The COVID-2019 Thread

[David48atTD]

^ Agreed

The telephoto shot condenses the depth of field, hence people look closer together.

[cyrille]

It's a very easy 'story' to cover and it fills up some space.

The 'hundreds of thousands' quote is about the entire country.

[cyrille]

Just wondering...shouldn't this be in 'World News' now?

Anyway...a good summary here of the thin line between success and failure in containing the virus...

We have been told repeatedly that the UK was unprepared for this pandemic. This is untrue. The UK was prepared, but then it de-prepared. Last year, the Global Health Security Index ranked this nation second in the world for pandemic readiness, while the US was first. Broadly speaking, in both nations the necessary systems were in place. Our governments chose not to use them.


The climate modeller James Annan has used his analytical methods to show what would have happened if the UK government had imposed its lockdown a week earlier. Starting it on 16 March, rather than 23 March, his modelling suggests, would by now have saved around 30,000 lives, reducing the rate of illness and death from coronavirus roughly by a factor of five.


But even 16 March would have been extraordinarily late. We now know that government ministers were told on 11 February that the virus could be catastrophic, and decisive action was urgently required. Instead, Boris Johnson told us to wash our hands and “go about our normal daily lives”.


Had the government acted in February, we can hazard a guess about what the result would have been, as the world has conducted a clear controlled experiment: weighing South Korea, Taiwan and New Zealand against the UK, the US and Brazil. South Korea did everything the UK government could have done, but refused to implement. Its death toll so far: 263. It still has an occasional cluster of infection, which it promptly contains. By contrast, the entire UK is now a cluster of infection.

The UK government was ready for this pandemic. Until it sabotaged its own system | George Monbiot | Opinion | The Guardian

[tomcat]

A North Carolina raceway on Saturday night. The sheriff refused to do anything to stop it, presumably because he's a dumb trumpanzee as well.

Attachment 51230

...the local Walmart must be closed...

[bowie]

what happens in the US in the next 2-4 weeks

It will be defining...

The problem(s) really hasn't changed - the main problems being that Covid is contagious (characterized as very contagious) and stealthy. The numbers haven't really changed, up to 60% are asymptomatic, they do not even know they are infected. And 60% may be a low ball number as a person who exhibits no symptoms isn't goin to bother being tested.

So, we have a disease in which more than half of the carriers are Typhoid Mary types.

Couple that with (speaking USA only) population 330M and 1.7M (0.5%) infected, 100k fatalities.

Or, after four or five months of this contagious Covid disease the USA has 1 out of every 165 persons that tests as infected. And 1 in every 3,300 persons deemed as having died from Covid.

The majority of the USA population do not know someone who has been infected.

Yet, 40 Million out of the 330M have been unemployed in response to the Covid Pandemic. That's 12% of Americans. That's 20% of the workforce. One in five workers are now unemployed because of a disease that has infected 1 out of every 165 persons.

It is easy to see where the angst comes from.

[cyrille]

Yet, 40 Million out of the 330M have been unemployed in response to the Covid Pandemic. That's 12% of Americans. That's 20% of the workforce. One in five workers are now unemployed because of a disease that has infected 1 out of every 165 persons.

It is easy to see where the angst comes from.

Also easy to understand the angst of people who have been forced back to work or are under pressure to go back into working environments without adequate distancing.

The bulk of these people come, highly disproportionately, from socially disadvantaged groups.

[bowie]

Also easy to understand the angst of people who have been forced back to work or are under pressure to go back into working environments without adequate distancing.

Where is this an issue? And, what is the issue? Is it a slavery issue? a right to work issue? are they contracted employees? You are purporting that they are being forced to work in unsafe conditions? They can't quit? Why not?

Is there any actual substance to your post?

[tomcat]

a) The majority of the USA population do not know someone who has been infected.
b) It is easy to see where the angst comes from.

a) No one knows if that's true or not...
b) No angst noted at crowded southern beaches or a number of other packed events around the nation...many of these party-hearty types believe they're under the protection of Jesus...I'm sure the media will have stories of those who repent their foolishness in the time of plague...

[bowie]

they're under the protection of Jesus...

and, when they begin dry coughing, 'tis God's will...

[cyrille]

Where is this an issue? And, what is the issue? Is it a slavery issue? a right to work issue? are they contracted employees? You are purporting that they are being forced to work in unsafe conditions? They can't quit? Why not?

Is there any actual substance to your post?

Wow, getting a bit worked up, aren't you?

Does that not fit in with your 'capitalism being senselessly denied' narrative?

Below is one of countless similar sources, if you can bear to type 'people being forced back to work' into Google.

And are you seriously asking why they can't quit? In a paralysed economy when they are at the bottom of the work pyramid?

As states lift their lockdowns, furloughed workers are being recalled. That’s as it should be as the economy thaws from its deep freeze. But some of these workers are being forced to choose between their health and their income, and the U.S. Labor Department, an institution long tasked with protecting workers’ safety, is pushing hard in the wrong direction, providing flawed guidance and scheming with employers to force people back to work under conditions that put them and their families at risk of catching the coronavirus.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlo...ake-them-sick/

[bowie]

a) No one knows if that's true or not...

Well - maybe

http://www.beckershospitalreview.com...-covid-19.html

1 in 8 Americans know someone with COVID-19
Anuja Vaidya (Twitter) - Tuesday, April 7th, 2020 Print | Email

About one in eight Americans, 14 percent, report knowing someone who has tested positive for the new coronavirus, up from 10 percent last week, a new Axios-Ipsos Coronavirus Index poll shows.
The poll is conducted weekly. The following results are from the fourth wave of the poll, conducted April 3-6. It includes responses from 1,136 U.S. adults.

[bowie]

and the U.S. Labor Department, an institution long tasked with protecting workers’ safety, is pushing hard in the wrong direction, providing flawed guidance and scheming with employers to force people back to work under conditions that put them and their families at risk of catching the coronavirus.

That's a subjective and opinionated statement. Written to push an agenda - washington post

Now, I am certain the you/we can and will find many cases where the employees feel in their opinions that their working conditions are unsafe because they are forced to work closer than six feet or two meters from their fellow employees. I fully expect that in many of those cases you will find that the company they work for is riding the edge or brink of profitability and cannot afford to retool or redesign their facilities and production/manufacturing layout to provide six foot spacing.

There are many tangents we could go off on these issues but ref post #6058: 65% of the businesses die within a year and 90% within two years. So, the businesses that are pressuring the employees to go back to work are in survival mode and most likely won't be there to provide employment to anybody.

[harrybarracuda]

The WHO suspended trials of the drug that Donald Trump has promoted as a coronavirus defense, fueling concerns about the U.S. president's handling of the pandemic that has killed nearly 100,000 Americans.

Trump has led the push for hydroxychloroquine as a potential shield or treatment for the virus, which has infected nearly 5.5 million people and killed 345,000 around the world, saying he took a course of the drug as a preventative measure.

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has also heavily promoted hydroxychloroquine while the virus has exploded across nation, which this week became the second most infected in the world after the United States.

But the World Health Organization said Monday it was halting testing of the drug for COVID-19 after studies questioned its safety, including one published Friday that found it actually increased the risk of death.

The WHO "has implemented a temporary pause... while the safety data is reviewed", its chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said, referring to the hydroxychloroquine arm of a global trial of various possible treatments.

WHO stops hydroxychloroquine trials over safety concerns - Japan Today

[harrybarracuda]

The chief Whackjobs on social media. Any posts quoting these nutters or misquoting real experts can be moved to the DH thread.

I particularly liked: "Steele claims in videos and at conferences that he is a weapons expert. According to Vice, he works at Reevu, a UK-based firm that designs motorcycle helmets".

And the wobbly who claims to have "invented email when in high school in the '70s".

These Are The Fake Experts Pushing Pseudoscience And Conspiracy Theories About The Coronavirus Pandemic
A guide to the spin doctors and conspiracy theorists clogging up your social media feed.

Many of those who spread hoaxes and pseudoscience about the coronavirus pandemic can be hard to distinguish from medical authorities recognized by their peers as legitimate.

To help you cut through the misinformation, we're keeping a running list of the most prominent people who have pushed what scientists and professional fact-checkers have found to be demonstrably false claims about the outbreak — and who they really are. We’re also highlighting real experts whose words were taken out of context and deliberately distorted.

The Spin Doctors

Name: Judy Mikovits

Who she is: Mikovits holds a PhD in biochemistry and molecular biology from George Washington University. She was formerly the research director at the Whittemore Peterson Institute. In 2012, Mikovits coauthored a controversial paper on chronic fatigue syndrome. Following its publication, the academic journal Science retracted it when the work of Mikovits and her colleagues could not be replicated. Before the retraction, Mikovits’ employer fired her, saying it was unrelated to the controversy around the research. In a 2014 book Mikovits coauthored, she claimed that Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, had personally barred her from the NIH premises. In 2018, Fauci categorically denied that claim to the fact-checking site Snopes, saying, “I have no idea what she is talking about.” Since 2014, she has been making appearances at a conference dedicated to denying vaccine science and saying that autism and vaccinations are connected, which is false, according to the CDC.

What she has said about the coronavirus: In the video titled “Plandemic,” she paints herself as a whistleblower, claiming the coronavirus pandemic was planned by shadowy global figures. Mikovits found an audience — it was shared, liked, and commented on over 20 million times on Facebook. In the video, Mikovits goes against scientific advice and claims that wearing a mask could make someone sick, that sand and water from the beach can help cure the coronavirus, and that yet-uninvented vaccines for it could be dangerous. Mikovits also misrepresents her research and arrest, not mentioning that her study was retracted and claiming she was held in jail without charges.

What authorities have said: In 2011, Mikovits was fired from the Whittemore Peterson Institute. Subsequently, the paper she coauthored was retracted, after it was found that samples were contaminated and other scientists, including those in her own lab, could not replicate the results. After her firing, Mikovits faced a lawsuit from her former employer for allegedly stealing lab equipment and data. She spent five days in jail in California being held as a fugitive, after which the charges were dropped in 2012. Mikovits filed a countersuit against her former employer that was dismissed in 2016 in part because she did not provide the necessary documentation.

Name: Shiva Ayyadurai

Who he is: A candidate for the GOP nomination for Senate in Massachusetts, who dubiously claimed to have invented email. He also dated, and reportedly married, actor Fran Drescher. In 2018, during a previous Senate bid, the city of Cambridge, Massachusetts, ordered him to remove a sign from his campaign bus that read "Only a REAL INDIAN Can Defeat the Fake Indian," referencing Sen. Elizabeth Warren. Ayyadurai sued, and the city backed down.

What he has said about the coronavirus: Ayyadurai accused Fauci of ties to Big Pharma without evidence, according to Politico, and called for him to be fired. He defined COVID-19 as “an overactive dysfunctional immune system that overreacts and that's what causes damage to the body," which is not accurate, according to medical experts. Ayyadurai has also claimed that vitamin C could be used to treat the disease, which is not true, according to the World Health Organization.

What authorities have said: Ayyadurai claims to have created an email program while in high school in the ‘70s and labeled himself “the inventor of email,” but that claim has been disputed by experts. Technology historian Thomas Haigh wrote that Ayyadurai "did not invent email. [...] The details of Ayyadurai’s program were never published, it was never commercialized, and it had no apparent influence on any further work in the field." In 2017, a judge dismissed a libel suit Ayyadurai brought over a Techdirt story that stated he did not invent email. Ayyadurai appealed that dismissal, and in 2019 Techdirt agreed to settle the case that meant that the news organization had to link to Ayyadurai’s claim of him inventing email on its stories about him.

Name: Eric Nepute

Who he is: A chiropractor with a degree from Logan University and accredited by the state of Missouri.

What he has said about the coronavirus: In a Facebook Live video viewed 2.1 million times, Nepute urged people to drink quinine and eat zinc to fight COVID-19. He also filmed a video with Sherri Tenpenny, who speaks against vaccine science, claiming the development of a COVID-19 vaccine was a plot to encourage mandatory vaccinations.

What authorities have said: As Snopes pointed out, he made pseudoscientific claims, including about the health benefits of tonic water: "You would need to drink more than 12 liters of Schweppes tonic water every eight hours to maintain those therapeutic levels of quinine (usually provided in pill form) from tonic water." In addition, Nepute claimed that quinine worked "similar-ish" to chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, the compounds under study as potential treatments for COVID-19, a claim which Snopes reported was inaccurate. The year before the pandemic, the Better Business Bureau challenged an advertising claim on Nepute's website, which stated, “Our ideal circumstance is what we call Preconception Care. This is when parents come to us at least 2 years before conceiving a child to first correct unidentified health issues with them in order to prevent those genes from being passed down.” According to the BBB, Nepute’s office initially replied but “did not respond to BBB’s request for substantiation/documentation.”

Name: Rashid Buttar

Who he is: An osteopath who earned his degree from Des Moines University. In 2009, Buttar claimed to have treated a young woman who said she got dystonia and was unable to speak after receiving a flu vaccine. News reports at the time challenged the story, according to ABC News. Buttar has been a proponent of chelation therapy as a treatment for various illnesses and disorders, including autism, which involves administering IV or pills that bind to metals in a patient's blood. Other than as a treatment for lead or mercury poisoning, the Mayo Clinic does not recommend chelation therapy. Buttar has long spoken against vaccines and previously participated in a conference in which speakers linked autism to vaccinations, a claim for which the CDC has said there is no scientific evidence.

What he has said about the coronavirus: Buttar has made claims disputed by fact-checkers regarding the coronavirus, including that receiving a flu shot was tied to testing positive. Buttar also claimed that the coronavirus was a biological weapon. (A paper in the scientific journal Nature said the virus was “not a laboratory construct.”) Buttar called for Dr. Fauci to be jailed over a series of grants that were awarded after the 2003 SARS outbreak.

What authorities have said: In 2010, the North Carolina medical board reprimanded him for, among other complaints, treating three cancer patients with therapies that had “no known value for the treatment of cancer,” documents from the case said. According to a WCNC report at the time, “Buttar has spent years selling skin drops at $150 a bottle as a treatment for diseases ranging from autism to cancer.” In 2013, the FDA sent Buttar a warning letter for promoting and distributing unapproved medical products on his websites and YouTube videos. "The medical board and FDA have a responsibility to make sure doctors don't push too close to the edge," Buttar previously said in an emailed statement to BuzzFeed News. "The regulatory bodies serve an important function and are needed to safeguard the public."

Name: Dr. Artin Massihi

Who he is: The co-owner of Accelerated Urgent Care, a private clinic in Bakersfield, California.

What he has said about the coronavirus: Massihi and his partner, Dr. Dan Erickson, called a press conference on April 22 to share data they claimed showed that the lockdowns should end, that COVID-19 was less deadly than commonly thought, and that physicians were being pressured to list COVID-19 as the cause of death for patients who had not tested positive. Public health authorities and a wide range of experts in the relevant fields condemned their data and conclusions as deeply flawed, the Mercury News reported.

What authorities have said: Massihi’s comments about COVID-19 were condemned in a joint statement by the American College of Emergency Physicians and the American Academy of Emergency Medicine as “reckless and untested musings” that were “inconsistent with current science and epidemiology regarding COVID-19.”

Name: Dr. Dan Erickson

Who he is: A former emergency room physician who co-owns Accelerated Urgent Care, a private clinic in Bakersfield, California.

What he has said about the coronavirus: At the press conference Erickson made a statistical error when he said, “California is 12% positive. We have 39.5 million people. If we just take a basic calculation and just extrapolate that out, that equates to about 4.7 million cases throughout the state of California.” In fact, 12% of Californians who’d been tested were positive — a difference that undercuts his claim, according to public health professor Andrew Noymer.

What authorities have said: Kern Public Health, the local health authority, also said Erickson was wrong when he claimed its top doctor agreed with him about the need to end the lockdowns.

The 5G Conspiracy Theorists

Name: David Icke

Who he is: Formerly a soccer player, sports broadcaster, and spokesperson for the UK Green Party, Icke is known for conspiracy theories that the Center for Countering Digital Hate has called anti-Semitic. He has suggested that interdimensional reptilian beings secretly control the world, that the moon is a spacecraft, and that the 9/11 attacks were not carried out by al-Qaeda, but by Israel. He also claimed to be the "son of God."

What he has said about the coronavirus: Icke has inaccurately claimed that Jews were behind the coronavirus, according to the BBC, and has promoted the conspiracy theory that 5G technology causes COVID-19. Following these claims, Facebook and YouTube suspended Icke’s pages. Spotify removed a podcast episode featuring an interview with Icke in which he doubted the existence of the virus.

What authorities have said: In 2017, the nonprofit Political Research Associates described Icke’s work as “a mishmash of most of the dominant themes of contemporary neofascism, mixed in with a smattering of topics culled from the U.S. militia movement.” In 2018, Jonathan Greenblatt, chief executive of the Anti-Defamation League, said of Icke, “There is no fair reading of Icke’s work that could be seen as not anti-Semitic.” UK media regulator Ofcom ruled last month that a London Live TV segment with Icke “posed threat to public health.” The Center for Countering Digital Hate has called on all major social media companies to deplatform Icke. After Facebook removed his official page, Icke tweeted, "Fascist Facebook deletes David Icke - the elite are TERRIFIED."

Name: Mark Steele

Who he is: Steele claims in videos and at conferences that he is a weapons expert. According to Vice, he works at Reevu, a UK-based firm that designs motorcycle helmets.Since 2018, Steele has harassed the town council of Gateshead, England, about 5G technology, according to Chronicle Live. The council published a Facebook post in 2018 denying it used 5G technology and rebuffing his other claims, like that street lights in town caused cancer.

What he has said about the coronavirus: Steele claimed that 5G cellular technology causes COVID-19, calling the disease a “genocide" carried by “the deep state.” An electrical engineer and a virologist told USA Today that 5G and the coronavirus are not linked. Steele also gave a speech about 5G at a 2018 conference for the Democrats and Veterans Party, an offshoot of the British far-right political party UKIP, that was featured prominently in a now-deleted viral video.

What authorities have said: In 2018, a British court convicted him for threatening two councilors in Gateshead. Steele is currently under an injunction to prevent him from harassing or threatening the town's councilors or staff but was allowed by the judge to continue speaking against 5G. According to Chronicle Live, Steele denied that he was harassing council members, saying he "acted proportionally."

The Misquoted

Name: Sen. Scott Jensen

Who he is: Jensen is a longtime family physician in Minnesota and a Republican member of the Minnesota Senate, who was elected in 2016. He is not seeking reelection in 2020 and is rumored to be interested in a run for governor.

What he has said about the virus: On April 7, he gave a North Dakota TV interview in which he suggested that hospitals and physicians were being told by the CDC to list COVID-19 as the cause of death in cases where it might not be warranted. His comment that “Fear is a great way to control people” was picked up by InfoWars and QAnon supporters. He later appeared on Fox News and said hospitals get paid more if a patient is listed as having COVID-19 and is on a ventilator, which is true. He did not directly say hospitals are doing this for the money, just that it’s a concern. His TV appearances were used in the “Plandemic” video, but he disavows virus conspiracies. "I think that things are being taken out of context,” he told the Star Tribune.

What authorities have said: Jensen is a physician in good standing.

Name: Dr. Cameron Kyle-Sidell

Who he is: Kyle-Sidell is an emergency and critical care physician at Maimonides hospital in Brooklyn. In March and April, he worked in an intensive care unit dedicated to COVID-19 patients. He received his medical degree from Ben Gurion University of the Negev in Israel.

What he has said about the coronavirus: In a March 31 YouTube video, he questioned whether putting COVID-19 patients on ventilators was the right protocol and worried that this “misguided treatment will lead to a tremendous amount of harm to a great number of people in a very short time.” Since he raised the issue, other physicians have shared similar views. But his opinion has been misstated by conspiracy theorists to imply that the virus is not what the medical establishment says it is. On May 10, he tweeted that he had not consented to being included in “Plandemic,” saying, “I do not believe the narrative underlying the origin or spread of this terrible disease is one of human ill intent. We are fighting a virus not each other.”

What authorities have said: Kyle-Sidell is a doctor in good standing and his inclusion in “Plandemic” and other fringe narratives is the result of people misinterpreting or exaggerating his comments.

Coronavirus Pseudoscientists And Conspiracy Theorists

[harrybarracuda]

Here's what fatty thinks you are.

Senior White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett said on Sunday that America's "human capital stock" is ready to get back work as the country takes steps towards reopening.


Speaking to CNN's "State of the Union" on Sunday, Hassett discussed future unemployment and America's readiness to lift measures put in place to tackle the novel coronavirus spread.

"Our capital stock hasn't been destroyed, our human capital stock is ready to get back to work, and so there are lots of reasons to believe that we can get going way faster than we have in previous crises," Hassett said.

Trump's senior economic adviser referred to Americans returning to work as 'human capital stock', Business Insider - Business Insider Singapore

[HuangLao]

Oh dear.
Ever notice how such general narratives, and kin, are almost always associated with the most exceptional and enlightened illusion of the Anglo-American world?

Cognitive Dissonance is more than a sublime whimsy.

[Pragmatic]

Over 50 people a day die from Liver Fluke in Thailand. Don't see the government banning the eating of fermented fish. Covis is a walk in the park compared Bile duct cancer.

Liver fluke disease has been found in Thailand for over 90 years. It is caused by eating half-cooked freshwater fish. The larvae of fish liver flukes can infect a person's bile duct, resulting in chronic inflammation and sometimes bile duct cancer. Currently, some 6 million Thais are at risk for bile duct cancer, with 20,000 deaths per year. More than half of the patients are from the nation's Northeast region. In more than half of these cases, the disease is not detected until it has progressed to the terminal phase, resulting in a low rate of survival. Most bile duct cancer patients are poor and have a poor chance of being admitted to hospital.

Just sayin like.

[HuangLao]

The worldwide numbers of the "seasonal" influenza of 2019, 2018, etc....

What of this simple comparative.



Or.....cancers of every type?

[AntRobertson]

Over 50 people a day die from Liver Fluke in Thailand. Don't see the government banning the eating of fermented fish. Covis is a walk in the park compared Bile duct cancer.




Just sayin like.

Eating fermented fish isn't compulsory and if Person X chooses to Person Y is fine. You don't have a choice when it comes to an infectious disease and Person X could pass it on to Person Y. Shit / pointless comparison.

Just saying.

[AntRobertson]

In fact, that whole Thing X kills more than COVID-19 line of argument is just silly.

It's the same as saying more people are killed in car accidents every year than being mauled by tigers so if you see a tiger approaching just stand there and wait for it to attack.

[SKkin]

(uhm... beaches in Indiana???)

FYI - most likely at Lake Michigan

Parents magazine picked the Indiana Dunes shoreline among the top five family beaches in the nation along with beaches in San Diego, California and Maui, Hawaii. TripAdvisor.com ranked the Indiana Dunes in its top six.

[Pragmatic]

In fact, that whole Thing X kills more than COVID-19 line of argument is just silly.

Nearly one hundred years of knowledge and 200,000 deaths the Thai government has done FA. Covis comes along they jump. Maybe it's cuz they don't eat fermented fish and the chances of them dying from eating it is non existent. But it's okay for the peasant up in Isaan to die from it.

[AntRobertson]

Nearly one hundred years of knowledge and 200,000 deaths the Thai government has done FA. Covis comes along they jump. Maybe it's cuz they don't eat fermented fish and the chances of them dying from eating it is non existent. But it's okay for the peasant up in Isaan to die from it.

Again, you are missing the point of the difference between inherent risks from an activity undertaken by an individual by choice and being exposed to an infectious disease because of the actions / inaction of others.

Two separate things that you are conflating.

[Edmond]

It's the same as saying more people are killed in car accidents every year than being mauled by tigers so if you see a tiger approaching just stand there and wait for it to attack.

Actually, that's what people are advised to do.

• Do not run. Like all cats, tigers enjoy a chase.

• Stand up tall. Tigers do not distinguish between a crouched human, a warthog or a deer.

Source

[AntRobertson]

Well whatevs, make it a charging rhino then, the point is still the same.

You're not gonna stand there and go 'But, but... Car accidents kill more people' unless you're a muppet. A soon to be fucked over by a rhino muppet.