Just curious, anyone have a plan, or preps for global pandemic?

[Todd Allen]

1 hour ago, Ron Put said:

Instead of pointless snide remarks, can you tell us why you seem to be believing in the competency of people who told us that there will by 500,000 deaths in the UK by now, and millions in the US?  The same people who told us that Covid-19 is NOT contagious and thus it can be contained (unlike the flu) by emulating China's methods of imposing martial law?

I don't believe in the competency of anyone who told us "there will by 500,000 deaths in the UK by now, and millions in the US?" or "Covid-19 is NOT contagious and thus it can be contained (unlike the flu) by emulating China's methods of imposing martial law" as both would have been idiotic things to say.  But despite your claims I have never heard anyone make those statements.  When you incorrectly paraphrase what others say it makes you look stupid, not the people you attack.

As for the "marshal law" question I wasn't being facetious.  Not only were you failing to use the word you meant but you also have the meaning wrong.  Martial law is when typically civilian aspects of government are administered by the military such as executive, judicial and legislative functions.  A relaxed definition might include civilian authorities ordering the military to maintain or restore order when policing is inadequate.  Neither has occurred in response to Covid-19 in the US.

[Dean Pomerleau]

The IHME seems to have totally revamped its model to be a more traditional SEIR compartment model rather than what they were doing before, which was trying to fit curves to the data coming out of the US and other countries based on countries farther along in the pandemic especially China where cases and deaths dropped dramatically after its peak due to the draconian lockdown they instituted.

As a result, they've nearly doubled their estimate of US deaths by Aug 4th to 134K, which is much more in line with the other models the CDC has been relying on recently. They say that their model does not yet reflected the increases in cases and deaths that will likely result from relaxing social distancing measures (i.e. they are assuming social distancing measures will remain in place through their projection period).

Here are the new IHME graphs for the US:

The 95% confidence interval around their 134K death toll estimate is 98K-240K deaths.

--Dean

[KHashmi317]

PSSSST .... it's not that bad ...

 

[Sibiriak]

6 hours ago, Ron Put said:

instead of pointless snide remarks...

[for example:]

... apologies it if a spelling error confused you to such an extent.  But then some seem to get confused easier than others, as the Covid-19 hysteria shows.

 

[Sibiriak]

10 hours ago, Todd Allen said:

Fly-tipping is a staggeringly more challenging sport and it is impressive the Brits are using their Covid-19 down time to master the required Bruce Lee-ish level of physical discipline.

LOL!  (You must be in full ketosis,  your posts have been very sharp.)

Edited May 5, 2020 by Sibiriak

[Gordo]

Have you guys heard about "Covid toes"?  The interesting thing about this is I had something that looks a lot like the pictures, I believe that was back in February, not sure anymore, I also went through an unusual for me 2 days where I slept for 10 hours on back to back days -- I can't remember now how close that was to the "weird inflamed toe".  It will be interesting to see the results of an antibody test.  Not really sure how to go about getting one, I'll have to look into it...

 

There is some interesting new information about different strains of the virus: Scientists say a now-dominant strain of the coronavirus appears to be more contagious than original but the Chinese have already documented more than 30 different strains.

Edited May 5, 2020 by Gordo

[Mike41]

14 hours ago, KHashmi317 said:

PSSSST .... it's not that bad ...

 

Yeah I saw the original post by Ron Putt and this update is interesting in light of the reaction to that video. IAC, I don’t like censorship and they do make an important point wrt the COLLATERAL DAMAGE concept. Only GOD can sort it all out. We humans are trying, but it’s not black and white. 

[TomBAvoider]

Gordo, that's interesting that you slept that much. I have a friend from Europe who visited me at the end of January. He landed, and we were supposed to meet a few days later. Well, we had to postpone the meeting, because he was extremely sick with what he thought was a very nasty cold he thought he caught in the airplane. We did meet a few days after that.

I had forgotten all about it, until we skyped a couple of weeks ago, and he told me he thought he already had the CV-19, and reminded me about that illness - he told me that when he was standing in the immigration line at LAX, it so happened that he was surrounded by a bunch of mainland Chinese, who as he recalls were coughing and seemed to have some kind of respiratory issues - he stood in that line for a couple of hours. That's when he thinks he caught it. 

Anyhow, one thing he reminded me of, was that at the time, he reported that he slept pretty much round the clock for two days, and felt very weak. That's what this reminded me of, when you mentioned you slept so long.

Again, once we have a reliable test, I think we'll all be shocked by how many Americans have already had CV-19 - it's probably been here for months before it became official and tons of folks have had it. Of course, that assumes we'll have a reliable test soon, and that the signs of past infection persist long enough to be detected months later. 

[Dean Pomerleau]

5 hours ago, Gordo said:

There is some interesting new information about different strains of the virus: Scientists say a now-dominant strain of the coronavirus appears to be more contagious than original but the Chinese have already documented more than 30 different strains.

Thanks Gordo,

I hadn't seen the first of your two articles. It says one new strain has become dominant all around the world relative to the original version from Wuhan. Most worrying is the fact that it appears to represent a genetic change in the spike protein which makes it more infectious. This itself is troubling, since the authors suggest it may result in a larger viral load in infected individuals and also raises the possibility that antibodies for the original strain might not protect (or protect completely) against this new strain. They suggest it might also interfere with the development of a vaccine since most vaccines are targeting the spike protein and are assuming it will be remain a stable target, which this research calls into question.

--Dean

[corybroo]

NYT has an article 15 Children Are Hospitalized With Mysterious Illness Possibly Tied to Covid-19  
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/05/nyregion/children-Kawasaki-syndrome-coronavirus.html

Many of the children, ages 2 to 15, have shown symptoms associated with toxic shock or Kawasaki disease, a rare illness in children that involves inflammation of the blood vessels, including coronary arteries, 

Thanks for the Med Cram videos explaining the mechanism by which covid-19 attacks the arterial wall and causes stroke throughout the body.  I'll bet there's a link to the children's issues.

[BrianA]

More info showing vitamin D is helpful.

 

"A retrospective study found that for each standard deviation increase in serum vitamin D people were 7.94 times more likely to have a mild rather than severe COVID-19 outcome and were 19.61 times more likely to have a mild rather than critical outcome."

 

[mccoy]

In the meanwhile, in Italy, the national actuarial society has issued an official report on excess deaths in the month of March, and a few physicists and engineers have been processing data. 

The results are interesting, excess deaths are pretty high in the provinces with higher diffusion of SARS-COV2, whereas in other provinces the excess deaths are negative, for example, -9% in Rome, due supposedly to fewer accidents out of the home. Excess deaths are higher in males and in certain age classes, usually 70 to 90. The report contains several interesting plots, the following illustrates daily excess deaths in March (age 50+), compared to the 2015-2019 average, in Lombardy (blue bins) and deaths officially attributed to Covid19 (yellow bins). Some days have over 800 excess deaths in this age interval, only about half of 'em counted as Covid-19 deaths.

 

 

 

Edited May 5, 2020 by mccoy

[TomBAvoider]

Meanwhile the chickens are coming home to roost wrt. the endless and useless HYPE about various accomplishments and progress. In fact HYPE can be downright dangerous if policymakers believe it and rely on it to find solutions to serious problems. 

Case in point - AI. I have relentlessly called out the completely manufactured from thin air AI hype that's been going on the last couple of years. And now, in this hour of need, when all hands on deck are called, it becomes exposed what was always EMPTY HYPE and money grubbing. If you thought AI was going to help in the fight against COVID-19, you'd be sorely disappointed - not me, as I expected ZERO - and here we see the emperor has no clothes:

A.I. can’t solve this: The coronavirus could be highlighting just how overhyped the industry is

"

The world is facing its biggest health crisis in decades but one of the world’s most promising technologies — artificial intelligence (AI) – isn’t playing the major role some may have hoped for.

Renowned AI labs at the likes of DeepMind, OpenAI, Facebook AI Research, and Microsoft have remained relatively quiet as the coronavirus has spread around the world.

 

“It’s fascinating how quiet it is,” said Neil Lawrence, the former director of machine learning at Amazon Cambridge.

“This (pandemic) is showing what bulls--t most AI hype is. It’s great and it will be useful one day but it’s not surprising in a pandemic that we fall back on tried and tested techniques.”

Btw. this isn't just about AI - all the hype about various genetic engineering techniques and supposed biomedical progress has also been exposed as the hot air it mostly is. The virus is rampaging completely unencumbered and our vaunted science is about where it was in effectivness in the year 1918. One hundred years of progress has gotten us from "masks" and "social distancing" as countermeasures in 1918 all the way to "masks and "social distancing" in 2020 over a 100 years later. So much for progress. But the HYPE is very impressive.

I don't want to see ONE word more of hype about AI - now it's all about SHOW ME. No more promises, only RESLUTS. With a requirement like that - JUST RESULTS - it'll be blissfully quiet I imagine for quite some while.

[Todd Allen]

7 minutes ago, TomBAvoider said:

I don't want to see ONE word more of hype about AI - now it's all about SHOW ME. No more promises, only RESLUTS.

And then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in a minute. One minute. And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning. Because you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs.

[TomBAvoider]

Very funny, Todd.

In that spirit, here's someone who wants to make a deal with the lockdown protesters:

If you want to protest lockdowns, renounce health care

[Ron Put]

On 5/4/2020 at 3:46 PM, Todd Allen said:

I don't believe in the competency of anyone who told us "there will by 500,000 deaths in the UK by now, and millions in the US?" or "Covid-19 is NOT contagious and thus it can be contained (unlike the flu) by emulating China's methods of imposing martial law" as both would have been idiotic things to say.  But despite your claims I have never heard anyone make those statements.  When you incorrectly paraphrase what others say it makes you look stupid, not the people you attack.

As for the "marshal law" question I wasn't being facetious.  Not only were you failing to use the word you meant but you also have the meaning wrong.  ...

Huh?! You have “have never heard anyone make those statements” about 500,000 deaths in the UK or millions of deaths in the US?

I am aware of what martial law is, as well as of the fact that the elements are not clearly defined, at least in US jurisprudence. It generally involves the suspension of civil liberties such as freedom of assembly and freedom of association, in addition to possibly suspending habeas corpus.  National Guard units were activated at the state level in the US, but active military took active part in enforcing quarantine and curfew rules in a number of countries, including Italy (where I recall at least one person was facing over a decade in prison for violating the curfew).  In China, of course, the show of military force was pervasive, people were whisked off the street into confinement and doors were nailed shut to confine residents.

You profess ignorance of the “expert” statements which triggered the lock-downs and the economy crash.  Speaking of looking “stupid, you could have at least clicked on the live links which carried specific examples of such statements.  When you figure it out, look at the sources cited.  Who knows, you might learn something, before you deflect on spelling errors and expound on martial law “meaning,” 

But let me help a little by doing a quick search on how the hysteria took hold:

March 12, 2020 (same date as the Tedros interview in which he claimed that Covid-19 is NOT easily transmittable and therefore can be stopped, unlike the flu):
"Between 70 to 150 million people in the United States could eventually be infected with the novel coronavirus, according to a projection shared with Congress, a lawmaker said Thursday. ... At the low end of the projection this would mean about 700,000 deaths. At the high end it would mean 1.5 million deaths."

________
March 12, 2020, from Andy Slavitt, Obama's Medicare and Medicaid Director, featured in NY Times and WP pieces:
"Currently experts expect over 1 million deaths in the U.S. since the virus was not contained & we cannot even test for it. This will be recorded as a major preventable public health disaster."
________

March 20: Gov. Newsom Leaves Out Key Context In Claim 56% Of Californians Will Get Infected With Coronavirus

________

And here is some news about the prophetic Neil Ferguson:
Professor who predicted 500,000 Britons could die from coronavirus and prompted Boris Johnson to order lockdown accused of having 'patchy record of modelling pandemics'
________
And the latest on Neil Ferguson (he resigned):
Professor Lockdown Resigns After Breaking Own Lockdown Rules to Meet Lover: Report
"Professor Neil Ferguson, an epidemiologist of Imperial College, London resigned from his role as a senior scientific advisor to the British government Tuesday evening.

He became known as professor lockdown after his alarming data modelling predicted huge casualties for the populations of the United Kingdom and the United States unless they enacted severe curbs on individual freedoms to lock the nations down. While the moves were criticised by senior legal figures as approaching a police state, Professor Ferguson’s advice was nevertheless heeded by the government in March."

Edited May 6, 2020 by Ron Put

[Todd S]

Ron Put,

Your comments on the COVID-19-related statistics have seemed consistent over time. I previously asked you a couple of simple questions in order to better understand your viewpoint -- and I thank you for the responses that you provided.

The one question I posed to you that went unanswered is one that I'm still interested in your viewpoint on. That is, if you've viewed the previously posted Medcram lectures (with critical care specialist Roger Seheult, MD.) — Coronavirus Pandemic Updates 61, 63, and 65 -- do you still think that COVID-19 is not significantly different from the flu?

[Sibiriak]

This is America

A City Walked Back Its Face Mask Rule After Store And Restaurant Employees Received Threats

Quote

Stillwater, Oklahoma, will no longer require customers entering stores and restaurants to wear face masks after employees received violent threats — including one from a person who threatened a shooting.

The new requirements went into effect on Friday as restaurants, movie theaters, and gyms across the state were allowed to reopen by Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt in spite of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. The openings prompted Stillwater leaders to set a series of new safety requirements at local businesses, including that both customers and employees wear face masks.

But within three hours, city officials said, multiple businesses reported their employees were facing verbal abuse and violent threats over the new rule.

Three charged with murder in shooting of security guard after he told a customer she needed to wear a face mask

Quote

Calvin Munerlyn, 43, a father of six, was shot dead on Friday around 1.40pm while working at a Family Dollar store located at 877 Fifth Avenue in Flint, Michigan. Sharmel Teague, her husband Larry Teague, 44, and her son Ramonyea Bishop, 23, have been charged with first-degree premeditated murder and gun charges. Munerlyn had told Sharmel she had to leave the store because her daughter lacked a mask, leading Teague to argue with the security guard.

A short while later two men later entered the store. Larry Teague yelled at Munerlyn about disrespecting his wife and Bishop shot Munerlyn in the back of the head, according to Genesee County Prosecutor David Leyton.

Sharmel Teague has been arrested but Teague and Bishop remain at large.  Larry Teague faces additional charges of violating Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s executive order mandating all customers and employees wear face coverings inside retail stores.

[...]Munerlyn was left laying in the doorway suffering a gunshot wound to the head. He was taken to Hurley Medical Center, where he later succumbed to his wounds.    

He was a doting father and beloved member of the community, known to his loved ones by his childhood nickname, 'Duper.'  He is survived by his wife of 10 years and their six children.  [...]Munerlyn was also known for helping those in need, including at-risk teenagers in the community. 

A family member has launched a GoFundMe campaign seeking donations to help with Munerlyn's funeral expenses.

Man, with shit like that going down,  and the crazy protests,  I can see why martial law has been imposed in so many places.

Edited May 6, 2020 by Sibiriak

[KHashmi317]

PSSSST .... it ain't that bad ....

 

[Gordo]

Well it looks like California is broke already, first state to require a federal government bailout despite having the highest personal income tax rate in the country:

California Is First State to Borrow From Federal Government to Make Unemployment Payments

 

FYI: Looks like Quest is now offering Covid antibody testing for $119 (or free from your health insurer)

Edited May 6, 2020 by Gordo

[mccoy]

This is an updated plot on the relative mortality (deaths/official confirmed cases) for each age interval. As we all know, the absolute values are not at all accurate, although the ratios are probably indicative (so-called directional info). I would, as a very approximate estimate, divide the deaths by an order of magnitude (a factor of 10) to obtain a closer estimate of the upper bound of the real mortality ratio. We see that up to age 40, lethality is practically Nihil. From 40 to 50, it's very, very small, significant from 60 to 70, very significant (2-3% max) over 70.

Deceduti= deaths

letalità= death ratio on confirmed cases

 

 

 

[Sibiriak]

Mccoy, I wonder what percentage of the 40-49 group were healthcare workers.

[Gordo]

"ADP says 20.2 million private-sector jobs lost in April amid coronavirus crisis Pandemic triggers worst unemployment since Great Depression"

"the biggest crisis for the U.S. labor market in nearly a century."

What ADP said: “Job losses of this scale are unprecedented. The total number of job losses for the month of April alone was more than double the total jobs lost during the Great Recession”

[Sibiriak]

A couple of interesting comments about lockdowns (no endorsement implied):

Quote

The Lockdown and Doublethink

This is just a nice display of how modern journalism requires an editorial line that totally disregards internal logic.

In this [Guardian] article, Simon Tisdall documents all the ways in which the lockdown-generated economic crash could destroy the lives of people in the third world. And in this one Polly Toynbee goes into great detail about all the unemployed young people we’re about to create…because of the lockdown. Neither of them argues the lockdown should be ended.

Whilst here, Robert Reich says that Trump ending the lockdown would be terrible and dangerous and kill people, and Lloyd Green blames Trump for surging unemployment in the US, without mentioning the lockdown at all.

You see, ending the Lockdown is bad, because Trump wants to do it. But also, the lockdown is causing massive unemployment – both here and abroad – which could kill millions of people thanks to poverty, famine, and non-Covid diseases.

Keeping the meat-packing plants open is dangerous and irresponsible, but there are fears of panic buying or food shortages if they’re closed. There’s no word on the potential deaths caused by starvation and food shortages, which are discussed at length in other articles.

In summary, we’re told he lockdown’s effect will kill literally 10x more people than the disease has done so far, but if you want to end it you’re a pro-Trump anti-science virus-denier.

Mind-boggling.

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Quote

 

As good as this article is, I still think it suffers from a false dichotomy; to shut down the economy or not. The lockdown was ALWAYS a short-term solution to what was obviously going to be a long and protracted crisis. While the general public is guilty of magical thinking, the same thing can also be said of those insisting that lock down must not be lifted.

Just how long do you expect lock down to persist? Three months? A Year? More than a Year? Just how long do you expect people to not eat, to not have housing, to not have an income of any kind, or even to socialize with their families and friends.

The wealthy can do it because they have huge homes with lots of rooms. Room that contain private gyms, entertainment centers, outdoor patios, fully stocked kitchens, even in-house movie studios with which they can pass the time making you-tube and facebook videos. They have access to lots of technology that allows them to maintain their social networks. They can zoom with their peers in Paris, Tokyo, New York, LA, and other places with ease. For them, the lockdown is more like a stay-cation.

For the rest of us, lockdown is not only just a real burden – but may even be practically impossible. I know families that have ten members living in 2-bedroom 1-bath houses. Their “kitchen” is a hot plate on a TV tray. Little to no AC. Some are considered “essential labor” and must work – often without minimal protection. Friends and family that live within walking distance. Elderly parents that must be attended to on a daily basis. How the hell are they supposed to “socially isolate.”

No, the missing part of the conversation here is called “biosecurity.” This isn’t just protection from virus or other communicable diseases for humans, but for life stock, crops, and even wild-life. Controlling for invasive species such as zebra mussels in our waterways.

This has long been a neglected topic. I remember it being ignored as far back as the Obamacare debates. Testing, contract racing, mandatory quarantines, even temperature screenings are major components of biosecurity.

But the problem then as now is that biosecurity – which is heavily dependent on central networks and public services simply has no place in a neo-liberal free-market world. What we are seeing now are not bugs, but features within a Neoliberal free-market dystopia.

The lockdown was to buy time to install more realistic solutions to Covid. None of which has been implemented. Ding- times up. Gee, just what did you think was going to happen?

 

Edited May 6, 2020 by Sibiriak

[mccoy]

3 hours ago, Sibiriak said:

Mccoy, I wonder what percentage of the 40-49 group were healthcare workers.

Sibiriak, that's an interesting question, from a quick search I found nothing relevant, I'll try later and see if I can come up with something.