Its a pointless exercise, wherever they fly in from there will be less infected people than there are in the US. The Mexicans will be building that wall to keep them (US citizens) out.

Perhaps mathematical modelling will be important in strategy to come out of lockdowns. In reality though, I think strategy is not complicated here, but is dependent on the understanding of the nature of the virus. Because we don't know if we will have a vaccine, if people will develop immunity, or for how long etc.

I'm always wary of assigning positions to 'brainwashing'. Not because it's not appropriate, but because I don't think it's helpful.

Yes, I should have said grooming (I don't like the sound of the word), their narratives have been groomed. I don't think the true narrative is problematic in this instance because the strategy (to reduce transmission) simply requires social distancing, the stay at home narrative is simple, obvious and can be seen to work. Here in the UK there are government announcements in all media all day stating;

This is a national emergency, stay home, help the NHS, save lives. Anyone can catch it, anyone can spread it, stay home, help the NHS, save lives.

This narrative is very powerful and can be seen to work.

You're right about the signal that's driving this, but with 7 million premature deaths linked to air pollution, the same could be said of anyone driving their car into the town centre. With 1.9 million deaths from diarrhoeal diseases directly related to poverty, the same could be said of anyone not paying a fair price for agricultural products from developing countries. It comes down to beliefs about the weight of responsibility vs autonomy.

Interestingly this crisis shines a light on the flaws in our accepted status quo. Our lifestyles are peppered with failings like air pollution deaths, exploitation of the less well off and foreign farmers, destruction of the environment etc. etc. When one thinks about this state of affairs (and I think more people will do at a time like this), one can see how our governance, regulation, social norms etc are imperfect and such failings are inevitable and inertia within the systems and belief systems makes it hard for do gooders to affect change.

Is it such a juxtaposition though? I see what you mean, but the responsible media (and even scientists) are not made up of people magically immune from influence by their social groups. We shouldn't mistake the clear boundaries to reasonable belief created by science for a guide to 'right' belief. It's not the same thing at all.

Yes the media and social norms are propagating groomed narratives in the UK, for example the grooming that socialism is destructive and conservatism is fiscally responsible by comparison has been ingrained in the social discourse for more than a generation and is seen as normality, truth. But when one takes a closer look there is a continuous stream of propaganda required to maintain this bias. Propaganda which would not be required if it were the truth it's purported to be. Whereas in reality that conservatism has resulted in a hollowing out of the welfare state, underfunding of local councils and civil resources, greater wealth inequality and exploitation of the not wealthy by profiteering capitalists. The propaganda is also utilised to distract attention on these inequalities and sweep the truth under the carpet.

The point is that I think feeling one's life (or those of ones close social group) is at risk really undercuts beliefs which were held only for convenience, but it does not dent those which were held fundamentally. I guess America has more fundamentalists.

Its not clear at this stage how many folk in the UK are fundamentalists, the light has only just started shining on them and they are hiding in the shadows. The one at the top of government has been flushed out, fortunately, Dominic Cummings, who has become irrelevant and presumably doesn't want to get his hands dirty with having to do some real work and help with the logistical nightmare of this crisis. The two main groups of fundamentalists have gone quiet, I suspect that one of them the middle class who fell for the anti EU rhetoric are beginning to wake up a bit to their maliability.

Yeah, my life has been turned upside down, I used to spend all day inside working on my computer and only going out to exercise, and now I spend all day inside working on my computer and only go out to exercise within 2km of my home. :lol:

Same, no change in my lifestyle. The big loss for me is the charity shops have closed, my wardrobe is going to get behind the times now.

Its gonna be a scream in Atlanta.

Just cross-reference a couple of my posts and fill in the blanks.
— NOS4A2

I did, and the blank was filled with he's lying.

I just cross referenced the post where his gran just died and he's been retired for a few years. Something doesn't compute.

The UN is now predicting famines of “biblical” proportions within the next few months.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-52373888

If this does come to pass, it will be a man-made catastrophe.

Time to give some help ( subs) to international organisations put in place to help with such crises. Rather than let vanity get in the way.

In any scenario, the economy will be badly affected.

I have to agree with this. The bottom line is that we have to adjust to a way of living which limits the spread of the virus sufficiently that it can be kept under control. I think the economy can be kept running as well, but the necessary adjustments are not easy for communities to adopt sufficiently. Each country seems to have imposed a lockdown when this equation was not going to be possible to sustain. The quicker communities adjust, the quicker they can go back to work.

The adjustment looks like a regime of widespread testing and contact tracing, social distancing measures where people remain at least 2m apart. Wear masks, possibly gloves in certain circumstances and sanitise or wash their hands regularly when in public places. Bars and restaurants will have to have customers widely spaced and take care not to let the virus get into their kitchens, or behind the bar. Unfortunately large mass gatherings are going to have to wait longer before we can return to these due to difficulties with spread.

— Hanover

With regard to federal regulations over dangerous chemicals and worker safety requirements, the FDA and OSHA are fairly tight regulators, and, I don't know if you've been in the US, but we are an incredibly safe society due to the threat of litigation being around every corner.

I suggest you take a look at DuPont and their antics with Ammonium perfluorooctanoate (C8) and other chemicals for example.

Now we are seeing the brainwashed people coming out to protest in the US. Trump seems to be thrashing around in different directions and is becoming more and more unhinged. Like a death cult his followers will follow wherever he leads and the signal cutting through is that they need to keep working and going out as normal rather than stay at home, to make America great again, rather than stall the economy and sink back into depression.

Trump is trying to present himself as a stable genius who has got a handle on this virus and is taking all the right actions and responses. But it has unravelled because the only message cutting through is that the messages coming out from the rest of the world about social distancing and fighting the virus through stopping its spread in public spaces, are a con, a conspiracy to make The West shut down its economies. Trump seems to be turning on the governors and confusing the message again.

I agree with your thoughts on the media, it seems to have come to a head in the countries which have embraced the populism sweeping the world. Here in the UK we have a curious juxtaposition between the populism and a sense of civil obedience and cooperation. The populist media has been in the ascendancy during the Brexit debacle, resulting in a rightwing populist government getting into office. But as soon as their populist message became superseded by a global pandemic the populism has become curiously silent and the population has fallen into line behind the instructions of the medical experts. The populists in government have become impotent in their agendas, and have found themselves having to manage a war like response to a health emergency. The opposite of what they fought to deliver when they sought office. Also partly due to the reverence for the BBC the population is obediently following a media message orchestrated by a well ordered and responsible media.

Lol

Is the swamp full of oil that can't be sold at any price?

What's happening to the oil price in the US?

I will give your thoughts more thought as I only see large numbers of vague(in the sense of being unknown this early in the pandemic) and wide ranging thoughts across all the factors involved in this crisis. I don't think I am in a position to reinterpret it in my language. Also I am inclined to return to the political and socio economic developments of the crisis, which is more my area.

I agree with your assessment here (not including the disagreement with boethius, because I am still trying to work that out), but as it is not my area to get into statistics, I will leave that there for now. But I will respond to your comments on politics and the media later as that is more of interest for me.

Yes, it is only the way the Tory's have handled Brexit following the referendum which I am highly critical of. The decision itself I am reconciled with, while continuing to see it as a mistake for the reasons I have laid out in this thread.

The problem, as I have highlighted, now is the wreckless behaviour of the government which will destroy the goodwill between the UK and Europe and looks like it will destroy the UK Union as well.

This destructive aspect is not at all necessary and will damage the country. They are like demented children, mad Conquistadors.

Now that they have been thrust into the midst of a global pandemic in which the solution means destroying your own economy they find themselves in their ultimate nightmare. They are having to follow a course directly oppsing that which they were intending. They are now more socialist than Corbyn, because there is no alternative, while just a few weeks ago they condemned that kind of socialism as dementedly destructive.

Their heads are spinning and in the media today, the media is beginning to turn on Johnson and his government. Especially the rightwing tabloid press who supported him to get into power and secure Brexit.

I was asking about those who do catch Covid, I even put it in bold.

So it looks like you're saying that not many in group 1 die in 2020 because only a small amount of them will become infected?
Unfortunately we don't know how many will become infected by 31st of December.
Also that just as many by percentage of fit and healthy people get it to( perhaps the size of the group 1 by percentage is important here).

Regarding group 2 your wall of text suggests to me that you disagree with my 60% of those infected? Where would you estimate the figure? Or do you think it can't be estimated for the reasons you give?

I was not trying to make a point, I was trying to work out what Boethius's point is.

For me the confusion seems to be in dividing group 1 from group 2. So I phrased it in terms of those who are, or are not destined (absent the Covid epidemic) to die during 2020. Thus confining members of each group to their group, eliminating overlap between the groups.

So when we include Covid the size of each group is unchanged with no overlap. But in this case a percentage of group 2 does die in 2020, solely due to contracting Covid.

The idea being to tease out what Boethius is trying to say.

There are a large number of factors resulting in deaths in this pandemic, so I want to focus on this point you are making about the overlap.

So you are happy with there being a group (1), which is a small group, who are destined to die in 2020 due to another medical condition, comorbidity. With an overlap of 95% or more, who have contracted Covid, dying due to Covid.

You are happy with a group (2), who have an underlying medical condition, comorbidity, but who are not destined to die in 2020, they may die in 1, 2, or 10 years of these conditions. That this is a large group, and that a large proportion of these patients will die in 2020 if they contract Covid. I estimated that 60% of these who contract Covid will die.

You are happy with another group (3) who are destined to die in 2020, but who don't present as very ill when they contract Covid. I accept for now that the overlap here may be smaller say 1-5% who contract Covid will die.

It's important that we don't complicate this with discussing the percentage of the population who has currently been exposed to the virus, because this figure is changing throughout the year and the degree of this change is determined by many factors other than morbidity.


So you are proposing that (1) is very small, so insignificant. That (2) is very large, and presumably (3) is small. Meaning that the majority of the comorbidity deaths are in group 2 amongst people who may have an underlying health condition which is not going to kill them for many years in most cases, but who have a high mortality if they contract Covid.

So your main point is to highlight the large number of deaths in group 2. So how do you conclude that the overall comorbidity overlap is small? ( is (2) a small percentage of the population?).

I've heard from 1/3 to 1/2 exposed show no symptoms. And then others, yes sometimes young with no medical history, come close to death. It's strange.

From what I remember from the article I heard, some people might have a genetic predisposition which causes cells to repell, or become slippy to Covid.

Also I expect (although this is speculation) that some people have a genetic predisposition which makes their immune system somehow vulnerable to, or deadly for Covid.

if we look at a group in the population who are ill with one of the comorbidity diseases who would be destined to die in 2020. Some of those will die prematurely due to a Covid infection. I would find it hard to believe that many of these patients would survive Covid, only to die later in the year, so the overlap will be large, say around 95% ( of those who become infected with Covid)

There is a second group who are ill with the same illnesses, but who are not destined to die in 2020. A proportion of thes patients will die in 2020 after contracting Covid. I would expect the overlap here to remain high, but not as high, say 60%.(of those infected with Covid)

There is a third group who were destined to die of a disease in 2020, but who presented as quite well, but who will die unexpectedly in 2020. Of this group there may, or may not be an overlap, if there is I expect it is quite low, say 10, or 20%.( of those infected with Covid)

Presumably it requires statistical analysis to arrive at an overall overlap across the three groups. I expect we don't have sufficient data to come to anything near accurate.

Some people become infected or colonized by this coronavirus and have no symptoms. Some become ill enough to die. I think there is a hidden factor involved.

Yes, there are some geneticists looking into a genetic disposition. It makes sense to me, but I'm no expert.

I saw the protests against lockdown in the US and Trump announcing premature opening up of lockdowns. Looks like it's going to get fruity over there.

I have to agree with you to a degree here. There is a significant difference between the two kinds of economic failure though. The Covid failure is essentially a state of economic stasis, life support. Whereas the Brexit failure is systemic, with a large proportion of the UK's economic interaction having to be restructured. In ways which are very uncertain and to a large degree dependent on a set of incompetent, protracted and I predict increasingly hostile, negotiations.

For example there are many goods crossing the Channel both ways which will or will not be viable depending on the future tarif and regulatory frameworks. Details which are treated with contempt and indifference on the UK side and of importance on the EU side. So what happens to the UK fishermen, or sheep farmers during this tussle? Or service providers?

The very fact that the UK administration is cavalier in its behaviour is destructive of both politics and livelihoods in a deeply irresponsible way. Not to mention the Union, the United Kingdom.

It never ceases to amaze me the lengths people will go to to maintain their chosen narrative.

I should never have started trying to have a reasonable discussion again.

Please do stick around to discuss this, your contributions are valued. I think you unfortunately chose to dig a little deeper with the wrong interlocutor. Boethius is quite argumentative, he seems to enjoy it. But this might result in a failure to reach consensus.

There are others following this crisis who will be more agreeable.

I apologise for not following your comments, I have limited time for this at the moment. I think you will find that the various folk following the thread have their own position, or take on this crisis, which they have presented, the rest of us can then take what we want from it. I am not sure what your position is?

Mine is that the health consequences are not the primary concern, that we won't have accurate statistical analysis at this point, but there is a substantial overlap, along with a significant number of healthy younger fatalities and a worrying mortality among vulnerable groups. Those who are immunosuppresed for medical reasons, for example, they are a significant constituency. But more importantly there is the economic, political and social consequences, these are the areas of interest for many. Because the consequences may, or may not be profound.

Anyone else actually get the 'rona?

Do you have it? I hope your symptoms are not to bad.

Yes, mission creep. It can take you from agreeing to Brexit on the understanding that it will be economically beneficial and returns the sovereignty lost to the EU. To being ok with an economic recession, a falling out with the EU and only having basic World Trade Organisation trade arrangements with any country in the world and having no better access to Europe than a third country.

It missed out the most important guideline, you mustn't smile, especially outside, although you can laugh in your own home. Lol

You are not allowed to be happy at anytime, only miserable and worried.

Fox is reporting that it was a research project that escaped from a Wuhan lab...

A new Cold War, and the're commies to boot.

How pathetic.

Professor Anthony Costello, former director of the Institute for Global Health, has said today that the UK is on course to have the highest death toll in Europe, in excess of 40,000 in the initial peak. Due to an only partial lockdown, which was implemented to late.

Even now, as pointed out by Evett Cooper in parliamentary select Committee today, that there are even now many thousands of people flying into the UK from all over the world without any checks, tests, or even requests for self isolation.

Now Sweden's death rate is spiking.

From the perspective of the hard Brexiters it is a political master stroke. But they were never in the majority, they relied on a large group of soft Brexiters who were not ideologically motivated, but they thought that leaving was beneficial in terms of immigration, or sovereignty. These people did not sign up to a no trade deal Brexit with the collateral damage it would result in.

Also and the reason I say the proverbial will hit the fan, it will cause a split at the heart of the Conservative party, putting at risk the majority in Parliament.

So present those moderate Brexiters with a no trade deal, an up yours EU strategy with the irresponsibility of continuing on this course during an existential pandemic. I seriously doubt the government could maintain its support.

Remember that the government majority was built on a fear of socialism, rather than a wholehearted support for Brexit. That that threat is now reduced and the government is now inadvertently implementing those very policies, in essence and we are not going to hell in a hand cart, the threat of socialism has lost traction.

I suspect that Johnson will present a moderate tone when he returns to work. His place in history is in serious peril at the moment, he won't want to keep digging.

David Frost the chief UK negotiator has responded to requests to extend the implementation period, which must be requested at the end of June, has said there is no way an extension will be requested and has been legislated for on that timescale. So basically the government is saying the UK will leave the EU agreed trade deal, or no trade deal on 31st December 2020.

Considering the pandemic and subsequent economic depression with no certainty on how it will develop, this is highly irresponsible and will cause an almighty row once it gets into the media.

Now we see the rightwing fundamentalists in No10 in their true light and the people who voted for these snake oil salesmen are going to regret it.

I can't wait for the proverbial to hit the fan.

I'm near Diss, West Anglia isn't talked about, it's called the fens in these parts, I couldn't live there.

Sorry to hear how the authorities treat you in Moscow. Aren't you allowed to go out to exercise? Don't worry about the mess, my house would be messy if my wife didn't make me remind me to tidy up and do the housework regularly.

Good to hear, I live 20 miles south west of Norfolk England. We bought a house where you can buy property with land at a reasonable price, we are surrounded by farmland. But the peace and quiet is worth it. There are a few redneck farms around, I get on ok with them though, a small price to pay.

He meant the cleaning station is the super spreader, not you. This is evidenced by his use of the word "cool", if he were accusing you of that he would not be cool about it.

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?

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.

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.

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.