By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley
One of the most frequently-asked questions about the Chinese virus is how many of those who die after becoming infected die of the virus, and how many merely die with it? The Office for National Statistics in the UK has now studied that question. Of the deaths occurring in March 2020 in England Wales in patients known to be infected with the virus, five-sixths were deaths of the virus and the other one-sixth were deaths with it. Of those who died of the virus, 91% had pre-existing comorbidities.
It is not particularly surprising that the overwhelming majority of virus-related deaths were caused by the virus, for it has a drastic effect on the respiratory systems of those whom it puts into intensive care, leaving little room for doubt as to the proximate cause of death.
Raw data show that up to 10 April 2020, there had been 10,350 deaths registered in England and Wales involving the Chinese virus. Of these, 6348 (61%) were male and 4002 (39%) were female. Most deaths were among those aged 65 or over (8998, or 87%). Of these, there were 3485 deaths among those over 85 (34%). These figures suggest that there would be little harm in allowing the under-50s to go back to work.
Globally, the daily compound growth rate in cumulative confirmed cases is now below 5% in most of the countries we are tracking. We are now at the point where it would be more useful to deduct deaths and recovered cases from the totals before calculating the growth rate, but both are so poorly counted that it seems best to continue with the present method. The case-graph shows that countries that have been in lockdown can now start dismantling them.
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 22, 2020.
It has been suggested that looking at the growth rate in cumulative cases is not valuable because all that is really being measured is the increase in testing. There is indeed a close correlation between the number of tests and the number of confirmed cases, but – as this column has repeatedly pointed out before – correlation does not necessarily imply causation.
It remains true that most of the confirmed cases were tested because they were showing symptoms severe enough to require investigation. It is no surprise, then, that there remains a tight correlation between the rates of growth in confirmed cases (Fig. 1) and the rates of growth in deaths (Fig. 2), after allowing for the fact that deaths arise some 14 days after the appearance of frank symptoms.
Furthermore, since the rate of testing is increasing but the compound case-growth rates are falling, the indications that lockdowns can now be carefully dismantled are all the stronger.
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 22, 2020.
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NY survey suggests low IFR:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-usa-new-york/new-york-test-of-3000-people-finds-14-with-coronavirus-antibodies-idUSKCN2252WN
As long as I don’t see real data about antibody test validation of false positive rate I stop caring about those studies. Too much bad science out there.
Sweden has withdrawn their results, antibody test used in Gangelt cross-reacts with HCoV-OC43 etc.
As with the whole thing we need patience.
…plus they are saying not all people exposed have made antibodies
They say it won’t be over until we have herd immunity….
…so we have to be exposed to get antibodies
…and at the same time they are saying we have to do everything in our power to not get exposed
IMO – face masks & social distancing may do more to reduce viral load (dose) than totally eliminate exposure. Having had HAZMAT training since the early ‘80s, if you want to eliminate eye, nose, and mouth exposure, use a full face respirator with the correct cartridges and do a leak check.
Reducing viral load may help achieve herd immunity w/ fewer hospitalizations and that’s a good thing.
Yes, that’s the point.
A damn fine summing up right there
😊
I just offered a longish technical post on this and one other issue to CtM. IF my previously posted naiveté hypothesis from rumination 5 is correct in explaining CNV71 sailors, then your observation concerning the mistaken Gangelt antibody tests MUST follow.
I just posted some technical deep dive research to explain why this observation must follow, but missed this new datum that you provided. Excellent confirmation.
Test is an ELISA from EUROIMMUN.
“Yet, we noted some cross reactivity in both ELISAs with serum samples from the same two HCoV-OC43 patients that cross reacted in a MERS-CoV S1 IgG ELISA (6)despite the different antigen coated.”
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.18.20038059v1.full.pdf
Blood donor samples are btw bad validation material for false positives as donors are supposed of being healthy w/o a recent cold. Anecdotal evidence from Prof. Drosten’s group at Charité in Berlin reports 4-5% cross-reactivity in random samples from cold season. IgM tests are way more error prone as IgM antibodies are less specific than IgGs. IgM antibodies from a cold can persist up to months and compromise results.
To validate positives neutralization tests in tissue cultures are therefore necessary. The Stanford study could have done this as the numbers were quite low but they would have needed bigger blood samples from the people tested positively.
Hi Rud
Look forward to your next post.
Questions: Given the technical challenges as to what the various Covid tests are telling us:
1) What do the various tests actually test for and tell us? Ie, antibody, antigen, “10 minute” test, nasal swaps, blood tests…etc…a summary would be highly appreciate and valuable.
2) What is the likely hood/possibility that a given person can be “exposed” to the Covid virus…and not subsequently “test” positive per any of the tests? IE, is it possible for a person to be exposed to a given viral “load”, have some sort of immune system response (that is not get sick) and then not show any evidence (with any current test) that the exposure ever took place? As an example, I use myself. I do not normally get the “flu” or a “cold” during any given year. I do get out. I assume I am exposed to various virus’s. What, if any, kind of test would track those exposures?
Thanks for your extremely useful posts.
Ethan Brand
At least 3 weeks ago, there was a report from Italy which examined the deaths of around 360 to 380 people who had the virus as at the date of death. At the time, the death toll in Italy was under 4,000 deaths, so this was a sample of around 10% of all CV19 related deaths.
It found that only 12 patients were killed by the virus, the others died due to comorbidity, with the virus being the final straw. They concluded that in those cases the virus had merely advanced the date of death, by days, perhaps by a few weeks (depending on the individual circumstances/conditions of the patients).
There is a reason why over 90% of all deaths in NY are of people with pre-existing medical conditions. Comorbidity is the theme of this virus, and the precise roll that these pre-existing medical issues played, is being down played, at least in the media.
There are far too many assumptions being made as to the cause of death. Unless full autopsies are carried out, we will never know the proper mortality rates of this virus, and it appears that by not carrying out such full autopsies, a cover up is under way. We are always going to left with incomplete and poor quality data that can be twisted according to the political belief or pre-existing biases of the promoter.
Please get Smokers and Non-smokers in. The French observed that only 5% of death were smokers….there seems to be a health effect in the nicotine.
There are some really poor studies being promoted in the press. Initially form China the indications were that men where much harder hit in a population where 95% of the affected age groups males smoked and only 2% of women did. A group of studies I saw summarised earlier showed something like 55/45 M/F ratio in one chinese study of about 1000 people. Women in that group do not seem to be getting badly hit by not smoking. It does not seem to be helping the men much either.
There is a lot of very, very sloppy statistics being done with multiple confounding variables not being investigated or controlled, or even discussed.
In short science goes down the drain an anyone who can get a catchy, click-baiting headline gets published. Both the smoking issue and HCQ, I don’t see anything worth giving serious consideration to. It all seems to be agenda driven, preconceived ideas, backed up by lightweight studies.
IMO this will turn into a bigger pile of dross than climatology.
And just smokers are less hit as prviously thought. (i know that expression from somewhere…..)
The same Galaxy I lived in a long, long time ago in a ….
Depends on what they are smoking.
“Women in that group do not seem to be getting badly hit by not smoking.”
I don’t think you recognize that that statement does not seem to be not difficult to parse.
Blinked twice and moved on.
Thanks Jorge, wonderful clarification.
At least we should find something near the truth though eventually when looking at all the data about Covid-19. We just don’t have good enough data yet, which is slightly frustrating as we should have had enough time by now to get something a bit better.
..and just a few days ago “they” were saying it was going to hit smokers harder and worse….
“there seems to be a health effect in the nicotine”
Possibly decreases risk of infection due to downregulation of ACE2, but the last thing you want if infected is downregulation of ACE2 and upregulation of ACE, which apparently is what nicotine does.
Nicotine medically administered is obviously not the same as exposing lungs to smoke; which most understand right away. What nicotine does is something(s) that is also beyond ACE/ACE2 paradigms & in patients already WuhanFlu infected the way the virus uses that to get into a cell is arguably not the most important nicotine dynamic.
Our immune system getting challenged causes an increase in the number of a sub-type of receptor known as the “alpha 7” subtype on the surface of immunological T cells of the C4(+) variety. It is not nicotine, but rather a metabolite of nicotine which our bodies generate called cotinine that gets to work via the alpha 7 receptor.
Alpha 7 sub-type receptors control downstream the poise of our Th1 & Th2 immunological components. Nicotine upstream input (via a metabolite) stimulating these receptors promotes the immune response to be more with IL-10 type of anti-imflammatory activity.
Cells in epithelium of the lungs have nicotinic receptors & nicotine inhibits those cells from releasing an upstream factor (TNF-alpha) that provokes the excessive production reactive oxygen. The downstream benefit is that then the local macrophage production of pro-inflammatory cytokines is held down & thus lung tissue inflammation is less.
Sepsis is another life threatening WuhanFlu complication & development of septic shock also involves TNF-alpha, which nicotine attenuates. Furthermore for sepsis to become deadly there must be the release of the pro-inflammatory cytokine HMGB1 & since nicotine can also control that cytokine level the chances for survival of sepsis improves.
Don’t tell Pres. Trump. Please.
“There seems to be a health effect in the nicotine.”
I see that coronavirus is also causing the ENSO meter to return to El Niño conditions.
There is a third possible grouping
Those that die with the disease from other diseases exacerbated by weakness derived from the disease.
Those that wouldn’t have died from the other diseases yet had Chicom-19 not weakened them
https://drmalcolmkendrick.org/2020/04/06/covid-with-of-or-because-of/ suggests the same. A physician colleague of mine died recently with a positive CoViD19 result, but he’d been admitted with a dissecting aortic aneurysm. The other issue is that if there is a suspicion that the person had CoViD19 and that caused their demise then it counts as a CoViD19 death.
Or there is a link to an impact on endothelial tissue:
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/22/health/strokes-coronavirus-young-adults/index.html
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30937-5/fulltext
We don’t do that with the flu or any other disease, to my knowledge. Are we exaggerating deaths to get more funding for the CDC?
Actually, it’s done for the flu. Only a minority of flu’s deaths are diagnosed by testing. All available numbers are hypothesized by models and counted excess mortality.
I hope that after Covid-19 outbreak is over it will be possible to assess the more factual impact of it by comparing predicted total number of deaths, using extrapolation of the recent historic data (2016 – 2019) versus actual number of deaths. I suspect that the effect of Covid-19 will be just a small blip on the curve considering that statistically on average about quarter of million people die every day. So the impact of Covid-19 in majority of cases is that it decreases a bit life length of peoples who are close to their “natural” life span (i.e. “low-hanging fruit” effect).
Chinese virus?? I prefer the name Kung Flu.
Well, like it or not, everybody is Kong Flu fighting.
… it was a little bit frightening …
Every country has been Kung Flu Fighting for some time… There are Gain Of Function research labs all over the world which means all the labs have extensive libraries of viruses from all over the world including viruses from bats originating from the geographical location of China.
It happened as fast as lightning.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/20/virus-experiments-risk-global-pandemic
Mee tu.
I call it the Wuhoo Flu
WuWHOFlu.
The governments in previously free countries have taken centralized control and now need to justify why.
I don’t trust numbers from Bureaucrats who will CYA. They cannot in the end come out and say: “Oops! Never mind. Our Bad.
Good comment
Outcome will be. The model said upto 150,000 Australians could die without lockdown but so far only 76 died so the lockdown was justified and we are hero’s.
In fact the Australian experts produced later data at Easter which showed the lockdown was not needed, with things under control by mid-March. https://twitter.com/j_mccaw/status/1249592269977423879
They didn’t publicise it, however, and the politicians and journalists ignored it.
Indeed. As I have been saying for a long time now the users of the output from the models were over-confident about the results and forecasts. 76 people have died over 95% were over 65 and had other conditions. The first 3 deaths in New South Wales were all over 90 and were in aged care homes.
I agree with other comments, simply paying attention to hygiene, washing hands, not openly sneezing/coughing would have resulted in similar results without destroying the economy. Unfortunately, many companies have taken advantage of the COVID-19 to shed employees or reduce workdays. As an example, the UK is IMPORTING workers from eastern Europe to work on farms because people in the UK are now in lockdown.
Speaking of aged care
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-24/coronavirus-aged-care-facilities-urged-to-follow-visitor-rules/12181408
The prime minister says aged care facilities are not allowed to ban visitors.
Holly cow, if aged care can’t ban visitors wtfing point of locking healthy people down.
There is an arrogant belief of relatives that only staff spread flu, gastro and now corona and that it couldn’t possibly be them
The whole thing is overblown…
Because they’re cheaper. The natives won’t work for the rate they pay.
Yes obviously! That’s not the point. The UK, under EU control, has been importing eastern European workers for decades destroying local industries. Its one reason why the Brits want out of the EU.
I am delighted for once to be in almost total agreement with CofB. This may be in no small part because he seems to be accepting some of my earlier points and paraphrasing comments I made on Willis’ latest post but this at least encouraging.
It is hardly surprising that there is a “tight correlation” between two monotonically rising cumulative sums, however you plot them. I would be curious as to how we can see a lag of 14 d between two plates of spaghetti.
We do see 12d in the graph I posted earlier today on the last thread.
5d in Italy ( France lags by 14d IIRC ).
But what’s a little plagiarism between friends , the main thing is that this is getting some accurate information out there at last. That can only be a good thing.
I think the same ONS figures for w/e 10 April said 18,516 deaths – 75% more than average for the last 5 years.
Big story 75% over average.
I downloaded the data from the ONS site and looked through and saw that in w/e 9 January 2015 there were 16,237 deaths. So the worst week of 2020 is only 14% worse than the worst week of 2015. Not a big story.
I also looked at the cumulative first 14 weeks:
2015 – 169,533
2020 – 166,444
It was only the last week (15) that cumulative deaths overtook 2015.
You can get the data from the ONS (Office of National Statistics) – each year is a separate spreadsheet; and then spend your idle hours of lock down doing pivot tables (whatever they are).
Nice perspective. This ain’t over yet but the comparison is useful context, considering that we already has a degree of herd immunity and vaccine protection against the flu.
Not just 2015; ONS data for England and Wales up to week 15 2020 is lagging 2018.
Total up to and including week 15
2018 187,720
2020 184,960
I think that the choice of Flu vaccine for 2017-18 didn’t include the virus which turned out to be the predominant one.
According to the ONS, the UK has seen some 44,000 to 48,000 excess winter deaths 3 times in the past 25 years. The UK is nowhere near approaching that territory with CV19 deaths. This 2020 season is unlikely to hit those highs of the past 25 years.
Well done mr Mockton as you said of AGW do NOTHING with this virus as Sweden ect has shown result will be the same. I salute you cheers. You got it.
No, Eliza. Sweden shows Sweden made exactly the right choice for Sweden. They flattened the curve without flattening their economy.
That does not prove it would have worked as well everywhere.
Japan, South Korea?
Basically most countries followed the herd in panic.
Try saying the same thing to a gun grabber. They’ll refuse to accept that other countries with less diverse populations might have any confounding factors that prevent their “solution” from being directly imported to the US with the same result.
For those who want to understand desease and treatment/prevention
https://www.evms.edu/media/evms_public/departments/internal_medicine/EVMS_Critical_Care_COVID-19_Protocol.pdf
How not to treat, read page 9/10
Those stats are amazing-
A few weeks ago according to the Italian Institute of Health (ISS), only 12% of Italy’s reported Covid19 deaths actually listed Covid19 as the cause of death.
So now we have to figure why the Uk is so different to Italy.
Of course Italy illustrates that lock down was not necessary as has been figures in the following countries-
“According to data from the best-studied countries such as South Korea, Iceland, Germany and Denmark, the overall lethality of Covid19 is between 0.1% and 0.4% and thus up to twenty times lower than initially assumed by the WHO”
So we have the UK as an outlier in cases of deaths caused by Corona.
What is that claim based on?
For those who died, Italy had a mean stay in hospital of 5 days before death. From nearly 7000 new cases every day , care services were clearly doing little to help people survive.
You are suggesting that that was fine and they should have let it carry on expanding at a near exponential rate until there were no more old people for it to feed on.
The rate of increased dropped markedly and went negative from about 10d after confinement. Are you seriously saying that was “unnecessary” ?
We can sit an watch Italy play crash test dummy again in next few days as the effects of relaxing shut down comes into play. So far it’s just started to be visible.
https://climategrog.wordpress.com/2019-ncov-weekly-projection-italy-2/
It should take 4 to 5 days to become visible
Probably the most useful information needed now is the past infection rate as measured by antibody testing.
We are getting results on estimated prevalence for various populations:
– Santa Clara 2-3%
– NY state 13.9%
– NY City 21.2%
– Stockholm 25-40%
– Sweden blood donors 11%
– Gangelt Germany 15%
– French Navy Carrier 40% (most asymptomatic)
– Boston homeless shelter 36% (most asymptomatic)
Some of these were derived from antibody testing, others from antigen testing. Taken together, they suggest:
– prevalence of past infection is much higher than thought before
– asymptomatic infection rate is much higher
– as a consequence, growth (R0) must be higher than initially modelled
– that means the epidemic probably burned itself out in some countries before lockdown began
– mortality, morbidity and ICU rates must be much lower than previously feared
– mortality is probably in the range 0.15-0.4%
– lockdowns should end sooner rather than later
The UK NHS has the fewest beds, ventilators, doctors and nurse per capita compared to most other developed countries. Yet the UK is nowhere near capacity. The purpose of social distancing and lockdown was to ‘flatten the curve’ below NHS capacity – the peak of the curve is well below that.
This maybe the biggest killer of the ChineseOriginatedVIralDesease-19
‘Where are the strokes and the heart attacks?’ Doctors worry as patients avoid ERs
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/where-are-the-strokes-and-the-heart-attacks-doctors-worry-as-patients-avoid-ers/ar-BB132xg1
And I’ve noticed that people who do go to the hospital are being ejected up to 5 days prematurely.
If they die without going to hospital, they are automatically covid-19 deaths
Wow, that would mean for the 3 level cervical fusion operation I had in 2012 I would have been discharged two days before the operation. Negative hospital stays, someone has been drinking vulnut wine, Ghlen Livid perhaps.
Ah, I thought you meant all hospital stays, but reading your comment again I see you mean COVID19 related.
As of today, confirmed COVID-19 cases among CVN-71 crew number 18.7% (840/4500), with one death, a 41 year-old sailor.
With the overwhelming majority of deaths and transmissions being in clusters- nursing homes and cruise ships, this should be the focus in terms of action.
Why on earth nobody has mentioned ozone to reduce airborne virus and initial viral inoculation is as odd as the way vested interests have dismissed hydroxychloroquine treatment. Ozone at about 20 parts per billion reduces viruses by 90-90% without any adverse effects. Thus, less people will pick up the infection and more importantly, the size of the initial inoculation will be drastically reduced. It makes sense that multiple sites within the lungs all spreading at the same time would overwhelm the immune system of a medically compromised person. Ironically, ozone is typically produced by corona discharge.
Air conditioning systems, which are great spreaders of pathogens could easily have ozone or ultraviolet treatment. I would not be in the least bit surprised if negative ion generators were also effective.
A big question mark is why the push to have everyone vaccinated and verification (RFID chip.) Bill Gates in particular, who has stated there are too many people on the planet.
As for the Chinese, there are several “please explain” questions to answer.
WHY did they halt internal travel to prevent the spread yet encourage people from Wuhan to travel overseas?
Why did they have the “hug a Chinese” – it is racist if you don’t when they knew about the problem??
Why id the snap up medical supplies from around the world when they knew about the problem (insider trading)???
There are serious issues with the worldwide shutdown due to a more virulent strain of the flu than usual.
Scamdemic.
Just have to correct a couple of typos (was burning breakfast) –
90-99 % reduction of airborne viruses.
Why did they snap up medical supplies from around the world before revealing the problem to the international community?
Pristine air has ozone at 20 ppbv. In most places, ozone is over double that and in major metro areas its 3 or 4 times that, sometimes more.
I’d use ozone on a timer to disinfect a room that can be sealed and left to itself, but ozone is hazardous, especially to lungs.
In the end all we had to do is select those at risk and isolate ie those who were old with an illness and not lock down the country.
Nursing homes in the NYC metro area became death traps. Many were crummy to start, then tardy in masking up staff, improving hygiene and limiting visitors. Hence the heavy toll there.
in other countries the staff fled from the nursing homes.
The Inuit used to put their elderly on an ice floe, so the story goes.
And that was great for the poor polar bears who might have gone extinct, otherwise. Win-win.
/s
More sad news, Elizabeth Warren’s brother heads to happy hunting grounds.
https://twitter.com/ewarren/status/1253332675315724289
Scissor
And the Inuit used to expose their newborns the first night. Only the toughest (and lucky) survived.
The Japanese on Hokkaido used to have a cultural practice of exposing their elders to the cold after their 70th birthday.
It is tough living in a society without fossil fuels.
“In the end all we had to do is select those at risk and isolate ie those who were old with an illness and not lock down the country.”
Twenty and thirty-year-olds are now reported to be suffering from strokes caused by blood clots possibly caused by the Wuhan virus. The young people are suffering these problems even though their respiratory infection had barely developed.
This virus is nasty to those it affects and it’s not just old, infirm people. And it may end up being very detrimental to those who have recovered from the disease, as it seems the longer the virus is in your body, the more damage it does not only to the lungs but to every organ and this may have longterm health effects for those who survive it.
Those who already have immunity and have not been severely affected by the Wuhan virus ought to get down on their knees and say a prayer of thanks. It could have been a lot worse. it is for a lot of people.
If you look at the ONS weekly mortality stats for the UK currently covering up to the 10th April you can’t see any signal in extra deaths in people under 45. Obviously you can highlight a handful of exceptions but as a population they are ultra low risk. Mortality only starts rising notably above about 70. Just download the latest spreadsheet and look at the weekly stats tab.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/datasets/weeklyprovisionalfiguresondeathsregisteredinenglandandwales
I think you have to admit that 20 and 30-year-olds having strokes is not normal.
I think if ended international air travel sooner and then stopped all mass transit travel [planes, trains, buses, subways, then we would have had enough time to isolate, the old and those at risk.
And we have modify behavior, in terms of other crowded areas, which includes covering mouth and nose.
To open mass transit, they have modify such vehicles, so as lower spread viruses in them, and perhaps lower all infection in general in the future. And same applies to all crowded areas- bars, stadiums, etc.
Such measures would be designed to reduce rather the impossible of stopping spread of viruses.
And as metric, if had airline being 1/2 filled would reduce it, compared to full.
Or could runs at 1/2 capacity until improved it, so full capacity is same 1/2 capacity without the improvement. Or perhaps more dramatic, like full capacity is same as 1/4 capacity.
“Sweden resisted a lockdown, and its capital Stockholm is expected to reach ‘herd immunity’ in weeks”
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/22/no-lockdown-in-sweden-but-stockholm-could-see-herd-immunity-in-weeks.html
Two studies from Sweden has been withdrawn because of errors. (calculation and premisses)
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidnikel/2020/04/22/sweden-health-agency-withdraws-controversial-coronavirus-report/
Christopher argues that it is obvious that Covid-19 was the cause of the vast majority of deaths. But if flu’s were counted the same way that covid-19 is counted, it would have an infection fatality ratio pushing 3% or more. There are always lots of upper respiratory deaths during the flu season that are not counted as flu deaths.
If you looked at prostate cancer the way the CDC records Wuhan flu deaths, about 80% of men would die “of” prostate cancer (as opposed to dying with it).
Here’s the official guide to Covid case detection.
The numbers are meaningless without including iatrogenic mortality. This illness has all the markers of having a significant share of that.
I agree. It seems a very large proportion of deaths were caused by inappropriate use of ventilators. I doubt those deaths will every get reassigned though.
I think it goes way beyond that. I highly suspect that all of the weird covid morbidity that doctors have never seen before is due to destabiization of renin angiotesin system homeostasis (ACE/ACE2 counter-regulatory balance) that is being potentiated by pharmaceutical treatments that deplete zinc (like ACE inhibitors) and increase ACE2 expression (like ACE inhibitors and ibuprofen), and hospital inpatient treatments that remove ACE inhibitors from ICU patients (increases ACE while ACE2 plummets due to infection), experimental toxic anti-virals (depletes glutathione, the key lung antioxidant), analgesics that deplete glutathione (paracetamol/acetaminophen), etc. I think I’m just scratching the surface.
It’s time to put people back to work. Too many family and friends suffering with no paycheck. Youth look at this like a giant recess.
Who are we trying to save?
Agree! The operation may have been a technical success…. but the patient is dying from government forced economic strangulation. #FreedomIsEssential
I got out and drove around a little bit today. I live in Oklahoma and our State is getting ready to relax some of the Wuhan virus restrictions tomorrow.
I went to the Bigbox store Lowe’s today, and the store was full of people. About half the customers were wearing masks and none of the clerks were wearing masks. Perhaps they didn’t get the memo.
It looks to me like there is already a lot of commerce going on, and I expect that to pickup fairly quickly if infections don’t get out of hand. People are going to be pushing the “restrictions” envelope, eager to get back to work. It kind of looked like that today.
Here’s hoping we don’t get a big flare-up. The medical authorities seem to think they can get on top of it. We shall see.
Anyway, things in the economy are starting to move, according to my anectdotal trip to the outside world today.
Btw, the traffic was heavy today. Everybody out there filling up their gasoline tanks with inexpensive gas and going shopping.
All the local barber shops and Hair Salons are booked up solid on opening day.
Wow
She’s so, I don’t really have words
Why would anybody want to put food on the table, that’s so Ronald Reagan
Who are we trying to save?
1. Those over 60
2. medical workers
the numbers really dont matter now.
every decision from here on out will be perceived to cause more pain and suffering
or less pain and suffering.
every bit of data will be questioned, who lives, who dies, who is unemployed…
everything will be suspect and uncertain.
learn to cope with it
“Learn to cope with” – absolutely not
I am a grown up. I have suffered a lot in my life, but I got over it.
I have made mistakes in my life, but I admit these mistakes.
Our politicians correctly took action to reduce covid based on information they had.
But they have made mistakes. But they don’t want to admit it or change course.
To me it is absolutely disgusting that I should “ learn to cope with” politicians stuffing the economy because they can’t admit a mistake.
NTD News reports a 20 million account decrease in cell phone usage.
Obviously, this information requires additional confirmations.
In China, that is. Story claims an increase in usage for the same period in the previous three-years.
Suggested causes include; decreased pay as you go traffic due to economic hardship and increased deaths.
Story is on YouTube. I’m unable to link to it.
Why is “nicotine” being signaled out? The big baddie that caused cancer was never nicotine. It was the “smoke”.
Maybe because smoking other things is now deemed “harmless” by those who smoke it?
PS I date back a long way. And I did inhale back then. Deeply. (That’s how you do it.)
Don’t try to blow smoke in my eyes!
PPS J. Seifert, sorry if this sounds like it was aimed at your comment. It wasn’t meant to be.
It just brought to mind that those who condemn and penalize smoking tobacco want to legalize smoking … something else.
Dang!
This was meant as a “Reply” to J. Seifert’s comment above, not a “new” comment.
(Whatever went wrong was probably on my end.)
Follow the Money, the Doh-Re-Me, Tax and Profit -wise . . . . .
Nicotine apparently upregulates ACE and downregulates ACE2. Potentially a good combination for reducing infection risk, but a bad one if infected.
Nicotine and the renin-angiotensin system
https://journals.physiology.org/doi/full/10.1152/ajpregu.00099.2018
What seems very strange is that nobody is talking about the actual number of deaths.
How do these numbers compare with deaths in wars
1) Battle of Verdun 38000 on last day of WWI
2) Battle of the Somme 50,000 the 1st day of the battle in WWII
3) Battle of Stalingrad – at least 600,000.
What about the Spanish Flu?
What about deaths from Malaria in Africa? Totally preventable and totally ignored.
What about the supposed 600,000 deaths from a single earthquake in China?
I wonder whether the hyperbole in global climate change predictions has anything to do with this?
Battle of the Somme was in WWI.
Your figure of 50,000 must be for first day (July 1, 1916) casualties, not fatalities. Most deaths were British, at close to 20,000. French and German much fewer.
Horrific, and avoidable with better tactics, which the Ulster Division used.
Australian COVID 19 deaths currently 76
Australian Road Toll deaths currently 286.
Also, 21,000 deaths are attributable to smoking each year in Australia
80k deaths in the UK from Hong Kong flu. Estimated one to four million worldwide. No lockdown. No media panic. Temporary minor economic impact.
Battle of the Somme was WWI, not WWII. There’s a lovely 9/8 bagpipe tune (retreat march) with that title.
See here .
For the bagpipe tune see here.
How many will die as a result of the extravagant Global Shutdown?
The question is whether capitalism (even US crony capitalism) can be resuscitated?
If not, socialism has been the biggest killer of them all.
(oh, I forgot – this time it is going to be different /sarc)
“The question is whether capitalism (even US crony capitalism) can be resuscitated?”
The U.S. will certainly come back to life. The demand that was there in February is still there, and most people still have the same amount of money they had in February when unemployment insurance payments and government programs are figured into the mix, barring a last minute holdup by Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats..
So, when the authorities give the green light, the American consumer is going to start buying like they did before the virus. Some things will change, but there is still demand and people still have money so the economy will boom if given a chance.
This won’t apply six months from now. We can’t afford to keep everyone solvent for that long. If it lasts that long, there will still be demand, but the money in people’s pockets will be diminished absent government help, so then the economy will take a hit for a while.
The U.S. is in good shape economically right now. It was sound before the virus and it is still sound. We just need to get things moving. Safely.
Canada is rolling out massive income support. However, what my two sons-in-law will get is much less than they got working. One needs a new (old) car rather desparately and the other has twins coming in the next month. Screwing the young to save the ‘vulnerable is causing a great deal of hardship. It is time for the ‘vulnerable’ to lock themselves down or take their chances. I say this as one of the ‘vulnerable’.
“Screwing the young to save the ‘vulnerable is causing a great deal of hardship.”
Well, if the Wuhan virus killed 10 percent of those it infected and afflicted all age groups, then you wouldn’t be saying that. You would be saying why didn’t we go into lockdown sooner.
You see, we didn’t know that would not be the case when the Wuhan virus first reared its ugly head. For all we knew, it might have been able to kill hundreds of millions of people.
Now that we know the virus a little better, we can deal with it and start our economies back up. We didn’t have this luxury when the virus first appeared. We had to assume it was very deadly.
‘Where are the strokes and the heart attacks?’ Doctors worry as patients avoid ERs
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/where-are-the-strokes-and-the-heart-attacks-doctors-worry-as-patients-avoid-ers/ar-BB132xg1
I don’t care.
IMHO, the only meaningful number is excess deaths. Everything else seems to be tainted by opinion.
“IMHO, the only meaningful number is excess deaths.”
But that figure is much lower than normal because, as a result of the lockdown, there are many fewer deaths from auto accidents, other accidents, and ordinary flu.
Do you have a link or are you just guessing?
The New York Times is presenting information that excess deaths are dramatically up. link
Pompeo: China ‘Destroyed’ Early Coronavirus Samples
https://www.breitbart.com/asia/2020/04/23/pompeo-china-destroyed-early-coronavirus-samples/
Some stats for my home state Texas as of 2020 April 23. They look very similar by age group to those for England and Wales.
COVID-19 statistics below from:
Texas Department of State Health Services
Percent of population by age group below:
US Census Bureau 2018 July 1 estimates
28,995,881 population 2020 (Worldometer)
21,944 confirmed cases (0.076% of population)
13,358 active cases
8,025 recovered
561 deaths (0.002% of population)
Closed cases allocated by age group:
2,977 confirmed cases
2,725 recovered
252 deaths (8.5% of closed cases)
Under age 40:
57.2% of population
32.7% of cases
3.2% of deaths
Under age 50:
70.1% of population
50.9% of cases
7.9% of deaths
Under age 65:
87.4% of population
78.5% of cases
25.8% of deaths
Age 50+:
29.9% of population
49.1% of cases
92.1% of deaths
Age 65+:
12.6% of population
21.5% of cases
74.2% of deaths
Age 80+:
2.8% of population
7.0% of cases
42.5% of deaths
That has to be the most confusing way to describe %ages per age group that can possibly exist!
Hahaha. OK TMI, but if you read it carefully, it’s packed with info.
The age issue has been obvious for months.
What about detailed comorbidity breakdown by country.
Tests and conclusions during an epidemic are notorious for being wrong. One common bias is not using random selection for tests. People who don’t feel well will volunteer for a test, but people who feel fine will prefer to stay home. After the fear level declines, it’s much easier to get a random sample.
Does anyone here know if any other corona viruses have a vaccine, because I can’t find any.
For birds and non-human mammals, yes.