I had to go back to the video from March 26th which was where Chris outlined Scenerio A and Scenerio B, to refresh my memory as to why he thought Scenerio B was not likely. The logic of exponentials, and what is likely to show up (or not show up) in the testing, was one point. The other point was that data from places like South Korea, where they did extensive testing, did not bear out that tons of people had already gotten it. And watching it again, I realize we were assuming Scenerio A, kind of the way we assume the precautionary principle, that you take the path that minimizes harm until it is proven that those measures are not necessary. So it’s very interesting to see that there is possible evidence surfacing that shows Scenerio B may be correct. Although I would like someone to explain, then, why testing data from places like South Korea hasn’t backed that up better? Are the tests way less accurate than we thought?
If the US government knew that it was Scenerio B all along, would that explain the lack of urgency around testing and PPE for health care workers? If so, why wouldn’t they just tell us that their strategy is to let it burn through the population? Or are those who have been assuming Scenerio B just getting lucky that it is possibly working out that way?
I appreciated Chris’s comment that the handling of this epidemic in the US makes me nervous for how we might handle more complex prediciments.
Or degrees Rankine (F + 460)…every one is a super genius. Love it. 
As usual Taleb has a spot on critique of current linear thinking.
https://medium.com/incerto/the-masks-masquerade-7de897b517b7
While I completely agree that our response here in the USA could have been much better, I posit that a primary factor in our well above average HB death rate is the fact that our population is the fattest, unhealthiest, and most drug dependent in the world. Yet, I have not heard a peep from anyone in authority recognizing that fact, much less suggesting that improving the “terrain” will make us more resistant to this virus and any others that may arise.
T.
Is the suggestion that we may have got past the worst, based on the idea that we have immunity once infected? I’m just remembering that 1) the 1918 pandemic second wave was hugely worse that the first, and 2) there appeared to be a sort of double action infection process going on in Wuhan, with some people just suddenly dropping in the street - presumably because of prior severe damage from the first run. I realize that the 1918 pandemic was a flu, so it was somewhat seasonal, but I don’t know if the second wave included a double dose effect too. Anyone else have any better information on this? And of course, there’s the mutation effect too.
Yes you have a point. There is more to the equation than just IQ. I don’t think anyone has yet been able to cultivate critical thinking or empathy in our education system. I was totally blessed , though did not realize it fully at the time , that I did not attend public schools.
I do believe it takes a certain level of intelligence to use logic to arrive at a course of action.
Your point is well taken. I will note in the future when commenting on intelligence that i am using it as a shorthand Raison d’ etre for the inexplicable (by any measure) behavior of not only not wearing a mask but being blatantly militant.
Thanks for the input. It got me thinking
Hi vshelford,
First of all, here are some links
- A short overview about the Spanish flu. Worth reading as some aspects are very similar to the current situation (source). Main takeaway imo: a viral pandemic uncovers everything that is amiss in a society, e.g., institutional racism in 1918.
- This article discusses possible explanations for its mortality, e.g., cytokine storm, antibody dependent enhancement. Additionally it gives an overview of the odd “W” shaped age dependent mortality (source). This article is longer and somewhat technical. Main takeaway imo: too long ago to really know why. But one could conclude that some precautions against cytokine storm might come in handy…
Last but not least, independent from all predictions of pundits, - Is the probability of, say, an antibody dependent enhanced second wave zero?
-If so: why take any action.
-If not, what are your acceptable costs wrt a reasonable preparation (some supplements etc), and do you accept that these costs might be “losses” in case there will not be a second wave?
-Everyone has his or hers own “sweet” spot: I personally like a “fire and forget” convex action. Reasonable preparation against reasonable costs, and spending the rest of my time on other positive activities i.o worrying that there might be a second wave…If it doesn’t hit, hardly any money is lost. If it hits, I have done what I deem reasonable and responsible to weather this, and we can possibly be of some assistance to friends and neighbors who are either financially incapable to prepare, or incapable of making rational choices concerning an uncertain nearby future.
Grts, Dave
Here’s an article detailing Mongolia’s response to the pandemic, and it meshes well with my experience here so far:
COVID Underdogs: Mongolia - The best COVID-19 response in the world
Mohammed Mast -
Just be careful with that assumption that you’ll be able to get to your bug-out country in question in the future. Here in Mongolia they’ve got international travel totally locked down. There thousands of expat Mongolians waiting to come back, but with only a handful of special flights each month to take Mongolians back there are still many stuck where they are. And foreigners they’re not allowing in AT ALL for the time being, even those like me with valid residency.
Not saying this will happen for you, but just be aware it is a very real possibility. Especially as some countries place more restrictions on travel to/from countries like the US experiencing surges in cases…
Snydeman,
This information is not new. I posted the same conclusion two months ago on this website based of New York’s antibody tests. It was obvious the real problem was the speed of spread and not a spectacularly high fatality rate. https://peakprosperity.com/forum-topic/the-honey-badgers-real-superpower/
Now Chris needs to catch up on the ramifications of this fact. Look at states that have had a distinct 1st wave. Notice there has not been a second wave anywhere regardless of how quickly or how far the state was opened up. All the states spiking now never had a 1st wave.
The next thing for everyone to catch up on is encounter density. https://www.unacast.com/post/rounding-out-the-social-distancing-scoreboard
There are huge swaths of every state where the baseline encounter density is drastically lower than someone in a crowded city. It is not physically possible for what happened in NYC or what is happening in Houston now to happen there. Everyone can go to work and the grocery store maskless, hug their mother, shake hands, play sports and still keep the spread of COVID-19 to a manageable level.
All very interesting and informative, however I will wait for scientific data/studies to prove your theory (or confirm the data in the new study Chris refers to) before I break out the party ribbons. Especially since this is kinda his field, and because none of the big academic institutes around the globe are on board with that data. I’ll remain cautiously optimistic not not lean too far over my handlebars just yet.
My personal manageable level is ZERO SC2. We could be there by now if the boobs "managing " the situation had gotten their collective heads out of their collective asses. Also if people would have paid attention and taken their own steps to stop the spread.
There is far to emphasis on numbers and far too little on human beings. If we accept the fact that fatality is not the be all and end all then one can look at the numbers in light of the cost to human health. It appears that SC2 causes significant damage to almost every organ in the body. This damage might be permanent.
The grand kids might have been able to enjoy a few more years of Paw Paw and Maw Maw.
All this talk about numbers and fatality and numbers is fine unless you are one of the numbers. Sweden is a prime example of a country sacrificing its older population to continue life as “normal”
I was excited about noticing something before it came out in a paper, but came across a little strong. I’ll dial it back, nobody likes a braggart.
There is a substantial amount of corroborating evidence. Dozens of sera-logical and antibody studies suggested a higher infection rate than reported. They were being used to insinuate a lower fatality rate, but a higher infection rate, and thus faster spread is required for the lower fatality rate to be possible. It is a different side of the same coin. Also, numerous unexplained spikes in fatalities have been used to suggest a higher number of COVID fatalities. But this information also needs a number of unreported infections, and a higher infection rate than reported. So, together, both support a faster spread regardless of what the final IFR is.
It took the world a decade of intense effort to eradicate smallpox, with a vaccine. Are you willing to keep this up for a decade? Should it be the world’s priority to eliminate COVID? What about malaria, HIV/AIDS, malnutrition, or all the other maladies that kill hundreds of thousands of poor people around the world. Is it right to isolate poor countries from the world if they don’t eliminate COVID?
@vshelford This will indeed be good news if so, BUT, is it yet proven that once you've had it, you're immune? There seems to be some doubt about that.This is an oversimplified question. If your vitamin D levels are even lower now than during your first exposure (after being locked inside without getting any sunshine and not supplementing with quantities above at least >5000 IU daily; even 40000 IU daily is ok for a week), then you'll get really sick and might even die. But if your health state is the same or better, then your acquired immunity will be 'usable'. In other words, lockdowns will make you much more vulnerable if you don't know anything about health, and your immune system will be even more incompetent than before. So any acquired immunity won't work if your immune system lacks the necessary building blocks, and you could potentially even (in the worst case scenario) experience ADE upon re-exposure to (significant amounts of) the pathogen. Regarding the 1918 flu, more than 90%, close to 100%, died from bacterial co-infections, in a time before antibacterials.
@Mohammed Mast It appears that SC2 causes significant damage to almost every organ in the body. This damage might be permanent.It may appear that way because you aren't factoring in nutrient deficiencies and thus immune system incompetence. Could you build a house if you're missing essential components like bricks or cement or trusses? The few people that get 'mystery' ailments after mild symptoms, like the 24yo Israeli, don't you think these are the cases of extreme nutrient deficiencies? In some cases the doctors are the level of dumb where no recommendation happens of nutrient supplementation (even just a multivitamin). The reported cases of young people, like the 30-year-old who suffered "permanent" heart damage (rarely is anything biochemical permanent especially when you're that young), or the 35-year-old who died in ICU (both recently mentioned by Chris Martenson in his videos), may have confounding factors not accounted for, such as severe vitamin D deficiency or malnutrition from a long-term vegan diet (which maybe even the doctor believes is a healthy diet). "No comorbidities" doesn't include any of these factors, yet they are more significant than most defined medical conditions, particularly in young people. What mainstream doctors believe is "very healthy" is often the opposite, because most of them haven't taken it upon themselves to learn about food and nutrition, fully buying into the pre-programmed drug-based "one-size-fits-all" paradigm they were given in medical school. Why would the virus have those effects on a tiny number of young people but not the vast majority, if it's not due to some nutrient-related factor overlooked by doctors? The same odd/rare cases happen also with other respiratory infections (here's an extreme example of a 20-year-old without recognized pre-existing conditions dying a few days after contracting influenza). I think it's very likely they had/have several deficiencies such as that of vitamin D, zinc, magnesium, calcium, B12, other B vitamins (probably folate/B9, thiamine/B1, and/or pyridoxine/B6), selenium, vitamin A, iodine, vitamin C, E, K2... just a few chronic deficiencies of these could leave you with terrible heart/cardiovascular health. Many other factors may affect heart health and blood clotting. Maybe he got highly exposed to damaging toxins, such as from vaccines, high EMFs, fluoride, GMOs, etc (a cumulative effect)? Maybe he had high LDL and his clownworld doctor told him to take statins (and without CoQ10)? Maybe he avoided sodium or saturated fat as much as possible and ate a carb-based diet (which is often still promoted by the food/medical/pharma/govt industries)? Agreed about respecting HB-19, but we shouldn't extend that idea to respecting clownworld parameters of "[un]health". I have no proof (because clownworld studies don't address these factors) but I still strongly suspect that actually healthy people without nutrient deficiencies not only experience SARS-CoV-2 infection asymptomatically but can hardly spread it, and only those who don't understand health (i.e. don't know about the "official" clownworld lies/'science' frauds) or have weakened immune systems for other reasons (comorbidities as is common in advanced age) experience severe symptoms and can spread it during the pre-symptomatic stage (as the immune system isn't able to prevent replication hence exponentially increasing viral load). I could be wrong of course. But it seems to me many people are vastly underestimating their own power, and the intelligence of their body to effectively deal with pathogens (even with lab chimeras with a gain-of-function), providing you give it the chemical building blocks it needs (which won't happen if you just unconsciously eat whatever your tastebuds fancy or don't take supplements) -- as well as underestimating the degree to which nutrient-deficient modern lifestyles and the toxins we're deliberately exposed to have made us unhealthy and immunoincompetent.
The question is simple because my concerns are macro, not personal. Obviously, the people here know enough to keep their own health and nutrients up to and above standard, and take all the other precautions. What worries me, for the sake of the world if you like, is that the bland assumption of immunity will open the door to a much longer and more damaging run of this thing.
I really can’t begin to express how grateful I am for your post/insights. You are positing the very hunches I have had for some time now, and which are ringing ever more uncomfortably true for me as time goes on even if there is, as you say, no official data to back them up.
Throughout this entire debacle, which egregiously violates “First, do no harm!” everywhere, I have been hungry for some data about exactly who succumbs to this “virus” and, more specifically, what their nutritional status might be.
As we have gone along, I have not been able to brush aside the vague notion that I my life, my well-being is now dubiously being held hostage for the benefit of those who have clearly, knowingly or not, compromised their immune system due to their lifestyle choices.
Put another way, it is one thing to have to put up with a morbidly obese co-passenger in the seat next to you or with a whole segment of society allowing themselves to become obese and thus all of us experiencing higher than otherwise insurance premiums, but we have now progressed to a point where ALL of us are, in effect, suffering economically due to the choices some folks made along the way to expose themselves to environmental/dietary poisons of various sorts. It is, in effect, a way of “socializing” the fallout from bad individual decisions made by the few - not so different from all of us having to pay for the bets gone sour in the insane gambling casino that Wall Street represents.
I am so happy that you mentioned the nutrient deficient vegan types in particular, I have long felt that they likely lack the proteins (you speak of essential building blocks within the metaphor of constructing a house) necessary to fight a disease such as this one, and here I am, now suffering constraints on my personal liberty just because there are those with an insatiable need to virtue-signal themselves to be better humans because they abstain from eating animal protein. Never mind that they are seriously jeoparizing public health and shunning thousands of generations of elders who knew better, evolving this species to where we are today due to recognizing the benefit animal protein provides to the human organism. Some of the most unhealthy people I know take great pride in their being “vegan”.
I so appreciate finding common sense and truth within the lines you posted! It is one my gut has been whispering to me for some time now and I am glad to see someone else describe it so lucidly.
The evidence is mounting for Vitamin D deficiency being large causative factor in severity of Covid infections. Tbp, have you seen any of the studies this person refers to?
https://orthomolecular.activehosted.com/index.php?action=social&chash=b73ce398c39f506af761d2277d853a92.164&s=fefd45c21bc3a55252a9c7a67da2b16e
I would like to think that there will be no second wave. However I am not so sure.
Sweden, as Chris has already noted, does not conform with the thesis proposed. For personal reasons I have been following what is happening in Switzerland.
There the government started relaxing containment measures at the end of April and had removed most by the early June (Monday 8th). The daily report of new cases had been falling such that by early June the numbers were below 20 and often in single figures; then in mid June I have noticed that there were occasions where the number rose above 30. The last three days the numbers have been 52 (25th), 58 (26th) & 69 (27th). The last time the daily number had been above 50 was 16th May (58 reported).
(Source https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/switzerland/ )
I also notice a tweet from Covid19Crusher which has drawn my attention to Israel. The chart below says it all.
(Source: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/israel/ )
Here in the UK, the Government in England is dropping restrictions as fast as it can - (it didn’t want any in the first place!) - and my hunch is that we will see rising numbers for daily new cases at the end of July / early August - four to six weeks from now, especially as hardly anybody in the UK is wearing a mask.
My suspicion is that the steep rise in reported cases that we see in a lot of countries is more the direct result of the ramping up of testing abilities than anything else. The SARS 2 coronavirus has probably been around a lot longer than we actually realize. The “case, case, case” infection was occurring much earlier, probably as far back as November/ December, possibly earlier. By January/February, countries outside China, were actually in the “Cluster, Cluster” phase, though they did not know it. They were already in the “Boom” stage by the time they started looking for it. The steep rise in detected cases is as much a result of rapidly increasing testing facilities and the authorities actively trying to identify cases.
Here is a paper on the critical concept of herd immunity.
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.27.20081893v1.full.pdf
Executive-executive summary: HIT is probably 20%, not 70%, because we aren’t all interchangeable robots. This folds in a lot of concepts that a number of people have mentioned here today, and a few more besides. If you can wrap your brain around it, it lines up directly with what Chris is postulating, and it provides the theoretical basis for why this is so.
I’m also cross-posting my weekly column here; at the end of my column, I try to summarize and put the above paper in context - hopefully not TL;DR. The “Herd Immunity Threshold” special section is at the end - scroll directly there if you don’t want to wade through the markets report, which could be summarized as: “gold did well, equities did not.”
https://peakprosperity.com/forum-topic/pm-weekly-market-commentary-06-26-2020/