll-in-spain-reaches-5690-but-real-figure-could-be-higher.html
40
That is likely the case in China as well. They were like Spain where the military are going into accommodation blocks and dragging out the dead.
Once people do not make it to hospital for a test, even the death statistics are no longer reliable.
There is a growing view that Australia has over-reacted. I hope that remains the view.
However before the clamps are lifted Australia needs to have comprehensive testing in place. Weekly testing of any medical professional coming in contact with potential carriers. Anyone incoming form overseas to be tested and quarantined until the results are in.
Australia is slowly amassing an immune base without much down side. Australian health care is world class. The Alfred debacle is probably due to the one area of the hospital always being stressed out and lack of test kits.
40
I call BS
this is this guys bio
Tomas Pueyo
2 MSc in Engineering. Stanford MBA. Ex-Consultant. Creator of viral applications with >20M users. Currently leading a billion-dollar business @ Course Hero
34
So, is it your view, that nobody should undertake analysis on this Chinese virus, unless they’re medically trained? Is that it?
10
There is some reason to regret we have given up on educating our young.
This scourge can be beaten.
Civilization can persist. Our economies can survive.
The only barrier is governance.
In the US, it is possible, on the one biggest issue, we see intelligence. Ignore everyone who heretofore has made an ill-gotten
living as a political scrivener, and consider what Ms.Nova has said. The Hammer is the only tool that works.
The US had a President who made his chops pushing the economy, above all else.
The opposition of the left, as everyhere, pushed government control, and “science” above all else.
The President, earlier that one would have believed possible, shut down the US to a degree one would not have believed possible.
We’ll still lose a lot of folks. We’ll still take a hit. But it looks like only our few most difficult urban areas will be overwhelmed;
this because they were overwhelmed before this started. Beds in a convention center is the stuff bad movies are made of, but they are beds
and they are staffed and the industrial machine is gearing up to supply them….and it looks like the center will hold. We will lose tens of
thousands, but probably not lose control, and probably not lose our freedoms.
And, as an economy is based mostly on confidence and trust….with the physical plant intact it will recover…..and probably ve producing balls out for month and shipping to the
rest of the world where the contagion may be lagging.
The reason to regret not educating our young is to fear they have not the tools to learn the proper lessons.
Adam Smith gives a better reason for the hammer than Karl Marx, and better tools for the recovery.
People should have understood that it was in their self interest to stay home for two weeks.
Why is this so hard.
People should understand fiat money, and that in a crisis, with popular will, a new fiat can make things work very well.
There has always been a reason that frontier banks were fast and loose, and big city banks stuffy and tight.
Economies have recovered, and quickly, from the total devastation of war, or natural disaster.
But know this.
The world, when this is over, with controlled damage or unmitigated disaster, can recover.
But it will not see a Marshall Plan from the government of Communist China. Their markets are open again?
A phrase from nearly a century ago comes to mind.
Quarantine the Aggressor.
60
I doubt anything like a Marshall plan will be needed. There is nothing wrong with stopping everything for a few weeks.
After WWII, scores of major cities in Europe and Japan were non existent. Dockyards, railway yards, city buildings. Cities like Berlin were just rubble. 30% of London was also destroyed. And in Spain, whole cities like Guernica were obliterated from the preceding civil war. In Russia, 30,000 villages no longer existed and cities like Stalingrad, Kharkov, Sebastopol, Warsaw were wiped off the map. It is amazing anything survived and Russia put the German POWs to work rebuilding what they had destroyed, like Sebastpol. There will be no such devastation anywhere. Not a single building, street, pipeline, tree or dog will be affected.
It is likely you have only to tell people they can go back to work and they will be there the next day. And the machinery will roar back into life. Why not?
And there will be endless innovations to cope but I suspect the major concept will be debt forgiveness. Landlords cannot charge for real estate which was unusable. They and householders cannot pay taxes which were uncollectable. And the biggest one, government taxation, will have to have a holiday too. That’s all. There will be fine detail and the hole in incomes should match the hole in expenses. Everyone just went home.
And the US government alone is pump priming with $2Trillion dollars. Even if it’s their own money, there are millions to be made getting back to work.
41
“The President, earlier that one would have believed possible, shut down the US to a degree one would not have believed possible.”
The shut-down has been done by governors. That’s why it’s uneven, with about half the states being more shut-down than the rest. However, it’s true that Trump has gone along with the trend less reluctantly than previously seemed likely.
00
all the latest news and data https://worldcoronavirus.org/
10
I see, according to your link, the serious cases in australia remains at 23. Interesting.
10
Yep! And yet with that great news, our stock market is the biggest chick sh*t one on the planet and has collapsed back 8 years worth of gains. Even the US has only gone back 3 years.
10
Yep! And yet with that great news, our stock market is the biggest chicken sh*t one on the planet and has collapsed back 8 years worth of gains. Even the US has only gone back 3 years.
01
Lack of testing of quarantined people puts their health at risk, because even the asymptomatic course of the disease can cause lung changes that can be seen when scanning.
50
There is no chance that this virus can be contained now, and there will be a very bad period where lock down produces economic ruin alongside high death rates (mainly older people with bad health anyway). The virus will mutate and is in places with rudimentary healthcare so will spread like wildfire. It will come back in waves like the Spanish Flu. We will need to build up immunity to it and unfortunately suffer the consequences. The worst thing we can do now is panic. A short term lock down strategy only makes sense if you use the time to build up health care to mitigate what surely will be distresssing times. Otherwise it is a waste of time as the virus will arrive sometime and the worst thing you can do is have a wrecked economy and a pissed off population with no immunity when it does. Sorry Jo, the suggestion that this can be defeated in a short period of time by strict quarantine is wishful thinking IMHO. We need to build immunity and move on.
20
Agree with the general idea there but it should be possible to find a better option than either the Complete Lockdown proposed here or the Completely Business as Usual approach.
The hard lockdown may kill an already precarious society.
Surely there’s a middle path where greater awareness, masks and distancing can enable most of our lives to continue.
Home detention has a lot of drawbacks.
KK
20
Masks you say?
Masks?
They’re as rare as ventilators and test kits and ICU beds and TP and hand sanitizer.
20
The death of millions?
Sounds like a green-renewables wet dream, which is exactly where our current political ‘leaders’ mental space is at.
Anyone in current leadership who has muttered insane dreams of preventing/controlling weather with a windmill needs to be relieved of their post immediately or it won’t end well.
60
Social distancing (really physical distancing) is just one way to reduce the rate of infection and lower the number of people that need to enter into the medical system requiring ventilators etc.
There are a lot of other measures that everybody can take to help, effectively you can (for example) work on your immune system to lower your risk. If you don’t get infected then you don’t require the hospital. Multiply that by many people and you reduce the overall load on the health care system.
MedCram has an excellent video discussing this with some suggestions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqKwAIIy-Mo&list=PLQ_IRFkDInv-NvRRUN0aqe51sMs188k8z&index=4&t=0s
10
All good advice and graphics but it’s missing much smaller tunnels holding us back from overcoming the virus sooner rather than later. There are massive shortages of the various medicines that might help increase our immune system, masks, gloves, hand sanitisers, etc..
20
Officially, Chinese authorities have reported over 2,000 deaths in Wuhan, where the virus first emerged. However, experts and locals have long been skeptical of China’s official figures, in light of Beijing’s initial coverup of the outbreak; Wuhan’s overstretched health system, which meant that many people had been unable to receive testing and treatment; and several changes to the way infections were officially counted.
https://www.theepochtimes.com/thousands-of-ash-urns-at-wuhan-funeral-home-fuel-further-skepticism-of-chinas-virus-death-toll_3288573.html
20
In a 2004 study of the coronavirus that causes sars, a cousin of the one that causes covid-19, a team from Hong Kong found that a higher initial load of virus—measured in the nasopharynx, the cavity in the deep part of your throat above your palate—was correlated with a more severe respiratory illness. Nearly all the sars patients who came in initially with a low or undetectable level of virus in the nasopharynx were found at a two-month follow-up to be still alive. Those with the highest level had a twenty- to forty-per-cent mortality rate. This pattern held true regardless of a patient’s age, underlying conditions, and the like. Research into another acute viral illness, Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, reached a similar conclusion: the more virus you had at the start, the more likely you were to die.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/04/06/how-does-the-coronavirus-behave-inside-a-patient#intcid=recommendations_the-new-yorker-right-rail-popular_76a391d4-37a2-4c91-930e-6ff215e3e29e_popular4-1
40
Our federal government keeps saying we will not follow the UK system but an Australian system to help and support financially all those who have lost their jobs and many more to come. Perhaps I’m misreading them but it appears they are being stingy. People’s lives are more important than balancing budgets at the moment. We’ll see soon enough what the next relief package contains. It better be good.
01
Early days, but seems the exponential growth of the virus in Australia has been halted, or at least paused.
Last 7 days, number of new cases: 328; 370; 380; 379; 371; 460; 344, total cases 3984.
Previous 7 days: 79; 78; 113; 142; 138; 225; 280 – a doubling every 3 days.
And deaths in Australia since March 1: 1,0,0,1,0,0,1,0,0,0,0,0,0,2,0,0,1,1, 0,0,0,1,3,2,0,1 total 14.
We appear to be on a similar track to South Korea, but they have had 152 deaths from 9,583 cases with double Australia’s population.
Compare that with Spain, 6,802 deaths since March 1, with 80,000 cases, just under double Australia’s population.
30
You are right, it’s early days. Need to wait another week or so to have a better idea of the trend.
20
2/3 of the reported infections are from people arriving in Australia.
So I believe new infections are from the tens of thousands of returning travelers, we are seeing linear, not exponential. Exponential occurs when each infected person infects say two people.
The question is then whether the other 1/3 of infections and whether there are pockets of unreported and presumably rapid infection.
My conclusion is that there is almost no free infection occurring if the daily number of infections is dropping.
That is not unexpected but still an amazing feat in a short time. Possibly because Australia is an island and every single arrival is monitored. And certainly due to the incredible response of 99% of Australians and a testament to the fact that Australians are driven by television, mobile phone and the internet. We are watching with horror what is happening in Italy and Spain. It is enough to scare everyone except the invulnerables. So it is good that there is the occasional piece on young survivors.
If reinfection rate drops to zero, the virus will cease to exist in Australia. That is the aim. This is the hammer blow.
90
Our location in SE Melbourne has next to no traffic in the evening and maybe 10% of normal through the day. The vast majority of people are staying isolated.
When Trump suggested that NY should be locked down to prevent an exodus from there spreading to other regions, the Governor stated it would be an act of war. Very different to what is happening in Australia.
Things that will appear dumb in Australia on the other side will be the statewide elections in QLD; allowing people off an infected ship to self-isolate; not checking all incoming for virus (needed test kits) and not stopping flights from China at the time Wuhan was locked down.
50
The same on the beachfront in Middle Park. Between 8am and 9am you cannot cross the road without lights. Last Friday I could walk the dogs across the road at most times. Most people are staying home. On week days it is quieter than a Sunday morning.
20
Your last paragraph tells the story of politics in Australia.
Who would trust them.
10
Ive been a BIG fan of yours for years – until now. I cant believe someone of your intelligence has bought into all this mass media bull shit. I thought you where better than that. Go and do some reading http://www.globalresearch.ca
44
Give me some credit, I didn’t buy into the mass media scare, I helped Create It. 😉
Let us know when you get some data on asymptomatic mass testing, or some treatment news.
115
A slightly macabre joke Jo
But it’s true
And I am glad you have done so
Thanks !
30
And thank you too Bill, for being so supportive.
00
Food for thought. I do not necessarily agree with everything there but it’s worth analysing and discussing.
Why Flattening the Curve is Overrated
20
Perhaps one way to resolve the issue beyond nay doubt is to wait and see what happens to India.
20
and you, independent thinker, may need:
Dr John Campbell of the UK on the protection afforded by
Vitamin D.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5yVGmfivAk
Pay attention to the survey results he is quoting.
Vitamin D deficiency may be what is behind Spain’s, Italy’s and Iran’s
crashes.
00
Love your response, Jo. We’re behind you all the way.
10
Oh dear a paranoia link.
00
May I refer you to the following site with information prepared by a Swiss doctor. He is doing lots of research particularly into the opinions of eminent practitioners and health care academics. There appears to be great concern within this community of physicians about the data and the nature(s) of national approaches. One reference is an open letter to Angela Merkel from Dr Sucharit Bhakdi, Professor Emeritus of Medical Microbiology in Mainz, Germany. He asks her the 5 following questions, however to best understand these questions I suggest reading the article.
1 Did the projections make a distinction between symptom-free infected people and actual, sick patients – i.e. people who develop symptoms?
2 How does the current workload of intensive care units with patients with diagnosed COVID-19 compare to other coronavirus infections, and to what extent will this data be taken into account in further decision-making by the federal government? In addition: Has the above study been taken into account in the planning so far? Here too, of course, „diagnosed“ means that the virus plays a decisive role in the patient’s state of illness, and not that previous illnesses play a greater role.
3 Has there already been a random sample of the healthy general population to validate the real spread of the virus, or is this planned in the near future?
4 Has Germany simply followed this trend of a COVID-19 general suspicion? And: is it intended to continue this categorisation uncritically as in other countries? How, then, is a distinction to be made between genuine corona-related deaths and accidental virus presence at the time of death?
5 What efforts are being made to make the population aware of these elementary differences and to make people understand that scenarios like those in Italy or Spain are not realistic here?
11
1. Does whatever this is, look like a pandemic virus, act like a pandemic virus, and kill like a pandemic virus? Should we therefore treat it like it is a pandemic virus in case it kills hundreds of thousands…. or should we wait for tests with 99.9% accuracy? What if, for example covid makes a nasty secondary bacterial infection possible and that’s what really kills. Does that make their deaths “OK”?
2. Should we act now with a three week holiday and wait to get good data or wait til it’s too late to stop the deaths and then say “sorry”?
Alessandro, Q3 is answered by Italian, Iranian, Spanish, US and Chinese doctors on youtube. None of them have ever seen anything like this.
51
The expert from South Korea said that this was the most aggressive problem he had faced.
Having said that I am concerned at the apparent failure to apply basic scientific and statistical principles to the accumulation and use of “Data” from different sources.
Australia is not Italy, Spain or the U.S. and the direct use of data from those countries to build Australia’s response is more politics than science.
Australian politicians need to pull back, build a reliable picture of what’s happening and then go to work.
At the moment we only have political clamour, the Border Farce and “Hard Decisions” with little consideration of reality.
Our National scientific organisation is strangely absent from the picture.
Australia deserves better.
KK
03
Keith
1 :the virus has different strains now but is basically the same the world over
2: Humans ( the species homo sapiens ) is basically the same the world over
So it’s a pandemic and kills and injures many many thousands..
The time for the kind of research you are asking for is afterwards when the threat is destroyed.
10
Bill,
I agree,
1 :the virus is a strain and is basically the same the world over.
2: Humans ( the species homo erectus) is basically the same the world over.
So it’s a pandemic and kills and injures many many many many many thousands..
The time for the kind of research you are asking for is right now so we know what we are doing.
Totally agree Bill.
What’s the point of a virus causing erectile dysfunction when in the medium term that will reduce the number of hosts available.
That’s anti Darwinian.
KK
00
Spain and Italy scenarios are well underway in Germany:
Germany Last updated: March 30, 2020, 09:17 GMT
Coronavirus Cases:
62,435
Deaths:
541
The data comes from the Worldometer dot info / coronavirus / page for germany.
Will Germany have enough ice rinks is the question he should be asking.
00
I can’t work out how to add a link. I entered the url but it doesn’t appear?!#*^^
If you google “A Swiss Doctor on Covid-19” you will find it.
[Should cut n paste into comments? Yes, seen him. No new arguments there just the same old cherry picking of data and ignorance of truckloads of bodies…. – Jo]
02
As with the climate change hoax, these are REAL scientists views on the Covid 19 PANIC:
https://principia-scientific.org/12-experts-questioning-the-coronavirus-panic/
https://principia-scientific.org/the-coronavirus-scare-we-now-know-what-it-was-all-about/
And many more!
Trillions and trillions of virisus fall from the sky every day:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/13/science/virosphere-evolution.html
11
The 12 listed in the first Principia article again demonstrates that the world still has a surfeit of intelligent fools.
00
Ah the royal “real”. If you listen to real scientists and use common sense…
such a good argument.
00
More projections and assumptions. Lots of quotes referring to experts. I suggest it is time for an article that considers the actual data, compare it against the assumptions and determine what assumptions need to change.
20
The numbers we are being fed are in total confusion and feed the press led hysteria.
Bloomberg cites 99% of a large statistical sample of “deaths due corona virus” in Italy were likely due serious pre-existing diseases and/or medical conditions (ie. it is more accurate to state such deaths as being with corona virus present, not due corona virus). So how can we believe these numbers?
Accurate Data, if it can ever be got, then needs some perspective, for example compare it to the average across multiple flu seasons which are a daily average (averaged over the whole year) of 104 deaths, based on an annual average of 37,875 deaths (using CDC data for all of the 2010-18 flu seasons).
As the converted Dr Fauci now states that the 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).
Now do we ever hear alarming headlines from the “free” press about flu numbers each year? Do we hear demands for lockdowns for months? No, so why now for what looks like a serious flu and not the black death.
22
The numbers in the press are confusing, but the interviews with front line doctors are not.
Again we get the fake comparison of “deaths across the whole country in a whole flu season” to deaths in Week 4 of an epidemic that has barely begun and only just started in some states.
71
Alessandro,
I appreciate your comments.
One of the biggest issues I’ve had with the the “data” from different countries is that it’s not comparable.
To relate the horror and deaths from Italy and say that it is directly applicable to Australia is worrying.
The reasons for my belief in this have been posted here on numerous occasions and ignored by others.
In my early youth I was witness to my grandfather moving house and reestablishing his vegetable garden in the new location.
The original location had dark soil and the new location was essentially sand. He was able to grow vegetables in both locations because he understood that the two environments were different and acted accordingly.
Unfortunately here, there seems to be no appreciation of the basic environment that Italy offers CV19 when compared with Australia.
Here in Australia we have had 16 or so deaths attributed to CV19.
There are specific aspects of those deaths which I’ve discussed previously, but the most important aspect of this CV19 emergency in Australia has been caused specifically by the government Border Farce.
They have sent thousands of travelers across the border with not even a 30 second temperature check.
That is NOT scientific.
KK
11
There is no reliable data once this virus goes ballistic. No data coming out of China, Spain or Italy is of any use. Even body counts are meaningless because many never get into the hospital system or are tested for the virus after deceased.
The only knowledge that is required regarding COVID19 is that it results in overwhelmed medical care if permitted to run its course through any population; Japan may be an exception because they already have an extraordinary level of hygiene engendered through the population.
You can expect any data from New York State to be meaningless beyond 5th of April. That is when their medical care is completely overwhelmed.
The only sensible action for individuals is to isolate. Right now the only reliable way to achieve that is to stay away from other people.
Immunity is slowly building in the populations. Testing is being done more broadly. Once testing is readily available for all care workers and reliable tracking systems are in place the restrictions on interpersonal contact can be gradually eased.
90
I suspect here that sick people who die at home (no matter which Country here) are not being included as part of ‘the statistics’.
I always thought that at the start where politicians said ….. “If you’re sick, stay at home” could be translated as meaning only those who die in hospitals get put down as ‘official’ statistics, meaning that if X number of people die in hospitals then we (as a political entity here) are coping okay, and that those who die at home are (euphemistically speaking here) nothing to do with us then, eh!
It will give a whole new slant on when this is all over, and from that Monty Python sketch ….. ‘bring out your dead’.
Please forgive my cynicism here.
Also, and again it’s the cynic in me here, and coming from 25 years service to my Country as a member of the military, I find it a little ironic that some people complain about the military on the streets at a time like this, when it’s all fine and dandy for a flood or a bushfire situation.
Tony.
90
This is a little different Tony. There are so many more different freedom reducing laws and regulations possible with this than with the bushfires and floods. And over a wider spectrum. I think that’s the reason for the complaints.
11
Somebody has to maintain law and order , and keep the lights on. I’d prefer the army to the police who seem to watch too much american TV.
We the people are tasked with trying to “keep the barstewards honest”.
20
Not really cynicism Tony, just the side of reality that some would appear to willingly ignore.
00
I have just cut and pasted this from a comment on another site. If it is true, it is interesting data. The low infection rate could reflect a low testing rate but only 2 deaths is telling.
“… Taiwan, an Island close to China etc., population 24 million. Has had 298 cases and two deaths. As of reports to 29. Mar. 2020.. A rigorous, effective, and cheap anti-pandemic regime in place. Shops and factories open. Economy self-sustaining.”
80
There is a whole story behind this about their level of preparedness, their rapid response and their urgent notice to the UN/WHO. They were ignored because the UN/WHO enforce the One China policy and refuses to recognize that Taiwan exists. Taiwan was never Chinese. It was invaded by Sun Yat Sen in 1948 when they lost the war against the communists. Largely uninhabited and with a small native non Chinese population it was settled by the Portuguese, the Spanish and later a Dutch colony. Claimed by mainland warlords, after the China Japan war of 1895 it was Japanese. Anyone over 72 now was educated in Japanese.
The Chinese government wants it returned, but it was never part of China. As a country of 25 million people, it has now been cast adrift by the UN/WHO.
And the tragedy is that if the UN/WHO had listened, the world would not be in the mess it is now. I blame the UN/WHO for the mess as much as the Chinese government. The UN/WHO cost the world a month in which so many infected Wuhan Chinese people traveled the world freely.
The UN is not a solution. It is the problem. The same with Climate Change. The UN/WHO is run for and by the Chinese government. While America pays the bills.
161
Interesting.
00
UN Exit now.
POTUS Trump has told the EU to downsize, stop interfering in member nation affairs and go back to original charter or else the US will no longer support the UN.
50
‘The UN/WHO is run for and by the Chinese government.’
Ka-ching!
10
I think the govt needs to hear its got 4 weeks to get this under control.
After that, we need to fire up the economy, resolved or not.
Tough
12
Australia is almost destroyed now.
Dog help us if this goes 4 weeks.
KK
01
Taiwan provides the gold standard for pandemic response. This is what the rest of the world could have achieved if it had learnt the lessens from previous outbreaks and applied them as Taiwan has. It is what WHO should have been insisting for the rest of the world.
Australia has had many leaks in its protective net but is an island so breaches are more obvious than nations with land borders. Just maybe Australia has acted just fast enough with enough force. Would have been much easier to do what Taiwan did though.
100
What are they actually doing Rick ?
Do have any links?
10
There was an article in the spectator. Taiwan was caught short last time with SARS and determined not to be caught again. The moment there was a whiff of a pandemic in Wuhan, they acted. And they informed the WHO. And the WHO told no one.
It’s incredible. The WHO exists entirely to stop pandemics by coordinating the international response and the biggest pandemic in a hundred years and the WHO hushed it up because it was Chinese. They have form in this regard and their chief previously covered up cholera epidemics in Africa by renaming them watery diarrhea. Even UN party animal former foreign minister Julie Bishop says something has to be done about the UN/WHO.
How many lives has the WHO cost the planet by playing politics for their Chinese masters?
120
There is a very good interview with an expert in South Korea and posted in Michael Smith News yesterday. Sorry, but I can’t seem to post links with this tablet. The heading is ‘From Garry and Wendy Goldsworthy on Spirit of Sobraon – leading COVID-19 Expert From South Korea’. South Korea learnt similar lessons to Taiwan.
40
Here is a good, detailed answer to my own question. The background bit backs up TdeF’s comment
https://verfassungsblog.de/taiwans-fight-against-covid-19-constitutionalism-laws-and-the-global-pandemic/
30
Yes Rik ! Here is a link for folks who want to be informed on how Taiwan has done it:
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/what-taiwan-can-teach-world-fighting-coronavirus-n1153826?fbclid=IwAR1lbLyhKH1vzEEXB2n1jDti0mXrToy412dgk2zT_09sztXy6rEGwPtiajI#anchor-Bealertandproactive
20
From the website No More Fake News
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the US front man for managing the “pandemic,” has just written an article that ought to be titled: I WAS WRONG AND THIS IS MY CONFESSION.
Fauci, New England Journal of Medicine, March 26, “Covid-19 — Navigating the Uncharted”:
“If one assumes that the number of asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic cases is several times as high as the number of reported cases, the case fatality rate may be considerably less than 1%. This 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)…”
In case there is any doubt, those “pandemic influenza seasons” of 1957 and 1968 did NOT result in any lockdowns. People went outdoors. They mingled. They sat in stadiums. They went to their jobs.
SO TURN THE ECONOMY BACK ON NOW. End the insanity.
Unfortunately, no surprise, the major media are still highlighting fear, so it’s up to people to spread this message in any and every way they can: TIME TO GO BACK TO WORK. TURN ON THE ECONOMY.
33
Alessandro — and if one assumes instead that the freezer trucks carrying dead bodies away are real….
You’re taking a fringe assumption with no data to back it and claiming we ought pretend all the other possible outcomes are also real.
If this has a fatality rate of only 0.1% like the flu, we’ll know that in a few weeks after we finally start doing the testing. So lock down now, in case it’s 1% or 5% (which it appears to be) and just get that data.
Holding the economy on pause for a few more weeks won’t kill anyone, but getting it wrong with the virus will.
51
Even if this is “only as bad as a bad flu” it’s on top of the normal health issues, thus overwhelming to our health system.
So the ICU s Full, the emergency room is full, and you die from an otherwise treatable problem due to your local hospital being at 200%
just due to something “only as bad as a bad flu”. Why can’t people get their heads around the notion that this adds on to whatever problems
already exist in a particular locale, and happens quickly. Even casual observation can tell us that the more challenged a system was before
this virus, the more difficult things are now. And this scenario is the upside — could be much worse.
00
Allessandro
I doubt that Rapport’s remedy for this disease would be good for the USA. But thta is for Americans to sort out via the USA’s own ‘unique’ political processes.
Meanwhile here in Australia we are working out what is BEST for Australians. Our own Commonwealth government lead by SLOMO, has been influenced by the sort of tripe you are peddling.
As a consequence Australia was slow to take the urgent measures needed. Measures such as simply CLOSING THE BORDERS completely to exclude persons infected with this disease.
So now our economy is shut down even more than in the USA. WE really need that tripe advice. We need it even less now. Please return to the Rapport blog with the news and STAY AT HOME !
Foreign persons and ‘advice’ and not welcome any more.
21
All countries with less than 500 cases are excluded:
Percentage of known cases which have died:
% Died | Country | Total Cases
11.03 … Italy … 97,689
8.87 … Indonesia … 1,285
8.50 … Spain … 80,031
7.68 … Iraq … 547
7.10 … Netherlands … 10,866
6.89 … Iran … 38,309
6.57 … Egypt … 609
6.49 … France … 40,174
6.29 … UK … 19,522
6.07 … Algeria … 511
5.01 … Philippines … 1,418
4.54 … Dominican Republic … 859
3.98 … Belgium … 10,836
3.29 … Greece … 1,156
3.20 … Brazil … 4,256
3.02 … Ecuador … 1,890
3.01 … Denmark … 2,395
2.97 … Sweden … 3,700
2.89 … Japan … 1,866
2.64 … India … 1,024
2.55 … Argentina … 745
Larger South American countries are now part of this list. Indonesia is having zero luck reducing the % died.
% New v Active | Country | Total Cases
26.3 … Philippines … 1,418
23.2 … Romania … 1,815
22.1 … Peru … 852
20.2 … Turkey … 9,217
20.0 … UAE … 570
18.8 … Belgium … 10,836
18.5 … Russia … 1,534
17.1 … Dominican Republic … 859
15.8 … Mexico … 848
15.6 … Hong Kong … 641
15.3 … Israel … 4,247
13.8 … Colombia … 702
13.7 … Portugal … 5,962
13.4 … UK … 19,522
12.7 … Algeria … 511
12.5 … Japan … 1,866
12.5 … Iran … 38,309
12.2 … Poland … 1,862
12.2 … USA … 139,745
12.0 … Serbia … 741
11.7 … Indonesia … 1,285
11.6 … Spain … 80,031
11.3 … Iraq … 547
11.2 … Netherlands … 10,866
11.2 … Chile … 2,139
11.1 … Thailand … 1,388
Hong Kong and Japan are both losing the fight to isolate. There are a lot of countries making not much needed progress. This percentage needs to be below ~2% to flatten the curve to a manageable level.
New daily deaths:
New Deaths | Country | Total Cases | New Cases
820 … Spain … 80,031 … 6,796
756 … Italy … 97,689 … 5,217 (Italy is gradually improving)
292 … France … 40,174 … 2,599
228 … USA … 139,745 … 16,167
209 … UK … 19,522 … 2,433
132 … Netherlands … 10,866 … 1,104
123 … Iran … 38,309 … 2,901
92 … Germany … 62,095 … 4,400
78 … Belgium … 10,836 … 1,702
36 … Switzerland … 14,829 … 753
Spain surpassed Italy, who’s new-cases and new-deaths are both dropping so things may finally begin to ease there but they’ll scarcely notice that for another week.
Total deaths:
Total Deaths | Country | Total Cases
10,779 … Italy … 97,689
6,802 … Spain … 80,031
2,640 … Iran … 38,309
2,606 … France … 40,174
2,448 … USA … 139,745
1,228 … UK … 19,522 … (759 two days ago)
771 … Netherlands … 10,866
525 … Germany … 62,095
431 … Belgium … 10,836
300 … Switzerland … 14,829
152 … S. Korea … 9,583
136 … Brazil … 4,256
131 … Turkey … 9,217
119 … Portugal … 5,962
114 … Indonesia … 1,285
110 … Sweden … 3,700
Boris land continues to spiral out of control but a pithy letter will sort it out.
31
Total Cases is irrelevant. Total infections is what matters when calculating mortality rates.
12
Thank you David, can you supply these please?
30
Mmmm. At what point do you divide by 50% of the population ?
And then later by 100%?
At that point we will know , provided the cause of death is determined in a standard fashion, when calculating mortality.
10
No, I can’t supply them. But I’m confident the number of infections is more than the number of cases. Just because I don’t know the extent of the difference does not mean I should ignore it. To do that would be adding to panic rather than reasoned argument.
31
How do you make a “reasoned argument” without knowing the number of infection then?
21
Augment the current testing regime to include a test for antibodies. That way, we find out a) if the person is currently COVID19 positive, b) if they are not C19+ and c) if they already have had it and recovered.
22
How many weeks or months will that take?
In the meantime we have the data that we have. The deaths data and full beds data will be hard to dispel. What we do have now is enough data to make effective choices to understand and to prepare. If you wait for perfected data it’s too late. Yeah, we want that, but it’s coming later. We have this now.
12
You do not need data to KNOW the bleeding obvious. Left unchecked, this virus rapidly overwhelms the ability of health care workers to manage the cases of ARDS. Unmanaged cases inevitably result in death.
That was obvious from the time we started to see hospitals springing up in Wuhan and the Chinese government locking the place down like it was radioactive. The further evidence was the plume from crematoriums. The same thing is happening across Europe now and US is not far behind.
The only large country adequately prepared for this pandemic was Taiwan. They now have 298 infections and 3 deaths. The rest of the world could have been in a similar position if they were prepared. WHO gave the dead opposite of good advice – lethal.
42
And do we use that when we calculate death rates for the flu? ie undiagnosed infections. No!!!!!
01
Total cases are not irrelevant if your working in a hospital totally overwhelmed by the shear volume of people struggling to breath. The more overwhelmed the hospitals are the higher the death rate is.
Influenza doesn’t result in this problem mainly because its been around for so long that most people have at least partial immunity.
00
Spain passed Italy today on the number of daily deaths. Their death toll is beginning to fall below the 3days/doubling now. Italy has been flattening for a few days. If US does not begin to level out, the death rate there will exceed Italy and Spain by the end of this week.
00
The expansion of both total-cases and total-death curves in the UK are horrible, far worse than the global average and steepening. They’ll overtake Italy’s peak deaths late in the second week of April at the current rate of growth. Most of Western Europe will be doing the same. It’s going to be many times worse than what (officially) occurred within China.
30
US deaths are still doubling in less than every 3 days. UK death rate is more than 3 days/doubling. UK is doing better than USA. USA are still spreading the virus through internal air travel. There are no travel restrictions across state borders.
I still think USA is going to be the poster child for poor decisions. This from a nurse in New York:
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/miriamelder/coronavirus-new-york-city-hospital-nurse-covid-19-deaths
A hospital, under normal circumstances, would not have a refrigerated semi-trailer collecting bodies from their emergency department!
I still think of the stupidity of some of the commentators on COVID19 promoting “let it rip” approach. Andrew Bolt was back on that hobby horse today. There is still a widely held view that it only kills aged and infirm. Andrew Bolt provided a death rate of 0.7% based on Australian data so far, suggesting it is no where near as bad as being claimed.
11
Agree, USA is a pending basket case. Europe is a rolling catastrophe in the making though. Hopefully not all of the US goes the same way as their major cities will. They have to flatten in the next two weeks or this will be a cautionary lesson on what virus can do for the next century or so.
Agree regards Bolt, he missed the bus, a few of the Sky big-wigs have wavered due to economic factors, some guest commentators as well, which is all understandable. It’s a bit like a 6 to 9 month period of “Phony-War” which occurred in Europe at the start of WWII, where emergency economic wartime transformation occurred but without almost any fighting, so everyone wondered if the changes were going too far too soon, only to discover it was actually barely enough.
I’m not worried about the economy so much, it exists to meet our needs, and right now these are our essential needs. Demand will restart the economy if Capital is preserved. The debt loads are the bigger problem, and this virus just bought the financial issue forward a few months or years. This is the best opportunity to work the needed financial structural changes through to come out the other side with lower household and commercial debt loads, via nationally agreed haircuts. Lower debt and lower debt repayments means more disposable cash and a rapid recovery. Remaining yoked means a protracted malaise we can’t allow to take hold for no good reason.
20
The airline industry is worried. Similarly the tourist industries without all those foreign tourists.
Perhaps as we get this under control quickly, we can encourage Australians to stay home or assuming NZ and Fiji, New Caledonia and more can get it under control,
we have more beaches than anyone. Flights around Australia. Cruises around Australia. Bus tours. If even half of those 1 million Australians a month who fly overseas
would stay home, our tourist industries would boom.
Personally there is so much of Australian I have not seen. It is insane that people can fly to Paris for $1000 and it costs $3000 to get to Broome. I even paid last year $1000
for a return economy flight Melbourne to Sydney, the most crowded leg in the country.
Compare then the flight to Las Vegas some years ago. They closed the doors when they had enough passengers and took off. I think it was $65.
Mass internal tourism would change Australia and when international tourism returned, the place would be so much better. And a great boost for the islands of the South Pacific, like Tahiti.
Also while this is going on, our $A is crippled. A British pound is now $2A. And under 60c US. For many that will put trips outside Australia out of the question.
50
In a stagflationary environment you might be pushing it uphill with that plan.
00
You have desperate tourist businesses. Desperate airlines. And you will have no international guest for a long time. And few places to go which are safe.
I was just connecting the dots. That’s not economics. It’s business. I’ll let the economists put a name to it. For now I would call it a massive opportunity.
20
I heard a stat the other day —50% of worldwide tourist trade is done in Europe. I have no reason to disbelieve the figure.
This coming European summer is going to be very bleak for the tourist trade. Will this be the straw that breaks the EU’s back? Given the pathetic response from Brussels with this virus out break, I think it could be the case.
60
The interesting question is which rat will be first to leave the sinking ship.
Germany has the most to gain by calling time , then France .
They are the ones paying for it now the poms are gone.
40
Smart chaps those Poms.
50
It was a struggle…
50
mass international tourism for all, or how i skipped virology 101, 102, 103 and 104 micrhttps://aumladder.blogspot.com/2020/03/pig-coronaviruses-home-delivery.html
20
Australia needs to be careful not to jump out of the frying pan into the fire , which is what NZ has done.
Take a leaf out of Cinderella’s book and burn it.
Then do something sensible.
https://www.act.org.nz/free_press_30_march_2020
31
They are not listening to you famerbraun ( or at least quite a few in Aussie are not)
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=12320969
Note our Aussie friends. It is election year in NZ ( September elections) so the Govt. is politicising the virus as much as possible.
11
Daily update from Godzone:-
https://thebfd.co.nz/2020/03/covid-19-update-30-march-2020/
20
A snitching website launched….ah communism at its finest….but then it is the Kiwi Soviet…
40
Yes, forget about the hard won justice system.
What Australia has lost in the last 50 years is hard to explain but the creepy, backstabbing, social media, political meme based on “victimhood” could exemplify the new Australia.
Good luck all.
50
It’s called apathy.
30
The only goid communist is an unelected one…where they can do no damage…or failing that, round them up if they cause dissent in the community.
20
Good…..
10
I was going to tell you what the Z in Radio New Z . . . means , but I thought better of it.
10
Calculating the greatest good for the greatest number was never easy :_
https://www.interest.co.nz/opinion/104305/prompted-don-brash-chris-trotter-mulls-question-when-government%E2%80%99s-meritorious-quest
20
Willis at WUWT has updated his COVID19 charts showing a red line that is indicative of medical care under duress. He simply based it on a factor of the average monthly death rate for flu, which is what is significant in setting up capacity to handle ARDS.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/daily-coronavirus-covid-19-data-graph-page/
Thie red line is a useful indicator of when the death toll for each nation or state becomes meaningless from a statistical perspective because the level of care is degraded. There are 5 countries already past this zone and 3 US States. Although WA is into the zone I think their lock down has been more effective than elsewhere. They had one of the early scares with the virus ravaging aged care homes in King County when tested on 13th March.
10
42 confirmed cases on the cruise ship in Fremantle last night. I have my doubts that’s going to sail away.
40
Which one? Currently there are two in Fremantle and one parked outside. I believe the Artania will sail back to Germany soon with only its crew. Not sure about the other two ATM.
10
It’s the German one, all cases just got transferred on shore to local Hospitals. All other passengers apparently already flown out.
They didn’t mess around getting that one sorted out.
40
WA = Western Australia or Washington state ?
It’s easy for folk to get confused so it’s better to use the full name to prevent confusion.
20
Many people wonder if there may be more, hidden immunity. In the NH, people wonder if they didn’t suffer from the Covid19 virus in January, or even earlier because the Chinese only admitted to the novel virus in January, and there’s been much online chatter about the bug being discovered or else circulating in November or even October?
One harsh critic of lockdown and social distancing is SF writer Sarah Hoyt in Colorado. A week or so, someone (Sarah), put the above speculation to the test and went diving for data at the US CDC and posted her findings at accordingtoHoyt.com.
The findings on flu reporting, using several data sets, were surprising – especially to those with prejudices like in my top paragraph. It showed that US flu season has been markedly milder than the earlier handful. It shows a typical January peak and decline.
What’s also surprising is a strong fall off in flu cases in February this year. This mystery led to sharing the results with many others for some insight. None did.
The notion that some have gotten the Wu Flu earlier than has been reported is not supported by CDC data. (Supposedly, some small, localised look at the data could “find” some – but I doubt that it could be shown to be different from seasonal flu clusters.)
My only speculation is the possibility that the message of an epidemic outbreak in China may have moved some or enough people to begin social distancing in February already, hence the strong decline in new flu cases. Knowledge of a possible threat can move people to begin acting differently.
However, my interpretation needs cross data support, and an evaluation of media messaging at the very least. Other unknowns as well as randomness may be at work.
But the bottom line is that the intuitions from “earlier bad flu? could be China virus….” remain mere speculations.
10
Australia:
1,180 cases over 60 yrs
527 cases over 70 yrs
102 cases over 80 yrs
Only 20 to 29 year age group remains higher in numbers than the 60 to 69 year age group. Serious critical went from 23 to 28 overnight. The opportunity to stop transmission is now. The older age group is becoming exposed so access control and isolation aren’t enough to prevent exposure. This needs to be tightened, now, or critical care beds will fill quickly.
There’s only a soft recommendation at present for over 70s to stay isolated indoors, but the biggest hazard group for the hospital system is going to be these more active 60 to 69 age group people, as their numbers are much larger and if they get sick they’re likely to need the same level of hospital care, even if they tend to recover more often. That’s the group that will swamp the hospitals early.
40
A quote;
“Once we have enough masks, we can use them outside of the healthcare system too. Right now, it’s better to keep them for healthcare workers. But if they weren’t scarce, people should wear them in their daily lives, making it less likely that they infect other people when sick, and with proper training also reducing the likelihood that the wearers get infected. (In the meantime, wearing something is better than nothing.)”
As has been discussed before, wearing a mask (home made or otherwise) is something we can all do,right now, it is within our reach. It is easy, practical, sends a courtesy gesture to other recalcitrants, and it damn well works…….
“I wear a mask, I protect you,you wear a mask, you protect me”
10
Hi Jo
I see our friend Andrew Bolt has almost declared victory over the virus in Australia and says it is time to get back to work based on his reading of the infection rate figures. Any thoughts?
For me the southern hemisphere is yet to see the full force of this virus and the infection rate figures only indicate that we have a pool of infection that is set to explode over the June-August period. I’m with you Jo, if we go in hard and get the new infection rates down to as close to zero as possible before the winter sets in then we can shorten the pain and have the economy ready to zoom back into life in the spring.
Not that the Australian economy was exactly zooming ahead before all this trouble. 🙂
40
Andrew Bolt has no clue on this issue. He is not seeing the bleeding obvious. I made mention of it at post #50 above. Even Willis E at WUWT is realising that figures from China or cruise ships was terribly unreliable.
The only knowledge required regarding COVID19 is that this virus pushes enough of the population into intensive care if it is let run to overrun the capacity that was designed to cope with seasonal flu events.
The REALLY important factor for getting out of the enforced home holiday quickly is abundance of testing. All front line care workers should be declared clear to work on a daily basis. Until testing can be set at that level, the restrictions on interpersonal contact should be firm.
Taiwan is the only country that provides an effective method of virus control. That is what Andrew Bolt should be talking about and promoting. What did they do that no other country has managed?
52
I’m going to rant a bit, but it does have a point, so please bear with me.
Yes, we “can” Hammer “this” virus in weeks, or months, by doing all sorts of things.
And that might well be the best idea. Or not.
What about the 20 to 40 mutations of “this” virus that have already been observed?
How did anyone allow “PC” ideology to transcend National Sovereignty and National Security and Common Sense and gamble everyone’s lives upon outsourced pharmaceuticals, medical necessities, and other critical supply chains?
China knew this was a “real issue” in Oct, Nov, Dec of 2019. W.H.O. knew it was a big deal but downplayed the impacts for many reasons. Weeks or months were lost in recognizing and reacting to something that shouldn’t have been so obscure.
We are where we are because the Gate Keepers entrusted with National Security/Safety/Economies/Jobs/Health/Life chose to play the “PC” game and “manage” things until they couldn’t. That’s one salient, real, issue.
Further on, this isn’t the first, last, or only, time this same thing will happen. Viruses are a fact of life.
How one’s Nation prepares for such realities is key.
In the US, some 87.5% of the National Institutes of Health funding was squandered on irrelevant studies that either failed to produce a result, or were tangibly irrelevant to begin with. “PC” ideology skewed the mission from practical reality into politically convenient/profitable/comfortable outcomes.
The Western World is gobsmacked that Chinese Produced pharmaceuticals, medical devices, computer components, raw materials, finished products, intermediate chemicals and products, machinery, etc, are “interrupted” because of a response to a virus. National economies are being broken. That’s what happens when Nations don’t control their sources of supply and offshore those things to nations with different objectives. Predictable, but not what was promised when price was everything and nothing else mattered.
Yes there will be vaccines. In a year or 2 or 3. And they will apply to the mutation they were originally designed for 1, 2, or 3 years in the past. Very effective for the historical situation the survivors survived.
Measures taken now are reactionary. Closing borders, shutting down travel, immigration, etc. Necessary. Because the preceding cautions were not taken seriously. The livestock have left the barn, so now everyone is closing gates and searching for the thieves instead of posting guards and locking the gates beforehand.
Research is good. Vaccines are good. Effective treatments are good. All very necessary.
There is a limit to how long Nations can “shut down” entire economies and still remain functional. The extant situation is a test of that resolve and limit.
Corona Virus is definitely a threat. Research dating back to 2004 says so. So what happened?
Risk management on a National Scale didn’t happen.
Economic and political expediency happened. We’re paying for that, now.
We can and should focus on the here and now. And how to mitigate damage and treat the sick.
Make no mistake. This is Not a “one off” or the last of its kind. Winning this “war” is not actually winning anything because it is one battle in a long line of battles yet to come. Today’s survivors will be grateful. But the paradigm has not changed until Nations view National Health, Sovereignty, economic and political security, etc, as superior to the provably detrimental ideas of critical function outsourcing, blind trust in unaccountable international agencies, political expediency, and the lack of proper planning.
In 1918, they didn’t see the Spanish Flu coming. In 2020, we had 15 years to prepare and didn’t.
We have better technology now, but it doesn’t seem to outweigh political, institutional, corporate, and social, incompetence.
101
nice to have so many people and organisations to blame, all of who are somehow PC and on the other side of every other issue you oppose them in.
blame on you crazy diamond
43
“, all of who(m) are somehow PC and on the other side of every other issue you oppose them in.”
There’s some redundancy there , I think. 🙂
10
Hmm! GI, I wouldn’t have taken you for a Floyd fan.
Tony.
10
This could be because the leftist wet dream of a windmill driven world of high density worker housing, transportation left to mass transit, nature left to chemical free agriculture,
shopping left to single-use free reusable containers, open borders without controls, “highly efficient” single sourced rationing health care systems etc. etc. etc. seems in every aspect to support pandemic risk. I won’t blame wet markets on the woke however, that seems a uniquely Chinese cultural innovation.
00
Hammering it is the ONLY option. That became clear in China’s response. It is even getting through to hard nuts in the USA who were promoting “let it rip” just a few days ago.
USA will probably be the hardest hit. I expect it will be sobering for the country. It is far more distant from China than Taiwan yet Taiwan has kept infections to just 298 and deaths to 3. This virus does not care how many atomic weapons a nation has. It does not matter how many guns are held by individuals. What mattered two months ago was the pandemic planning; ability to test for the virus and trace movements of individuals with the virus while shutting down borders. What matters now that the genie is out is universal access to high quality health care and ability to test large numbers in a hurry. It is vital that interpersonal contact be absolutely limited – no non-essential traffic across borders. All non-essential workers to stay at home.
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I think its used as a take down of the economy
Ok here goes – this is a very similar play to 9 11. Create a crisis ( borders should have been closed thus guaranteeing infection and lock down )
Coincidence?
20
Our daily new cases just jumped to 528.
Percent new cases of active cases = 13.5%
Welcome to Monday.
31
thank goodness testing is going up.
Sadly, and I don’t mean this to sound macabre, but given the variability caused by many other sorts of data (like new cases which merely equals new positives in tests) the only statistic that does not need correction is deaths. Plot those to see how things are being handled.
Even then, be careful with cross comparing jurisdictions due to other variables.
71
“Even then, be careful with cross comparing jurisdictions due to other variables.”
Good work G.A.
I see you’ve been reading my posts. 🙂
KK
20
I’m fine with more cases being found and not knowing much about it Gee, that’s just the situation. But at least this means fewer oblivious people spreading it around and making the dead numbers 10X bigger in the near future. That’s the whole point of it.
20
Deaths is not a good measure of the severity of COVI19 once the medical system is overwhelmed. Once the military get involved taking bodies from private residences it is unlikely those bodies will make it into the count. I expect that is the reason China’s death toll from COVID19 is relatively low. The number of urns of ashes turning up to be collected just in Wuhan have been counted to be much greater than the 2000+ official death toll for the region.
Spain is also using military to collect bodies so their death toll related to COVID19 will be inaccurate.
In USA, people without health insurance will be dying at home or in queues at hospitals. No one in US is going to test a dead body for the virus like they tested deceased cancer patients at The Alfred in Melbourne for example.
11
Soldiers may not get positive ID on people but they will have to record basic details of bodies found, and at a minimum take a time and location stamped image on a device. One thing our military does have is a lot of is administrative support contractors. I see no reason why our body counts would lack such detail or accuracy, we’ll have time to get that in place long before a death count takes off. Hopefully we keep most hospitals functional and people won’t start dying at home in large numbers in Australia. That problem may occur in other countries as the load rises, but most western professional military orgs will be working through the process and requirements right now and at a minimum will maintain a reliable count of bodies. They do have teams of medical people who would oversee this to ensure accurate data on military and civilian bodies is counted and logged. Given this is one of the more insightful data available the need to record it will be a parallel high priority.
20
A question concerning the immune system.
I heard it said by the Korean expert that human immunity declines after the age of 60 years.
I suspect that immunity acquired from any challenge may decline with time and disappear if not refreshed.
Is this loss due to failure by old people to face New challenges or some other factor.
KK
20
I think the only statistic that can be used to compare jurisdictions is the no. positive as a percentage of those tested. The simple number of positives figure is meaningless.
For example, if NZ is to be compared with Australia on the number of positives NZ looks great but we are testing far less than Australia, I believe.
00
no… that is a stupid comparison. Some juristictions test people likely to have it some do it more broadly. The percentage then depends on the testing priorities.
00
I wonder how many of the mega rich people in the U.S. now seeing what is happening over there, will be looking for a supposedly safe place to, umm, sit it out, while all this is happening, and right now are looking at an Island in the Southern Hemisphere and fuelling up their private jets, you know, Hollywood celebrities and the like, thinking that, like with everything else, their money will do their talking for them.
Tony.
60
Perhaps the FAA will ground international GA flights and we’ll all be spared the highly-enriched BS.
40
New Yorkers are already fleeing to second homes in Hamptons, Florida, Connecticut etc. Some people in these locations have called for lock downs but local businesses appreciate the increased income. Another factor contributing to the unfolding disaster in USA.
The lockdown in the USA is a mixed bag compared with Australia. Still plenty of air travel. No internal State borders closed. Lots of undocumented workers who can only survive by working or stealing.
10
NZ forbad city dwellers from “heading for the hills ” or the beach house . Creating new clusters is just what you don’t do.
20
I guess rural Australia has now had a taste of what happens when the locusts hit the countryside.
And we all know what awaits us all when the mob have killed the breeding cows and eaten the seed corns.
So you DO lock the city down to protect the essentials needed. for feeding the population.
You do stop importing more cases to the general pool by rigorous quarantine , not voluntary , and preferably using the military who have the facilities. Build your own FEMA camps in the Outback smartly.
And your Ministry of Primary Industries adopts the “how to make this safe ” approach; food production must continue.
So Jo , at this stage it’s your approach, only the lockdown must be total (NZ can’t seem to enforce it),with the addition of a completely different protocol for essential industry.More industries will become essential as the recession deepens.
Finally, you put the ring fence around the vulnerable. Entrance protocols in these facilities are generally woeful. They need to adopt hospital standards.
11
So the practical effect of this suite of approaches, from different Ministries , has been a decree that in an essential industry where the 2 metre distance between personnel cannot be achieved , then masks and gloves must be worn.Then keep calm and carry on.
Let the Army deal with the non-essential population, and get on and protect the essential.
Go to it Scott.
You’re welcome.
00
This is a story from a fellow in New York who has survived COVID19:
https://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/ny-oped-our-viral-awakening-20200329-ja4dvs2jinbn5gyzbl4nqoywyy-story.html
My wife wishes ICU staff used a different term to “mild” when describing symptoms. Their view of “mild” is anyone who does not need a respirator. A person could feel they are at death’s door, unable to care for their children and not wanting to infect them, but the ICU clinician would describe them as a mild case because they are not needing intensive care.
No doubt we will hear more storied about the “mildness” of this flu as more english speaking people report their experience.
20
Healthy NZ farm boys who also play rugby do admit that Covid 19 did give them a good nudge.
20
We are so close to lockdown now and the economy is already shot to ribbons, unemployment skyrocketing.
It would seem PPE’s are still in short supply. ? black market knocking off the goods. Surely every manufacturer
of this stuff, including gloves, masks and toilet paper is working 24hours a day full speed to make the maximum
buck out of this golden opportunity – or is it all ‘made in China’ or somewhere else where that country has its own
huge demand to supply and so does its next door neighbours and we are last on the list?
With the last (?) of the Australian travellers due home this week (2000), why not slam on the brakes totally and lock
down all borders except for essential supplies for two weeks. Get teams of testers set up to hit the areas around known concentrations
of infected first then go on to the less effected etc and literally fully quarantine the positives at home, or in
institutions if they break quarantine once, and have them pay a boarding fee for the cost to the taxpayers. We have to get this economy
running asap. To do that means we have to starve the beast into extinction asap because currently the stepwise approach is not just killing
people dead, but is also, inexorably, killing the future of most Australian families. Go hard for a short period to save both people and their futures.
My bet is, we are short of everything we would need. People. protective gear. Test kits for infection and antibodies. Labs
to keep up. Otherwise, the destruction on all fronts will keep increasing with time and, from the way the politicians are
talking, there is no end in sight under the current arrangements. The way some people are acting, there is a dearth of
knowledge in some sections of the community to the extent they will not obey the rules.
Some complain they are worried about their liberty being curtailed. I would say dead people have all the liberty they need,
but for me, nearing 80y, its currently still not very attractive. The living have rights too, and the greatest right is to have good health
in-so-far as our life styles permit it. Without good health life can be a bitch. If my right to good health is trampled or curtailed
by others protesting their full freedoms are paramount, even if they directly cause me poor health and disease, I say crap.
My health rights are paramount and what I choose to temporarily forgo to maintain good health is also of my choosing. This is a Democracy still.
Any government seeking to unnecessarily prolong curtailment of those surrendered freedoms will last only until the next election.
10
Read an interesting arctile in NYT, which details how several attempts to stockpile ventilators since SARS in 2002-2003 failed.
“The stalled efforts to create a new class of cheap, easy-to-use ventilators highlight the perils of outsourcing projects with critical public-health implications to private companies; their focus on maximizing profits is not always consistent with the government’s goal of preparing for a future crisis.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/29/business/coronavirus-us-ventilator-shortage.html
A company would get a contract to make ventilators, then be bought out by another company who then decided they werent worth making commercially. Its a business model of getting money from the government only to do nothing when the company is then bought out.
The US public health system is a mess. Glad I live here.
20
“JCB Ventilator housings – – ”
https://www.redpowermagazine.com/forums/topic/128041-corona-virus/page/23/?tab=comments#comment-1407115
00
Too much serious news. A diversion – “Astrophysicist gets magnets stuck up nose while inventing coronavirus device”
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/mar/30/astrophysicist-gets-magnets-stuck-up-nose-while-inventing-coronavirus-device
10
Obscure question here. More in next Unthreaded.
How many of you have Google Earth?
Look at Three Gorges Dam Hydro in, umm, Hubei province three hundred ks (as crow flies) from Wuhan.
Did you scroll all the way in?
Tony.
10
Sure. Down to 1000 ft. City of Xiling downstream. Lots of river craft. Three Gorges Scenic area overlooking the dam.
10
Three Gorges is an amazing project. I think it produces as much electricity as Australia.
Don’t dare to ask how many were killed during construction. The construction activity was behind closed doors and had a very bad reputation. You will not get a visit to the turbine floor.
The Yangtze scenery downstream from Three Gorges is beautiful, but the river is busy, busy, busy.
Go there – next year.
00
The Chinese cheated from the beginning. The number of deaths in Wuhan certainly exceeds 40,000. If we take into account the decrease in the number of mobile subscribers in Wuhan, the number of deaths may be even several times higher.
21
I expect they did not cheat. The west was provided the number of confirmed deaths from COVID19. The bodies taken away from their homes by the military could have died of anything. No one is going to test for COVID19 in the deceased unless they come out of the cancer ward at The Alfred in Melbourne. The figures from Spain are already being skewed by similar military action. Likewise the figures from parts of the USA will be skewed accordingly. Are all those bodies in the freezer trucks in New York confirmed CPVID19 deaths?
20
Link to Spain and US?
00
I am amazed at how much money Australia is throwing at this problem ( I’m not suggesting it is not warranted).
Added to the cost of the drought and the bush fires the total is getting very high.
The silver lining maybe that when things settle down from the virus attacks the Government will be forced to face the fact that it will not be able to afford to give in to all the Green demands and the industries that have been the backbone of the Australian economy will need to be supported ( not necessarily with money, but with removing red tape and green type regulation). The coal industry, farming / food production, mining, O&G etc.
60
My view is that they are throwing our money at us. The government has no money. They simply had other things planned for it, like Turnbull’s utterly useless Snowy II. Or even the Olympics which are no longer happening this year. Or other things budgeted but which no longer make sense. Did Victoria pay for the Formula 1 race? Probably not. As the governments collect up to 40% of everyone’s money and taxes everything that moves, they are not pulling this out of thin air, just redirecting it. And if pushed can sell Bonds to cover it.
If no one goes back to work, it’s the government which has no income. And they can’t foreclose on a country. And it is probably illegal to fire public servants. And almost all the army and firebrigade and navy are fundamentally paid to do nothing productive every day anyway. These are all reserve facilities. And they have a lot of medicos who can help, medical supplies and trucks and ships, as with the bushfires. Does this cost anything? No more than usual.
So it’s all the resources into the pool and spare cash and redirected cash because it will be the Australian economy which is the patient and no one can afford this patient to die. Least of all the governments.
10
And yes, it all puts extremely slow allegedly possible death by extremely slow Climate Change into the rubbish bin. It been 32 years of nothing happening!
Corona virus is real extinction and even Grumpy Greta knows it now. We didn’t have this problem just two months ago.
So stop the theft of our money in our electricity bills on other people’s imported windmills and solar panels. Why else do we have the world’s most expensive electricity
when we are still running 90% on coal power stations built in the 1970s? And wasn’t wind supposed to be cheaper and better?
And why weren’t we told we would need billions spent on giant batteries just to make our power as reliable as it used to be?
Climate Change is over. It was all made up.
30
a while ago a mate of mine said:
“This is orchestrated, not the outbreak but the response to it. What is amongst the highest outlay/cost/expense for a western Govt? Health and the associated systems. Who is the main health drain – already ‘extensively’ sick and the elderly. Who will Covid19 knock off first or mainly? Same groups…”
I called him a nut, a tin-foil hatted conspiracy theorist.
After reading about cruise ships allowed to dock at Fremantle, reading these reports, other events I see, other stupid knee-jerk decisions that seem obliviously only a soggy band-aid for the public to think ‘well, the Govt is trying’…
After all that, and more, I rang him and apologised to him…. and I’m starting to agree with him.
51
Again, conspiracy theories aren’t worth a cracker unless supported by evidence. He might be right but so can one of any number of conspiracy theories. I prefer to follow the evidence and see where it takes us.
00
Jo I’m not so sure any more what you mean by “Hammer Coronavirus in weeks”. I thought you meant we could flatten the curve greatly but not actually eliminate the virus itself. Given various discussion here it appears I might have misunderstood. It is ludicrous to say we can eliminate the virus in a week without a vaccine and a cure. Even with those two I doubt very much we can eliminate it but we could certainly get close to it.
10
.. or even in a couple of months. The sooner we have a vaccine and a cure the better. Until then the virus will be with us.
00
The point was if the numbers get very low, then strong testing and follow up become capable of keeping those numbers very low.
00
This vile bit of RNA chemistry will break down & degrade into simple molecules if it cannot reproduce in human victims.
So isolating humans from each other eliminates the virus opportunities to survive & thrive.
is that so hard to understand ?
I don’t think so.
00
How do you know that it will happen so quickly if at all?
10
You also make the ludicrous assumption we can isolate humans from each other all over the world for even a week let alone a month or more. Good luck with that one.
11
There is a cure.
Hydroxychloroquine.
https://townhall.com/columnists/kevinmccullough/2020/03/29/hydroxychloroquine-help-is-on-the-way-n2565926
10
“Promising news – Hydroxychloroquine treatment effective in study on 699 Covid-19 patients ”
https://www.michaelsmithnews.com/2020/03/promising-news-hydroxychloroquine-treatment-effective-in-study-on-699-covid-19-patients-.html
10
I’ve seen various unofficial studies to show it works. What I don’t understand is if it’s that good why aren’t governments all over the world dishing it out en mass?
00
‘Boris Johnson’s allies turned on China over the coronavirus crisis yesterday, as Britain’s death toll from the epidemic reached four figures.
‘Ministers and senior Downing Street officials said the Communist state now faces a ‘reckoning’ over its handling of the outbreak and risks becoming a ‘pariah state’.
Daily Mail
20
Sounds promising.
00
If Britain dares, they will find they cannot buy pharmaceuticals. It’s as simple as that.
Everyone knows China did this, one way or another. The world economic balance will be different from here in.
10
And according to some China has to pay for the chaos they have allowed to engulf the world, both in terms of the deaths and the economic cost. They can start by building several new coal fired power stations for free, under our supervision of course.
00
Do we already have the hammer but are unwilling to use it for months till several studies conclude,when it’s effectiveness is already known….https://techstartups.com/2020/03/28/dr-vladimir-zelenko-now-treated-699-coronavirus-patients-100-success-using-hydroxychloroquine-sulfate-zinc-z-pak-update/?fbclid=IwAR3alecmvJIT9w591o874urY6-rGTrGNutwEn-iqqVELSN_vPsoOSp2p-qI
20
Completely off-topic, yet still I believe of relevance to the readers here:
I subscribe to the get up email, to be warned what the loonies are up to next.
The command to phase out elective surgery in preparation for corona-virus has resulted in the standing down of 600 nurses. Rather than reversing the command, and permitting businesses to make sensible adjustments, they call instead for nationalisation of the industry. The theory seems to be that if the industry cannot afford the loss, then the Government should bear it. Except of course that the Government has no money, it’s deeply in debt and getting deeper rapidly.
I thought the public should be warned about their current approach.
The Government health care system announces every ten years that it’s in massive trouble and needs a major cash transfusion just to survive. Both State and Federal Governments do this, so it amounts to a crisis every five years. And they think these are the people who should run the system!
Not that I imagine many readers will come this far down in the comments.
10
I always start at the end.
So if it was the case that the public health system is devoted to prolonging life amongst the non-essential, then nationalising and winding down to the bare minimum, say “plausible deniability” level, would seem to fit the plan.
I can’t help noticing the silence of both the population biologists and the Green factions.
Funny eh? Funny peculiar.
00