Lockdown during early pandemic saved lives.

There has been a lot of discussion here about the good vs bad of lockdowns.

This study is an attempt to quantify some of the figures from the first lockdown in the USA.

Other studies have evaluated an economic cost. This one attempts to evaluate lives saved.

Unfortunately the conclusion seems to be that every situation is different so a lockdown may turn out to be worthwhile, or not, but maybe cannot be evaluated till after the event.

But they do make a case that the first lockdown early in the pandemic was probably worthwhile but a lockdown at this current stage of the pandemic may not be.

Here are some snippets, but the full report is available at the link above.

A new University of Michigan-led study shows the early lockdowns implemented in the first six months of the COVID-19 pandemic saved lives––but the decision to use lockdowns is much more nuanced and the research shouldn't be used to justify lockdowns now or to retroactively endorse that approach, said health economist Olga Yakusheva, associate professor at the U-M School of Nursing.

“This is the first known paper to measure the effect of pandemic lockdown mitigation measures on lives saved and lost, as opposed to typical economic evaluations, which examine the cost per life saved”, she said.

The study found that from March through August 2020, implementing widespread lockdowns and other mitigation in the United States potentially saved more lives (866,350 to 1,711,150) that the number of lives potentially lost (57,922 to 245,055) that were attributable to the economic downturn.

However, the results are more ambiguous when looking at the quality-adjusted life expectancy added by lockdown (4,886,214 to 9,650,886) vs. quality-adjusted life years lost (2,093,811 to 8,858,444) due to the economic downturn.

This is because many of the people saved were high-risk older adults with multiple illnesses and fewer healthy years left to live, while those most impacted by the economy were younger people in service jobs and other lower-paying occupations who found themselves without employer-provided health insurance and, in many cases, unable to pay for health care or even life-saving medications. A quality adjusted life year is one year of life in perfect health.

The study, published in PLOS One, should not be used to justify more lockdown measures, Yakusheva said. Nor is it a retroactive endorsement of the strict economic lockdown approach the U.S. imposed during the first six months of the pandemic.

"We evaluated the full packet of public health measures as it was implemented in the beginning of the pandemic, but lesser mitigation measures may have worked just as well to reduce lives lost," Yakusheva said. "The fact is, we just will never know. At the time, we had to work with the information that we had. We knew the pandemic was deadly, and we did not have therapeutics or a vaccine."

The situation has changed dramatically since the pandemic began, and we have more tools to battle the virus, Yakusheva said. Vaccines and therapeutics are available, as are other mitigation measures.

Quote from Gregory Byron Goble

What is the current state of LENR?

My tuppence worth.

2021 an exciting year.

Mizuno replications.

Norront Fusion.

NASA GEC

Industrial Heat

Brillouin

Google

Clean Planet

2022 After all the excitement.

Mizuno replications - all seems to have gone quiet.

Norront Fusion - defunct.

NASA GEC - awaiting news.

Industrial Heat - are they defunct?

Brillouin - raising more cash - again.

Google - awaiting news.

Clean Planet - awaiting news.

Meanwhile we sadly lost a number researchers of the "old guard".

After following this story for many years I find it all a bit depressing.

However perhaps 2022 will bring positive developments.

Europe seems to be having a go with the recent news of the Hermes and CleanMHE projects.

Also ICCF24 in Silicon Valley may bring some positive updates.

We shall see.

Coincidences, coincidences.

Amusingly I live in Morley, at one corner of the "rhubarb triangle" but I rarely eat rhubarb.

Also the Santander bank is the the one that I have my account with.

Sadly none of the $176 million appeared in my bank account.

On the plus side Santander announced they are closing my local branch in Morley to save some money, I see why they need to save the money now.

Meanwhile - on a more pertinent topic.

So tracking Santa via NORAD I cannot help but observe that the speed of his sleigh breaks with the standard laws of physics.

I don't know if Wyttenbach might be able to provide an explanation but is it possible that Santa is actually using some kind of LENR based propulsion?

Merry Christmas to everyone on LENR Forum and thanks for your agreements and disagreements. Thank God LENR Forum is not just an echo chamber like some sites.

And special thanks to the Mods for all their work during the year.

Report today in UK;

Glimmer of hope over Omicron.

"The UKHSA estimates that someone with Omicron is between 31% and 45% less likely to attend A&E and 50% to 70% less likely to be admitted to hospital than an individual with the Delta variant."

We all agree that lockdowns are costly and not desireable.

I would guess that all would agree that a lockdown may be appropriate depending on the characteristics of a pandemic, so maybe if the death rate was say 50% or more.

One of the arguments against lockdown seems to be that many feel that the characteristics of Covid-19 do not meet their threat level for a lockdown to be appropriate.

And surely all woulld agree that at some point we need to dispense with lockdowns.

We have to accept that Covid-19 is here to stay and there will be some annual deaths in the same way as influenza.

I wonder if the reduced threat of Omicron brings us to that point?

If the Covid deaths drop to a level that is politically acceptable and if the spread does not overwhelm the local health services then maybe we are there now.

Having said that the UK NHS is under a tremendous amount of strain at the moment but that may be as much to do with underfunding as Omicron.

The GBD is certainly political.

It was drafted by the AIER which is a right wing organisation that focuses on economic policies.

Therefore at heart the aim is a right wing economic response to Covid-19.

Of course just because it is political does not mean it is wrong.

However aiming for a suitable health policy response to a pandemic and starting from a right-wing economic point of view brings a certain amount of baggage with it.

In truth there is no correct strategy to the pandemic, all have a cost in lives and economics.

But some are less bad than others and some work better in some countries than in others e.g. mask wearing in Japan.

In fact the early policies have evolved as we learned more and the virus mutated. What we did in March 2020 is not the same as we would do now.

We now have vaccines and medicines, people are now sick of lockdowns, we now have more PPE and better testing.

So has the GBD policy been modified or is it still basically the same as when it was first proposed?

One point that seems clear to me is that any idea of herd immunity has been blown out of the water by the continual rise of variants and obviously the more freedom the virus is given the more chance it has to create variants.

Masks are back in the UK but even in the supermarket today a surprising amount of people did not wear masks. What I don’t understand is how the very people who are against masks and vaccines and lockdowns and travel restrictions are those who are most responsible for keeping the pandemic going, thus damaging the economy they profess to be trying to save.

But I guess that is the craziness of politics.

Quote from Alan Smith

Fulvio Fabiani has had nothing to do with this.

Alan Smith Thanks for this.

As this is off-topic and has its own thread I don't want to start a conversation so I will restrict myself to this one post on the matter.

But Roger at 26:45 states that Fulvio is involved and also from 28:50 onwards.

Additionally there is a comment on the YouTube video from someone claiming to be Fulvio saying;

"Thanks Roger and sorry for my absence… sometime my internet is terrible but your video is fantastic! I’m at your support 100%. See you soon when is possible coming to you.
Best regards
Fulvio Fabiani"

Now there is a grey area between possible confusion and interpretation that these claims often fall into. But if Fulvio is not involved then this is outright lies and no grey area.

I must admit the statement made that Fulvio is now entirely free from Rossi to pursue his own LENR reactor research I found unlikely, because Rossi always makes people sign NDAs and other restrictions on doing anything Rossi would not like.

But the other interpretation then is that Roger potentially leaves himself open to legal proceedings, either from Fulvio, or from investors and that also seems improbable.

Paradigmnoia

From the YouTube video that Miles linked to the good news is that Roger Green and Fulvio Fabiani have binned off Rossi and decided to build their own LENR reactor.

The market for applications is worth trillions. Domestic energy, industrial energy, desalination, airoplanes, spaceships, asteroid mining, flying cars, teleportation, star trek replicators, dinosaur cloning etc.

They have the expertise to build the first version LENR reactor in just 6-8 months if they can get the angel investers they need.

But they are also looking to consultants so this could be your big chance.

Good luck.

Thanks Miles.

I watched your YouTube link with fascination. Especially given that it is dated November 2021.

Roger Green. Wow! What a nice man for personally giving Dr Rossi a "significant amount of money" and getting others to pony up a couple of million.

And he says it has been validated and replicated!!!

And then those very nice people at Industrial Heat gave Dr Rossi some more money. I think it was $11 million.

So sad to see Dr Rossi has now fallen on such hard times that his latest demo has to be done on a kitchen table with some cheap bits of circuitry.

Maybe everyone at LENR Forum could have a Christmas collection for Dr Rossi to help speed up the dawn of the new energy era.

Quote from Fm1

So he was vaccinated and still died

Fm1 Yes I noticed that.

So do you think he took the vaccine before he caught Covid, while he was telling everybody else not to take the vaccine?

Or do you think he asked for the vaccine when he found he had Covid in which case the vaccine would be of little use to him?

I assumed the latter since he said he wished he had taken it earlier.

Either way a tragedy for somebody.

One Ivermectin non-success story.

USA Today Marcus Lamb founder of Christian TV Daystar dies aged 64 from Covid.

"Daystar has broadcast segments and published information online that features misinformation about the virus, vaccines and unproven treatments for COVID-19.

Marcus Lamb had encouraged unapproved treatments for COVID-19, including ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine. He called ivermectin, an anti-parasitic drug that federal health officials have not approved for treating the virus, a "miracle drug." The Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health have warned Americans against using the drug to treat COVID-19.

Joni Lamb said they were trying to treat the virus "with the different protocols we use, including the ones we talk about on Daystar.""

Daily Mail who are anti-vax radio hosts who died from Covid-19?

Marc Bernier

Bob Enyart

Phil Valentine- He died in August after a month-long battle with the virus, and reportedly admitted that he wished he had taken the vaccine sooner.

Dick Farrell -

One of Farrell's friends, Amy Leigh Hair, posted on Facebook after his death in early August that Farrell had warned her to get the vaccine after he was hospitalized.

'Covid Took One Of My Best Friends! RIP Dick Farrell. He is the reason I took the shot! He texted me and told me to 'Get it!' He told me that this virus is no joke and he said: 'I wish I had gotten it!' she said.

But, but, but Rossi said when the customer pulled out that the demo would have to be done at a Leonardo lab.

That does not look like a lab table to me.

Also the Leonardo lab kit, such as the meters, does not seem to be the cutting edge science kit I would expect from a global leader with the customers that Leonardo Corp has.

I bet Da Vinci is spinning like a top.

can yes your efforts are much appreciated and are certainly instructive and revealing of the setup presented.

I just don't think there is any "science" going on. In fact quite the opposite.

I thought this comment from ECat World was interesting.

"There is no obligation to actually buy it with any pre-order. I don't understand what security 1 million pre-orders are supposed to bring him when theoretically everyone could also cancel afterwards. Or does production not start until everyone has paid? That would also be unrealistic. The whole story sounds kind of strange, sorry."

Bearing in mind that the YouTube link for the Rossi demo only has around 8,500 hits then the dreams of hitting 1 million pre-orders sounds as delusional as many here assumed.

Quote from can

h_l : it looks like only the black wire is connected of that pair, but it still may or may not be doing anything.

jox : I did consider too the possibility that the "AI" is not doing any useful work. I don't see how any of the measurements could be trusted under this context, though.

By all means have fun with the analyses, and thanks for the efforts.

But the fact is that Rossi does not do scientific experiments, he does demos.

Crappy demos with deliberate efforts to complicate, mislead, and confuse.

This is not the work of a scientist.

It is the work of either a paranoid inventor or a scammer.

As far as anyone can prove, Rossi has certainly made lots of money but never actually sold a working device, that suggests the paranoid inventor option is unlikely.

Quote from miles

OMG. I'm really shitting in my pants now 😱. I'm going to delete all my latest post!

Don't worry miles

Firstly - Rossi is only interested in people with a few million in the bank. You're not really Elon Musk are you?

Secondly - if his vendettas are as amateurish as his science demos then I don't think we have anything to worry about.

Quote from PhysicsForDummies

On ECW, people are openly being allowed to post that the ecat doesn't work and is likely a scam. Doesn't that mean Frank should open up posting again for those of us that said this all along and were right? Unblock everyone and stop the censorship now Frank!

Yet at the same time some are already recalibrating their brains to say things like;

"It wasn't 'proof day', there apparently isn't going to be one, it was a show'n'tell, a bench demo and either honest or not. If so, then it's clearly robust OU and monumentally impressive. 100 W continuous, forever, at any size, let alone that little box, that's usable real-world power. If genuine, it's huge. Surely everyone can see this?

It was a good demo. No fuss, no spin, no razzmatazz, just the facts ma'am, take it or leave it.. (i think we can all agree he looks more virile w/o the hair hat but that's exactly the kind of irrelevancy i'm on about)."

This is fascinating to behold.

There should be at least one PhD to be had here if anyone wants to study the psychological phenomenon.

Edit;

I decided to add to my comment because it truly is a fascinating phenomenon but some (me at least) are maybe sounding smug and superior.

A famous study in this sort of thing was in 1956 by Leon Festinger;

Leon Festinger study on cognitive dissonance in End of the World cult.

However it is very easy for us to feel superior and poke fun.

Many people have been in the Rossi world bubble (including me). Some have been people high in academia. Once you are on the outside then things look different.

We all encounter stories every day. We invest in these stories, whether time or money. Maybe risk our reputation by telling friends and family.

Maybe an investment has a good story to it. The Elon Musk story. The BitCoin story. The LENR story. All are compelling or at least exciting.

Being part of an exciting story makes life more interesting and makes us feel clever for being onboard.

But the future is unknown so we follow a story based on hope. The difficulty is when more data emerges, or the facts change, is to be able to admit we were wrong. To bail out of the investment. This is difficult for most people, as the Festinger research shows, in fact politicians can be lampooned for changing their minds.

So I resolve to try to be a bit more charitable to those who are still on the inside of the bubble.

Quote from THHuxleynew

Even more the end of the game if fans can get their hands on the promised goodies.

Then by this logic no goodies will ever be delivered.

Some excuse of "faults with the production process", "quality control with the first batch", or not enough pre-orders received, or back to the drawing board for an even better product at some future date (unspecified).

Rossi is like the anti-Santa Claus, maybe his fans might have more luck getting energy out of a lump of coal.

Festive humour.

Quote from Roseland67

It’s no mystery, there is a sucker born every minute and they are soon parted from their money.

Coniving crooked people have preyed on gullible people like this for centuries it’s not going to stop.

Bunko, noun, plural bun·kos. a swindle in which a person is cheated at gambling, persuaded to buy a nonexistent, unsalable, or worthless object, or otherwise victimized.

The question, as interested observer puts it is "Why does he bother?"

Is it ego?

Does he suffer from a psychological delusion such that he believes what he says?

Or as Shane D. has suggested, is this the start of another search for a rich sucker investor.

I do not see that such a crap presentation is helpful in attracting investors. Although others, THHuxleynew I believe, have suggested that crap demonstrations filter out the smart people and only attract the nieve, thus making a functional lure. Add to that Rossi has cultivated a persona of secretiveness and stubbornness making it easier for him to refuse to answer questions or provide evidence.

But this time he has promised sale of products (based on a pre-order limit). This was the end game for Steorn with their Orbo widget and may be the end game for Rossi if his eager fans cannot get their hands on the promised goodies.

All these theories have been thrashed out many times on these boards. I guess we will have to wait and then we may never know.

My personal guess is that he already got rich from IH and is not desperate for more money at his time in life.

I think he keeps going because of ego and to cultivate his fanbase as evidenced by even a cursory look at his pompously named "Journal of Nuclear Physics" site.

But these are all just guesses.

Big picture vs details.

THE WOOD:-

After many years of research, here two products are demonstrated, the SKLep and the SKLed.

Three scientific test reports, on the products, from the University of Bologna are produced.

A certification made by a global certification company for the products has been achieved.

We “know” the products are “real” because we are shown them in the video, and you (yes YOU) can order them now.

THE TREES:-

Minimum pre-orders required 1 million. LOL.

Zero Point Energy. LOL.

Secret Certification. LOL.

We “know” the Orbo was “real” because people were able to order it. LOL.

The real mystery is how Rossi manages to keep the Carousel going around with minimal effort and expense on his part.

.