Covid-19 News

To all the pandemic deniers and those who think we should open the country-- back up your mouth with action. Go out and take care of COVID-19 victims. Shake hands with them. Give them a kiss. Don't bother with gloves and masks. That is essentially what Boris Johnson did. So what happened to Boris? Do you think if he had it to do over knowing what he knows now, he'd do the same thing?

Quote from Lou Pagnucco

Also perhaps of interest is Dr. V. Zelenko's appeal to Donald Trump -

"How to Cure Coronavirus: an Exclusive Letter From Dr. Zelenko to Donald Trump"

https://internetprotocol.co/hy…e-letter-to-donald-trump/

Dr. Zelenko's writing and results have been discussed here several times. He is a well meaning man who doesn't understand how science and scientific studies work. He has no idea what would have happened to the mostly young people he treated had they not received the medications. Perhaps they would have done as well as his patients who got the drugs. How would anyone know? As for Trump... where to start? (and of course not here)

Quote from andrea.s

The attempt by Navid (and the US right wing) to question mortality rates as overrated is readily dismissed by official statistics of total mortality in Italy. In week 13 when the peak of daily COVID-19 deaths was reached (some 800 deaths reported daily, officially diagnosed by test as COVID-19 related) the total mortality from all causes was 80% above the expected rate based on the past 10 years. This is data freshly released this week from the National Health Institute (it takes a while and is still a projection based on a 10% sample population) . Now Italy has a typical daily mortality of 2000. It means that the excess mortality that week was close to 1600 I.e. the COVID-19 deaths may be twice higher than the ones diagnosed.

https://www.epicentro.iss.it/influenza/flunews#mortalita

I cannot speak to Italy. Nobody wants loss of life. Nobody is saying to do nothing. However, when criminals are being let out, when real crimes like rape (yes, this has happened) are waiting days to be investigated, and the police are focused on how long you've been out of the house, and when trillions of $ in bailouts are happening, when people are suffering (and dying), when people are potentially being impoverished and their diets potentially going down fast, when people are losing homes/families and more --- all of which is a major stressor that will cause disease and deaths - we must be very very careful. Bill Gates doesn't care about you. I assure you, he is the #2 funder of the WHO, he doesn't care about you.

In the US, the overcounting of anyone who dies with a suspected Covid infection (even if it is heart attack) is fraudlent. US Senator Jensen who is a physician is seriously considered about this. Why aren't you? Do you think testing positive and dying of congestive heart failure or cancer means you are a covid death? Do you even know what the test is testing and if it is a valid test for measuring whether someone has died for covid (it isnt'!)? Look into it. You will be surprised.

The fundamental flaw here is that you don't believe there is government overreach - and many believe there is.

Quote from Shane D.

https://www.realclearhealth.co…y_protections_111019.html

Lawsuits. One of those seldom spoken about obstacles that is preventing US doctors, drug companies, and hospitals, from quickly, and fully implementing the most promising treatments against COVID:

"even when developers get everything right, they can face decades-long lawsuits whenever an attorney thinks he or she can get a payout, like those seen against the MMR vaccine.
It’s already becoming apparent that the trial bar sees the coronavirus as their next gold rush. Law firms are setting up practices designed solely to bring lawsuits in this environment, especially in the healthcare industry. We have already seen some filed against the makers of hand sanitizers and pharmaceutical companies, and this is just the tip of the iceberg."

Shane I agree. But the irony here is that vaccines are the one area where lawsuits and liability is poor to non-existent. They can't be sued. And the payouts aren't from the vaccine companies in the US anyway, they come from the government. That's why there is a big push here and why Gates (and Fauci the lap-dog) are so focused on vaccines. We're talking potentially a trillion dollar business. Gates is the main investor in this space.

Quote from Navid

I cannot speak to Italy. Nobody wants loss of life. Nobody is saying to do nothing. However, when criminals are being let out, when real crimes like rape (yes, this has happened) are waiting days to be investigated, and the police are focused on how long you've been out of the house, and when trillions of $ in bailouts are happening, when people are suffering (and dying), when people are potentially being impoverished and their diets potentially going down fast, when people are losing homes/families and more --- all of which is a major stressor that will cause disease and deaths - we must be very very careful. Bill Gates doesn't care about you. I assure you, he is the #2 funder of the WHO, he doesn't care about you.

In the US, the overcounting of anyone who dies with a suspected Covid infection (even if it is heart attack) is fraudlent. US Senator Jensen who is a physician is seriously considered about this. Why aren't you? Do you think testing positive and dying of congestive heart failure or cancer means you are a covid death? Do you even know what the test is testing and if it is a valid test for measuring whether someone has died for covid (it isnt'!)? Look into it. You will be surprised.

The fundamental flaw here is that you don't believe there is government overreach - and many believe there is.

Your intentions are good Navid, but I read in your words how political the debate has become over subjects that should be analysed with scientific objectivity first. It is absurd to question the fairness of classifying as a COVID-19 death the death of an old man with preexisting pathologies who died from pneumonia and tested positive. If a 90 year old man terminally ill with cancer dies in a car accident would you discount that from road death statistics?

This has been a debate here in Italy, mostly out of envy for the low mortality in Germany where we all thought initially that Germany was covering up deaths or discounting comorbidities. No way. Germany simply used well its time advantage and started testing intensively, roughly at the same rate as Italy and the same time as Italy (both have a 1.5% population tested now) but the difference is that it was late for us and early for them. They could identify and isolate people positive without symptoms, focusing at first on people who had traveled to China and Northern Italy, and traced their contacts to propagate the testing. In Italy tests were done in absolute emergency and prioritizing on people with symptoms which was necessary but left out a large population unknowingly infected and infecting others. Italy's total cases are largely underestimated, and it is even more the case in France, Spain and the US who tested two to three times less percent population, but not in Germany because they started early.

The effect of lockdown on the workers and the poor must be mitigated by government subsidies otherwise things can only go worse and out of control. The US healthcare system doesn't help though in these extreme cases. In Italy we pay nothing in a public hospital as public health insurance is funded by taxes. You should reflect on this. How can a temporary worker who loses his job and health insurance in the US afford to be cured? He will try to self heal to save the 10 to 20,000$ and likely get ill and involuntarily infect others out of lack of control.

As for Bill Gates, he obviously had it right from the beginning. Of course he did! his foundation has been studying pandemics for years. And it makes no difference if he invests in vaccines for greed or philanthropy. One may hate the man but he has vision. Remember: "a computer on every desk and in every home". It was 1975 [edit]. Too bad the US deliberately ignored his prophecy and advice.

[edit] Gates may be a funder of the WHO but the WHO is not evil. The WHO may have been a week slow, but they declared a world health emergency end of January and the global pandemic on March 11.

https://www.who.int/news-room/…0-who-timeline---covid-19 .

It is up to the Governments to take action. Blameshifting to the WHO or to evil China, who allegedly underreported casualties, does no good and should be looked at with suspicion, as a pathetic excuse to avoid scrutiny over a government's responsibilities.

Quote from andrea.s

This has been a debate here in Italy, mostly out of envy for the low mortality in Germany where we all thought initially that Germany was covering up deaths or discounting comorbidities. No way. Germany simply used well its time advantage and started testing intensively, roughly at the same rate as Italy and the same time as Italy (both have a 1.5% population tested now) but the difference is that it was late for us and early for them. They could identify and isolate people positive without symptoms, focusing at first on people who had traveled to China and Northern Italy, and traced their contacts to propagate the testing.

It is more complicated than that. Here in Switzerland we are testing at a higher frequency than Germany, we started high frequency testing in late January already, in all regions of Switzerland, our tracing system involved more trained people per capita than e.g. South Korea, and see what happened, the wave that came at the end of February was too big to be contained by just testing and tracing, and interestingly enough, the Italian speaking region of Switzerland is now showing death statistics similar to the North of Italy, the German speaking region of Switzerland similar to Germany and the French speaking similar to France. All of this with the same testing and healthcare system. This makes me think that the cultural aspects should not be underestimated, in particular the structure of the social relations such as how the elderly is mixing with the active population.

The WHO have it covered as best that can be expected with their solidarity initiative. Once the best treatment is found I hope they recommend MFT (Mass Fever Treatment) so as Zelenko has found the treatment has the chance of reducing viral load before irreversible pathology occurs. As in his letter to Trump states, any anti virus treatment should be started at the first sign of symptoms, cough and fever. This might (dare I say it) presume some basic intelligence of the general public to take the medicine at the right time without any medical intervention. Make it freely available from all pharmacies without the controlling interference of the medical profession (who are too scared of being sued to prescribe any new therapies).

Quote from Shane D.

HCQ, or any new promising drug.

HCQ isn't new.. Offlabel prescribing is rather common..

Off-label use is very common in general..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Off-label_use

Quote from JulianBianchi

It is more complicated than that. Here in Switzerland we are testing at a higher frequency than Germany, we started high frequency testing in late January already, in all regions of Switzerland, our tracing system involved more trained people per capita than e.g. South Korea, and see what happened, the wave that came at the end of February was too big to be contained by just testing and tracing, and interestingly enough, the Italian speaking region of Switzerland is now showing death statistics similar to the North of Italy, the German speaking region of Switzerland similar to Germany and the French speaking similar to France. All of this with the same testing and healthcare system. This makes me think that the cultural aspects should not be underestimated, in particular the structure of the social relations such as how the elderly is mixing with the active population.

Yes Julian you do have a point. It is more complex than my explanation. And orders of magnitude more complex than blaming evil powers in China and the WHO.

Quote from andrea.s

It is more complex than my explanation. And orders of magnitude more complex than blaming evil powers in China and the WHO.

Since Pericles, plagues have shown up weaknesses in societies and challenged idols..

democracy... sports.. celebrity Hollywood religions medicopharmacy are all challenged by Covid ..

and this is only rather weak pathogen compared to past plagues

some of the weaker social structures will not survive..

Yes robert bryant , this is why the day "after" will be interesting to see

Quote from andrea.s

Now Italy has a typical daily mortality of 2000. It means that the excess mortality that week was close to 1600 I.e. the COVID-19 deaths may be twice higher than the ones diagnosed.

Quote from Navid

In the US, the overcounting of anyone who dies with a suspected Covid infection (even if it is heart attack) is fraudlent. US Senator Jensen who is a physician is seriously considered about this. Why aren't you? Do you think testing positive and dying of congestive heart failure or cancer means you are a covid death?

Germany just started a study about death acceleration in the older group with preconditions. From Swiss statistics we know that 95% of the deaths fall in this category only 5% are younger and also most with preconditions.

In an overaged overmedicated society like Switzerland/North, Italy, Germany this effect blows up the real mortality by a factor of 20. Thus we face the same problem as in cancer treating. How much live time do we loose from covid-19 or if we do not allow a 500'000$ cancer treatment.

Of course in an overloaded medical system, that first treats the old folks that can pay for it, many younger will die too from complications that could be avoided. Here we face the much more deep question. Why do we treat an 85 year old millionaire that will die with >60% possibility and two young guys waiting upfront face the axe because they have not enough money?? (Normal case in the USA)

Quote from andrea.s

Gates may be a funder of the WHO but the WHO is not evil. The WHO may have been a week slow, but they declared a world health emergency end of January and the global pandemic on March 11.

WHO is totally undermined by the world wide medical mafia primarily formed by Rotary but also interwoven with the other usual groups. WHO did not force China to tell the true Wuhan story with at least 20'000 deaths what gave us a wrong picture. WHO still does not explain that China knows all 300'000 bat virus and covid-19 is none of them. May be they now silently "invent" and animal that will then be presented as an intermediate...

WHO declared swine-flue as a pandemic albeit it was less deadly than a mild cold virus.

Bill Gates did act like a criminal as his company did intentionally sell broken software to force people to buy upgrades. The damaged caused by this behavior is more than 100'000'000'000$ alone for windows. And please sum up all the profits he distributed to his fellows! He also vastly paid the Reps and finally Reagan did stop the break-up of Microsoft.

Quote from Alan Smith

Interesting report from Morgan Stanley on the topic of 'getting the US back to work'...the report is aimed at senior state government officials I am told.

Get The US Back To Work.pdf

Now outdated by 10 days...

Wyttenbach

I do agree China likely underreported its casualties, at first for lack of testing means (at some point statistics abruptly peaked to include untested cases with evident symptoms - a change occurred under the pressure of the WHO) and later by choosing not to disclose the total mortality in Wuhan to really find out the figures. Also, likely the WHO was soft in enforcing a true reporting.

But the Trump administration had the time to see the outbreak in Italy (who covered nothing) and deliberately chose to do nothing for weeks, ignoring all health experts' advice. Sorry but I find this a dreadful responsibility and hold them -and noone else - accountable for a loss of lives 5 to 10 times higher than it could have been. And the credit for not making it worse, goes elsewhere as well, partly to Fauci and partly to the inevitable impact that the growing massacre in NYC triggered in the public opinion and in Cuomo's governorship.