Coronavirus Covid-19

[englad]

John Oliver did an excellent video on conspiracy theories. The main draw of them is proportionality bias, i.e. big events must have big causes. I think a lot of people are comforted in the idea of conspiracy theories, because the idea of random chaos scares them. There are no conspiracy theories about Reagan's attempted assassinatiom, there are dozens of conspiracy theories about JFK.

 

[rbkwp]

A look at the Americans who believe there is some truth to the conspiracy theory that COVID-19 was planned

i dont mind adding to the mix on this
i consider the possibility of Israel
think of the many dubious things they have done/got away with
Saudi Arabia is as bad,to me
the quiet/mousy ones,are those who do the bidding of others

both loved/respected even by two countries in particular,USA/UK
both,f whom i suspect know more than they are letting on
all very well to be blaming Russia/China,for all the worlds evils

dont prompt me to look for/post,hov Israel attacked that USA
ship,killing many sailors

thanks for the link Enid,likely i would not have seen it

A look at the Americans who believe there is some truth to the conspiracy theory that COVID-19 was planned
It's not just the US...

 

[dandelion]

*Sigh* 7.2% of known cases. Not 7.2% of the population. Obviously.

No, not obviously. People quote figures very misleadingly knowing they will be misinterpreted.

Of course these figures aren't 100% accurate

But people miss they might be out by x1000. Case numbers around the world are MASSIVE under estimates because hardly anyone gets tested, and only prople who are tested get counted as cases.

This creates the impression few people have had the virus, whereas when numbers get up to large proportions of the population, people realise that actually this is nowhere near as dangerous as claimed.

since we just don't know how this is actually affecting our population, we prefer to err on the side of caution.

A figure recently suggested that while 50,000 or so have died in the UK, 200,000 or so are likely to die after covid is over because of the disruption. How is it erring on the side of caution to impose an unnecessary lockdown which causes 200,000 deaths?

Getting it wrong is fatal, but making interventions can be as costly as not doing so.

But those figures are the closest we have right now,

No, they are not. Many are quite obviously wrong. but governments quote them as propaganda for whichever message they have chosen.

and the only way we can make an educated guess as to what's happening.

nope. There are simple methods of estimating cases using random sampling. In the Uk we are doing this now, but never did when the epidemic was at a peak. There was however a phone app survey conducted by a university, which estimated 2 million symptomatic cases just after lockdown. The official total of all cases is only 300,000. The phone app was limited in scope to just people with symptoms aged 20-70. Extrapolating from that to the whole age range and asymptomatic cases creates an estimate more like 10 million cases at that moment in time.

It is not unreasinable to suggest the total right now might be 30 million cases, half the population and x100 the current official total of all cases. Potentially this might be as high as most of the population, but certainly we could have achived herd immunity by now and the whole epidemic be over, had we allowed cases numbers to stay higher.

While looking at the deaths, half of them happened in care homes. We could have had the entire epidemic over with the great majority catching it, for no more deaths than now had we been more careful in protecting those at risks. Maybe fewer deaths than now. The number of deaths is not related to the number of cases. Its all about whether at risk people catch it.

you just can't assume an entire populace has had it because it seems like it would be true. People be like, "Oh it has a 99.9% survival rate!" which is pulling numbers out of thin air by using the entire population of the US.

I dont know the position across the US, except it is very different in different places. Locking down does not end the epidemic but simply postpone it.

But I'm also not going to shirk my duty and downplay the fact that I could give it to or catch it from someone at the store.

The sooner everyone safe catches it, the sooner it is over and the more lives we save, not to mention the money. The lockdown policy is disastrous because it fails to concentrate protection on the small number of people really at risk, while forcing the great majority who are safe to do nothing except run up a huge bill which they will hav to pay in the future. Most people who have died in the Uk have died because of failure to isolate and protect very sick people. These people did not catch it in supermarkets. Many of them became infected via health care! In several countries (including the Uk and US), infected people were sent from hospitals to care homes where they infected those at high risk, who therefore died.

It really is not about grocery stores. Its about sick people infected in care settings.

Shopping is both a normal thing to do and an event when you have 200 people in the store at any given time. There was an outdoor wedding in our town, scaled way down to 20 people. 3 ended up with Covid. That seems relatively safe compared to hitting the grocery store with 200 people in it, doesn't it?

The answer is no. Tracing people has shown people do catch it at weddings and dont catch it in grocery stores. Maybe because we dont shake hands or kiss in grocery stores? Maybe because we readily become intimate with friends and relatives at weddings, but not in grocery stores? It might be fair to think of this as more like a sexually transmitted disease! Up close and personal is how it spreads.

My point is that it costs me absolutely nothing to err on the side of caution until we nip this in the bud.

You are wrong. The cost to the UK of lockdown might be around £2 trillion. 60 million people, thats cost to each of us of £30,000. Happy to have that taken from your wages?

Wearing a mask, for instance, affects my life by 0.0%.

Then there is no reason for them to be compulsory, as you will happily wear one all the time. I hate wearing one, and I am sure you will respect my view and not insist I do.

it was never a big deal to begin with.

Its a huge deal. Its time to go and protest.

 

[dandelion]

Boris Johnson says coronavirus could have been handled differently

Understatement of the century, BJ. Maybe if you hadn't touted the idea of herd immunity at the beginning,

Herd immunity is the only way to end this. It could have been over by now.

maybe if you hadn't have discharged people from hospitals straight into care homes without bothering to test them during a pandemic,

Lets pick that apart. Testing gives a false negative result in 80% of people with symptoms. It is worse with no symptoms. It was worse still for the testing available at the start. There wasnt enough testing capacity for everyone. Testing would not have solved this problem, there was no way to be sure people sent from hospital had not been infected. This continues to be a problem, testing cannot tell us for sure someone does not have the virus.

Hospitals were told to expect 2 million new covid patients. They have 130,00 beds. Just what are you supposed to do in a situation like that? It is surely obvious that sending home every single person you can is the best course. That is why it happened. The 25,000 or so who died in care homes as a result were the price for saving more in the space freed up in hospital. Except...the 2 million hospital cases never happened. It was a false alarm. Those people died BECAUSE hospitals were told to prepare for a different epidemic which never happened. because most people are SAFE from covid.

maybe if you had not allowed 200,000 rich wankers to meet for a horse racing festival in March,

Irrelevant.

maybe if you had bothered to quality control the PPE you were importing, maybe if you hadn't ideologically blocked efforts to bulk purchase PPE with the EU,

PPe seems to hav been used wrong. Hospital staff are low risk and dont need much protecting. The problem was patients infecting other patients. Or spread in care homes. The PPE was not provided to care homes until after lots of people there started dying. PPE is pointless in shops, it isnt needed there. It was not provided where it was needed.

maybe if you had locked down earlier,

No. Unless enough people catch it, it will always come back. If anything lockdown was too early, but it should have been released much faster. The best course was the one sage chose, of flattening the peak. This is not where the plan went wrong, but in infections started in hospitals. It is quite likely the process of lockdown created a burst of new cases, but especially cases involving high risk people.

maybe if you had sacked your puppet master, Cummings, for his "essential" 400 mile trip during the lockdown and his subsequent 30 minute drive to "test his eyesight",

The truth is that such trips really made little difference. This is not how people caught it who died, and that is what mattered. Remeber the two medical advisors who made simila trips? They understood these measures really didnt matter. What mattered was what was going on in hospitals.

 

[dandelion]

By being slow to lock down, and over-eager to open back up, a nation is not only risking longer deeper economic damage, but also mindlessly causing deaths. It all beggars belief!

That the wrong way around. The least economic harm would probably result from doing nothing about covid. A smple policy of reducing the peak rate of infections to stay within hopsital capacity would produce the best economic outcome.

Thats because the faster it is over the better for the economy. And because covid does not kill many people of working age. There would have been minimal economic disruption as everyone got ill for a fortnight, and then went back to work.

As to deaths, that has little to do with how many catch it, but whether high risk people are protected. And here too, the faster it is over the easier it is to temporarily isolate those people from the rest of society and so keep them safe until it is over. It could have been done liken that. It wasnt.

 

[rbkwp]

thinking

you seem to have taken over shumes role of being the worlds authoritative spokesperson,for all CV related matters dands

not as if the UK has been a roaring success in every/anything its done

as i mentioned before and you conveniently bypassed what i was suggesting
it appeared the uk was several weeks at least,in being late to lockdown the country
many are saying that now,2 months later

almost quietly/stupidly allowing multiple increasing daily deaths,under the continual daily mention of,we must
test,test,test 'protect our NHS'
so theres room,and they are able to help people
when it/the pandemic hits,duh
not to mention all the unreported at the time,deaths that were happening in the aged care homes/hospitals

beware how you handle things,you huge/large countries
and humble yourselves,adopt what others do,you bastard glory seeking politicians

 

[rbkwp]

That the wrong way around. The least economic harm would probably result from doing nothing about covid. A smple policy of reducing the peak rate of infections to stay within hopsital capacity would produce the best economic outcome.

Thats because the faster it is over the better for the economy. And because covid does not kill many people of working age. There would have been minimal economic disruption as everyone got ill for a fortnight, and then went back to work.

As to deaths, that has little to do with how many catch it, but whether high risk people are protected. And here too, the faster it is over the easier it is to temporarily isolate those people from the rest of society and so keep them safe until it is over. It could have been done liken that. It wasnt.

as stated
a lot went unreported,at the time,re'high risk persons'
geuss some are OK with that huh

As to deaths, that has little to do with how many catch it, but whether high risk people are protected. And here too, the faster it is over the easier it is to temporarily isolate those people from the rest of society and so keep them safe until it is over. It could have been done liken that. It wasnt.

 

[MickeyLee]

Read Here Clickie

 

[englad]

Herd immunity is the only way to end this. It could have been over by now.

Herd immunity has so many nails in its coffin by now, it's very impressive you're still sticking by it. Even in precious Sweden, antibody tests done a few weeks back showed that the percentage of people who had sars-cov-2 antibodies hadn't reached double digits. Even the antibody tests done in New York are getting to a max of around 20%, to achieve herd immunity you need at least three times that number. There's also the issue of people rapidly losing antibodies after a few months, raising the prospect of reinfection.

Lets pick that apart. Testing gives a false negative result in 80% of people with symptoms. It is worse with no symptoms. It was worse still for the testing available at the start. There wasnt enough testing capacity for everyone. Testing would not have solved this problem, there was no way to be sure people sent from hospital had not been infected. This continues to be a problem, testing cannot tell us for sure someone does not have the virus.

Hospitals were told to expect 2 million new covid patients. They have 130,00 beds. Just what are you supposed to do in a situation like that? It is surely obvious that sending home every single person you can is the best course. That is why it happened. The 25,000 or so who died in care homes as a result were the price for saving more in the space freed up in hospital. Except...the 2 million hospital cases never happened. It was a false alarm. Those people died BECAUSE hospitals were told to prepare for a different epidemic which never happened. because most people are SAFE from covid.

If testing didn't work most of the time, South Korea would have continued to have a devastating pandemic. Their entire response was predicated on a strategy of aggressive testing and tracing, and it's been extremely effective. The amount of early testing in Germany, is a large reason why the pandemic response was better here.

The decision to not bother to test care home staff and discharged patients lead to the extremely high death tolls.

Irrelevant.

The impact that large gatherings had on the virus is completely relevant. Many super spreading events can be traced back to football matches (Atletico Madrid v Liverpool) and Karneval/Mardi Gras. The impact of large events is well documented.

PPe seems to hav been used wrong. Hospital staff are low risk and dont need much protecting. The problem was patients infecting other patients. Or spread in care homes. The PPE was not provided to care homes until after lots of people there started dying. PPE is pointless in shops, it isnt needed there. It was not provided where it was needed.

Hospital staff are not "low risk", especially not the ones getting up close and personal with covid patients.

Face masks that you wear in shops are not PPE, they're an infection control measure to make people less infectious, and a very necessary one.

No. Unless enough people catch it, it will always come back. If anything lockdown was too early, but it should have been released much faster. The best course was the one sage chose, of flattening the peak. This is not where the plan went wrong, but in infections started in hospitals. It is quite likely the process of lockdown created a burst of new cases, but especially cases involving high risk people.

No, unless you control the pandemic by effectively testing and tracing, and banning large events, and locking down if that strategy is not possible, you'll cause large amounts of unnecessary deaths before a vaccine is available.

If the lockdown in the UK had happened a week earlier and big events had been banned earlier, half the covid deaths would have been avoided and the lockdown wouldn't have had to go on for so long.

The truth is that such trips really made little difference. This is not how people caught it who died, and that is what mattered. Remeber the two medical advisors who made simila trips? They understood these measures really didnt matter. What mattered was what was going on in hospitals.

In terms of spreading the virus, these individual trips made little difference. In terms of harming the narrative of collective sacrifice and trust in the public health message, Cummings's "essential" trip (along with MPs visiting second homes etc.) was devastating. I distinctly remember those two medical advisors being fired, I doubt they didn't believe in the message, I'm sure their motivations were purely selfish.

That was quite a wall of conspiratorial drivel you came out with, it was impressive.

 

[englad]

Read Here Clickie

I don't get why Belgium's included on this meme, I think their mortality rate per capita is still the highest on earth.

Merkel was excellent in the pandemic, but I'm heartily sick of her political party and many of the things it's focussed on re: the economic recovery. Discounted cars, huge bail outs for lufthansa and the car industry, and comparatively little done for freelancers and nothing for precarious workers. Her party is more concerned that my internet, phone and public transport are paid for than my ability to pay the rent or have food in my fridge.

Danish prime minister falls into the Austrian government category, as her party pandered to nativism to win the election, but she undoubtedly led an excellent pandemic response.

The other female prime ministers and presidents on it =

So overall theme of the message, I endorse.

 

[Brian S]

No, not obviously. People quote figures very misleadingly knowing they will be misinterpreted.

But people miss they might be out by x1000. Case numbers around the world are MASSIVE under estimates because hardly anyone gets tested, and only prople who are tested get counted as cases.

This creates the impression few people have had the virus, whereas when numbers get up to large proportions of the population, people realise that actually this is nowhere near as dangerous as claimed.

A figure recently suggested that while 50,000 or so have died in the UK, 200,000 or so are likely to die after covid is over because of the disruption. How is it erring on the side of caution to impose an unnecessary lockdown which causes 200,000 deaths?

Getting it wrong is fatal, but making interventions can be as costly as not doing so.


No, they are not. Many are quite obviously wrong. but governments quote them as propaganda for whichever message they have chosen.

nope. There are simple methods of estimating cases using random sampling. In the Uk we are doing this now, but never did when the epidemic was at a peak. There was however a phone app survey conducted by a university, which estimated 2 million symptomatic cases just after lockdown. The official total of all cases is only 300,000. The phone app was limited in scope to just people with symptoms aged 20-70. Extrapolating from that to the whole age range and asymptomatic cases creates an estimate more like 10 million cases at that moment in time.

It is not unreasinable to suggest the total right now might be 30 million cases, half the population and x100 the current official total of all cases. Potentially this might be as high as most of the population, but certainly we could have achived herd immunity by now and the whole epidemic be over, had we allowed cases numbers to stay higher.

While looking at the deaths, half of them happened in care homes. We could have had the entire epidemic over with the great majority catching it, for no more deaths than now had we been more careful in protecting those at risks. Maybe fewer deaths than now. The number of deaths is not related to the number of cases. Its all about whether at risk people catch it.

I dont know the position across the US, except it is very different in different places. Locking down does not end the epidemic but simply postpone it.

The sooner everyone safe catches it, the sooner it is over and the more lives we save, not to mention the money. The lockdown policy is disastrous because it fails to concentrate protection on the small number of people really at risk, while forcing the great majority who are safe to do nothing except run up a huge bill which they will hav to pay in the future. Most people who have died in the Uk have died because of failure to isolate and protect very sick people. These people did not catch it in supermarkets. Many of them became infected via health care! In several countries (including the Uk and US), infected people were sent from hospitals to care homes where they infected those at high risk, who therefore died.

It really is not about grocery stores. Its about sick people infected in care settings.


The answer is no. Tracing people has shown people do catch it at weddings and dont catch it in grocery stores. Maybe because we dont shake hands or kiss in grocery stores? Maybe because we readily become intimate with friends and relatives at weddings, but not in grocery stores? It might be fair to think of this as more like a sexually transmitted disease! Up close and personal is how it spreads.

You are wrong. The cost to the UK of lockdown might be around £2 trillion. 60 million people, thats cost to each of us of £30,000. Happy to have that taken from your wages?

Then there is no reason for them to be compulsory, as you will happily wear one all the time. I hate wearing one, and I am sure you will respect my view and not insist I do.

Its a huge deal. Its time to go and protest.

It's a non-negotiable fact that my community saw outbreaks from WalMart, a grocery store, bars, etc. *Shrug* I don't know what to tell you. Whatever portion of your government's data you've deemed valid (while dismissing the rest) doesn't speak to facts about my community.

We don't know that herd immunity is a viable outcome, nor do we know the threshold required to achieve it. I just read an article about how they believe there are six strains of Covid. Which makes sense and would explain why some places are hit differently. It would explain why some people are like "Dude, it's no biggie" while others are dying prolonged, miserable deaths. It would certainly help explain fluctuating numbers and the variance in symptoms. That also throws herd immunity out the window. And how many deaths is an acceptable amount of death? Not to mention the potential for lifelong organ failure and health issues.

If governments are intentionally misquoting data to "serve propaganda", one wonders why Sweden would report such miserable numbers compared to the rest of the Nordic countries. If they want to be seen as having done the right thing, why would they report well over twice the amount? And if they did under-report, that means it was actually a hell of a lot worse which also negates the point.

I actually don't know if I've even used the word lockdown on this thread, yet you seem to think I believe we should all be in bunkers. It's just about being smart. I'm not as concerned with the almighty dollar - or pound, as it were - as you seem to be, but I'm also not turning a blind eye to the economic decline either. I, however, question what happens to your precious economy when another round of this flares up? What happens to the economy when people drop dead like flies? What happens to the economy when people need to take multiple weeks off at a time because they're sick? An economy is only as healthy as the society that feeds it. You're so worried about financial ruin - what happens to a family when the breadwinner dies? Or shit, almost worse here in the US, what happens when the breadwinner gets put in the hospital? Talk about financial ruin. And that's one of those societal differences I've spoken of - how am I supposed to climb out from under a million dollar hospital bill? So I've just spent a month and a half with all sorts of tubes shoved down me, lying on my stomach while shitting and pissing myself. Probably too weak to go right back to work - that's even if I still had a job by then - and who knows what kind of lifelong issues I now suffer from that'll cause me to miss work in the future. But that hospital bill lingers and they'll expect a payment at the first of the month no matter what. I would have a lifelong garnishment and it would absolutely ruin my credit score. I'd lose my car. We'd lose our house. Personally, I'd rather see the economy take a bit of a hit and eke through this rather than risk absolute financial devastation for the rest of my life. Oh, and also that pesky matter of death or lifelong health issues.

And no, I don't respect your "choice" to not wear a mask. Certainly not because you just don't like it. Your argument there fails to address that you wearing a mask affects other people, and not yourself. I wear a mask for others, because it costs me nothing to do, is really, really quite simple, and I'm also not a selfish child. Being a productive, active member of society has always come with a certain amount of responsibility. The fact that you would protest being asked to wear a mask shows me you've never faced any real hardship in your life. Sorry, not sorry, but pouting and saying "I don't wanna" is not a viable excuse for an adult.

 

[dandelion]

Even in precious Sweden, antibody tests done a few weeks back showed that the percentage of people who had sars-cov-2 antibodies hadn't reached double digits

yet despite that cases are faling in Sweden just as they are in other countries which had a full lockdown. Amazing how covid can be dying out there despite no lockdown and no antibodies.

What that really means is that people infected by covid do not make antibodies. Swedish research found that for every person who had antibodies after an infection, many more had long lasting T cell immunity to the virus. Its no good counting antibodies to determine if someone has had the virus because that isnt how humans deal with it.

Incidentally, they also found that blood from before the epidemic also had partial immunity to covid. Assumed to be because of past exposure to related viruses. So it is is likely every country will have resistance to covid-19 before it arrived.

If testing didn't work most of the time, South Korea would have continued to have a devastating pandemic.

No. They use quarantine. Right now the news was talking about this very point, the reason for insisting on 14 days quarantine is that a test doesnt tell you for sure a person does not have it. testing has been hyped up as a modern solution, but it is really a distraction which is not reliable.

The decision to not bother to test care home staff and discharged patients lead to the extremely high death tolls.

The nhs did not have the capacity to test all these people. If they had, it took days to get results. Then these results were not reliable anyway. Knowing all this, there wasnt actually much point doing any testing on them. The decision to send people home must have been taken in the knowledge some of them would be infected, but this was better than the people staying in hospital. At that time the NHS had been told to expect 2 million new patients. The imperative was to get rid of all normal patients.

Testing was irrelevant to the decision.

The impact that large gatherings had on the virus is completely relevant. Many super spreading events can be traced back to football matches (Atletico Madrid v Liverpool) and Karneval/Mardi Gras. The impact of large events is well documented.

Yes, but the AIM was to increase the total nuber of cases up to the level the NHS could sustain as fast as possible, so as to get the epidemic over quickly. More spread was a good thing. Aside from that, the aim would be to try to influence infection towards people who would be safe if infected, the younger the better. So raves probably ideal. Over excited young football fans hugging and kissing, ideal. Sage discussed this and it is mentioned in released documents.

Hospital staff are not "low risk", especially not the ones getting up close and personal with covid patients.

Yes, they are. They are not usually over pension age. Obviously the younger and healthier the better, but the total from the 1.5 million NHS staff to have come to harm is very low.

If the lockdown in the UK had happened a week earlier and big events had been banned earlier, half the covid deaths would have been avoided and the lockdown wouldn't have had to go on for so long.

At least half the daths happened in care homes and from infection within hospitals of other patients. What went wrong was spread inside care homes and hospitals. Not people who caught it outside of hospitals.

Lockdown did not just happen on one day. Sage changed their advice to government and stated at the start of March there would be an epidemic by the end likely to kill half a million people. If measures were adopted this total might be halved. Government then started a phased program of restrictions, starting with warning high risk people to shelter at home.

In order for people to shelter at home, they needed food. There now began a mass panic buying of food and supplies which caused shops to be massively crowded. Demand went up maybe 50%, maybe doubled. It is likely this spread the virus to people it had not been able to infect before, in particular to the elderly and high risk groups. The NHS started sending people back to care homes, causing the wave of deaths there.

Had this begun a week earlier...then it would just have all happened a week earlier. Lockdown itself caused a surge in lethal cases.

In terms of spreading the virus, these individual trips made little difference. In terms of harming the narrative of collective sacrifice and trust in the public health message, Cummings's "essential" trip (along with MPs visiting second homes etc.) was devastating. I distinctly remember those two medical advisors being fired, I doubt they didn't believe in the message, I'm sure their motivations were purely selfish.

Sorry, but I dont believe the medics would have done something they believed was any sort of risk to others. The first case they observed isolation, just moved locations. The second case the chap had already had the virus so was not going to spread it to anyone.

Cummings too observed isolation. This virus does not spread through casual contact, over 1m you are safe. I agree the effect is to undermine the credibility of government rules, but the fact is those rules were not credible. Lockdown was not necessary.

 

[dandelion]

It's a non-negotiable fact that my community saw outbreaks from WalMart, a grocery store, bars, etc. *Shrug* I don't know what to tell you.

Well i dont know of any evidence in the UK suggesting outbreaks from shops. Thats my fact.

It is a big mistake to make decisions based upon anecdotal evidence. People catch this from close contact, so when you say 'bars, etc,' these are places people do get up close and personal. Not at all the same as pushing your trolley around safeways.

We don't know that herd immunity is a viable outcome,

Well we are all dead then. Then only way to stop the virus is to develop resitance to it. If you dont do that, you die when you catch it. Millions of people in the Uk have had the virus, recovered, and will be immune now. There is really no scientific dissent from that.

. I just read an article about how they believe there are six strains of Covid.

The UK detected 1300 different strains of covid, most of which are now considered extinct. There is no suggestion any of them was materially different in their effects, despite having tiny differences. The most intersting thing, is that most of these mini epidemics in the Uk died out naturally. That implies some fundamental mistakes in undertsanding how the virus spreads, and that it has difficulty surviving. It needs super spreader events to spread - it does not spread significantly from everyday human to human contact.

I, however, question what happens to your precious economy when another round of this flares up?

Since the majority of working people would not even get sick, the majority of the remainder would only need a fortnight off work...then the effect on the economy might be a weeks loss of output anf then back to normal.

What happens to the economy when people drop dead like flies?

Ah but you see, nowhere in the world has this happened. You are assuming this would happen, but in reality there have already been milions of cases in the UK without mass deaths. It does not happen. Its a huge misunderstanding of Covid claiming it is far more dangerous than it is. Sage always talked about 'the credible worst case', and that is what they planned for. But it never happened. Anywhere.

This all stems from China downplaying the extent of the disease. If you have 100 people in hospital of whom 30 die, and these are the only case altogether, then its a big killer. If you really have 100,000 cases in the community which you arent admitting to of whom 100 reached hospital and 30 died..then it is not.

how am I supposed to climb out from under a million dollar hospital bill?

Not much help at the moment, but I suggest you vote for someone who will reform the US health service so it works on a national insurance basis. The state pays for immediate care from taxation. Its much more cost effective and no one ends up bankrupted by an illness. If its too late for that, then vote for someone who will retrospectively bail out people in such a position.

But if covid is not disposed of, then the nation will be bankrupted. Its a different chance you take, but if you a e a reasonably healthy person of working age, you are more likely to be bankrupted by lockdown indefinitely than by catching covid and being seriously ill.

Personally, I'd rather see the economy take a bit of a hit

You dont seem to understand the scale of this. National bankruptcy instead of a few personal bankruptcies is what we are talking about. as I said, you really need to change the US health system.

 

[rbkwp]

Chile police train dogs to sniff out COVID-19 patients
The dogs are being trained to detect carriers of COVID-19 by identifying a smell metabolic changes cause in their body.

Chile police train dogs to sniff out COVID-19 patients



ps
self professed
'greatest countries in the world',usually boastful Western ones
dont seem to have that happening,at least not reported,that ive heard of

 

[Brian S]

Well i dont know of any evidence in the UK suggesting outbreaks from shops. Thats my fact.

It is a big mistake to make decisions based upon anecdotal evidence. People catch this from close contact, so when you say 'bars, etc,' these are places people do get up close and personal. Not at all the same as pushing your trolley around safeways.

Well we are all dead then. Then only way to stop the virus is to develop resitance to it. If you dont do that, you die when you catch it. Millions of people in the Uk have had the virus, recovered, and will be immune now. There is really no scientific dissent from that.

The UK detected 1300 different strains of covid, most of which are now considered extinct. There is no suggestion any of them was materially different in their effects, despite having tiny differences. The most intersting thing, is that most of these mini epidemics in the Uk died out naturally. That implies some fundamental mistakes in undertsanding how the virus spreads, and that it has difficulty surviving. It needs super spreader events to spread - it does not spread significantly from everyday human to human contact.

Since the majority of working people would not even get sick, the majority of the remainder would only need a fortnight off work...then the effect on the economy might be a weeks loss of output anf then back to normal.

Ah but you see, nowhere in the world has this happened. You are assuming this would happen, but in reality there have already been milions of cases in the UK without mass deaths. It does not happen. Its a huge misunderstanding of Covid claiming it is far more dangerous than it is. Sage always talked about 'the credible worst case', and that is what they planned for. But it never happened. Anywhere.

This all stems from China downplaying the extent of the disease. If you have 100 people in hospital of whom 30 die, and these are the only case altogether, then its a big killer. If you really have 100,000 cases in the community which you arent admitting to of whom 100 reached hospital and 30 died..then it is not.

Not much help at the moment, but I suggest you vote for someone who will reform the US health service so it works on a national insurance basis. The state pays for immediate care from taxation. Its much more cost effective and no one ends up bankrupted by an illness. If its too late for that, then vote for someone who will retrospectively bail out people in such a position.

But if covid is not disposed of, then the nation will be bankrupted. Its a different chance you take, but if you a e a reasonably healthy person of working age, you are more likely to be bankrupted by lockdown indefinitely than by catching covid and being seriously ill.

You dont seem to understand the scale of this. National bankruptcy instead of a few personal bankruptcies is what we are talking about. as I said, you really need to change the US health system.

I wrote a big, long response originally, touching on each individual point. My responses were trending to a theme, however, so now I'm redoing this in hopes of brevity.

I've never been trying to deny that your information on the spread in the UK has been highly concentrated around hospitals, after care, long-term care, etc. In fact, I found an article that specifically stated your elderly were "catastrophically let down". I'm simply trying to point out that my demographics are different in cultural and sociological ways as well as by population density, industry, lifestyle, etc.

In my health district, the most cases came from factories and food processing plants. Construction is high on the list, as is retail. Hospitals/care units/nursing homes are below all of those things. To you, with the way things played out, those aren't blips on your radar. To me, those are the largest sources of Covid spread. We aren't condensed like New York City. We're not a Miami beach party; we don't have any huge music venues or sports arenas. A 4th of July party with 200 people at it IS a big event for us. And at any given moment, 200 people are inside WalMart. Those things are our version of a "super spreader" event.

But my statistics don't translate to Omaha, which don't translate to New York or LA or Miami, and certainly not London or Stockholm. Somewhere in the world, I'm sure the cases caught by people in the fishing industry is a significant fact, but it's not here at all. Here, and likely in so many similar communities across the midwest and perhaps even the US, the working class/age range were the ones hit the hardest. To the point that food processing plants, factories, restaurants, and retail stores had no choice but to close down simply because their workforce was diminished to a huge degree. In fact, the only time we've had to absolutely close our restaurant completely, it was due to those issues. And our staff's average age is probably 25-30. And this is delving into the anecdotal, but a healthy 18 year old high school athlete I tangentially know nearly died from it. A 40-ish woman I know well, who used to smoke, had hardly any symptoms and felt like she had a mild cold. It is those variables, those question marks, which give me pause.

The same article that supports your data also points out that the pandemic is showing no signs of slowing down here. Our obesity rates, our rates of chronic conditions, and high infectious disease burden all mean that we're at a significantly increased risk for developing severe cases of Covid.

And yes, our healthcare system is a fucking joke. I do vote for people who want to change that, but unfortunately we also have a high amount of obtuse, willingly-ignorant people in this country. Pointing it out just means I'm a "socialist libtard". These people would rather let corporate hospitals, insurance companies, and big pharma rake us over the coals than ever admit a democrat had a good idea. It's absurd and disgusting. I routinely point to the UK and Sweden as models of something we could try, but Obama trying to give us healthcare is literally disregarded as tyranny and treason by these people, who obviously have no idea what those words actually mean.

I don't know enough about the UK government to know how it is for you, but our constitution guarantees a state's right to quarantine and lockdown when public health and safety are at risk. To my understanding, no state has invoked the full extent of their powers. I think they've all been somewhere in the middle. Which is where I'm coming from. I'm not suggesting an utter and complete lockdown; I'm not suggesting hoarding goods and retreating to a bunker. But I'm also not suggesting running around a grocery store - or any place - willy-nilly, coughing on people and invading personal space. (I mean, you really should see some of these WalMarts here in the midwest.) If the trade-off for wearing a mask means we get to keep our restaurant open and not enter the strictest of lockdowns, then yeah, I'm definitely gonna wear a mask. (Setting aside the efficacy debate for the moment.) And I agree that your data signifies that this kind of spread is marginal, but from where I'm sitting, our spread is almost exclusively from retail, restaurants, work places.

It's also quite a bit different in comparing industries. Five to ten people catching it at a manufacturing facility is much more easily absorbed, and is not going to spread through whatever parts the factory is making. Five to ten people catching it at our small restaurant means we'd just have to close. And the industry itself lends it to a higher risk of community spread. So even putting aside death or health issues, I feel like I have an absolute duty to make sure I don't get Covid and give it to my partner. If he can't run our restaurant or if he spreads it to our staff, then we'd have to close and there's where our financial hardships would really begin. If he spread it to customers, it's a PR nightmare. And in the next step of that, if either of us had to be hospitalized, that's just an absolute certainty that our financial lives would be destroyed. Forever. I'm not saying "close all restaurants indefinitely", I'm saying mitigating risks and acting responsibly are key to us not having to close our restaurant.

ETA: Eesh, not sure I hit "brevity" per se, but it is more focused.

 

[NCbear]

Preach, Brian.

NCbear (who knows an evangelical “socialist libtard” when I see one—and who’d vote for one if one was on the ballot!)

 

[Brianreloaded]

I'm from Chile, so as you know, here in Latin America everything is going harder, my family doesn't have enough money and we have problems to pay the rent (200 dollars) I don't know how to help my family because I can't work now (I got a cirugy and here work is really difficult to find) I wanted to ask for help but who can help me? Nobody, this is difficult and harder to live.

Bad luck is my second name. My dog started to give birth and she had complications with the size of the doggies, now she is in the veterinarian. Maybe I should sell a few of my things. I'm really hating my life right now.
Maybe this is against the rules, and if is I will delete my comment, but I'm kinda desperate, I don't know how to help my parents and my economical situation.
paypal.com/paypalme/pollitovicioso.

 

[rbkwp]

POMS/UK

your pretty fucken hopeless
i dont mind saying
soooo bloody wishy washy
worse than the USA in this inst


Podcast

Today in Focus / Will we ever achieve immunity from Covid-19?

Recent studies suggest that even where immunity is developed to Covid-19, it may be fleeting. Science editor Ian Sample looks at what this means for vaccines, treatments and living long term with the coronavirus

Will we ever achieve immunity from Covid-19? – podcast

 

[Industrialsize]

That the wrong way around. The least economic harm would probably result from doing nothing about covid. A smple policy of reducing the peak rate of infections to stay within hopsital capacity would produce the best economic outcome.

Thats because the faster it is over the better for the economy. And because covid does not kill many people of working age. There would have been minimal economic disruption as everyone got ill for a fortnight, and then went back to work.

As to deaths, that has little to do with how many catch it, but whether high risk people are protected. And here too, the faster it is over the easier it is to temporarily isolate those people from the rest of society and so keep them safe until it is over. It could have been done liken that. It wasnt.

@dandelion, you disseminate a lot of information regarding COVID. You speak with great authority. You speak as if everything you say is a fact. Can you please tell us what your education and qualifications are to make such pronouncements? thank-you.

 

[g0nz0]

Y'know, there are narratives doing the rounds here that either this is some liberal hoax or Tony Fauci/Bill Gates plague, or that we'd be better off as a species to adopt a laissez-faire approach to COVID19.

Thinking about COVID19 in terms of "most people will be fine, it only affects the weak or those with comorbidities or the elderly - it's too costly in in financial terms to lockdown (globally or locally)" is a bit like attempting to justify eugenics.

Kids of single digit age have died from it as well as the elderly. Some of those of seemingly excellent health have died from cytokine storms, whereas some chronic smokers have been fine. Perhaps those of type A blood are more affected than type O.

But my view is - so what? Everybody deserves the right to a chance of surviving the pandemic. Societies are supposed to be more than just economies. The financial cost we can rebuild and recover. We can't recover aimlessly lost lives.

I have lost one extended family member due to the virus and three immediate family members have had the virus and recovered... it isn't a joke, it isn't a hoax, and we owe it to others to cop the fuck on, and behave responsibly and with consideration.

Wear your fucking mask, stay the fuck inside, and cut the peddling of half truths and politically-infused medical opinions that have been plucked out of unqualified arseholes.