A few people are asking about the video the Youtube removed which is now on Bitchute. (h/t AC Osborne) The cack hand of Youtube strikes again with unnecessary censorship. But even if the docs were wrong, it’s better to discuss why than try to disappear them — we can all learn something. Plus the censorship gives them a de facto kind of hero status among some, but for the wrong reasons.
The Doctors main point is a sampling bias error
Doctors Dan Erickson and Artin Massihi of Accelerated Urgent Care are ER doctors, they look convincing, and speak well, but their thesis rests entirely on an error. They take test results from a high risk group of people, and extrapolate the results to the whole state. What they have is non-randomized data, and they assume it represents millions of people who didn’t come out for testing. This is not a small or incidental point. It’s the foundation of nearly everything they say.
They repeat this same mistake over and over, and say “we are following The Science”. They come up with some just-so rationalizations, some truisms that aren’t true, and inject some superfluous vocabulary in there so people know they have studied virology once. (Yes DNA does mean Deoxyribnucleic acid, but these viruses are RNA ones, and none of that jargon needed to be there.) They have virtually no data that supports any of their other claims, and they simply ignore, or aren’t aware of the properly randomized studies that don’t agree with them. In Austria only 0.3% had a current infection at that time, so probably only 1% of the total Austrian population have immunity (if it exists).
UPDATE: How Sampling Bias makes the mortality rate appear too low: If people who have a disease are more likely to go out and get tested, then the sample they provide will overestimate the true rate of infection, which leads to an underestimate of the mortality rate.
People without Covid are less likely to want to get tested — they who have carefully self isolated are unlikely to rush down to the testing stations where they might catch coronavirus. And if they think they are negative they won’t want to pay for a test either.
Imagine 1% of the population is infected with disease X but a company sells tests for X, and it attracts 100 people who have had some kind of cold or flu and who think they had X. In the end 20% of them turn out to have X, the rest had a normal cold. The researchers might claim 20% of the whole state have X (which would be wrong). The real rate of infection is still 1%. And if the mortality rate was 5% (of those infected), after the number of infections is accidentally bumped up from 1 to 20% that makes the death rate appear to fall from 5% to 0.25%.
Nothing can rescue them from the sin of extrapolating from small unrepresentative data
Essentially they say their tests of 5,000 people in Curran Country found 6.5% were positive “of the population” they say (erroneously). This is “widespread”. They point at testing throughout California which returns a 12% positive and calculate that people have a 0.03% chance of dying in California. Which is misleading and wrong. Careless.
33,865 Covid cases out of 280.000 tested. That’s 12% of Californians infected. We have 39 million people. That’s 4.7 million cases. We’ve seen 1,227 deaths, that means you have a 0.03 chance of dying….
At one point, Erickson goes on to say almost 96% of people recover without any significant sequelae, as if this is good news — but if 4% do not recover isn’t that a problem? (By his own bucket maths that’s up to 1.5 million Californians that face a threat they might not completely recover from, and who might carry long term health issues — assuming they don’t die.)
He repeats like a mantra: millions of cases, small amount of death.
At the core of their message, the two docs have a message that the high positive test rates in NY, Spain and their own work support their theory that millions are infected, and therefore the death rate is tiny, so we can drop the lockdown. But a high positive test rate mostly means a state isn’t doing enough testing. It is not a good proxy for the prevalence which needs random tests. ( See The Atlantic on high positive test rates. ) Obviously current testing is missing all the people who have isolated at home, or had no symptoms at all and are less likely to front up to a testing clinic and pay money to find out they probably don’t have coronavirus.
Doctors Dan Erickson and Artin Massihi of Accelerated Urgent Care are ER doctors, and they run a business doing these tests. So we’d think they would be aware of sampling bias. And since their business would profit from lifting the lockdown, we’d think they’d be very careful about putting out reasonable caveats when they spoke in a press briefing, yet they didn’t — even when reporters asked them why their message conflicted with so many other doctors.
Possibly they didn’t realize they were jumping into a global fire. After the video went viral, and Elon Musk raved on twitter to his 33 million followers, many other doctors came out and explained why it was wrong.
Here’s one:
Two California doctors go viral with dubious COVID test conclusions
By Calmatters, Mercury News
The doctors should never have assumed that the patients they tested — who came for walk-in COVID-19 tests or who sought urgent care for symptoms they experienced in the middle of a pandemic — are representative of the general population, said Dr. Carl Bergstrom, a University of Washington biologist who specializes in infectious disease modeling. He likened their extrapolations to “estimating the average height of Americans from the players on an NBA court.” And most credible studies of COVID-19 death rates in reality are far higher than the ones the doctors presented.
“They’ve used methods that are ludicrous to get results that are completely implausible,” Bergstrom said.
Just a bit of junk science: ….”we’ve never seen a situation where you quarantine the healthy”.
There were lots of other signs they hadn’t thought about their theory too hard. Right at the start Erickson declares “Typically you quarantine the sick, and we’ve never seen a situation where you quarantine the healthy”. Yes, well, that’s except for all of history. The use of quarantine goes back to biblical times, and often meant isolating people who might have a disease whether or not they were sick. That was the point, we quarantine healthy pets that fly overseas, not because we know they are sick, but because even asymptomatic dogs can carry nasty diseases. Obviously, if we knew who was healthy and who wasn’t, we wouldn’t be quarantining the healthy ones. See, for example, American Samoa where they escaped the Spanish Flu by insisting all boats wait for 5 days offshore. Quarantine has to work this way if the disease spreads asymptomatically.
Erickson et al have some fair criticisms of lockdown, and the hypocritical, contradictory ways governments have manhandled the situation. But plenty of other more careful commenters are saying that already. Let’s have that conversation. But don’t mix up the basic success of isolation measures with the other debate on which kinds of isolation are the most cost effective, with the other debate about how pandemic preparedness plans were a disaster, we didn’t have the PPE (personal protective equipment) and we had to close off elective surgery because all the mask and drug factories had moved to China.
It’s not the flu
There’s no equivalence comparing simple death numbers after 2 months to a whole year of flu statistics, yet they do it:
Drs. Dan Erickson and Artin Massihi, who co-own Accelerated Urgent Care facilities in Kern County, said, “The death rate of the coronavirus is similar in prevalence to the flu,” according to ABC 23.
“If you study the numbers in 2017 and 2018, we had 50 to 60 million with the flu,” Erickson said. “And we had a similar death rate in the deaths the United States were 43,545 — similar to the flu of 2017-2018. We always have between 37,000 and 60,000 deaths in the United States, every single year. No pandemic talk. No shelter-in-place. No shutting down businesses.”
In 8 weeks, half of which was under the most severe isolation measures USA has ever seen, coronavirus has already killed as many people as the worst flu season ever. Imagine what it might do, if there were no efforts to slow it down?
When reporters ask why their view is so different to almost all the other experts they vaguely mention “theories and models”, and “how they are working with patients” not being desk-bound. This was when a good science team would have talked about the contradictory studies and said something that gave an insight in to the inadequacy of the other tests. Instead we get nothing but motherhood cliches, and sometimes one cliche bites the next one. Like when they discuss New York, they explain they are right because they “don’t have to live in Manhattan to look at the data”. So sometimes being a desk jockey is OK after-all.
A few days later, Doc Erickson has backed down somewhat when asked again on Fox News. Dr Erickson now claims he was just was answering questions of raw data which is quite obviously not the case. He now agrees it wasn’t randomized and claims they weren’t making a biostatistical comment, when they were. He got it wrong. His mortality calculations in the first video were his main point, repeated throughout. They were the reasoning behind everything he recommended, but they were junk. He had claimed to calculate the prevalence, and he knew he was extrapolating. Erickson is just shifting the goal posts. After the stinging criticisms, he’s been pushed back to just saying the banal truth that this is a balancing act between conflicting interests, something we all knew.
Erickson and Massihi probably never intended to go viral, they didn’t think it through, just popped it out there, but it fell in an incubating vat and grew into a gargoyle. We all want Coronavirus to get back in its box. But being skeptics we seek out the opposing view.
Right?
Things worth knowing about Coronavirus:
- Quarantines work: 12 days after lockdowns, quarantines and isolation, Coronavirus slows. This is text book microbiology.
- Coronavirus causes clotting: hold the ventilators, stop blood clots instead
- Coronavirus can affect brains, may increase stroke risk.
- Solve Vitamin D deficiency first to help beat Coronavirus.
- New York is “like mass casualty event”: coronavirus and other deaths are up three-fold
- Coronavirus may be man made. Why did the CCP destroy the evidence?
- Looks like we can extinguish Coronavirus: Australia and NZ tracking to zero.
- Large coronavirus random tests in Austria show only 1% infected
- Read Crush the Curve — save the economy.
Let’s be very, very careful here.
Moore’s documentary/film was pulled because it was “dangerous, misleading and destructive”.
Errikson and Massihi’s video has been pulled for similar reasons (more so that it didn’t suit the WHO narrative).
Numerous “non warming” climate videos have been pulled for similar reasoning.
Is there any doubt where YouTubes sympathies lie?
There are many, many experts who would agree with the video, but others camps (like the JoNova post above) are hostile to the views expressed.
Please don’t burn the books.
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tooright, Just because they are censored doesn’t make their selection bias right.
It doesn’t matter how many experts there are if the good docs use the wrong method, it is still wrong.
Who burnt books?
1817
Much more interested in a comment about this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgnBldI7KPY
[Hijacking the top of thread? Commenters at #1.1 need to reply to #1. Manners – Jo]
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Watched the first 4 minutes. Seems interesting.
03
Jo,
To answer your question:
Nazis in Germany and Austria in the 1930s. Anything that did not suit the ideology was burnt (as we are now seeing with YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, etc, etc).
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To answer your non-question: Youtube are evil. Yes, so? That doesn’t mean 4.7m Californians have been infected with Covid.
You ask me not to burn books, but I’m sharing their video. If I burn it scientifically, I’m doing you a favour. You can thank me later OK.
I tried to be polite. They’re B-grade medico’s who failed egregiously on several basic points. We may want them to be correct, and heroic, but possibly they are just ideologues suffering from confirmation bias or self-serving businessmen.
So now I’m a Nazi because I popped a hopey bubble of bad science?
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Jo, I really appreciate how you have consistently applied the burden of proof for both leftist ideologues, and the current surge of populist ideologues.
It’s very important that we apply smell tests to any claims, no matter where they come from, with an ideological blindfold on.
Clearly the critical points you raise above aren’t at all controversial; they’re basic criticisms that should stand out to even the moderately objective observer.
This ‘study’ in California was a complete joke and really opened my eyes to the dangers of a right wing locked into a reactionary mentality where facts and analytics become mere political footballs to be manipulated for ideological agendas; whether consciously, or subconsciously.
Keep up the good work, and I know you are taking a controversial position on Covid-19 due to this reactionary culture among our anti-CAGW/skeptic community.
You’ve made the right decision to stand firm with your instincts – your stock has gone up considerably in my book for standing firm.
[Thank you! – jo]
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True just because they were censored doesn’t make them right. It also doesn’t make the wrong. Who burnt books? The censors.
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A fairly quiet group.
Watched Run and Spotswood , Radium.
Seriously missed the NFF in Canberra this year; first time in 22 years.
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Cheers Keith. Awesome Au band
Mike
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Lunch break! 🙂
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Jo – I also thought their maths was a bit hokey. Taking hospital data and applying it to an entire state didn’t seem very smart.
Also fully agree with you that it should never have been censored. The key uncertainties in all of this remain mortality and infection spread. And although those docs may have been a bit off base, the pursuit of those truths is worthy of discussion from all angles.
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Toorightmate
The Planet of Humans is still available on YouTube.
If anyone has not seen it you should no matter what side of the fence you sit on in regard to “climate change”. Phil Mckibben is an enemy of the people not only has he hoodwinked the greens but he is robbing the people (Subsidies) and making a fortune. Another slime ball to the wall in my view. He will take his place on that wall alongside Richard Branson and Al Gore. Evil is not confined to the CCP.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zk11vI-7czE
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Thanks Jo !
You’ve put these two E R doctors back in their box
Stay with the E R work guys.
But don’t think that what is going on in your E R facility
Is representative
Of California
Of the USA
Of the World.
It ain’t !
Best to fess up that you goofed.
And regain some respect as doctors.
921
Thanks for the link to the Doctors Dan Erickson and Artin Massihi viseo.
“China stopped all their planes from going into China but did not stop the planes from leaving China?” @2:00.
‘WHO should be ashamed’ of its role as China’s ‘public relations agency’: Trump
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nHbPL35gbs
How Honest is the COVID Fatality Count ? Dr. Scott Jensen is a Physician & Minnesota State Senator.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsRay1wInBg
It’s very interesting going through all the videos banned by Youtube.
Edit: Spelling – jo
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In your banner you say: A perfectly good civilization is going to waste…
That’s exactly what’s happening right now. Unfortunately, you do your share.
1816
“A perfectly good civilization is going to waste”
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper. (TS Eliot)
Western civilisation grievously injured 2020.
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Alf, If I’d been in charge in February, most businesses would still be running now.
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How would you have done it, Jo?
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Close Australia’s bloody borders
And not imported this CCP disease from China, Iran, Italy, the USA, the UK etc etc..
Go back & read her posts from then
Don’t be lazy H B !
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JoNova February 9th: A month ahead of world leaders.
“It’s been confirmed CoronaVirus can spread via aerosol…”
“If I were ruler of the world I’d be closing borders…”
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Spot on, Jo, and I personally hope they stay closed for a long time. I know the Treasury will not like it, as it will “slow expansion”. But it will mean that not only are we not importing the virus, but we can all take a breather from constant, uncontrolled, immigration.
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Indeed Peter. Slavish devotion to the Open Borders meme has cost lives.
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“Typically you quarantine the sick, and we’ve never seen a situation where you quarantine the healthy”.
Typically, pre-med students sleep through ‘History 101’.
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Do you have an example where the healthy are quarantined? I’d like to read one of the many you clearly must have given the tone of your comment.
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https://www.agriculture.gov.au/cats-dogs
Healthy and sick pets are all quarantined depending on what country they come from, not on their health.
From countries with rabies it is a 180 day wait. That is a long quarantine.
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He asked you for an example of where healthy people in the past were quarantined. You did not answer, so I am still waiting for your answer which would allegedly provide sustenance for the fascist nanny states.
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Ah, Chad, too lazy to look it up, and too pedantic to accept a modern medical biosecurity act involving the wrong kind of mammals, and too ill mannered to ask nicely. Cheers to you too.
Figure out how for most of history humans could even identify the sick or asymptomatic to make sure they never quarantined the healthy — when we struggle even in 2020? People were quarantined on suspicion, because that was all they had. But they also built walls around towns to blockade out the sick. They did reverse quarantines, and cordon sanitaire (hard borders), in desperation, of which we snowflakes moderns know little, humans did everything.
Apart from American Samoa which I already provided there are many examples found in 3 seconds:
Etc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quarantine
44
If my memory serves me right from history lessons more than 60 years ago, the word “quarantine” comes from the old Italian of the time of Casanova for the “forty days” a ship had to stay offshore from Italy because of the Great Plague. Those on the ships were possibly not infected. Casanova himself was held up thus and missed out on several assignations, so my history teacher winked!
10
What I would find interesting is a listing of key data from various sources.
A lot of info we get is given as percentages. A percentage is not a number but a relationship between two numbers.
To have meaning and value, a percentage must give good descriptions of the two elements being compared. As well, if one number is known accurately and the other number is vague then the resultant percentage given is vague, however many decimal points were used in the calculation.
Example of a definition:
Fatality rate is the number of deaths as a proportion of those infected,
not as a proportion of identified positive cases.
Eran Bendavid and Jay Bhattacharya, Stanford.
(indirect source)
Without very widespread testing, the number of those infected is not known to any workable degree of accuracy. The total population may be known fairly accurately, but the transmission rate, the numbers, the timings, the link from those infected to those identified with positive symptoms, is unknown. No surprise then that the UK Imperial College modeling gave implausible projections even without knowing the political biases embedded.
[link to Atlantic not working?]
Specific to this thread, Jo is right, care in getting proper data needs not only knowledge in the subject but attention to sample sizes and reducing biases.
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Lucky, yes, exactly. Thank you.
The RNA virus tests can’t show who has had this and recovered, and they suffer from false negatives.
The Antibody tests are unreliable and may have 0.5% – 1.5% false positive rate which makes them low value in assessing a community with a spread similar to the false positive rate.
And selection bias is rampant in a society where many fear doing the tests, while others hope to get a positive result to use it as kind of green-card to get out of lockdown. The incentives guarantee selection bias.
The Atlantic article is here: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2020/04/us-coronavirus-outbreak-out-control-test-positivity-rate/610132/
Thanks I fixed the link.
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Good morning Jo
B. T. W. & F. Y. I.
The cyclops-like, left-obsessed and critical-thinking-impaired lame-stream media; & their “influencer/type” social(ist) media friends at Facebook, Twitter & Alphabet Soup, are starting to play dirty pool. The depths to which they are now plumbing are the lowest I can recall in my 50+ years lifetime!!
I’ll give you two glaring examples!!
Before I do so, I hasten to add the over-arching rule that I have sincere regret for any loss of life, and hope for as little as possible.
(Also, a life lost to economic stress etc. is no less valuable than one lost to a flu etc. Unfortunately, having been the first to find someone who had ‘gassed’ themselves in their own ute a mere four days after PM. Scott Morrison’s Sunday “close Australia” press conference, I don’t say these words lightly!!)
Exhibit A.
On AmericanThinker.com just three-four days ago there was an excellent story about how much is a life really worth? Re. Covid-19. Simply brilliant it was! Long story short, the number of lives normally lost in the 3rd & 4th months of a year, compared to the number this year. Clearly the maths. couldn’t be any simpler. Then divide this by the estimated cost of this “unprecedented” “emergency brake” to the US. economy, net value per life … $12.5 million/life. Again, clearly Trump & the 50 Governors et al would have got the job done cheaper, by order of 10-50 times, if they had of just focused all their efforts on the elderly Americans. (Don’t forget, to this point, Australia has only had 1 death under 50, and 3 under 60!)
However, within 24 hours, for reasons that totally confound me, the story just disappears!!
Exhibit B.
On CanadaFreePress.com just two days ago, there was an excellent story how the Techno-crats will have a huge bearing on the re-opening of American businesses. Suffice-to-say, things may not go as smoothly as many/most would like because of all the new “Sanitized-Red-Tape” they will bring to bear. Companies, esp. some of the smaller ones, may find these restrictions simply the last straw.
Again, within 24 hours, incredibly the story just disappears!!
So a cautionary aside, if you find something in the coming weeks/months that you believe to be prescient to Covid-19, Green Scam/Scum, or any other hot topic, you would be well advised to print it when you see it the first time, for you may not get a second chance.
Please regard this advice with the sincerity with which it is proferred!
Kind regards, Reformed Warmist of Logan.
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Thanks for writing that RWL.
It’s all about getting a sense of proportion and our leaders seem incapable.
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That might be your interpretation KK, but it’s not mine.
My take is that censorship is alive and well – and run by the left leaning media and their lackeys.
As reformed warmist of logan states: if you find something in the coming weeks/months that you believe to be prescient to Covid-19, Green Scam/Scum, or any other hot topic, you would be well advised to print it when you see it the first time, for you may not get a second chance.
That’s the point. I’s got nothing to do with Australia’s leaders or a sense of proportion.
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Hi Sam, nice to hear from you again, but you seem to be projecting your interpretation onto me?
There were many good points made in the original post.
00
Jo
For starters, you are using a low estimate of the deaths in the US from flu for the 2017-18 season. The CDC has previously estimated 80,000 deaths. [ https://www.cnn.com/2018/09/26/health/flu-deaths-2017–2018-cdc-bn/index.html ]
You are offering a false dichotomy. Nobody, not even the Swedes, are suggesting doing nothing. What the issue is, is whether a sledge hammer is appropriate to kill a fly. It is a matter of degree. Sweden is primarily using voluntary social-distancing, and it has a compound growth rate of deaths that is obviously better than Ireland and Canada, and marginally better than the US. [Fig. 2; https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/04/30/ministerial-math-scientific-skepticism-and-the-chinese-virus/ ] COVID-19 is a disease that primarily affects high-density urban dwellers (probably in part because of the reliance on public transportation), and institutionalized members of society. It also disproportionately kills People of Color in the US, which is a condition many other countries are not burdened with. In much of what is derisively called “Fly Over Country” in the US, COVID-19 is not as bad a typical seasonal flu. One size does not fill all in the attempts to suppress the spread of the disease. Yet, that is how it is typically being handled.
For reasons not entirely clear, even though COVID-19 got a late start in the US compared to seasonal flues, it appears that the peak is of about the same duration in all countries, and about the same as with seasonal flues. Sunshine, and people spending more time outdoors, is probably an important factor in suppressing this disease.
Because COVID-19 has a fatality rate comparable to other flues (it is not like Ebola or even the Spanish Flu) and is giving every indication of being seasonal, I think it is fair to compare COVID-19 to seasonal flu, except for its propensity to kill older cohorts and those with co-morbidities. I think that most countries have over-reacted out of panic. It remains to be seen whether Australia and New Zealand can maintain their good records, without destroying their economies, once Winter sets in.
3410
Thanks. A clear logical, readable outline that brings together a lot of the factors.
109
Clyde, perhaps you meant to post this on another blog? C’mon. That’s someone elses false dichotomy you are criticizing there. Try quoting me (or finding the blogger you meant to criticize?)
As for the flu:
PS: A plea to several commenters, I know it’s hard to read messages you don’t want to hear, but if you are going to criticize, at least read the posts. OK?
2315
Jo
I have been reading your posts. My response may well have been influenced by things I have read elsewhere. However, you have continuously used the phrase “Crush the curve,” and in particular, your April 3rd, 26th, and 28th missives have been very supportive of the strong reaction from NZ and Australia. You have said that flattening the curve, which is what other countries are trying to do with social distancing and various ‘flavors’ of lockdowns, was not sufficient. That implies to me that you are advocating strong lockdowns. That is why I used the phrase “false dichotomy.” I think that a moderate position, with less loss of personal freedoms, can work. I offered Sweden as an example.
Yes, it appears that in places like Lombardy and New York City, COVID-19 has spread extremely rapidly. That may in part be a result of demographics rather than an inherent ability of the virus. Blacks and Hispanics in the US seem to compose more than 80% of those dying. Prisons and retirement homes have been hit the worst. However, there are other places in the US where the rate of spread appears to be less than that for typical seasonal flues. The state of Ohio, where I live, has about half the population of Australia and has a little over 1,000 deaths. The state of New York has about half the total US deaths, which is pushing 60,000.
Many of the symptoms of COVID-19 are atypical for the common flu strains. However, it is not unusual for a novel pathogen to be more severe initially. Also, there is reason to believe that there are several strains circulating, having different symptoms and severities. Also, there is no standardized treatment, so some of these complications may prove to be from inappropriate or inadequate medical intervention. Some doctors hold strongly to the idea that respirators and intubation are doing harm.
You claim that immunity is short lived. We don’t know that yet. The most recent thing that I have read suggests that those in Korea that were given a clean bill of health, and then subsequently tested positive, are now thought to be false positives. When was the last time you saw anything at all about the error rates in the testing? As to your claim that “immunity to the flu lasts 50 years,” that might actually be true. However, seasonal flues regularly mutate, making that ‘immunity’ problematic.
Your mortality rates are undoubtedly influenced by early estimates from small numbers, and not knowing the total number infected very well. As testing has become more widely available, it is becoming evident that there are a large number of cases that are asymptomatic, or the symptoms were so mild that the people didn’t realize they were infected. I think that we will find that the 5% number is an order of magnitude too high.
If I misread you, then I apologize. However, at the moment I’m of the opinion that you think the only appropriate response is the way that NZ and Australia are handling the situation. We will soon find out if that is true or not.
120
Clyde, thanks for the qualifiers.
I have supported the Australian and NZ responses (though lamented they were incompetently late, and we were caught unprepared, which has wasted billions of dollars). With the caveat that there was inept management, gross inconsistency and they treated people like they were stupid. We know a lot more now, and could have made this cheaper, but we had to act then (Feb would have been better). Hindsight is wonderful. I want the cheapest solution too, and I believe that the cheapest solution (when we had no information) was to go hard and go early. Now we know that Masks and Vitamin D and hot weather are so effective, we might be able to do this at a lower cost. I think the risk outdoors is far less now, so we can find a way to help people get out more, but without risking large crowds. The dilemma is how to do that fairly when everyone wants to go the beach and we need one law for all.
I advocated hard lockdowns “til we got more information” and only ever for weeks not months, because they buy time to understand the virus. Now I’m advocating Australia release the NT and some subregions of WA because they are clear, and they should get back to work. The US is bonkers for not enforcing state borders. Trump tried. Some of the US states could have been set free if they locked borders down sooner.
I said we should build hotels not hospitals and hard borders are always cheaper than local lockdowns. I was right. We aimed for death and got it. Fatalism kills.
Australia got lucky thanks to the sun and Vit D and low pop density. But we didn’t do a hard lockdown. Traffic in Perth on weekdays was 66% of normal. Many businesses stayed running. We didn’t wear masks. Beaches and parks were open for exercise “2 at a time.”
In Sweden half the population live in single person households. They were not going to get the same high Ro spread that New York and London were. They are doing voluntary isolation, but their success is limited. Norway is doing much better. Sweden is getting 400 new cases a day and the curve is not flattening. Norway is getting 40, on the way to zero. I know where I’d rather live.
I’m greatly sympathetic for the high density cold cities where this hits hardest. Their challenge is much more difficult. I agree with nearly everything you say. I have posted the very docs who warned about Ventilators, I’ve posted that blacks have lower Vitamin D. I’ve also posted that natural protection to the influenza virus is 50+ years with this link to a medical paper. Forgive me if I am weary of repeating the same information. I suspect many critics simply haven’t read what I said.
Immunity doesn’t last long with any other known Coronavirus. Perhaps this one will be different, but it seems unwise to expect it.
As for the asymptomatic cases, there are almost no true randomized studies. Figures from Austria and Iceland, and closed studies like the Diamond Princess where they tested nearly everyone find at most that 75% of cases are mild or asymptomatic (which is oddly close to what the Chinese said in January).
The antibody tests are not random (the point of my post above). They can easily skew results by an order of magnitude too low through rampant selection bias. And given that deaths march on for months (see South Korea) mortality estimates are not falling unless we use the highly flawed antibody tests.
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This was a good Intro. to Viral Immunity. In it they say that most people had immunity for 2-3 years from SARS-1. Since SARS-2 is very similar to SARS-1, it would be great if Covid-19 had the same result but we don’t know yet. The article is Sci. American which I have mostly stopped reading due to how politicized it is on a number of topics, but this one was good. I have also read a few things (can’t remember where) that suggest that those that have had it do have some immunity and that blood plasma from those who survived it has been useful as a treatment. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-immunity-to-covid-19-really-means/
10
https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/coronavirus-antibody-tests-have-really-terrible-accuracy-researcher-says/ar-BB13kQlh
20
Thanks Clyde. I wish we had some good antibody tests. I presume they will come. Hopefully before antibody titres decline to far to be detected.
10
I am confused by the statements that the sampling was biased therefore the results are inaccurate….and too low…Since the bias was in the direction of greater chance(more likely) for infection, would not the bias been to overstate the death rate with extrapolation?
91
Fair question.
If people who have a disease are more likely to go out and get tested, then the sample they measure will overestimate the true rate of infection, which leads to an underestimate of the mortality rate.
Since the number of deaths is fixed (there are no new dead bodies) that means the current deaths are “diluted” among a larger pool of people who supposedly got a low grade infection. Suddenly a mortality rate of 0.5% can look like it is only 0.05%.
Imagine 1% of the population is infected with disease X but a company sells tests for X, and it attracts 100 people who have had some kind of cold or flu and who think they had X. So 20% of them turn out to have X. The researchers might claim 20% of the state have X (which would be wrong). The real rate of infection is still 1%. And if the mortality rate was 5% (of those infected), after the number of infections is accidentally bumped up from 1 to 20% that makes the death rate appear to fall from 5% to 0.25%.
People without Covid are less likely to want to get tested — the people who have carefully self isolated are unlikely to rush down to the testing stations where they might catch it. And if they think they are negative they won’t want to pay for a test either.
Many people have got excited by the antibody tests which are unfortunately, new and unreliable, and may have a large false positive score (which matters when only a small part of the population is carrying the disease). But the biggest problem is probably the non-random testing.
201
Thanks Grant. I’ve added a bit to the post to help others wondering the same thing.
102
Re #9 and #9.1
Hmm… I think this will depend on the ratio within a population of asymptomatic infections to symptomatic infections.
Let’s say a county authority, during the early stages of contagious transmission within its borders, decides to implement testing for CV antibodies and they gather data for about a week on a sample size of 10,000 inhabitants of a small town. They allow extended testing for flu-like symptoms as well, just to be thorough. In this time they carry out 3,400 tests,about a third of the local population, of which 2000 are tested sero-negative for CV but complain of worrisome flu, coughs, fevers etc. 1000 are confirmed sero-positive symptomatic, and 400 are also sero-positive but asymptomatic, having been detected through tracing of recent contact chains. Let’s assume that of the remaining untested people, 600 are also asymptomatic sero-positive (i.e. 1000 altogether), and 6,000 sero-negative. The asymptomatic:symptomatic ratio in this town is therefore 1:1,such as postulated for Iceland recently.
A truly randomly distributed testing regimen should yield a result of 20% infections from the week’s testing. But due to bias, the estimated infections would be 1,400/3,400 or about 40%. This is therefore an over-estimation, as claimed.
But if the asymptomatic:symptomatic ratio is instead 4:1, random testing in this town should yield a result of 50% infected of the sample tested, which means the 40% estimate based on biased testing is now too low.
I’m not claiming these numbers reflect any real case study (they were made up), but do indicate that over or underestimating infections through testing is sensitive to how the ratios play out.
As a corollary, the deaths per confirmed infectees will be underestimated for the first scenario, and overestimated for the second. But this is with respect to the actual amount of limited testing done so far, were that done in a random manner. If the fatality percentages are re-calculated from the entire infected cohort of the town during this week once they are all tested, the real values are lower than the estimate for both scenarios.
50
Sapel
Why do you want to play let’s pretend ?
The world has a real infectious disease pandemic happening !
213
G’day Bill!
I pretend no more than virologists and mathematicians in the field of epidemiology all round the world are doing right now, with their constant revisions as the pandemic progresses, “for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer.” The principles I’ve shown are correct even if they are more highly delineated in my example than official data can offer right now.
Even the oft quoted R0 number is just an estimate based on averaging across a large sample of the population. It is open to challenge, and will depend on various ambient local conditions which may vary from country to country, due to sunlight/weather/latitude/housing density etc. etc.
The numbers I quoted in my example are all reflective of typical real-world conditions. I am confident that if I could obtain precise and comprehensive data from any actual medical record database source dealing with the CV, I could demonstrate the same or similar results to those outlined in my previous post.
The asymptomatic vs symptomatic ratios I cited there were actual ones released by authorities via the Media; the 1:1 ratio was proposed by Icelandic researchers for their local testing. I can’t recall which country proposed 4:1 as an estimate but it was one of several that I saw discussed. The landmark of testing 3400 people would have been passed in tracking programs by any number of countries en route to ever increasing values, so is a valid snapshot of a point in the exponential journey. In any case that particular number is not important to the point made, as long as the statistical sample size is big enough, as any test number per given period would yield a similar result. I’ve also rounded some numbers to their nearest thousands to make the treatment neater and easier to graph quickly by hand. The only numbers I guessed outright for the lack of a reputable source were (a) the fraction of asymptomatic people who were tested as positive in the course of contact tracing and (b) the fraction of sero-negative people who rushed to diagnostic centres because they had seasonal sniffles and were terrified. These values could be almost anything over a wide range, (a) depending on how much tracing was being pursued, and would vary wildly from location to location depending on how successful the tracing went or how freaked out the community was. These numbers have no real bearing on the validity of any of my working, unless you can prove otherwise.
So be my guest. By all means reject my argument. I don’t mind, as I don’t have a dog in this fight. I don’t hold any particular position on the obvious moral dilemma leading to the heated assertions often made here, but am interested in the Science and the Mathematics of the pandemic as I find it intriguing. If you wish you can provide a counter-argument to indicate any flaw in my reasoning, as long as you employ scientific reasoning and/or Maths to do so.
41
A very thoughtful comment Sapel. I’m sure it’s possible, under the right circumstances for the bias to work either way.
I just wish we had more properly random testing.
Here in Australia we are testing 9,000 or so today with 5 cases in NSW. It appears the virus is not widespread, and results on antibody tests would have huge error margins.
You would think we could phone and track everyone who has tested postitive to ask them if they had symptoms. That would be a good start.
21
OK. So they don’t do that? – I thought that approach would be a standard m.o. – par for the course. They should have the resources to be that rigorous, surely?
I admit I didn’t know that the error bars were so wide on antibody tests (as opposed to PCR).
10
Sapel, there appear to be few random tests anywhere in the world. Let me know if you find some. The problem then would be the ethics of either mandating participation (which I’m nto in favour of) or trying to assess the effect of people who choose not to take part.
PCR are not infallible either and have false negative rate which is significant.
Testing people multiple times seems to be important. Sigh.
30
Thanks Jo, and with reference to your previous #9.1.2.1.1
Sorry, I wasn’t clear in my comment prior to yours. I realise that due to shortage of kits early testing precluded curious asymptomatics or those with mild cold symptoms, who were told to stay home and wait.
But I had imagined that by now, when testing has been ramped up considerably, that anyone could ask for one if they thought they may have recently been in contact with someone who had CV. Such requests would then provide wider numerical data for the virologists.
When you said, “You would think we could phone and track everyone who has tested positive to ask them if they had symptoms…” It seemed that you were referring to such folk and their associates.
While that wouldn’t give a truly random sampling, it’s a step in the right direction. Wider ranging test regimes are probably something reserved for the perceived aftermath.
Much appreciation for the work you do here. 🙂
10
Great comment Sapel, I appreciate your obvious expertise, I’m not an expert in anything, I try and look at the overall picture and listen to experts in their field .My suspicions were aroused when the cruise ship with 3700 passengers on board went into lock down with 700 testing positive and 8 people sadly died, I would suggest the majority of the passengers were in the older age group and are apparently most at risk, especially if they had other serious health issues, it didn’t to me seem dangerous enough to tell everyone to jump overboard and swim to shore which would have killed more passengers and I think that’s what is happening to our economies around the world sadly.
With my limited knowledge of viruses I only have my common sense to fall back on and that tells me Dr Judy Mikovits is probably a world leader in her knowledge of viruses and I would listen to what she has to say, she is a real hands on scientist.The alarmist model makers need to be held to account for there dismal failure.
20
Diamond Princess: 1 man infected 712 people in four weeks (two of which were under quarantine), and 13 died.
4 are still listed as serious/critical three months later.
Average age 58.
Mortality rate: 1.8% with top level ICU care, not overstretched.
11
Brazil is leading the world!
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/11528342/coronavirus-ravaged-brazil-worlds-highest-infection-rate-rips-slums-mass-graves/
41
“A hospital doctor told Reuters the death toll was higher than the official figures because many impoverished victims are not included in statistics.
And researchers at Imperial College London estimate Brazil’s transmission rate this week will have been the highest in the world.
The way things are going many scientists point to Latin America’s largest country as the next deadly hotspot for COVID-19.
Brought into the country by Brazil’s elite holidaying in Europe, coronavirus is now ravaging the country’s poor.
It has been ripping through tightly-packed neighborhoods where the disease is harder to control.”
Lance, pray that Bolsanaro gets COVID 19..Maybe then he will change his mind.
310
I tried to watch their video. It was fairly obvious after about 10 minutes that they were biased (as in *they* were biased) and making unwarranted assumptions.
It wasn’t worth finishing the video, and my tolerance for youtube covid videos is pretty high.
129
Yes Stuart, it did not improve, and I did watch it all. It was interesting to see the journalists try to test them, though I don’t think either side learned much through questioning.
I couldn’t help but think how useful it would have been to have a proper debate so both sides were presented. I had hoped Fox might do that, but they didnt achieve it either.
40
It’s worse than bad flu, perhaps bad flu x 2.
The crazy political response would only have been appropriate for bad flu x20, perhaps even x50, anyway you get the random made up number idea.
We are victims of too many experts/scientists and bureaucracies with too much time/money on their hands. The trouble is that they spend time on ‘war-games’, considering strategies, commissioning and publishing one paper/report after another. Then one of the latest ones becomes ‘IT’.
Governments are desperate to be seen to be doing something but at the same time avoid responsibility. They latch onto the ‘expert pandemic plan’ (which may be one crackpot expert’s idea or the product of group think, or worse, involve models!), but never stop to consider ‘is it really appropriate in this case – is the cost/benefit really there’.
1/3 of the UK economy dead. 1/3 waiting for the gov. taps to run dry. Massive unemployment coming.
THIRTY MILLION and climbing jobless in the US.
https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/05/01/our-culture-of-fear-has-driven-us-to-irrationality/
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Mr Grim,
Mortality estimates are 5 – 50 times worse (though impossible to know til we get randomized testing), and each year only 5-20% of the population catch the flu, but theoretically 60-80% of the population might catch Covid. That makes the load more like 5 times worse with 12 times the victims. That’s a 60 fold burden if we let it rip. (or worse).
And think about the fifth largest economy in the world. If it can’t pause for two months without collapsing completely, how strong was it?”
We’d get a more constructive conversation if people could avoid catastrophist terms, and discuss the shades of grey, the options, the cost benefits. Or was the UK economy a tower of debt laden cards waiting for anything to knock it over?
1115
Jo
Pause for 2 months.? That will be February, march , April, may and June and perhaps things will splutter into life in July but not the tourist sector.
That is the best part of a trillion pounds of GDP completely lost, apart from the effects on life I enumerate above. It will take a generation to recover unless we quickly and immediately reopen the economy, taking sensible measures for protection. Jo, this economic situation is very very serious and will impact on future health outcomes
235
Yes, it was a dreadful error on Vallance’s part to use the 1918 Herd Immunity Flu model to advise Boris. As I predicted, it would kill both the economy and tens of thousands.
If only Boris had been reading my site, or you’d forwarded the links on… 😉
To rescue the UK economy at this point, Read Crush The Curve again (assuming it got read the first time).
If I were ruler of the UK, masks and Vit D would be given out for free. I’d have sliced the country into a mosaic of small areas with hard borders, and some of the regional zones would be virus free now, and they’d be getting back to work already. People in the country wouldn’t have to wait for London high rises to get rid of the virus.
It’s just basic chemistry. The virus is a dumb chemical, a 29,000 base string molecule, that degrades after two weeks without a fresh body. So we just have to stop feeding it. With mass testing and isolation, plus basic nutrition, I said we’d need 5 or 6 weeks, and I was right.
Heat degrades RNA, so I’d cancel those renewables subsidies as much as legally possible, and use them to subsidize coal or nuclear power to run flat tack 24/7 with cheap electricity so rooms could be heated and indoor temps kept as high as comfortable.
I have consistently said this and been right for months.
The slow-bleed acceptance of high deaths won’t save the economy. It’s a fantasy that ignores that most people won’t want to go shopping for new BBQ’s or high fashion even if the government said they could. The CCP had to order people to go back to work.
Locking away the 60+ group to “protect” them takes them out of the economy too. Less customers for restaurants, pubs, clubs, gyms, shops, gardening stores etc. No holidays for them. So a shadow of the former economy limps along at half or three quarter speed for months to a year til we get a realistic treatment, so save the economy. Get rid of the virus.
People’s wallets closed, sensibly, when a global pandemic came, and when the virus is gone, the wallets will open.
79
You may like the CDC Fluview
https://gis.cdc.gov/grasp/fluview/flu_by_age_virus.html
10
If I recall correctly, some of your earlier posts could generously be described as hysterical.
99
Damon, whoever you are talking about you should quote them.
I’m the die-hard optimist saying we will beat the virus and it doesn’t have to take months.
88
If your short-term memory is that bad, you need to see a doctor.
14
Got nothing, eh?
21
Grim
That is a very good article and the comments are also good.
We have been browbeaten into accepting curbs on our liberties not seen in a thousand Years. Our economy has been shot to pieces . Social life disrupted. Families torn apart. Wealth destroyed. Easter not marked insideour churches for the first time in 1500 Years
And for what ? a destructive pandemic undoubtedly, but not as threatening as others in the last 50 years which haven’t been allowed to bring the baleful Effects of this one.
It is coming up to VE day. What on earth would that group of heroes make of the abject surrender of the west.?
235
Alternately, we’ve been browbeaten into believing we can’t beat pandemics, we have to have herd immunity, open borders, and many deaths, and accept that 22% of the population should hide away for months while the virus circulates. Looks like surrender to me.
As for the survivors of VE Day, those heroes would be proud to know we will fight for their survival and their freedom.
I expect that’s the kind of civilization they fought for. One that protects the vulnerable.
89
Jo, a thought to hold close,
While you & this the blog are being dumped on by the ignorant and foolish :
We here in Australia are destroying the foreign CCP virus.
SA, WA, NT & ACT all reported no new cases today.
And Vic. NSW, Qld & Tas. reported just 13 new cases.
The governments of Australia listened to you,
Finally back in March.
And the results of their “National Cabinet” decisions
Are now yielding those results.
In a week or so this nation will stand as an
Example of how to get rid of this bloody virus.
And if any foreigners want to come here and learn how we did it
To get their own houses in order,
They will be welcome – after serving two weeks in quarantine
As per government rules !
Ho Ho Ho !
35
Spikes was useful in the campaign to get Brexit for the UK
But with that achieved
It lost it’s way.
Lots of un-medical garbage about this disease which most Brits are ignoring.
I will unsub from Spiked whenI find out how,
47
The elephant in the epidemic is not the target population nor the virulence of the virus. It lies in the 50% asymptomatic “infected” population. When you have the flu or even a cold, will you go and visit grandma at the old folks home? Of course not. If you don’t know you have an illness, you are a perfect transmission vector to a susceptible population. Had the Chinese transmitted the relevant info, the old and frail would have been given their entire year or two that was left rather than cutting that short.
120
The CCP did eventually come clean in January…after trying to supress information through December.
Why did the US not act when they were told ? Why did they not act on Dec 31st like the Taiwanese.
For that matter why did the US close its virus lab in Fort Denison in July last year. Why have they refused to comment on this despite citizen petitions asking for information. Was it anything to do with the outbreak of respiratory disease in Virginia last year. Was it to do with the outbreak of disease among young people who presented in hospital with ground glass opacities in their lungs, which was blamed on vaping ?
I am rapidly losing what little faith I have in my fellow Humans. This latest move by Google to shut down the Michael Moore doco has really affected my ability to see our ruling elite with anything except contempt and disgust.
They are all corrupt… they are all evil. By the way it is easy to tell when they are lying… their lips move and words come out.
42
JanEarth said: @ #13.1:
They (Google) are but doing their duty to cleanse the Internet of all “fake” news and insufficiently inane comment which has not been approved (stamped) as 97% “true” propaganda.
Welcome to the Real World.
Now, was that inane enough for you?
(I’m practising …)
52
Sophocles
Far from inane…unlike you other ridiculous comment.
The Planet of Humans is still available on YouTube
10
Your “ruling elite” (if that’s your perception of their position in society) are essentially green-left progressives of the Democrat persuasion or their running dogs. They are anti-democratic, anti-Trump, anti-USA and totalitarian in nature.
The citizens of the USA voted for those of them who are in the Congress. The rest of them find that their vested interests are best served by aligning with them.
Why didn’t the USA act earlier? Cripes, it’s a democracy.
The people have to be brought along to the point where they accept the need for (in this case) a shut-down. Especially in a country like the USA where the citizens are armed to the teeth and politics is massively polarized.
Trump, you might recall, was roundly criticized and attacked by the MSM and its political allies when he shut down travel from China. Now the very same groups are attacking him for not acting sooner.
Which side of the USA political divide are you on JanEarth?
As to your question, Why did they not act on Dec 31st like the Taiwanese? I’m surprised that you can’t work that out. It has to do with history, deceit, knowledge and family linkages right into the heart of Wuhan. It also has to do with Taiwan’s bitter experience during the SARS and MERS outbreaks.
You are aware, presumably, of the political spin in your post?
20
“COVID-19 cases in Canada much higher than we think: Montreal researchers”
https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/covid-19-cases-in-canada-much-higher-than-we-think-montreal-researchers-1.4920269
50
The mortality rate is massively skewed demographically and health wise so any extrapolations that don’t take that into account will bias the results of any data. To say it’s worse or better than flu will depend on how old you are and how healthy you are. Policy responses need to relate to these facts but are not clear until the virus has taken hold. How you manage the right balance is a lot easier in hindsight than planning a response to an unknown virus with foresight. Whilst the argument whether you quarantine everyone or just the elderly is open for discussion but one thing that is clear is that if the virus was kept out of aged care facilities both here and overseas the number of deaths from Covid 19 would be far less. Therefore if every visitor , health worker , contractor who visits the facility had to supply validation of being Covid 19 free then the number of deaths globally would’ve been far less. The other aspect of deaths in aged care facilities is that people who die from Covid 19 did they really die from Covid 19 or just with it. The New March facility in NSW where 12 people have already died ( more than 10% of Australia’s total ) was characterised as a hospice, effectively a place where people go to die, where there is care and understanding in the final days. It is almost unfair to count such imminent and inevitable outcomes where the mortality has been accelerated in some cases by potentially days not months or years as being due to Covid 19.
So when we review the Covid 19 response at the end of the process there will be heaps of data analysis and conclusions to advise the community about how to deal with the virus the next time and I’m certain that the natural biases of the people doing the analysis will influence their actions for better or worse. At the same time as NSW CMO said that their policies had saved 700 people from dying Victoria said their actions had saved 36000. If both states take similar actions that stuff their economies the Victorian Premier will say it was worthwhile whereas the NSW premier would perhaps do things a bit differently the next time. I know which state I’d rather be in next time and it ain’t Victoria where the CMO is a climate alarmist and his deputy is left of the greens judging by her disgraceful anti Australian tweet comparing James Cook to Covid 19.
Even when everyone sees exactly the same data people will interpret that information through the lens of their own prejudices and my predjudices interpret all the information so far that the measures taken so far have been way over the top, that the blitzkreig of restricting everyone’s movements involves costs to the majority of the population beyond the benefit to those fewer numbers in the high risk categories. We accept these trade offs with flu ( even with a vaccine available)by not isolating everyone so to avoid its spread but not with Covid 19. I must say that I feel much more comfortable finding my views being similar to a genuinely Liberal leader like Scomo who has an economy wide perspective than experts who’s background includes climate change alarmism and green ideology.
70
Zigmaster
Paragraphs are your friend.
71
“At the same time as NSW CMO said that their policies had saved 700 people from dying Victoria said their actions had saved 36000.”
I take estimates of how many their policies have saved with a pinch of salt. They haven’t got a clue.
If, however, when they announced their lock-down, they advised that based on their modelling, by 1 May Australia will have recorded 6,767 confirmed cases and 93 deaths, then I would be very impressed.
81
All models are wrong.
Some of them are useful.
60
https://wattsupwiththat.com/daily-coronavirus-covid-19-data-graph-page/#001
11
That comment has one main point: The Lockdown is Damaging America.
There are better ways to handle this.
42
America shouldn’t be made to suffer twice because of politics: and this event has been heavily politicised.
KK
30
From Voltaire
I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
From Pauline Hanson
Please explain?
And, finally from Happy Days
Jo you have:
salire ad PISTRIS
26
I’m still wondering why the NT is still shut down? No cases for weeks. Based on this, if they ever have a single new case they’ll have to return to lockdown for weeks.
81
Harves
Do you not read the papers or watch / listen to the news ? Restrictions are lifted in the NT. Borders are still closed because they do not want the zombie hoardes from interstae infecting them again.
70
An alternative view from Dr Ioannidis , similar to the two doctors.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-saAuXaPok
(relatively short video)
62
Dr ( ? ) Ioannidis ?
Yes, we’ve been there,
Done that.
Discovered he’s full of malinformation.
But the crap keep son being recycled time & time again
Anything new to add ?
313
Bill in Oz
Where the hell is Stephen Marshall..I have heard nothing from him.
States with current active cases are relaxing lockdown but we hear nothing from our Premier Peanut.
Not happy Jan.
31
Well at this time on a Saturday night
Safely staying at home I should think.
Having a break from the media frenzy
Over SA’s zero Corona days
🙂
12
I for one appreciate your input, and the irony of certain characters asking for new info whilst echoing themselves repeatedly.
51
These two doctors are being criticised for not presenting facts/data correctly.
I make no judgement on that, having only seen part of their presentation and read even less about it.
Maybe they deserve criticism.
The bigger picture.
From the available information on CV19 it is almost inescapable fact that “The Statistics” being constantly pushed into the public arena are similarly flawed, if not deliberately pushed here and there to create emphasis.
Yes! This is a terrible disease, but I’m fearful that there is something wrong here.
Seriously wrong.
KK
223
Cast your eye over these statistics Keith.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries
This site has collated the stats on Corona virus for months.
And it is based on what the various nations of the world provide.
Nothing else
28
I just love statistics. But I think I’ll save them for my birthday.
21
They do strain the ageing brain cells KK
04
There are two os in deoxyribonucleic acid, but only one in Owsley acid. Crick would know, but he’s somewhere else.
12
You will block this because we know Austyralia is a nanny state dictartorship cheers glad I rescineded my citizenship of that country a long time ago Interesting that Mockton aint publishing his lockdown stuff here anymore
re lockdowns If this continues Mockton and Mosher and Jo Nova will have some real egg on their face Sweden incidence and death rates are plumetting. If they continue to fall and the rest of the world with lockdowns keep killing their people by the flattening curve and economic suicide https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8278087/Swedens-daily-coronavirus-death-toll-falls-67-new-infections-drop-428.html as I predicted. these people know NOTHING ABOUT VIRUSES Mockton is a mathematician and Mosher is a great investigatorr re Gleick his only contribution to this site ever all his predictions about anything climate realated have been about zero check it out but let him spew his crap here its called liberty of expression cheers. Jo nova has beeen good on climate though The point is that these people pushing the lockdown may be liable for deaths and loss of job and a life NOT DUE TO a coronavirus. All sites pushing lockdowns without knowledege of how coronaviruses work may be liable for damages my 2 cents worth be very very careful of what you publish. BTW seems Fauci has been fired as I predicted anyway we shall see
42
Funny how those who imagine they see viral scaremongering are the same ones using hyperbolic “suicidal” terms on the economy. Projection what?
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden/
Could we just have a calm conversation and chill with th empty threats?
Ad homs are useless in Climate change and with pandemics.
51
Jo (I believe) writes:
Right at the start Erickson declares “Typically you quarantine the sick, and we’ve never seen a situation where you quarantine the healthy”. Yes, well, that’s except for all of history.
(there is more, read the entire paragraph above for full context, please 🙂 )
Sorry, I believe you are playing with wording here.
Throughout history the trend was (once the culture’s understanding of ‘spreading’ was developed at least) to isolate the sick once they had been detected. I think everyone is basically in agreement on this point.
The other trend was to block outsiders during periods where the community considered there was a risk. This is where we have, I believe, the origin of the actual word as it refers to the time period ships must wait before being allow to dock.
This is again, isolating the people believed to be sick.
While the ship was waiting offshore the rest of the town carried on as normal. They, to the best of their understanding, were not sick, so there was no rational reason based on the ‘science’ of the period for them to lock themselves in their houses.
Yes, it can be argued that with the power of hindsight maybe they SHOULD have been social distancing, but hindsight is a powerful thing.
I put to you that even in the examples you have given (Samoa), the people already on the island and not believed to be sick via the medical advice/science of the day, carried on their normal lives. They practiced a quarantine from potentially sick outsiders, not from each other.
Hence I believe that Erickson et al are largely correct in their statement and discussing this part at length only detracts from the much more useful task of discussing the sampling methods used and any associated flaws present.
Talk about the sampling. Much more relevant and interesting.
111
I heard somewhere that the word ‘quarantine’ comes from the Italian ‘quaranta’ (forty), which referred to the number of days that ships with sick/infected people on board were required to isolate themselves for before coming ashore.
40
It wasn’t so much that they had infected on board, it was to make sure that they had not. As Jo says, isolating those that seemed healthy to ensure that there were no carriers.
20
There seems to have been little discussion on infections (and associated deaths) occasioned through the treatment of patients afflicted with the COVD-19 virus.
Pseudomonus Aeuriginosa has long been the scourge of those with Cystic Fibrosis and other lung complaints. From memory, it can be ‘cured’ in a Petri dish but because of the deep seated nature of such infections, it was not possible to deliver that ‘cure’ where needed.
Providing ideal conditions for its development, ventilators and catheters are often the source of the infection.
https://www.cdc.gov/hai/organisms/pseudomonas.html
50
I constantly see people compare the seasonal flu to coronavirus and say See?? More deaths!! Coronavirus is worse!!
But they’re not comparing apples to apples. They’re comparing apples to apples wrapped in 2 inches of wax. Analogy torturing over.
The biggest difference IMO is the seasonal flu vaccine, and the difference that would make on
1. transmission / contagion
2. death rates
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/2018-2019.html
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/fluvaxview/coverage-1819estimates.htm
Despite such a deep vaccination, the US has 35million cases of the flu. 35 million. Now remove the seasonal flu vaccine so you can compare seasonal flu to covid-19. Now what happens?
And if you can’t or won’t do that, explain to me how “illness + vaccine” vs “illness” can ever be a true, rational comparison? Because to my simple mind it seems bleedingly obvious that they are not a true apples to apples comparison.
As for the doctors doing a “sampling bias error” – be that as it may, there are more and more studies coming out now that show the prevalence is higher than expected, leading to the mortality rate being much lower than measured.
eg 1: Iran (95000 official cases)
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.26.20079244v1.full.pdf
eg 2: Japan (
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.26.20079822v1.full.pdf+html
It’s possible that despite the “sampling bias error”, everybody is doing it – in which case the medical establishment is going to become rulers of the replication crisis, or these Californian doctor’s sampling bias error is magically prescient and the results the world over will support them.
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Have you seen FluView
https://gis.cdc.gov/grasp/fluview/flu_by_age_virus.html
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Aaron, our natural immunity to the flu vastly outweighs the protection from the flu vacc which only helps half of the time, and not for long (That’s a CDC stat).
Between 5 and 20% of the population catch proper influenza every year. They get 50+ years of immunity to that strain and partial immunity to all related strains.
The flu vacc is a pale imitation offering partial short term protection.
Since we have neither vaccine or natural protection to SARS CoV-2 it is self evident the deaths will be multiples higher if we didn’t do something to stop it.
“explain to me how “illness + vaccine” vs “illness” can ever be a true, rational comparison?”
Explain to me how that is not the exact reality we face?
Are you suggesting we give up the flu vacc? I’m not.
Welcome to the real world.
It’s theoretically possible the Covid is “like a new flu” with no vaccine, but you forget how awful a totally new flu is.
If we said Covid is like the Spanish Flu, does that help?
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No, I don’t forget how awful a new flu is. In fact, I am saying it’s the same as COVID-19. People who say it’s not, are arguing that “new flu + useful vaccine (ie seasonal flu)” should be compared to “new flu (COVID-19)” to prove one is “better” than the other. My argument is that when we have developed the same immunity and the same vaccine, and compare the two, they will be so similar that they will be lumped together each flu season.
The natural immunity angle is something I often read. People suggest seasonal flu is not as bad as COVID-19 due to our natural immunity. Agreed.
But how are we going to develop natural immunity unless we… get infected? Sweden are pushing for that and getting lambasted.
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Understood, but most times in this debate “it’s the flu” does not mean “it’s the Spanish Flu”.
Nor in normal conversation would we expect anyone to think “it’s like the flu” to mean anything other than “it’s like the bad colds we get every five years”.
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Dr. Kaufman makes a lot of great points.
Dr Fauci says Covid is a seasonal Flu with a death rate of 0.1%
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIEICWbA2gU
A vaccine run by Microsoft and “Made in China” that’s “compulsory” for the Western world, what could go wrong?
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Jo
You asked, “If we said Covid is like the Spanish Flu, does that help?” It would be an inaccurate statement. The so-called Spanish Flu was estimated to have killed 50 to 100 million people at a time when the world population was about half of what it is. Also, it seemed to take out the young and healthy, rather than those already waiting in line to go to the banks of the river Styx.
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Clyde, I was probing the reasoning Aaron was using, not making a scientific statement.
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Interestingly, I just saw Guardian hack explaining why “The Science” isn’t a valid argument – in a newspaper which has been promoting it for decades.
“Even those who know that when it comes to public health policy there is no such thing as “the science” – that there are always going to be competing views over how to act on data once you’ve got it”
Trump is handling coronavirus so badly, he almost makes Johnson look good
But back in 2006, he followed the party line:
“Yesterday there were two signs that this penny has at last dropped. The first, reported in the Guardian this morning, was word of a new climate change bill, which will create a new body dedicated to following *the science* on global warming and setting targets on carbon emissions decade by decade.”
When it comes to global warming, market rule poses a mortal danger
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Where would you rather be? South Dakota or Michigan.
The majority of people in Michigan do not like Trump.
The majority of people in South Dakota do like Trump.
And the majority of the people in those two states have had to bare what their governors dished up.
Why are there no protest in South Dakota?
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Neither TooRightmate.
The USA has turned a pandemic disease emergency
Into a political crisis.
Who would want to live there in the midst of such stupidity ?
South Australia will do me mate.
No politicisation of this crisis.
God solid leadership
( Admittedly not inspiring )
AND BEST OF ALL…..Drum roll !
Zero new cases for 11 days.
We here are destroying this foreign CCP virus
Go right ahead, be envious
And red thumb me
I don’t care a tinker’s fart,
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Ohh dear !
In moderation again
Maybe ’cause I said the F@rt word ?
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This should be made compulsory viewing, anyone who doesn’t think this wonderful woman (Dr.Judy Mikovits)isn’t brilliant and courageous must be brain dead, and Jo what makes you think you know more than these two front line doctors?
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what makes you think you know more than these two front line doctors?
The fact that the people who defend them resort to Ad homs.
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Since Jo is a credentialed alarmist who apparently believes the coronavirus is the equivalent of a reincarnation of smallpox, she has a vested interest in one side of the story. She should go back to climate, on which she is somewhat rational.
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Doh clicked the wrong like button…don’t think I will bother in future
Should be 1 up 3 down instead of even.
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Yep. True in my opinion. That side being the rational side. The proper scientific side. The evidence based side. The empirical side.
The rest is just politics and back-stabbing.
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Sometimes the ones throwing accusations of hyperbole are the most hyperbolic commenters…
I swear a few readers here see only the headlines and don’t read the content at all.
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This is because propaganda rags like that one (and the ABC/etc) through sleight or stupidity take one of the definitions of the word “science”:
•a systematically organized body of knowledge on a particular subject.
e.g. “the science of Marxist political theory”
And use that interchangeably with this definition:
“the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment.”
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Italy:
19th April = 108,257 … actives (peak)
29th April = 104,657 … actives
1st May = 100,943 … actives
Italy’s new cases peaked on the 21st of March. The “Closed Cases” death-rate peaked at 45.48% on the 27th of March. The death rate is currently 26.91%, so it almost halved during April.
As active cases and system stress began to decrease and triage choices plus experience allowed more effective medical treatment by focusing treatment on the youngest patients, the percentage of case-closures which died began to slowly decrease, simply because the younger people getting more treatment began to die in lower numbers. The percentage of cases that die from a “case closures” is falling at ~1% per day, as medical system stress is lowered.
So Italy will improve more quickly throughout May and will be in much better situation before June, and that will result in a plunge in that ~27% death rate as active cases begin to close more quickly. The internal isolation and restrictions in Italy may begin to lift around the end of July.
—
Top 25 with spreading less than 2.5% and daily new cases less than 250.
New Cases | Country | Active Cases | % New v Active | % Died
36,007 … USA … 903,714 … 4.0 … 5.81
7,933 … Russia … 100,042 … 7.9 … 1.02
6,729 … Brazil … 47,660 … 14.1 … 6.96
6,201 … UK … 149,600 … 4.1 … 15.50
3,648 … Spain … 75,714 … 4.8 … 10.22
3,483 … Peru … 28,206 … 12.3 … 2.78
2,394 … India … 26,027 … 9.2 … 3.28
2,188 … Turkey … 65,326 … 3.3 … 2.66
1,825 … Canada … 28,919 … 6.3 … 6.16
1619 … Pakistan … 13,324 … 12.2 … 2.30
1,425 … Mexico … 5,942 … 24.0 … 9.67
1,402 … Ecuador … 23,360 … 6.0 … 4.04
1,344 … Saudi Arabia … 20,373 … 6.6 … 0.70
1,068 … Germany … 30,441 … 3.5 … 4.11
1,006 … Iran … 13,237 … 7.6 … 6.37
985 … Chile … 7,756 … 12.7 … 1.38
932 … Singapore … 15,817 … 5.9 … 0.09
890 … Belarus … 11,906 … 7.5 … 0.62
687 … Qatar … 12,648 … 5.4 … 0.09
571 … Bangladesh … 7,894 … 7.2 … 2.06
557 … UAE … 10,384 … 5.4 … 0.85
455 … Ukraine … 9,176 … 5.0 … 2.50
433 … Indonesia … 8,160 … 5.3 … 7.58
327 … Romania … 7,495 … 4.4 … 5.92
284 … Philippines … 7,109 … 4.0 … 6.60
New Cases | Country | Active Cases | % New v Active | % Died
—
New Cases | Country | Active Cases | % New v Active | % Died
13 … Australia … 929 … 1.4 … 1.37
3 … New Zealand … 208 … 1.4 … 1.28
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Rapid test variability …
https://seminyaktimes.com/re-testing-shows-different-results-in-bangli/
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Raving, that’s very interesting. I’d like to know the exact numbers.
So all 23 retests failed to repeat the positive results? All false positive?
They talk of rapid tests and swab tests, so they are using two different assays?
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Further developments.
https://seminyaktimes.com/24-confirmed-covid-19-positive-cases-in-abuan-village-bangli/
Different source here in Indonesian.Lots of numbers. Very variable
https://today.line.me/id/pc/article/Hasil+Swab+126+Warga+di+Desa+Abuan+Bangli+Negatif+Covid+19-L3KEZa
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So 1800 tests, and 24 positive.
And rapid tests are antibody tests, yes? And the false positive rate might be 2/300 or something, so we’d expect 12/1800 false positives (but with a range of something much broader). We have to wonder if it is useful doing rapid testing on populations where the rate of infection is below 3%? Even in a 3% population — nearly 25% of the positive test results might be false?
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I note that NSW “ultra rapid” testing is actually PCR, not antibody, so alas, we don’t know what sort of test anything is, unless they specify and there is a big difference.
https://www.9news.com.au/national/coronavirus-nsw-rapid-testing-kits-to-deliver-results-within-60-minutes/8bec5e04-3b57-4728-b62c-956d290f142a
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They were blood tests
https://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2020/05/01/bali-hamlet-put-under-lockdown-after-tests-indicate-over-400-people-reactive-to-virus.html
Our rapid test (PCR?) has been withdrawn
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/coronavirus-covid19-1.5553826
Shalll seach for develepments in the coming days
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Re American Samoa and the Spanish Flu. Yes they quarantined ALL boats coming to their shores – a sensible thing to do. But they did NOT quarantine the on-shore American Samoans. We seem to have quarantined the general population (not being selective) as well as “the boats”. It’s like the American Samoans quarantining/restricting their own people. Something to think about.
Neil.
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American Samoa refused to allow ships to enter their islands.
that’s quarantine
And having excluded the Spanish flu there was no need to do a lock down.
Close by lies the other Samoa.At the time it was governed by New Zealand
As part of the British empire.
New Zealand boats brought the Spanish flu to this Samoa from Aukland.
I think 40% of the population died – from want of quarantine.
So what is a “Lock Down” then ?
It is a quarantine within the nation, state or city.
The effect is to minimise people moving.
And thus also minimise the spread of the infection.
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Neil, and if we have been as smart as populations 100 years ago we could have stopped this at the border. But having stupidly let it in, we then had to put those borders around all the houses. Some of the houses contained people with asymptomatic infections, and most didn’t, but without mass testing, we had no way of knowing.
My point is that it is exactly the same process as putting a quarantine border around all boats. They didn’t know which boats carried the virus, so healthy ones as well as sick ones were quarantined. Same with pets from overseas today.
It is just a different level of scale, borders around countries, states, suburbs, houses, boats but as I warned back in February, domestic quarantines were horribly more expensive than international ones. I could see this trainwreck coming, yet it could have been so easy to stop.
The big missed quarantine was the WHO Failure. They should have quarantined China. The whole nation should have been cut off from sending out infected people and the whole world would have been spared. That would be the most effective use of quarantine and would have been “quarantining the sick” (even though most of China was not sick).
The Doctors point was a word game, and pointless, and wrong.
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Meanwhile here in the UK even our testing numbers are being manipulated by our politicians in an attempt to deflect from the present indication that we have one of the worse death rates per population in Europe according to equally manipulated numbers of Covid-19 deaths by association. This simply demonstrates to me how untrustworthy our ruling classes have seemingly become over the past however long ago it is since people lost their innate wish to at least try to be honest and admit to errors when they are made.
It is arguable, at this point in time, that those country’s with heavier losses first time around may get off more lightly that others if and when there is a second wave of Covid-19, and it isn’t over until it is over. My own personal perspective favours the those like Prof K Wittkowski who haven’t changed their spots at all for the duration of the pandemic and have demonstrated some useful prescience about what should have happened from day one. Of course replays proving them right are as impossible as monologues proving them wrong. Compared to the muddled political and media chaos these not-so-popular ‘experts’ have been refreshingly honest about this pandemic but, of course, they don’t please those with different outlooks. Perhaps consensus needs to be on the ‘to-be-banned list’ once we get out of the tunnel we are in, because it continues to do much more harm than good, IMO.
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You forgot to mention what value you put on a human life.
As does the nitwit Wittkowski. He’s also forgot to update himself on the dreadful non-pneumonia affects of this virus.
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This pandemic it reminds me of Josef Stalin: You can vote for whoever you want; what counts is who counts the votes. The Wuhan variant rings like: People die from all sorts of causes; what counts is who writes the death certificate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-rlEQb2gPc
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Or oebele, you can ignore the death certificates completely and just count the bodies.
If we look as All Cause Mortality, the awful truth is that there is a lot of death going around at the moment, at record levels, but that death is a lot less in countries that closed their borders and locked down early rather than late.
Unless we think that the bodies are not being counted correctly (or at all — as in china) the mortality count tells us something about reality.
Corruption is rife, but are we in the WEst cheating or lying about the number the bodies? I sure hope it is not that far advanced…
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An amazing comment from the South Australian Ambassador to the JoNova blog.
Thank you your honour.
http://joannenova.com.au/2020/05/two-californians-doctors-say-the-mortality-rate-is-like-the-flu-but-it-was-sampling-bias-instead/#comment-2321530
KK
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I just love satire, KK.
However, you do it so……
poorly.
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Thanks Sam,
I thrive on feint praise.
Everything the Ambassador writes is so tough and aggressive and I especially like the way he gets up unwary “foreigners” who stumble onto the blog.
But ultimately it’s about crushing, stomping and destroying the bloody stupid virus that had the nerve to invade South Australia. He killed it.
Well done Ambo. Absolutely Tough!!!
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You too you, Kranky Keith
You will be saved..
And me ? I killed nothing.
The people of Australia destroyed this virus.
I just helped out here
Along with others like Rick & WXC etc
To keep the goal & the strategy
That Jo announced way way in early Feb.
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It’s amazing to me the amount of people who seem to have grossly deluded themselves about what has occurred from the beginning of March to now.
https://i.ibb.co/LZhCtSq/May-4th-2020-Acceleration.png
2.4 million new known COVID-19 cases were added in 30 days (April 2nd to May 2nd) even as the cases and deaths curves were decelerating.
We’ve also discovered that when the active numbers get high within a country up to 46% of the active cases end in a death, rather than a recovery. But the shameless keep pushing this “save the economy at all costs” message, and wish to completely ignore the extremely rapid growth potential of this disease once isolation is not enough to end it.
The short memories and shortsightedness of that position could not be any more loathsome.
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The response has been very iffy;
To me there are two failures, first, the public media, and second governments.
But very selectively. Many have wanted to do the right thing, and are getting there painfully.
Many appear to be going in another direction, not to do the wrong thing, per se, but to “not let the crisis
go to waste”.
Some few in the media have tried to explain that flattening the curve may not end the epidemic, there may be more deaths,
we have to make choices, we need to look at the data and here is the data, etc. One can do this part of the fourth estate’s
job regardless of where one comes out editorially at the end. Most have not tried and have simply sold their narrative.
Some governments, and various levels, are clearly wrestling with finding the best course between economic health and public health n a world where
all the choices seem bad, but many seem to be in Kim Jong Oh Boy I got the Power Now mode.
This can lead to petty tyrants making hideous decisions. Like letting the homeless sleep in the subway. Then deciding you have to close the system every night
to stop this and clean it.
If you run a great city, “the city that never sleeps” like New York, that is absolutely dependent on mass transit, primarily a subway system, wouldn’t this be your crown jewel?
Wonderful construction, great maintenance, absolute pride of ownership, putting your best and brightest in the MTA?
And in a crisis, wouldn’t maintaining this life-supporting artery for the population, no matter how difficult, be your highest priority?
Your essential service people still have to get to work. New York has over 10,000 people using the trains during the hours they’ll now be closed.
And I’ll wager that a large number of these are essential service workers, not the 9-5 work from home in Westchester types.
A city administration that started the pandemic with its city entertainment director saying let’s all go down to Chinatown to celebrate the Chinese New Year
has now just given up…..they’ve held on the the narrative and are killing the city.
We have a number of petty tyrants in various areas of the US absolutely determined to shut down things long and hard to save them…..with what looks like the opposite result.
There is much citing of the Chinese model …. “a hard shutdown works”. Bullspit, of course, a New Yorker (or anyone else) is still free to get in a car and go anywhere in this
country. But a New Yorker with a service job at 4:00AM may not be able to get to work locally.
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Richard, good comment. I hope that we can find better ways to reduce the infectiousness of public transport without people needing to wear masks (though that is probably the cheapest).
Perhaps UVC regular cleaning (As in three times a day at the end of the line, if the train empties and stops for half an hour of “detox”). Or ramping up the airflow with major filters to keep turnover of the air fast.
Annual Flu is a major productivity hit, and reducing that would surely be useful.
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JoanneNova,
Thank you for a very intelligent post and expose of these CA ER docs who have a financial interest. Besides that you stimulate a vigorous discussion and debate like those on just a few other blogs. I have referred this post to others whose minds remain open to the seriousness of the Wuhan Virus and the bad actors who have taken advantage — for some it was carefully planned.
At least in the U.S. this pandemic and responses finally enables all citizens to see who is marxist and who remains Constitutional Republic. That difference has been so hidden for so many years that creeping marxism and thuggery have been enabled. I am MAGA and KAG, a supporter of President Trump as he threads the needle in his responses and exposes the vast evil in our government.
30
Saw some more interesting stats from CDC:
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/covidview/index.html
It says “weekly summary” so could change. Looks like the kids are safest, which is better than seasonal flu.
10
Top 25 countries with more than 3,000 active cases and more than 250 new cases, sorted by new cases.
New Cases | Country | Active Cases | % New v Active | % Died
28,534 … USA … 931,463 … 3.1 … 5.81
9,623 … Russia … 107,819 … 8.9 … 0.99 (nobody hides bodies better)
4,806 … UK … 153,785 … 3.1 … 15.43
4,450 … Brazil … 48,872 … 9.1 … 6.99
2,588 … Spain … 74,234 … 3.5 … 10.22
2,442 … India … 27,557 … 8.9 … 3.33
2,075 … Peru … 28,900 … 7.2 … 2.82
1,983 … Turkey … 62,780 … 3.2 … 2.68
1,900 … Italy … 100,704 … 1.9 … 13.72
1,653 … Canada … 29,347 … 5.6 … 6.29
1,515 … Mexico … 6,390 … 23.7 … 9.51
1,427 … Chile … 8,616 … 16.6 … 1.34
1,362 … Saudi Arabia … 21,518 … 6.3 … 0.69
1,128 … Ecuador … 23,961 … 4.7 … 4.99
1,050 … France … 93,074 … 1.1 … 14.70
930 … Pakistan … 13,832 … 6.7 … 2.30
911 … Belarus … 12,614 … 7.2 … 0.61
890 … Germany … 29,155 … 3.1 … 4.13
802 … Iran … 12,942 … 6.2 … 6.38
776 … Qatar … 13,326 … 5.8 … 0.08
562 … Sweden … 18,408 … 3.1 … 12.09
561 … UAE … 10,816 … 5.2 … 0.88
552 … Bangladesh … 8,438 … 6.5 … 1.99
550 … Ukraine … 9,634 … 5.7 … 2.45
485 … Belgium … 29,541 … 1.6 … 15.68
New Cases | Country | Active Cases | % New v Active | % Died
—
New Cases | Country | Active Cases | % New v Active | % Died
16 … Australia … 901 … 1.8 … 1.37
6 … New Zealand … 202 … 3.0 … 1.35
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Jo’s point about the need not to censor is spot on. I was first led to the video by Instapundit. I viewed it, thought it made some good points, but was also struck by their apallingly bad use of stats. Being a good cyber-citizen, I commented on the likely huge error of their extrapolating from a hugely biased sample, in simple terms. There were already other comments pointing this out, so someone going would have been exposed to this knowledgea number of times, and hopefully taken it on board.
Then Youtube zaps it, taking with it all the explanatory comments people like Moi had made, and any subsequent counter-arguments and debate. Back to square one with a raw video with it’s misconceptions, and probably a lot of people like myself who were prepared to make the argument first time around, but can’t be bothered doing it again.
10
This flu swept through Oregon late last year before it had a name I am certain. I have co-morbid conditions and had the worst lungs on fire cold of my life mid October as did a load of people at a NW semiconductor mfg site you’d expect to be ground zero for this nasty cold. Pretty sure we reached herd immunity quite a while ago. Unfortunately we are not doing antibody testing.
If you get shot in the head and have a runny nose in NY or NJ, your death was due to the Corona Virus. Medical mistakes claim 400,000 each year in the US. You can bet your life NY and NJ will have a lot fewer this year because everyone dies of Corona now.
BS numbers based on an incredibly small sample size in the US.
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