Death tolls could be 60% higher than official numbers

Mortality rates show that this is a medical situation we have not seen since WWII

All statistics are suspect but some numbers still tell us something important. In the early fog of a global pandemic, a proper diagnoses is difficult if not impossible. People are dying of heart attacks because they are too scared to go to hospital, but equally, Covid is causing heart attacks and strokes that might never have happened. It’s fair to ask how many deaths are due to Coronavirus and how many are due to the lockdown, but it’s not realistic to expect that we can do an autopsy on every single patient. And as the Financial Times team points out, the excess deaths also occur in the regions of the UK with the highest infection rates — which suggests they are due to the virus, not just collateral damage. Though people will also be less willing to visit a hospital in a zone where there are more cases. On the other hand, in areas with lockdowns but no major outbreaks, the mortality rates are 10% below normal (see many US states). So these peaks could have been even higher but the lockdown saved some people from catching the normal flu or dying in a car accident.

We saw the spike in excess deaths in New York already. These graphs compiled by the Financial Times of the UK, Italy, Spain, Austria, Switzerland, Netherlands, and Belgium, show that this is not remotely a normal flu season, and can not be ascribed to “relabeling” deaths that are not due to Coronavirus. The bodies in icerinks, and freezer trucks are real.

Global coronavirus death toll could be 60% higher than reported

Mortality statistics show 122,000 deaths in excess of normal levels across 14 countries analysed by the FT

Posted free to read at the Financial Times, and see also John-Burn Murdoch on Twitter. @jburn-murdoch.

In 13 countries and cities people are dying at rates far higher than normal and hundreds of thousands of people (at least) have died that we can assume would not have died if the CCP virus, or whatever we want to call it, had not spread around the world.

Mortality stats, Coronavirus, graphs.

Deaths are far higher than the normal yearly peaks in midwinter.   See the full set of graphs here.

The official tallies of deaths probably underestimate the deaths — even if we accept that some normal heart attacks and strokes have been mislabelled as “coronavirus deaths”, both autopsies and medical papers show that Coronavirus is also causing heart attacks and strokes that would not have happened.

 

Twitter, Death rates, coronavirus

So many spikes, thousands of deaths above even the worst winters in most of Europe.

This is not true of all nations. In Denmark there are only 100 or so unexplained deaths. It’s not above the normal range. In Portugul and Austria deaths are only up 10% or 12%. In Sweden it’s 18% (so far, but the curve is not slowing). In the UK, it’s up 37% , Spain, 50% and in Italy an awful 90%. We’ve already discussed New York where deaths are up 100%. But of course, in some areas, deaths are down, below average, the lockdown means less flu, less car accidents and over all lower mortality where the lockdown was started early enough, or where some other variable saved the day (climate, geography, demographics, population density).

The solution to both medical and economic fears is to get rid of the virus if we can, and it looks like we can.

John Burn-MurdochValentina Romei and Chris Giles in London 

Mortality statistics show 122,000 deaths in excess of normal levels across these locations, considerably higher than the 77,000 official Covid-19 deaths reported for the same places and time periods. If the same level of under-reporting observed in these countries was happening worldwide, the global Covid-19 death toll would rise from the current official total of 201,000 to as high as 318,000. To calculate excess deaths, the FT has compared deaths from all causes in the weeks of a location’s outbreak in March and April 2020 to the average for the same period between 2015 and 2019. The total of 122,000 amounts to a 50 per cent rise in overall mortality relative to the historical average for the locations studied.

Some of these deaths may be the result of causes other than Covid-19, as people avoid hospitals for other ailments. But excess mortality has risen most steeply in places suffering the worst Covid-19 outbreaks, suggesting most of these deaths are directly related to the virus rather than simply side-effects of lockdowns.

The most useful comparison we can make between different countries is all cause mortality.

In places like Ecuador, the official numbers hopelessly underestimate the true medical onslaught:

In Ecuador’s Guayas province, just 245 official Covid-related deaths were reported between March 1 and April 15, but data on total deaths show that about 10,200 more people died during this period than in a typical year — an increase of 350 per cent.

 Something awful is going on in Ecuador:

Ecuador, Lond, Death rates, coronavirus

We don’t solve the economic crisis without first solving the medical one

We all want the lockdown lifted as soon as possible. For those of us in a democracy, where the voters en masse, want action to stop this virus, the choices are to get rid of the virus (see New Zealand, Australia, South Korea and other nations crushing the curve) or to convince fellow voters to accept death rates that are far higher than usual, and that a significant proportion of the population will have to be “protected” which is a soft form of imprisonment.

Unless a treatment appears soon, the countries that try option two (which is not as good for business or for lives), will end up doing option one — Especially once voters see other nations beating the virus.  The long run costs of living with the virus, losing hospitals periodically, suffering repeat lockdowns, and “managing the death rate” will be far more painful than the cost maintaining borders and two week quarantines with countries that fail to control this virus..

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320 comments to Death tolls could be 60% higher than official numbers

  • #
    WXcycles

    Wow, at least now there’s no doubt COVID-19 is a deadly pandemic disease. John Campbell’s video yesterday quoted an IRC forecast of 1 billion infections for 3.2 million dead.

    Campbell said he thinks the disease will go to 4 to 5 billion total cases, with a larger estimated proportion of dead per billion (he didn’t specify a number of millions per billion). He made the point that this has just been the beginning of a much bigger pandemic.

    2120

    • #

      If I remember correctly you forecast that uk deaths would be 10000 a day by April 10th, increase to 13000 a day by the 11th and continue to increase exponentially

      There is no doubt that covid 19 has been a deadly pandemic but there have been worse and none of them have caused economies to implode and put us all into house arrest and change the geo political landscape.

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      • #
        Plain Jane

        But is it not true that the Black Death killed 1/2 the population in some areas? I would think you would have said the economies imploded at that time. When I lived in Norway for a while there was a story about one of those mediaeval Stave churches. It was lost from living memory and a hunter hundreds of years later let off an arrow at a bear and hit the church bell, much to his shock. The church was then “found” again an now they keep the bear skin in the church. So the whole area depopulated for a looonngg period of time. It is an anecdote, but one which I know of that indicated economies and whole communities can disappear because of plague. I believe that most of the removal of aboriginies from Australia was because they died of foreign diseases. Plenty were killed directly by whites, but the majority by disease. So I don’t think it is true to say that no plague has caused an economy to collapse. If you qualify it to say that “no pandemics have caused economies to collapse since we have modern medicine”, I would remind you that we dont have good treatments for virus yet and are not far advanced in our virus treatments than we were in 1918.

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        • #
          el gordo

          Jane there was no removal of indigenous Australians, but I do know for sure that small pox was accidentally or purposely released at Manly and it killed practically everyone in the area.

          Naturally people further out later came in to occupy this beach suburb and when the governor turned up a year later he was speared as payback, not to kill but seriously injure.

          In regards to the Black Death, it killed a third of Europe’s population and because of the smaller workforce, wages improved markedly. The virus came from China and its about time we stopped these pandemics.

          The real danger in this current outbreak, Sweden’s Health Minister Linde said: “It’s also important that [Europe and the US] together go against the tendencies of using the pandemic for authoritarian governments and regimes to hinder democracy, rule of law, freedom for journalists … including quite a lot of disinformation.’ South China Morning Post

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          • #
            Bill In Oz

            E G, Nice little bit of Malinformation
            By Linde of Sweden there via the SCMP
            A way of trying to justify a strategy that
            Kills far more Swedes than it’s neighbours !

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            • #
              el gordo

              Maybe, the SCMP was merely reporting and not editorialising, lets see how the Christian Science Monitor views the Sweden experiment.

              ‘But whether that approach is working has been the subject of some debate in Swedish society. While the rate of reported infections in Sweden remains on a par with countries that have taken more extreme measures to protect their public, the death toll in Sweden is significantly higher. And some say that the societal norms that Sweden is relying on to ensure the public adheres to the government’s COVID-19 strategy may also be freezing out the kind of debate needed to examine whether the strategy is the right one.’

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          • #
            sophocles

            So what happened to the Aboriginals in Tasmania?

            12

            • #
              el gordo

              Good point sophocles, there may have been up to 15,000 people on the island, but disease appears to have eliminated large numbers very quickly.

              ‘The traditional view, still affirmed, held that this dramatic demographic collapse was the result of the impact of introduced diseases, rather than the consequence of policy. Geoffrey Blainey, for example, wrote that by 1830 in Tasmania: “Disease had killed most of them but warfare and private violence had also been devastating.” wiki

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          • #
            Stuart

            Gordo, you’ve got the facts wrong. Governor Philip was speared months BEFORE the epidemic that afflicted the Sydney aborigines, so it was in no way in revenge for the “smallpox”. The epidemic that occurred in April 1789 – 15 months after the colonists’ arrival – was probably not smallpox. The First Fleet had been isolated on the voyage long enough that the symptoms of smallpox would have become apparent before they landed. That they didn’t is proof that the aborigines didn’t catch it from the colonists accidentally. The allegation that’s made that the colonists deliberately infected the natives with smallpox doesn’t make any sense. Europeans in 1788 didn’t have any immunity against smallpox, there was no vaccination and the disease was frequently fatal and if you survived you were disfigured. Only a reckless fool would have deliberately spread smallpox. The most conclusive evidence that it wasn’t smallpox is that only one member of the colony caught the disease and died, and he wasn’t a European, he was a North American Indian. This suggests that the disease was something that Europeans are accustomed to, probably through childhood exposure, but which was fatal to populations without any immunity. Chickenpox has been suggested, which would have been present in the colony.

            In any case, aborigines in mainland Australia were not totally isolated from outside diseases. Makassar fishermen from Sulawesi since at least 1720 had been voyaging to northern Australia where they remained for months fishing and processing trepang, during which they had extensive contact with local aborigines. Those northern tribes traded with inland tribes via an extensive exchange network that stretched from coast to coast. Aborigines in Cape York had indirect contact with New Guinea via the Torres Strait islanders, and western New Guinea in turn had contact with eastern Indonesia. Thus it is likely that the mainland aborigines were periodically exposed to introduced diseases and the Sydney epidemic may have come overland. This exposure means that mainland aborigines had probably developed at least some immunity to introduced diseases, unlike native Americans who are estimated to have had 90% population loss following Columbus.

            [Email coming – jo]

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        • #
          Geoff Sherrington

          Plain Jane,
          With aboriginal affairs, you have to be really careful with past data that leads you to assert that whities killed plenty. You should not generalise with cheap throw-away lines. Only if you have researched and verified can you say “plenty” but only if you can define “plenty”.
          For 6 years I was President or VP of the Northern Territory Chamber of Mines. Aboriginal affairs was our major topic, because hordes of academics and bureaucrats were trying hard to deny us access to land, even taking land access away from us when we had already been granted leases. In this time, I personally spent many hours in the library, to study accounts like those from official commissions of inquiry. I did not, for the NT, find evidence of “plenty” of killings. Geoff S

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          • #
            Plain Jane

            Thanks guys, for your interesting and informative replies. Yes, I will confess to a glib generalization re the aboriginals. Forgive me, I had places to go. I do think that disease certainly affected the aboriginal economy in Australia after whites arrived. Interesting about the handkerchief.

            00

          • #
            toorightmate

            Geoff,
            There was no social media back in those days SO you only got the true story.
            Not like now where you have every media outlet battling strenuously for the exaggeration prize and the superlative cup and all sorts of people having bouts of hysteria as a result of the exaggeration and hysteria.

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        • #
          sophocles

          To: Plain Jane @ #1.1.1

          … that’s where that essential fashion item, the handkerchief, for catching sneezes, came from.
          Which plague, I don’t know. Possibly the last one.

          40

      • #
        OriginalSteve

        Correct. People, including medical doctors, have been basically wondering why such a massive reaction to this pandemic.
        Funny how common sense is rewarded with what appears to being censored.
        https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/11512656/youtube-slammed-removing-video-doctors-end-coronavirus-lockdown/

        Reading through some globalist web sites yesterday, it struck me that Cov19 appears to effectively be the catalyst/excuse to make wide ranging changes to society.

        The infamous “safety” apps that track possible corona contacts are appearing all over the planet, almost upon command it seems.

        This virus is another 9 / 11 in terms of how it will change society. From what I have read so far, its the **catalyst** for a radical overhaul of society.
        If you go to the WEF link I posted in the previous topic, you have a grid of interconnected aims/impacts of the globalists regards CoV19. One thing is that the virus is expected to keep
        energy usage down, death rates up and pollution down ( great if you’re a greenist ).

        Just like we got the terrorist threat level , could we get a “virus threat level” every day?
        Just like the terrorism “threat level” this is primarily to keep people scared and easier to control, beyond that, questionable.

        The Aztec priests used to cut the hearts out of human sacrifices, it kept the population in line, lest they be next.
        Will we will have a constant threat of COv19 and every present threat to herd and control people at the whim of the globalists?

        One thing that also features heavily in the WEF Cov19 doco is the use of a vaccine. Will the spectre of Cov19 will be hung over our heads so people beg to be vaccinated with a vaccine with who knows what in it? ID 2020 is trying to use vaccination as a form of digital identity. A quantum dot tattoo was proposed to store vaccination records under your skin.
        https://news.rice.edu/2019/12/18/quantum-dot-tattoos-hold-vaccination-record/
        The Founding Partners of ID2020 are Microsoft, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI) among others.
        https://id2020.org/alliance

        It doesnt feel right….

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        • #
          Alessandro

          Yes the Erickson video was well presented with real data. Their advice was to stop the lockdown with which I agree. They also mentioned that isolation and doing the Pontius Pilate at every opportunity would reduce our level of immunity such that when we come out from lockup we are going to see a huge increase is disease (not WhuFlu) which I’m sure the government body counters will include as death due to CV.

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          • #

            It’s a real shame they censored that video, it’s wrong. The publicity will only draw more eyes, and give it an importance it doesn’t deserve.

            Of all the scores of frontline docs who say the opposite, I was very interested to find a couple that disagree. I watched enough to see these docs made a couple of early sweeping epidemiology mistakes, and were not considering things that disagreed with what they wanted to find. Let me know if you find another copy. The Erikson doc (s?) also relied heavily on the Santa Clara antibody study, ignore all the flaws in it — which I covered here, self selecting, non-random assay in the high risk county in CA which was adjusted up from only 1.5% to 4% based on a postcode weighting, but totally ignored the demographics, when age has such a bearing on results. The result was so weak it could not be ruled out that it was entirely a false positive score. Indeed, it was a leaked copy of a preliminary result, the wife of one of the researchers even emailed invites out with calls for people to get a free result that could show them whether they could work again. The study effectively harvested for people who thought they had Covid. It disagreed with all the large and random official PCR tests. EG Austria and Iceland. Didn’t fit with results from the Diamond Princess either.

            Part of the problem is there are scores of docs saying the exact opposite of what they said, but some people are only watching youtube videos and reading arguments that support the belief they want to hold.

            Indeed a few commenters here are not even reading the content of posts either. So shoot me. :- ) Hi to the red thumbers.

            I know I won’t be popular for saying it, but true skeptics would want to hear both sides of the debate.

            86

            • #
              A C Osborn

              According to Tony Heller it is still on Bitchute.
              https://www.bitchute.com/video/NkiM9fo1Ba0h/

              10

              • #
                RickWill

                Erickson is extrapolating positive case as a percentage of tested cases to the entire population. That is so silly it deserves an award for stupidity. It would only be accurate if the sampling was purely random. Who has the spare test resources to do a decent random sample of the population. Maybe Australia where it is all but gone.

                Even now in Australia, an individual is required to have some symptoms before fronting for a test; hardly random.

                I assume he is a doctor of medicine. They must come cheap in the USA. No wonder they are locked in at 2000 deaths per day for the next month.

                The IHME death toll prediction for USA is now 72443. Looking at the cases being reported, there is no decline in the past 20 days. That means the current daily death toll is locked in at around 2000 for at least another 20 days. That alone is 40k. Added to present toll of 61,669, I get over 100k before it could possibly start to taper.

                It appears now that the US and Sweden will vie for the wooden spoon.

                50

            • #
              Environment Skeptic

              “I know I won’t be popular for saying it, but true skeptics would want to hear both sides of the debate”
              I suspect a true skeptic is looking at 100+ sides of the debate in case they miss something. Let the spice (information) flow.

              20

        • #
          WXcycles

          Steve you are sounding increasingly paranoid. Not everyone shares that internal reality you chose to ingest. To me its the mental equivalent of ingesting way too much junk food, it makes you unhealthy. My experience of life shows paranoia is misguided in most instances. Suspicion that can be tested is useful, paranoia that can’t be tested is not. Isn’t worth wasting time indulging it, quite the opposite. It’s usually the result of too much use of both legal and illegal substances, it’s a ‘side-effect’, and is considered a cognitive imbalance and impairment.

          2c

          139

      • #
        Orson

        …none of [the past pandemics] have caused economies to implode and put us all under house arrest and change the geo-political landscape.]

        NONE?…. Not even the Bubonic plague that reduced Europe by a least one-third and forced a return of the Dark Ages? Didn’t that take a century and a half to recover, by some measures? (And more by others?)

        Surely you mean none in living memory. And perhaps none in generations, worldwide, at the same time. See? You skipped a few qualifiers. Plus, no one really knows if the economy is in anything like a Great Depression.

        Most folks with skin in the game do not. Take one bright spot and the Reserve Bank of New Zealand. GDP Down 16%, up later this year 13%, and by 4% in 2021 in New Zealand. Still a net two year loss on pre-CCP virus expectations on economic growth.

        Will this be representative, overall? Your dart board is as good as mine. But surely some places will do much worse and some somewhat better (and the odds are good we can both guess those nations). Welcome to life during and after a historic world crisis (“WHO, you had just one job and you…&*#%@&”)
        …hmmmm.

        Perhaps Tonyb could learn to use words like “unprecedented” or “almost unprecedented” from time to time. And especially where the facts, reality, and uncertainties merit it.

        51

        • #
          Alessandro

          I think many of us now take no notice of forecasts such as the IPCC and The Imperial College as these are based on now proven false assumptions. Quite frankly I applaud the NZ Reserve for its positive forecast but don’t believe it. Apart from the summation of economic activity you need to drill down by sector. There will be a long list of industries which may never recover so a 4% lift in 2021 is meaningless to those who have/will lose everything. This includes industries such as tourism and hospitality. Perhaps the NZ Reserve’s model includes a large increase in public servants to drive the economy forward but we all know where this ends and it ain’t pretty.

          51

        • #
          WXcycles

          Note also that the peak of the 1918 flu pandemic coincides with the very same month that WWI ended

          The 11th hour of the 11th day in the 11th month of 1918.

          https://www.earthfiles.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/COVID_1918SpanishFluSecondWaveWORST.jpg

          Possibly economically and geopolitically significant, but who can tell?

          Tonyb thinks not.

          Hey Tony, the UK has the highest death percentage of any significantly infected country today, which is kinda why I pointed out what a terrible path the UK was on, back in late March. 😉

          Probably not economically significant though … disregard.

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          • #
            tonyb

            wxcycles

            10000 a day by 10th April according to your model?

            You need look no further for our high death rates than that the international city of London alone has some half of the deaths with some 20% of the overall population

            Add to that the growing age of the population with far more people reaching over 80 than in 2005 thereby providing suitable candidates for any virus (we had a very light flu season in 2018 and 2019) and that the biggest factor in CV deaths is obesity and all that brings in terms of health problems.

            We have a lot of overweight people and a lot of takeaways in the UK. Hopefully getting rid of the latter will help to reduce the obesity.

            26

            • #
              WXcycles

              Here’s another PROJECTION:

              As I pointed out at the top of the thread Dr. John Campbell’s yesterday quoted an IRC forecast of 1 billion infections and 3.2 million dead. Campbell said he thinks the disease will go to 4 to 5 billion total cases, his remarks are here (23:10 to 24:32 min:sec):

              https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhJipbWKmoA

              If it transpired he’s right and there are 5 billion cases, and we presume ~80% are a-symptomatic cases, they never develop symptoms, thus 20% become symptomatic. So 1 billion that show symptoms, when combined with the current observed global proportion of 22.8% of all resolved cases result in death, would equate to this:

              22.8% of 1 billion cases = 228 million dead

              But we still don’t know how many become symptomatic.

              It may be that 10% get ill, in which case only 114 million die. It may be that only 5 % get sick from COVID–19, in which case a trifling ~67 million die. But let’s say it’s just 2%, in which case 22.8 million would die. Oh, let’s just say 1% get sick from all the 5 billion total cases, which means 11.4 million would die.

              That’s what this could turn into, over a couple of years, and I’m happy the UK managed to avoid even worse to date, that’s what I hoped to see occur, only it was a very late and underwhelming performance. But please don’t try to rationalize that away, the UK got into such a mess via bad choices, dithering and bad leadership. This was very obvious from here.

              And I’ll keep a link to this comment because I know you won’t link to it when you attempt to misrepresent what I’ve said here, and take it out of its context once more.

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      • #
        WXcycles

        Tonyb
        April 30, 2020 at 3:23 am · Reply
        If I remember correctly you forecast that uk deaths would be 10000 a day by April 10th, increase to 13000 a day by the 11th and continue to increase exponentially

        There is no doubt that covid 19 has been a deadly pandemic but there have been worse and none of them have caused economies to implode and put us all into house arrest and change the geo political landscape.

        I pointed that out at the time because the UK’s data was so disgustingly bad, no other reason. The UK’s national performance was abysmal, pretty much the worst anywhere, with apparent lack of appreciation of what would occur if it continued. The UK needed to change course very soon, but for weeks there had been no significant change in trend. Incredibly bad leadership and an ineffectual, inconsistent response.

        I stand by what I pointed out and would do it again without any hesitation.

        It was an entirely valid to highlight the crazy path the UK was on, and the implications if it continued.

        Though I see you didn’t have the basic honesty to provide a direct link to what I said and its context. That would spoil your misrepresentations. What I wrote was a projection, not a ‘prediction’, not a ‘forecast’, not a ‘prophecy’, it was based on the then observed daily multiplication curve in the UK, of both cases growth and deaths growth. A perfectly reasonable thing to do to illustrate the shocking path the UK was on after all the preceding weeks of stupidly dithering into the present national health crisis. The projection showed where the UK would soon end up, if it didn’t make rapid changes. The earliest changes have the biggest effects later on reducing the total deaths and illness levels. A warning that’s later is much too late to avoid the worst with such multiplication rates.

        If you expect me to feel like doing that was ‘wrong’ or somehow ‘inaccurate’, you can go take a very long walk on a very short pier.

        Now how about a direct link to my remarks and their context “Tonyb”, got the basic honesty to produce that?

        That would be no.

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        • #
          David A

          WX, are you saying that you warned a nation taking a beating to duck, and when they did, and the worst blow missed, that some folk then say, “see, there was no further harm, and so no need to have ducked.”

          15

        • #
          tonyb

          Here is your comment.

          WXcycles
          April 2, 2020 at 9:22 am · Reply

          I think it was a conversation with Stephen Wilde?

          “…..At this moment the average death rate in the UK is running a bit less than normal due to a mild winter. It is likely to rise from Corvid 19 infections but by how much ?

          Stephen, you know better than this, on the current growth path factor of 1.327, on the 10th of April the UK reaches ~10,000 deaths in a single day. Just 24 hrs later on the 11th of April, it’s 13,000 die in the UK in a single day.

          The issue, then, is whether any such rise is enough to justify closing down economic activity because that can also increase death rates from mental distress and problems in the supply of food and medicines worldwide.

          Yes, it will be, at that point. I’ve been looking at the UK’s figures aghast for the past week, I can hardly believe how bad the peak will be there, if this continues unchecked like it currently is. The figures today are horrifying, UK has 29,474 total cases, 4,324 new cases, +16.0% new-cases of active-cases, and 7.98% deaths already! Sorry Stephen, you’re being much too pragmatic and relativist about this, mid-April will bring a genuine state of emergency, not just a declaration of one.

          Are we fighting a phantom and causing the cure to be worse than the disease?

          You really think it’s a phantom still? Seriously? Netherlands is gone already, Belgium is done also, France is a day behind, the UK is a day behind France, and Germany a day or two behind the UK. There is no ‘cure’ on offer here, just avoidance, or a survive verses died ‘digital’ outcome, your life is on or it’s off, 1 or 0.

          Something that alarms me is the idea of sick people in the process of dying quite naturally within a year or two being kept alive and aware artificially by means of painful, distressing, damaging ventilation when they might have preferred to pass away quietly under sedation.

          This is and always must be a personal level decision, not an unnecessary state policy decision. You can’t see that?

          What are the current death rate figures in Oz ?

          Extremely low, but I calculated the curve out and we’d reach Italy levels of deaths on ~14th of May, if we don’t lower the curve further from here. That would be a ridiculous national error and avoidable failure.

          In most of Europe the mild winter has resulted in a low influenza season which has created a pool of senior citizens who would normally have died already with flu imposed on top of underlying illnesses exposed to the depredations of Corvid 19 but in the end will the total death rate be much higher than normal?

          Yes, very much a YES”

          —–

          You made some extreme predictions that were never going to happen based on information that should not have been extrapolated as they didn’t reach the levels of data needed to make it realistic We are very much middle of the pack in Europe with Germany doing very well. We follow the WHO convention of listing deaths as being from CV rather than died with it, others don’t and some countries include deaths outside hospital whilst others don’t#

          AS a cause of mortality in the UK 2020 CV is unlikely to figure in the top 5 but because of our fixation on it many tens of thousands suffering from other illnesses such as cancer and heart disease will die now and in the future due to lack of diagnosis and treatment

          26

          • #
            robert rosicka

            I’ve been interested in the debate you and WXCycles and others are having about the projections WX was making and now I’ve read this comment I note WX included this .

            “Yes, it will be, at that point. I’ve been looking at the UK’s figures aghast for the past week, I can hardly believe how bad the peak will be there, if this continues unchecked like it currently is”

            Now to me ” If this continues unchecked like it currently is” seems to back up WX’s argument or does his disclaimer become null and void because you say so ?

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          • #
            WXcycles

            I notice you took the quotes out, which makes the text almost impossible to follow — so where’s the direct link then? Don’t tell me you didn’t keep it, as I’m quite sure that if you kept the quote, you kept the link too.

            As for your BS about the projection (NOT A MODEL) being incorrect, it was completely correct as stated, the projection was that day’s total multiplied by the observed multiplication factor on the same day. As a projection of data it is perfectly valid and perfectly accurate, and a valid heads-up as to where the trend is pointed, and how the numbers will build if changes are not made fast, to reduce that curve. No inaccuracy there (and as robert rosicka already pointed out) and it’s qualified. As conditions change the curve of the projection will change.

            That was the point, and you know it.

            The only inaccuracy here is you perverse interpretations and misrepresentation of what was being pointed-out, so you could be a jerk and express dimwitted expectations of a prosaic projection used to show the implications of doing nothing, which nothing much the UK had been doing far better than anyone else up to that point.

            You’ve simply gone out of your way to twist it into something that you know it isn’t. it was never a prediction it was a projection of where the data trend was pointing. Contemptible.

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            • #
              tonyb

              WXcycles

              I kept the text in its entirety as a link is no use as you have to open it to read it. The text is as you wrote it. It is entirely accurate. In what respects is it ‘perverse interpretations and misrepresentation’? You made a projection/ prediction/ modelled estimate, whatever you want to call it.

              Fortunately it was wrong, but it is the sort of projection prediction ,modelled estimate that caused the UK govt to believe 500,000 or 250,000 of their citizens were going to die and to take the extreme action they did, which will affect our country for a generation and will have a huge impact on geo political considerations.

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            • #
              tonyb

              WXcycles

              I have traced the link and here it is

              http://joannenova.com.au/2020/04/sweden-going-for-herd-immunity-and-using-the-1918-flu-plan/#comment-2302419

              I merely copied and pasted the exchange, which I think was with Stephen Wilde. I did not change it in any way, or misrepresent you in any way whatsoever. It was exactly what you wrote

              I always enjoy your comments but in this instance suspect there may have been some additional background that I did not know about, judging by your reaction, but as you can read I changed nothing at all.

              As I wrote, it was this sort of projection (from Imperial) that has caused the UK govt to take actions that will have a fundamental impact on us for a generation.

              00

              • #
                WXcycles

                I did not change it in any way, or misrepresent you in any way whatsoever. It was exactly what you wrote

                Not accepted, what you posted had the quotes missing, rendering the conversation indecipherable, but you had the link with the full context and quotes in place in its proper context. I’ve not said anything unreasonable there, and this your second attempt to try to make something of it and it’s no accepted.

                Knock it off, thanks.

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          • #
            Bill In Oz

            TonyB, I think you’ve stuffed up hugely.
            An apology is in order.

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            • #
              tonyb

              Bill

              It is a 100% accurate reflection of what was written. How is that stuffing up hugely?

              A prediction/ projection or whatever was made based on limited data that proved, fortunately, to be inaccurate. but as I have pointed out it is the sort of projection (from Imperial) that the UK govt fastened on to and so I believe did Trump, and the subsequent actions based on it will have profound consequences.

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    • #
      Bill In Oz

      And the ABC finally shows it can be useful.
      here is an article based on research from New Zealand
      Showing that the spread of Corona 19 Virus
      Is directly related to how quickly the governments acted.

      https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-30/coronavirus-spread-early-reaction-result-countries/12200256

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    • #
      max

      About 2.9 million people die in the United States each year from all causes. Monthly this total ranges from around 220,000 in the summertime to more than 280,000 in winter.

      In recent decades, flu season has often peaked sometime from January to March, and this is a major driver in total deaths.

      How do these numbers look in the United States? During March of 2020, there were 4,053 COVID-19 deaths according to Worldometer. That is 1.6 percent of total deaths in March 2019 (total data on March 2020 deaths is still too preliminary to offer a comparison). For context, we could note that total deaths increased by about four thousand from March 2018 to March 2019. So for March, the increase in total deaths is about equal to what we already saw as a pre-COVID increase from March 2018 to March 2019.

      https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/04/ryan-mcmaken/in-march-us-deaths-from-covid-19-totaled-less-than-2-percent-of-all-deaths/

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    • #
      A C Osborn

      One item I take great offense at is that Non COVID-19 deaths are being caused by “lockdown” when it has nothing to do with it.
      The UK other deaths are caused by government & NHS decisions not to completely segregate COVID-19 and Non COVID-19 patients as Quarantine demands.
      By having both sets of patients in the same hospitals causing more spreading and fear of catching COVID-19 is negligence of high order.
      The UK no longer has “isolation hospitals” set up for dangerous contagious deseases like they used to.
      They now have a few Units inside some hospitals.

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  • #

    The period March and April from 2015 to 2019 have been examined in this article

    It is overall mortality in a year that matters not a couple of months from it, as undoubtedly this virus will show different characteristics to a common flu virus.

    Estimates are that many tens of thousands of people are not being diagnosed or treated for cancer and heart disease etc which are by far the largest killers with some 150 ,000 a year dying from each category in the UK, ‘other’ deaths will therefore be higher than normal over the next year and even higher in future years when the reductions in health budgets , necessary because of fractured economies, are taken into account.

    The mortality figures for the UK at least are available back to 1903 . The hong kong flu of 1958 and that of 1967 and 68 stand out with the former causing 80000 deaths in the UK. Various ones in the 70’s are also notable as was 2014 .

    Do bear on mind with these figures For 2015 to 2019 , at least for the UK, that firstly there are some 10 million more residents over the last 30 years and that the numbers of the very elderly have risen some 50 percent for men and 25 percent for women since 2005, since when 5 million more people live in the UK.

    Unfortunately it is this very cohort of many more older people that will be susceptible to any virulent virus. This could not have happened even twenty years ago as the numbers of very elderly with numerous health issues dd not exist in the same numbers.

    So comparisons become difficult with the past, but looking at such a recent snapshot as back to 2015 does not enable us to see the context nor to recognise that covid 19 will not be a prime cause of deaths in the UK during 2020 and that deaths from other causes will increase considerably, as so much focus has been placed on the undoubted major health problem of Cv to the exclusion of everything else.

    We should be able to manage these things without cLosing down the economy and locking everyone up, which gives us the worst of all worlds. We have not done so in the past as recently as 2014 when there were some 47000 flu deaths

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    • #
      Greg

      Yes, I find that very deceptive. We know it is unusual to have an epidemic at this time of year so the excess for April is not what we need to be comparing to.

      We need to look at a severe flu season like 2017/18.

      Sadly Euro Momo splits the flu seasons by plotting Jan-Dec instead of July-June. You need to add the end of 2017 onto flat end of 2018 to get a true scale of the excess deaths of that flu season.
      https://euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps/

      When we do that we see COVID-19 has hit Europe no worse than the last bug flu season.

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      • #
        el gordo

        So it was a Chinese hoax.

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        • #
          PeterS

          No, we just panicked and over-reacted. Past pandemics were far worse and yet the economies were not smashed the way it has been today. Something is definitely different today, and it’s not the virus.

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          • #
            el gordo

            Its our ability to travel quickly from place to place and of course our communication systems, people can be easily panicked by tabloid presentations. The key to getting a better handle on all of this is to understand the historical significance of pandemics.

            https://www.livescience.com/45428-health-improved-black-death.html

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            • #
              PeterS

              There are lots of factors but there are also lots of unknowns even today. The reality is we might never know what would have happened if we did nothing. However, I always took the view that the right course of action is the precautionary principle when faced with so many unknowns. We did what we did out of fear, unknown and necessity. We did the right thing. Now we need to move on. We need to get our economy back on its feet. That requires true leadership with vision and ideas. I’m still waiting.

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              • #
                el gordo

                I concur with your general comment, that is exactly how it happened.

                We’ll get back to work within a month and because of the short duration of the pandemic it should leave a lot of money on the table for infrastructure spending to give the economy a lift. This is a V shape rebound for Oz, but not so sure about the UK and US.

                Morrison is the leader that brought us through the natural disasters of drought, bushfires and virus. His popularity has improved, along with the Premiers, so he is now confident that people are more aware of health and how to maintain a safe distance.

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              • #
                PeterS

                Getting back to work is not my point. My point is the crisis has in effect broken our legs off from under us. We need to build new infrastructures to promote growth far beyond what would have happened before the crisis, not just go back to the way we were and just hope for the best. I’m disappointed not many here recognise the seriousness of the situation.

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              • #
                DOC

                PeterS. Agree. This was a new virus and the news coming out of China was
                that it was dangerous, involving many deaths and extremes of treatment, even
                for the CCP, to control. We haven’t had to weld doors closed to keep people
                in, so far. Then China put up a story of ‘nothing to see here’ even as it locked down internal travel from Wuhan. It provided little information or ‘malinformation’ as some have said, to the rest of the world. For Morrison to not do anything, believing China’s drivel, we would be in a totally different situation now.

                I doubt many of those believing we shouldn’t have done anything more than the nothing we do each year for the recrudescence of the flu, would be singing their current story as the death toll mounted around them. We have seen what happens
                when this virus gets a free kick as in those aged care places and on the Ruby
                Princess. It’s looks a different story when your own elderly parents are the ones
                getting taken out by the virus in large numbers.

                Those that say we have over reacted are helpfully ignoring the UK experience where their pet ‘no action’ treatment was tried for about a week. The quick reversal of policy wasn’t soon enough to gain control of the virus and the worsening curve indications under that theory as time marched on. When hospitals are over run and
                poorly equiped, it is impossible to ignore all those deaths and just say its just
                the annual flu season, do nothing, when it clearly is not.

                Indeed, what the Asian tiger economies showed (from their prior experience) was that instant intense reaction to any infectious disease breakout is what is needed if you aim to give your economy a chance to keep running. Nowhere else in the world were governments awake at the wheel, and the options became limited. When one
                watched Italy going down then there was good reason to almost panic. If NYC had
                gone down early there would have been even greater pressure to panic.

                I’m waiting to see how the reopening of the nation goes. I think the pressure
                is on now to get on with it and salvage the economy asap. That ‘safety app’ could get interesting. What is to stop one infected person going into Coles or down the
                line of workers in any office or workplace. Each person with the app would be notified and told to go into quarantine. That could close down a huge number of workplaces if that’s the way it works. Interesting!

                10

              • #

                PeterS, it is self evident that Western leaders underpanicked and underreacted in Feb.

                I remain somewhat surprised that all the fans of “saving the economy” don’t want to mention that this could have been avoided so easily. It was the trillion dollar mistake.

                Sadly the more extreme lockdowns became necessary due to the blind complacency in Feb. Faced with massive easily predictable disruption and sickness they then had to work so much harder to slow the exponential trainwreck. Caught underprepared without enough PPE, asleep at the wheel.

                They didn’t have time or preplanned training for police who were sometimes cack-handed, over-active, and didn’t have clear instructions. It was a shambles. The 1918 flu plan and herd immunity quest mean the UK suffered dreadfully.

                All the leaders who believed the Chinese propaganda of “its the flu” and “it only kills the most old and weak” did exactly what President Xi and the WHO chief wanted, which was allow the virus to spread undetected, with inadequate testing, and flights open. Then in an emergency situation there was not time to develop or research the most cost effective forms of isolation.

                Now nations with this under control can gather the data from around the world, and if there is a second wave — be so much better prepared to do effective but hopefully less costly isolation measures./

                They can start with masks and Vit D and massive testing. As long as we keep it low enough that we can isolate all infected cases in hospital/hotels instead of sending them back home, it should be manageable. But zero cases remains a million times better than 1 unknown case.

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                PeterS

                Jo, you are only assuming things might have been better by now if we acted sooner. We might will never know. In any case even if we did act sooner we would also have had to start relaxing our restrictions sooner than now, unless you want a depression.

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              • #
                David A

                Peter, Jo has given a lot of reasons for what you call “assumptions”. ( Numerous posts) The idea that the defensive protocols may have no affect on the viral spread of a disease that is wholly dependent on close personal contact to spread is very wrong.

                Also, if those controls start earlier, they would have been vastly more effective, and allowed for better and earlier planning and control of the economic ramp up.

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        • #
          Alessandro

          No a [CCP] pox.

          Edited to meet Section 18C. – J

          00

      • #
        David A

        I disagree, as the lock down affected all viral transmissions, so the excess desths even greater. In a bad flu year, and a pandemic, the affect of a quarrantine and social distancing would be amplified.

        10

    • #
      Bill In Oz

      Tony
      You are white washing all the evidence
      With an agenda of ignoring any medical evidence
      That conflicts with your wish to abandon the lockdowns.
      All to get the economy going again.

      But I suggest that your ‘nostrum’ would lead to a
      Far more permanent & long term implosion of the economy.
      A strong economy is built on confidence in the future.
      This pandemic is impacting confidence everywhere.
      Confidence can only be restored by eliminating the virus – full stop. !

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      • #
        Environment Skeptic

        Bill: The virus has been circulating the planet for at least six months. By the time the grandiose theory of eliminating the virus was invented, dreamed up, it was already too late IMO.

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        • #
          Bill In Oz

          Circulating since early January
          That is exactly FOUR months
          Gosh can’t you count E S ?

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          • #
            Environment Skeptic

            From: https://www.livescience.com/first-case-coronavirus-found.html

            “1st known case of coronavirus traced back to November in China”

            I think it is safe to guess the virus was around earlier than that…so more than 6 months old. It’s a jet setting, cosmopolitan virus and was well and truly into everyone’s back yard long before any lock-downs were in place.

            It’s that simple.

            6 months is a very, very long time in the world of virus’s.

            My usual non expert opinion disclaimer here.

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            • #

              Why is it safe to guess anything?

              The only evidence it was circulating earlier comes from gene studies which assume a slow rate of mutation. But there are many gene studies showing the opposite.

              It can’t possibly have been circulating widely in it’s current deadly form without leaving a wake of pneumonia outbreaks.

              The dramatic cluster outbreaks that keep occurring (Eg, Burnie hospital Tasmania) show the virus is behaving exactly like a novel disease hitting a totally naive non-immune population.

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              • #
                Environment Skeptic

                Why is it safe to guess anything?

                : A guess informs/indicates to the reader the non expert or a student/etc has not made up his or her mind yet and finds the need to gather more data for example.

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              • #
                Lucky

                –It cannot have had wide circulation without leaving a wake of pneumonia outbreaks–

                But,
                There is evidence that this happens. (wide circulation, and, few outbreaks). The lower number of, and more slowly developing cases of outbreaks is because many (most) infections did not develop to require hospitalization but are cured/overcome without intervention.

                It is a major fallacy to assume that the serious cases are the only cases.
                See-
                https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2020/04/why-be-rational-when-panic-is-an-option/

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      • #
        max

        “There are no solutions. There are only trade-offs.” ― Thomas Sowell

        “Saving lives versus saving money” comparisons confuse ends with means. The end of saving the economy is not to have more money. The end is to have resources necessary to preserve the lives and health of countless human beings

        Ending the Lockdowns Isn’t about Saving Money. It’s about Saving Lives.

        https://mises.org/wire/ending-lockdowns-isnt-about-saving-money-its-about-saving-lives

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  • #
    MrGrimNasty

    Nothing you’ve said/shown remotely justifies the economic damage.

    I repeat, you only have to go back to the 2015 flu season to see England and Wales deaths peak at 16,237 deaths a week (Office of National Statistics), and I believe it was even higher in 2005 – 17,000+.

    The deaths in NY State are still a small fraction of the normal annual mortality rate – and yet the MSM describes the situation in the USA as more deaths than the Vietnam war. What is the agenda here?

    Yes the numbers can sound alarming but you are dealing with massive numbers all round – the population and the normal mortality rate. So chances of dying really isn’t that much worse. Only 2 weeks ago this was the thinking in the UK.

    https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/695/cpsprodpb/E96A/production/_111545795_optimised-mortality_rates-nc.png

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    • #
      Spetzer86

      The agenda in the USA is, as it has been for the last few years, to get Trump. They’re trying to tag Trump with more USA fatalities than Vietnam! Someone should point out that, given the original estimates, he could conceivably be credited with saving a couple of million lives by quickly initiating the Chinese travel ban. That someone would be immediately un-personed by social media and the press, but it’d be worth saying.

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      • #
        PeterS

        I suspect you are right but we might never know for sure. One thing is for sure. The damage to our economies is the worst since the Great Depression. It’s too early to tell whether we will miss yet another bullet. There is the possibility the economies will revive over time in spite of the attacks, deliberate or otherwise. On the other hand, we will suffer another depression. Time will tell.

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        • #
          Meglort

          Depends on if a debt laden international travel industry and its appendages and flogging degrees to CCP regimists kids was good.
          Global supply chains concentrating power in the CCP at the expense of virtually every other country on earth was good.
          Real pollution and deforestation at an extensive level and manufactured growth to prop up asset classes was good.
          Huge amounts of money and arable land to build yet more toll roads was good.
          There are many still working in manufacturing, healthcare, technology, services, retail, sanitation, public administration, finance, construction, trades…
          We now have a ready workforce to deploy into areas of social need rather than desire.
          An education system that focused on revenue rather than learning that focused on quantity at the expense of quality.
          Personally I am hoping and believe that what was lost was worse than what becomes, in Australia certainly.
          Extricating the malignant tumour on humanity that is the CCP will come at a cost, but I am sure that in time this will be seen as a suitable price to pay.
          There were probably people griping about the cost of dealing with the Nazis and Imperialist Japanese 75 years ago too.
          But refreshingly even the most blinded are waking to the globalist agenda, the evil of the CCP and the MSM cults and wondering what the hell we have done or not done about them for so long.

          No pain, no gain.
          Having started this, we need to finish it lest it all be for naught if the impatient, poorly prepared or incoherent prevail.

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        • #
          WXcycles

          The damage to our economies is the worst since the Great Depression

          No Peter, the damage to economies was done during the last 25 years, the last 15 years especially, this is a black-swan event that triggers a long expected and predicted crisis within a global “Everything Bubble”, a term originally coined by John Hussman.

          https://www.hussmanfunds.com/comment/mc200420/

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            PeterS

            Using your logic we should say the damage was done since day 1 centuries ago. Get real. The hit on our economies now is devastating. Everyone knows it, at least anyone with eyes to see.

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            • #
              David A

              All I see WX as saying is that this may be the straw that broke the

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              • #
                OriginalSteve

                Maybe not…a rebalancing of things, but not the end of things. Big difference.

                I think some leftists want to talk up the fear to make sure the economy crashes.

                Im a pragmatist however, and the economy will take a while to come back, but it will, even if it changes shape, the amount of money sloshing around is still the same….

                That money has to go somewhere. The danger is it being diverted into stupid stuff like green energy or funding a black hole of no hopers like the UN, and its attendant flock of parasitic freeloaders….

                20

      • #
        Sweet Old Bob

        And …. the USA did not have 330 million fighting in Nam .
        Compensate for that and Nam was MUCH worse .

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        • #
          Kalm Keith

          The loss of American lives in Vietnam was a tragedy.
          Over 17 plus years there were over 50,000 deaths and then permanent injuries on top. Tragic.
          That’s on average, over 3,000 deaths a year.

          After the war was over the victors, Russia and China engaged in harassment and demanded compensation for their support and guidance.

          In the last four months in USA there have been over 61,000 deaths attributed to CV19.

          Manipulation. That’s the name of the game.

          02

      • #

        The agenda in the USA is, as it has been for the last few years, to get Trump.

        Absolutely. But the agenda to defend Trump sometimes resorts and clings to medical fantasies which is unnecessary (the kindest description I can use).

        It would help Trump (and US citizens) if people sought the truth, no matter where the data leads. There are plenty of things to defend Trump with.

        His gut instinct to close off the three most infected states was exactly the right thing to do. It’s a shame Cuomo and others didn’t let him. Other states in the US are paying for that, being punished for a spread that could have been stopped even that late in the game.

        The dreadful politicization of everything in the US is deplorable. TDS is real. But the irrational hate campaign sometimes generates an irrational counter-reaction and that helps the democrats.

        Always better to keep calm. Watch the data.

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        • #
          Kalm Keith

          Jo,
          it’s all very well to say “watch the data” but when the data is being “constructed” rather than measured and recorded there can be problems with validity even before looking at accuracy.

          It was earlier reported that the U.S. health system allocated US$39,000 for support of CV19 cases.

          In the essentially private hospital system in the US I’m absolutely, 100% sure that administrators would Never put pressure on medical staff to see other ailments, e.g. influenza, as CV19, for the extra money.

          People are Not like that.

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          • #
            David A

            Keith, your message is perfectly clear and accurate. Yet the virus is and was very serious in NY, and the deaths above normal very real, despite lowered flu deaths and other deaths.

            It is a shame when dishonest greed is cause to distort numbers and cast doubt on a real pandemic.

            40

            • #
              Kalm Keith

              David.

              I totally agree.

              In New York even if you took out the doubtful data there is obviously a serious issue with CV19.

              It is a horrible disease.

              I have mentioned before that the CV19 experience is a Multifactorial disease.

              Very broadly;

              How close together are people located in residences in cities. High rise ventilation? Does it provide security to residents?

              Sewage. I have read that New York may have had problems with this basic health issue in the past. Has it been fixed.

              What measures, long term, had the government used to ensure that known problems like TB were controlled at the borders. Again, Italy and New York seem to lag on this safeguard.

              In nursing homes, what care was taken in design to ensure that air was Not recycled within the establishment.

              Then there’s the other modern day issue.
              In extending life in nursing homes perhaps what has happened recently is that a substantial cohort has been created who are literally “living on the edge” like no other previous group.

              Whatever challenge that came along would get them: in 2020 it was CV19.

              As I said; this CV19 experience has many facets and anyone who dives in and says it’s all because of “so and so” might be being premature.

              Good luck world.

              KK

              30

            • #
              Macha

              Yes NY bad, but no need to treat the whole Usa the same. Living conditions as different as the mortality but now the whole country is affected. Same goes for Oz. Sydney is not like Perth.

              20

        • #
          Richard Ilfeld

          Trump is only part of the problem.
          The Democrats were facing an existential threat, and a need to restructure their organization–
          this can be explained apolitically.
          America is forced by law and custom into a two party system. Thus, most of our compromise and coalition takes
          place within the parties, rather than between multiple parties in a Parliament as common in many other countries.
          The emerging Democratic coalition depends far more on all levels of government and government employees than in the past;
          California over the past two decades has been the template.
          For Democrats to thrive going forward, an increasing share of our GDP had to be directed towards and through government.
          Republican fortunes require a strong private sector.
          Thus, this, more than real argument about public health, has become the focus of the debate in the US.

          The private economy is still viable under the scab of the shutdown carnage. There are some who overtly wish for full collapse, so a model akin
          to the socialist reconstruction of Britain after WWII can be followed; who wish aid to require the government to take equity for aid; to route all aid through
          agencies rather than banks, to extend control mechanisms permanently, to refill state budgets, traditionally balanced, with federal money, traditionally
          deficit.

          We are no longer talking about COVID; we are debating our system of government. Thus the various state actions vis a vis the virus will seem chaotic and irrational:
          they are.

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          • #
            Bill In Oz

            Richard I am an Australian so I will not comment on USA politics.
            However most of the planet in in the midst of a global pandemic disease
            ( I say most because here in South Australia, we are now putting this foreign CCP virus behind us )
            And one of the centers of the disease is the USA.
            I wish I could say that that the governments of the USA were treating this infectious pandemic as a medical issue.
            Unfortunately your political leaders are not.
            That is source of sadness to me.
            Many Americans will I fear pay the medical price of this stupid politic’ing on this medical issue.
            But no doubt the American people will make their call on this political madness.

            01

            • #
              Richard Ilfeld

              Bill, the US is two, or more countries. We have, quite literally, three or four ‘Australias’….that is, large areas
              of several states with land mass comparable to your continent and 25 million population, mostly rural and almost free of the virus.

              Even in California, a single state with a population of 40 million , we have 2/3 of the counties with an aggregate of less than hundred fatalities.

              But we have one size fits all policies driven by more or less disfunctional cities tearing us apart. Our big box stores and groceries have stayed open.
              Our food chain mostly works. Some states have been more rational…Florida has been county by county so only the three biggest have been really shut down;
              the golf course and beach where I live has stayed open and the little airport has as well; with different rules for all and distancing but one can get out and about.

              Michigan has been legendary for its stupidity and has citizens in the streets. A government that will arrest a father and daughter alone in a park playing ball
              should be removed from power. There are demonstrations.

              We know about and admire Australia, but do not control our borders, internally. We have “Sanctuary Cities, with large undocumented populations. They are now sick. In NYC, they are living in the subways, rendering them unusable in a city that depends on mass transit. In California, some are in hotels turning into hospices, that
              will not be suitable for business after. These folks are not in any sense to blame, but do prevent shutdown rules from doing more than flattening the curve….
              the virus will run its course here in our populations centers, and the gap between them and the hinterland in widening.

              In much of geographic America, the only sign of the virus is economic damage.

              20

    • #
      Bill In Oz

      Garbage Grim & Nasty !
      The evidence is before your eyes
      But you have them shut.

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      • #
        Environment Skeptic

        The death toll and harm caused to people indirectly from the effects of the lockdowns could be 90% (a guess) higher than being reported.

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    • #
      Gary

      Please forgive me Wxcycles and Bill in Oz, here comes my “infantile interjections.”
      I agree with Mr grimnasty, and after watching an hour long interview with Professor Knut Wittkowski recorded a few days ago, who lives in New York ,I’d say he’s right on the ball.
      I’d rather listen to a real professor and his colleagues in this field of science than the lock down fear mongers on this blog.

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      • #
        Bill In Oz

        We are extremely lucky that almost
        All government’s have ignored ‘Prof’ Nutter Wittkowski
        But feel free to think he is important.

        Seven days of zero in South Australia.
        Soon we’ll get our normal lives back.
        🙂

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        • #
          Kalm Keith

          “Soon we’ll get our normal lives back.”

          And you’re looking forward to that?

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          • #

            Seems to me the commenters who call people medical scaremongers are often the same ones talking of economic wipeouts, deaths, suicides, and the end of the economy…

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            • #

              It is also possible that both are correct ie. all options are scary.

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              • #
                PeterS

                Or more likely the truth is somewhere in between the extreme views presented by many here.

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              • #
                OriginalSteve

                I think, leaf, some of us will still stare the danger down, while others prefer to cower.

                I think we have an opportunity to show necessary backbone and drive a result in the desired direction.

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            • #
              Raving

              The stock market is doing fine. Maybe I am clueless but that is scary!

              10

              • #
                PeterS

                The stock market is always fine as long as it’s above 0. It’s when and where one buys and sells that matters. However, I do get your meaning. Either it’s a sucker rally or the first leg of the next boom. As always no one can know for sure until after the event.

                10

          • #
            Bill In Oz

            Yes Keith
            But I have the feeling that you
            Are Cranky about the prospect.
            I’m not.

            PS I just heard on the radio that the Northern Territory is
            Now easing the lock down there.
            Great News !

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          Environment Skeptic

          Bill, it is excellent to have more than one opinion. We should be welcome it, regardless of our own prejudices.

          It is in fact highly criminal to participate in ongoing defamation without some very good evidence.

          So what is the evidence upon which you base your possibly very defamatory claims?

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          • #
            Bill In Oz

            I do not welcome the repetitive
            Requests to loo at this nutty professor.
            With his completely irresponsible ‘wisdom’
            I did once weeks ago.
            He is a dingbat
            As rick so wonderfully says..

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            • #
              Gary

              Blind faith in your own opinion, good on you Bill I hope you’ve got the balls to apologise to professor Knut Wittkowski and his colleagues around the world who support his view,if he is proven right, which he appears to be,(surprise surprise) either way we will find out soon enough, it’s a fact of life that thousands of people die every day around the world and that will increase with this fear and lock down mentality. The media seem to revelle in it.

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      • #
        WXcycles

        Infantile mis-characterizations too.

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        • #
          Kalm Keith

          Exactly.
          Bill does that a lot.

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          Environment Skeptic

          What i said above @ April 30, 2020 at 1:21 pm applies to you too WXcycles.

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          • #
            WXcycles

            It’s a civil discussion, try a counter-argument.

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              Environment Skeptic

              There must be millions waiting to get medical attention..millions! and increasing daily…Do you think hospitals will be overwhelmed when the lockdown ceases from all the people who have been waiting suddenly are scrambling to get a hospital bed or even a dental appointment, and so on?

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  • #

    In the UK the peak seems to have been around 8th April and if one goes back 12 days we are at a point before the lockdown began.
    Since the peak there has only been a slow decline so the effect of the lockdown seems to have been small.
    The disease has been worst in densely populated areas and such tests as there have been appear to show that a larger portion of those populations have antibodies than have had a need for medical treatment so the implication is that the slow rate of decline is related not to the lockdown but to a slow accumulation of herd immunity in the worst affected regions.
    As for strokes and heart attacks, they are a common consequence of oxygen deprivation rather than a direct consequence of Covid 19.
    The best palliative results have been from our new CPAP machines which are far less aggressive than ventilation in keeping up blood oxygen levels. The initial panic over the lack of ventilators has proved to be entirely misplaced and was potentially dangerous.
    High fatality locations appear to have relied heavily on invasive ventilation techniques.
    As we learn more we can see that judgments made earlier on were flawed.
    The idea that containment was ever possible for a virus with an infectious 14 day incubation period was in my humble opinion similarly flawed.
    I judge that the UK’s mix of containment and herd immunity acquisition might as with Sweden give a better long term outcome at a higher initial cost than nations who emphasised containment early on.
    Economic and societal disruption causes deaths too which is why we are seeing a significant proportion of excess deaths that are not Corvid 19 related.

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    • #

      Stephen, read the link in the post on Strokes. Covid raises D Dimer in people to spectacular levels. This is a clotting marker. Docs say they are seeing strokes in people much younger than normal (albeit these are not common), and these clots are large arterial clots very unusual. Covid is a clotting disorder — hence it does cause heart attacks and strokes. Probably more so in people with some underlying risk, but this is happening sometimes in people in their 30s and 40s.

      The idea that containment was ever possible for a virus with an infectious 14 day incubation period was in my humble opinion similarly flawed.

      And yet there is Australia and New Zealand…

      The slope of daily new cases in the UK fell off the exponential somewhere between April 5 and 10. Twelve days before that was March 25 – 30ish.

      Boris started doing daily briefings on March 17.
      The Coronavirus act was given the Royal Decree on March 25th. Thereafter pubs and clubs closed etc? Right? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in_the_United_Kingdom

      Timing looks pretty good.

      Levelling off in the UK is bad, and I wish we’d see those numbers fall. But the lockdown/concern/isolation stopped the exponential curve which would have been off that chart. You can’t see the cases that didn’t happen, follow that curve…

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      • #
        Gary

        In this day and age every death is a Covid 19 death the more the better apparently the fear keeps rolling on.
        The 1918 -1919 flu was scary, being healthy and in your twenties was a health risk, Jo have you and David read The Rainbow Curtain by Arthur Firstenberg?

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        • #
          Bill In Oz

          I am busy already
          I decline to read stuff which is irrelevant.

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        • #

          Gary, I haven’t read that. Perhaps you can explain how it is relevant?

          PS: I demonstrably and accurately worked to prevent the largest number of deaths, and gross economic damage from the start. What did you do?

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          • #
            Gary

            Jo I appreciate your effort and I don’t know how you manage to keep it up, truly amazing, I’ve followed your blog for a long time (but never commented) you’ve exposed the myth of human induced climate change but on this issue I have a different view and would appreciate you putting forward the views expressed by various experts around the world without ridiculing them.One thing,you do get both sides of the argument from people on this blog

            As for the book, probably not that relevant unless you know that slight changes in the earths electrical field can effect the health of people around the world as in neurasthenia the chronic form of electrical illness (it effects blood coagulation)which is scary with the rollout of the 5G network, read the book and make your own mind up, could it be the cause of the yearly flu with the changing season and viruses are a response to it.

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            • #
              robert rosicka

              Gary if you’re implying that 5G has anything to do with the Covid 19 virus you’re going to have to explain Taiwan with its one million plus users (wiki) and extremely low Covid19 fatalities.

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              • #
                Gary

                I hope it doesn’t ,it may be the sun and the decreasing sun spot activity. During the first world War Guglielmo Marconi’s long distance radio system was rolled out around the world and coencided with the Spanish flu which affected healthy young people. Maybe viruses are the good guys spreading amongst the comunity warning of impending dangers causing an immune response in people? Aparantly in a forest, if a tree detects a threat or is being attacked by bugs or something, it sends out a warning to the other trees so be careful if your walking through a forest with a chainsaw, a tree may drop a branch on your head

                00

              • #
                robert rosicka

                Been through forests many times with a chainsaw and yes occasionally one or two fell .
                Just think of all the maple trees being bled and I’ve no idea about rubber trees but there must be a lot of screaming going on .
                So the virus is just natures way of fighting back against technology? Thank you for that I would never have guessed it was even possible and never realised that the first “Kingsmen” movie was based on fact and not fiction !
                Wow just wow!

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      • #
        PeterS

        Jo, you need to get past the bias. The information out there is ambiguous and unclear at this stage. I’m prepared to keep an open mind on the various disagreements from both sides here until we have sufficient data to come to a real conclusion.

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        Environment Skeptic

        Elective surgery numbers that are waiting to get medical attention other than the new flu virus are inexorably growing, (Like a monument) almost exponentially in number by the day. One of many compounding harmful equal and opposite effects of the lock-down on general public health.

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      • #

        Jo
        The odd thing about the UK timing is that we are told not to seek help unless symptoms deteriorate to a point where medical help is essential so that infections only get recorded about a week to ten days after any initial symptoms and it takes up to 14 days for symptoms to develop. That takes the lead time up to about 20 days which places the peak of infections as having occurred significantly prior to the beginning of lockdown. So many puzzling features of this disease.

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        • #
          David A

          I recall that the average symptom onset is only three to four days. What you are describing is the extreme.

          It is, IMV, very irrational to argue that isolation does not affect the spread of a disease that 100 percent depends on close personal contact to spread.

          30

  • #
    dadgervais

    A scientist or engineer, finding anomalous data or unexpected results, stops to ponder what additional data they might need to collect in order to explain it or determine the cause.

    The layman (economic reporter or editor on twitter, for example) just tries to imagine an explanation. The trouble is, “imagining” isn’t “knowing”.

    How about we try to determine if there were past anomalies (last 25 years, 50 years?) of similar magnitude. If so, why? We might want more than the 12 countries they selected. How about more detailed knowledge of the timing of the spikes: did they occur after the spike in infections or after implementing draconian lock-downs with people spending excess time in possibly less healthy environments or avoiding medical care out of virus fears?

    Which causes have positive spikes? Are there causes which show negative spikes?There must be causes of death even the the most imaginative layman could not argue were virus caused. Which of them went up/down/remained unchanged?

    The scientist collects as much pertinent data as he can, then analyzes it to come to some (tentative) conclusion. The layman imagines the cause then seeks any available data that supports his conjecture, or for which he can (ad hoc) imagine an explanation that it also supports his conjecture.

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      dadger

      Some interesting stuff here:

      http://inproportion2.talkigy.com/

      The author seems to be updating as we go along so if the data comes to justify the response to the virus then that will become apparent. Up to now it seems not.

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    • #
    • #
      dadgervais

      For example, I noticed that “Colorado COVID-19 Deaths By Age Group”, raw data as reported, closely approximates an exponential.

      ___Age Dead Approx Exponential
      __0-9, __0, 2.08^0 = __1.00
      10-19, __1, 2.08^1 = __2.08
      20-29, __4, 2.08^2 = __4.33
      30-39, __4, 2.08^3 = __9.00
      40-49, _20, 2.08^4 = _18.72
      50-59, _33, 2.08^5 = _38.93
      60-69, _86, 2.08^6 = _80.98
      70-79, 168, 2.08^7 = 168.44
      __80+, 355, 2.08^8 = 350.35

      This is a fact, but it is meaningless. To make any valid analysis we would need a population pyramid of Colorado so the raw numbers could be normalized. We would need to know other demographic (/economic/ethnic/health/etc.) data about the population and also about the deceased. My coincidental “discovery” above is just another naive curiosity.

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    • #
      Geoff Sherrington

      Danger,
      Yes, it can be seen from reading in the past few months that people react differently when shown measurements. Possibly the bigger group says “Look what this means for he future” while those experienced with data tend to say “How were these numbers derived, are they sound?”
      The subsequent actions of these 2 groups are quite different. Many media people seem to be in the first group. Geoff S

      40

    • #
      Bill In Oz

      Yes a scientist tries to collect as much data as possible
      But the deaths are happening
      NOW
      All across the planet mate.
      Doing nothing until perfect knowledge is available is not an option.
      We act on the info we have
      Because we must.

      45

    • #
      Steve of Cornubia

      Careful consideration, detailed analysis and reasoned, proportionate response is obviously the gold standard for any issue or event.

      That’s all fine and dandy when you have time to do those things. However, when events are developing rapidly and a simple extrapolation based on limited data is all you have to forecast the future, guess what?

      You have to do something anyway.

      50

      • #
        WXcycles

        Retrospective analysis and conclusion is much more fun for huffy-puffy shoulda-coulda-woulda 20-20 hindsight ‘debate’ though.

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  • #
    Please Stop Posting

    Your posts are horribly misinformed and swing from calling folks unprepared and incompetent to claiming victory by crushing the curve…I beg you to stop posting and consider taking your website down.
    https://judithcurry.com/2020/04/26/a-sensible-covid-19-exit-strategy-for-the-uk/
    https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/04/29/delaying-herd-immunity-is-costing-lives/

    03

    • #

      PSP It doesn’t appear you have even read my posts? Please point out the flaws, not just at the conclusion you want to find.

      In Australia and many other countries\, the virus is coming under control already. It makes no sense at all to try for the fantasy unknowable target of herd immunity which may not even exist.

      Perhaps there are some countries on Earth where it makes sense. But once those countries see how other nations are faring without the constant death and hospital pain, and the nagging fear, they too will end up wanting to get rid of it, and fly freely to the clean zone.

      I suspect with masks, Vit D and summer will choose to get rid of it until there is a realistic treatment.

      Hope you join us soon.

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  • #
    Greg

    Just anecdotal, but I live in a tri city area with just over 500,000 people. Total infected is just over 700, with about 38% already recovered. 66 deaths, 55 of which were long term care facilities, over 30 from a single home. No need to shut down the world. Generally in Canada 79% of deaths are long term care homes. Isolate them, do much better next time and get things going. and FFS don’t pile 4 old people together in a small room under any circumstances.

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    • #

      Greg, there was no need to shut the world — we just needed to impose strict borders. When we failed on the international borders, we should have done state and province borders. When the virus spread throughout the land we need county borders.

      The advantage of borders is that we can give rural people with 0 cases their freedom locally — they don’t have to wait for the big cities to clear. we still trade and supply acorss borders, but we clean one area out and don’t let the virus back in.

      But as long as everyone can drive everywhere then the whole country has to wait for the big cities.

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      • #
        Greg Cavanagh

        To be honest, I’m pretty sure the smaller towns just ignored the whole shut down thing anyway.

        81

        • #
          Ian Hill

          Maybe, but they also put up signs telling visitors to keep out.

          50

        • #
          Broadie

          Greg
          Not just smaller towns, your local Bunnings, Supermarket etc, were packed tighter than sardines.
          Why isn’t there a pile of dead holding hammers or toilet rolls stuck in their rotting claws?

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          • #
            Greg Cavanagh

            Yep, Bunnings and the Sand & Gravel suppliers were standing room only before Easter. In fact they still are. All doing a roaring trade.

            The highway was trucks and utes only Easter, but back to normal after Easter. It’s just as packed as it ever was of a morning again.

            21

      • #
        PeterS

        Too late for that isn’t it? We panicked and over-reacted for sure. Oh well, what’s done is done. Let’s get on with the exit plan world-wide and see if the world can avoid a depression. I sincerely hope so but only time will tell. We could start here by investing in new base load power stations to smash the cost of power for the benefit of business and individuals, and build new dams to grow our farming and agricultural industries. Is this too much to ask? Or are our leaders, state and federal going to pretend everything will be OK and go back to the way we were, which will be fatal for our economy?

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  • #
    Dave in the States

    Do we know yet if the mode of spread is by inhalation of infected aspiration, or by contact with infected droplets?

    30

    • #

      Dave, it’s not an either or question. That was a paradigm that turned out to be wrong.
      Covid is definitely droplet, but it is also through suspended micro particles. It’s not as airborne as measles, but it does hang in the air for hours in some experiments.

      Open those windows, flush the rooms.

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      • #
        Dave in the States

        Thanks.

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      • #
        Dave in the States

        More indoor humidity should help too.

        21

      • #
        TdeF

        It’s one of the reasons the ban on beaches are really symbolic, and should not be necessary. A windy day at the beach outdoors in the sunshine on a warm to hot day with good social distancing, the beach is perhaps the best place to be. Councils initially allowed the beaches to stay open. It was a total failure.

        The problem was with group gatherings. You have to draw the line somewhere because asymptomatic young people insist on social gathering, and is no choice but to close the beach. This is painted as police overreach and it looks very wrong when five police are pictured hounding a single swimmer out of the water.

        The problem is that invulnerable young people are the greatest source of propagation of the virus and it’s really a ban on social grouping, not the beach itself. Again the media cannot resist their traditional objection to policing, the removal of people’s rights, overreach.

        And this particular virus supports that attitude by infecting mainly young people and mainly killing the older ones. That’s simply good luck for younger people. The second wave of Spanish flu in 1918 reversed that. And in the islands of the Pacific, death rates reached a terrible 30% and they were open living, beach communities in the hot and steamy tropics.

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        • #
          bobl

          On the other hand TDef an outdoor environment with toxic (To bacteria and viruses) levels of salt, high levels of direct and reflected UV and IR (heat) is probably the safest place to be.

          It would be a much bigger risk for them to be indoors.

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          • #
            TdeF

            Agreed. The problem is that going to the beach is a social event for teenagers and young adults.

            If there was a comprise to be made it would be to allow families with children and older people onto the beach. It’s not that young people are at great risk. It’s that they and their behaviour are a great risk to everyone else and they are in rule breaking mode.

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        • #
          Macha

          Do young really infect others? Maybe just certain people or ages transmit. Who knows ?
          I read a bit about super spreaders, so logically there is opposites.

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  • #
    TdeF

    Every day on the front of the Australian there is an article praising Sweden.

    Today “Why Sweden’s virus policy is no failure” and the key idea is

    “Sweden’s neighbours are delaying the same deaths with their stronger mandates, to the detriment of the economy”

    This is the appalling fatalism which has caused so many deaths, currently at 2,500. By ratio, Australia has only delayed the deaths of 7,500 people.

    At what point are these people going to suddenly die from Wuhan Flu? According to this theory, the flu is coming back to claim them anyway. It cannot be stopped.

    I would have thought that all of medicine was about putting off death? It seems death is inevitable and in the case of viruses, we should not even try.

    I have to say I know very few people who would be alive today without medical intervention at some time. Simple infection, childbirth, accidents, appendicitis and even an impacted tooth. Most have had a critical operation at some time. According to this new medicine, we should not intervene and something called ‘the economy’ is more important than life.

    Commentators are now interpreting the Hippocratic principle of do no harm into a new idea of do nothing. We worship the economy.

    Perhaps they are right. If we had costed WWII it would never have started.

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      bobl

      TDef, I don’t think anyone is making that case, noone is saying don’t intervene to help the sick. But you are right that absent a vaccine 50%-90% of us will have this disease at some point, just like measles used to be. Pre vaccine if you didn’t get measles by 12 you were the odd one out. Measles is very like COVID as a childhood disease it was uncomfortable but relatively minor. Kids didn’t die in their hundreds because parents knew how to look after sick kids then, especially measles and chicken pox. In adults measles could be more problematic, but few old people ever got measles because they had it when they were kids.

      This is new though, the elderly don’t have that childhood immunity so we have to isolate them instead, something Jo finds completely untenable even though its the safest path. But smokescreens aside there is no doubt that in the absence of an acquired immunity vulnerable groups need to be protected while the herd acquires immunity. The best path is to make that immunity acquisition as short as possible. Also unlike Jo’s missive you don’t have to do that by putting the elderly under house arrest, that idea is yet another failure of the current strategy. Instead move the sick away from the vulnerable, IE proper quarantine solves this problem. Then you just need to give the elderly masks, safe gatherings or safe deliveries (EG the 7-8 am woolies thing is a great example, only protected people allowed after a night flushing the air), air purifiers and cheap heating.

      Jo’s opinion IS viable if not expensive in dollars and lives. The short path to immunity is likely better because of the math DeathRate x Time, suppression is a poor strategy that maximises death over time. There isn’t much evidence at this point that cardiac issues etc are more than a side effect of pneumonia despite the carry on. Mild cases don’t exhibit these issues either. Most infections cause liver/kidney pathology changes, Bodies heal, we have no idea if collateral damage is permanent. By all means let’s be cautious but just like with global warming lets not let the precautionary principle do more damage than the disease.

      So in short yes we should try to minimise deaths, yes we should intervene to cure every infection, yes we should keep infection rates under health care capacity. Whether we should wipe it out here is however a vexing question because it leaves us open to wave after wave. Are we instead better off with a new measles, everyone’s been infected, everyone is somewhat immune?

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        TdeF

        What we have done in Australia is not minimize deaths. We have stopped them. And comparisons with measles are not appropriate. The Black Death would be a better example or the Spanish Flu.

        And there is the business of whether, if we could, we would not eliminate measles totally as well. And polio. And all those flus to which we have become inured and never immune. 60,000 Americans a year die from the flu. If it’s preventable why?

        I think we have become blase, uncaring. But with modern science, there is no need to innoculate the whole population every year against the latest corona virus. Every effort should be made to stop these things from entering and becoming endemic and lethal. Australia has shown this is possible in a few weeks. And if we had known about it in January, we would not have even 88 deaths.

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        • #
          TdeF

          As for no one making that case, that article was a lead article in our biggest and National newspaper. That case is being made every day on the front page. That disease is unstoppable, that we are just delaying the inevitable. I disagree.

          30

        • #
          bobl

          We haven’t, because virtually no-one here has any defense against this still. When Sweden is done, Australia is still at almost peak risk. Only cutting ourselves off from the world can maintain that.

          This is all a grand gamble on models and a vaccine, where are we if that doesn’t happen?

          Just like with AGW I don’t gamble on models just deal with “what is”.

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      • #
        WXcycles

        This is new though, the elderly don’t have that childhood immunity so we have to isolate them instead, something Jo finds completely untenable even though its the safest path.

        huh? You understand Australia’s been doing that since February? What do you think we’d do differently? Move all the oldies to Katherine? That sort of line of thinking is why technocrats should not make human decisions.

        Do you finding your fridge is lacking sufficient goodies? The car not quite new enough? Do you find yourself fretting about your bank account not being as high as you’d like? Aren’t you living in one of the most pampered, prosperous countries around in 2020? Greed is what rejects of the validity of families to be together. Families are the basis of society and why there’s a country and government with an economy. We didn’t build up the economy to benefit some other purpose.

        Continuing the current isolation indefinitely is not an answer families will accept. We don’t have to, we know how to beat the virus, we know how to keep it out, we know how to safely keep trading. We know how to adapt to it. I fail to see why this approach is unacceptable, but yours isn’t.

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      Steve of Cornubia

      We shouldn’t forget that lockdowns and social distancing weren’t just about defeating Covid-19 in some way, but to slow down its spread and give the scientists and doctors time to treat those who catch it anyway, and over the longer term, come up with better treatments or (hopefully) a vaccine.

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      • #
        TdeF

        Yes, that is also true. However I felt strongly that we had the opportunity to eliminate this virus completely and was delighted. It is proving the right decision. The rest is about being half pregnant. And while promoters of half way measures point to low deaths per million, it is way to disguise the grim reality. Total infection rates are only 0.3% at worst. Unless you believe in vast numbers of exposed people who never generate serious cases.

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  • #
    Another Ian

    “COVID-19 patients respond positively to remdesivir in major US trialCOVID-19 patients respond positively to remdesivir in major US trial”

    https://www.breitbart.com/news/covid-19-patients-respond-positively-to-remdesivir-in-major-us-trial/

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      TdeF

      You read nothing much of those Hydroxychloroquine trials now six weeks old, good or bad. As with the battle between aspirin and paracetamol, it could be the battle between prices.

      I have read that remdesivir is $100 a dose. Not that that matters if it works, which is wonderful, but it is also true that Hydroxychloroquine is very cheap and readily available. And besides, half of America wants Donald Trump to fail.

      But if a medication which is very cheap and seems much more effective if taken early should perhaps be distributed free through aged peoples homes as a preventative? If it can minimize or alleviate infection by malaria, perhaps it can do the same for this virus? And it has FDA approval. As NY Governor Cuomo says, this virus goes through Aged homes like a fire through grass, so why not? It could cost absolutely nothing to save thousands of lives.

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      • #
        bobl

        I agree, there does seem to be a concerted effort to discredit Cloroquine so big pharma can make more money. Something like this disease really needs an over the counter solution absent a vaccine. Quinine might become that – after all it’s in soft drinks.

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        • #
          Steve of Cornubia

          “I agree, there does seem to be a concerted effort to discredit Cloroquine so big pharma can make more money.”

          Money might be part of it, but the greater part is the need to discredit ANYTHING that Trump says, does or stands for. It pretty much nailed the lid on the coffin for Hydroxychloroquine when Trump said it “might” be an answer. At that point, the leftists and MSM made it their mission to ensure it either failed, or was buried.

          The politicisation of Covid-19, particularly in America, has been disgusting, and has made unified and coordinated responses impossible.

          The other side of this coin is the sanctifying of Saint Ardern, who stood alone against the virus. She and Morrison were compared the other day and the journo said Ardern had done a much better job of applying consistent measures across the whole nation, whereas Morrison’s strategies and messages were “all over the place”, disingenuously forgetting to mention that Ardern didn’t have to deal with states and their independent leaders, some of whom were political adversaries of the federal government and determined to show themselves as better leaders than the PM.

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          • #
            OriginalSteve

            Dont forget the powers that be heavily rely on the “vaccines-fix-everything” paradigm to maintain a quite heavy handed fear-based control of society.

            The globalists ( see WEF website ) have factored scare mongering to make people demand a vaccine to “keep them safe”.

            So…when a non-vaccine fix comes along, it directly threatens the existing fear based power structures the Elite use.

            20

      • #
        Bill In Oz

        Vitamin D3 TdeF is all of those things.
        Cheap & not on a patent
        With bugger all side effects.
        It should be a part of the
        Daily supplements in aged care homes.

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        • #
          TdeF

          Aspirin as well, as an anticlotting agent. The benefits of aspirin run off the page.

          And older people take so much preventative medication anyway. Blood pressure, calcium, warfarin, anti coagulants, statins,.. And they are all about lowering the probability and impact of likely problems.

          However I am not reading that Aged care homes are doing anything specific to protect the people against the likely invasion of this horrid disease. The people are just waiting to die, as on the front page of the Herald Sun this morning.

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      David-of-Cooyal-in-Oz

      Evening all,
      Here’s another new word I only discovered yesterday: “Quercetin”.
      I tripped over the link below at the end of something else and, luckily, watched it right through.

      It’s a Youtube video of about 18 minutes and the section on Quercetin begins about 7mins 30. Californian Doctor Roger Sehault identifies it as being a zinc ionophore, and hence a possible replacement, or substitute for hydroxychloquine to use with zinc to defeat the COVID-19 virus.

      Dr Seheult update #59 Youtube 18 mins
      Quercetin is a zinc ionophore @ 7 mins 30 secs. He uses 500 mg twice a day.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NM2A2xNLWR4

      He mentions a couple of other, earlier videos in his series. The one which first convinced me of the need for an ionophore was #32.

      As well as his basic message, Dr Sehault made a couple of statements which quite excited me: that the Q is readily available and that it’s obtainable without a prescription. As he was speaking of the US situation, I decided I’d test both here. And today, my shopping day, I tried. At my chemist I had to spell the name and they had to look it up, but didn’t stock it. Across the road, at my health food shop, no problem. Straight to the shelf. 60 tablets $42.60. Good till March next year.
      And yes, I’ve bought some.

      Cheers,
      Dave B

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  • #
    Broadie

    Does not add up!

    Where are the large families doing what families do when a relative dies? Where are the scrums outside Hospitals as families reclaim their dead?

    Where are the dead in Asia?

    Where are the communities burying their dead according to custom? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_funeral

    Where are the Gofundme requests on the media for the dead and dying health workers?

    Where are the fights over the estates?

    Why are alternative points of view by experts in their field being removed from Youtube?

    https://depts.washington.edu/labmed/covid19/

    https://www.doh.wa.gov/portals/1/documents/5100/420-100-fluupdate.pdf

    This reminds me of watching Bureau of Meteorology anemometers reporting 80km/hr winds while the ABC reporter is standing behind a beach front window warning of 300km/hr winds ‘unprecendented’.

    This is destroying good hard working families.
    Why? To crush one bug! A bug so terrible that it is threatening the lifestyles of the Bureaucracies and the Elite worldwide. A bug threatening the funding of the UN. A bug threatening the re-distribution of wealth under the Paris Agreement.

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    • #
      Kalm Keith

      Exponentially Penetrating.
      I like it so much I might have to read it a few more times.
      🙂

      31

      • #
        Greg in NZ

        +97%!

        Or should that be: +2020?

        Who knew Brave New World plus Nineteen Eighty-four, divided by Agenda21, multiplied by Fahrenheit 951, equalled Covid-19 slash ID2020?

        Asking for a friend…

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  • #
    Zigmaster

    As we all know you can torture data to suit you’re narrative and action taken . Whichever way you run the numbers this is predomininently a old persons disease . If it wasn’t then the media wouldn’t spend so much time scouring the world to find young victims to frighten the youth into compliance to lockdown rules. In Australia the stats could be interpreted that you have zero chance of dying from Covid 19 if you are under 50 ( because no one has ) although we know this isn’t true. But the reality is that of those who die a the vast majority would’ve died within the next 2-3 years whether that was from old age or from the comorbidity that is prevalent in the vast majority of cases. To compare excess deaths to past years is not as relevant as comparing them to future years . If there is a compensating drop off in future deaths then the fact that a 92 year old would’ve maybe reached 93 or that 60 year old cancer patient died now instead of 6 months time its very sad but these deaths are premature deaths by say 1-3 years .The economic and social deaths caused by the actions of governments affects healthy people who die from suicide or domestic violence. ( taking decades off their lives) And for those who’ve lost jobs , livelihoods and businesses they may face marriage breakups, mental issues and depression. The Covid 19 may indeed cause excess deaths now which means less deaths in the future ( because those who were going to die have done so already). However the draconian measures which save lives now ( postponing the inevitable consequence of sick and old people ) will have as victims much younger people who have lost jobs and lost hope.
    Yes certain measures could be implemented to slow and manage the situation and keep economies going but all actions have consequences and whether current actions are excessive or just about right can only be judged with hindsight in a few years time.

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    • #
      Kalm Keith

      Thanks for that comprehensive overview, well put together.

      KK

      60

    • #
      TdeF

      That depends on the value you put on someone’s life when they are over 50. And whether you should be putting that value on someone else’s life or someone put a value on your life.

      In the de*th camps of Hitler, many political prisoners died. Half of the Auscwitz victims were Polish Christians quite apart from the mass m*rder of the Katyn forest by Russians. And the first to go were the 350,000 disabled people and as many the Gypsies and Black people, simply for being disabled or being a Gypsy or black. Where do you stop when you put a value on someone else’s life? Who makes this decision? Politicians?

      All lives are equally valuable. You should not decide. Or discriminate. That is the belief of our heritage, our Australian ethic. Protect the young. Honor the old. Not make these decisions if at all possible.

      41

      • #
        TdeF

        And we should learn from history. The first wave of the Spanish flu took out almost entirely men aged between 20 and 50. Not children and old people. It ended war in the trenches. But it mutated. The second wave hit everyone and de*ths were double. A hundred years later, we do not accept that anyone has to die. We have the technology. What we lacked was any warning of this biological weapon created by the Peoples army of China. The only question are why they hid it and why WHO was complicit.

        51

        • #
          TdeF

          And in the Spanish flu, men outnumbered women, 3:1. The sudden end to the war was the catalyst for WWII. The Germany people were angry that they had not lost, so they had been betrayed. The political problem was that both sides hid the virus deaths, so as not to frighten everyone. It came with one US soldier. And the blackout was so total that it became known as the Spanish flu simply because Spain was devastated and neutral in the war, so the news came out of Spain.

          51

          • #
            Lucky

            TdeF- Admirably expressed.
            However, there is an implied assumption that those against shutdowns are not concerned about the elderly. In fact several in that group, at least on this site, do argue for special concern, support and care for the susceptible such as the elderly.

            00

  • #
    Another Ian

    “Still Flying Blind: Can Meteorologists Help Epidemiologists with #Coronavirus?”

    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/04/29/still-flying-blind-can-meteorologists-help-epidemiologists-with-coronavirus/

    11

  • #
    Another Ian

    “WHOhan Flu”

    “Update: It seems the @WHO is doing its part to combat Fake News by removing its own January press conferences from YouTube so @YouTube wouldn’t have to. ”

    http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/index.php/2020/04/29/whohan-flu-3/

    60

  • #
    el gordo

    Now that intel has informed the PM that there was nothing dodgy going on in the Wuhan Institute, we can all breathe a sigh of relief.

    ‘Prime Minister Scott Morrison has raised doubts about reports the coronavirus started in a Wuhan laboratory after Australian intelligence officials were unable to find any evidence to support the theory.’ SMH

    21

  • #
    kevin a

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6C_26ZIUlrQ
    DR ANDREW KAUFMAN – UNMASKING THE LIES AROUND COVID-19: FACTS VS FICTION OF THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC

    43

    • #
      Boris

      Kevin a,

      This shows that the crux of the problem. If we step back a little further we are faced with the conundrum of whether we believe, not just the media, but medical and scientific fraternity who produce the numbers.

      I tried to point this out to quite a few posters here, that reports, whether we hear them from the media, or read them on worldometer, are not to be trusted. [Knowing] these numbers is not the same as knowing the [reality or fact].

      It appears to me that we are being propagandised, again.

      21

      • #
        WXcycles

        Boris at some point most people realize that philosophically saying I don’t know, I can’t know, I can’t trust anything is a cop-out by a mentally defeated fatalistic person making excuses, when they can learn a lot, and do a lot, very easily.

        I meet this girl, I trust this girl to not cheat, I don’t know she won’t but I like her and I like the character I see, so I choose to trust her in advance, and that trust turns out to be a very good investment. Without the initial choice to trust there’s no possibility of a relationship between us. Choosing to distrust will produce relationship failure. Trust in everything is in advance, otherwise everything is dysfunctional. Should a shopkeeper not let Boris into their store until Boris pays a security deposit? No, Boris would be insulted by the implied lack of trust and not shop there, perhaps a little altercation on the way out, and the shopkeeper goes broke. That would be unreasonable. What would be reasonable is for the shopkeeper to pre-trust that Boris will pay for the stuff in his trolley before he wheels it out. There’s actually little chance Boris will steal anything if he want to shop there and show his face in public thereafter. Pre-trust makes everything work. Propaganda also works by destroying trust.

        There’s this theory that the seemingly moralistic jealous party within a relationship is more likely to accuse their partners of infidelity because that’s what they know they would be doing, so it makes sense to expect and also watch closely for that in their partner. There’s a rational lack of trust in that case, and naturally it ends the relationship if that continues. And how can I trust anything Boris schools me on about information? I can’t check who he is? He’s unknowable and unaccountable. You could be propagandizing me! Which is a doltish paranoid way to view things, and thus out relationship is guaranteed to fail. Or maybe you’re warning all others not to trust anything said anywhere, because you can’t be trusted with anything, thus you project that tendency to be wary of all all others, on to all others?

        Wow … gonna keep pre-trusting the data … for now.

        62

        • #
          Boris

          WXcycles,

          I know of what you’re saying. Believe me, I remember what our high trust society looked like. I remember never having to lock the door when I left the house. Or not having to lock the car. Being able to trust our institutions and government departments.

          However, I also have experience with a central/east European ‘communist’ society that prior was once a high trust society. On the outside it retained its civilisational veneer but just under the surface it was a field where nothing could be trusted or taken for granted. What I see around me now has beginnings of what I remember of that world.

          I will remind you – and I’m surprised that so many of you here have forgotten that in the west our scientific institutions have been in the business of fake science climate science. They have been taken over by opportunists with power. In the face of that it’s not reasonable to believe without objective unimpeachable evidence.

          40

          • #
            WXcycles

            OK, but you’re kinda stuck, in that case.

            I remember the things you remember as well, trust is higher for people you know well, but when everyone is mobile and a stranger almost no one is responsible or can be held accountable. I pre-trust, but I’m also suspicious and skeptical, I check things which don’t seem to fly right, that’s the only way anything becomes functional, otherwise we’re all stuck in a dysfunctional low-ebb of distrust. I refuse to get paranoid on rumors, that’s not going to help anyone, it is in fact just fear. But ironically I get accused of creating fear by people who are creating it in their own mind. 🙂

            I’d let you into the shop Boris and make sure you can be held accountable as then we can both function better — cheers.

            10

            • #
              Boris

              WXcycles,

              I don’t think I’m stuck. I believe I’m able to recognise the trajectory we are on earlier than those who don’t have the experience with a society that was hollowed out before their own eyes.

              Yes, we have a tendency to trust those we know well and since we’re at “home here in Australia” we sometimes mistakenly believe “she’ll be right”! But in my experience we are headed for either serious civil upheaval, if enough people wake up, or we will be enslaved.

              But make no mistake, I’m desperately hoping I’m wrong!

              Cheers to you also.

              10

  • #
    thingadonta

    This is quite true and not difficult to understand when you consider weak health systems and those with low public access.

    People who are sick without insurance may not want to go to hospital and try and tough it out. By the time they do decide it’s too late, as they die in their sleep at home. They may not go because they don’t want to catch the virus in a poorly funded hospital. People not very mobile are usually picked up by ambulances which aren’t available due to overwhelmed resources, so they die at home. People in rural and poorer areas die at home and aren’t tested. With limited resources and testing kits, authorities are reluctant to test people who have already died. People with other issues have the virus push them over the edge. Resources in hospitals are diverted from treating people with other serious conditions. So the person with the heart attack dies at home because the paramedics are too busy with Covid patients.

    With all this, excess deaths are a much better indicator.

    30

    • #
      Kalm Keith

      Yes, that’s so true of Italy and New York as the prime examples; but what about Australia.

      We should focus on our own plight. As of yesterday we had almost reached one hundred deaths here, and while that is concerning we must be careful, very careful.

      What greater show of concern by our politicians could there be?

      Total shutdown says it all!

      They Care about Us. Or something.

      KK

      32

      • #
        TdeF

        We have a different strategy. Eliminate the virus, something people do not think is possible but is logically simple. It cannot exist without new hosts. So stop the infections. A few weeks later, it is completely gone. Simple.

        And then use our technologies to detect and stop this and all viruses and infected people at the border. When in doubt or someone is sick, isolate and quarantine. No exceptions, except Andrew Forrest and Stokes. Billionaires are always exempt, but there are not a lot of them.

        If we can stop fruit fly, we can stop corona virus. We spend a fortune on one and nothing on the other.

        71

  • #
    Kalm Keith

    From Tonyb, at April 30, 2020 at 2:49 am #2 above, comes a level headed bit of information that invites examination.

    Also

    An interesting idea to follow up is the source of this story. Does anyone know what sort of reputation this news organ, The Financial Times, has?

    One article that I noticed in the online set list was about ” the survival of the electric car industry despite the recent CV19 disruption “.

    After getting peeks at the U.S. Media behaviour over the last couple of decades my willingness to immediately accept any media “story” has declined exponentially.

    And then there’s that other virulent disease, CB, which has a very strong presence.

    Essentially it describes the idea that if you go looking for something, and keep accumulating bits of supporting evidence, then eventually, if you keep looking, you will finally see the whole picture, that you were sure was there, in the beginning.

    Lots to think about.

    KK

    50

  • #
    Peter Fitzroy

    Those mostly Asian countries which were heavily impacted by SARS, reacted faster than everyone else, with impressive results. Those with a strong anti-science and anti-environment stance are learning the hard way. We in AUS and NZ fall in the third group, those that understand science and are compassionate enough to put health first.

    511

    • #
      TdeF

      For once I agree with the first and third statements which are good. The middle one is just a puzzle, but I cannot understand the red thumbs. Maybe it’s just reflex?

      62

      • #
        Peter Fitzroy

        Look at those countries with high death rates, then look at their public pronouncements, join the dots

        25

        • #
          TdeF

          Yes, but is the connection what you think it is? A lot of people, even doctors and scientists think everything is inevitable so you are just delaying and at great cost. I happen to totally disagree but I cannot see the connection with anti science. Brazil, the UK, Sweden and many more took the fatalist approach and two still do. Their justification is that it is just deferrment, but then how much of modern medicine is just deferrment?

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          • #
            Peter Fitzroy

            TdeF – I remember a cynical doctor stating that all death was ultimately due to heart failure.
            What this post shows is that there is a higher rate of morbidity than is explained by the known virus statistics
            This could be undocumented deaths caused by the virus or outbreaks like Kawasaki-like disease, which impacts children.

            The question posed by the middle group in my post is this: if you had resources and science why did you take the ‘fatalistic’ path?
            My position is that science works, and experts should not have been sidelined as they were in the UK and the USA, (as examples).

            53

    • #
      Raving

      Toronto was impacted by SARS.

      We sat back and relaxed. Not to create panic
      Everything is under control

      Yeah sure 🙁

      20

    • #
      sophocles

      Then please explain Japan.

      10

  • #

    Coulda, woulda, shoulda.
    It’s easy to be wise after the event. Jo was wise before the event.
    Australia is a good example of what and what not to do. At first “we” didn’t want to damage the economy (tourism, education) and resisted calls to stop flights from China. Then “we” realised (too late) that the pandemic would damage both the health system and the economy and clamped down- but still let passengers off a bloody cruise ship without any checks. Thankfully our leaders provided good, consistent leadership. “We” tested, identified, and traced. “We” weren’t overwhelmed and have regained control. “We” are easing restrictions- maybe not fast enough but it’s a start.
    There are more unknowns than knowns about this virus. At this point it mainly affects older and sicker people. It’s only been going 6 months. Will there be long term effects in otherwise asymptomatic cases? Will there be any effects in as yet unborn babies? Hopefully not.
    To those who advocate “let ‘er rip, potato chip”:
    My wife and I are in the vulnerable age group, as is everyone in our peer group and all our brothers, sisters, and cousins, and our neighbours. My wife and I are in rude good health, but several others are not so fortunate. One in particular: 74, has major heart problems and is on many strong medications; is sociable, gregarious, and loves being around young people; until very recently added value to the economy and still adds value to society and great value to his family. We all know that if he got the virus he’d be a goner. His loss would not just be a number to add to the statistics of old people with co-morbidities.
    We will all die. The object of medicine is not to prevent death but to relieve suffering, and hopefully delay death for a while. Which of the older people in your community would you prefer to die sooner and which later? And which health workers, as they try to relieve suffering?
    It’s not a choice between public health and the economy. You can’t have one without the other.
    On ya, Jo.

    74

    • #
      PeterS

      Yes we had no choice. I always stated we had to use the precautionary principle as there were too many unknowns. We had to do what we did. The issue now is we need an appropriate exit plan to get Australia back on its feet. We are at a critical moment and the windows of opportunity are closing fast. One could argue we need to apply the precautionary principle again for this. I would say it’s not just that; it’s also common sense. We need investments in new base load power stations to smash the cost of power and also new dams to grow our industries. We need them ASAP.

      82

  • #
    PeterS

    Given the US funded the Wuhan Virology Lab we would think we would have reacted much faster to the pandemic than we did. The reasons given by Mike Pompeo defending such funding doesn’t hold water. Hopefully one day we will get to the real truth and not have to rely so much on the fake news of the MSM and pretences of our politicians.

    41

    • #
      OriginalSteve

      I think the ugly reality is that “black” projects have to be done in shady places… like sending people to be tortured in countries where its still legal, but being able to say “we dont do torture in this country”….

      The problem with globalism is that national boundaries are meaningless, and the Elite exploit this to achieve a desired result….

      11

  • #
    Roy Hogue

    Jo,

    You’re confirming what I feared when I saw fear take hold of our world leaders doing even though I was for it initially. But clearly it isn’t working. Qnd as I have worn out my welcome saying, nothing stays around longer than a bad idea.

    60

    • #
      PeterS

      Hindsight is a wonderful things but it can also be a b..ch.

      30

    • #
      Greg Cavanagh

      If people were to learn from history or experience, they might compare this Covid hysteria with the CAGW hysteria and draw some conclusion from it.

      Naaaa… Such a silly idea.

      32

      • #
        PeterS

        It isn’t such a silly idea. In fact In Germany, Merkel now wants to combine the fight against the pandemic with the task of reducing carbon emissions into one big effort. Is PM Morrison going to follow suit or is he going to break the shackles from the Paris Agreement? He can’t keep having it both ways. Time is up.

        20

        • #
          OriginalSteve

          I saw an segment on tv tonight spruiking the USAs depression era New Deal, so Merkel is trying to create similar while restricting economic growth to satisfy the greenists lunacy…

          20

          • #
            PeterS

            If we are not careful the New Green Deal could sneak in here too. It’s up to PM Morrison to open his eyes and not keep being blindsided by the left.

            10

  • #
    • #
      PeterS

      There are always unintended consequences no matter what is done. The question is how do we weigh up and compare the various unintended consequences due to various approaches? If we had a time machine it would be so easy. What is done is done. Let’s move on. We can try and figure out what we could have done better later. Exit and growth plans please!

      31

    • #
      el gordo

      The education sector needs to reinvent itself by sending academic staff to India and China instead of students coming here.

      International tourism has crashed, but this gives us time to encourage people to enjoy their own patch instead of regularly going to Bali. I feel sorry for the Balinese who have no government safety net.

      23

    • #
      Roy Hogue

      This everyday reaiity is what has escaped us in all the worry about how to handle CV19, Which is a serious problem without a dout.

      …we live in a world where he future is always uncertain.— emphasis mine

      Life is always a juggle between trying to figure out the future and trying to minimize the unintended consequences of whatever we see the future to be.

      One of those uncertainties is how various national leasers will choose to deal with CV19. I’ve asked myself if I was right to worry about this virus or should I treat it like any other flu. No matter what, I dare not take the flu shot for fear of adverse consequences, The shot could be worse than the flu for me and that’s a matter of personal history with shots for every disease. I always go into shock. At my age, any virulent strain of flu could kill me, Why should I be so worried that I would e wiling to bankrupt myself by ruining the economy I live on? I need that economy,

      20

      • #
        Roy Hogue

        As we so obviously see, statistical projections are not reality. If the were half of Florida and the prize beachfront property of numerous warmers would be 30 feet under water by now. They told us so. They stood by their projections until reality made fools of them. Then they made more projections based on “new” evidence and ignored the egg on their faces.

        Enough with the number juggling. It ain’t reality. Take whatever comes at you everyday and cope with it the best way you can.

        20

        • #
          Roy Hogue

          When will we learn? Or in the immortal words of Peter, Paul and Mary, “When will they ever learn?”

          20

  • #
    Greg in NZ

    Enough of this statistical mumbo-jumbo borax, what about the OTHER existentially uprecedented threat to humankind – Crockovirus!

    It’s FREEZING and SNOWING in the states of Victoria and New South Wales this morning yet it’s still only April:

    https://www.mountainwatch.com/snow-cams/#australia

    Even West Australia isn’t immune from the ravages of this Crockovirus as FREEZING SNOW is forecast to hit Bluff Knoll in the Stirling Ranges next week:

    https://www.snow-forecast.com/resorts/Bluff-Knoll/6-day/top

    /sarc off 🙂

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    • #
      • #
        Bill In Oz

        The Gore Bull Warming Goddess has
        Caught the CCP Virus
        And is now in critical care
        In a dedicated IPPC hospital.
        Without her ‘guiding’ hand to warm the planet
        We are in for a long cld Winter here in Oz
        🙂

        03

        • #
          Greg in NZ

          Long… Cold… Wet…

          Wintry… Snowy… Rainy…

          Exactly (the opposite of) what the Droughtsayers and BoM-bastic fortune tellers have been prophesying ever since they turned on their upgraded ‘super’ computers.

          Pinch and a punch for the first of the month!

          10

  • #
    David

    Copy and paste scary stuff that affirms your mindset. Then repeat again next day. Ignore collateral damage.

    21

    • #
      PeterS

      Collateral damage would have occurred no matter how we approached it. What is done is done. Let’s move on. We can try and figure out what we could have done better later when we have far more accurate data. Exit and growth plans please!

      11

      • #
        OriginalSteve

        Agreed, and often we will be blundering through the first couple of months of anything new like this, but nothing is perfect. Collateral damage is inevitable but shut down for months and months equates to oblivion.

        We have to just manage the risk and just push on.

        20

    • #
      Environment Skeptic

      NZers don’t get mindsets lol 🙂
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wqfcwgT0Ds
      Inner City Pressure

      10

  • #
    kevin a

    Elon Musk blasts YouTube for banning Californian doctors’ video that claimed physicians are being pressurized into putting Coronavirus on death certificates and urged an end to shutdowns ‘because it disputed official guidance’
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8269475/YouTube-accused-censorship-removing-videos-criticize-shutdowns.html?ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490&ito=1490

    12

  • #
    WXcycles

    April 29th Wednesday data shows 1 million total recoveries.

    Global Recovered = 999,231
    Global Died = 227,906

    Global “Death Rate” = 22.8%

    1 in 4 of all known confirmed cases of COVID-19 which have ended so far, resulted in a death.

    157

    • #
      PeterS

      22.8% death rate? That’s worse than the climate change alarmists crap. The death rate is not worked out that way. Even Jo will attest to that.

      56

  • #
    Chad

    Global “Death Rate” = 22.8%

    1 in 4 of all known confirmed cases of COVID-19 which have ended so far, resulted in a death.

    Wow ! Very scary number !!
    Seriously, can you not find a more dramatic combination of data to create a drama ?

    Most of the available data ( invluding deaths) is unreliable at best….and probably better described as “guesswork” ,..in other words , useless from an analysis point of view.
    For instance…. from another random media source…

    quantifying fatalities and the mortality rate remains elusive. Case in point: New York City. As the New York Times reported yesterday, Gotham’s Health Department abruptly added 3,700 victims to the COVID-19 death toll even though these decedents were not tested.

    Despite the lack of coronavirus diagnoses in these cases, the inference that it was a factor in death (or, as the city insists, the proximate cause) is not irrational. The Health Department says that 3,000 more people died in the last month than would ordinarily have been expected in the City this time of year.

    ..So, some of the allocated covid deaths have not even been tested for the infection…simply assumed to be related due to the timing !
    And the NY Times has also reported the data that shows only 6% of all the deaths in NY have no. Underlying serious comorbidity factors
    It would appear you can pick your data source that suits you preferred “spin” story and throw it out to feed the frenzy .!

    1314

    • #
      WXcycles

      Do you want to pretend the very consistent red peaks within the graphs of Jo’s post above are imaginary and can be discarded and ignored too?

      Your blatant denial of the data available is neurotic, your characterizations of its presentation is laughable and pathetic. Data matters in analysis and discussion. Perfect global data does not exist, and never will, except within your head. The data we have is what exists, it’s imperfect. That’s completely understood and accepted by me. It is somewhat erroneous, to a degree we don’t know. When is data not like that? Never! I’ve also repeatedly pointed out how noise affected it has become on some days. At no time have I pretended the data was more than that.

      But I do not accept at all your absolutely ludicrous puritanical position that this data has no value, and is completely unreliable and should be ignored. That’s spectacularly obvious rank garbage, it’s the most dishonest of all the extreme fringe-dweller assessments.

      That is what you bring to the discussion Chad. 🙂

      However, this imperfect data set is the global data set we have, and it shows that 1 in 4 people confirmed to have COVID-19 die while they have it. Most sane human beings would have no problem with considering a correlation may exist there.

      Your objections and rejections of that data set are noted, I consider them completely unreasonable, absurdly puritanical, thoroughly unrealistic, and to have a lot less worth or quality than that data set exhibits even on a Sunday. 🙂

      Your on-going contemptuous nonsense is completely dismissed.

      This data set is the product of tens of thousands of people doing their best to provide humanity the highest quality data that they can compile each day while in emergency conditions. I applaud their efforts and I hope they can continue to do their best as it’s enormously appreciated and highly valued by the vast majority of people who are balanced and have reasonable expectation of the possible and of the best of human efforts.

      Thank you.

      1512

      • #
        Chad

        WXcycles
        April 30, 2020 at 11:39 am · Reply
        Do you want to pretend the very consistent red peaks within the graphs of Jo’s post above are imaginary and can be discarded and ignored too?

        Oo-err !… touchy arnt we ?
        And no i dont “pretend” those graphs are imaginary,.. they are just visual presentations of unreliable data !
        You cannot improve bad data by dressing it up in a nice color graph.
        “ Lipstic on a pig “… etc etc
        The only data we have is the data the relavent authorities want us to see…think “China “ !
        Why do you have so much faith even in our own Australian authorities ? ..
        .. it woud not be the first time they have attempted to withold/distort the truth. From the general public.

        1211

        • #
          WXcycles

          You may be terrified of it Chad but that’s only your psychological response to observed fact.

          22.8% of all known confirmed global cases of COVID-19 which have ended so far resulted in death.

          Deal with it.

          108

          • #
            PeterS

            Stop distorting the facts and spreading crap. The death rate is not worked out that way. If it were then 100’s of millions would be dead by now.

            25

            • #
              WXcycles

              22.8% die

              Grow up and deal with it.

              42

              • #
                Chad

                WXcycles
                April 30, 2020 at 11:33 pm ·
                22.8% die

                .you dont get how stupid that sounds…do you ?
                You are selectively creating %s just for shock effect ..WHY ?
                No body believes 22% of any relavent group have died.
                “Recovered” cases only refers to those hospitalised.
                “Confirmed cases” is reported at 3.2 m…and we all know that does not reflect to true number of people infected.
                And , no, im not “terrified of it “ either… because i can look at it rationally , despite all these crap statistics [Snip] like you keep generating .

                [ So far there has been a great deal of restraint between you don’t ruin it .]AD

                22

              • #
                WXcycles

                “Recovered” cases only refers to those hospitalised.

                You have the bull by the tit once more, and have it complete wrong — again! It’s not from “Recovered” cases at all!

                It’s from “Resolved Cases”, which as of today are also being referred to as “Closed Cases”, which includes all 100% of known cases.

                There are two categories under the “Resolved/Closed Cases”

                These are Recovered cases, and Died Cases. A closed case can only one or the other, there are no iother categories.

                22.8% of 100% of known cases that CLOSE are Died Cases.

                That’s twice now where you clearly don’t have a clue about the basics of what you critique, but you pretend to have something to say that can clear it all up.

                More pathetic ‘argument’ failures are all you seem to produce Chad, serial foot-in-mouth, anything to avoid the stark facts of the number of active cases which became corpses with no recovery. You’re now just a time-waster with nothing but more pathetic false arguments and ineptitude.

                21

              • #
                Chad

                WX..
                You need to get your story straight,….and then stick to it !
                It was your words that introduced both “ Recovered cases”. And “Confirmed cases” at various times into the number juggling.

                WXcycles
                April 30, 2020 at 10:16 am ·
                April 29th Wednesday data shows 1 million total recoveries.

                Global Recovered = 999,231
                Global Died = 227,906

                Global “Death Rate” = 22.8%

                1 in 4 of all known confirmed cases of COVID-19 which have ended so far, resulted in a death

                WXcycles
                April 30, 2020 at 1:36 pm ·

                22.8% of all known confirmed global cases of COVID-19 which have ended so far resulted in death.

                But you are choosing to ignore the official figure of 3.2 million for “confirmed cases”………just so you can post a nice large %figure to gain attention !

                30

          • #
            Lucky

            We know that the number of tests done is inadequate for decision making purposes, and that many of the test kits (esp. those from China) are useless.
            Tests have come up with a number for confirmed cases. This number is not the same as the number of persons with the virus. It could be a tenth, a hundredth, or whatever.

            So the statement_
            “22.8% of all known confirmed global cases of COVID-19 which have ended so far resulted in death.”
            could be true, but it is useless, except for political purposes.

            00

      • #
        Chad

        WXcycles
        April 30, 2020 at 11:39 am · .
        …….However, this imperfect data set is the global data set we have, and it shows that 1 in 4 people confirmed to have COVID-19 die while they have it.

        Thats an interesting interpretation of the data..
        Yiu seem to have been misled by your own data salad .
        .. i was under the impression that there were over 3.2m “Confirmed cases” ,.
        …..and 220 ,000 “reported” deaths ?

        88

        • #
          WXcycles

          No, you just have the bull by the tit, resolved cases are known active cases which have ended already with an outcome.

          77.2% Recovered

          22.8% Died

          COVID-19’s global “Death Rate” from all known resolved cases = 22.8% Died

          You can wander all around that and shake your head, mumble and gesticulate, but that’s what’s occurring.

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          • #
            OriginalSteve

            So given it seems some doctors have said they have been pressured to put cause of death down to CoV19 when in fact it may not be the actual cause of death, i suspect if those figures could be removed, id suggest the % would come down a fair bit.

            34

            • #
              WXcycles

              OK, and when Italy’s died % hit 7.75% every person who had an alternative narrative to the truth of the situation got busy making up far-fetched lame excuses for why that would only affect Italy.

              Yeah, all complete nonsense, the died % of the total cases in Italy today is 13.6%, it almost doubled again!

              “But … but … that could never happen in France, or Spain, or the UK!”

              Until it did, and now we see that is actually the norm, rather than the exception as the hospitals fail.

              So now the same things happening within the resolved figures being way more deadly than anyone had expected, and the same sorts of excuses and special exceptions and flat out denial are appearing again.

              52

    • #
      Broadie

      Chad

      Wow ! Very scary number !!
      Seriously, can you not find a more dramatic combination of data to create a drama ?

      Funny you should ask but! Graphing a scary number is even more frightening!

      http://joannenova.com.au/2020/04/new-york-like-mass-casualty-event-coronavirus-and-other-deaths-up-three-fold/

      Last time I saw a graph as scary as the one presented here was the Mann-o-matic with Al Gore in charge of the doom missive.

      52

  • #
    dinn, rob

    microbiologically technical but I think still crucial even here
    (though 90-95% beyond the layman)
    https://balance10.blogspot.com/2020/04/antibody-dependent-enhancement-ade-of.html

    10

  • #
    Furiously curious

    SE Asian covid news

    https://thethaiger.com/coronavirus/cv19-asia/vietnam-flings-open-the-doors-thailand-and-malaysia-peek-through-the-curtains

    In another article, Phuket with 140 cases, is the Thai hotspot

    20

  • #
    yarpos

    “Some of these deaths may be the result of causes other than Covid-19, as people avoid hospitals for other ailments. But excess mortality has risen most steeply in places suffering the worst Covid-19 outbreaks, suggesting most of these deaths are directly related to the virus rather than simply side-effects of lockdowns.”

    Is that what it suggests? I guess it does if thats what you are looking for. Places with the worst Covid19 outbreaks are also likely to have the most draconian restrictions, over zealous police and hysterical media all leading to scared people who actually need treatment for various afflictions not seeking help until its too late.

    23

  • #
    Furiously curious

    All that enables wind and solar proponents to endlessly proclaim: “Wind and solar are competitive with fossil and nuclear”.

    Example of Cost Shifting: To bring wind electricity from the scarcely populated, windy Panhandle in west Texas to population centers in east Texas, about 1000 miles, $7 billion of transmission was built, because owners of wind turbine plants successfully lobbied Texas legislators. They made sure the entire cost was “socialized”, i.e., it appeared as a surcharge on residential electric bills.

    Example of Cost Shifting: Often the expensive grid connection of offshore wind plants, say from 20 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard, across the island, and then to the reinforced mainland grid, is not included in the capital cost estimates, i.e., all or part of it is provided by the utilities that buy the electricity under PPAs to make PPA-pricing appear smaller than in reality. That cost is “socialized”, i.e., it appears as a surcharge on residential electric bills, or is added to the rate base.

    Warren Buffett Quote: “I will do anything that is basically covered by the law to reduce Berkshire’s tax rate,” Buffet told an audience in Omaha, Nebraska recently. “For example, on wind energy, we get a tax credit if we build a lot of wind farms. That’s the only reason to build them. They don’t make sense without the tax credit.”
    https://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/nancy-pfotenhauer/2014/05/12/e

    From an excellent site http://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/the-more-wind-and-solar-the-higher-the-electric-rates

    50

  • #
    Clinton

    Remember that the main group of people who die from this are the elderly and those with chronic illness including obesity and smokers with lung damage.
    Who have we vaccinated to prevent influenza for the last 30 years????
    The elderly and those with chronic illnesses.
    It appears to act in the same way with similar death reates for unvaccinated communities as influenza.

    21

  • #
    WXcycles

    Top-20 list of new active cases:

    New Cases | Country | Active Cases | % New v Active | % Died
    27,586 … USA … 854,619 … 3.2 … 5.79
    6,462 … Brazil … 39,718 … 16.3 … 6.94
    5,841 … Russia … 88,141 … 6.6 … 0.98
    4,771 … Spain … 79,695 … 6.0 … 10.25
    4,076 … UK … 138,780 … 2.9 … 15.80 (UK now has the highest death percent of all major infection countries)
    2,936 … Turkey … 70,468 … 4.2 … 2.62
    2,741 … Peru … 22,951 … 11.9 … 2.78
    2,086 … Italy … 104,657 … 2.0 … 13.60
    1,738 … India … 23,546 … 7.4 … 3.26
    1,571 … Canada … 28,274 … 5.6 … 5.81
    1,325 … Saudi Arabia … 18,292 … 7.2 … 0.73
    1,285 … Germany … 34,392 … 3.7 … 3.97
    1,223 … Mexico … 3,760 … 32.5 … 9.37
    1,073 … Iran … 13,909 … 7.7 … 6.36
    973 … Belarus … 11,025 … 8.8 … 0.64
    913 … Pakistan … 11,757 … 7.8 … 2.21
    690 … Singapore … 14,439 … 4.8 … 0.09
    681 … Sweden … 16,835 … 4.0 … 12.13
    643 … Qatar … 11,311 … 5.7 … 0.08
    641 … Bangladesh … 6,790 … 9.4 … 2.29
    New Cases | Country | Active Cases | % New v Active | % Died

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  • #
    Bill In Oz

    Again the ABC is being useful !
    “In England and Wales the excess death curve dwarfs the official statistics.
    If 2020 were anything like other years in the past decade, you would expect about 176,000 people would have died by now in England and Wales.
    The countries have recorded more than 31,000 deaths in excess of that, far exceeding the coronavirus death toll for the entire UK, currently just over 26,000.”

    And it’s the same in other countries !

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-30/coronavirus-deaths-likely-higher-due-to-excess-deaths/12200850

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    • #
      RickWill

      UK have decided to add deaths in aged care of people with CV19 symptoms, who did not make it to hospital. into the CV19 tally.

      51

  • #
    RickWill

    Sweden is making no progress in limiting the spread of the virus. The IHME forecast has taken this into account in the latest forecast with 17,337 deaths by August. The peak has now moved out to 21 May. To end of April, each week has more cases than the previous.

    The level of dissatisfaction with the rate of death compared with neighbours is getting more coverage. An example:
    https://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/kolumnister/a/zG2Eb9/ar-det-dags-for-sverige-att-tanka-om
    Translated portion:

    One thing should be said first of all. Of course, the goal of all countries is to get out of the pandemic with as few dead and seriously ill as possible. Only the road to it may look a little different.

    The devilish thing is that no one can know in advance which way is best. We only get the answer after the pandemic when we can really analyze the numbers of dead, seriously ill and infected. And then it’s really too late.

    What may look right today may turn out to be a less good strategy. And vice versa. That being said, it is no longer possible to close your eyes because the differences in death rates are growing in a worrying way between Sweden and our Nordic neighbors. This also takes into account of population. Are they doing something right that we should notice? Here’s what it looked like yesterday:
    Sweden 2,355 dead on a population of 10.2 million inhabitants.
    Denmark 434 dead at 5.8 million.
    Norway 205 at 5.4 million.
    Finland 193 at 5.5 million.
    Iceland 10 at 0.4 million.

    If US can manage to handle the mess in prisons without it getting beyond their communities then Sweden will end up with much higher death rate than all developed countries; about 1700/M.

    52

  • #
    Raving

    Some news from Ontario …

    “Maker of Nutella closes Brantford plant after workers test positive for COVID-19”
    https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/nutella-brantford-1.5549572

    “4 staff members at city-run emergency child-care centre test positive for COVID-19”
    https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/three-staff-members-jesse-ketchum-early-learning-and-child-care-centre-1.5548752

    40

  • #
    Bulldust

    O/topic, but serious lols:

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-30/grid-operator-looks-to-manage-solar-power-output-in-sa/12202004

    AEMO wants to be able to “switch off” rooftop solar in order to maintain stability in the SA grid. Too much of a good thing apparently…

    80

  • #
    Raving

    This is from the 1918 Spanish flu. Sounds just like today but then it is written today. Maybe things never change. Still, a prediction of the future? …

    “San Francisco had the 1918 flu under control. And then it lifted the restrictions.”
    https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/san-francisco-had-1918-flu-under-control-then-it-lifted-n1191141

    11

  • #
    Ian1946

    Am I reading this correctly that the best thing people my age can do is take a vitamin D supplement and a aspirin such as Cartia. Am I correct in assuming that cities such as Mumbai and Calcutta have nor had multiple infections due to anti malaria drugs.

    20

    • #
      Peter C

      Maybe.

      Take vitamin supplements by all means, but not to excess. Vitamin D can come in a tablet containing Calcium and Vitamin K. Large dose of Vitamin C (acid) and Calcium might cause kidney stones. Aspirin could help but/or because it helps prevent blood clotting. Too much and you might bleed to death. Aspirin is not prescribed as much these days because of gastric (stomach) bleeding.

      No one knows anything for sure. Hydroxychloroquine might work but trials have not reported yet.

      For myself, I am taking one Vit C tablet/day and one Vit D every second day with a (Vit D+Calium +Vit K) tablet on the alternate days. I have no idea if that is a good strategy. I have no idea if that will be good or bad, so it is Not Advice!

      51

  • #
    robert rosicka

    Just playing around with a new app “Flight Radar 24” , interesting to see how reduced air traffic is around the world , just randomly clicked on one near Broken Hill heading for Melbourne and it was a China Airlines flight .
    Very interesting app .

    And yes OT .

    80

    • #
      Peter C

      Yes I saw that. About the only international flight of the day and straight from China to Melbourne! Hopefully it is carrying the 1 million coronavirus tests that we ordered!

      It is a real shame that we are not already producing coronavirus tests here in Australia. We had CSL and CSIRO. That is what they were supposed to do.

      60

      • #
        Serp

        Would it be possible to retrain the CSIRO’s three hundred and fifty climate scientists in anything meaningful? Defund the climate troika being CSIRO, BOM and ABC and then go after the energy quangos and say goodbye to Audrey, Kerry and their gang of overpaid bureaucrats.

        50

  • #
    UK-Weather Lass

    The efficacy of self-distancing, isolation, and lockdown is most compelling when you see yourself as a container for a deadly disease, a permanently asymptomatic carrier of Covid-19. It is the reason I opted to self-isolate before official lockdown was enforced. I was seduced by the idea of buying time for an overstretched NHS frontline believing the UK Government would use this expensively purchased time wisely.

    But the UK Government hasn’t been wise before or after the event. It has increased bed capacity but failed miserably on PPE and testing regimes. Testing regime improvement is deeply flawed if tests are unreliable, not comprehensive, and/or inappropriately directed. An unprotected workforce is just as bad as no workforce – more potential victims and a greater risk of spread being the likely outcome even if further waves are less spiteful than the initial phase which is not a given.

    It’s always good to see cases and deaths falling away in any epidemic but it is much more genuinely beneficial to the general public when leaders are not seen to be plainly mediocre and indecisive. Nobody seems to know where this virus is going next and we need to know why that has happened with SARS-CoV-2 and that requires a level of honesty that seems far too lacking in today’s world.

    All of this is just my opinion as ever.

    40

  • #
    Peter C

    Massive Failure of Health Authorities.

    The outbreak of coronavirus in Northern Tasmania Hospitals Traced to Ruby Princess Passengters.
    https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/coronavirus/tasmania-coronavirus-outbreak-traced-to-two-ruby-princess-passengers/ar-BB13p0sQ?ocid=spartanntp

    The Tasmanian Premier, Peter Gutwein said:

    Speaking to reporters in Hobart on Thursday, premier Peter Gutwein said no one should be blamed for the outbreak.
    “This is simply a case of people going about their lives, going about their jobs, while this dreadful set of circumstances has ensued and has wreaked havoc and misery on so many people,” he said.
    Gutwein said Tasmania would learn from the outbreak.

    Wrong, wrong, wrong! The NSW Health Department should be blamed. Flying all the passengers home from the Ruby Princess immediately was wrong. It seems that they don’t understand quarantine. I am not sure if these infections came from the first visit of Ruby Princess visitors to Sydney or the later fly them home exercise. If it was the former there is slightly more excuse because at that point they did not even realise that they were stuffing up.

    The correct procedure IMHO is to quarantine exposed and potentially infected people on site. In the Ruby Princess case this would mean on land in NSW near Sydney. After they have been cleared they can fly home. That way we can reopen domestic flying and protect the destination sites. This is especially important as we try to reopen our economy. Cleared areas must be protected from new cases of the virus coming in.

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  • #
    kevin a

    Covid only has to be “present” in the person’s system to be counted as the cause of death and added to the Covid global tally? “fascinating”!
    Katie Hopkins questions the corona CDC numbers

    Katie Hopkins – two questions for you
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQ2jE23pfaQ&feature=em-uploademail
    https://www.instagram.com/_katie_hopkins_/?hl=en

    02

    • #
      robert rosicka

      Have you enquired about the individual stats for cause of death to see if Covid 19 is listed on every death certificate for every death in the states or are you just chasing conspiracy theories?

      20

    • #
      Fred Streeter

      It is a truth universally acknowledged that it is the last straw that breaks the camel’s back.

      21

  • #
    toorightmate

    Interesting data from the “study”.
    Spain v high.
    Portugal v low.
    ????

    00

  • #
    Bill In Oz

    Simple facts
    1: There are no CCP virus COVID 19 patients in critical care now in South Australia. The lasy critical care patient as discharged to a general ward today.

    2: It is now 7 days of zeros in South Australia – seven days since any new CCP virus Covid 19 infection has been found. This is despite a ramped up testing regime for the past 2 weeks with testing available for anyone seeking a test.

    South Australia is beating the crao out of this disease. Of course this might upset a few people here. But I don’t care a fig.

    https://www.news.com.au/national/south-australia/no-new-covidSouth Australia is li19-cases-recorded-in-sa-for-the-eighth-day-in-a-row-as-health-experts-set-possible-target-for-lifting-of-restrictions/news-story/46a775da6d26ddb84edf85437203ab4e

    22

  • #
    george1st:)

    Would like to know the figures for China .

    30

    • #
      Bill In Oz

      We all would like to know the real figures for China.
      But the CCP does not want us to know.
      Nor do they want their own Chinese citizens to know.

      22

  • #
    Bill In Oz

    The forced quarantine policy has worked !
    It’s stopped overseas travellers coming to Australia
    From introducing more of this CCP Corona Virus and disease.
    “Figures obtained from NSW Health up to Monday show that
    Since Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced the policy on March 28,
    795 symptomatic travellers have been tested for COVID-19 in NSW,
    With 65 (8.17 per cent) returning positive results.”

    In the same time frame in the general population in NSW,
    106,687 people were tested with only 1086 (1 per cent) positive.
    Ensuring that travellers arriving in Australia
    Do not bring more of thus CCP disease
    Will be a major continuing effort
    For our Quarantine authorities into the future.

    https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/the-strictest-coronavirus-policy-that-has-saved-lives-20200428-p54nun.html

    32

  • #
    cedarhill

    If you’ve not read this, Max Planck Institute announced they’ve solved how CV-19 duplicates it’s genetic code:

    https://www.mpg.de/14753362/0427-bich-056839-how-the-coronavirus-multiplies-its-genetic-material

    A key take-away is:
    “Knowing how the coronavirus polymerase is constructed on an atomic scale…”
    Anyone that hasn’t been following how the biomed/bio engineering folks have been up to in the last decade may be surprised at how far they can “drill down” beyond the molecular level to the atomic level. Compared to, say the turn of the century (2020), they’ve progressed the equivalent of light-years.

    Once can speculate given these and similar advances, the days of archaic responses of attempting HIV-STD prevention schemes (i.e, Fauci, et al) will be replaced by detection, treatment development and, if needed, vaccines.

    60

  • #
    toorightmate

    I went to my suitcase full of global warming/climate change qualifications AND I pulled out “COULD”.
    “…..could be 60% higher ….”.
    Well and truly qualified by “could”.

    “….could be 60% lower …..”
    Welland truly qualified by “could”.

    The cow could jump over the moon.
    Pigs could fly.
    Both statements well and truly qualified by “could”.
    Get the gist?

    21

  • #
    Serge Wright

    Interesting numbers Jo.

    If we assume a death rate of 1%, which I have calculated based on the death rates, factoring in the number of people tested, then we can use the excess deaths as a way of measuring how many people have been exposed to the virus. For example, the 22,500 excess deaths in Italy would mean that only 3.7% of the population have been exposed, which is a much smaller number than I was thinking. Even if Italy allowed the same death rate to continue unabated, it would take several years to reach herd immunity. For the UK, it comes out at only 2.6% of people exposed. The only way the numbers become less scary is if we assume there is a large % of the population that are asymtomatic. However, when I look at the worse case instance of Guayas, which has 10,100 deaths in a city of only 3 million people, it works out that 33% of their population have been exposed, which means the ~1% death rate is very real. Unfortunately, this means we still have a very long way to go and achieving natural herd immunity may not be so realistic. 🙁 🙁 🙁

    40

  • #
    MrGrimNasty

    Some perspective.

    Even if things carried on at the worst week in the UK for supposed covid deaths for a whole year, we still won’t have increased mortality rates to the ‘normal’ only a few decades ago.

    If it carried on thus, (back of a fag packet/assumptions made) instead of living to 80, because of CV19 the average life expectancy might be 79 and 50 weeks, except because we destroyed the economy the poorer diet/health service/standard of living/stress means it’ll probably be nearer 75.

    With the lockdown, not only can we not likely logically ever get out without destroying the original argument for imposing it, but if we artificially extend the pandemic into a second year, there is an ever increasing risk immunity will have faded and recovered victims will start to fall sick again. (SARS can reinfect in year 3, other corona viruses are known to only have 1-2 years sustained immunity).

    If a government can convince you to stand on the doorstep and bang saucepans at 8pm every Thursday…………. “Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore”.

    People need to wake up. And others should stop exaggerating the panic.

    22

    • #

      Might be more convincing if the back of a fag packet calculations had few actual numbers?

      52

    • #
      Bill In Oz

      There is no panic here where I am.
      But if you live in the UK
      You should indeed be panicing
      And good luck trying to persuade
      Any one in the Uk to adopt your nostrums

      01

  • #
    cedarhill

    This should be what gov does:

    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-29/-shark-tank-type-competition-planned-by-u-s-for-covid-19-tests

    Call it what you may, gov can stimulate through using what has worked for centuries.

    00

  • #
    Macha

    Lockdown suits the wealthiest..the poor die without job, food etc. Better off taking chance with virus by still working as most are OK. Elites still running the show.

    31

  • #
    Red Edward

    Here is a new review of hydroxychloroquine, a meta analysis of al the released trials so far.

    https://aapsonline.org/hcq-90-percent-chance/

    (HCQ still works best with zinc. The metabolic has already been defined.)

    30

  • #
    Curious George

    “We don’t solve the economic crisis without first solving the medical one.”

    No. While the virus is deadly indeed, it is not deadly enough to create a medical crisis – the crisis is mostly hysteria. The economic crisis is an attempt to slow down the spread of the disease. It leads to a moral question: What price in a decrease of well-being are we willing to pay to prevent a significant, but not really large, number of deaths?

    31

  • #
    ren

    It is not the virus that causes fibrosis of the lungs, heart and kidneys, but an excess of the hormone angiotensin II, which results from the inactivation of the ACE2 enzyme, to which Cov-2 attaches. Therefore, the one who counts only on his immunity is a fool.
    The excretion into the bloodstream of renin from the renal juxtaglomerular cells initiates the activation of the enzyme-hormonal cascade known as the RAA system (renin-angiotensin-aldosterone). As a result of several related mechanisms, there is an increase in blood pressure. Due to the huge range of action of angiotensin II (Ang-2), the main effector of the RAA system, irregularities in its functioning cause numerous consequences. Excessive activation of the system is accompanied by chronic inflammation, because Ang-2 stimulates pro-inflammatory mediators. Degenerative and atherosclerotic processes are started. Imbalance of the RAA system is associated with the most common civilization diseases, such as cardiovascular diseases or diabetes, as well as kidney diseases, preeclampsia, osteoporosis and even neurodegenerative diseases. The quantitative determination of angiotensin II in the blood is useful in the diagnosis and treatment of hypertension. These are the exact symptoms in Covid-19. It is perfectly logical when we realize that the virus neutralizes the action of the ACE2 enzyme, which inhibits the activity of angiotensin 2, by stimulating the antagonist of this hormone, i.e. angiotensin (1-7), which has the opposite effect. This regulation of the body is visibly disturbed in Covid-19 disease. Drugs should go towards reducing the effect of angiotensin 2, which wreaks havoc on the patient’s body.
    Angiotensin II
    Angiotensin II is a vasoconstricting peptide hormone generated via proteolytic cleavage of angiotensin I by the angiotensin-converting enzyme in endothelial cells. The renin-angiotensin system is implicated in pathologic fibrosis in the heart, liver, lung, and kidneys.
    https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/medicine-and-dentistry/angiotensin-ii
    I know that you can get angiotensin (1-7) as a medicine. In this way, you can bypass ACE2 to which the virus attaches.

    50

    • #
      ren

      “In summary, ACE2 is a multifunctional protein in health and disease, which serves as a counterregulatory component of the RAS functioning in a cardioprotective role. Hence, its transcriptional upregulation, activation of its catalytic activity, or administration of the recombinant protein47 could well provide new strategies in hypertension and heart failure. Additionally, ACE2 modulation (and hence alteration of the circulating Ang II/Ang-(1-7) balance) may have relevance to diabetes, acute lung injury and fibrotic disease, and even dystrophic muscular conditions.48 But much still remains to be explored in terms of the basic aspects of ACE2 cellular function and its regulation to be able to exploit these opportunities effectively and safely.”
      Abstract
      Angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2), discovered as a homologue of ACE, acts as its physiological counterbalance providing homeostatic regulation of circulating angiotensin II (Ang II) levels. ACE2 is a zinc metalloenzyme and carboxypeptidase located as an ectoenzyme on the surface of endothelial and other cells. While its primary substrate appears to be Ang II, it can hydrolyze a number of other physiological substrates. Additionally, ACE2 functions in other noncatalytic cellular roles including the regulation of intestinal neutral amino acid transport. It also serendipitously acts as the receptor for the severe acute respiratory syndrome virus. Upregulation of ACE2 expression and function is increasingly recognized as a potential therapeutic strategy in hypertension and cardiovascular disease, diabetes, lung injury, and fibrotic disorders. ACE2 is regulated at multiple levels including transcriptional, posttranscriptional (miRNA and epigenetic), and posttranslational through its shedding from the cell surface.
      https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780128013649000250
      Mas receptor agonists
      Angiotensin-(1–7) has a short plasma half-life and is rapidly degraded in the gastrointestinal tract when given orally. The combination of hydroxylpropyl-β-cyclodextrin (HPβCD) with angiotensin-(1–7) (HPβCD/angiotensin-(1–7)) protects angiotensin-(1–7) from enzymatic degradation allowing angiotensin-(1–7) to be administered orally. Chronic oral administration of HPβCD/angiotensin-(1–7) lowered blood pressure and reduced markers of fibrosis (TGFβ1 and collagen type I) in rats following ischemia–reperfusion injury (Marques et al., 2012). Moreover, HPβCD/angiotensin-(1–7) has been shown to have antiinflammatory effects in a model of atherosclerosis (Fraga-Silva et al., 2014), and improved insulin sensitivity in a model of type 2 diabetes (Santos et al., 2014). In humans, the HPβCD/angiotensin-(1–7) formulation allows the absorption of angiotensin-(1–7), and is safe and well-tolerated. Future clinical trials are now needed with HPβCD/angiotensin-(1–7) to determine its efficacy as a novel treatment for cardiovascular and renal diseases.
      https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/biochemistry-genetics-and-molecular-biology/angiotensin-converting-enzyme-2

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        ren

        Can the hormone angiotensin (1-7) be given in low doses intravenously to patients with Covid-19? This is a question for doctors who deal with hypertension. The idea is to bypass the ACE2 enzyme and neutralize the narrowing of blood vessels in the lungs by angiotensin II.

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          Environment Skeptic

          Thanks ren
          Absolutely excellent you are talking about this. I have been drawing attention to this video that talks about ACE and the angiotensin system. I suspect you know a lot more than i do so i need to read your comments a few times to extract a few more pearls…

          Here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nue3zmEc9-s

          Coronavirus Update with Kiran Krishnan, Virology and Molecular Medicine Scientist
          556 views
          “•Apr 1, 2020
          Join Dr. Tyna on the Pain-Free & Strong Podcast as she sits down with Kiran Krishnan, virology and molecular medicine expert & CSO of Microbiome Labs, to discuss how this virus works, how it binds, the ACE2 receptor, and why those with chronic inflammation may be at higher risk.

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            ren

            When the blood vessels in the lungs become narrow as a result of ACE2 inactivation, the antibodies have difficulty accessing the alveoli.

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              Environment Skeptic

              Just some educational aids i was using this evening… From: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bY6IWVgFCrQ
              “Renin Angiotensin Aldosterone System”
              Was just looking at the impairment of nitric oxide synthesis in the angiotensin system with respect to nitric oxide being a vasodilator. Very interesting subject, the angiotensin system. I love the subject and while i was not looking, especially in the past ten years, it has grown considerably 🙂

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      ren

      Doctors must start thinking, otherwise there will be more and more people with damaged lungs, heart and kidneys. Can such people be considered healthy, although the tests will not detect coronavirus?

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    ren

    “Plasma gives hope in fighting the COVID-19 epidemic, but first of all you need a drug that will be widely available, effective and possible to use as an oral preparation – adds the professor.

    How did plasma administration work?
    After a few hours the patient felt much better. Oxygen saturation has improved and inflammation has decreased. The number of immune cells has also increased. After six days, the patient had no symptoms and is now in great shape. He could actually be discharged from the hospital. We still need to confirm with tests that he is healthy.

    How did you get the plasma?
    We began to educate patients whom we treated and recovered to donate blood in order to prepare therapy for other patients. We knew that the peak in antibody production was about two weeks after recovery. The Regional Blood Donation and Blood Treatment Center has been actively involved in these activities, which has dealt with the preparation of plasma. In total, plasma was collected from four healers. They were qualified as blood donors. They had to be healthy.”

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    Raving

    This is baffling …

    “Finally, Germany has published its total mortality figures (only up to April 5), but no sign of excess deaths at all ”

    https://twitter.com/chrisgiles_/status/1255901975738298368?s=21

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      kevin a

      Nice link!.
      Herald Sun: Top Doctor Isn’t Panicking.
      In the United States, last year there were
      38 million cases of Flu, and around
      80,000 deaths from the Flu.
      Media no mention?

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        robert rosicka

        Not all at once or in a very short time frame Kevin an ordinary season is spread out ,still waiting for an answer that doesn’t contain a conspiracy theory from you .

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      Serge Wright

      If you managed to start a hard lockdown early enough to prevent the exponential spread of COVID-19, then the excess deaths will appear more normal or even drop lower, because the lockdown is also preventing the spread of normal influenza and it’s deaths, along with road accident related deaths.

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        robert rosicka

        Yes I agree Serge .
        Trouble I have is when people start comparing deaths from X causes with deaths from this virus to play down how bad this virus is .
        Spurious Correlations is a website which pokes fun at various things like climate change and their graphs showing correlations between CO2 and temps.
        And when it comes to deaths caused from X they have some interesting spurious correlations.
        For instance between 2000-2009 there is a strong correlation between the number of people who died by accidentally getting strangled with bedsheets and per capita cheese consumption.

        https://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations?fbclid=IwAR2E3KXufEt6n4vR9QQAy6RYCkU21kdBywfcYO-BOw9tRpNt34y-2amlj2g

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    Bruce Parr

    As at week 18, “all cause mortality” is lower than normal for Austria, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Norway. There is something we don’t know about this pandemic. Does anyone have any idea what could be causing this? Even Sweden is performing much better than countries like Italy, France, Spain and UK.

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    Shoal Creek

    So, Joanne Nova has started into fear mongering. Governments never actually solve things. At best, they trade one set of problems for a different set of problems. At worst, they solve one problem by creating dozens, or even hundreds, of other problems, many of which are much worse than the one they solved. You solve problems by unleashing the ability of people to create their own solutions, not by locking them down under a martial law that serves to make disease worse. Stressed humans, just like stressed animals and stressed plants, are much more likely to become diseased.

    The US CDC just revised US Death Toll from COVID-19 downward by around 17000 deaths. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/index.htm

    The US is statistically on par with total expected deaths from all causes at 97%, nationwide. Among individual states, the largest anomalies are New Jersey (131% of expected total deaths), New York City (219% of expected total deaths), North Carolina (43% of expected total deaths), and Connecticut (15% of expected total deaths). This is ignoring Puerto Rico’s 0% of expected death rate calculation as there likely isn’t enough data to calculate Puerto Rico’s expected death rate. Pretty much every other state is sitting somewhere between 78% and 122% of the expected total deaths. The median between all states, New York City, and the District of Columbia is at 95%. 19 states and New York City are above the US mean death rate, while 31 states and the District of Columbia are below the US mean. Expected deaths were calculated by averaging the actual deaths from all causes during the same time period for the years 2017-2019. One state with a death rate above U.S. mean death rate, Wyoming, has recorded 0 COVID-19 deaths, 0 influenza deaths, and 0 pneumonia deaths. Interestingly, this state is also among the least quarantined states in the US.

    These numbers are provisional and are subject to revision as better data becomes available (as just happened with revising the US death toll from COVID-19 downward by about 17k deaths).

    If there is any misreporting (in the US, at least), it is likely over-reporting the deaths from COVID-19 (especially since influenza deaths are much lower than the last 3 years) while under-reporting the infection rate. We now know that COVID-19 has been in the US since at least January, and likely since December.

    A few researchers claim that COVID-19 actually emerged from the US in September or August and have been trying to link it to the mysterious vaping related deaths that happened about that same time in the US; however, that may just be propaganda.

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      From the CDC page.

      ” the data shown on this page may be incomplete, and will likely not include all deaths that occurred during a given time period…”

      All cause mortality rates in states with major Covid-19 outbreaks remain far above normal. Conversely most states with lockdowns have saved lives both from covid, the flu, car accidents and workplace deaths. Averaging across all states tells us “not much”.

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        Chad

        Averaging across all states tells us “not much

        ….likewise focussing on the extreme outliers !

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    Gabriel Pentelie

    A couple of days ago, the FT chart for NYC showed about 11,900 “excess deaths”, which they pointed to as evidence that COVID-19 deaths were underreported. The NYT, LAT, and WaPo issued similar articles and charts shortly thereafter.

    I went to the CDC site, and found the following at the time:

    “All cause” deaths in comparison to the same period (first week in March through second week in April) last year: about 11,900 “extra deaths”, just as the FT et al. had stated.

    However, unlike said reporters, I also scrolled across the CDC table and discovered that they had already assigned about 4,360 of these “extra deaths” to a whole slew of causes (e.g. septicemia, diabetes mellitus, chronic lower respiratory diseases, diseases of the heart, etc., etc., etc.).

    Subtracting those from 11,900, we get … about 7,540.

    Then I went to the NY State Dept of Health site to see how many COVID-19 deaths they had reported over said time period. Result: about 7,430! Not exactly 7,540, but close enough for government work.

    CONCLUSION:

    The claim that COVID-19 deaths are underreported in the U.S., even in “hot spots” therein, is utter nonsense. That may well be true in China, Iran, Ecuador, etc.. In the U.S., however? Poppycock.

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