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kimyo,
I am not sure about these logical fallacies. Is it really an ad hominem attack to question the motives of the person you are criticizing, as distinguished from attacking the identity of the person? I don’t think so. Is it a false dichotomy to compare 50 million deaths to going to McDonalds? There was an element of hyperbole in the comparison, but the real tradeoff is increased cases vs unrestricted movement of persons, is it not? Is it really a strawman argument if prefaced with a proviso? I would say that it is not.
Huskynut, while I agree that we are in a much better position now compared to where we were in January, based on what we have learned, I think you have overplayed your hand.
“The original pandemic modelling from Imperial College has been demonstrated to be outright garbage.”
Fine. So what numbers would a proper model have generated? Remember, the Imperial College purported to model what would have happened if there were no NPIs. So if the Imperial College model is wrong, whatdo you say the true numbers would have been if the UK government had done absolutely nothing (and no, don’t give me Sweden, because limited measures was not the point of the model).
“The originally spread number of infectivity and case fatality rate have been adjusted substantially down over time.”
To what? What is the true R0 without any NPIs? How do you answer those who say the R0 is lower precisely because of the NPIs?
“Simple, cheap drugs have such as HCQ have been demonstrated as efficacious and methods such as intubation, which were counterproductive have been dropped. treatment has become more effective.”
Fair point. In my mind, this is why we had the NPIs. To give us more time.
“The effectiveness of precautionary measures such as Vit-D have emerged, as correlations are established from case observation. We can more effectively prevent bad results.”
Again, fair point.
“Correlation between lockdown and virus control based on a wide variety of places has been modelled by reputable virologists (see my vid link from a couple of days ago). The data says lockdowns are not correlated with effective pandemic management,”
This makes no sense at all. For a contagious disease, limiting human interactions reduces the spread. Period. You may criticize how a lockdown is implemented, and you can doubt whether the lockdown is actually followed, and you may question whether the benefits outweigh the risks, but you cannot criticize that a well conceived and properly implemented lockdown slows the spread.
“Is is absolutely clear that age is the paramount correlation, that old and unhealthy people are at risk, whereas younger and healthy people are at little risk.”
If you are looking at the case fatality rate when you refer to risk, then yes, but that is not new information. I would add that we have just begun to understand the pathology of the disease, and there is still little understanding of long term risks
Stepping back and looking at the big picture, this is primarily an economics blog, not a public health blog. And a blog that challenges the economics orthodoxy. How many doctors and public health experts worldwide advise lowering restrictions? As far as I can tell, most of the demands to reopen the economy are coming from people who are making economic or political arguments, not arguments based on public health. So though we have made some progress and the needle has moved since January, I am not convinced that this is a black and white issue, and I think it is inappropriate for the commentariat to demand that the host change his position.
@johnday
I rarely respond to your posts, but I always read them with interest, and I have taken much of your advice. Keep posting.
@Huskynut
My bottle of 5000IU is from Pharmagen and marked “Made in Canada”. I wonder what you think of the NZ vs UK viral video . . .
@WES
The calls to end the lockdown might have been more persuasive if there had been more effort to get people wearing masks, taking supplements, using hand sanitizer, and taking sensible precautions. But instead many people frame it as a political issue of my freedom vs your safety.@my parents
I think the point was to slow down the spread until we can understand more and work out a reasonable treatment protocol. We do not need a vaccine or a cure as long as we can work out a decent treatment to manage the disease. But that takes some time. Probably not as much as many people fear, but it does take time. The calls to end the lockdown and send people back to work will be more persuasive when backed up with data that shows that we have learned to manage the disease. It would have been better to start clinical trials immediately to determine the effectiveness of hydrocholoquine (alone or in combination with Azithrmycin and/or zinc), chloroquine, Remdesivir, Ivermectin. But the Wanker had an agenda to promote Remdesivir, so we are still missing the data. Thankfully the standard of care had already improved pretty quickly, and we have figured out that we do not need so many ventilators.Huskynut, I can say that the perspective you shared is very specific to Western individualistic thinking. If you were to offer that to a Korea or a Japanese or a Thai, they would not be able to identify with it at all, and probably also have trouble understanding the point the author was trying to make. I think part of it is being in a society where it is considered wrong to think of yourself first. You have to think of the group. Your family. Your co-workers. The whole country. Although people here do take selfish actions, it is shameful to do so. So the mindset here is more on what is good for the group, for everyone.
Among Western societies, I think the one that is the most fearful is the US, and I think that has something to do with the US healthcare system. In the US is it not just that “slim statistical chance that they might be the one tragic case to die/suffer from X” but also the risk of bankruptcy to boot. I think there is a lot more confidence in those Western countries that make an effort to protect everyone’s health.
So I got me test results back, negative, and therefore I am back in the office today. For 24 hours I was under a strict quarantine. Ordered not to take public transportation or a taxi. Ordered not to stop anywhere on the way home. No groceries, no pharmacy, no convenience store, no takeout, no bank, nothing. Do not pass Go, do not collect $200. And once home, do not go out until the test results come out. Not even to walk the dog around the block.
It sure did feel different for a day.
So instead of a strict lockdown, why don’t Western countries adopt the Eastern approach? Starting with everyone wearing a mask to go inside any public establishment. Putting hand sanitizer bottles everywhere. And checking temperatures to enter hotels, offices buildings, and other confined spaces with large numbers of people. Or is it just too difficult to get everyone on the same page — like herding cats?
But when you parse the actual data, what you find is that these tend to be high-trust, high-education, high-information societies—such as in Scandinavia and East Asia—where official lockdowns haven’t been necessary precisely because a critical mass of people have effectively locked themselves down on their own.
Ha. For every generalization there are are always exceptions. Koreans are pissed at this new superspreader. I am pissed too. This is my neighborhood. I understand the desire to go out and socialize. I get it. But is it necessary to go to three clubs during a four hour window with close contact with 1500 people? That’s just irresponsible. He infected his coworkers – now they are angry and want to sue him.
So he has infected 40 people so far. Nice work. One of those is a French guy in the neighborhood who visited the club. I often see him walking the dog in the neighborhood because his dog and my dog are friends. And we ran into him last week on puppy night at the neighborhood rooftop restaurant. Now my wife and daughter have scratchy throats. Great. Just great.
@Mr. House
I am not sure why you think I am injecting Red/Blue politics into this. The author of that article made a dishonest argument and deliberately cherry-picked statistics to create a false impression of the facts. That should be called out every single time regardless of political persuasion.
For the first time in a long time, a post from Dr. D where I find more points of agreement than disagreement. But I might raise a minor objection to this:
“The U.S. doesn’t WANT the reserve currency. It doesn’t WANT Triffin’s Paradox. The reserve currency destroys the host nation 100% of the time in history.”
If this simply means that the reserve currency is a curse in the long run, I have to agree. But the word want, capitalized twice, makes me pause. I think those in power want it both ways. They want the reserve currency because it makes things so easy. For a long, long time, it enables the Magical Money Tree, as the rest of the world finances our extravagance. It enables the expansion of political and military power. Nobody wants to give those up voluntarily. The elites are so corrupt that I do not think they care one iota what happens to the country. They have long since abandoned the mindset of making decisions that are good for the nation as a whole. So I think we need to be careful in distinguishing what the country wants and what the morally bankrupt and correct kleptocracy wants.
Doc Robinson, thanks for your explanation/ I posted my last response before I saw your reply. Now I get it, and it convinces me that the author of that article is a charlatan who is cherry-picking and manipulating the statistics. If he wants to say this year is no different from the previous worst five years on record, it is downright dishonest to pick full influenza seasons for comparison purposes when COVID-19 did not really get a foothold in the UK until March. Even if you want to cherry pick the worst five years, the proper comparison is to look at the months of March and April only for the selected years.
Mr. House, what do you think makes the article interesting? The author seems to be confusing two different issues. There is a raging debate about how to assign a cause of death on a death certificate where there are multiple contributing causes. Those who want to open the economy up want to fudge the statistics downwards. Those who support a more conservative approach are more likely to want to fudge the statistics upwards. How to decipher this? The easiest way to is to look at total deaths and compare that to the last 5 years.
As to what that chart is, I have no idea. It is not properly labelled in the article. And why are those particular years chosen. The figures for 2020 cannot be actual because we are not even halfway into 2020. Or maybe they are. Is the author trying to manipulate this readers? Or enlighten them?
If you want a clearer source on all cause mortality in the UK, where the charts are actually labelled so you know what you are looking at, try here, which shows a really big spike in early 2020:
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/883780/Weekly_all_cause_mortality_surveillance_week_19__2020__report.pdfDr. D, you asked us a question about that first chart, but I cannot figure out the answer. What does that first chart purport to show? A model? A projection? Source?
V. Arnold, yes, there have been some baby steps, but I am still under the impression that gold payments among SCO members, even if they may be possible, are not widely used. How can they be if China forbids any gold exports? There were efforts to promote settlement between China and Russia with the Yuan and the Ruble, but I am under the impression that this is still a tiny fraction of the trade between the two countries. The Russians have even developed their own system that can operate outside of SWIFT, but I am under the impression that it is rarely used. It is there in case SWIFT goes down, or in case the Russians get locked out of it, but for now it is still just a backup. The dollar system will rule the world until the day it does not.
The Russians sold off their Treasuries, but when that was done, they also stopped their gold purchases.
I think the Chinese could upend the whole geopolitical order if they started a run on the bullion banks — which makes a lot more sense to me than dumping treasuries for the sake of dumping treasuries. But that could start World War III. And it could bring an end to their mercantile trade model. There would be a lot of risks. I do not think the Chinese will do anything provocative. But the reason they already have that big gold stash is so that they will be ready for whatever eventually replaces the dollar reserve system, whether than happens tomorrow or 100 years from now.
The administrators don’t dare risk showing anything other than ultra-extreme risk aversion lest some snowflake criticises them
Well, Huskynut, history teaches that first thing you do in a pandemic is close the schools. Russia gambled, electing to skip that step, making school optional and giving parents autonomy to decide whether to send their kids to school. That has not worked out too well, and now they are paying a price. If you are going to reopen the schools, there needs to be a thought-out plan that goes along with that. Maybe not all of the 24 steps will be zealously or equally enforced at all locations, but at least someone has put some thought into how to mitigate the risks once schools reopen. Isn’t that what we want from school officials?
WES, that is true in theory, but in practice it has confounded a lot of experts who have been predicting the demise of the dollar for decades, when the exact opposite seems to happen in every crisis. At every crisis, every big money printing, there is a tremendous demand for dollars. Why is that? People cannot lose “trust” and “confidence” unless there is an alternative they can run to. There is no alternative right now other than gold, but gold is useless for international payments. It is a reserve asset, and can be used to defend a currency, but it cannot be used for payments. The machine of global trade has an inexhaustible need for dollars to facilitate all of the transactions. One might theoretically say “I do not have confidence in the dollar,” but when it comes time to make an international payment, you need to buy dollars to make that payment, and they are always in short supply. How is trade going to happen without dollars? The whole architecture of the system is built around the dollar. For that reason, any long term solution will need to split the store of value function of the dollar (gold can take up this role) from the payments function (which will likely continue in a greatly devalued dollar) once the world abandons the dollar as store of value. But for that to happen gold needs to be set free of the paper markets. China does have the power to make that happen, by tightening the noose on gold.
I don’t want to settle for living like that, so I’ll try and be honestly critical of all who seek higher office (and the rewards therefof).
Huskynut, I am all in favor of demanding more from those in higher office. In most countries the problem is that governments did too little too late. In time you may appreciate what you now regard as an unscientific, poorly-informed, over-reaction that makes a blind squirrel look like a hero for finding an acorn by accident. I am hoping that the countries that have beat this thing will open up their borders to other “safe” countries with rigorous controls in place. Korea has already started experimenting with this and opened a direct flight to Austria in recognition that Austria has been very aggressive in fighting the virus. The first flight was earlier this week, and I understand that was one of only three flights that landed at VIE that day. Maybe the same thing can happen between Korea and NZ — I would love to visit NZ, and I assume that Kiwis would welcome visitors from countries that have contained this thing.
It seems to me that there is a sixth option: The Chinese could buy gold.
Pettis does not mention gold at all in his article. One reader asked about it in the comments and he responded: “As for gold, it cannot possibly be a substitute. Gold is less that 2% of total PBoC reserves, so that even if China decided to increase its holding by 50%, this would be negligible in the larger scheme of things, not to mention the difficulties in buying gold without causing prices to soar (and causing prices to collapse if they ever changed their minds).”
To which I say: What is the problem if there is a run on all the bullion banks and the price skyrockets 100x higher? That would crush the paper markets in gold and end the dollar as the global reserve currency. Gold would become the premier reserve asset, though massively devalued dollars could still be used as a transaction currency through SWIFT.
So in the beginning the models said that millions would die in the US unless the government imposed the hammer of lockdowns and social distancing. So the government imposed lockdowns and social distancing, the death rate is much lower, and now the critics-who-will-never-be-satisfied proclaim that the models were wrong becasue millions have not died.
Fauci comes out and says 100,000-200,000 deaths in the US, and the critics-who-will-never-be-satisfied go nuts decrying that the policy response was overkill. But without any data for what the death rate would have been without the hammer.
Then Fauci gets pressure from his boss to lower the number to justify reopening the economy, so he lowers the number to 60,000 and the critics-who-will-never-be-satisfied go bananas. They say all of the models were totally worthless from the start, and everyone should just get back to work.
Then the US sails right past 60,000, and seems on course to end up at Fauci’s original estimate, or even higher. That’s vindication, right? But what do we hear from the critics-who-will-never-be-satisfied? Nothing but crickets.
We’ve now spent several billion dollars and growing, saving ~120 (mostly elderly) lives.
Huskynut, you live in a land that has stopped the spread virus and you are complaining that it cost a few billion dollars? And you won’t give any credit at all to your government? I find that to be a really bizarre perspective.
Challenge
We got the making of a good book.
There are great writers on this blog..Now that international travel is mostly shut down, and we can hear war drums in the distance, and we have learned that they can reconstruct the entire virus in a lab, how about something more sinister: Now they start intentionally unleashing the more lethal experimental variants.
You never saw me. I wasn’t here.
I hope you and your family are feeling better.
To do what was necessary to save lives goes against an aristocrat’s very sense of purpose and being.
I laughed out loud when I read that. So true. So true.
So here in Korea, where we have never been in lockdown, the authorities have now ended the social distancing phase. Starting this week, life will mostly go back to normal. Churches did a partial reopen on Sunday, and will be fully reopened next Sunday. Lots of people were out and about today for Children’s Day, a national public holiday. People are eating out in restaurants, enjoying life, but mostly spending a lot of time outdoors in the beautiful spring weather. Schools will likely stay closed for another week, but probably not longer than that. A lot of the masks have come off when people are outdoors, but people put them back on as soon as they step on a bus or go to a public indoor space.
We have had fewer than 10 cases per day for about two weeks. There were one or two exceptions, but those were days with more cases at the airport. Community spread has pretty much been stopped.
Contrast that with my home country, with 25,000 new cases per day. Even though the virus is still spreading, the cries to reopen the economy are growing shriller and shriller by the day, consequences be damned. The lesson: Expect a competent government, act quickly, make public health the first priority, tell people the truth,and get everyone on the same page — and you have a chance to save both people and your economy. Though that does require shared sacrifice. Contrast that with the propaganda, fear mongering, ass covering, disinformation and corruption in the system run by the Wall Street puppetmasters . . . .
Thanks Doc Robinson for the additional link on chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine.
On the issue of whether this came from a lab, Chris Martenson today went through the analysis of this excellent Medium post by Yuri Deigin:
So it seems that this likely did come from a lab, probably Wuhan, where the lab research was funded by US research money, and the critical inserted sequences were first identified and developed in the US. It seems that the US virologists who were keen on researching “gain of function” techniques to make viruses more lethal and communicable are now trying to make sure journalists stop asking questions about what they were up to for the last 15 years.
@John Day,
Thanks for your reply. That makes a lot of sense. I still have the chloroquine phosphate for aquarium that I bought off eBay in February sitting next to our aquarium. Hopefully it stays there for a long time, especially if there is a better option out there.
For while TAE was giving periodic updates on monetary velocity. I do not recall seeing one recently, but I have been following the quarterly data for a long time. Most recent data just went off a cliff:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M2VI read and reread your reply, but I am not sure I follow your thought. I see the Chinese as being a bit amateurish and unsophisticated in using English language propaganda on an international platform, so I expect a lot of mis-steps. But US propaganda is so crappy I don’t think it will take long for them to catch up. I figure they will quickly learn that the “gum on the shoe” comment was a mistake.
Hydroxychloroquine: 200mg twice a day for 5 days
Azithromycin: 500mg once a day for 5 days
Zinc Sulfate: 220mg once a day for 5 daysAlong the lines of a question I asked in the other thread: Would chloroquine (phosphate) be a better choice than hydroxychloroquine? I have started to dig, and it seems that these drugs are not exactly the same.
sumac, good to see that you are finally coming around, though it must have been a difficult and painful realization. It would not need to be this way if the US had a functional health care system that wasn’t hell-bent on bankrupting everyone. But as long as the aim of the system is to extract all of the wealth out of the little people, we need a system that puts staying healthy at the very top of the priority list. If people could go to the doctor without fear of insolvency, then we could afford a system that gave people more freedom and spread around the risks, like in Sweden. But from a US perspective, that’s socialism, and that is something to be opposed at all costs.
“a significant amount of evidence” that the new coronavirus emerged from a Chinese laboratory
This coming from the same people who said that the Russians hacked the elections, that the White Helmets are the good guys, and that Iraq had WMD in Iraq. I have no idea whether the virus came from a US lab, a Chinese lab, or from nature. But I can say this: I will not believe a word of any story on this subject if it comes from US “intelligence sources.” Whatever they say, I will believe the opposite until I see it corroborated with real evidence. This is not to exonerate the Chinese, who I also presume to be lying, but US sources have lost credibility just as much as the Chinese have.
A question for Dr. John:
The very earliest chloroquine data I remember reading about was the use of chloroquine phosphate. But now for weeks we have heard about hydroxychloroquine. During one of the Chris Martenson videos I think I recall him mentioning (though I am paraphrasing based on what I thought I heard) that these are really the same active ingredient. But is that correct? Is there any reason to expect a different outcome between the two?
Thanks!
Antibody testing typically shows that infections are fifty times or more than the ‘official’ rate.
anticlimactic, what is the source for this statement? The Stanford study? That one has already been debunked for poor statistical analysis and discredited for conflict of interest of its authors. Are there others? And how do you deal with New Zealand, Australia and Korea, which have controlled the spread? If the virus was as widespread as you suggest, there would be no way for those countries to contain it. Doesn’t that seem to suggest that the virus is not as widespread as some have hoped?
it is possible our attempts to control covid, thru social isolation, will cause more deaths (thru suicide etc) than will be caused by c-19.
Sumac, not to downplay the negative effects of social isolation, but I am not sure that the doctor was suggesting that social isolation would cause “more deaths” – rather, I think the message of the piece was that we cannot overlook the psychological aspects which can have more widespread and long-lasting effects. Which is certainly true. We cannot prioritize physical health at the expense of spiritual and emotional well being. But I did not take this as an argument to end the lockdowns. Did you?
during the depression that people tried flying off tall building to escape their fate.
zerosum, I think that was mostly the bankers. From what I have heard, many ordinary folk saw the depression as a mixed bag. Yes, more financial hardship. But also more free time to read books, go fishing and spend time with family (which depending on an individual’s circumstances may be a blessing or a curse). In some respects life improved during the depression. But that is heresy to the capitalist creed, and so that side of the story gets edited out of the history books. Before she passed away, I asked my grandmother, born in 1917, what life was like during the depression. She answered that she lived on a farm, and life went on pretty much just like it always had. Most Americans back then lived on farms. But to read the history books, you would think that the Depression was the worst thing imaginable, which it was to the Wall Street class.
The numbers of c19 fatalities in the UK are completely unreliable. Read on to find out that total number of deaths from all causes in the UK for this flu season is well within the normal range compared to previous years.
Sumac, how do your reconcile that with the UK weekly all cause mortality data? There are accusations on all sides of data manipulation and what constitutes a COVID-19 death (dying from vs dying with), but looking back the compelling figure will be whether there has been a sudden change in all cause mortality. And according to the chart in the current weekly report in the UK, the figures jumped from 10,000 per week to more than 20,000 per week. How do you explain that?
I try to attach the chart as a JPG, but if that fails (it probably will because I am not good with computers) here is the link:
The result IMHO is the change will not come from the voting booth. It may be too late for that now.
Change will only come with people in the streets.
Your closing paragraph of questions is rhetorical at best and will never be answered…
I haven’t given up on sumac yet. I am sure someone so keen on persuading others will engage in the dialogue.
Ilargi, correct hemisphere, but rather than the 40th parallel, I was thinking more in line with the 10th:
sumac, do you really think you can compare Japan and Canada? Do you really mean to suggest that Canada would have the same lower infection rate as Japan if it had a more lax lockdown like Japan? Not sure where you are coming from. In Japan most people go along with recommendations voluntarily, so there is no need for the hammer. I am not sure that is the case in Western societies.
As for the emotional impact of lockdowns, that is certainly undeniable, especially for people just barely getting by. But isn’t the real problem that these people have no backstop? In countries that are not so leveraged, or where people have more savings, or where there is a more generous safety net, I do not think that the emotional impact is as severe. So rather than call for an end to the lockdowns, how about if we revisit why there is no safety net in the US, and why so many people are just barely getting by, and why wealth inequality just keeps getting worse and worse? Maybe those are the issues we should be tackling. Like answering why nobody bats an eye when the Fed transfers 4 trillion to the banks, or when we have a record military budget, but then there is no money for the people because there is no way to pay for it.
We believe science. We trust the doctors. Unless they’re California ER doctors with 5 million views. Then we delete them.
I stopped reading right there. These two doctors messed up the statistics pretty badly — their views are based on bad science and bad math. The most concise takedown was posted over on Mish’s site. Having said that, the WHO is not a reliable source of information either, and Youtube is making a big mistake by making WHO the final arbiter of truth.
Are you all prepared to stay in lockdown until they have a vaccine or treatment?
Sumac, don’t you agree that social distancing measures are warranted until the outbreak is under control and physicians have at least had time to develop a standard of care? Not necessarily a complete lockdown, but at least partial closures of some businesses and large gatherings, and with a requirement that everyone wear masks in public indoor places? On treatment, we are still learning, and only recently has the idea emerged that this is not a respiratory disease after all, but a blood disease, and one that attacks many organs, possibly leaving permanent damage even among young and healthy survivors. And as a result, maybe ventilators are not the answer. In a couple of months we will know a lot more, including which drugs might be helpful at treating symptoms. Are you so impatient that you cannot wait a minute longer to leave your house, go next door, and kiss your neighbor?
But now apparently YouTube has removed the video of the two doctors. Something about not complying with WHO standards.
Given how badly the WHO screwed up, this is outrageous. On March 4, I printed out the Dr. Tedros speech from March 3 that had been uploaded to the WHO website. I wanted a hard copy because it is chock full of claims that had been discredited by that time by people who were paying attention, and I wanted to save a copy in case they took it down later. He claimed on March 3:
“COVID-19 does not transmit as efficiently as influenza”
— though by that time the R0 was estimated between 2.5 and 7“With influenza, people who are infected but not yet sick are major drivers of transmission, which does not appear to be the case for COVID-19.”
— though by that time it was well understood that there were asymptomatic carriers“Evidence from China is that only 1% of reported cases do not have symptoms, and most of those cases develop symptoms within 2 days.”
— though by that time it was also know that the incubation period was up to 14 days or longerThe WHO is not a reliable source, but now Youtube says that anyone who disagrees with the official source will be taken down. This is more egregious than anything the government is doing.
My take is that the psychopaths want to keep the money and let the unproductive ones die now, alone.
Yup. That basically sums it all up. I would add that labor is cheap, and many are already living at the margins, so it does not really matter if some of the productive ones die. From the perspective of those who are driving the narrative.
From my perspective the whole world has gone mad…
C’mon, V.Arnold. Not the whole world. Just in North America and parts of Europe. Things seem pretty calm in much of Asia. Korea never went into lockdown. Public transportation remained open. Restaurants remained open. Hair salons remained open. Yes, museums and sporting events closed, and kids were home from school, and bars had to close earlier than normal, but life has gone on mostly like normal. From what I hear from colleagues in Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand, life is not bad at all. Though many tend to be working at home a lot more, they can still go out. I spoke to a friend in Beijing who said that although there is more monitoring of comings and goings, it’s mostly life as normal.
At the beginning of all this I sent some photos back home of people on the bus all wearing masks, and the signs at the entrance of the building warning that nobody could enter without a mask and a temperature scan. People back home reacted with shock, thinking this was a terrible overreaction. But now I guess it is a different story. Korea, Hong Kong, New Zealand and Australia have turned the corner. Singapore has some problems with the dormitories for foreign workers, but seems to be doing all it can. Japan fell behind when it tried to keep the Olympics, and it has more cases, now, but the Japanese being Japanese will turn the corner without the need for strict lockdowns. How are things in Thailand?
There is certainly a diversity of viewpoints here, but also some glue that holds us together. And our shared perspective is certainly at odds with the establishment narrative, which is nonstop mind- and soul-destroying propaganda. The more we can do to expedite the natural demise of this corrupt system, the better. This is our duty. Can we agree on a blueprint of 95 theses to nail to the door?
As you may know, I left shortly after March 19, 2003. Watching the inevitable decline ever since has been painfully felt by this one. I have, after 17 years, failed to see any serious attempt, to turn the ship of state in any helpful way.
I left on June 14, 2005. I doubt I will ever return. I would probably get too worked up and get myself arrested for speaking up. But from afar, I can just relax and let things go. For me it is also painful, but also a battle of the two angels. One angel whispers in my ear that I should pray things get better. The other whispers “You were right! Pray that everything unfolds just as you expected, and then congratulate yourself for being right!”
I saw a glimpse of hope In Obama in 2008, but that was just a desert mirage, a cruel joke.
Speaking of rankings, former #2 Korea is now dropping like a rock. We should fall to #33 today. Only 6 new cases today, but most everyone is still cautious and wearing a mask.
My guess is that Brazil will ultimately take the top spot. If they keep testing. They have a lot of catching up to do, but with Bolsonaro in charge, it should only be a matter of time.
