CoronaVirus — huge ghost statistics mysteriously come and go. A hint of much worse?

Ooh. Are these the real figures? Is someone on the inside trying to leak out the truth?

There are claims tonight that a flickering set of figures have appeared that are much higher than the official tolls. These ghostly statistics have appeared three times then switched to the much lower official tally. But each time they grow — almost as if there are two sets of data, one for officials, and one for the public.

Ominously, the flickering death tally was 80 times higher than the official one. The infections were ten times higher. If it’s true the death rate may be far worse than the 2% bandied about.

If they are real, this changes everything. If they are fake, who or what would benefit? A glitch?

From Tyler Durden, ZeroHedge, and the Taiwan Times, h/t David E.

Tencent may have accidentally leaked real data on Wuhan virus deaths

Tencent briefly lists 154,023 infections and 24,589 deaths from Wuhan coronavirus

Taiwan Times

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — As many experts question the veracity of China’s statistics for the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak, Tencent over the weekend seems to have inadvertently released what is potentially the […]

Trump, State of the Union — Win til you are sick of winning

Donald Trump’s State of the Union is being described as one of the best ever. It was a magnificent campaign speech. Even the LA Times calls it “a pretty effective one”. I don’t watch many political speeches, but this one could be a “how to” guide.

The dour faced white suits of the #Metoo look decidedly unAmerican and self centred when Trump announces great results for all their token mascots and they can’t even clap. Nancy Pelosi petulantly rips up the speech that Trump had to provide her with at 1:42:50. Some news services are trimming that bit off…

Trump shamelessly plugs his heroes and basks in their greatness. Rush Limbaugh gets a Presidential Medal of Honor. Buzz Aldrin singled out early at the start. (6:30)

“This year American Astronauts will go back to Space on American Rockets.”

John Hindraker:

This puts the Democrats in a tough spot. Through the first half of the speech, President Trump reeled off one item of good news after another: Record low unemployment! Lowest black unemployment ever! Lowest Hispanic unemployment ever! Rising wages, especially at the bottom! Median net worth skyrocketing! And so on. The Democrats greeted all […]

Corona Virus update — can we stop the pandemic?

The latest news coming out is mixed. The live map and latest count of 2019-nCoV shows 20,000 confirmed infections, 426 deaths, and most importantly, a spread to 28 countries. It’s slightly encouraging that there are no extra cases in Australia and good to hear 3 of the 12 have been sent home, declared “recovered”. However the incubation period since flights were closed is still only halfway to the average (of 5 – 6 days) so it’s too early to tell.

A South Korean has tested positive after visiting Thailand (not a good sign, but the statement didn’t “rule out China”). Japan has quarantined a whole cruise ship (like Italy did). One passenger came down with the virus in Hong Kong. The whole ship of 3700 is confined to rooms, awaiting test results. It’s reassuring that so many tests can be done. (Yay, Japan). Meanwhile door handles can carry the virus. Soap and hand sanitizer could help a lot.

On the plus side, one team in Thailand say they have treated one patient successfully with anti-virals. It’s only one case, but a nice thought. How big are those stockpiles? The other plus, is that summer may slow it down. Best case […]

A lesson for the divestment snowflakes from St John’s College Oxford

Divestment Snowflakes protesting at St Johns College Jan 30th

Students at St Johns College were protesting last week at the fossil fuel investments that help keep the College running. Even camping out in the quadrangle in the middle of winter:

“We are not going anywhere” – St John’s locked down over Climate Strike

The Oxford Student

Oxford students have occupied St. John’s College since Wednesday, demanding that the College divests its £8.1 million of disclosed investments in fossil fuel companies and all undisclosed fossil fuel investments from its £551 million endowments.

Dozens of students have set up camp in the front quad of St. John’s equipped with banners and placards, to demand that it takes the climate emergency seriously and measures to remove the social licence of fossil fuel companies.

As of Thursday afternoon, there are allegations that St. John’s College had disabled student’s room keys. Instead, they are allegedly doing manual Bod card checks, escorting students to and from their rooms, and are not allowing non-residents to enter the college. There are reports of students bringing protesters food as they have remained on the quad since yesterday.

A […]

Tuesday Open Thread

9 out of 10 based on 10 ratings

On average bushfires burn an amazing 50 million ha every year in Australia

From the other side of the world comes this extraordinary collection of data that few in Australia seem aware of.

File this fact away: Satellite datasets show that in an average year 50 million hectares burns around Australia. In a quiet year, it’s only 20 million hectares, but in a busy year it gets close to 100 million hectares. A lot of this land area is in the far north and western part of the continent, which is hot and often arid. It’s not the same as the cool wet corner of South East Australia which has some of the tallest trees in the world. The fuel loads in the north are much lower (like the trees).

Some parts of the top end burn nearly 100%, year after year. It’s no accident that the awful devastation this year was not in the red hot firezone on the map below, but in the South East corner where less than 5% of the area burns each year. The rarely burnt is the risky zone where there is a 20 year build up of fuel. Some areas are on a 1 in 100 year rotation or even slower. There were places this year […]

Stinks: Slow WHO let CoronaVirus run. But Ethiopian WHO chief was part of China’s debt trap diplomacy

The WHO could have declared a state of emergency earlier. Instead it delayed the announcement, praised China’s transparency, and recommended countries allow planes potentially carrying a deadly virus continue to fly freely. The WHO waited until the 2019-nCoV virus had spread to 18 nations before declaring an emergency. Wasn’t it an emergency with the first foreign case or the first case of symptomless transmission?

Follow the chain, or rather the Belt and Road

The WHO Director General is Tedros Adhanom of Ethiopia. From 2012 – 2016 he served as Minister of Foreign Affairs in the one party government that rules Ethiopia. This is the same party that borrowed billions from China to build a railway line, then struggles to pay it back. In Africa, Ethiopia is the second largest debtor nation to China — owing $13 billion. As Foreign Minister Adhanom praised China for African loans, looks like he was the man to line them up. We also note that the one-party ruling party of Ethiopia is called the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front which was once a Marxist Lenninist far left group — labels it dropped after the Soviet Union collapsed. (Thanks Maurice for these tips).

Suddenly there might be […]

Weekend Unthreaded

8.9 out of 10 based on 22 ratings

Coronavirus — borders closing all around the world — no thanks to the WHO

US and Australia close borders and everyone outside China starts tracking contacts…

The official deaths tally has risen to 259, but for the first time the “total recovered” at 287 now exceeds the total deaths. Evidently it’s quicker to die than to recover.

Australia remains the “leader” of the Western nations with 12 confirmed cases. Thankfully, it and the US have finally got serious and both announced today that they would stop people from China from flying straight in. Citizens can return with a two week isolation or quarantine period, but foreigners cannot. This is very good news (as far as virus control goes). Now all the same nations will be furiously, laboriously tracking and tracing the hundreds of potential contacts. In a few weeks we’ll know how contagious it is, and how deadly. And maybe, with much money and dedication we’ll even stop it.

Though in a few weeks a host of secondary countries may develop their own epidemics and virus-free countries will need to block them too.

What’s really remarkable here is how useless, to the point of negligence, the World Health Organisation is.

US and Australia close borders to Chinese arrivals

BBC News: The […]

Corona virus and those exponential curves we don’t want

Been trying to do a Corona thread for three days, but every time it was half finished everything changed.

The WHO have finally declared a state of emergency, something that seemed inevitable as soon as we knew the virus could be transmitted by people without symptoms. Russia, Mongolia, and North Korea closed their borders Thursday. Hong Kong announced a temporary closure. Singapore has now closed its borders too. Mark Steyn meanwhile, marvels that healthy US citizens are being advised not to go to China, but it’s apparently fine for sick people to travel the other way. Extraordinarily a cruise ship with 6,000 passengers was “stuck” off Italy, waiting for clearance for two Chinese people who had symptoms like a flu. Fortunately they must have just had the flu. The ship was cleared. And so it is around the world with a mosaic pattern of super actions, versus business as usual.

British Airways has suspended all flights to and from China, as have many other airlines, but in a city by city way. The virus is now present in every region of China. It’s not clear why all flights to and from China have not been stopped. On ABC news Australia’s […]