There is a three in a million chance that a Boeing 737 MAX won’t arrive at its destination in one piece. At the end of the day, this isn’t that big of a deal – as late as the 1980s, this was the average for the commercial airline industry, and risks were twice as high in 1970. But people don’t tolerate such numbers such risks these days, as the value attached to human life has gone up. As a result, this model has been grounded across the world, with attendant consequences for Boeing’s bottom line.
But while it may not be that big of a deal, it is still probably not a great idea to take 500 flights in a Boeing 737 MAX within a year if one can possibly help it. Why 500 Boeing 737 MAX flights? Because even though it is a disease that overwhelmingly affects the elderly, that happens to be the equivalent risk of dying from COVID-19 for people in their 30s. Moreover, when you board a plane, you are only risking your own life. People with a cavalier “iT’S JuSt lIkE ThE FlU” are presumably more likely to spread it to elderly people, for whom a brush with COVID-19 is equivalent to a round of Russian roulette (mortality is ~1/6 for over 80 year olds). Moreover, it would even be reasonable to pay money to avoid such risks, even if it involves some inconveniences.
For this novel coronavirus threatens to fundamentally degrade the global demographics of human mortality, the effects of which may last years or decades.
This graph shows q(x), or the probability of dying at any age “x”. It is calculated by taking a hypothetical cohort, usually fixed at 100,000 at the age of 0, and dividing the number of deaths by the number of survivors by age group.
The green line represents the probability of dying in the US as of 2017.
The other lines represent the effects of various epidemic shocks: An approximate doubling in severity of the average flu season (yellow); a 10% COVID-19 infection rate (orange); and a 70% COVID-19 infection rate (red).
These figures were obtained by taking the percentage chances of dying from the flu/COVID-19 and adding them to the q(x) percentages for the US in 2017 at the mortality.org database.
The mortality stats for the flu were taken from the CDC, as reported in Business Insider. They also helpfully compare the age-specific death rates to COVID-19 mortality, as derived from an investigation earlier this month by Russell et al. based on numbers from the Diamond Princess cruise ship (where everybody was tested). The extrapolated total CFR (case fatality rate) was pegged at 1.1%, but note that this applied to situation where quality healthcare was readily available (ventilators, IV drops, antibiotics, etc.). In situations where the epidemic overwhelms the healthcare system, things are going to be much worse.
Note from the outset the near insignificance of flu as a cause of mortality; under 65’s are basically two orders of magnitude as likely to die from COVID-19 as from the flu. In other words, for the younger generations, “the flu” is just 2-3x Boeing 737 MAX flights per year, as opposed to 500x for COVID-19. While the absolute numbers for the elderly are horrific, the disparity between flu and COVID-19 mortality for them is actually considerably less – just about a single order of magnitude – though even so, that’s still the difference between a ride on the Space Shuttle (flu) versus a round of Russian roulette (COVID-19). I’d rather take the Space Shuttle, thank you.
In another study by Riou et al. 2020 analyzing data from Wuhan, a total CFR of 1.6% was estimated “among all infections”, with a larger sample allowing for more precise figures for each age group (see above). As such, I will be using the numbers from this study to adjust q(x) in the different COVID-19 scenarios. Apart from that, the Wuhan scenario is likely to be more typical than the Diamond Princess scenario, if we are talking about large-scale outbreaks that partially overwhelm the capacity of healthcare cities.
There isn’t much evidence that we can hope for substantially lower mortality rates, even in developed OECD countries; contra Western stereotypes, medical care in Wuhan seems to have been highly sophisticated, with dozens of people being ventilated in the average hospital, and complex procedures such as extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (“removing blood from a person’s body and oxygenating their red blood cells”) through ECMO machines being available in cases where ventilation didn’t work. Consequently, it can’t be excluded that mortality in most of the rest of the world – even in the OECD – may well end up higher than in China. For instance, England only has 28 and the US has 250 of these ECMO machines, whereas even provincial hospitals in China have been reported to have 5 of them each.
The healthcare system in Lombardy – one of the most developed regions in the world – is already on the cusp of collapse. Unless there are draconian quarantines implemented right about now, most of the rest of Western Europe and the US seem set to join it in its misery in another 10 days to two weeks. Cost-cutting “optimization” in healthcare has drastically reduced the number of hospital beds per capita throughout the West in the past two decades. At this point, I would certainly not wager on “the West” mounting a better or more competent response to COVID-19 than the Chinese.
Another cardinal difference between “the flu” and COVID-19 is that the latter is far more contagious. The standard measure of how many other people each person with a given disease infects in turn, r0, seems to be ~4 under “normal” conditions, versus just 1.3 for the flu. Moreover, as a novel coronavirus, people do not have any preexisting immunity to COVID-19 that might mitigate its virulence, and it has far greater contagiousness. Consequently, professional epidemiologists have predicted that as much as 70% of the world population may eventually become infected with COVID-19, a number has been repeated by Angela Merkel and the British government in recent days. As such, I will be modeling a 70% COVID-19 infection rate – which presupposes millions of deaths – as a “worst case” scenario.
One final “blackpill” about COVID-19 is that, should we fail to control it, many epidemiologists expect it to become a new seasonal disease – that is, a fifth endemic coronavirus, just like the common cold. But far deadlier. The flu infects about a tenth of the population every year. What would be the impact if COVID-19 was to reach similar intensities?
This graph shows l(x), or the number of survivors at any age “x”. It can be calculated by recursively applying the aforementioned q(x) to the initial, hypothetical cohort of 100,000 newborns.
As before, we can see that even doubling the flu season – adding mortality from an average flu season to the existing probability of dying – barely nudges the curve.
However, even a 10% COVID-19 infection rate moves the curve visibly left, and the change is extremely traumatic once you get to 70% infection rates – the sort of numbers that multiple European governments are now bandying about.
This graph shows the changes in life expectancy at different ages. It is calculated from two values derived from the above data: The total number of person-years lived by any particular cohort, or T(x), divided by the number of survivors, or l(x), in that cohort. T(x) is the sum total of person-years, or L(x), lived by any particular cohort up until all its members have died. That, in turn, is given by the following formula: L(x) = l(x+1)d(x)a(x), where l(x+1) refers to the quantity of that cohort’s survivors in the next year, d(x) refers to the number of deaths during that interval (or, in other words, l(x+1) – l(x) ), and a(x) is a constant that is usually equal to 0.5 (except in the very first and the very last year of life).
Here is a summary of the results:
- US life expectancy at birth was 78.86 years in 2017 (via mortality.org). There is a minor discrepancy with the official CDC figure of 78.6 years.
- Modeling a typical flu epidemic “on top” of that (so, in practice, a ~doubling of the flu season severity) would reduce US life expectancy to 78.63 years, translating to a reduction of ~0.25 years (three months).
- Modeling a 10% COVID-19 infection scenario with Riou et al. (2020) age-specific mortality rates – the sort of numbers we may expect should it become endemic – reduces US life expectancy to 76.15 years , translating to a reduction of ~2.5 years.
- Modeling a 70% COVID-19 infection scenario with Riou et al. (2020) age-specific mortality rates reduces US life expectancy to 66.79 years, translating to a reduction of a cool ~12 years.
Now this is not the end of the world, as I make sure to emphasize by including the historical mortality profiles for Russia in 1994 and Sweden in 1751 across all three of these graphs.
The year 1994 marked the single worst time for Russian mortality in its post-1956 history, when rampant alcohol abuse, violence, and the despair of the 1990s reduced life expectancy to a local minimum at 63.93 years; during that time, middle-aged male mortality was equivalent to that of Imperial Russia and Sub-Saharan Africa. This is probably the worst mortality profile ever observed in a major industrialized nation outside of wartime.
Mortality rates in the preindustrial world – Sweden has the earliest comprehensive records dating back to 1751 – jumped wildly year to year, depending on the state of the harvest and the virulence of the bugs going around in that particular year. The biggest difference relative to industrialized societies, though, even ones as collapsed as Russia in the 1990s, is that deaths during infancy and childhood were mundane, not freak occurrences. Hence why life expectancy actually goes up as children live through (survive) their infanthood.
As we can see, in terms of mortality, a serious COVID-19 epidemic should be broadly equivalent to living in 1990’s Russia – and for people under the age of 50, it would be notably safer than living in a preindustrial society, such as 18th century Sweden. It will be a shock relative to current expectations colored by more than a century of “Pinkerian” progress in safety and survivability, but there were people who lived their entire lives under similar or worse mortality profiles, and that didn’t prevent many of them from finding joy and meaning in them.
However, even though the pandemic “shock” will pass, if the epidemiologists are correct and COVID-19 becomes an endemic, seasonal disease, then we may permanently lose the equivalent of about 25 years worth of progress in raising life expectancy (American life expectancy was last below 76.15 years in 1996). In this scenario, the graph of future US life expectancy may look like something above, dipping sharply this year and stabilizing at a new, lower normal in subsequent years.
In the long-term, there may be even more years lost – perhaps 3 years – in many West European countries, and perhaps in developed East Asia as well, should this pandemic veer out of control and make it impossible for them to preserve their current achievements at checking COVID-19 (I assume that even disciplined East Asian societies cannot maintain Corona-suppressing “social distancing” behaviors indefinitely). That is because, thanks mainly to America’s opiates epidemic, the West European countries now have substantially better mortality profiles than the US, so the extra “shock” of COVID-19 will depress their life expectancy to a relatively greater extent. Though, curiously enough, most of these same countries will “lose” fewer years of progress relative to the US, since American life expectancy has basically stood still for the past decade due to the opioids epidemic.
Meanwhile, industrialized countries with worse mortality profiles, such as Russia, will not actually see as big of a drop in life expectancy as the US; as of 2014, the last year for which I can find life tables for Russia, a 10% COVID-19 infection scenario translates to a 1.7 year fall in Russian life expectancy (US: 2.5 years), and a 70% infection scenario translates into a drop of 8 years in life expectancy (US: 12 years). However, due to strong gains in Russian life expectancy since 2014 – it has risen from 70.9 years in 2014 to 73.4 years in 2019 – the effects of COVID-19 will actually now be stronger (if still not as strong as in the US).
(Reminder: This is all assuming that both infection rates and the age-specific mortality rates from COVID-19 are the same across these countries – this will almost certainly not be the case due to local specifics).
Moreover, there will be multiple other factors that will either ameliorate or depress the above estimates:
- COVID-19 is going to kill off the frailest people in this current wave, in which up to 70% of people may be infected; but this will soften its long-term impact, since you can only die once.
- In subsequent years, when ~10% annual infection rates may become the new norm, healthcare systems will adjust and everybody should receive adequate care, lowering CFR from the ~4% currently observed when healthcare systems are overwhelmed, to the 0.5%-1.0% rates seen in South Korea and Chinese provinces outside Hubei, which have managed to keep on top of cases.
- Conversely, people who are intubated now may suffer permanent, long-term insults on their health, making them more vulnerable to subsequent COVID-19 infections in future years.
- Needless to say, there may well be changes in COVID-19’s contagiousness and virulence in the future.
I am not even going to attempt to model any of this. But the bottom line stands. This virus has the capability to deal a traumatic shock to the world’s population, especially to the older societies of the Global North. In the longer term, it may also permanently depress global life expectancy by about 2 years, robbing millions of future people of their planned retirements and time with their grandchildren.
There are political factions that cynically, and unironically, pray for Corona-chan to do her magic. The Chapo Trap House folks bask in the idea of COVID-19 killing off Drumpf-voting boomers who are keeping them from electing Bernie, instituting M4A, and rescuing the planet, while elements of the Alt Right anticipate the West rediscovering its youthful vigor in the wake of the “boomerpox”. But I would caution both factions against premature Schadenfreude – political trends rarely work out the way anyone expects them to. They may get more than they bargained for.
OK, summing up: We should really, really try to avoid COVID-19 veering out of control and becoming endemic.
China has demonstrated that Corona-chan can be contained; its r0 has plummeted by an order of magnitude from 4 to just 0.32, even if had to bring its economy to a near standstill to do it. As Steve Sailer notes, China hasn’t merely “flattened the curve”. It has crushed it. This means that its success should be replicable, at least in First World nations with epidemics on the scale of peak Hubei, as in Italy.
Even more encouragingly, the nations of East Asia – Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, even middle-income Thailand – have all managed to bring COVID-19 under control at its earliest stages without resorting to China’s drastic measures. As Tomas Pueyo explains, they did this by carefully filtering infectees’ contacts at the earliest opportunity and putting them under quarantine. The main reason that South Korea failed is because its “Patient 31” happened to be a religious “super-spreader”, yet even so, even there, the epidemic is currently under control.
But all their efforts would be in vain if just a few (or even one) defeatist, incompetent, or plain stupidly-run countries decline to take the necessary steps, and thereby cut two years off global life expectancy into the indefinite future.
This stupidity and incompetence takes different forms. In Western Europe, it is the Left’s fundamentalist commitment to open borders, accompanied by bizarre claims that quarantines do not work. In the US, it is the Right’s fundamentalist commitment to free markets, as exemplified by $5,000 copays for coronavirus tests, lack of sick leave, and Trump’s “iT’S JuSt lIkE ThE FlU” mantras to appease Mammon. Meanwhile, in what is perhaps the most “powerful” move of them all, the United Kingdom has set up a cyber-unit to combat “Russian” Corona-chan shitposters while basically admitting that it has no interest in combating, like, the actual coronavirus. Hopefully the British boomers croaking in their deathbeds in another two months’ time will be understanding of HMG’s priorities.
One is almost tempted to wish a pox on all their houses.
Anyhow, while I still hope for the best, I do not expect it.
EDIT March 13: Thread on /r/coronavirus: https://www.reddit.com/r/Coronavirus/comments/fhy247/coronavirus_could_cause_a_25_year_drop_in_us_life/
Please keep off topic posts to the current Open Thread.
If you are new to my work, start here.
Great work, AK.
Diamond Princess shows infection rates and fatality rates are over estimated. Just too many undetected cases and the tests aren’t accurate, it is clear Italy has tens of thousands infected, the British estimate is five to ten thousand is the real figure, not five hundred and ninety.
The sensible thing to do would be to deliberately infect children and quarantine them for two weeks. It has no effect on them, they gain immunity and they cease being a major source of transmission.
You should use different colours in your graph, rather than different shades of red, unfair on us colour blind, the forgotten minority.
And UK was supposed to be one of the states with the best preparations for such a situation…
https://twitter.com/LankanSyndi/status/1237904032829550592
It’s probably quite dangerous to a small amount of children. It’s to be expected that a small proportion will have immune systems out of wack, or other special susceptibilities, likely due to mutations.
Minor correction on this excellent post, I think that you mean the risk of dying as the risk of getting infected is not widely different among adults of different ages. AK: Thanks.
And beyond the risk of lung scarring that exists even in young people there have been some preliminary studies that Corona-chan leads to testicular problems and possibly infertility.
As this feisty disease doesn’t like hot weather, it will not infect the high fertility regions in Africa and South Asia, but it could further reduce the TFR in temperate and cold regions.
On the other side, all that time spent at home without sports and other social distractions could lead to a baby boom, out of sheer boredom.
@ cyber-unit to combat “Russian” Corona-chan shitposters
“First rule in politics: never believe anything until it’s officially denied”.
Did you mean a 70% infection scenario in the second part of your quoted post above?
AK: Yes, thanks.
Diamond Princess data does not look very good though. If 5,6% of those infected are dead or still in critical condition, after all these weeks later.
Hopefully it’s just a result of very much older ages of people in the boat, otherwise this will be bad.
https://i.imgur.com/WUlwSni.jpg
Although there is still some controversy about whether people can be re-infected by COVID-19.
There is also a problem of preliminary evidences that people are seeming to carry the virus (and possibly still be infectious in some way) after recovering, at least for the very short amount of time (days later) that has been measured.
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2762452
BTW, Anatoly, can you please create a new Open Thread? We don’t have one but we need one!
Since I’m mentioning a new Open Thread, though, I figure that I might as well ask an Open Thread-related question here:
In the event that there would have been no Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in 1917, do you expect Akmola/Tsalinograd/Astana/Nur-Sultan to have remained a mid-sized provincial relative backwater up to the present-day–with its population never even actually reaching 500,000 people?
I’m asking because I want to know if there was any realistic way for this city to actually acquire the same level of population, prestige, and glory (a lot of it was, after all, designed by a futuristic-style Japanese architect) that it indeed managed to acquire in real life.
AK: Yes, I’ll do an Open Thread imminently, but this is OT.
My observation is that Eastern European countries are doing a far better job of managing coronavirus than anyone else in the Western world. Personal observation:
I’m in Albania right now. The country got its first coronavirus cases a few days ago. Right now, all bars, nightclubs, restaurants have been closed by the government, flights and ships from Italy are banned, anyone who’s been to Italy or Greece as of February 27 is required to self-quarantine for two weeks (with police checkpoints set up to enforce and €5,000 fines threatened to those who won’t comply), and starting Friday, all private cars will be banned from driving in Tirana through Sunday. Schools are also closed and Albania’s Central Bank has deferred loan payments for three months.
Mind you, Albania only has 22 confirmed cases at this point and one death, but they took decisive action to nip Chinese Cringe AIDS in the bud. Not sure how long the current measures will last (business closures will be “until further notice” and the Tirana curfew may be extended), but Albania will likely be clear of the coronavirus pretty quickly.
Compare to Greece, where I was last week. They’re not doing anything. When I left Athens, everyone was still going out to party and nobody was wearing masks (in Tirana, half of everyone is masked up in public). Upside is that all the Chinese tourists are gone, meaning you can sit upon the Mediterranean sipping a glass of wine without hearing them fart in peoples’ faces and hock snot rockets onto the sidewalk.
At least for America, they have an unusual opportunity to benefit from their lack of public transport, and everyone having their own car, and going to the office in the hermetically sealed cabin.
And then there are important parts of America where in a couple of months, the sun will be powerful, and as air temperature increase the absolute humidity levels become high. The perfect situation might be if you have a Texas ranch, with some kind of bunker. And the UV irradiation from the Texas sun will deactivate viruses on any surfaces that neighbours might touch near your house. When the air temperatures increase, high absolute humidity of Texas air above 25-30°C will reduce distance and time the virus can spread in the air. You will perhaps even safely be able to walk around the neighbourhood without a mask and goggles.
There are rumors of cases in NK. I wouldn’t say that the average rumor about NK is very trustworthy, but I do know that the northern border has a fair amount of black market activity.
I don’t buy the theories about Iran being intentionally infected, but if I allowed myself to indulge in one conspiracy theory – I’ll bet there are a lot of people who would rather see NK infected, than see it have no cases whatsoever and be a counterexample to globalism.
Was it just yesterday that they declared the Corona virus a global pandemic? I think that they should rename it – a global pan-demonium-demic.
Everybody is talking about the negative sides of this corona virus outbreak. I would like to focus on one possible positive influence this virus might have.
The robbery industry can definitely benefit from this outbreak. With everybody wearing masks, the robbery employees – after conducting their operations in local corner stores, gas stations and even banks – can very successfully mingle with the general population upon exiting from the venues they like to do their business in, and avoid risky situations associated with their profession – such as being caught and/or being shot or subjected to lengthy prison sentences.
It’s good to hear how Albania shuts down, as it will be vulnerable with its close distance to Italy. In most of Eastern Europe, the epidemic has not started yet though – it will be coming in a scary way the next 4-6 weeks at best, unless there is a real shut down of travel (and perhaps even now it is too late for travel shut down to avoid it, although it can at least slow its arrival).
So far, South Korea is perhaps the most successful country (in terms of state capacity to respond to epidemic), while Iran has been the least successful.
https://habrastorage.org/r/w1560/getpro/habr/post_images/c26/7c9/5a3/c267c95a3c996fed4df91304b2520bf2.png
https://habrastorage.org/r/w1560/getpro/habr/post_images/1d2/ce7/365/1d2ce73659a5dc520931782d386df186.png
Interesting article:
https://habr.com/ru/post/491974/
AK: It’s a translation of this article, which is linked to in the post: https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-people-will-die-f4d3d9cd99ca
Have you seen the film World War Z?
North Korea is the only country that eventually avoids the zombie epidemic (Israel survives an extra week because they build a wall, but that wall collapses and the zombies destroy them), because the North Korea pull everyone’s teeth in 24 hours
I found the video of the scene – it’s around 1:45 “Greatest feat of social engineering in history. No teeth, no bite, no great spread”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjr7hZD3DKo
In most of Eastern Europe, the epidemic has not started yet though – it will be coming in a scary way the next 4-6 weeks at best, unless there is a real shut down of travel
This time last month I was looking up flights between northern Italy and Romania and was impressed by just how many there are on a daily basis. Leaving aside tourism there must be a massive Romanian presence from Bologna northwards to justify these flights. I read that in the week or so after the initial cluster of cases in Italy many Romanians flew home so Romania might be the Eastern European country to keep an eye on.
Matt Forney: Right now, all bars, nightclubs, restaurants have been closed by the government, flights and ships from Italy are banned, anyone who’s been to Italy or Greece as of February 27 is required to self-quarantine for two weeks
So you’re self-quarantined in a hotel or something?
Yes, I have seen it – funny scene, in a campy way.
I guess with zombies, you need to suspend disbelief, but I always think things like, but people have such a weak bite – a normal person could put on extra layers of clothing and be pretty safe from teeth penetrating their skin, except for their face.
Excellent work, Anatoly.
For another view, here is a post from another blog:
A doctor who attended a COVID-related conference in the Billinson medical center in Israel had published some of the key notes, which confirm my opinion that the corona scare is massively exaggerated by many people:
1)Most infected will only have the symptoms of a common cold (as with 4 other known strains of coronaviruses).
2)Serious cases – fever.
3)Fatal cases – mostly elderly above the age of 80 with very weak immune system.
4)Due to the symptoms, many people who currently believe they have a common cold, will not report to the local emergency services, therefore the total number of reported cases may be far higher than the official number, and may explain why people are infected despite quarantines. It also vastly reduces the actual mortality rate.
5)Most infected will self recover and develop higher immunity to the virus.
6)Transmitted via fluids, not air. So standing in the vicinity of infected is not dangerous, but if they cough while near you it’s best to be tested.
7)Transmission before symptoms appear is possible but extremely low.
8)Self testing technique involves holding your breath for 10 seconds and see if you have any difficulties.
9)A Japanese home remedy is to drink every about 15 minutes so that virus fragments in your throat will slide down to the stomach, where the stomach acids will kill them almost instantly.
“It’s all BS folks. BS is the glue that binds this country together.” George Carlin
I’m currently watching Scott Morrison’s press conference on the ABC about Corona-chan and they’re gonna ban all “non-essential” travel and public events. I saw on the chyron that Justin Trudeau’s wife also came down with Corona.
Excellent article Anatoly. This & calling the Coronavirus pandemic on 24 January lets your readers be far ahead of the news.
You are not accurate about Greece. There are to this date under a hundred cases and large portions of the country are shut down. My friend works for a major telecom and it has been closed for a solid week. They are doing a fine job of containment and their spread came from tourists who visited Israel and a woman from Milan.
U.S. presidential candidate Joe Biden said as much in a January op-ed. He denounced flight suspensions as “counterproductive.” Presumably, he’d also be against strict quarantine efforts. I believe he also erroneously compared the situation to the previous Ebola outbreak (a blood-borne disease). The world may have to get ready for a lowered life expectancy, because I don’t see this man (who’ll almost certainly be president this time next year) or his party doing anything to restrict movement. CNN is already attacking Trump for what little he has done.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/01/27/coronavirus-donald-trump-made-us-less-prepared-joe-biden-column/4581710002/
https://defconnews.com/2020/01/27/joe-biden-would-stop-coronavirus-by-flooding-u-s-with-infected-foreigners/
Meanwhile, the radical left is busy calling people names.
AOC brands people ‘straight up racist’ as coronavirus outbreak sees diners abandon Asian restaurants
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/11150237/aoc-brands-people-straight-up-racist-as-coronavirus-outbreak-sees-diners-abandon-asian-restaurants/
Samantha Bee has a message for Fox News: “The coronavirus is not an excuse to be racist”
https://www.salon.com/2020/03/12/samantha-bee-has-a-message-for-fox-news-the-coronavirus-is-not-an-excuse-to-be-racist_partner/
Aside: It turns out Bee is your typical white leftist sociopath.
https://www.dailywire.com/news/samantha-bees-husband-fights-keep-poor-black-kids-john-nolte
For what it’s worth, here’s Snopes’s unpersuasive debunking of the above article.
Their article doesn’t seem persuasive at first glance; maybe I’m missing something — it is late, after all. My opinion: they bury the effect of the Bee family’s opposition (fewer minorities in their children’s school) with ancillary objections raised by other parents in what appears to be a deflection. Regardless of how the motivation is couched, the outcome is clear, and it is appropriate to discuss Bee’s hypocrisy in that regard. They also go out of their way to discredit detractors by unnecessarily nitpicking the wording of one of the articles they supposedly debunked: “Despite the fact that the Slate article was nearly a year old at that point (and the issue has been resolved), web sites presented the story as if Jones were currently fighting the rezoning plan.” What does it matter? Perhaps that is true, but it’s also irrelevant to the larger claim. It looks as though Snopes is padding their response with minutia before getting to their tenuous claim that the original sources were wrong.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/samantha-bees-husband-school/
I guess the key concept is flattening the curve to keep the healthcare system from being overwhelmed.
The integral of cases under both curves is the same but more deaths under the peaked.
Otherwise extreme quarantine measures seem kind of stupid.
Not exactly humid most of the time in far west Texas, but even in March it’s gotten close to the 80sand getting more rain than usual. And not very populated either. And cleaner.
And like the anime, AK…
Another GIGO Karlin’s product. Both R0 and CFR used by Karlin are grossly overestimated. Covid-19 is not like a flu, Spanish flu, but more like regular flue than anything else.
Actually, this is so wrong.
AK: Comment is plagiarized (h/t utu). Go to the source: https://slate.com/technology/2020/03/coronavirus-mortality-rate-lower-than-we-think.html
We dont actually know the CFR for covid-19 or influenza. Few people are tested for influenza. Cdc uses models. Cdc says between about 70 percent and 85 percent of seasonal flu-related deaths have occurred in people 65 years and older. A typical year has 30,000 flu deaths so thats 20,000 -25,000 deaths in elderly per year and thats with vaccination.
The elderly with severe pneumonia from flu requiring a hospital stay have a 20% fatality rate
The true case fatality rate, known as CFR, of this virus is likely to be far lower than current reports suggest. Even some lower estimates, such as the 1 percent death rate recently mentioned by the directors of the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, likely substantially overstate the case.
We shouldn’t be surprised that the numbers are inflated. In past epidemics, initial CFRs were also exaggerated. For example, in the 2009 H1N1 pandemic some early estimates of 12% CFR, declined to 1.28 percent in the end (probably overstated since cdc recommended no testing by summer of 2009 and used models ). In Wuhan, the CFR was more than 4 percent. As the virus spread to other parts of Hubei, the number fell to 2 percent. As it spread through China, the reported CFR dropped further, to 0.2 to 0.4 percent. As testing begins to include more asymptomatic and mild cases, more realistic numbers are starting to surface. John Hopkins University published a report suggesting actual cases in Hubei were an order of magnitude higher since they did few testing for 2 months, testing only serious/cases. That brings the cfr down in hubei to 0.3% like the rest of China which is heavily polluted with most of the male population smoking
In China, 9 million people die per year, which comes out to 25,000 people every single day, or around 1.5 million people over the past two months alone. Many of these deaths results from diseases like emphysema/COPD, lower respiratory infections, and cancers of the lung and airway whose symptoms are clinically indistinguishable from the nonspecific symptoms seen in severe COVID-19 cases. During the peak of the outbreak in China in January and early February, around 25 patients per day were dying with SARS-CoV-2. Most were older patients in whom the chronic diseases listed above are prevalent.
This is where the Diamond Princess data provides important insight. Of the 3,711 people on board, at least 705 have tested positive for the virus . Of those, more than half are asymptomatic, while very few asymptomatic people were tested in China. With flu we know 16% of those infected are asymptomatic. Some estimates put it as high as 60%. Especially if you use pcr tests which dont tell you anything about if thr RNA fragments were from currently infectious particles. On the Diamond Princess, 7 deaths have occurred among the passengers, constituting a case fatality rate of 1% percent. 0.2% of the ships passengers died. All of the passengers were elderly while the younger crew members /passengers were much better off. Its not unknown what percentage of passengers were elderly but lets assume 25%. That gives a fatality rate among the elderly of 0.8%. Same as flu.
I rest my case.
No children died of it yet. The problem is that it’s not proven that people acquire immunity to it, unfortunately. There were reported cases of reinfection, including a relatively young guy dying from the second infection after recovering from the first in Wuhan. For example people are not immune to the common cold, they can catch it every year.
I agree with the author of the article that you have plagiarized in your comment from:
Word for word. Anyway, thanks for posting JEREMY SAMUEL FAUST article.
You’ve forgotten that more elderly dead translate into lower social security and pension fund expenses and hence more profits for the getting, so certain people in certain countries have a vested interest in actually supporting the spread of Coronavirus. It is also an excellent distraction from other things that they are up to.
Personally, and I’m a medical professional, I’ll say this: all viruses eventually burn out and reappear in a less virulent form. I do not see how COVID-19 is different from that.
The higher death rates is not the main thing here (although I will not deny in being happy if someone like Biden died from Corona), it is the economic front that is encouraging. Hitler got a big boost to his political career with the 1929 crash, and I don’t see how the global economic collapse will not provide a big boost to nationalists (even to white nationalism). Sure the jews will ramp up their oppression to maintain their grip on power, but with their globo homo system undergoing serious convulsions, how is this not a good thing?
Complete rubbish. Greece has shut down all schools, day care centres and universities. Also, public gatherings are banned.
Precisely. The Greeks were actually quite decisive and this is in the face of state-based terrorism, using illegals as a weapon, stemming from Turkey.
Absolute horseshit. Millions of people get infected in Italy during the flu season every ear, yet this does not cause their hospitals to be overwhelmed with critical cases to the point that people are left on their own to asphyxiate for lack of ventilators.
Corona on the other hand has already submerged Italian ICUs despite there being officially <15,000 cases. Even if the official number of cases is undercounted by an order of magnitude, that's still less than 150,000 cases in the country. We may not know the exact mortality rate of this virus, but we know it has the capability to destroy a modern, relatively robust healthcare system when far less than 1% of the population gets infected. "This is not the flu bro."
I loook forward to a comprehensive precise reply to Pft’s Comment #29.
Also, what happens when you factor in the high probability of an effective vaccine being developed soon? AND can you calculate the consequences of different rates of flu vaccination in different countries? I suspect that many of those that die of flu in the US only die because of the cost of vaccination.
Mortality is probably a korean .5% in optimal conditions where every critical case can be put on a respirator. When the system is overwhelmed mortality looks like 3-6%. Of course the stress is on looks like, overwhelmed health systems are not testing everyone. That means you have in effect a different pandemic, where some portion of the population can be modeled as having immunity (really they are/were susceptible but never develop serious symptoms and their infections never show up in stats), but in exchange higher mortality.
I’m unable to find the author’s comment a out the plagiarism. Where did you find that?
Rare to see anyone else from far west texas. Big Bend-er here. Weirdly warm for march after a weirdly rainy entire 2019. That and the only parts of Texas to be all that infected have been like 700+ miles from JDC. If my county’s getting anything it’ll be thanks to our unwashed neighbors to the south of us across the border.
I keep on repeating this. But few people seem to grasp the message. I guess people are less capable of thinking long-term than used to be the case.
Forget about vaccines. It will take years to develop one for this strain of coronavirus. By then, it would have morphed into something else. In fact, those who have been immunised may be in mortal danger as is the case with dengue fever.
The only approach that will work is a more accurate, faster, cheaper test. Combine such a test with triage of the population and this thing will disappear in protected countries/localities.
I proposed a similar concept – with anonymous data – as a solution for the AIDS/HIV problem many years ago. I got a US patent for it and it was approved by the FDA.
If taking temperatures were a fool-proof way of detecting coronavirus, this thing would have been controlled in weeks.
Everything else is just a waste of time.
https://www.chinadailyhk.com/attachments/image/142/147/187/518904_215951/518904_215951_800_532_jpg.jpg
https://slate.com/technology/2020/03/coronavirus-mortality-rate-lower-than-we-think.html
Interesting, Chinese officials are starting to say this is a US bioweapon.
https://dailystormer.su/finally-chinese-official-accuses-the-us-of-releasing-the-coronavirus-post-conspiracy-information/
60,000 people die every month in Italy. Many of them old. Now we have 1,000 reported dead due to the Covid-19. Most of them old. Many of them would have died anyway from some cold or flu that would further aggravate their poor state of health. This year Covid-19 got there first.
Your assertion that many of them would have died anyway is materially false, since prior to the onset of Coronavirus, Italian hospitals were not being overwhelmed by old people dying from “some cold or flu.” There is obviously a huge surge of additional critical cases leading to deaths over and above the annual baseline that is overwhelming the healthcare system there, since the system was not overwhelmed before the arrival of Corona.
Please tell me you understand this most simple of logic.
We need accurate numbers and accurate diagnoses to get the real sense of how unusual is the current situation.
No we don’t. In plain sight the hospitals in the most affected parts of Italy are overwhelmed. The current situation is unprecedented for the doctors in the hospitals.
After sober analysis, extensive reading, and careful assessment of each and every fact either directly or indirectly related to COVID19, I am now fully convinced of the following:
There… don’t you like my story much better than all the other nonsense you’ve been pummeled with lately? (You can thank me later.)
“At least for America, they have an unusual opportunity to benefit from their lack of public transport, and everyone having their own car, and going to the office in the hermetically sealed cabin.”
From Wikipedia, re car accidents In 2010, there were an estimated 5,419,000 crashes, 30,296 deadly, killing 32,999, and injuring 2,239,000. About 2,000 children under 16 die every year in traffic collisions.
Clearly, car accidents are very costly, financially and in human terms, and no doubt most of these costs could be eliminated if only we would reduce the speed limit to 20 mph nationwide.
Yet, for some reason – probably because nasty people – society refuses to do it!
More seriously, the price that is currently being put on human lives in this Bat Flu hysteria is – while never explicitly stated – clearly absurdly high. The average citizen isn’t worth the chemicals it cost to make him but we have to shut down the international economy so that granma will still be around in the nursing home to not recognize us again next year? Retarded.
So they read unz?
The robbery industry can definitely benefit from this outbreak
In Italy, the Nigerian prostitution racket is bound to be badly fucked (pun intended). What a shame! So much beauty gone to waste! 🙂
https://static.independent.co.uk/s3fs-public/thumbnails/image/2016/08/13/11/italy-sex-work-reuters.jpeg
“… overwhelmed.” – Is it possible that because of hysteria too many youngish people seek help in hospitals? And they are the main reason why the old are dying. They receive help that they do not need. Narcissistic mamoni killing their parents.
Back on March 3 worldometer listed 36 persons in serious/critical condition after contracting corona virus on the Diamond Princess cruise ship. Ten days later it still lists 32. Does not seem to be resolving very quickly. Good way to drain people’s estates? Ha.
The subsequent terrible rash of deaths at the Life Care Center in Washington state should be some kind of head’s up. Where is the CFR mathing out in that instance? MIGHT be better for family to take some of these elderly people back home if condition is just moderate-serious. Give them more love, better food, expose them less to strangers. Save some money. Maybe use some better complimentary therapies? Could well improve their odds. Just a thought.
PS. For all those people stocking up on mass quantities of food, grabbing all the jars of peanut butter etc. and not leaving me even one barrel of rolled oats, be sure to EAT IT. Do not let it go to waste; at the very least please donate it to a homeless shelter or similar before it perishes. Thanks.
If this is indeed the case, the graph is incorrect. Quarantining does work. Wuhan is proof of that.
This.
Look at south korea where the approach is test everyone, isolate positives. You want to have low mortality and keep the infection at hospital capacity without a lockdown, this is the only way.
Otherwise you are in the dark about the state of the pandemic and you have to totally shut down society to get infections under control.
Every discussion we are having about the course of the infection in this country vs that country is conditioned by the totally inadequate sloppy haphazard testing and all the imponderables of selection effects in different healthcare systems. until recently even deaths are likely miscategorized because old people succumb to pneumonia after flu-like symptoms all the time, and there were enough respirators so nobody said anything.
A tsunami is coming at us and everyone has closed their eyes.
I wonder how many years will be cut off the life expectancy of people who lose their jobs or businesses because the international economy has been shut down for fear of a bad case of the Chinese sniffles?
After all, these calculations must be available, right?
Surely, somewhere in the depths of the Government Accounting Office in Washington there is a triple-locked safe guarded with moving infared beams that can cut through tungsten that contains documents that show the precise value of a human life, calculated by CPAs and organized by age, sex, occupation, and region.
Why do I say “surely”? Because if not, then on what basis are the idiots in Washington making the decisions that they are making? If they do not have such figures, how can they decide what are acceptable losses, how can they model the impact on the economy in the near and more distant future? Who is expendable and why? And where?
We must have these calculations, otherwise on what basis, according to what figures and what calculations did Trump decide to shut down travael from Europe? At first the fat nincompoop even announced the shut down of even the transport of goods! Was this decision simply random? Did he toss a coin?
Please don’t tell me this was all decided off figures scribbled on the back of an envelope. Or on the basis of some white House intern’s overnight research and subsequent guardily-colored PowerPoint.
Please don’t tell me the place is run on such an unsophisticated and uniformed basis.
What prices are they putting on various human lives in their decision making? Would we be able to find out through a FOIA application? Somehow, I am thinking not. I think they are making their decisions with one thumb up their butts because they are all cardboard cut-outs and idiots.
The evidence was presented by @Anonymous (n)
Why do you find it so difficult to accept that you were wrong? We all make mistakes sometimes so you are not alone. 🙂
Agree. The flattened curve integral should be smaller. Furthermore why the flattened curve extends so much?
When I am wrong I do not find it difficult to accept it. I am not wrong in this case.
I’ve mentioned (many) times before that I live in downtown Vancouver. I feel it’s an important data point. As far as I can tell, no other member of the greater Unzitariat lives here.
According to the demographics of this city, it should have been locked down weeks ago. Here’s the latest news out of BC:
https://globalnews.ca/news/6663168/coronavirus-bc-health-daily-update/
Three of the cases are linked to Egypt…
Trudeau soon is going to be the first head of state with coronavirus! Somewhat surprised, thought that Cambodian kinda dictator will get it sooner after greeting that cruiseliner. Also what kind of special idiots are masquerading as “doctors” in Canada for advising not to test their PM since he has no symptoms so far?:
https://twitter.com/emilyrauhala/status/1238282233863180296
Despite all speculations and safety concerns, the US Army will conduct the largest military training in 25 years in Europe, with over 20.000 American participants moving into Europe rolling out over mainly six European countries and later return to the States. So the virus is either relatively harmless or part of American warfare.
Defender Europe 20 is to take place in april and may this year.
https://www.voltairenet.org/article209437.html
I can’t believe Karlin is actually reporting on this massive hoax to the extent that he is.
This has shades of Iraq WMD panic about it.
Given the number of ‘names’ testing positive this highly contagious virus has already spread widely, the problem then is for others to explain why so few deaths.
Looks quite likely Trump might have it.
Entire countries are shutting down their economies. The US stock market just shed almost 30% of its value at one of the fastest rates in history. Some hoax.
They’ve probably been reading too much Unz.com crap.
Something a little more positive from the China perspective
We are increasing our understanding of this disease. It is clearly very infectious, at least in some circumstances. As we have explained this means that the case severity is likely to be lower than the crude fatality rates in many media reports. We have explained the dilemma of mortality early in epidemics here. The academic consensus for mortality is currently around 0.3-1% (WHO). It could be higher but it could be lower if blood testing eventually confirms more widespread, mild disease. The hospital mortality over the age of 80 years is 15%. Another way of looking at this data is that of every 100 people over the age of 80 who contract COVID-19 and become ill enough to go to hospital. 85% make a full recovery.
Also mutation into different strains is inevitable and recovering from one strain, even if you acquire immunity to it, wouldn’t necessarily give you immunity from another.
The good doctors are correct, they shouldn’t waste scarce test kits on useless eaters.
Also he’s a head of government, not head of state, the latter is still Elisabeth.
Dude, the majority of people who don’t get vaccinated for the flu in America can afford it. They don’t want to take the time or don’t think the vaccine is going to work or are scared of needles.
I don’t know exactly how deadly or not it is, so far the death toll does not seem that spectacular, however shutting down a country does not prove how deadly it is, it just proves how much different countries/people panic about things.
There seems to be enough of collective thinking energy/ ability left in Albania to handle this crisis in a reasonable way. Greece is (and has been) dominated by an extremely individualistic/ anarchist mindset. State (=the collective) = your personal enemy (beware -robs you of your money with the well know tactic of calling his longing for your posessions “taxes”. Avoid these attempts of the state at any cost (these costs are not that high anyway… – this is how we get along, since ages – the constant Greek inner monologue).
Trump is more on the Taki’s Mag / Greece/ Libertarian / individualistic / anarchist side. A form of complexity reduction, which works up to a point – especially as long as collective action does not become a question of life or death.
^Bottom line: Eastern European countries have more of the mental resouces left, which allow for collective action.
Question: Why are Scandinavian countries (+ Iceland) which have among the highest rates in the world showing so few deaths (0.08%) and serious/critical cases (0.17%)?
They are still in an early phase, and deaths in large numbers will arrive in a few weeks time?
Because of the super-efficiency of Scandinavian health systems? (unlikely since it seems that relatively few are in hospital, and the serious cases are so few).
Better health/resistance of Scandinavians?
Lower genetic receptivity to the infection?
Older people, who are the ones dying, are more naturally socially separated in Scandinavia (e.g., higher percentage in old age facilties where they can be more easily isolated)?
Coronavirus in Scandinavia is somehow different (less severe) than in Southern Europe?
That may be true, but it says little about what percentage of that group required a hospital stay in the first place. What if it’s higher for Covid-19? In that case, it could have the same mortality but yet produce more deaths; 20% of a larger number is a larger number. Maybe that’s why Italy’s health system is being overwhelmed.
I think that’s possible.
Maybe this is true. But still, I wonder if there wasn’t a sampling bias here. By the time it began spreading outside of Hubei, at risk populations (elderly) may have begun to take precautions such as social distancing. This would have weighted infection cases to less at risk groups — those in greater need of travel or those more likely to be in large gatherings, such as the young. The result might be a decline in CFR not necessarily representative of the true value inherent to the pathogen in an open society, especially in one undergoing extreme quarantine measures. Although, that really depends upon to what extent and when quarantine went into effect, etc.
This is more of a lower bound. Of the ~696 confirmed cases, only 388 or so have recovered fully. So, roughly half. The upper bound here would be about 7 more deaths for a CFR in that cohort of around 2% (although I don’t expect it to go that high). In the general population, it might be less than 1% because a higher proportion of cruise ship passengers are older. Even at 0.5%, that’s still much higher than seasonal influenza.
RNA isn’t very stable. That’s one of the reasons why most viruses outside the host aren’t viable for more than a few days at best. Some are hardier, but many are not. The body also has various mechanisms to quickly eliminate it. Your skin, for example, exudes enzymes that will quickly degrade RNA samples. Experiment areas must be carefully disinfected when working with the stuff. I’d assume if your rt-PCR is detecting massive quantities of RNA in a patient sample, then there are probably infectious virions floating around. The technique is very sensitive. True, that’s more a rule of thumb and doesn’t necessarily hold in all circumstances, but it’s a good first guess.
Your assertion that many of them would have died anyway is materially false . . . There is obviously a huge surge of additional critical cases leading to deaths over and above the annual baseline
Whether this is a “real increase” over simply time-shifted a few months remains to be seen. In some ways an analogous situation may prove to be the “canicule” (heat wave) in France in August 2003 which was subsequently estimated to have been responsible for approximately 15,000 “extra” deaths of (almost entirely elderly) people in France:
https://www.inserm.fr/sites/default/files/2017-11/Inserm_RapportThematique_SurmortaliteCaniculeAout2003_RapportFinal.pdf
The annual death totals in France for the period 2000-2005:
2000 … 540,600
2001 … 541,000
2002 … 545,2000
2003 … 562,500 (Canicule: 15,000 excess deaths)
2004 … 519,500
2005 … 538,100
To the untrained eye it would appear that c.15,000 deaths were effectively “advanced” from 2004 to 2003, i.e. that 15,000 people had their lives shortened by one year. In fact, it may have been only a few months if the reduction in deaths in 2004 (relative to a “standard” year) occurred primarily in the earlier months of the year.
The comparison with 1994 Russia is not entirely correct. The high mortality rate there was largely a function of individual behavior. You could greatly reduce the chances of being murdered by staying away from thugs and especially by not drinking in the company of low IQ Gopniks. You could avoid dying of suicide by simply not killing yourself. You could avoid liver cirrhosis by not drinking too much. You could greatly reduce the risk of lung cancer by not smoking. Etc.
Covid-19 puts a much higher burden on you trying to avoid it, such high burden that it’s ultimately impossible to maintain in the long run.
Speak for yourself… Granny is 103 and still lives at home, feisty as ever.
My father just died at the age of 83. (not virus related) Some statistics, telling he lived quite long do not comfort me, regarding his life does. Anyway, measuring life by these statistics is meaningless. Never, so much lifetime was wasted as today. Endless education, BS jobs, “entertainment”. Risk is clearly tolerated less these days, safety everywhere. But lifetime is not valued.
What are the considerations from the article? Safety at all cost, mandatory vaccination, travel restrictions, surveillance. Strong central government. Personal freedom should be the first concern now. The timing of that “outbreak” is highly suspicious. Safety or freedom?
First sensible thing in this entire thread – although it could be clarified somewhat (e.g., the total number of infections – reported plus unreported – may be far higher than the official number).
Also, the last sentence gives the reader the possible impression that unreported cases reduce the mortality rate: it reduces the estimate of the mortality rate (I know that’s what you meant, but it’s a critical distinction).
.
Very slight symptoms in the vast vast majority of cases, means that in the earliest stages of the outbreak the vast vast majority of actually-infected individuals would not have sought medical care – and were therefore not identified as a potential starting point for spread, and were therefore a vector for transmission for the entire length of the infectious stage of their (unreported) case.
This being the case (it’s not remotely arguable that it’s not the case: the lack of ‘serious’ symptoms is an established fact)… the current estimates of the mortality rate are vastly vastly overstated.
.
And yet with all these unsequestered, asymptomatic-but-infected people swanning about… 1.3 billion Chinamen has generated ~80,000 cases and ~3000 deaths.
And a lot of those 80,000 diagnoses were not obtained by testing: they were obtained by a “checklist” approach (like AIDS in Africa, and pretty much any diagnosis from a psychocharlatan).
Bear in mind that the Chinese authorities did fuck-all for several weeks, during which time people were going about their business as normal (some of them with nothing worse than sniffles; some with coughs and headaches that they got over in a week).
The ‘whistleblower’ made his initial post on 30 Dec – having seen data on a cluster of 7 cases in his hospital and thinking that this was being covered up. Whether he was correct or not is irrelevant: the point is that for there to have been a ‘cluster’ identified as a novel, viral, respiratory illness must have taken a week or more.
Given that all 7 were symptomatic, were they the only cases in Wuhan (or in China) at the time? Why would anyone believe that to be the case?
I seem to recall that the initial cluster were workers at the wet market: is this the only such place in China?
What of the movements of other workers – including those who never exhibited symptoms? And go outwards from there… the numbers get very big very quickly if people are interacting and most people are asymptomatic.
Anyhow… January 20th – 3 weeks after Dr Li Wenliang’s chat message – China started to impose controls.
Notionally, Dr Li contracted the dose that killed him from an asymptomatic glaucoma patient (the 80-something woman displayed symptoms after her treatment). This happened in early January.
So in early January there were people carrying covid19 who were not identifiable as carriers – they were capable of transmitting the pathogen but didn’t have a fever. That is unlikely to have been something that just started happening the day before.
.
The only way to work out how widespread this thing actually is, would be to systematically test EVERYBODY – not just people who have symptoms of some form of respiratory illness.
Consider what it means if you only test people who are symptomatic (or you only test on small, relatively confined populations with a high probability of exposure and a high rate of underling comorbidities).
To take it outside the current hysteria, consider if you only did breast screens for women over 50 with gigantic lumps on their breasts, and then extrapolated the result to the whole population.
Your guess at the prevalence of breast cancer would be so ridiculously high that nobody would take you seriously.
And yet that’s what is happening with covid19.
As we know, though: most women don’t have breast cancer.
If the testing protocol focuses on ‘at risk’ groups, it guarantees two things: over-estimating prevalence, AND missing a very large proportion of people who actually have the condition.
Sounds counter-intuitive, but that’s how the number shake out.
.
So it can be taken either way: in large populations, either
① fuck-all people ever get infected and the worst-affected few percent die (that’s what the Chinese numbers look like; the Iranian numbers likewise); or…
② a very large number of people get infected but show no (or weak) symptoms, and fuck-all of them die.
.
② Is Just like ‘flu, “brah“, and is the correct answer to the question “What is actually happening?“;
If ① was true, it would be a poor basis for global hysteria (although hysterias seldom have or need ‘good’ bases). This is why we are told the correct answer is
③ a very large number get infected and the worst-affected few percent die.
③ is being cynically manipulated to get the following tropes into the heads of dimwitted imbeciles…
• “Listen to the experts”
• “Do as you’re told”
• “The situation is changing rapidly, so what you’re told might change rapidly – but continue to obey” and
• “We just have to shovel some wealth to our cronies for a while: turns out they’re not rich enough yet.”
https://twitter.com/DonnellyStephen/status/1238406716540293122
Reposting this graph I added to Steve’s blog. Interesting to see when Italy starts to peak, are they already?
If your 103 year old (transparent internet bullshit) granny is at home (also bullshit) and you are caring for her (more bullshit), then that is your business.
If however, you believe that endless amounts of public resources should be spent on maintaining her – because you have such an overwhelming commitment to human life – then I am sure that you are also very busy campaigning for that 20 mph national speed limit. Because every life is sacred, you know.
I find your arguments persuasive and would like to sign up for your newsletter.
Seems people who smoke have made themselves more vulnerable to the bug. They have done this despite 50 years of vigorous anti-smoking measures and propaganda.
They knew the risks. They rolled the dice. Now they should be sent to the end of the line and treated last.
We are in the dark about the state of this pandemic in the US.
Daughter (30) called and reported a high fever, hacking dry cough, squeezing feeling in her chest and shortness of breath. Told her to call the local hospital. She did. On hold for an hour, no one picked up. Hospital finally called back 6 hours later and asked about her symptoms. Told her she didn’t need to be tested (no sore throat). Her symptoms developed four or five days after she returned from a trip to California flying via LAX and Denver…
Screw you and your cynical bullshit.
Granny is 103 and lives at home. Two years ago we put caregivers in the home after she fell in the bathroom. And yes, to me every family member is sacred — Granny, father, mother, daughter and grand-daughters all matter to me. As far I’m concerned, you can play russian roulette with your family members all you want, but stay away from me and mine.
No kidding, last night I went into the bank and it looked like the place had been taken over by criminals. The customers were “unmasked” except for one Chinese gentleman. You are so busted Dude, I thought, obviously a secret agent sent to spread the virus and destroy our financial system. It turned he was just the owner of the local pizza shop making a deposit ! I also noted another customer hurriedly exiting the bank with a large black bag like Robert DeNiro in the movie HEAT. Given the media and blogger induced paranoia it was probably filled with toilet paper. Anyway, thankfully staff behind the counter and desks were all masked but it was a creepy surreal experience.
Good. I’m going outside for a smoke.
Very good work Anatoly.
Thanks!
It would be interesting to see how the whole situation plays out worldwide.
Just like in the Katastroika’s wake (a little hat tip to Zinoviev), I believe we might add the economic impact to the life expectancy drop.
“Deaths of despair” should rise in the West, in the developing world the break-up of global supply chains might wreak havoc, more so than COVID-19 itself.
Overall, worldwide demography should take a hit.
Well the cause doesn’t affect my point if there are indeed very different vaccination rates in different First World countries.
Great comments. Like all the other viruses that have floated around over the years be this one is being hyped up. The hype works precisely because of your remark #3 but it will die a natural death after everyone makes their money and the public gets bored. I mean if just 1B people get a shot costing $50 that is a whole lot of Yuan. Store owners also appear to be sneaking that extra markup on soaps and disinfectants and toilet paper. Y2K also comes to mind and I am sure that Aids /HIV continues to kill more people annually than this virus ever will. In the meantime I caution all nose pickers to leave those buggers alone and not report any unusually large specimens. It will only skew the statistics and increase the panic.
The current data is not accurate enough to support this.
Maybe you haven’t met some very old people. My mother’s youngest sister has just died at 101 and their male first cousin made it to 97, still playing tennis (serving underarm).
Four or five years ago I had a friend’s father to lunch during his annual visit (Premium Economy) to Australia and, noting that he didn’t need hearing aids or a walking stick, I said “John, you must be 98 now” and received the true reply (verified by public records of his 1930s sporting achievements) that he was 102. He has now died at 107.
KArlin has done a great job and should be commended for writing these extensive articles everyday continually beating this hoax oh I mean keeping us abreast of this pandemic. I found his graphs particularly useful and have sent them to Disney as they may come in useful in the design of their next roller coaster. Wheeeeeeeeeeeee !
I certainly hope so!
But would a drop in life expectancy be a bad thing?
Like the man on viriculture.com used to say, healthy life =/= long life. We work towards extending one’s lifespan, yet we don’t extend their “health span”. We just extend the period when one is already falling apart. The older you are, the more meds you need, the more healthcare you need etc etc.
So the longer the lifespan the bigger the load on healthcare and pension funds.
The main problem is, that our economic and cultural systems are at this point, 90% biologically incompatible with us. A good chunk of our lives we study (especially so when you study something like medicine, i believe at this point it’s for genuine masochists). By the time you get to a nice position in your career you’re probably going to be older than 35. For good birth rates etc that’s unnaceptable.
So, the solution is to extend the “health-span”. Preferably, you need to slow aging down at least by 10, maybe even 15 years, while keeping the overall lifespan the same. The current way is simply unsustainable
I’ve been following a few doctors on Youtube, for about a month now (dispassionate, evidence-based docs), and their opinions vary on how serious this is.
What I don’t is, if this is as contagious as they say (and it does seem to be) and as life-threatening as they say, then given that there are several cases in NYC, why are we not already seeing thousands of deaths there- a city where millions are crammed together daily, many without good hygiene, many who have been for several weeks now, using public transportation. I don’t get it. It would seem the effects of any virus that were as bad as they’re saying, would already be reaching peak zombie level conditions in places like NYC, Chicago, Boston, SF and DC.
Scratching my head.
You typify the average American, always putting yourself above the community.
Nobody really has any business living past the age of 75 in my opinion. People should retire at 65, enjoy 10 or so years in the sun and then move on to pastures new.
I don’t get why they don’t just let Corona spread, we are always hearing about the ‘ageing population’ and when the solution to this problem comes along, we try to stop it?
It’s 1, 3, 4, not 2, 5 and 6
The two most common symptoms are simply dry hacking cough and fever. By no means do all cases have a sore throat.
It is crazy to read that places in the US right now , as we are learning that the pandemic there is far more advanced than we thought, probably at pace with Europe, have such a crap testing game.
It is like here back in late Feb., when even people with symptoms who could also demonstrate contact with other covid19 cases had to fight for tests, were put on hold for hours when they called a special hotline, it was ridiculous. Patients without contact/travel but all the right symptoms were denied tests, told to go home and take an aspirin, because they did not meet criteria for testing. Then idiot people in the media were saying that Germany had only 18 infections and it was all great.
Anatoly, what do you mean by “intubated”? American Heritage Dictionary says: “To insert a tube into (a hollow organ or body passage).” Doesn’t make sense here. Was this a typo?
Aha! The perfect excuse for a one-world state. They should rename this the Globalist-virus.
Its pretty bad in Italy. Even if it doesn’t increase elderly death rates in the absolute(which I doubt), time compression will increase the stress on the system and cause secondary effects.
Pure bullshit.
The disease is man-made and weak.
Because it is man-made and weak, it is not the virus you must fear; it is the vaccine, with which they will inject a larger, live dose directly into your vein.
The panic is a combination of pre-planned collusion and monkey-see-monkey- do.
They’ve been attempting this nonsense for 40 years, but people didn’t have fear inducers in their hip pockets, during the “killer bee” era.
You have no friends on tell-a-vision.
Wash your hands, eat less, don’t smoke, and take vitamins.
A few old, sick people will die.
And most importantly; realize that the apocalyptic period began on 3/11/20, so FIND GOD.
……….End of Transmission………
Pessimistic as ever on the West while cheerleading for the “East”; what else is new, AK?
Its correct. He is referring to this, as one example:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/02/200228142018.htm
From what I’ve heard from doctors treating Coronavirus – many patients who survive due to life saving tracheal intubation still have unpleasant long term outcomes.
Intetesting: CV decreases IQ in those not showing symptoms, as well.
Good to know you have sociopathic tendencies, will make a note of it.
FWIW, Granny didn’t take any medications until she hit 99 and was diagnosed with high blood pressure. Since she is virtually never ill, and hates going to the doctor, no one knew about it.
Until you’ve reached a ripe old age, your take on what constitutes an upper limit age limit really doesn’t mean much. Perhaps, when it comes time, you’ll follow your own prescription and off yourself as a shining example to all us less enlightened beings. But, somehow, I doubt you’ll have the nerve.
I think you are a troll.
For The Thinkers Among Us..
http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/?p=203831
The American opiates crisis and the Russian 1990s crisis are akin … can anyone guess what the common denominator is?
“Its pretty bad in Italy.” – By what metric? How much of it because of hysteria?
Besides with Japanese NEETs, does this happen regularly?
https://wgntv.com/news/coronavirus/italian-woman-quarantined-with-husbands-body-for-30-hours-after-he-died-of-coronavirus/
And another one:
Thought it was the job of the dumbed-down MSM to spread hysterical stories about Corona, never dreamed UNZ.com would join the pack.
Bad working system. Human factor. Panic. Hysteria.
Exactly. We have to prevent the 75+ crowd from dying from this so they can die of something else within the next couple of years….why?
Measles R(0) = 18. Herd immunity kicks in at 90% resistant. Well established.
Covid-19 R(0) = 4 Herd immunity kicks in at 60% resistant. Calculation result seen today.
I guess 70% herd resistance discussed by Merkel signals a near death experience for Covid-19
Those under 60 who die, certainly under 50, are already unhealthy. If you are healthy and still concerned, do not board an automobile; it is too hazardous.
It is the duty of every healthy person under 40 not living with an over 60 year old to go out and get infected. The old and ill need to be sheltered until there are proven anti virals (Summer?) and vaccines (Christmas?). Maybe the Chinese will save us old folk and accelerate those schedules.
How come Chinese medicine is so well prepared? Were all those engineers who ran things married to doctors and nurses? Or is recouping R&D costs unecessary in the Chinese medical system.
Non woven vaccuum cleaner bags use the same material as N95(US)/FFP2 (world) if you want to make a respirator but if you are healthy it is better to catch it now. You will be more resistant to later more lethal mutations should they come.
At a 1/5 death rate, there is a 1/2 chance of one of Trump, Biden and Sanders dying if infected. There is a 1/3 chance of one of two presidential candidates over 70 dying if infected.
Welsh cases climbing at the established 33% a day.
I blame global warming. Bat population explosion!
Because not everyone over 75 has stopped contributing. For example US presidential candidates.
At a 1/5 death rate, there is a 1/2 chance of one of Trump, Biden and Sanders dying if infected. There is a 1/3 chance of one of two presidential candidates over 70 dying if infected.
In this age, people have the ability to choose their own version of reality and disseminate it widely.
I am guessing Unz is running these stories to get the America bad, China good angle in as this is obviously a US bioweapon and is totally not caused by Chinese eating wild animals that are stacked up in cages in open air markets while defecating and urinating on the animals below.
Construction-industrial complex. See also: ghost cities.
Unnecessary capacity is part and parcel of the system. Perhaps this time it was worth something.
All this is missing the point.
Sliwing the RATE of infections is what decreases the total number of deaths because of the aforementioned reason.
The virus is going to infect a sharfload of people whether measures are in place or not.
Few quotes from
https://www.thelancet.com/action/showPdf?pii=S0140-6736%2820%2930627-9
And age mortality profile
I doubt you will volunteer to suicide yourself if you reach 75 and still feel healthy. No, at that point you will find justifications for why it would then be a bad idea.
For the thinkers among us ?? Dude, you are addressing a very small percentage. I bet you are one of those optimists who truly believe that what goes on in most people’s heads is thinking. You got to stop rolling your weed in pages from Norman Vincent Peale’s books. When the media and Covid 19 bloggers and fanatics get going the reason and thinking flee and only panic and fear mongering remain to save the day
A good argument. The problem is that Italy had been taking the issue very lightly until it hit them (there was the case of that mayor going to a pub and urging others to do so – he now has the virus). So why no hysteria before, and such deadly mass hysteria now? This suggests that there must be at least a significant kernel of truth underlying the phenomenon.
It depends. How based and redpilled you are?
https://twitter.com/RmSalih/status/1238080437370699776
But wouldn’t it just be wiser to quarantine Granny rather than shut down society? She wasn’t going to march madness anyways.
Feb 23, 2020 Coronavirus Feb 18th #3 by Dr. John Bergman
https://youtu.be/u4oan1YfMVQ
Mar 12, 2020 CORONAVIRUS: THE PHARMA PANDEMIC
Has Big Pharma Primed us for a COVID Disaster?; ICAN’s CDC Lawsuit Under Attack; FOIAs Reveal Shocking behavior; ICAN’s Next Big Move.
https://youtu.be/TieuTQDhFm0
OK, us old farts dropping dead will be fabulous for the greater good. Just think social security trust. Here is the problem that most Americans aren’t considering. The average American under 55 crowd is mass consumers of pharmaceutical drugs. Doesn’t mean they have preexisting conditions going into this pandemic? Doesn’t that make them more likely susceptible for both getting the flu, but also dying?
I guess utu forgot where he read about pft’s plagiarism bust, but I believe ’twas I who pointed it out:
https://www.unz.com/isteve/arguably-wrong-potential-american-deaths-range-from-5k-to-5-million/#comment-3767706
Don’t blame you at all, but you don’t have to make that choice!
https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2020/03/breaking-weve-got-vaccine-says-pentagon-funded-company/163739/?oref=d-river
And it’s all thanks to DoD:
But it won’t be ready for actual people for 18 months.
Italy has done the worst approach of ignoring it and then hysteria. Strangely Trump seems to also approve that approach.
I think it is more or less addressed in the article.
The first set of age-specific mortality estimates is based on data from Diamond Princess, where 100% of people were tested.
From the abstract of the second study, which arrives at similar figures and was used in this post’s life expectancy calculations:
Watch the 2011 movie, “Contagion,” that has a nasty bug that starts in Hong Kong, rushes around the world, killing tens of millions…and was caused by a bat.
Amazing how Hollywood can dope those scenarios out!
I agree that this Corona is a US man-made bio-weapon, as its been called a ‘branch’ of Corona, and not the tree. In other words, it didn’t get there by itself.
Trumpy and his gang of WH thugs thought they’d hit China with their weaponized Corona and crash their economy, but China seems to be doing quite nicely, whereas the US stock market is headed for the ditch.
Don’t think Americans will like the taste of their own medicine.
Looks like Bolsonaro beat him to the punch.
https://twitter.com/akarlin88/status/1238479778669301760
Bat soup? Nah.
From Nature, November 16, 2015:
As I predicted this Bolsonaro turned out to be just another Israel firster zionist. I remember may people here saying instead how he would be a great for white interests… One can never be pro white if one is pro jew, there is simply no evidence for this (and obviously lots of evidence for the opposite).
I hope he falls in the 4% group.
This is very wrong.
They shut down the area 7 days after the first “4 unusual cases of pneumonia”
https://i.imgur.com/ObnnbXg.png
Pic from that article on medium “Why you must act now” (alias http://bit.ly/38EIQ2g )
Well, considering she doesn’t drive and rarely gets out anymore, she is already pretty much socially isolated in her own home. The most obvious ways she’s likely to be exposed are her caregivers (3 working alternating 12 hour shifts), and my parents (80s), who suffer from extreme normality bias (it just can’t happen here) and a belief the MSM (well, Fox at least) is trustworthy. They eat out every night these days, mostly at chain restaurants located just off the interstate. Funny thing is, my father is extremely afraid of dying, but doesn’t recognize Covid-19 as a personal threat. OTOH, he’s all jacked up about stock market gyrations…
Bat soup? Nah.
From Nature, November 16, 2015:
Things only just blew up in Finland & Scandinavia and you’ll be hearing a totally different story soon. All has gone to hell and the health care system is mostly irrelevant now as they’re just telling people to go home and take care of themselves. Case numbers are also becoming meaningless as they’ve largerly stopped testing people.
We had cases early on through Chinese tourists but that was contained with quarantines and travel blocks. So there’s a big time lag between the first cases and the epidemic going out of control now that people brought it in from Italy (with the governments doing nothing at all to prevent it). The Chinese tourists also mainly brought it to Lapland so it was handled by the tourist industry and the rednecks up there who still have some remnant of unpozzed government.
Now that it’s spreading in Helsinki, Stockholm, Oslo it’s all being handled by some of the most incompetent officials that you can find in any first world country. If anything good comes out of this crisis, it might prick the Nordic model bubble. People imagine that we still have good governance when the past few decades have been just one relentless march to poz singularity of promoting people solely on progressive ideological credentials. Acccess to health care is also not actually that good unless you have a lot of money or one of the prog idpol paths past the long queues.
Ok, so if you give this chimera virus to the virologist, would he say “that’s engineered!” or not notice anything abnormal?
The cost of doing nothing includes permanent vilification of those responsible, as happened with
Her Majesty’s Government during the Potato Famine of the 1840’s.
That graph of Italy I posted earlier showed that date of symptom onset has also plummeted and they are firmly on the other side of the peak. Obviously there is the lag of treatment and diagnosis but they could start removing the more extreme restrictions pretty soon. Given the limited number of deaths that is pretty encouraging.
Only losers with inferiority complexes hold grudges. Winners just move on to their next great achievement.
lol, as Bolsonaro was meeting with Trump last weekend 🙂 but I saw some quick denials also, so fog of virus war just gets thicker.
Thread on /r/coronavirus:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Coronavirus/comments/fhy247/coronavirus_could_cause_a_25_year_drop_in_us_life/
Now that they’re facing the problem, Americans will have to temporarily cool it on the Venezuela toilet paper shortage jokes. This epidemic, which is relatively minor compared to many historical epidemics, shows liberalism is much less robust than its fans have claimed.
For the people claiming panic is more of a danger than the virus itself, that’s bad news because the amount of panic is going to increase dramatically. Imagine if someone important, like a head of state, dies of this.
I’m more concerned about long-term effects of the virus than panic however. Regardless of the number of deaths, many survivors could be looking at a permanent reduction in quality of life.
I don’t expect we will learn anything from this and the narrative will be that nothing could have been done. The British government, who hasn’t been right about hardly anything important for over 100 years, has already accepted that narrative.
Of course old farts sacrificing themselves and dropping dead to “save” social security is a good idea, as long as you’re not an old fart…
It’s funny, whenever I go to the doctor these days (and that’s as rarely as possible), it’s considered remarkable that I am not taking any prescribed or OTC daily “medications”.
Things only just blew up in Finland & Scandinavia and you’ll be hearing a totally different story soon.
So cases are starting to go up dramatically, right? But why are deaths still so stubbornly low. In terms of number of cases, Scandinavia (+ Iceland) is today where China was on 26 January (around 2,600). But at that point China had 80 deaths, while Scandinavian deaths are 2 (0.08% of reported cases).
Similarly, Scandinavia is today where Italy was on 3 March, but on that date Italy had 79 deaths.
Third example: Scandinavia has more cases today than Spain on 11 March, but on that date Spain had 55 deaths.
So it seems to me that even if the number of cases in Scandinavia is skyrocketing, it is not certain (yet) that the number of deaths will.
Fans: “Liberalism is robust”
Corona-Chan. “Hold my beer”
Couldn’t be avoided. Well’ it’s just coming a bit earlier.
One of the news items that spooked me early on was the death of Li Wenliang, the so called whistleblower. He’s young & healthy, and, based on what people know about communist and Chinese mentality, nobody in China wanted to see him die. That is to say, the best med care must have been provided, and yet he died. So, a lot depends on luck.
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/coronavirus-outbreak-diamond-princess-cruise-ship-death-rate
A more optimistic estimate.
Hopefully your parents at least wash their hands before getting near Granny and avoid hacking near her face.
The whole thing is BS. This is an engineered crisis. https://www.globalresearch.ca/coronavirus-causes-effects-real-danger-agenda-id2020/5706153 https://www.mintpressnews.com/us-intelligence-unsettling-role-classified-9-11-like-coronavirus-response/265687/ https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/03/no_author/virus-fearmongerers-prevail/ https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2020/03/12/fake-news-starts-in-washington-perception-management-and-influence-operations-manipulate-public-opinion/
I keep changing my mind about this thing. I would say it’s probably somewhere in the middle. It couldn’t hurt to put a dent in the regular flu season to be honest.
The feature which will decrease aerial distance and time spread of virus in waterdroplets, is high absolute humidity levels (not high relative humidity levels). High absolute humidity levels require high air temperatures.
Places like Houston of Texas is just South of the latitudes where we have seen community spread of COVID-19, so far. And arrival is more than 1 months later. So we might expect there will be comparatively less aerial spread of COVD-19 in Houston Texas already now, and this will increase in the next months.
“To date, Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by SARS-CoV-2, has established significant community spread in cities and regions only along a narrow east west distribution roughly along the 30-50 N” corridor at consistently similar weather patterns (5-11 degrees C and 47-79% humidity).”
(My comment – this discussing high relative humidity. Studies show that both high and low relative humidity can support airborne virus spread. However, high absolute humidity is monotonic decreasing airborne virus spread.)
Here are some cities they identify as vulnerable to COVID-19 epidemics in the next few weeks.
https://i.imgur.com/Z6d0ELd.jpg
“Given the temporal spread among areas with similar temperature and latitude, some predictions can tentatively be made about the potential community spread of COVID-19 in the coming weeks.”
“Using 2019 temperature data for March and April, risk of community spread could be predicted to affect areas just north of the current areas at risk (Figure 3). These could include (from East to West) Manchuria, Central Asia, the Caucuses, Eastern Europe, Central Europe, the British Isles, the Northeastern and Midwestern United States, and British Columbia. ”
^ So the vulnerable areas for the epidemic are listed at the end of the study.
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3550308
Identified infected people in these countries (Sweden) are mostly strong, younger and active demographics who returned from holidays in Italy.
When community spread begins to older people in the country, and the disease has time to develop in those vulnerable populations (the second week after the infection is when this infection usually becomes dangerous), then death numbers will go upwards. Fatality rates will be significantly higher if there are lack of hospital spaces and ventilators for patients who are in trouble.
In Italy and Iran, a spread of virus has happened undetected for some time, and we are now seeing the delayed effects. People who are dying now are perhaps victims of infected people who arrived in the country more than a month ago.
Probably not if the bioengineering is done with finesse. You find a known virus in nature (in the database of known viruses) that requires minimum number of modifications to obtain the desired gain of function. Furthermore you can create intermediate stage viruses and introduce them into the nature (some animals) and then have your trusted scientists to discover them and upload them to the database of known viruses. So when the culprit virus is identified during the epidemic and cross checked against what is in the database it may appear as it is a product of natural random mutations from its known precursors.
Hysteria about covid-19 reached the climax.
Actually I would not mind when it hits also the creators of this plot hard.
But there are testing restrictions for the chosen one. They are happy to print money to get even better dept slaves to create a brave new world of blackmail receivers.
One very important thing is missed in all this articles ..the clear definition of the disease and about what exactly is the cause of death!
Remember: there where 40 different disease listed as a result of AIDS! What a joke!
So if a person had one of these disease and have been tested HIV positive and died, it was listed as a cause of AIDS
There is a disease called chronical lung fibrosis. which is not caused by any Virus. But the acute lung fibrosis combined with influenca fewer…takes millions of victims worldwide every year.
Since AIDS we have a second variation of acute lung fibrosis: Triggered by a negative placebo, an antibody test about a new virus branded as “deathly”!
Here is a sentence from a “top” Taiwan Virologist from:
https://www.globalresearch.ca/china-coronavirus-shocking-update/5705196
“The Virologist further stated that the US has recently had more than 200 “pulmonary fibrosis” cases that resulted in death due to patients’ inability to breathe, but whose conditions and symptoms could not be explained by pulmonary fibrosis.”
(Imho..the second variation of acute lung fibrosis as exposed above!!)
I do not want to sound arrogant, but I have studied this phenomens for more then 40 years by my work as a breathing therapist, and yes, I created and teached breathing techniques who easily overcome the problems created by a negative placebo such as the HIV tests…if tested positive!
Proud to be fake news generator?
Not if you isolate the infected. Wuhan proved that conclusively.
If anything, this coronastuff is also a great experiment in how easy it is to command the sheeple, I mean, the people. In the undisclosed place where I am currently staying, all was normal, people were basically ignoring it until yesterday, then school closures and other measures were ordered, then suddenly there’s lines in the supermarket, events cancelled, people don’t go out, etc. And there’s not a single official case in this particular city as far as I know.
It is certainly interesting, from a mass psychological point of view. Anyway, I think I have enough supplies for a few weeks, but after that, we’ll see. As long as people don’t start turning into zombies, I think it will be OK.
Those numbers of tests performed seem ridiculous. Since the symptoms of Corona virus are similar to those of the cold and influenza, everyone who exhibits these symptoms should be tested, as how will we know who is suffering from what.
On another note, if this virus kills off the elderly in Europe and US, the proportion of immigrants and Muslims in the population will jump, as it is the indigenous whites that are most represented among the aged.
(If anything, this coronastuff is also a great experiment in how easy it is to command the sheeple)—-> (I have enough supplies for a few weeks)
Thanks. Good example.
The HIV is a curious virus because people don’t die from HIV/AIDS, but from other “opportunist” diseases. Of course, in theory the HIV virus weakens the immune system and that’s why people die… But there are also theories that the main cause is not the virus itself but the lifestyle (anal sex, drugs, etc). Who knows?
About the coronavirus, I think the main cause of death seem to be a form of pneumonia. But the funny thing is that, some people are identified to have pneumonia by CT-scans, and then they are considered to have “COVID-19”, but what they have been actually diagnosed with is pneumonia (perhaps by other causes?).
According to this paper, the other more common COVID-19 test (throat swab samples) has only a ~70% percent reliability. But that was back in February 26, so I don’t know now.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/02/200226151951.htm
I see what you did there, but, I had already purchased those before. 😉 Mostly because I hate long lines at the supermarket.
Do you really trust the Bozos reporting this stuff, anymore than you trust “the Government”?
Trump may be the President, but thanks to decades of Leftist/Jew occupation/infiltration, the real government of most Western nations is largely an unseen entity.
Anatoly and the rest of the haters of the West need to understand that reports of our impending demise have been greatly exaggerated.
It’s known as gaslighting.
and genes.
AK: Could you use “blockquote” (or italics) for quoting? Thanks.
And how much time do Texans spend outside their freezing offices, malls, restaurants and places of entertainment? Not much I would have thought.
Perhaps it is time to change ingrained habits in the interests of public health.
https://previews.123rf.com/images/trongnguyen/trongnguyen2001/trongnguyen200103228/138307916-grapevine-texas-us-nov-29-2019-crowded-of-diverse-people-shoppers-at-grapevine-mills-mall-during-bla.jpg
I want to mention the first official report on state television of the virus was on December 31. The Western media does not want to acknowledge the first report was quite early because it would derail the cover up narrative. A widely read WSJ story reconstructing the timeline in December and January even entirely omits this event!
Many things were done wrong in January. Communication was poor with the WHO in the first 2 weeks. Repeated claims were made of no evidence of human to human transmission until January 20. But people generally assumed that it could be transmitted human to human even without official confirmation. As we have seen in Italy and now pretty soon in Spain, the real challenge of this virus was not shoddy government supplied information but the surge of the virus. It suddenly barrels out of control and overwhelms hospitals in a matter of days.
However,unlike what the Western media would have you believe, there was no cover up, which I define to mean completely shutting out information for an extended period. The police warning to the eight doctors for social media messages warning about a SARS like virus occurred on December 30. This accelerated public disclosure because on December 30 public health authorities in Wuhan announced the virus on social media.
Do you know who Matt Forney is?
You should not even have answered.
The coronavirus pneumonia tends to be radiologically weird from normal pneumonias, per my board certified college roommate.
The most prevalent ‘conspiracy theory’ as of now seems to be that the virus escaped from the Wuhan lab, it is interesting to note the Chinese official who tabled the suggestion that the US World Military Games team brought the virus to China, were the anti-China theories reaching such an intensity that he had to go on the offensive?
It is interesting to note that the PR image that China has been carefully cultivating is in tatters now as people covertly or overtly ridicule their culture in regards to wet markets. The US bioweapon angle does have some credibility to it I suppose, but none of that matters as the majority of Westerners prefer to place the blame on China.
If you live long enough, you will die of a Chinese virus. I hope cheap iPhone 3’s, Walmart crap, and Panda Express were worth trading for years of life. FU Joe Biden and Bill Clinton.
Anglos just letting the virus happen is the most Anglo thing imaginable.
Just think of all the creepy Anglos who have talked about thinning the herd with viruses or that if they were reincarnated they would come back as a virus.
This is ultimately an impractical idea. If you thought the resistance to vaccines to children was an issue (even though for argument sakes 1 in 100,000 comes down with some disease/autism due to the antibiotics messing up the a kid’s biome which in rare cases has been found to be linked to autism), this is going to encounter massive resistance.
Firstly scientists are not sure why kids are not as impacted as adults so far. There are various theories as to why but as a parent I won’t offer my child to purposely be infected just on a theory. Even flu vaccines have side effects to kids: let alone an unknown coronavirus. It is in some sense as bad as saying let the elderly die so that hospitals can focus on more “productive” members of society. At the least various cultures will have to decide what their value systems are. (I am sure Sparta would have had no problem containing this. Kill any who look like they have it.)
What China did – locking down at different levels based on severity, so Wuhan was locked down at the neighborhood level (over 9000), at the level of the city and then the province and also focused on other clusters – did and can work. Outside Hubei – 1.3 billion, only around 200 died and they flattened the hell out of the curve. That’s what needs to be done.
I think the worst thing about the virus is that our hospitals aren’t prepared to deal with the circus. But will they learn and be better prepared in the future or just shut down society, no big deal?
Why did you post that Karlin was blocked in the UK? Which site?
“In the event that I am reincarnated, I would like to return as a deadly virus, to contribute something to solving overpopulation.” – Prince Philip, 1988
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2009/jun/21/quotes-by-prince-philip
The coronavirus was created by the Mossad and the CIA and MI6 as a bioweapon attack on China and Russia and Iran and I hope it backfires on these satanic bastards!
From an Angeleno, good point, bra.
Deport the illegal aliens and imprison their rich disloyal Elite employers. Eliminate anyone in both groups who resists. Including newsom and Garcetti. To the extent allowed by the law, of course, changing the law first as needed.
As for the noncitizen homeless, they should all be deported or eliminated.
As for US Citizen homeless, they should all be removed forcibly from our streets and helped or punished according to their situation. Many should be institutionalized or incarcerated, with the remainder given safe clean housing, full medical care, drug rehab, and a clear directive to stay off the streets and not harass people / panhandle / expose themselves / disrupt the peace or block sidewalks or be promptly dragged off and jailed.
You’re sick. Your relatives should fear you if you’re serious.
I feel like the Shah would have handled the situation in Iran much better. During his party in the desert celebrating the 2,500 year anniversary of the Persian Empire, he closed the borders and the schools. And he wasn’t afraid to spend big.
Of course, it may be that his son would have been a weaker leader.
Are these guys also (((reptiloids)))?
Lots of curious assumptions. The Boeing 737 MAX inference is a logical fail. Which goes without saying on the Unz review. Nevertheless this essay does say a lot because (as usual) it doesn’t say much of anything at all past the usual derisions.
The pandemic has morphed into a massive psychological operation beyond what most people are routinely exposed to.
Yep….
So far works perfectly. Masses, in West, ARE in panic mode.
Any idea what’s the real intention behind it?
Mar 12, 2020 CORONAVIRUS: THE PHARMA PANDEMIC
Has Big Pharma Primed us for a COVID Disaster?; ICAN’s CDC Lawsuit Under Attack; FOIAs Reveal Shocking behavior; ICAN’s Next Big Move.
https://youtu.be/TieuTQDhFm0
NWO. And whatever comes with it.
Also in China, there is a large audience of Voice of America and Radio Free Asia. So, even though they are not “official” channels, the fact is many Chinese were in the know around Jan 1st. But people were simply not sure about its seriousness. After all, over the years, there were a number of this and that virus flu happening, virtually all of them were pretty localized, small damage events.
More regrettable is that the two expert groups sent by China CDC were also not sure about its seriousness until too late. In hindsight, the game theoretic mechanism design of China CDC (vs local government) is probably no good. And local personnel arrangements in key positions were also pretty bad.
The wet markets simply reflect the “developing” nature of a developing country. That is to say, the majority of the world can hardly laugh at it wholeheartedly.
And, what really matters, is how the world comes through the current situation. The CCP so far managed to pull the country back from a Chernobyl kind of disaster, but the economy is still hanging. The blame game is really just small potatoes.
BTW transport of goods To Europe was not cut off (that was Trump misspeaking either by adding a “not” or not adding another “not” to make a double negative.
On the price of a human life: very frankly it is whatever that society puts on it based on the cause of death. For example, in the US, there would be great resistance to taking away guns/decreasing speed limits/limiting soda cup sizes/mandatory self-isolation in case of the Flu all of which can save significant life. In these cases lives are “cheap”.
This is an election year in the US. Every COVID-19 death is a boon for the Democrats, blow to Trump like it would be in a terrorist attack. Similarly for drop in stock market / growth. The Trump admin has to thread the needle to make sure deaths are contained (esp as compared to Europe) while not cratering economically till November.
Long story short: the price of a life is not fixed. A 90 year old dying of poverty has zero value to Americans. A 90 year old dying of Coronavirus is worth a lot.
Two big wildcards in this:-
What are the long-term effects to health after so called recovery?, being 25, infertile and left with the lungs of an 80-year-old with emphysema (as some suggest) is not much to live for.
Immunity – does it happen? Or do those already weakened by the first strike get it again and again each year until it kills them?
I presume the author is suggesting the seasonal permanence of COVID19 comes from it mutating into multiple forms since a vaccine seams a sure thing in 12-18months?
This is turning into WWTP or World War Toilet Paper.
Beavis was ahead of his time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHv2dIM3t9I
Well….I was/am hoping for a bit more specific answer.
So far the execution of the agenda has been just annoying.
I guess we are, still, in the testing phase. Round of panic input, round of squeeze.
Now, “they” have touched a bit of circuses but, still, not breads, really. THAT is what will, IMHO, literally make or break the exercise.
I have a vague feeling “they” are on the clock here. That makes all this a bit dangerous, but, at the same time, promising.
I mean, for ages “we” have been waiting for SHTF scenario. Well….could be coming within months now.
Looking at the ‘alt’ sphere doesn’t look promising. True, most writers are retirees, and breads are still OK.
Interesting times.
There’s a third possibility you’re not accounting for: the US military doesn’t give a shit about its’ troops, and will expose them to huge risk for no reason other than pride, stupidity, or greed.
For a very short list:
Agent Orange
Open air nuclear testing on soldiers
Depleted uranium shells
UCP Camo (selected despite being the worst performing camo in their own tests)
Original Bradley design
Humvee design
Toxic waste on Army bases
VA medical system
But they keep working on the PR:
so far, Anatoly has at least proven Steven Pinker wrong about one thing.
https://imgur.com/a/56y5JdK
I believe it is way,,, way too early to crunch the numbers in any meaningful way. We have no clue as to how many have had CV and got over it without seeing the doctor. The Center for Deception Control (CDC) outrageously lies about the flu numbers. Who’s to say they are not lying here. Also from what I read, the test kits are notoriously unreliable giving a false positive 49% of the time.
Also sending samples to only one recipient (CDC) is asking for trouble. One test kit (CDC) again is asking for trouble. Using numbers doled out by one source (CDC) is more trouble as it could easily skew numbers to indicate an agenda.
Remember the Measles ‘epidemic’ that didn’t get traction. Remember the media doing the same with it as they are doing with CV. Remember SARS, Ebola, Hong Kong Flu. Well somehow they managed to get traction with CV. I think it is the Stock Market controlled crash that changed peoples view. Even sites that claim never to trust government are following along like poodles.
Trusting government numbers whether it’s CDC, WHO or BLS can be hazardous to your health.
CNN is highly incentivized to shout every new death from the rooftops. this virus is literally divine intervention from god for the Democrats, who are going to use their near total control of television media to create as much hysteria as possible. after throwing everything and the kitchen sink at Trump for 3 years, sheer total luck is what could knock him out of office. ironically, a virus from China, a country which Trump specifically campaigned against – correctly.
so, unless CNN starts reporting a lot more deaths soon, we might begin to figure that the fatality rate is lower than 1% in the US at least.
Lady Corona is a harsh mistress.
But no, the rest of the West isn’t “set to join” northern Italy. The outbreak there was due to Chinese textile/leather workers from Wuhan, all living in the same apartment buildings, returning from visiting Wuhan and bringing the virus with them. It was a massive influx of cases in a short time. That is not the case anywhere else, and other countries are taking increasingly strong measures.
I think that we must have different definitions of “contributing”.
Nothing says “Illuminati Hoax” like the fact that Tom Hanks says he has it.
If he really had it, you can be sure there would also be lots of dead kids in his vicinity.
When the media and Covid 19 bloggers and fanatics get going the reason and thinking flee and only panic and fear mongering remain to save the day
Uhhhh…Pretty sure that is what the body of the article I linked to had to say.
Here’s one that “splains it all a lil’ clearer”. The illness in China had many, many causes, of which CV19 was probably only one of those causes.
https://www.henrymakow.com/2020/03/Telomeric-Poisoning-Exacerbates-Coronavirus.html
P.S. – Nothing but Zig-Zags here bro, we may be po, but we ain’t ghetto…
Where by “winners” you mean “sociopaths” and by “great achievement” you mean “victim”?
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-italy-scientists-idUSKBN20Y35B
Why does everything needs to be PR?
I sent 2000 masks to my friends in Italy. Think about what you can do.
??? In this article, AK talks about the whole thing as SP – the virus does not care about borders.
But all their efforts would be in vain if just a few (or even one) defeatist, incompetent, or plain stupidly-run countries decline to take the necessary steps, and thereby cut two years off global life expectancy into the indefinite future.
How you treat epidemic is not your “internal affair”. If some third world shithole countries leave the disease run wild, they will be source of infection for the whole world, for forever.
What should the civilized world do? Build high beautiful walls around US and UK and guard them permanently, or use more … proactive approach?
Thanks for your replay!
I had one client 1980 who was in the gay scene in NY all the seventies with symptoms later identified as AIDS symptoms. He died 1984 and was one of the first “AIDS victims. One of the favorite drug which was used in the Gay saunas / dark rooms was poppers…”Inhaling nitrites relaxes smooth muscles throughout the body, as well as sphincter muscles of the anus and the vagina”. My client told me that somtimes he had 5 or more sexual contacts an afternoon, sniffing poppers before the act. I by myself had accidentally only one experience with poppers in Spain 1972 directly on the dancefloor of a disco and thought: what a stupid drug! No psychedelic effect, just feeling smooth and a physical heat through the body.
Serial use of poppers can lead to Kaposi sarcoma and damage of brain and nerv system. The mysterious death of gay people in NY and San Francisco could be easily explained. But then Montagnier / Gallo discovered a new HI-Virus and created a theory of correlation by testing the antibodies of those gay people….telling them they catched a new deadly virus by sex with someone wo had the virus already.
As I mentioned in my previous comment: there is a type of pneumonia which is not related to a virus….called lung or pulmonary fibrosis.
But panic and fear after been tested HIV or Covid-19 positive leads often to an acute lung fibrosis by permanent hyperventilation. On the endstadium those people cannot open the lungs anymore because of the growing contraction and shrinking of the alveolus. This is an energy transformation / breathing technique problem and not the result of a deadly virus.
So if you make a Covid-19 test with a person having a bad flu and the test is positive, then you might see a quick dead…especially if the people think its a weaponised, deadly virus + the horror of isolation tents.
Stupidly IRGC commander Salami menioned this theory of a weaponised Virus. Such a message is a negative placebo for old people anywhere who have a flu and got tested positive.
This is a criminal coup against all nations by the big pharma and Vaccination Pope Bill Gates! A very evil attack of the deep state … Trump knows it…and the msm is screeching.
I assume you mean surgical masks.
And The Donald continues doing his work.
https://twitter.com/ddale8/status/1238554065170243584
https://pics.me.me/excuse-me-sir-do-you-have-a-moment-to-talkabout-32523482.png
It also gives a little bit of support to Zhao Lijian’s crazy tweets. I mean, if Italy can get it from Germany while Germany having a more restrained and delayed development, what says that Wuhan cannot get it from somewhere else? Also, if summer dampens the virulence of this virus, who says the whole show must have started in Wuhan in Nov? It might as well have started in last summer right? Personally I think it is just crazy. One interesting question is: Does this guy read unz.com?
I always find this notion that China, or more accurately, the CCP does anything like PR let alone “carefully cultivate” to be hilariously stupid. Perhaps once, before Xi, there was a faction in the Party that actually cared for it enough to make an effort but by and large you’re only going to see the most hamfisted gestures because they neither understand the West nor put a huge priority on it given more pressing concerns.
https://twitter.com/qin_duke/status/1238504642541244416
The Party these days instead is dealing with endless spam of Xi Jinping thought, the “dove” faction of the CCP has long since been driven out of existence, and the main consideration of Chinese policymaking is domestic politics.
When China goes out and demands an apology for “the feelings hurt of a billion Chinese people” in one of their typical autistic gestures, it is to try to demonstrate to an internal audience that they “get respect.” Same as when China endlessly promotes the notion of “rise from humiliation.”
But no, your average CCP member probably spends far more of his time and energy thinking about how to sing Xi Jinping thought and thus intensely parochial concerns over anything international. And as a result, there isn’t much “PR” and what there is, is terrible and stupid because it just isn’t something they put much effort or energy into, especially toward Western audiences.
If China’s achievement at containment is as reported, then the decision of the the US, Britain and Canada to let the virus run through the population, cannot be a matter of unavoidable necessity but, rather, it would seem, a decision based on economic considerations.
A result of the decision, Boris Johnson has announced, is that many families will lose an elderly loved one. This seems like a blunt declaration of “fuck-you boomer,” and an acknowledgement of the abandonment of the moral tradition of the West. But then coming from Boris Johnson, who has announced the pregnancy of his current girl friend before completing the divorce of his current wife, that’s not something to be surprised at, I suppose.
You don’t know that. And the fact that the virus has now infected and is likely to kill many more in the West than in China, makes your claim seems unlikely, although admittedly it is not impossible, given the general stupidity and depravity of Western leadership.
Ive seen some people suggest that this is currently the case but I think that people that suggest this are usually projecting their own desires with regards to china. Will this whole corona-virus thing damage china’s PR image? definitely. Will it be lasting? Most likely not. You seriously overestimate how much people care, after a few news cycles the whole china corona-virus thing will literally be a thing of the past.
More importantly is the fact that this whole corona virus thing will not isolate china like china-hawks are hoping it will and the reason why is because there are far too many people who stand to make lots of $$$ by working with china. Oh so there are some nationalist countries who don’t want to work with china anymore? Thats fine, there are plenty of other countries that are willing to step up and take their place instead. Put simply, talk is cheap, nationalist ideology will largely go out the window when it comes to greed and the desire to make a profit. The relatively small proportion of right wing people who want to see china isolated by a rising wave of nationalist sentiment largely overestimate the fickleness and unreliability of the masses. The alt-right pipe dream of china becoming an international leper after all this blows over is just that, a pipe dream.
Ive seen far too many commenters (both here and in other places) who genuinely think that the corona virus incident is going to make people seriously question globalization and immigration. I hate to say it but the only people that will be drawing that conclusion will be people who already think that way. “Normies” are not going to draw that conclusion because they are either indifferent to it or they already accept globalization and immigration as a foregone conclusion and it wouldn’t occur to them to question it. To them, the whole corona virus thing will simply be understood as one of those things that happens, like natural disasters, global warming, etc etc; the corona virus incident isn’t going to cause them to seriously question anything. The alt-right drastically overestimates how much people care, about anything
on an unrelated note, does anyone else feel like its pretty significant that the chinese have publicly signed off on the conspiracy theory of the US being the origin of the corona virus?
https://www.businessinsider.com/chinese-official-says-us-army-maybe-brought-coronavirus-to-wuhan-2020-3
The fact that the chinese government has apparently given this theory the green light is pretty shocking. I always imagine the CCP as being extremely careful when it comes to stuff like this, therefore the fact that they went public with it is a pretty big deal. What this implies is that perhaps the CCP actually has some credible evidence to back up their claims, if they didn’t then they wouldn’t dare take a chance of losing massive face by spreading a blatantly untrue conspiracy theory.
IMO I think that the CCP may actually have some credible evidence to back up their claim and at this point in time it wouldn’t surprise me if maybe they are forcing the US behind closed doors to give some concessions in return for allowing the US to claim that the whole corona virus thing was an accident and not a deliberate act of biological warfare. If this is indeed the case then china does have the US by the short and curlies. That being said, im still equally open to the possibility that maybe the whole corona virus incident was a chinese fuck up from the getgo and maybe this is just a really hamhanded attempt at counter-propaganda, but that just seems so unlikely given how cautious the CCP would normally be when it comes to something like this.
There were many undiagnosed cases in China initially.
i have heard reports of 40% mortality rates amongst 60-70 year olds in Italy. Any idea if these are true?
We Americans didn’t do a damn thing and you have no evidence otherwise (and yes, I’ve read the many assertions here at Sinophile Central, but as of yet, still nothing other than “The U.S. did it cause I say so!”).
China is the one that has sent us children’s toys coated with lead paint. China is the one that has sent us defective insulin. China is the one that sends us Fentanyl. I would say that the Chinese are getting a taste of their own medicine. They are doing the very opposite of “quite nicely,” no matter what your fevered leftwing fantasies tell you.
It shows how sick some people here are. The godless, communist, psychopathic Chinese screw the pooch, and we get yet another rendition of It’s all Americas’ Fault, sung in the key of dickhead minor.
The virus probably will soon be extinct in China and become as American as apple pie.
The Brazilian government blocked me from sending 600,000 masks N95F mask to China four weeks ago. A lot of other single use supplies too.
Concerning the avoidable deaths due to the US decision to let the virus run through the population, Moon of Alabama cites the NY Times:
That’s versus 3177 so far reported deaths in China.
Gosh, you seem to know pretty much everything.
Wuhan is among China’s most developed areas. There is really no excuse for the local government to allow the existence of wet market over there after SARS, although the event itself was a natural disaster.
Your guess is as good as mine:
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/italy/
The death rate today of closed cases was 40 percent, but that’s all ages. I’m guessing most of that is significantly above 60.
Nah. It was made by the Chinese, who have most of the current cases, and it will recur. Time to quarantine the Sick Man of Asia for at least a decade.
The best thing they can do is controlled deflation of the financial markets until Corona is under control.
Hyperinflating the dollar to worthlessness in a meaningless attempt to keep asset prices artificially high is the absolute worst course of action and will lead to mass civil unrest, possibly worse.
Expect a big push for a cashless society, some type of social credit system similar to what Beijing has implemented, curfews, and much tighter tracking of your physical movement.
What interests me is the fact that this was a particularly deadly flu season in America. It very easily could have been the more restrained S type corona virus in America that was circulating.
And then the L strain emerged in China either by accident or on purpose.
You should relocate to Russia for now. I don’t think Boris is good for your health.
There is all kinds of signaling from each side.
First was how quickly and decisively China acted once they realized what they were dealing with. They acted like this was a bioweapon from the get go.
They would not cooperate with American virologists for instance.
Next on the US side, is the reluctance to test. Why is that when they know they will look bad for jot testing. What does America have to hide?
Lastly, the US held secret meetings that excluded infectious control civilians because China was a topic of concern. Why would that matter unless this was being viewed as an act if war?
The laws of unintended consequences and of Karmic retribution are always at work.
GIGO
When washing hands, your doctor is probably not a good role model. He or she might well be cavalier, and even defiant, as to technique. In the MSM, they state the time duration. They say to be vigorous. They say to use soap and water. (Who would otherwise wash his hands without water?). They don’t mention technique, because the proper technique is at odds with what doctors regularly do. The proper method: Do not ignore the thumbs, and the spaces between the fingers, and the backs of the hands, and under the fingernails. Things everyone already knows, but just in case: Timing: 20 seconds; hum the “happy birthday” song twice. Turn off the sink with a paper towel. Use the doorknob with a paper towel, not your clean hands.
I am not color-blind and I can’t follow the graphs.
‘
I don’t see any green lines.
And it is impossible to distinguish the dark gray from the black.
There are so many colors to choose from in the real world.
What is the problem? No colors in your software?
Kim may have a hard edge , but is basically correct. This virus is most dangerous to the elderly. If you are under 50, lead a normal life (and driving past bars and restaurants in my area suggests that is exactly what people are doing). If you are older and have compromised health perhaps you should self quarantine.
Sorry, but vast majority of people under fifty are going to live thru this without having to visit the hospital if people would stop the hysteria. Some nutter/poster talked about his 30 year old daughter being put on hold at a hospital for an hour and receiving a call back six hours later. In normal times how many normal 30 years call a hospital because they have a fever and cough? How many would hang up the phone and go to a wellness center or just take some meds/vitamins and curl up on the couch and feel better in 3 days. No, Unz has helped make everyone panic. I have a cough, I’m gonna die! No, you have 99.7% chance of recovering stop freaking out.
Is it?
The Romans and other European societies would leave unwanted/unplanned children outside to perish from exposure because they believed that they could not support those new arrivals.
https://www.thoughtco.com/roman-exposure-of-infants-118370
I betcha neither of those things is true, you communist sonovabitch.
Unsubstantiated rumor time: Trump has tested positive for Corona Virus. The guy who tweeted this says he has a source privy to this kind of info and Trump is getting a second test.
https://twitter.com/StandardOrder/status/1238227296026267648?s=20
The stock market went up a thousand points today, smart guy. You got any more expert predictions?
They ain’t callin’ it the boomer remover for nothin’
https://twitter.com/JSCCounterPunch/status/1238537794433060864
https://twitter.com/NickKristof/status/1238618948272259073
Anatoly! You’ve been gone too long, my friend. A far different world than when last you published!
So, I’m down in Tampa, a family member is tied up in ICU for two weeks, they’re swabbing the foreheads of visitors, checking eyeballs for jaundice and temperature before allowing entry to the hospital.
How’s every little thing in your world? When you disappear, we worry. You cannot possibly be out of material? I mean, this shit here writes itself! Be well, young man.
As to the use of the frightening elderly statistics– they are skewed because of the amount of smoking in China by Men– elderly men over 80 who are dedicated smokers. The disease kills these people– this fact skews the data and doesn’t make it applicable to countries where smoking is not so encouraged and part of life as it is in China for men and especially older men:
https://www.advisory.com/daily-briefing/2020/02/25/men-coronavirus
Trump biggest liar on earth: Nasrallah on US corona transparency
US sanctions on Iran
‘US, UK concealing virus-related data’
He cited Trump’s effort to downplay the risk posed by the virus, and said the US and the UK have been concealing the real number of those infected with the virus.
The Hezbollah chief denounced the US’s attitude towards Iran amid the Islamic Republic’s tough battle against the viral outbreak.
He said what the Islamic Republic was currently in need of was not the US’s help — apparently referring to Washington’s offers of assistance for Iran’s preventative measures — but the removal of the American sanctions.
https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2020/03/13/620805/Lebanon-Hezbollah-United-States-Trump-coronavirus-Iran-sanctions
https://jvi.asm.org/content/82/4/1899
Essentially, in 2007 Shi Zhengli, lead researcher at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (only 20 miles from the wet market: https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2020/01/23/22/23795084-0-image-a-3_1579817027497.jpg) was creating synthetic bat coronavirus strains capable of utilizing human pulmonary ACE2 receptors–which is exactly what COVID-19 does.
COVID-19 (or whatever the politically correct name is) was either a bioweapon, or some theoretical recombinant strain they were studying (to preempt the next SARS), when someone released it, either intentionally or not. Perhaps a researcher got infected and then spread it throughout Wuhan, or perhaps a lab tech stole infected lab animals to sell at the wet market.
Now, because of this lab, millions of people will die.
http://www.cryptome.org/
CIA Biovirus 2019, February 10, 2020
“Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) is biological warfare to US attacking China in a fighting war.”
The 2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) was designed by the United States and planted in Wuhan, “China by the American CIA to serve as a biological weapon meant to decouple the US-China economies; and to separate, segregate, and to isolate China from the rest of the world
including closing of borders, severing supply chains and rerouting trade to bypass China with
the purpose of weakening China from within and causing internal strife and sowing chaos and
discord and also as a prelude to a US initiated fighting war against China in the South China
Sea. The ultimate purpose is to protect and restore American hegemony (including protecting the
US petrodollar hegemony against the rising Huawei-enabled Chinese blockchain-based digital Yuan and China’s Belt and Road infrastructure and trade initiatives in Eurasia) and to collapse the
Chinese government, to cut off China from global trade and international commerce and to force
a regime change of China’s government after defeating China in a devastating physical war.”
“I believe and have compelling circumstantial reason to believe that the American CIA injected
and planted the so-called “Wuhan virus” into Wuhan, China in or around the dates of October
31st 2019 to December 31st 2019 with intent to harm China, and the Chinese people, and with
potential to destabilize and perhaps even with the motive to collapse China from within.”
The U.S. Armed Forces during opening ceremonies for the 2019 Military World Games in Wuhan in October 2019.
A spokesman for China’s Foreign Ministry suggested, on 12/3/20, that the U.S. military might have brought the coronavirus to the Chinese city of Wuhan,
China says U.S. military may have brought coronavirus to China
Pentagon biolabs.
David Vance@DVATW tweets:
“Many Italians in Italy sold their leather goods and textiles companies to China.
“Italy then allowed 100,000 Chinese from Wuhan/Wenzhou to move to Italy to work in these factories, with direct Wuhan flights.
“Result: Italy is Europe’s hotspot for Wuhan Coronavirus.”
The Coronavirus death rate in China is now down to 0.7% – and rapidly declining.
China has used medication called ‘Interferon Alpha 2B (IFNrec)’
“It is not known and used in the world, because the US, under the illegal embargo of Cuba, does not allow the medication to be marketed internationally.”
The Real Danger is “Agenda ID2020” – Global Research
ID2020 is an alliance of public-private partners, including UN agencies and civil society.
It’s an electronic ID program that uses generalized vaccination as a platform for digital identity. The program harnesses existing birth registration and vaccination operations to provide newborns with a portable and persistent biometrically-linked digital identity.
The ID2020 Alliance at their 2019 Summit, entitled “Rising to the Good ID Challenge”, in September 2019 in New York, decided to roll out their program in 2020
The Real Danger is “Agenda ID2020” – Global Research
http://aanirfan.blogspot.com/
Romans weren’t adherents of the moral tradition of the West, i.e., Christianity, until about five minutes before the place was sacked by the Visigoths. Moreover, not all Europeans have been adherents of the Western moral tradition.
The sanctity of life is a central tenet of the Christian faith. Infanticide is a hallmark of paganism.
That pro-lifers are now seen by most Europeans and Americans as evil misogynists, confirms that Europe and America have abandoned the moral tradition of the West and are now a pagan societies.
I would not recommend Russia for escaping this epidemic (although there might be a few days of opportunity to fly to Russia or Ukraine now before UK citizens will be banned from entry).
Epidemic control was becoming excellent by late Soviet times, and arguably the USSR had probably the best anti-epidemic state capacity in the world in the 1970s.
Although they would quarantine whole cities, without reporting it in the media. For example, Odessa was quarantined and impassably sealed from the world in 1970, to prevent a cholera epidemic. But this was a secret, that could only be reported after they had destroyed the epidemic.
However, there is likely 30-40 years of deterioration in state capacity for epidemic control, although to be fair Rospotrebnadzor seems skillful in banning Roshen chocolates, or wine from Georgia.
Today, public hospitals will be rapidly overwhelmed, there are not many ventilators, there are lots of vulnerable populations who could flood a hospital (e.g. world’s largest population of HIV infected people outside Africa; and quite many people with diagnosed and undiagnosed asthma, due to air pollution in certain cities).
Aside from the lack of funding in healthcare, state capacity for quarantining is not going to at the same level as in China (again, this is not Soviet times, unfortunately from a perspective of brutal ways of epidemic control).
The best options now are either relocate to self-isolation with all the toilet paper you could buy, or going somewhere where warm weather and high air temperatures will limit the airborne spread of virus.
A good decision from the Brazilian government’s perspective. This is more N95 masks than some countries have?
American authorities only had 12 million N95 masks in reserve in February.
China’s measures are extreme, unsustainable and it is already too late.
The Supreme Leader, me, would not allow you to stop your child being infected. If there is a subset of children with a medical condition for whom infection might have adverse effect, there has been no evidence Wuhan Flu is even as a bad as the common cold for children, then I would allow exemption. Of course once all their peers have immunity their likelihood of catching the Wuhan Flu will have declined from absolute certainty to as low as possible.
When everyone is infected, NOBODY is infected.
Genius, natural vaccine!
The UK government is simply making its entire country a biological experiment.
He isn’t.
America is waging hybrid warfare, such claims are no more implausible than the claims made against other countries on the receiving end of such campaigns. Personally I approve this Chinese move, force your opponent to deny and put them on the defensive. That it is ridiculous is in some ways even better.
All good this exercise at modelling and predicting but do we really know enough (and will we ever) to bother?
Looking at the case of the Diamond Princess cruise ship, there are now over 700 confirmed COVID-19 cases out of originally 3700 people. Does anyone know how many of the people on that ship caught the regular seasonal flue and how many died of it? After all the conditions on that ship should be ideal for the spreading of ordinary colds and flu. It would be interesting to know just to put this COVID-19 in perspective.
So they tell us that COVID-19 is more contagious and deadlier than the regular flu. But is it? Not each flu is the same every season and some are deadlier than others. And how good are these tests really?
I like a good conspiracy like anyone else, so how about that this is the regular seasonal flu which Big Pharma failed to predict adequately so its vaccines were useless in preventing a massive global outbreak or protecting those who took the vaccine? In order to cover up their failure they tried to find someone else to blame so they turned to China and bat soup and now we have these biowarfare theories. Of course they may develop some other useless vaccine that they’ll administer and profit from but new variants of the flu will emerge in the future regardless.
Boomers take note;
This anger young people have for you, and the callousness you are seeing, doesn’t have to be there.
Emotional trauma can be healed, relationships repaired. Those pissed about the voluntary destruction of their families and society aren’t snowflakes, and shouldn’t be dismissed.
As boomers age, the world will become more and more based around health and wellness. Kind of like how “Assisted Suicide” advocacy was huge in the 90s, when the Greatest Generation were becoming infirm, while today its not an issue at all. Boomer narcissism dominates the culture. They still play retarded ass John Lennon’s “Imagine” at my gym.
It will be a great tragedy if those currently 60-75, don’t focus more on repairing relationships, and less on more blood sacrifices to keep them alive. This is the first of three decades or so, of massive adjustments, fueled by the needs of a particular demographic. Really, it’s been this way since the first boomer walked away from his/her family, because “not haaaaaaapppyy.”
Tracking diseases is insanely difficult.
I agree the numbers are garbage unless you can test either everybody or a good random sample.
At the spread stage, a test is worthless because the number of infected is doubling every few days (pick your favorite number) so even if you are negative today you could still be positive next week.
Faced with bad data, there can be no intelligent policy decisions on a new disease.
This whole thing reminds me of the apes and the monolith opening scene of 2001.
The “experts” are clueless, the average idiot out there is clueless, and everybody is running around buying toilet paper.
Meanwhile reporters are shoulder to shoulder at the WH press conferences while lecturing everyone else about social distancing.
What a mess.
FYI:
https://www.unz.com/pgiraldi/who-made-coronavirus-was-it-the-u-s-israel-or-china-itself/#comment-3769863
https://www.unz.com/isteve/arguably-wrong-potential-american-deaths-range-from-5k-to-5-million/#comment-3769753
Some nutter/poster here…
Unmentioned in my post was that when my daughter first called several urgent care centers to ask about her symptoms, all specifically pointed her to the hospital ER. As it is, she is taking OTC cold remedies and vitamins and has not gone to the ER.
What she is concerned about is the possibility of being infected with Covid-19 and spreading it to others more vulnerable than herself. Apparently, she is far more concerned and considerate of others than either you or Kim.
But nope… according to you it’s all completely unwarranted panic.
How about smoking weed? Millions in the U.S. might be doing it.
Wife and I had the worst flu of either our lives.
Literally five days in bed getting up only an hour or so a day.
My lungs squeaked for 3 weeks. They started to clog worse after leaving bed for about a week.
All I remember is fever and something about fog and a helicopter.
Your comment is absolutely stupid and you shame the name of a great man who spoke out against the REAL problem.
You boomer bashing idiots (and I include Anglin and TRS) divert attention away from the real culprits…..you throw people off the scent.
How much does the nose pay you to spew your bullshit?
OK 🙂
Anyone who works in healthcare will tell you this was a really bad flu season.
We had a lot of deaths compared to a normal season where I live.
Easy, Mr. Dolan. If it doesn’t apply, let it fly. My father is a “boomer.” He worked against the nose his entire life. If you’re such a man, I’m clearly not talking about you. Millenials are feckless, effete codependents, but I’m obviously not talking about myself, either. You know this.
The man spent 30 years trying to get many boomers to look past their negro sportsball addiction, garage boat-building, umpteen million divorces, etc., to see the relentless assault on our nation, and what did his peers do? They mumbled nonsense about GDP, the stock market, and MLK. When he persisted, they had him marched out of his industry, expelled from the Republican party, and made a persona non grata for his entire life. Imagine what the life of Kevin McCarthy would be without tenure. Hell, Vox Day’s father is in prison. This was not done to them by liberal ex-hippies, but Boomer conservatives. Guys with the mindset of Rand Paul, wanting to build an office in the hood, to teach Devontay, Lachelle, and Marqueesh about the joys of libertarianism.
Millennials are trash. People say it all the time, and I don’t fuss, because I agree. Being a millennial is not part of my identity.
Still, wrong place to insert such a discussion. So I apologize, there. I don’t want baby boomers to die of the corona virus. A couple of weeks away from the grind is a small price to pay for them not to get severely ill.
I was living in Tehran at that time. I remember the TV announcers making a big effort to call princess Anne, princess Aann. Her name, when pronounced normally, means TURD in Farsi. 🙂
It is true. The Shah was quite a guy. I remember military helicopters flying low over our roof on their way from the north of Tehran to shoot up the people in the south of Tehran. My Iranian girlfriend would get phone calls from her girlfriend in old Tehran to say that they were shooting up her district. Their canon would penetrate walls.
The big difference between then and now is that the Shah had the western media in his pocket. They never criticised him. Their governments never criticised him either. He could do what he liked with impunity.
Today, the situation is different. There is an undeclared war against all Iranians – and they know it. This virus was planted in Qom and near those politicians who got poisoned. Their medical supplies were cut off years ago. They don’t have the money to splurge like the Shah did. The media of the west is lying constantly about everything going on in Iran. They never mention that it is a far more democratic country than the UK, France or the USA, for example. Every time some Iraqis attack their occupiers, the Iranians get the blame.
Regardless, you can be sure that the next time they introduce a virus, the Iranians will be much better prepared. Furthermore, it is now much clearer why the Americans invited a leading Iranian scientist and promptly arrested him.
Professor accused of conspiring and attempting to export biological materials from the US to Iran without authorization
Nostalgia is not a bad thing – in moderation.
http://www.angelfire.com/empire/imperialiran/guests14.jpg
Oh thanks – so I misunderstood his remark about the Russian shitposters as a sarcastic self-reference – I think he thinks that he too could be seen by the British officials as one which should be blocked. This unit exists – and will therefore produce enemies. –
I’m glad to hear that I was too pessimistic here.
Can you think of a better way to “save the NHS”?
This was copied from another post. But there are so many particularities you have to add this to the same “what are the odds” that make it very suspicious.
Right before the worst outbreak of our time, Trump got rid of many of the people who would help control an outbreak?
Was that bad timing or was Trump trying to get rid of key people who would get in the way?
“Trump declined to use the World Health Organization’s test like other nations. Back in January, over a month before the first Co-vid19 case, the Chinese posted a new mysterious virus and within a week, Berlin virologists had produced the first diagnostic test. By the end of February, the WHO had shipped out tests to 60 countries. Oh, but not our government. We declined the test even as a temporary bridge until the CDC could create its own test. The question is why? We don’t know but what to look for is which pharmaceutical company eventually manufactures the test and who owns the stock. Keep tuned.
In 2018 Trump fired Homeland Security Advisor Tom Bossart, whose job was to coordinate a response to global pandemics. He was not replaced.
In 2018 Dr. Luciana Borio, the NSC director for medical and bio-defense preparedness left the job. Trump did not replace Dr. Borio.
In 2019 the NSC’s Senior Director for Global Health Security and bio-defense, Tim Ziemer, left the position and Trump did not replace the Rear Admiral.
Trump shut down the entire Global Health Security and Bio-defense agency. Yes, he did.
Amid the explosive worldwide outbreak of the virus Trump proposed a 19% cut to the budget of the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention plus a 10% cut to Public Health Services and a 7% cut to Global Health Services. Those happen to be the organizations that responds to public health threats.
In 2018, at Trump’s direction, the CDC stopped funding epidemic prevention activities in 39 out of 49 countries including China.
Trump didn’t appoint a doctor to oversee the US response to the pandemic. He appointed Mike Pence.”
Your analogy with HIV/AIDS is interesting. Supposing someone is tested positive for covid-19 but has no symptoms and is healthy. When he does get the seasonal flu soon after will they say it was covid-19, and if he subsequently dies of complications will they also put it down as a covid-19 fatality? Surely testing positive for covid-19 doesn’t make one immune to the regular flu.
“This was copied from another post.”
nothing suspicious about any of that. those were all good decisions from Trump.
“Trump declined to use the World Health Organization’s test like other nations”
correct. the tests were not accurate enough. rejected by the US medical community. also, WHO people were dead wrong in their advice about travel and borders. in general, WHO should be ignored, like UN. an Ethiopian is running WHO.
“We don’t know but what to look for is which pharmaceutical company eventually manufactures the test and who owns the stock.”
we know now, after the press conference. and they may make money, but who cares. what matters is that in 2 weeks the Trump task force crash coursed private medical companies into the most accurate Covid-19 test available currently, or so they say. South Korea used private companies to make their high volume test kits. the new US one is supposed to be more accurate and faster than the Korean version, with 15,000 tests per day volume.
“In 2018 Trump fired Homeland Security Advisor Tom Bossart”
good fire. useless, dead weight, knows nothing, never did or accomplished anything. no particular expertise in the field. just a bureaucratic flak middle manager type from the Bush Admin. his position was admin bloat.
“2018 Dr. Luciana Borio”
an actual knowledgeable person, but not a relevant or important person. job overlaps with other departments, a big problem in the modern federal government. does CDC exist? yes? then why does her job exist. also, why does NSC exist at all. we don’t need 12 intelligence agencies, 2 or 3 can do a bad job all on their own. as with CDC for diseases.
“Tim Ziemer”
entire position was eliminated as irrelevant, redundant admin bloat. good elimination. NSC should just be eliminated, period.
“Trump shut down the entire Global Health Security and Bio-defense agency”
good. useless, redundant admin bloat. does CDC exist? yes? then why does this agency exist. what on earth is even a Global Health Security department? apparently it’s some international useless organization from Canada.
“Amid the explosive worldwide outbreak of the virus Trump proposed a 19% cut”
none of the cuts went into effect, and CDC budget is higher now than before. and let’s be honest – CDC budget should be cut. CDC wastes lots of money and time on things that are not their mission. CDC has big, mission creep admin bloat, just like most agencies. CDC can do just as bad a job as they do now, with half the budget. as director Redfield shows. a guy who seems to not be up to the job.
“In 2018, at Trump’s direction, the CDC stopped funding epidemic prevention activities in 39 out of 49 countries including China.”
good cut. let them fund their own programs. America First. enough of this billions a year foreign aid shit. CDC offers to help foreign nations in specific crisis situations anyway. China and Africa will invent new viruses all on their own no matter how much money is flushed down there.
“Trump didn’t appoint a doctor to oversee the US response to the pandemic. He appointed Mike Pence”
good appointment. Mike Pence did a good job. a doctor would probably have bungled it. next we’ll complain that a scientist didn’t oversee the Manhattan Project, and instead they sent a military man named Leslie Groves who actually knew how to get serious projects done.
actually important information on ventilators.
Breitbart: ventilator manufacturers not ramping up production yet
per the article, US has about 160,000 ventilators available, and 8000 in reserve. some of the ventilator manufacturers are mostly based in the US, so they can be made here. production can be ramped up quickly.
if they suddenly needed 300,000 ventilators, could they get there in time? how much would it cost? what about more ventilators than that? all questions i don’t know the answers. but the CEOs of these companies are, obviously, watching everything closely, and aren’t completely clueless.
Funny how that happens when you throw a few trillion dollars at bankers…
You’re so Unz-woke!
Perhaps the growing xenophobia, the hatred, mistrust, and suspicion of foreigners, as a result of this panic doesn’t tie in with the goals of the globalists but I think they can work it into their plans. People are now even hating on Italians and those who have recently been to Italy or associated with them. I’m not personally like that but if it helps the cause of the sovereignists I’m not much complaining. And if all the withholding of medical services to the ill and elderly of one’s own nation (since they’re sending so many medical staff into self-isolation because they were in contact with a suspected coronavirus carrier, telling the ill not to bother turning up at hospitals and clinics as their facilities are stretched, etc.) leads to a lower regard for life, well, maybe those Greek border guards could start using live rounds. Anyway, the Afghanis and Pakistanis who now make up the bulk of the immigrants heading to Europe have all made their way through Iran so even less reason to let them in. And if the coronavirus kills off many of the geriatrics holding office and the old rich bastards, that’s not so bad either. Those Aussies living in the outback have nothing to worry about and can watch the developing chaos and panic from a safe distance.
That Andre Vitchek must be one of the biggest globetrotters on UR as he’s always crossing borders and continents, but he hasn’t posted an article for a while now. The coronavirus must have inconvenienced his travels so he should update us on how he’s coping with this. Perhaps he’s in some quarantine somewhere, but surely they have Internet connections to send us some first-hand account of what’t it’s like in there. I have my doubts that the masses will see through this farce to rise against the growing totalitarianism but he may have other ideas. Yes, interesting times.
How convenient (and timely) is this elderly doomsday virus for Western Nation states looking to cut their social security and healthcare cost obligations. It’s almost as if it’s “tailor made” to kill the sick and the elderly at a time when most Western Nations could no longer afford to care for their sick and elderly.
Why does it make sense to close schools when people of school going age are basically immune from the virus?
If it’s going to happen anyway (it already is) then I would at least like to see some benefits from it, like not permanently losing 2 years of my life expectancy.
China at least uses it to for some nice things, like suppressing vice and controlling an pandemic, which benefits own people.
UK: “Herd immunity” yo, if you die that’s too bad, there’s a billion Africans out there we can replace you with.
Why are countries like Italy and Ireland resorting to lockdowns? Hong Kong and Singapore have not and have managed to control the spread of NCOV.
This seems a decent site with factual assessment
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
Strictly playing devil’s advocate:
Whereas
The “flattening of the curve” that all the “experts” are now calling for is essentially simply a flattening of the mortality curve for the superannuated, similar to what occurred in France in the “canicule” (heat wave) in France in 2003 (see earlier comment above) when deaths of the superannuated were moved forward a few months to a (maximum) year;
The economic and social costs of the restrictive measures adopted so far, and the even more draconian ones certain to be increasingly adopted in the future, will be absolutely enormous, if not insupportable for many of those who actually have to work for a living (which of course excludes government employees and political leaders/parliamentarians) in a “real” workplace (which excludes journalists, editorialists, blog hosts, etc.);
Closing schools is unlikely to reduce the transmission of the coronavirus to the superannuated, indeed it is likely to accelerate it since children with working parents will be spending significantly more time with their grandparents;
For the non-superannuated the devil’s lawyer cites Jeffrey Klausner an expert in infectious diseases at UCLA’s Fielding School of Public Health that “It is possible, but apparently very rare that otherwise healthy people can get severe disease . . .right now we have patients in the hospital with severe influenza that were otherwise healthy people in their 40s and 50s. … It’s rare as well, but it occurs.”
It is hereby submitted that a far better policy would be to “quarantine” the superannuated rather than destroy the world economy and the working lives of uncounted millions upon millions.
(For the record I will add that I myself am perhaps marginally superannuated)
Is this age profile for Italy deaths
https://www.thelancet.com/pb-assets/Lancet/pdfs/S0140673620306279.pdf
Total 99.9%
so skewed because
Italy prioritises younger patients for treatment, in a war-like triage to tackle coronavirus
https://theprint.in/health/italy-prioritises-younger-patients-for-treatment-in-a-war-like-triage-to-tackle-coronavirus/379777/
Is it possible that some younger patients did get treatment they did not need at expense of older patients who could have been saved?
What is the age profile of Chinese who died? I can’t find data but there were younger people who died and their total death rate seemed to be lower than that of Italy? Were triage parameters were different in China?
Deaths per age dont take into account each individual health status before the desease. The old saying “you get the face you deserve by age 40” is true in this respect.
Some 40 year olds take part in the Olympics others have let themselves go & have the health of a 70 year old.
The ‘Market” lost over $1 Trillion dollars. At precisely the time when the whole US financial and banking system demands a complete overhaul, at least implement Dodd-Frank regulation, we get Coronavirus where the government commands everyone to stay home. No one is the least suspicious? The Coronavirus is a hoax, and it is now a national security crisis.
Death rate by age among first 44,672 confirmed cases in Wuhan.
80+ 14.8%
70-79 8.0%
60-69 3.6%
50-59 1.3%
40-49 0.4%
10-39 0.2%
00-09 0.0%
Death rate with existing conditions:
• Cardiovascular disease 10.5%
• Diabetes 7.3%
• Chronic respiratory disease 6.3%
• High blood pressure 6%
• Cancer 5.6%
• No existing conditions 0.9%
80.9% of infections described as “mild.”
https://informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/covid-19-coronavirus-infographic-datapack/
Wuhan has terrible air quality.
Additionally, up to 50% of Chinese men smoke cigarettes, and reportedly there were up to 10 million Chinese vaping, or smoking so-called e-cigarettes. In fact, most e-cigarettes are made in China. In the recent past, there had been a number of news reports in the U.S. about a debilitating lung condition among young people that is associated with vaping.
Please see also my comment here with confounding info about the 1918 “Spanish Flu”:
https://www.unz.com/isteve/counting-cases-the-way-we-count-crime-focus-on-dead-bodies/#comment-3769684
Hong Kong and Singapore are more competent and had built up systems after SARS. Spain had a huge feminist march in Madrid a few days ago, big surge in cases in Madrid recently. Problem is all these countries then spread it the rest of Europe.
Thanks, but the death rates are age normalized. I would like to see not normalized data. What is the percent of, say 70-79 years old among all victims. The numbers should add up to 100%.
Italy prioritises younger patients for treatment . . . Is it possible that some younger patients did get treatment they did not need at expense of older patients who could have been saved?
Up to this point, I would tend to doubt it. The actual guidelines, published on 6 March
http://www.siaarti.it/SiteAssets/News/COVID19%20-%20documenti%20SIAARTI/SIAARTI%20-%20Covid19%20-%20Raccomandazioni%20di%20etica%20clinica.pdf
(para. 3) say “it may be necessary” to make such a triage, and then go on to talk of a “scenario of total saturation”, so it would appear that this is more of a “worst case” scenario which, at least as of a week ago, was apparently not the case.
The guidelines also state that approximately one-tenth of infected patients will require “intensive care”. Italy has around 12 critical care beds per 100,000 population (possibly more in the north where the overwhelming number of cases are). Taking 28 million as an estimate of the population of the areas where infection is most serious, this would correspond to a minimum of 3,360 critical care beds, if I have done my arithmetic correctly. As of yesterday there were 15,000 active cases, of which 1,328 were reported as serious or critical, so the 10% estimate seems not far off the mark. If there really are 3,000+ critical care beds in the affected region, these would still appear to be sufficient, but there may well be local saturation points. And in another few days or a week, with current trends, they will definitely be at overall saturation.
For China, I can’t find the stats either.
So apparently recognizing cases of a flu that has been widespread since August appears as the rise of a pandemic:
https://mobile.twitter.com/zlj517/status/1238111898828066823
At least Pol Pot didn’t resort to the sneaky way of inventing a virus to kill off the old or withholding medical care and services – he just had them shot. They should start collecting skulls of all who die from this coronavirus and piling them up so that at the end of the day we see who’s the bigger monster. That’s if this is even a deliberately bioengineered bioattack and if they really are killing off the elderly. And let’s hope the Elders of Zion don’t survive to keep on giving us more trouble than we can handle.
The focus on older folks is missing one large factor that has yet to be fully tested in the wild–obesity.
Most health experts believe obesity at any age makes one much more vulnerable to any disease–and of course America is one of the most obese nations in the world.
If obese folks of all ages get seriously sick from this virus, the health care system will get blown away in a hurry….
I have heard that the local government in Zhengzhou has become famous for how strict its quarantine measures are.
50% of ICU beds are taken by the non-coronavirus patients. Italy has 5200 ICU beds.
“If this trend continues for 1 more week, there will be 30 000 infected patients. Intensive care units will then be at maximum capacity”
https://www.thelancet.com/action/showPdf?pii=S0140-6736%2820%2930627-9
Maybe those numbers are available, but I wonder if they would be very useful, considering that a large majority of confirmed cases report only mild symptoms. Older people are more likely to have compromised health and poor immune system response, and seek or need medical attention when ill, but young people may shrug off the mild symptoms reported for 4/5 of cases, and not present for treatment.
Additionally, some people who have been exposed display no symptoms along with no positive test result, so it is conceivable that apparently healthy people could be carrying the virus, and I suspect they are. Nevertheless, I would like to see those numbers too, if anyone has them.
Also, I hope you and others take the time to read Wiki’s 1918 Spanish Flu article. Even now, arguments continue about the source of that virus, but as I mentioned, that particular flu bug had some very oddball epidemiology that confounds many established notions about the flu, e.g. 99% of early victims in 1918 were under the age of 65, and almost half were aged 20-40, including many pregnant women, who had the highest death rate of all.
Smoking rates. The worst offenders in 2018. Russia has a problem on the way. Indonesia should worry but maybe it is too far South. The rest are small.
The ten countries with the highest smoking rates are:
Kiribati (52.40%)
Nauru (47.50%)
Greece (42.65%)
Serbia (41.65%)
Russia (40.90%)
Jordan (40.45%)
Indonesia (39.90%)
Bosnia and Herzegovina (38.60%)
Lebanon (38.30%)
Chile (38.00%)
Manifested as T2 diabetes, the death rate is high. high blood sugar feeds the beasts. Insulin resistance drops massively with some colds as virus replication demands energy.
“Maybe those numbers are available.” – I am sure they are and they are useful for comparison with other populations. The numbers are raw and not affected by the number of infected unlike the death rates that you have posted.
Dr. Leopoldo Salmaso
Nuova intervista all’epidemiologo Salmaso
https://www.lantidiplomatico.it/dettnews-il_tasso_di_letalit_del_coronavirus_in_italia__almeno_10_volte_inferiore_ai_dati_ufficiali_nuova_intervista_allepidemiologo_salmaso/5496_33545/
Q. Well, can you tell us more about the last seasonal influence in Italy of which the official data are available?
A. Yes, on the seasonal flu 2017-18, it appears that 8.7 million people turned to the family doctor / pediatrician by phone for a “flu-like syndrome”. Less than 1/4 were visited by the doctor. No fewer than 18,000 people died “with flu complications”, mostly the elderly. Of those 18,000, only 173 (1 in 100) died in a ICU ward and in all there were 764 “serious cases of confirmed flu in ICU patients”. That is, the other 17,000 people died at home, or in a nursing home, or in some hospital ward, with no confirmed diagnosis of flu. If the media had unleashed the current uproar two years ago, no less than 75,000 patients with influenza would have clogged up the reanimations, at the rate of 750 new admissions every day (so far we have hospitalized 650 in resuscitation in all). These data confirm that we are facing a panic epidemic.
Mar 14, 2020 Coronavirus Reveals China’s Darkest Secret | China Uncensored
And I don’t mean the Mr. Bean impersonator who’s become a mouthpiece of Chinese Communist Party propaganda in Wuhan. Organ harvesting of prisoners of conscience, mainly Falun Gong practitioners or Uighur Muslims, may be providing lung transplants for coronavirus victims.
https://youtu.be/0ZgYqrZoXCs
Is there any reason I should want to save the NHS?
I have just read this
Coronavirus: Why systemic problems leave the US at risk – https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-51840233
It refers to 27 million Americans who have no health insurance at all, plus 11 million “undocumented immigrants” and all those whose cover is so inadequate that they would give up on fluvax to pay family food bills.
Notice all the reports on coronavirus that contain the number 33 ie the occult number and masonic number and the Illuminati that released this virus are signing their 33 to let the world know that they created it and there is not a damn thing we goyim can do about it.
“If this trend continues for 1 more week, there will be 30 000 infected patients. Intensive care units will then be at maximum capacity”
That’s what I said, isn’t it (“And in another few days or a week, with current trends, they will definitely be at overall saturation”)?
The Diamond Princess is a great test of the parameters of this virus. They were literally stuck together like a petri dish for what, a month? a few weeks. No one under 70 has died, and some tested negative and many were asymptomatic who were positive.
Just seems like it’s not really all that deadly.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/marty-makary-on-coronavirus-in-the-us-183558545.html
“Don’t believe the numbers when you see, even on our Johns Hopkins website, that 1,600 Americans have the virus,” he said. “No, that means 1,600 got the test, tested positive. There are probably 25 to 50 people who have the virus for every one person who is confirmed.”
He added: “I think we have between 50,000 and half a million cases right now walking around in the United States.”
500,000 infected? So what is the CFR now? Less than 0.1%?
These data confirm that we are facing a panic epidemic.
Important article, but there are several additional words left out at the end which are worth highlighting:
During the Italian (bubonic) Plague of 1629-1631, “anointers” were the persons hysterically suspected of deliberately spreading the plague via ointments they surreptitiously placed on doors and walls (shades of Skripal!).
No doubt it’s a great case study but how much of what the experts learn will they tell us, the public? There’s a few more cruise liners out there in a similar predicament but most, if not all, have managed to get their passengers off board by now.
Considering the close proximity between passengers due to crowding on those liners and the centralised air conditioning, the conditions for spreading the virus must be worse than for the rest of us in the general population. Unfortunately they sent the passengers home and some are only now testing positive and dying in their home countries, so we won’t be able to get conclusive data from this worst case scenario and people can keep on speculating:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/victoriaforster/2020/02/28/six-people-from-the-diamond-princess-cruise-ship-have-now-died-from-covid-19-after-quarantine-failure/#29bdd85c3654
Going by this latest data of 6 dead out of the 705 infected, the death rate is 0.85%, and the infection rate about 19%, under these worst conditions. It would be useful to know the age distribution of the passengers, infected, and dead. The Forbes report concludes:
Thanks.
About Italian media. Weren’t Italian media the first that got ‘tabloidized’ before there was Sky in the UK and Fox in the US? Wasn’t Berlusconi Trump’s precursor? Can we entertain an idea that Italians will be very susceptible to mass hysteria operation?
Wasn’t Italy in Cold War a proving ground for various false-flag operations under the name of Gladio that had close links to Italian Deep Sate? Could we assume that the structures that supported Gladio still exist and are available to be used in new operations?
I am sure you know where I am heading? What if that what we see in Italy is a part of some operation? That certain of panic and send eof apocalypse was needed for the next state of the third act. (First Act: China, Second Act: Italy, Third Act: ?)
From a statement today by Silvio Brusaferro, President of the Istituto superiore di sanità in Rome:
Of the coronavirus deaths to date [1,266] the number of persons who are not confirmed to have other pathologies is two. [No misprint there]
And in these two cases, the examination of the files has not yet been completed, so it is possible that causes of death other than coronavirus may emerge.
https://www.agenzianova.com/primopiano/846/coronavirus-iss-i-decessi-finora-accertati-in-italia-per-causa-del-covid-19-sono-solo-due
There was a data point that even in a family, tight contact, that is, only 10% got infected. (And among them, not all get serious symptoms.)
So it simply cannot be that deadly. So far, other than the events in Wuhan, all other signs do not tell a very bad story. Events in Italy are still not at the Wuhan level.
There is the worry that initial mess up of the situation was, maybe, partly caused by too tight social control. It gives the local officials too much power, and when they happen to be ignorant & arrogant, unable to face a novel challenge, the power they have magnifies the bad situation.
This will continue to be the theme of this century. Too much power and too small brain.
I would like to know how many of 1,266 were in ICU’s and received the best possible treatment and how many were triaged to not be treated.
Even the healthcare mask manufactures are not eager to jump because they worry that the demand is a onetime thing and they will be stuck with the assembly line etc. two months from now. In China, the government has to provide assurance.
Italy is far worse than Hong Kong. Hong Kong took measures to prevent a major spread from occurring. Meanwhile in the West people are arguing quarantines don’t work, panic is a bigger problem(note that we do nothing about panic either, it’s just used to justify inaction in preventing the spread of the virus), racism against Asians is a big issue, mass testing is unnecessary, coronavirus is insignificant compared to influenza, and that there’s nothing we can do about the virus.
Basically it appears Hong Kong, Taiwan, and South Korea though all in positions for a major spread, did a good job of preventing the problem from becoming larger than they otherwise would have been(no Western country had anything comparable to the South Korea religious cult situation for example). China is the source of the virus and completely shit the bed in its initial response, but after accepting the problem took drastic measures to deal with it and undoubtedly saved numerous lives as a result. The U.S., Canada, and Western Europe neither acted quickly enough to prevent a major spread even though they had more information nor taken drastic measures after the fact. The West is incompetent.
After this blows over, our “experts” should be studying these countries with the intent of implementing some of the same technologies and policies in their home countries come the next pandemic. I suspect most will not do this though. In particular the chances of the U.S. or Canada learning from this seem extremely low.
Taiwan has only 50 coronavirus cases. Its response to the crisis shows that swift action and widespread healthcare can prevent an outbreak.
https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-taiwan-case-study-rapid-response-containment-2020-3
Around the same time, the government banned the export of face masks and ensured they were affordable by capping prices at about $0.17 each.
By late February, Taipei had distributed nearly 6.5 million masks to primary and secondary schools, as well as after-school institutions, plus 84,000 liters of hand sanitizer and 25,000 forehead thermometers.
I would like to know how many of 1,266 were in ICU’s and received the best possible treatment and how many were triaged to not be treated.
That is an interesting question, no doubt. For me, however, the principal point that emerges is (confirmation) that the Western world has entered a period of perhaps unprecedented mass hysteria.
Quite correct. Here is how the European Union, USA, UK, Canada etc. are handling it.
Yes Minister (ancient BBC TV series)
https://d33wjekvz3zs1a.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Yes-Minister-Phases.mp4
This is f***ing nuts, excuse my Greek.
https://cdn2.cmjornal.pt/images/2020-03/img_900x508$2020_03_12_16_17_28_931013.jpg
“All of the beaches have been closed in the country”. At this time of year on the beach I go to I am the only person there.
Similarly, all outdoor eating spaces — where the air circulates and acts as a natural disinfectant — are to be closed, while the indoor spaces (which will now be twice as crowded) remain open.
Grocery stores are to operate at reduced hours, since more crowding and longer lines will promote health.
For good measure, I will add that where I live, there is not a confirmed coronavirus case within 500 km.
“…the Western world has entered a period of perhaps unprecedented mass hysteria.” – Yes. Look at Taiwan as alternative.
Moon of Alabama cites the NY Times claiming that as a result of the virus:
Which implies that COVID19-caused mortality will be three to twenty-five times the normal flu-related mortality. So either the NY Times et al. are spreading lies to promote panic, or there is something to panic about.
Being too old to be a boomer, thank God, I am not panicking, but I don’t want another dose of flu, lethal or otherwise, and if governments are planning to do nothing to protect the population from a batflu epidemic, I hope the SOBs get it themselves, good and hard.
An excellent exposition of the concept of “herd immunity” in this three-minute video.
The video explains how vaccination works. But as the note below the video explains, “Letting the healthy get it [the virus], while the more vulnerable are kept physically separated from the majority” has the same effect as vaccination in cutting the reproduction number or rate of transmission.
It’s actually a cool idea. Be interesting to see if it works.
Because they can still be carriers, genius.
Now up another 1000 points. This all happened right after Trump had the news conference yesterday. Hahahaha……
Another Unz genius, bites the dust.
More statistics from Italy, courtesy of Istituto Superiore di Sanità:
Average patient age — 65
As of yesterday, there had been 6 deaths of people under age 50
These CEO’s are not stupid. They know that China has hundreds of thousands of these things that are surplus to requirement. It would take a few days for the Chinese to send them to the USA by plane.
Of course, the there is a possibility that the US will prefer to let its people die. But how can these CEO’s know in advance?
The real limiting factor is trained personnel. Would Trump allow Chinese experts come over in large numbers to make America Great Again?
https://sc01.alicdn.com/kf/HTB1XCKaPFXXXXXrapXX760XFXXXu/200120180/HTB1XCKaPFXXXXXrapXX760XFXXXu.png
Gotta ask, why in the bloody hell do anons still think PR matters? If the Chinese confirms this as a bioweapons attack, get ready for a counter attack of the same.
What goes through that head of yours? Omfg, we are about to kill them the same way, let’s hope they care? Think China would gives a flying damn what the retarded public of the west thinks at that point?
Think harder. If you could.
Are you really that stupid?
The Anglo way is the most unethical act out of anyone.
Just let the poor people all die to build up herd immunity while the rich are isolated in their suburbs? The rich will get the best care while poor will be left to die.
Quit being such an Anglo apologist.
While the whole world needs this equipment, why would China supply America since America obviously sees China as its mortal enemy and likely initiated the bio attack to begin with.
Better for China to send the supplies to countries that aren’t psychotic like Italy and other civilized countries.
https://twitter.com/shacindananthan/status/1238259948108353537?s=20
https://twitter.com/LostTemple7/status/1238379957849444354
Endia has already closed borders and tested 1,00,000 (1 lakh) ppl.
2020 nibba!
The average Americans are so thoroughly brainwashed by their own MSM about China, they just do not know better: China overtakes U.S. for healthy lifespan: WHO data
Meanwhile in Sacramento:
Public health officials in California’s state capital region announced this week they have stopped tracing the contacts of patients diagnosed with the novel coronavirus. They’ve also ceased recommending quarantines for residents exposed to people confirmed to have the virus.
https://californiahealthline.org/news/testing-shortages-force-extreme-shift-in-strategy-by-local-health-officials/
Guess which country will have the virus for the next 10 years?
Can’t get enough Falun Gong stuff and their clown announcer?
Death range of people aged 0 to 110 is 100% or thereabouts, so yes it’s pretty terminal.
The Western world, South Korea, and China. Including the Zhongnanhai. Maybe they watch too much TV?
Turning from Italy to the US:
deaths to date — 55
best estimate of average age — 79
number of deaths ages 0-40: 0
number of deaths age 40-50: 1 (with underlying medical condition)
Interestingly, in contrast to other countries (notably Italy and China) where the deceased are overwhelmingly male, in US it seems females have a slight advantage.
Nearly half of the deaths (25) are from a single long-term care and nursing facility near Seattle.
I’m not convinced that this is a hoax, but clearly there is a mountain of hysteria and stupidity overlaying the actual events.
India has the right strategy, just don’t test that many people and let the Western hysteria blow over, they don’t have many old people anyway and the ones that are there are a burden.
If Westerners had an ounce of pragmatism and ruthlesness they would let this virus spread to remove the old people who are an economic burden.
AIDS: First “they” discovered a new virus, then they looked for a matching disease for it…..found one by the “mysterious” death of gay people in NY and San Francisco.
If they would have made their tests first in an old people home they could have made the same conclution! Lots of people who ruined themself by drugs or who are shortly before death are tested HIV positive. The virus is actually just a marker and not the cause!
The media and the big pharma rised the theory that the virus is spreading around and can affect also other groups. Pandemie means big money for the patent holder and the big pharma & vaccination industry / shareholders.
In fact only the HIV antibody test “spread” all over the world, and not ADIDS!
After 35 years of success…”they”+ vaccination pope Bill Gates try another coup on humanity.
This time they already use symptoms as fewer, influenza / flu. Such “disease” exist since centuries worldwide.
The “new” virus is described as attacking the bronchies and lungs and leads to pneumonia.
This is an unproved allegation!
Definitively the test works like a death sentence…Its a very strong negative placebo!!!
Additionaly to fewer and flu the test creates panic and fear and affects the breathing. Breathlessness is caused by the test and not by a virus!
All “they” had to do is to make a patent for the virus and then spreading Rumors of a Wuhan Coronavirus break out from bats and wet markets, or maybe escaped from the nearby bio lab, and carry an antibody test there..and later spread the test to all those countries which “they” also want to weaken.
Its obvious that in America especially Trump knows that its a fraud intended also to destroy his reelection. Thats why in America are secret (classified) testing restrictions!
Naive Iran and Italy do a lot of testing and falling into the trap.
But they cant stop the spread of the test….this would be political uncorrect and the media would kill them for stop testing.
So, again we will see a great fight between the plotters & media against Trump with a world wide collateral damage.
Trump winning again?
The Virus does not spread! Only the test spreads!
The right solution of the whole problem is: Stop the spread od the test!
Clearly the “coronavirus causes infertility in men” is the new “no Jews were in the World Trade Center on 11th September 2001”
Need galaxy brain reactions for Unz.
A few points.
If everyone died exactly one year before his actual death, that would reduce life expectancy by exactly one year. Not the biggest tragedy, but not very good either. Life expectancy rarely drops by a year from one year to the next one.
In Italy, ICUs are running close to capacity. Yes, getting everyone with a flu checking in to a hospital would clog hospitals (I doubt the number of people accepted in hospitals would change substantially, but at least it would clog administration), but why would it increase the number of people in ICUs?
The disease is remarkably slow. The epidemic in China started in November, but the first death appeared only on January 11. You don’t count CFR by comparing the number of deaths to the number of people who have contracted it, because it includes those who are still ill (and may yet die). “3,000 cases and 0 deaths” doesn’t mean that the CFR is zero.
There will be natural experiments. It appears that some countries are either not planning to contain this, incapable of doing so, or both. Even rich countries. We’ll see who does better, no need for heated debates.
I broadly agree, but
Apparently they don’t have an antibody test yet for this Covid-19 but one based on genetic sequencing, as mentioned in this link I posted in some other comment earlier:
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2236610-coronavirus-how-do-i-get-tested-and-how-does-the-test-work/
There’s some other useful general info here:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/03/12/coronavirus-reader-questions-answered-symptoms-testing-elderly/5012457002/
It states that there was one case in China of someone testing positive to both Covid-19 and influenza. Just one out of so many reported cases worldwide? Maybe they don’t test suspected cases for both.
First telling results in – in May? What would you think? Anatoly Karlin said above, that the GB strategy is bad. – When would that show?
Any thoughts about Slovakia, Poland, – – – Albania (they seem to be quite strict and – successful by now (no idea what that really means for Albania- by now – though).
Agree…….
As for
looking at all this panic around doesn’t look promising.
That’s the fundamental problem. No amount of intelligence, education and experience/expertise can help if there is no courage.
The third element in METT-T is……oh my.
(Un)fortunately, that’s the PRIMARY conclusion I am drawing from this exercise.
So far, anyway.
Really hoping to be proved wrong but not holding my breath.
A few more points.
People without symptoms or with mild symptoms only were tested a lot in China, Singapore and South Korea, because they tested all contacts of sick people, regardless of symptoms. That’s how we know that 80% of the cases are mild and that a substantial portion of those infected show no symptoms at all. The Chinese already knew that before the Diamond Princess. So the CFR and the percentage of people needing hospitalization or intensive care cannot be an order of magnitude lower than is currently estimated. (CFR usually depends on hospital care quality.) A way more likely explanation for the discrepancy between the assumed very high number of infections out there with only a few deaths and the estimated ~1-3% CFR is that some of those cases out there will end up dead. It’s known to be a slow killer, so hasty conclusions are not warranted.
Regarding comparisons to the flu, the very long and slow course of the illness should also be taken into account. Few people lie in bed with the flu for several weeks. Here it’s probably over 10%.
Regarding symptoms. Some viruses stay in the body for a long time, and often don’t ever disappear. It’s now suspected by some that they are up to no good. It’s rarely a good idea to have yourself infected with another bug, even if it’s really just the flu or a common cold.
Hempus,
I forgot to point out that the usatoday article states re COVID-19.:
I don’t think we need to set a fixed date. It’s a very slow killer, and it takes its time. When the dust settles, we’ll be able to see it for ourselves.
Albania is not representative of Eastern Europe. I was in Belgrade last week and no one was taking precautions. People still shaking hands, going to bars, etc. One Serb told me his generation had lived through an actual war and bombardments, a virus wasn’t going to scare them.
They do see have gotten the message as of yesterday, but far later than should have been the case.
Depends what “that stupid” you are referring to.
How about you?
I said the idea of confining infection to those able to survive infection without serious long-term health impairment while protecting the vulnerable, thereby reducing the Reproduction number for the population at large, made sense. Whether the policy is being, or could be, executed effectively I’m not in a position to say.
Are you?
Probably not.
But the way it turns out will be evident quite soon.
They’ll look pretty silly if a significant proportion of people are infertile/vulnerable to subsequent infections.
I always heard that you didn’t damage your lungs badly from weed bc most don’t chainsmoke etc. just a hit or 2 9 (unlike cigs)? Not sure if that is the Medicine….– smoking Weed is stupid for a number of reasons but this might be a new one….
If you have eaten a chilli and had already the second burning at your A$$ that does not necessarily mean that you still habe the Chilli inside your body…but you had an “Immunity reaction”
“Tested positive” is regarding to an antibody test made by PCR ( polymerase chain reaction) means: you had already an immunity reaction about an “identified” Virus, what does not mean that you still have the virus, but you have created the antibodies to neutralize that Virus.
All Baboons are HIV positive ….this means not that they spread this Virus.
The Virus is harmless if you have the antibodies.
Thats what a vaccination try to do …..creating the antibodies!
Just found an interesting article….but its in German language….something which confirmed my theory:
“Owen Zeng. So wollen die Ärzte untersuchen, ob das Covid-19 eine Lungenfibrose verursacht – eine Veränderung des Lungengewebes, die zu einer Verhärtung und Vernarbung der Lunge führt. Durch die verringerte Dehnbarkeit verringert sich das Lungenvolumen und die Atmung wird behindert”.
By making a CT, DR Zeng realized that many patients witch have been branded as COVID- 19 victims have what is called a lung fibrosis.
Lung fibrosis is a very long known thing and is not caused by a virus but by bad and degenerated breathing habits or heavy polluted air.
And imho also by stress, fear & panic caused by a negative placebo like “having a deathly virus in my body”.
Of course lung fibrosis is a big problem but you cant heal it with a vaccination!!!
As there is also no vaccination against smoking cigarettes!
Heavy smoking is becoming less popular every year in Russia, and this 41% you cite surely includes people who only smoke lightly or socially. (In which case, effect on lungs is not so severe).
I worry more (aside from the climate conditions) about effects of the terrible air pollution in many Russian cities.
Correlation is not indicator of causation, but at best just something to investigate – there has been a correlation in Italy between air pollution regions (as pm 2,5) and where the community spread and deaths of the virus are highest.
https://i.imgur.com/Nf0nJDc.png
If the EU tried to use its weak equipment measure air pollution in certain cities in Russia, the strong chemicals in the air would probably melt their equipment, of course.
Here is also EU data for pm10.
https://i.imgur.com/ehd8YxQ.png
Italy is very high for deaths from air pollution, and this will be more extreme on a regional basis, as air pollution is concentrated in Lombardy, Emilia-Romana, etc.
https://i.imgur.com/B6FSM0L.jpg
Here is today’s best idea how to stop the epidemic: just travel back in time to 1951 and preemptively nuke China.
If anything, this is hot and creative take 😉
https://twitter.com/KevinCastley/status/1238589379867586560
Spread of this virus is likely determined to a large extent by climate. Therefore, it’s not possible to evaulate responses by their results between every country e.g. comparing January in Singapore, with February in Italy – will probably not be very useful. Climate conditions are unfavourable for the virus in Singapore, while favourable in an Italian winter (where temperatures and humidity were with a similar range to Wuhan in January).
On the other hand, January/February in South Korea and February in Milan, are not such different climates. So it is more possible to judge that the state response in South Korea was better – mainly through much higher surveillance of the early stage of the epidemic.
From the death rates, it now seems possible that South Korea is perceiving “most of the iceberg”, while in Italy they still only perceive the “top of iceberg”.
Yes. i can confirm that from direct experience.
The UK strategy is best because the 2nd wave of the Spanish flu was the big killer. Fewer people would have died if there had been more infected in the 1st wave. There were no vaccines then. The 2nd wave virus was more virulent than the 1st. It had brewed itself mutations and recombinatons in the bodies of young soldiers at the front. Hence its ability to target the young. St Louis which quarantined had fewer deaths in the first round than Philadelphia. Didn’t help St Louis for the 2nd wave.
We have a front line. In Syria, next to Iran. Worse things are happening in the beseiged villages and refugee camps for Covid-19 to be noticed much. In China, viruses often mixed in pigs. The mixer in the Middle East for MERS was a camel. Syria is the perfect place for Covid-19 to meet a camel. MERS is far more deadly.
If you don’t get Covid-19 now, it will be far worse next Autumn (Fall). The UK strategy of encouraging early infection is the only way to reduce the ipct of this. It won’t be all that effective but there isn’t anything better.
Would have saved tens of millions of Chinese too…
In a condition of uncertainty, one has to live with uncertainty and make decisions with uncertain outcomes. That’s why great leadership is not as easy as it may seem, and indeed may be largely a matter of luck.
Seems like it. Let the thing spread, mainly infecting the most socially active, i.e., the spreaders.
Then, following this first wave, when those who were the most active spreaders have acquired immunity, the reproduction number will be greatly reduced. At this point impose quarantines and social distancing measures and R0 will fall further, hopefully below 1, causing the epidemic to die out.
Presumably there are mathematical models behind this strategy, which in a year or two, we will likely be able to read about in the learned journals. We will then know how smart the current UK plan is, or is not.
Authorities in Wuhan have been criticized for not acting on the outbreak early enough. But perhaps they were pursuing a similar strategy.
There is a serious error in the article above (I dont know whether anybody has mentioned it already):
The reported mortality rate is in proportion to reported cases. The 70% number bandied around means all cases. Considering that most cases are asymptomatic or mild (80% according to a Chinese Study), the number of unreported cases can be quite high. The actual mortality rate will be accordingly lower. How much lower, I dont know.
Also, regarding the analysis by the Chinese scientist: Does it make sense to compare infection cases of countries with different populations? I dont know, maybe per capita (reported) infections would make the time series for the different countries more comparable. Would it change the conclusion much?
Re the UK’s strategy to bring down R_nought.
Naturally, authorities will be disinclined to acknowledge the essence of this strategy in the clearest terms since it means sacrificing some pour sauver les autres. It is, however, an approach fully consistent with the utilitarian principle of seeking the greatest good of the greatest number.
It would be interesting to know how many, if any, of the US military personnel who were “coincidentally” in China at precisely the opportune time, are infected.
After all, the US government is neither averse to nor hesitant about using its own population as guinea pigs or cannon fodder.
Many horrible and sad stories.
You’ve managed to out-Mao Communist China, at least as of 2020.
Well done.
Swift action and widespread healthcare can prevent an outbreak, but it won’t prevent a future outbreak, since the population remains devoid of immunity. If COVID19 and its evolutionary descendants remain in circulation for years, Taiwan may experience repeated outbreaks and be thus compelled to engage repeatedly in radical and economically disruptive action to prevent a widespread outbreak.
If an effective vaccine appears soon, then the Taiwan strategy may be the best, as the vaccine will compensate for the absence of immunity acquired through infection. However, even that may depend on national circumstances. For Taiwan, the Taiwan strategy may not cost much in, say, lost tourism revenue, whereas in the UK, for example, or Switzerland, it would crush a major industry.
Don’t jumt to conclusions. I said the UK strategy was consistent with the utilitarian principle. I didn’t say that I am a utilitarian. Far from it.
Would an alternative strategy have resulted in fewer horrible and sad stories?
the CNN death rate did not go up today, despite them being DESPERATE for as many Americans to die from this thing as possible. you know for sure they are hunting high and low for dead old boomers the way they hunt every day for africans getting killed by the police.
and the CEOs who manufacture medical stuff are still not in a hurry to mass produce equipment that they might not even be able to sell in 1 month. so the smart people with billion dollar companies on the line are watching closely and are not anywhere close to hitting the panic button like unpaid internet posters have been.
we will check back in a few days. something tells me the death rate in the US will be way below the hysteria.
At the end you mention the United Kingdom which tends to obviate your argument for general control. It would seem that the most effort should be put into programs for those most at risk especially if countries like the UK make actual suppression impossible or only a short term palliative. If Covid-19 does become an endemic virus it is important to ask if catching it will for many people be just like the flu. If it is then the greater infectiousness may be less of a problem for those people.
Moreover, you have not discussed the changes in immunity in future years from fighting off this virus or the adaptation of the virus to human hosts. What is the merit of the UK’s long term goal of herd immunity? Will it become less virulent? There is also the likelihood of better medical procedures in the future.
It seems that most analysis of the impact of the virus assumes equal effective risk in its proposals for containment even as it is acknowledged the elderly and the frail, as usual, are at greater risk. It would seem the real dividing line is between those for whom it is “just like the flu” and those for whom it is something more.
Why is that so? Shouldn’t the greater effort be put where the greater risks are found? Please comment.
Utilitarianism also posits that the ends justify the means…
Perhaps the UK is looking for a twofer here — develop herd immunity and resolve a looming pension crisis. Wonder which is their primary primary goal and which is running PR interference.
Yep, throw enough money at bankers and happy headlines at their algos and the market goes up. Who’d a thunk it…
Thanks for making my point.
I see you don’t let things like facts get in the way of your thoughts…
Treatments have been found and are being used in China and South Korea. In China, they’re using chloroquine, and in South Korea, hydroxychloroquine, both anti-malarials. Other treatments involve zinc and zinc ionophores, such as quercitin, a bioflavonoid, available OTC. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vE4_LsftNKM and https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4808895/ and https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25050823
We’ll see who does better, no need for heated debates.
The problem is that no one seems to have contemplated what I maintain is the “correct” strategy: isolate those at risk, rather than destroy the economy via seeking to limit all social contact. So the heated debate will continue (at least as long as I avoid being “culled”).
No matter what the results are in May only one thing is certain: politicians will claim “victory”, that they have saved millions of lives while their opponents dithered.
Permanent 2.5 Year Drop in US Life Expectancy
The “permanent” effect on US life expectancy will be:
1. For those born after 1960: 0.0000 years, if not slightly positive if US winds up taking more drastic measures (see Spain and Italy) that will reduce “unnatural” deaths from auto and work accidents.
Good luck for those seeking universal herd immunity:
https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/health-environment/article/3074988/coronavirus-some-recovered-patients-may-have
We know with certainty that this is all some kind of fraud and beat-up.
Howso? Because of the fact that that the-powers-that-be have decided to destroy the international economy (!!!) rather than accept some thousands or tens of thousands of deaths – a trivial number considering that 50,000 a year die just of opioid overdoses in the US.
So they have decided to crater the economy for that? Absurd.
And how many people infected end up in ICU? Lungs take time to heal.
What this flu virus does is simply bring forward the deaths of those likely to die in the next year or two anyway, so life expectancy should increase in the following years.
Qom has the same climate .
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3550308
A HK friend who has a friend involved in medicine says they also think smoking and pollution had an impact in Wuhan, not really surprising as it compromises your respiratory immune system, nor is that there will be a seasonal element to this flu.
I have read yesterday the same article in German language about DR Owen Zang (Tsang) https://de.sputniknews.com/panorama/20200314326603710-atemnot-chinesischer-arzt-coronavirus/
The essence is this:
People who survived the medical concentration camps still have breathlessness!
Dr. Tsang found that “Some patients might have a drop of about 20 to 30 per cent in lung function”….”the long-term effect on recovered patients, such as whether they would develop pulmonary fibrosis, a condition where lung tissue hardened and the organ could not function properly, had yet to be ascertained”.
This are exactly the same symptoms I have discored also at my work as a breathing therapist during the AIDS hysteria. People who where tested HIV positive also had to deal with a drop of lung function caused by pulmonary fibrosis!
But pulmonary fibrosis is not caused by a Virus!
Its caused mainly by stress, fear, panic but especially also after a Covid-19 test….where those people are told “you have a deadly virus in your lungs”!
The same stress situation also birthing woman face during uterin contraction. If you dont have the right breathing technique your breathing might collapsing!
People who have this stress, fear, panic condition for weeks do seriously damage their lung functions!
The theory that a new virus causes this lung damage is a big fraud!
Cui bono? Tyrannical vaccination pope Bill Gates and the usual suspects aka the chosen one!
https://twitter.com/AbraarKaran/status/1238284998777634817
Any theories as to why Unz might want to push the its the Jews who did it conspiracy angle, aside from him being mentally ill or owning CNOOC shares?
Karlin should be ashamed of himself. His blog post is a complete endorsement of the health and environmental authoritarianism that is very much concurrent with Nazism. We are headed for the biggest human rights catastrophe in the history of civilisation.
It is simply unforgivable for the alternative blogger to accept the totally BS proposition that 70% of a country or world population could be infected, without a high degree of ridicule or scepticism. Unless part of a “herd immunity” deliberate policy…. there is no way the 70% figure is plausible.
Infectious diseases departments appear to be overloaded with women/feminists…. and everybody knows that no woman outside of the former USSR has ANY mathematical ability at all.
The same thing happened with the depraved lie about Red Army “mass rape” in liberating Berlin – it was based not on any evidence, but a mathematical model created by 2 stupid German women!
75+ age people die at a mortality rate that’s from 100-1000 times more higher than young adults. So how the f**k has Karlin got those figures that list a difference of only 15 times, when disease should only increase the mortality across age difference? Has he literally done a LOG -graph but accidentally forgot to label the data as logarithm for the graph of mortality rate per age from flu?
. SO WHAT!!? That’s based on quality,not quantity- the same “overloading” effect would occur if you replaced their population in Northern Italy with the same number of people from somewhere in lazy, fat,America, like Conneticut, for the day. Result would be the obscene number of obese protoplasm US morons would overwhelm them.
Has ANYBODY bothered to see if temperatures just 3 celcius lower than average for the first three months of this year, in place of any coronavirus in Italy, Spain, Iran, US, Kitai, UK etcet…. would actually result in alot more deaths compared to now?I suspect it would.
One of the few things I respect about the US is the second amendment. This wave of health authoritarianism steamrollers over much of the philosophy around it. Its partly about defending your own land, property and family- the latter under proposed laws of health authoritarianism in US and different states would be severely hindered.
A disgrace!
But these are the more severe cases that ended up in ICUs and survived, not for everyone that got the virus.
So IIRC 20% ended up in ICUs for treatment, of those 1/4 of those have long-lasting breathing problems.So about 5% of people who get virus this have decreased lung capacity several weeks after recovery, we don’t know how long this will last.
They are guessing a vaccine in about a year from when this appeared (so in December 2020 or a few months later). Taiwan would do well to hold on until then.
The UK has 12 million of pensionable-age, so to greatly impact the cost of their maintenance, they will need a veritable holocaust. My bet is that the COVID19 mortality in the UK will be under 10,000, an insignificant number in relation to pension costs.
I vote #4. There’s a long article on Zerohedge that swayed me.
Life expectancy graph for the Black Death (1/3 of Americans die in one year of all those, who would not have died otherwise).
https://twitter.com/akarlin88/status/1239217743104282625
So yes, in some absolute sense, the skeptics are right – “no biggie.”
Despite years of effort no effective vaccine for coronaviruses has ever been found, indeed there is a strong suspicion it might enhance the disease.
Stuff starts going wrong when you get old, recovery times are longer, if at all.
It’s such a small number amongst millions of people over a relatively significant time period of 3 months , in an age of mass urbanisation…… that it wouldn’t surprise me at all if Year-on-year deaths for pensioners are actually lower this year, than for last year in Italy, Spain, France, UK etcet.
Take Ukraine, where there are at least 570000 deaths per year, which is 1500+ deaths per day. You can’t trust that authorities in European states haven’t over exaggerated the coronavirus aspect ahead the “underlying health issues” aspect, in order for creating mass hysteria
Wuhan has 11 mil, deaths so far 3000. When you count early deaths when they were not accepted into hospitals because no beds were available, and other deaths because med resources were concentrated to fight COVID19, and there are yet deaths to come because there are still many in serious conditions in Wuhan, the total deaths, directly and not so indirectly, probably 5000.
That is when China did drastic measures since end of Jan.
UK has 65 mil, probably better med care. If the total deaths because of COVID19 is less than 10,000 by end of summer, then, yes, summer must be helping.
Think about military. Think about the internals of an enterprise. These are command structures not free markets. And also there are families and Church, they are not free market structures. The human heritage is rich. There is no excuse that you only see what you want to see.
There is no reason to think that when a virus hits, the society can only act as if it is a market problem.
If you are interested, maybe you can read Ronald Coase. It is a standard econ topic.
Your pseudo-scientific evolutionary explanation is wrong.
From the natural selection point of view, a virus wants to be as mild and ineffective as possible, it doesn’t want to kill its host.
(Then again, Darwinian evolution itself is self-contradictory bunk, so I don’t blame you in using a wrong theory in the wrong way.)
Efforts were lackluster for years but have gone into high gear now.
https://www.dw.com/en/germany-and-us-wrestle-over-coronavirus-vaccine/a-52777990
The company hopes to have an experimental vaccine developed by June or July, and then to get approval for testing on people. The research into several possible vaccines had begun and the two most promising would be chosen for clinical tests, CureVac co-founder and chief production officer Florian von der Mülbe told Reuters on Friday.
https://www.livescience.com/us-coronavirus-vaccine-trial-recruiting.html
Researchers in Seattle have begun recruiting healthy volunteers to participate in a clinical trial for an experimental COVID-19 vaccine, according to news reports.
The vaccine, developed by the biotechnology company Moderna Therapeutics, was initially sent to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) in Maryland on Feb. 24, according to The Wall Street Journal. The agency anticipates launching a clinical trial by the end of April and will sponsor the Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute to conduct the testing, NIAID Director Anthony Fauci told The Wall Street Journal.
Because other countries have the benefit of Chinese experience, they should do better than China in containing the virus.
What the Chinese experience shows is that the virus-caused demand for hospital care and mortality rises sharply with age, and does so strongly over the age of 60. The UK response reflects this fact. Thus, the authorities are allowing the infection to spread throughout the population to the point it impacts a substantial number of the elderly. At that point, the elderly will be required to go into quarantine for four months, primarily for their own protection, rather than for the protection of others, since the spread of the disease is many due to the younger members of the population.
Quarantining the elderly will have two effects: (1) it will prevent mass infection of those most liable to life-threatening disease symptoms, thereby limiting both mortality and demand for hospital care; (2) it will reduce the average number of people each infected person will infect, i.e., the reproduction rate or R_nought. The latter effect, combined with the rise in the proportion of the under-65 population who have acquired immunity, will, it is hoped, drive the reproduction rate below 1.0, at which point the epidemic will die out.
Mass hysteria bullshit cooked up by the Jew World Order to usher in the next phase of their sick agenda. (no pun intended)
https://www.bobleesays.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/chicken-little.jpg
lol
The notion that we should trust statistics in PC America is ludicrous. We don’t have a culture that values objectivity and truth. Italy is undoubtedly ahead of us in that respect.
Sure efforts have been stepped up, but there is no reason to expect them to be successful, and be ready before this virus burns itself out.
Goldman Sachs
https://twitter.com/GuidoFawkes/status/1239277866745020416?s=20
So, to be aggressive in another direction, a country like UK might benefit by immediately start quarantine the entire 60+ population with or without symptoms. And let the rest of society go on its normal routines.
Then, gradualy, let the old ones go back to society and monitor their health conditions.
OK, now I see. Maybe the UK get it right? This is not something Chinese could have known as the first being hit.
But then, there is such a huge problem afterwards. Hehehe, how could countries like China and Korea deal with it? Everyone must be forced to adopt the UK strategy if they are successful. A lot of headache in the months to come!
Is the “shut down” so “they” can install/update their 5G weaponry in every venue? Joe Imbriano of The Fullerton Informer explains to us how that is exactly what’s going on.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMUPrPHbALM
Wow. Trump tried to buy vaccine rights from Germany to make it exclusively for America.
https://twitter.com/KBAndersen/status/1239227651027501057
Wow! An American President who is actually looking out for Americans!
Wow indeed. Been many years since we’ve had one of those.
Well, back to the topic: does this counts as “doing something”? 😉
https://twitter.com/SheriffClarke/status/1239320085778571266
FYI: this guy is not ordinary internet nut, but strongly based and redpilled big name Trumpist, and according to his tweets, part of the secret Illuminati plan to genocide boomers ;-(
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Clarke_(sheriff)
There will be no vaccine. Certainly no conventional vaccine. There may be DNA/RNA vaccines that modify your cells but they are very new, totally untested and have the potential to be very dangerous. Essentially, they are viruses themselves.
People do NOT catch the SAME cold every year — it’s a different cold. You can’t catch the same cold twice. As for immunity, one builds it against what one has gone through — and that is an unalterable fact of self-immunization. If one is reinfected, it is with a mutation of the earlier one — but the newer one is already weakened, and so the self-immunity holds. I don’t believe any “reports” of mere reinfection.
I would NEVER trust any vaccine over my own innate immune system.
Learn how to live in a time of “not knowing.” Let everyone go through whatever is out there, take it on, get sick, get better, even die if necessary! It’s always better to build your own immunity from direct contact, instead of letting risky vaccines do that. Homeopaths know better than allopaths about immunity, and have known it for a long time…
How long do people think they can battle with all of this bullshit — of data, numbers, stats, reports, disinfo, contradictions — what the world will continue to endlessly spew at you, daring you to think you can actually “get to the bottom of it” — before you look less Sherlock Holmes and more like Don Quixote?
Why make it exclusively though?
Why not just say I want it for my country?
This makes Trump look suspicious. That he either wants to use the vaccine as leverage against other countries during a crisis (a disposable act). Or he wants to deny the vaccine to other people.
And who are “those at risk?” In the Netherlands, half of all Covid-19 patients are below 50:
https://www.ad.nl/binnenland/40-a-50-nederlandse-coronapatienten-op-intensive-cares-meer-dan-de-helft-is-onder-de-vijftig~a058aad2/
It’s well known that mortality among the 30-40 was 0.2% in China. Even though the healthcare system was only overwhelmed in Wuhan, and only for a short time. The WHO assistant director-general Bruce Aylward said he saw no evidence of large numbers of untested people with no or mild symptoms. (The Chinese basically used cellphone information to locate any and all contacts of anyone tested positive, and tested each. That’s part of how they stopped the epidemic.) You are simply assuming there must’ve been masses of untested virus carriers in China to justify your belief in a lower mortality rate.
You are willing to gamble the lives of tens of millions on this baseless assumption coupled with your belief that the Standing Committee of the Central Political Bureau of the Chinese Communist Party fell victim to some mass hysteria. (?) You also failed to explain what is going on in Iran, or in Italy. (Why are ICUs clogged? It’s never happened with the flu.) Certainly the first instinct of the leftist Spanish government was not to shut down their economy. (Hysteria or not, quarantines are massively unpopular and people don’t usually comply at first. In Italy people used the school closures to visit playgrounds, go skiing, whatever.) You know what the leftist scum in the Spanish government did one week ago? They encouraged masses to participate in a mass feminist rally on March 8. Something forced them to change their mind. It’s not like they wouldn’t try to have as little lockdown as possible. They don’t want to stop the economy. (The Zhongnanhai… even less so.)
https://necsi.edu/systemic-risk-of-pandemic-via-novel-pathogens-coronavirus-a-note
You are assuming a very low mortality rate (Karlin based his estimate on the Chinese data), which is baseless. Even so, you are assuming that the ultimately unsustainable lockdowns will continue into the indefinite future. Why?
You also got carried away with this “sick anyway” and “comorbidity” thing. The comorbidity is often just diabetes. We’re not in the 19th century, so it’s not a death sentence. Unhealthy, yes, in a bad shape, yes, often obese, yes, but normally wouldn’t die within six months.
But even cancer. Many types of cancer have over 50% survival rates. My father had melanoma ten years ago, but it was removed and he recovered quickly. He’s turning 75 in a few months, but still an avid swimmer (1500 meters a time, three times a week) and table tennis player. (He only stopped these for a few weeks, maybe a few months, after his surgery.)
In Hungary a 70yo guy was operated with cancer in late February. The surgery was considered a success and he was set to be released from hospital, when he got what was at first believed to be the flu. He quickly developed symptoms of a severe pneumonia, and then he tested positive for Covid-19. He’s in an ICU ever since. Is it fair to say that the cancer would’ve taken him in six months anyway? I don’t think so, but who knows.
Just to clarify, half of those in intensive care.
It’s unclear to me how you’d plan to isolate the 60+ population. (I guess that’s what you had in mind.) If there’s an uncontrolled epidemic among the rest of the population for several months, you cannot prevent older people from catching it.
Welcome to the low quality of life that awaits us all as the global population
approaches 8 billion! This is particularly sad for people under 40 who are
effectively still starting their life, and haven’t had a chance to enjoy life
on a grand scale or at the very least enjoy the fruits of a life well lived.
You can either have a high quality of life and the global population of
2-3 billion (good equilibrium point between the human predators and
the rest of the global biota within the Gaia system, esp. bacteria and
viruses)
or a low quality of life as our population rises to 8-9 billion. You can’t have both.
Clearly, the Earth (or Gaia) is trying to get rid of us. As I wrote before the
current outbreak, as long as we operate as lowly weapon-making primates,
the Earth will be better off without us and will make repeated attempts
to get rid of us. Until we drastically reduce our population, we don’t deserve
to be part of the animal kingdom.
John Gray, British philosopher, atheist, and author of “Straw Dogs – Thoughts on
Humans and Other Animals,” defines humans as “weapon-making animals with an
unquenchable fondness for killing.” I couldn’t agree more, except that as someone
who believes in the evolution of consciousness I think this is only true of our current
primitive state, in which we operate at perhaps 1/1000 of our spiritual potential.
there is no vaccine for rhinovirus, so maybe there won’t be a vaccine for coronavirus.
it’s possible this thing will be around forever now, in a minor form, year after year, like other minor germs. the permanently damaged lungs thing is definitely a drag, but it seems like that’s not common with survivors. we went thru polio and tuberculosis for decades, which can also permanently damage you, without even shutting down baseball, let alone the entire country.
80,000 Americans were killed by influenza 2 winters ago, the most in 40 years, and nobody said a single thing about it. that will almost certainly have taken out more Trump voters than this thing will. not enough to affect the election, probably…but wow. 80,000. talk about Boomer Remover.
it’s possible brown people are not that susceptible to this thing. we’ll see. africans barely get colds, those are rhinoviruses. they have better immune systems for some things than all other humans due to 200,000 years in Africa with no tech. coronavirus resistance may be similar.
I suppose China has the option of playing around with allowing certain age groups to go about their business now, looking at different regional climates as well. The question is then if new infections do start popping up do they let it go somewhat or shut it down again, I guess it depends on whether they the infection are mild or symptomless.
Which also explains why Chinese ambassadors pick random ass fights by writing ridiculously inflammatory letters and pissing off the host governments enough that officials in the host governments demand they get kicked out. Gotta look macho for the audience back home. They can’t always get away with this though if they’re based in a country that the high ups consider important. Like the ambassador to Russia who was demanding the Moscow government stop discriminating against Chinese tourists. Russia being Russia obviously didn’t give a damn and since the higher ups in China actually want to maintain a good relationship with Russia probably told the ambassador to quit it.
That being said, someone higher up probably decided that having your whole foreign ministry act like autistic 4chaners is probably a bad idea and decided to unleash the Jack Ma for a softer more friendly approach to propaganda. Jack Ma created a twitter account just to post about how he was donating masks and test kits to America. Pretty effective given that America actually needs them.
cleanse the planet
Triaging creates its own statistic bias in the age dependent CFRs – a self-fulfilling prophesy. Corona virus will kill because you are old = we let corona virus kill you because you are old.
Only a matter of time until BS like this would appear:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/16/opinion/russian-interference-coronavirus.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage
Figures it’s from a JHU academic.
On another topic raised, the US government has come closer to sowing ethnic division in Russia than vice versa.
Mass closures medically challenged:
https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/03/16/why-covid-19-is-such-a-threat-to-the-60-plus-population-and-why-the-response-may-make-it-worse/
Just out of curiosity Reiner, as you seem to be on the pessimistic side – did you buy any biohazard protection equipment to prepare for this?
I had 3M N95 masks, but just for “fun” this month I ordered through my office from Germany a couple of professional and expensive respirators which will allow me to remove things like radioactive dust. So, I could probably change career and now be hired, if anyone needs to move asbestos, or someone to accompany them to Chernobyl and Fukushima.
Today, it is admitted, you will look a bit like an overexcited idiot if you wear such respirators in the supermarket, but I wonder that perhaps in 1 month you will be get more envious looks than for any iPhone or Yeezy.
The extent of this would also be dependent on how many medical ventilators are available relative to the number of patients.
Germanyhas 25000 medical ventilators, and is now ordering production of an additional 10000 medical ventilators from its domestic companies. So, although these might not be available in time (production of all of them will last all year) – to an extent they are, we might expect then even lower ratios of old people among deaths.
UK only has 5000 medical ventilators, which seems a very low number for 66 and a half million people.
In Russia, a lot of regions are reporting their numbers of medical ventilators, and it seems better than the UK in this area. E.g. In Sverdlovsk region, more than 1500 medical ventilators for 4,3 million people.
https://www.eenewseurope.com/news/uk-looks-ramp-ventilator-production-covid-19
“The German government has reportedly ordered 10,000 ventilators from Draegerwerk in Luebeck, while Hamilton Medical in Switzerland has ramped up production by 30% to a run rate of 20,000 a year.”
If Hamilton Medical can make 20,000 per year then perhaps they can make 1666 in 30 days.
https://www.ft.com/content/5a2ffc78-6550-11ea-b3f3-fe4680ea68b5
“In Italy, where medical staff have been told to prioritise the patients with the highest chances of survival because of the lack of the equipment, the country’s only producer Siare Engineering was asked by the government to start producing 500 ventilators a month, up from 125.”
Note:
UK 6.6 critical care beds per 100,000 people
Italy 12.5
Germany 30
Complete bunk.
For those of my generation, born during WWII, life for the vast majority in the Western world was incredibly restricted. Ninety percent of Frenchmen did not own a toothbrush (maybe they still don’t), in England food, clothes, gasoline were all restricted. Shortage of gas didn’t bother most people, of course, because they had no motor vehicle. Mostly people commuted to work on foot, bicycle or bus. Mostly women stayed home and baked apple pies and gave kids the attention they needed. Compared with the present day, there was virtually no entertainments industry, no bowling alleys, no ice rinks, no cinemas without fleas. The big thing for most young adults was the saturday-night hop.
And, in recollection, life seems to have been better, much better, than today. So a sharp decline in the Western standard of living may prove, in fact, to be a good thing. It may even restore the fertility of the European nations. I mean without much else to distract them, what are young people gonna do?
Are Estonians big smokers? They have better lung function than Italians, Spaniards, Portuguese, etc. I was thinking that maybe smoking reduces breathing efficiency, but the Mediterranean climate leads to weaker lung efficiency than cold climates. I wouldn’t say that those in temperate climates are doomed, but maybe those in cold climates aren’t either.
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-51906604
The first human trial of a vaccine to protect against pandemic coronavirus is starting in the US later on Monday, according to reports .
A group of 45 healthy volunteers will have the jab, at the Kaiser Permanente research facility, in Seattle.
The vaccine cannot cause Covid-19 but contains a harmless genetic code copied from the virus that causes the disease.
I would take the NHS over the Italian health system any day.
https://reaction.life/eyewitness-milan-why-italys-broken-healthcare-system-was-unprepared-for-coronavirus-crisis/
This is the same company – I ordered some professional respirators and some other protective stuff from Draegerwerk AG of Germany.
Probably I should donate it to hospitals, instead of the current plan of using them to go safetly to a supermarket.
” I would take the NHS over the Italian health system any day.” – Not if you were a pregnant woman.
Infant mortality
UK 4.30/1,000 live births
Italy 3.30/1,000
Or when it comes to life expectancy
UK. 81.77
Italy 84.01
And who are “those at risk?” In the Netherlands, half of all Covid-19 patients are below 50
We’ll have to wait to see how the situation in the Netherlands develops. For the moment, it seems that the average age of death is 79, but we are talking about a very small sample (24 at the moment).
What your quote doesn’t say is how many of these under-50 patients had pre-existing conditions and hence should have been self-quarantining. In any event, the same article you cited notes the following:
“The specialist explains that it also regularly happens with regular flu that younger people end up in intensive care. “You can see that with the flu: those people get serious double-sided pneumonia. Moreover, many elderly choose not to be treated in intensive care”.”
You are assuming a very low mortality rate (Karlin based his estimate on the Chinese data), which is baseless. Even so, you are assuming that the ultimately unsustainable lockdowns will continue into the indefinite future.
I am assuming that there will be near-zero mortality for those below 60, with the very few deaths being those with pre-existing conditions. These “early” deaths under 60 will be more than compensated for by “saved” lives from: lower deaths from flu* (because of sanitary measures adopted to combat coronavirus), fewer auto accidents, etc.
And for those over 60 I am assuming that total deaths will be no more than 100,000, even without an “unsustainable lockdown” that continues into the indefinite future. In other words, no more than the Flu Pandemic of 1968. Maybe I am wrong, time will tell. Personally my guess is that it will be far less.
*Daily deaths in US over the past few weeks have, according to the CDC, fallen from 600 to 300.
You are talking to fifone. A willy with willies.
Serious question: do you think that the CA governor was wrong, then, to order all bars/wineries/brewpubs closed and limit restaurants to 50% capacity for distancing?
He also directed people 65 and older to stay home. Don’t know how much the State can or will try to enforce that, but that’s the order, anyway.
As an aside about our brat elites, my boss was coughing and hacking in the workplace last week AND is elderly, yet refuses to abide by the directive to go home. Several of staff now have cold or flu-like symptoms. Won’t ever know for sure whether the boss caused that but it’s not a bad guess.
This is one reason my exercise regime is now focussing on stressting my lungs most. Nothing but HIIT. Best possible strategy for coping with the disease and minimizing the problems of recovery.
The Irish make half the world’s ventilators. China makes most of the rest. This UK didn’t think it needed stocks with such a large supplier just over the border. Now we are out of the EU. The EU has included the UK in its area for medical devices despite the fascist barstards of Brexit.
Light at the end of the tunnel — or an oncoming train?
After days of disastrous news, today actually marked an improvement in the three European countries most dramatically affected.
ITALY: both new cases and deaths declined (from 3,590 to 3,233, and from 368 to 342, respectively)
SPAIN: both new cases and deaths declined (2,000 to 1,438, and 152 to 21)
FRANCE: while new cases continued to increase, deaths decreased from 36 to 21
America is nothing if not a “stupidly run country”
Ukrainian and Belarusian response has been pretty shit to corona. Luka refuses to properly close anything, going for a more commie take on the UK model; most initiatives against corona are from locals. Ukraine is an inverse where gov’t is more wise & apprehensive but a less intelligent population nullifies that
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nK5K7wu0taA
Throwing fiery shit at an embassy is a very Chad tier maneuver, but gathering in a big group like this, doing marches, chants etc. Is not wise.
Given the Great FireWall, this “autistic 4chaner” style makes no sense. (By the way, great phrase!)
A portion of the Chinese government is just that, Mandarin in its most negative sense. Like Russians being Russians.
Being a diplomat, frankly, is kind of like a BS job.
The economic pressure is mounting and mounting. I pray this whole mess can go away soon. It lasts any longer, there is really no telling that the world of yesterday will come back. The worst elements, the more brutal elements of each country will come afore.
One thing I like about this is authoritarianism is coming back in full force and all the liberal democracy types are absolutely clubbered.
If it takes China and their virus to destroy liberal democracy, I’m all for it. All the right-libertarians jokers about muh freedom shit better learn soon or perish.
And Vietnam needs to stop taking in white tourists, holy fucking hell, they wear no mask and they infect everyone, absolute cancer among asian countries. In fact, white tourists spread more diseases than the chinks now.
What a needlessly black-pilled article. This gloomy author presumes there will be no treatment or preventative discovered, and that the playing field will stay exactly as it is today.
In fact, medical treatments are currently being developed in Australia, Japan and Thailand (chloroquine plus HIV meds lopinavir and ritonavir, and even a vaccine). This may be the kick in the pants the medical system needs to get rid of flu and other long-tolerated chronic viral plagues once and for all. INCREASE in worldwide human life expectancy coming up!
https://www.livemint.com/news/world/coronavirus-update-australian-researchers-claim-2-existing-drugs-could-cure-covid-19-11584369580246.html
https://nypost.com/2020/03/12/hiv-drugs-are-being-used-as-part-of-coronavirus-treatment/
Just hope that the cure isn’t deadlier than the disease, and that it doesn’t knock a few years off your life expectancy, if it doesn’t outright kill you. Big Pharma has a track record of doctoring data, falsifying test results, hiding side effects, and whatever else so as to sell its product.
You have to admit, all the previous gloomy and blackpilled articles were spot-on.
CA copying the British policy then.
The big difference between then and now is that the Shah had the western media in his pocket. They never criticised him. Their governments never criticised him either. He could do what he liked with impunity.
Luckily, I was around back then, so I know you’re full of shit.
I would not be too jubilant about those figures released yesterday–they suffer from the “weekend discrepancy” factor. Best to see what the pattern is during midweek.
Russia had 4 more cases on Sunday and then it went upto 30 new cases on Monday. That is clearly “weekend discrepancy”. If you took the average of the 2 days then it actually the disease is still in the linear stage (I. E not exponential) in Russia
French dress up as smurfs:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s85xG9Ol3Po
American university students get drunk at the beach:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQsmq5y6Ln8
And Ukrainians march with torches and throw stuff at the Russian Embassy.
To each his own.
All demonstrative of usual retardation of peoples. Of course the Russians still might not disappoint by outdoing everyone else on the braindead scald and still holding a victory day parade to infect millions at once including elderly veterans. There’s also the Indians and Arabs of coirse with many celebrations coming up, but for them such auto biological warfare is par for the course
This is indeed getting serious.
Why Trump should trigger NATO’s Article 5 vs. COVID-19
https://atlanticcouncil.org/content-series/inflection-points/why-trump-should-trigger-natos-article-5-vs-covid-19/
I wonder if they’re trying to impress their Party colleagues. Maybe there’s some virtue signaling on who gets to be the toughest on the Americans.
CCP is such a cancer. Cancer with purpose, yes. But still cancer.
Early Chinese “response” at its finest:
https://www.nationalreview.com/news/chinese-authorities-gagged-laboratories-in-december-over-coronavirus-sars-connection/
No wonder Taiwan has been so paranoid already from December and went quite well because of that.
Being collectively punished for crimes not of our own is the fate of everyone of us. After all it is in the Bible. 😉
I wonder if China has more of those machines because (a) they make them (b) they actually care more about their people than the US, I know, low bar, but there you have it and (c) Chinese smoke like chimneys. Lots of lung problems in normal times.
For alternate point of view:
https://twitter.com/MahoundParadise/status/1239945265391509509
Because the greatest tragedy is when McDonalds close.
If you are true American, life without burgers is fate worse than death.
https://twitter.com/MahoundParadise/status/1239980547935526915
Trump closing these bars and casinos will do more good for americans as a whole.
Americans need to party less and read more.
I know a couple (more or less former) martial artists (who both still train a bit, and also do just normal workouts), both of whom had a heart attack in their 30s. You wouldn’t tell by looking at them, since both look quite healthy, in fact, both look much fitter than average (I don’t know them enough to know if they abused some PEDs or other drugs in their youth), lean and muscular, and are productive, taxpaying members of society. One of them is a family father of two, the other I don’t know, but not unlikely he’s a father, too. How long should they self-quarantine? The course of natural epidemics are similar to a Gaussian curve, except it’s tilted to the left. In other words, they are exploding very quickly, and then they linger on for a very long time, but with a much lower number of infections (because most of those who could be infected have already been), so basically the situation would be similar to now (the early days of the epidemic) for months or perhaps until we have a good vaccine.
I’m sorry to have to break this news to you, but quarantines leak. You cannot reduce the number of new infections immediately to 0 just by ordering a 24/7 curfew. (Some people will obviously be on the streets, like police or ambulance or food delivery etc.) You can, however, bring down the R0 factor to below 1.0, which would ultimately stop the epidemic in its tracks. You can do that in, maybe, two months, based on the Wuhan experience. (Your mileage may vary, depending on how disciplined your population is.)
So you need to ask everyone to stay at home for two months, that’s doable. However, if the epidemic is running its course uncontrolled among the general population, then those few who do quarantine will need to totally, absolutely, isolate themselves from any contact points in society. Because, let’s face it, then everyone and their dog will be infected. The food delivery guy (and the people packaging the food), the nurses, the ambulance, really, anyone. Moreover, it will certainly take way longer than two months. Two months is not enough to reach the peak of the uncontrolled epidemic.
Even if, with some brutal measures (welding the doors shut of those who have diabetes, chronic heart disease, cancer, organ transplants, really any kinds of chronic conditions? and keep it that way for a year?), you can reduce their chances of infections to a very low number, it will never be zero. And the longer it takes (and it will take quite long – again, we’re talking about a year, perhaps somewhat shorter, but then again, perhaps two years), the closer to 1 the probability of them getting infected anyway gets. I mean, betting against someone in roulette (so, betting all numbers except the one he bets on) is an almost sure win. But over time, if the bet gets repeated, over and over again, we’re going to lose at least one round. And with a virus, losing one round means getting infected.
I haven’t yet talked about reinfections and the virus becoming endemic (like the flu – always a slightly different strain), in which case those people just have to be permanently written off. Also, if reinfection is possible, then 30-40 year olds will also get their chances to throw the 0.2% dice over and over again, every other year or so, like with the flu. (Except with the flu for the 30-40 age group it’s more like 0.01% dice, or even less.)
So your proposed solution doesn’t really seem better than doing nothing at all. For example, how are you going to isolate a nursing home? You’d have to isolate the nurses…
Another issue is that a lot of people have some underlying condition of which they are unaware of. There was a famous ice hockey player in Hungary (not an ice hockey great power, so no-one outside the country has heard of him) who was diagnosed with a hereditary heart disease several years into his career. The cardiologist eventually allowed him to continue to play, but told him he has a very high chance of dying. Which he did in a few years. What if he had not been a hockey player? Then no-one would’ve bothered to check his heart (and he wouldn’t have died anyway), and he’d have thought he was healthy.
Regarding an uncontrolled epidemic, we’ll see how well Iran’s economy is going to do this year. I wouldn’t bet on it, but maybe they will deliver the 0% GDP growth expected for this year. (Expected, that is, before the epidemic.) If they have a huge economic crisis on top of the epidemic, then we’ll know that just letting the epidemic run its course is not a good solution.
It has been pointed out somewhere that a non-trivial portion of GDP is coming from healthcare (in the US 17%, in Hungary just 7%), and it might collapse. You are aware that relatively young doctors were killed due to the Covid-19, because of the high viral load? And this with all possible protective gear, and while the country was in lockdown (so theoretically the chances of infection lower than in an uncontrolled epidemic). Similar high viral loads might be received by people like bus drivers or grocery store clerks. Those sectors of the economy are going to be hit no matter what, because if doctors drop dead, healthcare cannot continue to function. If grocery store clerks drop dead, that sector might collapse, too, and there might be uncontrolled panic and an inability to provide food.
Then there’s the risk the virus might stay and do something in your body which you don’t like. Tests wouldn’t show it if it was hiding in places like nerve cells. HIV infection results in a serious flu-like illness, from which, however, basically all patients recover. (Syphilis is similar.) And then, after years of latency, AIDS starts to set in. This virus is unlikely to behave in a similar fashion, but not impossible. So infecting everyone might be risky. You have to understand it’s not only risky for the individual. Risky for society and humankind.
Where did you get those numbers? Karlin simply estimated that the Chinese data might repeat themselves in an endemic situation. You also seem to confuse the first year of the pandemic with the long-term endemic situation.
I’m not saying your numbers are impossible, based on what we know, just don’t seem very likely.
Where did you get those numbers?
From my previous comments, I am making the assumption that for those under 60, deaths will be minimal, and those that do occur will be (at least) offset by a reduction of deaths from auto accidents, work accidents, etc. Indeed, saving a healthy 30 year old in from death by an auto accident will have a far more positive effect on average life expectancy than the death of a 55 year old with serious pre-existing conditions.
For those over 60, I am making a “heroic” assumption — which of course in retrospect may turn out to be completely unjustified — that the total number of deaths will be no more than 100,000, with each of these people on average dying one year earlier than they would have otherwise (the “canicule” effect). Again, a counteracting factor (in my favor) will be the reduction in deaths from auto accidents and from “ordinary” flu — as I indicated, flu deaths per week have recently declined by 2,000 in the US, and I would argue that a substantial part of this should be attributed to the measures adopted to combat coronavirus.
In several years time we will be able to evaluate whether there has been a “permanent 2.5 year drop in US life expectancy” (as per our host) or something closer to what I am predicting (not much different from zero). Which of us would you bet on? (I would also be curious to know where other commenters would put their money, or what will be left of it if and when this passes).
Not that it is in any way predictive of future performance, I will also add that in 2003 during the “canicule” in France I predicted (correctly) what was happening, and at the time everyone told me that I was nuts.
You have to understand it’s not only risky for the individual. Risky for society and humankind
I do accept that. And even if we survive this relatively unscathed, as I expect we will, there will be enormous long-term implications, because it will have highlighted how vulnerable we would be to a real (Justinian-type) threat.
It is (painfully) obvious that our current lifestyle (globalisation) is completely incompatible with what you (and many others, and perhaps even myself) would consider an acceptable level of risk.
Here is some information about the virus of value:
http://www.yourdestinationnow.com/2020/03/most-of-those-infected-wont-even-know.html
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2020/03/false-claims-about-the-novel-coronavirus-and-how-to-debunk-them.html#more
Earth is becoming too small. Small is risky.
One way to get bigger, again, is Space Colonies. The other is to reject globalization.
Rejecting globalisation is impossible without authoritarian, collective methods. The solution defeats its own purpose, frankly.
Neither, you are both overly optimistic. AK hasn’t factored in negative externalities and potential knock-on effects, while you are only considering the positive ones. Incidentally, I still have money to bet, in large part due to AK’s prescience in calling this thing early.
We’ll see the mortality statistics eventually. Here’s an interesting snippet:
https://globalnews.ca/news/6706748/coronavirus-deaths-italy-bergamo/
I think you are mixing up the long term “Covid-19 becomes endemic” situation with what’s going to happen this year.
Your scenario is not totally impossible, but doesn’t seem likely at all, and it’s certainly based on huge assumptions. Basically you think the world is overreacting because they should be acting on some hypothetical very best case scenarios instead of using the available statistics.
It’s pretty different from the heat wave, because, let’s face it, the heat is not a virus, it isn’t actively trying to make you sick. But I agree the numbers look like the heat wave only killed people who would’ve died a year later. It’s certainly not the case now.
A strong case can certainly be made that it’s better to err on the side of caution. In the future we will see (or at least debate) what really was happening.
Regardless, long-term the implications are going to be extremely major. Have a look at this article from the MIT Technology Review.
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/615370/coronavirus-pandemic-social-distancing-18-months/?truid=81710adc2d66a08f1d558b46f31dbe0d&utm_source=engagement_email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=site_visitor.unpaid.engagement&utm_content=3.18.non-subs
This seems to be as good a place as any to draw attention to a video which my Professor friend of (Galician) Ukrainian ancestry tells of Putin behaving like Trump.
https://www.cepa.org/russia-in-the-time-of-coronavirus
That is that neither cares about deaths, only about winning votes, and that Putin’s aim is to conceal the thousands of Covid 19 deaths in Russia till after the vote on whether he becomes or can become President till 2034.
In the meantime a lot of people are dying of “pneumonia”.
Your Galician friend, that sure sounds like a reliable source. Got any others about all these people dying of “pneumonia”? To wit, Karlin has already fairly thoroughly debunked these Russia-is-lying tropes. As he points out, where are the exports to other countries?
Would you be so good as to point me to the “debunking”.
I concede that I can conceive of Putin’s self interest being equally well served by his being seen as the indispensable leader to get Russia through the pandemic crisis. However he seems to be a cool and cautious man who possibly has decided that would be too risky and subject to surprises.
BTW: not a Galician friend. He was born in Australia of a father who was a refugee from Western Ukraine.
In the four flu seasons between 2013/14 and 2016/17 more than 68,000 Italians died, mostly the frail elderly (International Journal of Infectious Diseases Volume 88, November 2019, Pages 127-134). COVID-19 has killed 5500 Italians; one would expect 7,000 to 25,000 flu deaths (based on the range of the four prior seasons studied). These are the same populations; 88% of COVID-19 deaths are in Italians over 70 years old (many with co-morbidities). Chinese physicians were shocked at the lack of serious lockdown in Milan, noting people going to parties, gathering on the streets, etc, but this is essentially normal for a flu season in Italy except for the hysteria and MSM coverage.
I don’t really understand how you managed to comment here, number four hundred whatever, yet failed to see his latest column on this very subject, but whatever:
https://www.unz.com/akarlin/corona-wishes/
I don’t really understand how you managed to comment here, number four hundred whatever, yet failed to see his latest column on this very subject, but whatever:
https://www.unz.com/akarlin/corona-wishes
Here is an interesting item, an interview with a world-class virologist about the virus:
Quite different the what we see in the papers day after day:
https://www.anti-empire.com/german-virologist-of-international-renown-warns-government-lockdowns-are-a-horrible-mistake-will-make-crisis-worse/
Australia has a rapidly growing infected group. Temperatures up to 30 centigrade obviously have no effect. Perhaps when winter arrives we’ll be safe. [email protected]