Discussion > Covid 19 stuff
http://joannenova.com.au/2020/04/those-who-control-the-medicines-control-the-world/
"Last year, China accounted for 95 percent of U.S. imports of ibuprofen, 91 percent of U.S. imports of hydrocortisone, 70 percent of U.S. imports of acetaminophen, 40 to 45 percent of U.S. imports of penicillin and 40 percent of U.S. imports of heparin, according to Commerce Department data. In all, 80 percent of the U.S. supply of antibiotics are made in China."
golf charlie
Mark
I deliberately didn't go to the lockdown discussion - in the absence of effective medication - quarantine is a given.
I am seeing simply loads of stuff about choloroquine that is simply monumentally irresponsible on many levels - all over the shop from many people who should really know better. I suspect that the best that can be hoped for is that it has some prophylactic effect which might taper over into suppressing early symptoms and giving those immune systems at risk a little elbow room with an establishing infection.
Prophylaxis is important - one of the first "rules" of First Aid is take care not to put yourself in danger when trying to assist someone else..... It's been taken to ludicrous extremes by over zealous managers who are rarely at the pointy end - but the principle is generally sound in my opinion.
Juan Brown at the blancolirio YouTube channel is occupying himself with providing a useful synopsis of the progress of the virus - mostly in the USA but some international coverage as befits his old day job.
I doubt I am the only person wondering what the bureaucrats at Public Health England are up to...
tomo
on Mar 12 in an address at Downing Street, the Government's Chief Scientific Adviser Sir Patrick Vallance explained video
#1 "Most people are unaware they've got it
they get a mild flu which clears up after 5 days"
#2 "For a certain amount of people there is a phase 2
with a much stronger reaction
we think this is due to an immune response
These people will need hospitalisation
..and that is why we seek to delay so we can prepare the NHS"
See Boris is in Phase 2
another video
https://www.twitter.com/BBCNews/status/1238151249054367744
stewgreen
"... some prophylactic effect which might taper over into suppressing early symptoms and giving those immune systems at risk a little elbow room with an establishing infection. "
Apr 6, 2020 at 10:27 PM tomo
Agreed, not the miracle drug, but one that can be added to the list of beneficial.
golf charlie
It's RT, so my initial reaction is to be very cautious, but it's germane to the discussion, so I post it for what it's worth:
"As a GP, I fear our Covid-19 lockdown will result in significantly more deaths than we are trying to prevent"
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/485110-covid-19-lockdown-deaths/
A thoughtful and interesting read IMO. Do I agree with it? Not sure. But, as so often, this is complex stuff.
Mark Hodgson
A thoughtful and interesting read IMO. Do I agree with it? Not sure. But, as so often, this is complex stuff.
Apr 7, 2020 at 9:03 AM Mark Hodgson
Agreed! I would add that it is very uncomfortable reading, but the sort of Cost v Benefit v Risk Analysis carried out constantly, by the Insurance Industry before any Policy is incepted. It doesn't matter whether it is a Pension Plan, Car Insurance for a 17 year old, Health Insurance for a cat
These guys have to be devoid of emotion to do their jobs
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actuary
NICE are continually making these decisions, and they hit the headlines when public sympathy is aroused over specific treatments and drugs.
The possibility that a modern drug (still under Licence) may be shown to be the wonder drug, will have Chinese pharmacists switched to mass replication, and no one will care about the Licence, though "someone" could be persuaded to make a one-off $bn compensation payment.
golf charlie
tomo, Chloroquine in combination with Zinc from an LA Medic?
https://abc7.com/coronavirus-drug-covid-19-malaria-hydroxychloroquine/6079864/
If a control group is required, those Democrats and Climate Scientists dedicated to opposing anything proposed by Trump could take part by not taking it at all.
golf charlie
Tomo I tweeted the new Week13 ONS deaths graph
.. that's to March 27th
Interesting 539 deaths booked as Covid
but 1,011 excess deaths overall
ie lockdown for that week caused more deaths than Covid
I expect that in the current week, Week 15, 5,000 will be Covid and then they'll still be 500 maybe 1,000 due to lockdown ..like delaying operations etc.
stewgreen
https://unherd.com/2020/04/how-far-away-are-immunity-passports/
"We need antibody testing. Everyone agrees with that — the question is how it can be done.
There are two main kinds of test for Covid-19: PCR tests which tell us who has the disease right now; and antibody or serological testing, which can tell us who’s had it in the past. The Government wants to build testing programmes that can give a reliable answer from a pinprick test in under 20 minutes.
I’ve been banging on about antibody testing in recent pieces. It’s vital for understanding how far the disease has spread throughout the population; without knowing that, we can’t know how deadly it is, or exactly how alarmed we should be.
*But other people have been making another point: that if someone has already had the disease, then — hypothetically, hopefully — they ought to be immune to getting it again. If they’re immune to getting it again, they can’t spread it, so they should be allowed back out into the world, to help get the economy started again. *"
golf charlie
Yesterday: “We have to rip away your job and lock you in your house because of this model.”
Today: “I mean, models are wrong a lot. It’s not an exact science. No big deal.”
and the assholes in the media continue to pull rubbish out of their collective backsides.....
tomo
stewgreen
I'm beyond cynical about the death statistics as I have seen simply monstrous distortions and conflations with respect to agendas that bureaucrats wish to push and "evidence". The Germans are particularly active in jerking that stats around to suit a political agenda ...
If the WHO were doing its job it would likely have a standards function whereby there was some effort at aligning the diverse methodologies used to report health stats - or at least grade them against an agreed set of criteria... not happening as far as I can see.
The Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine > "we have little trust in the current reported COVID data"
tomo
"If the WHO were doing its job..."
Apr 7, 2020 at 5:33 PM tomo
I am sure there are many excellent people in the WHO.
Unfortunately, none are in the top tier, as Political Loyalties override Medical Competence.
golf charlie
Blood plasma from recovered patients shows promise.
https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2020/04/02/2004168117
Phil Clarke
China reports 6 negative deaths today
fred
One for Snopes?
Where did NY's pandemic stockpile go?
The political shin kicking and nose twreaking continues.........
tomo
Things that are predictable
tomo
Given that the producers of the movie (and it is a movie) have close connections to Falun Gong I feel it should absolutely be viewed as a partisan piece - propaganda even ... and Chinese domestic politics spilling out internationally.
That said, there are a number of observations that are not part of the debates / discussion that are commonly happening at the moment that are I suspect relevant enough to be worth a wider audience.
Another take on the Origins of Covid-19
Was it an accidental release ? - like the leaky drains at Pirbright ? - or something more nuanced?
It isn't difficult to imagine some pretty grim consequences for getting it wrong...... unless you're an arms company etcetera WMDs and everything....
One really has to wonder what the utility of manipulating a bat coronavirus that can't infect humans to a coronavirus that *can* infect humans is? - that bit isn't made up ...
tomo
More from RT in similar vein to the last article I linked to. Do they have a point, or is this just mischief-making?
"Our lockdown was supposed to protect the most vulnerable, the elderly, from Covid-19 – but we’re achieving precisely the opposite"
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/485116-lockdown-uk-coronavirus-elderly/
Mark Hodgson
Apr 8, 2020 at 8:11 AM Mark Hodgson
It is happening, and Care Providers do have a point in trying to protect their finite supply of Carers and other resources. It is not the same as the Liverpool Pathway, and the NHS and Carers will need to be scrutinised in the Post Coronavirus era to ensure there is no stealthy return.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liverpool_Care_Pathway_for_the_Dying_Patient
I have close family Locked Down, effectively incommunicado, one with terminal cancer.
golf charlie
Mark
mischief making is in there - no doubt about it.
That said, the trajectory of the virus research at Wuhan and elsewhere and its direction by PLA nabobs, regime nepotists and propaganda czars is worrying.
I really fail to see where the manipulation of coronaviruses that is essentially bragged about by Chinese researchers has value / utility. The manipulation of protein coatings that enable species specific cell entry for the RNA payload could have been conducted at a safer genetic distance from humans - but it wasn''t.
The French state / virology top brass seem to have been bypassed by the ChiComs once the Chinese had the virus lab IP they gulled the French into providing..... a feature of doing business in China I have seen rather a lot over the last 20 years.
tomo
Apr 8, 2020 at 12:26 PM tomo
Liberté, égalité, fraternité. But no EU unité.
golf charlie
Is the secretly-cremated postgrad, aka Patient Zero, alive and well and working for a Pharma?
I have no idea, but the dates fit.
Phil Clarke
Is the secretly-cremated postgrad, aka Patient Zero, alive and well and working for a Pharma?
I have no idea, but the dates fit.
Apr 8, 2020 at 7:11 PM Phil Clarke
Phil Clarke, the problem seems to be that Climate Scientists bet their financial fortunes on Clown Zero and his uncremated Hockey Stick, stealing all the money from genuine scientists.
Politicians of the World have a simple choice to make.
golf charlie
WHO under fire from US, Trump and Australia
https://www.skynews.com.au/details/5e8d196323eec60017f0ee31
Trump is threatening to withdraw funding. Anxious wait for the UN's IPPC
golf charlie
https://theconversation.com/a-small-trial-finds-that-hydroxychloroquine-is-not-effective-for-treating-coronavirus-135484
Apr 6, 2020 at 2:49 PM Phil Clarke
If true, I think it is time for the World Wide Green Blob to pass a hat around between themselves, as no one else is going to cough up for their insanity project.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Agreement
"At the Paris Conference in 2015 where the Agreement was negotiated, the developed countries reaffirmed the commitment to mobilize $100 billion a year in climate finance by 2020, and agreed to continue mobilizing finance at the level of $100 billion a year until 2025.[45] The commitment refers to the pre-existing plan to provide US$100 billion a year in aid to developing countries for actions on climate change adaptation and mitigation.[46]"