What on Earth is going on in the world today? It's gone mad

[mrzz]

Great video here.....I'm not buying the numbers out of Italy, just as I certainly am not buying the numbers out of the U.S.

There have clearly been a slew of cases where coronavirus was cited as cause of death for people when it wasn't actually the cause.

I'm glad this Italian politician agrees. An epic rant right here from Vittorio Sgarbi.

Italian Leader Slams 'False COVID-19 Numbers: 25K Did Not Die, it's a way to Impose a Dictatorship'

(using your post to jump in the discussion)

Ok, I will try to address this. I admit I have almost zero hope of being able to reach any kind of dialogue with anyone, because all this has become completely political. I repeat, all this is completely political now. Apart from very, very few exceptions here and there (world wide I mean), everyone is just rallying around their previous political positions and defending the actions of their parties/leaders -- or their own economic interests. This is an honest disclaimer that I simply don't believe that people are in general being completely honest in this discussion -- as arbitrary, arrogant and whatever you wanna call it as it may sound.

To leave clear, my current position on a few topics:

1) I believe states with the proper infra-structure could/should try measures more sophisticate than "mere" quarantines and lock downs;
2) I believe that most numbers published are generally correct (more on this later);
3) I believe that countries large enough to have quite distinct infection rates within it should not have unified responses to the pandemic;
3) I believe that, in the absence of a better choice, quarantine and lock downs are necessary.

Obviously all the points above are debatable -- I am not stating them as absolute truths, just showing my starting point.

So, going back to the Italian politician speech (which, by the way, was correctly translated in to English):

As I said, I agree that different regions in Italy should have had different responses (but that is harder than it seems) -- as I believe this should be the case in the US and it is being the case here in Brazil (for a multitude of reasons, federal incompetence and omission being the first and second).

Regarding the numbers, I have to disagree with the politician. It is known that Covid-19 may not be the primary cause of death in many cases, but it is also known that, if it wasn't for Covid19, those patients would still be alive. In case of heart comorbidities, the connection is particularly simple to grasp -- patients simply cannot resist the missing breathing capacity induced by Covid-19.

So, those are, at least, Covid-19 induced deaths. They need to be accounted. Does this opens the door for someone to "enrich" the data? Yes, it does. Do I believe the numbers are severely altered because of this? no.

The answer to the above question is a blunt "no" for two different reasons:

1) Nowadays I work with data. I always had a very good "eye" to catch discrepancies, patterns and, yes, fraud. I have been following the evolution of the numbers world wide and I do not think there is a general, widespread alteration that would be large enough to change the diagnose. Of course you can see scattered problems of different natures, but since the data evolves in a daily basis, you would need a giant, absurd coordinated effort -- in both spacial and temporal senses -- to have those numbers that we have. I know this is subjective, and, yes, I could be wrong about myself...

2) As I mentioned previsously my wife works in the largest hospital in Latin America, inside the ICU's with Covid-19 patients. She has (as all employees have) access to the hospital occupation numbers. The numbers she sees there matches what she sees in everyday work, which by its turn is coherent with what the city and the state publish. So as far as my local numbers here go, I can attest their veracity.

Yes, people use those numbers politically. But I guess that a good part of the ones who notice that are falling in the trap of simply sustaining the opposite point of view, in some part fueled by the political environment, in other just to be confrontational.

The problem with an hyper-connected world is that some "blocks" are created that have almost nothing to do with each other. I can see why someone can discuss the correct approach in, say, Arkansas, but the crazy thing is that those arguments will be echoed somehow by someone here in São Paulo, which is part of a completely different universe. I agree that the world has reacted in an extremely inefficient way to this pandemic -- and I credit this inefficiency mostly to the political climate.

Last, one last thing in defense of quarantines: it is the way out of the ignorant. And we must start admitting that we are all still quite ignorant about this pandemic. I cannot believe the degree of certainty I see in a lot of people out there. Isolation and social distancing is the results of a risk assessment to begin with. And, final point, one thing that people that support SI, quarantines and lockdowns do not seem to get is that they are not an end in itself. In most cases, they are just a way to buy time and be prepared for what is to come. So they are supposed to end at some point.

 

[Murat Baslamisli]

Someone has lung cancer. He will die of it in maybe 6 months, max. Catches Covid. Dies in a week. What should the death certificate say?
Here is what I know. My mom died of lung cancer. Like huge number of other cancer deaths, she caught pneumonia towards the end that pushed her over the edge. She died from complications caused by lung cancer. Her cancer and the treatment weakened her immune system, she caught pneumonia. Not one doctor said she died because of pneumonia. She died of lung cancer.
If we cannot differentiate between "Dying from covid" versus "Dying with covid present" , we will not learn a fucking thing from this pandemic.

 

[mrzz]

Someone has lung cancer. He will die of it in maybe 6 months, max. Catches Covid. Dies in a week. What should the death certificate say?
Here is what I know. My mom died of lung cancer. Like huge number of other cancer deaths, she caught pneumonia towards the end that pushed her over the edge. She died from complications caused by lung cancer. Her cancer and the treatment weakened her immune system, she caught pneumonia. Not one doctor said she died because of pneumonia. She died of lung cancer.
If we cannot differentiate between "Dying from covid" versus "Dying with covid present" , we will not learn a fucking thing from this pandemic.

That's a bloody good point. But do you realise how subtle this discussion can be? (yes, you do, rethoric question). First, in this very example you gave... isn't those six months important? (I am not implying that you said otherwise) And, what about all those cases that would hang in the balance? I completely agree that we need to differentiate those two situations you mentioned, but... in the end, the ones in one side of the political fence (and any country will have its own) will push for whatever keeps the numbers up, while the other half will push for whatever keeps the numbers down. And, yes, in the meantime we don't learn a fucking thing. People die, other lose their jobs, and we don't learn a fucking thing.

 

[Moxie]

That's a bloody good point. But do you realise how subtle this discussion can be? (yes, you do, rethoric question). First, in this very example you gave... isn't those six months important? (I am not implying that you said otherwise) And, what about all those cases that would hang in the balance? I completely agree that we need to differentiate those two situations you mentioned, but... in the end, the ones in one side of the political fence (and any country will have its own) will push for whatever keeps the numbers up, while the other half will push for whatever keeps the numbers down. And, yes, in the meantime we don't learn a fucking thing. People die, other lose their jobs, and we don't learn a fucking thing.

Great post. If we keep politicizing it, we learn nothing.

Fight Over Virus’s Death Toll Opens Grim New Front in Election Battle (Published 2020)

Elements of the right have sought to bolster President Trump’s political standing by turning scientific questions into political issues.

www.nytimes.com

 

[Federberg]

@mrzz any thoughts on this article? My friend claims the following...

"FYI, Lula's supreme court appointee threw a hand grenade at the whole Indian land settlement that Bolsonaro team was confident of getting finalized"

Questão indÃgena: decisão de Fachin legaliza invasão e abre novo confronto com Governo Bolsonaro

Procurador do RS, Rodinei Candeia, fala sobre a decisão do ministro Edson Fachin, do STF, que suspendeu todas as ações de reintegração de posse em áreas...

www.noticiasagricolas.com.br

 

[mrzz]

@mrzz any thoughts on this article? My friend claims the following...

"FYI, Lula's supreme court appointee threw a hand grenade at the whole Indian land settlement that Bolsonaro team was confident of getting finalized"

Questão indÃgena: decisão de Fachin legaliza invasão e abre novo confronto com Governo Bolsonaro

Procurador do RS, Rodinei Candeia, fala sobre a decisão do ministro Edson Fachin, do STF, que suspendeu todas as ações de reintegração de posse em áreas...

www.noticiasagricolas.com.br

Oh boy. Land disputes in Brazil are a big issue. Agricultural land reform is a recurring, controversial theme. On one hand, there is a lot of unproductive land in Brazil (or land that the current owners acquired in quite a shady fashion). On the other, indeed there are criminals who try to steal land using the Agricultural Land Reform. Left wing parties completely politicized the social movements and now (I mean, for 20+ years) it is basically a war between the two sides, big land owners and part of the left. In the middle of all these is common that middle to small land owners pay a price they should not pay. On top of that there is indigenous land question. That's the (complex) context.

So, obviously a lot of those questions end up in the supreme court. The questions themselves usually are quite complex. I would need to read the plea and the decision in full to understand it (important detail: neither the plea or the decision are present on the article, neither direct links to it). Guys like your friend often don't even understand the role of the supreme court, and when they do not like a ruling, they revert to old methods of discrediting the judge based on who appointed him. Yes, that guy was appointed by Lula -- and ruled against Lula and his party multiple times (most of the time, in fact).

I've been here before, some crazy retarded extremist complains about a supreme court decision, and then you read it all, just to five hours later understand that the extremist in question does not even now what he is talking about. Don't have the time this time.

 

[Horsa]

I'm sorry I spoilt this thread
With things I shouldn't have said.
You were discussing the news.
You were wanting coronavirus views.
I just came up with things that I couldn't get out of my head.

Although life in lockdown was no fun,
Something needed to be done.
We needed to keep down the infection rate.
The fact we're slowly losing restrictions is great.
Though we need to keep our distance or risks will be run.

 

[Horsa]

People around the world have had to stay at home.
They've been restricted on where they can roam.
Around the house/flat & garden they've had to find things to do.
This has been happening to me & to you.
Whether we've done arts & crafts, gardened, done D.I.Y, written or just read a tome

 

[Federberg]

This is really troubling...

Study: 38% of kids in ICU with COVID-19 needed ventilation

www.cidrap.umn.edu

 

[Moxie]

Last, one last thing in defense of quarantines: it is the way out of the ignorant. And we must start admitting that we are all still quite ignorant about this pandemic. I cannot believe the degree of certainty I see in a lot of people out there. Isolation and social distancing is the results of a risk assessment to begin with. And, final point, one thing that people that support SI, quarantines and lockdowns do not seem to get is that they are not an end in itself. In most cases, they are just a way to buy time and be prepared for what is to come. So they are supposed to end at some point.

I think most of us who are doing quarantine and social-distancing DO understand that it's a way to buy time to know better. While I do know people that are pretty panicked about going back too soon, I think we all know that we have to venture forth at some point, believing that there is a herd-immunity brewing, knowing that we have new social habits that we can rely on, to some extent, and as we learn where the dangers are and to whom. But your very important point is that we do this while the medical/scientific community gets a better read on the virus. It's still a developing story.

 

[Moxie]

This is really troubling...

Study: 38% of kids in ICU with COVID-19 needed ventilation

www.cidrap.umn.edu

They've just begun talking about this in NY, and Fauci just brought it up. Young children are demonstrating very differently. And just when we thought they weren't susceptible, as much:

A New Coronavirus Threat to Children

Here’s what we know about the mysterious and frightening ailment that doctors are seeing in a small but growing number of very young Covid-19 patients.

www.nytimes.com

 

[Murat Baslamisli]

80% of deaths in Canada are in long term care homes.

 

[calitennis127]

This is really troubling...

Study: 38% of kids in ICU with COVID-19 needed ventilation

www.cidrap.umn.edu

What's really troubling is you apparently did not even read the article you posted (or if you did, you only glanced at it) and that you are actually trying to make the case that this virus is a serious threat to children on a large scale. That argument is laughable.

Allow me to cite statistics from the study YOU Posted:

- It covered a tiny sample size of 48 total patients combined from 14 PICU's (Pediatric Intensive Care Units), while also mentioning that of the 46 PICU's participating in the study, only 14 even had a patient to assess!

Of those 48:

- All but 2 survived

- 40 had significant underlying diseases

- 19 were already chronically dependent on technological support, 11 suffered from cancer or immune suppression, 7 were obese, 4 had diabetes, 3 either had some combination of seizures and heart disease, and 2 had some combination of sickle cell disease and chronic lung disease.


In other words, it is beyond stupid to take this particular sample and extrapolate from it that kids in general are at a serious risk from "COVID." Using this sample would be like arguing that someone is the best tennis player in the world because they beat a bunch of players ranked outside the top 1000. Almost everyone in this sample already had very severe medical problems aside from "COVID" (which I think would be more appropriately labeled the "nursing home virus").

 

[calitennis127]

They've just begun talking about this in NY, and Fauci just brought it up. Young children are demonstrating very differently. And just when we thought they weren't susceptible, as much:

A New Coronavirus Threat to Children

Here’s what we know about the mysterious and frightening ailment that doctors are seeing in a small but growing number of very young Covid-19 patients.

www.nytimes.com

Lol.....what a stupid, meaningless article from the New York Times. The vast majority of it is simply speculation about a new syndrome that has some standard cold symptoms. Big whoop. The article is simply meant to generate more COVID-phobia and refute the obviously true contention of shutdown opponents that kids are unaffected by this disease.

When it comes to actual data, the article has to concede that this is all the new syndrome has done:

"Three children in New York have died from it, Governor Andrew Cuomo reported on Saturday. Another death, of a 14-year-old boy in England was reported in, a study in the journal Lancet."

"A handful of cases have been reported in other states, including Louisiana, Mississippi and California."

"There have been at least 50 cases reported in European countries, including Britain, France, Switzerland, Spain and Italy."

WOWWWW!!!!!! 50 total cases in Europe?!?!? This syndrome is on a genocidal rampage! And a "handful" of cases in Louisiana? What's a "handful" - 3, 5, 7? Sounds menacing!!!!!

What a worthless article. Almost as silly as Federberg trying to prove that "COVID" is a threat to children by referring to a sample size of 48 kids who already have severe health conditions such as cancer, diabetes, and sickle cell disease (and even so, only two of them died from "COVID").

 

[Moxie]

Lol.....what a stupid, meaningless article from the New York Times. The vast majority of it is simply speculation about a new syndrome that has some standard cold symptoms. Big whoop. The article is simply meant to generate more COVID-phobia and refute the obviously true contention of shutdown opponents that kids are unaffected by this disease.

When it comes to actual data, the article has to concede that this is all the new syndrome has done:

"Three children in New York have died from it, Governor Andrew Cuomo reported on Saturday. Another death, of a 14-year-old boy in England was reported in, a study in the journal Lancet."

"A handful of cases have been reported in other states, including Louisiana, Mississippi and California."

"There have been at least 50 cases reported in European countries, including Britain, France, Switzerland, Spain and Italy."

WOWWWW!!!!!! 50 total cases in Europe?!?!? This syndrome is on a genocidal rampage! And a "handful" of cases in Louisiana? What's a "handful" - 3, 5, 7? Sounds menacing!!!!!

What a worthless article. Almost as silly as Federberg trying to prove that "COVID" is a threat to children by referring to a sample size of 48 kids who already have severe health conditions such as cancer, diabetes, and sickle cell disease (and even so, only two of them died from "COVID").

You must really be soulless. My point was not how many children have died, but how they demonstrate different symptoms. And there is a risk of longer-term heart affects, as yet unknown. But you keep making little of COVID-19, for your own political reasons. Can't you just face that there are health effects of this virus, however dire or not dire, and that people actually suffer them?

 

[calitennis127]

You must really be soulless. My point was not how many children have died, but how they demonstrate different symptoms. And there is a risk of longer-term heart affects, as yet unknown. But you keep making little of COVID-19, for your own political reasons. Can't you just face that there are health effects of this virus, however dire or not dire, and that people actually suffer them?

Lol....why are you not soulless for being completely indifferent to the mass human suffering that the shutdowns are causing, which is far greater than anything being caused by the Nursing Home Virus? On account of these irrational and unscientific government shutdowns, we now have the worst unemployment crisis since The Great Depression, hundreds of thousands of people can't receive medical care for non-COVID-related problems, mental health hotlines are blowing up with calls from depressed and dislocated people, and millions in the Third World are being threatened with mass hunger and health challenges. These are all problems that I saw coming right at the start of March, and they are far greater than anything being caused by the Nursing Home Virus.

My position on "COVID" from day one is that it exists but its danger is VASTLY exaggerated, and that it has been exploited by the political left to create hysteria, attack Trump, and garner more power. It is also clear that the death totals are being absurdly inflated with the lowest possible standards of categorizing deaths as "COVID."

As far as preventative measures.....I think Florida has had the best approach. They have a high-risk population with the elderly and retirees, and they aggressively protected that segment of their population. I think they went too far in repressing everyone else's freedom, but the basic idea of protecting the elderly above all else and then allowing the rest of society to function with some normalcy is in my view the best route.

These shutdowns are causing and will continue to cause massive suffering in a multitude of ways that are far worse than the Nursing Home Virus itself.....the residual impact of these shutdowns is going to last for years and will be very ugly for many people. For example, take a look at this, Moxie aka Mrs. Self-Righteous Pseudo-Humanitarian. Maybe Neil Ferguson was right and 2.2 million people will die.....not from the Nursing Home Virus, but from the consequences of his stupid recommendations:


Unicef warns lockdown could kill more than Covid-19 as model predicts 1.2 million child deaths

'Indiscriminate lockdowns' are an ineffective way to control Covid and could contribute to a 45 per cent rise in child mortality

Unicef warns lockdown could kill more than Covid-19 as model predicts 1.2 million child deaths

'Indiscriminate lockdowns' are an ineffective way to control Covid and could contribute to a 45 per cent rise in child mortality

www.telegraph.co.uk

 

[calitennis127]

(using your post to jump in the discussion)

Ok, I will try to address this. I admit I have almost zero hope of being able to reach any kind of dialogue with anyone, because all this has become completely political. I repeat, all this is completely political now.

Hi mrzz…..sorry I didn't get around to responding to you sooner, but I got busy with some things in the last few days. I do enjoy your posts though.....as for the virus being "completely political now," I think it has been completely political from the start. And the left (which controls the media) made it that way. They went from condemning Trump in early February as an anti-Chinese racist xenophobe for his travel ban on January 31st to declaring three weeks later that this was the deadliest virus in 100 years and that Trump was an incompetent fool for not shutting the country down when they were calling him a racist for the travel ban in early February. They turned on a dime entirely for political reasons.

Yes, this is all political, but it has been from the start. The threat from the virus is vastly exaggerated and the death count is inflated to a hilarious degree. It's being used by the left to destroy Trump's strong economy and impose their agenda in a time of weakness.

Btw, in time this "COVID" crisis is going to be exposed as a ridiculously exaggerated hoax, just as "Russian collusion" is now. But by the time all the facts come out no one on the left will care, just like right now they don't care that the whole Russian collusion narrative is being exposed as a farce and a politically orchestrated coup attempt.

 

[Moxie]

Lol....why are you not soulless for being completely indifferent to the mass human suffering that the shutdowns are causing, which is far greater than anything being caused by the Nursing Home Virus? On account of these irrational and unscientific government shutdowns, we now have the worst unemployment crisis since The Great Depression, hundreds of thousands of people can't receive medical care for non-COVID-related problems, mental health hotlines are blowing up with calls from depressed and dislocated people, and millions in the Third World are being threatened with mass hunger and health challenges. These are all problems that I saw coming right at the start of March, and they are far greater than anything being caused by the Nursing Home Virus.

My position on "COVID" from day one is that it exists but its danger is VASTLY exaggerated, and that it has been exploited by the political left to create hysteria, attack Trump, and garner more power. It is also clear that the death totals are being absurdly inflated with the lowest possible standards of categorizing deaths as "COVID."

This is a strawman argument. Just because we've argued on the side of caution doesn't mean that anyone is insensitive to the suffering that the prevention of spread is causing, including my own. This lockdown is decimating my industry, and it will never come back the same. Rather than address the specific potential threat to children, i.e., of potential long-term heart issues, in the same way as rheumatic fever, you lash out to protect your political interests. Nice.

 

[calitennis127]

This is a strawman argument. Just because we've argued on the side of caution doesn't mean that anyone is insensitive to the suffering that the prevention of spread is causing, including my own. This lockdown is decimating my industry, and it will never come back the same. Rather than address the specific potential threat to children, i.e., of potential long-term heart issues, in the same way as rheumatic fever, you lash out to protect your political interests. Nice.

Moxie....could you really be this obtuse? The numbers that Federberg's article as well as your article cited were so miniscule that to base public policy on them would be beyond irrational. Federberg's article looked at 46 PICU's nationwide - and only 14 of them even had a patient to assess! On top of that, those 14 PICU's combined for a grand total of 48 - yes, 48 - cases across the United States. And 40 of those 48 had very severe underlying medical issues.

So for a country of 330 million total people with a youth population that as of 2010 was around 75 million you want the national policy to be based on a sample size of 48 kids (all but 2 of whom survived "COVID") with severe health problems such as diabetes, cancer, and sickle cell disease?

Speaking of strawman arguments, no one is arguing against caution. Like I have said many times, the Florida governor has done a far better job than the dumbass Democrat governor of New York. The key here is to protect the elderly and not pull the dumbass move of Cuomo and Wolf to send COVID patients into nursing homes. But that can be done without ruining the life of everyone else - except the scum of the Democratic Party who are doing this all for political reasons. But since that is your church/cult, you cannot criticize them even one bit.

 

[mrzz]

Hi mrzz…..sorry I didn't get around to responding to you sooner, but I got busy with some things in the last few days. I do enjoy your posts though.....as for the virus being "completely political now," I think it has been completely political from the start. And the left (which controls the media) made it that way. They went from condemning Trump in early February as an anti-Chinese racist xenophobe for his travel ban on January 31st to declaring three weeks later that this was the deadliest virus in 100 years and that Trump was an incompetent fool for not shutting the country down when they were calling him a racist for the travel ban in early February. They turned on a dime entirely for political reasons.

Yes, this is all political, but it has been from the start. The threat from the virus is vastly exaggerated and the death count is inflated to a hilarious degree. It's being used by the left to destroy Trump's strong economy and impose their agenda in a time of weakness.

Btw, in time this "COVID" crisis is going to be exposed as a ridiculously exaggerated hoax, just as "Russian collusion" is now. But by the time all the facts come out no one on the left will care, just like right now they don't care that the whole Russian collusion narrative is being exposed as a farce and a politically orchestrated coup attempt.

Thanks for the reply. I partially agree (and, yes, I was being quite obvious with the line "this is all political now", as sometimes I tend to be) with your general point. Naturally you are more focused than I am in US politics -- and I agree with you that US politics have a great deal of influence world wide, but that has a limit. Also, we need to differentiate between the real world, boots on the ground actions and the mass media stage. As time passes, more and more real world actions are driven by the what happens on mass media stage -- so things gets more and more "political".

We had a small window of opportunity for sane and rational responses when everything was new. People could still try to avoid unpleasant scenarios in one hand, in the other, as the political chess pieces were not all placed yet, public figures simply had no political barometer to follow, they "only" had a "technical" point of view to follow.

As time passes, the pandemic (in whatever level you assess its severity) becomes a "given", just the new background against which the political game is played. The pieces are in place, all the next moves are totally political. Everyone guides their actions by it because they think it is more important to take down their adversaries than do anything about the pandemic.

I think that you could count on the fingers of one hand the number of people not described by the last emphasized sentence. If this pandemic was an existential threat to mankind (I guess we all agree it is not), this detail alone would be probably the main reason we would dive straight into extinction.