By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley
Early in 2001, an international corporation’s chief financial officer conducted a business-continuity appraisal of the entire business. All insurances were reviewed and brought up to date. The pension fund was audited to make sure it could meet its obligations. Health, safety and business-risk assessments of every kind were conducted.
The United States headquarters of the corporation were in a prominent New York skyscraper. The cautious finance officer decided that if one of the many totalitarian regimes worldwide that hate democracy and, therefore, have a particular loathing for the United States were to mount a terrorist attack, the building might be vulnerable. At some cost, he turned in the lease and, notwithstanding some grumbling from the board, moved the entire operation to somewhere less prominent.
The building was No. 1, World Trade Center.
The CFO was my brother-in-law, which is how I know the story. As far as I know, it has not been published before. For confidentiality, I shall not name the corporation, but you have heard of it.
Protecting any business, or any nation, from foreseeable but apparently not immediate risk always comes at a price. The arcane art of business continuity appraisal is to decide which risks are so potentially damaging to the corporation that they must be prepared for regardless of cost. The CFO’s assessment was that the corporation might not recover if it lost its entire United States headquarters staff. So he paid the cost and was proven right to have done so.
For various reasons, China is the source of most of the world’s recent pandemics. Therefore, countries in the region, such as Taiwan and South Korea, have taken elaborate business-continuity steps to make sure that if yet another Chinese pandemic was loosed upon the world they would be able to prevent the loss of life and colossal economic damage that would occur if they were not prepared.
South Korea established the gold-standard procedure: test as widely as possible, isolate all carriers, and vigorously trace all their contacts. The contact-tracing is done not only by making intensive use of cellphone data but also by recruiting an army of volunteer contact-tracers and setting them to work.
The ruling Democratic Party in Seoul has now reaped its just reward for its foresight and competence. In a general election with a record 66% turnout, with all voters wearing masks, keeping well apart from one another and being temperature-tested as they approached the polling stations, the party has won the largest majority ever to be achieved by any party since democratic elections were first introduced on the current model in 1987, a third of a century ago.
Most other nations, and in particular just about all Western nations, were nothing like so well prepared. They failed to realize that the Chinese Communist regime was lying about every aspect of the pandemic; they failed to notice that the World Health Organization, dominated by Communists, was repeating the Chinese lies rather than questioning them; their pandemic-response teams had failed to ensure that they could cope with population-wide testing, isolation of carriers and contact-tracing; and, when they had missed that bus, some of them dithered for weeks before imposing lockdowns, apparently unaware that not merely days but hours count if one wants to minimize the cost of a pandemic, in lives and in treasure.
At what point can lockdowns be lifted? As a rule of thumb, one should not lift a lockdown until the mean compound daily case-growth rate has fallen below 5% (and even that rate, if it were persisted in, would double the number of cases every two weeks).
In today’s graphs, Ireland stands out as going very much in the wrong direction: case growth is accelerating and, averaged over the past week, is now just below 11% a day. At that rate, new cases will double every week: and, since confirmed cases tend to be the more serious cases, deaths will eventually grow that rapidly too.
In many nations, business-continuity specialists are beginning to ask an important question: can the world afford not to sweep away the totalitarian regime in Peking and its poodles in international bodies such as the WHO?
Fig. 1. Mean compound daily growth rates in cumulative confirmed cases of COVID-19 for the world excluding China (red) and for several individual nations averaged over the successive seven-day periods ending on all dates from March 28 to April 15, 2020. A link to the high-definition PowerPoint slides is at the end of this posting.
Fig. 2. Mean compound daily growth rates in cumulative COVID-19 deaths for the world excluding China (red) and for several individual nations averaged over the successive seven-day periods ending on all dates from April 4 to April 15, 2020.
High-resolution images of the two graphs are here.
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There’s no need for lockdown because covid19 is just another sort of flu. More die from flu than from covid19.
As it happens, this spring flu deaths are much less than normal.
That’s because of the lockdown, which is effective at reducing flu.
But the same lockdown is completely ineffective at reducing covid19.
Which all proves how exactly like flu covid19 is. So no need for a lockdown.
O wait…
Mr Salmon makes the same mistake as some other commenters here: he compares the deaths in the very early stages of a pandemic with the deaths in a normal year for viral pneumonia.
That won’t do. At the daily compound death growth rates evident in the graphs, a lot more people are going to die this year from the Chinese virus. On any view, this is going to be a lot worse than flu – and it is additional to, and not instead of, flu, though the lockdowns will reduce the usual flu death toll somewhat.
Only two weeks ago I was told by one opponent of lockdowns that there would be only 10,000 deaths in total in the United States from the Chinese virus by the end of the pandemic. One simply cannot make comparisons based on the numbers as they are now: one must take account of the continuing very high (though not as high as before) rate of growth both in confirmed cases and in deaths.
MoB
Sorry – I didn’t make my point very clear. It was a (failed) attempt at sarcasm. I was trying to point out that the argument that “it’s just another flu” contains a stark contradiction. Flu numbers are significantly down and everyone recognises that this is because of the lockdown. However, the same people arguing “cv19 is flu” also claim that the lockdown is ineffective against coronavirus. That’s an impossible contradiction. They can’t have their cake and eat it. If lockdown is working for flu then it’s working for covid19. Which is good, because as we also know, at the the extreme end of Covid’s wide distribution of health effects (from nothing to lethality) there is a “sharp tail” of acute respiratory syndrome and damaging viral pneumonia. And overcrowded intensive care wards.
So the fact that flu incidence is also reduced due to the lockdown is powerful supportive evidence that the lockdown is the right thing to do regarding the coronavirus.
Phil Salmon
While I do agree that your conclusion is probably correct, playing the devil’s advocate, if most flu cases are mis-categorized as covid-19, and if we accept for the sake of argument that lockdowns do not work, then the situation you described arises from the corruption of the data. In reality, there may be a “normal” number of flu cases and a similar number of covid-19 cases.
This is in part why I harp on the need for serological testing of antibodies, to clarify the situation. Of course people who died of the flu but were also exposed to covid-19 will continue to confound the situation.
Rich
To assert “a percentage of regular flu is being renamed as covid19” is not credible.
What clinicians in hospitals are experiencing this spring is not what happens routinely with every flu season. The acute respiratory distress and need for ventilators etc. are quite out of the ordinary. It is the sharp tail of covid19 outcomes which is very different from flu and the signature of the virus, and the reason that the lockdowns are necessary and right.
As I said, it’s a devil’s advocate argument. I don’t think it’s right but I don’t think your evidence is conclusive to prove us right. I’m at least a little open to being proven wrong.
Unless I’m misinformed, CDC guidance is to code any death with respiratory distress as covid-19 even if not tested. That’s not a situation where anyone is justified in saying the data are reliable and tell a compelling story.
Doctors want to help and save lives, but they are humans and may also be motivated either by extra funds for the hospital or state or by wanting to justify heroic action that did not turn out so well. (only 2-20% survive aggressive intubation and high pressure used on Covid patients.) Many have to stay sedated much longer than normally to avoid the extreme urge to breathe, and it becomes very difficult to wean them from the sedatives. In addition doctors know that they have given patients a lot of lung damage in the process of trying to save their life.
Trump comes up with a recommended plan of action:
It’s up to the governors to open business & get people working.
Contact your governor: let them know what you think.
So now Mr. Monckton is apparently calling for an armed invasion of china:
” can the world afford not to sweep away the totalitarian regime in Peking”
While I am no fan of any totalitarian regime I would love to know exactly how
Mr. Monckton is proposing that we “sweep” it away without an incredible amount
of lives lost and how he is suggesting a stable democratic government is installed.
Mr Walton has offended against Eschenbach’s Rule: he has made up something that I did not say, rather than quoting what I did say.
As an apologist for Communist China’s brutal and murderous regime, whose dishonesty and negligence loosed this pandemic upon the world, he has falsely asserted that I advocate armed intervention against China.
No: but we should be no less willing to argue for regime change in China as we did for regime change in Russia. China’s suffering people need to know we are on their side, and that we should like to see them become democratic.
Arguing for “regime change” is very different from call for a government to
be swept away. I would be in favour of the first if it occurred peacefully but not
the second which implies violence.
And if anyone is an apologist for China it would appear to be Trump. Just look at his tweets and comments:
Jan 24: “China has been working very hard to contain the Coronavirus. The United States greatly appreciates their efforts and transparency. It will all work out well. In particular, on behalf of the American People, I want to thank President Xi!”
Jan 30th: “We only have five people. Hopefully, everything’s going to be great. They [China] have somewhat of a problem, but hopefully, it’s all going to be great. But we’re working with China, just so you know, and other countries very, very closely. So it doesn’t get out of hand.”
Feb 10: “China, I spoke with President Xi, and they’re working very, very hard. And I think it’s going to all work out fine.”
Not to mention his constant comments downplaying the severity of the virus.
It’s apparent Izaak that you’re incapable of thinking clearly or speaking fairly about anything involving Trump. Should he have been more skeptical of Chinese assurances? Yes. Was he too optimistic about the risks and therefore susceptible to being fooled? Yes. Are his statements at the time consistent with the idea that he was lied to by Xi? Yes.
How anyone who is not blinded by partisan hatred can fault Trump for being too lax when Pelosi and De Blasio were encouraging people to participate normally in Chinese New Year celebrations and saying that Trump was overreacting is mind-boggling. Where’s your outrage at Pelosi or Biden who called the China travel ban xenophobic and racist?
Good on ya Rich.
Let’s get the politics out of our logic and reasoning.
As you have done several times recently with me. But *that’s* different.
I called you out and you walked on.
It seems from his posts that Lord Moncton has the same sort of panicked emotional reaction to CoV as my 83 y/o neighbour with a grade school education and only the MSM for information. These reports have convinced her that she will be left die alone if she gets it. She was very surprised that the 69 CoVid deaths over the past month, reported in sepulcheral tones, compare to 85-odd expected deaths per day ALL YEAR for the 65+’s in this province.
Most people still rely on the MSM for information, and as a result are terrified of getting the Wuhan flu. They happily comply with what is effectively house arrest and gladly report their neighbors for sitting on their front steps.
In a few months we’ll look back at this bizarre overreaction and wonder what the heck we were thinking.
Klem continues to look only at one side of the argument. Such a narrow-minded focus is not appropriate.
The reason why people are content – for now – to endure house arrest is that they do not want to see their healthcare systems overwhelmed. As it is, in Britain the Health Service is no longer performing elective surgery, in case the beds are needed for Chinese-virus patients.
Once the rate of transmission has been brought down to below a 5% daily compound growth rate in total serious cases or hospitalizations (and even that rate would entail a doubling of such cases in only two weeks), it will be possible for lockdowns to be ended.
The response of governments was not an “overreaction”: it was a proportionate response given the inadequate information available at the beginning of any pandemic.
Once more is known, the strategy can be refined. What was known by mid-March, however, was that in the preceding three weeks the mean rate of growth in cumulative cases worldwide outside China and occupied Tibet was 20% compound, every day. Do the math. That could not be allowed to continue, and, on the information available at the time, governments could not be sure that the rate would decline all by itself.
Armchair epidemiology is not the way to address a problem such as that posed by the Chinese virus, which is both more infectious and more fatal than most pandemics.
In response to FranBC, it is notable that the hysterical reactions here have come not from me but from those who have lost the argument with their governments over lockdowns. I have explained why it would have been better to follow South Korea’s example, and have provided – thanks to Stephen Mosher, some detail on how that country successfully controlled the pandemic without lockdowns.
I have also provided a clear, step-by-step outline of how and when to end lockdowns, which is more than can be said for HM Government.
And I provide every day a benchmark test showing how countries are progressing in reducing their daily compound rate of growth in total serious cases and in deaths to the point where it will become possible to end the lockdowns.
There is nothing of hysteria or panic in what I have written.
Mr. Monckton wrote: “can the world afford not to sweep away the totalitarian regime in Peking”
Too much.
But I’d love to be the lawyer who gets 33% of the damages.
In response to Mr Evans, we swept away the brutal Communist regime in Moscow, not so much by force of arms as by a vigorous defensive posture combined by open, publicly-expressed sympathy and support for the suffering Russian people.
It is time that we spoke out for the comfort of the suffering Chinese people too. I do not advocate armed intervention against China. The United States could not even defeat the Communists in North Vietnam, so military intervention would not work. But the Chinese people need to know that we are on their side against their ghastly regime.
Communism continues to be a danger to the world. Unlike the apologists for it here, I am prepared to say so, and to argue that it should be swept away. It has killed enough.
The Brit (not) advocating Yankee action?
Amazing chutzpah.
The Soviet imploded, bankrupt, and you claim it was bcause of sympathy for the Russian people? Like the sympathy of Mr. Steele’s Russia-gate dossier, or Mrs May’s Novichok ramblings?
Like using Ukraine, driven to utter bankruptcy, to start another Churchill eastern front Operation Unthinkable?
You are worried about the City of London, and you should be. It will not survive Glass-Steagall, which was FDR’s response to the last Great Depression. A new Bretton-Woods with China on board, nothing to do with Gordon Browne’s fake, must be the nightmare of those City denizen’s, what?
In response to Mr. Monckton,
Seems I relied too much on Mr. Walton’s comment. I appreciate the clarification and perhaps I was relying too much on “lawyers” to handle China’s communist regime (stated tongue-in-cheek).
(Although, “lawyers” does suggest a “civil” course of action, rather than military.)
Actually, I do see this as a wake-up call. We’ve given Red China a free ride for too long. And, that’s not a newfound position on my part (one of the reasons I voted for Trump).
However, hopefully, the West, including the U. S., can avoid a full-blown Cold War with China.
That seems to be the policy position of the Trump administration.
My assessment of China is that its leadership sees itself as “a nation apart” from the rest of the world’s nation-states. That’s dangerous for everybody because it breeds miscalculation and arrogance.
I don’t advocate “trust, but verify” (Reagan in the Cold War), instead, I advocate, “verify, verify, not trust”.
China is potentially very dangerous because its leadership not only sees itself as a nation apart, but also sees itself as having historical grievances against the West. Seemingly, they have no respect for our laws and norms (they’ll steal anything of strategic value they can lay their hands on).
And, yes, “the middle kingdom” has ambitions of grandeur.
Firm diplomacy and enforceable agreements, if possible, are the path forward.
Those who don’t call for regime change are not automatically apologists for Red China. That assertion is an over generalization.
We must deal with China: an openly stated policy of regime change makes that prospect more difficult.
(Non-governmental voices of personal opinion have a role to play, as all the worlds a stage and we all have our roles.)
Ahead of the curve
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-southkorea-respons/ahead-of-the-curve-south-koreas-evolving-strategy-to-prevent-a-coronavirus-resurgence-idUSKCN21X0MO
Surely they should progress to State mandated ankle bracelets.
LdB should not be so hysterical.
LOL. Reuters making this palatable for western tastes. You can go to prison for 28 days, or you can “agree” to have a tracking bracelet. I guess you get the same offer you can’t refuse if you do not tell them everyone you have had contact with in the last two weeks.
This is like some distopian sci-fi future where everyone is followed 24/7 in the their slightest movement and all contacts and communications are monitored.
All this applauded as the “gold standard” by someone whose every second phrase is denouncing Red China ( and occupied Tibet ) COMMUNIST government.
classic.
Christopher…Why not counter the argument without insult? These are difficult times and insult should be avoided.
he has form in this area.
In Canada, approximately 800 people die every day. Now tell me again why deaths from COVID-19 are so much more terrible than deaths from, say, pancreatic cancer, that we have to cripple our economy to prevent them?
Well let’s see: COVID-19 is an infectious disease. It’s not the individual deaths are uniquely terrible, it’s that the epidemic threatens the lives of all Canadians. Except (as is now indisputable) it doesn’t. The median age of the dead in Canada is 80. The epidemic is mostly killing people who are very old, and no reasonable person views death in old age as a strange, unforeseen tragedy that justifies immiserating millions of healthy people.
And suppose (as seems likely) that the eventual death toll from COVID-19 is less than the toll for the seasonal flu. So, we tolerate a given number of deaths from the flu without drastic abrogations of civil rights and the forced inducement of severe economic recession, but we go absolutely nuts over COVID-19? Seems irrational to me.
In Canada, motor vehicle accidents kill about 1900 people a year, and seriously injure thousands more. The victims of motor vehicle accidents are of all ages, and in fact a Canadian who is young, handsome and has a hundred Facebook friends can be killed or crippled in a motor vehicle accident at any time. But we accept this measurable risk to our citizens, although we try to mitigate it with traffic laws. But no one is suggesting that we should ban driving. The COVID-19 lockdowns are almost like banning driving to prevent motor vehicle deaths.
It is hard to understand how people in general do not get the basic reason for the lock downs, IT IS IN ORDER TO AVOID WHAT HAPPENED IN LOMBARDY on a national stage.
The virus spreads too fast, like a wildfire.
What happened in Lombardy? They were late to see that it was an epidemic and HOSPITAL AND FUNERAL SERVICES WERE OVERWHELMED to the point of doing effective euthanasias and coffins accumulating in warehouses. The lockdowns were finally imposed so that the existing services could limp along.
The questions is not between number of deaths of the elderly and the economy. The question is CAN A WESTERN ECONOMY SURVIVE WITH A TOTAL BREAKDOWN OF HEALTH SERVICES?
Take the case of New York, to leave everything going, no lock downs? Would it be possible with thousands with flu symptoms staying at home for two weeks? I do not know the answer, it needs modeling , but the decision makers obviously think it would not.
In the model of a wildfire in a forest, you contain it as best you can, Will the forest survive an unchecked wildfire? After many years the trees will sprout and grow. Maybe that is the case with the economy: lose half the forest fighting the fire, or let the fire go do its thing.
For the economy it needs modeling. Only then one may judge the real usefulness of lock downs.
I took a walk as we are allowed to go out for exercise for a reasonable time, and thought what the inputs to the model should be:
The death rate due to the virus of over 60 to 75, which is the range of many top executives and government officials .
(wrong decisions taken, no decisions, what is the impact on economy)
The percentage of the working population that would be infected with symptoms , enough to stay home.
(what is the functioning ability with lack of workforce of average industries, considering higher death rate of overseers)
The percentage of teachers incapacitated.
The percentage of school children having to stay home , because no teachers. This means many working parents would stay home and may also be incapacitated.
etc. etc
For many countries a significant proportion of their teachers is actually in the risk cohort. We will see how this turns out after schools are re-opening.
So in just 24 days COVID19 has killed 1175 and is acclerating, which is over half those killed in car accidents in one year.
How many would you be satisfied with before you would take action?
Lord Brenchley
Can a “normal” Flu year be compare to CV19? Normally the Flu Vaccine is very effective and has a high take up rate amongst the vulnerable demographic. Therefore there is a high level of immunity in the general population. In recent years, since the introduction of vaccination, only 2017/18 has the Flu virus in general global circulation not been the one in the Vaccine. You should really compare CV19 to pre-vaccine flu and populations for a real comparison. Asian and Hong Kong pandemics for instance
Due to earlier SARS epidemics in China, in South Korea and Taiwan were prepared for this type of epidemic. Other countries were completely unprepared for this type of virus. Information from China did not help.
Monckton of Brenchley, can the increase in mortality from acute respiratory failure be determined in individual countries in the first 3 months of 2020? In many countries, people in nursing homes who are not in the statistics are dying. This even applies to Sweden.
In Poland, the action of collecting plasma from convalescents began.
The vaccine must first be tested on animals. There is a problem because mice don’t respond to Cov-2 like humans do. In my opinion, we can count on the vaccine in a year at the earliest . Icelandic scientists have detected different Cov-2 lines from different countries. It is very likely that there are several mutations of this virus in the US.
mutations
https://nextstrain.org/ncov/north-america
It’s a deviation from the topic at hand, but let us all mourn the death of Brian Dennehy, taken from us at the shockingly young age of 81. I suspect foul play.
Now Anna, the hospitals have not been inundated so far. Even if they had been, it would have been an acute problem that would have lasted only a few months. The wildfire would have burned itself out very quickly and its fuel would have been the less valuable trees in the forest, as COVID-19 kills old people, and largely spares the young and the middle-aged. (Yes, that’s right. The lives of the young are more valuable than the lives of the elderly. I doubt if I can explain this to you, so I won’t try.)
The economic damage of the lockdowns is terrible now, and will soon be much worse. Right now, Canada’s economy is like the Titanic, five minutes after it struck the iceberg. The passengers still think that no great damage has been done. The officers know that the ship must sink, and that there aren’t enough lifeboats for all the passengers.
The forced abolishment of commerce will trigger a precipitous recession. The cash supports to people harmed in the government-mandated recession will cause inflation. Hyperinflation, if they are allowed to proceed. It is not just income that has been destroyed. Wealth will be destroyed too, which is much worse.
That’s what happens when you undermine the value of your currency.
Right now we are about to find out how much of our economy is founded on unsustainable debt. There was a fascinating (in its narcissism) guest editorial in the Globe and Mail recently, by a woman who owned four restaurants and a bar in Toronto. She wanted the government to abolish commercial rents for the month of April. Not defer the rents, but forgive them entirely. That is, she wanted the government to destroy her landlords to save her. That’s how people think when credit goes bad: Somebody else must pay the bill. Very soon we’re gong to run out of somebody elses.
Neil Ferguson track record- worse than, Michael Mann’s, who gets a good kicking here on this site.-
“1. In 2001, the Imperial team did the modelling on foot and mouth disease which led to a cull of six million sheep, pigs and cattle. The cost to the UK was around £10 billion. But the Imperial’s work has been described as `severely flawed’.
2. In 2002, Ferguson predicted that up to 50,000 people would die from mad cow disease. He said that could rise to 150,000 if sheep were involved. In the UK the death total was 177.
3. In 2005, Ferguson said that up to 200 million people could be killed by bird flu. The total number of deaths was 282 worldwide.
4. In 2009, Ferguson and his chums at Imperial advised the Government which, relying on that advice, said that swine flu would kill 65,000 people in the UK. In the end swine flu killed 457 people in the UK.
Finally, Ferguson has admitted that his model of the Covid 19 is based on undocumented 13-year-old computer code intended for use with an influenza epidemic’
No one seems to have questioned Ferguson’s work on Covid 19 ”
Perhaps, Mr Monckton, who has spent a lot of time on this site questioning others numbers from the climate change fraternity can answer why he now believes non,peer reviewed work from Imperial college.
It is now clear that the numbers attributed to Corona are wrong. Why does he now not question Neil Ferguson’s maths?
The only interesting thing Imperial college said was- “Imperial College (which originally forecast that the coronavirus would kill 500,000 people) has admitted that two thirds of the people who have been listed as having died of the coronavirus would have died anyway – of something else’
I knew about the UK F&M fiasco from Imperial, and the Bird Flu. As a result I have a feeling Ferguson suffers from Hero Syndrome, starting pandemic scares and then saving the world. There’s no other explanation.
What is more worrying is why anyone is still listening to him. As Dubya once famously said:
“Fool me once : shame on you. Fool me twice … erm … where was I ? ”
How many times do these academics get to screw up monumentally before someone realises they must have slept with the Dean to get a their doctorate.
“Thereafter, the under-60s can be allowed to move about freely, while the old and infirm can be advised – though not necessarily compelled – to stay at home.”
Mi Lord-
Over my dead body. I am 69. Want an arm wrestle? 🙂
Everyone forgets that we are the boomers. All my mates same the dame thing, “Bring it on”. You youngsters should not be made to pay for this. And pay we all will, believe me. Sweden and Sth Korea will pay likewise. This is a huge global recession coming up, if not a depression.
But, all a mute debate now. Even if borders were not closed people would have stopped travelling and many would have locked down voluntarily: recession.
It remains the most intriguing social event of my life.
It is not about going outside, but about numerous contacts with other people. Only one thing is certain: we will all die one day.
But not today.
Not today.
How many people live their lives focused on this one fact which is true for everyone?
What would be the point?
More commonly, people deny their own mortality, and even after a long life or a mortal wound, fight tooth and nail for even a single additional breath, one minute more of life, one day more above ground.
This is what defines us, not our eventual mortality.
Mr Monckton takes peer review seriously. Unfortunately not with Neil Ferguson.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/07/19/american-physical-society-and-monckton-at-odds-over-paper/
Virologists at France’s Pasteur Institute are using a modified measles vaccine to “trick” the body into producing antibodies against the novel coronavirus.
The institute received an initial grant of $4.9 million to fund preclinical research on its vaccine candidate.
Frédéric Tangy, head of the institute’s vaccine innovation lab, told Business Insider that 60% to 70% of the human population needs to be immunized in order to contain the virus globally.
Tangy predicts the institute could begin testing its vaccine candidate on humans within a year.
https://www.businessinsider.com/french-scientists-using-measles-vaccine-against-covid-19-2020-4?IR=T
Can anyone explain to me about nations increasing their debt?
Who is the beneficiary of the debt, like which country or countries have more owing to them than they owe to others?
What would be the global effect of a round table settlement, so that all debts that can be paid are paid and the residuals remain?
How does one tyreat non-monetary national assets? Are there countries ()I suspect Australia is one) that are in debt with $$$ on paper, but in credit with natural and social resources? Are we really in debt because we cannot liquidate some assets?
If there is but one major nation creaming it off the rest, why do we not gang up and bomb the shit out of it?
Sorry for the questions, but I have long thought that economists stress $$$ too much Geoff S
I would like to respond to a number of comments here and elsewhere related to the ‘hospitalised cases’ data I have regularly linked to.
As most of us are well aware there are various data collection points, and consequently accuracy/quality of the data varies to a large degree. I assume that the hospitals’ data is probably of the highest accuracy currently available.
Although such data it does not represent complete picture it shines a beam of light into a centre of the ‘camera obscura ’, while what is currently going on in the rest of the country it is still in the semi darkness. I assume that a smaller set of good data is preferable to the larger set of data with much greater uncertainty, else we are in danger of ‘throwing the baby out with the bathwater’.
Ratty said to Toad: ‘This is all very silly, very silly indeed…..and that’s a fact, and no mistake!
‘Despite absence of strict lock-down, Sweden has no excess mortality. All countries suffering high or very high excess mortality have strict lockdown policies in place.’
http://inproportion2.talkigy.com/swede_no_excess_16Apr.html
‘‘..very little gain, in terms of the projected hospital bed occupancy and expected numbers of death, of continuing the lock-down beyond April 13, provided the isolation of older and vulnerable people continues and the public carries on some level of isolation in the next 2-3 months, see Section 3.1;
• in agreement with [1], isolation of the group of vulnerable people during the next 2-3 months should be one of the main priorities, see Section 3.2;
• it is of high importance that the whole population carries on some level of isolation in the next 2-3 months, see Section 3.5;
• the timing of the current lock-down seems to be very sensible in areas like London where the epidemic has started to pick up by March 23; in such areas the second wave of epidemic is not expected, see figures in Sections 2.2 and 3;
• the epidemic should almost completely finish in July, no global second wave should be expected, except areas where the first wave is almost absent, see Section 3.4.’
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.09.20059451v1.full.pdf
‘All identified outbreaks of three or more cases occurred in an indoor environment, which confirms that sharing indoor space is a major SARS-CoV-2 infection risk.’
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.04.20053058v1.full.pdf
‘Time to get back to work’ said Badger
“Dr John Lee is an English consultant histopathologist at Rotherham General Hospital and formerly clinical professor of pathology at Hull York Medical School. He is most notable to the wider public as co-presenter (with Gunther von Hagens) of Anatomy for Beginners (screened in the UK on Channel 4 in 2005), Autopsy: Life and Death (Channel 4, 2006) and Autopsy: Emergency Room (Channel 4, 2007).
What he says:
But there’s another, potentially even more serious problem: the way that deaths are recorded. If someone dies of a respiratory infection in the UK, the specific cause of the infection is not usually recorded, unless the illness is a rare ‘notifiable disease’.
So the vast majority of respiratory deaths in the UK are recorded as bronchopneumonia, pneumonia, old age or a similar designation. We don’t really test for flu, or other seasonal infections. If the patient has, say, cancer, motor neurone disease or another serious disease, this will be recorded as the cause of death, even if the final illness was a respiratory infection. This means UK certifications normally under-record deaths due to respiratory infections.
Now look at what has happened since the emergence of Covid-19. The list of notifiable diseases has been updated. This list — as well as containing smallpox (which has been extinct for many years) and conditions such as anthrax, brucellosis, plague and rabies (which most UK doctors will never see in their entire careers) — has now been amended to include Covid-19. But not flu. That means every positive test for Covid-19 must be notified, in a way that it just would not be for flu or most other infections.
– How deadly is the coronavirus? It’s still far from clear, The Specator, 28th March 2020<
*
Few tests have been carried out in patients with mild symptoms. This means that the number of positive tests will be far lower than the number of people who have had the disease. Sir Patrick Vallance, the government’s chief scientific adviser, has been trying to stress this.
He suggested that the real figure for the number of cases could be 10 to 20 times higher than the official figure. If he’s right, the headline death rate due to this virus will be 10 to 20 times lower than it appears to be from the published figures.
[…]
The distinction between dying ‘with’ Covid-19 and dying ‘due to’ Covid-19 is not just splitting hairs. Consider some examples: an 87-year-old woman with dementia in a nursing home; a 79-year-old man with metastatic bladder cancer; a 29-year-old man with leukaemia treated with chemotherapy; a 46-year-old woman with motor neurone disease for 2 years.
All develop chest infections and die. All test positive for Covid-19. Yet all were vulnerable to death by chest infection from any infective cause (including the flu).
– How to understand & report figures for ‘Covid deaths’, The Spectator, 29th March 2020"
Yes and they were included in any flu death rates all over the world, I don’t hear you talking about that.
All the so called data we have about flu mortality starts with “ESTIMATED”.
yup. Germany has between 20 and 1000 confirmed cases of flu every year, but the “estimated” numbers are 20000 to 60000.
https://off-guardian.org/2020/04/17/8-more-experts-questioning-the-coronavirus-panic/
No news from Neil Ferguson on getting his paper data peer reviewed.
Mr Monckton seems to have the stats all to hand.
Could he provide us with the median age of the deceased in the UK and how many of these has illnesses?
Europe – “The median age of the deceased in most countries (including Italy) is over 80 years and only about 1% of the deceased had no serious previous illnesses”
had
With reference to Sweden not operating a lockdown, the deaths per million of population are:
USA 105
Sweden 132
Looks like not having a lockdown is potentially bad.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
It looks like having a lockdown could be potentially bad, too. Deaths per million population:
Belgium 419
Spain 413
Italy 367
France 275
UK 202
Netherlands 193
Switzerland 148
The key question is how much difference the lockdowns have made (if any). I don’t think we are yet in a position to give a solid answer to that question, and perhaps may never be. Sweden on one side, and Ireland on the other, are the most likely candidates to provide the examples we need.
Also, I don’t think using a single figure for the USA is very helpful. If you look at it by state, the deaths per million are:
NY 821
NJ 396
CT 271
LA 248
MI 210
MA 182
All worse than Sweden.
All with higher population as well.
Population density (I assume that’s what you meant) does, indeed, seem to go with increased cases and deaths per population. As you might expect, if the chance of an averagely sociable person getting the virus on a given day, at a given stage of the epidemic, was in proportion to the population density (so the total cases would be in proportion to the square of that density). Myself, I think it’s the local population density that probably determines the risk more than the density over a larger area. Living in high-rise flats is not a very good idea right now.
Only NY has higher population than Sweden. Maybe you meant population density?
All of those states have democratic governors except for Massachusetts.
Not very smart people, government dependency and voting democrat have many things in common, but good outcomes is not one of them.
Has worldometer taking into account those that have been misattributed?
Well that would make the USA even lower according to you.
You cant simple compare death rates guys.
the distribution of deaths over ages is hugely skewed, as is the distribution over co morbidities
It might be a good idea to compare death rates in an age range where most people are “healthy” – for example 20 to 55. Then co-morbidities are far less of a problem. But where are those data? Not easily available to us “gentleman scientists,” for sure.
Rules for Corona virus-
COVID-19…The Rules:
1. Basically, you can’t leave the house for any reason, but if you have to, then you can.
2. Masks are useless, but maybe you have to wear one, it can save you, it is useless, but maybe it is mandatory as well.
3. Stores are closed, except those that are open.
4. You should not go to hospitals unless you have to go there. Same applies to doctors, you should only go there in case of emergency, provided you are not too sick.
5. This virus is deadly but still not too scary, except that sometimes it actually leads to a global disaster.
6. Gloves won’t help, but they can still help.
7. Everyone needs to stay HOME, but it’s important to GO OUT.
8. There is no shortage of groceries in the supermarket, but there are many things missing when you go there in the evening, but not in the morning. Sometimes.
9. The virus has no effect on children except those it affects.
10. Animals are not affected, but there is still a cat that tested positive in Belgium in February when no one had been tested, plus a few tigers here and there…
11. You will have many symptoms when you are sick, but you can also get sick without symptoms, have symptoms without being sick, or be contagious without having symptoms. Oh, my God.
12. In order not to get sick, you have to eat well and exercise, but eat whatever you have on hand and it’s better not to go out, well, but no…
13. It’s better to get some fresh air, but you get looked at very wrong when you get some fresh air, and most importantly, you don’t go to parks or walk. But don’t sit down, except that you can do that now if you are old, but not for too long or if you are pregnant (but not too old).
14. You can’t go to retirement homes, but you have to take care of the elderly and bring food and medication.
15. If you are sick, you can’t go out, but you can go to the pharmacy.
16. You can get restaurant food delivered to the house, which may have been prepared by people who didn’t wear masks or gloves. But you have to have your groceries decontaminated outside for 3 hours. Pizza too?
17. Every disturbing article or disturbing interview starts with ” I don’t want to trigger panic, but…”
18. You can’t see your older mother or grandmother, but you can take a taxi and meet an older taxi driver.
19. You can walk around with a friend but not with your family if they don’t live under the same roof.
20. You are safe if you maintain the appropriate social distance, but you can’t go out with friends or strangers at the safe social distance.
21. The virus remains active on different surfaces for two hours, no, four, no, six, no, we didn’t say hours, maybe days? But it takes a damp environment. Oh no, not necessarily.
22. The virus stays in the air – well no, or yes, maybe, especially in a closed room, in one hour a sick person can infect ten, so if it falls, all our children were already infected at school before it was closed. But remember, if you stay at the recommended social distance, however in certain circumstances you should maintain a greater distance, which, studies show, the virus can travel further, maybe.
23. We count the number of deaths but we don’t know how many people are infected as we have only tested so far those who were “almost dead” to find out if that’s what they will die of…
24. We have no treatment, except that there may be one that apparently is not dangerous unless you take too much (which is the case with all medications). Orange man bad.
25. We should stay locked up until the virus disappears, but it will only disappear if we achieve collective immunity, so when it circulates… but we must no longer be locked up for that?
+ at least 25 plusses!
Well said.
Is it okay if some of us try to add to your excellent list?
Didn’t come from me but keep adding.
I just think it was a funny look at the maelstrom of chatter.
I am certain we can look forward to a long period of much to say and study regarding nearly every aspect of recent events.
Dennis Miller tells us hydroxychloroquine makes an excellent steak marinade.
Which reminds me I have skipped breakfast yet agin.
Number 9 is a fine lesson in English grammar. Thank you.
“A New York woman with coronavirus symptoms died last week after being prescribed a drug cocktail with known cardiac side effects, and family members say she was not tested for COVID-19 or for heart problems before receiving the medication.
The family’s experience suggests that at least some physicians are prescribing hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin — drugs President Donald Trump has promoted to treat the coronavirus — outside of hospital settings, underscoring why major medical organizations including the American Heart Association have issued warnings about the drug’s potential to trigger heart arrhythmia in some patients.
In early April, Ligia, a 65-year-old Queens resident, was given the drug by her general practitioner after she reported having a bad cough, fever and shortness of breath. Ligia’s last name is being withheld on the request of her children.
While Ligia’s symptoms were consistent with those of COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus, she was never tested for the virus, her brother-in-law, Lee Levitt, told NBC News. Ligia received the drug after speaking by phone with her doctor, Levitt said. She was never evaluated in person and received no heart screening or warning about the potential side effects.
“It was handed over like a bag of cookies,” Levitt said.”
I had used the analogy of Skittles for the past several weeks.
But a bag of cookies seems apt.
We shall see how it shakes out.
If these rugs cause harms, and have been used recklessly, we have laws about that.
No drugs are benign.
Clear warnings and contraindications exist for HCQ, Z-pack, and chloroquine.
Tp prescribe them over the phone because someone has symptoms of a cold, with no testing for a disease or contraindications, sounds downright criminal to me.
No one should ever tolerate such blithe credulity by medical professionals.
https://news.yahoo.com/womans-family-blames-hydroxychloroquine-fatal-191900400.html