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Has COVID-19 Testing Made the Problem Worse?

Kevin Ryan

Concerns about the virus SARS-COV-2 that causes the disease called COVID-19 have centered around reported mortality rates. However, errors in reporting those rates have led to confusion regarding the true health impacts. Because estimated rates are dependent on the test used to identify infected patients, understanding that test and its history could lead to much needed clarity.

Errors in reported mortality rates have come from mistakes in calculation. An example has been equating the measured case fatality rate (deaths divided by patients actively infected) with the actual mortality rate (deaths divided by patients who were ever infected). The latter number is unknown and will not be known until antibody titers can be performed to see who has previously been infected.

But that actual mortality rate is expected to be much lower, perhaps around 0.3% as estimated by an epidemiologist from Stanford University.

Another common error has been attributing the deaths of all infected people to COVID-19, regardless of other pre-existing illnesses.

This error has been magnified by governments mandating that all deaths of presumptive patients be listed as death from COVID-19, even if the patient was never tested for SARS-COV-2 at all.

The mortality rate errors would be further worsened if there were errors in testing for presence of the virus. What is becoming increasingly clear is that there have been serious questions regarding the reliability of that testing.

The test in question uses a technique called reverse transcriptase quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) to identify the presence of RNA from SARS-COV-2. Testing follows different protocols in different countries and the first problem was seen in China, the reported origin of the virus.

The Chinese Mystery

A scientific study was performed in China that targeted subjects who had been in close contact with SARS-COV-2 infected patients. The results were peer-reviewed and published in the Chinese Journal of Epidemiology on March 5th, 2020.

The data-driven conclusion of the study was that “nearly half or even more” of patients testing positive for SARS-COV-2 did not actually have the virus. In other words, half of the results were false positives.

For perspective, this study was peer-reviewed and published in a Chinese state journal a month after COVID-19 was said to have surpassed the 2003 SARS epidemic and just as the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the outbreak to be a pandemic. This was a full month after China had ordered a lockdown affecting over 36 million people.

Mysteriously, this peer-reviewed study was withdrawn a few days after publication and is no longer available for review. In response, one investigative team asked a Chinese graduate student to contact the lead author of the study, Dr. GH Zhuang, for explanation.

Dr. Zhuang responded by email but did not cite a reason for withdrawal of the paper, only saying that it was “a sensitive matter.”

Others then made the false assumption that the author had identified a mistake in the science despite the fact that no such mistake was ever identified.

As reported by the investigative team that contacted Dr, Zhuang:

Without access to the paper, nobody can assess the value of the work or determine whether it suffers from a scientific flaw. It’s also unknown if the paper was retracted for political reasons.”

To understand the concept of a false positive one should realize that analytical test methods need to be balanced with respect to quality considerations like sensitivity and specificity.

If a test is not sensitive enough, the analyte of interest will not be found when it is there, giving a false negative. If a test is not specific enough, something else in the test sample will be identified as being the target analyte when it is not, giving a false positive.

In this case, a false positive could mean that the test is reacting to another virus or genetic source. Alternatively, the test could be detecting the presence of SARS-COV-2 residues after a previously infected individual is no longer sick. Lastly, even very small amounts of contamination in the laboratory can cause a false positive.

No matter the cause, false positives mean higher reported mortality rates, more confusion, more fear, and more bad decisions.

The RT-qPCR test for SARS-COV-2 is being used as a qualitative test, despite the technique name including the word quantitative. This means that the actual amount of virus in a sample is not considered important, only the presence of even a small amount of virus. This concern would be lessened if the actual test results showing levels of virus detected were available.

Unfortunately, all the public sees are numbers of positive or negative determinations.

WHO Guidance and the Test

The World Health Organization (WHO) originally based testing on a kit developed in Germany, not on the Chinese protocol. WHO has since developed general guidance for testing SARS-COV-2.

This guidance requires some understanding of terminology so it’s helpful to understand the virus and the principle of testing.

RT-qPCR involves multiple steps. The sample is first lysed (i.e. the cells are cut) to release any viral material. Then the target RNA is converted into complementary DNA (cDNA) using an enzyme called reverse transcriptase. This is sometimes called the “extraction” step.

After this, the cDNA is used as a template for amplification using qPCR, allowing the original quantity of target RNA to be determined.

The amplification is not done on the entire cDNA sequence but on segments that are expected to be representative of the specific genome of interest and, correspondingly, not representative of other genetic materials that could be present.

Segments of the SARS-COV-2 genetic code that are usually targeted correspond to sections of the original RNA named ORF1a, ORF1ab, S, M, E, and N.

Synthetic primers and fluorescent probes are identified to match up with the target genetic segments to facilitate amplification and detection. The primers are small nucleotide sequences that bind to the target segments of the cDNA genetic sequence. The primers used are critical and issues with primer design can lead to variation in results.

As described in an article in The Scientist, the WHO-recommended primers first target the E gene of SARS-COV-2. The E gene is considered highly divergent and therefore more specific to the different coronaviruses. If a lab following WHO guidance obtains a positive screening test, it will do confirmatory testing targeting other areas of the virus genome. To avoid false positives, “every positive test has been confirmed with whole genome sequencing, viral culture, or electron microscopy.”

The US Test

Unfortunately, the US decided to follow its own rules for testing of SARS-COV-2. In fact, WHO and CDC never discussed the U.S. using the same test as being done internationally. Investigators from The Scientist found that it was “not clear why the CDC chose to develop a different assay to that selected by the WHO and taken up by other countries. The CDC declined to respond to questions.”

The CDC was criticized for its decision and problems were later found with its test kits. Although CDC has been secretive about the details, the concerns with its test appear to have included both test design issues and contamination.

CDC began manufacturing its test kit in January and shipped it on February 5th to state labs and to 30 other countries including 191 international labs. A week later, in a February 12th briefing at the CDC, problems with the test were reported. Although the statements made were unclear, it appeared that states were complaining the test was “inconclusive” and therefore CDC was going to focus on “redoing the manufacturing.”

It was reported that, “the CDC added to the confusion by providing limited information to labs in the weeks that followed. There was a period of time after the tests were recalled where there was near silence. It was about two weeks.” It was only after an open letter to Congress on February 28th, from more than 100 virologists and other specialists, that the CDC responded by allowing independent labs that had validated their own tests to begin testing.

The CDC test originally included three primers, all targeting one gene—the N gene of SARS-COV-2 that encodes for the nucleocapsid. The primers were denoted N1, N2, and N3. Nucleocapsids of RNA viruses “are fairly simple structures that contain only one major structural protein…This protein is usually basic or has a basic domain.”

Although the CDC test might have provided good sensitivity, it appears that it did not provide high specificity as it targeted only one basic gene of the coronavirus. CDC admitted the lack of certainty in a disclaimer noted in the method, saying, positive results “do not rule out bacterial infection or co-infection with other viruses. The agent detected may not be the definite cause of disease.”

At first, due to CDC secrecy, problems with the test kit were difficult to understand. As the Washington Post reported, “The trouble with the CDC test arose because the third attempt at a match, known as the N3 component, produced an inconclusive result even on known samples of the coronavirus.”

But that was not the whole story.

On February 28th, as the open letter to Congress was being recognized, it was reported that the N3 primer of the CDC kit was contaminated. The contamination caused the negative control within the kit, containing DNA that was unrelated to SARS-COV-2, to react as if it was a positive hit for SARS-COV-2. In other words, the kits were generating false positives for negative controls.

How much contamination was present was not clear because, again, the actual test results giving amounts of virus found are not available to the public. And CDC has not been open with communications about the problems found. Oddly enough, in April, test kits in the UK were also found to be “contaminated with COVID-19.”

What did CDC do to correct the problems with the kit? Instead of re-manufacturing the N3 primer as originally planned, on March 15th the CDC simply told everyone who had the kit to remove the N3 primer and use the kits without it. Additionally, CDC changed its method requirements to eliminate the need to confirm positive results.

This made the test kit that was based on detection of only one basic gene in SARS-COV-2 even less specific and told users that results didn’t need to be confirmed. These changes made the test less reliable in terms of identifying SARS-COV-2 and therefore made any subsequent estimates of mortality rates less reliable as well.

Summary

The history of testing for SARS-COV-2 infection has involved problems that have led to delays in testing and reporting of rates of infection than are falsely higher than actual. Complicating these issues are government mandates for medical professionals to list COVID-19 as cause of death for patients who have inconclusive causes of death and, in some cases, were never tested for SARS-COV-2 at all.

Understanding problems with the test performed for identification of infected patients can lead to much-needed clarity and less panic. There are many questions that still need answers. For example: Are reported rates for other diseases like influenza dropping in proportion to the rise in reported infection by SARS-COV-2? What were the details of the Chinese study that was mysteriously retracted? What has investigation into the CDC kit contamination revealed? What other countries have based their mortality figures on test kits that provided unreliable results?

Citizens can help by calling on authorities and test facilities to publicly share the details of testing including the actual results of the RT-qPCR tests showing levels of virus present.

In addition to information sharing, an international investigation into the problems seen with testing, starting with Chinese results and U.S. test kits, should be conducted. Such an investigation could lead to preventing the reporting of false positives and the ensuing panic and bad decision making that come from artificially high estimated mortality rates.

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Crystal
Crystal
May 26, 2020 1:01 PM

Just found this website . Thank goodness . I’m actually thinking of starting an IG just to develop content around various “official” docs relating to the state of our world . Seems my “friend list” on all my personal social media aren’t engaging or are upset when I post there 🤷🏻‍♀️ Anyway, grateful for the articles . Thank you.

paul
paul
Apr 18, 2020 4:31 PM

We will probably all soon have to be vaccinated with a Gulf War Syndrome cocktail of drugs.
With the same results.
Like Gates’s bungled vaccination campaigns in India.

vasdx
vasdx
Apr 18, 2020 12:51 AM

Whoever set out to investigate on that mysteriously retracted Chinese paper certainly did not do a good enough job. The actual paper is not retracted, and can still be found on the official website of the publisher, Chinese Journal of Epidemiology. Of course it is Chinese, which unfortunately causes trouble for many who are potentially interested.

The paper is however, retracted as a preprint on PubMed, a full-text archive of biomedical and life sciences journal literature. I here copy and paste the editor office’s note on why it is retracted on this site:

Editor office’s response for Ahead of Print article withdrawn
The article “Potential false-positive rate among the ‘asymptomatic infected individuals’ in close contacts of COVID-19 patients” was under strong discussion after pre-published. Questions from the readers mainly focused on the article’s results and conclusions were depended on theoretical deduction, but not the field epidemiology data and further researches were needed to prove the current theory. Based on previous discussions, the article was decided to be offline by the editorial board from the pre-publish lists.

For those who are able to understand Chinese and have a look at the actual paper, it is easy to see that the consideration by the PubMed editor office is very true. The study reported the output of a simple model specifying three basic parameters: infection rate among close contacts of confirmed cases, sensitivity and specificity. All values and reasonable range of values for these parameters used in the model and simulation are not based on any well designed study or data collection, but from estimate of the authors after having personal contact with 7 CDC workers, 6 doctors and lab technicians. The information these people can give was mostly from their impression of the situation. In short, the input values for parameters here are not trustworthy. And we should all be aware that inaccurate input into a model can generate quite off-the-rail result.

Although on second thought, maybe the PubMed team should have kept the paper in the archive for more open discussion from all side.

False positivity is a significant problem to consider, as stated by other aspects in this article. I just personally don’t see the contribution of this specific Chinese paper to the discussion.

Kevin RYan
Kevin RYan
Apr 18, 2020 2:12 PM
Reply to  vasdx

Thanks for your interest in the article and for sharing the Chinese language link. When queried through webarchive, that link was not made available until 15 days after original publication, in late March. It is available now, however, as you shared, and can be translated online. Looking into the website “rhhz.net” might also be useful.

Why PubMed decided to not only remove the index to the article is unclear. The PubMed editor’s rationale that the paper “depended on theoretical deduction” is not valid, of course, because all such papers depend on theoretical deduction.

The NPR team that completed the investigation through contacting the author published its article a few days after that new Chinese link became available. Since neither the Chinese article nor the author of the paper has provided a legitimate reason for the PubMed indexing reaction, the mystery remains to be solved. As NPR stated, the author simply said it was “a sensitive matter.”

Obviously, the Chinese study has tremendous importance in the question of COVID-19 testing. Perhaps more important for the rest of us are the false positives being generated by the CDC kit, since it is being used to justify the unusual rates reported in the United States. Although those high rates are now being debunked by antibody titer data, an investigation into the scaremongering driven by the bad data from the CDC kit is needed.

The CDC kit that ostensibly identifies SARS-COV-2 originally used 3 genetic makers (N1, N2, N3), a bad design to begin with since it focuses on only one gene. The N3 marker was then removed and the N1 primers are not homologous to targets, as stated in the CDC method. Now CDC says that positive results don’t need to be confirmed. The CDC primers have been tested by other methods to verify and those tests have shown the lack of specificity.

These facts are of enormous importance to the international discussion, mitigating the fear and the subsequent destructive actions taken in response. Any investigators capable of helping are welcome.

Richard Le Sarc
Richard Le Sarc
Apr 19, 2020 4:28 AM
Reply to  vasdx

Early tests were crap, delivering false positives and negatives. And antibody tests are not perfected yet, either.

Caltrop
Caltrop
Apr 16, 2020 9:38 PM

Bill Gates’ Vaccine Crime Record

Indian doctors blame Gates for a devastating vaccine-strain polio epidemic that paralyzed 496,000 children between 2000 and 2017. In 2017, the Indian Government dialled back Gates’ vaccine regimen and evicted Gates. Polio paralysis rates dropped precipitously.

Robert F Kennedy Jr’s Instagram Post on Bill Gates

“Vaccines, for Bill Gates, are a strategic philanthropy that feed his many vaccine-related businesses (including Microsoft’s ambition to control a global vac ID enterprise) and give him dictatorial control over global health policy–the spear tip of corporate neo-imperialism.

Gates’ obsession with vaccines seems fueled by a messianic conviction that he is ordained to save the world with technology and a god-like willingness to experiment with the lives of lesser humans.

Promising to eradicate Polio with $1.2 billion, Gates took control of India ‘s National Advisory Board (NAB) and mandated 50 polio vaccines (up from 5) to every child before age 5. Indian doctors blame the Gates campaign for a devastating vaccine-strain polio epidemic that paralyzed 496,000 children between 2000 and 2017. In 2017, the Indian Government dialed back Gates’ vaccine regimen and evicted Gates and his cronies from the NAB. Polio paralysis rates dropped precipitously.

Read on –

https://www.henrymakow.com/2020/04/gates-vaccine-crime-record.html

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Richard Le Sarc
Richard Le Sarc
Apr 19, 2020 4:34 AM
Reply to  Caltrop

Vaccines will be used in the Great Culling, I believe. The link between HIV outbreaks among gay men in New York, and a Hepatitis B vaccine program have long been very suspicious.

Mike Ellwood
Mike Ellwood
Apr 16, 2020 1:00 PM

Speaking of tests, the latest podcast from David Crowe in The Infectious Myth Series.

Episode 251 April 14, 2020

https://infectiousmyth.podbean.com/e/the-infectious-myth-stephen-bustin-on-challenges-with-rt-pcr

“The Infectious Myth – Stephen Bustin on Challenges with RT-PCR

RT-PCR is the main method for declaring that someone is COVID-19 infected or not, as well as having numerous other uses in molecular biology research and biological testing. Professor Stephen Bustin is a world expert on the technology, and the potential problems with using it to produce accurate and repeatable results. Although the coronavirus test is presented as a binary test, it is actually based on whether the production of DNA is detectable prior to an arbitrary number of PCR cycles. If there is variability in the quantification, then samples will be above or below the limit, when they should not be, resulting in false positives and negatives. David and Stephen walk through the steps, from the extraction of RNA from the original sample, the conversion of the RNA to complementary DNA, and duplication of DNA using PCR, and the optional step of sequencing. While this is dense technical information at times, it is presented logically, and the limitations of this method cannot be understood without taking the cover off the black box. We suggest not listening to this episode when you are trying to do anything else, but sit down in a quiet place so that you can concentrate fully.

Stephen Bustin’s detailed 2017 paper is here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/eci.12801

More information about his work is here: https://aru.ac.uk/people/stephen-bustin

It’s fairly technical and I found the audio for Stephen Bustin’s voice wasn’t always clear, but worth pursuing if you are into the really technical stuff.

See more podcasts at: https://infectiousmyth.podbean.com

Val
Val
Apr 16, 2020 5:05 AM

They also use the PCR test, which detects RDNA bits, but CANNOT determine the Genome … so it creates a false representation that COVID-19 is more prevalent than it really is. All of this psychosocial terrorism is both unnecessary and a Criminal Act.

Val
Val
Apr 16, 2020 5:02 AM

Of course, the common cold, the flu and other annoying things that have always been around on Earth are corona viruses …. but they use “corona virus” and COVID-19 in the same breath, deliberately trying to add the RDNA bits common in everyones blood stream as ‘evidence” of COVID-19. That’s a criminal deception, and is part of the social con.

George Mc
George Mc
Apr 16, 2020 10:53 AM
Reply to  Val

I get the impression that the term “COVID-19” is being used more often than “coronavirus” simply because it looks scarier and has connotations of code terms for Nazi camps or Soviet gulags.

Alan Hodge
Alan Hodge
Jun 9, 2020 2:25 AM
Reply to  Val

@Val, influenza viruses and coronaviruses are quite distinct. Many “common cold” viruses are coronaviruses, but not all.
Also, reporters, being lazy, often not bright, and sensationalist, conflate the name of the virus (SARS-CoV-2) with its generic type (Coronavirus) and with the disease it causes (Covid-19). That’s okay for folks writing articles read by thousands, but we won’t stand for it here in the comments section, by golly. 😉

John Brigham
John Brigham
Apr 16, 2020 4:07 AM

The test for coronavirus is within the realm of almost any genetics lab. But it is pretty far from regular activity at a routine medical lab. When you get ‘your blood work ‘report it is a pretty extensive and impressive piece of technology and expertise. But there is nothing about genetics. A regular hospital lab is not going to be able to fit this into their regular routines. Please watch this video.

https://youtu.be/mn4yXyj2xdU

Barbara McKenzie
Barbara McKenzie
Apr 16, 2020 1:45 AM

Excellent, thanks. Your’e doing a stirling job. Despite all the evidence that the numbers of cases and deaths are meaningless, because the tests are unreliable and likewise the reported cause of death, a lot of people (Monkton being one) are still focused on “models”. https://stovouno.org/2020/04/10/open-letter-to-mps-the-lockdown-is-a-disastrous-error/

JudyJ
JudyJ
Apr 16, 2020 11:10 AM

Barbara, thanks for sight of your excellent letter. I intend to use it in my ongoing (but usually fruitless) efforts to convince friends of the realities of the situation.

Loverat
Loverat
Apr 16, 2020 3:21 PM

Yes, this letter is excellent. You’ d have to be daft or reckless not to understand its significance. But will they get it? History suggests not.

Charlotte Russe
Charlotte Russe
Apr 16, 2020 1:37 AM

TESTS, TESTS, AND MORE TESTS

“The data-driven conclusion of the study was that “nearly half or even more” of patients testing positive for SARS-COV-2 did not actually have the virus. In other words, half of the results were false positives.” If this statement is not troubling enough, a blogger just yesterday posted a video on the thread “Corona World Order” citing research by Dr. Andrew Kaufman’s showing that COVID-19 is an exosome which exists normally in our lung cell fluid. Kaufman claims that 80% of the COVID-19 tests yield false positives. Who knows what to believe I’m not a virologist, but something smells pungently fishy.

Tests, tests, and more tests in all the years that hundreds of thousand if not millions died from the flu no one ever mentioned contact surveillance testing. Google/Apple the NSA duo who for years assisted oligarchs in China to intensely surveil a population of billions are excited about US contact surveillance testing. Thanks to Google young masked Asian techies can tell each chinese worker if their bowel movements are irregular. Constipated today, no need to carry that burdensome roll of toilet paper.

Globally, national security states are brimming with demented voyeur control freaks who want to know each person’s every single thought and move. Technology, has made every life an open ebook easily accessible and ready to be reviewed. A library with billions of souls are cataloged, organized, and assiduously stored. The librarians in-charge of managing this particular collection are intelligent agency technologists whose speciality is surreptitious research.

DID YOU PASS THE TEST?

Israel, a non-existent democracy passed an emergency law to use mobile phone data for tracking people with COVID-19 in order to identify and quarantine everyone infected.

The BBC reports that the emergency law was passed during an overnight cabinet meeting, bypassing parliamentary approval. Like the US the most insidious laws are passed in the middle of the night.

“In a statement posted to Facebook, prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu wrote: ‘We will dramatically increase the ability to locate and quarantine those who have been infected. Today, we started using digital technology to locate people who have been in contact with those stricken by the Corona. We will inform these people that they must go into quarantine for 14 days. These are expected to be large – even very large – numbers and we will announce this in the coming days. Going into quarantine will not be a recommendation but a requirement and we will enforce it without compromise. This is a critical step in slowing the spread of the epidemic.”

Smartphones are a tool f0r mass surveillance and targeted containment.

In an article entitled: “Watch: Are We Vesting Too Much Power in Governments and Corporations in the
Name of Covid-19?” Edward Snowden, identifies how manufactured panic leads to permanent heightened surveillance: “Crises are always exploited by political actors to gain authorities that would otherwise be forbidden to them. And we can understand as people who are impacted by these policies that there can be benefits. But at the point these policies are being sought, these benefits are theoretical. Often there is no evidence for them and they may never materialize. But the consequences of granting these authorities are inevitable. There has never been a moment in history where we have created what is being stood up today, a system where a government, any government, can know the location of every person at every time. This is the architecture of repression. They’re saying they’re not turning it on. They’re saying they’re not using it for, you know, marching people off to camps. And right now, I believe them.

But do you want a government that at any moment can round up people of any political persuasion, of people who clicked on this link, of people who were at this place at that time? And you know, even if they say it’s anonymous data, right. We don’t know these people, we’re just looking at the movements of the
population broadly, not an individual scale. We want to see who’s breaking quarantine. And they go, well, look, there’s 30 people congregating in park who shouldn’t be there. Maybe it’s a religious group. Maybe it’s a political group. And you know what? That capability will exist in three months, in three years and in 30 years if we allow it to be implemented today.”

May Hem
May Hem
Apr 16, 2020 2:58 AM

Same now happening in Australia. “Coronavirus lockdowns could end in months if Australians are willing to have their movements monitored”. ie, blackmail.

and what if we’re not willing to have our movements monitored?

The blackmailer is this bloke, Dr John Coyne is head of Strategic Policing and Law Enforcement and head of the North and Australia’s Security at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-16/coronavirus-tracing-app-should-i-download-it/12151324

Charlotte Russe
Charlotte Russe
Apr 16, 2020 3:29 AM
Reply to  May Hem

Interesting, how the medical industry is working hand-in-glove with the security state–both organizations are deleterious to one’s health.

JohnB
JohnB
Apr 16, 2020 9:52 AM

Very interesting Charlotte. Someone on here a few weeks ago described MI5 influence within the UK NHS. Explains a lot, makes sense.

Officer712
Officer712
Apr 16, 2020 1:17 AM

I originally wrote this April 4th.
Real death rates here!!!!No testing data needed!!!! Read all below!!!
If you want realistic data regarding the death rate due to Covid 19 go to this CDC webpage https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/COVID19/index.htm and scroll down to table 5 and click on the Covid 19 deaths tab. This will bring NYC data to the top. NYC offers the best data to determine actual statistics on Covid mortality as it spread there the longest before current attempts at containment. The data is from February 1st to April 4th. That’s the last time the CDC updated it. The only important thing to look at on the chart is the percentage of expected deaths for the same time period. That figure correlates average number of deaths during the same time period over the past number of years, to deaths this year. New York City is at 133% of expected deaths on the chart. That is using data ending April 4th, with Covid deaths at 1,956. Today, 8 days later, Covid death count for NYC is 6,898. That’s 4,942 more ‪in 8 days‬. The deaths from all causes in the charted time period is 14,535, (at 133% of expected deaths). That means the expected amount of deaths at 100% of expected deaths for that time period would be 10,928. The time period charted is 64 days, that would put the expected death rate per day at 171. If you add 8 days to the time period the expected deaths for 72 days is 12,294. If in the original 64 day time period there were 14,535 deaths from all causes, and we add the 4,942 “Covid“ deaths from the last 8 days that’s 19,477 deaths for the new 72 day period.(keep in mind we only added deaths attributed to “Covid” during the 8 days). 72 day period expected deaths=12,294, 72 day “deaths from all causes”= 19,477. That means during our 72 day period our percentage of expected deaths is now 158%, and remember, we only added “Covid” deaths from the past 8 days. I’d say a 58% increase in deaths over the average expected deaths of an area is a reason to take a disease seriously. Also keep in mind, I didn’t once mention percentage of people infected with Covid, that have died of Covid, as we have established that the number of people infected with Covid is a loose and incalculable variable that must remain outside our equation. So 58% more people died than the average in the last 72 days in NYC, that’s 7,183 people more than the average deaths during that same 72 day period over the three years prior. Last census was in 2018 NYC had 8,398,748 people in 2010 NYC had 8,174,988 people. That’s a growth of 223,760 in eight years, divided by four would give us an expected growth of 55,940 between 2018 and 2020.
8,398,748+55,940= 8,454,688
7,183=.084959% of NYC estimated total 2020 population. So, if EVERYONE in NYC has already caught Covid, and everyone that’s going to die from it has died from it, then yeah it has a slightly lower death rate than the “flu” at .1%. For some reason, I don’t think everyone in NYC has caught it, nor do I think people in NYC are done dying from it, or with it for that matter.

At 58% more deaths than expected in the last 72 days, or 7183 more deaths than expected over that time period. That’s actually slightly more deaths than are being attributed to Covid over that time period, at 6,898. I’d say the death from Covid count makes mathematical sense. Deaths with/from Covid as a percentage of 103,208 confirmed cases of Covid in NYC as reported would mean 6.68359% death rate for/with Covid in NYC. That’s 6.6% higher than our model where all NYC population had/had it and no-one else dies, and seems at its face a ridiculous number. It seems it’s the amount of people that actually have/had Covid that needs to be found out before it’s known whether we can go back to business as usual. Especially considering around the same percentage of NYC dwellers have died of Covid in the past 72 days, as on avg died of “the flu” in the past 182 days, and that NYC has been has been social distancing since March 12th. And if we keep to the model where everyone in NYC has/had Covid, and no-one else is gong to die of it, the one that left us at .084959% death-rate. And we open everything back up, that would only be 277,958 death in US if everyone in US gets it, and the death rate is actually that low. Which is actually pretty close to the Fauci  model from a week or so ago putting the expected death toll at 200,000 for the US. Thank goodness we know confirmed cases is probably way lower than actual cases because if confirmed cases equaled actual infected, and using the NYC death rate model above of 6.68359%, that would would mean if everyone in the US got infected 21,866,529 would die. I’m wondering why the CDC hasn’t updated any of their counts since Apr 4th. Current death toll total for NYC on other websites hasn’t gone up in two days, even though their still reporting hundreds of deaths per day. And…..I just read on cdc website a testing statistic that definitely did not put me at ease. In that same 64 day period 1,562,201 tests for Covid were administered in the US, with 257,986 or only 16.5% testing positive. And no %positive testing numbers specific to NYC. That doesn’t look good for our everyone in NYC already infected model!

Officer712
Officer712
Apr 16, 2020 1:21 AM
Reply to  Officer712

Correction, I originally wrote April 12 around midnight.

Officer712
Officer712
Apr 16, 2020 2:00 AM
Reply to  Officer712

Sorry if the math above doesn’t agree with your beliefs. If someone could tell me what the extra 58% over the average amount of deaths in the same time period are from in NYC, if there not from Covid, what are they dying of?

P K
P K
Apr 16, 2020 2:37 AM
Reply to  Officer712

Any number of things that will be studied for years to come! First of all, you have to know that the definition of “COVID-19” death is a catch all phrase that it would appear is being used for political and media clout as just about all deaths these days are categorized as COVID-19 even if the person clearly died of other medical issues or wasn’t even tested! Are people dying from a virus that causes lung disease, sure, just as happens every single year during ‘flu season.’

Second, you have to account for the damage that the lockdowns are doing. People who normally are going to doctor appointments and having procedures and therapies done aren’t having those things done, in part because doctor offices and hospitals are closed and partly because the media has people paralyzed with fear that if they leave their homes/ apartments they will surely die from the corona virus! So instead of calling 911 or going to the ER, they stay home out of fear and die from whatever they could have been saved from had they gone. This is an unfortunate consequence that not many people are realizing. And the stupidest part of it all, is that most of them will be labelled as COVID-19 deaths posthumously without ever being tested, because that’s what the CDC is telling medical examiners to do!

Also related is the stress of the situation. People are losing their jobs, houses/ apartments, trying to get unemployment, watching the stock marked plummet, not being able to socialize. This leads to high stress levels which increases cortisol with lowers immunity and overall makes for a very unhealthy individual. Stress does kill, and more surely than any corona virus. And, again, a fairly large number of these will probable be caught up in the catch all COVID-19 death statistic.

You also have to consider suicide rates that are skyrocketing all over the world as people kill themselves out of fear of this virus. Also increases in domestic abuse and violence as well as the sure violence that rampant unemployment and distressed people will cause as well.

These are but a few options and realities of what is going on all over the world not just NYC. The totality of real and correct answers will probably never be known fully, but all these factors contribute to the situation in NY.

Officer712
Officer712
Apr 16, 2020 4:23 AM
Reply to  P K

Perfect answer, go to the nearest hospital with Covid positive patients, bum rush the staff and kiss a Covid positive tested patient on the lips. Report your results in two weeks, I dare you…..Btw today just three days later, NYC deaths are now 165% of average. My aunt who has inoperable liver cancer has to go to the hospital in Boston every week to 7 have liters of fluid drained from her abdomen. Hospitals are still doing normal life saving procedures, they are having staff that have tested negative do those procedures. My aunt sold real estate until she had to retire for health reasons, my uncle is a welder, they are not rich. I hope your right for my aunts sake, as she has been social distancing since about three months before anyone ever heard of Covid 19, as a normal flu could kill her in her current condition, but I know your wrong. None of the things you’ve listed can account for a NYC death rate that in a week or so is on track to reach 200% of average deaths during the same time period in previous years. THATS DOUBLE THE AMOUNT OF AVERAGE DEATHS FOR THAT TIME PERIOD. you really understand the math I presented, or did you just regurgitate what you’ve read on this site and others like it, in defense of a paranoid distrust of doctors and nurses who are somehow now in league with a global cabal of elites who want to take your freedoms away? The only thing you’ve sold me on is the fear, and fear is healthy, your just afraid of the wrong thing right now.

George Mc
George Mc
Apr 16, 2020 4:52 PM
Reply to  Officer712

Ah so we go from a verbose analysis of the statistical data (although you forgot to multiply by the number you first thought of divided by the latest rainfall) to the usual hysterical anecdotal outburst. “Yes – go to a hospital and stick your head up the arse of a corpse and weep at the injustice of it all!”

Officer712
Officer712
Apr 16, 2020 5:23 PM
Reply to  George Mc

Great argument buddy! I like how you put a lot of thought into your response lol

George Mc
George Mc
Apr 16, 2020 7:11 PM
Reply to  Officer712

I was simply summarising you.

binra
binra
Apr 17, 2020 4:06 PM
Reply to  Officer712

You are – at least currently – convinced that this one contagious disease and that the stats you use are reliable, and not a result of the ‘social immune response’ to being terrorised, along with all the propaganda that Trillion dollar interests can pull out of the hat.
Fear drives a ‘negative economy’ as in the Medical Industrial Complex and all its related extensions and supports.
Fear is only healthy when it is properly addressed and resolved.
Hidden and denied fear works a mindset aligned in the Deep State of self-isolated lockdown that locksteps in alliances against threat of any true exposure.

Narrative capture works a mind-control of the inability to and resistance against questioning its own internalised invested identity.

Those who are not baited by the ruse still have fears to meet with regard to the agenda operating – and its social support and defence through a hacked bot-net of lock-stepped reaction.

We are given a front row seat in how deceit operates – if we do not take the bait but stay open with what is unfolding.

The result of these measures and what follows may initiate a global mass genocide that is no doubt seen by its believers as the necessary sacrifice – of others – for a private agenda to make life in its own image – for this is not just geopolitical, but bio-genetic.

Again, the idea of humans as the virus on the planet is a well incepted belief that cultivates self-hate by the control of narrative framing.

There is an alternative to narrative continuity – that is compelled to fulfil its ‘history’ by endlessly repeating its unconscious archetypal patterns – not least by the attempt to escape it by denying and invalidating its past. And this is awakening to the movement of being as an expression of wholeness, rather than a bit part under an alien subjection.

BTW – if you were to space paragraphs in your original post you would make it a lot more readable.

Officer712
Officer712
Apr 18, 2020 11:40 AM
Reply to  binra

Despite the vagueness of your entire reply, and your attempt to “frame the narrative” in the tongue of the mysteries, (good flow by the way), I was not “baited by the ruse”. The ruse being that you have some higher knowledge that you can offer me, that will free me from the chains of my “alien subjection”.

Probably due to the extreme nature of my birth sign, my entire life I have been surrounded with people such as yourself, that tend to teeter over that tenuous line between high intelligence, and mental instability.

I know you believe your helping people, and I can tell your a true believer, so please don’t be offended that I spoke of your mental state. After all you, you very elusively said the same thing about me.

“Narrative capture works a mind-control of the inability to and resistance against questioning its own internalised invested identity”-binra

I mean, you do realize that when you infer someone is a sheeple, your pretty much saying they have a mental disorder, that they don’t see the world clearly, as you do, and casting them into the group of “others”, right?

“The result of these measures and what follows may initiate a global mass genocide that is no doubt seen by its believers as the necessary sacrifice – of others – for a private agenda to make life in its own image – for this is not just geopolitical, but bio-genetic. “-binra

I like how you used “may” there too, nothing like a prophecy of “global mass genocide” without the slippery wording to avoid accountability if your prophecy doesn’t come true.

I’ve spend countless hours debating close friends over the years. From the Zetas, Nibiru, the pole shift, the elites being reptilian aliens, the hollow earth, more recently the flat earth, your straw man, all the original spirit science cartoons (there’s too many to watch them all now), David Icke books, Edward Griffin tapes and books, 9-11 truth, Kennedy, sovereign citizens. And soo many more, those were just the most memorable to me.

I understand psychologically why y’all do it too. You like to feel like you know the answers, like you’ve got the secret information that everyone needs to know. And I know your just trying help the world, but what are you really doing?

“You are – at least currently – convinced that this one contagious disease and that the stats you use are reliable and not a result of the ‘social immune response’ to being terrorised, along with all the propaganda that Trillion dollar interests can pull out of the hat.”-binra

Your doing to yourself what your accusing “Trillion dollar interests” of trying to do to you. Instead of having a healthy fear of the possibility of losing loved ones from Covid, Covid is just one more reason you live your whole life in fear, and let me tell you from experience, that “social immune response” from you terrorizing yourself, can really suck. And not just for you.

binra
binra
Apr 18, 2020 12:57 PM
Reply to  Officer712

I reread what I wrote and cannot make any sense of your view of it.
Perhaps framing the words and work of others as nonsense is your chosen area of expertise?

I don’t believe in sheeple.

I have no desire to enter into your framing or farming of my state of mind, intentions or fear-driven delusions. You are welcome to yours.

What you choose to make of what you read from me or anyone else is your own responsibility – which I commend you to own or embrace. No one else can live your life.

If you spaced your typing in paragraphs it would be clearer for others to read. But perhaps that is neither your desire or intention.

If you meant anything you said, I would meet in points of shared agreement – but nothing I have read from you on this page has given me any sense that I would be engaging in any willingness for communication.

Officer712
Officer712
Apr 16, 2020 5:17 AM
Reply to  P K

Oh, and another thing, the whole country is locked down, if your reasoning is based in reality, than death rates from all causes should be spiking, and all over the country we should be seeing death rates over %100 of average for the same time period in previous years. We’re not. In fact most states death rates compared to average are less than 100% of average this year because we had a milder winter than the past two years, and fewer people died of the regular flu this year. Normal travel patterns brought Covid to lesser affected regions later, hence the shutdown was more effective in those regions. I live in Massachusetts, the Eastern half of the state has ten times or more cases and death rate than the western half of the state. Thankfully I live in the western half. I hope all of you live in lesser affected areas, and I hope you don’t lose any loved ones from this.

George Mc
George Mc
Apr 16, 2020 4:55 PM
Reply to  Officer712

I hope you don’t lose any loved ones from this.

But didn’t you hear Boris? We’re all going to lose loved ones at the rate of 5 a day from now till the end of time!

Officer712
Officer712
Apr 16, 2020 5:24 PM
Reply to  George Mc

Troll much? Again, great and well thought out response buddy!

George Mc
George Mc
Apr 16, 2020 7:10 PM
Reply to  Officer712

Boris’s response.

binra
binra
Apr 17, 2020 4:07 PM
Reply to  Officer712

You are quick to point the accusation away from yourself

JudyJ
JudyJ
Apr 16, 2020 11:29 AM
Reply to  P K

There is additionally the question of whether the treatment for Covid19 may be killing a significant number of patients who might otherwise have survived.

https://www.statnews.com/2020/04/08/doctors-say-ventilators-overused-for-covid-19/

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/22/medical-errors-third-leading-cause-of-death-in-america.html

Officer712
Officer712
Apr 16, 2020 4:19 PM
Reply to  JudyJ

Congratulations JudyJ! You posted something relevant and poignant in response to the thread that has come about because of my post! The doctor in the link below agrees the ventilators are doing more harm than good, and shows what he’s found to have a higher success rate in keeping people alive.
https://www.drbrownstein.com/dr-bs-blog/

JudyJ
JudyJ
Apr 16, 2020 5:04 PM
Reply to  Officer712

Hi Officer712

You might be interested to see this link if you haven’t already.

https://thehighwire.com/exclusive-video-blowing-the-whistle-on-covid-19/

Officer712
Officer712
Apr 16, 2020 5:41 PM
Reply to  JudyJ

I have now, thank you, and I will be forwarding my original post to to Dr Wittkowski to see what his response is.

Officer712
Officer712
Apr 16, 2020 8:05 PM
Reply to  JudyJ

Just read more Dr Wittkowski, and I fully agree. We can open back up under his parameters. But it would have to be done right, there would have to be measures taken to keep the caretakers of elderly from giving it to the elderly, and elderly that don’t have caretakers currently would need caretakers as a way to distance them from the rest of society until herd immunity is up. Thanks again JudyJ!

Richard Le Sarc
Richard Le Sarc
Apr 17, 2020 12:10 AM
Reply to  Officer712

‘Herd immunity’ means vaccines, yearly and billions of profits. They may not work, or as with the SARS vaccine, prove disastrous when the recipient is infected. Medical treatments exist, like hydroxychloroquine plus azithromycin, but the BigPharma establishment plus the Groupthinking MSM presstitutes HATE cheap, off-patent, solutions, and Trump’s endorsement has sent them into the usual frenzy of Trump Derangement Syndrome.

[I think your point is that vaccines may be cynically rolled out, presented as the only ‘safe’ way to achieve ‘herd immunity’? Please be careful to avoid accidentally reinforcing overblown claims made about the disease. There is ZERO information available at present to suggest that natural herd immunity will not be just as effective against this disease as it has been against the millions before it. Vaccination is, of course, a form of artificial herd immunity, involving intentionally giving people a small but manageable infection -Ed]

Officer712
Officer712
Apr 17, 2020 3:29 AM

Well Richard, it looks as though my retort has been pre-empted by an Ed. Great response Ed, thanks for the lesson! All I was going to say was read/watch Wittkowski, as he was talking about natural herd immunity. I didn’t even know vaccinations were considered herd immunity. Thanks again!

Atlantic Realm
Atlantic Realm
Apr 16, 2020 2:41 AM
Reply to  Officer712

I don’t know, but it’s almost as if the rest of the US is shipping it’s ill to die of Covid in NYC. My state of 10,500,000 had 11 new cases yesterday, 0 deaths. Yet our governor says we can’t go back to work until cases and deaths begin to fall. I don%to know what he expects. We might have to start raising the dead to change his mind.

Officer712
Officer712
Apr 16, 2020 4:47 AM
Reply to  Atlantic Realm

This virus didn’t just appear everywhere at the same time, you have to take into account travel patterns, and time to spread, it obviously got to New York and California before anywhere else in the country and had a chance to spread before everything got shut down, it obviously got to your state later, and didn’t have as much time to spread before everything got shut down.

Atlantic Realm
Atlantic Realm
Apr 16, 2020 1:56 PM
Reply to  Officer712

Here in my little-affected state we’re being accosted by You Wait, You’ll Get Yours Theory.

Officer712
Officer712
Apr 16, 2020 3:12 PM
Reply to  Atlantic Realm

I hope you don’t “get yours”, and I hope they come up with a plan to get US back to work before WE die of starvation or newspaper ink poisoning from lack of toilet paper, but I hope it’s a well thought out plan that minimizes the very real death toll of this virus.

Croach
Croach
Apr 16, 2020 3:11 AM
Reply to  Officer712

Based on the stats provided in the link 40% of the number of deaths above the two year average in NYC aren’t attributed to covid-19.
What do you think those people are dying of?
That is nearly half of deaths above the two year average definitely have nothing to do with Corona.
Most posters here (myself included) would argue that guidelines for reporting Corona deaths and unreliable testing means deaths are being misattributed to covid creating inflated numbers.
It that was true then the proportion of deaths above the two year average that have no link to covid-19 is likely even higher.
This phenomena of a jump in mortality driven not just by covid deaths but by an almost equal number of non-covid deaths is observable in the Italian, Spanish and most recently the UK mortality figures.
Comparing the UK and Sweden, they are both roughly at the same point in the curve and have roughly the same number of cases and deaths per head of population.
However Sweden doesn’t have the same spike in non-covid deaths.
What else does Italy, Spain, the UK and NYC have that Sweden doesn’t?

Officer712
Officer712
Apr 16, 2020 4:31 AM
Reply to  Croach

What table on the linked page are you referring to, to get your 40% above average not being contributed to Covid deaths?

John Milton
John Milton
Apr 16, 2020 9:10 AM
Reply to  Officer712

Probably the fact that, as this article points out, testing is very unreliable and appears to have the potential for a significant false positive rate.

I have a question for you, Officer712. In your first post you said the virus needs to be taken seriously. I’d be interested in knowing what you mean by this? Do you think ‘lockdown’, imposition of a virtual police state and destruction of the world economy is the serious response that is necessary?

Officer712
Officer712
Apr 16, 2020 1:53 PM
Reply to  John Milton

John Milton, another person that is maybe not so good at math or didn’t fully read my First comment. My first comment has real 100% accurate math using statistics not dependent on the accuracy of testing to determine the actual death rate. C’mon, you people seem like your critical thinkers, use those noggins and really wrap your head around my first comment. YOU DON’T NEED ACCURATE TESTING TO GET AN ACCURATE DEATH TOLL AS A PERCENTAGE OF POPULATION.

John Milton, in answer to your question, as a part time Police Officer in three towns , I’ll have you know we’re not in a police state. Other than requiring people to wear masks in close quarter public places there really aren’t any mandates. We haven’t been told as police officers to arrest or report people that are not following social distancing guidelines, or business’s that are staying open even though they’re not on the “essential” list. We have been told to minimize unnecessary contact with the public in general, including not enforcing speed limits as heavy handedly.
In answer to the second part of your question, if the world economy is so fragile that it can be destroyed by, a less than one month lockdown so far, (China already lifting parts of their lockdown), slowing the spread of a pandemic, maybe we should work on building something less fragile in its place. If the world economy can’t weather this storm, I’d hate to see what would happen if a more virulent disease showed up. There should be protections built into our economies in the case that something like this happens. Maybe the one thing Walter Lippmann’s planned obsolescence didn’t account for, is that it creates economies that can become obsolete as quickly as the products that prop them up. Besides, after ten plus years of bullish growth, we’re barely in market correction territory.

Atlantic Realm
Atlantic Realm
Apr 16, 2020 2:02 PM
Reply to  Officer712

My job is dead “because of Covid.” Don’t trifle me with petty distinctions about co-morbidities like due corrections and early supply line problems with China. It was the pan-panic.

Officer712
Officer712
Apr 16, 2020 2:59 PM
Reply to  Atlantic Realm

Great response! Especially like the wordplay! I am truly sorry for your loss. And I wish I had a solution that could get you back to work. I’m right there with you, Im a full time carpenter, as well as a part time officer. I’m laid off from my full time job due to Covid, and can’t get any more hours as an officer than my normal 1-2 shifts per month. What did you do before The Covid killed your job? And what could we do as a society to keep future “pan-panics“ from killing jobs like yours? And why do so many people that post here think that “the global elite” would deliberately tank the worlds economy in order to be able to exercise more control over the global population. We’re all just numbers to the “global elite“, most of them could care less how many of us worker bees live or die, and they already had total control way before Covid.

George Mc
George Mc
Apr 16, 2020 5:00 PM
Reply to  Officer712

YOU DON’T NEED ACCURATE TESTING TO GET AN ACCURATE DEATH TOLL AS A PERCENTAGE OF POPULATION.

i.e. if they died, they died of COVID! Death itself is proof of COVID.

Officer712
Officer712
Apr 16, 2020 5:43 PM
Reply to  George Mc

Seriously Bro, don’t you have anything intelligent to say?

George Mc
George Mc
Apr 16, 2020 7:09 PM
Reply to  Officer712

What I said was what you said.

Officer712
Officer712
Apr 16, 2020 8:17 PM
Reply to  George Mc

You obviously didn’t read/understand my original post, or you’d know you didn’t just say the same thing as me. Troll all you want, I’m done responding to you until you can make an actual argument based on more than the mis-interpretation of one paragraph I wrote. Show that you understand everything I wrote in my first post, Articulate an actual argument against it, and we can have an actual debate.

Sophie - Admin1
Admin
Sophie - Admin1
Apr 16, 2020 8:26 PM
Reply to  Officer712

You know you are playing pea and thimble tricks with numbers Officer712, so don’t pretend to be indignant if you get called on it.

Officer712
Officer712
Apr 16, 2020 11:01 PM

Ouch, pea and thimble tricks! There is not a single trick in any of my math! If you would be so kind as to detail a specific instance where I messed up on the math, I would actually be very grateful. If you look at the new numbers on the CDC page I linked in my original post, (as they finally added the new deaths), you’ll see that the new calculation of percentage of expected deaths at 158% in table 5 For NYC is now exactly what I had calculated it would be given the the deaths they had not yet added.
I’ve have never argued the Article that has prompted us all to post here. I think the testing has been completely botched. This is the first time I’ve ever posted a comment/comments to any article. I thought it was so we could all share ideas, and was really hoping someone might shed some light on where all the extra deaths were coming from in case I missed something.
Thanks again for making your point about deaths from postponed elective surgeries and strokes being a factor. Cancer surgeries would also be considered elective surgeries for the most part, but heart attacks wouldn’t factor much into the extra deaths, as according to the AHA 90% of outside of the hospital cardiac arrests result in death. But stress about a pandemic could increase probability of a heart attack.
It’s all a lot to think about, and your one of three people that have inspired me to think beyond my initial conclusions, and honestly gave me a little hope that it’s not so bad after all. So thanks for that. Most people on here have either silently disliked my post, and responses to people trolling of my post. It’s been quite a first experience posting online.

Officer712
Officer712
Apr 16, 2020 7:49 PM
Reply to  John Milton

“ I was referring to the excess deaths being attributed to Covid-19. My point is the testing is so unreliable that you can not, with confidence, attribute them all to Covid-19 – especially when deaths are being labelled as Covid deaths even without the unreliable test being performed.” – John Milton,

The “ excess deaths” your referring to are different than the excess deaths I’m referring to. Let me explain
The “excess deaths“ your referring to are deaths that are mis-reported deaths, or over reported deaths: deaths attributed to Covid that aren’t from Covid or an -excess of reported deaths- which is not the same thing as an excess of deaths

The excess deaths I was referring to in my original post are deaths from all causes as a percentage of the average number of deaths from all causes during the same time period in previous years: actual excess deaths

The difference is, what your talking about isn’t a growth in the total number of actual deaths, rather its a change in what those deaths have been attributed to.

What I’m talking about is that there is a rather large growth in the total number of actual deaths this year more than the average in NYC.

That large growth or “excess” number of actual deaths has to be coming from somewhere, and it just so happens it’s roughly equivalent to the number of deaths being reported as attributed to Covid

Sophie - Admin1
Admin
Sophie - Admin1
Apr 16, 2020 8:15 PM
Reply to  Officer712

Only about half of the excess mortality in NY has been attributed to covid19, even with the extravagant and unjustifiably lax way that is being diagnosed. The rest is unexplained, but assumed to be linked to the partial closure of some hospitals, the unavailability of elective surgeries, including cancer surgeries, and the reluctance of people to attend ERs when suffering from potentially life threatening conditions such as stroke or heart attack. Given the over-diagnosis of covid19, we can assume this number might actually be even larger, and the real covid19 numbers smaller.

Officer712
Officer712
Apr 16, 2020 10:17 PM

Hi Admin1!
I like how authoritatively you presented your case despite that you used what you yourself refer to as assumptions twice in your argument. Alas it does however point out that I made a rather large assumption myself in thinking Covid was the only new variable that could explain such a large amount of extra deaths. Kudos!

Richard Le Sarc
Richard Le Sarc
Apr 17, 2020 12:14 AM
Reply to  Officer712

All assumptions are wrong, but some are useful.

Officer712
Officer712
Apr 16, 2020 4:31 PM
Reply to  Officer712

UPDATE!
If you go to the CDC link in my post, they have updated the table 5 statistics to the date I wrote my original response to the above article ….and of course my math was 100% right!….NYC now at 158% of average deaths during the same time period in previous years.

John Milton
John Milton
Apr 16, 2020 5:22 PM
Reply to  Officer712

Hey,
I’ll reply to your comment here.

But first a question: Do you believe everything your government says? And do you believe they always act in people’s best interest?

You asked:

What table on the linked page are you referring to, to get your 40% above average not being contributed to Covid deaths?

I replied:

Probably the fact that, as this article points out, testing is very unreliable and appears to have the potential for a significant false positive rate.

To which you then suggested that I either didn’t read your entire first post (I did – suggestion: use some paragraphs, it makes reading a long post easier), or that I am not good at maths.

Dear friend, it seems you misunderstood my point. I am not disputing the figures / calculations you made. How can I? I do not have access to raw data, so have to take on face value the data our masters make public.

I was referring to the excess deaths being attributed to Covid-19. My point is the testing is so unreliable that you can not, with confidence, attribute them all to Covid-19 – especially when deaths are being labelled as Covid deaths even without the unreliable test being performed.

If there are genuinely some excess deaths, that is a very sad state. Even if Covid19 really is causing them, only the sick and old need to be protected, and many experts have pointed out.

Do you not find the lockdown to be excessive?

In answer to the second part of your question, if the world economy is so fragile that it can be destroyed by, a less than one month lockdown so far…

Prediction – the lockdown will last MUCH LONGER than 1 month and will destroy the economy BY DESIGN. And forced social distancing and increased surveillance ( this is the beginnings a police state if you ask me) will last indefinitely.

Officer712
Officer712
Apr 16, 2020 7:06 PM
Reply to  John Milton

First in answer to your two questions, no, and no/yes. #1-If I believed everything the government says, I wouldn’t have spent 4 hours fact checking the reported death rate by doing all that math in my initial post. I was as surprised as anyone to see their reporting was pretty much spot on, if not a little low.
#2- the government is made up of people. I believe they act in their own self interest, so in one sense they do “always act in people’s best interest”, especially in this case given probably 70-80% of State and federal congresspeople are in the age range most likely to die by Covid.
Now comes the no part. No I don’t think the government always acts in -the people’s-(the 98%) best interest. I believe they generally act in the best interest of corporations, and that’s why I’m sure this lockdown won’t last much longer.

Great point on my lack of paragraphs, you forgot to mention my run on sentences though.
There are more than some extra deaths, within another week or so NYC is on track to reach 200% of expected average deaths for the same time period last year. That means twice as many deaths.
I suggested you didn’t read my post or were bad at math because your initial response to my question had nothing to do with my question to “Croatch”, regarding which table on the CDC website I had linked in my post, had he gotten his 40% statistic.
Not only did you not answer my question to “Croatch”, your response of,

“Probably the fact that, as this article points out, testing is very unreliable and appears to have the potential for a significant false positive rate”

indicated you had not read or did not understand my post, as “unreliable tests and false positive rates” have no bearing on the percentage of extra deaths in an area’s relation to averages from previous years over a specific time period.
In fact the whole point of my initial post was to point out that you can verify the actual death toll of Covid with no testing whatsoever.

Johan Smith
Johan Smith
Jun 9, 2020 8:39 AM
Reply to  Officer712

Instead of responding to your lengthy mish-mesh of numbers and assumptions (sorry I didn’t have the patience to try to make heads or tails of it), correct or not, let me just throw a few back at you.
 
WHO prediction in 2017 for 2020 total worldwide deaths would be 60.2m (can’t be bothered to look up the source but it’s Googleable), so that makes 5m per month. Corona has been really active for, shall we be conservative and call it 3 months, and 408’000 people have died from it as of today. In that time, 15m people have died from all kinds of causes as per WHO average, and therefore Corona has killed just under 3%, but that’s assuming they are ALL excess dead, so it’s likely significantly less than that (I would guesstimate at the very least 80% are part of the original statistic and probaly more like 95-98%). How does a less than 3% “bump” in the statistic justify the draconian measures imposed on us? It is a complete non-event!
 
If you look at the number of dead and the progression in the graphs (all available here: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/) in Sweden (most open policy), US (significant lock-down), UK (significant lock-down), you will note that lockdown measures really have had no discernible effect at all. Technically, Sweden (and I am there right now) should have dead piled up in the street if the published numbers of contagion were accurate, but in fact our death rates per capita are lower than both US and UK.
 
Also, if you compare this to Spanish Flu which claimed between 15m and 100m lives (scientist disagree) in roughly one year, or 75m and 500m adjusted for todays population size, you would have to be mentally challenged to call Corona even a problem.
 
The simple truth is that Corona does of course claim lives in the same way a flu does, but nowhere near what was originally feared, and, I am sorry to be the one to say it, it is killing almost exclusively the terminally ill.
 
Personally, I think even the light Swedish measures of social distancing were excessive, albeit perhaps prudent. Even if you choose to argue that the numbers will go up significantly, let’s call it 5m at year end (which I think is grossly exaggerated, and also still less than 10% of the expected total for the year), it is not worth locking yourself up for a year of your life and collapsing the economy. It is time to end this farce, grow some balls, stop being naive and scared children, and start living again.
 
You take a risk every day you live, and life has a 100% death rate, so crudely about 1.25% chance per year. I’ll be damned if a slight increase of that risk this year will make me hide under my bed like a 5 year old child hiding from the Bogey Man.

Officer712
Officer712
Jul 15, 2020 3:16 PM
Reply to  Johan Smith

Hi Johan,
You didn’t have the patience to make heads or tails of my mosh mash of numbers? What you put to comment was a mush mash of numbers sir. What I put out was statistical analysis that tracked 100% accurately to my predictions. At its peak NYC hit over 240% of average deaths from all causes, and is still at 200% of deaths from all causes, despite the lengthened time period from the original analysis. What you spouted, has no relevance to the discussion

For a great perspective on effective lockdown vs no lockdown go to the link below, scroll way down to COVID-19 deaths, choose add country, and add New Zealand and Australia.

https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus/country/sweden?country=SWE~USA

Thomas M
Thomas M
Apr 16, 2020 12:42 AM

Well it looks like mankind failed a global IQ test, badly. How to make 7.5 Billion people not only believe that the common cold is a deadly pandemic but actually lap it up. Time for extinction.

binra
binra
Apr 17, 2020 4:13 PM
Reply to  Thomas M

A greater fear bends the mind that then seeks the lesser to hide in – and pays the price.

RobG
RobG
Apr 16, 2020 12:32 AM

Jimmy Dore & Co are now calling for an all-out general strike.

How long are you lot going to remain quivering in your boots?

wardropper
wardropper
Apr 16, 2020 1:46 AM
Reply to  RobG

With the greatest respect, and with a strong tendency to wish to support Jimmy Dore, I really think we should know first what we are striking for. Could even we OffG readers agree on what we really want? Surely that is still too diffuse a matter for such a concrete step to be taken without quite a bit of serious planning?
I’m sure there are many like myself who are far from quivering in their boots, but, on the contrary, are straining at the leashes for that one clear spark which will get this show on the road – the show which is connected with the saving of human evolution.
For me, personally, dragging the chiefs of the WHO and the IMF, as well as the entire US Supreme Court, Congress and Senate, out of their offices to take their place in the queue for employment would be a great start, but we really need to know what is going too far – and what is not going far enough – before we embark upon that path.

John ErvIn
John ErvIn
Apr 16, 2020 7:14 AM
Reply to  wardropper

I would maintain that the one thing the tenders of the American System fear the most is the General Strike.

To that end, of eradicating even the notion of such a thing, there are more than a thousand companies that advise major corporations on nothing else other than how to bust unions and defeat labor initiatives (source: michaelparenti.org).

The one thing USA INC really excels at is atomizing solidarity.

You could call it “Planned Social Distancing”.

There are dot-matrix electronic billboards all over our area that flash out, now: “OBSERVE SOCIAL DISTANCING”

Creepy.

wardropper
wardropper
Apr 16, 2020 5:12 PM
Reply to  John ErvIn

That’s undoubtedly all correct. My feeling is that for OUR own good, we would need to know what we wish to achieve before we undertake such a thing.
Let’s just say the General Strike succeeds, and somebody in government asks, timidly, “Okay, you win. Now what do you want?” Would the answer be, “Higher wages”, or “Equal pay for women”, or “Trans rights”…? We should know what our answer would be.

wardropper
wardropper
Apr 16, 2020 5:13 PM
Reply to  wardropper

We should know what our answer would be – and it should be a good one…

binra
binra
Apr 17, 2020 4:28 PM
Reply to  wardropper

The basis for the answer that works for all, regardless our differences, is one that honours the way of honest and open communication.

First this must be accepted in and for ourself – because the ‘narrative control’ is no less active in the ‘self-isolating’ private mind, than in the world at large.

If we are conflicted in ourself but masking over our fears, guilts, shames, hates or sense of lack and division, then we will be seeking to work out our personal script on our relationships and world – AS IF it is really out there.
IE: We will only see what our conditioned and reactive habit operates.

Identifying the conditions that hold for and support real relationship and communication is key. Or there is no foundation for a mass of reactive grievances and vengeance seeking its own ‘world order’ – that will seem to be a Movement until its enemy or opposition is undone of its role.

Then is the frantic search for ‘enemies’ and ‘threats’ to maintain the identity as a sense of control. Then there is the manufacture and carrying out of self-inflicted hate as the necessary price for keeping ‘Order’, and finally turning on the people themselves as ‘failed’ or a ‘cancer, or virus on the Planet’ or ‘useless eaters’.

All from an intensity of self-evasion given power and protection.

JohnB
JohnB
Apr 16, 2020 9:57 AM
Reply to  wardropper

For me, personally, dragging the chiefs of the WHO and the IMF, as well as the entire US Supreme Court, Congress and Senate, out of their offices to take their place in the queue for employment would be a great start,

– employment
+ execution

🙂

wardropper
wardropper
Apr 16, 2020 5:05 PM
Reply to  JohnB

Well, I did say, ” a great start”… After all, who would employ those parasites when their current minders are so clearly losing their filthy grip? So I imagine they would find their way into your queue soon enough…
Executions are so uncommon these days, however. Perhaps that’s no coincidence…

Caltrop
Caltrop
Apr 16, 2020 12:20 AM

All directions to governments around the world on how to act on the plandemic are emanating from the US. But who is really in charge?

“The Israelis control the policy in the congress and the senate.”

Senator Fullbright, Chair of Senate Foreign Relations Committee: 10/07/1973 on CBS’ “Face the Nation”.

“I am aware how almost impossible it is in this country to carry out a foreign policy [in the Middle East] not approved by the Jews….. terrific control the Jews have over the news media and the barrage the Jews have built up on congressmen …. I am very much concerned over the fact that the Jewish influence here is completely dominating the scene and making it almost impossible to get congress to do anything they don’t approve of. The Israeli embassy is practically dictating to the congress through influential Jewish people in the country”

Even more so today.

comment image

IT’S A BIG CLUB AND YOU AINT IN IT – George Carlin
comment image

John Milton
John Milton
Apr 16, 2020 9:28 AM
Reply to  Caltrop

Hey, how dare you say even one word against us – we are protected don’t you know.

And don’t even think of having a bad thing to say about, or trying to stop our practice of genital mutilation of our new born boys. That would be antisemitic! Even our friends at the Guardian agree!

Our boys just adore having their foreskins removed. Anaesthetic and consent not required! The lucky ones even get a dose of herpes for good measure.

Grafter
Grafter
Apr 16, 2020 10:59 AM
Reply to  John Milton

America, the home of eugenics.

Richard Le Sarc
Richard Le Sarc
Apr 17, 2020 12:16 AM
Reply to  John Milton

Gosh-must have gone to ‘spam’, eh? I just observed that male genital mutilation gets a lot less attention than the female type. Offended someone, apparently.

clickkid
clickkid
Apr 15, 2020 11:52 PM

Peter Hitchens interview – 2 days old:

Moneycircus
Moneycircus
Apr 16, 2020 6:36 AM
Reply to  clickkid

The radio host, Mike, is wrong to assume that illness spreads more easily in 2020 than in 1918 due to air travel. “So many people from China were spreading the disease and that could probably never have happened.” It did happen. Hundreds of thousands of Chinese labourers were imported to work in the U.S. a century ago, and hundreds of thousands more Chinese worked on the front during WW1.
The railway network was much bigger than today. Millions of soldiers departed and returned by ferry across the Channel. Sixty million soldiers fought in filthy conditions. And when the survivors got home many lived in slums and tenements, with unclean water, poor sewagerage, lack of health care – Florence Nightingale had only just reformed nursing 50 years earlier…
The unchallenged assumptions these ‘voice of the people’ radio jocks make are breathtaking.

Doctortrinate
Doctortrinate
Apr 15, 2020 11:49 PM

as we’re at the Ho -spit.

the vid – # film your hospital, see the Nurse on reception, (at 3mins +)….when he asks
“whats going at at this hospital”….watch the response, the arm and hand, Hand on heart sign – of chiefly devotion, allegiance and transformation – her knowing facial expression is also interesting.

Moneycircus
Moneycircus
Apr 16, 2020 6:41 AM
Reply to  Doctortrinate

Oh the secrecy. “We can’t tell you …” I love his comment, “Yes, I have a fever, a pissed off fever.”

asdfasdf
asdfasdf
Apr 15, 2020 10:33 PM

If you want propaganda pretty much straight from the fascist Trump Administration’s mouth, this is where you can come,

Kit, don’t wear a mask and congregate freely and often. It’s really no big deal.

clickkid
clickkid
Apr 15, 2020 10:47 PM
Reply to  asdfasdf

RobG
RobG
Apr 16, 2020 12:08 AM
Reply to  asdfasdf

Trump is a complete dickhead. We all know that.

But why do you never question those behind the scenes who really run things?

Richard Le Sarc
Richard Le Sarc
Apr 16, 2020 1:01 AM
Reply to  RobG

Trump is as much a front-man as were the Italian mobsters in the US ‘Mafia’.

Jeane Wilson
Jeane Wilson
Apr 15, 2020 10:16 PM
RobG
RobG
Apr 15, 2020 11:49 PM
Reply to  Jeane Wilson

Corbett is an agent of the deep state; always has been.

Corbett regularly has on Ryan Dawson (or whatever his name is) whose father is a high-up CIA operative (go look it up if you don’t believe me).

Please, no more BS from the likes of Corbett.

Actually, if you study propaganda, Corbett is a masterclass in it.

Corbett is a complete phoney. Likewise the world you live in is a complete phoney.

So here’s tonight’s bit of music..

Barbara McKenzie
Barbara McKenzie
Apr 16, 2020 1:31 AM
Reply to  RobG

I agree, Corbett is a gatekkeeper. That’s the conclusion I came to when I watched his video on Noam Chomsky gatekeeper. Since then I thought I might have been unfair, and then everyone has been raving about his work on the covid19 hoax. But in the video I saw, Corbett completely ducks the question of Bill Gates’ involvement (I think he mention the Gates Foundation once). Not credible. https://stovouno.org/2020/04/03/covid-19-bill-gates-engineers-a-global-crisis-from-seasonal-flu/

Reg
Reg
Apr 16, 2020 6:58 AM

I must correct you. Corbett has dealt with the eugenicist beliefs of the super-rich, from the robber barons of the early 20th C all the way down to Bill Gates. And he has connected these obsessions with the current hysteria and the missionary zeal for mandatory vaccination.

Barbara McKenzie
Barbara McKenzie
Apr 16, 2020 7:50 AM
Reply to  Reg

I’m happy to look at any examples of Corbett discussing the Gates connection to (ownership of) the coronascam

wardropper
wardropper
Apr 16, 2020 1:52 AM
Reply to  RobG

He comes across as a very shallow individual – a circus ringmaster, if you like – and I can well imagine he might be a gatekeeper, but he has some hellish good guests on his programme…

Jean Wilson
Jean Wilson
Apr 16, 2020 5:32 AM
Reply to  RobG

Thanks RobG. I didn’t know that about Corbett. Will do some research. Nevertheless, I like what he says on the video and suspect many of the posters here might agree with him. Its the first Corbett video I’ve watched.

Andromon
Andromon
Apr 16, 2020 12:29 PM
Reply to  Jean Wilson

I can’t stand his droning twanging yank voice..

Jane Wilson
Jane Wilson
Apr 15, 2020 10:14 PM

Getting to the root of the problem. Some straight talking from James Corbett.

Gary Weglarz
Gary Weglarz
Apr 15, 2020 9:56 PM

Something you won’t be reading about or hearing a word about in MSM during our “corona-brain-death” pandemic.

NIST is now on the clock to defend their completely indefensible report on building 7’s collapse. Family members have joined A&E for 9/11 Truth in this filing which can proceed to legal action if NIST fails to respond in defense of it’s bogus report of “fires” as the cause of the free-fall disintegration of the building.

https://www.ae911truth.org/news/677-9-11-families-experts-mount-unprecedented-challenge-to-nist-in-new-filing

Of course along with the story linked above there are many other life and death stories you also won’t be hearing about. Such as how many each day will die in Venezuela and Iran, not because of any virus, but because of completely amoral U.S. sanctions, or for that matter how many will perish in Yemen, or Iraq, or Afghanistan, or Libya, or anywhere else the U.S. led Western death machine is busy at work destroying any semblance of a functioning civil society able to resist.

What you will hear about throughout MSM – non-stop of course – are claims made by the same death-machine about how much it so deeply cares about you and I that it just has no choice but to keep us all under house arrest for our own good. You know, just like it is only killing the poor in Venezuela and Iran – “for their own good.”

If a half-a-million dead Iraqi children are “worth it” to these psychopaths, who knows how many Venezuelans and Iranians and countless nameless others are also considered “worth it.” Such moral (or rather – ‘amoral’) calculus is beyond the imagination of those of us who have managed to retain even a shred of human decency.

Nonetheless it appears that many in the West will drift asleep tonight while imagining that Big Brother and his war-machine loves them, just I suppose as countless Hilter Youth once similarly imagined that the Fuhrer cared deeply and lovingly about them. The important difference being that children can be forgiven for such naiveté.

wardropper
wardropper
Apr 16, 2020 1:58 AM
Reply to  Gary Weglarz

This thorough, entirely professional response to the outrageously, and dangerously sloppy NIST report has to be one of the defining issues of the 21st Century. No thinking person should be unaware of the basics here, even 19 years on. Thank you Gary for this very important update.

clickkid
clickkid
Apr 15, 2020 9:48 PM

Good news:

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/and-it-beings-angry-michiganders-surround-capital-building-demand-governor-reopen-economy

“As we have noted, the evolution of the virus pandemic is not just a public health crisis nor a financial meltdown but could transform into a social unraveling. And, oh boy, it appears we could be right.

But before we cover today’s events. Several weeks ago, what piqued our interest was a warning from the Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies of how “a social bomb” was ready to explode over major Western cities “in a few weeks.” And it appears, those few weeks have just expired, as protests begin:

On Wednesday afternoon, massive crowds, organized by a conservative group, have surrounded Michigan’s state Capitol building. Protestors are angry at Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s (D) stay-at-home public health order during the pandemic.

Supporters of the Michigan Conservative Coalition have requested Whitmer to reopen the economy on May 1 and ease restrictions to return life to normal

clickkid
clickkid
Apr 15, 2020 9:50 PM
Reply to  clickkid

George Mc
George Mc
Apr 15, 2020 9:27 PM

The thought has just occurred to me that the Left are excited about this because they see it as the general strike they always wanted. Except that the government actually ordered it. And the mainstream media are constantly fueling it. Pretty odd strike.

crank
crank
Apr 15, 2020 9:36 PM
Reply to  George Mc

Gallowsway is probably sitting around with fellow delusionals envisioning the sudden rise of The Workers Party *as the UK government collapses and people stick the V’s up to Kier Starmtrooper and his Zionist cabal* etc. etc.
You know he has three acid tabs on his forehead underneath that fedora don’t you ? He never goes on stage without them.

Dungroanin
Dungroanin
Apr 15, 2020 9:42 PM
Reply to  George Mc

It’s a paid sabbatical. A stay at home gap semi year. It’s challenging. Probably mostly for yanks who normally only get a week or 2 off a year.

Make the most of it. Try and make a habit of it. You don’t have to work like a slave all the time. Learn to make hay of the sunshine. Or for the yanks – you been given plenty of Lemon days make lemonadays out of them.

There is no left or right only top and bottom. Pretend you are living the days that the top do every day of their life without having to go to work.

George Mc
George Mc
Apr 15, 2020 9:55 PM
Reply to  Dungroanin

Pretend you are living the days that the top do every day of their life without having to go to work.

Only without their money. And perhaps shortly without any money.

clickkid
clickkid
Apr 15, 2020 10:16 PM
Reply to  George Mc

It is a bit of a cliched metaphor but still..

Those minutes before the rsunami comes on. When the water is far out, it is so quiet and everyone is still on the beach.

Economically, that’s where we are now.

clickkid
clickkid
Apr 15, 2020 10:16 PM
Reply to  clickkid

‘tsunami’

George Mc
George Mc
Apr 15, 2020 10:54 PM
Reply to  clickkid

Gesundheit!

Richard Le Sarc
Richard Le Sarc
Apr 16, 2020 1:13 AM
Reply to  clickkid

Megatsunami.

Dungroanin
Dungroanin
Apr 15, 2020 10:17 PM
Reply to  George Mc

That’s easy – get your government to print money to give to you to spend on your basic needs. You still won’t be as rich as the trustafarians but you won’t need to work to survive as they don’t.

George Mc
George Mc
Apr 15, 2020 10:54 PM
Reply to  Dungroanin

Sure. I’ll phone the government up tomorrow. A couple of thousand should tie me over for the weekend.

ted
ted
Apr 15, 2020 11:48 PM
Reply to  Dungroanin

So we just did some basic shopping for our spring vegetable gardens. The nearby garden store, a national chain, is having to stack extra pallets of things 15 feet in a large parking lot. So I doubt they are ordering any more, so the production facilities will close, leading at first to price deflation, then eventually shortages. Same thing is happening in the food supply chain here. I wonder how good the old MMT money fairy will be then? I saw a lot of wheel barrows on hand, but in the cashless society, I suppose they aren’t as useful as they were in Weimar.

Dungroanin
Dungroanin
Apr 16, 2020 8:50 AM
Reply to  ted

ALL money is MMT money.

It has always been since the invention of it.

The government either ‘prints’ it directly or authorises others to do so on its behalf.

FDR used it in the new Deal when he authorised the manufacture of millions of wheelbarrows and then ’employed’ millions of men to shift dirt with those, from one hole in the ground into another, just so they could have money to buy food to feed their family, and to preserve the illusion that it was not ‘helicopter’ money.

Mike Ellwood
Mike Ellwood
Apr 16, 2020 2:23 PM
Reply to  ted

MMT experts have always said that real resources (meaning both things and people) are the real issue.

If real resources (including things and people, i.e. the unemployed) are available for sale in the currency that the government issues, then that currency issuing government (like the UK or the USA) can always create sufficient currency to buy them.

If the real resources are not available, then obviously creating more currency in those situations will not help, and MMT would not advocate this in that situation. If you are going to cite MMT, then you need to learn it from the real experts, e.g.

William (Bill) Mitchell
Warren Mosler
W Randall (Randy) Wray
Stephanie Kelton

and not second or third hand from some ill-informed journalist with an agenda.

In the present situation, I would agree that shortages are a real danger, and if and when food shortages kick in, the shit will really hit the fan.

Since you mentioned Weimar, learn something about it (and the other trope, Zimbabwe) from Bill Mitchell:

http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=3773

Martin Usher
Martin Usher
Apr 16, 2020 1:30 AM
Reply to  Dungroanin

Ten days is about it with minimal extra days for public holidays. If you survive 5 years then it will go up to 15 (but in order to keep your job you probably won’t be able to take it). There’s an additional tweak that’s common these days — if you have to take time of sick then you’ll get maybe three days before it starts coming out of your vacation allowance.

Dungroanin
Dungroanin
Apr 16, 2020 9:05 AM
Reply to  Martin Usher

Terrible isn’t it Martin – that is why we and the EU have regulations to stop such gross abuse if employees.

The protections that the brexiteers sold us to abandon decades of rights and protections to turn us into little more than slaves as the US workers are – that country was founded and built upon slavery and hasn’t moved far from ot in 200 years.
They may not have black skin and chains and whips – but who needs slave masters when you turn yourself into one and flog yourself daily and believe it to be your RIGHT and DUTY to be a SLAVE.

It is self imposed MENTAL slavery.

And brexit is bringing it to the UK.

Barbara McKenzie
Barbara McKenzie
Apr 16, 2020 1:39 AM
Reply to  Dungroanin

You are trivialising all the harm that is being done, to economy, small businesses, health, most of all to our democracy.

Dungroanin
Dungroanin
Apr 16, 2020 8:56 AM

You are hiding from truth.
Putting health below wealth in your list shows YOUR priority.

Democracy is not your aim you have no desire to ask people what they want and let them have it.

Richard Le Sarc
Richard Le Sarc
Apr 16, 2020 9:53 AM
Reply to  Dungroanin

The parasites and wannabe parasites place their wealth FAR higher than the health of their eternal enemy-other people. How else do you explain the US ‘health system’?

visitor
visitor
Apr 16, 2020 1:58 PM
Reply to  Dungroanin

Your comment reminds me of the “boomers want to save their 401k” tweets.

It creates a strawman, promotes social division, and deflects from the actual point.

I am not wealthy for full disclosure (and I am ok with it). On the personal front, I have absolutely zero skin in the game. I was a loner before and now the entire world has joined me in my solitude 🙂 I also was already telecommuting. I work in software, “big data”, and eyeing getting into AI, and for once in my life actually have saved 2 years expenses as of 4/1.

But then looking beyond my own lonesome self, I have to consider the impact of (entirely predictable) events such as the (1) destruction of the middle class; (2) hoovering of forced-failed small businesses by Big Business; to say nothing of (3) a hotel california police state that society will never be able to shtudown short of catacalysmic events, and it is clear that this is not merely a “wealth concern” issue.

Governments and certain institutions in the world are currently engaged in a process of asserting their right, based on demonstrated incompetence and deception, to force the entire humanity to march to the tune of “experts” beholden to big money and corporation, according to a script that under even the most charitable readings screams “Total Surveillance and Control of Many by the very Few”.

If this doesn’t alarm you, what will?

Richard Le Sarc
Richard Le Sarc
Apr 16, 2020 9:52 AM

WHAT ‘democracy’? The USA? The UK? Austfailia? You must be joking!

Martin Usher
Martin Usher
Apr 16, 2020 1:27 AM
Reply to  George Mc

If the current situation was to be likened to a labor action then it would be a lockout, not a strike. On the surface the two actions look the same but they’re completely different actions that service very different purposes.

ame
ame
Apr 15, 2020 9:16 PM
lod
lod
Apr 15, 2020 9:03 PM

https://youtu.be/NjjybyJ59Lw

Good video here calling out Fauci for the snake that he is. Clearly in the service of Gates, WHO and big pharma. I’ll be keeping a close eye on this creature from now on.

clickkid
clickkid
Apr 15, 2020 9:02 PM

https://swprs.org/a-swiss-doctor-on-covid-19/

….has been updated.

Snippet:

“•In the UK, 40% of hospital beds are currently unoccupied, four times more than usual. The reason for this is the sharp decline in general patient admissions. Intensive care beds, whose capacity has been increased, are on average 78% occupied. In addition, 10% of nurses are in quarantine.
•The temporary corona hospitals of the US military near New York are „largely empty“ so far. The hospitalization rate in New York was overestimated by a factor of seven.

Grafter
Grafter
Apr 16, 2020 12:58 AM
Reply to  clickkid

Yep it’s beginning to kick off big time in New York where fraudulent statistics are being exposed and awkward questions are being asked about deaths from Covid 19.

1of7billion
1of7billion
Apr 15, 2020 8:42 PM

“Has COVID-19 Testing Made the Problem Worse?”

It depends what one means by “the problem.”

For me, the main problem is we allow this to be framed as a science issue at all, when it really needs to be framed as a freedom or human rights issue.

Because I think it is clear from the above – of which I will confess to only following about 50% to 75% before I “lost the will to live” – that scientists themselves are going to argue about these figures till the end of time, so I am not at all optimistic that we will ever get a scientific consensus in the “post mortem” on COVID-19, except perhaps of an approximately agreed mortality rate of let us say under 2% to 5% of infected persons.

The question to be answered then will be what exactly is the % figure that a government can justify deciding we all have to be locked up/down again?

And then perhaps there will be another debate as to whether we can ever control any virus anyway, which for me is the key scientific question of all, but clearly too many scientists think we can, and I don’t believe them.

For example, despite the endless efforts of scientists and the WHO, there are now 37 million people HIV positive, and up to 1 million dying as a result every year, despite now about 40 years of their efforts to contain or stop or vaccinate (they still don’t have one) against HIV.

The other point is that any new virus may have circulated to millions before the government becomes aware of it, making a lockdown more or less pointless, as it will have already spread too far to make a worthwhile reduction in infection rates or fatalities.

In the case of covid-19, this issue becomes even more thorny if it is found that even pets can transmit it to humans, which if bats or pigs can, as we’re told, and we have already had dogs and cats test positive, it seems to be unlikely that other animals like domestic pets cannot also pass it to their human owners.

e.g. we are told we can get if off door handles even, so that it can be carried around by warm blooded mammals in general (which includes cats and dogs) seems to be almost certain unless somebody can explain or prove otherwise, which I’ve seen no evidence they’ve been able to do.

The other figure we will never get, because it will be nearly impossible to count also, will be the number of deaths caused by the lockdown itself, of people whose health deteriorates as a consequence of the fear induced and the deleterious effect on their mental and physical health, which of course will once again be mainly the older generation, whom the authorities are making out they are most trying to protect.

But I find myself pessimistic about the whole scientific and statistical argument, because I don’t think scientific findings are going to prevent another lockdown or properly restoring normal life because of this one, but rather, as usual, financial concerns will.

i.e. when the personal economic cost is counted by millions, they are really not likely to put up with this again, if they see it wreaks havoc upon their futures. So from that point of view, it might even be better (as painful as it may be to whoever is most affected) if it does, because otherwise, if they think they can get away with it, there will be nothing to stop them doing it again, maybe annually.

The authorities need to learn very seriously, that even if they couldn’t care less about people’s freedom and human rights, they just cannot (the polite version) “muck with the system” in a fundamental way like this, and not create havoc far worse than any virus could, unless it really was in the league of the Bubonic plague.

For as I stood in an enormously long queue today in a supermarket, herded reminiscent of the way infant school children are made to be organised in the playground by their teachers, I thought to myself “I bet Boris Johnson doesn’t have to do this…” (and his kind).

So there’s a great lack of respect here for the public, and a lot of people (including me) aren’t going to forget it.

Yes, fine, we’ve all got some sympathy for anyone who apparently has to go into intensive care if they are in a really bad way, include him.

But where is the sympathy for all the old people confined to their homes against their will, when they want to carry out what little may remain of their lives in whatever freedom their usually deteriorated abilities permits them?

They want the simple pleasures that are all that give much meaning to their lives, like seeing their friends and relatives, having a walk in the park, or a drink in the pub, or a trip to the library, or watching sport on TV, or an occasional trip to the seaside, or dancing in a basic fashion (the old fashioned way, with plenty of contact) or being able to go to the supermarket and shop without fearing there will be nothing on the shelves by the time they get there, all of which pleasures and comforts are currently being denied to them.

As indeed are operations and general access to healthcare and dentistry, because of the crazed almost exclusive focus of the NHS on covid-19.

I don’t know how many people have seen the signs at the dentist for example which effectively say “if you have plague symptoms, go away, we don’t care how much your tooth aches, we’re not having you here.”

So yes, everyone says “Good to see Boris up and about again”, but there is no question thousands of old people are going to die alone during this lockdown without anybody hardly knowing or caring, or without being able to go out for the last several weeks or months of their lives – so will effectively *die in prison* even though *they committed no crime.*

And of course if they do have “corona virus like symptoms” (which during the “flu season” nearly everybody gets some of from time to time) even if the lockdown is lifted generally, they may feel obliged to self-isolate, stay imprisoned, due to the fear of and possible guilt arising from if they infect somebody else.

And the same will apply to feeling they must avoid their friends and families for fear of infecting them to0 – we’ve all been made to feel like we’re potential murderers, if we have a cough, snivel or sneeze, which nearly everyone has to some degree at this time of year (or a little earlier).

But I think one thing we must be extremely clear about afterwards, regarding every world government who behaved this way, is they are all saying, as is Boris Johnson “I have simply responded to the advice of my scientific advisors.”

No, I’m sorry Mr Johnson, the scientific advisors *did not put us all in prison*, destroy our lives, maybe even take away the jobs and business of hundreds of thousands of millions; yes, they may have “recommended it”, but they didn’t order it, *you* did that.

And it won’t be forgotten, not by me, and not by millions of others also.

I mean, I’m nearly ready now to vote for any political party *who will promise never to do this to the public again* without due cause (i.e. the Bubonic plague or equivalent, nothing else will excuse it), regardless of all their other policies.

For me, this is *far* bigger than the Brexit debate, about which everybody had incredibly strong feelings I am well aware, whichever side of the debate they were on.

This amounts to *putting everyone in prison when they have not committed a crime* and enforcing silly and ineffective rules on them as if they were children, which most of those ordering the rules have shown they have not much obeyed or been subject to themselves.

I mean you know, if Boris Johnson was in a supermarket lately, it was likely just some PR stunt, not to do his shopping like the rest of us. So if he gets short of food or whatever, no doubt some underling will get it for him whereas *we all have to do it for ourselves*, and join the rest of the bewildered and downtrodden herd, who if you didn’t know what was going on, look like a bunch of people about a few days after the Hiroshima bomb.

And it also amounts to *making us seem like possible criminals in the eyes of our neighbours*, so that if one is in a public place now and one coughs or sneezes, heads are likely to turn towards you en masse as if you were trying to murder everyone.

And once again, the scientists didn’t do that, *you did that* Mr Johnson, turning us all into potential criminals in the eyes of our neighbours or passers-by in the street.

So I am afraid the only real lesson that we need to learn from this, is that we won’t ever get fairly treated unless we can find some way of removing from government the politicians who clearly don’t respect us properly or care about our freedom and human rights, and replace them with those who do, which I believe can only be achieved by electoral reform, so we can choose who we want to represent us and all our votes count.

clickkid
clickkid
Apr 15, 2020 8:52 PM
Reply to  1of7billion

Great comment.

I would rather have a real virus destroy our whole civilization than us treated as cattle within it.

Richard Le Sarc
Richard Le Sarc
Apr 16, 2020 9:55 AM
Reply to  clickkid

Does anyone get a choice, in your dream world?

Arsebiscuits
Arsebiscuits
Apr 15, 2020 9:01 PM
Reply to  1of7billion

Exactly if they don’t care about our human rights, our well being our livelihood

What makes you think they care you get sick and die?

John ErvIn
John ErvIn
Apr 15, 2020 9:01 PM
Reply to  1of7billion

“…e.g. we are told we can get if off door handles even, so that it can be carried around by warm blooded mammals in general (which includes cats and dogs) seems to be almost certain unless somebody can explain or prove otherwise, which I’ve seen no evidence they’ve been able to do.”

I saw one panicky headline last week, “You may be able to infect others ‘just by breathing’s”.

And yesterday, Albertsons supermarkets, who have the touchiest of all here in SoCal, had a cardboard cutout of a nurse that they have used for years for helpful offers of flu vaccines, now with a real surgical mask taped to her cardboard mug, and a sign on the door, “You cannot enter without a face covering.”

And so on. It seems like a very provocative way to slowly strip the public of precious liberties, “under the colour of authority.”

No indication of when the war sanctions will be lifted. If ever.

Not addressing the subject directly, with anything more than silence, is yet another way for Sacramento, basically, to terrorize and cow Californians…

It seems strange for a government that has been blue and increasingly user-friendly, in so many ways.

Bizarre that they don’t see and address that problem of confusion.

The term “martial law” was used by Gavin News almost a month ago, and he was greatly chided all around for that, and he bactracked. He’s young and a bit “offguard” if you will, but he should be advised better on the confusion his occasional poor choice of language, timing, and context creates.

John ErvIn
John ErvIn
Apr 15, 2020 9:03 PM
Reply to  John ErvIn

Sorry, “Gavin NEWSOM” and “just by breathing” corrections above.

visitor
visitor
Apr 15, 2020 11:33 PM
Reply to  1of7billion

It seems to me that the nature of the ultimate revolution with which we are now faced is precisely this: That we are in process of developing a whole series of techniques which will enable the controlling oligarchy who have always existed and presumably will always exist to get people to love their servitude. This is the, it seems to me, the ultimate in malevolent revolutions shall we say, and this is a problem which has interested me many years and about which I wrote thirty years ago, a fable, Brave New World, which is an account of society making use of all the devices available and some of the devices which I imagined to be possible making use of them in order to, first of all, to standardize the population, to iron out inconvenient human differences, to create, to say, mass produced models of human beings arranged in some sort of scientific caste system. Since then, I have continued to be extremely interested in this problem and I have noticed with increasing dismay a number of the predictions which were purely fantastic when I made them thirty years ago have come true or seem in process of coming true.

Aldous Huxley – Berkeley Lecture – 1962
https://publicintelligence.net/aldous-huxley-1962-u-c-berkeley-speech-on-the-ultimate-revolution/

visitor
visitor
Apr 16, 2020 12:05 AM
Reply to  visitor

To follow up to your excellent comment above, we’re in agreement that the issue at hand is precisely, and only, Human Rights.

Regarding the patronizing intent you noted while waiting in line for food at the market, we have already been treated to the cattle line at the airports. Speaking of flying, raise your hand if you think getting on a “no fly list” with apparently no way to get off, just gave birth to “medical passport” and “asymptomatic plague carriers”.

Continuing to pick at our collective political scab (and I mean collectively as in globally), I remind everyone that we’re almost 20 years into a ‘New Age of Physics’ were steel skyscrapers vaporize in seconds. Remember that? (Did you ever ask your self: “I wonder what they teach the kids in civil engineer schools these days?”)

And now, of course, we’ve graduated to a New Age of Biology, when equally mystical virusus do their steel structural brethren one better by amazing us all by performing new feats of biological activity, correcting our previously “wrong” understanding of all matters related to virology and medicine and possibly even statistics.

https://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/index.html

When you read the weasel words of the organization created by the victors of World War II pay special attention to “arbitrary” qualifier in the rights bestowed on us by our benefactors. Note, article 9 and 12. If it is not “arbitrary”, for example per dictat of our benefactor’s very own WHO, then I guess it is perfectly OK to “[interfere] with his privacy, family, home or correspondence”. It is “OK”, the UN says so.

(This all reminds me of the “aha” moment I had back post 9/11 when it became clear that Geneva Convention only applies to the “King’s men” wearing approved uniforms! It has nothing to do with “humane” considerations for soldiers. It is simply a gentlemen’s agreement between sovereigns, that is all.)

So no, the Human Rights I am concerned about are our actual Rights as sentient beings who enter into this life through a universal process that makes no distinctions between us.

It appears no one has ever bothered to write these down. I suggest we do so now, and make a commitment to defend said rights.

Fair dinkum
Fair dinkum
Apr 16, 2020 1:04 AM
Reply to  1of7billion

The tipping point is approaching.
This stage managed event will be brought down by ordinary folks who will demand/insist/ fight for ordinary freedoms.
The law will bow and snap under the weight of sanity.

May Hem
May Hem
Apr 16, 2020 5:44 AM
Reply to  Fair dinkum

I hope you’re right Fair dinkum, but I suspect there will be a huge division within society – those who want martial law, vaccination, digital tracking, and those (like most of us here perhaps) who will refuse to become obedient commodities. As usual, the ‘authorities’ will exploit this division.

I am expecting years of chaos and revolution, as well as a continuing degradation of environment and what is left of the natural world – the latter is likely to be be privatized for the benefit of the 1%.

Fair dinkum
Fair dinkum
Apr 16, 2020 6:32 AM
Reply to  May Hem

The response by governments around the world seems to be ad hoc and chaotic.
Rules made on the run because they don’t know what else to do. Perhaps they are frightened for themselves and their families.
No doubt they are all fearful of losing the next election.
I’m sure they would all love to have more control over the masses, but I don’t think this is a coordinated attack by governments. It’s too messy in too many places
Nobody could have foreseen the chaos and panic, because herd mentality is unpredictable.
The future will be more regulated but most of us already live under fairly strict rules already.
Taking people’s travel and social freedoms is just a bridge too far.

Willem
Willem
Apr 15, 2020 8:31 PM

Suppose you are a benevolent oligarch with all the money and power in the world, what would you do?

Perhaps this: since you are being so annoyed of bullshit jobs, you decide to get rid of that parasitic and useless profession once and for all, but how?

Well, you let your spinners concoct a story about a common cold virus that is so deadly that for that matter you need to close whole societies, except for people who have a real job.

And since you have all the money and power in the world, you let this lockdown of countries continue for some time until the world economy is ruined and that governments have to decide what they find really important: real jobs or bullshit jobs? – And then the bullshit jobs dissapear. But since you are benevolent, powerful and have all the money in the world you help societies with basic income so that the unemployed (and useless) people who once had a bullshit job can continue with living, perhaps even start out working for themselves doing… something relevant for their family or society.

Nice dream, eh?

Not that it works because
A. There is no benevolent oligarch who has all the money and power in the world
B. Weeds always find a way to grow, no matter how hard you try to eradicate it from your garden. Same applies to bullshit in society.

So when all of this started I was quite happy with the situation at my work (as an epidemiologist) where suddenly

– I had not to deal with traffic jams
– meetings (all useless anyway) were cancelled
– Teaching was cancelled (also mostly bullshit in academia)
– offices were not filled with (talking) people who disturbed me from thinking clearly and doing my work (as most of my colleagues went voluntarily into self-isolation)
– and the work that needed to be done (in my case, getting the epidemiology of Covid19 in my hospital right) was free of bullshit rules such as getting permission from the endless list of apparatchiks that I normally have to deal with when I am trying to do my work.

Working without bullshit, it was like heaven

But the bullshit has returned. The traffic jams are still not there (although there is more traffic than there was 3 weeks ago), but

– instead of meetings we now have (endless) videoconferences
– I need to teach students through video conferences (as if they can’t study epidemiology themselves)
– The apparatchiks returned

Now the videoconferencing is something I have been able to ignore mostly, saying I am too busy with Covid19 research, which is largely true. But since that statement cannot be checked by the apparatchiks (who continue to self-isolate) they still want to videoconference with me because, you know, you don’t want to admit as apparatchik that when things are getting important, you are useless. And this is the first burden for me. I cannot ignore these people endlessly, and so every now and then I have to talk with them and listen to their nonsense.

The teaching is also something that will return. I have been lucky to be last in the line, but in a few weeks time I have to talk about the details of epidemiology again, but now through a video screen as if it is a big deal. Even though I will talk about the epidemiology of Covid19 (which is a big deal), I am pretty sure it will be for deaf ears, as talking epidemiology (or any academic topic) to a class of >300 students is always for deaf ears for >99% of the participants who only want one thing: pass the exam and don’t care about insights (and which is also not needed unless you want to become an epidemiologist, and even then: my profession has not shown to be very bright thus far in tackling the nonsense of the Covid19 epidemic…)

And the apparatchiks know how to find my research since they all want to do something with Covid19. And therefore they decided to make a committee (of people who still are too scared of entering the hospital) and who will, by their endless wisdom, decide who is allowed to do what with the findings that I and a few PhD students have been scraping down from my hospital while they were hiding in their bunkers, thinking that the grim reaper was out to get them.

This is all annoying and I am sure that my frustration with the bullshit in my job is not very different with the bullshit that others find in their job.

It is not all doom and gloom, however.

1. Some of the doctors here start to see through the scam and we make cynical jokes, like ‘flattening the curve=21st of March (Spring)+3 weeks, independent of lockdown’
2. One of the apparatchiks who is been locked in his own house since the day the lockdown started here (13 March), and who is convinced about the truthfulness of everything that the msm writes (from Syria to Covid19) his partner got (mild) symptoms that could be related with Covid19. Don’t worry, the partner is fine now, but the ‘funny’ thing is that it still doesn’t occur to him that self-isolation, apparantly cannot save you from running into a common cold! -The family still self-isolates and ‘hang-on there’ because our prime minister says we should do this. Amazing…
3. But the best thing is that I talked with a nurse today, who just became grandmother and was depressed because ‘the measures’ did not allow her to see her daughter and grandchild. To which I replied: ‘why not? Since you are healthy and your grandchild/family is healthy, there is no reason not to go. Just go, nobody will stop you.’ Which was something that hadn’t crossed her mind. And which shows that stating the obvious, although you may feel reluctant to say it, sometimes is the best thing you can say.

Anyway, since it seems to be in fashion that health care workers share stories in the media how they deal with Covid19 in the hospital (through dancing nurses in the UK to ‘overburdened’ IC doctors in Italy), I thought I should add my share of an epidemiologist who tries to escape the bullshit of Covid19 in his job…

TheThinker
TheThinker
Apr 15, 2020 9:48 PM
Reply to  Willem

Feel your pain, although not in your field Of expertise. We are all surrounded with people of the same divisive opinions, seeded by this current narrative & situation. People are being berated, ney fined for sitting (alone) for a bit of quiet reflection on the beaches and some are starting to emerge to ask the simple question – whats wrong with that?! I think the silent majority are starting to push back and question where they feel able. And that is pause for hope. Best wishes.

John ErvIn
John ErvIn
Apr 15, 2020 8:04 PM

Behind the science and beyond the contaminations of tests, there is a theme here, that reminds us of similar problems, in what was its forensic microcosm, in the flight, and plight, of the JFK Magic Bullet…

…. and all that “science” ~ especially but not limited to the Warren Commission Report, volume upon door-stopping volume, without a micron of real science to it, really, or worthy of the name, in the end.

That Magic Bullet, alas, is still in flight, of sorts, since the family of Texas Governor John Connally, who was also shot, refused to grant the wish of Cyril Wecht, a coroner, permission to exhume Connally’s body and remove bullet fragments from his wrist, thus settling once and for all the question of that Magic Bullet, and whether or not it really IS magic, or just seems that way. Since we can’t prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that it’s not still actually whizzing. Given its extraorinary properties, it could be. I mean, stranger things have happened.

Like this Magic Virus, the one thing I have seen in a long life that is comparable in irreducible inscrutability, to its forensic 1st cousin, the Magic Bullet.

A Virus that is so multi-faceted, counter-intuitive, self-contradictory and refractory, that it may be a lot like those pathetic but quite powerful Killer Tomatoes that Ate New York: a truly ridiculous B movie horror show of a Magic Virus that devoured the Big Apple, and gorging on that success, kept on going on and on, maybe for decades, until it devoured all of humanity.

But stranger things than that have NOT happened.

So I guess we need to stay tuned.

May Hem
May Hem
Apr 16, 2020 5:50 AM
Reply to  John ErvIn

Yes, we do, because the “virus” will suddenly reappear when they have the vaccination, the 5G satellites, the army and the tracking systems in place. Stay tuned for phase 2, coming soon.

George Mc
George Mc
Apr 15, 2020 7:42 PM

For the sake of my mental health, I avoid mainstream TV but I occasionally catch a bit. And from what I picked up recently, it seems to me that the tone has altered from spooky spooky to weepy waily i.e. we’ve gone from fear porn to grief porn. Well the British public have been groomed for this for decades with the soap stuff. But it also recalls wartime propaganda, only this time the enemy isn’t the Bosh or the Commies but the virus.

Shaking My Head
Shaking My Head
Apr 15, 2020 8:10 PM
Reply to  George Mc

Macron literally called it the invisible enemy.

Shaking My Head
Shaking My Head
Apr 15, 2020 7:29 PM

Does vocal support for the lockdown and corporate narrative correlate with how medicalized someone is? I think it’d be difficult to question the motives of an industry when one has become dependent on it for everyday functioning. Or does support correlate with general anxiety? Those are my two guesses that would explain people’s support. Wondering what others think.

Shaking My Head
Shaking My Head
Apr 15, 2020 7:56 PM

I think financial status would be another big correlate. Hard to imagine being in fully support of the lockdown when you will have no money to buy food. There is some emergency fund but I don’t see how that’s going to provide any real security .

milosevic
milosevic
Apr 15, 2020 8:00 PM

how about basic stupidity?

Richard Le Sarc
Richard Le Sarc
Apr 16, 2020 9:58 AM
Reply to  milosevic

I bows before applied stupidity.

Richard Le Sarc
Richard Le Sarc
Apr 16, 2020 9:58 AM

It bows…

clickkid
clickkid
Apr 15, 2020 8:06 PM

I think you are on the right track with those two factors. I would add:

Tendency to authoritarianism -> obvious

Lack of life purpose -> suddenly life has meaning

Lack of friends or connection to others -> less to lose from social distancing, now others
can’t enjoy themselves either.

Shaking My Head
Shaking My Head
Apr 15, 2020 8:12 PM
Reply to  clickkid

Yes those 3 definitely as well. I think the 2nd and 3rd one in particular. Now one can be a little hero with greater significance in life by policing others.

Shaking My Head
Shaking My Head
Apr 15, 2020 8:23 PM

For example, this person wishing people sunbathing would be pepper sprayed: https://twitter.com/Tommy36200749/status/1246819757506080769

Arsebiscuits
Arsebiscuits
Apr 15, 2020 9:08 PM

It amounts to all the SJWs on SSRIs

Hailey Kirksey
Hailey Kirksey
Apr 15, 2020 6:57 PM

another weird aspect of CDC test is examined by jon rappoport on blog https://blog.nomorefakenews.com/2020/04/08/corona-creating-illusion-of-pandemic-through-diagnostic-test/

where CDC testing instructions say,
“Positive results are indicative of the presence of SARS-CoV-2 RNA; clinical correlation with patient history and other diagnostic information is necessary to determine patient infection status…THE AGENT DETECTED MAY NOT BE THE DEFINITE CAUSE OF DISEASE”(CAPS are Rappoport’s). “Laboratories within the United States and its territories are required to report all positive results to the appropriate public health authorities.”

jim
jim
Apr 15, 2020 6:53 PM

Must read on this topic: Flaws in Coronavirus Pandemic Theory:

https://theinfectiousmyth.com/book/CoronavirusPanic.pdf

Podcast by the author on the topic with professor Stephen Bustin who is a world expert on the technology:

The Infectious Myth – Stephen Bustin on Challenges with RT-PCR

(Highly technical, rather intended for experts I would say.)

ted
ted
Apr 15, 2020 8:15 PM
Reply to  jim

Thanks Jim, I listened to the infectious myth podcast and it was excellent. My take away is… whoo boy, this test is an unbelievably sensitive and complicated process with results absolutely dependent on the specific lab, protocols, and I suspect lab tech’s who run the tests. Now add to that the government demanding “moar testing” and you have right there the entirety of this “pandemic”. As an example, New York apparently produces something like 20k to 25k tests A DAY. (source: covidtracking.com). That is industrial scale, no way these tests are being done with the kind of care the expert in this podcast suggests they need. Of those tests, new york claims 40% positives. Again, that is a highly dubious rate.

Once the “test” gives you a “positive” then it is easy to (1) generate public belief and panic about the omnipresence of the virus and (2) categorize all deaths as covid19 deaths, with or without the bogus test, and (3) generate enough public panic that a spike in deaths from all other causes occurs among vulnerable individuals through a nocebo phenomenon.

That would explain why this virus seems to only target metro new york and has not spread to counties beyond the metro region (as any real virus would).

ted
ted
Apr 15, 2020 8:20 PM
Reply to  ted

I should say that the virus has not spread at anything like the levels reported for metro new york. Of course there are many positive tests reported for other counties in the region, just at a much lower level than NYC area. For a visual of what I am talking about see the map here
https://covid19tracker.health.ny.gov/views/NYS-COVID19-Tracker/NYSDOHCOVID-19Tracker-Map?%3Aembed=yes&%3Atoolbar=no&%3Atabs=n&%3Amobile=true

Grafter
Grafter
Apr 15, 2020 6:42 PM

“If a test is not sensitive enough, the analyte of interest will not be found when it is there, giving a false negative. If a test is not specific enough, something else in the test sample will be identified as being the target analyte when it is not, giving a false positive.”

The above small example from this article is one of the reasons that this virus is spreading fear and panic worldwide. The masses will never understand this high level of analysis. All of this has been dumbed down for their consumption by a corrupt MSM which is owned and controlled by the 1% who drive an agenda of fear based on fraudulent statistics. How we respond to this is important but going on the evidence so far it looks more than likely they will achieve their goal. Ignorance in the population guarantees this.

bob
bob
Apr 15, 2020 6:21 PM

Keep up the good work OffGuardian – I’m off for dinner now and then going to watch Series 6 of Schitt’s Creek cos I reckon that’s where we are up to!! Have fun :0)

Moneycircus
Moneycircus
Apr 15, 2020 6:16 PM

The long and the short of the article is that the CDC clearly has an agenda. “The question remains,” as the telly talking heads like to say, what is the CDC’s agenda.

jim
jim
Apr 15, 2020 6:57 PM
Reply to  Moneycircus

Ask the UN or the WHO. Or the rich minority which rules the world and want a new world order.

bob
bob
Apr 15, 2020 6:11 PM
Hailey Kirksey
Hailey Kirksey
Apr 15, 2020 7:06 PM
Reply to  bob

thanks for the link, I am always looking for new sources of good information

elsewhere
elsewhere
Apr 15, 2020 6:07 PM

You write: “To avoid false positives, “every positive test has been confirmed with whole genome sequencing, viral culture, or electron microscopy.”

This cannot be true: the virus has not been isolated and purified (Koch’s gold standard). Given the crisis, that would have taken too long, they’ll say. All they have is a piece of RNA from the lungs of a Chinese which resembles known coronaviruses. 15% of all humans carry coronavirus without any symptoms…

A video was posted here by a doctor who said that the symptoms of dying patients are not pneumonia symptoms… I begin to suspect that our doctors don’t even begin to know what the hell is going on – just like with AIDS – and that they blame some retrovirus, in order to save face, and in the hope of getting the Nobel Prize…

Hailey Kirksey
Hailey Kirksey
Apr 15, 2020 7:00 PM
Reply to  elsewhere

the latest episode of the highwire discusses the issue of covid19 resembling NOT pneumonia or acute respiratory disease but something more akin to malaria, like a blood disease

elsewhere
elsewhere
Apr 15, 2020 8:05 PM
Reply to  Hailey Kirksey

Great video! Proves what a sick zombified world we are living in!!

Philbert Desanex
Philbert Desanex
Apr 15, 2020 10:32 PM
Reply to  elsewhere

Another mystery presents itself. I’ve worked as an electron microscopist for nearly 30 years doing biological research. Many articles mention this virus has been ‘verified by electron microscopy’, but this is an imprecise way of reporting it. With conventional transmission electron microscopy (TEM), there are 2 main ways virions can be observed in the TEM:

The first is called negative staining. It involves purifying or partially purifying a virus which was obtained from a host organism or culture, and perhaps concentrating the isolated material to improve imaging conditions. A drop of the isolate is dried onto a TEM support grid (analogous to a glass slide for a compound light microscope) and a heavy metal stain is added which outlines and contrasts the background around the virus particles. This type of prep is seen in the popularized images displayed by the media, sometimes with false color added. By every indication this is what is being referred to when the virus has been ‘verified by electron microscopy.’

The second way a virus can be observed in the TEM is called thin-section analysis. This involves preparing a piece of the host organism’s infected tissue and cutting thin sections from it. The sections are then analyzed for virus particles ‘in situ’—that is, associated with the sub-cellular material and structures within the host.

To date I have seen no images or case-data using thin-section analysis to show the presence of this virus within cells of lung tissue. At the very least this should have been done multiple times post-mortem, but obtaining a biopsy from living patients would also be a relatively simple matter. The preparation of tissue for thin-sectioning requires several steps but hospitals with clinical labs and specialized equipment (for example those providing renal or hepatic care) can prepare multiple TEM samples per day in this manner. This would be a more definitive method for demonstrating the pathology being claimed, and I’m not sure why this hasn’t been done (to my knowledge) or called for.

Moneycircus
Moneycircus
Apr 15, 2020 5:59 PM

But why do the masses want so desperately to believe in the VIRUS? Is this the result of 20 years of programming in victim culture? If, as I believe, the pandemic is a panic-demic, we are seeing Munchausen syndrome by proxy on a national and international scale.

JudyJ
JudyJ
Apr 15, 2020 6:31 PM
Reply to  Moneycircus

But why do the masses want so desperately to believe in the virus?

This is what I struggle to get my head round and I recall OffG twitter saying the same. When I have tried to discuss the reality and context with people who believe in the supposed threat of the virus, in an attempt to be reassuring I begin by saying that the evidence doesn’t support the bleakness of what we are told. But this has been met with nothing but scorn and vitriol. Not even an attempt to listen to the evidence. Why? I can only deduce that these people would rather see hundreds of thousands of people dying than consider that they may have been naive and gullible. These same people would claim to be compassionate but paradoxically they prove that they are anything but by refusing to listen to what I have to say. For one thing they are completely oblivious to the wider and long-term consequences of the lockdown on the economy and societies worldwide for decades to come which will far outweigh any perceived benefits of the containment measures in terms of lives destroyed, quality of life diminished, destruction of liberty and freedom of speech, and consequential deaths.

But as we all know, when the lock down measures are loosened these same people will still maintain that they made a worthwhile difference and will probably welcome the first opportunity to impose them again.

Hailey Kirksey
Hailey Kirksey
Apr 15, 2020 7:01 PM
Reply to  JudyJ

@JudyJ you have articulated my exact thoughts on the matter.

Jane
Jane
Apr 15, 2020 7:57 PM
Reply to  JudyJ

I no longer try to point anything out to people. I have come to the conclusion that a lot of them rather like the lockdown. You can put all your worries off till it is lifted.

Hailey Kirksey
Hailey Kirksey
Apr 15, 2020 8:18 PM
Reply to  Jane

@Jane
that is so true…

Tom
Tom
Apr 16, 2020 5:29 AM
Reply to  JudyJ

My reply to you JudyJ and to Jane below:

Yes these people are actually selfish and I think they do actually like the lockdown. I would suppose if one has what one deems a secure and cushy employment, with the possibility of them being as effective working from home as in the office, then there is no reason for them to care what happens to other people economically.

“People can lose their businesses, other people with less secure jobs can lose their jobs or be forced to take a pay cut, but that’s got nothing to do with me. I’m safe from the virus, being locked up inside. What do you expect the government to do? Not everything is a conspiracy! People who show me all these super educated, statistical facts, are know-it-all’s!”

And yes, I am quoting someone almost verbatim.

jim
jim
Apr 15, 2020 6:55 PM
Reply to  Moneycircus

I dunno, why are they paying shills to spread misinformation on social media?

George Mc
George Mc
Apr 15, 2020 7:55 PM
Reply to  Moneycircus

But why do the masses want so desperately to believe in the VIRUS?

There’s a number of factors:

First, there is a tendency to embellish things for the worst. Andrew Loog Oldham realised that when he managed The Rolling Stones. Give the public a little hint and they will be eager to turn it into the worst. Bill Wyman with notoriously weak bladder has to duck behind a bush at a petrol station. This gets magnified to: “He peeped on the petrol pump” which becomes “They all peed at the pump” to “They all peed on a pump attendant”.

Second, the childlike trust the public have in the MSM. I mean: Look – it’s the BBC! This is not your little tin foil sideshow, here!

Third, the Witch Hunt factor. Once everyone appears to believe something, nobody dares to go against it. This is magnified by the emotive element. Endless films of people dying and family crying. Who could be such a monster as to say this is all being deliberately used to provoke hysteria?

George Mc
George Mc
Apr 15, 2020 8:03 PM
Reply to  George Mc

There is also a fourth aspect: that acceptance of the coronavirus narrative is seen as an anti-government position. After all, Trump and Boris didn’t want to lock down. So the virus story gives everyone that thrill of being opposed to the powers that be.

Hailey Kirksey
Hailey Kirksey
Apr 15, 2020 8:20 PM
Reply to  George Mc

such a neat point…the media was raging against trump wanting to “open up by Easter” (I am an american)

Hailey Kirksey
Hailey Kirksey
Apr 15, 2020 8:21 PM
Reply to  George Mc

this is so true…

Arsebiscuits
Arsebiscuits
Apr 15, 2020 9:12 PM
Reply to  Moneycircus

Just searched that Munchausen syndrome by proxy and what a brilliant comparison on what’s going on… Gaslighted on a global scale.

T Brites
T Brites
Apr 15, 2020 5:55 PM

It’s like a re-run of “‘HIV” is the cause of AIDS”, but in this new version the slogan is “SARS-CoV-2 is the cause of DEATH”.

The main problem with this type of test starts at an early phase…

How many sick people was used to extract samples and how many NOT sick people was used for the same?
The samples collected where BLIND given to how many different technicians for RT-qPCR testing?
What were the results?
Did they repeat the test with a new set of technicians?
What were the results?

I’ve not read until today a study publishing this information.

bob
bob
Apr 15, 2020 5:36 PM

At this stage of the hoax testing seems to be irrelevant. Testing, using proper, verifiable tests (of which there are NONE), would have been useful across a spectrum of age groups and areas to determine the efficacy of the virus – and could be used now by governments to increase the imprisonment of the population further – but the time is coming for RESISTANCE to what is happening not further delay for spurious reasons

bob
bob
Apr 15, 2020 5:39 PM
Reply to  bob

I say this in the light of the North of Ireland deciding to increase the ‘lockdown’ for 3 more weeks – and the UK is sure to follow at tomorrow’s update despite Spain, Italy and Austria (I think) opening things up – the UK has to prove it’s real by endangering the population further – as companies announce closure and going into administration

Mike Ellwood
Mike Ellwood
Apr 15, 2020 5:51 PM
Reply to  bob
Seamus Padraig
Seamus Padraig
Apr 15, 2020 5:26 PM

SWEDEN UPDATE: After dropping late last week, deaths spiked over the long, holiday weekend, leading to calls from the usual suspects to put Sweden under lockdown. But Anders Tegnell appears to be hanging tough, having already warned his country that they would have to accept a slightly higher death toll upfront in order to prevent more deaths at the back end:

Nevertheless, Tegnell, the chief epidemiologist, insists that Sweden’s approach still seems to make sense, though he also acknowledges that the world is in uncharted territory with the virus.

He argued that while Sweden might have more infections in the short term, it will not face the risk of a huge infection spike that Denmark might face once its lockdown is lifted.

‘I think both Norway and Denmark are now very concerned about how you stop this complete lockdown in a way so you don’t cause this wave to come immediately when you start loosening up,’ he said.

jim
jim
Apr 15, 2020 7:00 PM
Reply to  Seamus Padraig

Graphs of pandemics go smoothly up and then they go smoothly down. Any big spikes in the graph are impossible. If they appear then they are the result of changes in testing or how the stats are recorded etc. All the spikes we are seeing from all over the place go to show that the stats are bogus, basically.

MLS
MLS
Apr 15, 2020 7:20 PM
Reply to  Seamus Padraig

This is more psyop, if Sweden really wanted to give the lie to the phoney pandemic then they would stop using the inaccurate tests and stop diagnosing everyone with pneumonia as a covid19 case.

The fact it’s following WHO protocols that inevitably inflate the number of false positives and fatality rates suggest it is being set up to fail and to reinforce the ‘necessity’ of lockdown.

clickkid
clickkid
Apr 15, 2020 7:55 PM
Reply to  Seamus Padraig

“After dropping late last week, deaths spiked over the long, holiday weekend, leading to calls from the usual suspects to put Sweden under lockdown”

Not true!

The increases in deaths in Sweden the last 4 days were:

5.1%

4.1%

2.7%

2.0%

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in_Sweden

ame
ame
Apr 15, 2020 5:19 PM

Quote To understand the concept of a false positive one should realize that analytical test methods need to be balanced with respect to quality considerations like sensitivity and specificity.

If a test is not sensitive enough, the analyte of interest will not be found when it is there, giving a false negative. If a test is not specific enough, something else in the test sample will be identified as being the target analyte when it is not, giving a false positive. Unquote

the best bit test kits in the UK were also found to be “contaminated with COVID-19.”

Who yes WHO $ remembers AIDS HIV inc? Same horse different jockey

HIV POSITIVE ? DEPENDS ON WHERE YOU LIVE… THE HIV WESTERN BLOT TEST

The HIV Western blot consists of a thin nitrocellulose strip in which are embedded proteins claimed to be unique to HIV. Each protein is labelled with a ‘p’ followed by its molecular weight in thousands. Serum is added to the strip and if there are antibodies to a particular protein this band will ‘light up’.

The HIV Western blot is not standardised and thus around the world different combinations of bands are considered positive. Hence a positive test in one country is not positive in another. An African would not be positive in Australia. A person from the MACS would not be positive anywhere in the world including Africa. Yet the HIV Western blot is considered to be highly specific and is considered synonymous with HIV infection.

According to data presented in Lundberg et al. (JAMA 260:674-679) when the US FDA criteria are used to interpret the HIV Western blot less than 50% of US AIDS patients are HIV positive whereas 10% of persons not at risk of AIDS are also positive by the same criteria.

In essence live in gay area or say you shagged a black person or had unprotected sex cha ching for big pharma and local authorities get very good money per diagnoses (sound familiar) CV

happy films to watch whilst in quarantine on YT if it still up The Greatest Medical Fraud in History – The Pain, Profit and Politics of AIDS

another one Cold Case Hammarskjöld

milosevic
milosevic
Apr 15, 2020 8:05 PM
Reply to  ame

Paul Vonharnish
Paul Vonharnish
Apr 15, 2020 5:15 PM

Yup. Everyone getting suckered into focusing the corona death-scam > whilst ignoring obvious evidences of total environmental collapse. Not the “global warming” meme, but the complete and total collapse of all Natural ecosystems.

The vain pursuit of global capitalism has led to massive over exploitation of resources in virtually every country and Nation on the planet. Even with the bloated employment of military forces, there is no way out of our resource depletion predicament. Declining mass production and collapsing economies have been known quantities to the New World Order for decades… Here’s why: >

“About 360,000 babies are born each day according to the UN. That’s more than 130 million a year.”

How Many Babies are Born a Day? – TheWorldCounts
https://www.theworldcounts.com/challenges/toxic-exposures/polluted-bodies/how-many-babies-are-born-a-day

Compare to number of deaths per day from corona virus… It’s not even a good bet…

Richard Le Sarc
Richard Le Sarc
Apr 16, 2020 1:22 AM

Why do you pick out ‘global warming’ to deny from what you correctly identify as ‘..the complete and total collapse of all Natural ecosystems’. The two are linked in synergy.

Paul Vonharnish
Paul Vonharnish
Apr 16, 2020 5:27 AM

Hello Richard Le Sarc: The global warming meme has been so over worked from so many angles, it’s become a very dull blade. A more descriptive description would be catastrophic planet-wide incineration. I agree there is linked synergy…
I can only assume negative votes come from persons who believe man should continue exploiting natural resources until every living thing becomes very dead…

Richard Le Sarc
Richard Le Sarc
Apr 16, 2020 10:03 AM

It’s a matter of nomenclature, is it. I do like, if that’s the proper word, ‘..catastrophic planet-wide incineration’. Having narrowly escaped ‘incineration’ twice in the last five years, and often driving past numerous neighbours who did not escape, I feel that it will be ‘..the fire next time’, just as God promised Noah.

beer
beer
Apr 15, 2020 4:57 PM

The Chinese found that a CT scan of the lungs was much more reliable as a test for Covid-19 than the RT-PCR test they had been using. Faster and probably cheaper too.

Mike Ellwood
Mike Ellwood
Apr 15, 2020 5:54 PM
Reply to  beer

Well, reliable as a test for something. No guarantee it’s a test for “Covid-19”.

T Brites
T Brites
Apr 15, 2020 6:01 PM
Reply to  beer

A CT scan is good to ONLY confirm lung lesions, without other tests, nothing else can be extracted from a CT!

Dungroanin
Dungroanin
Apr 15, 2020 4:55 PM

Excellent take down of the dodgy CDC which seems to be set on making sure the tests are ineffective.

They also refuse to cooperate with the WHO about the epidemic in the US and identifying their patient zero. Or provide full genomes to world researchers. Who are never the less collecting thousands of genomes from all geographical clusters. So it only delays the research.

Anyway what of the various antibody tests?

And other blood tests which are being developed?

Ultimately the false positives AND false negatives only impact on the CURRENT infections and not the final outcome.

One thing that does show actual data is the mumber of deaths across the world. You can’t make up dead people (…that is not an invitation to the Petras of the boards).

These deaths can be compared to the seasonal monthly and weekly time frame historical averages and ranges – if there are EXCESS deaths beyond these parameters- it shows that the new disease must be the cause.

That is now indisputable.

(Again the conspiracy theorists can do one).

But yes lets have a definitive test – especially one which is transparent and independent and widespread and fast, that will tell us who has already had what strains of viruses and are therefore safe to interact with everyone else. It is not rocket science. The political decision makers of the CDC and governments can equally ‘do one’ as independent labs and manufacturers will happily fill the vacuum once a definitive blueprint is agreed by actual science.

bob
bob
Apr 15, 2020 5:30 PM
Reply to  Dungroanin

the CDC is a vaccine agency – no more no less

jay
jay
Apr 15, 2020 5:50 PM
Reply to  bob

And it owns vaccine patents.

Dungroanin
Dungroanin
Apr 15, 2020 9:48 PM
Reply to  jay

There are other vaccines inventors in the world

Dungroanin
Dungroanin
Apr 15, 2020 9:47 PM
Reply to  bob

There are other cdc’s in the world

Mike Ellwood
Mike Ellwood
Apr 15, 2020 6:00 PM
Reply to  Dungroanin

If you can’t prove that the “virus” causes the disease(s), or even if it really exists, then I think you would a job proving that the antibody tests prove anything.

This has been posted before, but is for anyone who hasn’t seen it:

(Andrew Kaufman)

Moneycircus
Moneycircus
Apr 15, 2020 6:30 PM
Reply to  Mike Ellwood

It’s Andrew Kaufman’s insight that “the David” quoted, which got him banned.

Dungroanin
Dungroanin
Apr 15, 2020 9:51 PM
Reply to  Mike Ellwood

Do you believe viruses exist?

Do you believe they cause disease?

How is that proved?

Would the same proof help you believe SARS-CoV-2 is a virus?

Joerg
Joerg
Apr 15, 2020 4:52 PM

The WHO is cheating by switching between two denominators “all infections” and “confirmed cases” Here a graph that shows the distinct difference:
comment image

And here the Video:: “TRUTH: Seasonal FLU TWICE as Deadly as Coronavirus?”https://youtu.be/ohO8eAwi_po .

Willem
Willem
Apr 15, 2020 5:17 PM
Reply to  noseBag

‘ However, there are are now significant increases showing in Belgium, France, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland and England.’

But not in Sweden (which is not locked down, while there is still Covid19) as far as I know.
Which would proof that the lockdown causes the excess mortality and not the virus

Richard Le Sarc
Richard Le Sarc
Apr 16, 2020 1:24 AM
Reply to  Willem

Not ‘would’ prove, but ‘could’ prove.

T Brites
T Brites
Apr 15, 2020 6:08 PM
Reply to  noseBag

However, there are are now significant increases showing

Natural when almost ALL deaths are being labeled as COVID-19.

Small example of a news report:

“Spanish football coach Francisco Garcia has passed away at the age of 21 after contracting coronavirus”

… later in the article…

“Upon his arrival at the facility, Garcia was found to be suffering from a form of leukaemia…”

And yet it’s labelled a COVID-19!

Gary Weglarz
Gary Weglarz
Apr 15, 2020 8:53 PM
Reply to  T Brites

Pretty soon any suicide or domestic violence death will simply be lumped into the ever handy “another COVID-19 death” box – I can see the logic now – “hey, if we didn’t have to lockdown “because” of corona, those people would still be alive today” – thus they are “corona-deaths.”

T Brites
T Brites
Apr 15, 2020 9:12 PM
Reply to  Gary Weglarz

That and also if they perform a postmortem test, and it turns positive, you bet, another COVID-19 death!

jim
jim
Apr 15, 2020 7:04 PM
Reply to  noseBag

This has already been explained ad nauseam in previous articles and comments.

T Brites
T Brites
Apr 15, 2020 9:16 PM
Reply to  jim

In this day and age GOOD and USEFUL INFORMATION is NEVER TOO MUCH!

And REPETITION is required because we have BILLIONS of ignorant people wearing masks and gloves, locking themselves in their cells… due to a flu!

MLS
MLS
Apr 15, 2020 7:30 PM
Reply to  noseBag

Of course there are increases. They have made it virtually impossible for anyone to die without being diagnosed as covid19. Why do people keep ignoring the corrupt way the cases are diagnosed when talking about numbers? The numbers are meaningless so stop assigning meaning to them.

Louis N. Proyect
Louis N. Proyect
Apr 15, 2020 4:19 PM

“Concerns about the virus SARS-COV-2 that causes the disease called COVID-19 have centered around reported mortality rates.”

That’s a recurring theme here. But it rather coldly ignores the costs of a two or three-week ordeal that leaves the sick person alive but permanently scarred, both physically and psychologically. The experience might be compared to being tortured in Abu Ghraib. I have had the flu 3 times in my life but nothing came close to the suffering this 32-year old doctor in perfect health endured. I think if any of you went through such an ordeal, you wouldn’t be so cavalier about COVID-19 being a bad cold, the flu, etc.

===

he evening of Saturday, March 7, Cai was afraid to go to sleep. He was barely able to talk without collapsing into coughing fits. Earlier that day, he started receiving oxygen from a tank through a nasal cannula, a flexible tube that sits just inside the nostrils. But as he monitored his oxygen levels from his bed, he could see they were dropping. Even with the extra oxygen, his saturation level was as low as 88 while lying down, suggesting his lung functioning was weakening. He started to worry about acute respiratory distress syndrome. From there, he knew intubation could follow, a procedure that involves putting a tube down a patient’s throat and connecting the lungs to a ventilator. Cai knew that the I.C.U., where the ventilators were kept, was on a different floor; if he started to crash — if his vitals indicated that his organs were in imminent danger of starting to shut down — how were doctors going to intubate him and transport him to the ventilator in time to save his life? He’d seen patients die from respiratory failure in less than 10 minutes.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/05/magazine/first-coronavirus-patient-new-jersey.html

clickkid
clickkid
Apr 15, 2020 4:35 PM

“But it rather coldly ignores the costs of a two or three-week ordeal that leaves the sick person alive but permanently scarred, both physically and psychologically. ”

What, you mean like Boris Johnson?

clickkid
clickkid
Apr 15, 2020 4:44 PM

In any case. the police state measures – going by the oficial narrative – can only slow the progress of the virus through the population- you know flatten the curve.

Knut Wiitkowski makes a good argument for the case that ultimately more people may die, because the failure to build herd immunity in the first wave leads to more fatalities in the second wave than would otherwise be the case.

In addition, the willful economic damage being self-inflicted by the various countries, not only reduces the available resources to fight such a second wave, but also obviously increases the number of future deaths from other reasons.

I noted earlier that in my city breast and bowel cancer Screenings are currently not being performed. For many this will be the difference between life and death.

George Mc
George Mc
Apr 15, 2020 4:57 PM

No-one is denying that people are dying, Louis. The relevant questions are: How prevalent is this virus? What exactly is it? What do the statistics say? Do the statistics justify the extraordinary response? etc. None of these can be answered by “Look at this terrible death here!”

Seamus Padraig
Seamus Padraig
Apr 15, 2020 5:36 PM
Reply to  George Mc

It’s really no use arguing with someone whose favorite source is the New York Times.

jay
jay
Apr 15, 2020 5:47 PM

AHHH, the old meme of the covid death being 10 times worse than any death….
An extra special, covid death…
So, a ‘flu death where the body’s own immune system attacks itself is just lovely and this generally occurs in those with stong systems…

MLS
MLS
Apr 15, 2020 7:31 PM

When the facts don’t work for you just resort to fact-free emotional manipulation eh Louis?

clickkid
clickkid
Apr 15, 2020 3:49 PM

Latest daily percentage increases in total deaths :

Germany – 9.6%

UK – 6.9 %

France – 5.0%

Italy – 2.9%

Spain – 1.8%

Belgium – 6.8%

Netherlands – 4.3%

Ireland – 4.0%

Norway – 1.7%

Denmark – 4.9%

Sweden – 2.0%

Source – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019%E2%80%9320_coronavirus_pandemic

All of these, with the exception of Sweden, have introduced the police state to various degrees and chosen ‘collective suicide’, in the words of epidemiology Professor Sucharit Bhakdi.

bob
bob
Apr 15, 2020 7:08 PM
Reply to  clickkid

Exactly – there is no effort whatsoever to analyse the impact of the inhumane lockdown – apparently, with no justification,it’s for our own good – this is complete shit – the figures are manipulated – fullstop – noiw, what’s next?

ted
ted
Apr 15, 2020 3:49 PM

This would go a long way to explain why this virus in the US anyway is such a naughty boy. Causing so much illness and death in New York City metro (but leaving the rest of the state that does not house the national news media largely unaffected). Or that it has yielded nearly twice as many cases per capita in Los Angeles county but has not been so rude in the surrounding counties. Why would a virus behave so differently in nearby locales? Hmmm … could it depend on who does the testing?

jack(jim)
jack(jim)
Apr 15, 2020 4:01 PM
Reply to  ted

Or the virus is being seeded.

jay
jay
Apr 15, 2020 5:52 PM
Reply to  jack(jim)

Sure, the hype is seeded.

Dungroanin
Dungroanin
Apr 15, 2020 5:03 PM
Reply to  ted

Per capita is a useless measure. Who is using it?

ted
ted
Apr 15, 2020 8:56 PM
Reply to  Dungroanin

Well, just about every epidemiologist in the world? Anytime you take the taw incidence of an illness in a population and divide by population you get a per capita measure. To make very small numbers look more impressive epidemiologists then multiply this by some larger number (say 1000, or 100,000, or (lately) 1 million). I mean if I say that 10,000 New Yorkers have died in association with covid19, that does sound scary. But there are 19.45 million New Yorkers. So for each New Yorker, only .000514 people have died, that sounds … less scary. So better inflate it by a million so it seems scarier again … for every million New Yorkers 514 people have died (much scarier). All based on a per capita, and used by everyone.

Can you pick out 514 people in a crowd of 1 million? I bet you cannot imagine a crowd of 1 million (10 very large football stadiums).

Dungroanin
Dungroanin
Apr 15, 2020 10:07 PM
Reply to  ted

Who is using it?

A simple question you did not answer.

– name one epidemiologist and link it.

————
One forest has 100 trees another has 1000.

A lightning strike sets a tree alight in both forests. They set 2 more trees alight they set 4 more trees alight – the total trees burning in each forest are 7. Is the smaller forest fire worse than the bigger bigger forests? Because the small forest per capita is 7/1oo and bigger is 7/1000?

Name me one epidemiologist who believes your logic makes sense.

David
David
Apr 15, 2020 5:27 PM
Reply to  ted

Or could be this …. people are more scared in NY

http://www.ptca.org/news/2020/0408_INCREASED_DEATHS_NYC.html