The bullies in the media and academic wings of The Democrats made it dangerous to reveal voting intentions
In the Media-Bubble Donald Trump is a psychopathic, narcissist, and cowardly Nazi. And what kind of person would vote for that? Mostly bad people. Hillbillies, old people. Toxic males — and who wants to be one of those? Even though 60 million Americans voted for Donald Trump, the ABC and CNN seem to find the gun toting militia and lonely hermits with a 6 inch beard. The only attractive Trump voters were reformed ones who were voting for Biden.
Psychology Today reviewed Trump voters and actually talks of “dog whistles” Trump sends to “bigoted supporters”, especially the evil kind of whites that don’t mix with minorities. Trump voters suffer from Authoritarian Personality Syndrome. Indeed, “support for Trump is correlated with a standard scale of modern racism.” So there. The strongest predictors of Trump support were the zip codes with more racial and ethnic isolation … because Trump voters were post code robots.
The Party of Tolerance created the toxic hate-fest of Trump voters with righteous indignation, degradation and humiliation. Everyone got the message.
Bullying is a brittle facade
A phase shift can happen once there is a critical mass. When people realize that it’s OK to shout from the rooftops, boats and highways, the bluff cracks. Is that why spontaneous rallies are breaking out all over the US? (There are two images here, and they may not show in Firefox. If you can’t see it, watch the top one here.
…
…
When nearly all the pollsters were spectacularly wrong in 2016, the Trafalgar group correctly predicted the key swing states. They found a way to count the silent Trump voters.
Instead of asking people how they planned to vote, it asked them how they thought their neighbors would vote:
[T]he secret sauce used by Trafalgar to try to find “hidden” Trump voters is asking people whom they think their neighbors will vote for. The idea is that someone might be more candid about their own preference for Trump if you couch your question in terms of whether someone they know might support him. Is there any method to that madness? According to a new study, yes.
A new online study finds that Republicans and independents are twice as likely as Democrats to say they would not give their true opinion in a telephone poll question about their preference for president in the 2020 election. That raises the possibility that polls understate support for President Donald Trump.
Some 11.7% of Republicans and 10.5% independents said they would not give their true opinion, vs. 5.4% of Democrats, according to the study by CloudResearch LLC…
Which sounds like a good trick to get people to fess up. The problem is, when they live in an inner city stronghold their neighbours probably will all vote for Biden so the trick fails to find the Trump support deep in enemy territory (such as it may exist).
After four years of RussiaGate Hate, the Trump voters are even more shy than in 2016:
Trafalgar’s Robert Cahaly says there is a hidden Trump vote that is not being accounted for in polls that show Biden on a glide path to the White House.
“There are more [shy Trump voters] than last time and it’s not even a contest,” Cahaly said, adding that it’s “quite possible” that the polling industry is headed for a catastrophic miss in 2020.
But don’t go counting chickens yet, especially Chickens-We-Really-Want-Hatched. The Uni of Southern California’s Dornside Center had Trump winning the popular vote in 2016 but now it has him 11% behind. Crazy right? When they try to pry out the shy voter, they ask who do they think their social circle will vote for, and that narrows to lead to 5 points. When they ask, “who do you expect to win” the people watching relentless Biden-Winning-Polls put Trump ahead by just one point.
Beware, Manners Matters…
While Trump voters feel they have to keep a low profile in certain circles, there are other circles where there is only one permitted view of Coronavirus, and it applies in opposite ways to both ends of the political spectrum. In nearly every other democracy, the polls rewarded leaders that dealt with the virus decisively, and who stopped it getting in. One US leader is the obvious choice for border control, but it’s not even on the agenda.
It’s easy to scoff (what are the odds) but there is a place for this naked ambition. Gotta love the showmanship. Sure, it’s over the top, but some might just be inspired to do great things.
Gotta be amazed that this competitor is the best the Dems could find.
Meanwhile a different kind of brazen is coming from the left
The message from the left is just as audacious, but it’s pure Gaslighting. People are saying things that are absurdly untrue as if they were obvious, and doing it repeatedly.
Tonight the Australian ABC News finally mentioned the Hunter Biden scandal, but then wrapped it all as something created by an anti-China group (nobody mention Taiwan). They carefully implied –without saying it — that the laptop was released in dirty power plays outside America (dissident Chinese). At no point did they say that Hunter left it at a Repair Shop, signed for it, and never came back. Nor did they mention Tony Bobulinski’s independent accounts, or the 26,000 emails provided by Bidens jailed former partners. ABC viewers won’t know that there are three entirely separate sources of scandalous evidence against Hunter Biden and some that directly implicate Joe Biden. In this way, without actually lying overtly, they lied by omission. Though I could be wrong. They may have flat out lied. The ABC has changed “iview” and we can’t fast forward it now making it much harder to quote them exactly. Coincidence? Nah. It’s just the government coming to help us.
They declared some law abiding businesses were unworthy of their loans, and thousands of Australians in the steel industry, farming, and manufacturing are livid. The bank is now telling its customers that interest payments are not enough, and those with 50% or more of their operations in coal must diversify. They may well diversify right out of ANZ — a boycott is being discussed. And for shareholders this preening would seem like a dumb way to lose customers. But in Australia it’s worse than that.
The right to earn interest by loaning money they mostly don’t have (by creating paper currency from thin air) is a glorious gift bestowed on them by an Australian banking license. It’s a perpetual money making machine, granted by a government group called APRA. ANZ is one of The Big Four Banks in Australia. It is supposed to provide an essential service, and in return APRA protects it by using the power of the state to run any new competitors off the ranch and right into jail for counterfeiting. It thus behooves ANZ to serve all law abiding Australian customers equally, and not discriminate based on religious beliefs about weather control.
Don’t look now, ANZ is selling carbon credits
Rather than saving the planet though, ANZ’s climate passion looks like an extortionate scheme to enrich ANZ. To twist the knife, it appears the ANZ sent out a note to clients explaining thatit would grow its own business while it “helped” them to reduce carbon by selling them carbon credits and giving them advice on how to make money off the great carbon credit ponzi scheme themselves. ANZ calls this practical, Ian calls it bastardry.
ANZ explains how customers forced to “diversify” can buy carbon credits from … ANZ
Ian W writes again to the entire board of the ANZ (and most of the Australian parliament).
“Acts of bastardry… don’t deserve a banking license”
A Very Good Evening to you ANZ Board,
I am a long term Shareholder of your Bank and a passionate supporter of Australian manufacturing, mining and farming.
With your Bank’s recent anti-coal announcement – which attacks every single Australian involved in steelmaking, aluminium smelting, food processing, manufacturing, plastics, fertilisers, explosives, other metal smelting and farming, it is clear to me as a Shareholder that the ANZ Management group has lost the plot – and need to be stood down by the Board forthwith.
Your Bank has extreme arrogance and disregard for genuine shareholders and the Australian people – epitomised perfectly by the fact that as a result of our phone conversation and several emails, Shayne Elliott is now blocking my emails and refuses to talk.
He has no right to treat genuine shareholders with such contempt – even if he disagrees with 99% of what I have to say. Somebody needs to tell him, thousands of genuine Shareholders like us own the damn Bank and he works for us! Please pass this email on to Shayne Elliott because this country cannot have Chief Executives of organisations like your Bank destroying our businesses and futures.
Now we in the Australian Steel Industry understand perfectly what false virtue signalling is and we understand why the ANZ is engaged in exactly that. It is because the Bank has, is and can in future, make an absolute fortune out of ripping off innocent Australians through rent seeking activities including carbon trading and funding renewables. Secondly it is because the ANZ Management just go to water when confronted with feral environmental activists at head office and when pressure is applied by partly overseas funded organisations like Market Forces and the Australian Conservation Foundation.
You see, ANZ, we know – that you know – that the concept of Human induced Climate Change is hotly scientifically contested – and in fact that the most powerful Nation in the Free World right now has rejected Paris – and the most powerful Nation in the non-free world is also not bound by Paris – by using the bulldust concept of being a “developing” nation.
Who installed such weak, gutless management into the ANZ Bank that they attack all of our businesses just to appease a few feral overseas funded activists? The Board of the ANZ must stand down every senior leadership person of the Bank immediately please.
A link below from the ABC describes the mad, recently released policy of ANZ – and the additional links below describe exactly what the ANZ has been up to with your customers over the last few years.
With that consistent behaviour from the Bank, you expect us to believe that your renewable objectives are honourable!!!!?????
Could someone from the ANZ Board please contact me, Shayne Elliott isn’t game to talk and this needs to be discussed with a human being at the very top level of the Bank.
About now is a very good time for every one of the hundred thousand people in the Australian steel industry, everyone associated with smelting of other metals, papermaking, mining, manufacturing food processing and farming to put a total boycott on the ANZ Bank.
Acts of bastardry, like the ANZ has just executed, deserve nothing less!
Morrison should withdraw the licence of the ANZ Bank to operate.
I look forward to being contacted, thankyou and best regards,
Ian W
Ian helpfully included links showing that “Saving the Planet” doesn’t fit ANZ’s pattern of behaviour:
What’s wrong with overcharging, laundering and gouging a few customers on the way to saving the Earth?
ANZ CEO Shayne Elliott finally admits documents they used in a court were “altered” (nice soft bank description for forgery) and gives an unreserved apology for 20 years of unconscionable misconduct. But then does not give any further explanation, or offer proper financial compensation, and instead offers a small token gesture “goodwill payment.”
Department of Justice (DOJ) official confirmed Thursday that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) opened a criminal investigation into Hunter Biden and his associates in 2019, focused on allegations of money-laundering, and that it remains “open and active,” according to Sinclair investigative reporter James Rosen.
The FBI has admitted they have the laptop and they interviewed Tony Bobulinski on October 23 for five hours. Nothing to see here.
Hunter only matters because of what it might mean about about Joe.
When censorship is running strong, people find other ways to get out the message. This a new artform called #Roadtrolling as invented by a Trump fan in Houston. Apparently the Biden bus (which doesn’t have Joe Biden in it) has been seen running red lights to try to get away from the hearse.
The side of the hearse also says:
“Collecting Democrat votes one dead stiff at a time.”
“Dig ’em Deeper, Bury ’em Cheaper Funeral Parlor”
“Clinton Foundation Suicide Limo Service – 1-800-HANG-URSELF”
It’s a Texas thing but I think this will catch on.
“Collecting Democrat Votes One Dead Stiff At A Time”
The Australian government admits Peter Ridd should never have been sacked for criticizing standards of James Cook University
Peter Ridd is still fighting for his right to speak
Great News: In an era of absurd censorship, it’s good to get a win. Thanks to all those who wrote letters and emails, and obviously, thanks to the IPA, the government is insisting that Professors be allowed to decide what professors say, rather than Vice Chancellors. Soon, if fraud should occur at James Cook Uni, people will be able to suggest it gets investigated without getting fired for being “uncollegial.”
As Education Minister Dan Tehan told Sky News this morning:
“[James Cook University] wouldn’t have been able to prosecute Peter Ridd if these laws had of been in place.”
“By defining academic freedom in legislation, Education Minister Dan Tehan is ensuring the dismissal of an academic like Peter Ridd can never happen again,” said Mr Rozner.
Of professors, there are only a few,
Who dare challenge or doubt peer-review,
Of all topics climatic,
Which is so problematic,
For alarmists who think it taboo.
–Ruairi
The legislation still needs to pass the Senate, but this is likely.
Academic freedom means the following:
(a) the freedom of academic staff to teach, discuss, and research and to disseminate and publish the results of their research;
(b) the freedom of academic staff and students to engage in intellectual inquiry, to express their opinions and beliefs, and to contribute to public debate, in relation to their subjects of study and research;
(c) the freedom of academic staff and students to express their opinions in relation to the higher education provider in which they work or are enrolled;
(d) the freedom of academic staff to participate in professional or representative academic bodies;
(e) the freedom of students to participate in student societies and associations;
(f) the autonomy of the higher education provider in relation to the choice of academic courses and offerings, the ways in which they are taught and the choices of research activities and the ways in which they are conducted.
This won’t help Peter Ridd of course. The High Court will decide whether to allow his appeal next February.
High Court to consider the Peter Ridd Case in February
From Peter Ridd
Click to buy the book.
Dear All,
We got some good news today. The High Court has reviewed our documentation and set the date for the hearing to decide if it will hear our full appeal. It will be February next year. The great majority of applications are rejected on the documentation, so we have passed the first hurdle. If we succeed in February, the actual hearing could be many months after that. Go Fund ME.
We got some other very good news on Wednesday with the Commonwealth education Minister Dan Tehan, announcing the introduction of a University Free-Speech bill in parliament. Minister Tehan said “the legal advice that I have is that they [JCU] wouldn’t have been able to prosecute Peter Ridd if these laws had of been in, place.”
Thankyou Minister! I have been told on the grapevine that there has been a lot of lobbying to get this Bill into parliament and I thank the likes Senator Hansen, George Christensen and doubtless many others for their efforts. More information at https://www.facebook.com/Inst.ofPublicAffairs/posts/10160441718078858
Irrespective of whether JCU win in the High Court, they now have a piece of legislation introduced to stop their disgraceful behaviour happening again. Unfortunately, we have to fight on what the law was in 2018. But JCU is now in no doubt about where the Government stands on this issue.
Finally, my book on the Great Barrier Reef, and why it is not as badly damaged as is often claimed, is coming off the printing press (in Victoria). Despite the virus it is available for order through Connor Court Publishing
The media are concealing a Bigger-than-Watergate scandal about the “leading” presidential candidate a week before the election in the most powerful nation on Earth. How easy then is it for the same media to ignore thousands of independent scientists in an esoteric debate about radiative physics? If Biden is elected, he will have to be removed from office.
History unfolding: Tony Bobulinski is a democrat who served his country, who had tops secret clearance with the NSA and DOE.
Tucker Carlson:
“Never before in American history have more power centres combined to kill a legitimate news story …”
“Last night we experienced an extraordinary attempt to interfere with our reporting on the Biden family…”
Bobulinski went to the Biden camp in the last week, after they said this was Russian disinformation (calling Bobulinski a traitor effectively). He asked them to do the right thing. Their response (like concern trolls) was to warn him he’d have press trucks outside his house, he’d have to move, he could lose his job… “but basically” Rob Walker, the spouse of Jill Biden’s former top personal White House aide, told Tony Bobulinski “you’re just going to bury all of us, man” .
UPDATED: See the whole hour on bitchute Search for Tucker Carlson Tonight 10/27 or Bobulinski “most recent first”.
Bobulinski to #Tucker: “I remember looking at Jim Biden in saying how are you guys getting away with this? Like, aren’t you concerned? And he looked at me and he laughed a little bit and said. ‘plausible deniability.'” pic.twitter.com/GMDL1JNZtB — Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) October 28, 2020
When Hunter Biden’s laptop became national news, Rep. Adam Schiff suggested it was Russian disinformation, implying that he was a Russian asset. Bobulinsky made it explicitly clear that he would go public if Schiff didn’t retract his Russia smear — to which Biden family adviser Rob Walker said “You’re just gonna bury all of us.”
“… it’s “crystal clear” Joe Biden lied when denying knowledge of Hunter’s business dealings”
“The Biden response has been “disgusting” and I had to go on the record”
Where were the FBI?Where is The Media? What Bobulinski discusses was mostly about Joe Biden in 2017, but the story begins in Dec 2015 while Biden was VP. What was going on during the Obama years? And what might never have come out at all if Joe Biden wasn’t running for President of the United States a week from now.
The ABC, Australian public broadcaster, is excited. For the first “phenomenal time” in the world — one state, South Australia, managed to produce enough solar power so that (in theory) the whole state was powered by solar electrons for one hour on a Sunday at midday in Spring. It was one of the lowest demand days of the year in one of the smallest markets in Australia. The ABC and AEMO don’t mention that it took about $2 billion in capital infrastructure to achieve this trivial feat.
TonyfromOz points out that during this hour the ABC also don’t mention that natural gas plants were running in SA. Apparently SA was exporting electricity to Victoria and with a magic filter at the border so only fossil powered electrons were sent there. He also points out the ABC forgot to say that South Australia only uses 5% of the National Electricity Market.
How many versions of natural gas and diesel keep the lights on in SA? Anero.id
In reality, I assume Victoria was the dumping ground for the solar surge — otherwise generators in SA would have to have been shut down or disconnected. Did Victorian baseload generators lose some income while they sat around on standby for the surge to fade?
Phenomenal gushing and free advertising on their ABC:
South Australia’s renewable energy boom has achieved a global milestone. The state once known for not having enough power has become the first major jurisdiction in the world to be powered entirely by solar energy.
For just over an hour on Sunday, October 11, 100 per cent of energy demand was met by solar panels alone.
“This is truly a phenomenon in the global energy landscape,” Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) chief executive Audrey Zibelman said.
Alternately, they could have spent that $2b building a coal plant which would last for generations and power the whole state whenever they felt like they wanted electricity, even if that included every single minute of the day.
Alternately, the SA Government could have spent $30m and kept the old coal plant running at Port Augusta. That would have left $1,970 million dollars for South Australians to spend on food, health, education or trips to see the Great Barrier Reef before it evaporates.
Don’t miss the magic hour of solar supremacy
Reneweconomy marks up the magic hour of SA solar supremecy.
Adding up the $ 2 billion cost of all that solar infrastructure
Around 270,000 electricity customers in the state have rooftop solar, adding up to some 1.5 gigawatts of capacity. Current cost (lowest) is $6,000 for 6kW. So in today’s market, that’s about $1.5 billion dollars for all that solar. Most of it would have cost more at the time.
Plus there are subsidies.
In September 2018, the South Australian Government announced that it would offer $100M in state government subsidies for up to 40,000 households to install battery storage in their homes. Eligible home owners and renters could receive $500 per kWh up to a maximum of $6,000 for eligible solar and battery systems [42]
The real total is so much higher. This barely considers all the soft subsidies, the interconnector cost, the transmission lines, the batteries, the extra costs for FCAS (frequency control) and spinning condensors etc etc to make up for the lack of system inertia.
The Grid is like “lungs” (that breathe once a day?)
The price of solar includes rearranging your day and night so that you do everything at midday or pay big money to install batteries to compensate for the uselessness of your solar panels for 60% of the day.
Paul Roberts is SA Power Networks spokesman. He says “get excited”.
“It’s an exciting future for South Australia and we have a whole number of things that we are putting in place to manage that,” he said.
That includes making it cheaper for people to use power during the day and encouraging people to switch on dishwashers, pool pumps and hot water systems in the middle of the day.
The next step is convincing more people to connect batteries to store cheap energy during the day.
“The grid needs to become increasingly like a set of lungs,” AEMO chief external affairs officer Tony Chappel said.
“During the day, the lungs would breathe in and excess energy can be stored and then in the evening when the sun’s gone down, that energy can be fed back.”
We the people are excited. Once, we got power anytime and everytime we wanted it, which was predictable, boring and cheap. Now we are part of a living grid that breathes free electricity into our homes at lunchtime but otherwise eats $100 bills straight from our wallet.
The ABC claps and asks no hard questions like, how much will it cost? Will it really stop storms? How many degrees cooler will the world be? Are there cheaper ways to reduce CO2 emissions? Does reducing man-made CO2 even change atmospheric CO2 levels? Will we be able to measure the benefit of this ever by any means? Are the Chinese rolling on the floor laughing at our pagan stupidity?
Fueled and Moving: Remember 2009? The Climate Skeptic world was set on fire as the ClimateGate hide-the-decline pure corruption was both verified and then ignored by the media. Now the Bidengate expose and audacious censorship is fueling the same indignation, brazen confidence and sheer determination on in a much bigger scale across the US of A.
Suddenly people who just had suspicions or hunches that things were wrong have been converted into campaigners with a mission. Doubts get replaced with confidence, and as the groups grow, so does the sense of “I’m not the only one”.
If the media won’t act as an outlet, then people find another way…
The MAGA rallies, parades and grassroots events are breaking out independent of each-other and literally happening all over the place on any given day. Miles and miles of cars with Trump flags… same with boats… and sometimes just marches in the street where thousands of people just gather and walk with American flags, Trump banners, and other gear.
The media not only have to put out the Biden-fires, they have to censor the censorship-flames too.
So they blow the smoke back. Any friend of Big Gov is a friend-to-defend, so the mainstream media are covering for the Twitter and Facebook bias:
CNN blames a shadowy “right wing offensive” plan to discredit social media:
“A right-wing offensive” is the 2020 narrative equivalent to Clinton’s vast Russian conspiracy theory. The truth is Big Tech is getting their ass kicked by the American electorate and they are freaking out about how visible, in-your-face, unapologetic and dramatic the MAGA activism has become. Thus blame-casting is needed.
It’s not like social media companies are naughty for denying half the population’s right to speak, it’s a Russian plot.
Speaking of dramatic activism. Footage on Twitter (that isn’t censored yet) shows some remarkable organic gatherings. Not only are Trump events packed solid and filled for hours before they start, Trump supporters are gathering spontaneously, even going right outside Biden and Harris events. Apparently there are rolling lines of SUV’s, many with American flags, driving in convoys .
Byron York describes “The big Trump rallies you don’t see.”
“I can’t believe there aren’t any newspeople here,” said Linda of Greene County, Pennsylvania, as she stood among hundreds of cars and pickup trucks. … Indeed, although there were carloads of Trump supporters as far as one could see, and many more on the way from Ohio and West Virginia, and this enormous political event was happening less than two weeks before the presidential election, as far as I could tell, I was the only newsperson there.
It was the biggest political rally no one saw.
John Hindraker:
We see, for the most part, what the people who run news organizations want us to see.
Much more at the link. An obvious question is, where are the thousands of people spontaneously turning out to support Joe Biden? To take just one example, where were the Biden boat parades? There weren’t any, of course. On the contrary: when Biden and Kamala Harris made a joint appearance in Yuma, Arizona, not a single person showed up.
…
Incredible. The one public appearance Joe Biden does this weekend is a speech in Pennsylvania that immediately turns into a massive Trump rally/car parade/GOTV event. pic.twitter.com/g2DwkxlYWt
What are we to make of the crowds? In 2016 Hillary played to half-empty rooms too, but she still got 60 million votes.
The passion of the top ten percent is not necessarily an indication of what the middle ten percent are thinking. But it’s hard to believe a man who can’t get a crowd in a carpark can win the US presidency.
The media IS the problem.
If we had better media, we’d get better politicians.
The 900 hp passion of the Trumpers is swamping the pitiful gatherings for Harris-Biden. But how much does that reflect what the 10% in the middle are thinking?
Two experts with great track records predict the winner. One says Trump. One says Biden. One of them is much more convincing than the other.
It’s worth recalling Hillary was bleaching lap tops, and practically having seizures on camera, and she still won 60 million votes just like Donald Trump did. Enthusiam counts but it isn’t everything.
Trump had this election in the bag in January for his State of The Union, then all the normal election rules were tossed into orbit.
Barnes disassembles polling data like a machine
Ciara Haley and George Szamuely talk to renowned litigator and political analyst Robert Barnes about polls and why they are of such limited usefulness.
This man owns polling analysis. The detail. The details! And all off the cuff…
h/t To WokeBuster and RickWill
One thing I don’t understand is how they know the tally of who has already voted.
Distinguished Professor of History, Allan Lichtman, predicts Biden
For the sake of debate, here’s the man who got all the recent elections right made this prediction before all the corruption came out. He uses a model. Barnes has 10 times the detail. This is dated October 5, and it might as well be from March.
The scandals of the Biden family are so big they have a gravitational field of their own– and whole institutions like The FBI have been captured in the orbit. The ABC had time to discuss an orchid rescue operation in Western Australia, but nothing on the growing questions of abuse of the roles, and now the cover up, near the top of our largest military ally two weeks before their election.
There are so many interesting commentators the ABC didn’t call.
Tom Fitton from JudicialWatch speaks about Joe Biden:
Who knew that Ukraine was just the side hustle for the Bidens…?
If I were the President I would take [the case] away from the FBI, and the Dept. of Justice.
They will not be able to derail an investigation no matter whether he gets elected.
Has Joe Biden disqualified himself from the Office…?
Fitton sttarts at 3:50
Companies linked to Hunter Biden received millions of dollars in federal loans…
Sidney Powell — Michael Flynn’s defense attorney says:
‘There’s more than enough evidence to have warranted an indictment of Joe Biden and Hunter biden, and I can’t tell you how livid I am that the FBI didn’t act on this immediately,
At one game in June, in Tampa, Florida, 14 players out of 22 caught Covid, and that was only the symptomatic cases. None of the others were tested. Perhaps they all caught it?
Rachel Rettner, LiveScience: The game, which was held on June 16 at an ice rink in Tampa Bay, Florida, involved two teams of 11 players each, according to the report, from researchers at the Florida Department of Health. Typically, six players were on the ice and five on the bench at any given time, the report said. All of the players were male, and ranged in age from 19 to 53 years old.
The day after the game (June 17), one of the players developed a fever, cough, sore throat and headache, and tested positive for COVID-19. In the following four days (from June 18 to June 21), an additional 13 players developed symptoms of COVID-19
The game lasted 60 minutes, and players spent about 20 minutes in the locker room before and after the game, with each team having a separate locker room.
What’s an ideal way to share viruses? Refrigerate the air, and ask everyone to breathe hard.
Assuming they were infected at the one game, herd immunity probably wouldn’t help much. Even if half the team members were immune to Covid the other half would still have caught it.
Some bright spark has found a way to make white paint extra reflective which will reduce cooling costs (but presumably increase heating costs in winter). In theory, this will cool the world, stop storms and save turtles.
Once, when we were rich we could afford to have colors on our buildings and to heat or cool them too.
Presumably this will also be good for the sunglass industry. Let’s hope it doesn’t cause more car accidents.
A new type of white paint has the potential to cool buildings and reduce the reliance on air conditioning, say researchers.
In a study, the new product was able to reflect 95.5% of sunlight and reduce temperatures by 1.7C compared to the ambient air conditions.
The engineers involved say the impact is achieved by adding different-sized particles of calcium carbonate.
Here’s wondering when the next study shows that a bunch of skyscrapers reflected white light away from themselves and towards other skyscapers, raising their cooling costs.
In Europe the second wave is setting new records for daily cases but not for deaths so far (thankfully). So the big question is whether this will stay the same or follow the case tally up.
It’s probably not an accident that infections are spreading fast in mid October. Not only was it late summer in Europe, but the virus has been spreading mostly through 15 to 24 year old healthy young people and when Vitamin D levels were high. But as the Northern Hemisphere tracks away from the Sun, vitamin D levels are falling, temperatures are dropping, and the sterilizing rays of ultra violet grow weak. And, as the days grow colder people gather indoors too. Viral doses are rising.
The enduring scandal of the epidemic is that there are so many ways to treat this virus but they’re not expensive enough for the TGA to recommend them. ;- )
Lots more cases but not many deaths
Exhibit One: The United Kingdom
Some people have used this graph to claim the virus poses no threat. But it isn’t that simple.
UK New cases and Worldometer Deaths graph. (Click to enlarge)
Ten reasons death rates were lower in Europe’s second wave:
So much has changed. It will take whole PhDs to unpack the factors.
Demographics: In the second wave young people are the most likely to be infected, not high risk older folk (so far).
Vitamin D : reaches a peak each year in August and Sept.
Temperatures were warmer: Viruses are unstable chemical codes. As a rule, higher doses of virus will almost always survive longer in cooler air and on cooler surfaces. As temperatures cool, we’d expect higher doses to be transmitted which means a more severe illness.
Social distancing: Bigger distances and outdoor events mean lower viral doses. But as the seasons cool, we spend more time indoors, which means higher doses as they get closer together.
UV light was stronger — A great outdoor sterilizer. UV also helps create Vitamin D. Obviously, it’s a summer time thing.
More testing in the second wave. Germany is doing 3 times as many tests; France, seven times, and the UK is doing 15 times as many tests now as it was in early April. A lot of the first wave caseload was simply missed. There is roughly a three week lag from tests until mortality (and it can be up to 8 weeks). This wasn’t apparent in many countries in the first wave because they didn’t do enough testing to show the true extent of infections — they missed the entire first peak, only starting to record new daily cases numbers properly as the deaths also peaked.
Mutations? Perhaps the virus has changed to be less deadly. This — our favourite option — the one we all want, may be true, but there is no genetic analysis that supports it yet so who knows?. If it is the case, we ought find a reliable genetic shift that correlates with lower viral loads and healthier patients. But natural selection favours a higher viral load and a more easily spread virus, and that’s what the few mutation studies seem to suggest.
A US study from the city of Detroit, presented at this week’s ESCMID Conference on Coronavirus Disease (ECCMID, online 23-25 September) shows that the initial SARS-CoV-2 viral load in nasopharyngeal samples has been decreasing as the pandemic progressed. The authors also observed that the decline in viral load was associated with a decrease in death rate.
The authors conclude: : “During the April-June 2020 period of the COVID-19 pandemic, the initial SARS-CoV-2 load steadily declined among hospitalised patients with a corresponding decrease in the percent of deaths over time.
As patient viral loads declined over the course of the pandemic, the percentage of patients admitted to the ICU declined substantially from March (6.7%) to April (1.1%), and May (0.0%).
“As the epidemiological context changed from high to low transmission setting, people were presumably exposed to a lower viral load, which has been previously associated to less severe clinical manifestations,” the authors wrote.
Look closely at the last two months
The surge in cases in the northern hemisphere is growing. As are the deaths.
These graphs are just from August 2 – October 19.
UK, confirmed cases, second wave. OurWorldInData. Click to enlarge.
The three week lag
There is loosely a three week delay between diagnosing new cases and deaths. Deaths are clearly starting to rise.
In the UK, there were around 6,000 new cases a day from Sept 27th. Last week there were about 140 deaths a day. Assuming the three week lag is accurate, that’s a rough fatality rate among the known cases of 2%. The real fatality rate is significantly lower than that, though how much? The UK is testing 50 people to find each new case.
Confirmed daily deaths, United Kingdom, Graph OurWorldInData 2020.
Vitamin D levels are falling as winter approaches.
Pandemics often come in waves. Because of the nasty surprise in the first wave, many people change their behaviour, especially the most vulnerable. This is what happens in all pandemics. They wear masks and wash hands but lose enthusiasm after a while. They self isolate, then eventually they return, and then the next wave returns too.
Most of the first wave was hidden by inadequate testing. The initial test positivity was 40% but is now around 2% and rising. So the current wave of testing is catching many infections that were missed in the first wave.
The second graph below shows the age groups which test positive. In many countries in Europe the first wave was predominantly in older people who had more serious cases and get tested. The second wave surge started with the 15 – 29 age group and is gradually spreading to older age groups.
Top: Deaths and Cases (note the two different scales LHS). Second: The Young people lead the way… Third: Testing is waaay up. Forth: Test positivity is going up, which means, so is the virus. | Data from the EU CDC
Wave 1 had an invisible three week lag
In the first wave a lag between peak cases and peak deaths in some nations was sometimes as long as 3 weeks. But in nations without enough testing there was no apparent lag. This is probably because the peak new cases rose and fell before the testing stations got up to speed. For example: In the first wave in the UK the daily cases peaked on about April 10th which was also around the same time the deaths peaked. But in South Korea the daily cases peaked on March 2nd or so, but the daily deaths didn’t peak til March 24th or so. South Korea had an organised track trace and testing policy ready to go.
The good news
It’s not all bad that the first wave was earlier and higher that the tests showed. It effectively means more survivors in the first wave and thus a lower mortality rate. The not so good news is that if someone was to test positive — the crude morality rate is still 2% and that’s at a time when most of the people who are infected are quite young. So with uncounted asymptomatic cases that 2% might be more like half a percent. Though there might be another few percent over and above that, who didn’t die, but haven’t got well yet either — the long haulers.
The test rate per capita is now very high in the UK, though the positivity rate is around 2% and rising. For comparison, Current test positivity in Australia is about 0.2% and during its darkest hours Victoria Australia was about 3% positivity.
Spread the word about Vitamin D, and Zinc. Write to politicians to why they will spend billions, lock people indoors, but not bother fixing known deficiencies with five cent vitamins?
The bad news
High risk people can be isolated from young party-goers for a while. It takes longer in the second or third waves for dumb viruses to catch up with older folks, but it does catch up. Sadly, and that’s probably what’s coming in Europe now, unless people get very serious about Vitamin D deficiency, and the other cheap treatments like Ivermectin, Bromhexine, HCQ and melatonin, and all the other antivirals….
We’re a lot better off than in Wave One. But things could still get pretty ugly especially in Winter.
When looking at cases versus deaths graphs. Don’t forget the lag.
We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it.
The ANZ bankers declared this week that they are really in the business of saving the Earth, even if Australians didn’t vote for it.
Follow Jo's Tweets
Recent Comments