The US can no longer even make vitamin C or aspirin any more, or 80% of their antibiotics. Something like 90% of the starting chemicals for essential US medicines are made in Chinese factories. And there aren’t many alternatives — fully 70% of competing products from India start with chemicals from China too. And now Chinese companies are shifting up into generic drugs as well.
The West, asleep, let the takeover happen. Western companies were driven out of business trying to compete with Chinese companies which were are subsidized by the CCP. But we were happy to take the cheaper drugs. That was, until we discovered what huge leverage we have given China. It’s a
As Gibson points out — personnel of the US Navy in the South China Sea are thus “dependent on their adversary for their medicine.”
Azithromycin (the antibiotic in the favourite Coronavirus treatment trio) is made in China. So is propofol which is used with ventilators.
December last year:
U.S. policymakers worry about China ‘weaponizing’ drug exports
Doug Palmer and Finbarr Bermingham, South China Morning Post
A watchdog report last month by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission and a recent congressional hearing warn that China hopes of surpassing the United States as the world’s biggest producer of pharmaceutical products.
Last year, China accounted for 95 percent of U.S. imports of ibuprofen, 91 percent of U.S. imports of hydrocortisone, 70 percent of U.S. imports of acetaminophen, 40 to 45 percent of U.S. imports of penicillin and 40 percent of U.S. imports of heparin, according to Commerce Department data. In all, 80 percent of the U.S. supply of antibiotics are made in China.
A Chinese Professor candidly explains the trade imbalances:
“We are at the mercy of others when it comes to computer chips, but we are the world’s largest exporter of raw materials for vitamins and antibiotics,” Li Daokui, a professor of economics at Tsinghua University, said in March 2019 while speaking at the National People’s Conference.
“Should we reduce the exports, the medical systems of some western countries will not run well,” he added.
We wouldn’t let China make our submarines, yet we allow it to control our medicines?
The drug shortages were already happening before Coronavirus:
China’s Cartels: Those Who Control The Medicines Control The World
Rosemary Gibson, The American Conservative
China’s cartels fueled by government subsidies undercut U.S. and other companies, driving them out of business. Western firms aren’t competing against Chinese companies. They are competing against the Chinese government.
China is moving up the value chain and makes 10 percent of the generic drugs in the U.S.
India has a very large generic drug industry, it depends on China for 70 percent of the chemical starting materials to make drugs…
There’s a pattern here of faulty goods:
Rocket Fuel in Generic Drugs
This testimony triggered a spellbinding account by a commissioner, a retired Army colonel with a distinguished record of military service. He talked about his three different blood pressure medicines whose key ingredients were made in China and contained rocket fuel. If he was getting contaminated drugs, active duty military people were probably getting them too, he opined.
The retired Army colonel was one of millions of Americans whose blood pressure medicines were contaminated with carcinogens. In July 2018, the FDA announced the first of many recalls. While many manufacturers recalled their products, the most troubling was the manufacturer in China whose active ingredient contained more than 200 times the acceptable limit of the rocket fuel carcinogen, per pill. Even worse, the company knew its product did not meet U.S. standards but sold it anyway.
Make no mistake, the United States faces an existential threat posed by China’s control over the global supply of the ingredients and chemical materials to manufacture critical drugs. In the hands of an adversary, medicines can be weaponized. They can be made with lethal contaminants or sold without any real medicine in them, rendering them ineffective.
Predatory Capitalism by a State funded player:
Zhejiang Huahai Pharmaceutical (ZHP), producer of the contaminated valsartan, disclosed in a 2018 annual report that it had received $44.4 million (312 million yuan) in government subsidies. Over the first half of this year, it had received an additional 92 million yuan in state funding.
Doctors need to check those supplies are what they think they are:
A number of hospitals are having to test certain medicines because physicians see that there’s just something not working,” stated Gibson.
Meanwhile Coronavirus tests sent to Slovakia were so inaccurate they should be thrown in the river…
The 1.2 million Chinese antibody tests that the Slovak government bought from local middlemen for 15 million euros ($16 million) are inaccurate and unable to detect Covid-19 in its early stages, according to Prime Minister Igor Matovic, who only took office last month. “We have a ton and no use for them,” he said. They should “just be thrown straight into the Danube.”
Spain Turkey and the Netherlands reject faulty Chinese-made equipment
On Saturday, the Dutch health ministry announced it had recalled 600,000 face masks. The equipment had arrived from a Chinese manufacturer on 21 March, and had already been distributed to front-line medical teams.
Dutch officials said that the masks did not fit and that their filters did not work as intended, even though they had a quality certificate….
Spain’s government encountered similar problems with testing kits ordered from a Chinese company.
It announced it had bought hundreds of thousands of tests to combat the virus, but revealed in the following days that nearly 60,000 could not accurately determine if a patient had the virus.
Not paying attention for the last 20 years:
China Has ‘Global Chokehold’ on Medicine
Robert Krychik, Breitbart
“Nobody [in politics] did anything about it,” lamented Gibson. “This has been going on for almost 20 years. In fact, no one wanted to even expose it. That’s why it took so long to figure this out and to put it out there, to reveal our dependence. It’s really quite remarkable. The American public’s been thrown under the bus.”
Mansour asked why American politicians allowed domestic manufacturing of medicines and medical supplies to be outsourced to China.
Gibson replied, “There was country-of-origin legislation introduced in Congress around 2008 that would require companies to state on their packages where their product is made, and it was killed immediately. So I asked someone in the industry, someone who worked there for more than 30 years, ‘So, what’s going on here?’ and this person said, ‘Well, the industry thought it probably wouldn’t be good for business if their customers knew where their medicines were coming from.’”
Gibson continued, “Our military is dependent on China. So the young men and women in the South China Sea on those aircraft carriers, they’re dependent on their adversary for their medicine.
We know if the squid in the supermarket was caught in New Zealand and packed in China, but we don’t know where the drugs in the asthma puffer our children use were produced.
It’s probably the same story in Australia except foggier. We don’t even know where the starting materials from our drugs come from: “These medicines are then imported into Australia after journeying around the world.” The report says it is a “significant problem” that there is no public information on the origin of the critical ingredients because drug companies consider such information to be proprietary. It is difficult, therefore, to even assess the resilience of Australia’s medicine supply chain. — Phillip Coorey, AFR, Feb 2020
Rosemary Gibson wrote China Rx: Exposing the Risks of America’s Dependence on China for Medicine.
Read them all: Breitbart, and the American Conservative.
h/t Pat (where is he?!) Cynic of Ayr, David E.
I fail to see how “we the people” can change things even if we had the will, which we don’t. Westerners will remain aloof and pretend things will get back to “normal” once this pandemic is over. The next crisis or two ought to wake everyone up by which time it will be very likely too late to do anything about. Enjoy the music while it lasts.
141
Australia has lost its manufacturing capability. We did this because we did not value it. We thought it was ok to get cheaper goods not made here. Its not. It ALWAYS works out badly when something stresses the supply chain. You have to pay more for goods to achieve local manufacturing because our labour cost are far higher.
This time it was a virus. Wait for the war. It will happen. When is the unknown. We continue to believe that it will be “different” this time. It will not. Hard lessons must be learned by each generation. They are mostly the same lessons.
222
Whitlam Labor signed the UN Lima Agreement in 1975 that is an agreement to hand over manufacturing industry, most of it, to developing nations.
UN Agenda 21 now 30 – Sustainability, targets industries like timber, commercial fishing, irrigation farming, minerals and energy etc.
UN Paris Agreement adds emissions targeting CO2 to the handicaps industry in Australia, all businesses, now have to struggle to deal with.
UN impositions complimented by Federal and State legislation to reinforce and implement here.
UN organisations like WHO siding with China to hide COVID-19 from member nations, HCR and the recent Compact on Migrants encouraging illegal immigrants to enter EU member nations and impact adversely on citizens and economies.
The list is long.
331
Top of the morning to you Jo (& Dennis),
Yes indeed, this is the “Elephant in the Room”!
I did ask Bob Katter about this on our local station, 4BC, during an election campaign past (either 2010 or 2013).
10 out of 10 for honesty & sincerity, he said he didn’t know of the “Lima Protocol”. One of the few times a politician has had the intestinal fortitude to admit something unknown.
Anyway, long story short, the virtual army of rabid socialists at the: U.N., U.N.H.C.R., W.H.O., Unesco., U.N.F.C.C.C., G.A.T.T., I.M.F., World Bank, G-8, G-20, O.E.C.D., and the International Labor Organisation, have got a lot to answer for as far as the ever-so-gradual reduction of our liberties & economics.
We here in Australia, not to mention most of the formerly developed countries, need to stop kidding ourselves & bring back some manufacturing jobs & industries, even if just for our Kids‘ sakes!
Warm regards,
Reformed Warmist of Logan.
220
Oh My God, conspiracy did it to us
There is good conspiracy and bad conspiracy, your conspiracy is demonic one. You are basically saying Australia is not sovereign nation and UN have army which is going to invade Australia.
Hahaha and hohoho
Fabian socialism did it to you together with central bank which is fascist institution
Bankruptcy and Revolution
Gary North – January 23, 2016
New Zealand ( instead New Zealand use Australia )
Almost from the beginning of the nation, it has clung to the principles of Fabian socialism. It was perhaps the first “laboratory” for the Fabians to point to. Its mild climate, its vast (and now depleted) forests, its small population density which was made up of mostly educated, white, and vaguely Christian residents, its sheep farms, its remarkable agricultural output, and its geographical isolation (tiny defense budget) gave New Zealand all the resources it needed to compete in world markets. Did it compete?
In some areas of the economy, yes, especially agriculture. But it never did without subsidies and tariff protection. Since the great depression of the 1930’s, the New Zealand economy has relied on protection for producers at the expense of urban consumers and taxpayers. The nation has had a marvelous quality of life, so long as that quality of life was not based on high-quality, low-cost imported consumer goods. The trouble for socialist ideology is that New Zealanders, like everyone else in the West. wanted all those Japanese electronic goodies. And to get access to them, they had to compete in international markets. But their government-protected economy did not encourage this sort of competition.
The Experiment
Very quietly, and with little public awareness outside the country, New Zealand is now experiencing a major economic experiment. The Treasury has begun to adopt policies that can fairly be described-as free market monetarism. All of this would be interesting even if there weren’t one strange ringer in all of this: the Labor Party is conducting the experiment. The New Zealand Labor Party is made in the image of the British Labor Party. That is to say, it is dominated by the trade unions and is committed to the principle of welfare State.
The country has been dominated by Fabian socialist ideas throughout the twentieth century. The two political parties have forged a working relationship: the conservative National Party has protected the farmers and local businessmen from world competition by means of agricultural marketing boards, direct subsidies to agriculture, and tariffs. The Labor Party has done its best to protect union members from world competition by keeping tariffs high, imposing other import quotas, fixing exchange rates, refusing to allow currency and other futures trading in world markets, and using the taxing power of the federal government to redistribute wealth (which really means keeping the existing distribution of wealth pretty much fixed: if you got there early, you are locked in for life, or close to it).
https://www.garynorth.com/public/14754.cfm
10
” direct subsidies to agriculture, and tariffs.”
Mate I think you are bullshirting. I’ve been farming in NZ for the last 40 years. I should know.
So show me the numbers , and demonstrate that I am wrong.
20
Australia didn’t [lose] its manufacturing capability…
It was intentionally dismantled and sent to the 3rd world via the Lima Declaration. Australia via taxpayer funding has been and still is helping China establish and learn how to grow fine merino wool.
Globalism at its best.
262
Back when Mitsubishi used to manufacturer here in Oz an insider told me that someone had worked out that the ‘labour’ cost of each individual car was the smallest component.
Therefore, concluded the unions, there is no reason why that couldn’t be increased by paying the workers more. And management went… Okay.
Goose.
Golden Egg.
The market chooses the price it is willing to support. Price yourself too high and it will decide they don’t really need it and stop buying, or buy a similar product for a better price. So you either make a ‘better’ product and attract on the quality sales pitch, you drop out of the game, or you artificially manipulate the market with outside forces (tariffs, rebates, carbon credits).
That is how the free market works.
No it is not fair, because by definition it is free. Fair and free do not play together. Fair requires rules to establish what is fair and rules require enforcing and enforcing removes freedom.
30
A ” free market” does not mean free practice of mercantilism.
00
Geoff, this is WWIII and it has been under way for 51 years, ever since Hawke took over the leadership of the ACTU.
00
Geoff, this is WWIII and it has been under way for 51 years, ever since Hawke took over the leadership of the ACTU.
00
Jo, an excellent article but unfortunately with an exclusively USA focus.
What is the situation here in Oz ?
I suspect it is just as bed here as in the USA.
So this is a matter which demands Australian government attention.
And making a big noise here on your blog is one way of drawing government attention to it.
Of course the minister for Health is Hunt
Who presided over the early stuffed up government responses to the Virus.
But maybe he will now see the error of his ways
And actually set about dealing with this problem.
We live in Hope !
70
Bill, if you find info on Australia let me know. I looked and included the latest info I could find which is, “we don’t know” because we don’t demand state of origin labeling. The report I linked in the article (I did mention Australia at the end) said the supply chains here were “opaque”.
81
A more important task is to understand the ‘recipes’ for making drugs (small molecules), including the ‘ingredients’ (drug intermediates) used to make the active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) and also excipients. Australia still has some capabilities for making drugs. API is usually sourced offshore, but not exclusively from China. I expect there will be significant attempts to block future efforts by Australia (actually numerous countries) to be self sufficient in making the WHO’s list of essential drugs (that is just an example list).
Available to discuss offline.
You might find this linke to be of interest.
https://harvardtothebighouse.com/2020/03/19/china-owns-nature-magazines-ass-debunking-the-proximal-origin-of-sars-cov-2-claiming-covid-19-wasnt-from-a-lab/
10
Yes I agree
No state of origin labelling makes it very opaque !
00
Recently I’ve had to restart taking strong pain relief for back pain , in all about five different medicines and asked my Doc to mark the scripts ” not to be substituted” .
He asked why and I told him the Chemist was substituting the scripts without telling me and most of what I’m taking there is a big difference in efficacy between the one he prescribes and the rubbish I end up with ( always a generic cheaper drug) .
My Doc asked which Chemist and when I told him he admitted that he had trouble with the same Chemist with an eye medicine for himself that had to be a particular type and brand and they swapped for a generic without asking .
Said it took 5 minutes of arguing before he left with exactly what he wanted .
I’m only guessing here but this discount chain pushing generics without asking is there any chance the generics are made in China and is there some financial incentive to substitute where they can .
271
I’m not certain and was never a GP, but I seem to remember our Federal government made
a change a few years ago which favoured generics over original medications where possible, because they are cheaper on the Health budget. You might ask your chemist to elucidate, and your GP can put on the script “Brand substitution not permitted” (it’s tick-a-box).
10
One thing this pandemic has shown and the whole issue of China controlling our lives mean that when it comes to saving money to reduce the damage to the balance sheet it shows what a waste of money the submarine contracts are. When trying to figure out how to raise funds to return the budget to credible levels buying nuclear subs “ off the shelf” will save tens of billions of dollars. If one then adds these funds to those saved from withdrawing all funding and subsidies of green energy schemes Australia not only will be better off in paying for the Corona virus stimulus it will be better placed to rebuild industries to make itself more self sufficient in dealing with these sorts of external threats. Returning to a cheap energy regime will be vital to rebuilding manufacturing so that we can exert some independent controls over these external influences that will potentially seek to cause us harm. The ease with which a virus can be used to cripple economies and kill people means that our previous defences to such invasive threats need to be rethought and the role of armies need to be geared to viral and cyber threats that can be way more lethal than a military assault. The ability to be self sufficient at times of emergencies is also very important.
283
I can’t see China doing to bad out of this whole thing. If first manages to control the virus in its borders (supposedly) then restart its industries while the rest of the world is crippled. Then sells its crap to the rest of the world and makes a motza! Then feeds the profits back into taking an even bigger share of control over the world. Would I be mistaken to think that even if China didn’t intend to release this virus on the world, it’s doing pretty well out of it!
152
The question is mens rea….
50
I see what you did there Steve. Ingenious really.
Tony.
20
Today’s ‘Time Out’ feature podcast is recent with Dr Frank Ryan…. 🙂
From: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuJnuNgO8gY
“Virus Expert Dr. Frank Ryan Discuss Behaviors of Viruses and Our Coevolution
99 views
•Mar 24, 2020
“Author Dr. Frank Ryan has spent a lifetime researching, speaking on, and writing about virus behaviors. His book Virusphere: From Common Colds to Ebola Epidemics–Why We Need the Viruses That Plague Us was just released in paperback.
“In this exploratory conversation, he explains”
“why calling viruses parasitic is too simplistic and confining, why this is so as he discusses the history of the AIDS virus evolution with humans as an example, and how different mechanics we use to survive, such as placental membranes, are virus derived. Dr. Frank Ryan is an Honorary Senior Lecturer in the Department of Medical Education at The University of Sheffield in the UK. He has authored numerous books, including Virusphere. The conversation begins with an explanation of the behaviors of viruses as symbionts, existing at a continuum between parasite and mutualistic symbiont.
“Among many other examples he presents, he discusses AIDS, one of the worse epidemic viruses in our lifetime. Yet even at the height of the epidemic, scientist didn’t ask if it were a parasite or not. Rather, they asked what aspect of the virus is changing as a result of the human interaction and vice versa.”
And much much more…
20
Oh for heavens sake… China is in deep dodoo. The one thing they fear more than anything is its people. They pulled off a miracle by lifting hundreds of millions of citizens out of poverty in a space of 20 years. This was truly unprecedented and has never been done before. They did this by creating a massive economy based on exports. While the economy boomed the people were happy and the CCP was safe.
We live in a different world now. China’s export markets have been smashed and every country in the developed world is reconsidering their reliance on China. Unless China can develop its domestic economy to sop up the goods the manufacturing sector produces then the growth will stall. If that happens the the people will rise up and sort out the CCP pretty quick smart. The CCP know this and they are scared.
Despite the economic miracle they pulled off, the majority of the country outside of the cities is living in third world conditions. The CCP needs to develop a domestic economy fast with that millstone around their necks. I seriously doubt they can do that due to corruption and cronyism in the CCP. If they can’t do it they are doomed and they know it. I think they are doomed but only time will tell.
All you conspiracy nuts IMHO are crazy. The idea that China somehow created this virus is bonkers because no one really has the knowledge or expertise to do that. Michael Osterholm when asked this question by Joe Rogan recently just laughed and said no one has this capability. We have this ridiculous idea that we are all powerful and in control of nature when in actual fact this is just a case of nature teaching us that we are insignificant organisms on a speck of dust travelling through an infinite Cosmos. To my way of thinking, saying that the CCP made this virus as some sort of master plan to control the world is akin to saying climate change is caused entirely by Humans…just ridiculous.
Even if it was a master plan it was a stupid one as it has blown up in the CCPs face. No way they are going to get out of this easily and hopefully this marks the end of the CCP. I hope so because the way the anti Chinese rhetoric is ramping up it is looking very ominous for the world as a whole. if you think a global pandemic is bad I can assure you a global nuclear war is way worse.
40
Can never understand why people always presume the next major war will be one that involves widespread use of unconventional weapons. There are plenty of reasons to think it won’t be.
40
Well I hope you’re correct but I don’t see the common Chinese people rising up against the CCP in this day and age. The obvious question would be: them and what army?
I also have to tell you not to put words in my mouth. I never suggested that the virus was manufactured so no you can’t classify me as a crackpot conspiracy theorist! Instead I’ve just suggested that after the virus running epidemic in their own region, certain CCP officials might have seen benefit in having it spread further. Regardless, it can be seen how such a situation benefits them.
30
Jan says “you conspiracy nuts IMHO are crazy”
While I agree, it is crazy to think China did this on purposeit us not crazy to think they developed this.
In their own peer reviewed reports they state they “demonstrated” human host receptivity through ACE 2 proteins from bat coronavirus. For over a decade they were concerned this would happen, and in attempting to understand and develope defensive ability, it appears likely that they
shot themselves with an accidental release. They have done so before.
https://harvardtothebighouse.com/2020/03/19/china-owns-nature-magazines-ass-debunking-the-proximal-origin-of-sars-cov-2-claiming-covid-19-wasnt-from-a-lab/
10
So one of you thinks that the virus couldn’t have been engineered, the other it most definitely was. But neither of you think the Chinese Communist Party would consider capitalising on the situation? I don’t think we are on the same page here!
10
Guess what! Trump was right again!!
Since before he was elected he’s been denigrating most ” Trade Deals” & particularly the Deal with China. USA & most of the world has been caught fast asleep at the wheel. The big question is what will, the western economies do about it all.
Answer is :- nothing!
Western democracie’s policies on every thing revolve around the life of one political party’s time in power. The west runs on relatively short time spans resulting from demands made by electorates whims & fancies. Let’s face it the voters vote for advantage over a short period (3 years). Long term thought, results of policies over long term are foreign to western democracy.
20
it all goes back to copyright law. Publishers are awarded copyright protection because they invest the money in typesettng and printing a book. The publisher assumes the risk that the title will sell.i
in other words, a manufacturer assumes the cost and risk in stamping out examples of intellectual property. The risk and expense of doing s ios safeguarded by law
Set up local printers(manufactures) of generic drugs and provide them with legal protection for tsking the gamble.
we hAve duties on importing alcohol and tobacco to protect the franchise on the in-country provider
This sort of law / legal protection is hundreds of years old. Nothing new about it.
government do your job. dont cave in to offshore CEOs who desrr to circumvent local manufacturesnd local taxes and labor costs
80
There are echoes of the Opium Wars in Chinas modern desire to dominate the pharmaceuticals market. Who’s to say the Chinese have not learned what we taught them in regard to weaponising drugs.
The opiation of the west is not limited to pharmaceuticals. It extends to all consumer goods and credit and the provision of these very cheaply, which like a drug, consumer society in the west cannot resist until it faces ruination. Perhaps ceding the South China Sea will be our Nanking moment.
By subsidising these industries the Chinese government indicates its unequivocal support for same. The US government can indicate its support for American pharmaceutical production through tariffs. This will ultimately raise the cost of drugs. If this extends across all industries the Chinese dominate, expect incipient inflation to say the least.
The Western world can produce its own drugs; it’s simply chosen to buy them cheaper elsewhere. This is clearly a problem now these products are being weaponised. The west will now pay a political cost for expecting other countries to engage in the same laissez-faire economic approach.
History does not repeat, but it often rhymes.
70
This is confronting news. The same country that produces “entrepreneurs” who lace baby formula with melamine to make it whiter…and now make most all our pharmaceuticals?? Where are all those lefty protestors railing against big pharma now?
Going forward, you have to be nuts to buy anything that goes into your body that comes out of a chinese factory.
I was listening to a talkback caller this morning. I believe he was on the right track. The greenies are going to have to take a cold shower. Cheap coal power, more local manufacturing, including locally sourced timber products, more local produce, less exports of our food and less imports of stuff we produce ourselves.
210
Well tactically it may be the opening “shot” of WW3…retribution by the West may be terrible…
50
“Going forward, you have to be nuts to buy anything that goes into your body that comes out of a chinese factory.”
This is extremely difficult if you don’t know the source of the base ingredients or components.
110
… and if the brand names are just made in a different Chinese factory…
91
Jo I take a number of supplements bought both locally & via online stores.
Only one ( Zinc ) says made in Australia.
All the rest do not say where they are made at all.
10
Remember Herron Paracetomol? It used to have an image of Australia on the packaging. It hasn’t for years, now. No mention of country of origin at all.
30
There are echoes of the Opium Wars in Chinas modern desire to dominate the pharmaceuticals market. Who’s to say the Chinese have not learned what we taught them in regard to weaponising drugs.
The opiation of the west is not limited to pharmaceuticals. It extends to all consumer goods and credit and the provision of these very cheaply, which like a drug, consumer society in the west cannot resist until it faces ruination.
By subsidising these industries the Chinese government indicates its support for same. The US government can indicate its support for American pharmaceutical production through tariffs. This will ultimately raise the cost of drugs.
History does not repeat, but it often rhymes.
50
There seems to be an imbalance in the protection of intellectual property. The intellectual property (patent) is the author’s manuscript. The copyright is the risk and cost printing and selling the manuscript.
The bulk of the expense/cost is in the manufacture of an instance of the intellectual property.
In the music business, the bulk of the cost is in making and selling of the record/cd/mp3 file
I dont blame offshore suppliers. Smuggling to cheat the revenue man their due is a time honored tradition
11
‘ … what we taught them in regard to weaponising drugs.’
Interesting correlation, the Big Parma opioid addiction in the West and what Britain did to China in the 19th Century. The similarity is in the commercial benefit of addicting the masses, laissez-faire capitalism was filthy but modern China is playing by the international rules of engagement.
Beijing can turn the tap on and everyone cheers and they can also turn it off. A good example is the way they took the world’s garbage, to reprocess into a useful product, then they decided to stop and we were stuck.
60
el gordo, spot on. The Chinese won’t be sending gun boats up the Potomac. But you can expect them to use the moment to embrace and extend in the South China Sea (and just about anywhere else they can manage).
The political left likes to weaponise whatever it can control. Take the media for example. It is in their post-modern neomarxist DNA to do this. The right response is not to mimic. Mimicing simply leads to division as we have seen in America. The right response is a return to objectivity. The howling of the left, is post-modernism dying.
When it comes to China, the right response is to see them for what they are, opportunistic communists who will weaponise whatever necessary to advance their cause. We ought to shun their economic and political culture to the extent necessary to protect our own enlightened self-interest. Clearly free trade is something that never even existed to begin with!
10
I’m watching ‘The Stand’ by Stephen King. Dean Koonz wrote about a Wuhan virus, King’s movie illustrates it.
And now we’re living it.
41
GD, Refer http://joannenova.com.au/2020/04/make-your-own-mask-diy-no-sew-2-minute-and-high-quality-sewn-hepa-options/
30
Yes, Sunni, I have seen that guide to make your own mask, and I will be trying to make one. However, it’s not the same as having them available for the general public.
50
Back on the preventative side of the fence,
It’s now being suggested by the London Telegraph a number of european governments will loosen the lockdown on the basis of mandatory mask wearing in public and increased testing. Let’s hope this report ends up being correct. Though it doesn’t leave Australia in a very good place considering health authorities have set themselves up for a debacle again by suggesting masks are not effective!
Reports from Italy also now suggest Hospitalising Coronavirus patients can cause more deaths. Some excerpts from the report;
– “Sending coronavirus patients to hospital can dramatically increase death rates, the experience of two hard-hit Italian regions suggests. Veneto and Lombardy are neighbouring regions but have seen sharply differing fatality rates since the contagion broke out in northern Italy in late February. Despite having equally well-equipped hospitals and similar levels of wealth, Lombardy’s death rate is around 17 per cent while that of Veneto is around five per cent.”
– “Lombardy admitted more patients to hospital, whereas Veneto urged them to stay at home or treated them in local health clinics.”In Lombardy, they hospitalised nearly 60 per cent of confirmed cases, quickly running out of beds. In Veneto, local doctors and health authorities acted like a filter – only 20 per cent of people were hospitalised,” Giorgio Palù, a prominent virologist and adviser to the Veneto regional government on how to handle the pandemic, told Corriere della Sera newspaper. “By keeping at home people who were positive but asymptomatic, we avoided the overcrowding of hospitals and the spread of the virus.”
– “By keeping at home people who were positive but asymptomatic, we avoided the overcrowding of hospitals and the spread of the virus.” Veneto has a more decentralised health system with more local clinics, while Lombardy relies on big hospitals. The decision to transfer patients from a hospital in the Lombardy town of Codogno, the original focus of the outbreak, to other hospitals in the region was “very unfortunate”, Mr Palù said. “It exported the contagion. They acted out of emotion – bring everyone into the hospitals. Instead they should have kept them outside for as long as possible.” The differing strategies of Veneto and Lombardy reflect the fact that regional health authorities in Italy have a high degree of autonomy.
– Big hospitals in northern Italy “are themselves becoming sources of infection”, said Maurizio Cereda, a co-author of the paper. Patients were passing on the infection to nurses, doctors, hospital staff and ambulance drivers, who then carried the virus back into the community. “Patients started arriving and the rate of infection in other patients soared. That is one thing that probably led to the current disaster,” he said.
These are many lessons to be learned from what has occurred in Italy so far. One of them is, Centralised medical resources aren’t very effective at dealing with a distributed virus. A very good reason to be giving people masks and doing as much self-testing as possible.
90
Masks aren’t available in Australia. If they were, we would be using them.
63
Make ’em GD !
Even a cotton scarf will do the trick.
Look online for some directions
They are very common.
41
GD, as discussed here previously, masks can be hand made from cloth and can be custom fitted and be very comfortable. It is a very big step in breaking the transmission line.
60
Quite why western nations have allowed so much of our industrial and medical capacity to be transferred to china in order to sve a few cents is beyond me. Strategically we should never have allowed this to happen on the scale permitted
It will hopefully teach us lessons for the future.
140
This all started a long time ago with the UN’s agenda 21(now agenda 2030)It’s all there on their web site.
70
Let’s be bloody clear !!!
VERY CLEAR !
It all started with Gough Whitlam’s reduction of tariffs by 25% in 1974.
It was continued by Paul Keating’s drive to globalise the Australian economy in the 1980’s.
Fundamentally it was the ALP who presided over this whole process
Who were lead by academic socialists NOT union people.
And the Liberals cheered from the side
But never did it themselves when in office.
Why ? Because they were afraid of losing votes.
Labor will not change it’s spots
And will continue to be driven by academic ‘internationalist’ socialists
Into the forseeable future
53
Moderated because I said “Bb%%dy” !
10
Should have said
“Internationalist socialist Fabians ”
[ Sent you an email Bill .] AD
20
Individuals, Elitist Individuals, have profited.
Personal gain beats everything else.
00
Australia has imported so much stuff ‘from China’ in order to be able to export stuff ‘to China’…that’s the equation that must be dealt with IMO.
Many of us examine all food items to ensure none of it is from China to the extent that we can do that…knowing that labeling isn’t perfect and some ingredients may come from China even if labels say ‘Made in Australia’..or ‘Product of Australia’…but we have zero control over medications etc.
What we need to do is to send out an emissary to do what Tim Fischer did as Trade Minister…trawl around and seek out a great diversity of reliable markets for our commodities..especially iron ore and coal…which should be easier now with the movement of millions of Asian populations into middle class status with more industry…building..general consumption.
Of course we’d be competing in that strategy with every country in the world that now recognizes its own over-dependence on China…and with China itself…so our people would have to be nimble and built the trust in alternative markets that almost no one has in China…and for once distance would not be our enemy…..although we’d have to seek many markets in Europe at the same time.
We probably have to find many emerging niche markets and build the trust as they grow into big markets…and find out what we can sell to South America that Brazil et al can’t sell.
One of the biggest obstacles will be Australian big business…education and retired political spivs who are making a motza out of China and don’t give a damn about the fallout.
And while we’re doing all that the government must ensure that no foreign government…but especially China…can own any Australian business…farm…especially any energy or water business or infrastructure …or a controlling stake in it…even indirectly…and we voters ourselves have to enforce that because journalists won’t.
10
Read – my – lips. ) China – (geo-politically – wise – nothing to do with race) – is -not – our – friend.
(Neither is the EU or UN globalist guv -uh -mints.*)
*Do non-fiat democratic, minimalist, Rule of Law for all, do family, do coal, do CO2.
00
“China has a global chokehold on medicine”
Not any more…..time to ramp up production here and in the USA like we used to do.
Problem solved.
80
Once an old, wise man was sitting under a tree when the epidemic god came along. The wise man asked him, “Where are you going?” The god of epidemic replied, “I’m going to the city and I’m going to kill a hundred people there.” On his return journey, the god of epidemic came back to the wise man. The wise man said to him, “You told me that you wanted to kill a hundred people. But travellers told me that ten thousand had died.” The epidemic god said, “I only killed a hundred. The others were killed by their own fear.” – Zen Buddhist allegory
111
On this occasion the high priests said 100,000 Australians could die and alarmism in the MSM terrified the masses, but only 40 died.
60
Do we know where that 100,000 modelling statement came from, or was it just some some less public bureaucrat?
30
Can’t even get my name right this morning…
31
C’mon guys, the “modelling” is just arithmetic. I did it. Imperial College did it.
Fatality rate x number of vulnerable people = number dead if we do nothing to stop it.
Vulnerable people = 27 million in Australia, but “only” 60% likely to catch it in first year. (Though could be 80% some epidemiologists admit). Typical Flu season only 5-20% of pop will catch it because they have some prior immunity.
You can’t have it both ways and mock the banal arithmetic for deaths, AND mock the response which prevented it. Sadly, unless they get a treatment or hot weather saves them, we will see horrible numbers in poor countries.
60
Sorry but I have to disagree Jo. The modelling is not simple arithmetic – if it was, I believe that it would have been in the ballpark, but it clearly wasn’t anywhere close. Even Neil Ferguson substantially modified his modelling to conform with what was really happening, and that change was substantial. It seems that the modelling for Aust was way off – Bolt raised that point last night. In the future, if we are going to be able to correctly react to these types of problems, surely we should be putting much more effort in getting the models right from day 1?
41
You can’t, there’s no such thing as a correct model from day one as you don’t know most of the input variables, and which ones are missing, which are exaggerated, or which way the ones you do know about will go and with what effects. It’s iterative so are errors cumulative and rapidly grow to swallow any meaningful projection capacity. Which means they’re only useful over the short time periods. All they give is an indication and the indication always evolves. But they do generally show you where you don’t want to go, and get you thinking about how to avoid the worst outcomes and aim for the best. All iterative models are more accurate over shorter periods of days. They are useless over longer periods of months, and misleading over medium periods of weeks.
30
The problem WX is that none of us have a clue as to how this model was created. We don’t know its many assumptions, its input data, and nobody could ever replicate it. And somehow we are constantly told despite its obvious failures, we have to believe in it. Sorry, but it’s useless in showing us the way forward from here. And nobody in the govt will ever admit that the model is a failure because it seems that’s all they have.
00
“On this occasion the high priests said 100,000 Australians could die and alarmism in the MSM terrified the masses, but only 40 died”. By implication, you are saying that the “high priests are wrong”. Your statement can’t be supported, so I won’t ask you to. Australia has so far been fortunate / wise / lucky ? in not having this virus spread out significantly into the general community. Ah yes, there is no real data to support that assumption either, other than that reported. As yet, we appear to have been able to restrict it from getting into not only the general ageing population, but all those thought to be otherwise compromised with other health issues. That the masses are terrified in general is a good thing, it is one of the reasons why we are in such a stable state as is at present.
50
Its becoming a police state under the guise of a national emergency.
62
It didn’t smell right from the beginning.
Us “conspiracy theorists” could see this coming!!!
But if you’re right, for what reason or end? Don’t say to flatten the curve, please.
51
Or maybe it’s a national emergency.
We are doing the only sensible thing given that we have no cure.
61
Morrison saw what was happening and took appropriate action, but in times of national emergency the media should also behave appropriately. They have a dollar to earn, the ABC has no excuse in beating this up beyond what was required.
40
And The Guardian.
40
Again, where is the evidence of that is actually happening? There are a few people being made examples of; could be argued that is a good way to get the message across. That aside, not often one would get a lead in like this – a police state? Ha!!!, the State got rolled today Ra!! Ra!!!
00
With every instance of rule-breaking.. journalists like Bolt are outraged at the mostly gentle enforcement because…they say it’s just one person sitting on a bench in the park…only two people enjoying a closed beach etc etc…what’s all the fuss about[they ask].
They completely ignore the fact that if one or a few are allowed to break the rules then very soon there’ll be a hundred or more on the closed beach …and why wouldn’t they if a couple are allowed to?
MSM …who will be the first to scream and rant if the social distancing and isolation measures break down….are too impressed by their own ‘police state’ memes that they don’t stop to think.
00
PTR, I must disagree that it’s OK to “terrify the masses”. Once you start down that path, where do you stop? Where do you draw the line and say “enough is enough”? Surely the opposite must apply – we should never frighten people, but do our best to make sure that everybody has accurate information in sufficient quantity to make informed choices.
50
Too right!!
10
How many people are terrified?
As far as I can see most Australians are making lemonade out of this lemon…worried and a bit sceptical as always…wondering how we’re going to exit the lockdown…hoping the anti-virals will work…endlessly thankful that our children are largely unaffected….wary about what might happen to ‘the curve’and to those of our loved ones who are in the ‘vulnerable’ category when the winter cold bites…
….but philosophical because although there were mistakes that can’t be undone…we know we have a good medical system…great researchers and a well-organised country.
00
Hectic day today, I missed your post.
Are you serious?
Have you thought about the longer term natural consequences of such a policy?
10
The Buddhists were always bloody hopeless
At stopping epidemics !
They just sat on their buts under the trees
Saying “It’s Karma”
Let’s not be mislead by such BS !
Even the BS that is preached via children’s stories !
37
Good grief !
I am blunt about ‘Buddhists sitting under trees ”
And get red thumbs !
20
That’s “diversity disapproval” to counter an imagined privileged.
40
I forgot to mention
That the Musl#ms, Christians, Jews, Hindus and sundry other ‘faiths’
are all hopeless at dealing with pandemic diseases..
It took a scientific mentality to make the break throughs needed to prevent such infections.
20
But if you happen to be one of the 37 “other” genders, you are safe from the Corona virus.
So far it has only been men and women who have contracted the virus. The other 37 genders have dodged the bullet.
20
It seems that 7 people here
Like sitting on their but’s
Humming “It’s Karma ”
Jo I think you have some very odd
Religious lurkers here.
🙂
00
If Boris Johnson had been given hydrochloquine with azythromycin and zinc weeks ago he would not be in Hospital now. Tells you much about Great Britain stupid NH laws regulating drug use especially in emergencies (applies to Australia which is similary backward in this sense (due to it British background ect) but at least it appears there looking into it with trials months away. I bet you the British they did not even think of it and now the Premier is in Hospital. Fortunately The USA and nearly all USA (Louisiana in Particular) states are rapidly dosing HCQ to many covid patients and incidence is declining. Finally Cuomo in NY is allowing urgent treatments with HCQ watch this space cheer up fellow humans. My 2 cents worth this will be over in two weeks and then history will record it as a severe case of flu in The northern Hemisphere WINTer and trillions wasted for an absolutely nothing burger virus. Compare with 170000 NORMAL deathS of mainly old people per day. Ill bet this years mortality rate worlwide will actually be lower due to lockdown (no car accidents ect) no global warming (joke). BTW lockdowns do not work with flu viruses eventually the whole world will have antibodies to this virus why because IT IS THe FLU! Death rates in old people will continue to be normal as they do every year.
40
But Boris doesn’t need any special malaria meds, this is just the flu, right?
51
What really happens to Boris J. is kept close the chest of the security apparatus. We don’t really ‘know’ what is being spun out but we know what is allowed to be reported.
40
Ain’t globalism wonderful when you meet it head on?
70
Eh? The stock market is booming like there is no tomorrow. How sweet it is!
Smart money has it all figured out. Check back next week.
/Deadpan expression/
32
In the interests of providing a little bit of balance, I suggest that you watch this vid
https://youtu.be/mUDJJb8Umzg
It should also be noted the the pharmaceutical industry is incredibly profitable, and with its patent lockdown very well protected from competition- no one forced them to offshore
This situation is by design
90
We still have a toiley paper problem.
I very much doubt people are still panic buying, which then suggests that the supermarkets appear to not be doing all they could, or possibly worse….how hard is it to double your loo paper order and go from there. They keep telling people they have stacks, so…..
I guess the illusion of shortages keeps fear levels up….
82
That’s not the case in my local Coles. For three weeks, there were shortages of toilet paper, meat, milk, and many other items.
Today, at 6pm the shelves were being restocked. Keeping fear levels up is a furphy, or plain fear-mongering.
30
In one supermarket in our area, one always runs low on a lot of stuff, the other some distance away seems OK, but still loo paper is in shortage everywhere.
I question why. You get all these vague re-assurances, but in a 1st world country we cant get ourselves organized ( or so it appears…) to make more?
I find it a bit hard to believe….
If we have a real war, were cactus, if loo paper is the gauge…
50
Couple of points on toilet paper.
The supermarkets where I am are still handing it out with an eye-dropper. 99% of the time the shelves are empty of TP unless you happen to be there when a pallet arrives.
The SA supermarket chain Drakes has said “Toilet paper is the hardest product to get, still. We’re still getting weekly deliveries but the delivers are not their normal full quantities”, which confirmed my suspicions.
According to an adjacent retailer, my local large Woolies is getting 1 pallet per day. He watches 20 people disappearing with a packet each in their trolleys first thing in the morning, then nothing for the rest of the day. This would not even cover normal sales, let alone panic buying, yet the TP makers claim they have warehouses full of the stuff. If so, get the bloody stuff on a truck and into the shops.
Secondly, those same TP manufacturers in their wisdom are still producing “24 packs” and “48 packs”. So instead of 12 customers going away with 4 rolls each, 1 customer walks off with 48 and the other 11 miss out. Genius move.
80
Went to the supermarket today, it was more orderly and cleaner,the trolleys were cleaner, and for the first time in 3 weeks there was TP. The TP aisle was at about 25% capacity, but it was there to be bought at the usual prices. Same with rice and sugar, about 25% of the usual amount stocked on the shelf but it was there, for the first time in 3 weeks. The only Item there was not enough of was long-life milk, still restricted to 2 liters. No restrictions on fresh milk and dairy though. So I was able to buy everything I wanted, even detergent and antiseptic was restocked. No one seems to be buying Easter Eggs so far, the shop was full to the gills with them and chocolates, biscuits and snacks. Probably because almost no one takes their young ones to the shops.
60
The cognitive dissonance experienced when contemplating the purchase of a chocolate Easter bunny is probably a little too much for most to bear. I’d suggest an Easter Bunny with a slightly malevolent appearance would probably be a big seller. Coronabunny?
20
Beowulf; our local town supermarket has done just that. They have made up packs of four rolls in fruit/veg bags. A good idea until normal supplies resume.
30
There are not many work places that provide scented Quilton in their dunnies. There are many more people doing their business at home. The supermarkets have not quite come to grips with this change. Much more basic necessities are going through retail than bulk. No restaurants buying bulk food. No pubs buying bulk grog are a couple of examples.
52
Please don’t blame the supermarkets for the actions of the Greenland Group and the stupidity of hundreds of thousands of Australians.
10
Interesting that Chinese Australians ship Australian products including baby formula milk powder back to friends on China because they don’t trust Chinese quality controls, yet we import vital medicines and safety equipment from China.
190
Does anyone know if the #filmyourhospital videos are legit?
No “war zones” observed in NY or LA if so….freezer trucks..yes…chaos etc…no…
50
Steve, somebody made the point that for most hospitals, all their normal services have been stopped, while only an “inner sanctum” is operating for Covid-19, so the general effect is to make the hospital look empty.
40
New York is past the peak. The majority of the living dead are already in hospitals. Number in critical care is dropping dramatically now. The flood at emergencies ended days ago. The controls in New York are working. Cuomo saying they will increase fines for non-compliance of social distancing to avoid a rebound.
70
Off topic but possibly important, local (USA)there are suddenly reports that COVID19 is causing serious heart problems sometimes leading to deaths even without the typical pneumonia.
If true this could be way more serious.
80
Underlying pre-existing health condition?
22
O Steve not according to what we read
50
I wish I could post a link but the news was behind a paywall.
10
Author: Markian Hawryluk/ Kaiser Health News April 6 2020
20
Here’s an open link to the story – https://khn.org/news/mysterious-heart-damage-not-just-lung-troubles-befalling-covid-19-patients/
00
Thanks for finding that Sunni! Jo, if you are interested it is free to re-publish if you follow the link.
00
No the result of covid-19
00
Heavens no!
It’s gotta be CV19.
And what’s funny is that CV19 seems to be a good antidote to influenza/pneumonia: is it true that both are on the low side at the moment?
KK
20
This has been posted before but a picture can often say more than ten paragraphs of modern journalism.
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/19/health/new-jersey-coronavirus-family-members-killed/index.html
Sadly a number of this family died of CV19.
More recent reports focus on even more trouble from CV19.
With all the scrutiny on this case it is hard to refute the claim that CV19 was present at these tragic deaths but the big question for me remains: what was the Primary Cause of death.
The “data” says it was CV19 and not diabetes 2 or obesity or heart trouble.
KK
10
MArk D — there were reports like that 2 months ago in China. Increased risk of heart attack in survivors.
There is so much we don’t know about this virus.
40
So many of the political class have been blind to all of this, some willfully blind, and those on the far left of politics, complicit.
When the worst of this pandemic is over, be prepared for significant belt tightening. The sooner that we tighten the belt the less the consequences will be for the next generation or two. Every Australian will need to do something for Australia.
71
Ideological claptrap !
Go actually study the economy mate !
19
That is exactly why I made that comment. Look at it yourself Bill, with both eyes open.
50
Ted, you made two points.
One, the first, I agreed with completely.
The second I think is ideological claptrap.
Would have given half a red thumb & half a green thumb,
But that is not allowed.
🙂
20
taking baking soda worked in 1918 H1N1 pandemic; it cools the lung inflammation
see https://balance10.blogspot.com/2020/04/the-spleen-aided-by-sodium-bicarbonate.html
30
Interesting study !
Worth considering !
But the 1918 pandemic is better known as the Spanish Flu
20
That’s what makes me smile in all this.
The media (bless their little socialist hearts) tiptoe around COVID-19, not game to ‘be seen’ to be politically incorrect in referring to it as the Wuhan Virus or the Chinese Virus.
And yet they still use the term Spanish Flu, or Ebola Virus, Or West Nile Virus, Or Hendra Virus, or Lyme Disease, or Ross River Fever, or Norovirus, or Marburg Virus, or Zika Fever, or German Measles, or Lassa Fever, or Legionnaires Disease.
Please oh please, just don’t offend China, whatever you do.
Tony.
120
‘Wuhan Flu’ it is for me
from now on Tony.
Thanks for that.
50
So we rename swine flu to USA Flu? Mers renamed to the Camel flu?
This is how the name COVID-19 came to be assigned
“iruses are named based on their genetic structure to facilitate the development of diagnostic tests, vaccines and medicines. Virologists and the wider scientific community do this work, so viruses are named by the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV).
Diseases are named to enable discussion on disease prevention, spread, transmissibility, severity and treatment. Human disease preparedness and response is WHO’s role, so diseases are officially named by WHO in the International Classification of Diseases (ICD).
ICTV announced “severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)” as the name of the new virus on 11 February 2020. This name was chosen because the virus is genetically related to the coronavirus responsible for the SARS outbreak of 2003. While related, the two viruses are different.
WHO announced “COVID-19” as the name of this new disease on 11 February 2020, following guidelines previously developed with the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).”
05
My apologies here Peter Fitzroy, if you took any offence.
So we don’t make that mistake again, perhaps you might give us the assigned names for those 12 other ones I mentioned, and how often they are referred to by their specific nomenclature.
Tony.
51
One Flu over the Cuckoos nest I think Tony.
20
look them up yourself, you have the internet.
I’m just point out an inconsistency – but of course I’ll bow to your expertise.
14
Code for:
(a) I have no idea
(b) There are no other names
Tony.
31
Sorry that you can not manage a search on the net. Also sorry that you manage to miss the point.
Not sorry for pointing out the incoherence of you post.
14
Whoever really cares a f@rt
What the WHO names it ?
It’s not got any credibility
So why would any Australian or American or British or Kiwi, etc.
Let it tell us what to call this disease ?
“WUHAN FLU” to you mate !
12
What should be of equal concern is the power of companies such as Microsoft and Apple. Just because they are not from (insert your favourite country-of-fear here) does not mean they are benevolent to the rest of the world.
What if they (or an outside agency) were to insert a bug into Windows/OSX that caused mass failure of programs?
How would the World replace innumerable computer systems should these companies fail for any reason?
How many other companies have a major percentage of their market space and have the power to disrupt globally?
60
Easy: go Linux or any one of the BSDs 😀
It would mean learning a bit about the operating system for a year or so but there is so much on-line documentation for any one of those systems, it wouldn’t be difficult.
The only difficulty would be with what’s missing between most ears …
30
IBM supplies Linux with all it’s computers and is a big supporter (contributor) to Linux.
SunOS is available free off the internet (as Lumos)
Microsoft even contributes to Linux (it’s a bit like China)
So by doing what you suggest, John in Oz, they (Microsoft and Apple) would:
1. be found out very quickly
2. be deserted equally quickly if they didn’t fix the problem immediately when notified.
Free Open Source Software keeps the Big Boys honest.
20
It is past time that essential manufacturing was restarted in this country.
A cottage industry of sewers can make masks and protective gowns.
Parmaceuticals; maybe a bit more difficult but hopefully we still have some capacity somewhere.
CSL may have moved most of its business to China, but it still takes blood from people around the world, so probably has some local processing.
What does the CSIRO do these days?
80
Peter C asked:
Imagines Australia driven by wind and sun.
I have seen CSIRO labs mentioned in some of the anti-viral testing, for example;
https://www.csiro.au/en/Research/Health/Infectious-dieases-coronavirus/Our-response/Understanding-the-virus
60
Please listen to this interview by Alan Jones with Andrew Hastie MP regarding China and Australia …
https://www.2gb.com/we-need-to-circle-the-wagons-federal-mp-warns-of-protecting-australia-from-chinese-investors/
70
New York is turning a corner. Some nice charts in this update:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-usa/governor-cuomo-sees-signs-of-pandemic-flattening-in-new-york-idUSKBN21O1NL
30
Anti – TDS
“NY Gov. Cuomo Asks President Trump for More Hydroxychloroquine – India Agrees To Supply U.S…”
“Specifically because President Trump has noted the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for COVID-19 the media are therefore against it. It doesn’t matter that it works; it doesn’t matter that it saves lives; the mere fact that President Trump supports it means the entire resistance operation must be against it. That’s the current scale of TDS.”
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2020/04/06/ny-gov-cuomo-asks-president-trump-for-more-hydroxychloroquine-india-agrees-to-supply-u-s/
61
As Rebecca Weisser reports in the Spectator, it is not about the effectiveness of Hydroxychloroquine and the reports are that it is amazingly effective, but the fact that it is very cheap. This is against the very expensive newer drugs pushed by pharmaceutical companies. So the argument is that it may work but has not had the standard blind testing for effectivity in treating WUhan virus, the ultimate proof. I would not have thought that in the middle of the most terrible pandemic in 100 year that there was time to perform blind testing on a drug which is already long approved for human consumption.
So it is always about the money. The drug industry is a big money industry, Chinese or not. And it is usually in the background. The media also hate hydroxychloroquine because Donald Trump suggested it. And when a mentally ill woman had her husband drink pool cleaner, they blamed Trump. And Joe Biden is simulteanously calling Trump a racist Xenophobe for closing the border with China and argueing that the should have done it earlier.
Logic has been thrown out the window. I wonder what Boris Johnston thinks of hydroxychloroquine?
111
And I would have thought it reasonable to use the drug in the Aged care facilities where the death rate is greatest. There are multiple such facilities and the residents are at great risk. If they wanted their blind trial, just try it in one, but the moral dilemma would be denying it to the other. And there are concerns about heart side effects if a potassium boost is not given. Doing nothing special is an option, but we know the results of that. Even let coronavirus victims in aged care home volunteer. Most would.
70
” I wonder what Boris Johnston thinks of hydroxychloroquine?”
If it wasn’t already it is now probably on his “hope list”
40
I am having trouble finding those reports. Two doctors in NY have said they are using it with good results clinically but with no controls. Two small studies from China with controls did not show much benefit.
Has anyone one found any up to date reports?
30
I read that Google quarantined those reports as being fake. So you may need another search engine to find them.
10
Peter C:
I have this from last week:
https://www.mediterranee-infection.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/COVID-IHU-2-1.pdf
I don’t have a date for it (other than last month) but like all good papers, it comes with references (over 20)
20
Peter C :
Have you checked the Carnegie Mellon pre-print archive?
arXiv.org (see the archive front page)
10
I wonder if the red thumber is on the name list for #31?
10
We are in this position due to greed and corruption at the highest levels, in governments and business. The enormous shift of jobs and manufacturing capability (and, I might add, scientific expertise) to China over the past twenty years happened because the people making those decisions would benefit personally.
In some cases, the benefits were overt, such as increased profits and/or access to the Chinese market for companies such as Apple. In most however, the benefits weren’t so obvious to the public, such as when and Australian researcher secures co-funding for a project, along with a travel budget for visits to his collaborators in China. Others are even more covert, such as the actions of the WHO’s leader leading to suspicions of bribes. The strong support for China from western politicians (predominantly on the Left), even in the face of this China-made pandemic, inevitably leads to more suspicions.
And so I have little confidence that China will be penalised in any material way, because greed and political alliances will continue to rule the day. Oh of course there will be lots of chest-thumping, but after a suitable period of time has elapsed and everybody is enjoying a return to (apparent) normality, it will be business as usual for Apple et al.
81
No we aren’t. Look at Taiwan. They have announced a miserly USD2bn government injection to compensate for lack of Chinese tourists in 2020. With that injection they expect to achieve the planned 2% growth in GDP for 2020.
I put the prime reason for most countries being where they are is faith in the Chinese “owned” World Health Organisation in January and February strongly resisting closing Chinese borders. Taiwan ignored WHO and closed off China.
Jo Nova was one of a tiny number advocating locking down Australia at the beginning of February. If Australia had done that then Australia would be close to where Taiwan is now. with just 5 CV19 deaths. We would not have had deaths from internal transmissions.
There are still dingbats suggesting Sweden got it right by letting it rip. The government may have advocated that but the public have taken their own initiatives with self-isolation. It is still bad there with death rate climbing rapidly; now at 47deaths/M. Worse than USA. There are endless dingbats stating that there are many fewer deaths than the predictions; they do not see the connection between the draconian lock downs and reduction in CV19 deaths.
Boris Johnson was an advocate for herd immunity. I bet he has a different view now that he is in intensive care with CV19; if he is still lucid. His pregnant partner also has CV19 so she is likely more vulnerable than most.
93
“No we aren’t. Look at Taiwan.”
I think you have misunderstood. My post relates to the topic of this article, namely that the West has allowed China to dominate its supply chain while our own industries and capabilities have withered. This includes strategically-important industries such as medicines.
THAT has happened largely due to greed and corruption.
60
Australia supplies more than half the raw materials for China’s steel production. Also significant source of raw materials and intermediate materials for China’s aluminium production.
Australia has benefited from education services to China as well as tourism destination for Chinese. These will suffer under the present circumstances but will recover.
Most people think that mining is a very simple process. However to do it on the scale and labour efficiency achieved in Australia requires significant expertise. One little town in Australia saw the creation of what has become two of the biggest resource companies in the world.
To be world class in anything takes specialisation and refinement. Australia has managed that in mining. There is simply not the internal market to achieve specialisation in a broad range of manufacturing like that in mining where natural resources provide a competitive advantage. We used to have competitive advantage in energy intensive industry but that has been eroded in the last 20 years by the carbon emergency.
If Australia retains its sovereign power, it is in a strong position with regard to trade with China. My concern there is giving up sovereignty to UN initiatives. Some people see the UN IPCC corruption in the Climate religion. I expect many more will appreciate the UN corruption in the UN WHO pandemic response. Australia is likely lucky that we recognise Kevin Rudd for what he is. He is now ensconced in the UN and is an advocate for UN authority, which means erosion of national sovereignty:
https://www.ipinst.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/IPI-ICM-UN-2030-Chairs-Report2FINAL.pdf
China has growing influence in the UN with recent evidence showing China now calls the shot. Kevin Rudd is well connected in China.
50
Who would believe the number of Chinese students here in Australia.
Umm, TWO MILLION. (eight percent of our population)
Hmm, I wonder where the all our Universities are housing all those Chinese students right now, you know the ones they paid money to to circumvent the Prime Minister’s demand to stop all incoming flights from China.
University honchos now coming to Government, ….. “Please Sir, can I have some more?”
Tony.
50
The Asian tertiary student “business” is not an overnight sensation. It has been growing for about 35 years.
10
> “Most people think that mining is a very simple process. However to do it on the scale and labour efficiency achieved in Australia requires significant expertise”
Yes. To most people, mining is just digging a hole – which any fool with a shovel can do. So they grab the money and ignorantly disrespect the process.
In fact, from the base exploration to sophisticated global marketing, Australian miners are respected world-wide for expertise. Just mostly not in their own country. Yet without that earned export income, current Govt actions on C19 would never be contemplated.
30
You are right RickWill. Not many people realize that the two largest mining companies in the world came from a small town in Western NSW which also propped up the coffers of the NSW Government for about 80 years.
It is a pity those two large mining companies now sing the warmest song – to be politically correct and be socially acceptable AND bow to Green pressure (as with our own Australian Governments).
20
The US bringing production of meds back onshore may turn out to be the election deciding question this fall.
Will the left claim xenophobia and fear retaliation, while the right points up clear national interest? Yes.
It’s already going on. America First! (and presumably, Australia First! and Canada First and similar) is like to be the position of the right
on a lot of issues with the claim that the dangers that where feared….and ridiculed, now stand as stark reality.
We’ll find out what the public thinks, if they think, soon enough.
101
This is not about medicines. Wages costs are going up in China.
As parts of China become a first world country, notably the giant cities, wages are soaring. They are complaining that they are being undercut by Eastern Europe. So we can welcome China to the modern world, where the young people do not want slave labour, factory work or poor living conditions. Banking, telephones, software, share trading.
Meanwhile the country facing real wages competition and notorious for fake products is under the microscope more than ever. Millions of virus testing kits which do not work, masks which do not work from the country which created baby formula packed with cheap white melamine plastic. There will be a world recognition that price is not everything and the US will bring a lot of industry home. Besides, there are now cheaper countries without the tradition of passing off and where patents are respected. A bit like India where so many companies outsourced because of the cheap skilled labor, only to find company loyalty was zero and new employees job shopped the moment they could, so projects oven fell over. Again they are facing stiff competition from well educated Eastern Europeans and Russians.
It is risky to outsource everything, as Australia has done, shutting its factories by jacking up electricity prices. Which is ins*ne when you consider that after so many tens of billions in stolen money, 90% of the electricity and all the reliability still comes from coal and ageing power plants.
And we import our own gas and oil and diesel, for our $60Bn submarines. How does that work when we can no longer import diesel?
70
A lot of these ‘medicines’ aren’t even useful. Statins, for example. They say medicine is ‘science’ based. It isn’t.
Having said that, the greater principle matters: why are we bending over and taking it up the you-know-what? To prove that we are welcoming and inclusive or something?
51
Very interesting reading.
It appears that starting with the Lima Declaration and all the other “favourable” policies of the western elite toward China has intentionally built up a new industrial enemy of the west. In typical fashion the masters of the universe have their new enemy for the decade to come just like they had assembled the Bolshevik USSR prior to WWII and continued during the war. Our great ally indeed.
The next phase may be to antagonise the West and China into the threat of a ‘hot war’. Sabre rattling has worked for the global elite in the past to get what they want at incremental pace while convincing us that it’s in our interests to follow their policies, again.
50
Thank Jimmy Carter for normalising communist China.
And this criticism also supplies to rare earths, which China bought up…
30
“Monday Mirthiness – Tweet of the Year”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/04/06/monday-mirthiness-tweet-of-the-year/
Add your own list of names!
40
RWLs comment above is worth reading twice;
http://joannenova.com.au/2020/04/those-who-control-the-medicines-control-the-world/#comment-2305644
We need to become “Australia”.
We need to lose the heavy loads of foreign, global infestations that pander to our Elites and enslave us.
KK
70
that might get you moderated…
30
Lets get back to honest money that can’t be hypothecated into fictitious values. But how to deal with the treasonous b______ds, which shouldn’t be overlooked.
41
We need a “standard” for our money that eliminates Wall Street type Global Financial Crises.
Good, maybe someone close to the blog could give us an idea of how practicable that might be.
Without a standard measure of value it is too easy to have a GFC every few years to reset the debts of the unelected masters of international finance and make them big winners.
KK
11
Antal E Fekete has taught us what’s been sitting right under our nose.
An unadulterated gold standard with real bill circulation up down and sideways. Of course it’s predicated on strictly honest contract terms. Modern computing can efficiently facilitate real bill trading.
11
Gold.
Gold.
Proof read.
11
I read a book a while back on the subject of our financial system. It was written by a man who was not someone practicing in the field. He was a scientist. He asked how well one thought it would work, if, every day, you gave a different value, like we do with the dollar, to a measurement. Say, one day a meter was 100 cm and the next it was 101 cm. The day after, it was 95 cm, and so on.
It was a good read.
00
You won’t get rid of it as long as you continue to use the `modern’ reserve banking.
This is an old book, written at the end of the 19th Century but for all that, it’s still relevant and hasn’t been disproven.
Enjoy.
00
Putin has just bought several tonnes of gold at US$1600/oz.
Trump has just bought a stack of Middle East oil at US$25/barrel.
Time will tell which I these two was the smart purchaser.
My money is on Trump.
10
And the daily notification of new cases is already 95 against yesterday’s 107. It usually grows by 30% near 4pm, so it will have risen for the first time in a week but is still as low as three weeks ago.
I wonder if this was a new boat arrival, or a new old age facility or an entirely new hotspot. Or testing of baggage handlers at airports?
This would jump if we take some of the 200 infected crew from the Ruby princess. The crew alone would represent 5% of all the cases of infection in the country! They may count in our totals as newly notified infections if brought ashore.
20
Testing seems to have been opened up a little to include Health Care workers with symptoms.
Relaxing the very restrictive testing criteria will doubtless result in more cases.
However it does seem to me that the current social distancing rules have been effective, against the odds. Now if we can just get people wearing masks in public and more hand sanitiser we might be able to open up more jobs and schools.
40
Inside my link to the overview is this original report
10
And within that French report, 23 references to previous studies including the original Chinese ones.
10
Thanks TdeF,
Despite its small size that French study is quite impressive.
Where are the other studies? Everone who is being treated with coronavirus should be part of a trial.
Australia already has 1730 people who have recovered from the virus and 3400 who are still sick. Surely there are enough controls there to weigh against the new treatment regimes?
20
All states are widening their testing regimes. Apart from people showing symptoms, I expect they will expand to all care workers; then essential workers dealing with large number of individuals like grocery store staff.
I think it will be important to keep it out of child care and schools so there should be plans to get through these as soon as they start up or before they start up.
10
Don’t !
00
Hooray. The figure at the end of the day was 100 new cases, down from yesterday’s 107.
https://infogram.com/1p7ve7kjeld1pebz2nm0vpqv7nsnp92jn2x?live
And currently more people are recovering than new cases, so the number of active cases is going down. Very few countries can show that.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/australia/
00
Viral Load is the key to your recovery or demise.
There are images of people’s lungs that show the effects of advanced but mild Covid-19, Generally a single patch of infected lung. There are images of seriously infected lungs, almost totally affected.
My theory is as follows:-
If you get a very small number of Covid-19 inhaled or that enter your body in other ways then your immune system has time to ramp up anti-body production and you hardly notice the infection, BUT you are probably infectious!
If you get a larger initial viral load the process ramps up, you get all the symptoms and if you don’t shake it off you get seriously ill. Being in proximity to other people who are shedding their version of Covid-19 which will probably increase you viral load against which the anti-bodies your system has been making may not be quite as effective so your chances of serious infection go up, way up!
Masks of any sort, even a balaclava or scarf is better than no mask. Cleaning it between use becomes a vital means of self preservation. Taking a mask off should miediatetly be followed by washing your hands!
Your system is telling you your lungs are infected when you have that dry cough. Take some measures to cough up that which is making you cough!
If you live with your family and one of you gets Covid-19 then you should all be wearing some sort of mask ALL the TIME!
Try to stay out of Hospital!
Prevention is better than cure!
80
Sure is. Ensure you keep your vitamin D dosage up
https://www.investmentwatchblog.com/video-dr-john-campbell-vitamin-d-and-immunity-coronavirus-covid-19/
40
Who makes the Vitamin D?
00
you do.
It’s between you and the sun.
The Chinese can’t fake the sun. Yet.
That way you know you are getting the real thing.
00
Slithers,
You might benefit your hypothesis by thinking about why there are many cases of just one lung infected, not both. What dumps a big viral load to one side, but not the other, sometimes?
Geoff S
10
Maybe posture?
10
I have not read Rosemary Gibson’s book but I listened to a podcast interview with her recently (NZ based podcaster). She is a very impressive lady and has done her research very well.
For those interested in what the NY doctor ( Dr Zerenko) has done with his highly successful use of hydroxychloroquine + zinc + an antibiotic treatment here is an interview with him by Rudi Giuliani. Rudi conducts the interview in the same way he would have interviewed a witness in a court case. As a result he manages to get a lot of detail into the interview. Lots of interesting stuff but one standout is Dr Zerenko explains that the hydroychloroquine is really only there to enable the zinc to work. That is the zinc cannot get into the cell very well but the hydroxychloroquine “breaks” the cell wall to enbale the zinc to get in. The antibiotic is there to protect against any secondary infection.
For those interested it is well worth 43 minutes of your time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=5&v=1TJdjhd_XG8&feature=emb_title
50
Hot verses Cold countries table update:
(countries with more than 500 cases and more than 2.5% deaths – worldometer)
https://i.ibb.co/y567R3p/Warm-v-Cool-Countries-Percent-Died-Covid-19-29th-March-to-6th-April.png
The hotter country cases expanded 2.2 times faster than cold countries during the past 24 hrs.
The increase of new cases is slowing globally within the most affected countries, most have responded with a more effective isolation and hygiene and that will dramatically drop peak deaths in many countries. The UK also finally dropped to +8.0%, but this may just be noise, need to see another two days there.
The expansion of new deaths in Italy was just catching-up from the weekend break in processing.
Shrinking the active cases is going to be slow if community spreading resumes, or is already expanding undetected (as has occurred in Japan). It’s important to realize Hospitals can not recovering to normal levels of health care, and their normal life saving work and reduction of suffering will not occur until the active COVID-19 cases fall to a number less than about 10% of current. This will take months and people will continue to grow their chronic disease and to die due to the delay.
All efforts need to be made to clear these active cases because as long as they linger we and other countries remain highly vulnerable to a second wave of new community-spreading which could cause still stressed hospitals to fail quickly and still dent normal doctor, Hospital and ambulance services.
50
WXcycles, I think the hot = poor effect will overwhelm the effect of weather.
Unless anti-malarial meds and anti-river-blindness meds are very common, surely this will spread widely in the densely populated third world?
41
Maybe that is the counterbalancing factor to weather Jo, I had thought about that as a lack of direct interaction linkage with industrial central China and larger Western cities sort of implies they’re poorer.
The north and west African Coastal states all have significant infections, which seems again to be trade linkage related with highly-infected southern Europe. Frankly it was very dry and colder than normal in Northern Africa this year, when the disease took off in Europe. Algeria is 12.2% deaths already. I’m going to have another look at Africa with Thurday’s mid-week (Wednesday) data, and compare that with the Africa overview I did last Friday.
This list is above 250 cases, and above 2.5% deaths:
% Died | Country | Total Cases | % New v Active
12.47 … Italy … 132,547 … 3.9
12.16 … Algeria … 1,423 … 8.9
11.55 … San Marino … 277 … 5.2
10.41 … UK … 51,608 … 8.2
9.93 … Netherlands … 18,803 … 5.7
9.76 … Spain … 136,675 … 6.1
9.09 … France … 98,010 … 7.2
8.39 … Indonesia … 2,491 … 10.4
7.84 … Belgium … 20,814 … 7.4
7.38 … Honduras … 298 … 11.1
7.14 … Morocco … 1,120 … 10.3
6.62 … Sweden … 7,206 … 5.8
6.43 … Egypt … 1,322 … 15.2
6.21 … Iraq … 1,031 … 11.2
6.18 … Iran … 60,500 … 7.0
5.57 … Albania … 377 … 6.7
5.11 … Hungary … 744 … 1.7
5.10 … Ecuador … 3,747 … 2.9
4.95 … Burkina Faso … 364 … 8.0
4.70 … Dominican Rep … 1,828 … 4.9
4.63 … Brazil … 12,183 … 8.1
4.50 … Greece … 1,755 … 1.4
4.45 … Philippines … 3,660 … 12.1
4.39 … Mexico … 2,143 … 17.9
4.34 … Romania … 4,057 … 5.6
4.30 … Bosnia & Herz … 674 … 3.3
4.04 … N Macedonia … 570 … 2.9
4.01 … Bulgaria … 549 … 3.7
4.00 … Andorra … 525 … 5.1
3.99 … Denmark … 4,681 … 10.0
3.95 … Niger … 253 … 31.8
3.69 … Tunisia … 596 … 3.9
3.59 … Peru … 2,561 … 19.0
3.53 … Switzerland … 21,657 … 4.3
3.51 … Lebanon … 541 … 3.0
3.26 … Argentina … 1,628 … 5.9
3.24 … Ireland … 5,364 … 7.2
3.00 … Afghanistan … 367 … 5.3
2.97 … USA … 366,112 … 8.8
2.94 … Slovenia … 1,021 … 2.7
2.91 … Colombia … 1,579 … 6.5
2.88 … Ukraine … 1,319 … 0.9
2.85 … India … 4,778 … 11.5
2.65 … Portugal … 11,730 … 4.0
2.64 … Serbia … 2,200 … 14.4
2.62 … Panama … 2,100 … 14.7
2.57 … Cuba … 350 … 9.3
30
Agreed Jo,
As a general principle, a proper analysis includes or accounts for all known variables. Simply correlating 2 variables is fraught. Geoff S
10
Hi Geoff,
I created the table series because in the week preceding there was a widespread meme/belief that Summer warmth would lead to amelioration with less spread and severity. Some were even positing that warmth and humidity were a solution to COVID-19 as a part of isolation and treatment. But the data did not show that warmer countries or latitudes had less severity or less spread. Most can see that now. But isolation policy has since slowed it down, even in hot countries.
Isolation works whether you’re rich or poor, and open travel linkages speed it up whether you’re rich or poor.
40
WXcycles, thanks as always for your great posts. They’re always appreciated. Must keep you busy! I have some thoughts that may or may not be of use. Humbly agree that applying macro numbers on simple, well defined variables should always form the backbone of any thinking.
To my mind the Japanese research on micro-droplets was very important from a ground up rather than top down perspective. From this research i drew the following conclusions, and add some thoughts;
– Ventilation is very important. What sort ventilation systems exist in the various countries? Are windows opened in summer more than winter? How do local cultures deal with ventilation e.g. europeans often don’t ventilate their houses well in winter. Air conditioning is not as prevalent as the US and Singapore. Air-conditioning is actually banned in many parts of France and Switzerland; and heavily restricted in Northern Italy. In summer the culture in northern europe is to open windows. Could this explain the seasonal variation in flu incidence?
– Duration of contact. Sustained contact seems to raise infection rates very quickly. The 20-30 minute mark seems to be the point at which infection rates take off. What are the cultural patterns here? Do people live in large family or group settings? Do they spend extended time together in close proximity? Are there regular community gatherings? How do people work; in groups or solo?
– Density and proximity – When people gather, what is the density of the group and their proximity. Are we talking pilgrims in mecca or india, or well spread out small groups.
– Activity – What are the participants in the group doing? Are they singing in church? Having a lively conversation? sitting in a hospital coughing and sneezing?
– Masks – What is the incidence of mask wearing? Is it like Asia where everyone wears masks or like more like Australia and England where mask wearing is minimal?
Apart from washing hands, the above personal variables really seem to define this virus. If some numbers can be hung on these variables i think we’ll start getting some definitive answers at a macro level.
00
Temperature is not a valid parameter to measure immunity.
Summer sun is, particularly around Solar Noon.
That builds Vitamin D in exposed skin, which builds immunity.
(see Dr. John Campbell: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5yVGmfivAk)
So daily sunshine, as in clear cloudless skies, around Solar Noon is a better parameter than “hot/cold”
Australasia is at the end of its summer and so is NZ. The Vitamin D load for their citizenry should be high, making population resistance high.
The Northern Hemisphere is at the end of its winter so it citizens will have run out, or are running out of Vitamin D. So their resistance will be low, as it has proved.
10
It doesn’t account for it though because hotter countries with more UV and thus higher vitamin D levels have experienced higher rates of spreading over the past 10 days, and the same level of severity. A combination of relative poverty and lower level of direct connection to central industrial China explains the observed pattern adequately.
00
I note in the French paper discussing the previous Chinese results that people can be generating viruses for 37 days!
“We show here that hydroxychloroquine is efficient in clearing viral nasopharyngeal carriage of SARS-CoV-2 in COVID-19 patients in only three to six days, in most patients.
A significant difference was observed between hydroxychloroquine-treated patients and controls starting even on day3 post-inclusion.
These results are of great importance because a recent paper has shown that the mean duration of viral shedding in patients suffering from COVID19 in China was 20 days (even 37 days for the longest duration)
and he make the critical point that Australia’s 4,500 patients can infect others for 5-6 weeks! This is the greatest single danger facing us and potentially stopping a general return to work.
10
However if the tests are sensitive enough, people can be cleared by testing after the average of 4 weeks. A real concern though is that millions of Chinese testing kits are being rejected because they only work, if at all, on people at the peak of their infection. We need tests which are vastly more sensitive for screening of asymptomatic people.
20
Problem also is that shedding viral parts can test positive but are not necessarily infectious. We need good studies to know…
PCR Rna tests can pick up remnants of rna which are not infectious.
41
There are possibly false positives from scraps of RNA but a negative which is sensitive enough is great. Until we can tell the difference between scraps and the real thing, that patient
has to be in isolation. Hopefully that is rare.
20
Mentioning things gone missing since coronavirus
You may have to right click and “view image”
https://www.redpowermagazine.com/forums/topic/127871-new-joke-thread-30/page/74/?tab=comments#comment-1410190
30
James Delingpole highlighted the problem early last year.
https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2019/02/17/britains-richest-businessman-does-a-john-galt/
30
Scott Morrison says modelling on COVID-19 transmission will help the national cabinet plan a way out of social distancing restrictions, but now is not the time to relax tough rules.
Supposedly the modelling has been released, but I have yet to find it.
“The government’s COVID-19 modelling shows there would have been a demand for 35,000 intensive care unit beds had Scott Morrison and the national cabinet not implemented quarantine and social distancing.” So that’s a worst case scenario, presumably assuming we are like Italy.
20
Deputy Chief Medical Officer’s press conference about COVID-19 on 16 March.
“I think Angela Merkel said 60 per cent of Germans the other night. My colleague Kerry Chant talked about 20 per cent. It’s something in that range. I’m not going to speculate on the actual numbers. But this is an infectious disease. The more we can do to separate people and to stop that infection spreading, the better.” “Well, the death rate is around 1 per cent. So you can do the maths.”
Based on the more conservative prediction of one in five Australians contracting the virus, that would result in five million people being infected and around 50,000 deaths based on a 1 per cent death rate. However, if 60 per cent of the population was infected – an unlikely prospect according to NSW Health – the death toll could rise to 150,000 people and 15 million patients overwhelming GPs and hospitals.
10
Chief Medical Officer Brendan Murphy said in Canberra today that it will take weeks before the national cabinet receives COVID-19 modelling based on real-time Australia data. What???
20
Robber,
Murphy released modelling based on “data” from other countries as well, not necessarily rel-time (which you might have to define for us more exactly).
The big problems include the range of tests that could be done, taking in infected, uninfected, dying, dead people at various times for tests that measure quite different biochemical entities to seek different effects. There is not enough good metadata or good data on the rate of false positives and negatives, however defined.
The broader question is, should we bother? Will this blow over in reasonable time then go to non-alarm levels? If we do many, diverse tests, what value (apart from curiousity satisfaction) will theyreveal in the sense of making us better prepared in future – a future that might have a century between pandemics?
Past knowledge about even the simplest of measures, like masks/no masks was not definitive when this latest scare started. Were central planners asleep at the wheel? Geoff S
10
Obviously they were asleep.
Our country is well prepared for an epidemic declared Greg Hunt, the Federal health Minster about 3-4 weeks ago.
After SARS we were supposed to have a stockpile of masks and PPE. What happened to them? Even better would be some manufacturing capacity in country to actually make these things.
30
A few more snippets from the Doherty Institute who did the modelling: “A combination of quarantine, isolation and social distancing brings the rate of infection down to 11.6 per cent, and the hospitalisation rate to 0.8 per cent.It would also push back the peak of the ICU demand from 17 weeks after the beginning of the outbreak to 43 weeks, according to the model.
Future models will incorporate “real world Australian data,” and is expected in a few weeks time.”
11
OMG,
That model is far far worse than a climate model.
Current data shows that then peak has already passed on current trends!
Peter Doherty (Nobel Prize) is a Climate Alarmist and self promoter.
20
Morrison should give the modellers and their screen games the flick.
They are no better at this than they are with Gore Bull Warming
ScoMo just check out the actual data.
We’re winning !
00
Saw the 43 week data on TV tonight. Very difficult to see how they can justify that figure. Please tell me if I’m wrong, but the only way to confirm the 43-week figure is we continue with the current restrictions for another 40 weeks or more, and I cannot believe that’s going to happen. Why won’t they release their calculations, assumptions and data?
20
Ok, they have released some details of their models and assumptions. But I do find it troubling that they seem to be basing their model assumptions on inputs mainly from China, UK and Italy. And no inputs from other countries such as South Korea, Japan, etc. Also it’s known that the UK assumptions were widely off the mark, and surely you cannot assume that Italy is a valid model for other countries. And perhaps the less said about Chinese data the better.
10
Robber
If anything has come out of this issue it is that the modelling is rubbish (just like the Climate Change models). The USA has been using the Bill Gates funded model –IHME model. They have just cut their predictions in half !! Why ? Even Bill Gates in recent days said something like “I do not think it will now be as bad as the experts think” –he is back tracking.
20
The modelling I have been looking at for the USA has ben extraordinarily accurate:
https://covid19.healthdata.org
Total deaths attributed to CV19 is predicted to be 81,766 by 4 August. New York to peak at 878 daily deaths on Good Friday. That climbed from 855 a week ago. Those people who die on Good Friday are likely in hospital now.
What HAS changed is the response to controls. On the whole the response has been above the government expectations. Let run its course, CV19 would have killed more than 1 million in the USA.
Swedes are practicing their own self-distancing without any government rules. The government is aiming for herd immunity. The death rate in Sweden is gradually creeping up to similar levels as other countries that did not have controls before there was high community transmission: Sweden now twice the death rate of Germany.
10
The lack of reserve light crude and petroleum supplies will be a worse national emergency to come. We’ve known about this for decades and still do almost nothing effective about it. The current low oil price will make us go back to sleep again but eventually we’ll get a major oil and petroleum supply crisis. A protracted war with Iran in as early as 2022-2023 would probably do it, we’d be back to WWII style fuel rationing in weeks, if not days. We can’t operate a $1.6 trillion economy in growth without copious cheap liquid fuels everywhere we go. Such may spur surplus oil supply growth within North America, but there will be at least a six month delay until greater supply gets to Australia, if it does at all.
And the RAN Navy needed to secure such oil has more displacement, but no more hull numbers for a long time to come. Plus the lack of a national Merchant fleet to ensure vital supplies can be delivered, and distributed fast, in bulk, from Australian ports.
We seem like a just-in-time delivery of expensive oil and petroleum but it is a far-reaching strategic mistake which will predictably blow up in our faces, any year now, and people in Canberra will act all surprised and point fingers.
30
Surely you are aware that we will only be using battery electric cars by 2030 all running on wind and solar power.
Also, just in case THE 2030 PLAN does not work, I have a bike! In fact I have 5 bikes that kids left behind but I only use one regularly
Australia will not need a military force – benevolent China will want to protect its source of raw materials and vast Chinese assets held in Australia.
20
We have a lot of coal.
Liquid fuel from coal should be a National priority.
10
In the national self-examination that is sure to follow the virus scare, people will seek to regain control of some industries that once helped Australia.
Seems common sense that a prime candidate for rebirth is the pharmaceutical manufacturing industry.
Maybe there is already a kernel that could be expanded, if, in the interests of science and the nation, those fake natural remedy/alt medicine manufacturers could have their factories diverted to a beneficial medical cause instead of making big money from sham products.
Of course, that would need a review of our educational system, to find out whu so many of the younger generation have no ideas about the scope and magnitude of the many scams that already exist, apart from false advertising about vitamin megadose needs and the like. There are fundamental structural problems with concepts like life insurance, female cosmetics, entertainment (to name a few) that have no inherent value, but rely on bending of the minds of consumers. “Diamonds are forever” as compared to “Carbon must be eliminated from industry”.
Once the review of education was started, it would fast reveal that the whole advertising industry needed a revamp. And, because advertising largely supports our mass media, we would have to look at how much of that could and would survive without commercials.
My main problem arises because I look at logic before emotion. Geoff S
30
The total of new cases today has still managed to keep under 100, at 96 now. Yay!
Let’s hope tomorrow sees a much bigger drop as today’s number look abnormally high with a drop of only 11.
Tomorrow might see us under 50. And perhaps single digits by Saturday, which means infections stopped last Saturday.
This is proof, as if it was needed, of the total effectiveness of containment and isolation of this menace.
Denied new victims and in strong containment, it will cease to exist in Australia, hopefully by 1st May 2020.
50
I would be surprised if theCV19 positive count continues to drop now that testing is going wider. If it does drop then it demonstrates the contact tracing has been effective.
Sydney is expected to show some level of community transmission beyond incoming passengers and crew importing the virus.
Although Australia has done a lot of testing compared to most other countries it remains a small proportion of the population.
The medical officer stated today that there are now very few people showing up at testing centres with cold and flu symptoms. The social distancing has been effective on that front. He also asked people with existing medical conditions not to neglect them. I got the impression that much of the medical care industry are not getting much work right now!
40
TdeF’s plan is to eliminate the virus over the next 3 weeks. I can see that it might be possible.
But our Health Authorities are not thinking like that. Morrison seems to be saying that we are in for a long campaign. I do not understand what their plan is or why they seem to be relying on totally discredited modelling. The modelling they are using is still the idea of either a rapid rise, with large numbers or a long delayed peak with lower numbers. Already we have seen the peak with rather small numbers. The hospitals are standing empty, waiting for all the patients, which have not appeared. Medical staff are being laid off because there is nothing for them to do!
The fact that testing is reducing, because people are not turning up with symptoms, means that a new strategy needs to applied now. We need more testing not less. Let us test teachers and pupils to see if schools are safe. Let’s start random testing amongst supermarket shoppers.
10
Well said TdeF and Peter C. If Wuhan can release isolation after 3 months, we should be out after 2 months.
10
The linked chart demonstrates the arrogance of US self-assessment:
https://2oqz471sa19h3vbwa53m33yj-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/health-security-index.jpg
US is heading toward top 3 in the CV19 death rate; a long way from the best by three orders of magnitude.
I cannot find Taiwan in this jumble. I guess it is lumped with China as it would not be UN compliant to show it as a separate country.
21
In the old days invading armies would catapult diseased dead bodies over the wall in the hope of infecting those they wished to conquer. Now infected live bodies are flown or floated into our midst. The extra complication nowadays is that we’ve ceded manufacture of the antidote to the troublemaker.
Now that our backs are against the wall it might be a good time to try to save our country by resurrecting our self sufficiency. MAGOM!
50
I mentioned on a previous thread that I had quite a few emails from local members regarding CV19. This is an example today:
It had this link and a request to forward the link:
https://www.pm.gov.au/media/update-coronavirus-measures-070420
So my job is done!
10
Fact is , me,you and most other consumers in Oz would rather pay 1/2 price for a product made in ChYna than pay more for local .
Economies of scale , pricing etc are difficult to manage for Gov’s , let alone individuals .
How can we save ourselves ? pay extra for everything , or pay our workers less to make prices competitive ?
Or perhaps we could just adapt and do things better where it really matters .
00
Better to pay more and be self reliant as a nation state. We can adopt a life of thrift and frugality, no longer a throwaway society, planned obsolesce has gone mad and needs to be stopped.
The key, as you correctly point out, is adaptation. Good government must be ready for any eventuality.
30
There are such things as ‘Externalities’.
The costs which are not taken account og in the price.
The costs of spread of this pandemic to us here in Australia
Is one such externality.
How many $Billions has it cost us ?
10
$310 billion so far.
00
It’s not just medicines the West have become dependent on China for. Many essential industries
have moved their manufacturing there, under globalisation. That’s cost national jobs and
complicated taxation arrangements, or no tax at all. One favour this virus has done for the West is to have China spurred into making aside remarks about wondering ‘what would happen if it withheld drug supplies’. China’s militarism, expansionism and desire to rule is all on display.
Fancy the West being so naive as to never question this dependency. Our politicians
worked from a kindergarten primer theory that imagined all people and all nations were the same, whether they were democracies, communist States, right wing extremist Venezuela; or Asian tigers, India, despotic communist China or Russia. These are States that will have nothing to do with the global warming nonsense except in ways that are to their material advantage.
The crazy West thinks they are all globalist fans, happy to eventually accede to a non democratic, single world governance similar to the EU which dumped national borders, governing all those no longer independent nations by central decrees coming from the EU Commission. Then they dropped
external borders as the next step and everybody mixing together didn’t quite work. Then Turkey
held the EU to ransom because it controlled the Syrian region flow of refugees.
Globalising, the West – the only nations that global warming theory virtually aimed to cost their entire economies – had sent their industry and manufacturing (jobs) to China. Peoples were stripped of the ability to peacefully defend themselves against imported foreign philosophies under the powers governments granted to ‘Human Rights Commissions’. Increasingly, our political classes were besotted by the UN and the EU. Many looked as though they would do anything to seek post national politics jobs with the bodies developing World governance.
Then came Trump! Once this virus is put to sleep, the world will become a very different place.
Trump has returned much US business back on shore, with promises of sweeteners, or big
sticks of import duties applied if they made overseas and sold into the USA where they currently
had no tariffs. Then came Brexit where much the same commercial split divided the nation. There
is obviously going to be a massive movement of global businesses back to home shores and a
reimposition of import duties to protect the nation’s working class from becoming coffee makers,
accepting whatever crumbs come from those tourists that are wealthy from the exported home jobs.
60
What have virus’s ever done for us..??… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7tvauOJMHo
From: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6177113/
“What fueled the explosive evolutionary diversification of the mammalian placenta? Addressing this question is crucial for understanding mammalian reproductive biology and human-specific conditions of pregnancy [1,8]. Intriguingly, a mounting body of evidence suggests that the evolution of the placenta had significant assistance from ancient retroviruses.”…
20
Typo…..*What have the virus’s ever done for us..??
00
Nice history lesson. thanks.
00
Watch our BANNED INTERVIEW WITH David Icke EXCLUSIVELY AT
https://www.youtube.com/user/LondonRealTV/videos
https://londonreal.tv/the-coronavirus-conspiracy-how-covid-19-will-seize-your-rights-destroy-our-economy-david-icke/
01
President Trump and Fox News keep on pushing the case for Hydroxychloro. and they cite
much anecdotal evidence for it, and the doctors interviewed seem to be notable in their
fields. They also say the drug is virtually without dangerous side effects, although the
azithromycin can have a few cardiac problems (probably drug interactions as known to happen
with erythromycin.
They had a rheumatologist on today who uses Hydroxyc. for lupus patients
without problems and says he doesn’t know of any of his patients that have had COVID-19.
Problem! If specialists work in the USA on referrals and follow ups, as we do, there is no reason
this chap should know about such patients because they will be treated by their GP and referred
on to a Respiratory Physician or hospital if necessary. If he actually sees such patients, or
is notified would need to be elucidated for gravitas.
His explanation why he thinks it could work is that it is an anti-inflammatory and that might
be protective by limiting lung inflammation in reaction to the virus (it’s the results of
the inflammatory process that create the lung damage and cause fluid leak into the tissue).
So, he sees it as maybe a block on body response to the virus and is interested therefore in
testing for antibodies, in particular, to see if it reduces their formation ie interferes with the
immune response. Then you would have a positive-negative situation!
00
Need those trial results on hydroxychloro.
If successful, need to know when to start, what dosage, how often and for how long.
With the stress on ventilators and ICU staff, if the drug reduces the need for ventilators
we need to know asap to save the system and maybe help salvage the economy earlier.
If looking for herd immunity, maybe prophylactic drug to ‘at risk’ groups and try releasing
cohorts of people from closed locations, like suburbs or towns, and carefully followup and test the group to see what happens. Obviously abort if failing.
We need to see the effect on businesses that open and employ, of workers getting predominantly mild disease. How long needed off work, to return to work? If this failed, the economic outlook would be very grim until a vaccine or more reliable medication is found.
00
I think this is a bit hysterical.
Hong Kong depended on the People’s Republic for its water supply, but China stuck to its agreements. As to ‘weaponizing’ drugs, trade doesn’t work like that. The Chinese sell their cheap drugs the same way they sell their cheap everything. They depend on the West, not the other way round.
This is China-bashing, joining the increasingly desperate ravings of the retard in the White House.
03
http://joannenova.com.au/2020/04/another-possible-cure-from-coronavirus-found-in-sheep-dip-invermectin/
It’s a bit like saying Jo’s advocacy of sheep dip is part of an Australian power-grab.
02