Virus follows fixed mysterious pattern
An Israeli Prof is claiming to be “shocked” to find that tough lockdown quarantines made no difference. He claims the virus fades after 6 weeks in the “exact same way” everywhere — which it does if you wear a welding mask while looking at the data. When asked why this extraordinary text-book-breaking shift happens he says “I have no explanation” but that doesn’t stop him concluding that hard quarantines are unnecessary.
When asked, he apparently suggested the exponential growth of viruses ends because of “the climate” or maybe “the virus has its own life cycle”. (How does he think this works? Telepathy?)
Israeli Professor Shows Virus Follows Fixed Pattern
Professor Yitzhak Ben Israel of Tel Aviv University, who also serves on the research and development advisory board for Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, plotted the rates of new coronavirus infections of the U.S., U.K., Sweden, Italy, Israel, Switzerland, France, Germany, and Spain.
The numbers told a shocking story: irrespective of whether the country quarantined like Israel, or went about business as usual like Sweden, coronavirus peaked and subsided in the exact same way. In the exact, same, way. His graphs show that all countries experienced seemingly identical coronavirus infection patterns, with the number of infected peaking in the sixth week and rapidly subsiding by the eighth week.
It’s no accident the virus peaks after six weeks of rapid exponential growth. That’s about as long as any free democracy can stand it. After three weeks the bodies are piling up, the doctors are pleading for help, and it’s all on facebook and the nightly news. After four weeks most nations are doing some kind of isolation, and 12 days later, after the incubation period, it starts to shift the results. So by six weeks the isolation starts to take effect. All Prof Yitzhak Ben Israel had to do was google and he would have found that 12 days after lockdowns start, Coronavirus slows. We see it in Japan, Italy, Norway, Spain, Germany and Australia. Everywhere.
The countries he glanced at were the U.S., U.K., Sweden, Italy, Israel, Switzerland, France, Germany, and Spain. He seems to think they are independent variables, but the internet and 24 hour news means all these nations are watching each other. All the politicians were hoping to avoid closing down. All moved a bit too late. All ramped up action in response to the curve. The citizens are watching too, and even if they are not ordered to isolate, often they’re doing it anyway, reducing the curve, if not flattening it.
For example, Italy started mass lockdown on March 10th. The growth of new daily cases peaked on March 21, 11 days after the mass lockdown began.
New cases in Italy peaked 11 days after lock down
In Sweden, the government forced parents to send children to schools, and asked everyone to be careful. But its numbers now are worse than its Scandinavian neighbours which did a faster-harder version. Norway announced mass lockdowns on March 15 and headlines read: “Norway takes most far-reaching measures ever experienced in peacetime over coronavirus”. New cases in Norway peaked on March 27, exactly 12 days later, and they’ve been falling ever since.’ Meanwhile in Sweden, new daily cases are still not from the peak, there’s no nice bell curve, no magical 6 – 8 week peak and fall. Quite a lot stayed at home anyhow, so the numbers rose in a middling way, and the peak is later.
Ben Israel has welded twenty variables into one
“Lockdowns” mean many different things. He seems to think they are a “binary” Hard:soft thing. It is a PhD project to estimate the exact level of lockdown in each country, and on top of that he’d need to compensate for population density, average daily temperature, humidity levels, demographics, transmission sources, viral strains, Vitamin D levels and co-morbidity risks. He’d need to estimate compliance too. Then, after that, and after the country had actually beaten the disease he might be able to unpack which kinds of lockdown were cost effective, and the answer won’t be the same for every country.
Ben-Israel told the Jewish Journal: “This is how it is all over the world. Both in countries where they have taken closure steps, like Italy, and in countries that have not had closures, like Taiwan or Singapore. In such countries, there is an increase until the fourth to sixth week, and immediately thereafter, moderation until during the eighth week, it disappears.”
Singapore is not following the plan: Week 11 and rising fast
Singapore’s first case was Jan 23rd, and it launched into action with obsessive mass tracking and great success. But they’ve lost the plot in the last few weeks as they let students return from overseas and brought in foreign cheap labor. The foreigners who live in packed dormitories make up 90% of new cases. In a predictable response to the doubling of numbers, Singapore has tightened entry rules, mandated masks, spent lots of money and imposed a partial lockdown. Spot the pattern, it’s not the magic number of the week, it’s the exponential shock, and the predictable reaction to change human behaviour.
Singapore: 11 weeks since the first case and no peak in sight.
It’s fair to ask how hard a quarantine needs to be to be effective, but to conclude that viruses fade out on a “fixed” schedule for no good reason is an all new discovery in microbiology. Call it Viral Numerology.
His words again, with his graphs:
“… coronavirus peaked and subsided in the exact same way. In the exact, same, way.”
What does “exact” mean anyway?
Anything you like.
Mysterious peak in infections that are “exactly” the same.
All of these countries changed their behaviour, and that changed the curve.
h/t Colin.
REFERENCE: This might be the paper ( in Hebrew?)
So , we need an effective vaccine and effective tests , both for infection and antibodies .
When will that happen ?
What country will succeed first ?
Come on , lets get after it !
44
Or better and faster — anti virals, CRISPR, Stem Cells, Plasma, Monoclonal antibodies, RNAi. Vaccines take too long to test.
193
Jo: Why do you include Mabs?
Speed
10
If plasma transfers work, then cloning the most potent antibodies could produce a faster less risky form of assistance. ie Monoclonal antibodies (Mabs)
Wang et al. (2020). A human monoclonal antibody blocking SARS-CoV-2 infection. bioRxiv. https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.03.11.987958
https://www.technologynetworks.com/biopharma/news/first-report-of-human-monoclonal-antibody-that-blocks-sars-cov-2-332110
Potent at stopping infection to Vero cells, but not an ACE2 related entry. Hm.
Shanmugaraj et al https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32134278
Although, several monoclonal antibodies showed promising result in neutralizing SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV infection, the large-scale production of monoclonal antibodies is labor intensive, expensive and time consuming which outweighs the monoclonal antibody clinical application especially monoclonal antibodies against emerging pathogen. The recent advancement in the therapeutic protein production platforms could make the monoclonal antibody production at lower production costs and affordable. The sequences of monoclonal antibodies that are effective against SARS-CoV could be cloned and expressed in suitable expression system such as mammalian, yeast or plant and recombinant monoclonal antibodies could be tested against SARS-CoV-2. Plant expression system could be considered for the rapid production of monoclonal antibodies in a short time with the affordable cost which is one of the major advantages to be considered especially during epidemic situation.
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/03/26/822003826/how-monoclonal-antibodies-might-prove-useful-against-the-coronavirus
But yes, testing is slower than anti-virals. Still need animal tests. But testing in infected humans could show results much faster than waiting for a vaccine reaction and then waiting to see if the vaccine prevents infection or causes some longer term risk.
52
It looks like it doesn’t take quite so long to test . . . . . if you forego the animal studies . . . . .
https://childrenshealthdefense.org/news/heres-why-bill-gates-wants-indemnity-are-you-willing-to-take-the-risk/?utm_source=salsa&eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=c94b3721-ea3d-464f-b8cc-68adb387220c
“In this video footage, Offit, Hotez and even Anthony Fauci (in an unguarded moment), warn that any new coronavirus vaccine could trigger lethal immune reactions “vaccine enhancement” when vaccinated people come in contact with the wild virus. Instead of proceeding with caution, Fauci has made the reckless choice to fast track vaccines, partially funded by Gates, without critical animal studies before moving into human clinical trials that could provide early warning of runaway immune response.
On February 4, 2020, according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) website, there were only 11 active CV cases in the USA, yet the U.S. quietly pushed through Federal regulations giving coronavirus vaccine makers full immunity from liability”.
81
But that does pose ethical & legal issues
The animal studies are designed to m ensure that
People are not damaged by the vaccine.
So therein lies a legal nightmare for pharmaceutical companies
One that would be welcomed by the anti Vaxers..
33
what may CRISPR be? a tool?
2007–bacteria used to make yogurt showed that these odd clusters actually served a vital function
https://balance10.blogspot.com/2020/04/2007-bacteria-used-to-make-yogurt.html
21
Well… CRISPR etc are entertaining notions but the TGA would be the real world limiting factor. Approval time, even in fast tracked, would exceed the likely virus “life” span.
Perhaps a pc virus “honeypot” approach would be better? Lure your target to say dna free red blood cells with the right protein on its surface.
Maybe a form of infused copper?
Copper is exceptionally efficient at eradicating bacteria and viruses. Short term losses to good bacteria and viruses would be acceptable.
Borg nanoprobes would be perfect too but a decade away…
20
I don’t get it. Seriously.
Just fast track the double blind studies on the HCQ, Zn and Z-pack cocktail that demonstrated its efficacy empirically in a number of studies.
That’s not an anecdote. It’s more like an antidote.
What’s happening on that front?
Yes.Yes. I know. Anti-Trump politics.
But where are the real scientists? Surely they’re not all lefties?
81
Please identify these clinical trials from credible sources, because I’ve not found any.
The only clinical trials of HCQ on COVID19 that have been completed are in China, and the only clinical trial known to the USA NIH outside of China that has even started the intervention testing phase is in Madrid, Spain, and will not have results until the end of June.
So, Sam, where are these “number of studies” that “demonstrated its efficacy empirically”? I have tried and been unable to find them so far.
23
Definition of empirical
1: originating in or based on observation or experience // empirical data
2: relying on experience or observation alone often without due regard for system and theory
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/empirical
So tell us Andrew, which ones have you actually looked at?
If you can’t answer that (or won’t), your post is no more than distraction.
31
Your reply contains no reference to any “studies that demonstrated its efficacy empirically” from a credible source. If they exist at all, which ones are they? Should we conclude there are none?
>> which ones have you actually looked at?
No. Distraction tactic failed. You have to support your original claim. I’m not claiming anything about treatments. I cannot have read something I’ve never found, that’s why I’m asking you for your source. As to where I looked for it, I just told you and linked to it. The worldwide list maintained by the NIH. If you won’t actually read someone’s comment before replying you are just seeing red and generating noise.
12
I suggest you look If you don’t look you don’t find. Head in the sand?
You might want to try searching back through the CV-19 threads on this site for a start.
Here’s start for you:
https://www.mediterranee-infection.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/COVID-IHU-2-1.pdf
20
Gao’s paper to Bioscience Trends:
https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/bst/14/1/14_2020.01047/_pdf/-char/en
00
Xueting Yao, Fei Ye, Miao Zhang, et al. In Vitro Antiviral Activity and Projection of Optimized Dosing Design of Hydroxychloroquine for the Treatment of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). “Clinical Infectious Diseases”, (ciaa237, https://doi.org/10.1093/cid/ciaa237) Published: 09 March 2020.
00
Here’s the theory for you:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7F1cnWup9M&feature=emb_title
00
Here’s some patient notes for you.
Start at 19:20:
https://youtu.be/Q7voUXgMCSs
00
Remdesivir and chloroquine effectively inhibit the recently emerged novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) in vitro
Published: 04 February 2020
Manli Wang, Ruiyuan Cao, Leike Zhang, Xinglou Yang, Jia Liu, Mingyue Xu, Zhengli Shi, Zhihong Hu, Wu Zhong & Gengfu Xiao
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41422-020-0282-0?fbclid=IwAR2JbbZU_Hl7uLjuOTDhrNnmczzyEFvnIhY8QHv9ghY5fYBvX0IsmnhD07w
00
Here’s what your comrade Fauci is saying:
CHRIS STIGALL:If you’re a doctor listening to me right now and a patient with coronavirus feels like they want to try [Chloroquine] and you’re their doctor, you’re not Anthony Fauci the guy running the coronavirus task force, would you say ‘alright, we’ll give it a whirl’?
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI: Yeah, of course, particularly if people have no other option. You want to give them hope. In fact, for physicians in this country, these drugs are approved drugs for other reasons. They’re anti-malaria drugs and they’re drugs against certain autoimmune diseases, like lupus. Physicians throughout the country can prescribe that in an off-label way. Which means they can write it for something it was not originally approved for. People do that all the time, and it really is an individual choice between the physician and his or her patient as to whether or not they want to do that.
20
Here’s what the FDA says:
Like hydroxychloroquine sulfate, FDA has allowed for the emergency use of chloroquine
phosphate to treat adults and adolescents weighing 50 kg (110 pounds) or more hospitalized with COVID-19. See http://www.cdc.gov/website-here.eua for information on the emergency use of chloroquine phosphate. Chloroquine phosphate is not approved by FDA to treat COVID-19. In addition, your healthcare provider may talk to you about clinical trials being conducted for drugs for the treatment of COVID-19.
https://www.fda.gov/media/136538/download
10
Hmmm, in brief…
• This nominated “start” paper by Gautret & co-authors is an 80-patient study without a control group.
• Gao’s “paper” is a letter to the editor, endorsing more publications from China.
• Then another CCP publication talking about an in vitro test comparing HCQ to CQ but not to any non-intervention control group.
• Then a video with some appealing Zinc hypothesis, but for evidence referencing a study from South Korea that is not a controlled trial, and Seheult says no controlled trials of HCQ existed at that date, and then another Chinese study that is also not a controlled trial which Seheult says should be “taken with a grain of salt”.
• Fauci doesn’t say HCQ gives people symptomatic relief, it gives them “hope”.
• The FDA has permitted a different drug (not HCQ) without actually approving it for treatment.
So far the link quantity looks to be an attempt to compensate for quality.
Perhaps one day controlled clinical trials of HCQ not from China will be complete. The theory sounds great.
31
One more for you Andrew:
India
Health Ministry Declares Hydroxychloroquine A Schedule H1 Drug;
https://www.mohfw.gov.in/pdf/218927g.pdf
MINISTRY OF HEALTH AND FAMILY WELFARE
(Department of Health and Family Welfare)
NOTIFICATION
New Delhi, the 26th March, 2020
G.S.R. 219(E).—Whereas, the Central Government is satisfied that the drug ‘Hydroxychloroquine’ is essential to meet the requirements of emergency arising due to pandemic COVID-19 and in the public interest, it is necessary and expedient to regulate and restrict the sale and distribution of the drug ‘Hydroxychloroquine’ and preparation based thereon for preventing their misuse;
10
Oh. And another:
Bahrain
Covid-19: Bahrain one of the first in the world to use hydroxychloroquine for treatment
https://www.thestar.com.my/news/world/2020/03/25/covid-19-bahrain-one-of-the-first-in-the-world-to-use-hydroxychloroquine-for-treatment
10
Goodness me! Another one:
Belgium
The FAMHP has asked distributors of the product to reserve it for hospitals treating patients with the coronavirus, as well as pharmacies, where people with a medical prescription can obtain it.
https://www.brusselstimes.com/all-news/belgium-all-news/102387/belgium-rations-potential-treatment-against-coronavirus/
10
Even the good ol’ US of A has hospitals using it:
USA
1. Henry Ford Health System Hospitals
https://www.henryford.com/hcp/academic/medicine/divisions/id/hiv-consult/covid19
Dosage:
Hydroxychloroquine 400 mg PO BID x 2 doses, then 400 mg PO daily x 4 days.
00
Another one in New York, no less:
Dr Vlademir Zelenko
Results:
350 patients
• Breathing restored 3-4 hours
• Zero deaths
• Zero hospitalizations
• Zero intubations
Dosage:
200mg 2x daily HydroxyChloroquine
500mg 1x daily Azithromycin
220mg 1x daily Zinc sulfate
https://therightscoop.com/new-york-doctor-says-trump-was-right-touts-fantastic-results-with-hydroxychloroquine-and-azithromycin-on-350-coronavirus-patients/
10
Hopefully, when the post that’s in moderation comes out, you’ll be able to turn your mind to thinking about that one as well.
Oh. And by the way, I’m still waiting for you to post your list of Hydroxychloroquine treatments for Covid-19 that have killed people.
Stay safe. Wear a mask.
00
Wait. Andrew. Wait.
There’s more:
Treatment Guidelines from South Korea[7]
According to the Korea Biomedical Review, the South Korean COVID-19 Central Clinical Task Force guidelines are as follows:
1. If patients are young, healthy, and have mild symptoms without underlying conditions, doctors can observe them without antiviral treatment;
2. If more than 10 days have passed since the onset of the illness and the symptoms are mild, physicians do not have to start an antiviral medication;
3. However, if patients are old or have underlying conditions with serious symptoms, physicians should consider an antiviral treatment. If they decide to use the antiviral therapy, they should start the administration as soon as possible:
… chloroquine 500mg orally per day.
4. As chloroquine is not available in Korea, doctors could consider hydroxychloroquine 400mg orally per day (Hydroxychloroquine is an analog of chloroquine used against malaria, autoimmune disorders, etc. It is widely available as well).
5. The treatment is suitable for 7 – 10 days, which can be shortened or extended depending on clinical progress.
Notably, the guidelines mention other antivirals as further lines of defense, including anti-HIV drugs.
translated as https://www.chinalawtranslate.com/en/coronavirus-treatment-plan-7/ ; https://www.clinicaltrialsarena.com/news/coronavirus-covid-19-choroquine-data/ .
You can catch the Chinese treatment from those sites too.
If Google hasn’t cut the link yet – as it has for the South Korea guidelines.
00
China
On 13 March 2020, Todaro and Rigano, working in consultation with researchers from the Stanford University Medical School, the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Medicine, and the National Academy of Sciences, presented the report: An Effective Treatment for Coronavirus (COVID-19).
https://mrtopstep.com/elon-musk-says-maybe-an-effective-treatment-for-coronavirus-covid-19/
Data from the clinical trials in China show that ‘patients treated with chloroquine demonstrated a better drop in fever, improvement of lung CT images, and required a shorter time to recover compared to parallel groups’ and that chloroquine has ‘so far shown no obvious serious adverse reactions in more than 100 participants in the trials…Chloroquine was selected after several screening rounds of thousands of existing drugs’ and ‘is undergoing further trials in more than ten hospitals in Beijing, Guangdong province and Hunnan province.”[6]’.
10
Here’s corroboration the the Henry Ford Hospital uses Hydroxychloroquine, Andrew. (although, as I post this, my reference to that centre in still in moderation for some reason):
“An infectious disease physician decided to try an ‘off label treatment’ by combining the malaria drug Hydroxychloroquine and the antibiotic Azithromycin in combination.
It worked.”
https://www.stevegruber.com/2020/03/covid-19-survivor-praises-president-trump-and-hydroxychloroquine-i-am-living-proof-it-works/
10
The number just continues to grow, Andrew.
Did you really look?
Henry Ford Hospital (USA) has treated some 800 patients with Hydroxychloroquine:
Hydroxychloroquine may not be a “miracle cure,” but there is enough evidence to “justify its use” at this point, said Dr. Marcus Zervos, head of the infectious diseases division at Henry Ford Health System.
The Detroit-based hospital system is using hydroxychloroquine in combination with other therapies in an attempt to reduce the likelihood of complications, Zervos said Tuesday in a video chat with reporters. About 800 patients — half in Detroit — have been treated with the drug since March 1 at various Henry Ford hospitals, according to a spokeswoman.
“We have had a number of success stories — patients that have been severely ill, we’ve gotten them off the ventilator and out of the hospital,” Zervos said. But hydroxychloroquine appears to have greater benefits “if we’re able to start the therapy earlier,” he added.
https://www.bridgemi.com/michigan-health-watch/facing-shortages-michigan-asks-feds-experimental-coronavirus-drugs
20
Henry Ford Hospital System (USA) is just one of many using the treatment.
Smith Center for Infectious Diseases in East Orange, New Jersey, USA.
Dr. Stephen Smith, a preeminent infectious disease expert, and his colleagues at the Smith Center for Infectious Diseases in East Orange, New Jersey, have been treating COVID-19 patients. He said that none of their patients who have been treated with HCQ and azithromycin has had to be put on a ventilator.
He pronounced the combination of HCQ and azithromycin to be an “absolute game changer” and added that “this regimen works.”
https://youtu.be/u1BAN4SY1AU
00
I refer you to the definition of Empirical Andrew.
And, to the numbers of lives saved as a result of the HCQ treatments.
You might like to compare the survival rate of those who were put onto the treatment with the death rate for those in the USA currently, or Spain or Italy who weren’t.
You might also like to post the studies that show HCQ to be contraindicated for Covid-19.
The results of your “controlled clinical trials of HCQ” is something we all look forward to.
In the interim, while we await the purists’ work to be completed, peer reviewed, amended and eventually published, people are dying. Not from any of the HCQ contraindications, but from the sloth of those who hold off applying a treatment with demonstrated efficacy.
Stay well, Andrew.
22
Check out this site …the twitter site of the Australian end of the team that first mapped the Corona virus genome sequence…and you’ll see hints of the Long March of the Left…
https://twitter.com/edwardcholmes?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor
Holmes and colleagues are obviously in sync with Kerry Phelps…Norman Swan…Peter Doherty….and Tim S and their contempt for LNP..IPA…especially Trump…and like Phelps et al the researchers are very selective about the truth.
The case Holmes and others make that its not a lab-engineered virus seem a bit dodgy to me as they seem to want to pretend there are no labs that do ‘gain of function’ research…and they make no mention especially of the fact that researchers at the Wuhan lab have a history of that research in Wuhan and in the US at the University of North Carolina…..that was subject of a worldwide ban in 2014…lifted in 2017.
All the articles about Dr Ralph Baric who reportedly led that type of research at UNC also steer clear of that fact now that there’s a crisis…and as far as I can tell the Sydney end of the team hasn’t discussed at all the shutdown by the dictatorship of their Chinese colleagues’ Shanghai lab and destruction of papers.
On the Holmes site all of the commentary’s about how wonderful China has been and how great Trump’s medical adviser Dr Fauci is in contrast to his incompetent POTUS.
Eg Doherty says…
[ ‘Seems everything with Trump is dominated by his narcissism. The extraordinary & truly tragic aspect of this is that, promoted by Fox News etc, he induced many of his fellow citizens to become part of his fantasy. Reality, whether it be climate change or COVID-19, is alien to him.’]
Holmes then replies to Doherty…
[‘Astonishingly so. They have many of the most talented scientists on the planet and they are steering for disaster because of the profound ignorance and arrogance of those in charge’.]
The opposite is the truth and it’s on the public record…that Trump went with the faulty…China-trusting/kowtowing medical advice of Fauci and others early on…until he decided to go with his own judgment and that of Republican colleagues…and led the world except for Australia in closing access from China and then from Europe….and was pilloried for it[ on the public record].
Fauci knows Trump’s judgment was better than his…but basks in the undeserved canonization that the perversion of truth that CNN et al are flogging to America and the world….bestow on him.
The lies and sneers about Trump are repeated by the UK news reporters…and probably across Europe.
The deliberate malice of the lies from the MSM and others we’re supposed to trust these days… is bat-crazy and dangerous….and the Left will set them in concrete if we let them in the aftermath….and we’ll get even more dangerous and duplicitous leaders.
90
Jo,
What do you make of the German data commented on by finance Prof. Dr. Stefan Homburg of the Leibniz University of Hanover using a chart of infections from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) that was issued on April 15th.
It shows that after a rise and then fall in infections – prior to the lock down on 23rd March – that the arte of infection has not altered as a result of the lock down. [Link below]
https://notrickszone.com/2020/04/18/prominent-german-prof-says-covid-19-lockdown-completely-unnecessary-unbelievably-damaging-to-the-economy/
Time intervals are relatively short but it does seem that there is validity in his comment and that there are some unusual aspects to this virus. Testing of around 1100 self-selecting people (volunteers) in California showed a population infection rate of around 50 -75 times higher than official statistics and people who had antibodies or were asymptomatic. The survey in Iceland, around 10% of population from memory, showed 50% of the population to carry antibodies or were asymptomatic.
My wife and daughter have both had it – 4 days immobilised in bed with paracetamol and drinking large amounts of water. My son didn’t get it, I felt for around 24 hours I was ‘coming down’ with it and then it passed and so assume I am either asymptomatic or my immune system was strong enough to swiftly deal with it. We now know 20+ people who have had it without treatment or testing and where it has been like a severe flu.
My personal view is that it is nowhere near as infectious or, for the vast majority, as dangerous as it has been made out to be. I respect others’ concerns and fears but have none at all myself.
70
Real information about Germany can be found here:
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/germany/ cc
143779 infections
4543 deaths
this works out a 54 deaths per million.
Germany is odd because it exhibits a saw tooth pattern of up & down.
01
Intense ultraviolet light has long been used to sterilize medical equipment in hospitals.
A company in the U.S. (I think) has engineered a UV sterilization unit that can be maneuvered into the isles between seats in each cabin, in order to flood the area with C-band ultraviolet, to thoroughly sterilize the whole area.
The operator has to have protection from the UV, which is not exactly a good selling point.
70
Here’s the latest from French doctors.
https://www.gilmorehealth.com/3-french-doctors-are-using-azithromycin-with-zinc-to-treat-coronavirus/
More and more, zinc seems to be the key.
160
Exactly, Red.
Where’s the double blind study up to?
31
All of this is a commendable attempt to foretell the final score of a tennis match after the first set.
102
My thoughts exactly. Trying to predict the final outcome while the first game is still in play is as bad or worse than trying to predict the weather in 100 years. There are a few different strategies in play such as Sweden and a lot of knee jerk reactions by most of the others. This has a long way to run yet before we know which strategies worked. Any comparison of how countries are doing at this time is pointless.
I also think the success of the flu vaccine has greatly increased the number of people still alive that are most at risk from COVID19. So without a flu vaccine to increase the supply of unfortunate souls for the COVID19 virus the death count might be business as usual.
With the point of the lockdown being to preserve the health system it can only be said that Australia’s lockdowns are excessive way over the top.
83
But this is NOT a tennis match.
It is not even a game
It is a global infectious disease pandemic.
One that none of us have experienced
As the last one was in 1918-19.
Such false similes deceive
612
George, will you offer me the same odds after the first set as before the players start?
63
Look at the Italian map as ‘per capita’. The epidemic clock stopped all across Italy but it never really started in the South
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/world/europe/italy-coronavirus-cases.html?referringSource=articleShare
72
Very interesting Raving. Is it climate, the stage of the epidemic at which restrictions were imposed ie. it because it was already advanced in the north, or is viral load a significant issue in both infection and death rates.
I posed the latter question on a previous thread and Jo gave a quite comprehensive reply. MY question arises from some of my work with plants. I was involved in monitoring the health of a number of populations of a rare Banksia. The general trend within the population was that as long as the population was protected from Phytophthera, younger plants remained healthy. However as plants aged they became susceptible to a canker. Younger plants continued to be healthy until the ratio of older infected plants to younger plants reached a certain threshold after which younger plants were infected and the population started to decline, raising the threat of a local extinction.
I guess the role of viral load in infection and death rate is one for an epidemiologist, but just browsing the infection and death rates in different parts of countries and the world does raise some serious questions. This could reflect on just how partial or total lock downs and screening could be most effectively applied.
Just so much that we don’t know.
101
Don’t know the answer to your questions. Reasons to claim seasonslity impact but then again cases are exploding in Indonesia. The way the map of Italy is colored it looks like a classic transmission and diffusion that never grew South save for Catania
Some reports of viral load, given young health care workers dying but who knows. Inconclusive
61
I wouldn’t say exploding, just expanding in the usual way. But they are getting a high percentage of early deaths, so the real symptomatic infection level within the community will be 3 to 4 times higher than their total cases indicates.
They have a serious problem growing, sure, but they do still have time to flatten the active cases total, that’s far from a hopeless situation in Indonesia, they can still turn it around if they get a strict lock down in place and can convince people to cooperate and stick this out until the active cases have fallen. I don’t see why they can’t get on top of it from now. Even on their current path things won’t really blow-up until mid-May, so if they can drop the spread rate fast to ~2.5% new cases of active per day during what remains of April, they won’t blow-up in May.
122
Big return home Indonesian holiday coming up WXCycles
Like Chinese New but in Indonesia.
President Jokowi is reluctant to tell everyone that they cannot go home.
So a big expansion will happen soon if he does not change his mind.
42
Ramadan.
Have a relative working in Bali. It’s not just the Indonesian government.
The people seem to have a laissez-faire attitude to this. His responsibility
is to protect his staff but regardless of what he says and tries, his staff
simply comply while under observation but will then be lunching in a big group
huddled at a table in a room etc. These are educated people and accounting staff!
Their lifespan may well be very short.
70
TedM – fascinating about the effect of viral load on young plants. That must have been hard to unpack?
Raving, thank you for the NY times story. How very useful. Looking at Cantania — that red deeply infected area in the far south suggests it’s not climate that solely makes the infections worse in North Italy and lighter in Southern Italy.
I assume it is mostly the timing of the lockdown. Southern areas started earlier and with a lighter load. Apart perhaps (I don’t know) for Cantania.
My sense is that hot weather slows the spread, by cleaning outdoor areas and reducing viral survival times through higher temps. Also because people have windows open so that indoor areas are better ventilated. It also means higher Vit D.
There is synergy between lockdowns in hotter weather. But always, an earlier lockdown saves thousands of lives.
71
Yes Raving the young health care workers dying also motivated my comments. Also as you say inconclusive, but still an observable trend. My line of thought is that from the beginning of an infection a competition between the virus and the immune system is set in motion. My lay persons rationale is that a greater viral load would give the virus an advantage from the very start. That doesn’t mean that an epidemiologist or virologist wouldn’t be able to demolish my line of thought.
30
Paywalled link
Or surrender one’s privacy.
Not good enough
For contrarians on Jo Nova !
35
Their covid19 coverage is supposedto be open for the epidemic. Sorry
“We are providing free access to the most important news and useful guidance on the coronavirus outbreak to help readers understand the pandemic. Log in or create an account to read all of the articles on this page.”
https://www.nytimes.com/news-event/coronavirus?referringSource=articleShare
Double 🙁
43
It’s OK Raving.
It’s just more fake news from the “New York Times”.
The USA is in serious trouble, if it continues to believe its MSM.
We here, treat it all with scepticism. Just as we treat their ABC.
41
Dear Jo,
The University of Washington COVID-19 Dashboard (https://depts.washington.edu/labmed/covid19/) has been publishing daily updates. These figures include negative, positive and inconclusive results for those testing for flu like symptoms. The actual prevalence of COVID-19 in those presenting has been relatively constant, if not falling since 23rd March.
I would believe from this data set that the increase of accumulated positives seen in these countries is not due to the life cycle of the virus, just an artifact of the ramping up of testing by Authorities and the publicity of an illness due to a Wuhan Virus. Very much an Orwellian Room 101 scenario for our elderly.
PS. How did you go with the increased blood pressure data due to the ACE inhibition? Was this a symptom? Has someone looked at the role these inhibitors may be playing as the deaths are occurring in the demographic that use these medications?
My tabulation of this data, apologies for not being able to graph the last column, the % positive of tested.
Date Negative Inconclusive Positive Positive_tot Tests %Positive
02/03/20 30.0 0 1 1 31 3.2
03/03/20 4.0 0 2 3 6 33.3
04/03/20 202.0 4 7 10 213 3.3
05/03/20 125.0 3 0 10 128 0.0
06/03/20 187.0 2 16 26 205 7.8
07/03/20 220.0 4 14 40 238 5.9
08/03/20 466.0 15 79 119 560 14.1
09/03/20 380.0 5 40 159 425 9.4
10/03/20 721.0 4 46 205 771 6.0
11/03/20 1113.0 9 91 296 1213 7.5
12/03/20 1171.0 11 82 378 1264 6.5
13/03/20 1361.0 8 95 473 1464 6.5
14/03/20 1529.0 20 96 569 1645 5.8
15/03/20 1643.0 9 94 663 1746 5.4
16/03/20 1487.0 8 135 798 1630 8.3
17/03/20 2134.0 14 170 968 2318 7.3
18/03/20 2857.0 31 183 1151 3071 6.0
19/03/20 2071.0 26 138 1289 2235 6.2
20/03/20 2754.0 19 193 1482 2966 6.5
21/03/20 1440.0 14 114 1596 1568 7.3
22/03/20 942.0 8 94 1690 1044 9.0
23/03/20 987.0 7 152 1842 1146 13.3
24/03/20 1257.0 10 141 1983 1408 10.0
25/03/20 1755.0 19 192 2175 1966 9.8
26/03/20 2406.0 21 244 2419 2671 9.1
27/03/20 2115.0 24 244 2663 2383 10.2
28/03/20 2078.0 33 340 3003 2451 13.9
29/03/20 1256.0 14 204 3207 1474 13.8
30/03/20 1046 12 166 3373 1224 13.6
31/03/20 2073 23 362 3735 2458 14.7
01/04/20 2349 23 317 4052 2689 11.8
02/04/20 1907.0 17 235 4287 2159 10.9
03/04/20 1982.0 19 295 4582 2296 12.8
04/04/20 1750.0 18 215 4797 1983 10.8
05/04/20 1151.0 8 111 4908 1270 8.7
06/04/20 1256.0 13 170 5078 1439 11.8
07/04/20 1733.0 12 212 5290 1957 10.8
08/04/20 2626.0 43 307 5597 2976 10.3
09/04/20 2061.0 16 199 5796 2276 8.7
10/04/20 1753.0 6 199 5995 1958 10.2
11/04/20 1510.0 1 154 6149 1665 9.2
12/04/20 744.0 1 87 6236 832 10.5
13/04/20 877.0 6 123 6359 1006 12.2
14/04/20 1732.0 5 156 6515 1893 8.2
15/04/20 1620.0 7 159 6674 1786 8.9
16/04/20 1555.0 11 200 6874 1766 11.3
17/04/20 1363.0 11 116 6990 1490 7.8
62
Whilst it is illuminating to hypothesise on the data conclusions from any data need to be treated cautiously. The supply of official data has been all over the place and I was fascinated that the Ruby Princess ( which is listed as a country )with 712 cases is still showing 55 active cases. As this was quarantined on Feb 3 and the virus probably contracted before then the 10 + weeks since quarantine should’ve been sufficient to have zero cases. Is the 55 accurate or have they just stopped bothering to count.You have also had anamolies due to data collection such that China suddenly found 50% more deaths months after they happened., the US had a spike when they changed the definition for death certification and on recoveries UK just has NA in that column. Germany , France and others have had weird spikes in the data from time to time and even in Australia most of the states were not reporting recoveries in any uniform manner and we too had this enormous spike in recoveries as if all of a sudden a whole lot of people magically got better on the same day. It is unfortunate that there is not uniformity with definitions of death and overall reporting especially where comorbidity is involved and in many countries people who died at home may or may not be part of official figures. On top of this there is a little cynicism about the political influence on figures where some governments say Russia, China , Iran may wish to downplay the crisis whilst other countries who don’t have authoritarian regimes may wish to exaggerate the crisis to obtain compliance for draconian measures out of character for western societies.
So I do appreciate that theorising and formulating policy and conclusions based on the available data is interesting but one has to be cautious about being too dogmatic about the conclusions or policies based on the available data.
270
You raise a fair point. In the US apparently there is funding to be had based on the number of cov19 cases for hospitals. That and there appears no set way to define “death by cov19” means death stays may be artificially skewed to make money…..
191
Well put. What’s worse is it pains me to see people focus on one crisis (pandameic) and ignore another equally as dangerous crisis (socioeconomics).
152
Well, communism aims to destroy the middle class, although given its govt and big business that’s survived this best, its closer to establishing fascism…..
101
Zigmaster — the only datapoint I’m really focussed on is the Daily New Cases count. As you say, this is still affected by weekend reporting, decisions on who is eligible to be tested, and sheer number of tests done. That said, there are clear bell curves on many countries.
That doesn’t mean a second wave is not coming — unless the cases go to zero and the borders are shut.
I am interested in the death rates, but only in a broadscale way to draw big-picture conclusions. Seems to me there are lower death rates in summer nations, higher death rates at the end of winter (Vit D deficiency) and truly awful death rates when crowding is combined with hospital ICUs running out and the end of winter timing.
54
Zigmaster, without looking it all up,and just from memory, so it could be wrong, the Ruby Princess had hundreds, if not over 1000, staff still on board after all the tourists left. The virus was still spreading amongst the crew. The Ruby Princess stayed in Australian waters/harbour and would not leave because of the sick crew. I believe Australia has some sort of maritime obligation to help ships in distress, and the Ruby Princess was using this obligation to insist on hanging around. Eventually, by negotiation, I think it went to some particular organised port, disembarked the sickest of its Covid infected crew into the care of the Australian hospital system, and I think it eventually left Australian waters, but only a a short time ago. The sick people would have only caught Covid from other crew fairly recently. I sort of remember a number like 55 sick crew.
10
There are two “….Princess cruise ships.. The Diamond Princess and the Ruby princess..
Zeigmaster has confused them.
The Diamond Princess was quarantined in Yokahama in Japan Feb.
The Ruby Princess kept on doing cruises until mid March
When it docked in Sydney and all it’s passengers were allowed off
Many of them infected with CCP Wuhan COVID 19.
These passengers were only on for 10 days and it only went to
New Zealand from Sydney and then returned to Sydney.
All were healthy on boarding the R P.
And became infected while on the cruise ship.
Clearly members of the crew were infected
And passed the disease to passengers.
So….. the Cruise ship company is is a huge hole as it is liable for all the infections and deaths.
Watch out for the class action !
As for Australia’s responsibility to the Ruby Princess crew
Australia has NO responsibility under maritime law to allow any foreign crew
To disembark if they are sick with an infectious disease.
There is a responsibility to give aid to those on board.
But not to allow them off the boat and thus infect Australians.
Some were eventually taken off and placed in a quarantined medical facility.
The cost of treatment will be paid by the Cruise ship owners
01
There are other epidemiologists (Wittkowski to name one) who agree that lockdowns are temporary expedients at best and are not going to work in the long run.
The recommended compromise is to quarantine the vulnerable (elderly) but allow the virus to spread in schools and to the parents, the majority of whom will be asymptomatic. This allows the work force to carry on while society concentrates its resources on minimising the death rate of the elderly and the immunocompromised.
Finding a better treatment solution for what is looking increasingly like HAPE rather than ARDS will be particularly helpful.
It is too early to declare any winners in this outbreak.
One thing is for certain: Poverty kills.
183
Thank you very much. /sark If us oldies are quarantined just how do we get to eat if we don’t have family to get food for us?
I am prepared to take my chances out there to go shopping and see people.
130
Spot on Ivan. Isolation is as hard or harder for the olds than it is for everyone else.
Living on home deliveries that can take a week to arrive isn’t very successful. If the
idea is to drive the old into dependent senility, one couldn’t think of a better way
than by stimulation free quarantine. Imagine have a police force laboring to make sure
the cheeky old people down the street stay home. How are they going to enforce that?
With batons? The idea is a useless joke.
As for aged care facilities, the companies owning them do their best, but at some point
they become economically unsupportable, and they haven’t exactly been covered in glory
in this pandemic. For some, if we are really truthful, it can be a blessed release. For
others, one might be surprised that they reach a stage of unconcern about living and dying.
They have outlived their families and friends and find life quite lonely.
It looks as though the best thing to do for the elderly is to simply advise isolation when
the imposts are lifted and leave them to decide whether they stay in or go out. I must say
that while my wife and I are pretty active and doing everything for ourselves as we close in
on octogenarianship, our young neighbours have been great in asking whether they can
help out.
71
Doc, I’m 72. My lady works in an aged care home in Adelaide.
None of the issues you mention have surfaced here.
Please substansiate your views with examples you know of and say where they happened, please.
23
An amazing comment that illustrates the intrusion of Media Morality™ into our civilisation.
Self righteous umbrage taking at its finest.
KK
00
Bill, in my former life I actually conversed with elderly people . On discussing risks
of procedures I am giving you the answers I was given. when it came to attitudes
about death. For others, those with severe Alzheimer’s disease that one has known
in their prior lives, the fact that they can become out of character violent, or don’t know
where they are or what day it is, I am calling death a blessed release for themselves as
well as their caring families. That’s my opinion and you can take it or leave it.
As for places going broke, in Perth late last year one of the more expensive units went
Into administration . I wouldn’t have thought any of this is very controversial. You can
a further remark to upset you if you like. That is the high cost of actually finding placement
for one’s spouse to get into these places at a stage in life where the non ill spouse has
retired and can go through stepwise expensive purchases for placement as the disease
deteriorates.
Similarly, if you are arguing about some having a few too many cases of deaths from the
current virus, I suggest you read our own newspapers recently. If you want the worst case
scenario, read about the units in Spain where medical teams were called in to some of their
aged care facilities and were hauling out the dead as they went. Then there was Tasmania
only a week or so ago.
I really do find it staggering that anyone actually working in the
system should take umbrage at what is patently being reported. It’s not as though any
of this was actually a personal reflection on anyone. In non specific terms, the situation
Looks even worse in the USA, but they have 330million people. Australia’s system, while
expensive, is generally well run and I understand has good oversight. You will always get
some failures, and the system is handling the most at risk of people from a medical point of view,
so it’s not too amazing that sometimes infections run through them just as in any other large
collections of people, but more easily.
60
Thanks Doc, a very comprehensive picture that illuminates some important issues in “getting old”.
KK
10
“There are other epidemiologists ”
Yes but there are still other epidemiologists.
41
Jo has dealt with this witless Witto elsewhere.
He is not someone worth listening to.
Go back & look in previous posts
So we don’t go round in circles.
210
No, I have answered comments about Wittkowski. I still need to put that up as a post. Sigh.
There are a few desk-jockey PhD’s making embarrassing comments and youtubes on this crisis. Wittowski is a biostatician who is the wrong guy at the wrong time in the early stages of global pandemic when there are few reliable stats. His knowledge of virology is pathetically weak. He does not even realize there is such as thing as viral pneumonia. He mistakenly thinks it is all bacterial secondary infections. His arrogance knows no bounds. Does he believe the docs on the front line are letting people die because they have not thought of antibiotics?
His skills might be useful in a few years when there is reliable data to assess. But people who don’t even understand virology can hardly give useful advice on stopping the spread. Wittowski is using the 1918 flu plan on a virus that is nothing like the 1918 flu.
If you think this virus is not scary then you haven’t sought out the views from doctors on the front line and listened to what they say. No one has seen a virus like this before. (Possibly because of the engineered combo of HIV genes. This virus appears to have potentially three entry points and may target multiple and different cells). This virus causes severe disease in 1 in 5 people, even in younger people. It can induce strokes, heart attacks (through blood pressure and clotting changes). It appears to bind to heme in blood. Oh boy?. Causes a high altitude sickness and also has neurological sequelae. (Eg something is going on with nerves — like loss of smell and taste, strong back pain, this is a black swan virus.).
We don’t know what the long term damage is in those who survive ICU. We don’t know if people develop long term immunity. We don’t know why some get so sick, and others get nothing. We don’t know which genetic markers increase risks. We don’t know if people can be infected twice (though there are reports that can happen, which is highly unusual, almost unheard of). We don’t know if the second infections are reduced or worsened (like in Dengue fever). We don’t know if a vaccine is possible, and we don’t know if a vaccine causes a worse reaction rather then a better one.)
Desk-jockey doctors and academics with no knowledge of the front line have inadvertently and indirectly contributed to many deaths with their poor under researched advice and 100 year old models. Chief Medical Advisors especially.
94
Thanks Jo.
You’re going to have to keep giving that message, I’m sad to say.
Some people just don’t want to know.
Others have yet to catch up.
What a pity the WHO and/or the CDC don’t pick it up and slam it. Or our Chief Medical Officer, even.
32
Hi Jo
Did you see the Daily Mail story on Ventilators being deathtrap yesterday?
Another story that the disease isn’t essentially a pneumonia
Thanks for your hard work getting to the guts of this
131
It is a serious concern when such a high proportion of people placed on ventilators simply do not recover. A rethink on this treatment is called for, but will that happen ?!
GeoffW
90
I recall seeing a video of one doc who said it was more like an altitude sickness, and in some respects ventilators can make it worse.
I cant recall the specifics, but it should be investigated.
100
Urgent new medical theory on Coronavirus: hold the ventilators, stop blood clots instead
Watch the video here. Extraordinary. Yes, ventilators are the wrong treatment in many early ICU cases.
Smart guys dealing with life and death decisions on this virus everyday are the ones to listen to at this point in the pandemic.
90
Hmmmm…snake venom thickens blood, vit k reduces clotting risk. What do we have that can boost o2 intake into blood?
Maybe the answer is big doses of vits A, Bs and C.
Also CoQ10 and Acetazolamide
20
Hi Jo
As always thank you for bringing this to our attention. But what do we do with this information?
Do we all sign documents refusing intubation? I’m certainly going to.
I wonder how long it takes for the EVMA Covid19 treatment protocol mention in the video you gave us to filter to our own clinicians. I have sent the Protocol and the Daily Mail story to our RNZ but wonder what else we could be doing.
We probably won’t need all those additional ventilators after all?
All the best
30
One doctor calling for a re-think here.
https://youtu.be/g3ka8lo_fZ8
41
Yes Jo posted about this days ago
This is not a disease that kills through pneumonia.’
It kills through Hypoxia
Basically destroying the blood’s capacity to carry Oxygen
And releasing toxic free Iron radicals throughout the body.
64
Maybe we need to putsmart this damn thing.
Artificial blood….ringer solution….do a complete fluid swap to keep viral levels low in the blood to maintain o2 carrying capacity in the “blood”. Then nuke it with antivirals.
There you go…solved.
10
That sounds a bit Radical.
10
Maybe not….?
If O2 uptake is broken down by the virus, if we are swapping out damaged blood and replacing it with artificial blood, while attacking the virus with antivirals to reduce virus load in the body ( and I dont know how much normal blood can be replaced with articial at any one time ) then wouldnt that provide some chance for the patient?
10
Phlebotomy and blood transfusion
Occurred to me days ago as possible ways of easing
The critically ill.
But I got not a single response.
I still think it would help.
21
Luke 4:24
10
Who is Luke Sam ?
11
A Greek physician living in first century CE, who followed the famous Hellenic traditions of pursuing truth through human reason, research and observation.
But you knew that, didn’t you.
11
Interesting observation in
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2020/04/17/reopening-the-u-s-economy/#comment-128616
and Chiefio’s reply
21
You said “due to magic or something”. That seems to mean that you can’t think of a plausible mechanism for the Israeli prof’s theory, therefore the theory must be wrong. The theory probably is wrong, but not being able to think of a mechanism isn’t a logical argument.
This mechanism would fit:
The R0 for the virus is estimated at 2 or 3. What if 80 or 90% of the population has a pre-existing immunity and the R0 among susceptible people is very high. For example, if you surround an infected person with non-susceptible people, 0 would become infected but if you surround an infected person with susceptible people 20 or 30 would get it. The R0 value in a mixed sample of 90% non-susceptible and 10% susceptible would be 0.9 * 0 + 0.1 * (20 or 30) = 2 or 3. If 90% of the population have natural immunity and 10% are highly susceptible then that would explain an R0 of 2 or 3 and also would explain the infection rate levelling off as the prof says.
I’m not saying that’s the case. I’m just presenting a mechanism that would explain what the prof says. I suspect that there is a natural immunity but it’s in the people’s environment not their immune system. New York has been badly affected but California hardly at all. That could be caused by population density, subways, climate: I don’t know.
I don’t think we have enough information about this virus yet. I would like to see a lot more antibody testing.
142
Another explanation that would fit with what the prof says is that a lot of people get the virus without even knowing it. A levelling off could be due to the population approaching herd immunity even though only a few people have shown symptoms. Please see this study showing 1/3 of a sample had antibodies without any symptoms: https://www.foxnews.com/science/third-blood-samples-massachusetts-study-coronavirus. This study showed about 3% of a Santa Clara sample had antibodies in early April, about 50 times more than suspected: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01095-0
This article indicates Santa Clara had 50 deaths from 1,094 confirmed cases (a death rate of about 5%, terrible) but the antibody tests indicates the actual number of cases was 50,000 to 80,000 giving a death rate of about 0.1%. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/17/antibody-study-suggests-coronavirus-is-far-more-widespread-than-previously-thought
I think that the we’ve panicked over a death rate that was way overestimated due to not counting all the asymptomatic cases.
102
That Stanford study selected it’s test subjects based on replies from individuals on Facebook.
That excludes 99% of people commenting here as almost all of us refuse to use Facebook.
So not a random sample
Big bad by Stanford IMO
36
Carl, the only mechanism for the 6-8 week decline would be herd immunity. Sorry if I did not say what was banal (for anyone who has studied microbiology).
We have already discounted this (but evidently I need to post more).
Austria and Iceland have done mass random testing and found 1% max of pop has been exposed.
All the studies showing more than this are small, non random clusters, or use experimental unproven antibody tests, or in the case of Santa Clara, CA, may be reliable but show 1-2% max infections on a non-random sample of a city with low co-morbidies and a high frequent flyer mileage. I think this is an upper limit.
Outbreaks like Smithton pork factory show there is no herd immunity. As RickWill points out these cluster outbreaks spread as though no one has had this virus.
I am eager and keen for any evidence showing mass asymptomatic infection. I was the one pointing out this would save us in my earliest posts in February. I reluctantly gave up suggesting they might exist when there was simply no good evidence they did.
Look at China — they are not stupid, and they know this virus better than anyone. Right now their behaviour in closing borders is exactly as if they assume 99% of their population is still at risk of catching it.
83
(How does he think this works? Telepathy?)
Quorum sensing: Lets face it, we have only had the last ten years of action packed science to draw upon with respect to actually being able to see and measure/analyse how viruses and bacteria behave at a social molecular level among themselves…hardly banal.
From: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01880-6
NEWS FEATURE 18 June 2019
“The secret social lives of viruses”
Scientists are listening in on the ways viruses communicate and cooperate. Decoding what the microbes are saying could be a boon to human health.
Elie Dolgin
Elie Dolgin is a science journalist in Somerville, Massachusetts.
“Geneticist Rotem Sorek could see that his bacteria were sick — so far, so good. He had deliberately infected them with a virus to test whether each ailing microbe soldiered on alone or communicated with its allies to fight the attack.”
“But when he and his team at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, looked into the contents of their flasks, they saw something completely unexpected: the bacteria were silent, and it was the viruses that were chattering away, passing notes to each other in a molecular language only they could understand. They were deciding together when to lie low in the host cell and when to replicate and burst out, in search of new victims.” ……..
30
typo: *
20
Or are there variants of the virus randomly distributed?
41
I think that the possibility that you mention has been dismissed as “magic”.
Declaring such a thing to be “magic” is in my view , an inadequate falsification.
But perhaps “magic ” refers to one of the other possible explanations that must be falsified.
I don’t know.
42
The Israeli professor’s study is stupid
And Jo explain’s why it is stupid very clearly
Maybe you missed that part of the post ?
Go back & read again please.
Why ?
Because you are asking Jo to put forward
A ‘mechanism’ to explain something which
Does NOT exist
Big Sigh…
🙁
57
I wasn’t asking Jo to provide a mechanism. I was saying that just because Jo can’t see a mechanism doesn’t disprove the Israeli professor’s theory. Jo sarcasticly said that the professor’s theory relies on “magic or somtheing”. I’m trying to point out that we can’t dismiss a theory just because we can’t at present see the mechaism that explains it. I’m not saying the prof is right either. I just don’t like Jo’s argument by sarcasm. Jo went on to present some facts and figures to refute the prof and I appreciate that. I still think we don’t have enough info and I’m waiting for more info.
32
We’ll all see what happens in actuality !
But doing zip because an Israeli professor thinks he has a magic key to understanding this virus, is the road to mass death.
Heck even the Israeli government has ignored this prof
And done a pretty severe lock down.
If he cannot persuade his own countrymen
Why should we pay any notice.
But you take this prof at his word and invent a ‘mechanism’
Huhh ?
21
While I agree things are more complicated than this simple analysis by Ben Insrael,I think not displaying a graph from Sweden, one of the few contrary approach cases we havedoes a great disservice to your post.
By all accounts deaths in Sweden are trending down for more than a week. Ignoring that does not encourage confidence in your objectivity or analysis
183
Sweden, no lockdown, is doing far better than the UK, in lockdown, which is now the worst in the world and deteriorating.
The reference to Germany in this piece is flat wrong.
102
Sweden is doing better than New York as well.
Unbelievably the UK still have their airports going with no checking going on.
81
The UK is a disaster. Given the desription of the retirement homes and the lack of PPE, the penetration of covid into retirement homes, there are a large number of deaths to come. Its going to be horrible
52
Swedenis doing badly. Mortality rate is greater thsn 10%. That means that not many tests being done relative to old people dying.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden/
The claim is that Swedes can be trusted to self-isolate when they are symptomatic. Suppose that means the average fit young Swede doesn’t need to bother with a test when they catch the covid flue. Just stay at home and such. Maybe it actuslly different to that? I don’t know.
The new Somali immigrants are claimed to not having the Swedish habit of staying home when showing symptoms. This reflects in a high Somali representation in the death (and infection?) statistics.
Yet those dying with covid19 are overwhelmingly old people. That means that old Swedes are getting infected and dying. Assuming the elderly are better isolated in Sweden than other places. Do they lived in assisted independent apartments rather than group homes. Again I don’t know Sweden.
Am struck by the shark tooth pattern, waves of infection surges. Does this represent innoculation events of isolated clusters. Really need to know the details of who and where is getting infected/dying to understand this
44
of course the criticism of the Swedish approach to the epidemic is that asymtopic transmission occurs and that full isolation of symptomatic transmission is insufficient
32
The shark tooth pattern in Sweden — is that public servants on weekends not reporting or testing as many cases?
Just asking…
70
Honestly have no idea. Maybe an artefact but it is also death tracking after infection reports.It is strangely regular. There is probably a reason for it. Here is a National post article giving some details about sweden. https://nationalpost.com/opinion/chris-selley-canadians-should-wish-sweden-well-in-its-no-lockdown-approach-to-covid-19?video_autoplay=true
checking the pandemic wiki on sweden now. Maybe there is more useful stuff there
11
Sorry, this article is more specific https://nationalpost.com/opinion/colby-cosh-swedens-state-epidemiologist-anders-tegnell-can-explain-all-the-covid-19-deaths
21
From the wiki… “In Stockholm, the city most affected by the pandemic, half of the deaths had been residents in one of its many nursing homes.[36] The Health Agency saw the spread at the homes as their biggest concern as of then, but “not as a failure of our overall strategy, but as a failure of our way to protect the elderly”.[37][38]. The situation led to the Health and Social Care Inspectorate to begin carrying out controls at the homes”
There is a lot of information there https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in_Sweden
going back to reading it
21
2.4 m people in Stockholm region. This from the wiki …
( google translation)
from https://www.svt.se/nyheter/vetenskap/tegnell-mer-testning-skulle-skydda-aldre-battre
21
Just wow! Sweden gets more and more interesting
20
with 2.4 m population it would be 120k-240k predicted infections for Stockholm region. Wiki says 5,651 tested infections by April 17 or a bit less
5% of Stockholm population = 120k people
25% being 65+ years of 120k people = 30k elderly people
10% mortality in 30k elderly people = 3,000 deaths
897 viral deaths reported in Stockholm region
00
Here are the REAL figures for Sweden
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden/
Your statement is NOT supported by the evidence.
Stop spreading fakes ‘news’
311
Wow,Bill.
That got them going.
How can you get five reddies for putting up the facts?
Not one of them mounts the case to support their red thumb.
They’re a waste of space. Argue your case you miserable sods.
24
S S I think we lurker trolls on the blog.
Their aim is simply to distract and confuse.
Not to present a science based alternative view !
Big Sigh.
🙁
21
The downvotes are for your lack of posting anything but a link and your strong statements of fact without any support.
worldometers.info is actually quite wrong here….
Look at their chart for daily new deaths…
14th April:114 new deaths
15th April:170 new deaths
16th April: 130 new deaths.
Now look at their claimed surce
https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/09f821667ce64bf7be6f9f87457ed9aa
You will need to switch the time series graph to deaths per day… In swedish
Tidsserie: Time series
Avlidna: deaths
Dag: days
When you look at the deaths per day according to the source used by worldometer you get
14th April:60 new deaths
15th April:56 new deaths
16th April: 61 new deaths
So your claimed facts are in fact the fake news you decry.
Do more research before you accuse others and don’t whine when you get downvoted for posting rubbish posts
41
Lurking & distracting some more aren’t you….
What you claim is different between the two sites is just
A result of them two sites being managed in different time zones
One is in the USA
One is in Sweden.
12
Wow… I had tried to deal with you with an actual argument, but your reply makes it clear you are a weapons grade idiot.
There is simply zero possibility that your statement is correct because and it is glaringly obvious to anyone with a basic understanding of timezones and math.
Let me spell it out for you, troll. A timezone difference cannot account for the incredible difference in figures. As I provided a series of 3 days it is clear. Take any 24 hour period around the 15th April, and at worst, considering any timezone difference, it can only include one days total before or one days total after… 117 deaths maximum… this is far below the worldometer stat.
Go back to your cave and hide in fear. Leave the rational discussion to the adults.
31
Craig Sweden deserves a whole post. I did check the graph before I posted and pondered adding it, but decided at 1am I had to draw the line. The latest stats from Sweden show (as I mentioned) that there is no significant decline there yet. And Sweden has a weekend reporting effect where numbers drop on the weekend.
61
Thanks Jo.
It definitely isn’t a sharp drop, but it is still significant (> 20%), and the shark tooth pattern is weird. That is why I have appreciated the wiki period entry, as they added a 7d moving average that smooths it out.
I’d say that the drop in daily deaths is quite positive, as it is not an exponential increase. No forced lockdowns make it a fairly unique subject to review when evaluating how the virus behaves without the economically destructive forced lockdowns pretty much everywhere else (Labelling them as economically destructive is not to prejudge, just properly identify the full outcomes of such policies)
Thanks for the reply
20
I’ve been peeking at this site.
https://epidemic-stats.com/coronavirus/sweden
There’s flags down the bottom you can quickly flip from country to country. If you look at Infections per head of population you get this:
Sweden: 1369/million
Denmark: 1250/million
Norway: 1304/million
Germany: 1715/million
See that? Not a whole lot of difference in all cases. Infections appear to spread in much the same way regardless of lockdown or what have you. It’s almost like people can still wash their hands even without guns pointed at their heads. Who knew?
However, if you look at Deaths in each of those countries, what you see is an infected person in Sweden is more likely to die than an infected person in any other of those countries. That’s difficult to explain by any “lockdown” don’t you think?
It’s also difficult to imagine there is such a big difference in the overall quality of healthcare across that lot … therefore something else must be influencing the lethality of the virus (NOT the infectiousness). Yes I know there’s a lag and the curves are not exactly the same shape. People in Germany appear to get sick and recover much more quickly than people anywhere else. Could be it’s measured differently.
101
“Putting America Back To Work”
https://realclimatescience.com/2020/04/putting-america-back-to-work/
“The key to getting people back to work is going to be managing fear. I am going to be doing a series of blog posts and videos discussing how to help our president bring America back from mass panic.”
61
More magical thinking.
As if “controlling fear” controls the virus.
Like voodoo…
Where is the evidence that panic is killing more people than the virus? I see hyped claims with doommongering about suicides and depression often by people who say the viral scaremongers are causing hysteria.
This is not directed at Anther Ian. And is not to say that there is not a large cost to lockdowns, or that there will not be deaths attributable to recession, depression, loss of business, marriage breakdowns. Let’s discuss the costs. (Though can I suggest there is even less data on that than there is on the virus).
Let’s restate the simple truth — best way to save the economy is to get rid of the virus. First things first.
Save lives, save livelihoods, protect freedom, stop big Gov — all roads lead to Coronavirus. Just get rid of it.
84
Is there any evidence this virus is a chimera?
If so, I thought such work was banned in most contries?
30
https://www.sciencealert.com/genome-analysis-of-the-coronavirus-suggests-two-viruses-may-have-combined
Is it also possible it was “assisted” to become s chimera?
“In addition, these genomic comparisons suggest that the SARS-Cov-2 virus is the result of a recombination between two different viruses, one close to RaTG13 and the other closer to the pangolin virus. In other words, it is a chimera between two pre-existing viruses.
“This recombination mechanism had already been described in coronaviruses, in particular to explain the origin of SARS-CoV. It is important to know that recombination results in a new virus potentially capable of infecting a new host species.
“For recombination to occur, the two divergent viruses must have infected the same organism simultaneously.
“Two questions remain unanswered: in which organism did this recombination occur? (a bat, a pangolin or another species?) And above all, under what conditions did this recombination take place?
30
Answer:
Under laboratory conditions in the P4 Biolab just down the road, a step or two, from the wet market in Wuhan.
60
“Bring out your dead! Bring out your de—“
“I’m not dead yet.”
T-H-W-A-C-K ! ! !
The amazing powers of numerology,
or was it just a hockey stick . . .
162
… that settles that science.
42
“Wuhan Flu: Lung Disease Or Blood Disease?”
Links to new Lancet paper
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/index.php/2020/04/18/wuhan-flu-lung-disease-or-blood-disease/
40
And comment at
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/index.php/2020/04/18/wuhan-flu-lung-disease-or-blood-disease/#comment-1308871
40
Most importantly, the main aim of the exercise is not to overwhelm the health system and of course to save lives. It would be unsightly and show a failure of leadership to do otherwise.
‘It is the secret NSW Health modelling that convinced Premier Gladys Berejiklian to forge ahead with tough lockdown measures or face thousands being infected with a rapidly-spreading virus.’ Daily Telegraph
43
why is it always “secret”? Makes me rightly suspicious….
81
It’s secret because the NSW Health Department and the NSW Premier does not want to be known for taking advice from http://joannenova.com.au/ and those who comment on her website.
20
The NSW premier was reading here on Jo’s blog
🙂
And Jo doe snot use models – just Arithmetic !
Daily Telegraph beat up !
24
If we’re in, as they say, a “war”, then war rules should apply. In other words, apply triage. Those individuals who are likely not to come out for the better, or are going to cost too much to save, should be an acceptable loss for the greater good — which we’re ALL having to endure, and will have to, for the next several decades.
22
Ummm, you are brave to write this.
But I suspect that some others here think the same.
All the same this is politically ‘crap’ thinking. – POISON !
Why ?
1 . : Any polly silly enough to even voice this strategy
Will see his career in politics die in the very near future.
2: Most civilised nations at war do not do triage any more.
Egs. The USA, UK, France, Australia, Germany, Italy.
Their commitment is to save every possible soldier’s life.
War now happens with us al watching.
So your beloved triage got shoved down the dunny.
22
And
3: this amounts to a strategy of planned murder of the elderly and more vulnerable.
Since when was such a strategy good science or humane ?
22
1. Treasury officials, who want to get the “old age pension” under control might well give it consideration.
2. Greenies, who believe that there are far too many people on the planet might give it consideration.
3. Where there’s a Will there’s a way.
41
Have you never heard of “collateral Damage”…
…an unplanned , but accepted inevitable consequence of many military actions.
30
At what cost? My father served in the Korean War so he knows something about war. Those who used to die, now are “saved” to be returned home to a life spent on unimaginable pain, suffering, struggles, and loss — both for them and their families who have to care for them (think the Wounded Warriors Project, an admirable non-profit, who feature many individuals with traumatic brain injuries.) Having to deal with the turmoil of a spouse who’s brain is now a vegetable, who will be absolutely dependent on them for all their care, is absolutely reprehensible. They should be allowed to die so that the grieving process can be undertaken quickly and life can go on.
Is life for mere life’s sake sacrosanct and immutable? Why do we fear dying so much? Why are we willing to do ANYTHING to save certain chronically ill old people while at the same time being eager to kill the unborn through abortion?
31
Better take that up with you own USA military and the US DefenCe Dpt.
I’m sure you will get the response you deserve
🙂
Meanwhile best not to contaminate this Australian based science blog
With such inhuman junk thinking.
01
Here comes the next phase, at least in the US. Not sure if his opinions apply here as well but I suspect they do given we cherish our freedoms as much as the next guy, although there will be a difference in timing due to the differences in our cultures and histories.
Coronavirus: It Begins
30
The USA is a very diverse nation.
This video reflects that tiny portion which are completely ‘contrarian’
Ohhh Well!
If it happens that this element dominates in the debate about what to do about this pandemic
We will see a massive surge of illness and deaths.
Unlike here in Oz where the eliminate strategy is working.
I wonder if Trump realises that he is queering his chances of being re-elected
By setting things up for another wave of sickness & death
Closer to the November elections ?
And the Democrats will be cheering him on every step of that road !
That’s what happens when we politicise a major health issue
Like a pandemic infectious disease.
18
Looking at Asia, the good, the bad and the ugly.
https://thediplomat.com/2020/04/covid-19-in-asia-a-country-by-country-guide/
21
I’m glad to see this report E G
But it is from the 14th of April – 5 days ago.
And the situation on the ground is changing fast.
Also the views of Duterte & the pandemic in
the Philippines are coloured by our Western values.
His strong man approach is unpleasant to our eyes.
But accepted as necessary by most local Filipinos.
However I doubt that the Philippines can destroy this virus
As we are doing here in Australia and New Zealand.
32
“Flu deaths in the US in 2017-18: 61,099 (CDC). Manhattan Contrarian Francis Menton takes it from there:”
http://catallaxyfiles.com/2020/04/19/wait-a-minute/
72
The commentary is pointless. The author argues against himself.
With regard to the expert dingbat suggesting it is no worse than the 2017-18 flue season with 61099 deaths – in the first 14 days of April 2020 there has been 25,761 CV19 deaths in USA; annualised gives 669,786. This is as the death toll has levelled off following the most draconian loss of individual freedom in US history.
It is quite clear that without very tight restrictions on interpersonal contact the US would lose millions to CV19. Anyone who does not get that is a dingbat 1st class.
The current IHME projection of 60,308 deaths in USA is based on existing trajectory due to existing controls. The actual result could be significantly higher after States release the reigns. The US is a long way from crushing the virus so it will be in the community for a long while yet.
It is becoming evident that some people cannot comprehend cause and effect. They see the death toll projections being reduced to low numbers and believe that there was no real problem. How silly is that. They do not make the connection that the government imposed isolation of people from each other was the cause of dramatically reduced death toll.
78
“imposed isolation of people from each other was the cause of dramatically reduced death toll.”.
Because every other possible cause of the “dramatically” reduced death toll has been comprehensively falsified?
Dramatically reduced from what?
Some unvalidated and totally totally over -dramatised unrealistic projections.
83
The 2.2M originally predicted without any controls. The US would be in chaos now without the stay at home orders in place.
The reason for the death toll being lower than the original prediction is because that prediction encouraged authorities to take decisive action.
Taiwan was exposed to the virus earlier than other nations apart from China. It took decisive action early. Death toll 6 people or 0.3 deaths /M
Italy was slow to to take decisive action and it has lost 23,227 or 384 deaths/M. A thousand times worse than Taiwan. Italy had to impose draconian actions to arrest the rise in death toll.
It is blindingly obvious to any person with basic comprehension ability to appreciate that delayed action cost many lives. No action would create chaos with the death toll taking out essential services and supplies. People would be frantically hoarding to lock themselves away from others for months. We saw the panic buying before lockdowns were instituted.
78
Are you saying that the 80,000 deaths in NZ that the P.M. cited , as justification for the government’s actions, was not an overly- unrealistic dramatised projection?
53
Rick,… you have just verified Fb’s point.
The original prediction was just that !..a prediction based on somebodies model with unknown variables…but inevitably using a unrestricted exponential factor !
We will NEVER know what the result might have been without those lockdown restrictions !
You are all too quick to accept the consensus explanation and dismiss some of the less obvious possibilities…..because they may appear to be “magic” ..
…not a very scientific attitude !
43
Because the alternative
Was let ’em all die
While you work it all out
Bah !
22
Chad, farmerbraun, forgoodnesssake, the large predictions are just arithmetic based on textbook biology describing what would happen if we did nothing to prevent the spread. We then did a huge lot to prevent that.
When will people stop misrepresenting this as a model failure? It’s a form of extreme, repetitive cherrypicking. It’s almost as if some people deny biology?
Find me one nation on Earth where there is no social isolation and the virus is “like the flu”.
64
Jo,.. sorry but isnt a prediction. that is …
.. “arithmetic based on textbook biology describing what would happen if we did nothing to prevent the spread.”…
….just a simple model estimating what MAY happen with no intervention.and based on some other prior situation. ?
in other words ..nothing more than a SWAG !
everyone with a little experience knows that pure arithmetic exponential excursions are only theoretical,.. in a real life situation there are always constraints that modify the event and limit the outcome to some extent
In a case such as this infection spread, the obvious constraint would be the population limit, but there are bound to be others, such as immunity factors, temperature sensitivity , etc etc most of which are unknown and uncontrollable. We do not even know why many are asymptomatic , whilst to otheres it is a fatal desease !!
just because we have applied some constraints of our own making , they wont be the only factors at play
as someone stated earlier, even now, it is still too early in the event to predict the outcomes, and back in February is was certainly impossible to “predict” with any certainty what may be unfolding
34
If we pedantically accept that X x Y = Z is a model. Then we can describe any number after an = sign as a model. Conversation seems a bit pointless but OK. Let’s drop all equations.
Let’s describe this without any numbers at all. I said a lot of people will die because a new virus with a significant death rate is spreading in a population with no immunity. I therefore predicted we would avoid big numbers of deaths with behaviour changes, but this would cause pandemonium. I provided caveats: deaths might not be major in the West if Asian genes were more at risk, if summer helped, or dietry factors mattered. By the time the virus hit Iran and Italy I didn’t need caveats as it was obvious it was coming.
I also predicted ICU’s would be overwhelmed, and our civil society, our doctors and nurses, would be appalled that people were dying because we didn’t have enough equipment, enough drugs, and that societies would not accept that. This turned out to be exactly what happened. Some countries were just slower to learn than others.
I was correct on all these but profess no supernatural skill or genius.
Basically, this virus is so awful, we don’t need modelling. It is so far beyond the pale, it was never a question of needing statistics or estimates of anything much. Indeed I only needed knowledge of basic virology, past pandemics, and to watch the Twitter feed from China from Jan 23 – 29.
” back in February is was certainly impossible to “predict”
.. and yet I did.
62
Chad, pleas explain all this
To the relatives of the Chinese, Iranian, Italian , Spanish,
British, Swedish, American and now Turkish dead.
If you are lucky thee will not king hit you.
42
Precisely…..there is no need to pedantically subscribe to any theory…so much to not be pedantic about, and so many arm-chair theories.
10
When you start calling people dingbats you have lost all credibility
23
Nonsense, Gary.
It’s a beautifully descriptive and accurate term for CCP trolls and their Sinophile comrades.
Start thinking for yourself. Reject your PC brainwashing.
Of course the the expert suggesting the Wuhan virus is no worse than the 2017-18 flue season is a dingbat (a nitwit or a kook). Not only is he a dingbat, but he’s wrong.
Just annualize the figures. Then compare them.
31
Yeah simply put, this is a manufactured war through what appears to be via a manufactured bug.
UNFCCC Executive Secretary, Christiana Figueres
“A complete transformation of the *economic* structure of the world.”
OK then…..
Assuming for a moment the N W O lads use war as a main tool to re-make society in their own sick image, then unless we are vigilant and call them out on every demented attempt to distort the West into the authoritarian basket case of the CCPs China, then they will change the West into China-lite.
When a population is traumatized, a suggestion can be implanted, then when the trauma recedes, the suggestion is embedded. Its called Trauma Based Mind Control.
As such, watch for the push to turn us all into obedient social distancing serfs ( I hate that phrase , its naff ) who on command will carry the new China-lite rules.
They have backed off with the monitoring software, as enough people have told them to go jump.
102
Ohh Dear Steve
Please stay on topic…
013
Did i hit a nrve?
30
The new active cases in Singapore is being used as a policy indicator to keep Aussies in lockdown with the acceleration that started over a week ago as an excuse to make us fearful of opening the economy and risking the boogie man second wave. You showed the active cases but what I find more fascinating is the deaths. They have moved slightly from 8 to 11 and whilst I know deaths are a trailing indicator it is too early to interpret the increase in active cases as a second wave problem. In fact what it may show is that things can be opened up now because we have processes in place to manage the progress of active cases and the ability to track cases. After all whilst active cases is interesting the bottom line of deaths is the only thing that matters. Indeed from what your saying the easing of measures included opening up borders for foreigners measures far more ambitious than anything contemplated here. If governments including ours led by Scott Morrison wish to use Singapore as a reason to keep us locked up the data may in fact prove the exact opposite and show that yes we can open things up because it now can be managed.We should know in a week or two. If the deaths remain relatively low in total one could conclude that opening things is ok even if it increases the number of active cases. Further if the new cases are traceable back to the influx of people from overseas we can rest assured that the relatively minor and staged recovery process contemplated here will barely move the dial.
82
Singapore took strong measures early in January
And got control of the spread of this virus & disease.
But in late March under pressure to open the economy again
It permitted some thousands of casual cheap rate workers
( From Indonesia, Bangladesh & India )
To enter the country with adequate screening for the virus.
Effectively it imported the disease again.
And so it spread again among the people of Singapore.
Not very clever !
And an object lesson for Australia & New Zealand !
Now, here is the real data about this disease on Singapore
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/singapore/
Your opinions do not seem to be based on the evidence.
Nor do you provide any link substantiating your opinion with other evidence
🙂
35
C’mon Zigmaster, you are better than this.
Show me how the foreign workers with 90% of Singapores infections are fat old guys likely to die, but not dying and I’ll consider Singapore evidence that the virus is not so deadly.
Deaths is not what matters in this post. Daily new cases is. We know in Western populations this has a dreadful toll. We also expect that in young fit foreign workers the toll will be a lot lower. We also know that in countries with advanced ICU’s that are not out-of-control, docs can save many of the worst ICU young cases.
This post is about infectivity, not death tolls. Singapore proves there is no magic 6 – 8 week fixed timetable. Merely that this virus spreads with the same rules that all known viruses use and is affected by 20 factors that I listed in the post, not 1 numerology factor which is irrelevant.
71
Great post.
77
It’s ok for you to say that, you and your herd of Peter Fitzroy’s. You are unfairly achieving herd immunity due to your numerous clones!
43
I wonder who gives the cool green diamond Peter Fitzroy a red thumb? Maybe it was a dithering mouse aiming for a green thumb.
44
I have subjectively counted over 100 Peter Fitzroy clones affording Peter a phenomenal herd immunity from red thumbs. Was the original Peter Fitzroy from Sweden?? He seems to have herd immunity down to a fine art. Brilliant really.
52
Comment by Scott at #21 has been moved to the unthreaded.
50
Now for something different,go to —nomorefakenews.com — 950 AD Viking sailing ships return to port;violation of social distancing. by Jon Rappoport,it made me laugh while having my morning coffee
22
Why ignore the x-axis label, Jo? Singapore’s increase is no different than any other nation’s case load.
We don’t have any good indication of how prevalent Covid-19 is in the general public given (a) a general lack of quality testing (b) few empirical studies and (c) the preponderance for mild to asymptomatic infections amongst most people. Are some people highly susceptible? Absolutely. Old age brings with it a host of chronic illnesses. Are some younger people also susceptible? Absolutely. Genetic predisposition, lifestyle choices like smoking or vaping etc. can all lead to an unfortunate outcome for some individuals. But infection with Covid-19 does NOT translate into a foregone conclusion of a death sentence. I see far too much rhetoric from all sources that give that false imagery in the public’s collective hive mind.
What cost will shutting down the global economy, destroying small and medium businesses, spiking unemployment, a global recession (perhaps depression?) and ruinous monetary policy by central banks play into increasing rates of spousal abuse, alcoholism, drug overdoses, depression, economic dependency on government, etc. on overall mortality rates? What price do we put on achieving herd immunity vs. saving highly susceptible chronically ill people? Which is the more moral choice?
124
According to the Daily Mail smokers are under represented in the Corona virus deaths , and cite two studies one from China the other from the US saying or “suggesting” the virus doesn’t seem to like us smokers .
No link but was just mentioned on Outsiders .
30
H.B Schmidt. I didn’t ignore the x axis. I’ve been watching Singapore since late Jan. They’ve had rises and falls that came and went and are reduced to nothing on the current graph because the y-axis scale is not log.
All the rises and falls in Singapore are easily explained by factors already known to microbiology )but not to Ben-Israel.
Ben-Israel is just ignorant of stuff medical students learn in first year. He has proposed a hypothesis that’s unneccesary, has no mechanism known to science, and was refuted before he even posted it. It has no predictive value.
See the graphs of Singapore in February. Look at how much work they did then in cluster hunting to slow this. That’s how this virus is controlled.
They have stuffed up (surprising) by not enforcing a two week quarantine on new arrivals in late March and April.
80
Computer models show 5 or 10 celsius rise. You say ridiculous.
A computer model in England shows 500,000 dead in UK and 2,000,000 in US. You say shut the country down.
I don’t get it. Dave is the engineer computer programmer type. What does he say?
122
In engineering process terms the “Models” used in Climate Change Science ™ and Corona Virus Crisis 19 ™ are a Joke.
In metallurgical and chemical engineering processes the use of true models is extraordinarily useful and allows great confidence in changes to production volume etc being accommodated.
In the area of CC and CV19 the so called modeling is guesswork based on personal opinion and is simply a way of dressing up political media pronouncements.
KK
170
I agree. I have zero faith in the climate models and the Covid models.
David Evans is into numbers, maths and computers. I’m curious about his opinion on the covid models.
70
You’ll be shocked to know Dr David Evans and I discuss the Coronavirus issue every day. 😉 He agrees with me. Covid modeling is irrelevant. Though he plays pedant and points out that even arithmetic is a form of mental model, which is technically true, but not what Carl is referring to.
It is trite in the extreme to equate 1-million-line Climate models with 100 assumptions to an arithmetic Covid Equation which is “fatality rate x infectable bodies = deaths”.
I work only from first principles of biology, backed by supporting observations from the front line. Using these simple tools I have correctly predicted in advance that this virus would cause pandemonium, and that all democratic governments would end up having to have major domestic isolation measures because they stupidly did not take the cheap option of closing international borders fast enough, as I recommended, correctly, from Feb 9th.
111
You have been remarkably accurate in it all. Much of what you claim also aligns with the advice of the majority of epidemiologists.
They say the models are poor at best, which is hardly surprising given that the pathway of transmission is specific to locality.. Ships, meatpackers, long term care residences, hospitals, human behavior are different submodels. Each needs its own mathematical description. Each linkage between clusters is unique. This pandemic may not be realistically modeled for a decade to come. It is that complicated
Now for the big question. Pretty much every epidemiologist warns not to let up on social distancing at most probable likelihood of causing seconday waves of outbreak. Pretty much every politician is ready to ease up on the lockdown. Its already happening and will turn into a global avalanche in days to weeks
Will a new outbreak of covid19 occur. How soon and in how many places … and how will governments and populace react to this resurgence.
If covid19 is seasonal it might fade away but the epidemiologists are ‘feeling’ that isnt going to happen here.
Place your bets. Trump is gambling re-election on the answer to the question
34
Will state it simply:
The models say the covid19 pandemic is subsiding. The infections are declining locally everywhere at a global scale. Worst case is that it is seasonal and the seasons are changing. The world can go back to normal
The epidemiologist who traces the path of infection (not models) sort knows that the pandemic is growing, staved off only by strong lockdown. This is a deep seated feeling rooted in being aware of how the virus transfers from individual to individual
Which is the appropriate perspective? Model or epidemological detail
23
Even the epidemologists admit that their models are unrealistic.
Really need to see where the infections are occuring combined with the path of transmission. Without such specific knowledge the numbers are quite meaningless
72
That’s because engineers cheat: they validate their models in the lab. Whoever heard of a Climate Scientist validating a model?
Covid-19? Everybody’s an expert right down to Grandma’s cat.
61
I think people have missed the joke.
🙂
20
What COVID models Keith.
Jo does not have any.
06
If I wanted to read the content of your posts I would just go ” over ” to WUWT to get it first-hand.
22
Bill you keep parroting this comment, and jo denies using “models” for Covid 19..
But jus up the thread Jo posted this….
.. Trite , is one description, but since part of that “Arithmetic Equation”,.. is not a known figure, ( fatality rate), but just a variable input its effectively a simple “model” that can output different answers depending on what festimate for Fatality rate is applied.
00
As an example, the only true model linking Earth’s atmospheric temperature and CO2 levels is to be found in the polar ice cores.
Over the last half million years there have been 4 major glaciations and recovery to an interglacial such as our current situation. In these graphs it it seen in close up analysis that temperature drives CO2 levels in the atmosphere and that CO2 varies in response, but with roughly an 800 year delay. The graph of temperature vs time in each of the four cycles could be used as a templet for the others and possibly the next one, if it occurs. Milankcovic has given a very plausible assessment of the orbital mechanics that likely drives the cycles but as can be seen from graphs extending back many millions of years, this sequence could stop sometime.
Models must always be based on observed practical reality, not on hypothetical posturing.
KK
50
Countries with more than 500 cases, and higher than 2.5% died:
% Died | Country | Active cases | New Cases
14.67 … Belgium … 23,382 … 1,045
14.48 … Algeria … 1,273 … 116
13.54 … UK … 98,409 … 5,525
13.20 … Italy … 107,771 … 3,491
12.73 … France … 96,487 … 3,824
11.40 … Netherlands … 27,738 … 1,140
10.93 … Sweden … 11,761 … 606
10.62 … Spain … 98,980 … 3,577
10.07 … Honduras … 401 … 15
9.38 … Hungary … 1,431 … 71
8.57 … San Marino … 356 … 20
8.56 … Indonesia … 5,082 … 325
8.14 … DRC … 256 … 20
7.94 … Mexico … 4,204 … 578
7.39 … Egypt … 2,107 … 188
6.52 … Philippines … 5,174 … 209
6.43 … Brazil … 20,335 … 3,040
6.29 … Bolivia … 431 … 28
6.22 … Iran … 19,850 … 1,374
5.60 … China … 1,058 … 27
5.42 … Iraq … 478 … 31
5.32 … Slovenia … 1,057 … 13
5.28 … USA … 631,509 … 29,057
5.10 … Morocco … 2,234 … 121
5.05 … Ecuador … 7,558 … 572
5.01 … Dominican Rep … 3,806 … 209
5.00 … Romania … 6,267 … 351
4.99 … Switzerland … 8,936 … 326
4.97 … Andorra … 464 … 8
4.92 … Greece … 1,856 … 11
4.78 … Denmark … 3,049 … 169
4.67 … Bulgaria … 684 … 32
4.65 … Argentina … 2,022 … 170 (no, did not shut it down)
4.58 … Colombia … 2,764 … 182
4.40 … Canada … 20,706 … 1,456
4.34 … Channel Islands … 390 … 14
4.27 … Tunisia … 786 … 2
4.19 … N Macedonia … 957 … 53
4.13 … Cameroon … 670 … 21
3.97 … Poland … 7,414 … 363
3.92 … Bangladesh … 1,994 … 306
3.87 … Ireland … 14,110 … 778
3.71 … Bosnia Herz … 883 … 54
3.51 … Nigeria … 357 … 49
3.49 … Portugal … 18,388 … 663
3.31 … India … 12,738 … 1,370
3.25 … Cuba … 727 … 63
3.22 … Afghanistan … 791 … 27
3.16 … Germany … 53,786 … 2,327
3.13 … Lebanon … 552 … 4
3.02 … Austria … 4,014 … 76
2.97 … Niger … 507 … 12
2.76 … Panama … 3,972 … 194
2.74 … Czechia … 5,198 … 57
2.66 … Lithuania … 978 … 90
2.60 … Ukraine … 4,698 … 444
2.51 … Estonia … 1,312 … 53
—
Countries with more than 100 deaths, sorted by percent spread:
% New v Active | Country | Total Deaths | New Deaths
14.9 … Brazil … 2,361 … 220
14.3 … Russia … 313 … 40
13.7 … Mexico … 546 … 60
12.6 … Peru … 348 … 48
10.8 … Pakistan … 143 … 8
10.8 … India … 521 … 35
9.5 … Ukraine … 133 … 8
9.1 … Algeria … 367 … 3
8.9 … Egypt … 224 … 19
8.6 … Chile … 126 … 10
8.4 … Argentina … 132 … 9
7.6 … Ecuador … 456 … 35
7.0 … Canada … 1,470 … 160
6.9 … Iran … 5,031 … 73
6.6 … Colombia … 166 … 13
6.4 … Indonesia … 535 … 15
5.8 … Serbia … 117 … 7
5.7 … Japan … 222 … 32
5.6 … UK … 15,464 … 888
5.6 … Romania … 421 … 10
5.5 … Denmark … 346 … 10
5.5 … Ireland … 571 … 41
5.5 … Dominican Rep … 217 … 17
5.4 … Morocco … 137 … 2
5.4 … Turkey … 1,890 … 121
5.2 … Sweden … 1,511 … 111
5.0 … Hungary … 172 … 16
4.9 … Poland … 347 … 15
4.9 … Panama … 116 … 7
4.6 … USA … 39,014 … 1,867
4.5 … Belgium … 5,453 … 290
4.3 … Germany … 4,538 … 186
4.1 … Netherlands … 3,601 … 142
4.0 … Philippines … 397 … 10
4.0 … France … 19,323 … 642
3.6 … Switzerland … 1,368 … 41
3.6 … Spain … 20,639 … 637
3.6 … Portugal … 687 … 30
3.2 … Italy … 23,227 … 482
2.9 … Israel … 164 … 13
2.6 … China … 4,632 …
1.9 … Austria … 443 … 12
1.4 … Norway … 164 … 3
1.1 … Czechia … 181 … 8
0.7 … S. Korea … 232 … 2
0.6 … Greece … 110 … 2
—
% New v Active | Country | Total Deaths | New Deaths
2.3 … Australia … 70 … 5
% Died | Country | Active cases | New Cases
1.06 … Australia … 2,349 … 53
94
WXCycles
Re ” Argentina … 2,022 … 170 (no, did not shut it down)”
I have lived in Argentina a while. I have friends there still.
Buenos Aires with 15 million people has been in lock down with completely empty street since early March.
And cities elsewhere like Cordoba, La Plata, Rosario -ditto
The entire tango dancing sector in Argentina
( Yes I dance Argentine tango )
Closed down voluntarily in late February to stop this virus
After some Italian tourists spread the disease in the tango community.
It i true that in the remoter towns & provinces life is going on more or less as normal.
But in population terms this is a small proportion of Argentina’s people.
41
The comment was with respect to Argentina posting no new cases yesterday.
51
Thanks WXCycles
All good
21
Jo falls into the old trap. Infection > response > effect. Therefore effect MUST have been due to response. Uncontrolled study, therefore useless. Proves nothing..
106
Very, very stupid assertion.
As all the available evidence proves you wrong.
Best trot off and troll somewhere else
Where folks cannot see through your nonsense.
Or come back with actual evidence to support your opinion.
49
Not the point. Jo is looking for data that confirm her belief, and is unwilling to consider alternatives. That does not mean there are none.
Looking for a pattern that happens to correspond with your opinion is an elementary error.
35
Huhhh ?
All available evidence proves you wrong.
If you have no evidence to the contrary,
Your opinion is worthless.
That’s science.
12
Huhhh ?
All available evidence proves you wrong.
If you have no evidence to the contrary,
Your opinion is worthless.
That’s science.
21
“Looking for a pattern that happens to correspond with your opinion is an elementary error”
Yet there you are , making elementary errors from your preconceived ideas.
Go figure.
21
Just who & where would ever do
A ‘CONTROLLED” study of this infectious viral disease ?
It would NOT be permitted anywhere I know of except maybe North Korea & China
Why ? Ethical & legal reasons.
Big sigh ! 🙁
44
Taiwan provides the best reference for a control group. Earliest country outside China to have CV19 cases. Total deaths 6 or 0.3deaths/M.
No country has stood still in the face of the extraordinary death rate. However Italy provides a stark contrast with Taiwan; much later in implementing controls and more severe controls on interpersonal contact than Taiwan. Italy has recorded 23,227 deaths or 384deaths/M; a thousand times more than Taiwan. There is a huge cost in delaying action and some actions are far more effective than others.
If governments did not take action, countries would be in chaos. People would be taking their own action to isolate. They would be hoarding whatever they could to isolate themselves in their homes. Loss of essential workers, due to fear of exposure or death, would result in loss of essential services and supplies. Hoarding was already occurring before the lock downs were announced.
92
Damon, what old trap?
I test my predictions that after a serious lockdown or isolation measure (like closing shops or schools or flights) countries would see a stabilization of new daily cases reported 12 days later.
That prediction is borne out in many countries, and refuted by none.
http://joannenova.com.au/2020/04/ancient-technology-wins-quarantine-and-isolation-still-work/
42
In the absence of a matched control, you can’t possibly ‘test’ anything. All you’re doing is guessing.
52
Is Trolling a worthy profession Damian ?
I hope you earn well from it.
01
Damon, during a Black Swan event with no precedent and data systems failing and everything far out on normal curves isn’t it a bit unrealistic to expect good data?
We might all want those controlled studies, but we have to make decisions on what we got…
50
Jo, I “tips me hat” to you for allowing the likes of Damon to comment here.
Hopefully, if he (they) have an open mind they’ll learn.
But Sheez! Who’d be a teacher?
21
You actually have a quite good comparison. If social distancing, etc was all you claim, flu cases should be dramatically lower in 2020 than in 2019. Up to you.
00
“All you’re doing is guessing.”
And getting it correct.
Unlike you are. !
30
The person who attributed Australia’s low CFR to good luck is now mocking someone else’s study for unexplainable “magic” in timing of down turn of new cases…priceless!
46
Luck = geography, climate, season, younger patients i.e. textbook epidemiology.
Magic = new hypothesis with no mechanism known or even postulated and immediate refuting evidence available (see Singapore.)
Got nothing eh?
84
Just watching footage of what appears to be 100’s of ambulances lined up to drop of covid patients at a hospital in Moscow , reporter said up to a 9 hour wait .
61
Hopefully Gomer in Georgia might read that, RR.
10
Very effective too. I had thought Norway might be toast in late March, but they turned the numbers around quick. Impressive response by the population.
Norway
Cases = 7,036
New Cases = 99 (close to ending the spread as well)
Total deaths = 164
New Deaths = 3
Recovered = 32 (this is particularly low, taking a long time to recover)
Active = 6,840
Serious/Critical = 63 (doing better than Oz with similar total cases)
Daily Spread = 1.4%
Died = 2.33% (still pretty good)
Way better than most countries. They need recoveries now, but at least their hospitals still function and they should be in good shape again by mid-May. Good policy and an informed population where almost all voluntarily enact the policy is the key to a rapid turnaround, and the ability to repair fast to be ready for the onset of a ‘second-wave’.
112
In what way is Norway ….“way better than most countries “..?
Their cases per mill population is the same as Sweden and Denmark, and higher than Finland !
13
Ummm Chad, that opinion is not factually based
Norway is 30 deaths per million ( total of 165 )
Sweden is 150 deaths per million( Total of 1511 )
Source : https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries
Better luck next time old son !
41
Ahh ! but Bill,…..its not an opinion !
..its a fact !
Same source as yours.
The question is then,…with similar cases/million, why are the deaths/million so dramatically different ?
And why is finland so much better than even Norway for both cases/m and deaths/m ?
32
Why the lower death rate : Wikipedia says this about Norway:
“The Norwegian Directorate of Health introduced a number of measures from Thursday 12 March 2020:[26]
All educational institutions were closed and organized sports activities were to be discontinued.
A number of events and businesses were closed, including cultural events, sports events, gyms and swimming pools. All establishments in the hospitality industry such as bars, pubs and clubs other than those serving food were to close, and any establishment serving food would have to ensure that visitors could stay at least 1 meter apart.
Healthcare professionals working with patient care were prohibited from traveling abroad until 20 April 2020. The ban applied to both business travel and private travel.
Everyone who had returned from trips outside Norway since 27 February were to quarantine, regardless of whether they showed symptoms or not.
Leisure travel was strongly discouraged. The Directorate discouraged travelling to work unless strictly necessary and encouraged avoiding public transport if possible, as well as avoiding crowded places.
People were requested not to visit others in institutions with vulnerable groups (the elderly, psychiatry, prison etc.) and generally encouraged to limiting close contact with others.
The public transport schedule was to run as normal, to ensure that people with critical social functions could get to and from work and be able to distance themselves from each other.
On 16 March, non-residents were banned from entering Norway.[27]
As of 19 March, residents were prohibited from staying in cabins outside their home municipalities, in order to avoid putting strain on rural medical infrastructure. People suspected or confirmed to be infected must follow stricter home isolation rules. The government established fines for people violating home quarantine and home isolation rules or organizing events.[28]
In other words roughly the same as Australia which is also bring this foreign disease under control..
30
Bill, ..
….that would explain the low level of cases/mil population, but does not explain the difference in the death rate compared to the neighbouring Denmark, Sweden, which both have similar cases/ mil population ?
10
This is way better than most countries in Western Europe!
Given I was referring how effectively they’ve managed to avoid blowing up, and instead quickly limited the disease’s spread, it should have been easy to figure out they are in fact doing way better then most countries.
For some reason you can’t help but grasp at straws and bellyache with petty critiques — pathetic.
30
?? Exactly which metric are you stating as “better” ?..
Compared to its neighbours, Denmark and Sweden, The number of cases is very similar (Denmark is lower !), and Finland better still.
And how do you figure the Serious/Critical number (58), is better than Oz (49) ?
00
It is coming out now that the US NIH did a study in 2004/05 into the use of chloroquine for the inhibition and spread of SARS and showed it to be effective.
The paper published by Vincent, Bergerson, Benjannet et al is titled ” Chloroquine is a potent inhibitor of SARS infection and spread”
This study should not have been the end of the research. If it was, you do not have to be very bright to work out why it was not taken further.
Yet Dr Fauci who was working for the NIH then has just decided it might be an idea to do some studies even though the FDA has approved it’s use a couple of weeks ago. Fauci and others are just playing us.
I very much doubt a vaccine will be developed before the end of this year, at the earliest and then testing will take most of next year.
Will economies be held to ransom for that length of time?
80
Ross,
Watched this 10 minute vid on the subject this morning.
An interesting presentation about what they knew back in 2005, worth a look.
“BOMBSHELL-NIH KNEW ABOUT CHLOROQUINE”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=269&v=7hvkq-R1QGU&feature=emb_logo
50
Thanks Joseph.
A friend sent me a quick email this morning about it with the basics, but did not link the video.
20
Anthony S Fauci MD is a Democrat.
He loves Hillary.
https://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3826675/posts
Of course he’s playing youse.
10
Just watched Qanta Ahmed on ‘Outsiders.’ That is one impressive lady. Her highlighting of the prevalence of obesity among ICU patients in NY, hasn’t been remarked on often. She says obesity is dulling their immune system, and the ability to mount a fight back. Who knows, there wouldn’t be figures to put along side co-morbidities, and age groups? There aren’t too many obese making it into their 80s?
It seems pretty obvious that the Chinese have gone gangbusters with their economy, once the spotlight shifted to Europe, to take advantage of the crippling of the West. Who cares about a few thousand dead. That wouldn’t even be a footnote of a footnote in Chinese history.
111
Odd, the dead & sick Chinese were not obese.
Why ?
Does Quanta Ahmad have an explanation ?
36
Belgium has a horrible 14.7% died of known cases today, but Belgium has low obesity levels (for Europe), of ~18%.
Could be why some Africans refer to it as a disease of the rich.
101
would love for someone who knows what is happening in Belgium to explain. Those numbers are horrible with little testing except for those in serious condition
23
They has national elections 15 months ago.
But the results were a stale mate between the Dutch & French speaking regional parties.
There is literally no national government or strategy
So each region is doing it’s own thing
And so is the city of Brussels, the capital
Which has it’s own special status.
But there is no border closure between the regions etc.
So we have a Belgian Bizarrity !
No such a clever a way to deal with a pandemic.
32
Belgium is a nightmare. The covid outbreak is not in Brussles, nor antwerp. There are more than 2 m Belgians age 65+ years. At 10% fatality that is 200k deaths. Not even 1/10 of those deaths yet
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in_Belgium#Hea
50
Yet another wildly unrealistic prediction.
Here is another … “it wont get to even 1/4 of that amount !”
00
Three red thumb folk don’t like me asking a question !
Ahh well we do welcome even [snips] here.
210
An amazing person. We were very impressed by her.
Seeing Outsiders is one benefit of no church! I do wish Sky News on Win would repeat the whole show at a more church-goer friendly time when things return to ‘normal’, or whatever passes for that these days!
50
I had a work colleague who carried a bit of extra weight. On a visit to a GP about his general health, the GP made the simple comment “how many fat old men do you see!”
40
The obesity issue has been raised as an obvious issue in N.Y. and also with a 41 year old lady struck down on a cruise.
10
But in Iran, Spain, Turkey, China ?
Are all the dead fat old men there as well ?
12
Another Israeli biophysicist who is expressing caution on over reaction:
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/sunday/audio/2018743210/no-evidence-that-covid-19-is-causing-huge-loss-of-life
32
With the world caught up in an unprecedented global lockdown and 3 week span from onset of symptoms to death in an old population, there won’t be so many deaths YET
34
Doesn’t take much for some wealthy compatriots from a Banking group to ring them up and say, hey we want this lock-down thing lifted by X date, it’s putting our whole game a risk, can you deliver an outcome that date? If yes, what’s your bid, let’s ‘aggle.
61
General Dr. cyber expert Yitzhak Ben Israel is certainly qualified but one of those rare people who believe mathematics trumps logic and has form.
“Yitzhak Ben Israel, a former general turned professor at Tel Aviv University, helped to develop a mathematical formula that predicts the likely success of assassination programs to end organized resistance. Ben Israel’s calculus proved to the army that a Palestinian cell planning an attack could be destroyed with high probability by “neutralizing” as few as a fifth of its fighters.”
I suggest he would also espouse computer models for Climate being superior to explanations. It’s an odd blind faith in mathematics as being the revelation, the physics and superseding reality.
To me this is Voodoo Science, like man made Climate Change. Correlation is causation is the rule. The curve, the fit becomes the predictor of truth but is utterly divorced from reality. He would get on well with Michael Mann.
41
That was from 2013. He is now getting world fame modelling Wuhan Flu infections and drawing the unbelievable conclusion that the shape of the curve is caused by the behavior of the virus. The question is, does he actually believe this? Or is it more Hockey stick science?
52
Jo Dr Campbell in the UK seems to have accepted that “Herd Immunity”
Is the only way out of this infectious disease crisis in the UK.
He does not discuss Australia
But does briefly New Zealand’s efforts to eliminate the virus completely.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2w7F_hzqIhM&feature=emb_logo
Any thoughts on this ?
31
And from the hospital in Cremona, Italy
Music to tear the heart !
To remember the dead !
And thank those fighting this disease!
https://video.corriere.it/cronaca/violinista-tetto-dell-ospedale-cremona/fa8e7392-809f-11ea-ac8a-0c2cb4ad9c17?fbclid=IwAR00FUCT5OAguMPZMLlbhfRd-hd7gnBi4VO90If67BsM-IfxQ6ta2pvrLvA&refresh_ce-cp
43
Some drongo clearly does not like beautiful violin music.
🙁
40
Well the moderation does not like the word Dr*ngo !
It’s a native bird here in Oz.
But our USA WordPress knows zip about it.
42
When it comes to lock-downs, the stats seem to indicate that unless you go early, then the the difference to a do-nothing approach is hard to detect. In Italy, where the virus took off very rapidly, the implementation of a lock-down had the effect of isolating sick family members with healthy ones, including elderly grandparents. This caused an even faster and deadly spread for many weeks. It’s almost certain that this unintended isolation consequence is driving the high death rates in many other countries that were unable to contain the initial spread. Fortunately this is not the case down here, but we will face the challenge of a potentially deadly second wave when we run out of other peoples money and are forced to open up the economy to avoid collapse, but we will be left to battle the consequence of high debt forever after.
The virus would appear to be a lose-lose scenario regardless of which path of action you take 🙁
123
Good point about the lockdown in Italy, but it took them by surprise and they had to think on their feet.
Morrison was battled hardened after the drought and bushfires, this virus was another natural disaster or maybe worse, so he was ready for action and deserves a medal.
My guesstimate for a substantial lifting of restrictions is May Day.
61
Every country that implemented a lockdown saw a reduction in cases 12 days later then a reduction in deaths after another 7 days. Without government lockdown the death toll would have continued to rise until people started to self-isolate on a large scale. It would be chaotic because the majority would be clamouring to hoard essentials so they could stay home for months if needed. That was already occurring before the lockdowns were implemented.
Italy locked down on 9 March when their death toll was already 463.
Sweden announced limit on gatherings not to exceed 50 people on 11 March, the day it recorded its first CV19 death. So they got going early but controls were lees draconian than most other locations. That said 50% of people are working from home and traffic is down 70%. So Swedes are self-isolating without the stringent controls in other countries. The less effective isolation resulted in their peak in cases occurring three weeks after the limit on gatherings and death rate peaked a week after that. So clearly their controls have worked but less effectively than other countries that have crushed the virus.
Taiwan has performed the best by closing borders early and using a phone tracking application to determine possible contacts. Very small impact on their economy and only 6 CV19 deaths.
Very few people follow Taiwan because it has so few cases it does not register on most charts. Also China does not want Taiwan being recognised as a sovereign country – UN are not permitted to recognise Taiwan as it would upset China and no one wants that.
70
Serge — good point. Worth discussing.
But consider that the lockdown stopped the deadly wave from hitting the Southern half of Italy as hard as it hit the north. It probably still saved thousands of lives. See the NY Times link by Raving early in this thread).
With multi-generational housing yes, Italy really needed a way to stop the asymptomatic infections taking out the rest of the household.
What were the options — given that they left it too late? Could they have done door to door, did they have enough testing? Should they have isolated those with any symptoms in hotel rooms instead of at home? Quite possibly. Perhaps the national call should have gone out to everyone with any symptoms at all to wear masks all day if they shared a home with anyone else, or to get out of that home and into a hotel?
32
Jo – I don’t think there was any practical solution to prevent those deaths once the virus had escalated to that level. Italy was the first country outside of China to experience a very high level of infection and in the absence of proper advice from the WHO, who were playing down the level of threat, they became the infection test-case guinea pigs.
What is a bit surprising is the case of Sweden, who chose to use social distancing with no lockdown. They have a much lower death rate per 1M than the southern European countries and UK (150 versus 400+). I had a check on the number of households versus population for Sweden and Italy and those numbers are 2.3 people per household for Sweden versus 7 for Italy. I’m thinking that a big risk factor for deaths is being inside a home with more than 3-4 people, the other factor being population density. The good news for Australia is that we only have 1.9 people per household and a low population density, meaning we are very unlikely to see an Italy or Spain outcome and our best way forward might be to follow the Swedes with strict social distancing and remove the lockdown.
11
I like your points but disagree about Sweden,
Sweden (10 million people):
14,385 total cases
563 new cases
4.6% spreading daily
10.71% known cases died
450 critical
1540 deaths
Hospitals overwhelmed, dysfunctional
Australia (26 million people):
6,612 total cases
26 new cases
1.1% spreading daily
1.07% known cases died
48 critical
71 deaths
Hospitals coping well and functioning
Winter may possibly be a factor (it’s not apparent that it is though), but it’s safe to say what occurred in Australia worked better, so I don’t think anyone, let alone Australia should flirt with what the Swedes have done, or what anyone else in Europe is doing, either.
Sweden should be what we are doing, and not the other way around.
20
Bugger China’s CCP government !
They have shown us that they are callous.
Not worth a pinch of salt.
11
“What’s Causing Job Loss”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/04/18/whats-causing-job-loss/
31
Interesting. It’s still too early to know how beneficial the lock downs were/are, and whether they were enough or too much. Much more study is required. What’s done is done. What we need to do now is begin relaxing the restrictions in a controlled manner to avoid falling into an economic depression that will only make matters far worse. We need to start very soon, not in a month or so as some say.
61
No Peter. What we need to do now is get rid of the virus. Putting the economy above the virus in priority order is cart-horse stuff. To save the economy, first destroy the virus.
I’m not saying the economy doesn’t matter. It very much does. I’m saying that the decision to open up must firstly consider the virus, not the economy.
If I were Ruler in Charge, I would be splitting up the nation into small regions with hard borders. Then in any small region with no cases for three weeks we could open it for business and connect it to any other small region that was open. This would minimize the economic damage and gradually shrink the infected, locked down area to a minimum.
It’s not smart to keep rural Australia locked down if there are no cases there while allow people with the virus from Sydney to spread it to the country. I feel very sorry for Sydney-siders too. But any outer parts of Greater Sydney that can be peeled off and separated will mean they get back to business sooner.
The entire ACT for example could be freed up almost immediately except that for the last two weeks people from Sydney have been able to travel to the ACT and introduce community spread. That is madness.
The NT is there — no community spread. Schools are going back next week. All good by me.
I’m convinced there is no living with this virus. It is too hard and disruptive to aim for a low “manageable” load and allow cluster outbreaks if there is a realistic option of achieving Zero Virus zones with no internal restrictions.
83
Meanwhile, South Australia has recorded its second consecutive day of no new cases of COVID-19, with the state’s total sitting at 435.
SA Health confirmed today that 354 people have recovered from their infections across the state or 81 per cent of all cases, leaving only 81 people with active COVID-19.
Seven people remain in hospital with one in intensive care who is in a critical condition. There remain four cases with no known epidemiological link. It comes after SA Pathology performed over 5,000 tests in the past three days, following the launch of a two-week testing blitz.
We are eliminating/destroying this virus in South Australia. In 2 weeks we will start to get our normal lives back again.
I’m cheering !
PS WA also had zero today. They are also on the right road to getting their normal lives back.
81
Bjorn Lomborg is backing Sweden’s approach of isolate frail only and moderate social distancing.
https://mobile.twitter.com/BjornLomborg/status/1250837432267751425
It’s difficult to criticise someone like Lomborg, but I’d also like to know what their model used for percentage of infections that need hospitalisation (eg oxygen therapy). Even if a patient doesn’t die there is still likely a limit on hospital resources that we’d run into very quickly (within 6 weeks) with this approach. On the other hand, hospitalisation rates have been biased by the age groups of the darn cruise ships, so the effect may not be as bad in the greater population.
It’s difficult to talk about economics without saying “on the one hand…but on the other hand…”. :-S
20
Further info uncovered a few days ago… here is a stat about the “passengers” of a very different kind of “cruise ship”.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-usa-military-sympt/coronavirus-clue-most-cases-aboard-u-s-aircraft-carrier-are-symptom-free-idUSKCN21Y2GB
The usual figure is that 80% of infected have “mild or no symptoms”, and the Theodore Roosevelt number isn’t inconsistent with that older figure, but it does now show how high asymptomatic cases can be. Given this ship is young-biased and the various Princesses were old-biased, may we speculate the figure for the general population is somewhere in between, perhaps 50% asymptomatic infections? ie people who have it and will never present themselves for testing because nothing is wrong with them healthwise.
The only big question still to be answered is why the Navy put a 6% incomplete ship out to sea.
😀
40
We are going to have to learn to live with the virus, and deal with the fact that mortality is (so far) unavoidable in every species, including humans.
Once upon a time, religion assisted us with that … but we chose rationality instead of religion, which means we also need a secular approach to dealing with death. Don’t be surprised when panicking people go running back to religion after secularism failed to give them the comfort they desired.
All of the things in this world are trade-offs. Engineers understand that because it’s our bread and butter. In many cases it isn’t even obvious what you are losing for the gain you think you have achieved. What value is our freedom? We won’t know until after it is gone.
42
One of the most bizarre comments I have ever seen.
02
Story about Chinese made n95 masks shipped to Alberta
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/mask-issues-alberta-1.5537345
50
Why would anyone trust China for anything knowing what we do now? Why can’t more of the rest of the world make all the masks we need and stop even thinking about taking masks from China? I’d rather trust India in preference to China, and that’s saying something.
70
Yes LOL but some vital numbers. SMH
Doubt it is much different in other countries.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-19/manufacturing-graph-2/12154102
11
A simple eyeballed linear fit from the ABC graph predicts Australia’s Manufacturing-as-%-of-GDP to hit zero by the year 2035
Flame away!
41
Sorry for duplicate. After 20minutes or so looking at something else, the
‘leave reply’ window was still sitting open with the initial response (which was surprising,
because I thought I had already sent it) and the grey button. So, to be sure to be sure, I
pushed the button again. This is explanatory, in case it helps.
30
The good professor, come army General and Space agency chairman, simply shows the truth of the old sayings. ‘There’s statistics – and there are statistics’. Or, ‘you can make statistics prove anything’.
Just look at Anthropogenic Global Warming; just select your starting date, around 1910. But if that’s not enough, just ‘homogenise’ the data, don’t look too closely at how the data measuring devices don’t conform to standards (Maharosy). If you still have a problem, say you can’t handle the old pre-start date mechanics – but you can handle electronic instant measuring devices in your statistical basis’.
Just be grateful the professor has so far confined himself to ignoring initial responses and dates to the pandemic, and voila! The virus only lasts 6 weeks and burns out!
40
And if you don’t like the data, change it a la BOM. And if the data does not exist, just make it up by interpolation or even extrapolation, a la Michael Mann. These are two absolute rules of experimental data. Never change the data and never present predictions as data. Otherwise the model is just an auto confirming data generator, whatever the model.
30
What is odd about this analysis is that the data has become the model? The curve is the way it is because that is the shape of the curve.
So forget any mathematics which can easily produce this curve and the shape of the far side of the curve is very interesting. And this really a very odd conclusion when you know perfectly well the virus is a just chemical, a duplicate. It just does what it always does, the one thing it is built to do. It is not alive, does not learn and cannot follow a pattern. This isn’t science. It’s some sort of religion, like Climate Change.
30
Slightly OT,
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-19/the-worlds-energy-order-is-changing-china-to-reap-benefits/12161912
This article appeared in the ABC today, claiming that the falling oil prices will kill off the use of fossil fuels and usher in a new era of renewable energy. Seriously, you wonder what these people are smoking whilst in isolation. Once the virus clears out and each country is left looking at a Everest size mountain of debt, the very last expenditure will be towards subsidising more expensive imported RE products from China. The only energy supply we will be able to afford for many years will be from home grown gas or coal and we are very fortunate to have these natural resources in large quantities.
The more likely reality will be the death of RE and it will the one death we should all celebrate from COVIN-19. We should even erect a small plaque in each cemetery to allow people the opportunity to jump up and down on the RE grave.
120
🙂 🙂
50
If only, Serge.
I hear your tune but then look at the forces against it. Politicians
with too much to lose and historical decisions to defend. RE ideologues in numbers as
high as Everest. Generations of middle age and younger ex students for teachers and
universities to defend themselves against for teaching ideology for which science and logic
were ignored. Big company investors, and the banks, with fortunes invested having to defend themselves against huge losses if the AGW religion is allowed to fall over. The entire EU
having to defend itself to a billion citizens.
The depth of ideological resistance is seen in the USA currently. Pelosi and the Democrats
are refusing to pass the bills required to finance the Trump economy-assisting expenditure
unless they add extra expenditure for their green policies and the Kennedy Memorial Library.
Trump’s planned funding has now run out and Pelosi is holding up $120B for the next tranch
to assist out-of-work people and COVID-19 failing small businesses,just to enforce her green expenditure targets.
20
My prediction is that the EU will disintegrate after the virus and with a Trump re-election the RE market will be in free-fall as these are the biggest markets. Western countries in general will all have very high debt levels with high unemployment and governments will become scared to continue policies that drive up electricity costs and redirect vital funding from essential services.
If you’re looking for signs, as a first step we should see countries postpone their Paris committments into the never never. That will be the writing on the wall. The big RE companies will go bust very quickly once subsidies get pulled.
61
I look forward to it.
10
I acknowledge your reality but hope for Serge’s dream.
10
The ugly Green protest is starting even before the announcments 🙂
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/mar/30/campaigners-attack-japan-shameful-climate-plans-release
40
6.5Million to be unemployed in the UK.
22 Million in the USA already.
Even in the worst 7 day period in the UK less than half the number of people that would normally die in that week of the year died with (not necessarily of) CV19. The vast majority of those would have died anyway or within weeks/months – a common cold or flu would have done them in.
In the aftermath the death rate will be abnormally low. Over a year, perhaps 2, the affect of CV19 will hardly be noticeable, certainly no worse than a bad flu year.
There are other qualified commentators and papers coming forward saying the outbreaks are self-limiting, and/or the infectiousness is firestorm level – but the vast majority are asymptomatic or mild.
Observing this in the figures in not easy – erratic testing, and every new epicenter is like starting again in a new population – you have thousands of self limiting (if they are) outbreaks all with different start times. If you look at national figures of course you won’t see it.
The Singapore example is a case in point – belatedly introduced a new, almost self-contained, population into the equation, and subjected that to intensive testing. How is that possibly going to invalidate or validate Singapore’s original policy or the theory of self-limiting outbreaks?
In the UK even if things were 10-20 times worse, it would still not justify the economic damage, the politicians have been idiots to listen to a cabal of highly fallible ‘experts’ and allowed the MSM to influence the public and force the original policy reversal.
Getting rid of the virus first is not realistic – we are going to have to live with it until it abates, and the best thing we can do is get back to normal operation immediately whilst leaving individuals to take sensible but not draconian personal precautions.
62
But where are you Mr Grin & Nasty ?
Here in South Australia we recorded our second consecutive day of no new cases of COVID-19, ( ZERO ) with the state’s total sitting at 435.
SA Health confirmed today that 354 people have recovered from their infections across the state or 81 per cent of all cases, leaving only 81 people with active COVID-19.
Seven people remain in hospital with one in intensive care who is in a critical condition. There remain four cases with no known epidemiological link.
And It comes after SA Pathology performed over 5,000 tests in the past three days, following the launch of a two-week testing blitz.
Destroying this foreign virus works..In 2 weeks if we have zeros each day, we’ll have our normal lives back ! Great news !
Now where are you again ?
Let’s analyse how where you live is going ehh !
02
As I frequently observe, the total of road and suicide deaths in Australia over the last 4 months far outstrips the CV19 toll.
Why are these other preventable categories of no import to politicians?
KK
52
Exactly
Almost 44,000 Brits died in winter last year – that’s 362 every single day
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/44000-brits-died-winter-last-6896677
There were an estimated 43,900 excess winter deaths in England and Wales between December 2014 and March 2015, official figures show
32
The infectious nature of this virus
Makes it predictable.
The nature of road deaths and suicides
Makes them unpredictable.
21
Man suffers repeated COVID-19 infection, baffling doctors
A new study detailing a man’s reinfection with coronavirus has people concerned, suggesting the rush to a vaccine may prove useless.
https://www.news.com.au/world/coronavirus/global/man-suffers-repeated-covid19-infection-baffling-doctors/news-story/e48b092859c9bc34ee81268b543b5a2b
30
The problem with looking at worldometers data is the total deaths published by a country are subtracted from the total deaths published the previous day and the difference is then ascribed to the most recent day’s deaths.
It’s a problem because people die from COVID-19 and are diagnosed / categorised posthumously, with their death a week or two prior being added today, making today’s total deaths look much larger than they are.
The same thing is happening in the UK and no doubt other countries also.
The official Swedish figures are available, however, and despite the claim made, look very bell shaped.
The figures can be found here: https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/09f821667ce64bf7be6f9f87457ed9aa
Click “Avlidna/dag”.
It’s not over yet, but it’s decidedly on the way out.
As for,
the chief or deputy epidemiologist suggested there was a large nursing home outbreak that their country neighbours did not suffer.
51
Does anyone have a link to the Israeli paper in English. My Hebrew is a little rusty.
10
Arguments about best policy for dealing with the Covid-19 saga on a global or national scale are pretty futile IMO.
I acted out my ‘personal self-isolation’ because I have friends and family on the frontline in the NHS who have been under intense and sometimes unrelenting pressure for many ‘flu seasons (at least four years). They had already been telling me that a bad ‘flu season would be very difficult to cope with but that the Government just were not interested, listening or paying attention.
I decided to self-isolate because I believed that was the best way to avoid becoming another patient for the frontline to worry about. If you ask me whether or not the lockdown was best policy I have to honestly say that in the UK it was probably necessary in London (and some other high caseload areas) but only because our Government failed to resource and equip a proper frontline response force especially in the greater London area.
Had our PM and his Cabinet been wider awake during the crucial months of December through February then the huge economic cost of the lockdown would/should have been avoided. But, sadly, arguments about this POV are pointless because we are where we are, and if the return to normality (whatever that may mean) is as ill thought through as previous decisions then there’ll be many more tears to come.
40
i know you wont publish this anyway because you are 100% biased and clueless aqbout coronavirus when I have 4 higher degrees in this subject Australian leaders may have to watch their backs for what they are doing havent got a clue this is just the flu most German and Swedish expert epiomiologist say at Least Brazil and Sweden are not following your path Brasilians had had enough cheer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4Rk9sAz64s if you understand it cheers. Your lockdowns are just prolonging the pain this is a normal flu virus and needs to immunize your peoples all the data is showing this millions are already infected *see antibody studies showing 50 to 80% higher infection rates and the mortality rate is well below the common flu for old people already dying from other conditions. Get a life and stop this nonsense. You have 2 weeks before there will be total mayhem due to hunger, unemployment, suicide and death for your children not old people like me. Morrison is an idiot and Fauci has to go Cuomo and maybe Trump if he does not WAKE quick smart to the con job he has been led by the CDC ect. Cuomo and Fauci should not be allowed to trasmit total BS he knows nothing about viral epidemiology or has been wrongly advised. Flattening the curve will do nothing it will simply prolong the pain. As Willis has shown ALL the country incidence curves are the same with or without lockdowns but the economic costs will destroy the world and your childrens lives WAKE UP!! 100 bet you will not publish why because AUSTRALIA IS A DICTATORSHIP prove me wrong and cheers you climate stuff is 100% stick to that
00
Eliza, before you comment. Please read the post you comment on which shows Willis, whatever he said, is wrong. The only common pattern is that 12 days after a nation starts major lockdown the virus stops growing exponentially.
I haven’t posted your angry comments. I’m doing you a favour. I’m proud to have helped in some small way to saving your livelihood — whatever it is. You can thank me later. OK?
00
I live in Brazil in the low 40’S, almost at the same latitude as NSW, and our CCP virus cases are about 700 on my state of 10 million people. We implemented social distancing, many businesses were shut down, and places like restaurants are allowed to operate by delivery or take away only. The capital, Porto Alegre, is where most cases are being recorded.
The situation in the northern states of Brazil, close to the equator, is much worse, with states reporting 3000+ cases. The president thinks the economy must be resumed as quickly as possible, and the health minister, who argued against him, was sacked.
It is expected that this pandemic will cause 9+ million job losses, and we already have 11 million people unemployed.
Brazil will be hit HARD, and maybe will perform very poorly to reduce unemployment as it has been doing since 2016.
40
That’s for the local insights Lance.
10
Jo- the Israeli prof may be a bit ‘out to lunch’, but that doesn’t mean his observations are totally without merit. There are a couple of pieces that you discuss which are worth highlighting :
1) Sweden has the same flattening of the curve as other countries even though they had a much less stringent lockdown
2) Singapore data shows you that unless you maintain the most absolutely stringent lockdown, this virus will return with avengeance. A worry for Australia as the path taken just means contiunous brutal lockdown. Not sustainable economically, socially or medically.
You point out that Sweden has higher rates than Scandanavian neighbours, but surely that a function of the fact they just lockdown earlier and more brutally. Won’t they have the same problem as Singapore (and Australia) when they try and relax restrictions ?
The question I have for all the countries that went into brutal early lockdown is : how are you going to get out of this ?
20
Imran you are a fount of malinformation.
Where do you find it all ?
And more important why do you bother trying to mal-inform us here in Oz.
We can see through the BS immediately because it smells so foul.
1: Sweden has a huge death toll. Currently it is 1514 for a population of 10 million. That is 153 dead per million
2: Australia has far fewer deaths – just 71 for a population of 24 million. That is 3 deaths per million
Source : https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries
( But do you ever actually look mate )
3: Singapore fell for the charms of crappy economists who worried about the Singapore economy failing. So they allowed thousands of foreign workers to return to Singapore from Indonesia, India, the Philippines without any quarantine. ( A very dopey move ). Then to make things worse they accommodated all these newly arrived workers in crowded 6 bunks in a room buildings. ( An even more dopey move ) . The lesson is if you do stupid stuff like importing workers without quarantine, you will get more disease & death.
Rest assured Australia will NOT do that nor I think will New Zealand. I don’t think Singapore will do it again either.
And just for your information
You do seem sadly malinformed,,
Australia is eliminating this foreign virus and it’s COVID disease.
No new cases in three states today – zero !
And a total of 8 for the Australian nation.
Now perhaps you would like to go & tell the poor malinformed Swedes
About Australia & how we are going dealing with this bloody foreign virus & foreign disease .
11
Wow just wow .… is it really necessary to vomit such a load of personal ad hominem insults on the basis of just pointing out a few trends and asking a simple question (which you didn’t answer).
I didn’t provide any information so how can it be mis-information ? I just pointed out that the graph Jo showed has the same pattern for Sweden as anyone else.
And everyone knows that Australia has very low infections and deaths because you locked everybody up very early. Well done. The question I asked is ‘now what the f*%k are you going to do’ ? It seems to me that you are those silly fish at the end of the movie Finding Nemo that are bobbing around in the sea all locked up in plastic bags, saying “Now what ?”.
31
Exactly. Now what are we going to do?
“0 new cases” sounds awesome right? As long as you forget the very large % of people who were asymptomatic. ie they did not know they had it. ie they wandered around, blithely shedding virus everywhere. It is possible this could happen for a couple of weeks of “no new cases”: a few asymptomatic people, wandering around, infecting and shedding their way through society. Some people getting sick but too scared to go to hospital in case they catch COVID-19, unaware that is what they already have.
Bill says Sweden has a huge death toll: 1514.
Last year they had 500/13,000 seasonal flu deaths, 734/13,000 the year before. This despite ~50% of the population being vaccinated. Take away the vaccination (ala COVID-19’s current status) and then what happens? We have a long way to go to catch up to the 500,000 seasonal flu deaths world-wide, and we have vaccinations available and in use throughout the world.
Despite the tragedy of COVID-19, Sweden’s deaths / day (Avlidna/dag) is definitely going down: https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/09f821667ce64bf7be6f9f87457ed9aa
The best thing of all this is Sweden effectively become the control, and all the prognosticators of Swedish doom get to test their hypothesis for free: did the lock down other countries implemented make a difference? The key time period of course being post-lock down. When the rubber really hits the road. For some reason, we must trust scientists, unless it’s the Chief and deputy epidemiologist from Sweden…
21
Aaran, you forget we did a lock down with every one told
“STAY AT HOME”
No hotels, no cafes, no restaurants, no gyms, no sports etc
The asymptomatic ones stayed home with everyone else.
And shed virus in their own homes.
And now they are over it.
And the viral fragments in their homes have have degraded to dust.
Plus lots of testing mate.
Tell your Swedish MP’s & government.
In the meantime Sweden is set to become a pariah
In the newly emerging COVID 19 free world.
00
If that were true, the only new cases since the start of lockdown [+10-14 days] would have been overseas infections returning home.
Given our new cases included local transmission, your lack of imagination / experience when it comes to what is happening in the real world is telling.
I look forward to post-lock down to see if you are correct.
01
We’re getting our normal lives back mate.
You ? You’re stuck some where in the middle of a pandemic disease waiting to see who get’s sick next.
Pick a better government next time mate !
Or go talk to some Iranians to see how to real stuff things up
Does that sound callous ?
Sure it is.
Because you come here trying to cast doubt
On what we have achieved ‘together’ in Australia.
You could try asking sincerely how we did it.
The I might have more than scorn to dish out.
00
You forgot to mention no travel in or out. Australia is indeed the Lucky Country if this is what you see for your future.
Good luck ‘mate’ … because you are going to need it.
10
Australia does not need any ‘Good luck ” from you.
And as for “No travel, in or Out”..
Frankly, right now, none of us WANT to travel out.
And run the risk of being made sick or killed by this foreign virus.
But lot’s of Aussies are trying to get home
Because it is an island of refuge
In a world of COVID disease.
I suspect that your comments are motivated
By anger that we are not going through whatever is happening
In your home country.
Good luck !
Ps : Quarantine & Lock down work !
00
And I see today in the paper that Virgin Australia has just collapsed and ‘gone into administration’.
As I said. Good luck.
00
I must say that the link between the actual outcome of the curve in each nation does not clearly relate to the level of lockdown effected in each nation.
Meanwhile, there is anecdotal evidence that the virus has spread widely very rapidly throughout the world to vast numbers of people who never needed medical assistance.
Until we have proper antibody tests we cannot know whether lockdowns were successful or whether population immunity has been attained far faster than expected.
The feature that persuades me that the latter is more likely is the apparent failure of the events in Wuhan to be mirrored in other parts of mainland China and the failure of the events in other hotspots to be mirrored in their surrounding regions.
Can’t prove it at this stage but I think the progress of a new viral infection is a bit like dropping a stone into a pond. As one moves away from the epicentre the level of exposure of any given individual declines but there is still exposure and with each repeated low level exposure there is an incremental immune system response.
With time and distance the cumulative resistance of the immune systems of a multitude of individuals receiving periodic low level exposure flattens the effect of the expanding ripple.
This means that Oz still has to go through the process but even so it will not be as dire as models have been predicting.
21
Stephan, Until China & it’s CCP government
Comes clean about how many died in China
We must rely on other evidence
to estimate the actual number who died.
An example : 43,000 funery urns delivered to Wuhan’s
Crematoriums for the ashes of the dead.
And that is just Wuhan.
In Iran, the second hot spot, the government is also not honest.
Again to save face.
So we must rely on other evidence.
In this case the number of graves dug
Evidence of which comes from satellite photos.
And there are ten’s of thousands of graves being dug.
The third hot spot is Italy
And there the dead are many.
In Spain the dead are many
In France the dead are many
In the USA the dead are many
In the Uk the dead are many
In Belgium, the Netherland,..etc
this is a pandemic infectious disease.
It is NOT a wave that lessons are it spreads across the world.
00