Coronavirus COVID-19 Pandemic

[mishie]

No, actually. Stumbled across this one quite tangentially, in fact.

Apparently, right after Trump said his thing, several videos talking about this technology were mysteriously removed from youtube and several other places. Naturally, the Streisand Effect did its thing and now I'm pretty sure it won't be long before everyone's heard of this device.

Heh. Saw that one as it happened. Sorry, but much like everything from the first one, that's people deliberately reading the worst possible interpretation. Not even the worst reasonable interpretation, the absolute worst possible interpretation no matter how nonsensical that interpretation might be.

Which, y'know, business as usual.

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That was literally my point, the fact that instead of him going "Oh this is actually what I was talking about, this actually useful medical device which could potentially help in the future" he went with "I was just sarcastic". That is why it's so hard to take any defense seriously.

 

[Megaolix]

Avoid talking about Trump, please.

 

[d.fish]

It's no longer locked down over here. Feels like life's gone back to normal. Not sure if it's because of the big meeting happening. Might return to that state after the meeting is over.

 

[bryanfran36]

It's no longer locked down over here. Feels like life's gone back to normal. Not sure if it's because of the big meeting happening. Might return to that state after the meeting is over.

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Fingers crossed on that one.

Our Extended Community Quarantine here is extended until May 25 for seleceted provinces in the Philippines (mine included) thanks to the upjump in cases that has happened.

 

[Germtheory3Z]

So interesting articles in the last couple weeks. The WHO is endorsing the Swedish model, so supporters of a draconian lockdown can't count on their backing any longer. (It makes sense when Sweden's the only country where the decision is being made by an epidemiologist and not a panicked politician.) The man behind the Imperial College numbers, Niel Ferguson (look at his Swine Flu history), has been outed as a hypocrite for breaking lockdown to see his married lover and is walking back his '500,000' number (which is what tipped the UK government from herd immunity to what it did). That's part of an ongoing trend of leaders going out without any worry about social distancing.

Studies getting a quarter to a third of the population infected keep coming out, and no-one can convincingly try to argue for anything above 1% fatality rate with incredibly padded numbers. The headline numbers are highly misleading the world over and need to be considered wildly high end estimates.

From Italy

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-...se/have-many-coronavirus-patients-died-italy/

But Prof Ricciardi added that Italy's death rate may also appear high because of how doctors record fatalities.

"The way in which we code deaths in our country is very generous in the sense that all the people who die in hospitals with the coronavirus are deemed to be dying of the coronavirus.

On re-evaluation by the National Institute of Health, only 12 per cent of death certificates have shown a direct causality from coronavirus, while 88 per cent of patients who have died have at least one pre-morbidity - many had two or three," he says.

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From Germany

https://www.globalresearch.ca/covid...of-deceased-patients-who-were-never-e/5709299

On March 20th the President of Germany's Robert Koch Institute confirmed that Germany counts any deceased person who was infected with coronavirus as a Covid19 death, whether or not it actually caused death.

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From Ireland

https://www.publichealth.hscni.net/...04/COVID-19 Survellance Bulletin 01.04.20.pdf

Death of an individual that was:•

with a positive result for SARS-COV2 within the previous 28 days of death

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And in the US too. It's to be mentioned on death certificates, even if not proven, and that's being tossed into the figures.

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvss/vsrg/vsrg03-508.pdf

If COVID–19 played a role in the death, this condition should be specified on the death certificate. In many cases, it is likely that it will be the UCOD, as it can lead to various life-threatening conditions, such as pneumonia and acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). In these cases, COVID–19 should be reported on the lowest line used in Part I with the other conditions to which it gave rise listed on the lines above it.

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In cases where a definite diagnosis of COVID–19 cannot be made, but it is suspected or likely (e.g., the circumstances are compelling within a reasonable degree of certainty), it is acceptable to report COVID–19 on a death certificate as "probable" or "presumed." In these instances, certifiers should use their best clinical judgement in determining if a COVID–19 infection was likely. However, please note that testing for COVID–19 should be conducted whenever possible.

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"The intention is if someone dies with Covid-19 we are counting that."



At some point you need to consider what'd happen if we all decided to count anyone dying with a cold as dying of it for a year. 700,000 Americans die in hospital every year and about 2.5 million each year total. About a third of people get a flu and most everyone gets the cold, so if we started testing bodies it wouldn't be hard to scare people with tens of thousands of dead in a month. Doubly so if you put all the sick people where they'd catch it.

And all of which was without modern communication, testing or treatment methods. The former might be the largest thing impacting on the depth of this pandemic, honestly, as compared to the Spanish Flu.

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You don't think that the first world war had something to do with our frequently referenced outlier example? People are treating the 1918 influenza like an isolated event due to an especially nasty mutation but worldwide food shortage and millions of crippled war wounded are huge contributing factors to the death count. (Though if the lockdown goes on long enough we'll get the food shortages.)

 

[confundus]

From Ireland
https://www.publichealth.hscni.net/sites/default/files/2020-04/COVID-19 Survellance Bulletin 01.04.20.pdf

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Maybe use actual Irish resources next time, also ones that aren't a month out of date.

 

[mishie]

Huh, it sure is odd that the WHO is praising Sweden, when that epidemiologist has had some amazing comments in this article:
https://www.businessinsider.com.au/...high-death-toll-was-surprise-2020-5?r=US&IR=T
My favourite one of course being "I am not saying we are successful in all different ways. I mean our death toll is really something we worry a lot about."

But anyway, on the other side of the world from all that, Australia is pretty much all done with Coronavirus, as after we called for a lockdown, people did this really strange thing where they actually followed it. So now we get about 1 or 2 new cases a day, and the numbers of total infected are plummeting. So looks like all we needed to do was just follow lockdown for a month of so and THEN we could go back to normal.

 

[Germtheory3Z]

Maybe use actual Irish resources next time, also ones that aren't a month out of date.

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...first off whether or not Northern Ireland is part of 'Ireland' is only a question on political grounds that are off topic and probably banned here. Geographically it's on the island I call Ireland.

Second these are the rules put in place that gave us the numbers we have now. That's my point. 'Up to date' diagnosis rules would be utterly meaningless to that.

 

[Derrandoo]

I haven't seen anyone argue Coronavirus was above 1% CFR, the problem is taking a pandemic on the chin is an open invitation to it mutating or becoming a yearly thing like the Flu.

The only real treatment humanity has for pandemic disease is lockdown until it burns itself out, anyone arguing that we can just live "as is" with Corona is ignoring every plague and pandemic in human history.

I'm not going into the newer material with Corona being very active in blood clotting, kidneys and messing with children's immune systems because that's kinda besides the point.

 

[confundus]

...first off whether or not Northern Ireland is part of 'Ireland' is only a question on political grounds that are off topic and probably banned here. Geographically it's on the island I call Ireland.

Second these are the rules put in place that gave us the numbers we have now. That's my point. 'Up to date' diagnosis rules would be utterly meaningless to that.

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No, even without going into the politics of it, there exists a rather clear distinction between the two. Northern Ireland, as part of the United Kingdom had a vastly different response to the outbreak compared to The Republic of Ireland, and similarly, their reporting criteria for deaths due to Covid-19 differ. So the rules put in place in Northern Ireland certainly do not influence the reporting of deaths in the ROI.

 

[TanaNari]

The WHO

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... has shit the bed so thoroughly that I'm not certain there's even a bed under all the excrement. I wouldn't trust them to handle an undercooked chicken, let alone tell people how to deal with a damn plague. At this point, I wouldn't be surprised if they were deliberately trying to kill as many people as possible, as deep in China's pockets as they are these days.

As we've already proven, Sweden's strategy is causing it to approach higher death tolls (per capita) than Italy, a place that should have been a dozen times more vulnerable.

The only real treatment humanity has for pandemic disease is lockdown until it burns itself out

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Or a viable vaccine is created. Which, given that this particular species of coronavirus has jumped into humans two other times in the last couple decades, is something we should prioritize even if we make it burn out. It's clearly going to keep happening until we get herd immunity running.

 

[mishie]

...first off whether or not Northern Ireland is part of 'Ireland' is only a question on political grounds that are off topic and probably banned here. Geographically it's on the island I call Ireland.

Second these are the rules put in place that gave us the numbers we have now. That's my point. 'Up to date' diagnosis rules would be utterly meaningless to that.

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In that case, should we be judging Canada and Mexico for their Corona response by how America is doing? Because they're basically Geographically all part of North America.

 

[Derrandoo]

Watching America burn down and abandon international institutions IT CREATED is some mind boggling stuff.

The WHO lacked an American representative for 3 years because America neglected to appoint one, is it at all surprising that China would capitalize on this absence of leadership to take command?

Either way we're transitioning to the dictatorship-tier realization "Can't have an epidemic if we don't test!" which doesn't work in the long run and gets people killed all the while.

 

[Evillevi]

So interesting articles in the last couple weeks. The WHO is endorsing the Swedish model, so supporters of a draconian lockdown can't count on their backing any longer. (It makes sense when Sweden's the only country where the decision is being made by an epidemiologist and not a panicked politician.) The man behind the Imperial College numbers, Niel Ferguson (look at his Swine Flu history), has been outed as a hypocrite for breaking lockdown to see his married lover and is walking back his '500,000' number (which is what tipped the UK government from herd immunity to what it did). That's part of an ongoing trend of leaders going out without any worry about social distancing.

Studies getting a quarter to a third of the population infected keep coming out, and no-one can convincingly try to argue for anything above 1% fatality rate with incredibly padded numbers. The headline numbers are highly misleading the world over and need to be considered wildly high end estimates.

From Italy

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-...se/have-many-coronavirus-patients-died-italy/



From Germany

https://www.globalresearch.ca/covid...of-deceased-patients-who-were-never-e/5709299



From Ireland

https://www.publichealth.hscni.net/sites/default/files/2020-04/COVID-19 Survellance Bulletin 01.04.20.pdf



And in the US too. It's to be mentioned on death certificates, even if not proven, and that's being tossed into the figures.

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvss/vsrg/vsrg03-508.pdf





"The intention is if someone dies with Covid-19 we are counting that."



At some point you need to consider what'd happen if we all decided to count anyone dying with a cold as dying of it for a year. 700,000 Americans die in hospital every year and about 2.5 million each year total. About a third of people get a flu and most everyone gets the cold, so if we started testing bodies it wouldn't be hard to scare people with tens of thousands of dead in a month. Doubly so if you put all the sick people where they'd catch it.



You don't think that the first world war had something to do with our frequently referenced outlier example? People are treating the 1918 influenza like an isolated event due to an especially nasty mutation but worldwide food shortage and millions of crippled war wounded are huge contributing factors to the death count. (Though if the lockdown goes on long enough we'll get the food shortages.)

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FYI The praise is fucked up since it lacks a lot of context. Namely that Sweden's strategy acheived their goal but their goal is questionable to most countries.

WHO (the public face at least) is an idiot since their praise assume that

(a) you only cared about economic output in the forseeable six months,
(b) you can implement sweden strategy in the first place
(c) you don't care that people ddie, only that you don't let C19 go out of control.

Things that are not neccasary true given current data

 

[HiMyNameIs_REDACTED_]

Hey, can I post Chris Martenson in this thread? He's a doctor of pathology who's been tracking Sars-Cov2 since early January.

 

[TotalAbsolutism]

Hey, can I post Chris Martenson in this thread? He's a doctor of pathology who's been tracking Sars-Cov2 since early January.

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No conspiracy theorists.

EDIT: And just to be absolutely clear here? My casual investigation of the jackass of which you speak turned up the YouTube channel of his economics website. Very relevant, as he hasn't done any medical science since, oh, the '90s. Also, while he did receive a degree in 1994 from the Duke Department of Pathology he majored in toxicology, and not virology.

Putting all that aside, with such lovely titles to his videos as, "Coronavirus: Bad Science (Or Something Worse?) May Well Be Costing Lives" and "Newsweek Bombshell: Covid-19 Virus Lab-Made? Fauci Connected?" and "More Evidence Covid-19 May *NOT* Be Natural" (gotta love those emphasising asterisks)? Fair to say he is an absolute nutbar and his opinions have no place here.

 

[mishie]

Well in better news, things are going amazing in Australia. In fact, in my state we're down to an entire 45 total positive patients in my state, of which 9 are in hospital, and only 3 of those 9 are in ICU. And in total we're sitting at 94% recovery rate of all of our Covid patients, which is pretty nice overall.

As such, we're now at the stage where we're now easing up restrictions even further, so even more businesses are opening up and people can have larger social gatherings, which is pretty nice. Hell, when I went to the shops on the weekend everything that I needed was opened, and if I'd needed to I could have grabbed a haircut whilst I was there.

But to be fair though, we are in a fairly unique situation compared to most countries. What with us being a western country with a very conservative government, most of its population concentrated in costal cities, a close relationship with China with plenty of people travelling back and forth, AND even a cruise ship full of infected people arriving at the start.

Hell, that cruise ship is even the source of almost all of our cases/deaths for the entire country, which goes to show that even with all of those factors getting in the way to make things harder, and country with people that give a shit about following basic rules can get through this pandemic pretty much unscathed in terms of deaths and economic impact.

 

[mishie]

And just to make things even better, this came out a few hours ago. Gotta say it's really reassuring living somewhere where we know that we'll be out of isolation soon, and can even put an exact date on it!

 

[OverMaster]

The only real treatment humanity has for pandemic disease is lockdown until it burns itself out, anyone arguing that we can just live "as is" with Corona is ignoring every plague and pandemic in human history.

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The sad reality is that we most likely can't quarantine the entire planet long enough to burn out a virus this resiliant, and as long as even one single part of the world is infected, it can reinfect the rest of mankind and it all starts again.

 

[evildice]

The sad reality is that we most likely can't quarantine the entire planet long enough to burn out a virus this resiliant, and as long as even one single part of the world is infected, it can reinfect the rest of mankind and it all starts again.

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Yeah, exterminating the virus seems unlikely.

Best plan seems to be to slow the spread enough to make a vaccine, and also slow it enough that medical services aren't overwhelmed.

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I hope that 3rd one was an intentional parody.

 

[TanaNari]

I hope that 3rd one was an intentional parody.

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Yeah, everyone knows Norton couldn't stop a virus to save your life.

 

[Germtheory3Z]

... has shit the bed so thoroughly that I'm not certain there's even a bed under all the excrement. I wouldn't trust them to handle an undercooked chicken, let alone tell people how to deal with a damn plague. At this point, I wouldn't be surprised if they were deliberately trying to kill as many people as possible, as deep in China's pockets as they are these days.

As we've already proven, Sweden's strategy is causing it to approach higher death tolls (per capita) than Italy, a place that should have been a dozen times more vulnerable.

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FYI The praise is fucked up since it lacks a lot of context. Namely that Sweden's strategy acheived their goal but their goal is questionable to most countries.

WHO (the public face at least) is an idiot since their praise assume that

(a) you only cared about economic output in the forseeable six months,
(b) you can implement sweden strategy in the first place
(c) you don't care that people ddie, only that you don't let C19 go out of control.

Things that are not neccasary true given current data

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I think the relevant point here applies to both of your replies, we need to look at all causes mortality as well as 'corona' numbers. Sweden's losing far fewer people than other countries seem to be. Unfortunately I can't navigate the French, German, or Italian government stat sites and I'm not sure if Australia or America even publish them but the UK figures I'm following can be directly compared.

https://www.scb.se/en/About-us/news...h-preliminary-statistics-on-deaths-in-sweden/

Open that link and get down to The statistics can be retrieved as an Excel file at scb.se

Then go have a look at the Office of National Statistics numbers for England and Wales.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopula...guresondeathsregisteredbyareaofusualresidence

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopula...nalfiguresondeathsregisteredinenglandandwales

Look at April this year and April in the last five year averages. Deaths in Sweden are up by about 30% but the UK figures have gone up 90%. Throwing the 'mentioned on death certificate' covid numbers at the rise only works if you assume the doctors are deliberately misdiagnosing them as not the underlying cause. If you think like I do the 25% of population survey numbers are accurate then it's sitting where it was always expected to be, and the lockdown and fear mongering have kept people from hospital, stressed bodies and minds and killed ~40,000 people in England and Wales last month.

Even if you don't agree you have to admit Sweden's doing a far better job than the UK without incurring the same costs. As time goes on more countries are going to publish data and more comparisons are going to come out. (I'd be especially interested in seeing where somewhere like Australia lies in that, and whether their all causes mortality went up double digits this month despite next to no corona cases. If someone has the figures and the last 5 year baseline that'd be great.) Then, in combination with the survey testing studies, we can see whether lockdown actually stopped the infection from spreading and whether it was directly killing people on top of the long term economic consequences.

EDIT: One article I've seen put the estimated excess death from lockdown around 150,000. That doesn't seem implausible if 40,000 can go in a month considering how long some people want to extend it.

 

[TotalAbsolutism]

Even if you don't agree you have to admit Sweden's doing a far better job than the UK without incurring the same costs. As time goes on more countries are going to publish data and more comparisons are going to come out. (I'd be especially interested in seeing where somewhere like Australia lies in that, and whether their all causes mortality went up double digits this month despite next to no corona cases. If someone has the figures and the last 5 year baseline that'd be great.) Then, in combination with the survey testing studies, we can see whether lockdown actually stopped the infection from spreading and whether it was directly killing people on top of the long term economic consequences.

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Sweden doesn't entirely agree: https://www.msn.com/en-nz/news/worl...th-toll-horrifying-says-scientist/ar-BB13KZ4q

And I don't know why you're fixated on comparing them to the UK, considering that country has spent the past couple of decades slowly gutting its healthcare system; much like the US has. Why not compare them to a country that hasn't, like Australia, or New Zealand? Where locking down the country has unequivocally worked?

 

[alethiophile]

The state of the health care system doesn't seem to be enormously relevant to COVID outcomes, except in worst-cases like northern Italy where the system's capacity is actually overwhelmed. (Which AFAICT hasn't been an issue either in Sweden or the UK.)

Countries that can successfully shut down spread using lockdowns/tracing/etc have done so, and it's worked well in all cases (South Korea, Hong Kong, partially Singapore, Australia/NZ seem to have done this as well). Countries that can't -- which seems to mostly just be an issue of government competence -- have outcomes that vary widely for reasons that are difficult to fathom. Most of the punditry about this, trying to tie it in to preexisting political grievances, is just straightforwardly wrong. I don't think anyone's identified why some places are hit really hard and others not much, even when both places failed at outright containing it.

 

[Germtheory3Z]

Sweden doesn't entirely agree: https://www.msn.com/en-nz/news/world/swedens-covid-19-death-toll-horrifying-says-scientist/ar-BB13KZ4q

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This isn't about opinions or feelings, my point is Sweden has objectively seen around a +30% rise in mortality for about a month. Comparing that to the other country I can find set numbers for (who saw +90%) that's a very good performance and less specific sources suggest the same kind of thing that's happening in the UK is happening elsewhere.

And I don't know why you're fixated on comparing them to the UK, considering that country has spent the past couple of decades slowly gutting its healthcare system; much like the US has. Why not compare them to a country that hasn't, like Australia, or New Zealand? Where locking down the country has unequivocally worked?

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Go and check the totals from those other countries then. They don't seem to have the same weekly numbers that the UK does but if you're a kiwi maybe you can find them easier than I can. Not the Corona numbers mind you, the all causes deaths reported number so we can see if the NZ and Australian lockdowns caused excess mortality too. Preferably we could compare some other European or at least Northern Hemisphere countries too.

 

[TotalAbsolutism]

Go and check the totals from those other countries then. They don't seem to have the same weekly numbers that the UK does but if you're a kiwi maybe you can find them easier than I can. Not the Corona numbers mind you, the all causes deaths reported number so we can see if the NZ and Australian lockdowns caused excess mortality too. Preferably we could compare some other European or at least Northern Hemisphere countries too.

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I'll leave Australia to mishie, but...

Article Source.

That's a 1% rise in mortality, as measured April 29th. That's ten days ago.

 

[Germtheory3Z]

I'll leave Australia to mishie, but...

Article Source.

That's a 1% rise in mortality, as measured April 29th. That's ten days ago.

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Good news for the Kiwis then. I assume you've got enough population growth to cover that rise?

 

[TotalAbsolutism]

Good news for the Kiwis then. I assume you've got enough population growth to cover that rise?

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... it's a 1% increase. About the same it was the year before, and less than it was the year prior to that. Yeah, I think we're fine.

 

[evildice]

... it's a 1% increase. About the same it was the year before, and less than it was the year prior to that. Yeah, I think we're fine.

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Presumably you'll get more than enough births from the quarantine boredom baby boom.

 

[TanaNari]

I don't think anyone's identified why some places are hit really hard and others not much, even when both places failed at outright containing it.

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Population density and wealth are the largest factors.

When you start comparing the high density and heavily trafficked parts of the world to the exceedingly isolated, the numbers are pretty obvious... prosperous areas got hit sooner (often before anyone realized this was a real danger) thanks to trade, and then it burned hotter thanks to vectors.

The low density and/or poor regions saw far less spread for much the same reason. In addition, those areas generally practice independence with their own personal gardens and fewer people interacted with on a daily basis.

It's such an obvious relationship that even goddamn Crusader Kings figured it out.


Then there's factors of weather and obedience to the law... warmer areas and people that actually pay fucking attention to the quarantine regs will see better results than those in cooler climates, or countries that take the 'live free or die' attitude like America.

Because, seriously, there will always be dumbfucks ready to ignore the rules, and some places cannot force compliance for reasons ranging from inability to unwillingness. America in particular sees massive pushback against anything that can be perceived as a 'police state', and has a sprawling population which makes universal coverage impossible.