Coronavirus outbreak - From China to the World.

[Ludicus]

The hospitalizations of people who tested positive is highly correlated with the total number of people who tested positive.

Obviously.
New COVID-19 variant growing rapidly in England | Imperial College London...

The new variant has a transmission advantage of 0.4 to 0.7 in reproduction number compared to the previously observed strain. And affecting a greater proportion of under 20s.

----

On a side note,

COVID-19 is not influenza - The Lancet Respiratory Medicine

The study by Piroth and colleagues has important messages for the upcoming COVID-19 vaccination. Clearly people with obesity, diabetes, and hypertension must be considered high-risk groups, but the results also show that children and adolescents must be offered immunisation, given that young people can also become severely ill. Even if health-care workers and people older than 65 years are prioritised for the first rounds of immunisations, children and adolescents should also be offered the vaccine when it becomes available.

Comparison of the characteristics, morbidity, and mortality of
Published: December 17, 2020
-----
Catherine Quantin,

The finding that the Covid-19 death rate was three times higher than for seasonal influenza is particularly striking when reminded that the 2018/2019 flu season had been the worst in the past five years in France in terms of number of deaths

----
Edit,
And now, here, non-urgent care/operations completely stopped. Prome-Minister annouces one month of total confinement. And,ordering private hospitals to take COVID patients,
Hospitals at limit: minister admits possibility of 'civil ...

health minister has today ‘admitted advancing with a civil requisition’, meaning the government would ‘take over private hospitals’ in order to treat the spiralling number of patients...with just compensation.

[Lord Thesaurian]

Anyone following the WHO China tour? Given WHO’s cozy relationship with Beijing and the fact Chinese authorities would have had more than enough time to tie up any loose ends and erase all traces of evidence by now, seems like the “investigation” is more of a PR mission to rubber stamp CCP narratives.

[conon394]

Anyone following the WHO China tour? Given WHO’s cozy relationship with Beijing and the fact Chinese authorities would have had more than enough time to tie up any loose ends and erase all traces of evidence by now, seems like the “investigation” is more of a PR mission to rubber stamp CCP narratives.

Obviously any UN agency has to blow in the wind, with US withdraw what do you expect. However given China's comparative massive under funding of the WHO its interesting to see them bend over backward for them. Including Daszak is a serious mistake he has a compromised interests in making sure the potential lab origin is not a thing. No I not paranoid, not a weapon or intentional, but just an accident (and they happen surprisingly often in level 3 and 4 labs) from a lab that was doing the necessary relevant research and seemingly was not well staffed in sufficient experts.

[Infidel144]

Sumskilz, have you seen this:
The Chinese Communist Party’s Global Lockdown Fraud
Request for expedited federal investigation into scientific fraud in COVID‑19 public health policies
https://ccpgloballockdownfraud.mediu...d-88e1a7286c2b

[sumskilz]

Sumskilz, have you seen this:
The Chinese Communist Party’s Global Lockdown Fraud
Request for expedited federal investigation into scientific fraud in COVID‑19 public health policies
https://ccpgloballockdownfraud.mediu...d-88e1a7286c2b

I hadn’t seen that. It’s hard to know what to believe coming out of China, but I’m reluctant to assume they have had any plan other than to cover up whatever might make them look bad. I think they wanted to look like the leaders in the fight against the disease rather than potentially liable due to mismanagement. For example, the early mechanical ventilation recommendation was clearly more destructive than helpful, but it could have just been based on preliminary data that hadn’t been properly studied. They may be taking advantage of the distraction in order to make some moves, but I think in general, the economies of all their best customers going to isn’t good for them.

[Infidel144]

Il Duce Cuomo speaks:
"Andrew Cuomo
@NYGovCuomo
·
Jan 11
We simply cannot stay closed until the vaccine hits critical mass. The cost is too high. We will have nothing left to open. We must reopen the economy, but we must do it smartly and safely."
https://twitter.com/nygovcuomo/statu...73192609591296

Hmmm... That sounds remarkably familiar, almost as though I have heard something like that before...

The comments are amusing, from the mocking (for obvious reasons) to the hysterical 'but we'll all die!!!' and the 'no don't reopen just take the rich peoples' money and give it to us'.

[antaeus]

They may be taking advantage of the distraction in order to make some moves, but I think in general, the economies of all their best customers going to isn’t good for them.

Certainly, and that's my problem with the conspiracy theories.... Making hay by selling as many cheap masks as possible (metaphor for all of China's actions of the last year) in the present at the cost of the mask customers restructuring their economies in order to not have to buy so many masks from them in future, doesn't seem like a sustainable pathway for a country which gains the majority of it's legitimacy through the provision of improved wealth to it's citizens (not a metaphor - a literal goal of their current 15 year road map).

[swabian]

The most important thing is to suppress the exponential growth of the virus (which has two major mutations now, one from the UK and another one one from South Africa) so that it eventually "dies" out. (it cant really "die", because it is not even alive).

How is this going to be achieved? Very "simple": the rate by whitch the virus is propagating has to be kept under 1 per person.

As long as this cannot be accomplished, the virus will stay around in highly populated areas and it will also mutate and possibly render useless the vaccines that have been developed thus far.

Do we want this to happen? ---> No

Do we have to adapt? ----> Yes

Are there any more insecurities covered as questions that might kill people? No?

[conon394]

Well seems China's vaccine soft power might be looking bot so good - results from Brazil seem rather underwhelming.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/13/b...l-sinovac.html

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-55642648

[Infidel144]

One year anniversary-
WHO:
"Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel #coronavirus (2019-nCoV) identified in #Wuhan, #ChinaFlag of China."
https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1217043229427761152

[Sar1n]

Well seems China's vaccine soft power might be looking bot so good - results from Brazil seem rather underwhelming.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/13/b...l-sinovac.html

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-55642648

50% effectiveness, not great, not terrible.

That's exactly what's going on with it right now.

[PointOfViewGun]

Wall Street Journal recently published an article looking at excess deaths for 59 countries. They have found over 800 thousand more deaths compared to what has been reported. That's 40% more deaths to be added to the death toll.

The Covid-19 Death Toll Is Even Worse Than It Looks

The recorded death count from the Covid-19 pandemic as of Thursday is nearing 2 million. The true extent is far worse.

More than 2.8 million people have lost their lives due to the pandemic, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of data from 59 countries and jurisdictions. This tally offers the most comprehensive view yet of the pandemic’s global impact. Deaths in these places last year surged more than 12% above average levels.

Less than two-thirds of that surge has been attributed directly to Covid-19. Public-health experts believe that many, if not most, of the additional deaths were directly linked to the disease, particularly early in the pandemic when testing was sparse. Some of those excess deaths came from indirect fallout, from health-care disruptions, people avoiding the hospital and other issues.

To better understand the pandemic’s global toll, the Journal compiled the most recent available data on deaths from all causes from countries with available records. These countries together account for roughly one-quarter of the world’s population but about three-quarters of all reported deaths from Covid-19 through late last year.

The tally found more than 821,000 additional deaths that aren’t accounted for in governments’ official Covid-19 death counts.

While many argue that countries are over-counting deaths, the real toll is obviously much more than what is reported. Excess death calculation, which usually compares current death numbers with the average of death numbers from 2015 to 2019, provides a much clearer information on the death toll. People who argue that the toll from COVID19 is less than what we see needs to explain how these excess deaths occurred. Yes, not all these deaths are caused by COVID19 itself directly as a disease but they are caused by factors tied to COVID19's existence.

[conon394]

50% effectiveness, not great, not terrible.

That's exactly what's going on with it right now.

Still one might feel a little irritation at China's opaqueness on this. When others got a better deal on better product. The reported numbers are so all over the map I see a lot of but covering. Even the Brazilian conclusion on 50% is a bit suspect given how close the data is being held.

[Infidel144]

Il Duce Cuomo speaks:
"Andrew Cuomo
@NYGovCuomo
·
Jan 11
We simply cannot stay closed until the vaccine hits critical mass. The cost is too high. We will have nothing left to open. We must reopen the economy, but we must do it smartly and safely."
https://twitter.com/nygovcuomo/statu...73192609591296

Hmmm...

"COVID Lockdowns May Have No Clear Benefit vs Other Voluntary Measures, International Study ShowsBY NATALIE COLAROSSI ON 1/14/21 AT 11:41 AM EST"
https://www.newsweek.com/covid-lockd...-shows-1561656
Strange...

"Mayor Lori Lightfoot pushing for Chicago bars and restaurants to reopen for indoor dining ‘as quickly as possible’"
https://www.chicagotribune.com/coron...6mi-story.html
Astounding...

[Lord Thesaurian]

Yet another study coming to the same conclusions as earlier Covid and other virus studies, some of which I’ve cited here previously.

The most restrictive non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) for controlling the spread of COVID-19 are mandatory stay-at-home and business closures. Given the consequences of these policies, it is important to assess their effects. We evaluate the effects on epidemic case growth of more restrictive NPIs (mrNPIs), above and beyond those of less restrictive NPIs (lrNPIs)

Implementing any NPIs was associated with significant reductions in case growth in 9 out of 10 study countries, including South Korea and Sweden that implemented only lrNPIs (Spain had a non-significant effect). After subtracting the epidemic and lrNPI effects, we find no clear, significant beneficial effect of mrNPIs on case growth in any country. In France, e.g., the effect of mrNPIs was +7% (95CI -5%-19%) when compared with Sweden, and +13% (-12%-38%) when compared with South Korea (positive means pro-contagion). The 95% confidence intervals excluded 30% declines in all 16 comparisons and 15% declines in 11/16 comparisons.

In summary, we fail to find strong evidence supporting a role for more restrictive NPIs in the control of COVID in early 2020. We do not question the role of all public health interventions, or of coordinated communications about the epidemic, but we fail to find an additional benefit of stay-at-home orders and business closures. The data cannot fully exclude the possibility of some benefits. However, even if they exist, these benefits may not match the numerous harms of these aggressive measures. More targeted public health interventions that more effectively reduce transmissions may be important for future epidemic control without the harms of highly restrictive measures

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/...1111/eci.13484

[PointOfViewGun]

Any study that ignores New Zealand is a faulty study if it claims to analyze effect of lockdown measures. Any study that lumps up lockdown measures without accounting for numerous categories is a misleading one.

[antaeus]

Any study that ignores New Zealand is a faulty study if it claims to analyze effect of lockdown measures. Any study that lumps up lockdown measures without accounting for numerous categories is a misleading one.

Ironically, New Zealand isn't necessarily the best example to examine the effectiveness of lockdowns. They largely used lockdowns preventatively and never had more than a few dozen cases per day at their peak.

Victoria in Australia might be a better example, at the peak of their outbreak Victoria had more daily cases than the UK. It took 3 months of full lockdowns to largely eliminate the virus. Now within the borders of Victoria, other than large corporate offices still having half staff working from home, life is largely normal and there has been fewer than a dozen cases of Covid in 4 months. If the rest of the world had followed the same path at the same time, we'd be largely on top of it now.

Although, we've been having this debate in this thread for a year now. We just have to accept that sceptics will pop their heads up in this thread every 5 pages or so with some random survey or trial that gives them their eureka! moment proving their perspective is true.

[Lord Thesaurian]

As time goes on, and costs of lockdowns reverberate, the evidence continues to mount that these costs, medically and economically, outweigh the limited benefits. It would be bad enough as a costly lesson, but this has been known for years.

[antaeus]

As time goes on, and costs of lockdowns reverberate, the evidence continues to mount that these costs, medically and economically, outweigh the limited benefits. It would be bad enough as a costly lesson, but this has been known for years.

Yes. But this is mostly because in the majority of developed western countries the lockdowns have been half hearted, sporadic, inconsistent, slowly enacted, often repeated, and poorly communicated. This has been paired with a deliberate attempt by segments of the population to undermine lockdowns, or in some cases to deliberately create situations whereby a lockdown needs to be harsher to make a dent in infection numbers - be it protests, or mass migrations to beaches.

On the other hand, in countries where they have been decisively enacted early enough to make a dent, clearly communicated, and well managed, their ongoing need and the ongoing cost has been relatively mitigated, and certainly far less than the alternative.

[Lord Thesaurian]

Yes. But this is mostly because in the majority of developed western countries the lockdowns have been half hearted, sporadic, inconsistent, slowly enacted, often repeated, and poorly communicated. This has been paired with a deliberate attempt by segments of the population to undermine lockdowns, or in some cases to deliberately create situations whereby a lockdown needs to be harsher to make a dent in infection numbers - be it protests, or mass migrations to beaches.

On the other hand, in countries where they have been decisively enacted early enough to make a dent, clearly communicated, and well managed, their ongoing need and the ongoing cost has been relatively mitigated, and certainly far less than the alternative.

Some countries had a better experience with lockdowns than others. The evidence so far indicates the lack of relative effectiveness and disproportionate cost outweigh the benefits in every international sample I’ve seen.