Discussion > Covid 19 stuff
1828 is a neoliberal platform founded to champion freedom.With the recent resurgence of socialist ideas on the left and social conservatism on the right, 1828 provides a platform for individuals to champion the alternative: economic and personal freedom.
We believe that all our lives have been positively changed by the spread of free-market capitalism, as well as social liberalism. Whether it’s the vast technological changes we have enjoyed, the life-changing advances in medicine, the global reduction in extreme poverty, or the advances in women’s and LGBT+ rights, we know that economic and social liberalism – giving individuals power over their own money and lives – is the path to a more prosperous, inclusive and accepting society.
https://www.1828.org.uk/about-us/
You can watch neoliberalism collapsing in real time. Governments whose mission was to shrink the state, to cut taxes and borrowing and dismantle public services, are discovering that the market forces they fetishised cannot defend us from this crisis. The theory has been tested, and almost everywhere abandoned. It may not be true that there were no atheists in the trenches. But there are no neoliberals in a pandemic.The shift is even more interesting than this suggests, however. Power has migrated not just from private money to the state, but from both market and state to another place altogether: the commons. All over the world, communities have mobilised where governments have failed.
In India, young people have self-organised on a massive scale to provide aid packages for “daily wagers”: people without savings or stores, who rely entirely on cash flow, that has now been cut off. In Wuhan, in China, as soon as public transport was suspended, volunteer drivers created a community fleet, transporting medical workers between their homes and hospitals.
In Johannesburg, communities have made survival packs for people in informal settlements: hand sanitiser, toilet paper, bottled water and food. In Cape Town, a local group has GIS mapped all the district’s households, surveyed the occupants, and assembled local people with medical expertise, to step in if the hospitals are overwhelmed. Another community has built wash stands in the train station, and is working to turn a pottery studio into a factory making sanitiser.
https://www.monbiot.com/2020/04/02/a-zombie-love-story/
Here, we have (re) discovered who is, and who is not an essential worker. The state is paying peoples' wages, the railways have been renationalised, people are organising locally to share resources and protect the vulnerable, the same Tories who cheered the denial of a nurse's pay rise,and who supported an immigration policy that would refuse entry to many people who are now, quite literally, saving our lives are out on the streets every Thursday night publicly applauding them. And suddenly we've magically discovered there is money to get rough sleepers off the street.
Strange time to be promoting neoliberalism.
Phil Clarke
Strange time to be promoting neoliberalism.
Apr 8, 2020 at 10:42 PM Phil Clarke
Strange time to be demonstrating your lack of understanding about what a real crisis is.
golf charlie
Indeed. The world must instantly be alerted to the negligible flaws in a 31 year old paleoclimate reconstruction!
Thank for your efforts in this respect.
;-)
Phil Clarke
Not Spartacus - but "we are Janling Huang" comes to mind 400+ times
tomo
Amateur. Some of those aren't even in China. So can you can prove the VP of Teyi Pharma is not the postgrad that laowhy86 claimed was secretly cremated after becoming lethally infected in the top secret bat-virus experiments lab and wandering around the (not so) local market spreading the plague? After all, she hasn't denied it.
That's how this conspiracy stuff works, right? I think I should get me a Patreon account ;-)
Phil Clarke
some Chinese scientists aren't even in China - who knew? A few have even been linked to the now boss of the Wuhan lab after stealing samples from western labs.
Trump promoting chloroquine because he's got a factory is TDS too far for even PH?
How's that TDS ECT course going?
tomo
Not a prophylactic, but worth considering to assist natural human defences.
http://joannenova.com.au/2020/04/perhaps-solve-the-other-pandemic-vitamin-d-deficiency-to-help-beat-coronavirus/
Coronavirus is providing Politicians with increased resistance to the extravagant waste of Climate Science
golf charlie
I see The New York Times (CEO ex BBC boss Mark Thompson) is now blaming "Europe" for Wuhan coronavirus - I daresay he blames Radio Luxembourg for Jimmy Saville.
tomo
Whistleblowing Doctor At Wuhan Hospital Vanishes | Jack Posobiec
tomo
@Tomo Here's a conspiracy theory about China for you
Foscari posted APRIL 9, 2020 AT 4:57 PM
The deaths in China are 40 times worse than the official figures.
The Taiwanese knew this very early on , but there was a complete cover up by the Chinese communist government, the WHO organization and many other official organizations who didn’t want us in the west to “upset” the Chinese with anything that originated from Taiwan. They tried their best .
They had been told by their brothers and cousins on the mainland what was going on, BUT nobody wanted to believe them for fear of upsetting China. So the Taiwanese said “OK we will just look after ourselves.”
Donald Trump was mocked asunder by stopping flights from China but nearly every other country cowered to the Chinese. And then the Machiavellian Chinese communist president had a brain wave! If his country was going to have an economic disaster . The west was going to have one as well . China exports to the west are gigantic. Lets send them the biggest export we have ever sent ,
So we got the XI JINPING virus.
The corrupt WHO and their stooge the head of the organization would be their “look out” for them.
The western Media including the BBC would tell us how wonderful they were fighting the virus and keeping the deaths at just over 3000 out of a population 1.4 Billion.
When in fact the true figure is nearer to 150,000.
Can you believe how the BBC has been duped into accepting what the Chinese propaganda machine is putting out.
I make football odds for bookmakers on matches for SE Asian Ethnic Chinese bookmakers, the Chinese season starts again shortly
stewgreen
stewgreen
In the near complete absence of any cogent evidenced explanation from the Chinese authorities - i.e. The Chinese Communist Party - one has to look at what information is available.
I find it alarming that boasting by researchers with regard to their success in modifying a bat virus to work on humans is essentially being ignored.
Let's face it .... if the West is prepared to ignore the abduction of Meng Hongwei, head of Interpol - what's a few disappeared doctors and virus researchers and a PLA run Level 4 biolab....?
At an early stage -I was prepared to accept that the escape of the virus was a cascading f-up largely enabled by domestic power structures in China but now I really feel we are owed an explanation of what did they know - and when did they know it - and why didn't they self isolate? It isn't difficult to imagine that a virus outbreak in Hong Kong would've been very useful indeed for the Beijing gangsters.
Those research papers are out there about tinkering with coronaviruses - it is a logical step to start comparing the genetic codes from the research going back several years with the item that escaped - a task that I suspect the US and maybe Porton Down are occupying themselves with at the moment.
It is clear that the Chinese Communist Party were up to no good - the extents of those antics are slowly emerging and we will have to wait and see what can be decyphered from China ... as others have asserted and it's obviously true - the CCP culture mirrors the Chernobyl Soviets.... maybe with some added malice - but that isn't yet clear.
Given that the Chinese took over the construction of the Wuhan lab - maybe the whole debacle will eventually end up being blamed on a sloppy Chinese plumbing contractor?
I see the French are staying rather schtum about the "sister lab" to Wuhan in Lyon and given that the Wuhan effort was supposed to be a JV there is little interest in Anglo media about what the French authorities / government knew about what was going on in Wuhan.
If there were bookmaker odds on where this virus escaped from - I'd put my own money on a research facility.
tomo
"In the near complete absence of any cogent evidenced explanation from the UK media"
... It seems it's not just the Chinese, but my areas local media and BBC are quite restricted what they put out
15 people have died in this region from 77 cases
Yet AFAIK our local media have not even named one person who has had
never mind anyone who died of it
Lots of media people claimed to be isolating , yet none of them ever said that they or a family member had tested positive.
None of the people I know have heard of an actual case.
Instead of reporting actual cases the local BBC is this constant of wall of campaigning
- stay at home, stay at home
- get ready to clap for the NHS tonight etc.
They of course never mention migrant suburbs like Page Hall in Sheffield
where the local paper said the Slovak Roma are taking no notice of social distancing.
When i checked Twitter for local mentions , there zero mentions of deaths, or even cases.
there was just one tweet
and it said ' Wow I just drove up the main migrant street in town and its life was going on as normal'
I sifted through Facebook and then did find ONE mention of a funeral
.. it was a white pensioner
.. who by coincidence owns a cafe on said street.
So I do wonder where our local cases are
I'm guessing most were caught in hospital and maybe the rest are on some fringe communities etc.
stewgreen
From the stats I see that there is a kind of pattern
There is daily reported positive hospital cases
There is daily reported positive hospital deaths
and a graph of that seems to lag the former by 7 days
and at a rate of 5 to 1
So 10 people in hospital today means 2 news deaths in 7 days time.
It's said that for every 100 cases only 10 reach the hospital
So that does seem that the ultimate death rate is 2 in 100
stewgreen
Then it has come out that both of these stats .. are similar to climate stats
in that they are not the direct stats you think they are
They don't represent tests or deaths in last 24 hours
but rather events that happened at a variety of times in the past and have just been reported in the last 24 hours.
However we shouldn't get caught up in that ..if all we are doing is trend spotting.
We know there will be days with 1,200 deaths NEXT week
cos we have had days with 6,000 positive tests this week
stewgreen
People got confused when the BBC said
"NHS England has recorded 765 new deaths in hospital from coronavirus
140 of them occurred yesterday
while 568 took place between 1-7 April
The remaining 57 deaths took place in March
including two on 19 March and one on 16/03"
Some people said oh look today's deaths are only 140
as they didn't understand about 800 deaths had also happened today but won't filter through to reports until the next few days .
stewgreen
There is a spreadsheet of graphs and ONS data tables
Week 13 : Weekly deaths of ALL causes
last year – 910
2020 – 1,297
That’s a 43% RISE
(Week 13 is 21-27th March inclusive)
An FT article talked about the difference between the daily hospital stats
and the ONS stats which are fuller cos they include deaths outside hospitals
they are released each Tuesday with a 2 week delay.
As ever a death with Covid19 on the death certificate is a "WITH Covid19" death , not necessarily a death "FROM Covid19"
With-Covid death totals upto March 27
Age demographics
aged 85 or over : 36%
75 and 85 : 33%
aged under 65 : 12 %
65 to 74 years : 5.5 %
aged under 15 : none
Males 62 %
stewgreen
Another level of complexity re Covid19 testing
up till now
Patients who are sick enough for hospital have been tested
: call them Apples
Now some key-workers & family are tested
: Call them Oranges
https://twitter.com/DHSCgovuk/status/1248659497935147015
On Friday @PHE_UK added in 3,000 key worker positive tests done so far
So some people were confused why the cumulative total of positives had suddenly gone up by 3K
A graph shows the two
https://twitter.com/No2BS/status/1248693606187237382
So for trend spotting only consider the Apples , not the oranges
cos since key workers are tested when they have minor symptoms, that tally will follow through into less deaths than the other category where you are testing people with severe symptoms.
19,000 tests were done on Friday, where as a week ago only 10K test were done/day
So as testing expands the test to death ratio should as well maybe down from 20% to 10%
stewgreen
One thing that came out last week
is 19,000 tests doesn't mean 19,000 people tested
6,000 positives does mean 6,000 positive people
but if you get a negative test you mostly do a second test to make sure.
We are probably testing 12,000 people per day
then a second test is done for about half of them
stewgreen
Antibody tests are not available yet
.. Friday University of Buckingham took delivery of Korean anti-body test kits for evaluation.
It's said that one thing is you can't tell on last weeks patients
such tests need to be done one month after the infection , not earlier.
stewgreen
so as far as the UK is concerned beyond the revelation that a new and dangerous bug has arrived - things are about as clear as mud.
I thought the text message on Thursday evening from Public Health England at 8:01pm while fireworks and clapping was still going on outside was pretty naff.... (http://bitlynow.com/MTE1MzI5OA which goes to https://www.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/ae5dda8f86814ae99dde905d2a9070ae)
As a watcher of Gannet Inc (Newsquest UK 200+ local rags) I see an odd assortment of reporting - one noticeable feature is the repeated planting of sad casualty stories from unspecified locations among the local reports.
tomo
@Tomo somethings are clear
In week 15 instead of the UK all deaths toll being 10-11K
It will have 5,000+ new hospital deaths with Covid19 as 20+% of hospital cases turn into deaths
Then they'll be deaths caused by the lockdown like delayed operations maybe 500-1000
plus external WithCovid19 deaths
- minus some deaths saved by the lockdown
to overall make weekly deaths about 16,000
The following week will be similar
.. but the peak will have been reached.
Then at some point the lockdown is lifted
... and with no vaccination or magic cure , there should be more cases and more deaths .
stewgreen
In an age where everything is "smart"
The lockdown looks a clumsy one size fits all
Where is "the smart lockdown" ?
stewgreen
stewgreen
nothing to really quibble with there - the epidemic will have a trajectory and the point on the backside taper where things can start being returned to non-lockdown is going to be the subject of quite a lot of quibbling....
On the "smart lockdown" front - anything that's smart enough becomes ubiquitous and mundane - provisions for a return to pre-epidemic activity need to be addressed PDQ and maybe pushing behavioural aspects with associated explanations are the way to go.
There seems to be a concerted effort to memory hole / nudge away from where the bug came from in UK media, beyond the simple slapdash herd behaviour that bounces pillar to post from serious to inane and occasionally out to bizarre...
tomo
It rather looks like the blithering bureaucrats of Public Health England are making a complete shambles of organising coronavirus testing - and being dobbed in / whistleblown on by their own staff leaking details of the fuckups.
PHE were shoved out of the NHS by clinicians, then foisted on local councils and seek to become a fat funded national independent NDPB are displaying the lack of any practical talent that their detractors have claimed all along....
tomo
https://www.1828.org.uk/2020/04/08/the-world-health-organisation-should-be-disbanded/
"Since the very beginning of the outbreak, the WHO has fallen over itself to placate Beijing. It has praised China’s response to the coronavirus as “the most ambitious, agile and aggressive disease containment effort in history”, turning a blind eye to the Chinese Communist party’s (CCP) initial crackdown of medical experts in Wuhan that were raising the alarm over the outbreak. Nor did the WHO condemn the city’s careless lockdown: hundreds of thousands of potential carriers left the virus’s epicentre in the eight hours between the announcement of the lockdown and its imposition."
" Moreover, the WHO unquestioningly accepted and repeated Beijing’s reassurances that the outbreak was being contained and that the virus was not transmissible between humans. Citing concerns about stigmatising China, it chastised twenty-two countries for imposing restrictions it did not recommend and delayed calling a public health emergency of international concern until the very end of January. And its advance party of international medical experts arrived in China as late as 10 February, well over a month after the outbreak."