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Discussion > Covid 19 stuff

The UK's Deputy Chief Medical Officer Jenny Harries said last week in a press conference that not all Covid-19 deaths are caused by Covid-19. None of the journalists present appear to have noticed she said this.

see here

A small slip in front of the camera or an indicator of something else?

Apr 12, 2020 at 3:06 AM | Registered Commentertomo

More of the same from RT, and it makes for pretty depressing reading - but it's worth a read, nevertheless, IMO:

"The UK govt needs to start telling us the truth on Covid-19; lockdown is NOT a way of beating the virus"

https://www.rt.com/op-ed/485513-uk-government-covid-lockdown/

Whilst accepting lock-down for now, for want of an alternative, I have been wondering when and how we will emerge from lockdown, and what will happen when we do. It seems to me to be inevitable that we will all catch Covid-19 at some point, a deeply depressing thought. I'm not convinced that the current strategy has an end-point. I'm glad I don't have to make these decisions, but I do think we need a more thoughtful and nuanced discussion than is currently taking place. Am I alone in despairing at the fatuity of most of the questions asked by the MSM every day at the Government press conferences?

Apr 12, 2020 at 8:39 AM | Unregistered CommenterMark Hodgson

"Whilst accepting lock-down for now, for want of an alternative, I have been wondering when and how we will emerge from lockdown"
"It seems to me to be inevitable that we will all catch Covid-19 at some point"

Apr 12, 2020 at 8:39 AM Mark Hodgson

Lockdown has been extended beyond the original 3 weeks.
Our "Nightingales" are not yet all functional
I don't know that test results have yet been made available that confirm how many of the front line NHS Medics and Carers are now IMMUNE, whether they had serious symptoms or not.

At a time of National Emergency, with widespread and unknown Emergency Powers in force, we have been governed by a tough but benign consensus within No 10, possibly the most contaminated workplace outside a hospital in the UK.

I don't envisage a substantial change in Lockdown until a highly experienced BoJo is deemed fit to make it. Another few weeks would allow more testing to monitor the size of the growing Immune Herd.

I have not changed my assumption that "we are all going to get it", Herd Immunity is going to be acquired more slowly due to Lockdown, and the more vulnerable will have a better chance of survival when the almost inevitable occurs.

Sweden has yet to Lock Down. An interesting Control for statisticians to monitor, and it may prove the Health Professionals wrong or right, depending on who you listen to.

I anticipate relaxations to assist construction, farming, horticulture. Reopening schools will depend on Heads being able to order teachers back to work, and parents accepting that school is an acceptable risk.

Apr 12, 2020 at 11:20 AM | Unregistered Commentergolf charlie

Mark

The media pack might do thoughtful and nuanced but if they do - it's being well hidden. Whatever vestigial reporting skills are out there in the MSM, the material collected is mashed by the editorial guidelines into thin gruel with a few unpalatable floaters on top.

There are a raft of questions to which answers must be forming - but we are treated mostly to evasion, preposterous PC / woke inanities and a procession of malign campaigners and assorted eejits looking to project their personal agendas onto the crisis.

In an effort to circumvent the information management going on I have been also been looking at media from Anglophone countries, the foreign service "broadcasts" of non Anglophone nations and a selection of blogger/vlogger content. Turkmenistan's response is a standout. Canada is also a standout with the results of Trudeau's media subsidy largess being quite awfully obvious....

I feel that unless there is some direction imposed on the frankly haphazard goings on - then we will be headed into 2010 volcanic ash territory fractal precautionary principle territory. Our MSM is now largely not fit for purpose bouncing around between inanities, PC pushbuttons and yes, being totalitarian enablers.

The sporadic reporting of what's going on in China should be front and centre - but as China internally kicks out western correspondents, apparently goes all xenophobic and starts wiping the web of coronavirus research, the CPC dramatically ratchets up its western media spend - what social media I do use is absolutely brimming with expensive Huawei and TikTok ads, eBay is stuffed with Chinese adverts and I have a feeling that Google is also doing quite well out of general web ads from CCP controlled companies.

Given that Amazon has gone full Streisland effect and banned it.... I had to take a look at Mike Cernovitch's "Hoaxed" - I found a copy on The Wayback machine - and while I'm no fan at all of some of the participants it is a useful look at the prisms that are deployed by the MSM....

Apr 12, 2020 at 11:24 AM | Unregistered Commentertomo

Talking about CCP media spend - Twitter has astonished me a couple of times in the last few days when scrolling down a list of Tweets - a TikTok advert has on a couple of occasions been in *every* screen-full.

The "liberal" media in the USA have their collective heads up their collective rear ends - even more so than usual....

Given the national trauma (and it is....) I recall another .... I was blissfully working in the Far East for the Diana episode and was almost entirely unaware of the hysteria... I did follow the BBC (mis)reporting of the inquest though.

Apr 12, 2020 at 11:31 AM | Registered Commentertomo

https://order-order.com/2020/04/12/mervyn-king-ending-lockdown-will-process-trial-error/

Schools will do the maths on the practicalities of Social Distancing within a class room.

Apr 12, 2020 at 11:55 AM | Unregistered Commentergolf charlie

BoJo achieves epic popularity in bed.
https://order-order.com/2020/04/12/tory-government-sets-new-polling-record/

... but whatever he decides to do over the next few weeks, there are going to be bad consequences for many.
https://order-order.com/2020/04/12/sir-jeremy-farrar-uk-likely-one-worst-affected-countries-europe/

Apr 12, 2020 at 12:10 PM | Unregistered Commentergolf charlie

tomo, thank you, I thought these two bits were significant:

:It will be open to interpretation both by individuals seeking to leave their house with reasonable excuse and those individuals responsible for enforcing the Regulation."

" Enforcement powers
The reason that the lack of clarity in the scheme as a whole is troubling is the wide powers of enforcement which leaves the scheme open to abuse and may well lead to a disproportionate and discriminatory impact on marginalised and disadvantaged communities."

If UK residents are sensible and don't push the wrong buttons of those with power to enforce, all will be OK ish.

If UK Authorities are sensible, and don't get unnecessarily confrontational with those pushing their luck, all will be OK ish.

It is therefore inevitable that there will be some problems, resulting from those persisting in demanding Freedom to Express their opinions about their definition of Human Rights, meeting those fed up with dealing with the feckless idiots and the frustrated.

There is nothing to be gained for the UK's Law and Order Services in getting snarled up in form filling, paperwork, arrests, Court appearances, putting people in prison etc. I doubt that Her Majesty's Government wants that either, and some of the Statements made by Police Officers have been subsequently tamped down.

Apr 12, 2020 at 4:12 PM | Unregistered Commentergolf charlie

Here or the President Trump thread ....

A speech from Mike Pompeo at this year's US State Governor Convention - carefully tuned to pitch at all political stripes

The principle of reciprocity should apply and from a quick scan of manifestations of Chinese Communist Party organs in the UK show I feel that this isn't the case. British Steel and the various EV makers are in there too - where financial transparency is being I feel ignored ....

The "Thousand Talents Plan" and "Sister Cities" look like espionage dressed up as ... well, something else.

I hear from people who are letting flats and houses to, and who have befriended Chinese students / postgrads - that they are a bit circumspect about attracting the attention of CCP operatives...

I also see that CNN have done a deal with the Communist Party of China / Beijing to allow CNN in officially - that's going to be a hoot - I wonder if they'll coax Peter Arnett out of retirement for a last hurrah?

Apr 12, 2020 at 7:34 PM | Registered Commentertomo

Positive news on Chloroquine

https://youtu.be/Kj6ZFpVU0XU

Apr 12, 2020 at 7:38 PM | Unregistered Commentergolf charlie

another epidemic contribution from David Spiegelhalter

Apr 12, 2020 at 8:22 PM | Registered Commentertomo

The president made wise preparations for a pandemic.

Click

Apr 12, 2020 at 11:09 PM | Unregistered CommenterPhil Clarke

I don’t expect straight answers to these questions, any more than we got straight answers from the Soviet Communist Party after Chernobyl.

Questions

I see (or rather I don't) the usual suspects reporting on the racism + xenophobia that's apparently blossomng in China courtesy in large part - the CCP.

Apr 13, 2020 at 10:45 AM | Registered Commentertomo

The president made wise preparations for a pandemic.

Apr 12, 2020 at 11:09 PM Phil Clarke

Why did Climate Scientists waste the money that would have helped with Medical Research and Treatment along with Medical Aid, Public Health Engineering and cheap reliable power?

Apr 13, 2020 at 11:43 AM | Unregistered Commentergolf charlie

gc

I went looking for Oblimey remonstrating with New York about auctioning off their stock of ventilators and using Google repeatedly came up with Phil's link.... DuckDuckGo - not so much. I also saw that Google are skewing their search results wrt coronavirus or is it DuckDuckGo that are skewing the results? - bottom line = they are more different than might be explained by small tweaks to the search algorithm.

As far as pandemic prepping is concerned there are two distinct and separate government areas in the USA - Federal and state. A trivial look seems to show that the Federal seems to have been fairly low and static but some states have succumbed to prioritising other things and reducing maintenance bills...

Apr 13, 2020 at 12:07 PM | Registered Commentertomo

I feel it's worth pointing out that the Isles of Scilly have 5G but haven’t had even a single case of Covid-19 yet.

Apr 13, 2020 at 12:30 PM | Registered Commentertomo
Apr 13, 2020 at 3:11 PM | Registered Commentertomo

This is purely anecdotal......
My 3 kids all live in London. They all claim that many of their friends have had the bug, along with numbers of work colleagues and other contacts. These are fit youngsters: none of them have hit serious problems. One common experience which does not seem to be reported is that symptoms return, in milder form, for a day or two sometime after the person felt back to normal.
Taking this at face value, the incidence of infection is being hugely under-reported. Also the "recurrence" experience is worrying if it means that the person becomes infectious again.
Have others heard similar stories?

Apr 13, 2020 at 10:46 PM | Unregistered CommenterMike Higton

Have others heard similar stories?

Apr 13, 2020 at 10:46 PM | Mike Higton

I have not, but I suspect many similar stories do exist, and I hope they are true. The only way to check is with testing. If testing confirms that many have been infected without serious consequences, then it would be likely that the immune herd is out there and growing unnoticed.

If researchers had more info on those with immunity, it might help those most at risk, which in turn could allow phased restrictions on Lockdown to be permitted.

Apr 13, 2020 at 11:10 PM | Unregistered Commentergolf charlie

Mike Higton

The immune system many times doesn't react instantly or once - some oscillation is to be expected. IIRC in Germany they've observed some episodic interaction between this coronavirus and immune cells.

What is clear is that those with reduced immune response are at a significant disadvantage when dealing with an infection.


Viruses are fascinating ... 800 million of the diverse little buggers drop out of the sky on every m^2 of the planet every 24 hours and recognisable viral genes constitute ca. 8% of human DNA - of course we are bananas too....

Apr 14, 2020 at 1:12 AM | Registered Commentertomo

If my random arithmetic worked the area occupied by those viruses if placed side by side in a square still wouldn't be visible to an unaided eye....

Apr 14, 2020 at 8:25 AM | Registered Commentertomo

If my random arithmetic worked the area occupied by those viruses if placed side by side in a square still wouldn't be visible to an unaided eye....

Apr 14, 2020 at 8:25 AM tomo

Even the latest hi-tech Chinese security cameras would struggle to tell them apart.

Apr 14, 2020 at 9:21 AM | Unregistered Commentergolf charlie

https://order-order.com/2020/04/14/sir-patrick-admits-testing-ramp-slow/

Public Health England too obsessed with their own control and command, to be of assistance to the health and wellbeing of the public.

Must be something to do with the internal politics.

Apr 14, 2020 at 10:40 AM | Unregistered Commentergolf charlie

gc

PHE?

as I've moaned previously - their trajectory from part of the NHS through local councils to an NDPB with a "forbidden city" style palace complex adjacent to the northern loop of the M25 is littered with pompous self regard that has a not good relationship to their actual public health antics - a self parodying quango....

Alternately self selecting B Ark crew.

Apr 14, 2020 at 12:05 PM | Registered Commentertomo