There’s a growing wave of calls for second lockdowns of European areas. Some are already under more severe restrictions on gatherings and permitted business activity.
You took the line for Australia which said 10 people in ICU, then looked at the breakdown which showed 8 in Victoria and 2 in New South Wales and added them to get 20. There are only 10. The occupancy is therefore 0.4% not 0.8%
Thank you Chris, for the nod towards brewing being an important skill set. I like to believe that fermentation in general is important. From preservation of unused harvest, to creating anti-bacterials and sanitizers, to the obvious; generating camaraderie amongst your community and tribe. It also encourages the basic understanding of micro-biology which can help you in creating your composts, improving your soil and provide the opportunity to get multiple uses from the constituent elements used in the processes by creating something useful for yourself and returning those elements back to the land in the form of livestock feed, fertilizers, pro-biotic yeast cultures, nutrients, enzymes and more.
Re: false positive rate in the UK. This is dependent on the testing methodology. I am assuming based on the video clip and headline that the UK is using serologic (i.e., antibody) testing. Otherwise the 30% false positive figure makes no sense. The molecular methodology test is very sensitive and specific and there’s no way it has a 30% false positive rate. So the health officials, and the media, need to understand the differences in testing methods too. Certainly, the positive predictive and negative predictive values are related to disease prevalence in the population you are testing, too.
I have to give extra kudos for Chris for paying some attention to the authoritarian overreach of goverments.
As for the fact that the lockdowns are not supported by the data. That is correct, but in my view it is not about the data. It is about an agenda. Everyone who knows anything about history, knows that history is driven by agenda’s. It is about class-warfare, but not traditional class-warfare. This time, it is about the corrupt CRONY-capitalistic ultra-rich 0,001% against the rest of humanity. This is about population-reduction and eugenics. Population-reduction is the name of the game. Big Tech (censorship), Media (more censorship), the W.H.O., a whole bunch of other institutions, and politicians who don’t understand false-positives and a are in the pockets of these people. Unfortunately they are using the climate change agenda to enforce population reduction(!) And a lot of people are seemingly falling for it.
I am not at all against being rich or for other people to be rich. But this is another ball-game. In any case, it is naive to think that the ultra-ultra-ultra rich have the same mind-set as ordinary people. As Doug Casey (from Casey Reseach) once said - and I paraphrasing - the lower class has apathy as general emotion, the middle class has fear as general emotion (fear of losing everything they have), and the upper class has arrogance as general emotion. Don’t confuse one with another.
I’ll tell you one thing: Martin Armstrong (https://www.armstrongeconomics.com) and James Corbett (https://www.corbettreport.com) are both sources that have integrity and that I trust. Other than that, they have nothing in common. They hardly write anything that overlaps with each other. So when they start massively converging on one topic, I start paying extra attention: https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/product/the-great-reset/
and: https://www.corbettreport.com/interview-1559-james-corbett-discusses-the-great-reset/
Chris and Adam, why don’t you invite Martin Armstrong again to join Peak Prosperity to see what he thinks about this pandemic? I think it will be a great podcast!
OK, so Australia has a couple of incidents that seem way over the top but how common are those sorts of situations? We shouldn’t be making generalisations based on a couple of data points. Remember, also, that the park bench could be frequented by hundreds of people in the same day.
Regarding PCR tests, in New Zealand, the health authorities appear to recognise the high CT values indicate an historical case, not a currently infectious case. We now see historical cases being added to the case numbers though further serology testing is sometimes done.
Regarding second waves. The Spain example shows that deaths are on the rise. Yes, they don’t appear to correspond to the rise in positives but they are on the rise, indicating an increasing number of cases. Hopefully, the death numbers will stabilise and then start to decrease soon.
Chris,
Longtime reader for 10+ years but I have to admit being a bit confused and disappointed with your recent shift in logic regarding coronavirus advice. Many times early on you wrote “you do not want to get this virus” and now you imply that there was an overreaction to Covid-19. Really, which is it? If your current opinion is based on facts then please come out and state that you were wrong 6 months ago. You can’t have it both ways based on the flavor of the month. Again if your opinion has CHANGED then state it as such, otherwise it feels like you are simply writing what your paying cohorts want to hear. I hope that I’m wrong in this observation but my klaxon is going off right now.
He has made it clear…
The data no longer supports the actions = change of view. I see no discrepancy. We know far more now. I also assume Chris still doesn’t want the virus, he just wouldn’t be happy destroying the lives of millions to avoid it. I see integrity not contradiction.
I was all for a total lock-down initially. Why? because the best time to catch it and eliminate is early one. Also, we knew very little about the disease, so it would only be prudent. Though we still need to know much more, we do know a lot. Certainly people under 40, seem to have a very low risk of deadly out-comes. But it does happen to even healthy young people. So it is a bit of a concern.
I think in general it is safe for people under 40 to return to work. Even though some will die, the risk is minimal. People do die, you can choke on bone, die from allergy from food or an insect sting/bite, you can get brain eating amoeba, etc… why not a viral infection. When I was in the military('87), a supervisor of mine had a twin brother stationed in asia who was waiting for heart transplant. I asked why and was told he got some sort of cold. WOW? does this sound familiar now. So , stuff like this has existed longer than you can imagine…
So, I am all for send the young’ns back to school and work. There are some exceptions. If they reside with elderly folks, like grandma, or older parents or ailing family members. These people need to be exempt from work and school and some sort of benefits or alternatives. Older people and people with health issues need to protect themselves and should be able to get some sort of benefits. It now seems our hospital systems are not tanking. If they do, we need to change the plan. But right now it is time to back to work.
And yes if you do get infected, and are older or high-risk. We need to allow the drugs that do work-- and drugs that have safety data… and are ready to use and stop hoping and rushing things that have never been done and used before. Simple process…
And finally, while all this is happening, the health dept needs to continue to track and follow up with cases - to see if they resolve , have long-term effects… or become disabled. again a simple processs…
And then we need to adjust accordingly.
OK, so Australia has a couple of incidents that seem way over the top but how common are those sorts of situations? We shouldn't be making generalisations based on a couple of data points. Remember, also, that the park bench could be frequented by hundreds of people in the same day.
According to the data, COVID-19 doesn't transmit outside.
Where does it transmit?
That would be in poorly ventilated areas indoors. Like homes. And on transport. That's where we get COVID. Mostly at home. And often on transport. (And at singing events - indoors; and of course at hospitals - indoors).
But not outside.
We've known this since the Chinese did their study way back in March. Koreans added more detail later. Then New York even figured it out. Cuomo had a press conference. "Oh my gosh we were so surprised, people get COVID-19 mostly at home!" Australia really should have heard about this by now. [So should America; some areas in the US are doing exactly the same thing!]
So Australian police arresting citizens sitting on a park bench outside for not wearing a mask is just a teensy bit ignorant. Its like nobody in public policy in that region looked at the data. And these are the people in charge. It doesn't engender confidence.
On transport? By all means, wear that mask. Arrest people who don't wear a mask on transport. After all, that's where transmission happens.
But outside? It is a waste of resources and effort. Focus on the problem. Not on COVID Theater. Transport is where the problem happens. Focus resources there.
And of course there is Sweden. The “no mask mandate” public policy option. It took courage by their leadership to go against the “CCP policy” option.
No masks (actually - masks optional) - no lockdowns - and nobody is dying there anymore.
Doesn’t this make all the fuss look a bit silly?
Well, Dave, it would be good to get the facts on transmission. I know that it doesn’t transmit from respiratory droplets very well, outside (if the contact isn’t close), but I’m not sure about surfaces. Early on, we’d heard that coronaviruses generally can last on surfaces up to nine days in some cases but I don’t recall seeing the figures for SARS-Cov-2 specifically. But I agree that most infections would occur indoors (which I why I hate most US politicians walking to a podium, or whatever, then taking off their mask before speaking.
nordicjack, I think most “young” people would be in close contact with the next generation or two quite often. And it seems to be younger people who are making up the bulk of new cases at the moment (this is anecdotal, as I’ve read several recent articles which mention this). The trouble with a virus is that everyone can catch it even though some seem to be more susceptible to the resulting disease. And once caught, it can be transmitted.
I can’t really figure out the deal with Sweden. Worldometers figures rarely appear to show new cases or deaths but the figure do go up. Another site does show apparent average numbers on a rolling seven day basis but the daily figures seem to be sporadic and recently showed a big fall in cumulative numbers so I don’t really know what to believe there, especially as there seems to be some concern over rising numbers of cases. However, it still seems clear that just applying small restrictions consistently can lead to a good outcome though I’ve read that the Swede’s are getting tired of that, which is leading to rising case numbers.
I so agree that these chronically ill patients (chronically ill from Covid) need to be tracked. For whatever reason they are often antibody negative and will not be tracked readily. The Covid treatment centers want some kind of positive test but with some clearing it with t cell immunity and no “detectable” antibody they will not get identified. Many people didn’t get PCR testing in time and so cleared the virus by the time antigen testing was available (in the US). The reality is that the chronic disability from this is vastly undercounted with mild and moderate infection and long haul status. A group in New Dehli has excellent lectures on their experiences at AIIMS Telemedicine on YouTube regarding their experience with Covid. They report much higher rates of chronic illness (varying severity of course) after Covid than the 10 percent rate quoted here. It will take a very long time to sort out, but it is clear that part of the greater agenda is to ignore the disability from mild, moderate and severe cases in all age groups. I agree with reopening and know we should have started masks in January, yet I hate to see people who can’t get back to work get punished for being ill and then being told their illness doesn’t exist.
Chris showed a chart on the strong correlation of age and Covid-19 risk of death.
Covid-19 attacks, among other things, the endothelial cells that line the blood vessels. These are the same cells that are damaged by consuming dietary cholesterol. Dietary cholesterol covers endothelial cells with plaque, causing cardiovascular disease.
There are recent studies that correlate severe Covid-19 with high levels of blood cholesterol.
Perhaps a large part of what the age/Covid-19 charts are showing is not so much correlation with age, as with the number of years on the Western Diet.
Cardiovascular disease, along with damaged endothelial cells, increases, not with age, but with duration on a damaging diet.
Actual Deaths (23,000: almost twice the number of confirmed deaths)
As of May 1, New York City reported 13,156 confirmed deaths and 5,126 probable deaths (deaths with COVID-19 on the death certificate but no laboratory test performed), for a total of 18,282 deaths [source]. The CDC on May 11 released its "Preliminary Estimate of Excess Mortality During the COVID-19 Outbreak — New York City, March 11–May 2, 2020" [source] in which it calculated an estimate of actual COVID-19 deaths in NYC by analyzing the "excess deaths" (defined as "the number of deaths above expected seasonal baseline levels, regardless of the reported cause of death") and found that, in addition to the confirmed and probable deaths reported by the city, there were an estimated 5,293 more deaths to be attributed. After adjusting for the previous day (May 1), we get 5,148 additional deaths, for a total of actual deaths of 13,156 confirmed + 5,126 probable + 5,148 additional excess deaths calculated by CDC = 23,430 actual COVID-19 deaths as of May 1, 2020 in New York City.
It’s 1% false positive (over all) which = 30% of all of the positives being false positive.
As I understand it if you test 100,000 you will get 1,000 false positives (1%).
If you are getting 3,000 positive results 30% are false positives.
