Herd Immunity is not realistic
For the first time we have true randomized testing –and it shows that Austria was officially picking up about a quarter of the real number of infections in the population. So when Austria was officially saying 7,000 were infected, the true number was 28,500. Finally, this puts a solid limit on the chance that asymptomatic rate of infection was high. There is no iceberg.
About 75% of cases were mild or truly asymptomatic (and thus not getting officially tested), but it was still only a small slice of the population — just one third of one percent.
Less than 1% of Austrians infected with coronavirus, study shows
Peter Beaumont, The Guardian
The co-founder of Sora, Christoph Hofinger, told a news conference: “Based on this study, we believe that 0.33% of the population in Austria was acutely infected in early April.” Given the margin of error, the figure was 95% likely to be between 0.12% and 0.76%.
99% of the population is still vulnerable
The Austrian chancellor estimates only 1% of the population had had the infection (presumably he is including an estimate of people who had already had the virus, cleared it, and tested negative).
The Austrian chancellor, Sebastian Kurz, who saw initial findings a few days ago, said on Monday that the rate of infection was around 1%. This disproved the idea of herd immunity, which requires widespread infection, as a viable policy option, he said.
Austria has sampled 1,554 people with help from a polling company from April 1 – 6. The nose and throat swabs they used will have found active infections, not past ones. But the peak of infections was March 26, so this will still have included some, perhaps many, of those people who were infected the week before. It depends on how long people shed virus for, and like everything with this virus, that’s not simple. Some people shed for a long time even weeks, but others don’t.
Ten times worse than the flu
Austria has officially recorded 6,941 cases in total of which 337 have died. So the mortality rate for diagnosed cases is 5% and likely to rise due to the lag of one to two weeks (and even longer) before deaths occur. So the mortality rate of all infections (including asymptomatic) is more like 1.2%, making this at least ten times deadlier than the flu. (It may be worse if Austria was able to protect the 80+ and other vulnerable groups).
Hopefully new treatments will improve that.
We can see that testing around 1 – 6th April should give a realistic estimate of the scale of infections. Nose and throat swabs are probably a PCR test looking for two RNA segments unique to the virus. PCR means Polymerase Chain Reaction, where small amounts of DNA or RNA get amplified up so they can be tested.
Austria, total known cases.
Austria was among the early movers in Europe to try to contain the outbreak, clamping down on public life and enforcing social distancing when cases were still in the hundreds and few had died. The country will start to relax some of the measures next week, when small shops and hardware and gardening stores can reopen, but it will keep schools and other stores closed until May.
The only way to figure out the true rate of asymptomatic infections is with an antibody test (also known as a serum test), but that’s not possible yet, though many labs are reportedly close. These tests require a blood sample, but will hopefully show how many people were exposed to the virus, at least for a few months after the infection.
And just how long will immunity last?
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All 4 US Baystate Health Hospital announce a ‘Code Rocky’ (in honour of Rocky Balboa) every time someone who had covid 19 is released.
What is unclear to me is if they are celebrating a fighter or predicting sequels.
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Clever.
We certainly don’t want no steenkin’ sequels of this virus.
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Does it not depend on how often the immune system is “exercised” , and how similar is the new challenge?
Just like everything else?
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Hmmm….most at risk are the over 70s.
Wouldnt it make sense to put decent protective measures around them, make lots of cholorquinine is available, and then wait for this thing to burn itself out….that and keeping the economy shut down for too long means no economy to come back too.
Its not a perfect system, but may have to do.
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It seems that 75% of the population, while not immune, is intrinsically protected from harm. Letting it run its course is how herd immunity will arise, but you must be prepared to deal with the other 25% and you need to be able to identify them before they get infected.
Has anyone looked into why some people can be infected yet remain completely asymptomatic? Pre-existing conditions affect morbidity, but not necessarily whether or not any symptoms arise. The most interesting cases to study would be people who test positive, are asymptomatic yet have 1 or more pre-existing conditions. It could be genetic or perhaps an antibody from a different virus or vaccine was close enough to give the required antibody a head start at emerging.
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The high proportion of cruise ship passengers and crew apparently not infected in a number of well publicised outbreaks does suggect that a proportion of 75% to 80% may have some kind of innate protection.
The CoV-19 virus is known to evade elements of innate immunity in its attack on lung tissues- perhaps other viruses have exploited the same pathway and a proportion of humanity has adaptions that defeat the particular mode of attack.
On the other hand, the anomaly arising from random testing may be purely a statistical artifact arising from the poor precision of rapid diagnostic tests applied to two sample populations that differ in the expected rate of true positives to CoV-19.
Initial testing was confined to people identified as exposed to CoV-19 cases or who show symptoms and self-report. That population would return a significantly lower rate of false positives when compared with a random population sample.
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Re The Cruise ship passengers & crew proportion not infected being high…..
This is up for debate !
There are a lot of variables not being considered. For example
1: The nationality of most of the passengers and the ability to communicate well with the crew. Almost half of the Diamond Princess passengers were Japanese. And once the ship arrived in Yokohama those passengers were being told by Japanese officials what to do to avoid being infected. On the other hand non Japanese passengers may have ben sceptical and thus adding to their risk of infection.
2: The competence of the Cruise ship’s officers in managing the needed quarantine.
3: The extent to which the other ( lower hierarchy ) crew took it all seriously or were able to understand.
4 : The passengers in the early Cruise ships were tested for being infected with the virus. But that test did not measure if they HAD been infected and fought it off. ( There are the antibody tests do this. ) And then as a former vice president once said,
“There are the KNOWN unknowns and the UNKNOWN unknowns”
He was laughed at for saying this. But admitting ignorance is no reason to be shamed or laughed at
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That was the strategy some of us were positing from the start …with huge caveats and ‘ifs’…if it was true that serious disease and mortality was confined to the old and the chronically-ill as we were told…ie to people already patients of GPs and specialists who could ensure that that cohort was strictly isolated at home…with guaranteed medical care and food security for them just a telephone call away…if borders were closed to countries not doing similar and all in-bound flights and shipping were checked and incoming people isolated and tracked….if the rest of the population followed a level [ decided on medical advice as now]…of self-distancing and hygiene…if large non-essential gatherings were prohibited…if the situation was constantly monitored by targeted testing… etc.
One thing suggested but never really discussed too is whether those infected but recovered have any permanent damage or after-effects.
It’s not as if we didn’t all know that that last plane from Wuhan when the situation was absolutely clear …was a mistake.
We all screamed at the television that the self-isolating wouldn’t work seamlessly as the government apparently counted on…why didn’t they know that?
Joe Blow and almost all Australians would have known letting thousands of people off the Ruby Princess in the early hours…or whenever …to fly around the country without health checks and /or strictly-monitored quarantine ….was pure insanity….so why didn’t the NSW government know?
Even now there are some stores with too many people in them while other stores have closed down…and where’s the rationale for the work of hairdressers… fiddling with people’s hair and applying color every few weeks ….being treated as an essential service…as if women can’t do it themselves in this situation.
Is the situation dire …or is it not?
Probably the only place the information on herd immunity and possibility of re-infection is going to come from is Sweden….where the Swedish government’s ‘flexible’ approach is operating on the premise that it’s not possible to have people self-isolating for the twelve to eighteen months the experts say is required…and that the Swedish people will do the right thing without sanctions…which some are…but many are not right now….and there seems to be as much uneasiness there as here about the wisdom of the course chosen.
Sweden now has a considerably higher death rate than the US…though lower than the rest of Europe…but whether they’re achieving herd immunity is still unknown of course…and the composition of their huge death toll [known but not revealed as far as I can tell]…is what will be telling.
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Were is anyone saying that’s needed?
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Truth Neurological implications are causing concern. This is a nasty bug
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JanEarth…thank you for that link.
This is the sort of information that’s been missing…but tells us IMO…if it’s confirmed… that the lock-down strategy has been the correct one….because it’s horrendous to think young people might survive the infection only to be left with permanent damage.
The best medical and economic minds should now in collaboration turn to a safe and effective exit strategy…but with nothing implemented till we’re through the Winter flu season….hopefully without a surge.
What a diabolical virus it is though…..to be so mild for some yet so deadly for others.
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Austria versus Australia’s approach.
Firstly, Austria didn’t leave it doctors or the government to run the statistics. They asked a private polling company to do it. The polling company probably told them to randomise. Many of the figures appearing around the world and on this blog are statistically meaningless in terms of working out where we are heading with this virus. Lewis Carroll -” When you don’t know where you’re going any road will take you there”.
Secondly, Austria has now mandated masks to reduce risk as a rational trade-off to opening their economy again in a staggered manner. They’ve likely worked out masks (plus hand washing) effectively replace distancing as a personal mitigation strategy. They’ve likely understood the virus mostly transfers via prolonged presence in poorly ventilated enclosed spaces where virus carrying micro-droplets are present.
There are plenty on this blog who want bore everyone to tears with self-affirming drivel about how Australia leads the world. Australia was lucky and got a couple of things right. Those couple of things were temporary quarantine and lockdown. Neither were original thoughts. Both were being practised elsewhere already. Both were literally forced upon the government and as such implemented belatedly.
Solution 1 – Australian politicians have lied to their citizens about masks. In that way they are also not unique. Many politicians around the planet lied about mask efficacy in order to protect supply to their respective medical establishments. One by one they’ve had to make a 180 degree turns on this. Wouldn’t it have been better if they told the truth? Should they have said “we’re short of masks, our health workers need them. They do help however and you should get one before you leave home or interact with an infected person at home. If you can’t buy one, make one. A simple mask is better than no mask”. Australian politicians and health authorities now need to come clean and tell the citizenry masks work. They need to tell Australians to get a mask and wear it. They need to tell Australians the fastest way out of lockdown is mandatory mask wearing.
Solution 2 – Hand the statistical analysis over to private enterprise and leave the diagnostics to doctors and researchers. Ask Australia’s best and brightest pollsters to tell Australians what is happening.
Solution 3 -Ditch the ignorant extremism. This means ending the crypto-totalitarianism. Demanding the government respect and trust its citizens as it did when elected. Ignoring the mindless rabid barking dogs on extended lockdown, mandatory quarantine and de-globalisation. Demanding a return of your human rights. Expecting a pragmatic and rational scientific approach to light the path forward.
If Australia want to get beyond the antipodean pretension and insecurity, humbly following successful nations that don’t have the same level of luck would be demonstrate a degree of cleverness that has been absent to date.
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Sunni
When I ask what seems a perfectly reasonable question as to whether all this means if Australia is well placed or not to withstand further infections introduced from outside by travel or trade, I get red thumbed.
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TonyB, must have something to do with being a pom i suppose. 😉 Though i do wish the anti-body reaction to the coronavirus was as aggressive and monomaniacal as the anti-body reaction by some of the flickering bulbs on this blog.
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Sunni, doctors and bloggers have been asking for randomized tests for two months. There just haven’t been many tests available … thanks to those bureaucrats that didn’t order enough.
Where are you from Sunni? Near Austria? Sorry things will take longer to get better there. Must be no fun hearing stories from The Lucky Country (which really is the national nickname). My sympathies.
I suspect local commenters are just feeling mighty relieved — we were in the direct line of fire from China, and the trainwreck was coming — yet somehow despite the inept management — we missed the bullet this round.
Please forgive people their five minutes of jubilance. Most Australians on this blog know we are living on borrowed time. Good people, asleep at the wheel…
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Jo, I was aware of the requests from doctors, bloggers, et al. The Austrian idea of asking pollsters seemed a good circuit breaker. Even more for the fact it involves private enterprise. Could you imagine what some of the experienced pollsters like Textor or Morgan could achieve on a budget a tenth the size utilised by Canberra health bureaucrats! Surely the Australian government could spare 1500 test kits? It’s not as though testing is essential for a medical diagnosis of Covid-19 after symptoms commence.
I’m in Geneva, Switzerland. Not so certain whether things will take longer to get better in Austria. I suppose it comes down to the definition of better. The situation is not dissimilar to Austria in Switzerland. Things seem a lot better here than in Australia judging by what i read and hear from the Australian media.
It’s great Australia has dodged a bullet thus far. It is not better for Australia to have heavy handed police instructed to threaten and hound people, dishonest politicians who ask to be trusted but don’t reciprocate with the citizenry (the quiet Australians), a propaganda apparatus that has scared the living hell out of Australians to the point of vindictive irrationality, and Australian citizens locked up in quarantine who could easily be tested. Its all very unnecessary. It cannot be justified on the basis of the irresponsible few whose transgressions have a statistically insignificant bearing on the outcome. I’d question why Australians are being subjected to this demeaning and authoritarian governance. Especially given the fact Government incompetence seems to have had the most deleterious effect on eventual outcomes so far.
It is outrageous Australians were today informed by Minister Birmingham they wouldn’t be able to travel overseas for the foreseeable future ie. a year or more. That is utter insanity at worst and antediluvian thinking at best, and not representative of the Lucky Country I spent a good part of my youth in. Why wouldn’t test kits become available in the weeks ahead for testing at the Australian border, or better still at the airport of departure? Why would Australia’s successful diaspora bother returning to Australia to visit in the near future? It beggars belief a liberal government could be this stupid and short sighted.
None of the extremism highlighted above is seen here, nor in many other countries. The fact Australian politicians are so dishonest and untrusting of Australian electors at this point in time is enormously disappointing. If Australia is the lucky country why is the overzealous, authoritative behaviour required? Why not test those quarantined and trust people to do the right thing and stay at home. Why issue fines rather than warnings? Why not come clean on masks? Australians should demand better of their leaders.
Lets not forget the difference between hammering the curve and hammering the citizenry. The difference is applied intelligence, civility and just plain out telling the truth.
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We don’t want this foreign bloody infectious disease mate !
We Australians decided that weeks ago.
[snip. I know you are just responding to flames, but Let’s not make a flame war. – Jo]
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Bill In Oz, Australia already has “this foreign bloody infectious disease”. Seems as though the virus (and the Australian government) wasn’t listening. The virus will be around for a long while. You may as well go out and shoot rabbits. You’ve got a better chance of eradicating that foreign bloody invader than Covid-19.
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William, that was jolly well said:
Mate.
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Sunni, maybe turning up on a blog with a large Australian audience and talking about their ignorant extremism and antipodean pretension and insecurity was a good way to start a flame war. you could try being a bit more diplomatic, yeah?
As for testing instead of doing quarantine: No. People can carry the virus but at undetectable levels for days during the incubation period. People on the Diamond Princess were tested before leaving, and yet days later turned up positive.
There is no substitute for quarantine. Perhaps it can be shortened to 12 or 10 days which would pick up 98% or so of cases, but until we get better treatments, or cheaper tests I would not consider that.
The virus will be around in the world. But it’s not unreasonable to suggest we can get rid of it here. And by missing out on foreign tourists and our holidays in Bali, we can keep it out too and we get to have our hospitals back, and our doctors stay alive.
In a year or so there may be a treatment or vaccine and in the meantime Australians could live free and fly to any other nation with hard borders and no cases. Perhaps that will be NZ, Greenland, Taiwan, a few island states. That doesn’t sound too bad to me.
With a two week quarantine, you could come back and visit us and live free too.
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Well said Jo
Thanks !
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Come off it Sunni, who do you think you’re kidding with this tripe? If you spent a significant amount of time in Oz when younger you’d know perfectly well the police here deal with willful exceptions, the people not interested indoing the right things, they are not bullying the population in general at all. Anywhere I’ve seen so far. Everyone’s polite, no one is arguing with those managing the situation, the Police are not looking to create drama. You like to point fingers and berate about our alleged ignorance or over reactions, maybe look at where your own fingers are pointing, and dismount your high-horse.
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Sunni…
‘The difference is applied intelligence, civility and just plain out telling the truth.’, you say.
I’d almost bet my house on it that there’s more of that here than where you are.
You’ve obviously not read widely on this….and you don’t know much about Australians.
Since you claim to know all about Austria and Switzerland and ‘think’ you know something about Australia…citing Birmingham’s statement on travel…why don’t you know that Austrian Chancellor Kurz informed Austrians at the weekend via a broadcast that freedom for Austrians to travel will only be granted once a vaccine is ready for use….which is said to be eighteen months from now …or never. Where is your outrage??
Also in Austria…an‘Easter decree was announced at the weekend, which aimed to relax the restrictions and allow hosting up to five persons from outside the household’….and then lo and behold… Health Minister Rudolf Anschober ‘apologised for the confusion caused this weekend and made it clear that the ‘Easter Decree’ was cancelled: Austrians are to stay at home over Easter.
So you see Sunni…Austrian pollies make mistakes too…and we know the Swiss make some of the world’s most egregious ‘mistakes’…that bedevil the lives of innocent people around the world…for which Switzerland will never be able to atone …even if they were to try….so best you not try to lecture Australians about the wonders of the benevolent Swiss system.
It’s just that here we admit that our pollies make mistakes and we give them curry for it.
In Switzerland you have pretty much the same restrictions as here but more of the armed forces out and about enforcing them in the cantons…..and hairdressers are closed along with everything else.
Switzerland is one of the worst-affected countries with 128 deaths per million people while Australia has 2… despite Switzerland having no cruise ships circling and disgorging thousands of sick patients in the dark of night….a huge pollie mistake …but couldn’t have happened if the offending ship hadn’t been there.
We do hear that ‘Italy stole a batch of disinfectant gel’ from Switzerland…that’s a step-up from the early toilet paper wars in our unruly supermarkets.
On the other hand in Switzerland…’Police are stepping up their presence at popular public holiday spots to prevent too many people gathering during the Easter weekend.’ You must be outraged about that surely.
The government has issued a recommendation to all citizens to stay at home, especially the sick and the elderly…. But ‘some cantons have gone further by forbidding over-65s from leaving their homes’. Authoritarian?
‘None of the extremism highlighted above is seen here, nor in many other countries ,’says Sunni re layback Switzerland vs ‘extreme’ Australia.
‘I’d question why Australians are being subjected to this demeaning and authoritarian governance. ‘sez he.
Well you might question Sunni…your very own self first….because most Australians I know are SO FAR having quite a nice time…getting a bit of gardening done…pottering around their backyards…still going to Bunnings but missing the sausage sizzle.…playing on the trampoline with the kids…baking up a storm…watching movies…grumbling about pollies…skyping relatives OS…
It takes more than a talking-to by an over-zealous policeman who’s
walking a fine line to make Australians feel ‘demeaned’.
Eat your heart out.
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Such TRUTH
We need on this blog !
Thank you !
Far too much utter nonsense
by uninformed dingbats.
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Sunni, a poll of 1500 people in Austria, a country with 8.86 million people? Polling is done for political or general marketing assessment. As such, pollsters are reliant on relatively even distributions across the population for a poll of 0.02% to be representative. That’s NOT the case with a viral infection, epidemic or otherwise. By its nature, a contagion would cause a cluster around an infection source – like growth spots on a cultured petri dish, but spots with legs. Just about everything else you say I agree with. Taiwan, about the same population as Australia has 388 cases and 6 deaths. Makes Australia look ordinary. But Taiwan made face-masks mandatory and they have kept their bars, pubs and restaurants OPEN. Think about that Australiana?
And now, another plug for ZINC. Zinc, Zinc, Zinc, think Zinc. Needed to stop viral replication in cells. But do the medicos administer Zn to COVID-19 patients? NO! Do they measure Zn levels in patients? NO! Why do medicos not take Zn status seriously? As a free-thinking doctor friend once told me, the problem is not so much that doctors are ignorant (on new ideas) but their determination to REMAIN ignorant.
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Sunni
‘Charming’ mate !
It’s clear you live in Austria and know some what about that country. Good !
[SNIP. Yes, I know. Flames replying to flames. I have to draw the line somewhere. – Jo]
Jo was being very polite in her reply to you. It’s her blog and that’s her choice.
I see no reason to put up with your nonsense.
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Bill in Oz, it’s definitely back to charm school for you now ‘ol chap.
It’s clear I don’t live in Austria as on numerous occasions on these pages, the latest being today, i have stated I live in French speaking Switzerland. I do however speak German and thus thankfully don’t suffer from the level of compound ignorance quite often displayed by the sheltered coves around these parts. Alas to know what you don’t know is often of benefit in conversation.
My knowledge of Australia is reputedly quite good having been a citizen and resident for forty and thirty years respectively. So i’m one of you. Part of “us” in fact. But not like you at all, very apparently!
Our chances of helping this virus to destroy itself, for that is what viruses do eventually; probably won’t be assisted by this or other of your contributions, past or future.
The truth sometimes need to be told. Something you don’t seem to have achieved.
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Your knowledge of Australia Now Is Not good Now old mate !
That’s why I posted the long comment below.
I am intolerant of ignorant nonsense Because IT SPREADS THIS DISEASE & KILLS PEOPLE !
PS : Yes I see you live in Geneva in Switzerland.
The Center of of many bodies international which have not been of any help at all in this pandemic.
PPS : An up date on Tasmania : the Tasmanian state government has extended the lock down there.
Here is a report of that:
“Tasmanian Premier Peter Gutwein announced yesterday that Burnie’s North West Regional Hospital and North West Private Hospital would be closed from 7:00am today. About 1,200 staff and their households will undertake the mandatory 14-day quarantine.
It comes as 11 more people, eight of them staff members, tested positive for COVID-19 yesterday, taking the state’s tally to 144. Of those, 43 are healthcare workers. Mr Gutwein said he understood yesterday’s hospital closure announcements and isolation directives were very disruptive.
“I don’t think any Premier ever in the history of this state has had to ask so many people to do so much to help us to get on top of this outbreak,” he said. “The measures we put in place now, I hope, will be supported by the north west community. “We need you to work with us, we need you to follow the rules, to do as we ask, to stay home, to save lives. “We will get through this but the only way that we will get through this is together.”
The radio report on ABC said he was crying as he announced this.
Hardly the action of a totalitarian government mate.
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Report from the News.com about the COVID 19 disease situation in South Australia :
“Analysis of data being collated at the Johns Hopkins University in the US shows South Australia leading the world in fighting the disease. Associate Professor Ben Phillips from the University of Melbourne’s School of BioSciences has used the data to develop a calculator, updated daily, showing the likely number of cases in each country in the next 10 days, including individual Australian states.
It shows SA, which now has 186 active cases is on track to have as few as 86 active cases by April 21 in a best-case scenario, 140 in a most-likely estimate or 228 in a maximum-number scenario.
It is now clear Australia has averted the kind of catastrophe seen in places like Italy and the US,” Dr Phillips said.
We have done incredibly well in Australia, and South Australia really is ahead of the curve – things there are looking quite good.
The big impact has been border closures to stop the flow of cases into Australia. As a nation we have it largely under control, but we can’t relax.”
Meanwhile here in Adelaide a second center of local transmission has been identified among QANTAS employees at Adelaide airport. So ~750 people have been ordered into quarantine for two weeks.
Now that Sunni Bakchat is informed, directed government action.
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” shows South Australia leading the world”
Princess Jacinda will have something to say about that!
You wait; she’ll come up with something in order to retake the lead.
Maybe the shortest lock-down ?
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Unbelievable.
And hiding behind a ladies skirt tails isn’t a good look at all.
Form your own opinion, then express it gently and with respect.
Of course if you don’t have any original thoughts then just keep on keeping on.
Nobody will be amazed.
KK
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Sunni let me remind you that you are not the arbiter of truth. Your opinion does not, nor has it ever been the truth.
The citizens of Oz know we are in the lucky country. We would not be anywhere else at this time. Good luck mate.
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Sunni:
You show some strong animus towards ordinary Australians who are just giving their impressions on this thing that at this point has the whole world in a quandary…trying to work things out with the important information still missing.
We don’t ‘demand’ in unison …we have different views …giving different weight to what’s being tried here or elsewhere….often because some of us have very vulnerable loved ones…not always the old….and some don’t.
You are right that the government should have leveled with us about the masks…and ventilators…and should do so now before we get a possible Winter surge.
You are right that Australia has had luck on its side…less with approach but more with the nature of Australia and previous policy…island…borders largely already secured…low population density…larger living spaces…fewer multi-generation households…lower air pollution…fewer smokers than many countries….and I don’t think most people are discounting that…but we’ve probably had more cruise ships rocking up and disembarking virus-infected people.
The Australian government has had no monopoly on mistakes though.
Despite your very jaundiced opinion of Australians….there seems to be more hubris in some of the Austrian attitude than here…in the Chancellor’s claim that Austria had acted more ‘correctly’ than other countries.
We won’t really know who was ‘correct’ until all the figures and other information …the ultimate outcomes…are out months or years from now.
Austria’s talk of an app to record travel and contacts isn’t too original since our family[and therefore many others I’m sure…probably around the world]… have talked for weeks about the keeping of contact diaries being a helpful thing once the exit begins so that tracking of any infections is more easily done for the benefit of all of us.
Your contempt for Australians as mere pretentious insecure followers is inaccurate and misplaced and I don’t think Australian researchers were just ‘lucky’ in being the first outside China to successfully develop in record time….a lab-grown version of the virus to enable possible vaccines to be tested….just as Australian scientists have not ‘just been lucky’ with many of their other world-changing breakthroughs.
I think your apparently enormous faith in pollsters is misplaced too …considering they all had their last election forecasts hopelessly wrong.
The one thing polling might have told the government if they’d done it …was that Australians felt sure people returning from China…often people with businesses to run…wouldn’t all self-isolate without being monitored…and that the Australian people would prefer the government over-do the sanctions and risk the ire of China …rather than have Australians die unnecessarily…and the virus become unstoppable.
I would hope that polling might tell the government now ….that they should not succumb to MSM bullying….that despite the snark from some high-paid spruikers in the media….as they try to muscle the government into relaxing the lockdown after just a couple of weeks for economic reasons….Australians want the government to listen to the medical advice ….keep sight of the fact that the worst time for flu and viruses….the winter cold….is yet to come.
[Apologies this was slow to be published. – Jo]
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A real pity that this TRUTH
Was delayed by moderation Jo !
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Odd ? Its been reported that the US is already doing this antibody testing using readily available kits ??
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And you do not nee a expert study to see that the likely level of infections in the population of Australia is around 1% also .
The data from the current “targeted” testing can be analysed to indicate it tending to 1% as the level of testing increases..
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Chad, precisely my thoughts on the anti-body tests and 1% figure; and Austria is opening its economy. Border policy has yet to be clarified as far as i can tell.
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Jo … do you think possibly you may be suffering from a slight case of confirmation bias I’m sure the results of the study in Austria are sound, but why not also mention the German study focused on a single town which showed infection rates at 15%. The more interesting question is why the differences ?? Is it a function of who they tested, or was it nationwide vs a single town ? A function of urban spread vs national average spread and what would this mean ? Or maybe they went into lockdown at slightly different stages. One way or another we need the truth because we are already seeing the huge tension between saving and saving livelihoods. From South Africa to India to the US and Europe. And the truth will inform us how about to end the lockdowns. Because they willl end shortly – with or without government consent.
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I am not aware of these other testing regimes (doesn’t mean they don’t exist, but can you provide links). Are we confusing targeted testing with random testing? Targeted testing does not give an indication of infection rate in the general community but of the rate of infection in those suspected, or known to have been exposed to infection.
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https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/covid-antibody-test-in-german-town-shows-15-per-cent-infection-rate-0-4pc-death-rate
That was the news report. I believe they randomly sampled 1000 people out of a population of 12,000 which showed 15% had been exposed to the virus and from which they could the deduce the lower mortality. I understand 0.3-0.4% but I have seen 0.2% quoted.
I think this is interpreted generally as good news as it shows that the virus is less deadly than previously estimated. I guess there will be more studies coming imminently from places like North Italy, Madrid, London etc to confirm this.
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I think I saw an earlier one from Iceland, with a similar conclusion?
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ImranCan, Here’s a good link to what Streeck did in Gangelt. https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/04/09/999015/blood-tests-show-15-of-people-are-now-immune-to-covid-19-in-one-town-in-germany/
There were apparently 11634 people living in Gangelt in 2010 according to Wikipedia. Pretty clear this was randomsied statistical exercise. Streeck apparently took samples of blood from 1000 individuals. He did blood analysis on 500. The mortality figure was .37% which contrasted with countrywide figure of 2%.
Interestingly an area that Jo touched upon yesterday, the viral load factor was explained by Streeck as material to unwinding of lockdown. He differentiated between high and low viral load in determining how quickly anti-viral strategies could be relaxed.
23
NY Times: “A German exception? Why the country’s coronavirus death rate is so low”
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/04/world/europe/germany-coronavirus-death-rate.html
20
Thanks for that Roger !
Excellent fact based informed article
Bill
20
Good read, except for this bit:
I thought this was their biggest failure and weakness. I watched the terrible spiral growth in Germany and for weeks was thinking, “OK, when are they going to get serious about this thing?” I monitored DW and it just wasn’t happening, the cases grew without relent and no one did anything much to stop it. I don;t know how anyone could come to the conclusion that Chancellor Angela Merkel’s leadership was a secret wonder sauce. The political action was hopelessly late and ineffectual, the progressiveness as almost nothing, and slowed it little. Even when there was a serious crisis occurring in Italy they still did almost nothing effective at halting or slowing the spread. Their spreading numbers were terrible over the period. The lockdown when it finally came was almost apologetic and suggested into existence, about 3 weeks too late. I’m at a loss as to how anyone could read that as good top-down political science-driven leadership. It looks like shilling to cover political butts.
The other point the article conspicuously avoids was the incredibly low number of serious-critical cases for so long, even as bodies were beginning to pile up fast, which implied people were not dying in the hospitals at all. So how can the Hospitals have been a scene of serenity and order, as implied here. All in all, the story provided doesn’t hang together with the way the numbers grew, and how they were distributed.
An average age difference of 49 in Germany and ~62 in Italy and France does not cover it either. I can’t swallow this story, doesn’t gel, I remain skeptical.
80
OK. Thanks for tip about the German study. I’m still reading up on that. First serological study I’ve seen.
The Iceland study — as I mention at #11 — wasn’t random but agrees with the Austrian study pretty well. <1%.
The German study may imply that PCR viral loads are dropping off a lot faster than other studies show, which may be because other studies are measuring responses in the sick rather than those who got asymptomatic infections. It may indeed suggest there are more asymptomatic cases than expected. Which would be good news. But was there any cross reactivity to the normal common cold coronavirus? Can someone find and translate the study?
And note too -- having antibodies (without cross reactivity) shows people may have come into contact with the virus, but it doesn't mean they will be immune in 3 months time.
But what are the age demographics of the infected? The town was infected at a carnival by a super spreader. Is it not possible that that 15% were mostly younger carnival partiers and don't include many old folks and don't represent a normal population?
Let's be honest regarding "confirmation bias" for all those claiming there are many cases of asymptomatic infection, there's been zero data to support that until now, and now there is just one small study in one town.
I wouldn't be basing national policy yet on one town in a country with some of the lowest death rates in the world until we repeat that in other countries and with other gene pools, age groups etc.
I'd like to know the demographic spread of all these studies above.
In this disease unless the sampling matches the age spread of the whole population the final result could change just on that factor alone. The average of people infected in Germany and Australia is lower than other nations.
20
More absurd nonsense Imran. Cars can be kept of roads, they can be confiscated or disabled, fuel denied, phone services disconnected, bank accounts frozen, people locked in their house, taken into custody and charged with a criminal breach. Army can patrol streets with rubber bullets.
What we have is a soft lock down here and I seriously doubt more than a small fraction of 1% would be stupid enough to try to force an end to lock-down which could see them do five years in prison. And I have no doubt the authorities would never let such people win. In Italy people who breach lockdown orders can now be tried with attempted murder or manslaughter. Try provoking that nonsense here Imran and you’ll spend time where you really don’t want to be.
100
Jo, you are obviously well read and must be aware of numerous other similar studies that show infection rates of at least 15% but you chose to present a single study showing only 1% infection rate. One has to wonder why you choose to do this, does it have to do with a narrative you are in favor of? Why not tell your readers of other similar studies?
63
Elvis, where have you been?!
You are obviously well read and must have links and references to all those other studies, but you choose to present an anonymous baseless opinion… Why not tell us what these studies are?
82
Jo
I don’t think it was ‘an anonymous baseless opinion’. I, in the comment above, mentioned the same thing. The randomised German study, but done in a town and in an area that is described as an ‘epicenter’.
https://spectator.us/covid-antibody-test-german-town-shows-15-percent-infection-rate/
Now it is fairly clear that if you do a study over the whole of Austria and compare it with a center of infection like Gangelt you will get different results, based purely on the migration of the virus through the sub-population vs. a whole country. Austria also locked down quite early (March 11 I believe) so the virus just hasn’t penetrated very far.
But the important thing is, based on a study done in an ‘epicenter’ is that you can get a pretty good handle on the mortality and infectiousness. Which you won’t get by looking at the whole of Austria. That just tells you the virus hasn’t yet progressed everywhere. But in Gangelt you can deduce the mortality is approx 0.2% (max). From this you can predict how many people will die. If you assume 65% infection spread before it dies out, then you are talking about 13,000 people per 10 million.
This is not significantly out of line with a bad flu season. In the UK in 2014/15 some 60,000 excess deaths occurred due to flu. The Gangelt conclusions will give you approx. 85,000 UK deaths, not much higher than the 2014/15 flu. But more importantly it tells you what you need to do. Make sure you have enough ICU respiratory capacity (to minimise deaths) and the lockdowns have bought that time in Europe. And then open the economy back up. Also the higher infectiousness that must exist tells you that to explain the 15% infection rate this virus is going to be virtually impossible to control. Its obviously highly infectious. As Wills Eschenbach discussed in his post over at WUWT, these people will die now or they will die later …. but they will die. So don’t shut down the economy trying to prevent the unpreventable. Even if you lockdown and isolate for 2 years and find a vaccine, 2/3 of the those people will have died from other causes. You just delay the deaths …. but at what cost ?
Now if those Gangelt figures are indicatively correct, then Australia has indeed dodged the first bullet … but has not yet addressed the problem. Its still there and its going to come at you one way or another. So you will have the same result but will have spent months and months locked up. How long before all these locked up Aussies start realising that maybe they are not the ‘Lucky Nation’ ? NZ, Japan, China, S Korea and Singapore all have the same problem.
Maybe the infectiousness and mortality conclusions are wrong. but you have to be able to explain the results of that study.
43
” Also the higher infectiousness that must exist tells you that to explain the 15% infection rate this virus is going to be virtually impossible to control.”
Did you mean-” Also the higher infectiousness that must exist to explain the 15% infection rate, tells you that this virus is going to be virtually impossible to control.”?
40
Yes.
Apologies for my appalling sentence construction.
23
Imran, I was not aware of your comment or the German study when I replied to a comment stuck in moderation. I was being cheeky in response to a pretty hostile comment suggesting I was hiding information. As if? (There are quite a few grumpy people around this Easter, and quite a lot of messenger-shooting.)
It may surprise people but there just isn’t time for me to check WUWT for info on Coronavirus, as much as I like Monckton. I am too busy reading medical papers, foreign news, and trying to track news from places like Ecuador, Argentina, Turkey. So thanks for polite notification.
60
Jo, I think you should take into account that the penetration of the virus is going to be related to population density. In Australia with perhaps one of the lowest population densities in the world penetration will be low. In NYC with an average of 3.7m between people penetration will be high. I suspect NYC has already reached a point where the viruses sustainability limit has been reached (60% penetration) because with winter allowing micro droplets to travel upwards of 9 metres or more and lots of high-rise dwellers sharing ventilation systems, in some boroughs it’s impossible to contain.
20
Bobl, yes, but I’ve mentioned population density many times on the blog. I have taken it into account.
50
Living in largish houses on bigger blocks
Matters hugely !
It’s called suburban development
And as I said before this kills off completely
The propaganda for dense high rise apartment living
By the Climate change mob.
Cheers from all here I hope !
20
“…. but done in a town and in an area that is described as an ‘epicenter’.”
Isn’t this a targeted trial?
10
Jo
Lord Monckton has a post at WUWT sighting a German study with opposite results. He states “In short, the confirmed cases, which tend to be the more serious ones, appear to undercount the true extent of infection by two orders of magnitude. ”
and “This is good news for two reasons. First, we are much further along the road to population-wide immunity than the confirmed-case counts had suggested. Secondly, the case fatality rate appears to be a great deal smaller than the ratio of deaths to reported cases had indicated”
So I am wondering if your study is more reliable.
51
The main problem I see in this article is conflating herd immunity with tests for active infections. Until we have a wide ranging randomised antibody test done we have no idea. The key word being antibody.
Could be that a large chunk of the population was asymptomatic, or a small proportion. we simply don’t know, or I missed the study that definitively proved one way or the other.
Unfortunately there seems to be too much fear pr0n around at the moment. People are becoming immune to it (the fear) and will rapidly become resentful to the destruction levied on the economy. At what point do we loosen the reins because there are more additional people committing suicide than dying of the virus?
21
By the time they figure out all these details a vaccine will likely be available.
But if the virus reactivates like malaria does (note how somme anti-malarial drugs seem to work well), or acts like a cold in which the body doesn’t produce much antibodies, it wont make much difference.
Reminds me of Washington DC sending a message about an attack from Japan expected in Hawaii after it was all over.
50
A vaccine is unlikely the way this mutates, nor should we be acting in a way the presumes a vaccine will ever be available up to the point at which it is available. Relapses aren’t impossible with any disease and in some cases this could be bacterial pneumonia following on from viral damage to membranes as seen with flu.
More info is required in order to know.
40
The study only showed how many in the test population we currently infected, not how many have been infected and recovered.
“We did not find out how many people are immune, but only how many people in Austria are currently acutely infected,” said Günther Ogris, from Sora.
” It did not involve antibody tests, which can tell whether a person was previously infected and is therefore probably immune.”
So the question should be how many have Wuhan Flu antibodies.
If the report from Chicago is true, as much as 50% of the local population currently have Wuhan Flu antibodies.
https://www.breitbart.com/health/2020/04/10/chicago-phlebotomist-coronavirus-antibodies-found-in-30-50-tested-for-covid-19/
Abracadabra, herd immunity.
41
The Austrian study only says something about current cases in the population.
It says nothing about how many have been infected and recovered, so its not conclusive
about whether herd immunity is a realistic goal.
I completely agree with comments that the data that is being made public is
not adequate to make a rational decision regarding our personal (or family,
neighborhood, etc) risks.
I hope that enough data is made public before we are forced to take a vaccine that may not be necessary.
Thanks for providing as much information as you do, Jo.
This blog is one of the best sources that I have seen.
40
Thanks John.
Given that they sampled the week after the peak they have a good idea that the 0.33% of the pop infected then will not be more than 1% in total, counting the other weeks.
So herd immunity would mean doing that 60 times over, and then it would be weak 60% immunity, which is not good enough for this highly infectious creature.
And remember, we don’t know how long immunity lasts. At this point, it would be a reckless gamble to aim for herd immunity which may not exist. No one would want to keep fighting this virus for months if the alternative is to hammer it down, lock the borders, and find some treatment asap.
50
John
Whilst in Australia the testing has been largely “targeted” to high risk groups, and is not very extensive ( 350,000 = 1.5 % of the popilation ?) ..but it does give valuable clues.
Because those tests were largely targeted to high risk groups, impliesthat thay were not the well isolated individuals, and so may represent an “unprotected” population sample . If probably an extreme maximum of likely +ve results !
And if you look at the states with the highest ratio of testing to population, you can see that the % of positive tests tends more down to the 1% range as testing ration increases.
So an informed “Guess” would suggest that the 1% is a reasonable estimate of the spread of infection in a unrestricted population. ( 250,000 in Au ? )
At our current “death rate. (50 in 6000 +ve cases) we could expect about 2000 deaths in total !
21
If the virus is crushed and not circulating in Australia the only people here who will need the vaccine are those wishing to travel abroad. Such concerns are negated. More likely antivirals and better treatment based on better knowledge, faster tests and more experience successfully treating a disease that is claimed to be uniquely ruthless in mechanism, will be the path to reducing the severity and inducing a growth in immunity over time.
90
Can you comment/compare the Austria data with that from Iceland, where I think they have tested (perhaps not random) 10% of population. Thanks.
30
Iceland found similar figures. Less than 1% infected.
Though it wasn’t random, they invited people to come forward. They found 50% were asymptomatic (but we don’t know how many went on to develop symptoms.) Austria found 75% of cases were not identified, which doesn’t mean they were asymptomatic. Just mild enough not to go to hospital.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2020/04/10/coronavirus-covid-19-small-nations-iceland-big-data/2959797001/
40
Waiting for a vaccine that may not appear is a ridiculous strategy
We cannot kill the economy otherwise the cure will be infinitely worse than the disease
There are already economic models that include the cost of a life versus economic benefits
Road safety modelling on road tolls already has one
Guess what, economic benefits for vehicle operating costs and travel time savings swamp zero fatalities on the road. Zero fatalities is an aspirational goal
Otherwise the medicos would say close all roads and reduce the annual death rate to zero
We will reopen when we can ensure we will have no more fatalities
We accept that zero is an aspirational goal so we don’t close the roads but chip away at the problem
As an aside, I don’t think that the one percent figure is accurate
I would suggest that there are lot of people in the community who have been exposed, haven’t got symptoms and have not been tested.
The health beauracrats should not be running our strategy for running the country
We put politicians in to do that and they have to make the tough decisions
Coming back and blaming the health beauracrats for destroying the economy after the event is a typical politicians way of scapegoating
Isolate the most at risk if you have to , mandatory masks in public in the short or immediate future and start the economy moving whilst dealing with the spot out breaks as they occur
Remember, over 3000 people are dying on average every week in Australia
Make that figure the benchmark headline for the hysterical press.
Their business model is always to create panic and hysteria and hide any balancing arguments
62
No that’s the point — The polling company randomized the testing.
And this test finds the asymptomatic cases, which is why it is so useful.
Virus is shed and detectable for five days in symptomatic and asymptomatic infections.
“The viral load that was detected in the asymptomatic patient was similar to that in the symptomatic patients, which suggests the transmission potential of asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic patients.”
“Identification of patients with few or no symptoms and with modest levels of detectable viral RNA in the oropharynx for at least 5 days ”
-https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2001737
” people with mild symptoms stop shedding the virus after about a week”
So this would include, not a snapshot, but a broader cluster of people infected up to a week before.
51
The error we have been making is in what constitutes a “herd”.
A virus spread depends on time as well as numbers of contacts. You have to contact enough to spread the virus before you are self isolated because you are sick or you are dead. The infectious but mobile period is about 5 days. But not every contact is successful. The Ro of about 2.85 shows the limited transmissiblity even when in China in the beginning (my calculation, China data, first 60,000 cases, based on doubling rate of 5.3 days).
It might take 10 or 20 contacts to transfer – consider how few of the Princess Diamond tested positive after being cooped up together for weeks!
So if you need 15 potential contacts for a transfer, an Ro of 2.85 needs 42 contacts over 5 days. 8 per day just to reproduce his infection. With a lockdown, you need only less than 8 contacts per day to stop its spread. That is the “herd” number.
You can think of it this way: there are two villages, one with a hundred people, the other with a thousand. They have no contact with each other and don’t self isolate. A disease gets in the small one. Every gets sick and then gets well the disease burns out. The “herd” was 100. Then imagine same thing happening in the large village: the herd now is 1000.
The dire warnings were based on uncontrolled and continuing spread in the ENTIRE population, I.e. the herd = the population. It doesn’t work that way.
Self isolation, masks and social distancing that bring intimate contact below about 5 people per day will end the disease spread.
41
Interesting.
20
Douglas, the Diamond PRincess was not an example of slow spread. One man left the boat infected in Hong Kong, and after only four more weeks — two of which were under strict quarantine — 712 people got infected.
One fifth of the boat possibly caught it in a few weeks.
This disease does not obey simpler Ro analysis. There are hardly-spreaders and super-spreaders.
Many nations were doubling every 2 – 3 days.
But yes, I agree, we don’t want to bother with herd immunity, we just want to get rid of it, then wait for technology to sort things out.
40
On this ship, 134 out of 223(incl. sick 6 originally?) people had the virus, only 6 (<3%) were symptomatic and moved onshore for treatment.
https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/nation-world/story/2020-04-07/most-people-on-antarctica-cruise-ship-have-the-coronavirus
That 63% infected, and 60% infected and asymptomatic at that time.
Far too early to be looking at individual countries/locations or judging success or otherwise of different actions, too many variables.
One thing for sure, the economic damage (and vastly greater consequential deaths long term) cannot possibly be justified – there will be questions to answer and heads to roll.
42
The economic damage can be justified in more than one way by those who will benefit from it.
They will also have all the unruly peasants where they should be – locked down.
12
“However, researchers, speaking at a press conference to release the results, said the study provided only a “snapshot” and did not account for asymptomatic infections, or people who were immune.
“We did not find out how many people are immune, but only how many people in Austria are currently acutely infected,” said Günther Ogris, from Sora.”
In the absence of knowing how many have been exposed and developed some immunity how does this report tell us the extent (or not) to which herd immunity has been acquired over preceding months?
Note that apparently up to one third of tests give a false negative especially where the viral load is low so the numbers may not be accurate and additionally we still have the possibility that a large proportion of those randomly tested had previously been exposed to and overcame a low viral load in a transient encounter that nonetheless triggered some immune system response but did not register as an acute infection.
50
Your last paragraph is interesting Stephen. As a young teenager (1960’s) I along with my peers were tested for TB. MY test showed a weak response indicating that I had been exposed to TB. At least this is how it was explained to me at the time. However subsequent tests showed that I did not have, nor had contracted the disease.
Someone with more knowledge than myself may be able to relate this to the outcome of coronavirus testing.
10
AT my school in the 60s all the dairy farm boys showed a reaction, because they drank raw milk at home. The same thing happened with smallpox; the farm boys who milked cows showed resistance.
vacca (Latin)= cow.
30
I recall that the “subsequent tests” at the Wallaceville Animal Research Laboratories were a bit rough. They seemed to have no small needles.
11
I had the same thing explained to me in the 1960’s about TB.
Later we put it together.
An aunt who we saw on few occasions was diagnosed with TB
And spent about 9 months on medication for it.
00
Stephen, as I explained earlier, this slice will also pick up some people who caught the infection 7 days earlier, even longer if they got sick, and the test was not that long after the peak. So yes, there are false negatives, and it misses the people who were infected on the rising half of the curve and cleared their virus before the test, but they multiplied the results by 3 (o.3% x 3 = 1%) so they’ve covered for both missing positives and first half of the bell curve.
10
Why do those who express the opinion that “the cure is worse than the disease” ignore the impact on the economy that would result if this disease were allowed to run unchecked throughout the community. Numerous deaths, massive absenteeism, loss of people in key positions in business, industry medicine and Govt. The fact that in the end people would self isolate anyway, but after much damage has been done.
I like to think that we can crush this thing before winter, because if we don’t we might see it’s real teeth exposed.
40
My understanding is that people using the “cure is worse than the disease” argument are mostly not arguing that the cure is worse than the uninhibited disease would be. They are arguing that there comes a point where applying more “cure” becomes counter-productive. Given all the unknowns, it seems reasonable to work on the basis that that point is somewhere around hospital capacity. Many governments around the world, including Australia’s, seem to have started with that basis. I hope they stick to it. Lockdown is far easier for governments than careful easing, and IMHO we now need careful easing.
21
Fair comment Mike. But those who take that position, should make that clear when they comment.
10
At the point where hospitals sit idle , waiting for the ” rush” , then perhaps a review of the settings and initial assumptions is in order. The hospital only did this preparation on the basis of un-validated models.
11
Meanwhile in Victoriastan, Dictatorial Dan has decided to extend the State of Emergency for a further 4 weeks, despite a clear drop in the number of new cases that could be close to zero in another week. Under a State of Emergency, Authorised Officers can act to eliminate or reduce a serious risk to public health by detaining people, restricting movement, preventing entry to premises, or providing any other direction an AO considers reasonable to protect public health. Democracy just died.
40
NZ beat OZ by a long head.
21
The socialists don’t want to give up the ring, but they’ll have to relax restrictions sooner than they imagine or be left behind.
20
Robber, it looks to me like they are aiming at extinguishing this virus, but they keep saying “it’ll be six months” and “we’ll never get rid of it”.
It’s a strange way to sell it, and I wish they would just be honest and treat Australians like they are adults.
So I would prefer they keep the lockdown, but offer people the carrot that if we really do get to zero cases and stay there for 2 weeks, we can then open resturants and cafes. Then if that works, 3 weeks later, we do XYZ, then if that works… etc.
What they say just does not add up. They probably don’t know what they will do, and are torn between die-hard academics doing the 1918 flu model of fatalistic herd immunity and the data coming in.
And if they don’t know, I wish they would say that.
50
Jo, therein lies the rub. Authorities are caught between the devil and the deep blue sea with a “square the circle” mentality. If they were honest the public would make up their minds for them. This will eventually happen but for the moment we’re caught in this dance of perfection and deception as you so rightly say in your own words. In the meantime the elitist mentality is entrenched and the newfound morally righteous power feels good. It’s only when we started looking at computers too much that we imagined we had the capacity to make the world as ordered and perfect as the simulacrum we saw on our screens. The folly of what are doing now with this virus is very Alice in Wonderland.
21
Switzerland 1,117 dead
Australia 61 dead
I know where I would rather be…right where I am sitting.
Good luck ya flamin Galah…yer gonna need it !
10
JanEarth, unlike Australia we’re not relying upon luck. Enjoy your fool’s paradise.
00
Agreed Jo. Seems the pollies and health bureaucrats have decided doom and gloom for ever is the only way to scare people into obeying lock down. Who’d ever heard of these health experts before this crisis? And now it seems they are waiting for some “expert modellers” to come up with new predictions/scenarios (remember the first forecast of 50,000 deaths, based on that initial exponential growth in cases doubling every few days?) But now we have had two weeks with a 70% decline in the number of new cases. Why won’t they open up and say let’s review the situation in another two weeks, rather than continuing with worst case statements about six months of lock down?
20
Again, I can’t explain their communication strategy. I won’t defend it. I presume some expert has told them that the dumb punters need to be told over and over to stay home, not the good news, or they might go out and party.
But it doesn’t take expert modelling to predict death and economic disaster from a novel virus with an Ro of 3 a 100% unprotected population and ICU rates that are a guaranteed hospital disaster. It is just arithmetic.
I’m not modeling anything. And I didn’t need a computer to predict disaster. I watched how the Chinese reacted and what it did to their economy. I listened to frontline docs and I have enough medical science training to know pandemonium and fear was 100% inevitable, and I was right.
The “folly” of what Australia is now doing appears to be a giant success overall (if with many petty unnecessary examples of stupid hypocrisy and luck contained under that grand success).
And as for all the people saying that this has been foisted on the masses, check the polls and surveys. Most people wanted the borders shut, they want to stop the virus, and they kept their kids home from school even though the govt told them to send them.
This is democracy in action. The elites predicted no one would want to lockdown, but actually the dumb punters really hate the idea of getting hypoxic pnumonia themselves and possibly killing off their parents. Given the unknowns about the actual long term damage, the sequelae, the encephalitis, seizures, it’s the frequent-flying elite who look dumb and rather callous at their idea of killing the olds so they don’t have to give up their skiing trips to Aspen.
Though I appreciate that the burden is unfairly falling on small business and not the public servants who failed to stop this in the first place. I wish I could change that and I appreciate the burning and quite justified anger that would generate.
Heads should be rolling at the Dept of Health, the CDC and at universities. Public servants should be getting a pay cut too. The ABC and the UN should be dismantled and funds distributed to small business immediately (just a return on taxes paid for no service).
50
Agree completely Jo
Once again flower bouquets, 10 green thumbs
And Gold elephants stamps !
I remember well the many times I called Morrison ‘SloMo’
Because of his prevarication on this disease.
And he times I called Hunt & Murphy idiots for the same reason,
The fact that finally they got something right
Is no reason why heads should not roll.
And that is true at both Federal & state levels.
00
See how quickly Taiwan was onto this, way back in December.
‘Taiwan has recorded 385 cases of COVID-19 to Australia’s 6314. It began scrutinising and quarantining passengers on flights from Wuhan and Guangdong in December, implemented travel bans on China and introduced strict social-distancing measures in January.’ SMH
40
If our governments had been watching Taiwan
Prevent this disease from coming there
We would not be in Lock down now.
Instead they listened to the
“Don’t kill the Economy” nutters.
Those nutter lost their credibility then.
And so are NOT being listened to now.
Tough !
10
Bulldust (I know you are around somewhere) even a die hard pro economy thinker would assert that staged and targetted travel restrictions where the benefits outweighed the cost, but we could allow travel now if we moved travellers into a real geographically isolated quarantine facility (not the local hotel) until they cleared a few days incubation time and a test.
We could also have an economy now if we just did the same thing with local cases, evacuate them to a quarantine zone 50 km away from healthy people. Even if every Australian got rotated through quarantine the cost would be 1/10th if the damage done already by our government.
And Jo, can you think of any example where a similar virus to this didn’t induce full or partial immunity? It’s the way this stuff works, the act of getting better produces antibodies that hang around a while, next infection is not as bad as the first because the antibodies get in there quickly.
Once again I am not advocating a let her rip approach but I do think we should manage this infection to full herd immunity in a sustainable way, rather than speculate on a vaccine that might never come.
21
Bobl, every year other coronaviruses affect the population give people minor colds, and there are no vaccines to them, because they don’t work. There is also not much herd immunity because the antibody titres fall and in a year or two you can catch the same virus.
It’s possible that a major deadly infection does generate protective immune responses but we don’t know that yet. No vaccine working to SARS yet which may be because not many people ended up getting sick and funding dried up, or it may be because vaccines don’t work. We don’t know.
40
Agreed Jo,
But we should go with the evidence and experience until we know different. Chances are given the spread that this coronavirus will be with us forever and we will need to be able to cope each year with it without shutting down the economy 6 months a year. It will most likely confer similar immunity to other similar viruses. I agree that this outlook isn’t good but it’s what we have to work with.
10
PS,
In recent times we have relied on medicines to deal with our health and as a society we have almost forgotten how we used to deal with disease prior to their vaccines. Measles for example, if a kid got sick our parents would deliberately infect the other siblings so immunity was conferred on all. Year to year only a few cases broke out because just about everyone had had measles as a kid. Eventually COVID-19 will be like that, possibly not so much because we become immune to it but because it will eventually kill off those susceptible to it.
We have been living in a bit of a golden age, where lifespan has been increasing, I expect this will set this back a bit for a while till we adapt. Death unfortunately is a part of life… what is it they say, “birth is a terminal disease”.
I tell you what though, if we do things the old way, a lot of this can be managed because humans learn. There are a lot of over the counter medicines that are very good at managing corona. We will find ways to manage this, might be quinine, zinc and Vitamin C & D, Eucalyptus oil to break up congestion, tea tree oil, turkey tail mushrooms, garlic, ginger, aspirin, even kerosene which is a very old remedy and dozens of other traditional remedies.
Modern medicine ignores a lot of these you don’t see the government recommending vitamin C,D and zinc with adequate potassium and a glass of bitter lemon each day. But natural medicines do work, penicillin is a fungus, aspirin came from the bark of a willow tree. We will find ways to protect ourselves. It’s in our nature.
10
With such high stakes and so much money on the table, biotech will find a way.
No chance people will put up with this kind of disruption for long.
10
See EG ?
Just my one comment replying to your informed comment about Taiwan.
There is a level of wilful ignorance abroad here
About Taiwan
The ONLY democratic and Liberal China !
00
Taiwan was prepared since SARS hit…they have been planning for this since then.
Its about time we recognised Taiwan as an independent country. These brave people have been flipping the bird to the CCP for decades now. Time for some recognition for their bravery.
10
Agreed. Punish China and reward Taiwan. Exactly. :- )
10
I keep seeing this claim.
Based on absolute risk/mortality the claim makes no sense.
290 000 to 650 000 respiratory deaths worldwide from the flu.
https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/influenza-(seasonal)
Lets stick with the low ball figure.
We are now at approx 100K dead.
And this is going to balloon out somehow to 2.9 million since its 10 times worse than the flu.?
No.
Thats confusing relative risk with absolute risk(mortality)
21
“And this is going to balloon out somehow to 2.9 million since its 10 times worse than the flu.?
No.”
If not, then because we have imposed restrictions.
10
Imposing restrictions is not all that was done. And that aside there are other possible explanations.
But you did not say ” . . .only because . . . “, but that was the implication.
Sloppy. Tut tut 🙂
11
Oh Dear, guess I’ll have to run my next comment past a series of editors.
12
Ted,… just run it past a “common sense”. filter,… that would correct the obvious logic failure. !
11
I made the mistake of believing that all the commenters here are able to follow a context.
00
Name your crystal ball Dreptomani ?
And when you last looked into it ?
it might be cracked mate.
The real disaster has yet to get going.
That will happen in the developing nations
Like Indonesia, India, PNG, the Philippines,
Pakistan, Bangladesh, Brazil, Nigeria, Egypt etc.
00
PNG?
Was civilised a long time ago: they once had Kiaps moving from village to village offering help and advice.
Now they have the U.N. Good luck with that.
KK
10
KK I agree !
10
Drapetomania — the seasonal flu only affects 5% to 20% of the population in any one season. That is vastly different from a novel disease which could theoretically infect 60 – 100% in a single season.
The mortality rates are not population based, they are a % of the infected who die.
20
Jo, .. tat is a confusing statement considering the title and subject of this thread ?
11
SA health workers are to be injected with an old TB drug, the theory is the TB drug will excite the immune system so it is better prepared if they get the CCP virus
10
If not?…it was always going to be “not”
So the claimed of 10 times deadlier than the flu is not testable…its a model..
And its relative risk…
It`s a relative risk statement covered with caveats to ensure it is never wrong.
And has zero to do with absolute risk.
The absolute risk, no matter how you want to spin it..is NOT 10 tens the absolute risk of normal influenza.
That can be due to many things..but it doesnt change a thing in the real world..
Absolute risk is the only real world calculation that matters…
11
Drapetomania,
The death rate for the flu is widely accepted as 0.1%. It’s not a model. It’s just a rate.
The rate of death per infection for Covid appears to be at least ten times worse, and I should have qualified that — if we lose control of the hospitals (see Italy, Iran, Spain and Wuhan) the rate is then up to fifty times worse than the flu. At the moment the Austrian death rate is the most conservative end.
I’m hoping the new treatments make that even lower.
21
So our demographic should similar. Our initial mortality data mirrored Germany’s = 0.2%. If we take our latest data, our true mortality rate ~ 0.23% at present. We haven’t had deaths under 50 yet. Statistically we should have IF data from ALL other areas was significant for us.
US data is irrelevant for many reasons, as is any other area with mortality rates orders of magnitude greater.
We can’t get herd immunity without herd wide infections which won’t happen without herd intermingling. I’m not advocating for that just stating the obvious.
Interesting ACE data. Keeping people on ACEI should therefore improve survival but it seems not to, hence we’re switching people’s anti hypertensive medication. It will be interesting to see the biology of this once determined. Will they automatically anticoagulate people who are admitted to hospital? ICU? During swine flu, it got to the point where automatically treated new cases with Tamiflu, and broad spectrum and Staph specific antibiotics, due to the incidence of Staph pneumonia with swine flu.
10
It’s clear that there are many
Both Australian & foreign commenting here
Who are plainly ignorant of the COVID disease situation in Australia
But despite that ignorance have rushed to judge our national response.
That is plainly arrogant in my opinion; and so their opinions not worth a tinker’s fart.
Here is the current situation here in Australia, as I see as an informed Australian :
1 : This vile viral bit of RNA chemistry can be destroyed !
Yesterday in SA just 3 new cases were found with 33 for the whole of Australia.
2 : The ‘shut down’ and the social isolation measures are working. At all times we are instructed to stay 1.5 meters from other people. ( The one exception is in our own homes )
3 : Currently there is NO international travel into Australia except for the odd flight of returning Australians who all go into supervised quarantine for 2 weeks.
Flights out are for foreigners returning to their home countries as ALL Australians are forbidden to leave the country.
( There are the odd exceptions for diplomatic personnel, essential workers and aid workers ).
This will probably happen until the end of the year.
3 There is hardly any travel whether by air, land or sea, between the Australian states
Except for essential services personnel.
Any one else travelling into another state ( eg. South Australia from interstate), has to do 2 weeks supervised quarantine.
4 : All service industries are closed or people are working from home via the internet.
Restaurants, cafes, are all forbidden to to serve sit down meals. But are allowed to do take aways.
All religious gatherings are banned but most are doing them via online. Gyms are closed.
All sport games are banned or suspended.
Marriages can happen but only with 5 people present if each person is 1.5 meters away from anyone else.
Funerals for some odd reason can happen with 10 people present if each person is 1.5 meters away from anyone else.
5 : Schools are still open primarily for essential service workers an parents of other occupations are ‘encouraged’ to not send kids to school.
6 : Queerly hardly anyone is wearing face masks or gloves in my part of SA. ( I do wear a face mask outside my home).
It is more common in the big cities and more crowded inner suburban areas.
7 The facts that we are a dispersed suburban nation seems to be a key factor in our success.
This provides a level of automatic isolation.
This has implications for the radical left Greenist project to change Australia
Into a nation of dense cities of high rise dwellers without cars using public transport.
Is doomed to COMPLETE FAILURE.
Why ? Because this pandemic has shown us all that it infects & kills so bloody easily.
Wherever people live in high density cities like New York, Wuhan, Milan, Madrid London.
The virus kills in high rise cities !
8 : About 66% of all detected instances of infection are the result of
Incoming travellers bring the disease here from overseas with them.
Another 25% are infections by those in contact with returned travellers.
9 : There is one instance of unexplained community transmission in
North West Tasmania around Burnie with many people infected from an unknown source
There is an asymptomatic carrier there who has somehow infected hospital staff and patients.
So two hospitals have been closed down for deep cleaning.
All the staff at these hospitals have been ordered into 2 weeks quarantine along with all their families.
That’s about 1500 people.
The national government has increased payments
To unemployed on social security.
And is also offering a $1500 a fortnight ‘Job Keeper ” program per employee support
To all businesses which have been shut down.
This support will continue until the lock down is eased.
THAT IS HOW AUSTRALIA IS ACTING TO DESTROY THIS VIRUS.
WE ARE NOT WAITING FOR THE RESEARCHERS & ACADEMICS TO GET THEIR ACT TOGETHER.
WE ARE ACTING.
AND IT IS WORKING.
I repeat : this dangerous infectious bit of
Un-alive RNA chemistry can be destroyed.
The solution is to not allow it new victims and isolate & treat all the current victims in isolation & care.
Other nations can take this lesson on board and do the same if possible in their conditions.
Or work out ways that work for them in their specific conditions.
And later on the researchers & academics will do their research
And ponder in retrospect, why some nations . like China, Spain & Italy
Suffered so much.
And how those places could have avoided it.
But IMO it was the lack of timely government action that lead to their disasters.
41
Bill in Oz, None of what you’ve written bar point 6, which is anecdotal in nature, is unknown. You likely get your news from a similar source to me!
The above means i’m probably not ignorant. Though i do agree with you on some points, i disagree with you on several. Which probably means i’m not arrogant either, just critical. Hope you don’t mind.
Australia won’t rid itself of this virus anytime soon. It might just send itself broke trying to do so if it keeps at it for long enough. There’s a certain madness in absolutism, do you not think?
52
Most scientists, especially palaeontologists, indeed most people know that any species can be forced to extinction. We know exactly how to make COVID-19 become extinct so id does not find an endemic niche within Australia’s fauna. The virus is extremely vulnerable to isolation, that and time ends it. You’re effectively asserting this won’t happen. Even the geniuses at Extinction Rebellion disagree, you’re on shaky ground mate.
We know COVID-19 can move into other animals, but the same applies, we isolate the animal, or more likely put it down via drug and burn the body–the virus ends, or at least it ends within humans. We know quarantine works if the period is sufficiently long. We’ll do that, any travelers will be barred entry until they prove they don’t have COVID-19. This is easy, it’s not even complicated to implement, we already have.
Your stance and aversion to border control and essential quarantine of transient travelers is a bit puzzling. It seems to be ideological, i.e. it’s not going to convince anyone. It’s also curious that a person from Switzerland, which managed to keep out of all sorts of snafus within Europe last century due to strong border controls and strong geographic isolation deep within the Alps, should be arguing to us that Australia should not take full advantage of our splendid geographic isolation!
Which is so much better than yours I might add. You have mountains, which are pretty, sure, but cold and avalanchey. What can you do? Go skiing? Impersonate a mountain goat? We go to the beached, we have high bikini area per head of capita, surfing and fishing out the wazoo, and mucho coral reefishiness, TIP: water skiiing does not produce frost bite or surprise compacted ice burials. We invented throwing another prawn on the barbie, while you guys throw snow at each other! WUWT?
We like our mote, we enjoy it, we’d be fools to not make sure travelers which we don’t need (nice, but not necessary) don’t bring COVID-19 to our CoVID-19 free cities.
As per the assumptions already given below:
Switzerland
12% Pop Symptomatic = 1,036,890 People
6.51% = 67,477 Dead
2.95% = 30,556 Critical Cases
I strongly suggest Switzerland snaps out of it and does the same. 😉
100
Sunni
Re #6, yes that is anecdotal. But I do live here and need to get about a fair bit ‘essential worker’ category. And I see maybe 1 in a hundred people wearing face masks ..Government propaganda to not wear masks in the MSM has had a big impact sadly.
Re the other items ( unspecified ) which you ‘disagree’ on, my rely is simple : ‘The facts speak for themselves. Facts trump opinion any day of the week.”
If you have opinions that not fact based, your opinions are worthless.
10
The first economic “projections” will come in NZ this week. And you will notice that the Princess is preparing the subjects for more lockdown.
If it becomes apparent that recession and real povert are imminent then the lockdown will “go hard” for the first time since this began.
11
Sorry. Forgot the link and left the y off poverty.
https://thebfd.co.nz/2020/04/13/covid-19-update-13-april-2020/
01
” There’s a certain madness in absolutism, do you not think?”
Far from it. There is a guaranteed madness in defeatism.
At least with the aim of 100% extinction — we might be wrong but we will save lives on the way.
Those countries that do manage to reduce cases to 0 and keep the borders secure will be the envy of the defeatists around the world, even if they never admit it.
70
This afternoon in the midst of the flame war with ‘Sunni’
I went out wearing a face mask to the Miter 10 and Aldi supermarket.
No one else was wearing a face mask.
But all were 1.5 meters apart as per the regs.
Despite this a couple of quite queer things happened.
At Miter 10 having got what i wanted and waiting in the queue,
the old bugger in front of me
Turned around and ‘demanded’ loudly that I step back away from him.
I did so to about 3 meters…
And then at Aldi
Which here at least has an excellent supply chain,
Still wearing a mask and from 1.5 meters away,
I made the comment, “Aldi has an excellent supply chain”.
to one of the staff.
He hopped away about a meter as I said this.
Making extra distance between us.
But replied his thanks.
I’ve been thinking about these two incidents after getting home.
Our government has told ordinary people
‘DO NOT WEAR FACE MASKS’
They are dangerous.
And as a result we have the PERVERSE result
That people wearing masks are seen as infected and dangerous
.
Yet another reason for thinking that our pollies
Do not really know what they are talking about
And relying on the advice coming from the ‘medical experts’
With their own huge bundle of vested interests.
Bah !
00
If a fast path to “Herd-Immunity” were applied in any country, these would be the implications, currently.
Assumptions:
(1) 60% of population catches COVID-19.
(2) 20% of cases are tested and confirmed, 80% remain undetected, so 1/5th of 60% of the pop or 12%, of total national population, become symptomatic.
(3) Top-30 most infected “% Died” average is currently 6.51%, so this is applied to 12% of population.
(4) Top-30 most infected % Critical average is currently 2.95%, so this is applied to 12% of population.
Result:
USA
12% Pop Symptomatic = 39,645,955 People
6.51% = 12,900,744 Dead
2.95% = 1,168,428 Critical Cases
UK
12% Pop Symptomatic = 8,136,992 People
6.51% = 529,523 Dead
2.95% = 239,787 Critical Cases
RUSSIA
12% Pop Symptomatic = 17,510,069 People
6.51% = 1,139,551 Dead
2.95% = 516,049 Critical Cases
AUSTRALIA
12% Pop Symptomatic = 3,047,366 People
6.51% = 198,310 Dead
2.95% = 89,802 Critical Cases
Conclusion:
Letting COVID-19 ‘rip’ within any country would be an unforgettable tragedy. A much worse option than crushing it now, slowing endemic emergence, while managing away most of the damage it can produce, as effective treatments are developed and more is learned about how to eliminate it from general circulation during a managed economic and border re-opening process.
The opinion by a small but loud minority, that this course we’re on should be abandoned, to just let it rip instead, in order to preserve jobs and economy, could not be more foolish. In such conditions there would be even lower economic activity and fewer jobs than now, unless you’re a grave-digger, medical pro, or PPE manufacturer. And in that circumstance there would indeed be multiple economy-destroying waves of the disease.
With the current course there needs to be only one very much smaller initial wave (and we’re getting that now), into a managed economic reopening where the virus tail of cases is relentlessly crushed from here, and managed out of existence within countries. We have done this before and it’s more doable now than at any period prior.
Remarks:
I agree with TdeF (and others) that many minds and vast resources have been mobilized and are now focused on specific imperative aims as never before, in a way never been possible prior. This will predictably generate a period of rapid medical innovation and also disaster/crisis management thinking, and societal and technical advances. This will also focus minds on what to do about restructuring institutions, finance, markets, business operations and employment to get us out of this with a better structure and path than we went into it with.
But the notion that we just give up to such a disease and fail ourselves for the benefit of a few, to support their interests in re-inflating a bloated debt sewer of imaginary financial ‘products’ is perverse, plus a missed opportunity to solve many dangerous viral issues and diseases. This is not about imposing socialism (though it could end up that way within foolish countries), the truth is Capitalism is currently dysfunctional due to ‘trading’ imaginary constructs creating absurd levels of un-repayable destabilizing debt. So that already failed. It needs to be cleaned up permanently or Capitalism can not become functional again, and democracies will go away with it. Want a despotic “National Socialism” instead? This is the opportunity to end that dangerous perversion of markets and finance and we should use it and not shy away from it. It would be foolish to miss this virus-imposed opportunity to cut way the debt, bad markets and bad organisations.
We’d also be crazy to surrender civilization’s path to a virus just to try and prop up an ‘everything-bubble’ and fake economy that robs from future earnings. This is just a challenge, a stunning once in a century opportunity to defeat virus, in general, in the same sort of way that we largely defeated bacteria 80 years ago. Where bacteria have come back it’s mostly because we got distracted and let that develop (i.e. the UN and WHO let that happen).
Given the extreme danger of duel-use bio-research which we see has now fully emerged and proliferated, can anyone seriously suggest we should give up? Just let a virus win? What about the next? Same again, be victims again? No, we must fight this virus and all virus, and we’ll definitely beat them. It would be crazy to decide not to that. But with the wider aim, to make sure we can defeat any emerging novel or synthetic virus, which comes after it. We can all see they will be coming, or we’ll end up in a much more damaging situation in future.
We also should not forget that this virus is much like SARS, and the mortality of SARS if combined with COVID-19’s contagiousness could pair back humanity to 18th century lifestyles and longevity levels inside of 3-years. We must do to all virus what we’ve already done to bacteria.
140
Countries with > 250 active cases and > 2.5% died:
% Died | Country | Active cases | % New v Active
15.31 … Algeria … 1,030 … 8.6
12.73 … Italy … 102,253 … 4.0
12.59 … UK … 73,323 … 7.2
12.14 … Belgium … 19,584 … 8.3
10.86 … France … 91,012 … 3.2
10.70 … Netherlands … 22,600 … 5.2
10.32 … Spain … 87,231 … 4.4
9.83 … San Marino … 268 … 0.0
8.80 … Indonesia … 3,509 … 11.4
8.58 … Sweden … 9,203 … 3.6
8.00 … Bolivia … 274 … 9.1
7.70 … Egypt … 1,317 … 9.6
7.10 … Morocco … 1,366 … 8.5
7.02 … Hungary … 1,193 … 8.4
6.47 … Mexico … 2,174 … 17.2
6.39 … Philippines … 4,154 … 5.3
6.36 … Honduras … 361 … 0.3
6.24 … Iran … 23,318 … 7.1
5.83 … Dominican Republic … 2,663 … 7.8
5.62 … Iraq … 636 … 5.3
5.51 … Brazil … 20,796 … 5.9
5.48 … Bangladesh … 548 … 25.4
5.43 … Burkina Faso … 309 … 4.2
5.02 … Romania … 5,132 … 6.0
4.64 … Greece … 1,747 … 1.9
4.55 … Andorra … 481 … 7.7
4.46 … Ecuador … 6,632 … 3.2
4.42 … Denmark … 3,778 … 4.7
4.40 … Slovenia … 1,002 … 1.7
4.38 … Tunisia … 633 … 3.5
4.35 … Switzerland … 11,609 … 2.7
4.30 … Bulgaria … 578 … 2.4
4.20 … Argentina … 1,584 … 0.0
4.11 … North Macedonia … 753 … 9.0
4.07 … China … 1,138 … 0.0
3.94 … USA … 505,663 … 5.4
3.93 … Colombia … 2,397 … 2.8
3.87 … Bosnia and Herzegovina … 777 … 8.1
3.60 … India … 7,794 … 9.7
3.48 … Poland … 6,003 … 5.3
3.46 … Ireland … 9,296 … 7.8
3.17 … Lebanon … 530 … 2.1
3.04 … Portugal … 15,804 … 3.8
2.99 … Ukraine … 2,605 … 10.2
2.97 … Afghanistan … 557 … 9.3
2.94 … Canada … 16,494 … 6.5
2.78 … Mauritius … 273 … 1.8
2.69 … Cuba … 559 … 8.8
2.57 … Peru … 5,528 … 12.1
2.56 … Panama … 3,284 … 5.1
2.51 … Austria … 6,608 … 2.1
0.93 … Australia … 2,916 … 0.3
For Australia the % died is (of course) up but spread of new active cases plunged to a very low level. It remains to be seen how much of that is Easter-effect.
Recovered
April 11th = 124
April 12th = 73
Australia:
Total Cases | Active | Died | % Died | Critical | % Critical
6,313 … 2,916 … 59 … 0.93 … 81 … 1.28
130
WXCycles,
Sometimes it is good to have percentages of a thing.
And sometimes the actual number is more informative.
Deaths IMO is better if it is an actual number.
The number of deaths for the USA ( and New York )
Has far more meaning that a ‘percentage’.
The percentage figure dilutes the significance sometimes.
Otherwise thanks for your contribution to this issue
Keeping us well informed.
51
No problem Bill.
All countries with total deaths > 100 dead.
Total Deaths | Country | New Deaths
22,105 … USA … 1,528
19,899 … Italy … 431
17,209 … Spain … 603
14,393 … France … 561
10,612 … UK … 737
4,474 … Iran … 117
3,600 … Belgium … 254
3,339 … China …
3,022 … Germany … 151
2,737 … Netherlands … 94
1223 … Brazil … 83
1,198 … Turkey … 97
1,106 … Switzerland … 70
899 … Sweden … 12
717 … Canada … 64
504 … Portugal … 34
373 … Indonesia … 46
350 … Austria … 13
334 … Ireland … 14
333 … Ecuador … 18
331 … India … 43
316 … Romania … 25
297 … Philippines … 50
293 … Algeria … 18
273 … Denmark … 13
273 … Mexico … 40
232 … Poland … 24
214 … S. Korea … 3
193 … Peru … 12
173 … Dominican Republic … 38
159 … Egypt … 13
138 … Czechia … 9
130 … Russia … 24
128 … Norway … 9
118 … Morocco … 7
109 … Colombia … 9
108 … Japan …
103 … Israel … 2
Keep in mind this is mostly Easter Sunday data being displayed, so the new deaths number here will often be lower than actual deaths.
110
Deaths IMO is better if it is an actual number
Agreed.
Here are the statistics for mortality in 22 European countries. These are “seasonally adjusted” if you like – because more people die in winter. The data is updated every Thursday. It has around 4 years so of data.
for those aged 15-64
for those aged 65+
You will notice that Italy had a bump for those over 65 but that has now subsided. If you take into account the delay between infection and death, it started subsiding BEFORE the lockdown. The same thing happened for Switzerland and the Netherlands.
For those 15-64, there is no bump at all except for England.
Sweden has no lockdown and there are no bumps in either age band. IMPORTANT!!!
My conclusion. Big Deal!
I respectfully suggest you go back to reading the latest from the NYT, The Age, SMH, The Daily Mail and all the rest of that lot. 🙂
13
Alfred the Euromomo graphs are interesting but they will artificially flatten the infectious deaths given that — as far as we know — only a small percentage were infected. Better to look at smaller units, like NY in the latest post to see what the effect would be if the infection ran wild through the whole population without lockdowns. (And NY has been trying to stop it, but it started too late.)
30
Alfred the Euromomo graphs are interesting
Thank you. The point I was trying to make is that this is real data.
The stuff coming out of New York is highly politicized and they are mixing Covid-19 into people who have died from many other causes. If you like that, that is fine by me. But I don’t like air temperature data mixed with humidity data into some sort of goulash. 🙂
1- The media worldwide is systematically ignoring the fact that 98% of Italian deaths were of people with pre-existing medical problems.
2- The media is also ignoring the fact that almost all the deceased who were not old were either diabetic or pre-diabetic – obese.
I challenge you to find one mention of the above in Australia’s lying media.
Here are some videos:
“This is the beginning of the end of the pandemic”
https://video.foxnews.com/v/6146455701001
“New controlled clinical study conducted by doctors in France shows that a combo of Hydroxychloroquine and Azithromycin (Z-Pak) cures 100% of coronavirus patients within 6 days of treatment”
https://techstartups.com/2020/03/18/breaking-controlled-clinical-study-conducted-doctors-%E2%80%8Bin-france-shows-hydroxychloroquine-cures-100-coronavirus-patients-within-6-days-treatment-covidtrial-io/
You won’t find any of that on Australian media because they want to blame it all on Trump. Just like all the lies of the fake “Russiagate” and the very real “Ukrainegate”
00
Yet you ignore that I said the momo graphs are diluting the data to the point of irrelevance?
Anyone can show the deaths are small when only a few percent of the population is infected and the rest are in the safest low risk lifestyle that exists.
Just combine and blend the lower mortality rates of the uninfected with the high mortality of the infected and tell everyone there’s nothing to worry about as the virus spreads the high death rates through the whole population.
20
Anyone can show the deaths are small when only a few percent of the population is infected and the rest are in the safest low risk lifestyle that exists.
You are proposing that healthy people should suffer because they are not old and obese. As a consequence, that will bring down the economy for all and the old and obese will be the first sufferers because the young and healthy will have more urgent concerns.
The reality is that people seem to have forgotten that death is a normal thing. If a person is on the edge and an infection pushes him over is not the same as a healthy young person dying in a car accident. It is not a tragedy. I guess we have very different value systems.
00
Global Deaths graphs below include Chinese data. The final graph is dominated by Chinese data, prior to about March 1st, which data pattern is entirely unlike the died-percent experienced within other countries, i.e. the corrupt Chinese data is biasing strongly prior to March 1st within the first and the last graph. The 2nd graph is almost but not quite free of faked Chinese data.
I’ve better nailed down the relationship between Global Case Curve factor and Global Death Curve factor – Feb 3rd to April 12th – I also smoothed out the ridiculous Chinese data blip which was present on the 13th of Feb:
https://i.ibb.co/rwxByzg/Relationship-between-Case-Curve-and-Death-Curve-factors-Feb-3rd-2020-to-April-12th-2020.png
The global deaths per day trend graphed:
https://i.ibb.co/NYMtchN/COVID-19-Change-in-Daily-Deaths-Graphed-March-1st-2020-to-April-12th-2020.png
The way in which percent died has risen by more than 3 times since the 3rd of Feb, 2020:
https://i.ibb.co/s9zXtsG/Changes-in-global-died-percentage-Feb-3rd-2020-to-April-12th-2020.png
COVID-19 becomes much more lethal with scale.
120
A few questions….
Since up to now, most of the testing in Australia has been “targeted” at high risk groups ..health workers, o’seas visitord, people known to have been in contact with infection, etc …
..Then effectively that testing has been on “unprotected” people,. If not something even more likely to be infected than any typical population.
So then….
1).. Why assume 60% infected ?
………these is no data anywhere to support that figure…
2) why 20% confirmed symptomatic ?..
……All the testing in Au of the targeted “high risk” groups indicates a average of 1.8% confirmed infected !…with strong evidence to say it is closer to 1% with wider testing of similar high risk (unprotected ?) populations .
3). Currently AUSTRALIAs death rate. Is running at <1% of all those +ve, syptomatic, test results (60 in 6000+ +ves)
…..critical / ICU cases in Au are <1% also of the 6000 +ve results
So FOR AUSTRALIA. (Only)
AUSTRALIA
1-2% Pop Symptomatic = 250-500,000 People
1% = 2,500. – 5,000 Dead
<1% Critical Cases = <2,500 in ICU
Somewhat less dramatic figures than your projections !
Im sure there would need to be similar corrections for the other countries also.
26
I’m sure you know perfectly well that 60% of the population with an immune response is generally considered a level at which the virus would struggle to propagate and be sustained, even seasonally. Given this is COVID-19 we are talking about though, that’s probably low-balling it, so 60% is a reasonable number to be using in such an example of the implications of letting COVID-19 do its worst.
This has been discussed many times which I’m also sure you know of.
Jo’s discussion above even suggests the total infected population is even lower than the known case numbers plus another 80% as the implied and assumed to be present other 4/5th of the infection. In which case the death numbers I gave here should have been even higher.
But that’s the point, we have not nailed this down, we have conflicting study results, and it won’t be nailed down soon, but it seems to be around 80% unseen cases. Which means we have to take take the precaution of presuming that’s about what it is. So letting COVID-19 rip through a population is crazy if we don’t know what the full proportion will average to. The numbers are much too big to even consider doing that.
Is this a question?
Take it up with the respective State and Federal Ministers for Heath as their modeling says about 200,000 dead in Australia if COVID-19 were to be let rip. And my result above, on those basic assumptions, is remarkably close to what they think will take place:
AUSTRALIA
12% Pop Symptomatic = 3,047,366 People
6.51% = 198,310 Dead
2.95% = 89,802 Critical Cases
So I presume they do have some professional clues about this which is at least equal to or better than the average climate-blog commenting electrical engineering guy.
120
But “immune response is not what you use the 60% figure for ..
You used it as “the % of the population infected” !… a very different factor.
You do not seem to accept that the Au test data is from “High Risk” groups, so the results are likely an extreme indicator of infection levels in unprotected individuals
Apart from the 1.8% Au data from “high risk” populations , we also have examples from the Cruise ships where only 10% approx of the population were infected, and surely those extreme “petrie dish” examples were CV19 doing its worst ?
So i do not care who “said it” or whose “model” was used , if anybody seriously believes there are no more infected carriers beyond those tested… they are fools !
And if they cannot see the facts that the Au test data is revealing , IE this strain of virus was never going to “explode” across the population, then they are incompetant fools.
19
But “immune response is not what you use the 60% figure for ..
You used it as “the % of the population infected” !… a very different factor.
Um, like, garbage.
I think I know how I used the 60% Chad, given it was me who did it.
You’re again picking at straws and muddying waters when your argument is no argument.
81
Nice “duck and weave”…distraction attempt..
….but you cannot use an immune response figure for a estimate of infection level ..
And its not a “straw” ..it was fundamental to your number salad garbage.
03
No, wrong, not even close.
Most cruises are quite short, 2 weeks max, whereas approximately exponential spreading is not, it only picks up speed after about 80% of the build up has already taken place. We are 6 months into a global transmission process and only now are we seeing the more rapid effects of months of earlier infections is scores of countries. We are also seeing that as soon as awareness is increased about it the exponential growth can be flattened. So any growth disruption, like people leaving or joining the ship at the various port visits would massively disrupt and decrease any existing growth rate on that ship and set it back to a lower level.
So no, there’s zero change COVID-19 on such ships was ANYWHERE NEAR doing its worst.
Passengers were rushed off the Diamond Princess and back to home countries simply because it was looking like the bulk of the passengers and crew on the ship would soon contract COVID-19 otherwise, i.e. the potential existed for many more people to get seriously ill if they were not removed ASAP so such claims are empty.
90
Where do you dream this stuff up ?
The D Princess passengers were onboard for a month ( some much longer) with no isolation for the first 2 weeks .
Infections were reported on the ship within the firt few days..( most likely crew members already infected)
There are examples already recorded of virus cases going from zero to 3000 infections within 14 days,. Even in somewhat “protected” populations.
And with an Ro of 2+ , in the confines of a cruise ship, even your confused mathmatical mind should be able to figure out how long a few infected passengers would take to infect all the 3500 on board …IF THE VIRUS WAS UNIVERSALLY ADOPTED by all potential contacts.
within 2 weeks the majority of passengers and crew would be +ve tested.
..But they were not ..only 700 or tested positive..83% were cleared of infection..
Few of the repatriated passengers developed the infection later.
CONCLUSION.. there is a high degree of immunity in at least some populations , such that 60% iinfection rate is unlikely to ever occurr .
13
Oh yes … you again ignore that the passengers were confined to their cabins, and still want to pretend the virus had its way with them!
Bullshlt!
This virus doing its worst would be when it’s left to run-amok with no isolation, no impedance for many months, of deliberately letting it rip, i.e. what you recommend we should do.
Fortunately no country has been quite that stupid so far, though some cities in northern Italy did flirt with that approach, util a health disaster struck that is. Same for the UK, turns out not only was it predictably a really bad idea, it was actually really bad idea too, not a policy, just dumb.
30
Absolutely nobody has claimed that (but you) and it’s yet another of your distortions, not an argument.
Plus a general random testing of the population, as has already been explained to you so many times, is not happening because there’s no capacity to do so. Even if the test kits were available, the processing capacity to do it in a usefully actionable time frame does not exist.
And as has also been pointed out to you repeatedly, the isolation process means the virus that does exist and has caused community spreading will be snuffed out by failure to transmit to another human. So there is no need to do such testing, thus the testing of actual sick people calling up from isolation, to be tested and treated, is all that’s occurring.
How many more times do you need to be told the same things?
100
Yes, Minister!
Total Deaths | Country | New Deaths
22,105 … USA … 1,528
19,899 … Italy … 431
17,209 … Spain … 603
14,393 … France … 561
10,612 … UK … 737
4,474 … Iran … 117
3,600 … Belgium … 254
3,339 … China …
3,022 … Germany … 151
2,737 … Netherlands … 94
Jump the shark much?
Now you can tell what a particular strain can do? We need to clone and patent you! No one knows what a strain is going to do from one day to the next. And there’s this little thing called mutation which alters strains along the way, but those will be nice to us. Roll the dice, not like you could be wrong.
90
^^ .. if you are suggesting that represents some sort of “explosion” in the virus across the populations….
… then you need to reset your references as to what an explosion is relative to the scale of those populations.
.. remember those Road toll deaths, cancer deaths, FLU deaths ??
THANKS FOR VERIFYING MY POINT. !
03
Um, no.
http://joannenova.com.au/2020/04/new-york-like-mass-casualty-event-coronavirus-and-other-deaths-up-three-fold/
You’re not a skeptic Chad, skepticism is reasonable, you’re just committed to pretending that what’s observably occurring when COVID-19 is allowed to spread unhindered, isn’t. We keep finding out every couple of days that the virus is more dangerous and damaging than had been thought. But you immediate act like its nothing and argue we should let it rip through the global and national population.
[snip. Ahem, best not fan the flames. Point well made above. – Jo]
20
“IE this strain of virus was never going to “explode” across the population, then they are incompetant fools.”
And you can define just what strain this virus is? You could be saving virologists an awful lot of work.
11
Of course…
…its the AUSTRALiAN strain !!
It may be the same as the Italian strain, but it is giving very different results down here !
13
So when Austria was officially saying 7,000 were infected, the true number was 28,500. Finally, this puts a solid limit on the chance that asymptomatic rate of infection was high. There is no iceberg.
About 75% of cases were mild or truly asymptomatic (and thus not getting officially tested), but it was still only a small slice of the population — just one third of one percent.
99% of the population is still vulnerable why is 99% vulnerable?
What does it mean?
Will get infection and survive
Or
Will get infection and die
Austria has officially recorded 6,941 cases in total of which 337 have died. So the mortality rate for diagnosed cases is 5%
Why you do not use figure that you put before 28,500/337
21
337/28500=0.011
21
0.0118 = 1.2% which is exactly what I said.
30
“So the mortality rate of all infections (including asymptomatic) is more like 1.2%, making this at least ten times deadlier than the flu.”
Yes, apologies — from me.
20
Hey Jo
Fair point.
And that rate is used in models.
I was wrong in my statement.
Ok.
Thats where I differ with writers on this page.
The idea that it is 10 to up to 50 times.
Thats an epidemiological model of possible future projections.
That is the relative risk modelling projections based on present mortality figures.
I am “arguing” that the absolute risk due to social distancing etc…will never exceed the global flu absolute risk.
Everyone else here appears to be talking about relative risk and then extrapolating that into the future in different scenarios.
When the mortality figure does not exceed the global average for flu, then people will say
As someone already has, whilst actually not addressing my point.
But thats my exact point.
Or, I will try another way..
Look at the variability of COVID-19 mortality from a CDC study of China
12% to 1%.
https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/6/20-0233_article?deliveryName=USCDC_333-DM22636
The mortality figure for coronavirus is now at 114K.
Your arguing that It could blow out to 10 times the flu mortality which is equal to about 4 million globally in your model.
And even out to 20 million.
When the mortality figure doesn’t pass the approx 500K…will there be any mea culpa from the media for whipping up these figures of 4 million to 20 million?
40
I repeat: I have no model. I have no model. I have no model. I’m not using a model. Not quoting a model.
It’s just arithmetic. X x Y = Z
“The idea that it is 10 to up to 50 times.
Thats an epidemiological model of possible future projections.”
NO. It’s the best estimates of death rates we had from South Korea and China and the Diamond Princess and Italy at the time they were made. The five fold increase in death rates is repeated wherever people have a hospital system that is “dysfunctional”. And that’s whereever doctors have to tell patients “I’m sorry we have run out of drugs or equipment to treat you so I’m choosing to treat this other guy because he has better odds of surviving. Please lie on the floor in the corridor. Sorry, and would you like to make a one last call to your wife and kids before you die? I”ll find a nurse to hold the phone.”
50
Don’t even think that X x Y = Z is realistic.
Consider what is happening in Ontario: Covid19 gets into a nursing home of 150 residents. A few residents die. Governmenttests and finds that 15 residentsand 20 staff are infected. Starts putting segregation of residents and PPG Ffor staffinto place *provided spare PPG is availble
In some situation 30% to 90% of the staff quit or are offsick. Suddenlythe retirement has a big staffing problem.
Alsothese lower paid staff work at multiple locations, in close personal contact with residents.
Currently estimatedthat 50% of covid deaths in Ontario come from long care homes. This does not include the outbreaks in hospitals from staff and patients.
Many places only count covid deaths that ONLY occur in hospitals
20
The models predicted
Governments & individuals world wide responded with local downs & self Isolation.
The Virus is being contained & destroyed.
Get used to it mate
12
Bill, that is our old friend “Correlation” and no evidence of Causation !
I would have expected better from you !
I have yet to see a single prediction, forcasr, or eveb SWAG that has been anywhere near the reality we are seeing !
Many theories, models, hindsight, and much wild hysteria, ..but very little common sense being used.
43
Chad your lack of logic & common sense is appalling
Isolation & quarantine have been the tools used to contain infectious diseases
Ever since the Venetians discovered
The benefits of ‘QUARANTINA’ in the 1460’s.
And made all ships from elsewhere wait for 40 days
Before docking at their harbours.
They did that because of the Bubonic plague.
We are doing quarantine & self isolation
Because of this COVID 19 plague
It’s the ‘let it rip mob’
Who lack common sense.
If you doubt
Go look at the New York stats !
Better yet, as you seem to have no fear,
Pop on a plane & live there a while
In the midst of this plague.
One Australian friend of mine
Has gone to Padua to help there in Italy.
She has no doubts at all about
The vile infectiousness of this plague.
00
No bill, it is you who is showing a lack of logic and common sense by ignoring the fact that theye is no data to show that Quarantine and confinement are the primary reason for reduced deaths in some countries.
Your faith in history , whilst understandable, is not necessarily the wisest solution to every problem . History does not always give the answer to apparently similar problems.
…( ask the USA if their success and learnings in WW2 helped them in a much smaller conflict like Vietnam ?)
This CV19 isnt the Plague or tha Spanish Flu, it is something different and is behaving differently in different countries,..so a common solution like lockdowns, may not. Be the best answer in all situations.
It may well be that Quarantine and Lockdowns have been the “silver Bullet” for CV19,…but that is not a proven fact, it may yet turn out to be something unthought of. ..( even Jo has suggested that the “giant Nuclear Plasma Ball “ in the sky , could be a significant factor in Australia… providing a natural UV sterilisation process ??)
Maybe the smoke from the bushfires has left a residual immunity in its wake.
… there is just as much evidence for that , as there is for the Lockdown solution ! (None)
24
In future years
Some one may bother ‘proving’
that this pandemic was stopped
By Quarantine & social distancing
To your bizarre & queer satisfaction.
In the meantime the rest of us will thank our lucky stars we are still alive
Or not suffering long term illnesses,
Rather than decomposing DEAD
Courtesy of your flawed ‘logic’.
Your thinking is smelly mate.
It’s even ‘sciency’.
A phrase I usually reserve for the Climate Change idiots.
10
Chad.
Congratulations, you have almost received the highest categorisation by the Captain: almost.
You were just a smidgen off being labeled an “Idiot”.
Maybe next time.
🙂
KK
01
Keith how ungracious of you
To make such spurious comments about me !
I’m fighting the good fight
To keep you, Suni, & Chad
Alive and kicking
For the Climate Change war
When it resumes.
Live long and prosper !
🙂
10
Bill,
You can relax for a while Jane arth is back.
10
“Chad your lack of logic & common sense is appalling”.
Yeayyy!!!
00
Whilst we are at it ,
I will ask again a question tthat no one seems to be able to answer…
Authorities all agree , form G Hunt down, and across all states, that more testing is critical to controlling and eliminating this virus.
So why then does the daily rate of testing keep REDUCING ??
32
Did they define “more”? More can be 10 more and their statement you have paraphrased would still be true. If they have not substantially changed their testing criteria, and as far a I can tell they haven’t, then the reduction in testing is a simple function of fewer people presenting to doctors with COVID-19 like symptoms.
If they had explicitly said they were going to do more than that then you might have a point. But you know how politicians talking to media play these sort of games.
110
Sorry, this was a reply to Chad, at #30.
30
Yes, they said “MORE” ,..the term “increased numbers” was even used by some, and OLD were intending to be “Random” testing last week, ..
..but if you look at the numbers , VIV and QLD are doing only a few hundred and NSW is averaging 2-2500 per day.
At one stage the total was 10,000+ per day and wanting MORE.
AND again WXc, no , those tests are NOT just on people rocking up at ER rooms and Doctors.
most are health workers ( I hope anyway !) and people being traced as “contacts” of previously identified carriers…many showing no symptoms.
00
Dear Joan,
By whipping up hysteria, you are undoing all the good work that you have done on “Climate Change”. The miscreants behind that fake disaster are behind this very real economic disaster that will surely lead to a world war. That is what happens when unemployment goes into the stratosphere.
How Journalist are Destroying their Own Jobs
15
And people saying we will kill the economy are not whipping up their own hysteria, right?
I’ll keep doing my honest best analysis, thanks. I’ll change my mind when there is a reason to. You are free to supply a reason. But if it doesn’t relate to medical science and the virus and is just another economist pretending “its’ the flu” then it won’t convince me. Thanks. – jo
60
Alfred the economy was cactus before this started. Negative interest rates ( how does that even make sense) Trillions ( I can’t even wrap my head around those numbers) of US dollars pulled out of thin air all going to stock buyouts and rich Banksters. The whole lot had to go up in smoke sooner or later. I hope the Phoenix that rises from the ashes will be better that what we had before…history has shown that this is possible. The only question is if we can avoid WW3… of that I am not so sure.
We are living through a moment in time that will be written about in the history books. Your opinion will not rate a mention in those books. C’est la vie
20
It’s always good to have raw data but …
I am looking forward to the double blind antibodies tests when they come on stream since they will provide a much better picture of SARS-CoV-2 especially since the current tests for presence of Covid-19 are seemingly less reliable than they need to be. A published study in Wuhan in March suggested tests carried out on symptomatic patients conveyed ‘false’ negative results alongside previous ‘positive’ results and vice versa. The Wuhan experience seems to have been replicated in Switzerland too. Hopefully the antibodies tests will prove more robust and trustworthy and therefore more useful in the long term.
30
The solution is simple.
1- Those who have been infected and who have antibodies should be allowed to get on with their lives.
2- Those who want to, can get themselves infected and isolated under controlled conditions.
3- The rest can remain isolated indefinitely and live in fear.
Ebola, a vastly more dangerous disease than Covid-19, was supposed to have been eradicated by using the policies advocated by Joan. The infected fall ill almost immediately. It seems that it is out of its cage yet again. What hope is there of ever eradicating Covid-19 without herd immunity? None. It would remain almost forever in Africa, Asia and South America.
BTW, I am 69 and I would definitely not use option 3.
Ebola Reappears In Central Africa At Very Moment Last Outbreak Declared ‘Over’
[ Removed your last comment to prevent a flame war. ]AD
22
No thanks Alf
What we are doing is working well.
Almost all Australians are happy to see the back of this foreign virus
Meaning DESTROYED.
If other nations want to preserve this vile bit of RNA, that is their choice.
But there will be a cost : having their citizens being treated as pariahs
Whenever they wish to travel to Australia.
00
having their citizens being treated as pariahs. Whenever they wish to travel to Australia.
You fail to understand that the genie is out of the bottle. It is not going to go away while it can continue propagating. Australia can try to isolate itself as much as it likes but this thing does not care for borders.
My opinion may be worthless to you but it is important for me to let Australians know what is going on in the rest of the world. You are so very isolated and your media is rubbish – as we all should know from the Global Warming nonsense.
Here is what is happening on the medication front – which Cuomo in New York has banned. Bill Gates is also dead against medications since that would destroy his ambitions of introducing an Israeli “vaccine” and the insertion of a microchip in anyone who wishes to ever take a plane again.
New controlled clinical study conducted by doctors in France shows that a combo of Hydroxychloroquine and Azithromycin (Z-Pak) cures 100% of coronavirus patients within 6 days of treatment
This last clip is really bad news for Australians. There is a very strong link between a serious illness and obesity. 🙁
Ingraham’s ‘Medicine Cabinet’ on effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine, whether diabetes increases COVID-19 risk
10
Ren, our media is pretty bad, but our moat is damn good. This virus does not have wings. Will not fly, swim or walk unless we carry it.
We can stop it coming in. For the next months borders will be everywhere anyhow…
20
Posted by “Alfred” ..above.
Potentially good news, but i understand that despite HDCQ being an approved drug, it is not without risk and potentially serious side effects such as Stroke, Heart attack, Seizure’s etc.
Any medico’s care to confirm ?
PS ..i also believe France has actually banned the use of HDCQ for treatment of Covid 19 ?
00
Here is a debate between two virologist with different views. One is Australian and one American. The American skeptic eventually includes the proposal of the Australian in his proposed solutions.
Should We Expose Ourselves Deliberately to COVID-19
I wonder why Australian media has no independent virologists debating these different approaches? Actually, it is like everything else. They want you to think in a certain way. It is called propaganda.
20
An hour long video on Youtube.
Ummmmm ?
Don’t think I’ll bother Alfred.
We are destroying this bloody foreign virus with the measures in place here.
So there is no need to take the risks proposed ‘en masse” in our Australian people.
But if some individuals wish to try this out as a trial research project,
In a completely quarantined & isolated site,
And knowing full well the risks
Then let them have a go.
But I don’t think it’s a project which the Australian tax payer should bear the risk & costs.
10
The idea that we need ‘Herd Immunity’ (the idea behind vaccination and the push for it) is a very old, pre 1960, view of the immune system of the body. It is the idea that only if we have enough anti-bodies are we actually protected from a certain virus. This theory is unfortunately still taught.
Research since then (especially the last 20 years) has shown that the immune system is far more complex and also involves your gut (Biome and Virome – our body has about 60 trillion bacteria and 380 trillion viruses, besides the 6 trillion cells)), as well as your neural system.
The body uses these systems (there maybe even more parts to be discovered in future) together to mitigate any attack (virological, bacteriological or by any foreign substance). This means your bodies immune system is far more resilient then most people realize, especially if your are healthy and living in a healthy environment. If some of these systems malfunction due to unhealthy living, old age, ill-health etc (i.e. Immunol compromised), the rest of the system needs to compensate and often overreacts. This is what destroys your cells and may eventually lead to death.
See:
Dr.SHIVA LIVE: SAVING the Critically ILL & Boosting Immune Health. #CoronaVirus. Vit A, D, C & Hydroxychloroquine.
https://youtu.be/a5zp_eCA9dw?t=965
The above is set to the start of the description of the immune system, but you should watch the whole video.
Knowing this, the approach to mitigating pandemics can be multivariate (down to the individual level) and many strategies, besides this ‘one sides fits all’ quarantine strategy used all over the world right now, can be employed and must involve keeping and making people healthy at the fundamental level (eating healthy foods, exercising, strengthening your mental abilities, ensuring your surrounding environment is healthy etc).
See for more:
Dr.SHIVA LIVE: The Immune System – Your Body’s OPERATING SYSTEM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RLvF_-mkpk
Also:
https://vashiva.com/category/scientist/
https://twitter.com/va_shiva
20
Edit: (The below sentence seems to be cut-off when posted – if not please ignore)
….
Research since then (especially the last 20 years) has shown that the immune system is far more complex and also involves
your gut (Biome and Virome – our body has about 60 trillion bacteria and 380 trillion viruses, besides the 6 trillion cells)),
as well as your neural system.
….
10
Hi eilert,
Are you saying that the body needs a very strong and capable immune system generally rather than a lot of specific immunities acquired by exposure and vaccination?
I did put this idea up earlier but I don’t think anyone responded.
KK
00
I agree entirely that we should all make an effort to stay slim, exercise, eat properly and avoid stress. I have never smoked, I am 69, I have been 75-80kg for 50 years. I drink little. And I am fortunate to have good genes. I am fortunate because I was born to a well-off family, went to the best schools (Stowe and Institut Monte Rosa etc.) and university (Imperial College twice).
However, I have a lot of sympathy for those who are less fortunate. I believe that imprisoning people in their own homes for extended periods without being allowed to pursue their work and to enjoy themselves is of the ultimate cruelty. It is policy propagated by a class of megalomaniacal academics and bureaucrats who have little empathy for the common folk.
This infection is not at all as big a deal as the media is claiming. Unfortunately, the real numbers are being inflated and we will not have a true picture until after the collapse of the economy and when these academics and bureaucrats find that the money is no longer there.
11
Bloody nonsense ‘Alfred’
No one wants to die.
Most people are carefully trying to live normal lives
Within all the restrictions of the various lock downs.
That is especially true for the ‘less fortunate’
All around the world.
Why ?
Because they live closer to the edge of life & death
Than YOU mate.
You have no permission from the less fortunate
of the UK, the Australia or anywhere else,
To speak for them and advocate policies
Which will surely kill many of them.
That’s typical of a well off over educated pompous English git !
Alf Garnet would toast your b@alls for your arrogance !
10
It raises a lot of odd ideas. “imprisoning people in their own homes”. Absolutely ridiculous.
Firstly it is their homes, not a prison. Then there are no locks on the door and they can go out, buy food, alcohol and free to walk the dog. Just maintain their distance. If that is prison, it is an odd one.
Most of the world is in this ‘prison’ totally voluntarily. Their own homes and flats and free to enjoy themselves as they please. A prison?
Just no restaurants, sports meetings, music concerts and the like. No Olympics or Formula one of football games on the weekend. Just like summer holidays. No gathering in groups with their friends or family. For a few weeks. If that is a prison, it means their homes are a real problem. Perhaps they could get a hobby? Learn to read. Or learn to talk with their children? Master a skill like internet video meetings.
And it is policed quite lightly with fines at worst, but not with brutal force. Then most importantly, it is 99% voluntary. Even the head of the CDC in the US thought they would only get 50% compliance and he was shocked. The fact is, if being told to stay home for a few weeks and relax is such a problem, the lockdown is the least of your problems.
And no one wants to die and compared with the Blitz, it is a piece of cake. Stay indoors and enjoy your own home for a few weeks and it will all be over without a lot of people, even your own family dead before their time. That’s a lot better than the blitz. No homes destroyed, no factories blown up and we are saving a lot of people.
Or you could live in Venezuela or Cuba or even China. And see what life is really like in a military state. This lock down is not only important, everyone agrees with it. Except a few disgruntled grumpy people who would have a problem driving the right way around a roundabout, because it restricts their freedom.
The rules of society only work because people agree with them. No police force in the world could keep police in their own homes if it was not generally agreed to be a small sacrifice for the greater good. The worst thing I have heard about it is boredom, rather than some make believe idea of imprisonment by a police state.
And best of all, it’s working. We are all saving lives. Sometimes our own, or our friends or our family. That’s a great payoff for reading a few books or watching Youtube or old videos. Or writing that novel about your fortunate but clearly boring life.
00
Thank you so much Jo. I for one am grateful for your tireless efforts to give the CCP virus the attention it deserves. I am sure you had an influence on our strategy in fighting this plague.
A big shout out to WXcycles…your work is appreciated.
Thank heavens we live in Oz
30
I just did a search for strains of covid 19…I would advise those that are easily scared to avoid this. This is mutating rapidly 🙁
10
ABSTRACT
The beginning of 2020 brought us information about the novel coronavirus emerging in China. Rapid research resulted in the characterization of the pathogen, which appeared to be a member of the SARS-like cluster, commonly seen in bats. Despite the global and local efforts, the virus escaped the healthcare measures and rapidly spread in China and later globally, officially causing a pandemic and global crisis in March 2020. At present, different scenarios are being written to contain the virus, but the development of novel anticoronavirals for all highly pathogenic coronaviruses remains the major challenge. Here, we describe the antiviral activity of previously developed by us HTCC compound (N-(2-hydroxypropyl)-3-trimethylammonium chitosan chloride), which may be used as potential inhibitor of currently circulating highly pathogenic coronaviruses – SARS-CoV-2 and MERS-CoV.
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.29.014183v1?fbclid=IwAR12q0EkY2tyBv1WY5TWn5Trh92WJhCEvriR1e3ku1Qn4VeGLN08aXF-6VE
20