The British government is finally putting a two week quarantine on arrivals, after about 12 million people arrived in February and March, and nearly 100,000 came through in April. Nearly every country on Earth closed their borders except the US, UK and Sweden and parts of Africa and a few ‘istans’. This closure is so late, by the time it takes effect other countries are planning to open.
Coronavirus: After 34,000 dead, UK to finally shut borders
Jacquelin Magnay, The Australian
The secretive Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies has refused to detail to parliament its reasoning for introducing border closures now. Britain has recorded 34,000 deaths but infections have peaked.
This is how not to do quarantine:
Prime Minister Boris Johnson signalled the border closures earlier this month.
The warning allowed farmers time to fly in seasonal crop pickers from eastern Europe and gave pharmaceutical companies time to bolster stock levels, with many having factories on the continent.
It’s important to give travelers lots of warning so that infected fruit pickers can fly germs in without that pesky two week isolation. As for flying in “stock levels”, the rest of the world manages to bring in freight without it being accompanied by one hundred thousand people.
The reason for the trillion dollar mistake?
Appearing before the House of Commons science and technology committee, John Aston, who is the chief scientific adviser at the Home Office, said if tougher restrictions had been introduced at the border when the virus emerged, the peak might have been delayed.
The peak might have been delayed? Do they mean that the number of Covid cases would have stayed higher longer if they stopped flying in sick people? Like hoping to get rid of feral rabbits faster by flying in more of them?
Or was some expert accidentally aiming to infect the entire Kingdom, in which case, more sick people coming in to seed extra victims was just the ticket. Get it done already! If everyone was going to get sick anyhow, then slowing arrivals would have no net effect other than to “delay the peak.”
The first explanation makes no sense in any universe and the second is what you’d do if you were still using the 1918 flu plan and aiming for Herd Immunity.
So while 60 million people stayed home to slow the spread of disease the Home Office was working to speed it up.
The problem wasn’t the Imperial College model at all, it was the Experts mental model. They’d either been infected by the CCP’s “it’s the flu” messaging, and couldn’t reboot, or perhaps (probably) it was the end result of decades of degenerate postmodern academic existence which spent too long training students to believe the Experts and tear down statues of Cecil Rhodes.
“An estimate was made about what the effect of putting further restrictions on the border would be,” Professor Aston said.
“It would delay the epidemic by a small amount of time and therefore it was deemed that wasn’t a sensible thing to do.”
So a new disease turns up, the aim (at a cost of billions each week in lockdown) is to save lives, and the UK Swamp’s Medical Advice was effectively not about health but an economic one. The nation will be richer, the health experts said, if we lock up all the houses, but keep the borders open.
Are Boris and Trump being sabotaged by the Swamp or is this just in-competence?
When will Boris and Trump wake up and Sack the Swamp?
Airplane image in graph: Original: Jussi PajuVector: McSush
Ouch!!!
10
It’s a bit like global warming. Two things are true so one must cause the other. CO2 is higher and there was some warming, notably of the ocean surface in places so CO2 is the cause. When in fact slightly warmer oceans release more CO2. That is known science, not wavelength fantasies.
Historically pandemics seem to stop after a year. Then it seems a lot of people have the antibodies, protecting the others. So the simplest conclusion is that if everyone is infected it will stop. Just another flu. Infect all the children and young adults. Sure tens of thousands have to die to protect the others. It’s a cost of doing business and a conclusion of unquestioned logic. And the cost per dead person is sad but acceptable and without a vaccine unavoidable.
Has no one considered any other simple explanation for herd immunity? For example the antibodies observed could be to a later mutated benign version which eventually arises especially after mass infection. Every replication is a chance to make an error. Mutations happen all the time and spread as quickly. This benign virus would sweep the world unnoticed, unreported. A benign one would displace a killer one for the very reason no one gets very sick. It would immunize the planet exponentially and therefore quickly.
It explains all those very dodgy studies reporting remarkable mass infection rates of 20% and above supporting the conclusions that the virus is somehow far less lethal than we know. And it explains the Swedish ambassador’s statement that they would be at herd immunity soon, in a few weeks. It’s just not true.
People who study things intensely can be blinded by their own depth of knowledge and years of study and conclude they are therefore clever. Like anyone else, they can also be completely and tragically wrong.
206
Albert Einstein was a genius. At least three remarkable insights into the real world, not one lucky guess. However he was completely wrong about the Heisenberg uncertainty principle saying “God does not play dice with the universe”. He can be forgiven for being wrong and anyone can be wrong.
The idea that we infect all the young people and protect the old people will provide herd immunity is wrong. We should be looking for a benign mutation and if isolated, we have our zero cost innoculation for the world. We then do not have to innoculate all of Asia and Africa and South America, for example.
I would be looking for remarkable recoveries, especially in old people whose RNA replication might be faulty. I would be looking at why Vietnam with 90 million people have only 300 cases reported. There could be other explanations.
Upper atmospheric scientist James Hansen predicted man made Global Warming, from his study of Venus. In fact the massive oceans are far more important than the tiny upper atmosphere. And 32 years later, he was obviously wrong. Simplistic explanations based on correlation without corroboration are rubbish. Every single prediction has proven wrong. So it is with the hindsight conclusion of herd immunity, a correlation not an explanation.
218
Vietnam.
The freedom from CV19 overrun is almost certainly supported/aided/controlled by the unusual Age Distribution of the population.
With an estimated 73 million people under the age of 45 years and the known infection statistics relevant to age, it’s little wonder that Vietnam has low infection/deaths.
The older 22 million probably have a buffer of young with low levels of infection.
True, the government is in a position to manipulate the numbers but it seems that it’s mostly put its efforts into sensible control measures like identifying cases and limited lockdown.
Every country is different.
KK
131
True, but 300? That’s 1 in 300,000 people. You could fit them on one aircraft. There are buildings in Wuhan with more infected people.
And in the differences there are clues. What if their actual infection rate is high and they have a benign mutation? We are all saved, not just the Vietnamese.
89
TdeF,
Being perhaps the first to acknowledge your great outline of that aspect of the virus potential;
http://joannenova.com.au/2020/05/lockdowns-work-influenza-cases-are-90-down-across-17-countries/#comment-2329646
I think it’s a bit misleading to suggest that I would exclude that from consideration.
Many’s the time that my comments have spoken about the great many factor that would be possible in individual situations. These were omitted for simplicity, not in any way implying rejection.
I further notice 🙂 that you have inspired the palace guard, second division, to attack me :-).
I quote: “speculation”.
I resent that as I have never speculated on anyone.
Making sharp divisions of discussion about this difficult topic, as has been practiced by several here on the blog, doesn’t help.
Personally I don’t like the term Herd Immunity and think it needs reframing, however it seems to be that some are accused of promoting Herd Immunity in order to reinforce the contrasting need for complete lockdown.
Judging by the number of red ticks given this approach it doesn’t help discussion.
Just another “hypothesis”.
KK
92
K K you have grabbed the wrong bull by the horns old chap.
There are currently three hypotheses being aired about why Vietnam escaped a major outbreak
1: That the government’s Nationalist anti Chinese virus strategy worked.
2: That the population structure being weighted towards the young lead to fewer infections.
3: That a benign form of the virus reached Vietnam before the virulent one and thus immunised the population
And as outlined by TdeF
4 : That the peoples of Vietnam have in the past been infected by the virulent strain of the virus ( or a very close relative) ..This being a result of Vietnam being geographically close to the caves in Yu Nan where the bat virus supposedly originates from.
I think the fourth hypothesis has a lot going for it. But so does the first. The third idea is the least likely in my opinion. But all of this needs research. And no doubt the indomitable Vietnamese will do it.
110
To imagine that the Vietnamese government would devise a protection plan based on their historical antagonism with China is unreal.
Any CV19 defense would be purely practical based on the concept that the ruling elite of Vietnam have as top priority the preservation of their income: in Australia we call it skim.
Knocking down the CV19 threat simply reduces losses from their primary income: Tourism. Their concern for the population probably is a side issue.
Note, many matadors have found that grabbing a bull by the horns is life-threatening and it is far safer to come in from the side and firmly grab the dangly bits that female bulls don’t have.
You’ll find them very willing to talk if you do that.
KK
62
A hypothesis KK.
Speculation.
And you cannot provide any evidence.
I prefer TdeF’s suggestion that the people’s of Vietnam have already been infected by this virus at some stage in the past
211
Bill,
You dismiss KK for his speculation, yet you ‘prefer Tdef’s suggestion’, also without evidence.
Hardly scientific.
[Please, stick to discussing the topic not the other commenters both of you. – Jo]
60
How do you know God does play dice with the universe? All we know since John Bell is that he does not play local dice with the universe. But maybe nonlocal. Are you aware that dice is equivalent to saying that there is no reason why two identically prepared systems behave differently? It is impossible to know that there is no reason, and it is an abdication of scientific vocation to assume it is. All that can be said is that certain types of explanation, eg local, can be ruled out.
53
Dice is definitely being played.
If S/He played dice with the Universe, we would have meteor strikes every time we passed through the Taurids — which happens twice every year. The planet is hit by heaps of small meteorites and the occasional Big Rock — and that happens. The climate would be flipping between melting and freezing, which also happens twice every year. We call those flips “Summer” and “Winter” or “Seasons.”
Ergo: Dice.
Whoever’s holding them, c’mon! Throw.
52
It’s the same thing as with attempting to predict the precise height of the ocean surface, at a given location, at a given instant. You’d never be able to exactly methodologically predict the height of the surface simply because actual randomness means infinite possible actions, and thus a random thing can never repeat, so there is no underlying pattern to discover and ‘predict’ with, there’s no pattern present, nothing to repeat.
There’s also no “dice”, i.e. nothing is ‘choosing’ the surface height, it’s just the unbounded physical dynamics, with no patterns present and no repeats, i.e. random is a true infinity of possibilities but where some surface heights are much more probable than others.
Which means uncertainty is the inevitable result of an infinity, and it is physically dynamically expressed as true infinite non-repeatable randomness. No two observations can ever be exactly the same. It’s not the observer who’s changing the observation, it’s the infinity producing randomness which makes the observation infinitely variable.
The unpredictable randomness of the sea surface height at a future moment and known location, is exactly what space does, only space’s wave peaks and troughs, and space’s ‘surface’ height fluctuations we refer to as oscillating ‘virtual particles’.
Which means a randomly oscillating space is infinite, and uncertainty is a predictable function of infinity existing. And if infinity exists, then finite can’t, because infinity includes everything, there can’t be separate bits, so space is an infinite medium which has real physical dynamics. And if you can describe the necessary properties of a space medium which accommodates the observed wave dynamics, then you’ve figured out how that infinite medium works.
Which means it may be random, infinite and uncertain, but you can then manipulate space itself to produce predictable output, via systematically disturbing infinity’s medium, ‘locally’.
And suddenly you’ve de-spooky-fied the whole thing, and bought it back into the realm of intelligible physical mechanisms.
Yeah, well anyway, E-hf.
75
Please define “random”.
11
non-repeating, therefore impossible to predict.
42
Non-repeating simply means that you haven’t identified the reason why. 200 years ago nobody could predict whether a coin would land heads or tails. Today, give me three strobed photos of it in flight next to a vertical rule and a computer and I’ll program Newton’s laws into it and tell I’ll tell you.
00
Its all ^p^q>=h/(2*pies) to me!
20
There is only one solution to this ‘expert’ incompetence:
Name
Shame
Sack
and then Sentence each & every one of these bloody fools to serve as ‘carers’
For 6 months in the UK’s Aged care homes
58
The question which intrigued is why did the 1918 ‘Spanish’ flu die out? In fact versions of it are with us today.
A few observations then. I believe that viruses, DNA, RNA while not alive, are subject to Darwinian selection. Whether as viruses or animals or plants. The Spanish flu is now believed to have come to WWI and the trenches with a specific American soldier. And spread like wildfire, meaning the Germans lost the ability to fight and the war ended. This is oddly confirmed by the nature of the virus.
In Australia 90% of the victims were men aged 20-50, the profile of the men in the trenches. Is it possible the virus adapted to the herd? Men were 3x more likely to be infected than women. And when the second wave came, it was very different, killing all age groups and deaths were doubled. So clearly the virus had adapted to a new herd. And the most prolific virus wins.
Then it seems there was no third wave, except I believe there was, a most successful wave because everyone was infected and no one knew it. For the virus in the world of Darwin, this was victory, domination over the other strains. Not killing people was the recipe to success, measured by the numbers, like all species.
This incidentally conveyed herd immunity to the other strains but while it is considered that herd immunity stopped the virus, in fact it did not. The herd immunity was a result of the unknown third wave, not the deadly first or second waves. Unfortunately a misinterpretation of history with infallible hindsight has led people to conclude that herd immunity is both desirable and achievable with the most deadly first wave.
97
‘ … believed to have come to WWI and the trenches with a specific American soldier.’
That is wrong, it was circulating in China for awhile and then came to WW1 through coolie labour which the French and English employed. There were 130,000 Chinese workers and that is where the pandemic began.
83
NO KK.
The first recorded cases were in Kansas in a US army training base USA.
The USA military ignored it in their rush to get troops to the Western Front and fight Germany.
39
Apologies, that reply was to EG.
17
KK,
It’s likely that a lot of those French “Chinese” were actually from Vietnam.
KK
60
I agree. They were Vietnamese.
Ho Chi Minh was one of them.
25
His actual name when he went to France as a steward on a french ship
Was ‘Nguyen Ai Quoc’.
‘Ho Chi Minh’ was the nom de plume he later adopted in the 1940’s in the Viet Minh struggle against the Japanese & then the French trying to reconquer Vietnam.
34
Ummm …
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/1/140123-spanish-flu-1918-china-origins-pandemic-science-health/
40
And?
Chinese may have gone with the British.
The French took ?
31
Yes
21
The French didn’t take the Vietnamese to work behind the lines, but there is little doubt that Chinese propaganda works on people who should know better. This is a sanitised version of what happened, if you believe this you’ll believe anything.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1201971207000355
02
There is no doubt that the UK Government has been badly served by the Public Health Executive, the NHS bureaucracy and the Civil Service via the so called ‘experts’. However, those experts did point out early on that quarantining such huge numbers was impossible, that thermal testing equipment was ineffective where the asymptomatic incubation period is up to 14 days and that the shortage of full tests meant that all those available were needed by the NHS as a priority. It was estimated that the proportion of incoming people who were infected was then so low as to have little effect on the anticipated total of internal community driven infections arising from those who had already arrived before the potential scale of the problem became known globally. In other words, it was already too late for the UK to adopt Jo’s proposed solution for Australia.
That said, there is still some logic in imposing quarantine rules now whilst other nations have a larger pool of the virus than does the UK. If other nations are now relaxing their quarantines then they risk reinfection from abroad. The lower the infection rates in the UK become, the higher the risk of the declining community transmissions being reinvigorated by people from outside. That is the opposite scenario to that which pertained early on.
It seems that the proposed restrictions will be somewhat nuanced to take account of the current position in the nations from which the flights emanate.
However, there are some odd features of the infection patterns that suggest everyone is still operating mainly on guesswork.
The London Underground did not lead to a disastrous spread from London to the suburbs. The virus was not transmitted beyond a small group of passengers on a flight carrying former cruise ship passengers. The drivers of buses in the UK delivering those infected passengers to quarantine were unaffected despite having no visible PPE. It is also odd how few members of Government became infected by Johnson and some of his colleagues. I suspect there will be some surprises concerning the primary methods of transmission.
The UK may have a high number of deaths in absolute terms but not so much as in terms of total population and the UK is probably over rigorous in attributing deaths to Covid 19 where the deceased was already in receipt of a terminal diagnosis from other illnesses.
Furthermore the NHS and the care home system has kept many of our old and frail alive way beyond the ‘normal’ expectation by global standards. It is not surprising that many of them would be lost to a new virus that preferentially attacks the old and frail.
Note too, that the projection was for deaths in the range of 250,000 to 500,000 if no action was taken and there is some evidence that it was the modest changes to personal hygiene a week before the lockdown that had the primary effect on flattening the curve rather than the lockdown itself. Why is it not recognised that the UK Government was successful in reducing the deaths by so much, by avoiding the overwhelming of health services and in ramping up PPE provision, new treatment methods and testing regimes at a dramatic pace once the virus revealed the weakness in the systems which this Government inherited just a few months ago.
154
Good points. Some real contradictions there in infection mechanisms, especially with the tube. There is a great deal we do not know and about which we can only guess in the middle of the pandemic.
However it was never too late to stop the flights as they have now done. Let alone the uninvited thousands given taxi rides. What they are doing now should have been done in the first place and many more thousands would still be alive. Herd immunity is busted as a solution let alone an acceptable one.
It always look better when you divide by millions. Only 24 million Russians died in WWII for example, 16% of the population. Not so bad then? It was certainly Stalin’s view before,during and after the war. We would think we have a different view, that every life is valuable.
And yes, modern medicine is saving people and we are slowly learning how to treat this terrible disease, but it would be far better if they didn’t catch it. And they are severely damaged if they do survive.
Australia decided immediately to shut it out because we are an island. And the last time I looked Great Britain was an island nation too, but decided on herd immunity. It nearly cost Boris his life.
97
Stephen, the UK was happy to take flights from all EU nations at their peak of infections. Presumably the flights are safer now than they were then.
Those UK public servants have done a big disservice to the UK people (and Boris, but I am still surprised he did not see the inconsistencies himself).
It’s true there was never enough quarantine sites to take the passenger load, but everywhere else in the world just said “no” to foreigners, cancelled the planes, and put citizens into hotels for quarantine.
The UK did not have enough testing, (another problem the health servants created) but the solution to being caught with pants down in a pandemic is to shut the gates even faster.
Without enough testing kits, the UK had no other option but to stop the flights sooner than nations which did have enough kits.
Yes, in the end the death tally could have been so much more, the lockdown has saved lives, but the cost was huge and the justification for allowing flights to continue while paying a fortune to lockdown is bizarre.
Regarding individual transmission, some individuals just don’t seem to shed many virus particles. Others do. Perhaps it was just luck in the cases you mention? Australia had a guy on a plane with symptoms in January that infected no one. Perhaps the London Tube (if it is not as infectious, and I haven’t seen those studies) perhaps the tube contains a lot of people sitting in silence, listening to phones which is why is may not be as infectious as a church or choir groups where people are all singing and talking loudly? I would still be surprised if transmission isn’t reasonably large?
Judgin by the excess death curves is there evidence that the UK is overattributing deaths to covid? In london deaths are vastly above the covid tally, but in the rest of the country that situation may be reversed.
It would be useful to know where mortality stats by county are kept in the UK?
91
Jo,
the real figures are kept in the Tower of London behind 7 locked doors, the last lot of doors requiring the presence of the P.M. and the Archbishop of Canterbury with the keys.
20
Not sure if this is what you are after, but possibly no need to bother Boris or the bish…
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths
00
Jo, you’re bang on with the rabbits analogy “Like hoping to get rid of feral rabbits faster by flying in more of them?” – as I’ve said manys a time before abou aother Agric ailments – F&M,TB & Brucellosis – Farm lockdown / Parish lockdown etc.
As for “being caught with pants down in a pandemic is to shut the gates even faster” was this a special code (forgotten the grammatical term) wher you cleverly stated somethin with judicial use of some misplaced letters? We, Agrics, have some colourful words for what to do if caught with pants down – sh*t More to deter followers, but then you use the word Gates… see where I am going? Not many rabbits, more like Rats, burrowing in that concrete jungle from whence doth come it may…..
Scottish Islands had some shocking figures at the beginning but folk unlike Mainland regions, screwed the Noddle and it seems to have “died” weeks ago and as in Isle of Man, but where the Isle of Skye had none, suddenly immobile folk in a care home all got it. …. so it seems to us up here.
20
In fact the best solution is for the pandemic never to occur, to deny the virus a large base so that it can be eliminated, as in Australia. Clearly the CCP and WHO decided otherwise. Which is why WHO should not be a political organization like the IPCC. Previous pandemics including SARS and MERS were stopped by WHO. Not this one. They denied it was infectious and denied there was any need to close borders. These are war crimes.
Now we have to find a benign mutation. Or we will need 5 billion needles if and when we can create an inoculation. The virus may self extinguish by then, as it did before. The only way to get past a shutdown is to be benign, to match the herd, to become invisible. Boris Johnson thought he could reach herd immunity through the children. At 55 he was going to get a sniffle. Why else would he let himself be infected?
WHO needs prosecution. It aided and abetted and caused these mass deaths. Then it needs accountability. And career doctors not politicians like Tedros Adhonom. He should be on charges, not still President. We need WHO, but we need it not to be directed by the CCP.
And we need to understand this pandemic, directed by the twin concepts of survival of the fittest and rapid mutation to suit the herd. And Spanish flu is still with us. I had my annual flu shot today.
89
Tdef
Deaths per million is the way to go, not absolute numbers.
How would one quarantine 12 million arriving in two months or leave so many stranded indefinitely at their departure locations?
And presumably another 12 million outgoing, equally stranded and seeking indefinite accommodation in the UK.
There would have been an international outcry and in any event we had it being transmitted internally by the time the virus became a matter of global concern and at a rate higher than in the vast majority of departure nations.
The UK is so tightly tied to other nations as an international hub that it may as well not be an island.
Australia is so very different.
164
I think you are conflating hub with destination, arrivals with transit. The UK survived WW2 because it was a island nation. Viruses arrive by plane and ship. That has to stop. And that is what they are going to try now, four months later. Still better late than never. It economically all gets down the price you put on a life. Like say Boris Johnson’s life. The new father. How damaged is he?
86
Its going to take a lot of cotton wool and isolation and money printing to protect everyone from everything. Unless its only important to think about covid19 related deaths.
43
I think Jo is trying to revive something similar to the Four Pests Campaign (Chinese: 除四害; pinyin: Chú Sì Hài),when back then the four pests to be eliminated were rats, flies, mosquitoes, and sparrows.
The problem is virus’s are smaller and invisible. To me it politically feels like Jo is trying to usher in a communism revival where all are treated in exactly the same, healthy and sick, weak and strong ‘lockdown manner’ for the common universal alleged good. Even if unproven. Communism (from Latin communis, “common, universal”)
From BTTHG:
814
Environmental Skeptic, it does not matter that virus are small. The problem is not that they are small and invisible. It does not follow that we cannot quarantine against something that is invisible as that is what quarantine was invented for way back, and from where we get the word, which was about keeping ships at bay for 40 days when they arrived.
Australia effectively eliminated an influenze virus outbreak in Australia in 2007. The flu was much more infectious than the CCP virus. That H3N8 virus could spread on the wind and did so over a number of km, as well as on objects. That virus had spread over 2000 km by 4 days.
Australian quarantine called immediate lockdowns, that were horrendously difficult for people, and stopped entire industries for about a year and bankrupted many people. But they eradicated the virus.
If you say we cant beat a disseminated and highly infectious influenza outbreak, then how do you explain how Australia did it? Here is the Wiki article, and it killed a lot more than this article suggests as I know quite a number of people who lost animals because of it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Australian_equine_influenza_outbreak
84
But Jane, please realise that in . E S’s mind
This simply did not happen.
Only the evidence that fit’s his opinion is allowed to enter his consciousness.
69
Point taken Bill. Just reading a bit more on Equine Influenza. Australia has sucessfully been keeping Equine Influenza out of our country for over 200 years. It is nasty and virulent with asymptomatic spreaders. There are vaccines that dont really work and have lots of on consequences, like creating asymptomatic spreaders. When Horse flu was in Oz vaccinating for it was not allowed so that we could track actual spread, as vaccinating made testing meaningless. People could learn what some of the possibilities of this human virus are likely to be by having a quick read of just the wiki article on it. There is no Herd Immunity. The virus mutates. Different strains have different lethality. Getting sick from it can lead to long term damage. There are so many assumptions made about CV19. Herd immunity has to be one of the bad ones. WIki horse flu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equine_influenza
60
Tell us Yarpos how man horses ?
I know people with 4-5 of them just for fun.
And then there is the racing industry
And the polo cross & polo clubs
And the cattle droving types.
06
ES:
“To me it politically feels like Jo is trying to usher in a communism revival “.
Jo is doing exactly what she does with climate change.
1. Start with science, not politics.
2. Use front line scientists observations (eg Engineers and ICU doctors).
3. Seek out the best arguments on both sides.
4. Solve the problem with least govt influence and expenditure
Stop the flights. When flights are not stopped, do the shortest hardest quarantine and get rid of the virus completely, so there is no excuse for socialist-communists to maintain the fear constantly in perpetual draining waves. If this means maintaining strong borders (it does) I’m OK with that. The voters are OK with that. The only people arguing to keep open borders are … right wing libertarian Trump fans, and the communist CCP-WHO?
5. Respect what the people want – Eg, polls show most don’t want to spend on climate change, and most want the virus gone, borders shut, to own big homes, drive big cars. This is democracy in action. I am with the people, not the government.
I want good science. Strong borders. Safe nations. Less spending.
In the battle of Boris and Trump against The Swamp, I want to drain the Swamp.
What do you want?
191
Jo,
I want what you want. Chocolates coming.
30
You seriously equating controlling a virus amongst a small horse population with controlling a pandemic among millions of humans?
23
“Australia experienced a large outbreak in 2007, involving 70,000 horses living on >9,000 properties, that resulted in a 5% mortality rate (18,19). The virus was introduced by thoroughbred horses imported from Japan (18). Authorities believe EIV escaped a quarantine station due to lax biosecurity protocols. In addition, many horses certified as vaccinated against EIV had no protective antibodies, suggesting poor immune response, lack of vaccination compliance, or ineffective vaccines (20). Australia implemented an awareness and information campaign to supplement its interventions, which included quarantining, restricting horse movement, decontaminating properties, establishing disease control zones, and increasing surveillance and vaccination. The country was declared EIV-free in 2008 (20), but estimates of the economic cost to the equine industry are >$1 billion Aus (18).” We only have had 7000+ total cases of CV19 in humans so far. And CV19 will not travel many km on the wind like Horse Flu does. Other countries have not got rid of it. Australia had major lockdown within a few days and it worked. There were showgrounds full of people and horses that got locked in place for something like 9 months. It was a big deal. We beat that flu virus and it has not come back because they keep the border biosecurity better now. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6537720/
82
What a great example. Interesting. Thanks.
61
As a model of things that could happen with COV19 Equine flu is not comforting. Vaccination is only partially effective, and outbreaks still occur. Herd immunity is not useful. Some strains have higher death rates than others. Containment does work so long as it is hard enough, but that is at cost. I am glad to be in Australia where we have Cov19 under control at the moment. More articles on horse flu https://www.oie.int/en/our-scientific-expertise/specific-information-and-recommendations/equine-influenza/
Interesting that New York was very hard hit by Eq flu as well https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equine_influenza
30
‘ … rats, flies, mosquitoes, and sparrows.’
A Chinese virus is impacting US rabbits, should we be concerned?
00
Perhaps the idea is to get people sufficiently mentally worn out with 2nd, 3rd, 4th etc waves they cry out for a vaccine? Or the powers that be force one on people?
The globalists appear heavily committed to a vaccine paradigm. If you look at it in that light it kind of makes “sense”.
93
The Plandemic conspiracy theory is . crock of smelly human dung.
36
If you look at Wef.ch , which appears to outline the globalist “to do” list , you will see in the “Covid19 Response” section at no point is “hydroxycholoroquine” or anything else mentioned.
All it says is “vaccine”.
Logically, it appears they are only pursuing one line of action.
42
G’day O S,
The ABC has a story about a proposed study:
…
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-05-20/coronavirus-hydroxychloroquine-trial-donald-trump-game-changer/12266398
and in it is a further link:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-05-19/hydroxychloroquine-why-is-donald-trump-taking-it-for-coronavirus/12262018
…
Neither mention zinc. Neither identify hcq as a zinc ionophore. Neither mention Dr Zelenko, let alone his successes. But both mention the side effects of chloroquine and/or hcq, and a number of failed trials, all of which excluded zinc.
Sounds like a plan to fail to me. A dangerous one, and a lost opportunity to do a decent one.
I’ve sent an email to my parliamentary representatives, state and federal, asking them to include zinc.
Cheers
Dave B
50
Jo, you say the government of the UK (where I live) is instituting quarantine restrictions for a fortnight after arrival. Depends what you mean. If handing everybody who arrives a piece of paper asking them to please stay indoors at one place for the next 2 weeks is meant, then yes it is. If doing something meaningful like isolating them in government-run secure camps for 2 weeks is meant, no it is not. This is tick-box stuff and it will make no difference. Nor am I aware of other countries that have such camps. Closing the airports is the only way to do it.
182
Anton, we are nicer in Australia. We put them in nice hotels, not camps. The hotels are empty anyway so they like the business. So Australia is a country that is doing it. Fixes two problems at the one time.
110
we also had far smaller numbers to deal with, apples and oranges again really
53
Yes, you are right, handing people who come in a note saying to stay home does not work. They tried it in Australia and found most people just did what they wanted and went out, that was when they started locking them in hotel rooms.
111
It was a steep learning curve and mistakes were made, but its okay now that we have flattened it.
The initial idea was to avoid overwhelming the medical system and that worked. In NSW there were only four new cases yesterday, all of them Australians returning home and convalescing in a five star hotel at government expense.
I agree that people sometimes behave badly, but that is the nature of the beast and if caught he should expect a hefty fine.
52
It would be important to monitor infection rates in each country on a truly random basis. Then any country where the reported infection rate is far lower than the real infection rate has a benign or milder virus. Unfortunately the reports seem to try to minimize the lethality of the virus instead of considering they might be dealing with a mutation.
And the virus will mutate. This one might mutate into one which is indifferent to age, which is what happened in the second wave of the Spanish flu. Then everyone has to be locked up anyway.
I would look to Iran and similar countries where the virus is truly running wild. If a benign strain is to be generated you have to go for big numbers. Or select a group like Aged care where mutation is far more likely.
55
Don’t know if you’ve seen this OriginalSteve but, if not, well worth the time, imho. It was released just a couple of days ago and it’s the third video in a series by Corbett. I’d say it stands up well on it’s own and I imagine wherever one stands with regard to the virus, and corresponding response, it will be found to be an informative offering when it comes to the subject of the vaccine(s).
“Bill Gates And The Population Control Grid”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igx86PoU7v8&feature=emb_logo
22
Mmmmm, next time I’ll try to get the right reply box . . . . .
11
Australia’s border controls were leaky till Australia turned its city 4 and 5-star accommodation into quarantine centres; effectively nationalising all those hotels. With armed forces providing the hotel security!
I do not know who came up with this idea but it came out of the emergency cabinet and was a simple solution to avoid otherwise Clayton quarantine – the quarantine without quarantine that was occurring with police attempting to chase down those breaking quarantine. It came relatively cheap as well because the hotels would have kept staff who would otherwise be getting Centrelink payments.
I wonder if anyone in the UK is aware of how Australia approached the quarantine. What did other countries do with returning citizens. I guess some countries could rely on citizens to honour quarantine conditions but that was not so in Australia and I doubt it will be in the UK.
191
Great idea but who actually provides the security? I thought it was checks by the Health Dept?
10
Police & army & contracted private security staff.
21
You can be forgiven for not understanding that this is a myth and a mis-understanding of what he was actually saying.
There are two main schools of thought.
Neither are “right” or “wrong”.
Copenhagen interpretation.The consensus..with all its problems.
Many worlds/Everett.
Einstein was talking about the wave function.
The last word goes to John bell..
‘Either the wavefunction, as given by the Schrödinger equation, is not everything, or it is not right’ (Bell 1987: 201)
22
That was not my point. That quote is 1987 and out of context to Einstein’s comment.
I think you have jumped forward with Dr. Google about 100 years to philosophical questions relating to quantum mechanics and more modern theories of entanglement. These are people in the 1990s questioning whether Schroedinger’s equation represents reality.
My point goes back to Max Planck whose concept of quantization goes back to the 1918 discovery which won him the Nobel prize. The uncertainty principle of Heisenberg was enunciated in 1933. Schroedinger won the Nobel prize in 1933 for his equation. These were contemporaries of Albert Einstein and responsible for the development of quanta and Quantum mechanics.
37
Planck made his discovery in 1900. 1918 is when he was given the Nobel Prize for it.
30
Everett proposed that, that when a variable is measured in situations in which quantum mechanics predicts the result probabilistically, the universe actually splits into many copies, with each possible value realised in one of the copies. We exist in the copy in which the results were as we observed them, but in the other universes copies of us saw other results. But a measurement involves an interaction between the apparatus and the system. Why should some interactions, which humans call measurements, induce splitting into many universes but others not? That the splitting supposedly helps some of us to understand the situation is not a physical reason for it to happen. And exactly when during the interaction does it happen? What if the spectrum of possible outcomes includes a continuum of eigenvalues? I call this the many-words view. What was Everett smoking?
00
Hi Anton, haven’t followed this much but I think that the Heisenberg uncertainty principle relates to atomic theory only. I suspect that you are saying that when you ask ” what was so and so smoking”.
00
And in the Telegraph, there should be no more deaths after the end of June, ‘scientists say’. Why don’t I believe them?
65
It’s all very worrying “Number of deaths on Monday was 545, down from 627 a week ago, and seven-day average is now 378”. Per day.
So if it’s all so good, why are they now introducing a two week quarantine? Something everyone else has had for months.
And in Australia the idea of only 378 deaths a day is unbelievable. We are just very slowly passing 100 deaths in total. These are all real people, not just numbers which you then divide by 50 million to make them seem small.
94
Not sure what you are trying to say. Yes they are real people, did anyone say otherwise? people die. The world is not a fair or consistent place, things that happen in one place arent easily directly compared with others. If this is upsetting you must spend a lot of time upset between wars, pandemics, famines, tsunamis, typhoons and the general misery that we humans inflict on one another.
43
People die. What an insight. Most people spend their lives trying not to die.
And what a mix! wars, pandemics, famines, tsunamis, typhoons. Just slipped pandemics in the middle. Nice.
Pandemics have vastly greater killing power than all the others put together. WW1 cost 20 million lives but the 1918 trench pandemic which ended it cost 37-100million.
That is why the Wuhan Virus Institute exists operated by the Chinese army. Every country has biological weapons and in fact normal laboratories will not touch them or store them. They are just too dangerous.
With a world population now at 7 billion, this one has the potential to kill a billion or two. More than all the people on the planet in 1918. That is why it is different.
And we are doing incredibly well with only 1/3 million dead, no thanks to WHO who insisted it was not infectious or dangerous.
44
Trump? Wake up? And sack people? (I guess you mean other than uncooperative watchdog department heads)
Surely everyone’s better off if he sleeps.
36
When he does sack people thats a problem too so the TDS whiners can never be made happy. Best to ignore and focus on the real world.
82
No it was the Fabian control that infects every aspect of the UK government and most of UK academia!
This easily accounts for why the actions of UK government doesn’t really care that it’s mostly the elderly, infirm, disabled, fat, unfit, sick, etc. who are dying. To the UK Government’s Fabian infected minds these people are unproductive feeders and a drain on limited resources.
50
That’s your opinion Tom. But do you have any evidence mate ?
Clearly there has been a major stuff up in the UK.
But the Labor state governments here in Oz have ben strong on quarantine & closing the borders.
And labor here in Oz has been strongly influenced at times by Fabianism.
So what’s the difference ?
15
For the record, in the USA, state governors have claimed the power and the right to control the people living within the state’s borders. Trump’s claim was shot down by the governors, especially by the ones that claim to be omniscient. What they have done may not be constitutional, but – too late.
Thus, the U. S. will have 50 studies that might help determine the response next time. Then there will be the studies of AU, NZ, Sweden, and so on.
There is some fun though. Last week a thing went around about having reached “peak graph.”
This week, out of Georgia, there is this news item about a now missing graph:
“Upon first glance, the bars, which were color-coded to represent each county, show a steady downward slope. But local GPB News radio reporter Stephen Fowler pointed out a “couple big things wrong/not readable” on the graph, including that the dates on the X-axis were not listed in chronological order and the counties weren’t displayed in the same position each day.
Surprise! They took the graph down.
120
There are really only two models. The herd immunity model of the Nederlands, Sweden, Brazil and the UK. The Nederlands is nearly flat at 53,000 infected and 6,000 dead.
Then the elimination model of Oceania.
What the UK is now trying is the half pregnant model, neither one or the other. Possibly because of the political cost of eliminating hundreds of voters per day.
They, like Sweden, are making prophecies about all clear by the middle to end of June. We wish them well but do not have a clue how they expect that to happen without drastic action, at least stopping the sources of new infection. And if new infections are not stopped, the deaths cannot be stopped.
And there is no guarantee of herd immunity anyway. We humans generate the mutations, but we do not control them.
67
And as well all know
Being half pregnant
Will also lead to a miscarriage.
Dopey ‘ex-spurt’ Brits.
49
Ireland is just across the Irish sea from the UK
And the links are strong.
So I wondered what the Irish did:
Well they went in late but very hard.
“The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic reached Ireland on 29 February 2020,[3] and within three weeks had spread to all counties.[4][5] The pandemic affected many aspects of society. On 12 March, the government shut all schools, colleges, childcare facilities and cultural institutions, and advised cancelling large gatherings.[6] St Patrick’s Day festivities were called off,[7] and the Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, addressed the nation that night. On 24 March, almost all businesses, venues, facilities and amenities were shut; but gatherings of up to four were allowed.[8] Three days later, the government banned all “non-essential” travel and contact with people outside one’s home (including family and partners). The elderly and those with certain health conditions were told to cocoon. People were made to keep apart in public. The Garda Síochána were given power to enforce the measures, which were repeatedly extended until 18 May.[9]”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_in_the_Republic_of_Ireland
The result has been a significantly lower total number of deaths and a low death rate per million people.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/ireland/
34
in moderation ?No foul language
Just 2 links to well know sources.
36
It’s that worldometer link, Bill, in my experience.
The filter seems to choke on it for some reason.
30
No Irish reading here ?
I was hoping for some direct feedback from the republic of Ireland.
Assuming they are allowed to under the Irish ‘Shelter in Place’ rules.
🙂
01
Every year the UK seems more like Zimbabwe.
64
I was perplexed why Boris clings so steadfastly to the exaggerated Imperial college alarmist figures. However,When you realise how completely botched their response has been the only reference that makes them look good are the Imperial college numbers. By all other criteria their response has been the worst in the world.
51
Pollies everywhere will be doing the same everywhere to justify their actions and make themselves look good. Dear leader Anastasia in QLD said yesterday 10’s of thousands would have died but for he strong guiding hand (setting aside pushing people out to vote) Its an election year.
The better late than never VIC health department is still racking up cases for the meat works and maccas. Nobody going to hospital it seems as those numbers still drift down.
50
If we are allowed to bag them when they get things wrong
They are allowed to polish their golden elephants when they get things right.
24
In the UK, everyone is now blaming everyone else!
“Ms Coffey went on to say the Government should be proud of its testing record, despite repeated criticism of the decision in March to stop test and trace, which proved hugely successful in other countries such as South Korea, which recorded just 263 deaths from a population similar to that of the UK.
Sir Adrian Smith, the statistician and incoming president of the Royal Society, warned ministers not to say they were “simply doing what scientists tell us”.
“Questions should be asked as to how many deaths could have been prevented had action been taken earlier.”
So herd immunity is coming? Not likely. More anger at all the deaths, the second highest in the world. And the blame game is in full swing.
43
Given the Royal Society’s anti-science approach to man-made global warming, why would anybody think it is a reputable organization now?
“Simply doing what the scientists” told them to do was fine when it led to bird-choppers and wood-fired power plants that priced the cost of electricity out of the range of so many, and resulted in increased deaths from cold.
Yep. The Royal Society is part of the problem, not part of any solution.
160
Sceptical,
Reference required!
11
No probs.
Click on any of the topics and split yer sides.
https://royalsociety.org/topics-policy/projects/climate-change-evidence-causes/
Especially the Sun one.
Science? My fat aunt. They’ll be joining Charlie boy and rubbing themselves hard up against the fir trees soon. Before hugging them. If they haven’t already.
10
NAME, SHAME SACK &
And make ’em do forced unpaid work in the UK’s aged care homes.
Force them to see what their advice accomplished.
34
Should do the same in Sweden.
03
Just came across this . . . .
“We want to emphasize there is a cure. There is a solution that works 100 percent,” Dr. Henry Ji, founder and CEO of Sorrento Therapeutics, told Fox News. “If we have the neutralizing antibody in your body, you don’t need the social distancing. You can open up a society without fear.”
https://www.foxnews.com/science/covid-cure-california-biopharmaceutical-coronavirus-antibody-breakthrough
21
That’s a BIG ‘if’ Joe.
24
Yes, a very big one. I wonder where it goes from here. What if it’s true? Fun to ponder.
10
WA disease specialist says to drop Australian state borders:
https://www.watoday.com.au/national/western-australia/mcgowan-slams-harvey-s-push-to-lift-wa-s-border-restrictions-amid-economic-devastation-20200519-p54uje.html
Why do we have a border with SA, with similar case loads to ourselves, or the NT where the cases were always substantially lower? He agrees with the international border closure:
“We’ve kept our hard international border, that’s what saved us really, and the fact we’re a big, underpopulated country with good weather and the hospitals have managed it well and the Australian people have done the right thing.”
40
It’s being talked about Bulldust.
But perhaps the talks are not going at the speed you want them to.
Why ?
Well the pollies on both sides got this ver wrong at the start in February.
And are now very nervous about reversing things just in case they get things wrong again,
42
Countries with more than 500 active cases and more than 200 new cases, sorted by percent of daily spread.
New Cases | Country | Active Cases | % New v Act | % Died
2,414 … Mexico … 10,913 … 22.1 … 10.33
207 … Tajikistan … 1,254 … 16.5 … 2.12
3,520 … Chile … 27,563 … 12.8 … 1.03
16,517 … Brazil … 147,108 … 11.2 … 6.61
2,111 … Iran … 20,311 … 10.4 … 5.71
6,147 … India … 60,864 … 10.1 … 3.10
311 … Kazakhstan … 3,118 … 10.0 … 0.52
2,509 … Saudi Arabia … 27,891 … 9.0 … 0.55
1,073 … Kuwait … 11,962 … 9.0 … 0.72
581 … Afghanistan … 6,625 … 8.8 … 2.33
767 … South Africa … 8,928 … 8.6 … 1.81
361 … Ghana … 4,292 … 8.4 … 0.51
498 … Dominican Republic … 6,169 … 8.1 … 3.34
720 … Egypt … 9,083 … 7.9 … 4.89
438 … Argentina … 5,544 … 7.9 … 4.46
218 … Armenia … 2,813 … 7.7 … 1.27
261 … Panama … 3,392 … 7.7 … 2.85
348 … Bahrain … 4,568 … 7.6 … 0.16
4,550 … Peru … 60,045 … 7.6 … 2.93
292 … Oman … 4,070 … 7.2 … 0.48
1,251 … Bangladesh … 19,758 … 6.3 … 1.47
873 … UAE … 14,045 … 6.2 … 0.91
1,841 … Pakistan … 30,538 … 6.0 … 2.14
202 … Moldova … 3,611 … 5.6 … 3.49
1,637 … Qatar … 29,957 … 5.5 … 0.04
640 … Colombia … 12,272 … 5.2 … 3.62
226 … Nigeria … 4,475 … 5.1 … 3.00
936 … Belarus … 20,713 … 4.5 … 0.56
9,263 … Russia … 220,974 … 4.2 … 0.95
538 … Germany … 13,934 … 3.9 … 4.61
486 … Indonesia … 12,808 … 3.8 … 6.60
383 … Poland … 10,417 … 3.7 … 4.92
1,040 … Canada … 33,150 … 3.1 … 7.47
1,022 … Turkey … 34,521 … 3.0 … 2.77
451 … Singapore … 18,407 … 2.5 … 0.08
224 … Philippines … 9,262 … 2.4 … 6.47
260 … Ukraine … 12,696 … 2.0 … 2.90
569 … Ecuador … 27,855 … 2.0 … 8.31
422 … Sweden … 22,085 … 1.9 … 12.15
20,289 … USA … 1,115,870 … 1.8 … 5.96
813 … Italy … 65,129 … 1.2 … 14.19
615 … Spain … 54,067 … 1.1 … 9.96
223 … Portugal … 21,754 … 1.0 … 4.24
882 … France … 90,224 … 1.0 … 15.50
232 … Belgium … 31,996 … 0.7 … 16.33
New Cases | Country | Active Cases | % New v Act | % Die
—
New Cases | Country | Active Cases | % New v Act | % Died
8 … Australia … 555 … 1.4 … 1.41
63
US and UK have not contained the virus due to open borders. So if others now look to opening borders, surely its reinfection time. Alternatively keep borders closed and economies in 1st gear or reverse. Its a classic catch 22 now.
13
No, quarantine is the isolation which keeps it out.
53
(which I had a dollar for every time I’ve said that)
43
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/quarantine
Constantly astounds me that so few people have any grasp of what quarantine means, how it works, and why it works.
I’m getting to point of concluding they must be deliberately playing dumb to misdirect the discussion with BS remarks.
93
WXC, That’s been happening for quite a while here..
The blind and ignorant trying to blind and confuse everyone else.
26
Not all of them, Bill, are “blind and ignorant”.
Many of them are here purposefully, to create disinformation in the full knowledge of the seriousness of the infection.
The Chinese Communist Party has many friends in Australia doing its work. They are true running dogs for the CCP.
They exist in the universities, in the Confucius centres, in the media, in business, and in politics. They and their comrades are doing the bidding of the CCP both here and elsewhere.
Make no mistake, they are neither blind nor ignorant.
40
I personally know one such CCP stooge.
But he operates on Facebook not here.
11
Then you have people like lloyd blankfein.
10
Are Boris and Trump being sabotaged by the Swamp or is this just in-competence?
When will Boris and Trump wake up and Sack the Swamp?
Are you suggesting that somehow, Boris and Donald are being shielded from the truth?
34
No the idea is that they are getting the wrong advice from the swamp, potentially career public servants who are either wrong or setting both up for a fall. Yes, Minister stuff.
Nancy Pelosi and Biden are still calling Donald Trump a Xenophobe (special Washington beltway or Canberra Parkway word meaning racist). Presuming that the Chinese government had something to do with infecting the world with their virus, man made or not. I would have thought that was self evident. But if you accuse a Chinese government of villainy, that is racism? I do not see how race comes into it. Real villain Eritrean WHO President Tedros Adhanom says anyone who criticizes him, as Taiwan has done, is racist. That sure beats having to admit anything. So people from China and Africa cannot be criticized?
Then you have the potentially wrong scientists who have advised that every pandemic ends in herd immunity, so let it rip and get there fast. My thesis is that they have just not thought that through.
And then you read that if you divide by 50 million, the thousand deaths a day are nothing much. And people wonder how engineers could compete to design better ovens for the Nazis.
And as I just read. It seems ‘people die’, so what’s the fuss? So there. What is everyone worried about? You wonder why we celebrate ANZAC day.
It is part of this ridiculous pretence that the biggest pandemic in a hundred years is nothing much, just another flu.
93
Look at the numbers, look at other countries.
I would suggest that as Jo continually asserts, there is a body of indisputable evidence on how to handle a pandemic. Everything else is just a distraction.
35
I am not sure about Boris but president Trump is definitely being sabotaged by the Swamp! He is aware of the swamp but cannot sack them all yet because there are so many of them. It would be easier if not for the fact that about 2/3rds of the republican politicians (RHINOs) are also part of the swamp. They are all protecting each other which makes it so difficult for Trump to move.
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/
A Trump master stroke recently was appointing Ambassador Rick Grenell as Acting Director of the Office of National Intelligence (ODNI) when the Senate rejected his nominee (John Ratcliffe). Rick Grenell has set about declassifying everything he can regarding the FISA scam and the Mueller investigation into Russian Collusion and the General Michael Flynn prosecution. It makes interesting reading for those with the interest and the time.
60
Tracking & tracing can be difficult with CCP Corona virus.
And this research might explain why that is happening.
Pre-symptomatic persons can shed the virus and contaminate the places thye have been or stayed and especially slept.
This emphasies the importance of deep cleaning all places that have been used by anybody who may carry the virus.
https://www.thailandmedical.news/news/covid-19-study-shows-presymptomatic-sars-cov-2-coronavirus-patients-can-contaminate-environments
24
It might not be easy to track, but none the less the Victorian Health Department has identified a lot of clusters of the virus infection.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/dozens-of-covid-19-clusters-found-in-victoria-new-report-reveals-20200519-p54ug3.html
It may seem disheartening but I think it is helpful. If the virus occurs in clusters, as one might expect, then they can be tracked, identified and sequestered (quarantined). The Health Department seems to have been able to do that fairly well.
Difficulties occur when a Macdonald’s delivery driver visits multiple stores, but in epidemiological terms it is still a cluster unless the virus gets to the Macdonald’s customers.
So far I think we can give the Vic Health Dept a tick.
10
This will be interesting…..I hope its conducted properly….
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-05-20/coronavirus-hydroxychloroquine-trial-donald-trump-game-changer/12266398
“More than 1,000 “high risk” health workers are set to be given daily doses of anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine to test how well it can ward off coronavirus.
“The drug has been at the centre of public debate since US President Donald Trump heralded it as a potential “game changer”, and later revealed he was taking it himself, despite little evidence it prevents COVID-19.
“”We’re trying to move beyond opinion to generate rigorous scientific evidence,” said rheumatologist Ian Wicks, from Melbourne’s Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research.
“Professor Wicks and fellow researcher Marc Pellegrini hope to recruit 2,250 “high risk” frontline and allied health workers around Australia for the trial.
“Half of the participants would take hydroxychloroquine daily for four months. The other half would take a sugar tablet placebo.
60
But the virus is almost eliminated in Oz
So the probability of any of them becoming infected is close to zero & declining.
unless they deliberately infect them…..
Which would be completely unethical
And not permitted in Australia.
Puzzling ?
65
True Bill, Hopefully a similar trial in the USA will give the required result. I think the Dept of Veterans Affairs (US) is conducting a similar trial.
31
If that’s an accurate report on what the trial is to do – and I doubt that it is, given it comes from their ABC – then it’s designed to achieve a sub-optimal result.
Why?
Zinc.
40
G’day O S,
My reply to you above, at 8.1.1.1;
http://joannenova.com.au/2020/05/uk-expert-swamp-sabotage-close-borders-3-months-and-10-million-visitors-too-late/#comment-2331420
commented on that study. Doomed to fail in my view, as it doesn’t mention zinc. By design? Or accident?
And I probably should have also included vitamin D.
Cheers,
Dave B
10
Apologies David-of-Cooyal-in-Oz, I stole your thunder here.
But it had to be said.
Zinc.
Yep and Vit D. And, probably Azithromycin, too.
But their ABC can’t think for itself. It needs its daily cheat sheet from the rabid left before it knows what its position is to be.
Anti-Trump = good.
Truth? Only when it suits its politics.
20
I can’t understand why Jo makes no mention of the US except for the word trump in the last couple of lines. Surely the US situation is just as concerning perhaps even more concerning where it is difficult to make excuses for the POTUS by saying that he is getting poor advice. The POTUS has promoted the ‘it’s only a flu’ line in the past. The same goes for Brazil where there is the same ‘it’s only a flu’ message coming from the president and they are particularly vulnerable as a nation.
22
… in fact, there seems to be little criticism or support for the US’s handling of the situation, which is strange as they are pretty important on the scale of things. Can we have an article focusing on the USA?
41
No need for Jo to talk about the USA
about 35% of all the comments are about the USA by Americans.
🙂
PS Go look at the back log of posts since February Joe
17
It is an international concern, what happens in the US ultimately affects those all around the world – the whole gist of the article is about responding to outsiders who are potentially from a region with poor control of the virus. Countries don’t want to be in a position where they can’t or won’t let Americans in. Jo’s blog is published internationally and I would have thought that comments and inputs from American readers would be the most informative and not to be scoffed at.
40
Joe I’m not sure if your from the USA but I wonder how much the individual states differ in their approach to the virus , from what little I do see it only seems to be a problem in a handful of states .
50
Lets so how one individual US Stat is going; Georgia.
https://phzoe.com/2020/05/18/covid19-in-georgia/
Infections could be associated with migrant agricultural workers. It is evidence for a quarantine approach.
41
All the crops that are listed in that post of Zoe’s are heavily mechanised crops.
They don’t use casual migrant labor.
03
Well done Zoe.
She seems to have found a significant factor.
10
HI Joe,
I’m with you. While I’m an Aussie in Western Australia, I, like many here, follow USA society and politics very closely.
The USA is a very interesting and extremely complex situation in the context of Covid-19.
There is great tension between the Feds and the States. There is also great tension between the individual States, depending on the politics and the demographics.
And, that’s the real problem. The politics are driving so much of what is being implemented.
The press, because of its anti-Trump bias, looks to denigrate most, if not all, actions implemented at the behest of President Trump. Take as an example the criticism leveled at Pres. Trump when he shut down travel from China, and compare that now to the criticism he gets for not acting soon enough.
A further complication appears in the guise of Fauci. Fauci is a trouble maker, and one of the swamp creatures with a clear alignment with the opposition. He flips and flops and smirks his way around the main stream media. They lap him up and never put him under the hammer.
The HCQ carry-on is another example of the politics interfering with a rational approach to contain, treat and perhaps even prevent the spread on Covid-19.
It is all seemingly viewed through the prism of the coming November election.
The other factor that shines through for me, is the tremendous commitment the citizens of the USA have to their freedoms and liberty, at all times and no matter what. Herding cats would be child’s play compared to trying to obtain consensus amongst such an individualistic, freedom loving diversity.
Rationality struggles to survive in that climate, regrettably. Jo would need to write a 50,000 word thesis to even get close to the dishevelment of the USA’s approach.
60
S S I agree completely.
12
Meanwhile in Sweden the families of the dead and dying are really pi$$ed off .
As reported by the BBC.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-52704836
35
This is an indictment on Tegnell. They went looking for peer reviewed reports on how to handle a pandemic and found nothing. Classic arrogant academic – downright dangerous.
I would have thought the evidence abounded in history books on how pandemics were handled in the past.
There you go Jo – produce a report on how pandemics should be handled and get it published. The blog for the past 4 months provides a running account. There is a huge number of comparisons across countries now. Those that recognised that China had a serious problem acted appropriately. Those looking for a peer reviewed paper on how to handle a pandemic failed miserably.
Anders does say that the death toll would be about half what it now is if they had managed to keep it out of aged care homes. Aged cares homes were told not to send people in their care to hospital. They just died, dosed on morphine so they were not frantic from suffocating. The aged care staff were not permitted to provide oxygen without doctor’s approval. What a mess.
Who would admit that there is no peer reviewed paper on how to beat a pandemic when so many countries have done so much better. I wonder if there is an English version of Taiwan’s pandemic plan?
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What’s not said is that a lot of people do not care what happens in aged care homes. There is this atmosphere that if you are over 60, it’s just your time. So much for retirement plans. And Boris Johnson was clearly told he was not at risk at 55. He might be charming but in playing politician his middle road of energy and the environment and the plague is so middle of the road it is not worth having. So far he has been a great disappointment on everything. We have yet to see if his BREXIT is meaningful at all.
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Agree there. Boris is a fence sitter.
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J’accuse !
“They just died, dosed on morphine so they were not frantic from suffocating. The aged care staff were NOT permitted to provide oxygen without doctor’s approval. ”
That is my opinion is simply murder.
I wonder when the Swedish people will realise that murder has been done to their aged relatives in the aged care centers.
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It’s become kind of hard to look back at events in the twenty first century and compare them to what appears on or in much of our media without wanting to protest very loudly at some of the inferences drawn. Police investigating a crime and finding evidence may lead officers to perfectly reasonable conclusions or not as the case may be, but even then the prosecutors have to test things from their view and once you have factored in lawyers and vested interests then the clarity of purpose may become an especially blurry and unsatisfactory mess. At least so far as crime goes the process is intended to protect the innocent but in politics innocence is a very rare thing indeed.
Politics is full of ambiguity, deception, deceit, and agendas. Politicians make stuff up as they go along because there is always an election just around the corner. The UK’s experience with SARS-CoV-2 is ‘A Once in a Century Cock Up’ which shows how inadequate and unpleasant many politicians are, something you get to realise very quickly if you every get close enough to the political machine and the senior regime members who will do anything to please and secure their own particular futures. Johnson shafted himself and he didn’t need any help to do it …
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Reality.
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I’m so proud of our Great Leader Jair Bolsonaro! Brazil is going ballistic and will be the second most infected country in the world very soon because Russia seem to have peaked, so we will idle-pass them.
His infection target of 70% to get herd immunity is a bit far away yet(140 million people), but why not carbon-copy Sweden(performing badly for a 10M ppl country), have the death counter skyrocketing in a lame attempt to save the economy and break the country up, (will happen anyway)?
After all, chloroquine alone will save us!
Approach 1:
Got infected? Take chloroquine at home and you’re done. Simple as taking aspirin if you got a cold!
Approach 2:
Got infected? SPREAD IT AS MUCH AS YOU CAN so more people will develop immunity. SOME will die but “this is life” and Brazil will save its already failed economy.
Comrade Bolsonaro is so right-wing he genuinely believes the CCP narrative that covid-19 is just a flu, no matter if the PRC is welding 100 million people at their homes right now because of a couple of new confirmed cases.
Don’t be fooled by this man as I was.
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The Magé highlights went viral, possibly its only an unexpected distraction.
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Brazil is No.4 on the list of total infections.
Brazil is No. 26 on the deaths per million population.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
So far I don’t think they are doing too badly on international comparisons. So far a lot better than Sweden.
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1 :It may be a lag from infection to death.
This can be up to three or more weeks.
2: Brazil has a huge underclass where death is common
And the cost of an autopsy cannot be paid.
So people die without adding to the Corona death toll.
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All conjecture Bill.
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Actually no Peter
Factually based.
Go research Brazil re the underclass
Go research the virus about the lag in deaths
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1. It may be a lag in deaths. Presumption.
2. Brazil has an underclass. But you surmise that it will lead to a huge increase in deaths, which has not yet occurred.
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Death is surprisingly common. Many in my family have experienced it over the years.
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By my calculation the current reproduction rate in Brazil is 1.2; doubling every 12 days now. That indicates that the “natural” spread is no where near as bad as places like the UK. Without any further action, a 17% infection rate would result in the number infected each day reducing.
Humans respond to circumstances. Once they know something is bad the survival instinct kicks in. The vast majority of individuals take actions to reduce their exposure. Once the reproductive rate is below 1 then the virus eventually dies out. Brazil would end up with around 300k deaths IF no more action was taken. But I would be surprised if it gets that bad.
You need to take all the precautions you can and advise those around you likewise; masks if you can get them or make them; hand sanitisers (soap is good) and just avoiding congested locations. If anyone has the slightest symptoms they must be quarantined on their own accord or by others simply avoiding them and where they have been.
It does not take a lot more effort to reduce contact by another 20% so the reproductive rate gets below 1. Then the infection gradually disappears.
Sweden is approaching its herd immunity with my estimate of only 5% infected. Contact in the country is probably down to about 60% of what it was pre-CV19 and the “natural” reproduction rate was quite low in any case. Sweden is far from business as usual. There are a similar number of businesses failing in Sweden as elsewhere. Some restaurants have been closed because they were not following the separation rules.
Good luck – avoid others; everyone is a potential host and you could be without knowing it.
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Very Good Advice Rick!
Some thing we can and all will do, either here of Sweden or Brazil.
People will act in their own self interest if they are informed!
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Off topic but it’s late here and still no Wednthursday Unthreaded so…
Golly gosh your ‘climate’ is about to change very abruptly in the next few days:
Cold, wet and windy on the east coast, with maybe even a touch of ‘white carbon fallout powder’ on the higher alpine slopes while messy surf ravages coastal areas.
Cold, wet and windy on the west coast – bull’s eye Perth? – as an extra-tropical low races in off the Indian Ocean. Surf’s up!
Looking forward to the slew of excuses your ABC and its fellow cohorts are going to shout to the world as to why this WEATHER is occurring. Anyways, enjoy the rain!
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There is a 50/50 chance of an East Coast Low, typical for this time of year
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Yes, the rain the BOM confidently assured us would not happen this year, especially in Southern Australia. Completely wrong.
And as always, they run to El Nino or La Nina to explain everything. Plus the new one, the Indian Dipole. All things no Climate computer models can predict. So the models are right except they cannot predict the most significant weather events on the planet.
Basically because they do not understand the oceans which hold 1400x the energy of the thin air above and 50x as much CO2. If you want climate, model the oceans and the sun. Everything else is a consequence and CO2 is irrelevant. Effect not cause.
One day they will bother modelling the oceans. Then we might be able to talk about climate predictions. Until then, it is all make believe.
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I doubt they could accurately model wave patterns in a bath tub.
Cheers
Dave B
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🙂 🙂
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And for pandemics, I would love to see a model which explained why pandemics stopped after a year. Even in 1918, total deaths of 37 million in a population of 1.6 Billion is only 2.3%, far less than the 30% loss in small communities like Tonga.
I am only guessing but surely people who have studied pandemics for a living should know this stuff inside out. And just saying ‘herd immunity’ explains nothing. It is an observation, not an explanation. Trying to achieve it by letting the virus run free is just lethally wrong. What is the official explanation from the experts? So far ‘the science’ of pandemics is making ‘the science’ of man made Climate Change look reasonable. These people are not idi*ts, so why are they so wrong? Or did no one actually think this through in 100 years?
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I am reminded of the West Gate bridge disaster in Melbourne when the span fell while they were trying to join the two halves, killing 35 workers underneath. The designing architects Freeman Fox said later than their job was to design a bridge, not to build it. The contractors building it were at fault and many died when the unsupported span buckled and fell. The second time they supported it.
It is like this with ‘herd immunity’. It is the goal. The government’s advisers have no idea how to get there without wiping out millions. And because this virus hits older people, they are wiping out Aged care homes and retired people on their way to complete failure. The inhumanity is only matched by the incompetence. It means they do not know what they are doing.
And unlike 1918, we understand DNA and RNA and viruses but we have come no further in knowing what to do.
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Hmm…
The placement of the huts under the construction was a deadly factor. It was lunchtime. The workers were at their crib.
Had the workers’ huts not been under the construction, the majority of deaths would have been prevented.
In that way it has a similarity with all disasters, Covid-19 included. Risk management and complacency. The Wuhan wet market or the Wuhan Biolab? When the inevitable happens, as a result of complacency, people die.
The difference between the two is the stand-out. After the West Gate Bridge collapsed there was an immediate Royal Commission that carefully and publicly investigated the tragedy and transparently apportioned blame. The world learnt something.
In Wuhan?
Crickets – of the Communist strain.
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Agreed, further, there should be multiple royal commissions. Since there are ‘gain of function’ labs with the bat virus genome on a hard drive are shared world wide, then every country with a similar lab should also open a similar Royal Commission, or at least an audit in each and every respective country or geographical location.
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Today, for the first time on the worldometers site, the UK is not only not reporting the number of folk recovered, nor the number of active cases, but also not reporting the number infected today.
UK hospitals appear to be the Hotel California. You can check in….
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they might be late
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just being obstinate or something to hide -remember? Statistics ….
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data seems to be updated.
Every deviation from previous practice is sinister
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Now if change is for the better…. is that the same as deviation, or another form of Integration?
Seems that is what politicians like to do all the time – just listen to the young (budding) ones – what they all want to do ‘making their mark’ on the world – ‘cos they can’t do anything else worthwhile. sad!
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UK Hospitals? well what about Scotland – will it not do? and shows the other links for historical details.
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Worldometer only posts numbers for the day once they come in, which is annoying that you can’t even see yesterday’s in the meantime
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UK statistics are indicative only of a direction of travel. For weeks they didn’t include deaths in care homes and at home, which were more than half the total.
A lot of the tests are now being self administered, not just the home testing kits but many when you go to drive thru testing centres as well. Army personnel being used are not medics and not qualified to take swabs for you. Self administered tests must be contributing to false negatives which are returning infected workers back into circulation.
Much of the testing has been described as placebo as the government struggles to fulfill it’s testing promises.
https://www.northantstelegraph.co.uk/health/coronavirus/kettering-key-workers-false-negative-covid-19-test-raises-concerns-2843796
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Now are other things beginning to fit in place – what modern politics is all abouut? Placebos? Hunger for Compliance, etc. Social Media “likes” and the rest….
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