When you go out for a run or fast-paced walk or whatever try to avoid being in the slipstream of other runners/walkers — Evil

I heard the same advice after 9-11

My humblest apologies for NOT wishing to focus my attention on party-based political wrangling.

I’m just some duped nobody :)

Another brief report on the situation and struggles in India:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tpST8TNcAKI

What does your name mean? I can't be bothered to go to Google translate

My humblest apologies for wishing to focus my attention on party-based political wrangling — I like sushi

What are we actually supposed to talk about here

It's the German name of Dr. Strangelove (from the movie). I also misspelled it, I think its supposed to be "Merkwuerdigichliebe".

Another brief report on the situation and struggles in India:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tpST8TNcAKI — I like sushi

Fuck yeah!!! Good for them. I hope social unrest sweeps the globe. I hope it sweeps the globe faster than the irrational panic over coronavirus.

I missed out the ‘NOT’. Have edited that post.

I believe the subject matter of the thread is in the OP. I’m suggesting government policies don’t matter, only that the actual short and long term effects are of more importance on a global scale rather than a national one.

To repeat, my concern is with developing nations and how developed countries can help once they are able to.

Nice trolling! Have fun :)

If I have a virus with spread 2.4 per week and in one country there are 2 million people and in another 10 million. Where doing nothing is the worst you can do both don't do anything and have a patient zero at the same time. They both have 2.4 infected after a week, 5.76 after 2 and 13.8 after 3 etc. Etc.

They are both doing as badly but deaths per million are totally different. Capice?

So the US is doing an order of magnitude worse than the Netherlands. Thanks to Trump not doing shit despite being advised to do so by Fauci.

Is this a good time to post an ad for your friend?

And yet the weight of evidence is still that it was a natural cause.

I also fail to see the relevance really. As if having a lab and animal testing are illegal. The subsequent cover up by China would be an issue but totally expected - like any country they don't air their mistakes publicly.

"Indian poor cannot afford a lock down" - heading off today's online newspaper in the Netherlands.

I guess that will be another abject lesson soon about the extent of democracy in a country still living its caste system (and I really mean abject not object in this case).

This seems to speak volumes about your ideology. Saving Trump's face is worth more than human lives?

Yes, this is what I was pointing out too. NOS will even dance on the graves of these lives rather than save his credibility on the forum, to save face.

But the faces are becoming more and more contorted, sooner or later they will disappear in a puff of smoke.

It’s the other way about. It appears Trump has become the scapegoat once again, as has been the case from everything to climate change to mistrust of the media.

What are they escaping? This is twisted paranoia. Trump brings it on himself by his inane tweeting and bullshiting press conferences.

So which actions exactly should he be responsible for?

Well there are a few, like threatening the stability of NATO, pulling out of the Paris accord on climate change, withholding funds to the WHO during a pandemic, a lack of credible leadership.

But in reality he doesn't need to do all this blaming, it's a weakness in his vanity, he fears being held accountable, so it's not in reference to anything in particular when he does it. He just doesn't have the attributes of a good President.

Secondly, I think it’s time critics should say what they would have done differently. What would you have done differently?

I would have taken the threat of Covid19 seriously from the beginning of January. Indeed I did, but I am not in a position of power, so there was little I could do. Trumps bans of flights was a good move, but it was to little to late. The whole global airline industry should have been closed down at the beginning of January to contain the virus, all the Western powers where guilty of this one.

I agree with you thoughts on how things should change politically, but I don't think it will change yet, but rather a slower realisation which will take a generation (about 25 years). Because there are to many people who have benefited from the affluence of the last 40 years still in positions of control, or holding onto the wealth. The young are not in this position and are ready for change, as they begin to take hold of the reigns as the older generations die off, things will change.

All I can do is to stay home and limit interaction with people outside my household. When I do go out, I wear a mask, gloves and do the best I can to prevent the spread. Washing hands etc on my return. Also urge people I know to do the same.

I have asked some vulnerable people to tell me if there is anything I can do to help, but so far they have all been coping ok.

If we hadn't had the lockdown this situation would have been much worse.

It’s not an accusation, I’m just contrasting it to my own ethics, which are more deontological. I’m suggesting this is where we might differ.

The China response is well reported and recorded, filled with the typical communist censorship of its own people, the disappearing of critics, and the suppression evidence. The WHO, on the other hand, helped to spread this misinformation. It was late in declaring a public health emergency—after the virus had already spread to 18 countries—and spoke in glowing, servile terms about China’s response while doing so. It is so far up China’s ass that it embarrassingly dodged questions from Hong Kong reporters about excluding Taiwan.

It might not be the WHO itself that is to blame. It could very well be just the leadership. But one thing is for certain, our taxpayer dollars are funding this and this is not what we pay for. A holding on funds and an investigation is warranted. None of this would be necessary if the WHO didn’t launder China’s image at the expense of its own credibility.

I would have taken the threat of Covid19 seriously from the beginning of January. Indeed I did, but I am not in a position of power, so there was little I could do. Trumps bans of flights was a good move, but it was to little to late. The whole global airline industry should have been closed down at the beginning of January to contain the virus, all the Western powers where guilty of this one.

No western country could have known enough that early.

Here’s a decent timeline of events.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_2019–20_coronavirus_pandemic_from_November_2019_to_January_2020

I like your lamp, I hope you don't get cabin fever in there and get out regularly.

This is where I self isolate,


Perhaps if folk post an image of where they isolate, it would be interesting to see how our experiences differ?

This is false. They just didn’t take the risk seriously due to the previous scares of SARS and such - which were taken seriously in the East.

The only use in discussing this is to set up better systems to prevent this from happening again. And to repeat, this is a global issue not an east versus west issue. The better it is dealt with everywhere the better for everyone.

Note: Germany, China and other countries are providing assistance to other countries. The sooner developed countries get past the worst of this the sooner they can assist others and prevent a needlessly fatal cycle.

Latest news from the Netherlands is that an expected 3% of the population has antibodies against the coronavirus. That meas about 500.000 people in the Netherlands. If that's true it would be a mortality rate of .64%, which is in line with earlier estimates from the Lancet study I shared before.

It also appears some people who have been infected with Covid-19 are not immune afterwards.

There is some information in here explaining the difference between ‘relapse’ and ‘reinfection’ (from leading expert in South Korea):

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QwoNP9QWr4Y

It’s about 45 mins long, but hopefully people here aren’t looking for soundbites.

All I can do is to stay home and limit interaction with people outside my household. When I do go out, I wear a mask, gloves and do the best I can to prevent the spread. Washing hands etc on my return. Also urge people I know to do the same.

I have asked some vulnerable people to tell me if there is anything I can do to help, but so far they have all been coping ok. — Punshhh

That's a lot! And it's awesome.

Some might find they have a capacity to help local pet fostering organizations. In some places food banks are running short. A person with internet prowess could start a go-fund-me for local waiters and waitresses. Just make somebody laugh with a sign in your yard.

I was just saying that people who have extra angst could direct that energy more locally.

@frank

I just wanted to provide some info about the things that make death statistics fluctuate a lot, based on (what I assume is) the same Lancet paper.

(1) Testing. If you want see how many people have died with coronavirus, they need to have tested positive for coronavirus. If you test certain groups of people, but not others, this makes the death rate calculated from the tested group depend upon the group's demography.
(2) Group demography effects in testing; tested people are more likely to be severe cases; whatever factors contribute to the severity of the case will be more present in the tested population, this is a positive bias to the death rate.
(3) Severe infection demography. If the virus is more likely to inflict a severe case dependent upon a demographic factor, people in those demographics are more likely to be tested due to the things stated above.

Correcting for these things requires weighting the observed statistics by the demographic factors then calculating for the population at large based upon the correction. It is especially hard to correct for people outside of the tested population; which includes the mild and asymptomatic cases disproportionately, and those demographic categories which are not as likely to be tested due to having those milder cases; so observed death rates in hospitals and in the spreadsheets derived from there are likely to be over-estimates of the overall population death risk, the latter means the case where demography and case severity are no longer making the tested population non-representative of the infected population at large.

However, it should always be stressed that the effects of the disease when considered in some circumstance need not reflect the population death rate. EG: If 1 in 50 infected individuals die, thinking about it that way it wouldn't be surprising not to know anyone who died. But part of that 1 in 50 is the people aged over 60, in which 1 in 8 are expected to die. You maybe don't know anyone who's died personally, but it's way more likely for there to be someone you care about who's lost their grandparents or parents to the disease and is grieving.

I was just saying that people who have extra angst could direct that energy more locally. — frank

I disinfect the cleaning station at my supermarket when I go. Ironically it doesn't seem to be cleaned often.

I don't want to step on your obviously far more qualified toes, but I think you missed a few (while we're making a list), please do correct me if I'm wrong.

(4) If you're using the death statistic to compare to like diseases, you cannot discount overlap. Most groups of people who die have an average of 2 viruses present at the time of death, sometimes as many as 5. Only one of these is going to be recorded as the cause, and right now, it's going to be Covid-19. The bias here will increase as the pandemic takes hold. About 10,000 people die every week (in the UK), an increasing proportion of these are going to have Covid-19 in their system at the time of death.

(5) Similar to (4), someone who dies of Covid-19 is not then available to form part of the pool of people who are going to die of something else. So this will affect net deaths, but also proportional death (when comparing causes).

(6) The peak of a curve and the extent both contribute to the total. We're presumably concerned both with the raw number of deaths and the rate of increase. I've seen a lot of reporting which confuses the two. A high rate of increase does not necessarily mean more deaths (it depends on duration), and likewise the other way around.

(7) The deaths reported are crude numbers so they don't represent the actual changes in death rate (they're lagged by a few day from the rate for actual cases). This means that the proportion of deaths to cases will artificially a bit low as the pandemic progresses, but likewise artificially a bit high as it subsides.

but I think you missed a few — Isaac

I did! Thank you.

points (4) and (7). There stats are out for deaths in UK up until April 3rd - they are not crude estimates.

The death rate clearly spiked in the last reported week. I guess it could be argued that this is due to other causes but they’ve clearly marked respiratory problems and Covid.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/file?uri=%2fpeoplepopulationandcommunity%2fbirthsdeathsandmarriages%2fdeaths%2fdatasets%2fweeklyprovisionalfiguresondeathsregisteredinenglandandwales%2f2020/referencetablesweek142020.xlsx

6000 deaths above usual rate PLUS above average deaths due to respiratory disease being the ‘underlying cause’. When the next set of figures are out the picture should be much clearer.

I am curious about how air quality plays into this. Not really spent much time looking into that. Anyone found info in that area?

I disinfect the cleaning station at my supermarket when I go. Ironically it doesn't seem to be cleaned often. — fdrake

An overlooked super spreader. Cool.


Anecdotally, I look at respiratory viral panels all the time and it's rare to see more than one virus at a time. I think it's partly because an immune defense for viruses is a chemical called interferon, which coats cells to make them resistant to viral invasion.

An overlooked super spreader. Cool. — frank

Why?