Coronavirus
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Ministry of Defence plans to build three temporary hospitals.
Listed as phase one, London’s ExCeL centre in the capital’s docklands will have capacity of between 4,000 and 5,000 beds and will open next week.
Phase two is a temporary hospital for England and Wales at the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham, with a capacity for 5,000 beds, and will open in mid-April.
The third phase is a 1,000-bed facility at the Manchester Central Conference Centre (formerly the GMEX Centre) and will also open in mid-April.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NHS_Nightingale_Hospital
What is the motive that the capitalist class – collectively, not just one vested interest section nor one national group – seek to cut off their nose to spite their face?
Exactly. This is why I just dont buy the argument that the threat of the virus is overblown or conspiracy theories that it is a man-made virus deliberately intended to cull the populace.
As I understand it the best epidemiological evidence is that the mortality rate is at least ten times that of flu. The death toll may be comparatively low now but that is only because the virus is so new and so few people have been infected thus far. If and when infections become far more widespread -particularly in places like Africa which doesn’t have the resources to cope – the death toll will sadly rise dramatically
With the COVID-19 pandemic we now know how far that capitalism will go to protect the goose that lays the golden egg – the millions that are the producers and consumers.
Now the question is going to be: Is capitalism which is now procrastinating over the emergency measures that many say are necessary to avoid the climate catastrophes that are presently are in store for the world but which are not yet imminent is going to take climate actions.
We now know the capitalist class can cut output to reduce pollution and emissions and that they can re-tool their technology if they so wish, sacrificing immediate share price, dividends and profits for their longer term interests
When will the climate change timetable and future consequences result in such urgency as being shown in these crisis days, is now what environmentalists must be asking themselves.
mortality rate
Robbo is going on about the mortality rate.
This of course is really important; in fact it is everything.
That is because although they might have a good idea of how many people have died with it, they don’t know how many people or what % of people have it or have had it.
Because they have up to now had limited RT-PCR testing capability and they have been focusing on testing people who have serious symptoms of it or people who they believe have been exposed to it.
What the should have done was suspend a days testing and tested 5000 people randomly selected from the population and seen how many had it.
We can jump forward now to some background to recent scientific material on the subject.
In Epidemiology what you need to know for a virus or disease is its Basic reproduction number or R0.
Plugging it into computers along with other known population parameters will give you an estimate how fast it will spread through a population from a “patient Zero” how many will become “infected” or “exposed” to the virus etc etc.
They have a good estimate for the R0 value of corona virus from data collected from the Princess Diamond cruise ship case where they had a patient Zero and everyone was tested etc etc
Eg;
The international journal of infectious deceases by Zhang et al feb 2020.
A team a Oxford University have used this and other data to estimate R0 values and ranges.
Its paper is being peer reviewed now.
It estimates that a huge number of people in the UK have already had it even going as far as up to 50% although the range is quiet large.
Even if it was 2% or a million people the mortality rate would be lees than a common cold and certainly less than flu.
RT-PCR tests for tell tale fragments of RNA
[ I think this corona virus is one of those that has RNA rather than DNA]
It tells you if you have virus in your sputum or whatever.
There appears to be another different type of test about to be rolled out which is based on immunoassay for antibodies method.
That tells whether or not you have had it in the past eg your body has had it , produced the antibodies for it and have recovered as well as if you are in the process of doing the same and have it active.
So we will see soon I expect.
The UK makers of the kit are not happy about rolling it out because it hasn’t been validated and often the prototypes for this kind of thing can be disappointing.
Neil Fergusson of imperial college London who told us that 500,000 would die of it has already rowed that back to 20,000.
Approx 600,000 die every year in the UK a lot of them with or from respiratory illnesses with 2 or more underlying conditions.
Cancer is on the rise in the UK and everywhere , chemotherapy is often the only hope, it nearly always suppresses the immune system
Thus dying with it and dying from it is another issue.
I think 2 or 3 people in the UK have died from it so far and they reckon about 50 in Italy.
Eg no underlying conditions.
About 8000 to 30,000 people die each year in the UK from flu with an average of about 18,000 I think.
It is a hoax
Some of the most famous academics in the field are hopping mad about at s real science is going to be dragged thro the mud on this by L Birds later on!
Eg
Professor Sucharit Bhakdi,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBB9bA-gXL4
most of the good material on this with a plentiful supply of links is appearing on the site below. And is updated each day.
eg
March 27, 2020 (II)
- German researcher Dr. Richard Capek argues in a quantitative analysis that the „Corona epidemic“ is in fact an „epidemic of tests“. Capek shows that while the number of tests has increased exponentially, the percentage of test-positive people has remained stable and mortality has decreased, which speaks against an exponential spread of the virus itself.
- German Virology professor Dr. Carsten Scheller from the University of Würzburg explains in a podcast that Covid19 is definitely comparable with influenza and has so far even led to fewer deaths. Professor Scheller suspects that the exponential curves often presented in the media have more to do with the increasing number of tests than with an unusual spread of the virus itself. For countries like Germany, Italy is less of a role model than Japan and South Korea. Despite millions of Chinese tourists and only minimal social restrictions, these countries have not yet experienced a Covid19 crisis. One reason for this could be the wearing of mouth masks: This would hardly protect against infection, but would limit the spread of the virus by infected people.
- The latest figures from Bergamo show that total mortality there almost quadrupled in March 2020 from typically 200 to 300 people per month to around 900 people. It is still unclear what proportion of this was due to Covid19 and what proportion was due to other, locally specific factors or other causes (see above).
- The two Stanford professors of medicine, Dr. Eran Bendavid and Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, explain in an article (Paywall) that the lethality of Covid19 is overestimated by several orders of magnitude and is probably even in Italy only at 0.01% to 0.06% and thus below that of influenza. The reason for this overestimation is the greatly underestimated number of people already infected (without symptoms). As an example, the fully tested Italian community of Vo is mentioned, which showed 50 to 75% symptom-free test-positive persons.
- Dr. Gerald Gaß, President of the German Hospital Association, explained in an interview with the Handelsblatt that „the extreme situation in Italy is mainly due to the very low intensive care capacities“.
- Dr. Wolfgang Wodarg, one of the early and vocal critics of a „Covid19 panic“, was provisionally excluded by the board of Transparency Internantional Germany, where he headed the health working group. Wodarg had already been severely attacked by the media for his criticism.
- NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden warns that governments are using the current situation to expand the surveillance state and restrict fundamental rights. The control measures currently put in place would not be dismantled after the crisis.
https://swprs.org/a-swiss-doctor-on-covid-19/
Professor Sucharit Bhakdi,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBB9bA-gXL4
Just post once Dave. There were still links in the second one causing it to be misidentified as spam.
If you want data
Google
2020 coronavirus pandemic in the United Kingdom Wikipedia
They do one for each country.
The more you test the more you find of course so you need to watch that.
Testing can be completed in about 2 hours but samples need to be sent to the places that can do it and they go into a queue so it seems to be taking 2-4 days.
Dave
From my reading of the literature the scientific consensus seems to be that the mortality rate for the virus is about 1% . The initial WHO estimate of 3.4 % was adjusted downward after taking into account many people may have the virus without knowing it.
By contrast the mortality rate for flu is o.1% i.e. ten times less
https://www.livescience.com/new-coronavirus-compare-with-flu.html
If this whole thing is a hoax as you suggest then why would the capitalists cause such enormous self inflicted damage to their economy and for what possible purpose????
This is something for which I have yet to come across a remotely plausible explanation
Thankyou Dave B for your info which kind of corroborates what Dr Vernon Coleman was saying. Also I apologise to anyone who is offended by David Icke although I don’t think I actually uploaded one of his videos.
I ask myself the same questions. Why would the owning class sabotage Capitalism in this way with some gigantic hoax? I can’t fathom it.
Nevertheless I can only go by what I’m seeing around me. We are almost three straight months into this “Pandemic” now (since the first case was announced December 30th) and although we are at the tail end of the traditional flu season, here in Scotland precisely 40 people have died of this thing. In a country of 5 Million inhabitants who are currently joining another 2.5 BILLION people in virtual martial law/house arrest globally.
Something is going on. But what? I just worry about a time in the future when a REAL Pandemic hits us. Because THIS DOESN’T FEEL REAL. It feels bogus. Look at Dave Bs data.
This is an article from a conspiracy website. I know it’s anathema. But I just can’t get my head around this panic. None of it adds up. Is it too fantastical to even remotely entertain that with AI, Mass Surveillance, and GPI Monitoring and Cell phone addiction the elite are co-ordinating something? With China’s Social Credit System as their template. Call me crazy but somethings not right.
Seasonal Flu related deaths 2015-19
2014-15 season – 28,330
2015-16 season – 11.875
2016-17 season – 18,009
2017-18 season – 26,408
Source Public Health England -Surveillance of influenza and other respiratory viruses in the UK Winter 2018 to 2019
Re the following advice:
It is believed that the coronavirus like other viruses cannot withstand high temperatures and for which reason it tends to proliferate in the sinuses which is the coldest part of the head. The remedy involves using a simple hairdryer and water spray to direct heated water molecules into the nostrils to penetrate the sinuses.
One of the reasons the body goes into a fever is that the temperature rise causes viruses to die, basically the body overheats to kill the invading virus. However, if this virus is from a bat, as has been suggested, we have a problem. Bats are unique amongst mammals in actually flying, as part of this they have to produce high levels of energy when they leave the roost and when they return to the roost. Consequently they have a body temperature that is much higher than most other mammals, including humans, and one which would be lethal to a human. So temperature will kill the virus, but might not be bearable for humans.
Ozy, nobody is claiming that there won’t be those in power who will endeavour to take political advantage of the pandemic. See our blog
https://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2020/03/pandemic-populism.html
But equally we have to also acknowledge that it has empowered those who previously were seen as surplus to requirements.
Capitalism has identified who really are the key workers to the operation of its economics. Surely the shelf-stackers, the uber and gig workers will not forget the lesson. The skills and scalpel of the surgeons was very much secondary to the scrubbing brush and disinfectant of the hospital cleaners.
As in post-war Britain, people expect their sacrifices to be rewarded.
Will capitalism do this? Or will it opt instead, as it did in 2008 recession, for a course of austerity to bring back its profits and pay back the debt of extra government spending?
Surely the positive outcome is that we recognise cooperation and solidarity was what got us through COVID-19 and after it we can expect our economic demands to become higher and our newly found power exercised if we are refused.
That is what i am hoping for, anyway.
Ok
They are not testing people who are asymptomatic.
They are testing people who are symptomatic ie got a cough high temp or whatever.
Go to hospital and say I am feeling fine and asymptomatic but I would like a bat flu test for piece of mind please.
The will tell you fuck off out of here you git.
Unless you are Prince Charles , Boris Johnston, the minister for health or Niel Fergusson who said 500,000 are going to die from it.
They are testing nurses etc who may have come into contact with it I will have to remember to come back to that.
Asymptomatic; symptomatic ratio for bat flu; what is it and why does it matter?
What is it is just the number of people who have it that have no symptoms as a % or whatever of the snowflakes who are laid up in bed.
I am giving my opponents a chance here by winging it.
I think the Princess Diamond dataset indicated that 85% of the cases where asymptomatic,
And in the village of 3000 called Eugano in Italy near Venice ? isolated and tested it was 75%
Actually with even two different haplotypes of the virus ; I think that is the right spelling it might be halotype or something- this is a really interesting subject but will save that for later as they say.
There were empirical and theoretical reasons why it could be higher.
Some are arguing at 90%
But anyway for every symptomatic case there are 4 times as many asymptomatic.
So from that any number you want to come up eg 1% should be divided by 4.
We don’t know or I don’t know who these symptomatic cases are that are being tested.
I don’t have the data.
Are they mostly over 70?
Do they live in cities with high nitrous dioxide [car exhaust] pollution.
It is weather, does the wind blow and geography as much as anything, so watch Madrid.
Are there lots of old fogies still on 40 unfiltered a day?
There is data of up to 8% mortality rates for common colds in old peoples homes; never mind flu.
Ah yes nurses!
I think it is 8% of nurses are tested positive and asymptomatically self isolating.
That is a really interesting number!
That is overloading the NHS.
The evidence is stacking up that about 5% have it over a time period that might rank up to 30% had it and with ‘herd immunity’.
I seem to remember scanning thro posts people emotionally trashing that; there is nothing horrible about it and is wrapped with R0 .
Non essential medical treatment has been suspended including hip replacements and chemotherpathy for cancer put on hold.
I have just talked to a friend and said I can’t deal with this shit and bat flu drones telling me to get back in the house.
I am going to bail out now I have had enough.
“I am going to bail out now I have had enough.”
A rather disappointing response from a socialist during the midst of perhaps the greatest political and economic development in certainly my life-time.
As I have tried to argue, it could also be one of socialists greatest opportunity in generations to present the case for a society of mutual solidarity.
I have moved from the position of a cynic and sceptic, highlighting in early posts the low mortality rate compared with many other illnesses and being confused by what I perceived to be an over-reaction to asking myself why the ruling class are so desperate to contain this pandemic that they are suspending some of the basic laws of capitalism itself.
I’m open to suggestions but some I have already dismissed as an insufficient explanation i.e. a plot to establish authoritarian governments. Others, i am still weighing up as the most likely such as the self-interest of the capitalist class to protect itself from a public health risk.
I recall when Upton Sinclair wrote The Jungle to expose the misery of immigrant labour in the Chicago slaughter houses, the ruling class focussed solely on the adulteration of the food and got reforms passed on the quality of the meat because they discovered just what they were eating.
I think Dave B is making a fool of himself and over-egging it a bit and pushing dodgy sources. A hoax is something that is *totally* false and deliberately engineered. And what on earth is this “Swiss Propaganda Research” place he keeps pushing?
Of course, it is interesting to hear critical voices with backgrounds in epidemiology, the video from Professor Sucharit Bhakdi was interesting – I’m not sure fully what to make of it yet. But for now, I think the sensible thing is to maintain social distancing.
Here’s an article debunking the headline that 50% of the UK population may have already had covid19: https://www.wired.co.uk/article/coronavirus-infections-oxford-study-immunity
I have been doing some online courses about the virus:
https://www.coursera.org/learn/covid-19/
https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/covid19-novel-coronavirus
“ i am still weighing up as the most likely such as the self-interest of the capitalist class to protect itself from a public health risk.”
I don’t think this works either though this will be a consequence of what they are doing. I know I keep harping on about this but I think that our late comrade Pieter Lawrence got it right in his novel about how capitalist governments would react to some asteroid or comet on a collision course with Earth. This would be an existential threat not just to capitalist society but to human society. As the class that happened to be in charge of society’s central administrative organ (in class society taking the form of the state) at the time their political representatives were in charge of dealing with it. In his novel they take measures pragmatically to deal with the threat. The ruling class and their political representatives are in the same position today.
Of course the threat from the current pandemic is not of the same magnitude as an asteroid collision but it is the same sort of thing. Those in charge of society’s central administrative organ are behaving pragmatically. Their main concern is to mitigate the effects of the pandemic. Of course they are operating within the context of a society with a capitalist economy and a ruling class and so protecting human society means protecting society in that form. Nevertheless they are still compelled to protect human society as such. If they refused to, they would be faced with social breakdown and revolts which could endanger their personal position as members of a ruling class. Of course social breakdown is something they want to avoid but avoiding it isn’t an unreasonable aim.
After all, socialist society could face a pandemic (and probably will at some point, also in fact from an object from Space) and would want to avoid this too. Clearly it would be in a better position to deal with one but one of the measures that would have to be taken would probably be social distancing and what that involves.
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