Sep 062020
 
 September 6, 2020  Posted by at 7:03 pm Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,


Joel Meyerowitz/Beetles + Huxley New York City 1978

 

 

Of course, because I’m a dreamer, I start off an essay like this with the idea that I should do an all-encompassing idea of COVID19, all around the world no less, for the rest of 2020, and beyond. Only to find that nobody, including me, even if I have a few advantages over most, could possibly do such a thing. So of necessity there’ll be this essay and many more to come. As the US elections set the world on fire.

I did make a list of what every government, every society and community should be ordering by now (and that would be already very late) Here they are: A billion rapid tests, a billion doses of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), a billion doses of zinc, a billion doses of Vitamin D, and a zillion N95 facemasks. (I am not a doctor, but we do have doctors on this platform.)

Rapid tests: these things have been available for months, but have been obstructed by guidelines that say every test must be PCR, which take a long time to produce results, which test positive on dead virus etc. etc. Whereas rapid tests (there are several options) detect a virus load when it’s most likely to infect a third person (the no. 1 thing you want to find!, and moreover show a result in minutes and cost a few pennies each (don’t fall for the $5 a test thing!). You can do a paper test for everyone every single day.

We have this, we got this, but we’re not doing it. The answer from the politicians who have failed to grasp this reality will be: another lockdown! But there won’t be another lockdown. Or, there will be in some locations, but what good is that if neighbors don’t lock down? More on that in a bit.

Hydroxychloroquine (or ivermectin) and zinc -combined if you will with an antibiotic- for those who are infected or close to it, combined with a substantial increase in everyone’s vitamin D levels in your population -right now, you already lost half a year!- will bring down death and suffering enormously. Don’t listen to your doctor, listen to us.

A bit of -potential- harsh reality came to us today through a report from Washington University’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. They predict total deaths to triple globally, and double in the US, in less than four months from today.

 

Total COVID19 Deaths Projected To Double In US, Triple in World By Jan. 1

U.S. deaths from the coronavirus will reach 410,000 by the end of the year, more than double the current death toll, and deaths could soar to 3,000 per day in December, the University of Washington’s health institute forecast on Friday. Deaths could be reduced by 30% if more Americans wore face masks as epidemiologists have advised, but mask-wearing is declining, the university’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation said. The U.S. death rate projected by the IHME model, which has been cited by the White House Coronavirus Task Force, would more than triple the current death rate of some 850 per day.


“We expect the daily death rate in the United States, because of seasonality and declining vigilance of the public, to reach nearly 3,000 a day in December,” the institute, which bills itself as an independent research center, said in an update of its periodic forecasts. “Cumulative deaths expected by January 1 are 410,000; this is 225,000 deaths from now until the end of the year,” the institute said. It previously projected 317,697 deaths by Dec. 1. The model’s outlook for the world was even more dire, with deaths projected to triple to 2.8 million by Jan. 1, 2021.

No, I won’t take back one word of what I’ve been saying about the best ways to tackle COVD19 over the past 8 months, for instance in April 15’s The Only Man Who Has A Clue about Nassim Taleb. He was still right, and that’s not going to change. But that doesn’t mean nothing has changed. Actually, a lot has.

Taleb’s approach, and that of his “co-conspirators” Yaneer Bar-Yam and Joe Norman, is as valid as it ever was, but that validity doesn’t last forever if it is not applied by those in charge of policy. It hasn’t been and today we’re way past the best-before date. Which, as we will see going forward, is highly unfortunate, because all the alternatives are -much- worse.

We’ve seen an entire world, and tons of governments in that world, caught with no blueprints and no playbooks for a coronavirus pandemic, despite having been warned about such a pandemic coming, for decades. And so they all went into “make it up as you go along” mode. With very little knowledge of what was going on, and what to expect.

With predictable failures as a result. But because the pandemic has largely played out on a national level, not international, they manage to keep their failures hidden behind a facade of “we listened to the best science”, “nobody could have seen this coming”, and “if only people had listened to (obeyed)” what we said all along.

As I explained in the Taleb piece, the first, the initial, scientists to refer to in a case like SARS-CoV-2 are not epidemiologists, because they are backward looking; they compare the little they know about a new virus with what they know about earlier ones. Even if it’s all essentially a mismatch.

Instead, the first people you consult are risk specialists; yes, like Taleb. To know what the -necessarily basic- steps are to take against something you know very little about, other than it is contagious and potentially lethal. One of the obvious steps is close your borders.Another is a lockdown. But a lockdown is not a lockdown is not a lockdown. If you don’t get it right, it’s useless, oppressive and even harmfully counterproductive.

That’s why blueprints and playbooks, written well before a pandemic happens, are so important. You should never leave those things up to politicians, who don’t understand the matter at hand, who will always have other interests in mind (the economy), and will therefore assemble a bunch of local epidemiologists in order to declare: we’re listening to science!

Most of these people mean well, but that’s not enough. And with that, we’re moving out of the summer time and into, what?, COVID 2.0? With Lockdowns 2.0? There is no need. Here’s what you do: Order a billion rapid tests, a billion doses of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), a billion doses of zinc, a billion doses of Vitamin D, and a zillion N95 facemasks.

Not the crappy bluish masks everyone’s wearing today, that’s just a symbolic thing, but get the real thing, for everyone. How many has your government offered to you to date, while spending billions of trillions on the effects of the virus? Really, politicians are always useless when it comes to emergencies, because that’s not what they get elected for.

And no, face masks are not useless, but they certainly are outside. The risk of you getting infected -or infecting someone- are infinitesimal on the street. Unless someone spits or coughs in your face, but if that happens, that bluish mask won’t do much good anyway. So when I see a photo like this, of Japanese girls en masse wearing almost useless masks (only because the others do it too), I can only think: why don’t we teach people what works and what doesn’t? (I see the same thing here in Athens a lot too)

 

 

But so, yeah if your government won’t protect you with a billion rapid tests, a billion doses of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), a billion doses of zinc, a billion doses of Vitamin D, and a zillion N95 facemasks., they’re going to be thinking Lockdown 2.0. And that is going to be a huge problem in many places. There are very big problems in Melbourne as we speak:

 

Melbourne Lockdown Extended By Two Weeks

A strict lockdown in the Australian city of Melbourne has been extended by two weeks, with officials saying new Covid-19 cases had not dropped enough. Victoria State Premier Daniel Andrews said the restrictions would be in place until 28 September, with a slight relaxation. A gradual easing of the measures will be implemented from October. The state has been the epicentre of the country’s second wave, accounting for 90% of Australia’s 753 deaths. Australia has recorded a total of 26,000 cases in a population of 25 million. The greater Melbourne area entered a second lockdown on 9 July after a rise in cases. A 5km (3 mile) travel limit and night time curfew was imposed while shops and businesses were closed. The current stage four lockdown was originally set to end on 13 September.

2nd lockdowns are going to be hell to pay, for governments, for their citizens, for their economies. And they don’t have to be. If just everyone gets out the Fauci, “experts”, mood., and their potential connections to Big Pharma. Vitamin D and zinc and HCS look very promising. So does the Russian vaccine, but we don’t want it because, well, it’s Russian, and even more because it would deprive Gilead et al of huge potential profits furnished by western governments.

No, not all lockdowns are terrible. But a lock down should last maximum 2 months, or you will needlessly destroy your economy. Thing is, you must make sure it’s real, effective and short, not some Swedish or Dutch half-lockdown, or any of the half-assed US ones. A lockdown is either a lockdown or it’s not. But we’ve already passed that fase. Lockdowns in most locations will simply no longer be accepted.

Facemasks can have a real potential, but just as with lockdowns, only when applied appropriately, at the right time and under the right circumstances. I don’t subscribe to the right wing US idea that it is all just a bad joke and a means to oppress people. But if you order people to wear masks outside, where the infection risk borders on zero, and you order churches closed but not demonstrations or Target, you just show you understand neither the virus not your people. And then try and claw that one back.

Once again: tell your government to order – and have available ASAP: a billion rapid tests, a billion doses of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), a billion doses of zinc, a billion doses of Vitamin D, and a zillion N95 facemasks. You may not be perfect, but your prospects are going to be a lot better than they are now.

 

 

 

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Home Forums Lockdown 2.0

Viewing 13 posts - 1 through 13 (of 13 total)
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  • #62945

    Joel Meyerowitz/Beetles + Huxley New York City 1978     Of course, because I’m a dreamer, I start off an essay like this with the idea that
    [See the full post at: Lockdown 2.0]

    #62947
    Professorlocknload
    Participant

    Viruses have had a lot more time to evolve than political scientists and medical quacks, so l think, when all is said and done they’ll have the last word.

    But, who knows, maybe in a few more millennial someone will come up with a cure for the common cold, and a way to prevent hurricanes and earthquakes?

    #62948
    zerosum
    Participant

    I had a dream
    tell your government to order – and have available ASAP: A billion rapid tests, a billion doses of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), a billion doses of zinc, a billion doses of Vitamin D

    That makes 4 billion units of dedicated units of $, time, resources, pollution,etc to try to return to the way thing were done before Gaia gave us C-19
    I know that the gov will not do what I say.

    A medial cure, vaccine, will only be available to the chosen selected few.
    Jubilee will only happen for some elites.
    Poverty is the light on truth.
    I foresee that there will be a lot more people seeing the truth.

    #62949
    Kimo
    Participant

    December’s Lockdown Death Laundering – How it will work, by Ethical Skeptic

    #62950
    VietnamVet
    Participant

    A billion rapid tests, a billion doses of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), a billion doses of zinc, a billion doses of Vitamin D, available ASAP, are so needed. Except, national and global oligarchs are risking a Civil War in the USA to prevent the control of the virus.

    Daily testing and self diagnosis gives power to the people. If tested and positive two or three days in a row, the infected will agree to isolate only if they have food and shelter, and if they get ill they must be treated. This requires a public health system and government by and for the people to mandate wearing and supplying N95 masks, forming bubbles at work and school, and catching the scofflaws. It means redistribution of wealth. This is why the oligarchs are willing to risk destroying a 123 trillion dollars’ worth of wealth by letting the virus run wild and not ending the associated economic depression that will impoverish 300 million Americans and which will surely cause a revolution in a nation armed with 3000 nuclear weapons.

    #62953

    “double in US, triple in world by Jan 1”
    Ferguson- is that you?
    It’s nice, though, that the flu, rhinovirus, adenovirus, plain old coronavirus, atypical pneumonia, etc. will have totally disappeared!

    #62955
    ezlxa1949
    Participant
    #62976
    Mister Roboto
    Participant

    Wearing standard face-masks is more about protecting other people than it is about protecting yourself, which is why they only work when everyone is wearing them. That won’t happen now that it’s become yet another thing in this country that’s about damn politics, so I’m glad that at the very least major stores are requiring that people wear them while on the premises. I’m considering ordering a mask I saw online that has inscribed on it: “Wearing a mask isn’t a political statement. It’s an IQ test.”

    I would also add that a country that is the way the USA is, is of course going to be very poorly positioned to do a lockdown. For one thing, our culture is full of people who won’t accept or tolerate it and will do everything they can to try and defy it. More importantly, we expect our working class people to “sink or swim” without as little government help as possible, so the economic effects of any lockdown are going to be just as devastating as any virus for so many people here. Though for an airborne virus as super-contagious as Covid, I wonder if lockdowns really are a solution. After all, after the lockdown is ended, which it really has to be at some point, the contagion could just come roaring right back so easily.

    #62980
    John Day
    Participant

    I.m a real Medical Doctor,who treats poor people, and I endorse this essay.

    That being said, the Japanese have really been masking for 100 years, and their cloth masks are lovely masks, especially for protecting other Japanese people on trains and subways, in stores, restaurants, and in Shinjuku, where it’s very crowded. Something that might be lost on a short term visitor, is that this public display of Japanese virtue is part of the national identity. It’s important to show all of your kin and countrymen that you are part of Team-Japan.
    There are 2 exceptions: being drunk, and being far from home, where nobody knows you, and you are not going to stay long. So, …Shinjuku, for sure… But, you kind of forget you have that comfortable, soft cloth mask on. This looks like what the girls on the bridge were wearing, doesn’t it?

    And, to treat all adult Americans for a week to 10 days, or the 70% or so who would catch novel coronavirus, would take more like “6 Billion Doses”, as you’ll recall my telling Tulsi Gabbared on March 1, when she came to Austin to have a town-hall meeting.
    https://www.johndayblog.com/2020/03/six-billion-doses.html
    I remain proud of the picture that Jenny snapped, included there.

    #62981
    John Day
    Participant

    Oops, March 2 was the day she did the town hall.

    #62985
    Dr. D
    Participant

    “If more Americans wore face masks as epidemiologists have advised,”

    Can I please see your research on this? You are doctors after all. If sub N95 masks are effective against viruses, this is contrary to 100 years of CDC research before March (remember, Dr. Fauci?) or the AAPS study, it would be revelatory indeed. With non-masks non-scientists are wearing badly, outside, and alone in their cars, while punching each other in person, you know ain’t nobody going to be precise and act correctly, ever. They are humans, and won’t comply, yet they are humans, and therefore smarter and stronger and will universally prosper because of it. Oh, despite you and your “helping” “orders” to everyone.

    So…not to pick on Washington U., which hasn’t done anything idiotic in public in the last few months, but since the WHO, CDC have been completely wrong, and the AMA is actively trying to kill us all to keep big pharmaceutical profits high, much higher than they already are, excuse me if I’m a bit skeptical of the latest revelation of a posse of liars who have played along with blinding non-science as well as actively working to prevent all cures. So…we’re still 25 million deaths short, I say every other day. Instead of 3%, we have 0.03%, or even 0.0003%, hard to tell since, hey! What did I say? EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. Of these doctors, Universities, societies, politicians, and even all good people – and it goes without saying every journalist is L Y I N G. Not the first time.

    So we don’t even have 400,000 dead, although likely more than 6% x 400k = 24k. That is, way LESS than the flu. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnddddddd we can check by the overall year’s death rate tally, which is pretty illuminating. Since no one believes a word I say, go look it up for yourself. But hey, maybe 24k only if we bothered ADMITTING the relative CURE we have, instead of, you know, killing people. Like the U of Washington seems to be doing.

    So why would we need lockdowns that 1,000 years of history says won’t work, the CDC says won’t work, when we have a de-facto cure or therapy against a disease that is, relative to diseases, non-dangerous?

    Actually, why DIDN’T we follow the pandemic blueprint we’ve had on the books for 100 years, which we had the equipment for up til Obama ditched it? Or did we? Is this the new pandemic blueprint, you know, the one I and thousands of other people have been reading about for decades, that will create limitless state tyranny, neatly granular against each specific individually passport or region at will? Golly, since I can read that, have been reading it for decades, SURELY someone else can, has; SURELY all those neato white-papers by the UN and Gates Foundation are still published somewhere. SURELY if that were true, we would see it playing out somewhere, maybe faraway, like Victoria, as they savage the people in a play at sheer tyranny. You know: worse than the one that’s already been stealing and raping your 13-year-old daughters everywhere.

    Since that’s been written for decades, was written with a highly public test scenario just last October, and is being written publicly right now, SURELY it will be obvious that when we have a couple cures, therapies, clearly an inflated rate, inflated in the news only yesterday with the —SHOCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! — COVID tests have a huge number of false positives! From dead virus material. What? Whooda knoood? AND they’re still using the wrong tests, tests too slow to give actionable information – EVAH! While politicians make hay and consolidate power with bailouts-4-pals(TM). And it’s aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaallllllllllllllllllll not on purpose. Gee golly.

    Uh huh. Go on.

    So what is Taleb saying, except that the CDC is a liar, and they can stop with lockdown any minute you like, and there’s no 1% lockdown threshold? He may be a mathematician, but he’s no scientist, that’s for sure. And like all economists and mathematicians, he’s immune to GIGO. That is, “Extraneous Factors” i.e. the whole world, any real data. Garbage In. The tests are crap, the lack of cure is crap, the death rate is crap, therefore his conclusions are crap squared.

    How do we know that? Same as always: Taleb says 110% of all earth should stop, all growing, cooking, shipping, eating, medicine, garbage, communication, as everyone stays home. Certainly! No one will die when stores are empty and your car doesn’t work because there are no car parts and no gasoline, no manufacturing, no masks, no ambulances. Naw! No one dies at all when we shut all supply down worldwide. Not even of drugs and suicide. Or riots. Or wars in what is a de-facto world embargo. Or complete loss of healthcare due to year-long unemployment. Nope! Safe as houses, ‘e says.

    Yup, a risk specialist that would kill us all in thirty days by “saving” us. Like all experts. And we can’t stop until we conquer death. Why? Because surely with a disease about as dangerous as the flu, therefore trying to be radically MORE safe I can only conclude the goal is to conquer all reality, time, space, and death. To rise abouve God himself. Until then, all businesses, all poor people must DIE. To save them, ‘natch. Not surprised, like usual. All experts are always this way. Worldwide mass murder. Shut it all down, Mr. President! Real “Green New Deal” stuff.

    Anyway, so just as Lockdown 1.0 was an un-needed voluntary fantasy: or mostly, and peppered with DNC mayors actively mass-murdering maybe 40,000 while the AMA and Pope Fauci applauded, while every doctor from him down to the Veterinarian Tech cheers in elated approval, pretty sure Lockdown 2.0 (now definitively NOT called “The Boogaloo”) will be mostly the same.

    So everything’s going perfectly: economy destroyed, people killed by thousands, particularly the poor and old, people scared attacking and hating each other for lies, black businesses burned and bought up by insiders with taxpayer “renewal” money, power consolidated, billionaires richer, their daughters unemployed and available online, power leaving governments and the people and moving to unelected bureaucrats, bought science, and all non-scientists like Mr. Gates now playing god when they’re not busy giving more kids polio in Africa. Again. Oh and again. And just like Fauci with about a million HIV killed by him back in the 80s, back to the Tuskegee airmen to god-knows-when. But lies, death, murder, that is their god in their weird and terrible religion.

    So anyway, since they’re not going to help but are going to kill you, you’re on your own: get your own health, your own exercise, your own C and D, and Zinc and everything else.

    But you’re going to die anyway. But not of COVID. So make the most of it and don’t live in sissy, quavering fear, hating all that is.

    #62986
    Dr. D
    Participant

    Okay, sanity check: One: N95s stop viruses if anyone can remember back to March. And barely. Remember they must be perfect, and must be swapped when damp. So masks UNDER N95s do NOT stop viruses, as seen in many ways, by mesh size, by airflow measures, whatever you like. So if it doesn’t restrict your breathing as much as an N95, it’s not stopping viruses. It might be stopping droplets, bacteria to an extent, but not viruses worth a hoot.

    Okay, second sanity check: let’s play. Let’s say they work! They work I tells ya!!! So great! We’re saved! No need to let anyone out of prison, nor nuttin’. Go shopping, go to work, have sex (as advised by doctors wtf), vote, disco party! I mean they work, right? Right?

    So if they work, your mask works for you, then

    WHY DO I NEED ONE?

    If it works at all, it works for you, then logically, your mask works for both of us. We’re saved! Now you can wear all the masks you want, and I don’t have to. And what’s more, you don’t have to punch me over it. Lockdowns averted. Freedom reigns.

    That is, if they work at all, right?

    Naw, no science here. Only obedience.

    #63108
    TonyPrep
    Participant

    Almost any face covering will reduce the risk. This study shows that only one tested face covering was as bad as, or worse than, no covering at all. Surprisingly, a valved N95 mask wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. The study was for particles leaving the nose and mouth, rather than for the particles being blocked the other way (though I’d guess the ranking would be similar for the reverse). Whilst no mask would stop all transmission, reducing the risk is better than not reducing the risk. A mask also protects the wearer by reducing the viral load, if infected, which lessens the likely impact of the disease, as the body has more time to mount a response.

    Regarding doses of medicines, anti-virals need to be administered as early as possible. Although early treatment of hospitalized patients would likely help, it is better if they are administered almost before an infection is confirmed. This would make it very difficult to get the doses to those who need it (remember that the positivity rate is over 5%, so doses should be administered to the other 95% before and until their results come back).

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