We're All Doomed!™ (the Conquest, War, Famine, and Death Thread)

[Blob Mckenzie]

So it’s Gomer107 and Reefer108?

[Strangelove]

I'd bet Gomer107's life on it.

How about Ruffles?

[5thhorseman]

I'd bet Gomer107's life on it.

How about Ruffles?

Vaccine by end of the year with no booster required in 5 years.

I can't believe you're selling Reefy out like this! Such a "decent poster".

[Per]

What part of this isn't clear ?

And I then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in one minute, and is there a way you can do something like that by injection inside, or almost a cleaning. Because you see it gets in the lungs, and it does a tremendous number on the lungs. So it'd be interesting to check that.

It's a catheter Cornuck. The president was talking about injecting a catheter.

Catheters are inserted, not injected. And he didn't mention a catheter, did he?

The part that isn't imediately clear is that Trump was referring to a presentation that a biotech researcher had just given into experimental UVA light therapy that his company was working on. They keep on taking down the video but I just re posted a version of the short promotional video via a twitter link for the third time

AYTU Bioscience is a micro-cap biomed company that rose more than 44% today on the Nasdaq. Normally a promotional video would be posted on the company's own website. They put it on Youtube on purpose, knowing it would get taken down. There's an opinion piece on the WSJ by the CEO saying as much. I wouldn't be surprised if they are just trying to jack the stock price. And Youtube has their own motivations; anyone have a statement from them?

I think this article may explain what happened. The internet is full of fake corona cures, and youtube, twitter and others are trying to police it as best they can. While UV treatment actually is investigated as a possible approach, it is novel and has not been thoroughly tested. Thus I think they may have included it in the questionable advice that needs to be removed.

YouTube, which is owned by Google, also said it was working closely with W.H.O. to help combat misinformation. YouTube’s spokesman, Farshad Shadloo, said the company had policies that prohibited videos that “promoted medically unsubstantiated methods to prevent the coronavirus in place of seeking medical treatment.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/08/tech ... media.html

The article is from early March, so not directly connected to the recent events, but I think they may have decided to include UV light therapy in the ”medically unsubstantiated” category, which makes sense. It is still only in an early testing phase.

[Per]

I think Covid will become a fact of life like the flu or a cold. The one hope will be that when it does circulate again it won't overwhelm heath systems. The fact that people get sick and some die will be tolerated, like yearly flu deaths, as long as it doesn't overwhelm us again. Its the surge that wrecks havoc on supply. Once all the old and those with compromised health are dead we will be fine....oh shit, that means me!

Covid is a novel coronavirus. The coronavirus is the type of virus that causes the common cold. So yes, it will be a fact of life, and as our her immunity builds and this thing mutates.....like other coronaviruses we will see people get sick with this thing and have symptoms like the common cold and then recover.....oh wait.....that's exactly what's been happening by and large.

By labeling this stupid thing the way we have we've done nothing but foment fear and take yet another step backwards away from freedom and towards big government control, censorship, and a bright and shining dystopian tomorrow.

The more we learn the more it gets obvious that it is not just like the flu. Take a look at this chart:

https://reason.com/2020/04/09/as-more-d ... e-the-flu/

The grey line is the average number of weekly deaths in NY 2015-2019 (roughly 2000/week)
The entangled web at the bottom is how many of these were caused by the flu in specific flu seasons, usually 100-200/week. At most 300.
The red line shooting into the sky is weekly deaths caused by covid-19.

And this graph was made on April 9th! Before covid-19 really took off.

There's an even more alarming couple of graphs here, showing that mortality has gone up eg 299% in New York:




Now, these latter graphs do not concern themselves with cause of death, they merely show the difference in mortality rate in 2020 compared to historic data. Most places do not report this many corona deaths. It is either grossly underreported, or we are also plagued by another secret pandemic that is causing all these thousands of deaths that are not labelled covid-19...

The death toll from coronavirus may be almost 60 per cent higher than reported in official counts, according to an FT analysis of overall fatalities during the pandemic in 14 countries.

Mortality statistics show 122,000 deaths in excess of normal levels across these locations, considerably higher than the 77,000 official Covid-19 deaths reported for the same places and time periods.

If the same level of under-reporting observed in these countries was happening worldwide, the global Covid-19 death toll would rise from the current official total of 201,000 to as high as 318,000.

To calculate excess deaths, the FT has compared deaths from all causes in the weeks of a location’s outbreak in March and April 2020 to the average for the same period between 2015 and 2019. The total of 122,000 amounts to a 50 per cent rise in overall mortality relative to the historical average for the locations studied.

https://www.ft.com/content/6bd88b7d-338 ... 5c6fac846c

Now, in all probability, corona flu will stay with us in the future, as a seasonal flu, and as we have developed some sort of immunity, it will not create the same number of deaths every time it passes through. But remember, these fierce surges in mortality we see now is despite the different attempts to slow down the spread. Imagine the blood bath if we had done nothing....

That being said, you do have a point in that for most people it is often no worse than a common cold, and it does not seem to be dangerous at all for children. there's hardly been any deaths in the 0-9 yo group, and only a handful reported in the group 10-19.
But for elderly people it is often a death sentence.

They have analysed the first 1700 corona deaths in Sweden, and of those 90% were 70 or older.
50% were 86 or older.
Only 1% were younger than 50.
Some 79% suffered from high blood pressure (which two thrds of those over 70 do, so this may be irrelevant and just a covariance)
Some 29% suffered from diabetes.

Have we overreacted? Possibly, Some countries, I think, shut down too early. Finland has hardly had any cases or deaths, and their state epidemiologist now warns that their peak may not come till september.... Maybe it had been smarter to not shut down so early?

But if we had done nothing at all, hospitals that are already swamped now would have been facing an even more extreme workload, and they would not have been able to treat everyone. The mortality rates would have been even worse.

Sweden is now at 30% free capacity in intensive care, and we think Stockholm may have peaked. The rest of the country might peak in late May. Hopefully we will be able to provide ventilators and ICU care for everyone who needs it throughout this crisis. That being said, before corona hit, we only had 526 ICU beds available in Sweden. In the short time we had, we more than doubled capacity, and had we not done that, we would have gone through the roof weeks ago, and people in need of ventilators would have been left to die. Other good news is that so far 80% of covid-19 patients in ICU care have survived, which is astonishing, since many of them have been on ventilators for more than two weeks, and that is tough for the body to cope with.

[Cousin Strawberry]

I'd bet Gomer107's life on it.

How about Ruffles?

Dinkin flicka

[Meds]

By labeling this stupid thing the way we have we've done nothing but foment fear and take yet another step backwards away from freedom and towards big government control, censorship, and a bright and shining dystopian tomorrow.

So if the world carried on business as usual (not sure if that's what you're suggesting) - how overwhelmed would the hospitals be right now? Our county has zero cases so far (but then they've only tested 20 people). What would NYC look like right now?

As for "step backwards away from freedom and towards big government control, censorship, and a bright and shining dystopian tomorrow." - that came in with the 'Patriot Act' down here, so there will be no changes needed.

Well up here, Dilbert came out of his cottage today for the daily address and said nothing will go completely back to the way it was so don't expect it to.

The measures that were put in place were fine. Nothing about them needs to be permanent, and going forward the only "changes" from our previous norm should include strongly encouraged (mandatory) hand sanitizing/washing and the early closing of international borders when something like this rears its head in the future.

Currently all that governments and most big corps are intent on doing is weakening the general population. Stay in, rely on vaccines, don't develop a healthy immune system. Eat the cheap processed crap (as much as you want), get obese, don't give your body proper nutrition, stress your systems to the max. Take away the guns, disarm disarm disarm. Blah blah blah.

[Meds]

If we can't get herd immunity naturally, then a vaccine is biologically impossible and we will have to inject ourselves with nano-robotics.

And if we aren't building antibodies for this thing then we should see a revolving door of reinfections in healthcare workers.

Yeah, survivors of tetanus don't normally have immunity, yet we have a vaccine. There's so much more possible in a lab that a body's immune system cannot create. For example, some labs are taking the SARS virus and modifying it to stimulate the ideal immune response.

Sucks for you though

Sucks for me though?

[Meds]

They don't even know yet if we can get herd immunity, and no vaccine has ever been created for any of the coronaviruses (common cold, SARS, MERS).

But they do have a vaccine for measles, remember?

And Covid-19 mutates even more slowly than measles, remember?

Meanwhile seasonal flu mutates like a sonuvabitch, so no vaccine.

Also, the best minds in the world are working around the clock on this vaccine, remember?

Billion$$ being spent.

A vaccine WILL be created for C19, and it will be done in record time.

Ah yes but it's not all about rate of mutation. Its much more complex than that and money doesn't solve every problem. You think Big Pharma wouldn't make money off a vaccine for the common cold that would need to be boosted every 5 years?

I'd bet Gomer107's life on it.

How about Ruffles?

If we're talking Reef, I'd say Hjumaeni2 would fit......

[5thhorseman]

If we can't get herd immunity naturally, then a vaccine is biologically impossible and we will have to inject ourselves with nano-robotics.

And if we aren't building antibodies for this thing then we should see a revolving door of reinfections in healthcare workers.

Yeah, survivors of tetanus don't normally have immunity, yet we have a vaccine. There's so much more possible in a lab that a body's immune system cannot create. For example, some labs are taking the SARS virus and modifying it to stimulate the ideal immune response.

Sucks for you though

Sucks for me though?

Yeah, the "... revolving door of reinfections in healthcare workers" if a vaccine is impossible. You are a medic if I recall correctly?

[Meds]

I think Covid will become a fact of life like the flu or a cold. The one hope will be that when it does circulate again it won't overwhelm heath systems. The fact that people get sick and some die will be tolerated, like yearly flu deaths, as long as it doesn't overwhelm us again. Its the surge that wrecks havoc on supply. Once all the old and those with compromised health are dead we will be fine....oh shit, that means me!

Covid is a novel coronavirus. The coronavirus is the type of virus that causes the common cold. So yes, it will be a fact of life, and as our her immunity builds and this thing mutates.....like other coronaviruses we will see people get sick with this thing and have symptoms like the common cold and then recover.....oh wait.....that's exactly what's been happening by and large.

By labeling this stupid thing the way we have we've done nothing but foment fear and take yet another step backwards away from freedom and towards big government control, censorship, and a bright and shining dystopian tomorrow.

The more we learn the more it gets obvious that it is not just like the flu.

It's only not "like the flu" because of our immune systems complete lack of previous exposure to it, and it spreads very readily. When the WHO is saying that their models project that at 140 - 225 million people have developed antibodies to this due to natural exposure then this thing kills at a VERY VERY VERY low rate for a "deadly virus".

So if you crunch the numbers on the high end of projections and estimates that the WHO and CDC are putting out there, and we'll just look at the US for now.

Influenza in the US 0.13% mortality.

Covid-19 in the US 5.6% mortality.

It's instantly terrifying.

BUT!

That's only on confirmed cases. That death total is massively inflated in the US because every death where the person has Covid at time of death is being recorded as a Covid death.....even if the person was in hospice and given 2 weeks to live, or even if they died from CLEARLY ALTERNATE CAUSES.....still a Covid death. (You know it's all that under-reporting you keep insisting upon).

So let's look back at the WHO's model. The USA accounts for 4% of the world's population, so of that 3% of people with antibodies they should have 6.75 million individuals who now have those antibodies following natural exposure and immunity processes.

Now it looks like this.....

Influenza in the US: 0.13% mortality.

Covid in the US: 0.8% mortality.

Still worse than the flu? Yep. But not terribly so. And with the way they are reporting Covid deaths in the US, how accurate is this really?

Oh and those figures for Covid don't line up with the global numbers where this thing trucks along at a 0.09% mortality rate if the WHO's models are accurate.

So the spike in deaths right now? It's due to two things, one that nobody's immune system has seen this before, and everyone is getting sick with this critter within about a 4-8 week span of time as opposed to over 4-5 months. If everyone caught the influenza virus all within a few weeks of each other there would be a natural spike in deaths in that several week period.

[Meds]

If we can't get herd immunity naturally, then a vaccine is biologically impossible and we will have to inject ourselves with nano-robotics.

And if we aren't building antibodies for this thing then we should see a revolving door of reinfections in healthcare workers.

Yeah, survivors of tetanus don't normally have immunity, yet we have a vaccine. There's so much more possible in a lab that a body's immune system cannot create. For example, some labs are taking the SARS virus and modifying it to stimulate the ideal immune response.

Sucks for you though

Sucks for me though?

Yeah, the "... revolving door of reinfections in healthcare workers" if a vaccine is impossible. You are a medic if I recall correctly?

Ahhh. Gotcha. Yes. Or maybe this is like so many other viruses out there, once you beat it you end up with antibodies and a period of immunity to it. Which makes sense considering we have had multiple healthcare workers report being sick and get it (like me) and then return to work and not get it again despite the repeated exposures.

If a vaccine arrives in under 18 months it means one of two things. We are forcing something into the system and recommending (if not demanding) that people inject it into their bodies without the full and proper testing, OR, we have had it for a while and this was planned.

And as for what they can do in a lab that our bodies can't do, well biology doesn't always like to respond favorably when forced to do something it doesn't normally do. So if you're talking about some radical immunology science being used here, then it better be years away and properly tested lol.

[Per]

If a vaccine arrives in under 18 months it means one of two things. We are forcing something into the system and recommending (if not demanding) that people inject it into their bodies without the full and proper testing, OR, we have had it for a while and this was planned.

Agree that it should take 18 months, but the British have modified a vaccine against the original SARS (covid-19 is also known as SARS-CoV2) to address this virus as well, and are already testing it on monkeys. They claim that vaccine could be ready to use by the end of this year. Bit sceptical though. Does it really give enough time for testing on people and proper evaluation?

[Meds]

If a vaccine arrives in under 18 months it means one of two things. We are forcing something into the system and recommending (if not demanding) that people inject it into their bodies without the full and proper testing, OR, we have had it for a while and this was planned.

Agree that it should take 18 months, but the British have modified a vaccine against the original SARS (covid-19 is also known as SARS-CoV2) to address this virus as well, and are already testing it on monkeys. They claim that vaccine could be ready to use by the end of this year. Bit sceptical though. Does it really give enough time for testing on people and proper evaluation?

I'd say the answer to that is a hard NO.

It's strange that people are so inclined to distrust organizations that are there to "help us" eh?

I guess a rat still smells like a rat even if it's smiling and wearing makeup.

(no offence rats)

[5thhorseman]

If I had to put money on a likely outcome, I'd say that social distancing efforts will have to be relaxed significantly, if only for people's sanity, and we'll have a full or at least partial herd immunity before a properly tested vaccine is available. So why not just accelerate the herd immunity approach then, so as to avoid a resurgence in the fall coinciding with flu season?

The curve needs some fattening up (within the limits of hospital capacity), more in line with Sweden's approach.