Quote from oldguy

it is a balancing act but unintended effects should be admitted and noted.

Indians Forced Into Quarantine Are Dying in Lockdown—but Not From Coronavirus

https://www.vice.com/en_us/art…nbut-not-from-coronavirus

It is only a balancing act in impoverished nations such as India, and in nations without national health care or adequate unemployment insurance such as the U.S. NO ONE is dying under lockdown in Italy, Japan or Korea. Not one person in those countries lacks food. Not one person lacks health insurance. The governments make certain of that.

If anyone suffers in the U.S. for lack of food, it is because we are governed by callous idiots. We have the most food of any country. It is going to waste. Farmers are pouring out milk, and destroying eggs and crops, just as they did during the Great Depression. As FDR said in 1933, "Plenty is at our doorstep, but a generous use of it languishes in the very sight of the supply." This is totally unnecessary. It is mass suffering for no reason. The government could easily borrow money now, give people food stamps, and collect the money so used in taxes next year after a vaccine ends the crisis.

There is NO NEED FOR ANY BALANCING ACT in first world countries. No one needs to suffer physically from hunger, lack of heating, or homelessness. We can easily afford to prevent these things. If we fail to prevent them, it is not because of the disease. It is because we are very, very stupid.

Quote from oldguy

"deaths recorded due to starvation, exhaustion, police brutality, delayed medical help, or suicides due to loss of income or lack of food."

"Within hours of the lockdown coming into effect, there were already reports of thousands of migrant workers who were left without work, food or shelter

Nothing like that is happening in Japan or the EU. In the U.S., illegal migrant workers are actually doing better, in a way. Before the epidemic, the Trump administration was trying to capture and deport them. It did not want them to work. Now, it has ordered them to go back to work in dangerous meatpacking plants. That's sort of an improvement. I guess.

If we do start seeing "starvation, exhaustion, police brutality, delayed medical help, or suicides" it will be our own damn fault. These will not be caused by the disease, but by our reaction to the disease. By our inability to govern ourselves, or act rationally. It will resemble the so-called "energy crisis." We imagine there is some lack of energy in the U.S. That's absurd. The U.S. could easily supply the entire world with energy using a fraction of the wind resources in North Dakota and South Dakota and solar power in Arizona. We could be making trillions of dollars in profit, and we could put OPEC and Russia out of business. But instead of doing that, we are helping them price-fix oil. The energy crisis has nothing to do with energy or physics. It is entirely caused by ignorance and stupidity, and it could have -- and should have -- been fixed decades ago. Energy should be far cheaper than it is.

Quote from oldguy

It sure seems to me that it is wrong to say that lockdowns never cause deaths.

No one says that. Obviously they cause deaths in third world countries. That has been widely reported in the news. We say they do not need to cause deaths, or hunger, in first world countries. We can easily afford to feed everyone. Food is a small fraction of the GDP in any first world country.

Quote from oldguy

The problem is much more complex that some are willing to admit.

On the contrary, the problem could not be easier to fix. Many problems caused by the pandemic are difficult, but feeding everyone is dead simple. Just increase food stamps (SNAP) and the problem goes away. Instantly. For sure. There is no need to open up food kitchens or emergency distribution points, or public school kitchens. That is wasteful, and inefficient. It is unhealthy. People are standing in lines, or in cars, for hours. The food is not shipped, stocked or preserved properly. Grocery stores do a much better job of distributing food than these ad hoc places.

What food has N-Acetyl Cysteine?

This nutrient can be found in beans, lentils, spinach, bananas, salmon and tuna. While most protein-rich foods, such as chicken, turkey, yogurt, cheese, eggs, sunflower seeds and legumes, contain cysteine, some people choose to supplement with NAC to increase their cysteine intake.

As a preventative measure, I have recently started taking an N-Acetyl Cysteine supplement, an antioxidant available over the counter to protect against Covid-19. N-Acetyl Cysteine might be an antioxidant that directly targets processes initiated by Covid-19 oxidative stress thereby reducing or eliminating the negative effects of Covid-19 infection without inducing any negative side effects. NAC also mitigates the effects of many other illnesses. The hypothesis and associated data supporting the efficacy of N-Acetyl Cysteine to counter the effects of Covid-19 is explained in this video:

UV light in hospitals is a faster and more efficient large area disinfectant. Though blacklights and soft x-ray light is usually thought of in the context of energetic chemical/atomic discharges on this site, it's useful for the current situation... The hospitals often are the agents of spreading viruses unwittingly.

Quote from JedRothwell

There is NO NEED FOR ANY BALANCING ACT in first world countries. No one needs to suffer physically from hunger, lack of heating, or homelessness. We can easily afford to prevent these things. If we fail to prevent them, it is not because of the disease. It is because we are very, very stupid.

Jed,

You cannot separate the "rich countries" from the poor! If the world economy tanks, there will be VAST death by starvation.

Per the uN...

"As a result of the coronavirus outbreak and the subsequent economic ramifications, the food agency found an additional 130 million people could be on the brink of starvation by the end of the year. The working poor would be hit the hardest as a result of the decline in tourism and exports, collapse of oil prices and any declines to foreign aid.

The resulting death toll could outpace that of the coronavirus with 300,000 people dying due to starvation every day over a three-month period, the agency reported."

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/w…conomic-downturn-n1189326

Did you read that!..... 300,000 dying EVERY DAY!

This continued white washing that lock downs are simply an inconvenience is pure BS and only those who have not / are not economically affected by it (retired, tenured, etc) is crap. It IS a BAD deal. Either way.

So do you think 300,000 dying by terrible starvation per day is OK, while the deaths by Covid19 is not?

You cannot state that first world countries can be OK. If their economies tank, it will starve people from other countries. Now maybe you do not give a crap about third world people starving???

It is ALL bad! Deaths by Covid or starvation.

To state lockdowns are an inconvenience is about as astute as most of the supporters of Rossi. Simply blind to that what one does not want to believe.

Perhaps one should realize that lock downs WILL cause BIG problems... I KNOW PERSONALLY! It is which is worse which is a matter of debate.

Quote from Bob#2

Jed,

You cannot separate the "rich countries" from the poor! If the world economy tanks, there will be VAST death by starvation.

Per the uN...

"As a result of the coronavirus outbreak and the subsequent economic ramifications, the food agency found an additional 130 million people could be on the brink of starvation by the end of the year. The working poor would be hit the hardest as a result of the decline in tourism and exports, collapse of oil prices and any declines to foreign aid.

The resulting death toll could outpace that of the coronavirus with 300,000 people dying due to starvation every day over a three-month period, the agency reported."

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/w…conomic-downturn-n1189326

Did you read that!..... 300,000 dying EVERY DAY!

This continued white washing that lock downs are simply an inconvenience is pure BS and only those who have not / are not economically affected by it (retired, tenured, etc) is crap. It IS a BAD deal. Either way.

So do you think 300,000 dying by terrible starvation per day is OK, while the deaths by Covid19 is not?

You cannot state that first world countries can be OK. If their economies tank, it will starve people from other countries. Now maybe you do not give a crap about third world people starving???

It is ALL bad! Deaths by Covid or starvation.

To state lockdowns are an inconvenience is about as astute as most of the supporters of Rossi. Simply blind to that what one does not want to believe.

Perhaps one should realize that lock downs WILL cause BIG problems... I KNOW PERSONALLY! It is which is worse which is a matter of debate.

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Bob,

You can not argue faith with the faithful.

The political battleground has been set here

You’re either red or blue and they believe what they are told to and stick to the mantra

Lets celebrate. I had the first gym today! No mask just 2 meters distance. No problem for a virus that can move miles with air condition. But we (Switzerland/ZH) had only some 60/5 new cases/day so it would be bad luck if the 1 out of 300'000 would be there and also be a rare strong spreader.

Only the sauna was closed due to nuts Swiss authorities that allow the vulnerable to freely move around and prevents us to improve the health...

This is certainly an interesting time. New cases, hospitalizations and deaths are down in most places that had major outbreaks a few weeks ago. The question is so what’s next?

Of course there is an opening back up process happening. It’s certainly happening in my State. I’m back in my office. No one is wearing masks. Most people don’t stay 6 ft apart, and someone commented that they ate out at a restaurant last night and it was crowded with no one wearing masks. While there aren’t major public gatherings people are getting into each other’s spaces again. FYI - I wasn’t in a State with a major outbreak.

There were two things that were supposed to happen (widespread testing and contact tracing) before reopening society. Some more testing is happening (wouldn’t call it widespread), and the even more importantly tracing is only happening in a few areas.

Just mark your calendars. Italy and Spain seem to be hanging in there. But how will the U.S. and UK do? Time will tell. Let’s look at the numbers in 2-3 weeks (early-mid June) to see how this risky experiment plays out.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

Quote from Bob#2

You cannot separate the "rich countries" from the poor! If the world economy tanks, there will be VAST death by starvation.

Perhaps, but there does not need to be any starvation in the U.S., Japan, the EU, China, or any other industrial nation. If there is starvation in such places it would be because the leaders are idiots. There would be no physical reason such as lack of food, or economic reason, such as lack of money.

Quote from Bob#2

This continued white washing that lock downs are simply an inconvenience is pure BS and only those who have not / are not economically affected by it (retired, tenured, etc) is crap. It IS a BAD deal. Either way.

No one is in favor of a lockdown. It is a last, desperate measure when all else has failed. It can only be used to buy time to put into place more effective methods: the Korean and Japanese methods of tracing cases. No lockdown was needed in those countries, except a mild, voluntary one in Japan.

Quote from Bob#2

So do you think 300,000 dying by terrible starvation per day is OK, while the deaths by Covid19 is not?

You can't trade them off. If you open up, without monitoring and tracing, you will end up with millions dead from the virus PLUS millions more dead from starvation. Opening up will not reduce starvation; it will increase it. It will ensure chaos and economic collapse, in the third world and in the industrialized nations.

This is not a choice between opening up on one side and starvation and depression on the other. It is a choice between applying science and big data technology, or doing nothing and killing millions of people for no reason. They will be dead whether we open, or try to stay closed.

Quote from Shane D.

Just curious; but are you wearing a mask, staying 6' apart, and not getting into "other peoples space"? I notice you are back at work.

I am not wearing a mask, probably would feel socially awkward if I were the only one. But I do try to stay 6 ft away from people.

I think what the calculation comes down to is what the people around you have experienced in terms of people they personally know getting the virus. None of the people around me personally know someone who has had it (or they at least they say they don’t). I think that is a big factor. It’s hard to have people feel anxious about something that hasn’t hit home. I got an antibody test a couple of weeks ago (I wish I had tested positive, even though I didn’t).

Do I think there is a chance that there could be an outbreak at my office and that we are not especially immune? I definitely do. But I work in what is deemed an essential business. So we all keep on plugging away.

Quote from Shane D.

The government has identified nursing homes, and assisted care facilities as "ground zero" for COVID. Not only do the residents individually suffer, and die from the virus, but they also act as spreaders to others outside. Fix just this one weak point in our prevention defense, and it would go a long ways towards limiting infection rates, and thereby the number of deaths.

I doubt that. It would not limit infection rates outside the facilities.

In Japan, hospitals and nursing homes have been hotspots for infections. Some of the largest single breakouts of 20 to 50 people have been in them. But they have not spread to the general public, as far as I know from the news accounts. The doctors and public health authorities always find out the disease is spreading, and they quarantine everyone involved. The doctors, staff and patients are all tested and moved to a different facilities. There are no anonymous infections, and it does not get out, the way infections from bars and live music joints do. No unauthorized people go in. Everyone is accounted for and can be tested and quarantined. All nursing homes have been closed to the public since the epidemic began.

The disease did spread from the Lifecare Center in Seattle, WA. That was because the authorities, the Fire Dept. EMTs and others made many mistakes, and did not wear protective clothing. That should not have happened. It would not happen today in a Fire Dept. with proper protective equipment. I am sure all of the Japanese EMT people have protective clothing, and a woman who works as an EMT in Northern Italy I have been following wrote in her blog that she has everything she needs. I don't about U.S. EMTs.

Anyway, my point is that if we had magically protected all of the nursing homes, there still would have been 60,000 dead in the U.S., which is about 59,000 more than there ever should have been. A competent government would have seen what happened in China and Korea, and it would have implemented those techniques, and limited deaths to a thousand or so. The US government and the EU governments did nothing, learned nothing, and slaughtered hundreds of thousands of people for no reason. They continue to slaughter 2,000 people a day in the U.S. They could fix the problem with 300,000 people and something like a small fraction of the Google network on lease. In a month they could bring the numbers down to fewer than 100 per day. They should have started during the lockdown. We could all open up safely if they had. The techniques are proven to work. But they do nothing. They will not lift a finger. Tens of thousands more people will die because the leaders are ignorant fools.

I have never seen such ignorant people! The president is so ignorant he thinks we can treat infectious disease with disinfectants. His lawyer Giulani does not understand how infectious disease and case tracing works. This has been done since the 18th century in New York, but he has no idea what it is or how it works. See:

https://www.thewrap.com/giulia…erybody-for-cancer-video/

Here is the data I was looking for before. This is from Georgia. It shows that people were closing businesses and sheltering at home before the governor issued a stay-at-home mandate, and they are still doing that even though the governor lifted it.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/0…my-government-orders.html

Government Orders Alone Didn’t Close the Economy. They Probably Can’t Reopen It.

Data shows there was a drop in spending and working even before any official mandates to stay at home.

[Graph of Georgia data]

Quote from Shane D.

Yet you were critical of those not wearing face masks, strictly maintaining proper social distance, and those getting into other peoples space?

I think we are at a point today where each person has to take on the level of risk they feel comfortable with. I wear a mask to the grocery store, I don’t go to my gym, I won’t eat in a restaurant, and I would not go to a place with a large gathering of people. My temperature is checked by EMT’s every day when I go into work, as are the temperatures of my co-workers. I am relatively young with no major health problems. To the extent that helps.

It’s the new normal where you have to assess your risk factors. Am I concerned about the virus? I definitely am. But I’m trying to balance that against my need to do my job. My State has approximately 50-60 new cases per day right now. I did work from home through the month of April when new cases were higher.

I know the 1.3 multiplier that Jed and others put out there. If my State were to return to that I would probably go back to working from home again. Will that happen in a few weeks because of the reopening? I really don’t know. I hope not but think it’s a real possibility.

I think this whole thing has become too much of a cultural war, and that it a shame. It’s just about humans vs the virus. The virus doesn’t care whether people vote Republican or Democrat. It’s just a virus.

Based on what I’ve read the only things that I believe can work against Covid in the next 12 months are remdesivir and ivermectin (although too high of a dose is required so it’s not safe at those levels), and potentially an upcoming drug cocktail by regeneron (which may be a game-changer as an antiviral). But it won’t be until late summer before we know more about that.

I think it will take about 18 months from now to get to an effective vaccine, and another year beyond that to fully distribute it to everyone. Until then we are living in a bit of a crap shoot and I do expect second and third waves of outbreak here in the U.S.

Someone reminded me yesterday that smallpox killed 300 million people in the world. What a crazy number that is. It’s always been a battle between humans and viruses. Some people think that life was only created in evolution because viruses needed a host. That’s another crazy thought.

apologies for the long post, just my two cents

COVID-19 Therapeutics: Computational Screenings Show A Variety Of Natural Phytochemicals Could Have Efficacy Against SARS-CoV-2 Including EGCG From Green Tea.

The computed activity of EGCG From Green Tea. was found to be higher than that of both reference drugs, Remdesivir and Chloroquine.

May 11, 2020

https://www.thailandmedical.ne…2-including-egcg-from-gre

Quote

Though the pre-print study was published on 27th March 2020, and has yet to be peer-reviewed, there was intense lobbying by huge pharmaceutical corporations to not focus any research on phytochemical or dietary supplements that were not patented as it would not benefit them and might even affect the business prospects of other drugs that they instead wanted to peddle for profitability gains.

Even various international news media refused to cover on this study as many are directly or indirectly controlled by government authorities and pharmaceutical corporations.

It is also interesting that many of these phytochemicals and dietary molecules were found in Traditional Chinese Medicine formulations that were used in China to treat COVID-19 patients.

It is hope that more of the larger Western research entities would pay more attention to this research findings to further conduct more detailed studies and clinical trials to test the efficacy of this common, cheaper and harmless phytochemicals and nutraceuticals to treat COVID-19 rather than expensive toxic drugs being peddled by the greedy pharmaceutical giants and corrupted government authorities in the US, Europe and even China.

Thailand Medical News however warns that readers should not simply go out and start purchasing any supplements and start consuming them without consulting a doctor first and also till further studies emerge to ascertain their efficacy. Also simply taking some of these dietary supplements could create a false sense of wellbeing that could be dangerous to the person and also others. Also beware of any supplement companies making any false claims of any products that can treat or cure COVID-19 till there are real substantial studies.

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http://phenol-explorer.eu/compounds

http://phenol-explorer.eu/

Phenol-Explorer is the first comprehensive database on polyphenol content in foods. The database contains more than 35,000 content values for 500 different polyphenols in over 400 foods. These data are derived from the systematic collection of more than 60,000 original content values found in more than 1,300 scientific publications. Each of these publications has been critically evaluated before inclusion in the database. The whole data on the polyphenol composition of foods is available for download.