Across the US all-cause mortality is down as as people avoid catching the flu, getting run over, and other risks. But in New York where coronavirus has hit hardest, all-cause mortality is at record highs.
This is nothing like the seasonal flu
For the whole month of March, deaths in New York were twice as high as normal. This includes not just extra coronavirus deaths but all other causes. Deaths were even higher than the number of known coronavirus deaths, leaving cardiologists worried that there may have been an increase in other conditions like heart attacks or strokes, because people were afraid to go to hospital or couldn’t get help in time.
This is an underestimate. The authors expect this number to rise as more paperwork gets completed. It’s still only a small excess in a giant country, but it hints at the scale of the event were no quarantine measures put in place, no flights stopped, and the virus allowed to spread naturally. The current epidemic is stabilizing in New York, but if major action wasn’t taken, this would be the early weeks of a pandemic about to sweep across all fifty states. And this would not be the peak week, but just a point on a rapidly rising exponential curve.
For those who wonder if this is just a case of poor data or misdiagnosis, no, something unusually bad is really going on. This is not just the normal flu “mislabelled”.
Deaths in New York City Are More Than Double the Usual Total
By Josh Katz and Margot Sanger-Katz, New York Times
These numbers contradict the notion that many people who are dying from the new virus would have died shortly anyway. And they suggest that the current coronavirus death figures understate the real toll of the virus…
…
The increase in all-cause mortality could be due to people being unable or afraid to access normal medical care.
But even if the current count is perfect, roughly 9,780 people have died of all causes over the past month in New York City, about 5,000 more than is typical.
The numbers for the last two weeks of the period are even more stark: nearly 7,000 dead, more than three times as many deaths as would normally be expected this time of year.
But the deaths over the last month dwarf what would be expected from seasonal variations, and look more like a mass casualty event. The city’s medical examiner’s office is holding bodies in refrigerated trailers outside of hospitals. City emergency medical technicians are declaring deaths in homes and on the streets instead of bringing people to hospitals.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/10/upshot/coronavirus-deaths-new-york-city.html
Though the New York Times authors do not suggest it, given that coronavirus patients suffer from both an increase in blood pressure and in blood clotting, it is possible that a mild coronavirus case may increase risk factors for heart attacks and strokes too.
Not so easy to hide dead bodies or their statistics.
There will be a big problem trying to reopen and move back to normalicy..
Okay keep the social distancing. Not sure how well that can work in schools. Cannot see it is possible in daycare settings. Maybe feasible in some adult working environments.
To appreciate the difficulty in reopening while preserving distancing consider the challenge of public transport. In normal times buses and subway trains are packed. How can a city reopen with that high rate of close mixing? Even under lockdown supermarkets are a challenge to prevent close contact and mixing
Cities that depend on cars have an advantage here
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No need for references here.
Yes PPG can make public transport and working in groups feasible. Think hospital emergency room here. Some risk remains. Requires a huge supply of PPG and large scale testing. Doable in weeks to months time frame
Fear of covid19 is the other factor. Peoplecarealready afraid and if cases rise they will becomemuch more afraid, having been sensitized to it all. Biggest problem is the economy. Who will want to spend money, eat out or engage in social interwction with the overt signs of danger such as people wearing masks.
How does a country get people back to work in the face of strong recessionary pressure? “P i ***g into the wind”
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People will be so happy to be out of prison ( lets be grown up, and call it what it really is… ) that they will forget soon enough.
Yes we may get flare ups, but lets just live with it and get things moving again.
If this is proven to be a designer bug, by all means deal with the miscreants who created it, harshly, but for the rest of us who dont enjoy being jerked around in geo-politics , we will get on with our quiet lives.
Truth be told, I suspect the police will be happy too…who wants to live under communist-style oppression, but worse, who really wants to enforce it?
We are nto a communist country, despite the UN-loving globalists wishing it were so.
Maybe glorious leader in Victoriastan is only Comrade who enjoys being complete control freak, but North Korea would probably welcome him with open arms….
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not seen health care workers in hospitals running scared from ordinary flu
Not seen care workers fleeing their jobs in nursing homes, nor suffering PTSD from the onrush of elderly deaths
Look how afraidthepeopleof Wuhan are to go back to work. Something has spooked them. its not being quarantined for 2 months. They should be happy escaping imprisonment. Instead they are afraid
01
Speaking of prison….i think the funnist thing is the govt actually expects people will do it…this is beyond dumb!
Good thing apple and android are going to load snitch-ware on thier phones to track…er…help you.
Are we now seeing the bigger game in focus?
Shut off bluetooth and location services and its now useless….
There absolutely no way I would touch this.
Never let a good crisis go to waste.
Problem…..Reaction…Solution
https://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-14/coronavirus-app-government-wants-australians-to-download/12148210
“Coronavirus lockdowns could end in months if Australians are willing to have their movements monitored
“The battle against coronavirus is going hi-tech, with Australians to be asked to download a phone app that will monitor their movements — but only with their express permission.
“Key points:
“The app will monitor people’s daily interactions using GPS
“It will be opt-in, but require at least 40 per cent of Australians to use it to be effective
The Attorney-General is considering the privacy implications
“The Federal Government believes restrictions on the community could be eased in the months ahead if there’s more testing, greater surveillance of those infected by the coronavirus and much faster tracing of those they’ve had contact with.
“It is developing a mobile phone app with the private sector to help monitor Australians’ daily interactions.
“The ABC understands the app will be ready in a fortnight but the Government believes it would need at least 40 per cent of Australians to voluntarily sign up for it to be effective.
“The app would be opt-in only and not mandatory.
“That app, called TraceTogether, uses bluetooth technology to record contact with other people, even if you do not know them.
“Prime Minister Scott Morrison discussed technological tactics in the fight against COVID-19 with Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong three weeks ago.
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Huh, as if they couldn’t figure out fairly roughly where you are with just the cell tower signals. Certainly, they’d notice if you moved much as the signal strength on the various towers would start shifting. Sure, lots of data to process, but doable if they wanted. The only thing the App would do is make the job easier.
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The aim of this project is to determine when someone is within 2-3 meters
Of another person who has become Corona 19 infected.
So I doubt that the cell towers would give that degree of accuracy.
It is a worthwhile aim I think.
To be able to warm persons who have been in close contact
With others who are infected & who they may not even know.
However this does allow a degree of Big Brother Supervision
Which makes the hair on the back of head stand up.
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I always say, go with your gut response…its never wrong….
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All this assumes that “safe distancing” needs to be maintained for the medium term if not forever. We simply do not know as yet if the virus is changing for the better or for the worse. More time needs to be spent on researching the virus to come up with some answers so we can make the right decisions as to how we exit from the current restrictions.
If “safe distancing” is to be with us for the medium term then such issues as you pointed out can be solved simply but not easily. For example, the public transportation issue can be solved by having many more trains running to avoid crowded trains. That will take time (money is no problem any more 🙂 ) as a lot need to be built, and the way the system works to keep a safe distance between the trains need to be changed drastically without increasing the risk of collisions. These are all doable. We have placed men on the moon and perhaps will do the same on Mars in the not too distant future so we can solve such relatively minor issues without too much fuss. A similar strategy is required in other areas of our lives.
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Clearly some people don’t approve of safe distancing as it is ‘too much fuss’.
For mtself I shall be keeping up safe distancing however much the fuss it requires.
GeoffW
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As we are destroying it here in Oz
We will have the privilage of going back to our normal lives
Provided we stop any more importations with Quarantine.
And perhaps we will look with interest at how the rest of the world
Manages their lives while coping with this virus all around them.
Good luck !
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there is ONLY ONE way mate:
Destroy the bloody virus completely.
It is just a strand of RNA molecules
That degrade over time in the open air.
The ONLY place this virus can multiply
Or survive for any long length of time
Is in human bodies.
Stop providing it with victims
And it will be destroyed.
End of story !
Then we can all get back to our normal lives !
This is the promise that
Quarantine, Social distancing and Face masks offers.
Does the Herd Immunity concept offer this promise ?
Bloody Hell NO !
The Herd Immunity zealots offer nothing
But more & more dead & seriously ill people by the millions world wide.
These zealots are dangerous fools.
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BiO,
You left out the most important ingredient, Vitamin D!
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Profuse apologies Slithers !
Yes Vitamin D3 !
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How can an apology get three red thumbs ?
I think the blog is being trolled by lurkers.
And I have attracted their attention.
ChiComs perhaps ?
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Bill said
Bill, when hasn’t it been? It’s the usual idiots — the ones who turn off their brains/intellects or park them outside somewhere, before entering herein. And there are those who pull the plugs on their brains every sunrise.
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Don’t you think that case can be made to get opposite conclusion.
All this numbers if real are because of lockdowns.
Fear, boredom, depression, domestic violence, alcoholism drugs, los of job, can not pay rent or debt, no income destroyed business and future…
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Psychological impacts leading to adverse outcomes some of them fatal.
Do you have an interest in psychology?
00
This looks like a gold mine: https://www.rollcall.com/2020/04/03/government-plans-to-pay-hospitals-for-covid-19-care-for-uninsured/
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A 100 billion iis the max out huh. How many dead bodies does it buy. Expect they dont pay too much. Chicken feed.
By comparison I am sure big businessand the stock market would love another multi trillion dollar hand out to stave off ruination. Bring on he body count. Cannot go up quicly enough for those lobbying for public largess
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New York is not the United States.
Even most of our cities aren’t like New York.
200 million or so of American live more like Australians than New Yorkers.
We can social distance as we drive to work. We’ll have to take precautions at work.
Sports, movie theatres, churches will be a problem. So will restaurants. But in most of the country it won’t be
out of the realm of possibility to change how we do things; there are few places where space is at such a premium
as New York; where getting around requires mass transit; where the streets and public spaces are too crowded to maintain
six (or ten) foot individual circles.
Our News media live and work in New York and Washington DC. There are some other hot spots, for various reasons.
But the numbers for most of the US are suggestive of a problem being managed.
We older folks will probably be socially reticent for a while longer yet, pending vaccines and treatments; but the young, healthy,
and recovered are going to get the country back to work. There will still be more infections. We planned to flatten the curve;
we’ll need to test and track to continue to reduce the incidence.
Risk will not be zero. It was never meant to be. Some folks are enjoying their newfound powers a bit too much for my taste and vastly
overselling “keeping us safe” as a consequence of keeping us managed. I do not think this is the case, and is beginning to be the larger risk now,
especially is places not suffering locally the way the geography inhabited by some of the decision makers has.
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And New York is even hard to define. Manhattan, the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island. This New York City is 8.9 Million people but technically stops at the Hudson, across the . New Jersey is in practice the same place but a different city in a different state. There are six tunnels under the Hudson and East rivers and 2,000 bridges and then the ferries. New York State is 19.5 million and New Jersey 8.9 million. I would give New York a population like Australia and it might still be an underestimate. Many commute by rail from Connecticut. It’s hard enough to define let alone lock down. So it is bigger than most countries. And life and travel within New York there is not like life anywhere else. It is having its own pandemic and conventional analysis will not work.
However isolation is a passion with people around the world. From Delhi to Tokyo to Beijing, no one wants to die from this virus. Numbers will come down as isolation kills it but it is harder to quantify who you are measuring. Expect New York to lag most of America where 80% of all people live in small communities as in Europe and China and isolation is both easier and more effective. Even cities like Greater Los Angeles and Atlanta and Chicago lands are vast amalgamations of cities and have open spaces. Manhattan has Central Park.
It was amazing for the mayor of Baltimore urge people not to shoot each other to allow the hospitals to treat Wuhan flu victims. The same might apply to all cities. Equal to car accident deaths in number, this may go up, not down. The lockdown may be increasing the very high risk of living in New York even as it defeats the virus. It is a continuous high rise city the size of a country. Even modern megacities like Shanghai at 37 million are not as complex and multi layered and densely populated in the core. It will take longer to halt this virus than in the rest of America. But it will stop.
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Good info.
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Exactly my my point, cities like NY are impossible to quarantine in, for one thing – shared ventilation. Only HEPA filters on each ventilation outlet and filtering and UV sterilisation on the air intake might help but even then missing 1 in 100 virus particles means probably not.
This should become a standard, but the government isn’t even talking about it. Tony from Oz has been discussing shared ventilation forever in the AGW debate. All high-rise has it.
The only hope NY had was to move patients out to other states into a designated quarantine zone while the contagion was small. This is how real quarantine was done and we can do it orders of magnitude faster than in the dark ages. It’s too late for that. Only bright side is that NY will achieve herd immunity and therefore probably won’t participate in the second wave we are headed for.
Let me point out again the temperature (and UV ) effects – we are heading for winter, northern Tasmania has dipped below 15c daytime and unsurprisingly they are beginning to see contagion. People, to avoid this virus and/or mitigate it’s effects keep your indoors like the summer outdoors warm and airy. Filter your air, get good filters fitted to your air-con or get a purifier. Run it either continuously or at least for several hours before you get home. Decontaminate living areas after the filtering system has been off, micro droplets can travel long distances, make sure the house is warm enough to dessicate the droplets and virus quickly, wear a mask if you go out in cold weather.
North of the QLD / NSW border will be better because our daytime temps are usually over 20 with UV high enough and that will kill a lot of virus during the day. Still, keep it warm at night, keep those ekka flu winds out and decontaminate during those winds. Avoid going out when it’s under 15c
Unfortunately the AGW nutcases have made our electricity too expensive for 24 hour warmth and continuous air filtering necessary for keeping this at bay in cities, fuel poverty may yet put this in overdrive. Thanks greens, for yet another fatal unintended consequence.
Yes, I know some of you don’t subscribe to the science of evaporation and UV DNA disruption or maybe even don’t believe in filtration and think temperature/filtration is irrelevant, you can fend for yourselves – for the rest of us science types, think about the technical measures I’ve suggested and decide for yourselves. Aside from the expense of buying special price-enhanced AGW infected electricity, what have you got to lose.
[Bobl – sorry I still don’t know why your comments get slowed up by the filter. Apologies 🙁 – Jo]
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Jo oddly I only get moderated when I post from my mobile phone. When I post from my computer I don’t get moderated. Odd hey?
Sorry about my odd views but dealing with the epidemic shouldn’t require ditching democracy. I see by handling the epidemic differently regionally / geographically we can have effective quarantine AND an economy. We shouldn’t bet on a vaccine and while treatments help they don’t stop the epidemic, you still need to get to herd immunity somehow. Vaccines are just a different and safer way to get there.
I know you support the flat curve strategy, but given we need to reach herd immunity somehow, how do you propose to get there?
PS – just for you, leave in moderation.
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TdeF, There are other major cities on the planet
Which are similar to New York
In size, density and complexity.
Examples that I know having lived in them :
London, Paris, Buenos Aires, Bangkok
Jakarta & Manila.
And others that I do not know
But which have the same levels of density
Like Rio De Janiero, Karachi,
Mexico City, New Delhi, Calcutta. etc
This virus may survive in the slums of such mega cities
Where the governance is poor
With not much official attention to
The cause of death among the poor.
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Not many living in slums or those they deal with regularly fly internationally. Although the cruise ships might be on the cusp. They do tend to recruit from centres with low wages.
Even if it takes hold in a slum it should be possible to contain it. I expect the death toll in a location would give a clue that there was something amiss before it spread widely. Fear of spread would be a powerful force in isolating the location.
22
Rick, the poor in the slums of Manila ( and other places )
Cannot afford testing or regular medical care.
Their deaths will go unremarked, undocumented.
But locals will see their neighbours dying
And flee the plague if at all possible.
Taking it with them to other locations.
And that is exactly what has traditionally
Whenever a plague struck.
Strong border protection quarantine measures
Must be a requirement for Australia
At least until there is a safe, effective vaccine.
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Any rational explanation as to why Chicago is so much less affected than New York ??
Similar population and climate, also a major international hub, similar high density , old building structures, etc etc
BUT..
Infection rate is 205 of NY per million pop
Only approx 10% of the deaths ? / mil
???
21
Maybe pure fickle luck Chad.
Or a break down in the official reporting process ?
32
Both Illinois and New York issued stay at home orders on 20 March. At that point Illinois had 585 confirmed CV19 cases while NY had more than 7000 cases.
Illinois reached a peak daily death toll of 80 compared with 800 for NY. Getting in early saves lives. By the time the death rate is ramping up there will already be huge number of infections in congested cities. NY was already up to about 20 deaths/day when the stay at home order was issued compared with 1-2 for Illinois.
One other significant factor is that Illinois has roughly half the population of NY. I also believe population density in NY City is higher than Chicago.
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Makes some sense, but its one huge difference !
Its tricky getting consistent data for both population and pop density for their respective Metro aeas. ( where most of the “action” is)
NY metro seems to be about 8.5m people, but area data varies from 350 sqmiles , up tp 13,000 sqmiles ?
Likewise Chicago metro pop is variously listed at 2.9m up tp 10 m ?
And Metro area between 1000 and 8,000 sqmile ??
30
Chicago has more in common with Melbourne , than NYC. Its got a relatively small CBD area and vast suburbs/satellite towns. Worked their briefly in the late 90s, was a nice town then.
20
The NY City mayor and NY governor both encouraged mixing (e.g., visiting Chinatown) and derided Trump’s shut-down of flights from China as biased. The NY City mayor resisted the closing of elementary schools for a month after other places did, for political / ideological reasons.
20
Welcome perspective.
20
See #3
20
Physical and mental health is very important, so exercise outdoors wherever you can, but do not stop and rest, or risk a fine.
Do not go for a local district drive and/or stop a while to enjoy a view.
By Order
Makes No Sense
71
Out of historic interest here are the New York stats back to 1800 showing the various epidemics that swept the city with an astonishing death rate a century or so ago.
http://www.nyc.gov/html/records/pdf/govpub/6551as_2010_final_population_&_mortality.pdf
Deaths from these epidemics are sharply down over the last 50 years, presumably because of better sanitation, improved general health and other factors. However NYC seems very prone to these epidemics and I believe the city represents some 50% of all US deaths.
London also represents a huge proportion of UK figures, both cities are crowded, have areas of poor housing and a mass transit system that gets truly crowded so the conditions for these pandemics must be ideal, unfortunately. I don’t know if New Yorkers go in for masks or how well they social distance but the number of parks to get away from crowds is pretty limited.
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How can you social distance in a place where the average separation is only 3.7 metres and micro droplets reach 30m or more, in a place where the majority of people share an air supply with others, in a place spewing that contaminated humid building air back into the atmosphere to rain back down on the streets.
It’s like living in an aircraft cabin 24/7.
There is no wonder that NY is uncontrollable, it’s designed to share diseases around.
60
Face masks & goggles !
21
Trying to read something into the statistics for the worst Shirt Holes in the world is really not a useful exercise for those whose circumstances bear no comparison at all.
But “if it bleeds , it leads” just as it ever was.
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Hardly.
As I said in the post, the rest of the US is better, but NY shows that the virus is deadly on a scale that far beyond any pretense “this is just the flu.” If the virus is allowed to spread the end result is exponential death.
In order to deal with this problem first people need to admit there is a problem.
Two months into a global pandemic it is amazing that some still have not got that far.
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My Take Away Thoughts. Repeat post from Weekend unthreaded.
COVID-19 and YOU!
There is no history about this infection. We know it is caused by a virus Novelcorona19, we know this can be deadly especially if you have a comorbidity condition.
We all have comorbidity conditions to a lesser or greater extent, life is like that.
There are things you can do that will reduce the severity of the infection, as, if and when you contract it.
It is my opinion that we will all contract it at some point, this may be some mutated version, but like influenza it is here to stay as there will always be populations who have not gone through the herd immunity process which does NOT guarantee any such immunity!
The best defense is a healthy immune system. Vitamin D is the driving force of this system so get your Vitamin D level’s checked and take appropriate action. If you don’t like that idea just get some Vitamin supplement from the chemist or supermarket and take a small daily dose.
Quinine is known to have beneficial effects so get some anti-malaria tablets, over the counter meds here in Australia and take a very small dose, just one every other day will provide your system with enough anti Corona Virus defense to reduce if not prevent infection. An alternate is a 1litre bottle of Tonic water a week, one of the few products that successfully commercialized an ancient remedy. I wonder why it is called ‘Indian Tonic Water’?
Regarding that infection and the severity you may suffer. This depends upon the initial virus load, Cruise Liners and Hospitals will often deliver a large dose! Your family members, a Child with flu like symptoms would give you a smaller dose, careful distancing should prevent it spreading, you may not even know if you get it. Practicing social distancing and personal hygiene, maintaining a healthy immune system are the key to minimal damage and quick recovery, so take care of the cheap, easy things and protect yourself and your family.
I asked myself why the MSM is not shouting this from the roof tops, my alter ego replied, ‘Cos there is no money in it!’
Bill Gates sees enormous piles of cash and POWER being delivered from his immunization and identity chip technology so beware what you agree to.
Which is the chicken and which is the egg?
Never let a crisis go to waste!
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being overweight also seems a big factor in being more resistant to, or helping to overcome, the virus, which often comes with the baggage of high blood pressure, diabetes and heart disease. So keeping the weight off and keeping fit and the vitamin D levels at an appropriate level all seem important.
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Slithers, Re “It is my opinion that we will all contract it at some point, this may be some mutated version, but like influenza it is here to stay ”
Nahhhh.. We here in Oz are destroying this foreign bloody virus.
Sending it back to those bats in China !
10
It even more amazing to me
That all of them have come & camped on your blog Jo
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Green thumb from me Bill.
20
Jo…
Do you think this report has any credibility?
I’m hoping not.
https://harvardtothebighouse.com/2020/01/31/logistical-and-technical-analysis-of-the-origins-of-the-wuhan-coronavirus-2019-ncov/
These scientists think Covid19 may be a bio-engineered virus resulting from ‘dual-use gain-of-function’ research that was paused and defunded in 2014 as it was considered too dangerous…but resumed in 2017..
Scientists at the Wuhan lab had been involved in such research along with American scientists and they make the case that there are more signs of it being bio-engineered than not…and it could have been accidentally released from the Wuhan lab.
It might explain why WHO supports the re-opening of the wet markets…WHO would know if the origin was the lab and not the markets….in which case they’ve let the cat out of the bag with their insouciance about the markets.
It also seems to fit with the neurological effects and virulence and the re-emergence of the virus in Singapore.
https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/health-environment/article/3078199/coronavirus-singapore-100-1000-infections-one-month
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I think I will go along with the epidemiologist from NYC in his late 60s and with asthma, that says the deaths attributed to COVID-19 are mostly pneumonia, and the reason that more are dying from pneumonia is because they are not getting diagnosed and treated earlier due the instructions to stay home unless you have a fever.
I don’t agree with the belief that lockdown does anything of value. I do agree with him when he said that this is not much different than any other coronavirus, and the worst thing to do was isolation and closing schools. What stood out from his comments more than anything else was “what we have done is guaranteed a second wave this fall, rather than peeking and dying out.” So we will know in about 6 months or so whether he was right, or your position is right, but I won’t put money on yours.
And considering how easy it has been to get people to sit at home, lose their jobs, wear masks and rubber gloves any time they go outside, it will be just as easy to demand mandatory vaxxing and carrying “proof” that you have either had the virus or have been vaxxed in order to participate in society when it comes back in the fall to even more sensationalistic reporting.
I believe 8,000,000,000 can be expressed in binary in something like 33 bits, so a memory block of 5- 8 bit bytes is all you need to electronically tag every person on Earth for generations to come. An RFID that size ought to be fairly easy to create.
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MERS and SARS are also corona viruses. They are rather deadly
20
Raving, it’s pretty clear that TomO is one of Billin Oz’s camp-outers
The epidemiologist from NYC is qwrong and dangerous.
Perhaps Tom O should read this article that explains in layman’s terms why it’s not pneumonia;
https://medium.com/@agaiziunas/covid-19-had-us-all-fooled-but-now-we-might-have-finally-found-its-secret-91182386efcb
And, yes, it is based on science. And on anecdotal evidence from the coal face – or the bed side in this case.
10
OK while I await moderation clearance here’s a YouTube of an ICU medical doctor in NY telling it as it is:
https://youtu.be/k9GYTc53r2o
There’s work to be done. Fast.
20
Have seen that video, you might like this one.
Would 6Ghz cause interference or prevent hemoglobin binding to oxygen?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvqBwPgrX_s&t=1237s
10
Link does not work SS
00
Does for me Bill.
Anybody else have that problem?
00
Error 404 for:
https://medium.com/@agaiziunas/covid-19-had-us-all-fooled-but-now-we-might-have-finally-found-its-secret-91182386efcb
The Youtube link is excellent. Agree completely with his remarks.
00
Apologies Bill.
You’re right.
I tested the YouTube.
Here’s the other from a different link:
https://foundationforhealthresearch.org/covid-19-had-us-all-fooled-but-now-we-might-have-finally-found-its-secret/
Cross your fingers.
10
My reply about the other link being ‘error 404’ , is in moderation !
My turn I guess !
🙂
00
That is an excellent link S S
Thanks !
After reading it I wonder if removing damaged haemoglobin via drawing blood.. And transfusing new blood would help alleviate the symptoms…
And I wonder if EDTA would help to help scavenge the free floating iron ions in the blood.
PS This explains why vitamin C works and why large dose is needed.
20
Another defeatist doctor. There are many of them. And they are wrong. That has been proven time and again across the world. Usually the argument is that the is another flu. His story is pneumonia. Sometimes doctors have just given up saving the world and become stoic. Que sera, sera. That is not the case with this virus and the number of deaths are intolerable in countries who were told it was no worse than usual. Everyone in the world is now going to stop it with extreme isolation. They have no choice.
Flu is tolerated in the US, despite the 60,000 deaths each year. So are the winter waves of new mutations. And the cleaning out of the aged care facilities.
However this virus has the potential in the mega cities to k*ll half the population very quickly, like the plagues of old. And by the time the doctors agree, it is too late.
What is the point of sequencing the human genome and doing nothing about it? And while we create a vaccine, it is about stalling. And in many cases eliminating this virus completely.
The depressing part is that so many doctors have the attitude to death of undertakers. Business as usual and inevitable. No, it isn’t. We no longer accept the pronouncements of plague doctors. And if you have to ask the point of saving lives, some doctors are in the wrong profession.
2113
Support your sentiments TdeF, love your passion.
107
Also respect your logic.
107
Two things, no it does NOT have the potential to kill half the population of anywhere – hype. In a properly prepared population instructed on how to recognize and treat pneumonia ( no education on that yet ) maybe half a percent. Based on what Jo is reporting putting heart patients onto beta-blockers instead of ace inhibitors will probably help.
Secondly there IS NO VACCINE and we MUST proceed on the assumption there will never be one until the very day that vaccine is delivered. Doing what our politicians are now doing, taking a grand gamble that there will be a vaccine to a virus that so far has proven intractable is folly. The consequences of them being wrong is the delay of natural immunity and human adaptation to the disease and more deaths will happen in the long term as wave after wave strike us.
A managed path to natural immunity is the most sensible path at this point, let the virus propagate in summer when it’s less virulent, contain it in winter. If a vaccine appears change strategy then.
Despite the danger, doctors might consider a live virus vaccine where we deliberately give patients a disease (cowpox to prevent smallpox). These were used in early vaccines with great success, only problem is they make people sick. One of the mutations of SARS might be a candidate have the epidemic with a variant that doesn’t cause pneumonia.
23
Bobl, doesn’t matter if there is no vaccine. Can people please add CRISPR, stem cells, monoclonal antibodies, anti-virals, to their thinking. Most of these will be faster than vaccine development and carry less risk. We have the code. We have the money (because the stakes are so high). We will not let the virus circulate freely indefinitely.
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Only useful if the drug already exists and approved otherwise same development time
00
I posted some time ago on how as a 6 year old I was taught how to treat my infant brother (3mths) who had pneumonia and was not expected to live.
It is quite simple Dr Watson.
Face Down, Bum up and gentle percussion until productive coughing has ejected all the gunk.
Repeat when ever breathing is seen to be difficult.
My Brother is now 75!
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No, that would produce disastrous results, the data available shows it transmits even faster in Summer, and retains its severity. Huge mistake, and there’s no need to even do it.
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TdeF, I have studied stoicism &
Admire the stoics of history.
So I want to point out that your remark
‘given up saving the world and become stoic’
Is NOT fair or accurate.
‘Giving up’ is not the way of the Stoics.
Giving up is the attitude of the ‘Fatalists’
Among whom number many of the religions of humanity.
42
That’s a fine distinction in that fatalists are stoics but not all stoics are fatalists.
62
But I agree. As in Lawrence of Arabia, nothing is written unless you write it. It’s an attitude and an approach to life. We can do something about this virus and amazingly, the vast bulk of humanity agrees. And then I read these ‘expert’ medical opinions that it’s not worth doing. Let’s call it defeatism.
I was also pleasantly surprised to read that the head of the CDC was ‘very, very, very pleased’ with the public response. He said they expected only 50% compliance with a lock down and by implication that the universal compliance he was seeing means there is another path to victory. An unexpected and preferable one. The only people totally against doing anything are the media and they dig up these fatalists to harass the administration.
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TdeF I don’t know any Stoics who are fatalists.
None.
The common belief that they are, is a myth
Propagated by 4th Century Christian zealots.
Wanting to diss the older Greek Roman traditions.
Fatallists are those who actually think that the Gods
Make the rules.
( Or ‘evolution’ in more recent times among some sciency folk )
42
We are at cross purposes.
stoic
noun
1. a person who can endure pain or hardship without showing their feelings or complaining.
2. a member of the ancient philosophical school of Stoicism.
I am using the first definition. You are using the second.
23
Or that CO2 rules the Earth’s Climate!
10
Too many bloggers on this site with notions of medical certification. This whole subject can become very confusing and thus hysterical in some hands, beyond this blog of course. Many of those crying the end of the world is nigh in this case are the very same claiming the end of the world by climate change. I can see world temperatures going up as a consequence of too many hotheads letting off steam but this will of course be blamed on AGW. Now for real comment from a real doctor I recommend you look at youtube and search for Dr John Campbell who sounds like a Yorky. He provides a daily factual analysis on CV warts and all.
40
Campbell is excellent !
Informed, knowledgeable,
With direct links to many people in countries with major outbreaks.
And with a gift for explaining things simply !
12
The world will survive this pandemic. Always done so in the past. Has surrvived much worse.That has never been in doubt.
What is new here is the role of modern medicine. Hospitals used to be the places where people mainly went to die. Now thanks to modern medicine there is actually a reasonable chance of curing many sick people.
Well medicine isnt very good at curing this pandemic yet amd maybe trying and only doing poorly would be sufficient. Pandemic is a familiar if infrequent occurance.
What medicinechas demonstrated now is thatvthis pandemic can be contaied by quarantine.. Lots of people do not need to die. Are we willing to pay the economic cost for this?
I expect wecwill pay until we are broke
02
One trend that has been consistent is that globally the people most likely to die have one of two characteristics they are old or have pre existing conditions or both. Young people so rarely die from it that each death of a teenager becomes global news headlines orchestrated by media and worried governments to scare young people to obey the rules. To assume that this virus like previous plagues could kill 50% of the population is clearly alarmist and would not be remotely likely based on demographics. If Australia is typical and I see no reason to believe it’s not ,younger people under 40 are prominent in the positive tests and absent in deaths whilst the older demographics of 50 and above dominate the deaths. Globally we know that where young people die they predominantly have preconditions. How do we know ? Because when a young healthy person dies from this anywhere in the world it is headline news.
Regarding the death stats from New York indicating something extra sinister it won’t be clear until the data is smoothed out over a period. If one looks at the death rate over a two year period starting say 6 months before ( to take into account that up until the virus hit New York may have been having a relatively mild flu season) and ending in 18 months one will get a more accurate picture as to whether Covid 19 has actually increased the total or just squashed a lot of deaths into a small time frame creating a large number of premature deaths( bringing them forward by say up to 12-18 months).
The fact that younger people are generally resilient to the virus is something that has been largely ignored by the governments in formulating policy but it should indicate that opening up the society and work places for the young whilst protecting the elderly and vulnerable would be the best way forward.
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There is this underlying idea that the ‘young’ are doing all the work and the ‘elderly’ are to be cosseted, sheltered and protected. That might be true in an agricultural society in the middle ages. It is not true today.
In the modern world the ‘elderly, say people over 50 are the drivers of businesses and corporations and the senior indispensible teachers of the younger people and leaders of our society. Including most of the doctors. Take relatively young 55 year old Boris Johnson for example, facing death and leaving a rudderless country in limbo while he fought for his life, minute by minute. And he has not bounced out of hospital ready to work.
And the condescension of the young that they can do it all on own, run the businesses, the farms, the corporations, the politics. Plus the disruption to society if the plague cut a swathe through the over 50s. Life insurance, investments, real estate, crashing businesses, crashing farms, missing pilots, missing surgeons and more. The idea that the young do all the work and the ‘elderly’ swan about waiting for pneumonia is just wrong. Look at the politicians and try to find one under 50. In the US Presidential candidates, look for one under 70.
Then the idea that everyone just gets sick, a sniffle and they are fine. So why not infect everyone? That is no longer acceptable. The economic, social, and human damage done by this virus is extensive. For many the physical damage to organs, lungs, heart will be life long. No one is assessing that yet. And then we expect the usual mutations and the repeats of the plague.
So we are not going to accept it this time. Anywhere. It is time to stop these plagues and for the first time in history we have the will, the communications systems, the microbiological and pharmaceutical skills and the diagnostics to not only stop this thing, but to eliminate it.
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And we are not an agricultural society, certainly not in Manhattan.
52
This is your problem TDEF you find the idea of death intolerable yet 100% of people alive today WILL die. You also can’t tolerate the idea of quarantining the vulnerable, the leaders you speak of have Skype, the NBN and portable computers. They CAN run these corporations from home if they want to. Most do it every day, the CEO can’t be in every office or country every day. Businesses are run remotely NOW usually from an international or national HQ.
There is no problem quarantining us oldies, but it should be up to the individual. Healthy people should not be forced to quarantine that’s the Swedish approach, individual choice, democratic rights.
I’m disgusted with these government fines for merely exercising our democratic rights of movement or freedom of association. If I wanted communism I’d have moved to north Korea or China.
64
Bobl – I disagree that quarantining “just the old folks” for a long period is a decent or civil solution. The death rates for the over 70s are so awful, would we really expect to let this virus run and tell retirees that they must live in fear for months or even a year or two? They can’t see the kids or grandkids for 18 months. They are exiled?
And some people in younger age groups will not go out, they will not send their kids to school knowing that even in the 40s-60s they are still at a significant risk.
I am disgusted that the government did not shut flights in February and take the easy and cheap option of keeping the virus out of the nation. But if we are one of the lucky nations than can stamp this out and live free, isn’t that ultimately what we all want, even if we have to rejig the economy a bit and give up holidays in Phuket.?
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Quarantining the vulnerable is only useful if you are moving to full herd immunity. If you let the virus go then we have a month or two of pandemonium and then it’s over. In that case the protective quarantine is short. It’s really impossible to quarantine for two years of a flattened curve.
This is my problem I think we are more likely to see deaths in the horrendous outcome groups 60+ and those with heart or diabetes issues if we extend the epidemic than if we have a short path to herd immunity.
Anyway i was just making the point here that it’s not impossible to run companies and stay safe.
10
10 Gold elephant stamp TdeF !
NB I see the presence of here of some who
Prefer to ‘accept’ this foreign Wuhan virus in our Australia or the UK or USA etc.
Frankly such folk are bloody fatalists
Or naive “Save Our Virus” dingbats.
122
Yes, shame about the dingbats. They all became transsexuals and very confused, did not reproduce and died out.
92
🙂
42
If the Wu-Flu is from a Chinese bat, you might want to think again about Saving your “Dingbats”
– they should all be tested, thoroughly, for corona viruses … any corona virus
– if they don’t have any sign of any flu or corona virus (even the other corona viruses can kill, not just wu-flu – it’s just the nastiest one) and are not shedding viral material, they can go free until they “dingbat” again or cause a “dingbat cluster”
– if they “dingbat” again, return to step one.
– if a “dingbat” cluster forms, apply these steps to all in the cluster
30
So the collective name for dingbats is a cluster? The collective name for lawyers is a greed. The collective name for electricians is a spark.
20
I am no expert even now, however in my observations over the years, when too heavily emotionally invested in a theory the symptoms are anger, denigration, and insult when challenged in any way.
From The Tales..“As soon as anything is needed, it seems that it is filthy and eaten by mice”. seems a pithy formulation with respect to the situation we see unfolding in my opinion so far..
Very much agree Zigmaster……
:
.
42
Except that that it won’t work.
It means indefinite solitary confinement for some. It condemns people over a certain age eventually to a horrible death by virus, isolated from their families. If not this year then next. And in time everyone reaches that age.
So it is not a solution at all. Just one of those ideas which satisfies the desires of a few at huge cost to others, prioritizes convenience over sacrifice by younger people, already living off the sacrifices of those who went before.
And if the next virus preferentially attacks the young they can all be educated by computers inside hermetically sealed bubbles?
90% of the victims of the Spanish flu were between 20 and 50 and 100 million di*d.
So it is not a solution at all. Just a silly, even selfish idea.
We need to beat this thing. Not look for quick cheap fixes which fix nothing.
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I would rather indefinite confinement for just the elderly than indefinite confinement for everyone. As it is when things are relaxed I don’t think there is any intention of opening up retirement homes in any way. As it is now with the new cases and deaths down to a trickle people are too afraid to see their own grandparents . To keep isolation of the elderly going till a vaccine is found is extreme but that’s what I suspect the government intends to do. And if Andrews had his way he’d do it not just t for the elderly but everyone. Even if we get zero deaths, zero new cases even zero active cases they have now created the next wave monster. We can’t ever get back to normal because of a second ( and presumably a third and fourth ) Wave.At this rate the restrictions will be maintained permanently. If you have such fear created about anyone dying from Covid 19 remember that even with a flu vaccine being available between 350,000 and 600,000 die from the flu every year but the world and businesses and sport go on without a fuss. At some stage we are going to have to accept that we will have to live with and manage this virus and get on with our lives.
33
Its the healthcare workers who are infecting the elderly in these homes. The elderly there go on to impnfect more of their caregivers. Heck, Ontario regulations only still stipluate the healthcarecworkers wear surgical (not n95) masks.
This protect the elderly argument has been a bravado rubbish boast since before the epidemic. Its a scandal as to how poorly we treat our nusrsing home residents
40
Sorry, that’s silly scare-mongering false nonsense.
How is there going to be ANY subsequent ‘waves’ if the virus has been taken out of circulation within Australia? Wiped out by isolation, and all travelers quarantined until we’re sure other countries have done the same thing to it?
How do you think Smallpox was wiped-out from global circulation in every country in the world?
HINT: Smallpox was wiped-out first in countries which located and isolated it, burned it out, and imposed strict quarantine control on other countries until they replicated that process, and it was completely defeated in that way.
We have a bunch of misanthropic wimps sound out that it’s all too hard, that old people are doomed, so just gimme back my cheesy-poofs!
Scurrilous lightweights.
70
Sort of true, but…
Initial Viral Load and continued exposure, as in Diamond Princess or Ruby Princess exacerbates the infection to the point where other medical conditions become a significant cause of it becoming a terminal illness.
30
Whether what has been done is the right thing or not can’t be definitely answered as yet. We will have to wait until we have a much better understanding of the virus before we can decide. What has been done is done. We should continue with our current plans as they appear to be working anyway. We should be discussing three other points at this stage.
1. How should we relax our restrictions. We can’t continue the way we are for say 6 months as some are saying. That would lead us directly into a great economic depression and all accompany disasters, including mass starvation around the world as the supplies and distributions of food are impacted. Civil violence would eventually get out of control. Etc. The economies are in a coma but the people are not. People will eventually go crazy. So we must get back to some sort of “normality” sooner rather than later for a variety of reasons.
2. Start rebuilding our nation, which requires a reset of the way we all think, not just the government. No more CAGW nonsense. No more emissions reduction nonsense. Give our public funded broadcaster the ABC 6 months to stop being so one sided or face a halt on funding until they do. Stop voting for parties that refuse to make these and other necessary changes to get this nation back on its feet ASAP (which directly means the Greens party should disappear and the two major parties wake up to themselves or else they should soon follow). Etc.
3. Get ready for The Next Thing That’s Not Supposed to Happen
200
Peter, that link is
Just more Yankee “Look at Me” stuff
Shouting to get attention.
Bah !
22
You don’t know him but I do. I’ve known him for about 15 years and have had phone conversions several times. He’s really a nice person who is very humble and tells it like it is – no BS. Very Australian in many aspects – calls a spade a spade. If you don’t like such attributes then I feel sad about you.
21
Tell him to stop shouting !
13
I did. He doesn’t normally do it. He’s upset because no one listened to him. He predicted all this years ago, but then again so did many others. He warned people to stock up with essentials. He’s also angry at Trump haters who are escalating their attacks. Where will it stop? He thinks it will end with tears as civil violence gets out of control in the years ahead. I can believe it.
20
I prefer E M Smith’s blog
Musings from Chiefio.
Good clear informed posts about a huge range of stuff.
Smith was forecasting this Corona 19 Virus inn late January !
The ultimate US Prepper !
So when Jo came began her efforts.a week or so later
I knew his was for real.
30
I used to follow him too. I haven’t been there for years. Might revisit that site, thanks.
20
I wonder whether the ill advised use of ventilators is an issue and whether there will be a corresponding drop in all case fatalities over the next few years.
120
People don’t recognise the symptoms of pneumonia and do not know how to treat it. I had pneumonia from bronchitis at 14 so I know what they did (in the 70s). Hang upside down off a bed or something (at the waist, no need for monkey bars 🙂 so gravity acts to drain the lungs, have someone beat your back to dislodge the mucus and cough it up, or in this case down. Learn the symptoms of early pneumonia, wheezing, a bubbling, crackling, gurgling or rasping sensation when breathing, shortness of breath or pain breathing. See a doctor straight away for any symptom like that, don’t wait till you are coughing up blood. If it gets worse before you get to doctors, then hang upside down and get someone to beat you up while you wait.
Early diagnosis is vital in pneumonia.
90
There will likely be a drop in the death rate (in rich countries) in the next few weeks. First because as infections fall, deaths will follow, secondly, docs are learning so much and changing strategies. The info I posted on Sunday is a major shift in understanding, that will save lives.
70
Maybe its because potential patients are learning to stay away from hospitals because it is a hopeless cause.
When I look at what is happening in Ontario nursing homes, they are being advised to think twice about the agony and futilty of going on a ventilator.Moreover, we seem to be progressing rapidly from nursing home outbreaks to spreads to deaths without saturating the ICU
https://www.ontario.ca/page/2019-novel-coronavirus
notice 1,154 infected over theage of 80 but only 760 hospitalized and 203 on ventilators in a total of all
7,470 infections across all ages tested mostly from the vulnerable groups
10
more detailed imformation
https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/ontario-confirms-421-new-covid-19-cases-death-toll-nears-300-1.4893707
00
I have to question the use of the NYT as a reliable source of information since that paper has shown a total anti Trump bias in their reporting most of which can be considered as fake news.
301
Ohhhh ?
Can’t dispute the stats.
So let’s shoot the messenger,
The NYT
Because of it’s politics.
That’s real BS logic Ivan.
Try some logic & evidence next time.
212
Bill in Oz,
I sure do dispute their climate stats.
The lies from this newspaper (and WaPo) over the past 3 years have been disgusting.
131
Actually we can, bill.
Look at the fine print on the NYT chart. They are quoting their own research.
81
Then go double check their research Mudcrab.
I’ll be happy to see the results
And any evidence of lying.
Till then it’s shooting the messenger.
16
Geez! Michael Mann will be pissed, someone stole his hockey stick graph and the New York Times published it as fact. Deja vu!
The actual ‘observed’ figure appears to be still caught in the 2018/19 year and the graph appears to be modeled ‘expected’ till April 2020 with an ‘observed’ tacked on. How strange?
The New Yorkers must be dying very quietly at home as Jason Goodman has been combing the streets for ambulances with sirens screaming or busy sterilizing to go get another patient.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8Cl9QaRtuW9CNjP7pP4BBQ
One interesting thought for Jo on the ACE1 and ACE2 hypothesis is that many of these drugs are made in China, the people who use these drugs are in the age range and demographics for those suffering and the scientists attempting to report what happened were sent for retraining before disappearing.
My! Even my conspiracy theories are now having conspiracy theories.
Meanwhile in Washington State
https://depts.washington.edu/labmed/covid19/
COVID-19 appears to be tracking along at ~ 10% of those tested.
91
“Smithfield Foods Closes Plant After Nearly 300 Employees Test Positive for Coronavirus”
https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2020-04-13/smithfield-foods-closes-south-dakota-processing-plant-after-employees-test-positive-for-coronavirus
Worldometers lists S.Dakota as having 868 infections in total
40
Geez, the whole population of S.Dakota is just 900k
30
You have a market failure, combined with a disdain for anything related to science and the result is New York.
I can sum it up in two words- ‘face masks’
75
I can sum it up better, in three words:
— vitamin D3 deficiency.
100
“combined with a disdain for anything related to science”
You are talking about climate alarmism.. right !
Still waiting for your “science”. 😉
110
New York Post poll of doctors from 30 countries.
100% state that hydroxychloroquine is the most effective treatment.
President Trump, as usual, ahead of the curve.
New York Times was one of the many Fake News propaganda outlets saying it was unsafe.
212
This looks like the report that Scott refers to(?), but 37% not 100%:
https://nypost.com/2020/04/02/hydroxychloroquine-most-effective-coronavirus-treatment-poll/
40
Incidentally, I’m not so sure that hydroxychloroquine is the answer. I think there’s circumstantial evidence that it works, but open to other interpretations. I suspect that it may be more prevention than cure, or that maybe it is only effective (with zinc) in early stages. We need to find out properly and fast.
I do think that people in extremis should be able to trial it – and any other possible cure – without the normal restrictions. If it does work, even if a long way from 100%, that’s great and we can all go back to work. If it doesn’t work, that’s a shame, but we should all go back to work anyway with the people responsible for their own social distancing. Face masks (of some kind) in workplaces? Definitely, if that’s what they want.
74
“Small Chloroquine Study Halted Over Risk of Fatal Heart Complications”
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/12/health/chloroquine-coronavirus-trump.html
What is interesting is that it is in Brazil.
Sweden has also abandoned trials
OTOH, India is handing it out for an outbreak in a slum
71
Chloroquine is not Hydroxychloroquine.
Heart problems like heart failure and abnormal heartbeats have happened in people taking high doses of chloroquine for a long time. Sometimes, these have been deadly.
20
There were two well publicised trials of hydroxychlorquine. One was in New York, approved by Cuomo. The other in an aged care facility Texas City, Texas.
Surely there should be reports by now, nearly two weeks later?
If there was a single report of problems, it would be front page news in the NYT, WAPO. They hate Trump so much, they would be wishing it to fail.
And the pharmaceutical companies do not want a readily available, cheap solution. That’s business.
142
If it were hugely beneficial there would be reports by now.
interim: Maybe some benefit at the possibility of serious side effect. Don’t expect a magic bullet and perhaps not a complete dud.
21
A recent article in the OZ
Doctors in France, South Korea and the U.S. are using an antimalarial drug known as hydroxychloroquine with success. We are physicians treating patients with COVID-19, and the therapy appears to be making a difference. It isn’t a silver bullet, but if deployed quickly and strategically the drug could potentially help bend the pandemic’s “hockey stick” curve.
Hydroxychloroquine is a common generic drug used to treat lupus, arthritis and malaria. The medication, whose brand name is Plaquenil, is relatively safe, with the main side effect being stomach irritation, though it can cause echocardiogram and vision changes. In 2005, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study showed that chloroquine, an analog, could block a virus from penetrating a cell if administered before exposure. If tissue had already been infected, the drug inhibited the virus.
On March 9 a team of researchers in China published results showing hydroxychloroquine was effective against the 2019 coronavirus in a test tube. The authors suggested a five-day, 12-pill treatment for COVID-19: two 200-milligram tablets twice a day on the first day followed by one tablet twice a day for four more days.
The Z-Pak
A more recent French study used the drug in combination with azithromycin. Most Americans know azithromycin as the brand name Zithromax Z-Pak, prescribed for upper respiratory infections. The Z-Pak alone doesn’t appear to help fight COVID-19, and the findings of combination treatment are preliminary.
But researchers in France treated a small number of patients with both hydroxychloroquine and a Z-Pak, and 100% of them were cured by day six of treatment. Compare that with 57.1% of patients treated with hydroxychloroquine alone, and 12.5% of patients who received neither.
90
So a therapy that works for some, but not all, and in some cases might actually produce negative effects?
Are we talking hydroxychloroquine, or ventilators?
Could apply to either, yet only one was mentioned by Trump as a possible treatment and so has to be treated with utmost caution, if not scorn. If i close my eyes, I can feel the Left desperately hoping that hydroxychloroquine will fail as a treatment for C-19.
Now my plan is to buy up the world’s stock of pink sea salt then get a Leftist icon like Trudeau to suggest that it might help.
Bingo – I’m a trillionnaire.
53
I dont trust big pharma medical trials, nor generic fad supplement trials either. Been there done that, know how easy it is to skew the results.
Shall wait for a strong signal of efficacy before considering any claim seriously.
If it works and it’s worth it then it is also readily demonstrable as such. Tinkering about doesn’t help much with this disease
30
Either way. There are reports from other countries, but nothing from the two trials underway in the US. I expect if they had failed, it would be front page. I can only presume they have succeeded and there is a media no comment or in progress? Which is surprising.
42
Or they succeeded but doctors working 18 hours days, afraid for their lives, stressed beyond everything they’ve ever faced, did not find time to document success, log the numbers, and write up a paper yet.
I doubt we would expect any more reporting than Docs being asked about it and saying “I think it helps” which is exactly what we are seeing yes?
80
Yes.
20
But if you leave it until you are in extremis, it is likely to be too late to have a beneficial effect. Too late. Should be prescribed on diagnosis of wuhan flu. It’s been taken for years for other conditions – not risk-free, but looks like it contributes to stopping the development of severe illness. Seems worth the risk.
40
But if you don’t wait until your in the extremis, you don’t know that your part of the 20% where it is serious and you need to do something about.
In the meantime cloroquine has some serious and not uncommon side effects with little of a possible upside. Not how I personnaly prefer to risk it. YMMV
04
Chloroquine is not Hydroxychloroquine.
20
Chemically they are closely related (one hydrogen on the side chain substituted with a hydroxyl) and I would think have similar properties.
Both contain an aromatic nitrogen (in the quinoline group) and 2 tertiary nitrogens in the side chain (one joined to the quinoline structure). As quaternary nitrogen surface active agents are known to have strong antibacterial action I wonder whether anyone is investigating this angle.
10
Her’s an interesting piece of anecdotal evidence on the efficacy of HCQ for you Raving, courtesy of Dr. Andrew Faskowitz:
https://www.citizenfreepress.com/breaking/neurologist-describes-his-own-horrifying-battle-with-coronavirus-until-he-began-taking-hcq/
20
Lupus is a serious condition. Treating it can be a matter of life or death
20
Not getting killed by wuhan flu seems ‘life or death’. The drug has been used for malaria prevention for decades also – routinely! Not if you have a heart condition apparently, but everyone else… Not sure why you are so afraid as the side effects are far worse for many other drugs, but they are still prescribed.
20
Familiarity with the seriousness of the proportedly minor side effects of drugs and treatments for autoimmune disease. Not getting killed by the cure for autoimmune conditions is a challenge. Every timeI try something I eventually end up in trouble or warned that I am steering into trouble.
Would need more than a mild plausible prophylaxis effect to use it battle covid19
remdesivir seems to be a possibletreatment
20
… you should take more vitamin D3, in that case. It’s very safe, even in elevated doses …
20
Very well said PAJ.
10
Politicians are continually pressured into expensive mistakes by the obscene media. At this point in the WuFlu epidemic we need dispassionate intelligence and spine in our politicians more than ever. The media bloviate over NY’s high rate of deaths, fawn over NZ’s successful shutdown, and guve a free pass to China and its second wave.
Put that all together, and the solution becomes clear: End the shutdown and allow all businesses to operate but still encourage social distancing. Shutdown cuts the numbers for now but it doesn’t solve the problem. The more we shut down now the bigger the second wave is later, just when we will be least able to manage it because our economy will have been shot to pieces. Shutdown is a gamble on a cure or vaccine being developed in time, and all indications so far are that it won’t be.
The above solution puts responsibility fair and square on the population. I think the population has shown that it is up to the task. A few Bondi Beaches will happen, but that won’t change the overall equation. We are – or should be – a free democracy, and a people being responsible for itself is real democracy. The ABC and the left-wing media will do everything it can to prevent it succeeding, by giving 24/7 coverage of deaths and nothing else (like its appalling bushfire coverage) but I really do think it can work, and work well.
The government set out with the aim of flattening the curve to keep it within hospital capacity, not crushing it to zero. We must hold them to their initial aim.
Sorry, Jo, but my opinion is at variance with yours. I do think the evidence is in to support my view.
182
Mike Jonas said:
I’ll throw your words right back at you:
Sorry Mike, but my opinion is at variance with yours. I do think the evidence is in to support my view. But nobody has thought to look at it.
Why do non-tropical nations have a well-defined coughs-colds-and-influenza season?
It’s the dark season in the Northern Hemisphere, whereas it’s the end of the sunny season in Australia and New Zealand.
That’s why this bug is not biting so heavily in our two countries: people’s immune systems are not as empty of Vitamin D3 as those in the northern hemisphere. Vitamin D3 deficiency is a wide open door to these bugs at this time of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. That will happen in the Southern Hemisphere in another 3 – 4 months time.
Why do “Europeans” have predominantly white skins?
Perhaps those fair skins are an evolutionary adaptation to living in climates where the sun goes away for winter?
Why do most cells in the human body have a vitamin D receptor?
Perhaps it’s because Vitamin D is so important to the body for everything from bone strength (rickets), through the cardio system and esp at high levels as immuno-system support? It’s necessary for the manufacture of white blood cells, just for a start.
A paper to keep you amused: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3256336/
If that link doesn’t work, you could try: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.4161/derm.3.4.15027
The sections on viruses and bacteria are pleasant reading.
You can also further entertain yourself by chasing up the paper’s references. That won’t take you long, as there are only a few over 140 of them.
Yes, you can wind your immune system up to point where any virus attempting to eat you won’t find it worth its while.
94
Mike I have no idea where you hang out.
But the evidence from Australia is that the lockdowns are working
We are destroying this foreign bug
So please stop pushing an opinion
Clearly based on misinformation.
75
sophocles and Bill in Oz – I’ve happily given you both a thumbs-up. I think all our views are worth hearing.
40
Mike, everyone, the solution to this will become clear in the next month as some states go free of the virus and start to reopen internally. The states that do this too early will be plagued by cluster outbreaks and go back into partial lockdown.
Within a few months most countries will realize that if the virus can be extinguished, the people get their wealth, health and freedom back. And the way to do that is many regional strict zones with border controls. Clear one zone of the virus, then protect it with strict borders. Repeat rinse… etc
Join up protected clean zones, expand “normal” life as the good zones grow. Stop people leaving infected zones without a two week quarantine, and gradually the whole nation will become a clean zone.
Use masks and Vit D/Zn, plus strategic anti-viral prevention in last high risk areas. Track and trace.
Test test test. Treatments are coming.
60
OT: It will be worth watching Pell’s interview by Bolt tonight. It’s a must see episode. Going by the previews it will exhibit how screwed up are Victoria’s judicial and police force, and how the mind of the Premier there is so twisted and broken.
151
And front page in the Melbourne Herald Sun is that the police have another complainant against Cardinal Pell, so of course the whole world knows about it. It’s big news and there is no reason to keep it quite after being caught stitching up the Cardinal once for a jail sentence.
I don’t know how many readers have ever gone to the police trying to get them to act against villains. It is near impossible.
In this case it is the police driving the relentless attack on Pell, trawling for charges. And no apology for heinous miscarriage of justice in locking him up in solitary for 400+ days on obviously ridiculous charges. The high court threw it out unanimously.
The police did not even interview witnesses on the second charge of which he was convicted, incidentally a direct copy of an identical allegation in the US some years ago. This was an assault in public in front of many witnesses. So why not interview any witnesses? The police in Victoria seem to be not only assisting people with complaints against Pell, they are encouraging, supporting, suggesting, advising and promoting and of course leaking to the press. At what point are the police charged with hate crimes and with their journalist friends? Like the ABC reporter who published a book on why Pell was guilty in the middle of the second trial.
After 27 attempts to jail Pell, one wrongfully and incredibly successful, when will someone stop this? ‘Get Pell’ has become an industry, a joint operation between the Victoria Police and the ABC, both on public service wages and seemingly immune to responsiblity or accountability for their actions.
272
Yes they are at it again. Of course it needs to be investigated but if found wanting apart from being thrown out more needs to be done. An investigation has to be conducted to see if the alleged victim is falsely accusing Pell, and if it’s found that person is falsely accusing him then charges should be placed on that person. It’s a two way street. Yes, it will be hard to prove it but why is it only one way? What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.
121
And why tell the world about it if it is only an allegation? Or this their reply to the worldwide condemnation of their behaviour, that Pell really is guilty, we just have not found the evidence? And it is very suspicious that after years of this, a new accusation surfaces. I have heard about just in time, but that’s ridiculous. And this one is supposed to be a ‘professional’, so obviously that’s a better class of complainant. They have to be very picky when leaking unproven allegations. What with that silly presumption of innocence rubbish.
52
It appears that those anti Pell portions of the media want to convince the public once again so that any jury will be biased before any trial begins.
40
I thought our judicial systems throughout the land assumed a person is innocent until proven beyond reasonable doubt with sound evidence that the person is guilty. It appears that approach no longer applies in Victoria. For whatever reason in the case of Pell the usual judicial system was suspended and has turned into one not much unlike that in China.
30
If only the ABC and Vicpol had chased Gillard and Shorten with the same vigour. In both those cases the evidence is far more substantial than any evidence against Pell AND the witnesses in the cases of Gillard and Shorten appear to be far more convincing than those involved in the Pell cases.
110
The political bias and manipulations are disgraceful, and supported by the public broadcaster ABC, taxpayer funded and required by Charter to be a bipartisan service.
80
The more this pile on comes, the more I become convinced of George Pell’s innocence.
40
Me too. I was first sitting on the fence but now I’m convinced a great injustice was carried out even worse than that during the Chamberlain case. A full investigation should be conducted and heads should roll, much like the ship incident in Sydney. Politics in Australia everywhere are going to the dogs and we the people are to suffer.
50
“incidentally a direct copy of an identical allegation in the US some years ago”
Yes, copied almost verbatim from a Rolling Stone magazine story.
Funny thing, try mentioning that or linking to the article on a News.Ltd site. Instant censorship. Even on Bolt. Not sure why.
40
I have heard that something previously unheard-of is happening in New York.
Previously ambulance paramedics were not allowed to declare someone dead at a scene. Their job was to keep applying CPR until they arrived at a hospital and the hospital medical team exhausted all possibilities to revive the patient.
Ambos are now authorised to declare someone dead if they cannot revive a patient with CPR at the scene because the hospitals do not have the capacity to treat any more patients.
In other words, if you have a heart attack now in NY, you’re probably going to die.
30
This is just the pointy realistic end when health systems collapse.
People think that an ambulance will always come when they need it, but this is the price of pretending a pandemic wasn’t a pandemic.
New Yorkers lost their health system. The graphs above show people are dying of things that we would normally have been able to stop.
That’s why I don’t believe any rich nations will put up with the reckless goal of trying for herd immunity. It’s totally unfeasible to expect the public will accept “not having a health system for six months”.
Herd immunity is a disaster without vaccines or a treatment.
50
Coronavirus: China strips virus research from internet
China has just announced restrictions on their academics for publishing research on the origins of COVID-19.
According to the directive issued by the Ministry of Education’s science and technology department, “academic papers about tracing the origin of the virus must be strictly and tightly managed”.
https://www.news.com.au/world/asia/coronavirus-china-strips-virus-research-from-internet/news-story/d7f521354022b4984230643ecd76fb26
40
Coronavirus Test Kits Have Been Contaminated With Coronavirus, Says Report
Britain’s attempts to step up its testing for the novel coronavirus have suffered a setback after some key parts of the testing kits that were due to be imported were found to have been contaminated with the coronavirus. The Daily Telegraph reported that British labs have been told to expect a delay in the delivery some of the components of the kits after traces of the virus were detected on them.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/coronavirus-test-kits-have-been-contaminated-with-coronavirus-says-report
40
Swedish hospitals abandon trial of promising malaria drug chloroquine for coronavirus patients after it caused them blinding headaches, vision loss and agonising cramps
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8199477/Swedish-hospitals-stop-prescribing-chloroquine-coronavirus-patients-adverse-effects.html
30
Weird. None of the persons in the US using it under the “right to try” legislation are reporting anything like this. Nor are any of the millions using it around the world for rheumatoid arthritis, Lupus, Crohn’s disease or black fly. Sounds like total BS or an intentional effort to bad-mouth the drug Trump suggested.
I also note with suspicion that certain trials in the US and UK have decided to omit the zinc and only test on patients where heart damage could already reasonably be assumed to have occurred …
70
Yes it is bad in NY city and across the river in New Jersey. Now do the other 97% of America. There are 10 states that have not gone into total lockdown, and 10 others that did not do so until April. Among the 50 states, there is no correlation between degree/timing of economic lockdown (economic damage) and COVID deaths per million.
71
But the governor of each state there
Are the people who make the decisions
NOT Trump.
So your comment has no significance.
16
I think you have misunderstood. My comment was not about Trump, it was about how the 50 states have taken different paths. No correlation between economic shutdown and death rates.
41
Neither was mine.
It was about the federal nature of the USA.
The level of shut down in each state depends on the situation as decided by the Governors & state assemblies.
23
“there is no correlation between degree/timing of economic lockdown (economic damage) and COVID deaths per million.”
And there wont be until lockdown has been in place for at least three weeks.
There are lies, lies and statistics.
11
This will probably get me in the bad books, but I really think it needs to be said:
We must do all we can now to fix what has been done, but they have to be held to account for this. If it wasn’t for them in the first place, NONE of this would have happened.
Tony.
200
We posted concurrently – see #18 below. US is pressing to investigate WHO.
I put the weight of blame on the WHO. Their actions were at least negligent and probably criminal.
China should have been shut off from the rest of the world when Wuhan was locked down.
162
The WHO were clearly complicit in China’s inaction, and they themselves recommended inaction.
China and the WHO both need to “Please Explain?” Then shut the door behind them.
90
There’s also: https://greatgameindia.com/india-drags-china-to-international-court-for-covid-19-war/
I’m not at all sure of the veracity of this report — I’ve been immersed in other stuff. But if you find it true and on firm foundations …
60
Many Expletive’s Deleted, I’m getting slow. I saw an article that China is cleaning its websites and removing everything to do with Covid-19 and/or it’s research/involvement with the bug.
And of course, I remained single minded and focused on what I was doing, so now I’ve lost the reference. That’ll teach me to bookmark faster.
Keep an eye out and see what you can find.
20
The son won’t bear the punishment of his father’s sin and the father won’t bear the punishment of his son’s sin.
Rather, each person will die for his own sins.
You are talking about collective sin — should widow and family of Dr. Li Wenliang pay for that as well, what about those peasant earning $5 a day.
03
True.
It’s not our responsibility to keep the peasants of China employed.
50
Time for them to toss out their evil leaders? They are suffering as much as the rest of the world’s population, probably more – but they need to act to clear out this toxic mess of liars.
50
Maybe not pay directly, but I have no doubt Trump and others will be encouraging business out of China no matter the cost. Trade will be dependent on verifiable accountability for copyright violations, trade in endangered and threatened wildlife and food handling practices. I’m sure there’ll be lots of other stipulations, but that’s a start.
100
🙂
30
And discontinue Australia’s taxpayer funding of United Nations Organisations, UN WHO, UN HCR, UN IPCC and the others that interfere in sovereignty of member nations and behave like an unelected unofficial world government.
100
I am sure China will start making payments the moment they finish abandoning their fortresses in the Spratlys.
90
The Twelfth of Never.
30
Pressure is mounting in the US to investigate the WHO over its role in the CV19 pandemic:
https://video.foxnews.com/v/6147555976001#sp=show-clips
He states that China contributes <1% compared with US21% contribution to WHO budget.
120
There you go. How come the MSM is not frantically blaming WHO for their poor performance over how they handled the very early stages of the pandemic, if not before then and alerting the world of the coming pandemic back in Jan/Feb? After all it’s their job, not the President of the US. Oh wait, it’s all Trump’s fault. I do hope the American people give Trump a lot of support in the coming elections. It’s time to smack down the left big time. They are the real enemy, not necessarily China.
190
The following is my personal opinion only.
I think the CCP cronies spend their money differently than the Seppos… rather than give hundreds of millions to the WHO through official channels they give a few million in paper bags under the table to a handful of the WHO’s top officials. Here in Oz we know how that works 😉
110
Aldi bag is the go.
10
Updated Hunter-New England data.
https://i.postimg.cc/65yHRXW9/Hunter-Covid-19-data.jpg
60
ps, Although it looks like a rise, its actually been stable for several days.
Further information….
“Across the District, 175 people have recovered.
Sadly, yesterday afternoon a 74 year-old Hunter New England woman died from complications related to COVID-19. The woman was a passenger on the Ruby Princess and had been receiving care in John Hunter Hospital. Our condolences go out to the woman’s family and to ensure their privacy, no further details will be provided.
Tragically, three people from our District have now died from complications related to COVID-19.”
60
The MSM won’t give up on Trump. The US MSM are now criticising him for not being prepared back in February. Why stop there? Why not 8 years ago? Oh wait, he wasn’t president back then but it was Obama. The left everywhere in the West have really gone too far finding who to blame for the responses to the pandemic. It’s time we fight back and get rid of our main fake news broadcaster, the ABC.
130
From Michael Smith News …
https://www.michaelsmithnews.com/2020/04/president-trump-releases-coronavirus-video-aimed-at-media-and-his-critics.html
30
The best bit was when he showed it during the daily briefing. All that footage of the media attacking him for acting too soon and “fearmongering” and being “xenophobic”. The very same media now trying to pivot their “narrative” to “Trump didn’t act soon enough” had to sit through 5 minutes of excruciating shame. CNN and MSNBC cut the feed. The wailing, the hair pulling and rending of garments has been delicious.
70
All opinion expressed by me on the US are exactly that…my personal opinions only
40
Mr Stewart in the Aus isn’t much better – he just copies the rest.
30
Too right PeterS
First President Trump is a racist Xenophobe for placing travel restrictions, now he did not act soon enough.
The US lame stream media are nothing more than the propaganda arm of the Democrat Party. They will do and say anything to bring down president Trump.
Not long now before they all get what they richly deserve.
50
What more proof does one need to show the left want to destroy Trump and if necessary destroy America to achieve that goal? It’s actually worse here because we have both major parties infiltrated by the left, and we have a leader who has little interest in defending those on the other side, at least perhaps until now. The pandemic and financial crises might stir him up to change his tune and follow Trump’s footstep on a number of key issues. We’ll know soon enough.
31
He can start by winding back their ABC.
Next by defunding WHO.
Next pursuing WTO to get China upgraded from “Developing Country” status to “Developed” status.
Finally, stick some big tariffs on all “strategic manufactures” imported from China and elsewhere to stimulate their production in Australia.
20
The store footage in this video was shown on the news last night:
https://www.tr.news/petition-deport-criminals/
The facts are thin. The guy had two tins as far as I could make out.
Jessica Rudd made a small fortune out of selling Australian premium products into China. I expect those businesses were happy to do the trade. I have no idea about the availability of baby formula in Australia. My wife still holds the view that a lot of Australian toilet paper went to China in February based on her observation at checkouts and news reports. I have not seen evidence of that.
43
Jessica Rudd and Chinese husband founded their business “Jessica’s Suitcase” several years ago, the business uses Chinese university students to shop for goods ordered on line by customers in Hong, China and elsewhere, the students are paid a commission on the goods they purchase.
Other businesses have been established based at blacked out window shop fronts, reported were shops in the Sydney Suburb of Kensington near University of New South Wales. Those businesses also sell on line and accept orders across the counter.
Australian food and medical supplies are sought after by wealthy Chinese people who do mot trust their home country supply sources.
40
I saw a van parked on the side of the road selling dunny rolls a few weeks back….they did not look Chinese to me.
Chinese held captive by the CCP do not need toilet paper. They want real vaccines and good healthy food. They also want to get rid of their crappy fascist government. We should help them as much as we can to shake of the yoke of the oppressive CCP.
40
While I know this has been happening I feel sorry for any Australian Chinese people with babies that go to a supermarket and toilet rolls .
00
Dumb is as dumb does I guess:
People are still booking trips on cruise lines despite the coronavirus outbreaks aboard several vessels in recent weeks that forced passengers into quarantine.
Even though hundreds of passengers contracted coronavirus while at sea in recent weeks, fans of cruise ships are apparently betting that it will be safe to board them beginning this fall.
According to travel agents and industry observers, bookings for cruise trips in 2021 are up considerably.
CruiseCompete.com, a web site that compares prices of cruise tickets, reported a 40 per cent increase in booking for 2021 compared with 2019, according to the Los Angeles Times.
31
Rod, No Australians will be sailing on them this year.
We’re not allowed to travel overseas !
As for next year, that all depends on whether the companies
Are still operating or whether they have defaulted on all the money they borrowed
To build their floating disease ridden hell ships !
Going bust seems far more likely to me.
Also I suspect they are ‘bumping’ up future ‘bookings’
With non existent customers.
Just a way of re-assuring the banks they owe all that money to.
63
I happen to like cruise ships, especially Cunard and I have never been sick on one. Standards of cleanliness vary a lot. You read of whole ships with noravirus and the toilets are non functional. There have been some real noravirus disasters in the Carribbean.
The continuing viral disaster with the Ruby Princess appears to be the fact that the kitchens were distributing the virus, even after all the passengers disembarked. Only now are they delivering food prepared outside to the staff on the ship in Port Kembla. As PeterC noted, there was one ‘superspreader’ in Australia, in hospitality. The common point is always the kitchen.
In a more crowded world, we have to master this.
There is a real risk in any travel and the innoculations for India run off the page, except I know people who had none. And you take medication every day while you are there, but some take nothing. Egypt and the middle East was a disaster for so many Australians on one tour and the bus would stop at pharmacies where people bought bags of medications which didn’t work. I used an Australian patented anti e-coli medication, Travelan and was never sick. I saw people fully recover in ten minutes. It is on the Australian stock exchange, but few doctors even seem to know about it and they get caught.
We have a lot of learning to do about the risks of rapid and exotic travel in an age where people take a week in India and then back to work.
The main lesson here is that we have to test people when they enter Australia, especially returning Australians. Except now we can test for viruses and it’s about time!
And if someone is sick, for whatever reason, into quarantine. As it used to be.
We are just relearning what we already knew about innoculations and quarantine. In the mad rush overseas which has seen 1 million Australians a month leave the country, we have just forgotten about it. We want no more viral or bacterial or fungal plagues in this country. We need to care as much about our health as we do about apple orchards and potatoes and wood worm.
Taiwan was ready for this pandemic and reacted instantly without waiting for WHO or China to tell anyone. We need to be the same, react fast. And tourists need to allow enough time when they return. It is just the new reality for everyone and not before time. But with accurate comprehensiave cheap and fast viral testing, we can stop these things at the airport or cruise terminal. And they can do the same on board the ships.
62
Good comment TdeF
But I wonder about the ‘1 million Australians’ a month.
How many of them are people originally from another country ?
Or dual citizenship ?
Or foreign students going home for a break ?
PS : The cruise ship industry is sunk with just floating ships hanging about hoping to find a port that lets them in
20
Good point but there might be an upside in that the cleanliness, ventilation and other aspects of shipboard life will be given a lot of scrutiny before insurance companies let a ship sail.
KK
70
Who will want to insure a plague ship ?
The insurance companies are going to be burned big time
By this COVID 19 disease outbreak.
Class actions galore !
A lawyer’s gravy train !
32
I like gravy.
Mate.
21
Enjoy Keith !
🙂
11
Maaaaaaaaaate!
00
I suspect travel agents and cruise companies are much like real estate agents who constantly assert that the market is going gangbusters, even when we know it isn’t.
My belief is that the days of the huge cruise ships is over. C-19 could be the final nail in a coffin that’s been built over the past ten years. Ongoing tales of onboard sickness – usually ‘flu or food poisoning – predate C-19 but will combine in the public’s mind to taint the industry. Add this to growing animosity toward cruise ships and their passengers in places like Venice and Dubrovnik, the industry’s appalling environmental record and discomfort at their reputation for paying staff a pittance and treating them badly (all thanks to their ‘flag of convenience’ business model) and I don’t see things going well for them over the next couple of years.
60
Seas sickness and too much Sun combined with lots of alcohol and over-eating (all of which happen to excess on these ships) can be passed off as “food-poisoning”, or an infection. Yes, cruise ships can have health problems but I suspect a lot of these illnesses are self-inflicted, followed by some blame-making and excuses.
92
WXcycles
Yeah..Nah
46
so there may be some
cheepcheaplow pricedeconomical cruise ships on the market soon?40
In the US the same places that are infested with COVID-19 are also coincidentally infested with DemocRATS.
Just sayin’.
102
1000% correct.
42
Who bloody cares ? We live in Oz mate… we live in the Lucky country where our health system actually works for the people and not insurance companies. I thank my lucky stars every day when I read about the mayhem and dysfunction evident in that laughable health system you have.
You live in a dysfunctional Oligarchy… Two parties? I don’t think so, more like two wings of the same party.
26
Which nation has the highest per capita number of ICU’s? USA.
Not suggesting that all Americans have access to one.Obviously they don;t.
But the private health care system does some things well.
70
To be truthful we have similar problems here….throwing everything at keeping people alive at the expense of their quality of life and ensuring a miserable death.
What we don’t have here is a large cohort of the population that have little access to quality care and therefore provide a reservoir for illness to proliferate in. I find it ironic that the US Gov have resorted to the tenets of socialised medicine to get them out of this pickle… Government pays for medical care with no out of bounds fees allowed. That sort of pragmatism bodes well for all citizens of the US.
Yes the US does certain things very well, but I am glad I am an Aussie and very grateful for our health system. I will explain why.
I was diagnosed with Lymphoma in 2007. It was DLBCL stage 2B. I had lymph nodes the size of small apples in my left armpit. I was referred immediately to the RAH and was treated by the head of the department Prof L.B.To… no wait time I saw him on Friday and was in treatment the following Monday. After Chemo I was followed up for 5 years by Professor To and I paid nothing out of my pocket. It gets better however. I have Rheumatoid disease. I have been seeing a rheumatologist since 2000. My only cost is a $40 co pay when I see him. I take monthly injections of Golimumab and take methotrexate once a week. My cost is around $40 for the injections and around $20 for the MTX. The cost of the Golimumab alone in the US is over 5K. All of this as a public patient. That is our health care system in action.
Our Aussie system is better Jo…No doubt about it. Even Trump admitted this as my link points out.
Part 2 of the above linked article can be found here
51
So I will get lympo if I dont do anything and I will get lympho if I do do things, and things get worse if I take MTX and then come off it … and oh by the way there all these very nice,extremely expensive immune suppressing biologics.
No, I don’t have R.Arthritis Still all the above applies
I don’t like pharma advertisements. Way too selfserving. Ugh, the heartache
11
Well, when you get it, I won’t tell everyone …
30
Do you a link – Wikipedia has the USA at 32 behind Australia at 21
00
Our sewage disposal has always been first class.
I’m surprised we are that far down the world rankings.
KK
00
“For the whole month of March, deaths in New York were twice as high as normal.”
Who did count all this dead people?
How reliable data are?
Maybe they died from fear or luck of medications and access to hospitals?
National Vital Statistics Reports
Deaths: Final Data for 2017
All causes 2,813,503 100.0
1) Diseases of heart 647,457 —— 23%
2) Malignant neoplasms 599,108 —— 21%
8) Influenza and pneumonia 55,672 —— 2%
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr68/nvsr68_09-508.pdf
43
Max, Re : Who did count all this dead people?
How reliable data are?
Maybe they died from fear or luck of medications and access to hospitals?”
Those are your questions mate.
You go find the answers !
36
You go put your fingers
In New York’s wounds !
26
Jim Quinn:
My nature is to be skeptical of everything I read or am told.
I most certainly disregard everything communicated to me by politicians, world leaders, central bankers, corporate CEOs, CNBC talking heads, the mainstream corporate fake news media, and lately – self-proclaimed medical experts who have distinguished themselves by not seeing the danger coming, downplaying the danger, not being prepared for the danger, incompetently handling the danger and righteously proclaiming the nation had to be brought to a full stop because their terribly flawed models said so.
That leaves very few people to trust. I’m not a financial expert. I’m not a political expert. I’m not a religious expert. I’m not a medical expert. But I do know how to think critically and question the basis of every narrative being spun in the world today.
The scare tactic death total was 2.2 million if we did nothing. In their own “expert” narrative, if we followed all social distancing protocols perfectly, the death toll would be 110,000 to 220,000. The country hasn’t followed the protocols perfectly and now their worthless models are saying 60,000 deaths – soon to be downgraded to 50,000. These are death figures on par with deaths from the annual flu.
In addition, it seems the number of deaths attributed to flu and pneumonia have been far lower than previous years, since the onset of the Chinese coronavirus. Considering instructions from the CDC to use coronavirus as the cause of death no matter what pre-condition or other disease the person had, it is highly likely the number of deaths attributed to coronavirus are being overstated on purpose, to support the narrative of leaders who overreacted and destroyed our economy.
105
Who’s Jim Quinn ?
And did you go put your finger in the wounds of New York ?
It’s Easter Tuesday here.
So that seems an entirely appropriate question to ask you.
36
Don’t you think that case can be made to get opposite conclusion.
All this numbers if real are because of lockdowns.
Fear, boredom, depression, domestic violence, alcoholism drugs, los of job, can not pay rent or debt, no income destroyed business and future…
35
Spoken like a true lefty victim.
Grow up.
Snowflakes have no resilience.
10
Another click-baiting doomer.
82
Look him up. He regularly equates the modern Left with Marxism as most of us here do. Don’t you or are you are lefty?
37
Did I say anything about his left or right politics? I don’t give a stuff about his politics (or yours) but he is another click-baiting doomer. And my views are not your business, that’s why we have private ballots in this country.
102
meh. Some people here have problems disbelieving anyone says who massages their political egos.
24
Max, sure, be skeptical always.
Are the record number of deaths also backed up by doctors reports and photos of freezer trucks loading bodies on…
What other evidence does a skeptic need?
Or do we think all those people / doctors / nurses / ambulance drivers are in on the conspiracy? Are the mass graves filling up with fake coffins?
52
Seek help Bill.
86
Why FB ?
Because you always disagree with me ?
I’ve come to accept it as a bade of honor.
20
the denial bots visit once then move on.
This data is a great way to explain the difference between seasonal influenza with no lock-down laws and covid-19 with a late and watered down lockdown.
That is 20 years with 20 influenza seasons compared to Covid.
62
You sound like a denialist? Do not question data or methodology or the “Models”, that is the scientific method.
How Honest is the COVID Fatality Count ? Dr. Scott Jensen is a Physician & Minnesota State Senator.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsRay1wInBg&list=LLo0syqk92zOfS1oG3mSVXmg&index=22
Coronavirus (COVID-19) Questionable Death Certificates
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfG9nmAnQp4&list=LLo0syqk92zOfS1oG3mSVXmg&index=43
03
Kevin, we don’t need models to know that a pandemic is sweeping though New York. We don’t need accurate death certificates either. The off-the-scale nature of the mortality makes that obvious and undeniable.
In any case, it would take major autopsies and analysis to get a definitive diagnosis and even then it might be impossible.
If someone had high blood pressure, even a minor infection with Covid might raise it more due to the action on ACE2. That puts them at risk of both stroke and heart attack. Even with an autopsy it would be difficult to say whether the death was 80% heart attack and 20% Covid.
Expecting the normal death certificate process to work (which by the way often gets things wrong in normal times) is not realistic.
70
New York Times is such a discredited source.
101
Streetcred
IMO all USA MSM is crap…All of it.
60
The stats for CV19 deaths for poor people and the ‘down and outs’ shows just how cheap life can be in big cities. I’m also referring to those dreadfull images of mass burials.
GeoffW
51
Those “mass burials” on Hart Island of The Bronx, endlessly shown, have been a regular occurrence in New York every Thursday since the 1870’s. That is where the unclaimed bodies go, mostly those who die without relatives. A lot of people die in a population the size of NY and sadly, many are without relatives or are homeless and unidentified.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hart_Island_%28Bronx%29?wprov=sfla1
120
https://www.breitbart.com/the-media/2020/04/12/fact-check-new-york-times-claims-trump-could-have-seen-what-was-coming-on-coronavirus/?fbclid=IwAR2xdK_yinjw54dFeq36BXoAQX8kQGFfgMspisjnqeNDSgvzTuEvj-iy5jE
https://www.breitbart.com/the-media/2020/04/12/fact-check-new-york-times-claims-trump-could-have-seen-what-was-coming-on-coronavirus/?fbclid=IwAR2xdK_yinjw54dFeq36BXoAQX8kQGFfgMspisjnqeNDSgvzTuEvj-iy5jE
00
https://www.c3headlines.com/2020/04/coronavirus-stupditity-from-computer-models-to-the-elites.html?fbclid=IwAR0Wkm4jd3CRfOPwuxEto49Vcd3ddgUq0WZkhw54PPrMxXgS5KwmU-yznMM
13
Jo’s is NOT using any models here for this !
Just arithmetic !
You do ‘do’ arithmetic old mate ?
25
Also, see my comments above.
21
I was replying to #29 no #28.
10
And your view Streetcred is what?
Any non-thinker can post a link.
What’s your take?
Do you agree with it? Or not?
Why?
10
New York mass graves … the norm.
https://www.rightjournalism.com/new-yorks-mass-graves-complete-propaganda-video-potters-field-24-people-are-buried-in-a-day-in-normal-times/?utm_source=whatfinger&fbclid=IwAR3VXHnPEiwBAtNgKgHHCNMrwaMnKNDbfN1ank7WYI4V5a444JSl_21IstY
51
NY ambulance paramedics are now instructed to declare a patient dead on the scene if they require CPR and cannot be revived.
The practice has always been that paramedics will continue with CPR until they arrive at hospital and hospital medics take over. Only a doctor can declare someone dead.
This is a massive protocol change due to lack of hospital capacity.
If you have a heart attack in NY, your chances of dying are now considerably higher.
70
And we all thought that Medical trained people
Were intelligent & well informed about infectious diseases !
Bugger !
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-14/dinner-party-linked-to-hospital-coronavirus-outbreak/12146132
62
Welcome back Captain.
Now that image of 2dogs is back again.
20
Well, many people have only recently learned that not all scientists can be trusted to tell the truth, thanks to the AGW scam. I expect C-19 will reveal a similar assessment of medical ‘experts’.
Let’s face it, the medical profession has seen it’s fair share of corruption for decades. The fat cats sitting around the Big Pharma board tables couldn’t have got where they are without help from medical professionals and scientists.
70
There is a new study which states the virus also binds with the CD147 receptor which is red blood cells which adds weight to the use of malaria drugs, it also attacks the T cells kind of like HIV
70
Ooh?
Got a link?
40
Jo
This for you
I can’t find anything on CD147
Cheers
30
Jo the paper I linked to was from this article
https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/health/scientists-discover-coronavirus-can-kill-immune-cells-usually-used-to-fight-off-illness/news-story/7f1218a91d342d73b827177c51a3828a
However I see cannot the correlation if indeed there is one. Are you able to clear this up for us ?
40
SARS-CoV-2 invades host cells via a novel route: CD147-spike protein
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.14.988345v1.full.pdf
20
Crakar
I have heard that it kills T cells in Vitro… whether it does that in the body when it is smothered in antibodies is another kettle of fish. I doubt it.
A link to the CD147 receptor would be appreciated as I cannot find one either on Google or YT.
40
I am concerned that due to the fiction of anthropogenic global warming there is an established culture of lying by senior government “scientists” and that this anti-science culture will be bought forth into the COVID-19 emergency.
111
It’s fair enough to be suspicious David.
But you must present evidence to make such a claim stick
In Australia
Or the USA
Or the UK
Or New Zealand
Or Canada
etc
37
Jo, I see that 4 people do not like my request that David produce ‘evidence’ of lying by the MSM on the Corona 19 issue.
I thought this blog was all about evidence & science that is evidence based.
How curious.
14
Bill,
Don’t be discouraged.
Your “campers-out” have turned up in abundance because this site of Jo’s still enables open discussion.
They hate educated, independent thinkers.
Your badge of honour shines brightly amongst the dross.
00
After reading many comments over the last few days, I am appalled at how there seems to be a lack of understanding of real-world affects. My husband is a dentist, probably the last of the few to not be part of a health fund group. We have lost most of our patients. We are open limited hours for emergencies and our staff have taken a matching pay cut – we get no money ourselves. We do not worry about not playing golf, we worry about how we can keep the practice alive until the shutdown is over. The longer it goes on the more likely we will be forced to close. All the promises from Government are just that. No one has seen actual legislation/rules about JobKeeper. Even if true, we are expected to take out a bank loan to pay staff now and maybe get money back at a later stage. None of this has been discussed. It appears as if all readers of this blog are wealthy and have no worries about money or keeping a business alive.
122
Smallbusinesswife,
This is primarily a science blog. But what you describe is very real, and seemingly a terrible policy. The irony being that if we do get rid of community spread in some states they will be able to reopen sooner. It would be especially helpful if we had things like Chloroquine to give all health workers so they could reopen at lower risk sooner. But I see no journalists even asking the government those questions.
Unfortunately I think some desk jockey academic epidemiologists have confused the whole risk assessment by sticking to the 1918 flu plan and not even advising Morrison we might get rid of this virus completely and a lot sooner than their high-risk “herd immunity” out of date plans suggest.
It’s a terrible idea that small business should take on debt when this is a situation entirely controlled by Big Government. Hibernating the economy should have meant the government took on those risks at the same time as it took on the virus risk.
Clearly our pandemic planning was almost entirely inadequate.
92
As was our supply of HCQ.
10
It’s usually more thoughtful and considered here I think. At the moment, some people’s fears are making them run off at the mouth. I am probably guilty.
I’ve also lost my job, but I don’t have a business to worry about, and that must be hard to deal with indeed – and with the continuing uncertainty, it is also very depressing.
I did read about one idea for dentists – in particular! When they have the testing kits ready, the currently empty dental surgeries and their staff could carry out the testing (on a voluntary basis) – with the added attraction of being able to offer immediate appointments for dental checks and work for those with a negative test.
60
Hi,
I appreciate the detail of your comment, it is an issue that I raised at the start.
Government pronouncements and some comments here suggest the authors are living in another fantasy world as far as the Shutdown is concerned. It’s not “hibernation” or anything close to it.
It’s destruction and sad to contemplate, especially when a sensible government could find a better path through this.
The average newly unemployed, the self employed will mostly be in trouble inside of a month and we are already half way there.
Best wishes.
KK
51
My youngest son is a partner in a physic practice. He said their turnover is down enough to qualify for the JobKeeper payment. When they did the sums they determined the business would come out ahead. The Jobkeeper payment would enable them to pay normal wages with a little left for the business.
He also dabbles in shares and I told him I thought CV19 would have a huge impact on the world economy so he sold his shares in January; despite his own view then that it would have little economic impact. So he is cashed up to ride through the current situation for a few months. Plus the business is healthy under normal circumstances and they can get a business loan if it went on for months. His main concern is having to shut down completely if someone in the practice ends up with CV19.
Really the important requirement is putting food on the table. You do not need to pay mortgages or loans. You do not need to pay rent – you cannot be evicted. You do not need to pay for electricity, gas, rates etc. You should advise people if you intend not paying. Some payments can be put on hold without need to catch up but others require negotiation.
The government is the cause of the hardships and they are trying to keep the economy on hold rather than crashing it.
22
One more point that very few people actually understand. The government can create as much money as they like. There is absolutely no limit. It costs literally nothing to produce. The reason they do not do that under normal circumstances is that it would drive inflation sky high. Right now, food and possibly toilet paper are the only items experiencing inflation but it is not excessive. And food supply in Australia is forecast to be solid for 2020-2021 due to widespread rain this year.
On the other side there will be huge propensity to save as people aim to build a buffer against the next wave so most of the new money injected by the government will end up in savings deposit rather than driving inflation. There may also be inflationary pressure on construction and materials once the rebuild of fire damaged homes gets under way.
Vast amounts of helicopter money is a low risk option for the government. Keep people fed and non-essential activity on hold till the CV19 risk is demolished. I do not think that is far off. I expect it will be difficult to justify existing restriction of freedoms beyond mid May.
32
There’s another aspect to this story though Rick, when you have very high debt and deliberately debase the currency to surge inflation, it means means everyone’s debt shrinks faster, but only if their wages grow to match or exceed it. Not much chance of that. But they get the financial pain sooner from both the inflationary costs, and because and hard earned savings or capital has that much less buying power for every quarter prices shoot higher. A low interest rate and low oil price era is the time to do it though. Lucky we have high debt and no savings huh?
No, not really, but we were in for pain anyway, and this process and the prevailing global economic conditions can take the edge off the bubble collapse, while the printing pays for the CCP virus financial and economic impacts. But if you’re going to print in a once in a lifetime style, when no one will blame you for it, then it would be a good time to force all State parliaments to accept and approve massive Federal infrastructure projects, in order to obtain some pre-printed goodies to a schedule that pads out their treasury balance sheets and helps reduce their debt load as well.
No, historically there have been terrible limits, severe when triggered, and it comes via … excessive inflation. But that is one way to clear a lot of debt from the system, really fast. Which is sort of OK if you have a lot of natural resources, and a better reputation than most, which allows a quick recovery, and you don’t care much about the wealth or capital of elites getting fried — > capital controls.
60
I understand what you say WX. However, now’s not the time for infrastructure projects funded by taxpayers.
It far better to ensure that the money surge has a short tail. No long-term obligations. That’s because this pandemic in Australia could be beaten sooner rather than later. Then the projected level of government funding would be significantly less than budget. That’s a good thing as it reduces the deficit.
If, in parallel, we are in recession then that needs to be dealt with as a separate issue. Not conflated with the China virus. At that point infrastructure funding may be appropriate as it builds into the the busting of the recession. We need six months to know if we’re in recession (two quarters of negative growth) as you’ll recall.
00
Yes Sam, I understand you points, but I’m not suggesting having taxpayers fund it, or to expand the deficit, what I am saying, if you have committed to do such a once in a lifetime level of AUD printing, then make sure you spend it on national infrastructure in the States with both stimulates their economy and work force into a recovery then add to economic growth via said infrastructure providing the capacity that it does, to add to State revenue to service the debt and decrease deficits from such printing. i.e. a productive future benefit for such printing beyond mere propping up of an unsustainable debt-bubble over the next 6 month. Which really really would be a wasted opportunity. The fact is we were going to have to print up a storm soon even without COVID-19 emerging.
10
“It appears as if all readers of this blog are wealthy and have no worries about money or keeping a business alive”
It may appear that way, but this is primarily a science blog. Many here are well aware of the huge economic damage being done by this shut down, and I would ask you to remember that Jo and others have argued here and at other news sites for a swift closure of the borders in late January when we realized that SARS style testing couldn’t pick up this virus. We fought to prevent this mess ever happening.
I well understand how useless our government has been in supporting small business compared to the US. 60% of small business in Australia are sole traders, who will get no help from Centrelink, while existing long term Centrelink “clients” get their income doubled without jumping through a single hoop. For example: my partner and I had a big film/TV contract lined up. Months of work and worth about half a years rent and utilities. Now cancelled. And Centrelink won’t help because we are not existing “clients” and the last season of the show was a year ago. You don’t get ‘separation certificates” for past film projects, let alone cancelled projects.
Rent relief for business and residential? Morrison has no idea. 80 million checks to individuals just got sent in the US. Businesses are already getting their “no repayment if you retain employees” loans from their banks with the fed backing the banks in the US. France has a mortgage, rent and billing freeze.
Yet Morrison blunders on into a shutdown we never had to have, if he had just listened to those who understand science back in January. There’s no actual legislation/rules about any “JobKeeper” plan. The blather about tenants and landlords “negotiating in good faith” is just that. Blather.
As evidenced by his blind trust of Tedros and Dr Murphy, Morrison has no idea. He is no Tony Abbott. And because of Morrison’s inanity, this is all marching in one inevitable direction: WuFlu squatters. Every bank that continued to demand mortgage payments, every landlord that continued to demand rent, is going to lose the property they thought they held the “title” for. The number of businesses and former employees now in economic distress outnumber all police and armed services by an order of magnitude. They no longer have the power to evict anyone from anywhere.
So we do understand the problem Smallbusinesswife. Morrison needs to quickly copy Trump, and further, makes the legislation retrospective. And fast.
20
Looking at the graph, it’s interesting to see the slight upward inflexion in the minimums since about 2013. I wonder if it is just population growth, reporting methods, ageing populace, or something far more subtle, like wages vs cost of health care, or maybe a bit of everything.
41
Huh ?
What upward inflection ?
Are you seeing things ?
03
I didn’t think I’m seeing things, well, not in this case, anyway. I spend a great deal of my time interpreting data on plots before diving into deeper analysis. subtle trends just sort of stand out, that’s all. then again, maybe I am delusional, or standing on a sloping floor…
Put a ruler/straight edge on the minimums and see what you see. It’s not a continuously decreasing trend… is it?
(a straight line is hardly a good way of interpreting this data either, so it is just an idle thought really)
30
It’s a chart for 20 years.
There is always natural variability.
A longer time chart would show this I suggest.
Meanwhile the spikes
Of 9/11 and 3-4/20 stand out like dog’s b@alls.
05
It’s not straight, but it is uniform.
30
It it were a straight line it would have to be fake !
05
Just like the front that you are putting up.
21
Of course another comment in moderation why do i bother even making comments
03
Get over it man… We all end up in moderation at some time.
71
Ok so you know how many times my comment fall into moderation? No you dont, may i suggest you stick to making comments on a topic you know something about rather than topics you dont
14
LOL
40
Because it’s important that we hear all opinions?
21
The latest News from China
China censors research on CCP virus origin, Wuhan volunteer threatened after speaking about out break, CCP censors online criticism.
China in Focus NTD news
70
You need to be careful of what you read, its ok to say the chinese have dealt with this very poorly but its another to fall hook line and sinker for a sute that us devoted to snearing them. Its alk about the balance.
03
Have you taken up a job trolling for Communist China Craker ?
Jan’s link looks OK to me.
20
No just saying dont fooled by propaganda make sure the info is valid is all
01
The ChiComs are severely restricting information in China and from China to the rest of the world.
I rely of on other sources for accurate information information & views about China.
SCMP; Taiwan papers; the Straits Times and Epoch Tines all offer good accurate views.
China in Focus is one I’ve added to that list.
I don’t notice you doing the same.
Who are your major sources ?
10
New York City has been the comedy of errors of political leadership for a long time. Then there’s the governor of NY state.
Foolishness tends to reward itself with terrible consequences, in this case dead New Yorkers. It’s embarrassing to watch my fellow countrymen these days.
90
How many people are so frightened now that they associate going to hospital with a death
sentence. I presume the pathology departments, the morgues, have no hope of keeping up
with the supply of undiagnosed dead to really get a diagnosis. Maybe also, it is difficult to
attract doctors to that job currently. So many bodies going into open cuts in the ground in NYC.
Viruses! They appear to simply need replication yet they invoke such a violent, general
reaction from the immune system that the immune response itself seems to cause the body to
suicide. It’s a wonder with evolution there hasn’t evolved a bit of a switch off or a
symbiosis where the cell itself developed controls for invaders of its internal domain.
21
Meh, hospitals used to be places where people went to die. Only modern medicine has stood much of a chance of actually curing people
30
This is OT but I believe it to be important.
hydroxychloroquine is fake news
I took this for my Rheumatoid Arthritis… It did not work for me but it does work for others that suffer from this crippling and often fatal disease. It also works well in Lupus another nasty autoimmune disease.
Because of fake news being spread about this drug treatment people who actually need it to achieve some quality of life are having real problems accessing it. So please in future resist your temptation to clutch at straws and promulgate this rubbish.
33
Just to clarify
We have people dying because a virus is attacking and destroying thier red and possibly white blood cells and the anti malatial drug shows promise but you get the shits up with that because you dont want to miss out on getting some to improve your quality of life for a few months,
FFS…..
00
Just to clarify
We have people dying because a virus is attacking and destroying thier red and possibly white blood cells and the anti malatial drug shows promise but you get the upset with that because you dont want to miss out on getting some to improve your quality of life for a few months,
FFS…..
10
Om got it delete all
01
Just to clarify
We have people dying because a virus is attacking and destroying thier red and possibly white blood cells and the anti malatial drug shows promise but you get upset with that because you dont want to miss out on getting some to improve your quality of life for a few months,
FFS…..
10
Since I have rheumatoid arthritis I understand the dilemma when something important to my well being is not available to me. Everyone better look out for their self first because no one else is going to do it—something I found out first hand not long ago.
Once you satisfy your needs then you can look out for others.
30
Since I have rheumatoid arthritis I understand the dilemma when something important to my well being is not available to me. Everyone better look out for their self first because no one else is going to do it—something I found out first hand not long ago.
Once you satisfy your needs then you can look out for others.
[Duplicate]
00
Since I have rheumatoid arthritis I understand the dilemma when something important to my well being is not available to me. Everyone better look out for their self first because no one else is going to do it—something I found out first hand not long ago.
Once you satisfy your needs then you can look out for others.
[Duplicate]
00
Try vitamin D3 …
Good levels of D3 are over 30ng/ml and up to c. 50ng/ml.
https://jefftbowles.com/vitamin-d3-cures-rheumatoid-arthritis/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3539179/
https://rheumatoidarthritis.net/natural-remedies/vitamin-d/
Autoimmune ailments such as Rheumatoid Arthritis, Lupus and Crohn’s Disease appear to be symptoms of Vitamin D3 Deficiency.
Fixing the deficiency may aid in suppression or relief of RA activity. Vitamin D3 has been found to influence joint health.
00
Jan,
That hit piece is by Dr David H. Gorski, MD, PhD, FACS a surgical oncologist at the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute specializing in breast cancer surgery. A cancer specialist. He’s never treated a COVID-19 patient.
It is totally unscientific. He has done no research of his own. He merely dismisses the anecdotal evidence which is nevertheless, still empirical evidence, of the efficacy of the Hydroxychloroquine, Zinc and Azithromycin cocktail. Yes, some of the write ups of Didier Raoult’s work in Marseilles leaves a little to be desired. However, we are at the cutting edge. There have been no double blind studies published. We’re still waiting for the American work to see the light of day. What’s the hold up?
However, there is research, empirical research, on the subject and it shows efficacy. There’s work out of China. Work out of South Korea. And, there’s many, many medicos who are using the treatment and are publicly putting their names (and reputations) alongside their stated results.
Do you think they’d be doing that if it didn’t work? In the USA? The land of the easy lawsuit? These medicos are saving lives while people like Gorski snipe and sneer.
OK. So one South American study somewhere was ceased because of irregular heart activity while on the treatment. Have you seen that study? Have you a link to it? Or is it just another write up by those who have motivations that we cannot know about?
First do no harm.
The side-effects of Hydroxychloroquine are well known. Well documented. So much so that those who have an axe to grind quote them at every opportunity. And, use them to denigrate those who are working to save lives.
They’re despicable people. Let them quote the studies that they’ve run that support their position. Otherwise we need to take them for what they are. Unscientific people who have unknown motivations for their abuse of medical professionals of integrity working at the cutting edge.
In the long-run we shall know who is right.
00
Now I’m in moderation.
🙂
00
Try this link jo
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41423-020-0424-9
12
Ha a red thumb for producing a link to study showing the CD147 receptor and uts connection to the virus, tbe intellectual incompetence of some is astonishing
22
Another day, another long term care home in crisis …
“Toronto long-term care home says 25 residents have died of COVID-19”
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/eatonville-care-centre-25-deaths-covid-19-1.5531233
00
WE have our owbn aged care center in crisis.10 residents test positive for Corona 19
After a care worker works 6 shifts while displaying symptoms.
Down right stupid worker who should be sacked or banned from the whole industry.
And the management was asleep at the wheel & not monitoring it’s employees.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-14/nsw-health-confirm-more-newmarch-house-coronavirus-cases/12148318
This shows how the complete idiocy of just one infected person can create chaos.
00
Where I am right now in a rehab/residential facility the employee entrance is not 30 feet from my bed and the staff comes and goes as usual. What else would you do? Everyone gets their temperature checked on arrival and all the inmates get checked every day. Almost all the staff wears a mask, especially working with patients they all put on rubber gloves wash their hands between patients, etc..
I’m not sure the existing measures are foolproof. I’m not sure any measures, however strict, would be foolproof as long as the staff has to go home at the end of their shift. And what about the fact that food and other supplies need to be brought in every day.
The same problem exists for hospitals and any facility that has to keep operating no matter what. It seems like the classic double bind. It’s a crap-shoot in which you pay your money ad take your chance. All you can do is minimize the chance of catching the bug. It’s scary to say the least. But cheer up. With 7 billion people in the world your statistical chance is {1/7,000,000,000}X100, a pretty small number.
20
And yes, I know that’s a worthless statistical analysis but it helps put the situation in perspective for me.
20
Crakar
No moderation ?? If so there is a lesson there for you. It did not take me too long to figure out what ends up in moderation limbo but even then sometimes it remains a mystery judging from comments made by regular denizens of this blog made over the years.
40
A challenge, what part of comment 36 woukd require moderation? Once i suggest you stick to making uninformed opinions about the USA as per comment 49
04
My opinions are my own…get over it. Your lot coming here with brain droppings about your dysfunctional political system just annoy me. Big deal.. I am nobody so stop being precious.
40
Here’s a hint…preview your post before hitting the button. If it contains a link open it up from the preview to check it. It works for me with posts that do not contain certain words that would automagically alert the Mod code or are deliberate attempts to flame. Until I started doing this everything ended up in moderation… but then again I am patient and it did not bother me.
40
Ok let me be as blunt as possible, i dont care about your opinions, i dont caee what you think, i dont care what you feel and i dont care what you want so go away and have a one way conversation with some one else.
17
🙂
60
Go Jane.
Go.
20
Speculation and no links so could be construed as anti certain members of the public.
Some words will always invoke moderation!
00
The media version
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3079443/coronavirus-could-target-immune-system-targeting-protective
03
China imposed a mandatory 28-day quarantine on people coming into China from Russia.
China reports highest number of Covid-19 cases in weeks
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_4i2fsRgGg
92
Aussie PM slams WHO over China’s wet markets
Good onya Scott… Maybe we can keep the Chinese travel ban on indefinitely… oh well I can dream.
40
I see the French have been using hydroxychlo. and are
warning they have had ~30 cases with cardiac problems
and half a dozen deaths. There article didn’t go into
it’s efficacy. It may be a matter of the balance between
the good and bad.
11
Doc the doses they are using are greater than the usual to treat Autoimmune disease. The therapeutic dose is too close to the toxic dose for it to be useful in treating CCP virus. Besides it is not efficacious to be polite about it.
Once again people who really benefit from Plaquenil are now having real problems getting their much needed medication. I saw one Lady in New England who had to ring around and ended up having to travel two and a half hours to get it.
I wish people would stop pushing this crap “cure”
13
Its not a crap cure, tbe virus destroys red blood cells so is affective enough with the rubbish
10
Jan earth, the trial results may solve all your problems, if they fail.
Currently, everyone waits with bated breath. I just wish there
were more positive leaks. The Chinese don’t give it a good
report.
30
Jan please read my comment at 44.3 above when it comes out of moderation.
I think you are wrong.
There is good empirical evidence that HCQ, ZN and Z-pack works.
Have you a link to the research DOC references? Have you read it? Has DOC?
00
So china opens its wet markets with WHOs blessing, can we infer from this the market was not the source in the first instance?
35
yeah… nah
You can infer what you want…the amount of red thumbs already mounting suggests others think differently. My inference is that those big paper bags of cash from the CCP delivered to WHO officials under the table are working a treat.
Oops sorry… You “banned” me from replying to you. 😛 🙂
32
You are an i,d,i,o,t red thumbs are the work of mindless fools no one has actually stated they disagree not even you.
Ergo i stand by tbe presumption that if the virus began in the wet market from an as yet unknown source then the market would not have reopened
34
I read somewhere that the market blamed for the outbreak is a seafood market that doesn’t sell bats. If C-19 is indeed a ‘bat derived’ virus, what was it doing in a seafood market?
Or maybe, as the writer asserted, the market is simply the fall guy for this, designed to draw suspicious eyes away from the virus research institute just down the road.
40
Perhaps you are right Steve however, due to china secrecy the truth may never be known
21
China CCP claimed that patient zero was a woman who sold prawns in that wet market. They also claimed she got sick mid December.
Believe if you think they always tell the truth.
40
I assume you know bats are natural wild flying critters, which roost in many different places abd crap where ever they go ?
You probably do not have to eat the critter to be infected by it.
30
My issue was/is that you dont actually contribute its just mindless dribble which you once again displayed eloquently
14
Reasonable to make some predictions regarding social distancing and it’s relaxation.
With social distancing …. individual clusters of unprotcted individuals working in close proximity get infected with the contagion spreading to at least 50% of the cluster over time and especially in the elderly.. The clusters include assisted living resdences, healthcare workers and their hospital unit, meat packers, first responders, supermarket workers …. + ??? These clusters will continue to grow even with maintaining social distancing. PPE might control the cotagion in these cluser or at best slow it down. Accidents happen
With social distancing relaxed …. Cluster types will grow to public transportation, restaurants and entertainment venues, close packed business environments. clusters also include daycare schools and universities. PPE will control or slow the spread of contagion
Need to eliminate most cases and heavily test to stop community transmission and prevent newly innocculated clusters
00
Australia’s CMO Professor Murphy has retracted comments he made to a New Zealand parliamentary committee earlier today blaming 49 cases in Tasmania’s north west on health workers breaking social distancing rules by attending a dinner party.
Coronavirus: Beijing still misleads the world on virus. “Using conservative figures and assumptions, a report by Derek Scissors of the American Enterprise Institute estimates 2.9 million total cases in China, rather than the total of about 82,000 Beijing reports. If Mr. Scissors is right, the number of cases that China has concealed is greater than the total number of cases reported in the rest of the world.” “The Economist magazine compared China’s reported statistics with those from other countries and found that numbers changed dramatically in response to political events, such as the firing and replacement of local officials.”
00
So Murphy jumped the gun
And revealed what is a Tas. Police investigation.
Me I prefer some transparency.
It’s urgently needed so all of us know what happens
When the lock down regs. are thrown away by idiots.
Even medically trained idiots.
10
Has this 2015 Bill Gates speech been shown?
00
It is not unlike Geo Bush’s addresses of 2004 and 2005 about planning and being prepared for pandemics.
During his reign, he was not “allowed” sufficient funds to build up substantial “stockpiles”. What he did build up was sold off by the infamous Oh Bummer.
00
“See this site for a daily update on the counter-consensual views of numerous experts. ”
https://swprs.org/a-swiss-doctor-on-covid-19/
Is in the text of
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/04/13/have-we-won/
00
Posted a month ago.
Out of date !
Well & truly.
10
[US] Army Engineers Still Adding Hospitals, With 40 on the Way
https://www.theepochtimes.com/army-engineers-still-adding-hospitals-with-40-on-the-way_3310329.html
22
Australia:
April 13th = 156 recoveries
New cases = 41
Total cases = 6,400
Total recovered = 3,598
Serious/Critical = 79
Active Cases = 2,741
61
Now why would anyone red thumb facts? And great news at that.
40
Red thumbing facts?
D’ye think maybe it’s good news instead of looked for gloom ‘n doom?
… a News Denier?
20
Will this come through?
https://scontent.fsyd3-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/fr/cp0/e15/q65/92438023_1549732151869244_7067503332792729600_n.jpg?_nc_cat=106&_nc_sid=8024bb&efg=eyJpIjoidCJ9&_nc_ohc=gZgC58AwI2kAX-vbQH4&_nc_ht=scontent.fsyd3-1.fna&_nc_tp=14&oh=a9fe5a0a269b7fc37f1fa1823b89d738&oe=5EB97243
KK
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And this?
https://scontent.fsyd3-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/fr/cp0/e15/q65/92704003_1549732145202578_5581074044238692352_n.jpg?_nc_cat=107&_nc_sid=8024bb&efg=eyJpIjoidCJ9&_nc_ohc=2ffOfD7r_C4AX8FkQ97&_nc_ht=scontent.fsyd3-1.fna&_nc_tp=14&oh=bd575604f91cb01db6f8dab90c662aa8&oe=5EB95CC5
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Seems they’ve come through.
Tedros the tardy and other less flattering epithets.
KK
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Tedros is at least an honourable man — once bought he stays bought.
Can’t be bothered with him.
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The third-leading cause of death in US most doctors don’t want you to know about
A recent Johns Hopkins study claims more than 250,000 people in the U.S. die every year from medical errors. Other reports claim the numbers to be as high as 440,000.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/22/medical-errors-third-leading-cause-of-death-in-america.html
A New, Evidence-based Estimate of Patient Harms Associated with Hospital Care
Based on 1984 data developed from reviews of medical records of patients treated in New York hospitals, the Institute of Medicine estimated that up to 98,000 Americans die each year from medical errors.
https://journals.lww.com/journalpatientsafety/Fulltext/2013/09000/A_New,_Evidence_based_Estimate_of_Patient_Harms.2.aspx
Personally I’m more afraid of the medical system then the corona
20
Trump administration ended pandemic early-warning program to detect coronaviruses
Two months before the novel coronavirus is thought to have begun its deadly advance in Wuhan, China, the Trump administration ended a $200-million pandemic early-warning program aimed at training scientists in China and other countries to detect and respond to such a threat.
The project, launched by the U.S. Agency for International Development in 2009, identified 1,200 different viruses that had the potential to erupt into pandemics, including more than 160 novel coronaviruses. The initiative, called PREDICT, also trained and supported staff in 60 foreign laboratories — including the Wuhan lab that identified SARS-CoV-2, the new coronavirus that causes COVID-19.
Field work ceased when the funding ran out in September, and organizations that worked on the PREDICT program laid off dozens of scientists and analysts, said Peter Daszak, president of EcoHealth Alliance, a key player in the program.
https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2020-04-02/coronavirus-trump-pandemic-program-viruses-detection
I’m starting to think GloBull Warming is a conspiracy.
10
If the patient needs help breathing it is way past the prophylactics provided by the anti-malaria drugs of whatever variety. Indeed to continue to treat them and then count the result as a failure is counter productive.
As the disease progresses so should the treatment.
30
Perhaps JanEarth might think about that.
00
Skeptical Sam
think about what ?? There is so much too think about these days my head is spinning. Just trying to process economic data is enough to produce brain meltdown. So many competing views all from experts in their field and all pointing in different directions. When you add all the conflicting information in from the CCP virus it is just too much.
One good thing is that it has pushed all the nonsense about “climate change” off the map. A little bit is leaking through but nobody is giving it attention anymore. I wish it would last but of course once all this panic dies down, in my opinion, it will once again raise it’s ugly head.
Interesting that CO2 levels as measured at Mauna Loa are increasing despite industry and travel being shut down. I don’t even know what that means but it is interesting.
20
OK Jan.
Yep interesting.
Have you read my comment at 44.4?
00
Australian Ro is declining with time. I suspect mutations into less infectious strains. Isolation prevents infection but does not reduce Ro in those already infected. We have no vaccine or prophylactic treatments, so natural evolution it is.
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2020/04/suppression-is-working-r-is-declining.html
10
Ianl on the contrary,
Isolation prevents infection
And
Thus lowers the Ro !
00
At the risk of repeating myself, there is a lot of discussion about treating the people who have COVID-19. There is no mentions in MSM anywhere that I have found that mentions how to treat the rest of humanity, including those asymptomatic people.
Here is some serious advice.
COVID-19 and YOU!
There is no history about this infection every factoid about it is open to question. We know it is caused by a virus SARS-COV-2, we know this can be deadly especially if you have a comorbidity condition.
We all have comorbidity conditions to a lesser or greater extent, life is like that.
There are things you can do that will reduce the severity of the infection, as, if and when you contract it.
It is my opinion that we will all contract it at some point, this may be some mutated version, but like influenza it is here to stay as there will always be populations who have not gone through the herd immunity process which does NOT guarantee any such immunity!
We cannot close this island to the rest of the world, nor can we enforce 14 days of quarantine to every visitor.
The best defense is a healthy immune system. Vitamin D3 is the driving force of your immune system so get your Vitamin D3 level’s checked and take appropriate action. If you don’t like that idea just get some Vitamin supplement from the chemist or supermarket and take a small daily dose. I have been taking a D3 supplement for 20 years, and never had the flu’ and only one cold!
Quinine is known to have beneficial effects so get some anti-malaria tablets, over the counter meds here in Australia and take a very small dose, just one every other day will provide your system with enough anti Corona Virus defense to reduce if not prevent infection. An alternate is a 1litre bottle of Tonic water a week, one of the few products that successfully commercialized an ancient remedy. I wonder why it is called ‘Indian Tonic Water’?
Regarding that infection and the severity you may suffer. This depends upon the initial virus load, Cruise Liners and Hospitals will often deliver a large dose! Your family members, a Child with flu like symptoms would give you a smaller dose, careful distancing should prevent it spreading, you may not even know if you get it. Practicing social distancing and personal hygiene, maintaining a healthy immune system are the key to minimal damage and quick recovery, so take care of the cheap, easy things and protect yourself and your family.
I asked myself why the MSM is not shouting this from the roof tops, my alter ego replied, ‘Cos there is no money in it!’
The vaccine and the chip in your arm that will go with it are a way Bill Gates can see enormous piles of cash and POWER being delivered. Beware what you agree to.
Which is the chicken and which is the egg?
Did the chip development begin before the pandemic?
Never let a crisis go to waste!
10
Slithers
Re “We cannot close this island to the rest of the world, nor can we enforce 14 days of quarantine to every visitor.”
Uhhhhh ?
Speaking as an Australian , I want to say very loudly,
We are a SOVEREIGN nation.
SO YES WE CAN !
I suggest many folk would love to live in a COVID free country
Just like almost ALL Australians want to live in a CVID free nation..
But migrants & visitors would pay good money to do so.
It will become yet another invisible export for Australia
Another Natural advantage !
10
Some interesting critical analysis of the CV-19:
A. Professor of Medicine, of Health Research and Policy and of Biomedical Data Science, at Stanford University School of Medicine and a Professor of Statistics at Stanford University School of Humanities and Sciences. Article:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/eci.13222
B. The CEO of ASDERA LLC, a company discovering novel treatments for complex diseases from data of genome-wide association studies. PhD in computer science from the University of Stuttgart and his ScD (Habilitation) in Medical Biometry from the Eberhard-Karls-University. Aricle:
https://ratical.org/PerspectivesOnPandemic-II.html
The first seems more detailed and has more references.
Call these the “skeptics” views. Perhaps after this episode, we may have an actual discussion of the science complete with something close to accepted facts.
What caught my eye were statements:
1. All the gov measures will not decrease deaths, not have anyone not be exposed nor “contain” the virus other than, maybe, spreading them out for a longer period.
2. Exaggerated case fatality rates. This is factual in that the US, along with some other nations (Italy?) uses mere suspicion to establish a CV-19 death. And unlike with HIV, to not include qualifying statements such as this for HIV “In 2017, there were 16,350 deaths among adults and adolescents with diagnosed HIV in the US. These deaths may be due to any cause.
https://www.cdc.gov/hiv/statistics/overview/ataglance.html
Note the use of “diagnose” versus the CDC guidance using “suspected CV-19 infection”
01
A deadly infection is sweeping some NY hospitals — but health officials won’t say where
A killer germ is raging through some New York hospitals and nursing homes. But public health officials are deliberately keeping the public in the dark about it.
New York state is ground zero for this germ, called Candida auris. Over half the nearly 600 cases nationwide are right here, mostly in New York City. New Jersey hospitals are also hard hit, with more than 100 cases so far. A staggering 45 percent of patients who get it die within 90 days.
https://nypost.com/2019/04/12/a-deadly-infection-is-sweeping-some-ny-hospitals-but-health-officials-wont-say-where/
More U.S. Deaths From MRSA Than AIDS
In 2005, More Than 18,000 Deaths Attributed to MRSA, CDC Reports
Oct. 16, 2007 — It appears that more people in the U.S. now die from the mostly hospital-acquired staph infection MRSA than from AIDS, according to a new report from the CDC.
Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) was responsible for an estimated 94,000 life-threatening infections and 18,650 deaths in 2005, CDC researchers report in the Oct. 17 issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association.
That same year, roughly 16,000 people in the U.S. died from AIDS, according to CDC figures
https://www.webmd.com/skin-problems-and-treatments/news/20071016/more-us-deaths-from-mrsa-than-aids#1
00
Can we PLEASE have a Tuesday Unthreaded so we can have ( hopefully) a fresh subject ?
11
… there speaks a desperate person …
10
Fresh subject? I will look in an hour as the new thread is up but I suspect I know what many of the comments will be about
00
tonyb, I think it was you yesterday looking for info on the “mass economic casualty event” now in progress.
On the new thread at #2 I’ve linked to what I have so far found.
00
Why don’t we talk about the weather ?
WXCycles had some good stuff going before this interruption.
00
The New York Times lied about “Global Warming” for many years. I think most readers here will agree. Of course, they also lied about a great many other things but I won’t mention them as it upsets our hostess.
Now, we are supposed to believe that the NYT is telling us the truth. Does that not smack of cognitive dissonance?
Here is an anonymous letter from Spain. In Southern Europe, the hysteria is even greater than in Australia. You can choose to believe it or not, but I do.
A Post From Spain
11
Well Alf, I have a friend who is Spanish.
She lived in Australia until mid February
And then returned to Spain via Japan for 10 days.
She new lives in Galicia in North West Spain.It is her home region.
Her views on this virus are clear and unequivocal.
It is a bloody disaster ! And it has killed ten’s of thousands
And infected many times more..
By contrast I note that your friend in Southern Spain
Has native English and so is probably not Spanish
But a very inconvenienced English retiree
With little compassion for the Spanish people in the midst of this disaster.
Wonderful !
10
This may get me banned, but…
For 3 decades now, globalists/commies have pushed the climate crisis scam with sham statistics, fudged computer models, and UN and national government propaganda in an attempt to panic the populace into accepting their totalitarian agenda. The mainstream media have been their willing and eager accomplices. Fortunately, dedicated skeptics (such as on this blog) have worked hard (with varying success) to expose and thwart their efforts.
Now, using the exact same techniques, they have in 3 months, achieved far more with their covid-19 crisis scam than in 3 decades of junk climate pseudo-science. Many of the formerly rational skeptics have uncritically swallowed it hook, line, and sinker. I am dismayed that we may never again regain the freedom and liberty we only recently enjoyed.
The UN and globalist NGOs have finally found a good horse and they are going to ride it as far as it will take them.
–dadgervais
31
Just because a certain shoe fits, doesn’t mean that shoe was planned and destined for that foot.
This being a REAL crisis, and extraordinary measures being necessary, can be true at the exact same time as elitist overreaching and power grabbing.
As any tyrant will tell you, “never let a bad situation go to waste,” but this doesn’t have anything to do with whether a crisis is a real crisis or not.
10
How can the numbers from NY be trusted? Medicare hospital reimbursements for pneumonia patients is $3900. Covid = $13000, using a ventilator on Covid patient $39000. What do you think is happening?
11
When did people start dying from this in NY ?
In mid March
When did the new national medical aid scheme start ?
Last week !
Nice logic – not !
11
The numbers from NY were always overstated for political purposes. Now that DayHay has provided information suggesting that there is a commercial incentive to overstate CoVid cases, there is even less reason to trust the official stats.
Try this link further supporting that the numbers are totally unreliable:
https://www.barnhardt.biz/2020/04/14/theyre-now-openly-admitting-that-the-numbers-are-fake-and-watching-the-sheep-cower-in-their-home-prisons/
There are other articles about showing that the number of garden variety pneumonia cases have fallen off a cliff in the last week or two.
21
+1 like
Great post Jo.
Thanks for bringing nuanced argument to an issue once again being dominated by partisan hackery.
There’s also another metric you might be interested in: pneumonia hospital admissions by state in the USA.
Every state has an unprecedented spike in pneumonia admissions coinciding with the onset of the body count in NYC; far more pneumonia than ever recorded and across the country.
Clearly this is because of Covid19, not because the economy was shut down and everyone went outside into the snow to cover themselves in sack cloth and dirt, and inhale the soil bacteria 🙂
It’s fundamental metrics like this which are of more value than the countless theories about the ‘true fatality rate’ which is kind of pointless to quantify at this point, and too easily manipulated by partisan agenda, claiming for an over-reaction or an under-reaction.
When the third wave in developing nations with bad hospital systems and high populations and high poverty hits (in the next month) , I believe it will put all of this into true perspective: THIS IS NOT SIMPLY LIKE THE FLU. THIS IS MUCH WORSE!
10
Choroin — that’s not something I”ve heard. Do you have any stats on that?
The NIH site said all cause mortality was down in most states (at the moment).
Lock downs are lifesavers…
10