Coronavirus: Are We Planning To Fail?

News & Current Events Public News & Current Events
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I have some aging autos. I have actually thought about a refresh – why? because I expect hyper inflation… nothing like watching 40k in savings diminish to 10k… and watching autos go from 40k to 400k…
so yeah… since i am sort like a retired person being disabled.

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I hated trump all my life and still do as a business man. and sort of as the president. But i do like something about him as pres. He is not wishywashy. he is arrogant, deliberate/ strong convictions etc, somethings , i think a president should have. Obama in the same situation - woulnt have done anything… afraid to offend anyone in the name of political correctness or racism.

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@Chris Martenson
On yesterday’s video you analysed the UK chart of weekly reported deaths, showing a clear Covid surge. You also highlighted that other cause mortality would have decreased, using accidents as your example.
One other reduction worth considering is the seasonal flu mortality. If your previous figures from Hong Kong are anything to go by, the UK’s strong recent shutdown is presumably having a significant impact on the spread of flu, and hence a reduction in flu deaths, leaving the Covid surge to account for an even higher proportion of total mortality.
Remember that seasonal flu is a significant cause of death in normal years, so it’s reduction due to lockdown may be a material factor in the figures.
Matt

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@Dutch Boomer
Best to stick to the facts, rather than someone’s hype

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Funnily enough, I’d characterise most things Trump says as wishy washy, in the sense that he only rarely says anything clearly. It’s all may be and may be not, we’ll see what happens, that would be great but the opposite would be fine too, yes I’d take hydrochloroquine - though I’d have to ask my doctor, and so on and so on. The china flight ban was wishy washy too, as was the ban on European flights, a lot later. And he’s definitely wishy washy with the truth.
Having said all that, he’s now a politician, so we can’t expect anything good to come from him.

26

The fact that our President is encouraging those folks who don’t get it to go out and protest without wearing masks is just the latest evidence of his inability to think and act rationally.

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Agreed.
WHO is already way underfunded:
– total annual budget is about $2.5bn … around the equivalent of a large US hospital, which is utterly incommensurate with its global responsibilities,” said Lawrence Gostin, a public health law professor at Georgetown University.
–contributions from member states have not significantly increased over three decades
–most health experts say it has performed well with limited resources
–the US is already about $200m in arrears in assessed contributions (national membership fees). It has given more in donations and was the biggest single donor in 2019, however, its voluntary contributions were mostly tied to specific projects.
Trump appears to have pushed blame onto anyone remotely related to the pandemic–China, US governors, Obama, other previous administrations. The WHO is just one of many scapegoats.
In any case, since the US is far from providing the majority of the WHO’s funds (as Trump claimed) even in the years when they do pay them. And other nations are maintaining or increasing their contributions. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/15/health-experts-fears-over-trumps-suspension-of-funds-to-who
 

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So, yes, there should be consequences. But there are other ways, aside from funding, to create incentives and consequences. (This is something called “diplomacy”. I understand why the current Feds are so bad at it, but I don’t get why that means we all have to play by *their* rules.)
Amazing all these WHO apologists out with their lame "but if they get defunded ... won't someone think of all the poor countries!" line of thinking. Also, all the vague hand waving about "other ways" to enforce consequences. Okay. What other ways? Be specific. My view is grounded in human and organizational reality. No consequences = no changes = more of the same. I am willing to trade a little bit of pain today to avoid another massive round of pain later on. Let's be clear: Because the W.H.O. dilly-dallied and wasted two full months they are directly responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. So far. If they aren't held to account now, they will do this again next time too. So the trade off is really simple; some pain now or a lot more later on. To me that's an easy, non-political choice to make. Also, let me state, clearly, that people who are making the false equivalence choice of "either you support the who OR you support Trump" are ideologically blinded to the point of being useless. It's an AND situation not an OR. How is this *not* obvious? I can criticize both Trump AND the W.H.O. I don't have to make a choice. Nobody does. Framing it as an either/or choice is really painfully narrow and "retail level." It's buying into a political left-right framing that's been provided for you by someone. I would strongly advise thinking for yourself, especially here and now. That old school method of being fed opinions and beliefs by "your team" in the media didn't serve you up to now and there's less than no reason to suspect it will serve you any better going forward. Time. To. Wake. Up. Every moment spent in the false left-right dichotomy is time spent on useless, unhelpful drivel at a critical moment of upheaval. That's the view here, held by me, and if it sits badly for you the door is only a mouse click away.
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Along the same lines as is being discussed here, I see that the mechanism of herding people based on a coveted virtuous identity is being used in other forums.
In my emergency medicine physician facebook group (EM Docs) there is a belief that:

Real BAFERDs* despise hydroxychloroquine.
With a couple of corollaries:
Only the stupid consider hydroxychloroquine. All of us "Real BAFERDs" of the in-group, must beat up and ostracize non-conforming members to force them into compliance. Here, in this group, we hate hydroxychloroquine. Shut up and fit in or we will beat you up.
This is analogous to the "code red" in the barracks of A Few Good Men. ------------ On my general facebook group I find a similar action:
If you hate Trump then you must despise the "Trump-drug," hydroxychloroquine.
----------  
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What’s a BAFERD?

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fricking emergency room Dr.
 

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Thanks.

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Trump did stop flights from China and Europe. Washington post said that it’s not true because US citizens were allowed to return. Yeah duuh!

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Hm, sounds strange, but this guy is a Nobel price winner for his work on the HIV virus. Maybe it is a hoax? Anyway: https://www.gilmorehealth.com/chinese-coronavirus-is-a-man-made-virus-according-to-luc-montagnier-the-man-who-discovered-hiv/

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Right haha

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Did flights continue? Yes. Who was on them? From what I remember it wasn’t just US citizens. So there’s some smoke and mirrors in these claims.
From the start of this crisis there has been a horror among administrators towards the idea of blocking international travel. That affected the WHO at the start, and almost every national government since.
In the UK we are under a shutdown (with wide public support) yet flights are still landing here from NYC with no quarantine requirements. It’s crazy. But we can’t say no to flights.

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Well, truth is that Trump announced it and KLM Amsterdam who serviced multiple flights daily suddenly grounded several planes and all politiciens were furious about this because they were not informed in advance.
So, were flights stopped? Yes-clearly
Did ALL flights cancelled? , No, some exclusions were made (US citizens returning etc)
Anyway, a lot imported virusses were avoided

38

The protests are right wing, but not all are on board. I feel like in Virginia we have 2 groups. We have the old school preppers Tea Party who have been ready their entire life.
Then we have the guys that listen to Rush Limbaugh who are the ones protesting.
So yes those protests are right wing, but it is the guys who listen too talk radio. The old school Tea Party guys seemed more laid back. Of coarse some guys are both.
I am the lone token liberal out in the country watching this all implode.
(I don’t get why Rush with stage 4 cancer wants to get Covid, but to each his own. My husband loves Rush and wants to lift the stay at home order. I am working full time but I am an introvert. I would be okay on a long term lockdown.)

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MI Protest was 100% grass roots. Devos has ZERO to do with it. There was no money to fund it. MI unemployment is over 25% right now. And that’s just using the official state data. My FB is lit up with people that have been unable to connect to the states unemployment computers to even get registered. One friend called 300 times, and was never able to complete the application. So, what is MI real unemployment? My bet, it’s 35% or higher. That’s not counting the huge number of salary employees that are dealing with a 20% (or greater) pay cut.
WRT to being Trump, I have friends on both sides of the aisle, and they were there.
Whitless (MI Gov) put in draconian and ridiculous lockdown. You’re permitted to travel for outdoor activities, but can’t travel too far. DNR interpreted her rules and wrote hundreds of $1,000 tickets for being on power boats, but canoes and sailboats are legal???!!! First tickets taken to court were immediately thrown out. I can buy seeds at a store under 50,000 square feet, but at 50,001 square feet, it’s illegal??? Baby car seats are illegal to purchase. It goes on and on and on.
Don’t drink the koolaid this is a partisan protest, it’s about as non partisan as you can get.

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We can go back to the paper that started it all in order to see how really dumb all the anti-chloroquine/hydroxychloroquine rhetoric really is. The results of that work were so very, very clear in showing the potential for chloroquine (and by extension hydroxychloroquine) to treat this disease, AND it was published arguably the most prestigious journal in the world: Nature.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41422-020-0282-0

Remdesivir and chloroquine effectively inhibit the recently emerged novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) in vitro

Chloroquine, a widely-used anti-malarial and autoimmune disease drug, has recently been reported as a potential broad-spectrum antiviral drug.8,9 Chloroquine is known to block virus infection by increasing endosomal pH required for virus/cell fusion, as well as interfering with the glycosylation of cellular receptors of SARS-CoV.10 Our time-of-addition assay demonstrated that chloroquine functioned at both entry, and at post-entry stages of the 2019-nCoV infection in Vero E6 cells (Fig. 1c, d). Besides its antiviral activity, chloroquine has an immune-modulating activity, which may synergistically enhance its antiviral effect in vivo. Chloroquine is widely distributed in the whole body, including lung, after oral administration. The EC90 value of chloroquine against the 2019-nCoV in Vero E6 cells was 6.90 μM, which can be clinically achievable as demonstrated in the plasma of rheumatoid arthritis patients who received 500 mg administration.11 Chloroquine is a cheap and a safe drug that has been used for more than 70 years and, therefore, it is potentially clinically applicable against the 2019-nCoV. Our findings reveal that remdesivir and chloroquine are highly effective in the control of 2019-nCoV infection in vitro. Since these compounds have been used in human patients with a safety track record and shown to be effective against various ailments, we suggest that they should be assessed in human patients suffering from the novel coronavirus disease.
As of today we have many collections of clinical data that substantiate the optimism behind these early Feb. in-vitro findings, many of which (Dr. Zelenko, etc) we have celebrated on these pages. As more news continues to emerge concerning the devastating effects Covid-19 has in senior care facilities, it's worth reviewing once again a very stark comparison of data from the first such cluster in the US, in Kirkland, WA, and the recent experience of Dr. Robin Armstrong of TX in treating an outbreak in a senior care facility that his medical practice is responsible for. Dr. Armstrong used the, Zelenko-like "cocktail" approach of hydroxychloroquine + Zithomax + Zinc. Here are the comparatives;   Kirkland, WA senior care facility: 129 cases, 39 deaths. 29% death rate Galveston, TX senior care facility: 53 cases, 1 death. 2% death rate   It's that simple. The basic, suggestive science was there early Feb. The clinical data confirming the efficacy of chloroquine/hydroxychloroquine has been rolling in since. Everything else is propaganda. Here is a video interview from yesterday with Dr. Armstrong discussing his work in TX; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQYFR5AAPXE