Generic Virus Thread

[Chindie]

The follow up question to 'have 4000 people died?' should never be '...why are you laughing?'.

[Troglodyte]

A Tory without compassion?

[Awol]

1 hour ago, Straggler said:

Because often the job of rebutting Trump BS has been done for me in the press

The WHO are not perfect, but I don't think disgraceful is a word I would use to describe them.  Trump yes the WHO no.  Trump de-funding the WHO won't force them to come clean because it is not what Trump wants.  He does not care what they say he wants someone to blame.  Whatever they say, Trump will point at them and go "look I told you it is all their fault."  If I was in the WHO I would just point the finger back at him as the biggest risk of the world getting reinfected.  Just go at him.

The WHO only confirmed human to human transmission once the Chinese basically allowed them to. I’d say their greater responsibility was to speak up publicly sooner if that’s what they believed, regardless of whether that offended China or not. 

Ditto with declaring a global pandemic when every man and his dog could see it was. That matters because as was explained by various people at the time, that released various pots of funding that could be used for preparation in countries with weak public health infrastructure. 

The WHO’s attempt to pretend Taiwan basically didn’t exist (see the video) was and is disgraceful. There’s no other word for it. 

All of these issues come back to one causal root - not offending the Chinese Communist Party (obviously the Chinese people have no responsibility for this). 

Given the likelihood of secondary waves of this virus, which potentially includes in China, getting them to confront and break this pattern of behaviour now is important. 

As before, none of that is responsible for the abject failure of Trump - and to a lesser extent our government - to act decisively and early, but as this virus will be with us for a long time, it still matters to have the global body responsible for giving advice acting honestly and without fear or favour. 

[Jareth]

I notice some stories doing the rounds today - one squarely identifying the Lord in charge of getting tests done, and another about revealing the exact membership of SAGE. If these guys are being thrown under the bus, we're only one step away from pointing fingers at Hancock and Boris - not that the public will. You deserve what you vote for after all. 

[markavfc40]

1 hour ago, Chindie said:

The follow up question to 'have 4000 people died?' should never be '...why are you laughing?'.

I watched this live this morning as I have most of the times Morgan has questioned government ministers.

I don't have much time for Piers Morgan and there is no doubt he is often way too quick to pounce before an answer is given. He will though unlike 99% of reporters not let politicians get away with non answers or not answering the question that has been asked. He keeps pushing and pushing and will ask the difficult questions. You can see why no Tory minister before all this was willing to be questioned by him and it is only pressure that has meant they will now appear and be shown for what they are. Incompetent, deceitful bastards.

[terrytini]

20 minutes ago, markavfc40 said:

Incompetent, deceitful bastards.

Worth repeating.

[terrytini]

The money men must be rubbing their hands with glee at the increasing amount of “ ordinary” people complaining about unnecessary Nightingale hospitals, unnecessary restrictions, exaggerated claims about the disease, economic hardship and the rest.

And it won’t concern them that many now deride the government as incompetent, as this means people will attach less weight to the things they say which DO matter.

And of course the Liar In Chief Over The Water does his bit, getting people to turn on the WHO, implying Officials overstate their health resource needs, and constantly urging a return to work. 

It will make it so much easier for them to justify reopening and all the deaths and illness that will come with it

Edited April 15, 2020 by terrytini

[VILLAMARV]

People are complaining about increased capacity in the nightingale places? 

 

[bickster]

2 hours ago, foreveryoung said:

even though thay hadn't even watched it.

Watched it from start to finish, even researchd the publication. it's a profoundly Anti-Chinese State, pro  a certain Chinese religion Publication

It has done good work in the past but it's bias against the Chinese State has clouded it's judgement here

The experts, weren't really experts in the fields they were offering opinion on

[bickster]

2 hours ago, Chindie said:

The follow up question to 'have 4000 people died?' should never be '...why are you laughing?'.

Wasn't it more like 6000 in the month of March?

I've not checked the voracity of this but the Missus told me yesterday, that if you compare last years deaths to this years, take out the known Covid deaths, this years figurs were about 6,000 up in March on last March

[chrisp65]

I tend not to use Falun Gong YouTube videos as a trusted reference point.

There could be some nuggets of good science in there. Just like there might once have been a good recipe in the Mail on Sunday. I’ll never know.

[bickster]

The missus also tells me that unusually smokers / former smokers are less likelty to be hospitilised with Covid-19 but also added that weed is a different matter and seems to make matters worse

[terrytini]

10 minutes ago, VILLAMARV said:

People are complaining about increased capacity in the nightingale places? 

 

In as much as it isn’t being used. “ white elephant”.....would you believe ?

[StefanAVFC]

Much like the response to the EU ventilator scheme, this is dangerous, partisan nonsense. 

[blandy]

12 minutes ago, StefanAVFC said:

Much like the response to the EU ventilator scheme, this is dangerous, partisan nonsense. 

It's also highly likely to be untrue. I suspect they will, but will wait leave it 'til the last minute and then "blame" the EU or "that corolla fungus". 

[villakram]

7 minutes ago, blandy said:

It's also highly likely to be untrue. I suspect they will, but will wait leave it 'til the last minute and then "blame" the EU or "that corolla fungus". 

 

[VILLAMARV]

4 minutes ago, terrytini said:

In as much as it isn’t being used. “ white elephant”.....would you believe ?

Jebus. 

I would believe. People are horrible. And conditioned to value meaningless nonsense over humanity. And to some extent, it's not their fault. This is the world we created. I hope they all receive the care they need. 

[HanoiVillan]

2 hours ago, Awol said:

The WHO only confirmed human to human transmission once the Chinese basically allowed them to. I’d say their greater responsibility was to speak up publicly sooner if that’s what they believed, regardless of whether that offended China or not. 

Ditto with declaring a global pandemic when every man and his dog could see it was. That matters because as was explained by various people at the time, that released various pots of funding that could be used for preparation in countries with weak public health infrastructure. 

The WHO’s attempt to pretend Taiwan basically didn’t exist (see the video) was and is disgraceful. There’s no other word for it. 

All of these issues come back to one causal root - not offending the Chinese Communist Party (obviously the Chinese people have no responsibility for this). 

Given the likelihood of secondary waves of this virus, which potentially includes in China, getting them to confront and break this pattern of behaviour now is important. 

As before, none of that is responsible for the abject failure of Trump - and to a lesser extent our government - to act decisively and early, but as this virus will be with us for a long time, it still matters to have the global body responsible for giving advice acting honestly and without fear or favour. 

I think this is right, FWIW, and sadly we need to confront the reality that the Chinese government plays a frequently malign role in international institutions by getting annoyed if they mention Taiwan, or Hong Kong unless in its certain ways, or if they dare to express an opinion on the various crises in Tibet and Xinjiang and so on. It's no defence of the WHO to note that they are far from the only institution that seems to be under pressure from the government in Beijing about referring to Taiwan. I noted on this forum on March 11th (sorry, can't remember how to quote from a different page):

'One thing that's very annoying about the Johns Hopkins dashboard is that clearly behind the scenes the standard tedious battles about the names for places are carrying on as normal. Just over the last few days, Taiwan has gone from 'Taiwan' to 'Taipei and environs' (ha!) to ''Taiwan (Other)'', and now to 'Taiwan*'.'

The Johns Hopkins dashboard (https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6) still shows Taiwan, uniquely, as 'Taiwan*'.

[HanoiVillan]

The NY Times piece linked in the tweet is by Marc Lipsitch, who is one of the global authorities on the virus:

The short answer to the question in the title is 'we don't know, but probably not that many' and 'maybe not for that long either'. While the piece makes clear that we simply don't have enough data to say confidently how long people will be immune for, people need to be prepared for the news that it may not be more than a year or two, which is true of other comparable coronaviruses.

EDIT: Should probably add a representative quote:

'No such human-challenge experiments have been conducted to study immunity to SARS and MERS. But measurements of antibodies in the blood of people who have survived those infections suggest that these defenses persist for some time: two years for SARS, according to one study, and almost three years for MERS, according to another one. However, the neutralizing ability of these antibodies — a measure of how well they inhibit virus replication — was already declining during the study periods.

These studies form the basis for an educated guess at what might happen with Covid-19 patients. After being infected with SARS-CoV-2, most individuals will have an immune response, some better than others. That response, it may be assumed, will offer some protection over the medium term — at least a year — and then its effectiveness might decline.

Other evidence supports this model. A recent peer-reviewed study led by a team from Erasmus University, in the Netherlands, published data from 12 patients showing that they had developed antibodies after infection with SARS-CoV-2. Several of my colleagues and students and I have statistically analyzed thousands of seasonal coronavirus cases in the United States and used a mathematical model to infer that immunity over a year or so is likely for the two seasonal coronaviruses most closely related to SARS-CoV-2 — an indication perhaps of how immunity to SARS-CoV-2 itself might also behave.'

. . . but read the whole article.

Edited April 15, 2020 by HanoiVillan

[Chindie]

36 minutes ago, bickster said:

Wasn't it more like 6000 in the month of March?

I've not checked the voracity of this but the Missus told me yesterday, that if you compare last years deaths to this years, take out the known Covid deaths, this years figurs were about 6,000 up in March on last March

Yeah but they were all gonna die anyway, and even if they weren't gonna die anyway then we all die anyway so shut up and eat your bat virus.