SARS cov2 and Covid 19


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  • #53585
    SA
    Guest

    “Meanwhile, the harvest won’t come in. That’s a bit of a bigger issue than a flu-type bug going round.”

    The harvest may or may not come in whether there was a lockdown or not. Just think ir through, Sick men cannot bring the harvest in.
    But as long as you follow the original Trumpian line that it is only the flu, and as long as you also follow the capitalist’s line, that the harvest can be brought in by the workers, who are disposable then a very good Marxists you will prove not to be.

    #53588
    N_
    Guest

    The naming stuff is marketing. It’s the same as for airports.

    SARS-CoV2 [1] is a virus of the same type as the viruses that cause the common cold (namely it is a coronavirus [2], a subtype of that type being SARS), but the symptoms (if a person gets any symptoms at all) are often more severe than for the common cold (as they are for influenza [3], another group of viruses that cause respiratory symptoms that can be severe and can be fatal); and many SARS-CoV2 infectees especially if they are elderly and already have a chronic illness – such as a long-term respiratory illness – are at risk if hospitalised of catching pneumonia (in hospital) and then snuffing it, and indeed they are at risk of snuffing it even if they don’t catch pneumonia in hospital, or if they don’t go to hospital – all of which also apply to flu. So all in all it seems quite flu-typy even if the mortality rate is higher.

    Meanwhile the Coronavirus Act means that no hospital looks like it will be successfully sued for causing the death of a Covid-19 certificated patient by improper use of a ventilator and in any case the requirements for cremation paperwork have been relaxed. So of course we’ve all got to clap “the NHS” and “nurses” which really means the medical priesthood, the government, and the state. (Nurses who blow the whistle aren’t getting much of a hearing.) Never underestimate the hypocrisy of the ruling class.

    Most scientists don’t have a clue what’s going on, and those that do have a bit of a clue won’t be talking in public. Those who think they know what’s going on will be kept away from the very centre by dint of being village idiots. (It’s very easy for a person who plays a Knower role to an appreciative workplace audience or to some other lower-status audience to get the idea that they know stuff that they don’t. This is the reason why some independently-minded aristocrats even if impoverished prefer to socialise with independently-minded proletarians than with managerial or professional types.) The first big question is this: what amount of biological warfare [4] is there in various aspects of this epidemic? [5]. There is no reason to believe that those who are concerned with national strategy at the helm of the state are able to answer that question with much precision. That said, the answer is obviously not zero.

    Notes
    1) Is “SARS-CoV2” WHO-decided, i.e. a Big Pharma-decided, name?
    2) My guess is that most people don’t know that the scientific priesthood uses the word “coronavirus” for the viruses that cause the common cold as well as for SARS, and that having had their minds softened up by the media many would think that anybody who told them this fact was probably a nutter.
    3) Many believe that when they have a fairly heavy cold that disappears within a day or two, or maybe three, that they actually have “flu”, when usually they haven’t, because flu usually knocks a person out for longer and with a bigger hammer.
    4) A pandemic is a type of epidemic, so I am using the word “epidemic” correctly even if many have been encouraged to use a word that is new for them, namely “pandemic”. Getting people to use a word that is new for them is a known propaganda technique that encourages them to think they are in a “community” that is “with the programme”.
    5) This is why I keep on about the disparity between Britain and Russia for case fatality ratios. Obviously testing policy, type of test, the criteria for deciding whether or not to slap a Covid-19 diagnosis on a patient who is in this or that health or demographic category, and policies regarding sanitising hospitals all have an effect on the CFR (as doubtless does climate), but I suggest that when Britain has a CFR that is 16 times higher than Russia’s there are almost certainly other major human-caused factors.

    #53611
    SA
    Guest

    N_

    Your post contains a lot of incomplete information an some that are completely wrong

    SARS-CoV2 [1] is a virus of the same type as the viruses that cause the common cold (namely it is a coronavirus [2], a subtype of that type being SARS), but the symptoms (if a person gets any symptoms at all) are often more severe than for the common cold (as they are for influenza [3], another group of viruses that cause respiratory symptoms that can be severe and can be fatal); and many SARS-CoV2 infectees especially if they are elderly and already have a chronic illness – such as a long-term respiratory illness – are at risk if hospitalised of catching pneumonia (in hospital) and then snuffing it, and indeed they are at risk of snuffing it even if they don’t catch pneumonia in hospital, or if they don’t go to hospital – all of which also apply to flu. So all in all it seems quite flu-typy even if the mortality rate is higher.

    Yes SARS-Cov2 is the same family as some common cold viruses but this is the way that scientific classifications operate. So for example strawberries, apples and roses all belong to the same natural botanic family the Rosaceae but they are completely different in many ways. So belonging to the same family does not make it less severe or more severe, this is an inherent quality of the organism. Secondly the symptoms, if present, are sufficiently different from those of influenza. They are a high temperature, a dry cough, shortness of breath, and less commonly sneezing and stuffy nose, although these may also occur. Also whereas in influenza you may get a secondary bacterial pneumonia, in Covid-19 the major serious pathology is a picture called Acute Respiratory distress syndrome, where the lung air sacs fill of inflammatory fluid and there is no secondary bacterial infection. This is crucial because antibiotics may help some who develop secondary bacterial pneumonia in influenza, but have no use in the management of covid-19. So it is not flu like in any shape or form and persisting to use this expression denotes wilful distortion. This I=has been stated time and time again and you should know.

    Meanwhile the Coronavirus Act means that no hospital looks like it will be successfully sued for causing the death of a Covid-19 certificated patient by improper use of a ventilator and in any case the requirements for cremation paperwork have been relaxed. So of course we’ve all got to clap “the NHS” and “nurses” which really means the medical priesthood, the government, and the state. (Nurses who blow the whistle aren’t getting much of a hearing.) Never underestimate the hypocrisy of the ruling class.

    What exactly do you mean by the improper use of a ventilator? I do not think that there is a blanket waiver on medical negligence because of covid-19 if you look at the law carefully. What exactly do you mean by the “medical priesthood”. Is that a known CT term? Is there a pope and priests and so on? Is medicine a religion? This is a wilful distortion to imply that a profession is conspiring for its own sake, against the public and is baseless.

    Most scientists don’t have a clue what’s going on, and those that do have a bit of a clue won’t be talking in public. Those who think they know what’s going on will be kept away from the very centre by dint of being village idiots. (It’s very easy for a person who plays a Knower role to an appreciative workplace audience or to some other lower-status audience to get the idea that they know stuff that they don’t. This is the reason why some independently-minded aristocrats even if impoverished prefer to socialise with independently-minded proletarians than with managerial or professional types.) The first big question is this: what amount of biological warfare [4] is there in various aspects of this epidemic? [5]. There is no reason to believe that those who are concerned with national strategy at the helm of the state are able to answer that question with much precision. That said, the answer is obviously not zero.

    Thanks N_ for that information. I take it that unlike most scientists you are fully conversant with what is going on. You have done your research by visiting sites on the internet and found the truth? The rest of the passage above doesn’t make much sense.

    And so on you go especially with your self-important notes not based on facts. Why do you do this?

    #53614
    michael norton
    Guest

    SA,
    N is doing it because he is using free will, he has a brain and as of now, it is not yet against the law to question.
    Our U.K. government seem to not want us comparing one nearby country of similar population numbers with the U.K.
    they say things like, there is no usefulness in comparing how one country deals with covid-19 with another country.

    If one were allowed to express an opinion, one might imagine the U.K. authorities have much to hide.

    It is almost certain, (in my view) that bat hunters have been in bat caves in South West China, for the express purpose of identifying viruses.
    What they do with a “new” virus, we do not know.
    However, to imagine there is no Chinese government involvement with these viruses is absurd.

    #53621
    Clark
    Guest

    N_, May 15, 18:41, #53582

    “They…” [those who use the term “conspiracy theory”] “want any kind of criticism of the medical, scientific or other “professional” priesthoods (and of the elite that they all serve) that actually GOES SOMEWHERE to be thrown out alongside stories about Elvis Presley living on the Moon. Anti-conspiracism is mostly not honest, but when it is honest it demeans the person who is coming out with it. It makes them not worth discussing with”

    The terms “conspiracy theory”, “conspiracy theories” and “conspiracy theorist” are clearly a problem. I regard conspiracy theory (in the general sense, as in gravitational theory, Marxian theory, theory of music etc.) to be characterised by “argument primarily from motive”. N_, would you read this please?

    Then, we should consider and achieve consensus on one point at a time, to keep things focussed.

    #53623
    SA
    Guest

    Michael
    Off course the British government (or should I say the regional English government) is either really at sea with this crisis or are up to something which they are not telling us. The wilful confusion created by each announcement is staggering. Take this latest announcement from Hancock about R, the rate of reproduction of the virus. It seems that the government is now saying that the R value of 1 is OK, but in fact I do not think they know, or will admit to know what the real value is. Suddenly we are being told that the R value ‘overall’ in London is 0,4 but that the value is higher overall because of high rates in care homes and in hospitals, as if those do not matter.
    Coronavirus: Suddenly, the government isn’t so sure the R rate is important

    Take the words of the prime minister. On 30 April, Boris Johnson told the nation that “keeping the R rate down is absolutely vital to our recovery”.
    Or take the words of Monday’s government document, “Our Plan to Rebuild”, which made a point of warning that the R rate was “potentially only just below 1”.
    On this basis, the document suggested, the government was only allowing the smallest of lockdown easing to take place in England.On the advice of the government’s scientific advisory committee SAGE, the government announced on Friday evening that the R rate had gone up.
    The range, now from 0.7 to 1, means there is now a chance that the rate of infection has stopped declining in the community.
    Suddenly, it feels if the government isn’t quite so sure of the central role of the R rate.
    Government scientific advisers stress the R is rising because of the scale of infections in care homes and hospitals, not because it’s going up elsewhere in the community more generally.

    So now, comparison with other countries is not useful, and also the R value doesn’t mean anything. But in fact the weekend announcement has actually led to many thinking that the lockdown is now lifted. Shops are reopening and some with no obvious attempts at social distancing from my personal experience on a quick drive yesterday. The traffic is coming back and the tube trains, according to the news outlets, are now crowded again.
    And meanwhile “Coronavirus: Estimated speed of coronavirus infections rises over past week
    And this is before the last easing of lockdown.
    I am not against attacking the government but I am just pointing out that N_ is indulfing in futile arguments about facts that have long been settled. His persistence in calling this ‘flu’ has no basis and if he concentrates on attacking the government rather than the profession then he is barking up the wrong tree and in fact helping the government’s incompetence and its coverup. Similarly I think going on about Chines culpability is a useful tool for our governments blatant incompetence.

    • This reply was modified 3 years, 1 month ago by modbot.
    #53624
    Clark
    Guest

    “N is doing it because he is using free will, he has a brain and as of now, it is not yet against the law to question.”

    Indeed. But if they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about the answers, do they?

    Michael, they’ve effectively diverted your attention from the US/UK governments onto the Chinese government. N_ is right; there has been much lower mortality per population in Russia than in the US/UK. That difference will remain, no matter what the Chinese government did. It’s bad in the US and UK because our governments fucked up. The Chinese government also fucked up, fucking horribly, but that’s for the people of China to address, just as it’s for the people of the US/UK to address our governments. We the people don’t have aircraft carriers and ICBMs (thank the Goddess); we can’t project our power thousands of miles. All we have is ourselves.

    #53627
    Clark
    Guest

    Indications are emerging that all the shit-slinging between the US government and the Chinese government is that it was a joint research project that fucked up. The US very quickly and quietly withdrew funding from it at the same time as the US intel agencies briefed that the virus was probably a lab escape.

    Of course, neither government want attention paid to that, so they’re indulging in a shit fight to distract their own populations.

    #53628
    michael norton
    Guest

    Good news that our Prime Minister is FATY.
    That he has been taken to the brink of intubation, not quite but almost.
    He was seventeen and a half stone.
    He is now on the road to understanding that bluff and bluster do not work against covid-19.
    He is a committed cyclist and wants to make cycling to work, if possible the norm.
    Good.
    Now we need some truth, does diabetes cause you to get FAT or do fat people become diabetic.
    Part of the reason people who are diabetic have done so badly after they have contracted covid-19 is visceral fat, which already causes damage to their organs.

    #53643
    SA
    Guest

    Michael
    Being obese (the clinical term used for fat-and there are grades-overweight, obese, and grossly obese) makes you more susceptible to diabetes, hypertension and heart disease, referred to as ‘the metabolic syndrome. It makes you more susceptible to heart disease and stroke. 29% of adults are classified as being obese, that is almost one in three people. Losing weight reverses these risk factors. So if our PM wants to set an example he should lose weight to something between 11 and 12 stones.

    #53644
    michael norton
    Guest

    SA
    quite, one of my friends was nineteen stone and discovered he was type 2, he has lost eight stone, over about four years, essentially he has reversed his diabetes but his GP surgery still classes him as diabetic.
    My friend does not eat for one hundred hours, in a go, each month.
    He does not eat for eighteen hours each day, taking his two meals in the six hour window,
    he is now quite fit. He does not ( or tries not to) eat sugar, bread, cakes or sweets or carbonated drinks, nor does he eat tv meals nor does he eat take always, all these things he used to indulge, he still modestly drinks alcohol.
    His gp surgery told him the exact opposite of what he did.
    Diabetes is one of the worst things to attain, yet so many of our people are now Type Two.
    Let us hope Boris pushes his ideas, to cut sugar based foods and get us outside and walking, running, canoeing and swimming and cycling.
    Part of the reason we seem to have such a lot of covid-19 deaths in the U.K. is because of diabetes, overweight and unfit, most people, even young people are very unfit, I would say they are bringing themselves towards an early death by their own mouths.
    This is the time for a health revolution.

    #53651
    N_
    Guest

    The creation of the “Are they lifting the lockdown too fast?” channel for public opinion in Britain suggests that the ruling elite will soon try to enforce compulsory testing on all school pupils in that benighted country.

    What a big propaganda push there is, complete with media articles talking about “100% accuracy” in testing! WTF kind of test is that then? It must be the first 100% accurate (100% true-positive, 100% true-negative) test in medical history! How clever the “scientists” must be to have been paid by Big Pharma to say they have come up with it so quickly!

    Compulsory vaccination will probably follow, quite possibly with smartphone “contact tracing” mixed in with it. It wouldn’t surprise me if they claim, even if only to Daily Express readers, that the vaccine is 100% successful too. Wow – another first in medical history.

    Never mind that annual “flu jabs” have probably contributed a lot to weakening people’s immunity to viruses. They can’t be much good if their stimulation of your antibody mechanism only lasts a year, can they? People are literally being treated the way pet vets – working in a profession dominated by US multinational Colgate-Palmolive which owns Hill’s – treat pets.

    How stupid a person has to be to get annual flu jabs! Try zinc. Try bee pollen. Try nigella seeds. All three are accepted even by “ekshpurtz” to strengthen the immune system. How many slavish getters of annual flu jabs could even give a damn about that?

    How about somebody plots annual flu jab consumption against Covid-19 mortality rate for different countries? I’m guessing that a significantly greater proportion of the population gets annual flu jabs in Britain than in Russia.

    In Britain people look up to medics like nobody’s business, which causes the warped mind and persona of a medic – a career phony if ever there was one – to treat them with even more contempt.

    In Russia, most medics are much lower-paid and you could even argue that many of them are actually proletarians or maybe lower middle class. At least most of them don’t live in mansions at the top of the hill and take six or more holidays a year to “resorts” that cater for people with more money than sense, as many British medics do.

    Both compulsory testing and compulsory vaccination must be resisted.

    To detourn Bertolt Brecht:

    “Mass vaccination resistance: the stupid call it stupid and the squalid call it squalid.”

    #53656
    Clark
    Guest

    “What a big propaganda push there is, complete with media articles…”

    You must consume a lot more “news” media than me.

    “I’m guessing that a significantly greater proportion of the population gets annual flu jabs in Britain than in Russia”

    Possibly, or maybe it makes no difference, or maybe flu jabs even help. That’s what cohort studies and case-control studies are for.

    But consider the first order effects first, and in the case of an infection that multiplies as fast as covid-19, that’s timing. Russia’s lower mortality totals are the result of their stronger and especially earlier social restrictions. 8 deaths at time of lockdown in Russia, versus 359 in the UK, and Russia started taking precautions in February.

    “Both compulsory testing and compulsory vaccination must be resisted.”

    There’s nothing quite as thrilling as counting your vultures before they’ve hatched.

    #53668
    michael norton
    Guest

    Well, I wanted to ask why is the number of reported covid-19 deaths 1/13 of those counted in the U.K.
    Similar number of covid-19 victims counted ( now slightly more in Russia),
    this seems an improbable difference?

    #53689
    Clark
    Guest

    “now slightly more in Russia”

    It’ll keep going up.

    Timing is the most important matter to get our heads around; many of the mistakes are because people look at a static snapshot, but covid-19 doesn’t stand still. The infection rate increases if it can, when social restrictions are light enough, but we never know how many are infected, because 80% of the infected have no symptoms, and 100% of the infected are infectious before symptoms show.

    The best estimate we get comes two weeks later, as the deaths show up. Then we can estimate how many must have been infected two weeks previously. That’s how the (unfairly maligned) ICL model works.

    In Russia, a higher proportion of cases are getting detected because Russia does more tests per head of population. Russia is also a big place, so there is less travel between far-flung cities, less dispersion of infection, relatively speaking, so the authorities have more idea where to target tests.

    Comparing how well or badly countries are doing is best revealed by plotting on one graph deaths against time for each country. That gives a load of curves rising at different rates. But the crucial step is to shuffle each country’s line horizontally, to align all their starting points to a fixed number of deaths, to remove the differences created by the pandemic arriving at different times in different countries.

    Here is one such graph, for comparing countries mandating face masks against countries that don’t. The graph is from about 40% down in this systematic review. Unfortunately the starting points were aligned by cases rather than deaths, and the comparison is thus subject to distortion by how much testing was done and how testing was targeted – ironically, better testing makes the country’s problem look worse. The graph also doesn’t include Russia, but it does show you the type of graph you need to find.

    Note that the vertical axis in that graph is logarithmic; each higher horizontal division is a factor of ten greater. The straightest lines would be curving upwards if the “number of cases” axis was linear; such “log-linear” graphs turn exponential growth into a straight slope. Note lines that curve towards the horizontal; that indicates the effect of social restrictions.

    #53713
    SA
    Guest

    One of the other explanations for the lower death rate in Russia is that they have been doing extensive testing according to Alexander Mercouris.

    In Russia, where testing has been very extensive (4.1 million tests up to May 3 in a country with a total population of 144.5 million, with numbers of tests currently in a range of 120,000 and 180,000 a day) the percentage of persons detected in a typical day who are infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus, but who are not ill with Covid-19, is in the range of 40-50 percent. Many of these persons do eventually fall ill with Covid-19, so the actual percentage infected who do not become ill with Covid-19 is lower.

    #53720
    Clark
    Guest

    Widespread testing can decrease the death rate only when those who test positive are quarantined. So widespread testing plus quarantine decreases the death rate by lowering R.

    However, widespread testing with or without quarantine does lower the Case Fatality Rate or CFR by finding a higher proportion of the infectees, thus increasing the number of confirmed cases.

    #53735
    Tatyana
    Guest

    SA and Clark,
    You are both correct on russia’s current situation. We do mass testing and we do quarantine.
    Current figures are here, 6.9 million testing done up to today
    https://xn--80aesfpebagmfblc0a.xn--p1ai/

    On quarantine, we discussed recently with my sister who lives in Moscow. She is a teacher, thus she is keeping connected to social life even when quarantined. We still educate our children with school programmes by Internet here in Russia.
    Well, we talked about lockdown and discussed if it is necessary at all. Ann says directly: “(low mortality tall in China and Russia) ’cause people trust their government. They were told to stay home, they were told BY STATE, to stay home, that’s why they DO stay at home.” And when I tried to debate this was rather totalitarian decision, she and my husband unanimously said ” history proves that people, if they have too much freedoms, then they start – khm, i try to voice it in a polite manner – if people are given too much freedom, then they start *sorry* f@ck each other in the *sorry* butt”.
    Actually, I agree to some extent, that some parts of society put their desire above the wishes, needs and necessities of the rest. But, on the other hand, I can’t see the balance option, I can’t see which way would please everyone.
    So far, I prefer this approach – let’s stay quarantined until the things clear up. I mean, the virus is new, it is simply reasonable to take precautions until we know for sure what we are getting in touch with.

    #53743
    michael norton
    Guest

    In France today more than twice as many people died as were newly found to be infected with covid-19

    this seems like good news.
    They are coming out the end of their tunnel.

    #53745
    Clark
    Guest

    Tatyana, no apology necessary as far as I’m concerned; I’m a Derek and Clive fan!

    Derek & Clive – ‘Non Stop Dancer’ / ‘My Mum Song’ from the album Come Again

    Tatyana, do you know if the test kits are manufactured in Russia? The problem here seems to be that the UK can no longer manufacture anything – except high-tech weaponry to sell to Saudi Arabia of course. It seems we can’t even make masks any more; just a bit of fabric and some elastic.

    #53753
    Tatyana
    Guest

    Clark, yes we do it ourselves. I know that the team visited China to learn about the new virus and to get samples. Then, government facilitated licencig procedure to get tests as soon as possible. It is PCR test, so we only needed samples and reagents, so we obtained samples and we produce reagents. And they also authorised several private commercial clinics to do testing and published the list of them, thus anyone may go and get tested for rather modest sum of about 2000 roubles, in case they want to know.

    #53756
    Clark
    Guest

    Is all the testing commercial, or is there a government programme too? And if there’s a government programme, do the public have to pay for those tests?

    I feel ashamed to be English. So many people commenting here seem to think that there is no such thing as science. I am 57; it didn’t seem like this when I was younger, it seems to have happened in the 2000s onward. I don’t understand where such ignorance came from. I suppose it must be born of suspicion, because of distortion in the media to justify the wars for oil in the Middle East, and the grotesque imbalance of wealth. Though I should add, a few of those grotesquely rich people are Russians!

    I’m rambling. The denial of science makes no sense to me; I can’t imagine how the deniers explain technology to themselves. Technology has advanced almost beyond recognition in my lifetime, so someone must be researching to achieve the advances upon which this is based. It is surreal; I can sit here at home exchanging text with you, a Russian in Russia, and we can exchange our experiences of the pandemic. From the perspective of my youth, that would have been unthinkable, both technically and politically, yet here we are, our computers communicating by a shared protocol that is fully published, nothing secret about it at all. Yet to my compatriots that is not even a mystery, it is apparently just another product, something they don’t need to think about because it is just something they buy, and therefore they expect it to work, without any thought or involvement from them… Have they no curiosity? I couldn’t be satisfied to think I was surrounded by a sort of commercial magic.

    My government can’t make tests, it can’t even make masks. If it wasn’t so arrogant and aggressive, it could simply ask to buy some from Russia; instead it sends the samples to the USA to get them tested there! Yet my nearest town is Chelmsford where Marconi made radios, I live just three miles from were the first scheduled public radio transmissions were broadcast, from a wooden shed in Writtle. It has been moved to a museum a few miles away, but I know where it was and when people visit me I take them to the site. Radio! which has done so much to connect all humanity! Yet I am disconnected from people right next to me by their ignorance of science; many seem to think I must be either an agent of an international conspiracy, or so feeble minded that I’ll believe everything the politicians tell me on television. At least I know how the damn television works.

    Bless you Tatyana, for being a friend across these thousands of miles.

    #53757
    Clark
    Guest

    And thank you to the moderators for correcting my errors of memory.

    #53759
    SA
    Guest

    The PCR test is something that is easy to develop in any university and many NHS and biological labs. Because it relys on cycles of amplification and high sensitivity contamination and cross reaction with similar molecules have to be guarded for and the test thoroughly validated. But PCR tests are easier to develop than antibody tests and can be scaled up quickly. I am not quite sure what the government has by way of facilities to produce and scale up PCR testing, but it would have been up something like Public Health England to seek to get these facilities up and running and that would have meant that there would have been an executive, or even a political direction to do so.
    I remember that in the early days of the pandemic some universities and research institutions in the US wanted to roll out testing but prevented from doing so by government. It really seems a political more than a logistic problem.
    The same sort of obstruction seems to have happened with contact tracing. This is a well established way that is used for example to trace outbreaks of drug resistant TB or other infectious disease. This needs a local network of people trained to do so. I think we are currently not well placed to do contact tracing despite three months or more of notice. Again this is a political decision. When the government hides behind: ‘we are guided by the science’ they are really talking a lot of crap and is a code for avoiding blame for the very political decisions they have taken.

    #53761
    Tatyana
    Guest

    Clark,

    Is all the testing commercial, or is there a government programme too? And if there’s a government programme, do the public have to pay for those tests?

    Sure, there’s state programme, free testing, as all vital medicine in my country. They do tests and computer tomography and whatever doctor considers necessary – for those people who have signs of the disease.

    It works like that: you call the “hot line” and report you have signs of the virus. A medical crew in protective suits arrives at your home and examines you, takes material for analysis, if necessary they may bring you to a CT scan of the lungs, or they can hospitalize you.

    If the symptoms are non-dangerous they prescribe you to stay home, isolated. When the results of the test are ready they call you back and inform of the result. If positive and the manifestations of the disease are slight, then you get official paper notice and you should stay at home. Doctors call these patients daily and patients report their temperature and overall state of health.

    The official paper also obligates you to install the monitoring app in your phone and confirm that you are staying at home and observing quarantine, by the app reminder (usually send your photo). Also, the official notice reminds you that you are responsible for the spread of the epidemic, and if you are careless and infect people with a fatal outcome, you can be prosecuted. When you have 2 negative test results, you are considered ‘cured’ and you report it back to the… actually I don’t know whom they report back… and uninstall the app.

    It’s great to have a commercial alternative, in case you have no symptoms, and you’d like to do a test just to be sure. There must be a lot of people who want to do it. That’s why my government published a list of authorized labs, to prevent scam testing.

    #53762
    Tatyana
    Guest

    Moscow started mass testing on May 15, this programme is Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA)
    https://www.rbc.ru/society/14/05/2020/5ebd51f99a7947173a1c5b3e

    “Every few days approximately 70 thousand Muscovites will receive an invitation to donate blood.
    “The selection of residents will be carried out randomly in accordance with the age structure of the population of Moscow and taking into account the district of residence, and invitations will be sent by e-mail or via SMS,” – the mayor said.

    Those who receive such an invitation will need to register for blood donation online. Testing results will be summed up every week and will be published on the city site. Everyone who passes the tests will be separately informed about their result.”

    #53763
    Tatyana
    Guest

    Well, for the sake of justice and balanced view, it’s necessary to mention that in which my government is crap.

    Putin promised additional payments to medics, but they did not receive them. There were a number of protests about this. As it turned out from the texts of government orders, it was formulated incorrectly and a dumb bureaucratic calculation was applied, while Putin ordered just to give money to people. I followed the development of this situation and frankly, I am glad I confirmed again my opinion, expressed once upon a time on this site:
    Putin is doing well, he understands the life and the needs of the Russians, and therefore deservedly has the support of the majority. The problem is in the bureaucratic system, with stupid incompetent and cowardly people, who also often turn out to be greedy.

    #53766
    Clark
    Guest

    Tatyana and SA, thank you both for information.

    #53852
    Tatyana
    Guest

    Hello, Clark, my fractal friend 🙂 found this piece of hahaha and thought you’d like it! That’s very russian humor, you giggle and nearly cry at the same time.

    Doctor:
    – This mouse is definitely very happy to participate in the vaccine research”

    cartoon

    #53873
    Clark
    Guest

    😀

    Thanks for complimenting me on my Gravatar. It’s quite grainy; I must plot a better one sometime, and integrate an XR symbol into it.

    #53874
    Clark
    Guest

    Here’s a good site I found:

    http://www.endcoronavirus.org

    Done properly, restrictions need last only five weeks.

    #53882
    michael norton
    Guest

    The number of people world wide who now find themselves without work is huge.
    Some also find getting hold of food a problem.
    The Prince of Wales is begging out of work people to become pickers on the land, like the Women in the Second World War.

    Unemployment in U.K. is sky-rocketing because of Lock-Down.

    #53892
    Clark
    Guest

    Employment and money can be reorganised; they’re human creations. They were completely reorganised for WWII. Employment needs to be reorganised anyway to hinder the spread of covid-19.

    Eran Yashiv: how to reopen society more quickly

    The more cases there are of covid-19, the more chances we give it to evolve. We don’t even know if you can catch the current strains again, after say a year, because it hasn’t existed that long. If you can catch it again, the second bout might be worse, like dengue fever. Or maybe you can’t make a vaccine against it, like HIV. We don’t know our enemy yet.

    We should stamp it out, like we did smallpox. We could do it in five weeks if only we’d cooperate. Instead I keep hearing people say we should give up and let it multiply, cripple, kill and evolve.

    #53902
    Clark
    Guest

    Social distancing in the US in the 1918 – 1920 flu pandemic:

    https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/2020/03/how-cities-flattened-curve-1918-spanish-flu-pandemic-coronavirus/

    Philadelphia waited eight days after their death rate began to take off before banning gatherings and closing schools. They endured the highest peak death rate of all cities studied. 748 deaths per 100,000.

    – After relaxing social distancing measures, San Francisco faced a long second wave of deaths. 673 deaths per 100,000.

    – New York City began quarantine measures very early — 11 days before the death rate spiked. The city had the lowest death rate on the Eastern Seaboard. 452 deaths per 100,000.

    #53916
    SA
    Guest

    As Skawkbox article linked by Clark is spot on. I have always believed that the government has never abandoned the policy of herd immunity just stopped talking about it, It explains the way that they have behaved throughout, abandoning early testing in the community, not providing PPE, ignoring the care homes, and the half hearted ‘lock down’ which has effectively been diluted further..
    But I also do not understand why the basics of public health measures used for combatting epidemics have been abandoned for the sake of listening to non-medical experts with their modelling fetishes. This has detracted from real science I am afraid, and that is why the medical advice has been so sidelined and so shambolic.
    For what is essentially a respiratory virus, the emphasis from the outset has been on hand washing. OK that is important but only as secondary to limiting the virus leaving the respiratory passages and landing on an object. The fact that masks can also do this also by preventing wider spread of aerosols has been ignored and when debated, has been even suggested to be possibly dangerous because you can touch your g=face more. What a moronic excuse, if you have already washed your hands you can touch your face if you want!!!!
    Then there is this idiotic phrase: test track and isolate, which should revert to its original proper form of the purpose of widespread testing and contact tracing, which is to QUARANTINE, I am sorry I have to shout, but self isolation and quarantining are two different animals altogether. A quarantined person is totally isolated and cared for by people who must themselves be protected with PPE and totally looked after for FOURTEEN DAYS, yes that is right 14 DAYS.
    I think that the scientific community especially the scientific advisors to the government are complicit in this, maybe indirectly, because they have been told that there is no money for PPE and there is no money for providing proper quarantine facilities.

    #53921
    Clark
    Guest

    SA, yes, quarantine is the proper medical term.

    And yes, the proper medical procedure of enforcing quarantine should have been the default position from the start.

    I disagree that modelling is not proper science. Computer software is an instrument for applied mathematicians. Just as telescopes extended astronomy and microscopes extended biology into hitherto unreachable domains, computers with software extended mathematics into the hitherto unreachable domain of non-linear equations – which are the vast majority of equations, just as microorganisms comprise the vast majority of life and invisible stars and galaxies comprise by far most of the universe.

    However I agree that modelling has been overly promoted, and I think this is all part of the government’s covert “herd immunity” plan. Models become essential only beyond the point where the epidemic has got out of control. You don’t need models when you have some hundreds of infectees, all in quarantine, and few new infections each day among non-quarantined society that can be traced. Modelling becomes essential only if you’re trying to hold the infection rate at a manageable level compatible with not overwhelming the healthcare system.

    I have been glad of the ICL model because it reveals the daily infection rates and the total infected so far. It has done a very well at that, as is now being confirmed by large-scale antibody studies. But such a tool should never have become essential; had the epidemic been handled properly those figures would have been a simple matter of counting.

    Note also that the ICL model requires daily death figures as an input. It’s a macabre retroscope; by examining recent deaths it tells us where we were two weeks ago. But such models are the only way to see that.

    #53930
    SA
    Guest

    Clark

    You sort of confirm what I meant to say but perhaps didn’t verbalise it clearly.

    The modelling has taken forefront to the tried and tested ways of dealing with epidemics and pandemics. I remember clearly the government clearly staring at the outset that they discarded some options such as closing down major events such as football matches because the models said they would only produce a minimal effect on reducing infection. Now anyone can see that this is crap but because the modellers imputed crap, crap came out.

    #53931
    michael norton
    Guest

    Up to 60m people will be pushed into “extreme poverty” by the coronavirus warns the president of the World Bank.
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52733706
    Millions of people in the U.K. are also moving into a state of joblesness and poverty, directly because of Lock-Down.
    Some people will top themselves, many will lose everything, including their homes.

    #53958
    SA
    Guest

    The collateral deaths from Covid-19 are an inevitable part of any pandemic and must be thought of for planning and that is a political decision.
    If the lockdown was a proper lockdown with widespread testing and proper quarantine as happened in China and South Korea and also in some European countries like Austria and Czechia, this could have been ameliorated. But it is cloud and cuckoo land to say that in the long term you would get overall less death by not having a lockdown at all as some seem to have advocated.

    #53959
    michael norton
    Guest

    I would say it is obvious there would, in the long term, in the U.K. be more deaths over that normally expected, with or without Lock-Down.
    What Lock-Down will do is bring death and destruction of the economy
    and with that the blight of unemployment and destitution on a scale not seen since The Great Depression.

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