Coronavirus outbreak - From China to the World.

[Pontifex Maximus]

How many covid outlier deaths have we counted so far? And I'm not sure which vaccine they're administering in Norway. All I know is I'll roll the dice until the guinea pig studies are more fleshed out.

[Cyclops]

Interesting... Although, did they die of Pfizer-BioNTech Covid vaccine or with Pfizer-BioNTech Covid vaccine?

We're watching with baited breath. This thing was rushed AF, no telling how many deaths will result.

Getting the fricking thing rolled out will be a nightmare with the cold-chain etc. and every death will have some cheerleading science denier orgasming all over their keyboard. To quote a former president, "its a mess".

[Aexodus]

Interesting... Although, did they die of Pfizer-BioNTech Covid vaccine or with Pfizer-BioNTech Covid vaccine?

You jest, but how many 'covid deaths' were just deaths with covid? How many 'covid patients' are being treated for a serious covid infection?

[antaeus]

You jest, but how many 'covid deaths' were just deaths with covid? How many 'covid patients' are being treated for a serious covid infection?

Speaking of which, where is Stario these days? He seems to have gone quiet and he was the poster with all the details on how people were dying with Covid rather than of Covid.

[Cyclops]

Speaking of which, where is Stario these days? He seems to have gone quiet and he was the poster with all the details on how people were dying with Covid rather than of Covid.

I hope he's safe and well. The fricking idiots on line trying to make this thing sound "iTs JuSt A fLu" and "only 1%" have wasted so much time and energy. I'm just ignoring the posts with this sort of brain dead content, as the site rules suggest "don't feed the trolls".

[Morticia Iunia Bruti]

This "flu" has killed the dad of a sandpit friend a few days ago. His name was Dieter. People who talking about "My Freedom is in danger. Facistic government force me to wear communistic masks." should be forced to work in the mortuaries or crematories to get a feeling about what that "flu" is.

They need even refrigerated containers in some regions of the world, as they can't handle the deads.

[sumskilz]

We're watching with baited breath. This thing was rushed AF, no telling how many deaths will result.

Getting the fricking thing rolled out will be a nightmare with the cold-chain etc. and every death will have some cheerleading science denier orgasming all over their keyboard. To quote a former president, "its a mess".

I'm sure some more contraindications will come to light. If someone is already in bad shape health wise, it's more likely that a negative reaction to the vaccine will be serious, but those same people are also at a much higher risk from covid. So regardless of those cases in Norway, if someone is 75+ or otherwise in a high risk group, I think their odds are still much better with the vaccine than without.

Theoretically, long term negative effects are unlikely from an mRNA vaccine, but they're new so who knows for certain. I'm not waiting for ten years to find out if some people develop autoimmune conditions, so I'm off to get my first shot later today. I figure it's less risky than excavating in a war zone, but if I die from it, I'll let you guys know.

You jest, but how many 'covid deaths' were just deaths with covid? How many 'covid patients' are being treated for a serious covid infection?

The distinction between death with covid and death from covid is a big gray area. The disease attacks multiple organ systems, and does so more efficiently if your health is already compromised, so if you have a particular organ system that is already fairly stressed from some preexisting condition, it will most likely be the first system to fail. So whether covid was the cause of death by having been the final straw or whether covid just sped up death from an illness that was already taking its toll is a somewhat arbitrary judgement from a scientific perspective.

Obviously the issue is politically charged because of disagreements about whether or not covid is dangerous enough to justify enforced restrictions, and if so which ones, and where is the limit. I think this is one among many cases in which science isn't nearly as amenable to resolving the issue as people would like it to be.

[swabian]

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.

It has been shown over and over again, that only a minimization of social contacts amongst populations exposed to a pestilence like this has any effects besides vaccines. This data basically exists since the end of the middle ages. What you're saying is beyond absurd. One wonders, on which planet you're living?!

Would you at least care (dare?) to elaborate that crap so we can mercifully take it apart and supplement your ignorance at this spot?

[Lord Thesaurian]

It has been shown over and over again, that only a minimization of social contacts amongst populations exposed to a pestilence like this has any effects besides vaccines. This data basically exists since the end of the middle ages. What you're saying is beyond absurd. One wonders, on which planet you're living?!

Would you at least care (dare?) to elaborate that crap so we can mercifully take it apart and supplement your ignorance at this spot?

My position is backed up by numerous empirical studies from the current pandemic and previous viral outbreaks. You can review any collection of my posts in this thread for a sample.

[swabian]

This is a lie! I wonder why you deem it necessary to lie about this! Infuriating and disappointing!

[swabian]

TOUGH restrictions of public life are ESSENTIAL to get it over with QUICKLY! This is EXACTLY what prevents economic loss. Indecision and weak willed fumbling like under Trump is what PROLONGS everything and ultimately causes more economical damage!

I'm SO SICK OF THIS . I can't believe that even intelligent people like you can be so determined to irrationality and doom!

[Cyclops]

... I think this is one among many cases in which science isn't nearly as amenable to resolving the issue as people would like it to be.

That has definitely been my experience of COVID in Melbourne. We have erred on the side of medical caution, but the long term political consequences are yet to be determined: definitely we have exposed ourselves to political abuse by the state with the sheer degree of compliance.

We've really recoiled from the Swedish model of herd immunity, and the deaths in aged care aroused strong indignation (attracting a few more resources for the sector so not just a five-minute outrage): deaths among the aged from the vaccine have put authorities and the community on edge. The "off-the-cuff on-the-fly" policy changes by the UK authorities about delaying second doses is causing bewilderment here, there seems to be no complete UK plan, just a bunch of ideas spinning an often out of touch with reality.

The current low numbers have led to a lot of backslapping and popularity for the hardest line state leader, "Chairman Dan" Andrews. The name is a joke of course and my feeling is he is a more or less decent person (albeit a union hack) but its a created a space for either him or the next leader to take a more politically uncompromising line. The sheer ineffectuality of the state opposition (they tried weakly-Trumpish noisemaking and it fell flat) have meant he's been less consultative than he should at the state level, whereas the strong coordination with federal authorities has strengthened the hand of centralised Federal state structures.

The pandemic and the response are definitely altering our political balances of power both in terms of our state and federal politics, as well as the economic realignment to a more online (and therefore directly US corporate controlled) work environment.

[Lord Thesaurian]

This is a lie! I wonder why you deem it necessary to lie about this! Infuriating and disappointing!

Empirically proven conclusions are the opposite of lies.

[Ludicus]

.the deal was a win-win for Pfizer and Israel...As far as wealthy countries buying their way ahead in line, that's obviously a reality all around the world.

That's true. Exclusive: Europe to pay less than U.S. for Pfizer vaccine
In fact, Israeli Health Minister Yuli Edelstei called it a "classical win-win" for both sides.Israeli media have reported that Israel paid at least 50% more than other countries.Is it true?
But let's look at the other side of the coin, when it comes to ethical considerations, Dr. Nadav Davidovitch, head of the school of public health at Israel's Ben Gurion University and an adviser to the government on coronavirus policy, said the deal has raised troubling concerns about the deepening disparity of vaccination efforts.
Regarding the Palestine question, Israel says it is not responsible for inoculating the Palestinians , but it is also true that Palestinians live under varying degrees of Israeli control and have yet to receive any vaccines. Thats the case of Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem.In what concerns the deal, Lawrence Gostin, a professor of global health law at Georgetown University in Washington says, "This is a shady, under-the-table deal that preferences certain countries over others without any transparency".

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Portugal sets records in one of world's worst virus surges

As I predicted a few days ago,
“What's going on? the lockdown rules are a sad joke, there are too many exceptions. The government needs courage to impose strict rules, enforce them and resist the popular backlash. Our hospitals are on brink of total collapse”

Schools were closed today, but its not enough. Aumento “notável” de casos em Portugal ligado ao ... - Público
Use the google translator.

Edit: In the UK
Exclusive: Medical leaders seek to 'shame' private hospitals ...

NHS England and senior clinical leaders in London are ‘profoundly uncomfortable’ that some routine elective care is continuing in private hospitals, while the NHS faces ‘unthinkable’ pressures from coronavirus.

Here, the Health Minister of the socialist government said the so-called civil requisition, which can only be decreed if there are serious concerns about the functioning of fundamental services, would include fair compensation for private hospitals. What are we waiting for?

? How many 'covid patients' are being treated for a serious covid infection?

The rigth question is, what happens when hospitals run out of beds, particularly ICU beds? what happens to you if for any reason you need intensive care management?

[Pontifex Maximus]

TOUGH restrictions of public life are ESSENTIAL to get it over with QUICKLY! This is EXACTLY what prevents economic loss. Indecision and weak willed fumbling like under Trump is what PROLONGS everything and ultimately causes more economical damage!

I'm SO SICK OF THIS . I can't believe that even intelligent people like you can be so determined to irrationality and doom!

Doom. Doom. Really? This disease has a 99.6% recovery rate. You want to destroy economies and risk even more detrimental effects related to depression, isolation, suicide, etc over a disease in which 99.6% of people who get it recover. And you think your position is the intelligent one. lol

More people will die from suicide and starvation due to the coof than the actual coof. I hope at the end of all of this everyone foots China the bill.

[Ludicus]

I think the privacy concern is paranoid, because everyone is anonymized in these sorts of studies.

It depends, Medical Research Council Advises on How to Anonymise ...
-----
Alon Kaufman holds a PhD. in Computational Neuroscience and machine learning from the Hebrew University and an MBA from Tel Aviv University. He is CEO and Co-Founder at Duality Technologies.
He says,
“The ability to connect between vaccination outcomes and longitudinal patient records is crucial for researchers seeking to understand the vaccine’s long-term impact and its correlation with pre-existing conditions and other health parameters. And while reports suggest that Israel is only sharing statistical data, there is understandable concern about the effects of such data sharing on individual citizens’ privacy.”

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This disease has a 99.6% recovery rate. You want to destroy economies and risk even more detrimental effects related to depression, isolation, suicide, etc over a disease in which 99.6% of people who get it recover. And you think your position is the intelligent one. lol

Well, Swabian is rigth. Your position is deadly mixture of willful, deliberate ignorance - and arrogance. On a side note,
Germany alarmed by growing threat of attacks by coronavirus ...

[Pontifex Maximus]

your link proves my point if nothing else. It is increasingly evident the sort of coronatharitan measures you're promoting lack substantial justification.

[Lord Thesaurian]

While the Politburo’s heavy-handed approach was not scientifically grounded, it made perfect political sense. Chinese leaders had strong political incentives to pursue an excessive approach not informed by science and epidemiology. Given the initial mismanagement of the SARS crisis, they were more interested in creating an impression that the government was acting differently this time around, that they indeed cared about the people’s health and wellbeing. On the eve of the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen crackdown on the democracy movement, and in the months leading up to the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the People’s Republic, forceful government action against H1N1 was shown to have helped shore up its legitimacy. Indeed, a survey conducted by the China Youth Daily found that 85 per cent of Chinese people supported the draconian government measures.


As Caijing magazine noted, the cost borne by public health personnel, H1N1 patients and those who had close contact with them were secondary to the issue of social and economic stability. True, Party leaders emphasised ‘science’ and the ‘rule by law’ in undertaking the anti-H1N1 measures. Yet, when they made H1N1 prevention and control a top priority, and warned that it would punish any failures to contain the spread of the disease, non-scientific and heavy- handed measures became more appealing to local government officials, who found it safer to be overzealous than to be seen as ‘soft’.


What can we learn from these two countries’ responses to the H1N1 pandemic? A comparison of the effectiveness of the two strategies clearly points to the inferiority of the containment strategy in handling the H1N1 pandemic. The containment approach is costly, unsustainable, inflexible and impractical. When adopted at the very beginning of the outbreak, it may help slow down the transmission of the virus. But, against the backdrop of globalisation, it is impossible to institute barriers against such spread. Moreover, it may complicate efforts of surge capacity building when a shift to mitigation becomes necessary. Interestingly, China looked to a centuries-old approach to contain the rapid spread of the H1N1 flu pandemic, even though both scientific data and historical evidence suggested the limits of this approach.


https://www.cfr.org › contentPDFWeb resultsComparing the H1N1 Crises and Responses in the US and China - Council on Foreign Relations

This has been known in principle for years, even considering diseases that are less infectious than Covid.

There are no historical observations or scientific studies that support the confinement by quarantine of groups of possibly infected people for extended periods in order to slow the spread of influenza. A World Health Organization (WHO) Writing Group, after reviewing the literature and considering contemporary international experience, concluded that “forced isolation and quarantine are ineffective and impractical.”2 Despite this recommendation by experts, mandatory large-scale quarantine continues to be considered as an option by some authorities and government officials.35,43


The interest in quarantine reflects the views and conditions prevalent more than 50 years ago, when much less was known about the epidemiology of infectious diseases and when there was far less international and domestic travel in a less densely populated world. It is difficult to identify circumstances in the past half-century when large-scale quarantine has been effectively used in the control of any disease. The negative consequences of large-scale quarantine are so extreme (forced confinement of sick people with the well; complete restriction of movement of large populations; difficulty in getting critical supplies, medicines, and food to people inside the quarantine zone) that this mitigation measure should be eliminated from serious consideration.


As experience shows, there is no basis for recommending quarantine either of groups or individuals. The problems in implementing such measures are formidable, and secondary effects of absenteeism and community disruption as well as possible adverse consequences, such as loss of public trust in government and stigmatization of quarantined people and groups, are likely to be considerable.


http://www.upmc-biosecurity.org/webs...ndemicflu.html

This comports with the findings we are seeing emerge from the current crisis, which is why so many experts are sounding the alarm:

The pandemic caused by COVID-19 has forced governments to implement strict social mitigation strategies to reduce the morbidity and mortality from acute infections. These strategies however carry a significant risk for mental health which can lead to increased short-term and long-term mortality and is currently not included in modelling the impact of the pandemic. Methods: We used years of life lost (YLL) as the main outcome measure as applied to Switzerland as an exemplar. We focused on suicide, depression, alcohol use disorder, childhood trauma due to domestic violence, changes in marital status and social isolation as these are known to increase YLL in the context of imposed restriction in social contact and freedom of movement. We stipulated a minimum duration of mitigation of 3 months based on current public health plans. Results: The study projects that the average person would suffer 0.205 YLL due to psychosocial consequence of COVID-19 mitigation measures. However, this loss would be entirely borne by 2.1% of the population, who will suffer an average 9.79 YLL. Conclusions: The results presented here are likely to underestimate the true impact of the mitigation strategies on YLL. However, they highlight the need for public health models to expand their scope in order to provide better estimates of the risks and benefits of mitigation.


https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7303469/

The authors identified a negative association between the number of days to any lockdown and the total reported cases per million, where a longer time prior to implementation of any lockdown was associated with a lower number of detected cases per million. Countries with a higher median population age, prevalence of obesity, and a longer number of days to any border closure had significantly higher caseloads with the total number of reported cases per million (i.e. full or partial lockdown).... Full lockdowns, border closures, and high rate of COVID-19 testing were not associated with reduced number of critical cases or overall mortality.


https://www.thelancet.com/journals/e...244-3/fulltext

Several prominent studies, including Dehning et al. (2020), Hsiang et al. (2020), and Flaxman et al. (2020), have studied empirically the role of government-mandated non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) in reducing the transmission of COVID-19, and many of these studies argue that these NPI’s had a large impact on the transmission rate of the disease in the early phase of the pan- demic.3 Given the observation that transmission rates for COVID-19 fell virtually everywhere in the world during this early pandemic period, we are concerned that these studies may substantially overstate the role of government-mandated NPI’s in reducing disease transmission due to an omitted variable bias. Moreover, given the observation that disease transmission rates have remained low with relatively low dispersion across locations worldwide for the past several months as NPI’s have been lifted, we are concerned that estimates of the e↵ectiveness of NPI’s in reducing disease transmission from the earlier period may not be relevant for forecasting the impact of the relaxation of those NPI’s in the current period, due to some unobserved switch in regime.


Our finding in Fact 1 that early declines in the transmission rate of COVID-19 were nearly universal worldwide suggest that the role of region-specific NPI’s imple- mented in this early phase of the pandemic is likely overstated. This finding instead suggests that some other factor(s) common across regions drove the early and rapid transmission rate declines.


Our findings in Fact 2 and Fact 3 further raise doubt about the importance in NPI’s (lockdown policies in particular) in accounting for the evolution of COVID-19 transmission rates over time and across locations. Many of the regions in our sample that instated lockdown policies early on in their local epidemic, removed them later on in our estimation period, or have have not relied on mandated NPI’s much at all. Yet, effective reproduction numbers in all regions have continued to remain low relative to initial levels indicating that the removal of lockdown policies has had little effect on transmission rates.


The existing literature has concluded that NPI policy and social distancing have been essential to reducing the spread of COVID-19 and the number of deaths due to this deadly pandemic. The stylized facts established in this paper challenge this conclusion. We argue that research going forward should account for these facts when assessing how important NPI policy is in shaping the progression of COVID-19.


https://www.nber.org/system/files/wo...719/w27719.pdf

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

[Aexodus]

Legion can you unpack that?

[Lord Thesaurian]

Legion can you unpack that?

Yeah the bolded parts should suffice. These are a sampling from prior citations confirming my point:

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.