What distinguishes conspiracy theory from conspiracy fact, and who makes that determination? — Galuchat

A staunchly positional query relished by gaslighters the world over.

Perhaps posting how many people usually die at this time of year and comparing previous years would shed light on this?

This is interesting. Our World in Data explaining why it switched from using WHO data to relying on data from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.

https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-source-data

With these sorts of errors, and things like tweeting CCP misinformation, I wager the WHO will not come out of this event unscathed.

This post makes it sound like the WHO has no idea what they're talking about. It's really not true. If you check the link from Ourworld in Data, they're changing to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control's data because (1) the update time from the WHO changed:

Unfortunately, in the publication of WHO data on 18th March – Situation Report 58 – they shifted the reporting cutoff time from 0900 CET to 0000 CET. This means that comparability is compromised because there is an overlap between the last two WHO data publications

and (2) minor typographical errors that do things like change the global number of new cases in a day by 2.

The increase in case numbers for Guyana takes the global total to 153,523 confirmed cases (not 153,517 cases as detailed in the report). The increase in death numbers for Lebanon takes the global total to 5736 deaths (not 5735 deaths as detailed in the report)

They will probably "come out unscathed" because of course there are going to be typographical errors somewhere in a quickly updating global data set aggregated and recorded under incredibly stressful conditions.

This post makes it sound like the WHO has no idea what they're talking about. It's really not true.

I never said nor implied that. I just think there will be a contingent of people who, whether warranted or not, will say that the WHO has blood on its hands.

Our World in Data explicitly states:

Why we stopped relying on data from the World Health Organization

Until March 18 we relied on the World Health Organization (WHO) as our source. We aimed to rely on the WHO as they are the international agency with the mandate to provide official estimates on the pandemic. The WHO reports this data for each single day and they can be found here at the WHO’s site.

Since March 18 it became unfortunately impossible to rely on the WHO data to understand how the pandemic is developing over time. With Situation Report 58 the WHO shifted the reporting cutoff time from 0900 CET to 0000 CET. This means that comparability is compromised because there is an overlap between these two WHO data publications (Situation Reports 57 and 58).

Additionally we found many errors in the data published by the WHO when we went through all the daily Situation Reports. We immediately notified the WHO and are in close contact with the WHO’s team to correct the errors that we pointed out to them. We document all errors we found. The main problem we see with the WHO data is that these errors are not communicated by the WHO itself (some Errata were published by the WHO – in the same place as the Situation Reports –, but most errors were either retrospectively corrected without public notice or remain uncorrected).

Here is our detailed documentation of where the WHO’s data is sourced from and how we corrected its data – we also provide several options to download all corrected data there. As of March 18 we no longer maintain this database for the reason that the WHO data can not be used for reliable time-series information.

https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus

From Worldometer: there have been approx 150.000 deaths today. That site also gives various daily averages for different causes of death. We don't have an average for CoViD 19, of course. If we simply use yesterday's total (horribly inaccurate, I know) here's how it compares:

About 3 to 4 times the normal seasonal flu deaths.
About 1.5 times the deaths from malaria or suicide.
Slightly fewer deaths than those from HIV
About half the deaths from alcohol
Less than one fifth of the deaths from cancer.
About 10% of all communicable disease deaths.

As I said, a bunch of caveats applies. CoViD doesn't yet affect the whole world equally. The averages probably underestimate the deaths during winter etc etc.

I never said nor implied that — NOS4A2

Ahh I see. You did the following things:

(1) Said that the WHO was spouting Chinese Communist Party propaganda based on a Tweet about a "preliminary report" from scientists in China on Jan 14.
(2) attempted to discredit the data they output for minor typographical errors and a change in their daily reporting time.

And you're trying to claim that many people will think the WHO has "blood on its hands", and won't escape THE HORRIFYING SCANDAL OF THE MINOR SPREADSHEET ERRORS AND AMBIGUOUSLY WORDED TWEET because you're completely supportive of the WHO and its track record for providing excellent advice on how to deal with a pandemic.

And you're trying to claim that many people will think the WHO has "blood on its hands", and won't escape THE HORRIFYING SCANDAL OF THE MINOR SPREADSHEET ERRORS AND AMBIGUOUSLY WORDED TWEET because you're completely supportive of the WHO and its track record for providing excellent advice on how to deal with a pandemic. — fdrake

He isn't really trying to claim that. He's just putting the words out there so they can be found by search engines, and so other members will oblige to debate him on them so he and his posts get even more exposure. It's just trolling, and not the fun kind.

He isn't really trying to claim that. He's just putting the words out there so they can be found by search engines, and so other members will oblige to debate him on them so he and his posts get even more exposure. It's just trolling, and not the fun kind. — Echarmion

I usually don't correct the man for those reasons. I made an exception because of how obvious this was.

It's not the first time he posted that tweet either. Nobody reacted to it so he had to post it again.

Oh dear. Silly me.

Far as I remember, the WHO first implied the virus was part of a Democratic hoax and then said everything would be fine because it would melt in April. Blood all over their hands! No, wait...

I have a dear abby question, corona related. My roommate's girlfriend has been here for three weeks now, has left the apartment maybe three times during this period, for an hour or so. If there had to be a roommate's girlfriend here for three weeks, she's not a bad one to have. Cleans up, goads my roommate to clean up. She's nice and friendly. Still, it's a two bedroom with an open concept main room (living room separated from kitchen by an island) and it's a little too small for three people to be there all the time. I've overheard her, a few times, explaining that she can't go home ( a couple hours north) because of the stay-at-home-order in Portland (which is a willful misinterpretation of what the stay-at-home-order is).I would prefer to have a couple days with no girlfriend, I like to be able to walk around in my boxers and bump loud music and sing along, every now and then, just to decompress. I talked to my roomate and said that if she is gonna be here full-time for the forseeable future, then we should all split rent and utilities (maybe not an equal three way split, but there has to be some sort of sharing of costs. She lives at home, up north, and has no rent or utility costs). He agreed and said he'd been thinking the same thing, but this was a week ago and nothing's come of it. The Dear Abby question is: what's the right course of action here?

And I have a Dear Abby question for you: why do North Americans call housemates/flatmates 'roommates'?

Good question, what with us not living in the same room. I assume the term is some kind of manifestation of our great entrepeneurial spirit and for now I can only glimpse its significance through a glass darkly.

Walk around in your boxers and bump loud music and sing along, every now and then, just to decompress. The stay-at-home-order has only started and will continue on for a while. And if you're already having the urge to decompress...

She might find a new interpretation of the stay-at-home-order in order decompress herself, perhaps.

Don't you people live in the same room as other people at university? Might be something to do with it.

:up: :up: that's not a bad idea

We do, at least if we can afford the million dollars a year to attend. My freshman year of college there were three of us in a room about 2/3 of the size of my current bedroom, and I was paying about the same for lodging that I do now. Maybe a little more.

And I have a Dear Abby question for you: why do North Americans call housemates/flatmates 'roommates'? — Evil

Roommate is apparently 160 years older than flatmate. Possibly there were more shared rooms at that time. :smile:


roommate (n.)
also room-mate, 1789, American English, from room (n.) + mate (n.). Short form roomie is from 1918.

https://www.etymonline.com/word/roommate

First Known Use of flatmate
1955, in the meaning defined above

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/flatmate


Illuminating stuff, right?

What about housemate?

That one started in the early 1800s. No explanation I can conjure for it.

In the UK, in our equivalent of freshman year, we normally get our own (small) rooms and have flatmates in shared accommodation.

Transitioned to that same kind of arrangement sophomore year. My ex-girlfriend at the time began freshman year with that arrangement at well, but she was at a significantly more esteemed university than me. I think it's not uncommon, here, for freshmen to get the most cramped arrangements, then move on to better pastures. Don't know enough to say for sure though. I've also known a lot of people also just end up renting on the normal market outside university property.

They tweeted it while the CCP was engaged in a coverup. In late December, Taiwan warned the WHO that the virus was infectious, but because of China’s influence , the WHO didn’t warn other nations. By then it was too late.

According to Our World in Data, they “found many errors in the data”, which made the data “unfortunately impossible to rely on ”. And this from “the international agency with the mandate to provide official estimates on the pandemic.”

Why would you give them a pass on this?

If the preferred result is moving out rather than paying rent, just start coughing a lot.

Wow, Nos is really totally insane. Conspiracy theory nonsense, none of those links suggest anything like he thinks they do.

@Joseph Ting (copy pasting your threads into the coronavirus thread)

(Thread 1)

The COVID 19 pandemic piqued my interrogation of the balance of staff safety and duty of care to imperilled communities. Front line clinicians fear for themselves and their families. Despite our valorization by communities, I as a frontline emergency specialist have noticed a surge in absenteeism among well nursing staff that claim “mental health days off” to avoid catching corona and spreading it their kids. Their defence of fraudulently claimed sick paid leave is not risking passing on the corona-contagion to young children when they return from school or day care (they remain open in Australia). One commented that as non-parent, I should take up additional burden of COVID19 health care presentations. This increases the number of my daily encounters with, and the cross-infection risk posed by, patients being screened or treated for corona. Without the nurse, I now take every throat swabs as the patient coughs or gags. There are no hospital contingency plan to make up for unplanned shortfalls in clinical staff. “No kids at home sacrificed” clinicians should not be subjected to the acute stresses, physical and psychological toll exacted by having to compensate for our well colleagues that refuse to turn up for work. How do you cope if an epidemic disrupted daily life, closing schools, packing hospitals, and putting social gatherings, sporting events and concerts, conferences, festivals and travel plans on indefinite hold? As a frontline doctor, staying healthily uninfected whilst we strive for containment remains a cause for celebration. Albert Camus’ The Plague is balm to the fear-riven tear in the fabric of global society. Just as the decimated inhabitants of Shakespeare’s London outlasted the plaque, without modern medicine and public health interventions, the burgeoning coro-demic is but one of Camus' "many plagues in history…yet plagues and wars (still) take people equally by surprise.“ Camus’ contagion will surely go “unaccountably” when it pleases, the sooner if communities adjust and adhere to “bewildering portents” with care and caution to the lives of others. Camus urges the social distancing and lock-downs that today will mitigate the coro-disruption’s festering tenacity, and encourages that the pandemic threat is not fated to last forever. As we face the rigours of self-isolation, the consumptive poet -doctor John Keats, exiled in the Bay of Naples as typhus raged, reminds the reader of life coming to a premature stop. The threat of cross-infection in my daily patient encounters incites Keat’s “mortality weigh(ing) heavily on me like unwilling sleep,” yet there is consolation in being “half in love with easeful death.” We should all salute the unsung scores of imperilled, some now dead, doctors and nurses that have risen to the occasion. Joseph Ting, MBBS MSc (Lond) BMedSc PGDipEpi DipLSTHM FACEM. Adjunct associate professor, School of Public Health and Social Work O Block, Room O-D610 Victoria Park Road Kelvin Grove, Brisbane QLD 4059 Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane Australia Mob 0404826650

(Thread 2)

Emergency services and police staff deserve our respect and admiration for risking life and limb in respnding to recent terrorist attacks at the Manchester Arena and in Central London. This is in addition to people throw themselves in the path of London Tube trains several times a week. Most are horrifically and mortally injured. The train driver is often traumatised. Medical workers face grave hazards trying to access the injured survivor, having to crawl underneath the train along potentially electrified tracks. Commuter journeys are lengthily disrupted. Apart from the ethical dilemma surrounding attempts to take one’s own life, is one obliged to not put others at risk of occupational hazards and inconvenience, more so now when rescue crews have to deal with frequent innocent mass casualties from barbaric acts?
Declaration: I was a prehospital doctor working in England until May 2013.

(Thread 3)

I was trying to insert a central venous catheter to help stabilise the condition of a critically ill man with suspected blood stream infection and dangerously low blood pressure on a busy shift in resuscitation. I had to work by myself as several doctors had called in sick, including my resident who recently told me she had cause to be aggrieved after being refused leave for the school holidays. There were many parent-doctors who had applied successfully ahead of her and leave was no longer available. I unfortunately punctured the patient’s carotid artery after being distracted with urgent information that several major trauma cases were due soon with no senior medical cover available from other hospital units.

Although the patient fared well and I completed the resuscitative procedure in time to attend to the incoming traumas, I believe that sick leave taken fraudulently by doctors (and nurses) lead to more stressful workloads and adverse risks for staff that turn up. Half of all sick leave taken in Australia is as a selfish entitlement to have rest and recreation. The expectation is that work presenters make up the shortfall as well as assuming responsibility for clinical and stress related errors and delays or deficiencies to care. I think this is grossly unfair-the average Australian takes most of their 10 days of sick leave each year.

(Thread 4)

Benefits intended to assist workers with an injury or illness is often abused. In 25 years of working as a hospital physician, I have taken three days off for acute injuries and for my mother’s funeral. My residents are predisposed to calling in sick on days that bookend their free weekend or a stretch of days rostered off work. The department’s secretary leaves early on a Friday or puts in a no-show. I regularly get a last minute phone call from residents who call in sick, which means that the doctors who are present are required to work an extra shift. Some get sent home from a day shift and are asked to return for night duty that cannot be filled in otherwise. It is common knowlege that a substantial proportion of sick leave in my clinical area is used for recreation. I have had to work marathon shifts for absent colleagues while fatigued and sleep-deprived. This has incurred errors in the care of the seriously ill. On one ocassion I have fallen asleep at the wheel on the way home and run through a red light. Dishonest sick leave takers are abusing an altruistic safety net and imposing risks to others who have to shoulder additional clinical work. Is it worth considering sick leave be paid at half to three quarters full pay, and the difference paid to a locum that can turn up for work at short notice, in the hope that patient care isn’t compromised?

For Americans: this study predicts the COVID-19 wave by state. The national peak is predicted on April 14 when the study projects a 49,292-hospital-bed shortage. Individual states may peak as late as May. The study is based on maintenance of social distancing.

The model predicts about 81,000 deaths by August 4.

jesus. What happens when the bed shortage mean 50000 uncared for? People die at home and in the streets? I guess that's already happening to some extent in Italy and Spain. This is ugly.