Corona virus: Government takes the St Augustine approach.


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  • #51903 Reply
    D E

      Yes. If you want to know what the whole experience of intubation, anaesthesis and ventilation is like, read this:

      Coronavirus: This is how it feels to be in intensive care with COVID-19 – a survivor’s graphic story

      #51909 Reply
      michael norton

        So why are we given no numbers in the U.K. of people who have come off ventilation and been released from hospital?
        You would have thought Matt Hancock would have been blowing his own trumpet
        if this is so great?

        #51911 Reply
        SA

          Michael
          “Is there a single case in the U.K. of a patient being induced in to a coma and put on a breathing maching, recovering and going home?”

          Yes there is data from the Intensive Care National Audit and Research centre (ICNARC. If you want to read the whole paper you have to click and open the PDF. But basically it showed:
          “Critical care unit outcomes have been received for only 1689 (of 3883) patients, of whom 871 patients have died and 818 have been discharged alive from critical care”. which means a survival rate of just under half 48%. I seem to remember similar figures from Italy. This article also discusses this subject.

          #51918 Reply
          Tatyana

            What is known from our medical sources: the patient may feel good, but the test will show the presence of the virus and the pathological process in the lungs. The x-ray is uninformative; a computer tomography scanning is better.

            The affected parts of the lungs show a process similar to fibrosis. Ventilation of the lungs at this stage will not give a good result, since the lungs would absorb oxygen unsatisfactorily, it is better to supply oxygen directly to the blood through the vein.

            Medications for malaria show good results for Covid. Another antiparasitic drug has been identified, it inhibits the reproduction of the virus in the human body. Most likely it will be widely used, since it is already on sale.

            Statistically in countries where BCG vaccination is common programm for population, the incidence and mortality rate differs tenfold (according to various sources, 40-60 times).

            I follow the numbers in Russia, I observe a correlation: the number of deaths is about 10% of the recovered. Today it is 232 died and 2304 recovered.
            It is difficult to compare the mortality rate with the total number of cases, since the latter figure is growing all the time. The growth rate is also increasing, it may denote that people continue spreading the virus instead of obeying quarantine.

            #51919 Reply
            michael norton

              The United Kingdom, now has recorded over 100,000 covid-19 cases.
              Today we have the highest increase in deaths of any European country.

              #51930 Reply
              SA

                There is a known lag period where new cases will start to decrease first before the number of deaths do because those who die generally do so 1 to 2 weeks after the start of infection.

                #51941 Reply
                michael norton

                  Well yesterday China added quite a lot of deaths from Wuhan, that they had not counted
                  several months ago?

                  #51951 Reply
                  Clark

                    Tatyana, April 16 at 16:47 – “Statistically in countries where BCG vaccination is common programm for population, the incidence and mortality rate differs tenfold (according to various sources, 40-60 times)”

                    I assume that’s many times less rather than worse? And is this specifically BCG vaccination, or could BCG be acting merely as a marker for better healthcare provision in general?

                    It is a pleasure to read your intelligent and considered comments, along with the others on this thread. I have spent too long arguing with boneheads.

                    #51972 Reply
                    Tatyana

                      Hi, Clark. Yes, it is less. I thought about the nearly the same (better healthcare) but in another aspect. Perhaps, it is another ‘soviet-like’ healthcare? I mean, free healthcare.

                      In my country it is organised like this: every citizen gets medical insurance. Those who are unempoyed get it simply for free. For those who work, the employer himself withholds from the salary all the necessary contributions for medicine, social programs, taxes, etc. and pays to the relevant government accounts.

                      In case a citizen feels need to visit a doctor, he simply comes to the nearest clinic, or calls for ambulance and they take him to the hospital, or whatever. We do not even touch on the financial issue, but simply give the staff our medical insurance policy and that’s it.
                      Sometimes, we may need additional medical examination that is not covered by the policy. But this is never an urgent or life-threatening case. We never get bills after treatment. Medics themselves decide with the insurance company.

                      Unlike the reports I see mostly from the USA. People look like really concerned with the cost of treatment. They pay from their pocket and settle with the insurance company later.

                      As to BCG, here are the links
                      https://www.treatmentactiongroup.org/statement/treatment-action-group-statement-on-bcg-vaccine-and-covid-19/#_edn2

                      “Among other claims, the study found lower Covid-19 mortality in 55 middle- and high-income countries with universal BCG vaccination policies compared to 5 countries that never had universal BCG vaccination. See: Miler A, Reandelar MJ, Fasciglione K, et al. Correlation between universal BCG vaccination policy and reduced morbidity and mortality for COVID-19: an epidemiological study. medRxiv. 28 March 2020. doi: 10.1101/2020.03.24.20042937.”

                      https://www.researchgate.net/publication/340224580_BCG_vaccination_may_be_protective_against_Covid-19

                      “178 countries had data from all three sources and formed the basis of our analysis. Current national programs of BCG vaccination exist in 131 countries; 21 countries have no current program of national BCG vaccination; and for 26 countries status is unknown. Over preceding 15 days, incidence of Covid-19 was 38.4 per million in countries with BCG vaccination compared to 358.4 per million in the absence of such a program. The death rate was 4.28/million in countries with BCG programs compared to 40/million in countries without such a program”

                      Also, I’d like to note people on here make no understanding how ventilation works. Among other methods, we should distinguish between on-face mask ventilation, and invasive intubation, which needs sedation and 5-7 days in ‘coma’ until stoma cures. it leaves a scar, like we’ve seen on Yulia Skripal. That’s why I was sceptical, taking into consideration her phone call to her Russian cousin and her ability to translate and write down her interview in 2 languages. fraud.

                      #51991 Reply
                      SA

                        Tatyana
                        I have tried to address the question of BCG vaccination as a non-specific primer of immunity above on 1st April.
                        Not all patients on intubation and mechanical ventilation with induced coma require a tracheostomy. This is usually done in those who require prolonged ventilation, usually more than 2 weeks. Also there is another form of assisted ventilation called CPAAP which uses assisted mechanical ventilation but in conscious patients without intubation or induced coma.

                        #51992 Reply
                        SA

                          Comment #51285 1st April above.

                          #52001 Reply
                          Tatyana

                            Thank you, SA. I’ve seen it but didn’t respond because there was no question in the comment. I simply swallowed a piece of info from you and didn’t say “thanks”, sorry!

                            Now they are going to investigate BCG against this new virus
                            Australia
                            https://www.clinicaltrialsarena.com/news/australia-bcg-vaccine-trial-covid-19/
                            Netherlands and Boston join
                            https://www.newsweek.com/scientists-boston-australia-netherlands-trial-bcg-vaccine-covid-19-who-1498069

                            Key words for those who will follow the news:
                            the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute
                            the Faustman Lab
                            Royal Children’s Hospital

                            Detail in the WHO website
                            https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04327206

                            #52004 Reply
                            Clark

                              Tatyana, thank you for your reply.

                              The system of medical insurance you describe is similar to the system established in the UK by the great Labour governments after the Second World War. The UK system sounds a little simpler, it is called National Insurance. There is only one account to pay, and it covers healthcare and old age pension. It is paid by employers, or for those on social security it is paid from one government department to another.

                              I didn’t take much notice of the Salisbury matter. I am sorry for Yulia Skripal because it was not her fault that her father was a spy, but ultimately the incident is a secret service story, so all involved governments will lie about it, because they can, and any other governments will be dependent on the involved governments for information. The public can never discover the truth, so the matter can serve only as a vehicle for propaganda.

                              #52006 Reply
                              SA

                                It is very interesting to look at the political alignment of the Covid-19 deniers. So far the predominant majority have been of the right and extreme right, with some exceptions. This reaction of the right and far right is discussed here by Jason Wilson from the Guardian Australia. For example Steve Bannon appears to take it seriously but only as an instrument to attack China. The extreme right wing governments in UK and USA have tried from the outset to underplay the effects of the virus and managed to delay the response to the crisis and to twist the scientific advice that is offered by tempering it with practical economic and sociological considerations. There is no doubt that cracks are now appearing in this attempt to use science for political purposes. Recently Professor Helen Ward wrote a scathing expose of how the advice given By Professor Ferguson has been twisted by the government.

                                When I say that politicians “refused to listen”, I am referring to the advice and recommendations coming from the World Health Organization, from China and from Italy. The WHO advice, based on decades of experience and widely accepted by public health leaders and scientists around the world was clear – use every possible tool to suppress transmission. That meant testing and isolating cases, tracing and quarantining contacts, and ramping up hygiene efforts.

                                The UK did well in the early phase, but then, on 12 March, the government alarmed many public health experts by abruptly abandoning containment and announcing that community case-finding and contact-tracing would stop. The aim was no longer to stop people getting it, but to slow it down while protecting the vulnerable.
                                There have been some disagreements between what Whitty has said, against that of Vallance in some of the daily updates, including the differences in death toll between Germany and UK.

                                Asked about the differences with Germany, where the number of deaths appears to be increasing less rapidly than in the UK, Prof Chris Whitty told the daily government press briefing on Tuesday: “We all know that Germany got ahead in terms of its ability to do testing for the virus, and there’s a lot to learn from that.” Germany is already able to test 500,000 patients a week and is under pressure to increase this further.Whitty had interjected after the government’s chief scientific adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance, gave a more circumspect reply, saying: “The German curve looks as though it’s lower at the moment, and that is important, and I don’t have a clear answer to exactly what is the reason for that.


                                More recently in Question time on BBC1 on 16th April, Dr Rachel Clarke, a palliative care consultant, exposed the deficiencies of the policies surrounding care homes, which have been ignored, and of the current shortage of PPE for NHS and other frontline staff, as well as a slow and defective overall policy.
                                So where does the left stand in all this? The left should be united in recognising the gravity of this situation and point out the mishandling of the situation that arose from ideology. The episode has illustrated how poorly the current western capitalist materialism has failed to see the essence of how to deal with such a massive humanitarian crisis affecting their own populations.

                                #52007 Reply
                                SA

                                  Clark
                                  Each person also pays a contribution to National Insurance, which is deducted by the employer from salaries, or paid directly by self employed people, whilst employers pay a top up also.

                                  #52010 Reply
                                  SA

                                    Tatyana
                                    Sorry wasn’t really fishing for a thank you. Here is more information of how this works in boosting immunity to other infections in children. This scientific publication is a bit technical, but apart from producing antibodies, BCG and other vaccines also enhance the production of Natural Killer cells in a process called “trained immunity”.
                                    BCG is actually used therapeutically to treat superficial urinary bladder cancer.

                                    #52012 Reply
                                    michael norton

                                      Part of the “excuse” why the U.K. government has been blind-sided is Brexit and the General Election and now the incapacity of our new prime minister.

                                      #52014 Reply
                                      Tatyana

                                        “fishing for a thank you” – it is so cute 🙂 I didn’t know how to say it in English. Now I know!
                                        I don’t mind thanking, or fishing for thanks, or any other normal human actions 🙂 I feel already bored by this quarantine, I miss talking to people, greeting, thanking, chatting, etc.

                                        #52018 Reply
                                        michael norton

                                          https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8230775/Is-proof-live-saving-ventilators-actually-deathtraps.html

                                          According to this website
                                          https://coronavirus.thebaselab.com/
                                          nobody in the United Kingdom has ever recovered from covid-19

                                          we have the worse mortality rate of any major country

                                          why is it so bad in the U.K.?

                                          #52026 Reply
                                          Clark

                                            SA, 10:43: yes, that is what I meant; employers deduct it from employees pay. But since deducting it is compulsory upon the employer, that amount is effectively added to the pay offered for the job by the employer before the job is advertised or offered, so it is as if the employer pays it. The exception is the self employed or those living on capital, who can avoid paying it.

                                            #52027 Reply
                                            Clark

                                              michael norton, my guess is that the UK criteria for recovery are more stringent, ie. people recover just as much in the UK, but the UK hasn’t counted them as recovered yet.

                                              I seem to remember that there was a figure for UK Recovered, but then it just vanished.

                                              #52028 Reply
                                              Clark

                                                SA, 10:40: conspiracy theories are usually a right-wing thing. The right is more anti-science in general, as it has to be really, eg. global warming denial, pandering to religious fundamentalism etc.

                                                There was an exception to this as some on the left in the anti-war movement began accepting 9/11 Twin Tower demolition theory, and I expect this served as the tiny grain of truth in the “anti-Semitism in the Labour Party” hoax. I didn’t realise for years that Twin Tower demolition theory had been promoted from very early on by anti-Semites such as Holocaust denier Victor Thorn, Barnes Review etc.

                                                #52029 Reply
                                                michael norton

                                                  Clark,
                                                  so far you are only counted positive with covid-19 in the U.K. if you have been ambulanced in to a hospital, they are only taking incredibly sick covid-19 people in, most are expected to try to cope at home,
                                                  over half of those put on ventialtors, die, the less than half that survive and show a modicum of improvement then have a long time recuperating in a hospital environment.
                                                  Many will take a longtime before they are released in to the wild.
                                                  Japan is now going bonkers.

                                                  Doctors in Japan have warned that the country’s medical system could collapse amid a wave of new coronavirus cases.

                                                  Emergency rooms have been unable to treat some patients with serious health conditions due to the extra burden caused by the virus, officials say.

                                                  One ambulance carrying a patient with coronavirus symptoms was turned away by 80 hospitals before he could be seen.
                                                  https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-52336388
                                                  Japan, which initially appeared to have the virus under control, passed 10,000 confirmed cases on Saturday.

                                                  #52036 Reply
                                                  SA

                                                    Michael
                                                    Mr Johnson does a disappearing act when he does not know what to do. In this last case he has a good excuse. But it shows a major deficiency in a so-called democratic system that the system is so paralysed in the absence even of such an inadequate PM.

                                                    #52038 Reply
                                                    SA

                                                      Clark @April 18, 2020 at 13:38
                                                      This leaked document: The work of the Labour Party’s Governance and Legal Unit in relation to antisemitism, 2014 – 2019
                                                      According to this massive investigation the hoax bit was that there were those within the labour party who saboutaged the investigations into antisemitism in order to harm Corbyn. The executive summary is interesting:

                                                      The work of GLU (Governance and Legal Unit) and the relationship between LOTO (Leader of the party Office) and GSO/GLU in 2015-2018, cannot be understood without understanding the role of Labour Party factionalism. As the Party’s investigation progressed, this became increasingly apparent, and unavoidable. Claims have been made about these relationships that are critical to understanding how the Party addressed complaints of antisemitism in 2015-18 – most notably, the assertion that GLU was forced by LOTO to follow “unwritten guidance” which prevented action on antisemitism – and which required investigation.

                                                      This report is not concerned with the rights and wrongs of different political positions espoused by different factions and individuals in the Labour Party in the preceding five years. However, an understanding of the role of Labour staff in this period is critical to any examination of how the disciplinary process functioned, and to assessing allegations about the role of LOTO in those processes.

                                                      Labour Party staff, who are employed by the Party rather than as political advisers to politicians, are expected to act impartially and serve the Party, regardless of the current Leader, much as the civil service is expected to serve the Government under whichever political party is in power. However, this section shows that much of the Labour Party machinery from 2015-18 was openly opposed to Jeremy Corbyn, and worked to directly undermine the elected leadership of the party. The priority of staff in this period appears to have been furthering the aims of a narrow faction aligned to Labour’s right rather than fulfilling the organisation’s objectives, from winning elections to building a functioning complaints and disciplinary process.

                                                      Labour Party staff based at Labour HQ were not obeying secret directives from LOTO. On the contrary, all of the available evidence points to the opposite conclusion – that Labour Party staff based at Labour HQ, including GLU, worked to achieve opposing political ends to the leadership of the Party. This included work to remove supporters of the incumbent leader during the 2016 leadership election, and work to hinder the leader’s campaign in the 2017 General Election. The attitude in HQ towards LOTO could be summed up in one comment from a senior staff member, who said “death by fire is too kind for LOTO”.

                                                      Labour officials, including senior staff, expressed hostility towards Jeremy Corbyn and his staff, towards Labour MPs including Andy Burnham, Ed Miliband, Sadiq Khan, Emily Thornberry, Diane Abbott and Dawn Butler. Staff described “most of the PLP” as “Trots” or called them “totally useless” in 2015 for not having yet launched a coup …
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                                                      … against Corbyn. As one staff member commented, “everyone here considers anyone left of [Gordon] Brown to be a trot.”

                                                      Staff repeatedly used abusive and inappropriate language about the leader, MPs, Labour members and about other staff. For example, staff discussed “hanging and burning” Jeremy Corbyn, calling Corbyn a “lying little toerag”; said that any Labour MP “who nominates Corbyn ‘to widen the debate’ deserves to be taken out and shot”; and stated that a staff member who “whooped” during Corbyn’s speech “should be shot”. Senior staff also said they hoped that one Labour member on the left of the party “dies in a fire”. Senior Labour staff used language that was considerably more abusive and inappropriate than that cited as justification for suspending many Labour members who supported Jeremy Corbyn in 2016.

                                                      In August 2015 senior staff explored delaying or cancelling the ongoing leadership election when it looked like Jeremy Corbyn was going to win. When Corbyn was elected staff discussed plans for a coup; one staffer said “we need a POLL – that says we’re like 20 points behind”; another suggested a silver lining for Remain losing the 2016 European referendum would be that Corbyn could be held responsible; and another hoped that poor performance in the May 2016 local elections would be the catalyst for a coup.

                                                      Staff described “working to rule” when Corbyn was elected and “coming into the office & doing nothing for a few months.” During the 2017 general election, staff joked about “hardly working”, and created a chat so they could pretend to work while actually speaking to each other – “tap tap tapping away will make us look v busy”. Senior staff coordinated refusing to share basic information to LOTO during the election, such as candidates’ contact details. Labour HQ operated “a secret key seats team” based in Labour’s London region office in Ergon House, from where a parallel general election campaign was run to support MPs associated with the right-wing of the party. The description of the workload and budget involved in this “secret” operation contrasts with the go slow approach described by other staff regarding work on the official general election campaign which the leadership was running to return a Labour government.

                                                      One senior staff member implied that he would support the Conservatives over Labour under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, saying “who votes for JC? If it’s a choice btwn him & TMay how do WE vote for him?”. Staff sent messages expressing their wish that Labour would perform badly in the 2017 general election, saying “with a bit of luck this speech will show a clear polling decline” and “I CANNOT WAIT to see Andrew Neil rip [Jeremy Corbyn] to pieces over it tonight”. Senior staff commented …
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                                                      … that the huge rallies for Corbyn late in the election made them “feel ill”, and they reacted to the polls narrowing with dismay, rather than optimism.

                                                      On election night on 8 June 2017, when the exit poll predicted a hung parliament, General Secretary Iain McNicol, Executive Director for Governance, Membership and Party Services Emilie Oldknow (who was responsible for overseeing GLU) and other senior staff discussed hiding their reactions, saying “everyone needs to smile” and “we have to be upbeat. And not show it”. Oldknow also described Yvette Cooper and other Labour MPs’ support for Corbyn after the election as “grovelling and embarrassing”.

                                                      In January 2017, Iain McNicol, Emilie Oldknow and other senior staff discussed preparing for a leadership election if Labour lost the Copeland and Stoke-on-trent byelections, and setting up a “discrete [working group]” to determine the rules and timetable. Iain McNicol discussed this with Tom Watson and told him “to prepare for being interim leader”. During the 2017 general election the Director of GLU John Stolliday then drew up these plans, including a rule change to replace the one member one vote system with an Electoral College system to help ensure that a MP from the party’s left could not win.

                                                      GLU staff talked openly with each other about using the party’s resources to further the aims of their faction. The Director of the Unit John Stolliday described his work in GLU as “political fixing”, and described overhauling selections of parliamentary candidates and overturning CLP AGM results to help the right of the Party. Emilie Oldknow and GLU staff discussed keeping Angela Eagle MP’s CLP suspended, at Eagle’s request, in order to give her team more time to organise against left-wing members before the AGM. Staff also discussed organising NEC Youth Representative elections on a different election cycle to other NEC elections, to ensure a left-wing candidate would not win, and noted that this was signed off by GLU’s Director.

                                                      Staff applied the same factional approach to disciplinary processes. One staff member referred to Emilie Oldknow expecting staff to “fabricate a case” against people “she doesn’t like/her friends don’t like” because of their political views. During the 2015 leadership election GLU and other Labour staff described their work as “hunting out 1000s of trots” and a “Trot hunt”, which included excluding people for having “liked” the Greens on Facebook. One prominent GLU staffer, Head of Disputes Katherine Buckingham, admitted that “real work is piling up” while she and other staff were engaged in inappropriate factional work.

                                                      Factional loyalty also determined key recruitment decisions, including in GLU, where people were appointed to senior roles with few apparent relevant qualifications. This …
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                                                      … had a severe impact on the Party’s ability to build a functioning disciplinary process over the following years.

                                                      This section demonstrates that the party machine was controlled by one faction which worked against Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership and to advance the interests of their faction, and that LOTO did not have authority or influence over GLU or the party machinery more broadly. Factional work appears to have come at the expense of work the staff were being paid to do, including – as will become apparent in Sections 3-6 – building and maintaining a functioning complaints process.

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