Posts by ZenoOfElea

Quote from Alan Smith

Somebody said to me recently that this is the best thread about the pandemic that they have seen anywhere on the web.

I have found it very helpful and educational.

Some very smart people on here with some good advice (which I have passed around to friends and family).

The tricky bit is discriminating between the very smart people with good advice and the very smart people with bad advice.

However what I find most elevating is the general level of tolerance and largely civilized debate.

I was talking to some friends in the US who have a house in Florida but have decamped to Ohio (probably a wise move).

Basically they are alarmed about the increasing divisiveness in the USA.

But I was telling them that what I have learned here is that what unites us is greater than what divides us.

We all are facing the same threat, we just see different perspectives.

Yes there are polarised viewpoints but basically we all want the same thing, a return to normality ASAP.

So respect all round.

Tens of thousands of Covid19 survivors in UK could suffer from pulmonary fibrosis in the lungs.

BBC article on lung scarring after Covid19

Quote from Alan Smith

Was talking today with a serious virology expert. They are expecting the UK to have a serious '2nd wave' in July that will be more deadly than the first..

Not sure how it can be more deadly than the first wave.

Scientists now have a much better handle on the infectiousness and other virus characteristics than they did a few months ago. Different approaches (such as Sweden's) have been tried and evaluated.

The clinicians have learned lessons on the best protocols to use and the risks of ventilators and are learning and improving all the time.

The care homes disaster should at least result in a safer approach for a second wave.

And one would hope that even the UK government might have learned by their mistakes with PPE stocks etc.

So we should be better prepared for any second wave.

Although one press article did say that the Prime Ministers "world class" track and trace system might not be "world class" till September.

Brillouin Energy report

From a link posted to this forum in September 2019 Warren Walborn said;

"Now the company is raising a $15 million round for the final 18-24 months of development to get them to commercialization, and we are evaluating investor candidates to lead and follow in this round."

and

"I believe this will be the greatest investment event of the century."

and that Brillouin was Carl Page's favourite project.

Concerning to have a final investment round and then only a few months later have to pass the bowl around again. Especially if they have influential friends like Carl Page who has friends and relatives who "have a few bob".

I sincerely wish Brillouin well and hope they are successful.

But from an investment perspective it seems like someone is over-promising and under-delivering.

White House sends 2 million doses of HCQ to Brazil.

The American and Brazilian people stand in solidarity in the fight against the coronavirus. Today, as a demonstration of that solidarity, we are announcing the United States Government has delivered two million doses of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) to the people of Brazil. The United States will also soon be sending 1,000 ventilators to Brazil.

HCQ will be used as a prophylactic to help defend Brazil’s nurses, doctors, and healthcare professionals against the virus. It will also be used as a therapeutic to treat Brazilians who become infected.

By the way, not wanting to crap on the statistics but how come Israel and South Africa have minus deaths from Covid???

Alan Smith yes we suffer from a bloke that wants to be prime minister, but is vanilla on policies, so needs Cummings to provide the ideas, and surrounds himself with lesser yes men and a fixation on a single policy (begins with B).

So not a good recipe for crisis management.

According to the "More or Less" program (on Radio 4 last week) Germany went into lockdown at the same time as UK did but importantly one week earlier "virus time" and thus saved thousands of lives.

Also Germany did a better job of track and trace since day 1.

Apparently we need to invent a new UK wheel which is better than those foreign wheels.

So while everyone else has a decentralised model app the good old UK has gone its own way with a centralised model app which has been trialed and run into difficulties.

And now the UK trackers and tracers are using pencil and paper and the app has gone from "key" to what we are now told is "nice to have".

However I expect that Russia, Iran and Brazil will be higher than UK eventually (real stats not political stats).

Also the UK at least has the advantages of a joined up national health service and (credit where due to the goverment) a national furlough scheme backed by the treasury.

On the other hand the USA has a disjointed health system setup to compete for profit, rather than collaborate, and a strange political view that giving taxpayers money to private business is ok but giving it to taxpaying workers to isolate is anathema. Thus I expect, along with Jed, that the USA will surpass the UK (as usual) .

How Turkey Took Control of Covid19 Emergency

BBC article.

Surprisingly, for a populist style leadership, Turkey seems to have control over their outbreak by getting track and trace up and running quickly.

Also they are very keen on HCQ as a part of the standard treatment regime.

The BBC cannot resist rehashing the HCQ controversy, like they do in every article that mentions HCQ, (presumably to supply "context").

But anecdotally the Turkish medics think it is useful along with other treatments.

"Chief doctor Nurettin Yiyit - whose art work is on the hospital walls - says it's key to use hydroxychloroquine early. "Other countries are using this drug too late," he says, "especially the United States. We only use it at the beginning. We have no hesitation about this drug. We believe it's effective because we get the results."

On a tour of the hospital, adding and subtracting protective layers as we go, he explains that Turkey's approach is to "get ahead of the virus", by treating early and treating aggressively. They use hydroxychloroquine and other drugs, along with blood plasma and oxygen in high concentrations."

Quote from JedRothwell

Here is something else that has risks. When you go on the internet and post unscientific lies and bullshit, you might persuade people not to get vaccinations and other essential steps to preserve health. You are spreading ill health and misery with these lies. You and the rest of the anti-vax idiots should stop doing that. You should be very thankful you live in an age when flu vaccines are available. They have saved millions of lives, and prevented billions of miserable illnesses.

BBC Corona Virus the Human Cost

"We thought the government was using it to distract us," says Brian Lee Hitchens, "or it was to do with 5G. So we didn't follow the rules or seek help sooner."

Brian, 46, is talking by phone from his hospital bed in Florida. His wife is critically ill - sedated, on a ventilator in an adjacent ward.

"The battle that they've been having is with her lungs," he says, voice wobbling. "They're inflamed. Her body just is not responding."

After reading online conspiracy theories, they thought the disease was a hoax - or, at the very least, no worse than flu. But then in early May, the couple caught Covid-19.

Rends

Interesting to see youngsters, particularly 5 to 14 years are actually down, allbeit on very low total figures.

So assuming a handful of Covid deaths in this group compensated by many less road accidents etc,

However 75,000 deaths of 65+ years is the true story, with over half of these (40,000 of total) of 85+ years.

Many of these attributable to the many goverments blind spot of care homes.

Apparently in the UK care homes for the elderly are now getting attention and resources.

The next blind spot is care homes for younger individuals with learning difficulties.

BBC Radio 4 program was saying how they call for an ambulance and get reply that patient is not old enought to be admissable under the new guidelines for care home patients.

Plus their carers are trying to get tests, but the nearest testing centre may be 30 miles or more and not all of them have cars or can drive, but they are advised not to take public transport!

BBC article Corona virus drug trial for over 50s hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin.

Over 500 GP surgeries are asking those with a new, continuous cough or high temperature to test existing drugs.

The trial, led by a team at Oxford University, will compare with the current best available care a number of low-risk treatments recommended by an expert panel advising the chief medical officer for England, including:

• a seven-day course of hydroxychloroquine, usually used for acute malaria or arthritis
• the antibiotic azithromycin

Scientific American article on likely resurgence of Covid19 cases.

JedRothwell

This article focuses on modelling the course of a resurgence in Georgia.

WOW!

White House Plans to Disband Virus Task Force

Mr Pence earlier on Tuesday told reporters in a briefing that the task force could soon be disbanded.

He said the Trump administration was "starting to look at the Memorial Day [late May] window, early June window as a time when we could begin to transition back to having our agencies begin to manage, begin to manage our national response in a more traditional manner".

He said it was "a reflection of the tremendous progress we've made as a country".

The president was also asked on Tuesday if White House task force experts Dr Deborah Birx and Dr Anthony Fauci would still be involved in efforts to address the coronavirus.

"They will be and so will other doctors and so will other experts in the field," the president answered.

Quote from seven_of_twenty

I mentioned earlier that the reaction of any individual to the virus may be in part genetic and there is some evidence now for that.

Do your genes predispose you to Covid-19?

Article in Scientific American that originally appeared in the French publication Pour la Science.

Cummings is interesting and probably dangerous.

Not sure why he was in the SAGE meetings. Obviously the Guardian and others see sinister intents, maybe he was just observing.

Dominic Cummings ideas for the Civil Service

"...governments have long expressed their dissatisfaction with the Whitehall machine. The critique of the civil service establishment was set out most eloquently in the 1968 Fulton report commissioned by Harold Wilson’s administration. Officials were ‘generalists’ trained in arts and humanities subjects at Britain’s ancient universities. They lacked specialist knowledge and technical expertise. Civil servants were poor managers. They presided over a culture of mediocrity which perpetuated Britain’s relative economic decline. Fulton’s recommendations included bringing more trained scientists into Whitehall, while training mandarins in management effectiveness. Sound familiar? The attacks on the civil service then continued into the 1980s and 1990s. Margaret Thatcher threatened to ‘deprivilege Whitehall’ while her ideological soulmate, Ronald Reagan, spoke of ‘draining the swamp’ in Washington. Under Blair’s New Labour governments, more political advisers were brought onto departments, while there was an air of mistrust towards permanent officials. Yet for all that, the Whitehall model survived."

Funny how history repeats yet the memory of the electorate is short.

Cummings has a dream to clear out the entrenched arts and humanities crowd from the British Civil Service and put in scientists and others with a background in more "practical" areas. I suppose this goes back to the two cultures argument of C P Snow.

This sounds like a good idea, at face value, that might be applauded by many here.

However elsewhere in the linked article it says he wants to challenge the neutrality and independence of the civil service that enables them to speak truth to power such that "His aim is to install a ‘them and us’ model where officials merely carry out the wishes of ministers, focusing on the delivery and implementation of policy."

So basically we have a "populist" government, like many other countries, who see any opposition from the media, the civil service, the judiciary, or politicians from their own party or opponent parties, as something to be shut down where possible and circumnavigated or ignored otherwise, even to the extent of shutting down parliament when it suited them. So with very loosened checks and balances on democracy, when the decisions are good then good stuff gets done but when the decisions are bad then bad stuff gets done regardless.

As populism seems to have been a reaction to the 2008/9 crash it will be interesting to see whether there is a backlash agains populism from this particular Covid crisis or whether voters turn to even more anti-establishment figures.

As an observer from the UK it seems to me that in the USA each state is doing its own thing, kind of like individual countries. So some will do a better job and some a worse job.

But unlike individual countries the states do not have control over their borders to stop people and quarantine them.

So how critical is the cross border contamination issue likely to be to in the ability of the USA to control the virus?

Edit; having said that there is free movement in the EU area and they seem to be making progress on controling the virus.

Pharma vaccine conspiracy. [Sorry - Sunday - too much time on my hands].

Things that don’t stack up.

So Covid 19 and Zika are possibly creations of a cabal of super rich and Big Pharma with the aim to make tons of money out of a vaccine and possibly control us all.

I agree that Big Pharma is very powerful and it is well documented that their business model has no interest in curing anybody, more profitable to have them on pills for the rest of their lives.

And clearly they try to control and even manipulate research data to support their products and hide their failures. Historically the same as Big Oil with leaded petrol and many others.

But;

Oh No! Remesdivir flopped in its first trial; strike one against Big Pharma.

https://www.reuters.com/articl…st-trial-ft-idUSFWN2CB1EU

Considering they allegedly created the virus you would think they would have been better prepared.

And as to making tons of money from a vaccine; Strike two against Big Pharma.

https://whtc.com/news/articles…onavirus-vaccine/1011096/

In the race to develop a vaccine to end the COVID-19 pandemic, governments, charities and Big Pharma firms are sinking billions of dollars into bets with extraordinarily low odds of success.

“The crisis in the world is so big that each of us will have to take maximum risk now to put this disease to a stop," said Paul Stoffels, chief scientific officer at Johnson & Johnson , which has partnered with the U.S. government on a $1 billion investment to speed development and production of its still-unproven vaccine. “If it fails,” Stoffels told Reuters, “it will be bad.”

Historically, just 6% of vaccine candidates end up making it to market,

Additionally China and Russia are trying to make their own vaccines, so those markets will be lost to Big Pharma – Strike three!

Plus the USA is heading into a deep recession and possibly a depression.

The damage and destruction to business and wealth will be massive.

Presumably the secret cabal somehow does not include those businesses, so they did not get the memo or invited to the meetings, maybe they have their own secret cabal.

Trump is in the White House. Trump is your guy! He is an outsider who believes weird things he reads on the Internet. Surely any secret cabal would want a nice steady, business-as-usual, “establishment” guy in the White House. Not an unpredictable maverick. So how did they allow him to get elected in the first place?

In respect of tracking and controlling people; you do not need a secret cabal to do that. People just do it.

Since social media many are willing to sign away their data privacy for a few tokens.

Same in ancient Rome where the public were happy to tolerate the dictator Caesar in return for bread and circuses.

Indeed the Chinese communist party are making a very good go of it providing new cities with low priced houses tied to the acceptance of surveillance built into the agreement.

Now no doubt the Chinese are making good use of this pandemic to move forward their agendas where they can. So which is more likely – that the Chinese communist leadership are ultra-clever and have manufactured and controlled this whole outbreak from day 1, or option two that they were caught by surprise, tried to supress it, did a U-turn and fumbled their way through it?

Judging by every other government on the planet I go with option two.

This is just how I see it. There have been conspiracy theories of secret ruling cabals for centuries.

Actually I was once invited to join the Free Masons, which shows how desperate they must be because I am just not overlord material.

Of course the human mind is able to fit any collection of facts, rumour and speculation into a narrative. So like THHuxleynew I will probably be accused of being an establishment stooge (whatever the “establishment” is supposed to be).

Now, if and when, some entity gets control over an AI that is hundreds, or thousands, of times smarter than humans, then we may really be talking about world domination. So IMHO those are the entities we should be watching carefully and ensuring that adequate controls and safeguards are in place.

Suggestions for people trying to produce home made protective face masks.

The best material for homemade face masks may be a combination of two fabrics

4 US prisons. 96% of inmates that test positive have no symptoms.

So is this likely to be a different strain from the one in New York?

Three Ways to Make Corona Virus Drugs in a Hurry

Interesting article;

It was researchers external to Gilead that tested the drug and then alerted Gilead that it could potentially disrupt the virus replication.

Another contender to do the same thing (EIDD-2801) they are actually more hopeful for because (unlike Remdesivir) it can be taken orally.

Also discussed are potential drugs to glue up the viral spike to stop entry into cells.

And thirdly potential treatments for the cytokine storm.

All these seem to be existing drugs or treatments thus speeding up their application. But still much work to do.

The view is that none of these will be a cure but that a successful treatment may include a combination of therapies to alleviate the disease and aid the patient.