The Corona Pandemic

I reckon I’ve had 2 close shaves. 1 week in northern Italy January this year and a cancelled meeting this September with someone that turned out to actually have it.

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I would be highly suspect of this result.

For me the research has the wrong methodology. Red flags in this are 11℅ of participants are positive. (Far more believable if 1 or 2%)

Common sense tells us that is pandemic levels of population infected…with no one realising there is a pandemic. To give context approx 6℅ of UK population has antibodies. To have 11℅ positive undetected in population in itself seems unlikely.

I would argue they used the wrong approach. Using antibody kits not as they were intended. Using indirect measure (antibodies vs a more direct evidence measure PCR). Or perhaps a better control of say 20 samples stored 2 years or more would be better.

It’s an interesting result, it requires further investigation. But I would take it with a pinch of salt without more work on it.

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It originated in China. We don’t know this conclusively only because the CCP, and the WHO which they have corrupted, have not allowed proper independent investigation of the Wuhan origins. The CCP is playing politics with this because of their awful behaviour in allowing this virus to reek havoc across the globe. Thankfully the world is finally waking up to the evil that is the CCP. Things are likely to look very ugly in a few years.

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I’ve probably had more than 2 close shaves. We’ve had to admit my mom to the hospital for an emergency spleenectomy. I’ve had to stay some nights there (along with my sibling and father).

Dad got the virus, He’s doing fine now after treatment. Me and my bro along with our families didn’t.

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Do you guys believe there wasn’t anymore outbreak in China since the one that started all this? There are very few countries that have managed to lock the virus out, but they are pretty isolated, geographically.

From what I remember they had a few scares of it breaking out again however their draconian measures would be pretty effective. Under such conditions waves like Europe are having wouldn’t be expected.
Just look at how quickly the infection rate dropped in France and UK as soon as lockdowns were introduced, admittedly perhaps for other technical reasons as well (like people staying indoors and not getting tested as they consider they are in isolation).
Btw open free testing is being tested in France, this is what was proposed and put into action by the IHU Marseille (but of course the fuckwits didn’t listen).

I totally get your point and I’m no conspiracy theorist. The best (so far, the only) way to tame or even eradicate the virus is a restriction on movements and test & trace. Countries like Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, New Zealand have followed that strategy and have been very successful.

But even these countries had some secondary, minor outbreaks. If you look at China, there’s been absolutely no reports of subsequent outbreaks and the figures (infections & deaths) are almost unchanged in last six months.

China doesn’t do reports or figures just rumours. As mentionned they ‘reportedly’ had a few scares I reckon that’s about as much as you can expect from them.

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They had an outbreak 2 months ago and tested an entire city of 9 million. I don’t and won’t naturally trust China (or Russia for that matter), but they have probably implemented the most stringent border control in the world so it’s certainly possible that they are achieving eradication.

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Couldn’t you say this about most of the major players in the world? UK and USA still haven’t closed their borders.

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Not only that, but their lock-down strategy nothing like that in the west. They literally welded metal doors to the front of buildings so that infected people could not leave their homes.

When it comes to China difficult to know the truth. You only know what China wants you to know.

However I saw reports that Covid-19 was being used as cover to round up Uighurs (thats what the second outbreak was supposedly) . With disproportionate number testing positive and require isolation (never to be seen again).

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It is great to see that the vaccine is being distributed so quickly. It is about time the government got something right.
Must ask though, why do the BBC tell such blatant lies. On at least 2 occasions recently I have heard reporters say that the UK has one of the worst Corona records in Europe and said that they are only better than Spain and one other ( cannot remember who) The fact is Spain has done far better than the UK with 15,000 fewer deaths even allowing for the crooked methods the UK use to calculate their figures.
The UK propaganda machine is beyond a joke.

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Depends on the metric being compared but also what each country is counting, I guess.

On worldometer numbers the UK (900) has nearly 100 less deaths per million of population than both Italy (994) and Spain (989). Belgium is the worst at 1,492.

Spain has a 10% higher death toll per capita than the UK.
:thinking:

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@costared in the first wave we could measure excess deaths and UK was the worst in the world per capita from the death data (Belgium not very far behind though) that was freely available. Certainly much higher than the figures BBC reported. It was ok to make some assumptions during the first wave that excess deaths could be almost wholly attributed to covid-19 as most countries were under a heavy lockdown so other fluctuating deaths were under control. I think excess deaths actual undersells the situation - think about how flu numbers were well down due to lockdown, how there were no car accidents etc. I’m sure there were tens of death categories that were well down on normal figures so excess deaths figures would be even more appalling of we stripped the death data down.

Since that heavy lockdown however, we can’t make the same assumptions. I would not recommend using excess deaths since then as we have come out of lockdown and we have no idea what those deaths can be attributable to.

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Nope , from 6k new cases in 14th Feb and 40 new cases only in 6th March, I don’t believe those numbers at all

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There were also tweets on some 260k less subscribers to China’s mobile networks and people co-related that to covid19.

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My thought as well. Bayes Theorem is useful here. Essentially, a lot of different lines of evidence points to the conventional timeline of emergence and spread out of China. A set of results that disrupts that timeline is more likely to be wrong than right. A few isolated cases wouldn’t disrupt that timeline. 11% infection rate does, and I think for this to become believable, it either needs to be replicated in other regions, or at minimum someone needs to find a way to explain the transmission dynamics we saw that seem inconsistent with these results.

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Quite agree with most of that however flu numbers being down in Europe probably had little to do with lockdown as it was flu not season (and I don’t think this is reported like that on death certificates at least not over Europe). Another point is some excess deaths could well have been due to certain not getting the acess to health care necessary for their conditions. But yes in general excess deaths plus more can largely be attributed to covid.

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Spain has 15,000 fewer deaths than the UK and that is including 2 African cities that are Spanish Freeports and have horrendous figures and also allowing for Boris dodgy accounting. In Spain if people are on a respirator for over 28 days they still count. I have spoken to many people who have been over from the UK on holiday or to visit their property and all are of the same opinion." Life under Covid " is a lot easier in Spain.
I admit I am always ready to take a dig at the UK government as I consider them inefficient and corrupt but the digs are justified IMO. I know that had we been in the UK my wife would not have been able to get her Chemo every two weeks for the last year and would almost certainly have died as a result. This is because the NHS is overstretched which I assume is down to lack of Government support. Treatment has not been a problem in Spain despite the fact it is a poorer country than the UK. The NHS problem is of course compounded by Corona . Why has the Spanish health service not had such a bad problem ? maybe the virus has been handled better. You clearly have a younger more agile brain than I and because of your politics will always try to find a way to support the Tory Government . When the dust has settled in about a year maybe you will reflect and realise the error of your ways :slight_smile:

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Errr…you made the claim that Spain had done a better job than the UK “even allowing for the crooked methods the UK use to calculate their figures”. You’ve repeated the fact that Spain has 15,000 fewer deaths but seem determined to ignore the fact that Spain’s population is approximately 2/3rds that of the UK. Comparing absolute numbers is a bit absurd.

It is much more appropriate to compare numbers per capita, which indicates that Spain’s death toll (again using the same numbers you’re using to claim 15,000 fewer deaths in Spain) is 10% higher than that of the UK.

I’m not defending the UK government, I think they’ve handled the pandemic extremely poorly. I’m merely making the point that if the BBC said that UK is one of the worst in Europe but it’s better than Spain and one other country you can’t remember (Italy or Belgium perhaps?) then that is not “blatant lies” as you stated. It is, in reality, true - again, using the same numbers you’ve cited.

It is not the BBC telling blatant lies, I’m afraid that it is you that is misstating the position.

But, of course, I rebut your misrepresentation by setting out the facts (without any reference to the performance of the UK government), and you say it’s because my “politics will always try to find a way to support the Tory Government” :roll_eyes:

No, I’m just interested in being factual. You should give it a try.

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