COVID 19 GLOBAL

[Nightcrawler]

BREES MEDIA is merely another social platform for people to air their opinions. That's fair enough, but they are not an authority. Just as we are not. We are sharing opinions too. 

Like all social media, there are truths, myths,information, disinformation,misinformation, facts, opinions, conspiracy theories and emotional responses etc.  It is all there if we seek it out or it is forwarded to us. All we seem to do as readers is to pick out the stuff that we may believe or believe to be credible and run with it. It does not mean that it is fact or written in stone. 

[Stillearly]

Maybe the PM forgot to change his clocks ... 

[roomark]

9 minutes ago, Stillearly said:

Maybe the PM forgot to change his clocks ... 

He's obviously made a f**k up of it and getting even more advice ..

That or his Charlie hasn't turned up yet 😱😱😱😱😭🤣🤣🤣

[Stillearly]

3 minutes ago, roomark said:

He's obviously made a f**k up of it and getting even more advice ..

That or his Charlie hasn't turned up yet 😱😱😱😱😭🤣🤣🤣

It probably doesn't sound Churchillian enough and he's sending out for a cigar and hat 

[Stillearly]

4 then 5 now 6ish .... piss up and brewery spring to mind ...

[galenkia]

No sign of any panic buying in M&S earlier. 

Won't be done for the Ascot set to be seen doing it, they will probably send the housekeeper out tomorrow. 😀

 

[Painter]

11 minutes ago, Stillearly said:

4 then 5 now 6ish .... piss up and brewery spring to mind ...

Just missed the rugby waiting for this briefing..... why not just announce a REAL time if its delayed?

Farce, especially that the press already appear to have all the details!

[Thai Spice]

3 hours ago, lazarus said:

f everyone wore masks when around other people , got tested & stayed home when sick (or tested positive) the damn thing would die out on its own

Nope. 

[Thai Spice]

1 hour ago, Nightcrawler said:

Like all social media, there are truths, myths,information, disinformation,misinformation, facts, opinions, conspiracy theories and emotional responses etc.  It is all there if we seek it out or it is forwarded to us. All we seem to do as readers is to pick out the stuff that we may believe or believe to be credible and run with it. It does not mean that it is fact or written in stone.

One usually read papers or watch channels that follow / adhere to our opinion / interest / political position... hence what we read is what we already agreed with, it re inforces our opinion in what we already "believed".

But this makes it non objective.

 

[lazarus]

3 hours ago, roomark said:

Covid and flu apples and oranges it's as maybe my point being there were still a lot of deaths in one year from it in the UK and we are locking down the UK on the back of 40 odd thousand supposed deaths everything is getting reported as Covid no matter what .

No worries stay behind your sofa and let those that want to work and live get on with it.

Watch the video and pick him apart if you can.

 

 

Screw your sofa...

I'm out and about everyday...shopping (only time I go indoors), doing my photography, exercising & having fun. Lots of restaurants & bars open with outdoor dining (and limited indoor).

I wear a mask when I'm anywhere close to people (masked or not). I use hand sanitizer and wash my hands. I have a small group of people in my "bubble" & my young daughter attends school remotely online. 

The city where I live has the lowest Covid infection rate in the US (of large cities) - 0.8%. However, there is presently a major health crisis here on the US -- record infections (& those are just the ones they have tested for). Most of the worst places did not mandate masks or limit indoor activities. Their hospitals (ICUs) are starting to hit full capacity.

"Opening" wide up and allowing people to run around mask-less is a recipe for disaster. It's already proven here.

People need to take responsibility for not only themselves but their neighbors as well. Unfortunately as long as people don't (or refuse to) "get it" there will be infections.

 

Edited October 31, 2020 by lazarus

[Nightcrawler]

1 hour ago, galenkia said:

No sign of any panic buying in M&S earlier. 

Won't be done for the Ascot set to be seen doing it, they will probably send the housekeeper out tomorrow. 😀

 

Me neither. Just stocked up with Vodka and other essential items in Sainsbury's. Very calm inside, but my wallet has taken a bashing today. Filled up the car as well whilst I was at it. Didn't buy any bog rolls though. I have 6 at home. That should last a, while if I reused each sheet twice 😀

[roomark]

1 hour ago, lazarus said:

Screw your sofa...

I'm out and about everyday...shopping (only time I go indoors), doing my photography, exercising & having fun. Lots of restaurants & bars open with outdoor dining (and limited indoor).

I wear a mask when I'm anywhere close to people (masked or not). I use hand sanitizer and wash my hands. I have a small group of people in my "bubble" & my young daughter attends school remotely online. 

The city where I live has the lowest Covid infection rate in the US (of large cities) - 0.8%. However, there is presently a major health crisis here on the US -- record infections (& those are just the ones they have tested for). Most of the worst places did not mandate masks or limit indoor activities. Their hospitals (ICUs) are starting to hit full capacity.

"Opening" wide up and allowing people to run around mask-less is a recipe for disaster. It's already proven here.

People need to take responsibility for not only themselves but their neighbors as well. Unfortunately as long as people don't (or refuse to) "get it" there will be infections.

 

I'm talking about the U.K at the moment don't worry about it..

Whatever is happening on your side of the pond you obviously know more about ..

Seriously good luck with it..

Don't rattle your Sofa though seriously 😉🤣🤣🙈😷😱

[lazarus]

Just now, roomark said:

I'm talking about the U.K at the moment don't worry about it..

Whatever is happening on your side of the pond you obviously know more about ..

Seriously good luck with it..

Don't rattle your Sofa though seriously 😉🤣🤣🙈😷😱

I could use a new "easy" chair to watch American football, though... 🙂

I know it's not easy with kids in school.

Stay well.

[coxyhog]

The leftie press still having a go at Boris....did you make a mistake....why didn't you do this....etc

The government is undoubtedly and unprecedentedly within a rock & a hard place....protect the NHS & lives versus keeping the economy going.Not helped by the idiots who will no doubt be out partying & spreading Covid right up until the lockdown comes in.

[Nightcrawler]

2 minutes ago, coxyhog said:

The leftie press still having a go at Boris....did you make a mistake....why didn't you do this....etc

The government is undoubtedly and unprecedentedly within a rock & a hard place....protect the NHS & lives versus keeping the economy going.Not helped by the idiots who will no doubt be out partying & spreading Covid right up until the lockdown comes in.

Agree, but it's not just the left wing press. 

[Washedup]

1 minute ago, coxyhog said:

The leftie press still having a go at Boris....did you make a mistake....why didn't you do this....etc

The government is undoubtedly and unprecedentedly within a rock & a hard place....protect the NHS & lives versus keeping the economy going.Not helped by the idiots who will no doubt be out partying & spreading Covid right up until the lockdown comes in.

The country is full of half-wits 

[jcolorado]

[Nightcrawler]

1 minute ago, jcolorado said:

That made me chuckle 😁😁

[Thai Spice]

What is puzzling me is the immense difference from one country to another. I mean, the number of infection rising dramatically in UK, France, Germany, Belgium...and those   countries all going into lockdown again.

But take Japan, South Korea for example, they never lockdowned and they dont have this famous "2nd wave". And dont tell me it's the masks...

Another thing is we can't compare the number of positives with the numbers of the 1st wave, as at that time very little testing was done so we simply dont have anything to compare with (except numbers of ICU and deaths in the next 2 months).

 

 

[coxyhog]

28 minutes ago, Thai Spice said:

What is puzzling me is the immense difference from one country to another. I mean, the number of infection rising dramatically in UK, France, Germany, Belgium...and those   countries all going into lockdown again.

But take Japan, South Korea for example, they never lockdowned and they dont have this famous "2nd wave". And dont tell me it's the masks...

Another thing is we can't compare the number of positives with the numbers of the 1st wave, as at that time very little testing was done so we simply dont have anything to compare with (except numbers of ICU and deaths in the next 2 months).

 

 

C'est la vie all that matters is La Francais beats the Irish by a small margin.....

[Zeb]

 

Countries in South Asia, Latin America, North Africa and the Middle East are also battling out-of-control outbreaks and massive second waves of COVID-19.

Sub-Saharan Africa has been largely spared the worst effects of the pandemic, although South Africa continues to report more than 1,500 cases a day.

Yet in East and South-East Asia and the Pacific, the situation is starkly different. Ten Pacific island countries, including Vanuatu and Tonga, have not reported a single case of COVID-19.

China, Taiwan, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and East Timor emerged from their first wave months ago and now have almost no community transmission.

South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong, Vietnam and Japan have navigated through their second waves to varying degrees.

Despite clusters of cases in August, New Zealand prevented a second wave and Papua New Guinea has reported only 10 cases in the past two weeks.

Myanmar, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines are a different story. Malaysia’s and Indonesia’s numbers show no signs of abatement, but the Philippines and Myanmar are showing steady improvement.

What can we learn from this wildly varied pattern of coronavirus spread? As far as Europe, the Americas and the Middle East are concerned: not very much, except that premature easing of restrictions will almost always lead to a resurgence in cases.

Of the 120 countries around the world that have experienced clear second waves or late first waves,only six have emerged from them, to varying degrees – Australia, South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, Vietnam and Singapore. And only the Australian state of Victoria imposed a complete lockdown to get there. None of these Asian countries had a national lockdown, except for a two-week lockdown in Vietnam.

Excellent testing and tracing systems allowed them to avoid this fate. South Korea had a decentralised system whereby local government areas conducted drive-in testing and contact tracing that included care and support for those who had challenges in self-isolating. South Korea also pioneered the use of registering QR codes at retail and hospitality venues.

Japan practised “upstream” contact tracing whereby they looked for people who had been close to cases before as well as after they had symptoms. This is now routine in Victoria and NSW. Community engagement, involvement, trust and support are also essential features of effective case finding.

Each of these countries also had a high level of adherence to public health directives and a culture of wearing masks. Face coverings are a highly effective, low-cost measure that does not disrupt the economy. 
 

https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/covid-19-gap-widens-between-australia-and-the-rest-of-the-world-20201029-p569ub.html

[Thai Spice]

some good points but some others just grabbed from the sky in the above article.

Let's keep in mind that the MAIN reason of those lockdowns is governments fear of their medical / hospital system being overwhelmed by the number of cases needing hospitalization. In which case they would have to face the blame from their population.

Now of course I know that you can not dimension any system or organization based on a event that MAY happen once or twice in a century, but still there are important differences in number of hospital beds per capita between the industrialized, modern countries.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_hospital_beds

 https://data.oecd.org/healtheqt/hospital-beds.htm

 

In France although we come in decent position, those numbers include public + private sector, and the government has decided since the beginning that only public hospitals are allowed to handle COVID cases.....

Another problem is the isolation. You can test 100.000's of people per week, but if like now the positivity rate is between 15 and 20%, how to isolate and enforce isolation of those ? Because we're speaking large number !

France has today over 1,3 million cases ..... Even simply tracing them is a lost cause IMO at this point.

So, lockdown everybody for 1 month. And then ? The lockdown will be lifted, but you will still have large numbers of people who are positive. So we just go for another round.....

 

 

 

 

 

[Jambo]

37 minutes ago, Zeb said:

 

Countries in South Asia, Latin America, North Africa and the Middle East are also battling out-of-control outbreaks and massive second waves of COVID-19.

Sub-Saharan Africa has been largely spared the worst effects of the pandemic, although South Africa continues to report more than 1,500 cases a day.

Yet in East and South-East Asia and the Pacific, the situation is starkly different. Ten Pacific island countries, including Vanuatu and Tonga, have not reported a single case of COVID-19.

China, Taiwan, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and East Timor emerged from their first wave months ago and now have almost no community transmission.

South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong, Vietnam and Japan have navigated through their second waves to varying degrees.

Despite clusters of cases in August, New Zealand prevented a second wave and Papua New Guinea has reported only 10 cases in the past two weeks.

Myanmar, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines are a different story. Malaysia’s and Indonesia’s numbers show no signs of abatement, but the Philippines and Myanmar are showing steady improvement.

What can we learn from this wildly varied pattern of coronavirus spread? As far as Europe, the Americas and the Middle East are concerned: not very much, except that premature easing of restrictions will almost always lead to a resurgence in cases.

Of the 120 countries around the world that have experienced clear second waves or late first waves,only six have emerged from them, to varying degrees – Australia, South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, Vietnam and Singapore. And only the Australian state of Victoria imposed a complete lockdown to get there. None of these Asian countries had a national lockdown, except for a two-week lockdown in Vietnam.

Excellent testing and tracing systems allowed them to avoid this fate. South Korea had a decentralised system whereby local government areas conducted drive-in testing and contact tracing that included care and support for those who had challenges in self-isolating. South Korea also pioneered the use of registering QR codes at retail and hospitality venues.

Japan practised “upstream” contact tracing whereby they looked for people who had been close to cases before as well as after they had symptoms. This is now routine in Victoria and NSW. Community engagement, involvement, trust and support are also essential features of effective case finding.

Each of these countries also had a high level of adherence to public health directives and a culture of wearing masks. Face coverings are a highly effective, low-cost measure that does not disrupt the economy. 
 

https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/covid-19-gap-widens-between-australia-and-the-rest-of-the-world-20201029-p569ub.html

Good post.

Personally I believe the whole world has to come to terms with the fact that Covid19 ( and/or subsequent versions) is here for ever.

We have never eradicated influenza despite vaccines being available because they simply do not work on every strain and countless millions world wide chose not to get vaccinated anyway. You only have to look at the USA where every flu season produces 19 - 40 million individuals who go down with influenza in a 4 month period. A maybe 50% take up world wide of a Covid19 vaccine which itself may be no better than 50% effective is not going to eradicate the problem.

Covid 19 is not the return of the of "The Black Death" for the world. The overwhelming percentage of individuals who contract it recover without any major treatment let alone a hospital visit. It would seem many do not have any symptoms at all and just carry on with there lives unwittingly infecting others.

Is it not fact that the majority of deaths occur in individuals with existing adverse medical pre-conditions? How many of these given Covid19 as the cause of death would have died anyway? We all die eventually and it is sad for the individuals concerned, their family and friends,  but the term "survival of the fittest" is not just a cliche.

Governments are between a rock and a hard place.

They have to make a judgement as to when the "medicine" becomes worse than the illness. Balancing the number of political "acceptable" deaths with the damage done to the economy for years, maybe decades, to come.

You have to pick your so called "expert" to decide the benefits (or not) of wearing face masks. Some say it does not stop you going down with Covid 19 at all but having done so restricts the now positive mask wearer from passing it on to others. I wear a face mask as I do not wish to be "the filthy farlang" and the not insignificant fact I cannot enter a shopping center or even a 7Elevan without one. Maybe the overwhelming reason for the mass wearing of face masks is to remind everybody that Covid19 is not going away.

I come into the high risk category on age alone.............apparently. I am not going to lose any sleep over Covid19. I am losing enough of that through 02:00am kick offs for the footy. 🤣

[fygjam]

I take it that those in the "let's just get on with our lives" camp, at least those in the UK, have signed up as volunteers for the Covid-19 Human Challenge study. 

The first study phase, which could begin in January, 2020, aims to discover the smallest amount of virus it takes to cause the infection in up to 90 healthy young people, aged between 18 and 30 years, who are at the lowest risk of harm from COVID-19. The study will take place in the high-level isolation unit of the Royal Free Hospital, London, UK.

(PS. I think they mean January, 2021).

Don't worry about the age range, demand your right to assist society and your fellow humans. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

This is indeed a worthwhile study. In future they'll be able to say

You still have it, you still might die but you're no longer a danger to those around you so get out of that ICU bed, fuk off and get on with your life.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanres/article/PIIS2213-2600(20)30518-X/fulltext

 

[fygjam]

14 hours ago, roomark said:

Covid and flu apples and oranges it's as maybe my point being there were still a lot of deaths in one year from it in the UK and we are locking down the UK on the back of 40 odd thousand supposed deaths everything is getting reported as Covid no matter what .

No worries stay behind your sofa and let those that want to work and live get on with it.

Watch the video and pick him apart if you can.

No, I didn't watch the video. I put up with the intro from Anna Brees, she's got form for "gilding the lily" to attract viewers to her channel and I thought she might flash her tits. No tits and after about 30 seconds of Yeadon I thought "this guy's a loon" and called it quits.

However apparently a few media outlets are giving him a stump to hawk his views so let's see if this article for the Daily Mail can be picked apart.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8899053/DR-MIKE-YEADON-Three-facts-No-10s-experts-got-wrong.html

Firstly, while the Covid-19 virus is new, other coronaviruses are not. 

We have experience of SARS in 2003 and MERS in 2012, while in the UK there are at least four known strains of coronavirus which cause the common cold.

Many individuals who’ve been infected by other coronaviruses have immunity to closely related ones such as the Covid-19 virus.

Correct. There are four strains of coronavirus which have been around for hundreds of years and don't cause pandemics. They cause the "common" cold.

But consider this. Who are most at risk from the coronavirus - the 60yo and above.

Who are most likely to have experienced bouts of the "common" cold throughout their lifetime - the 60yo and above.

Just because viruses come from a common family does not guarantee one strain offers immunity to another.

Does one strain of dengue offer immunity to the other strains - nope, does one strain of polio offer immunity to the other strains - nope.

It's a false premise that a previous infection with another coronavirus offers immunity against the SARS-CoV-2 virus. And as Yeadon's article is based on that and thus already existing "herd immunity" his proposition is destroyed.

But let's do a bit more picking anyway.

Multiple research groups in Europe and the US have shown that around 30 per cent of the population was likely already immune to Covid-19 before the virus arrived.

Claims he is supported by other research but does not cite any references, a common trick to support a false narrative.

Sage reached its conclusion by assessing the prevalence of Covid-19 antibodies in national blood surveys. 

Yet we know that not every infected individual produces antibodies.

This is true. A notable infectee in the US recently had zero levels of antibody when tested and was thus given a course of Regeneron's REGN-COV2 Antibody Cocktail. Actually it only contains 2 monoclonal antibodies, more of a shandy than a cocktail.

Indeed, the immune systems of most healthy people bypass the complex and energy-intensive process of making antibodies because the virus can be overcome by other means.

Complete bullshit. The current vaccine candidates undergoing trials measure antibody production as an indicator of effectiveness.

The human immune system has several lines of defence.

These include innate immunity which is comprised of the body’s physical barriers to infection and protective secretions (the skin and its oils, the cough reflex, tears etc); its inflammatory response (to localise and minimise infection and injury), and the production of non-specific cells (phagocytes) that target an invading virus/bacterium.

And despite all this Covid-19 spreads like wildfire.

In addition, the immune system produces antibodies that protect against a specific virus or bacterium (and confer immunity) and T-cells (a type of white blood cell) that are also specific.

Hang on, now we do require antibodies. First we didn't, now we do.

It is the T-cells that are crucial in our body’s response to respiratory viruses such as Covid-19.

Studies show that while not all individuals infected by the Covid-19 viruses have antibodies, they do have T-cells that can respond to the virus and therefore have immunity.

More non-citing of studies. The immunologists I listen to (podcasts) say that T-cell response is hard to gauge for either vaccines or infection.

My argument against the need for lockdown isn’t too dissimilar to the Great Barrington Declaration, co-authored by three professors from Oxford, Harvard and Stanford universities – laughably dismissed as ‘emphatically false’ by Health Secretary Matt Hancock who has no scientific qualifications – and signed by more then 44,000 scientists, public health experts and clinicians so far, including Nobel Prize winner Dr Michael Levitt.

Ah, the Great Barrington Declaration. Also signed by the likes of Dr Johnny Bananas, Professor Cominic Dummings, a person whose name resembled the first verse of the Macarena and an expert in the art of Mongolian khoomii singing. Definitely a crowd to take note of. After all, to sign all you had to provide was an email address, home city, postcode and name.

And who was really behind the Great Barrington Declaration, apart from Dr Johnny Bananas, the American Institute for Economic Research (AIER).

The American Institute for Economic Research (AIER) is a libertarian or free-market think tank located in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1933 by Edward C. Harwood, an economist and investment advisor. It is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that partners with the Atlas Network and other Koch-funded think tanks.

AIER owns American Investment Services Inc., whose private fund, valued at around $285 million in 2020, includes holdings in a wide range of fossil fuel companies including Chevron and ExxonMobil, along with tobacco giant Philip Morris International, Microsoft, Alphabet Inc. and many others. While a large part of AIER's funding comes from its investments, it has also reportedly received US$68,100 from the Charles Koch Foundation and maintains a network of local "Bastiat Society" chapters that partners with the Atlas Network, Ayn Rand Institute, Cato Institute, the State Policy Network, the Charles Koch Institute and other Koch-funded think tanks.

AIER statements and publications consistently portray the risks of climate change as minor and manageable, with titles such as "What Greta Thunberg Forgets About Climate Change", "The Real Reason Nobody Takes Environmental Activists Seriously" and "Brazilians Should Keep Slashing Their Rainforest".

The institution has also funded research on the comparative benefits that sweatshops supplying multinationals bring to the people working in them. In October 2020, Twitter removed a tweet by White House coronavirus adviser Scott Atlas which claimed that masks do not stop the spread of viruses. Atlas' tweet linked to an American Institute for Economic Research article which argued against the effectiveness of masks.

AIER issued a "Great Barrington Declaration" during the COVID-19 pandemic that called for a herd immunity strategy to deal with the coronavirus. It was roundly condemned by public health experts. Anthony Fauci, the White House's top infectious disease expert, called the declaration "total nonsense" and unscientific. Tyler Cowen, a libertarian economist at George Mason University, criticized the Barrington declaration. He said that while he sympathizes with a libertarian approach to deal with the pandemic, the declaration was dangerous and misguided. The Niskanen Center, a libertarian think tank, criticized the declaration.

Definitely a source to have faith in.