The COVID-2019 Thread

[Chittychangchang]

Each day, news of more deaths is a huge source of alarm to people across the country - as well as a tragedy for the families involved.

Projections of how bad the outbreak could get have prompted ministers to put the country into lockdown. But what are death figures really telling us? And how bad is it going to get?

Is coronavirus causing the deaths?
The death figures being reported daily are hospital cases where a person dies with the coronavirus infection in their body - because it is a notifiable disease cases have to be reported.

But what the figures do not tell us is to what extent the virus is causing the death.

It could be the major cause, a contributory factor or simply present when they are dying of something else.

Most people who die with coronavirus have an underlying health condition, such as heart disease or diabetes, that may be more of a factor.

For example, an 18-year-old in Coventry tested positive for coronavirus the day before he died and was reported as its youngest victim at the time.

But the hospital subsequently released a statement saying his death had been due to a separate "significant" health condition and not connected to the virus.

There are, however, other cases, including health workers and a 13-year-old boy from London, who died with no known health conditions.

The Office for National Statistics is now trying to determine the proportion of these deaths that are caused specifically by coronavirus.

How many could die?
Image caption
The research from Imperial College was published on 16 March 2020.
Imperial College London modelling, used to inform government, has suggested 500,000 could have died by August in the UK if the virus was left to rip through the population.

It also warned the government's previous strategy to slow the spread by asking those with symptoms to self-isolate and shield the most vulnerable could have led to 250,000 deaths.

Now, it is hoped the lockdown will limit deaths to around 20,000.

But that does not mean 480,000 lives are being saved - many will die whether or not they get the virus.

Every year, about 600,000 people in the UK die. And the frail and elderly are most at risk, just as they are if they have coronavirus.

Nearly 10% of people aged over 80 will die in the next year, Prof Sir David Spiegelhalter, at the University of Cambridge, points out, and the risk of them dying if infected with coronavirus is almost exactly the same.

That does not mean there will be no extra deaths - but, Sir David says, there will be "a substantial overlap".

"Many people who die of Covid [the disease caused by coronavirus] would have died anyway within a short period," he says.

Knowing exactly how many is impossible to tell at this stage.

Prof Neil Ferguson, the lead modeller at Imperial College London, has suggested it could be up to two-thirds.

But while deaths without the virus would be spread over the course of a year, those with the virus could come quickly and overwhelm the health service.

How many extra deaths are being caused?
The most immediate way to judge the current policy is to see if the health service manages to cope with the coronavirus cases it sees in the coming weeks.

Beyond that, the key measure will be what is called excess deaths - the difference between the expected number of deaths and actual deaths.

This is closely monitored during flu seasons. During recent winters, there have been about 17,000 excess deaths from flu a year, Public Health England says.

This, of course, can be done in the future only.

But the Office for National Statistics has started to track this on a weekly basis.

The most recent data goes up to the start of April and shows in the week ending 3 April there were 6,000 deaths above what would be expected - this includes deaths in the community as well, so not just hospital deaths as is the case for England and Northern Ireland in the government's daily figures.

Interestingly, just over half of these were linked to coronavirus.

It is unclear what had caused the rest of the increase.

It could be that coronavirus deaths were being under-reported or there may have been an increase in indirect deaths linked to the virus, including people not seeking help for other health conditions or a rise in mental health-related deaths.

So the lockdown itself could be costing lives?
Yes. Prof Robert Dinwall, from Nottingham Trent University, says it is important that "the collateral damage to society and the economy" is closely monitored.

He says this can include:

mental health problems and suicides linked to self-isolation
heart problems from lack of activity
the impact on health from increased unemployment and reduced living standards
Others have also pointed to the health cost from steps such as delaying routine operations and cancer screening.

Meanwhile, University of Bristol researchers say the benefit of a long-term lockdown in reducing premature deaths could be outweighed by the lost life expectancy from a prolonged economic dip.

And the tipping point, they say, is a 6.4% decline in the size of the economy - on a par with what happened following the 2008 financial crash.

It would see a loss of three months of life on average across the population because of factors from declining living standards to poorer health care.

What will happen next?
Image copyrightGETTY IMAGES
The policies in place at the moment are aimed at suppressing the peak by stopping the spread of the virus.

Once the peak has passed, decisions will have to be taken about what to do next.

The virus will not simply have gone away and with a vaccine at least a year away, the challenge will be how to manage the virus.

A balance will need to be struck between keeping it at bay and trying to control its spread to avoid a second peak, while allowing the country to return to normal.

Seeing the full picture in terms of lives saved and lives lost will be essential in getting those calls right.

[lom]

They didn't when it came to the 'Paris Agreement'. Hence why Trump pulled the US out, and quite rightly so.

U.S has for the last 30 years moved most of their polluting factories to China in order to reduce U.S pollution and to circumvent U.S pollution laws.
They want to move that production back to U.S (MAGA) but can't do that if they have to adhere to the Paris Agreement so they used Chinese pollution as an excuse for pulling out. Oh the hypocrisy!

[Chittychangchang]

An ambulance has just pulled up across the road from Chez Chitty, doesn't look good for a neighbour. .

[tomcat]

[russellsimpson]

Xi Jinping’s China did this
The corrupt, criminal regime wasted 40 days blocking information while it crushed domestic dissent and ensured COVID-19 would become a global pandemic
There is authoritative and compelling evidence — including a study from the University of Southampton — that if interventions in China had been conducted three weeks earlier, transmission of COVID-19 could have been reduced by 95 percent.
For 40 days, President Xi Jinping’s CPC concealed, destroyed, falsified, and fabricated information about the rampant spread of COVID-19 through its state-sanctioned massive surveillance and suppression of data; its misrepresentation of information; its silencing and criminalizing of its dissent; and its disappearance of its whistleblowers.
In late December 2019, Dr. Ai Fen, director of the Emergency Department at the Central Hospital of Wuhan — “The Whistle-Giver” — disseminated information about COVID-19 to several doctors, one of whom was Dr. Li Wenliang, and eight of whom were later arrested. Dr. Ai has recently disappeared.
Dr. Ai also detailed efforts to silence her in a story titled, “The one who supplied the whistle,” published in China’s People (Renwu) magazine in March. The article has since been removed.
On January 1, 2020, Dr. Li Wenliang — the “hero” and “awakener” — was reprimanded for spreading rumors, and was summoned to sign a statement accusing him of making false statements that disturbed the public order. Seven other people were arrested on similar charges. Their fate is still unknown.
On January 4, 2020, Dr. Ho Pak Leung — president of the University of Hong Kong’s Centre for Infection — indicated that it was highly probable that COVID-19 spread from human-to-human, and urged the implementation of a strict monitoring system.
For weeks, the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission declared that preliminary investigations did not show any clear evidence of human-to-human transmission.
On January 14, 2020, the WHO reaffirmed China’s statement, and on January 22, 2020, Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus praised the CPC’s handling of the outbreak, commending China’s Minister of Health for his cooperation, and President Xi and Premier Li for their invaluable leadership and intervention.
On January 23, 2020, Chinese authorities announced their first steps to quarantine Wuhan. By then, it was too late. Millions of people had already visited Wuhan and left during the Chinese New Year, and a significant number of Chinese citizens had traveled overseas as asymptomatic carriers.

On February 23, 2020, Ren Zhiqiang — former real estate tycoon and longstanding critic of the CPC — wrote in an essay that he “saw not an emperor standing there exhibiting his ‘new clothes,’ but a clown stripped naked who insisted he continue being emperor.” He spoke of a “crisis of governance” and the strict limits on free speech, which had magnified the COVID-19 epidemic. He has also gone missing, and it has recently been reported that the CPC has opened an investigation against him.
The world would have been more prepared and able to combat COVID-19 had it not been for President Xi’s authoritarian regime’s widespread and systematic pattern of sanitizing the massive domestic repression of its people.
Forty days of silence and suppression cost Italy — the epicenter of Europe’s COVID-19 pandemic — a death toll of 12%, more than double that of China’s, followed by Spain with a fatality rate of 9%. As we write, the United States — whose presidential leadership has been wanting — has become the pandemic’s new epicenter, and there is heightened concern about what could become of developing countries like India, and South Africa’s immunosuppressed population of over 10 million.
While global infections continue to surge relentlessly upwards, China — ironically — is now considered safer than the majority of countries. The South Korean model — where it pioneered drive-through COVID-19 testing centers collecting swabs from over 15,000 people a day, and quarantining the infected immediately thereafter — is one of the only precedents and case studies to date, along with China, that significantly reduced the number of infected people and fatalities.
Attention should also be drawn to the CPC’s massive surveillance and suppression of data juxtaposed with its misrepresentation of information. China’s big data collection — approximately 200 million CCTV cameras — not only precipitated the highest tech epidemic control ever attempted by the CPC, but also underpinned the salience of its repression.
The CPC’s infodemic — in addition to its intense spinning of solidarity on social media and its framing of a “people’s war against the virus” — was both a deceitful and farcical illusion of a coming together in China. The extent of the CPC’s self-promotion and its portrayal of President Xi as a hero ready to save the world — while making Western democracies look grossly incompetent — is as shameful as it is duplicitous.
In a word, President Xi’s government has exacerbated the world’s COVID-19 health and systemic crises, which has paved the way for one of the greatest humanitarian crises in history.
The world is watching. People in China no longer stand alone. Many are no longer fearful. They have already started publishing firsthand accounts of the CPC’s orchestrated cover-ups and monumental failures, revealing the rotten core of Chinese governance.
In defending the struggle for democracy and human rights in China, the international community must stand in solidarity with the people of China in seeking to unmask the CPC’s criminality, corruption, and impunity.
The community of democracies must undertake the necessary legal initiatives — be they international tort actions as authorized by treaty law, or the utilization of international bodies, like the International Court of Justice — to underpin the courage and commitment of China’s human rights defenders. This is what justice and accountability is all about.
—
Irwin Cotler is the Chair of the Raoul Centre for Human Rights, Emeritus Professor of Law at McGill University, and former Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada.

[russellsimpson]

Xi Jinping’s China did this | The Times of Israel

[Seekingasylum]

I think it is now clear to even the dimmest Brit, this Tory cabinet, recruited it seems on no other basis than a slavish and swivel-eyed devotion to Brexit as a cult belief system overriding all other concerns, is the most incompetent government in living memory.

However, I think the somewhat apocalyptic forecast that Britain could lose 30% of its economy, risks 2 million unemployed and will increase PSB by £300 billions in one year alone as a consequence of the COVID disaster, is a bit of a godsend in that the stupidity of Brexit will be obscured by the pandemic and concomitant global recession.

Every cloud has its silver lining and Cummings et al must be consoling themselves with the knowledge that the fickle finger of fate has exculpated them from the worst financial decision made in British modern political history now eclipsed by nature.

The British are of course predominantly stupid and in time they will rally round BoJo the Clown as he continues to evoke the Blitz sentiment supported by a geriatric royal whose rhetoric is as relevant as a stick of Blackpool rock celebrating her diamond jubilee, and he will be forgiven for his dilatoriness in the early stages of the epidemic which will have contributed to possibly the highest death rate in Europe.

It is truly bizarre though that this Tory government should have the sheer effrontery to hold daily briefings in which the mantra " protect the NHS " is repeated after a decade of cutbacks which has resulted in the healthcare system having the worst level of ICU care in western Europe, the least number of ventilators and the worst provision of personal protection equipment.

And the other day the secretary of state for DWP in an interview couldn't even tell how many frontline NHS staff had died.

I for one will never forget the time when the bodies were piling up in the makeshift morgues in N.Italy the British were celebrating the apogee of National Hunt racing in Cheltenham when over 100,000 convened daily over three days and all the schools and colleges were still open and London transport was rammed to the gills with millions of commuters daily as if nothing was happening in the world.

I am so bitterly disappointed that BoJo didn't expire on a ventilator in that ICU bed, resources that were denied to the hundreds of elderly care home residents who have died of hypoxia in their death houses over the past weeks.

But for the Tory PR wank machine, BoJo will now be the rallying point for all that mawkish pap, those visions of Vera Lynn's White Cliffs of Dover and the rolling Malvern Hills to the strains of Elgar and in the end there will be a celebration honouring the plucky British who have pulled through.

God, it's all just so depressing.

[Latindancer]

^ Well said.

A divine mistake was definitely made. Tim Brooke-Taylor should have lived and Boris (the idiotic shaker of hands) carked it.

[Bettyboo]

^^ & yet the public rating is through the roof... Mr Sausage, as ever, distant from reality...



(Let's 'eagerly' await the usual waffle insulting the masses and anybody that doesn't agree with Mr Sausage...)

[harrybarracuda]

'Arry, you hate conspiracy theories... Why would you be willing to go along with this one? Have you ordered your tin foil hat from Lazada?

Are you questioning the veracity of the report, or the possibility that safety lapses may have led to the virus being taken outside the building?

[harrybarracuda]

Trump says he is halting funding for the World Health Organization
President Donald Trump accused the WHO of "severely mismanaging and covering up" the coronavirus crisis, specifically the initial outbreak in Wuhan, China.

Trump: WHO put 'political correctness above lifesaving measures'
April 14, 2020, 11:38 PM BST / Updated April 15, 2020, 12:39 AM BST
By Dartunorro Clark
President Donald Trump announced Tuesday that he is halting funding for the World Health Organization pending a review of its response to the initial coronavirus outbreak after the organization criticized his restrictions on travel from China.

Trump accused the WHO of "severely mismanaging and covering up" the coronavirus crisis, specifically the initial outbreak in Wuhan, China. He took particular issue with the agency's criticism of his order to temporarily deny entry to the U.S. by most foreign nationals who had recently been in China. The order was issued Jan. 31, when China was the center of the pandemic.

You would think that as the major contributor, the US would have had a lot more oversight.

Instead, they let a pro-chinky goon take over, and let it block Taiwan's contribution when their response to the virus has been one of the best.

Whose administration let this happen?

[Bettyboo]

Are you questioning the veracity of the report, or the possibility that safety lapses may have led to the virus being taken outside the building?

Neither, just commenting that when a report fits your prescribed belief then you start talking about the 'veracity of the reporting' while ontheotherhand, when a report doesn't fit your prescribed notion you don't mention/consider the 'veracity of the report' (no matter how much evidence there is, as per the revolving door known situation with oodles of facts and research on the issue), but just post a picture of a person in a tin foil hat...

[Seekingasylum]

^^ & yet the public rating is through the roof... Mr Sausage, as ever, distant from reality...



(Let's 'eagerly' await the usual waffle insulting the masses and anybody that doesn't agree with Mr Sausage...)

Battyboob, which bit of " the British are predominately stupid " did you not grasp?

[Bettyboo]

Battyboob, which bit of " the British are predominately stupid " did you not grasp?

You started out (and continued, on and on and on...) saying this British government are "the most incompetent government in living memory" - that view is not shared by the people that matter, the electorate. You, as usual, are an island, all by yourself, not allowed in, standing at the window screaming like a child, Mr Sausage...

[harrybarracuda]

It seems they are a bit fucking dumb in Ohio.

Crowds gathered outside of the Ohio Statehouse in Columbus during Gov. Mike DeWine's daily COVID-19 press briefing on the afternoon of April 13 to protest statewide shutdowns.

This isn't the first protest regarding the pandemic-related business closures and stay at home order: About 75 protestors gathered on Thursday, April 9 according to an article by WOSU.

Virtually none of today's protestors can be seen wearing cloth face masks at the gathering — although there's definitely at least one person in a Guy Fawkes mask — and it appears the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's recommended six-foot social distancing guideline to prevent the spread of the virus was largely ignored.

Ohio Public Radio's Karen Kasler posted about the protestors on her Twitter. You can see their signs proclaiming things like, "Open Ohio: We want our rights back" and "My inherent rights don't end where your fear begins."

https://www.clevescene.com/scene-and...irus-shutdowns

[harrybarracuda]

It seems they're even dumber in Chile.

Cases of the novel coronavirus in Chile have climbed past 7,500, including 82 deaths, while over 2,300 have recovered from infection as of Tuesday, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
But coronavirus patients in Chile who have died are being counted among the country's recovered population because they are "no longer contagious," Chile's Health Minister Jaime Mañalich said this week.
"We have 898 patients who are no longer contagious, who are not a source of contagion for others and we include them as recovered. These are the people who have completed 14 days of diagnosis or who unfortunately have passed away," Mañalich announced at a press conference.

https://www.newsweek.com/chile-count...health-1497775

[lom]

yet the public rating is through the roof... Mr Sausage, as ever, distant from reality.

How does that disprove SA's opinion that the masses in Britain are stupid?

[Seekingasylum]

Batty, in his/her neurotic hysteria, seems to be incapable of grasping any point incongruent with his/her own doctrinal view of pretty much anything.

Away with the pixies but there it is.

Still, when the taxes go through the roof, credit becomes expensive and wages flatline for another five years, the great unwashed, the deluded, the ignorant and the merely stupid will no doubt rouse themselves out of their comatose state of imbecility and whinge for a better handout which will only be forthcoming with a change of government.

Nothing new under the sun, it's just that we are evidently in a phase when The Stupid have primacy and we less challenged must endure.

Honestly, what more must we decent intelligent folk have to put up with: Brexit, May, BoJo the Clown and his Orcs, COVID, death and the endless parade of the lower end exulting in their wanton stupidity.

I am exploring the possibility of re-locating to the Isle of Mull or Skye.

Self-isolating with the wingman for the rest of what might remain to us amid glorious natural splendour, wild but excitingly inclement weather, whiskey, bracing walks and neoprene clad swimming in sea lochs among gambolling schools of dolphins, sea otters and seals is the aim, and we shall shun the outside world with its lumpen foolish hordes relying on our own company and that of a chosen few supplemented by the odd movie download.

Subsisting on an extensive diet of smoked kippers, salmon, cullen skink and hearty stews of venison and grouse, we shall thrive and carry on in blissful contentment during which I shall expunge all memory of The Age of The Stupid.

[Bettyboo]

How does that disprove SA's opinion that the masses in Britain are stupid?

Mr Sausage is one of the dumbest persons I've ever conversed with, so his opinion is simply meaningless...




Back on topic, this is interesting (although it gets more interesting when the doctor joins in around 5 minutes):



If true though, on the figures they give, it means that well over 5 million people in the UK have it, and more than a billion people worldwide have it - in 4 months, with no vaccine... Obviously, their examples were focussing on the younger and healthier, so somewhere inbetween is probably the reality - we won't know for a long time yet.

Kinda swings and roundabouts, low mortality rate is great, but such massive transmission so quickly with no vaccine and high mortality rates with certain groups is bad.

[NamPikToot]

I am exploring the possibility of re-locating to the Isle of Mull or Skye.

what happened to Portugal, erm or Ireland or was it Italy....it's good to dream. Just a word of caution, the locals in Skype and other Islands still aren't used to bloke on bloke.

[jabir]

Which may not be a useful path to travel down.

Attachment 48830

Quite right, it's not a perfect world...aw shucks!

[Pragmatic]

U.S has for the last 30 years moved most of their polluting factories to China in order to reduce U.S pollution and to circumvent U.S pollution laws.

We live and learn.

[David48atTD]

I don't often wish ill of someone, however, I just loved this story ...

---

Coronavirus hoarder tries to return $10,000 worth of goods to supermarket

An Adelaide shopper has attempted to return thousands of dollars' worth of supplies to a local supermarket after stockpiling them at the start of the coronavirus panic buying outbreak, a retailer says.

Key points:

• Adelaide chain Drakes Supermarkets said the man was part of a team of stockpilers looking to profiteer
• It said he purchased thousands of dollars worth of toilet paper and sanitiser several weeks ago
• He was refused a refund after he failed to sell the bulk of the goods online

But the man, who initially tried and failed to re-sell the goods online, has been refused a refund.

Drakes Supermarkets director John-Paul Drake said the man called the supermarket to try to get a refund on 132 packs of toilet rolls and 150 one-litre bottles of hand sanitiser.

He said the shopper had bought the goods, worth around $10,000, with the help of a "team" of stockpilers when panic buying surged about four weeks ago.

"In that conversation [the shopper said] 'my eBay site has been shut down, so we couldn't profiteer off that',

Coronavirus hoarder tries to return $10,000 worth of goods to Adelaide supermarket - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

[Bettyboo]

This is another interesting video with real information and details:

[jabir]

You would think that as the major contributor, the US would have had a lot more oversight.

Instead, they let a pro-chinky goon take over, and let it block Taiwan's contribution when their response to the virus has been one of the best.

Whose administration let this happen?

Of course anyone contradicting the CPC must be lying; around 30/31 Dec Taiwan had presented evidence to the WHO to effect that the virus was being transmitted human to human; at the same time and for the next three weeks, CPC were claiming there was no human-human transmission, until they could no longer conceal the cover up and came partially clean on 20 Jan.

Cynics would not expect it to come out in the wash, but the WHO was questioned on this and pointedly sidestepped, since a) the Taiwanese evidence was conclusive and they would be damned by saying so, b) it was clear to them before the 20th Jan that their paymasters were lying in an attempt to cover up their earlier lies, and c) so they brought out the rule book to dismiss Taiwan's claims on the ground that Taiwan is not a WHO member.

I wonder how much it costs to buy heads at say, the UN, or WHO.