New Covid-19 Thread

[touchring]

Re: New Zealand Now Forcing Citizens into Concentration Camps

I'm perfectly willing to observe quarantine in my own home. A number of my friends and co-workers have had to do just that. Some of them were sick and ultimately tested negative. Others tested positive.

My boss and his family observed a two-week quarantine simply because their son had been in contact with someone who felt sick and got tested. I went grocery shopping for them and left the food on their doorstep. Their entire household stayed home for two whole weeks because the results for the person in question took so long to come back. She ultimately tested negative.

We're all co-operating, willing to do our part. Wearing masks in this unbearable heat. But force us out of our homes to observe quarantine under guard, treat us like criminals who can't be trusted, put us through that kind of stress when we've given no trouble to anyone at all... and there's gonna be a problem! I'm surprised you don't see the distinction.

In many countries, a positive test means virtual incarceration in a medical facility until you're cleared, which could mean anything from 2 weeks to 3 months stay.

All countries that have mandatory mask wearing and quarantine enforce them by threat of heavy penalties. Virtually every country in the world, perhaps with the exception of perhaps Japan (and north korea), it's not possible for the majority of people to follow the rules without the threat of arrest.

Yes, it's truly draconian but it's war and in times of war, there are no rights.

[touchring]

Re: New Zealand Now Forcing Citizens into Concentration Camps

They might even approve it if Trump wins, figuring by then that there's no gain to be had by continuing on this way.

Yes, definitely, let's not forget the puppeteers are very old men, they are susceptible, so the longer the pandemic virus gets to mutate and spread, the greater the danger to themselves. Of course, they will be hiding in bunkers, but what if the virus evolves to become an incurable disease just like Herpes, if it isn't already. Or perhaps they have already taken Putin's vaccine?

[Chris Coles]

Re: New Zealand Now Forcing Citizens into Concentration Camps

The Holocaust began with little things. "Reasonable demands" made by the government to "keep people safe." Gun control to keep people safe from "gun violence" disarmed the Jews so they could not defend themselves. Mandatory registration with the police led to "Your papers, please!" which eventually led to total restriction on travel (we're there now). Then government shut down their businesses, putting them out of work (we're there now). Then it was Yellow Stars of David sewn onto garments, and all the indignities and hardships that led to (Covid-19 passports, anyone?).

The Jews bearing the brunt of this were so civilized, so gentle, so decent (like you, jk!), they simply could not conceive of evil in others. With each new restriction they resigned themselves, told themselves it wasn't so bad, convinced themselves it wouldn't get worse. After all, they were citizens!

The government even told them that the internment camps to which they were being taken were for their own good. It'll be nice! It'll be like a country club! By the time they realized that they had lost ALL their freedom it was too late to escape. Their denial got them killed.

The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it's profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater. -Frank Zappa

Since 9/11, in order to fly we've had to show papers and submit to massive indignities at the hands of the TSA. And it doesn't even keep us safe. It's just security theater. Temporary measures? Hardly! But it conditioned us to bend over and take it.

Surveillance cameras are everywhere now, purportedly to keep us safe from crime. Covid-19 authorities want to put cameras inside your home to make sure you stay in your room! Will you take it?

The ONLY way to make a free society accept imprisonment is to make them afraid of freedom. Covid-19 was the perfect vehicle.

Our businesses have been arbitrarily and capriciously shut down. People denied their livelihoods. Do you know that for every 1% that unemployment increases almost 40,000 people die? So this is not about saving lives. This is about controlling lives.

Practically overnight we became accustomed to lockdowns and travelling with papers showing we're "essential workers."

Covid-19 tracking apps on phones, first optional, now mandatory in many places.

Mandatory home lockdowns of millions of HEALTHY people progressed to people being removed from their homes and held in "isolation wards" at gunpoint.

Now their HEALTHY relatives are being forced to go, too. You can say that it's not a concentration camp because people are allowed to leave after 14 days, but in these "facilities" people are only allowed to leave when the people with the guns say they can. The word "Allowed" is a giant red flag for me. Right now they're allowed to leave in 14 days, but the people paying the men with the guns can change their mind at any time, and when that happens there won't be a damn thing that the inmates can do about it.

And don't think it can't happen. A year ago, did you think any of this would be happening?

Covid-19 vaccines are going to be rushed out without longterm safety data, with the manufacturers guaranteed protection from all liability. Virginia is calling for MANDATORY vaccinations under these circumstances. More governments will take up this call. If they get their way, you won't be allowed to function as a member of society unless you allow yourself to be a guinea pig.

There are mounting calls for Covid-19 passports that people will have to carry in order to function in society.

The Spanish Flu killed between 25 and 39 million people worldwide, but society was never shut down like it has been for Covid-19, which has killed 800,000 people worldwide.

How can this progression not scare the shit out of anyone with a sense of history? Do you think that somehow after millennia of humans in power doing their very worst to those who have no power, that human nature has suddenly, magically become benign?

We are racing to a world of total government domination at breakneck speed. You say all of this is temporary? Were all the restrictions imposed upon us by the Patriot Act and the NDAA only temporary? Remember the old adage: There is nothing so permanent as a temporary government program.

Yeah, it's a bad virus. I don't want to get it and I don't want to give it to anyone else, so I'm being responsible and considerate of others. But I'm going to die someday, from something. We all do. The question should not be how can government keep me absolutely safe? The question should be how do I want to live? Are you willing to live as a slave because you're so afraid of death? I'm not!

I am for damn sure going to fear my government and question authority till the day I die.

I draw the line at mandatory 24/7 government tracking of my movements and associations. I will NOT carry a smart phone. If I starve, I starve.

I draw the line at being removed from my home against my will and held at gunpoint when I've done nothing wrong.

Your detailed description of how the past is written into what is happening today is very compelling; today Foreign Affairs has published this, equally compelling description of why we entered two world wars:
Which Past Is Prologue?

Heeding the Right Warnings From History https://www.foreignaffairs.com/artic...past-prologue?

[Mega]

Re: New Zealand Now Forcing Citizens into Concentration Camps

[Mega]

Re: New Zealand Now Forcing Citizens into Concentration Camps

[shiny!]

Re: New Zealand Now Forcing Citizens into Concentration Camps

My chiropractor wears metal braces on his legs. As a child he was paralyzed by the Swine Flu vaccine.

[touchring]

Re: New Zealand Now Forcing Citizens into Concentration Camps

Sorry, but this is rubbish. No one is attacking Chinese soil. Even an 8 year old knows this. Of course, unless you say infringement on the 9 imaginary lines is a form of attack on China.

[shiny!]

Tests Returning High Percentage of False Positives

From Zerohedge. I couldn't find a link to the original so take with a grain of salt.

Apparently nasal swab tests are detecting small amounts of dead virus particles. This sample contamination is interpreted as Positive for infection. This might explain the apparent rise in total cases without a concurrent rise in deaths. The confusion never ends...

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitic...-calls-causing

" ... new research from the University of Oxford’s Center for Evidence-Based Medicine and the University of the West of England has found that the swab-based technique used for most COVID-19 testing is at risk of returning "false positives" since copies of the virus's RNA detected by the tests might simply be dead, inactive material from a weeks-old infection. Although patients infected with COVID-19 are typically only infectious for a week or less, tests can be triggered by virus genetic material left over from a weeks-old infection.

The team's research involved analyzing 25 studies on the widely used polymerase chain reaction test. PCR tests use material collected with a swab - the most common type of test around the world, and especially in the US - then utilize a "genetic photocopying" technique that allows scientists to magnify the small sample of genetic material collected, which they can then analyze for signs of viral RNA.


What the researchers here have effectively found is that these PCR tests just aren't sensitive enough to distinguish if the viral material is active and infectious, or dead and inert.


For those who desire a more comprehensive understanding of how these tests work, the chart below can be helpful.




Professor Carl Heneghan, one of the authors of the study, said there was a risk that a surge in testing across the UK was increasing the risk of this sample contamination occurring and it may explain why the number of Covid-19 cases is rising but the number of deaths is static.


Evidence is mounting that a good proportion of ‘new’ mild cases and people re-testing positives after quarantine or discharge from hospital are not infectious, but are simply clearing harmless virus particles which their immune system has efficiently dealt with," he told the Spectator.
Professor Heneghan added that international scrutiny might be required to avoid "the dangers of isolating non-infectious people or whole communities."

[Mega]

Re: Tests Returning High Percentage of False Positives

https://news.sky.com/story/coronavir...onday-12066910

[shiny!]

How a Simple Fatal Math Mistake Caused Worldwide Panic, Lockdowns

The 1% blunder: How a simple but fatal math mistake by US Covid-19 experts caused the world to panic and order lockdowns

Malcolm Kendrick
RT
Sun, 06 Sep 2020 20:28 UTC

In February, US Covid guru Anthony Fauci predicted the virus was 'akin to a severe flu' and would therefore kill around 0.1 percent of people. Then fatality rate predictions were somehow mixed up to make it look ten times WORSE.

When you strip everything else out, the reason for lockdown comes from a single figure: one percent. This was the prediction that Covid, if left unchecked, would kill around one percent of us.

You may not think that percentage is enormous, but one percent of the population of the world is 70 million people - and that's a lot. It would mean 3.2 million Americans dead, and 670,000 Britons.

But where did this one percent figure come from? You may find this hard to believe, but this figure emerged by mistake. A pretty major thing to make a mistake about, but that's what happened.

Such things occur. On September 23, 1998, NASA permanently lost contact with the Mars Climate Orbiter. It was supposed to go round and round the planet looking at the weather, but instead it hit Mars at around 5,000 mph, exploding into tiny fragments. It didn't measure the weather; it became the weather - for a few seconds anyway.

An investigation later found that the disaster happened because engineers had used the wrong units. They didn't convert pound seconds into Newton seconds when doing their calculations. Imperial, not metric. This, remember, was NASA. An organisation not completely full of numbskulls.

Now you and I probably have no idea of the difference between a pound second and a Newton second (it's 0.67 - I looked it up). But you would kind-of hope NASA would. In fact, I am sure they do, but they didn't notice, so the figures came out wrong. The initial mistake was made, and was baked into the figures.

Kaboom!

With Covid, a similar mistake happened. One type of fatality rate was substituted for another. The wrong rate was then used to predict the likely death rate - and, as with NASA, no-one picked up the error.

In order to understand what happened, you have to understand the difference between two medical terms that sound the same - but are completely different. Rather like a pound second or a Newton second.

Which fatality rate, did you say?

First, there's the Infection Fatality Rate (IFR). This is the total number of people who are infected by a disease and the number of them who die. This figure includes those who have no symptoms at all, or only very mild symptoms - those who stayed at home, coughed a bit and watched Outbreak.

Then there's the Case Fatality Rate (CFR). This is the number of people suffering serious symptoms, who are probably ill enough to be in hospital. Clearly, people who are seriously ill - the "cases" - are going to have a higher mortality rate than those who are infected, many of whom don't have symptoms. Put simply - all cases are infections, but not all infections are cases.

Which means that the CFR will always be far higher than the IFR. With influenza, the CFR is around ten times as high as the IFR. Covid seems to have a similar proportion.

Now, clearly, you do not want to get these figures mixed up. By doing so you would either wildly overestimate, or wildly underestimate, the impact of Covid. But mix these figures up, they did.

The error started in America, but didn't end there. In healthcare, the US is very much the dog that wags the tail. The figures they come up with are used globally.

On February 28, 2020, an editorial was released by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Published in the New England Journal of Medicine, the editorial stated: "... the overall clinical consequences of Covid-19 may ultimately be more akin to those of a severe seasonal influenza."

They added that influenza has a CFR of approximately 0.1 percent. One person in a thousand who gets it badly, dies.

But that quoted CFR for influenza was ten times too low - they meant to say the IFR, the Infection Fatality Rate, for influenza was 0.1 percent. This was their fatal - quite literally - mistake.


Comment: A more skeptical mind might think that this was no mere mistake, but deliberate.

The mistake was compounded. On March 11, the same experts testified to Congress, stating that Covid's CFR was likely to be about one percent, so one person dying from a hundred who fell seriously ill. Which, as time has passed, has proved to be pretty accurate.

At this meeting, they compared the likely impact of Covid to flu. But they used the wrong CFR for influenza, the one stated in the previous NEJM editorial. 0.1 percent, or one in a thousand. The one that was ten times too low.

Flu toll 1,000 - Covid toll 10,000

So, they matched up the one percent CFR of Covid with the incorrect 0.1 percent CFR of flu. Suddenly, Covid was going to be ten times as deadly.

If influenza killed 50, Covid was going to kill 500. If influenza killed a million, Covid was going to get 10 million. No wonder Congress, then the world, panicked. Because they were told Covid was going to be ten times worse than influenza. They could see three million deaths in the US alone, and 70 million around the world.

I don't expect you or I to get this sort of thing right. But I bloody well expect the experts to do so. They didn't. They got their IFR and CFR mixed up and multiplied the likely impact of Covid by a factor of ten.

Here's what the paper, "Public health lessons learned from biases in coronavirus mortality overestimation",says: "On March 11, 2020,... based on the data available at the time, Congress was informed that the estimated mortality rate for the coronavirus was ten-times higher than for seasonal influenza, which helped launch a campaign of social distancing, organizational and business lockdowns, and shelter-in-place orders."

On February 28 it was estimated that Covid was going to have about the same impact as a bad influenza season - almost certainly correct. Eleven days later, the same group of experts predicted that the mortality rate was going to be ten times as high. This was horribly, catastrophically, running-into-Mars-at-5,000-miles-an-hour wrong.

Enter the Mad Modellers of Lockdown

In the UK, the group I call the Mad Modellers of lockdown, the Imperial College experts, created the same panic. On March 16, they used an estimated IFR of 0.9 percent to predict that, without lockdown, Covid would kill around 500,000 in the UK.

Is this prediction anywhere close?

So far, the UK has had around 40,000 Covid deaths. Significantly less than 0.1 percent, but not that far off. Of course, people will say... "We had lockdown... without it so many more would have died. Most people have not been infected..." etc.

To answer this, we need to know the true IFR. Is it a 0.1 percent, or one percent? If it is one percent, we have more than 400,000 deaths to go. If it is 0.1 percent, this epidemic has run its course. For this year, at least.

With swine flu, remember that the IFR started at around two percent. In the end, it was 0.02 percent, which was five times lower than the lowest estimate during the outbreak. The more you test, the lower the IFR will fall.

So where can we look to get the current figures on the IFR? The best place to look is at the country that has tested more people than anywhere else as a proportion of their population: Iceland.

As of last week, Iceland's IFR stood at 0.16 per cent. It cannot go up from here. It can only fall. People can't start dying of a disease they haven't got.

This means that we'll probably end up with an IFR of about 0.1 percent, maybe less. Not the 0.02 percent of Swine Flu - somewhere between the two, perhaps. In short, the 0.1 percent prophecy has proved to be pretty much bang on.

Which means that we've had all the deaths we were ever going to get. And which also means that the lockdown achieved almost precisely nothing with regard to Covid. No deaths were prevented.

Mangled beyond recognition

Yes, we are testing and testing, and finding more so-called cases. As you will. But the hospitals and ICUs are virtually empty. Almost no-one is dying of Covid anymore, and most of those who do were otherwise very ill.

Instead of celebrating that, we've artificially created a whole new thing to scare ourselves with. We now call a positive test a Covid "case." This is not medicine. A "case" is someone who has symptoms. A case is not someone carrying tiny amounts of virus in their nose.

Now, however, you test positive, and you're a "case." Never in history has medical terminology been so badly mangled. Never have statistics been so badly mangled.

When researchers look back at this pandemic, they'll have absolutely no idea who died because of Covid, or who died -coincidentally- with it. Everything's been mashed together in a determined effort to make the virus look as deadly as possible.

Lockdown happened because we were told that Coivid could kill one percent. But Covid was never going to kill more than about 0.1 percent - max.

That's the figure estimated back in February, by the major players in viral epidemiology. A figure that has turned out to be remarkably accurate. Bright guys... bad mistake.

We've killed tens of thousands - for nothing

But because we panicked, we've added hugely to the toll. Excess mortality between March and May was around 70,000, not the 40,000 who died of/with Covid. Which means 30,000 may have died directly as a result of the actions we took.

We protected the young, the children, who are at zero risk of Covid. But we threw our elderly and vulnerable under a bus. The very group who should have been shielded. Instead, we caused 20,000 excess deaths in care homes.

It was government policy to clear out hospitals, and stuff care homes with patients carrying Covid, or discharge them back to their own homes, to infect their nearest and dearest. Or any community care staff who visited them.

We threw - to use health secretary Matt Hancock's ridiculous phrase - a ring of steel around care homes. As it turned out, this was not to protect them, but to trap the residents, as we turned their buildings into Covid incubators. Anyone working in care homes, as I do, knows why we got 20,000 excess deaths. Government policy did this.

That is far from all the damage. On top of care homes, the ONS estimates that 16,000 excess deaths were caused by lockdown. The heart attacks and strokes that were not treated. The empty, echoing hospitals and A&E units. The cancer treatments stopped entirely.

Which means that at least as many people have died as a result of the draconian actions taken to combat Covid, as have been killed by the virus itself. This has been a slow-motion stampede, where the elderly - in particular - were trampled to death.

We locked down in fear. We killed tens of thousands unnecessarily, in fear. We crippled the economy, and left millions in fear of their livelihoods. We have trapped abused women and children at home with their abusers. We have wiped out scores of companies, and crushed entire industries.

We stripped out the NHS, and left millions in prolonged pain and suffering, on ever lengthening waiting lists, which have doubled. There have also been tens of thousands of delayed cancer diagnoses - the effects of which are yet to be seen, but the Lancet has estimated at least sixty thousand years of life will be lost.

Lockdown can be seen as a complete and utter disaster. And it was all based on a nonsense, a claim that Covid was going to kill one percent. A claim that can now be seen to be utterly and completely wrong. Sweden, which did not lock down, has had a death rate of 0.0058 percent.

It takes a very big person to admit they have made a horrible, terrible mistake. But a horrible, terrible mistake has been made. Let's end this ridiculous nonsense now. And vow never to let such monumental stupidity happen ever again.

By Malcolm Kendrick, doctor and author who works as a GP in the National Health Service in England. His blog can be read here and his book, 'Doctoring Data - How to Sort Out Medical Advice from Medical Nonsense,' is available here.

[Chris Coles]

Re: How a Simple Fatal Math Mistake Caused Worldwide Panic, Lockdowns

I very simply do not believe for one moment that this was anything other than a quite deliberate action taken by an industry that has come to realise that their "game" is up.

[Mega]

Re: How a Simple Fatal Math Mistake Caused Worldwide Panic, Lockdowns

[Techdread]

Re: How a Simple Fatal Math Mistake Caused Worldwide Panic, Lockdowns





https://www.ft.com/content/5cc92d45-...6-26501693a371

Sweden is not a model big countries with high population centres could have carried ou even if they wanted to, Boris would have head his head on a spike.
Go and compare their death rate compared to the other Nordic countries. And did it save their economy.

[shiny!]

Was COVID-19 spreading freely before last Christmas? It appears so.

Was Covid-19 spreading freely worldwide BEFORE last Christmas? The evidence keeps stacking up

11 Sep, 2020 17:29 / Updated 3 days ago

By Peter Andrews, Irish science journalist and writer based in London. He has a background in the life sciences, and graduated from the University of Glasgow with a degree in genetics.

A new study from America indicates that people were falling ill with coronavirus-like symptoms in December 2019, but doctors at the time dismissed it as ordinary flu.

A team of doctors from Los Angeles scouring the hospital records from last winter has discovered a series of smoking gun clues which almost guarantee that Covid-19 was present in America well before Christmas.

Scientists from UCLA have been analysing over 10 million hospital records from December 1, 2019 to February 29, 2020. Comparing that winter to previous ones, they noticed a 50-percent increase in ‘coughing’ as a symptom on admission forms. In addition, 18 more people than would ordinarily be expected were hospitalised with acute respiratory failure.

In fact, the scientists estimate that there may have been 1,000 or more Covid sufferers in LA alone last winter – and presumably those are just the symptomatic minority. At the time, of course, all of this was put down to a moderately bad flu season. Officially, Covid did not turn up in LA until January 22, when a traveller in LAX airport fell ill. He was from Wuhan, and was identified as Covid-positive four days later.

This bombshell fits an emerging body of evidence on an earlier coronavirus timeline. Many people may remember the reports of a strange vaping-related illness that ravaged Americans towards the end of last year. There was a good deal of study on it. Scientists at first thought it was the oils in the e-cigs congealing in people’s lungs, but soon debunked that hypothesis. In hindsight, it is difficult to look past Covid as the real culprit. Pneumonia-like symptoms, ordinarily fit people falling severely ill… it was Covid all over.

These revelations come hot on the heels of a very different story from England, which nonetheless points to the same conclusion. Peter Attwood died at the age of 84 on January 30, having been sick for over a month. But in recent weeks, an autopsy has confirmed that he died of Covid, which he probably was infected with in 2019. Underlining this, Attwood’s daughter was sick with similar symptoms two weeks earlier still.

All of this happened in Kent, England. But according to the government there, the first Covid death in the UK did not happen until March. Now, Attwood’s family want answers from the Chinese government on why they did not tell the WHO earlier about the coronavirus, which we know from leaked memos was identified in mid-November at the latest.

If coronavirus burned a track through the US and the UK towards the end of last year, is there any reason to suspect it wasn’t doing the same everywhere else? In July, reports came in of coronavirus DNA being found in Spain, Italy and South America as long ago as the spring of 2019. How far back does this story go? We will probably never know.

Nor will we ever be able to track the precise journey of the novel coronavirus around the globe, despite being nearly certain of its origin in Wuhan. But when the inquiry is done, surely findings like these have to be taken seriously, and built into the retrospective model of the pandemic. And if the coronavirus was spreading freely in 2019, the questions are: What was the point in beginning lockdowns in March this year? Is it really credible that they could have made a blind bit of difference, coming as late as they did?

This whole mess demonstrates the problem with relying on official data and records, as they are bound to be incomplete and tardy, particularly at this stage. Despite such understandable failings in government information, people have an unfortunate habit of treating it like the gospel truth. This is absurd, and yet thinking of this quality seems to inform so much coronavirus policy.

[Techdread]

Re: Was COVID-19 spreading freely before last Christmas? It appears so.

First case of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pneumonia in Taiwan

On December 31, 2019, an outbreak of respiratory illness later proved to be caused by a novel coronavirus, officially named Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), was notified first in Wuhan, a city of Hubei province, People's Republic of China (PRC). COVID-19 rapidly spreads in China and to other parts of the world. Currently more than 70,000 laboratory-confirmed cases in China have been reported, and the case count has been rising daily. Some travelers-related transmission were also identified in many countries, including Taiwan, Singapore, Vietnam, Republic of Korea, Malaysia, Thailand, Japan, Germany, France, United States (U.S.), Australia, etc. through an international conveyance, and raised a global health emergency.1 As of February 18, 2020, there were 22 confirmed cases in Taiwan. Herein we presented the first case identified in Taiwan on January 21, 2020.

I don't think it could have been widespread in the rest of the world, why because its just too bloody contagious, it as simple as that.
There would have been health-care staff dying of the disease long before February 18, 2020.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/scienc...29664620300449