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J, a little advice. Try tying up some of the many loose ends you left flapping before suggesting yet another related but tangential topic. The mods here are by now very familiar with the techniques used for the promotion of conspiracy theory. These are the discussion forums, and the objective of discussion is to collate each other’s knowledge and understanding towards consensus, not to railroad people into extreme and misleading beliefs through the constructions of a mosaic made from cherry-picked soundbites; that’s for politicians and propagandists 🙂
J, there are plenty of your earlier points that you could pick up on. For instance, you cited a 1.4% death rate in part of India as evidence for a miracle cure, but New York and Spain had much lower death rates without your miracle cure. Do you now accept that maybe your cure isn’t such a miracle after all, or at least that your citation wasn’t good evidence for it?
…’cos if you don’t, we all know what will happen; you’ll just resurrect the same claim later (when you want to distract from a different refutation) and we’ll have to go through the whole tedious business again. Sorry; seen that technique before, friend.
P.E.
Thanks for the kind words, it is also nice to be missed.?It would be good to know whether the denialists have any faith at all in any of the institutions of society. I would like to know whether people like J for example ever use the NHS. If they do, then they must have some degree of trust in doctors and medicine. By all means you have to ask questions when it relates to your health and offered explanations and alternatives, but then why assume the worse when it comes to the pandemic.
J’s comments a bit earlier were based on the question of ivermectin and this had followed amongst conspiracists from previous other fads with chloroquine and others. The theory goes that governments the world over have plotted for the benefit of pharmaceuticals, to prevent the use of simple cheap available medicines so that pharma can develop more expensive medicines. This argument is nonsensical and betrays a basic ignorance of how Medici and how doctors work. For a start, two interventions in the treatment of severely ill patients with covid have been decanetgasone and the use of blood thinning agents. Nobody tried to suppress those.
[ MOD: Michael – as has been explained so often to you, merely posting a series of news clippings is not what these forums are for. Perhaps you would like another few days away to reflect on this? ]
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Things in England may be about to tighten up, as covid is getting out of control.
Cases and deaths are soaring.
“Sajid Javid will lead a televised coronavirus press conference live tonight,
amid fears over a winter surge of the virus.”On speaking, yesterday, to a G.P., that G.P. told me that she thinks that our government have but one route in mind, that route is herd immunity, she thinks they want people to catch covid, so it is mostly all over by the New Year and commerce can regain full steam ahead. One of my friends, told me this morning, that his ten year old granddaughter now has covid, and is resting at home but not ill.
Round our neck of the woods, covid is completely out of control, mainly with school children, their family and family acquaintances. In our county not many are seriously ill but thousands each week are testing positive.I shall be watching Mr.Javid, this evening to see what he has to say.
They seem to have given up with the daily covid briefings from Ten Downing Street.
I expect they stopped or greatly reduced the briefings because they want people to get back to work and pretend it is all over.Michael
It looks like this is “new normal” adopted around most of the Europe!
Number of deaths each day might be the difference in policy and measures taken.
This time last year, were interesting times but with different vaccines involved and no measures and different vaccines % uptake across Europe will be even more interesting to make sense.
I am personally curious about performance between low vaccinated East Europe and highly vaccinated Ireland and Denmark
Disclosure (since I am double Vaxxed I go with Ireland and Denmark)
Not just Europe – a friend in Moscow told me today that cases in Moscow are going up alarmingly – 35,000 cases a day in the state, and word on the street is that there’ll be a “severe quarantine” imposed sometime soon
Glenn_nl – “in Moscow […] word on the street is that there’ll be a “severe quarantine” imposed sometime soon”
It’s in the news:
CNN: – On Tuesday Moscow’s mayor ordered all unvaccinated residents over 60, as well as unvaccinated people “suffering from chronic diseases,” to remain home for four months until late February as the city grapples with a growing crisis.
France24 – Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday backed the Cabinet’s proposal to declare a non-working week and keep Russian workers away from their offices as coronavirus deaths surged to another daily record.
Here’s a thought. Look at this archived snapshot of Worldometers UK covid figures:
https://web.archive.org/web/20211019214928/https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/uk/
Coronavirus Cases: 8,541,192
Deaths: 138,852
Recovered: 6,991,9098,541,192 – (6,991,909 + 138,852) = 1,410,431
Obviously, a lot of survivors aren’t completely recovering. The faster people get infected, the faster that figure grows. This will be a major drain on the economy that the government thinks it’s protecting.
This terrific World Wide Spike in covid must surely put the mockers on twenty five thousand people grouping at COP26.
Lunacy on steroids. We have got to stop assembling in large groups of people with whom we do not normally meet.
Eastern Europe is doing very badly, Russia, Turkey, Ukraine, Romania |¦|
but Western Europe is also upticking, look at the graphs most are curling up, ready for take-off.Michael, I’m not happy about attending with infection figures so high. But this is the most important UN Climate Change Conference for six years, when the Paris Agreement was adopted, and it follows the publication of the Working Group 1 section of the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report, “Code Red for Humanity”.
I have to attend.
@J
You might want to take a look at this .pdf from the Nebraska Gov. It was in response to a request from the CEO of their health dept for clarification on the off-label prescription of ivermectin, hydroxychloriquine and other meds for covid. It’s a fairly good summary of what is and isn’t known about both of these medications. You might enjoy reading it/skimming it.
A town near me is going bonkers with Covid positive cases, Wokingham, Berkshire.
The coronavirus infection rate, that is, the number of people who have tested positive per 100,000, is the highest it has ever been in Wokingham.
The infection rates reached their peak in the area at 619.2 confirmed cases per 100,000 people.I am not sure how they can say they reached their peak, those figures have been rising for weeks, I expect they will go even higher.
They are now doing surge testing in playing fields.
This is a very high income area, so it will not be poverty or overcrowding.
It is thought it is being generated in the schools. This country is becoming Plague Island.I still really struggle to understand why we so much worse, than our near neighbours.
ET, thanks for the Nebraska link. I have read about half so far; it seems a thorough and well reasoned summary.
– “I still really struggle to understand why we so much worse, than our near neighbours.”
My guesses are (1) the UK started vaccination earliest, so immunity is fading in more people earlier than elsewhere; (2) Westminster removed all restrictions, whereas most EU countries still require masks in closed spaces and restrict the size of indoor gatherings among other things; (3) other countries have paid more attention to ventilation; (4) Westminster’s schools policy is guaranteed to spread infection, as you’ve pointed out yourself; (5) UK testing can’t be targeted well because infection prevalence is too high – other countries find a greater proportion of their positive cases with less tests because their trace-and-test is more successful.
But these are the issues covered by the links myself and others have been posting in reply to your repeated questions on this subject.
Clark, now topping fifty thousand positive cases a day.
I think it is almost time for the next “PLAN”The JCVI The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, ought to take some blame, they would not allow secondary children to be vaccinated. Now we know most cases are in the under twenties. If these secondary school children had been vaccinated in the School Summer Holidays, a lot of this nonsense might have been side-stepped.
However that would not have stopped my mate’s ten year old granddaughter catching it at school.Another reason we most likely fared less well, is the terrible state of the nation’s health. More FAT people in the U.K. than any other European country, terrible addiction to cheap factory-produced food; more diabetics and getting more all the time. Diabetes almost did not exist until Europe discovered America, then we brought back many items:
Potato, Cocaine, Maize, Tomato, Vanilla, Brazil nuts, Turkey, Sugar, tobacco.Without some of these items, we would not have had American Factory Food.
Less people would be so ill. So many millions would not have died from cancer, from diabetes.
America has a lot to answer for. But the real, real, culprit is always greed.Yes, greed is a problem. But always remember that there is a vast, multi-billion dollar industry that specifically stimulates and exploits greed, to make a profit for itself and to maximise profits for its customers. Its platform is the corporate media, and its primary, major language is English. The other languages have advertising and PR industries too, but via the English language, the UK is plugged directly into the most funded and thus most powerful advertising industry by far: that of the USA.
Elsewhere, you have accused someone, possibly me, of “telling [people] they are too stupid to know their own minds”. Do we know our own minds? I actually assume that I don’t know my own mind. Most of everyone’s mind is subconscious, and the advertising and PR industry actually employ psychologists to optimise subconscious exploitation. Everyone likes to believe that they know their own mind – in fact, the very desire to believe that is a subconscious motivation – but statistically, advertising is very effective, it persuades people to buy stuff that they otherwise wouldn’t. People are affected by advertising, yet how many people do you know who would happily say “oh yes, I’m influenced by advertising all the time”?
Rather like people who say “never believe what you read in the papers” yet faithfully reflect the political stance of the papers they read…
Do we control our own minds? Don’t think of elephants, michael. But you have to think of elephants in order to interpret my sentence! Psychologists employed by the advertising industry know that, and they know how to use it.
Do you find music emotional? I do; it’s one of my greatest joys. The singer on late 20th century Bodyform advertisements was Clare Torry, the singer on Pink Floyd’s The Great Gig in the Sky, one of the most emotional tracks I know.
I have often wondered why there is not more clamour to understand and greatly reduce the drivers of obesity/diabetes?
We once had a picture of my mother pregnant with me, she was incredibly slim with a big baby bump. In those days, just after the war, most people were slim, they did not have fast food, microwave food. Almost all food was basic. Maybe not that tasty or interesting but it got them through the Depression, then the War and the years just after the war. Then somebody invented convenience, from there most of our health has gone down hill, rapidly over the last forty years. Yes you are correct, greed, advertising and subliminals. Then I thought, why do the government, any government, not do something about it. “Big Interests”, but surely the health of the nation is so much more important than Big Interests.
I suppose, some things have happened, the reduction of smoking. The reducing of some sugar, in some products. But the incessant mindless advertising. Facebook and the like. Personally, I have never looked at Facebook or Twitter or any of those things, I expect that is quite unusual. I try my very best not to look at advertising, most people are weak and will take the easy options, slip it in the microwave, get it delivered to your home, no need to get off your couch, when you get too fat, get a disability scooter.“Do we control our own minds?”
How would we know? Have a read through this “Behind NATO’s ‘cognitive warfare’: ‘Battle for your brain’ waged by Western militaries” a report on a NATO presentation.
“Now, NATO is spinning out an entirely new kind of combat it has branded cognitive warfare. Described as the “weaponization of brain sciences,” the new method involves “hacking the individual” by exploiting “the vulnerabilities of the human brain” in order to implement more sophisticated “social engineering.”
“Humans are the contested domain,” and “future conflicts will likely occur amongst the people digitally first and physically thereafter in proximity to hubs of political and economic power.”
“In a chilling disclosure, the report said explicitly that “the objective of Cognitive Warfare is to harm societies and not only the military.”
“Cognitive warfare positions the mind as a battle space and contested domain. Its objective is to sow dissonance, instigate conflicting narratives, polarize opinion, and radicalize groups. Cognitive warfare can motivate people to act in ways that can disrupt or fragment an otherwise cohesive society.”
“Cognitive warfare overlaps with Big Tech corporations and mass surveillance, because “it’s all about leveraging the big data,” du Cluzel explained. “We produce data everywhere we go. Every minute, every second we go, we go online. And this is extremely easy to leverage those data in order to better know you and use that knowledge to change the way you think.”
“Cognitive warfare has universal reach, from starting with the individual to states and multinational organizations,” he said. “Its field of action is global and aim to seize control of the human being, civilian as well as military.”
“Gothi reassured corporate investors that NATO will bend over backward to defend their bottom lines: “I can assure everyone that the NATO innovation challenge indicates that all innovators will maintain complete control of their intellectual property. So NATO won’t take control of that. Neither will Canada. Innovators will maintain their control over their IP.”
Sorry for all the quotes Mods but I think they kinda speak for themselves. There are many more in the article from NATO staff. Perhaps the climate crisis will do us all a favour by eradicating humanity because we are clearly not up to the task of self determination or self governance if this is where we have arrived without absolute horror from our governments. It’s repulsive.
The point I was trying to make was, as a nation we are extremely overweight and unfit.
That is one of the reasons why covid has hit the U.K. so hard.“Then somebody invented convenience, from there most of our health has gone down hill, rapidly over the last forty years”
The last part of that statement is not actually true. Most health metrics have significantly improved over that time period from life expectancy to cancer survival rates to infant mortality, maternal mortality etc etc. Obesity however ain’t one of those improved metrics. There is nothing necessarily wrong with convenience in itself, that is why stuff like washing machines got invented. As a first year student, I used to have to hand wash my clothes which was a royal pain in the ass. I don’t miss that. As for product deliveries, I think I’ve said it before it is better to have one truck deliver 50 people’s product than 50 cars drive to get those same products. It is a bit anti-social admittedly.
When it comes to food though MN, I agree with you. If they are going to make it available then government has a duty to ensure it doesn’t affect health adversely. Remember all those spats about labelling food items? Most likely first in the USA someone will take to court the food manufacturers because of adverse health outcomes like they did the tobacco industry. The sooner the better. Personally, I mostly cook for myself from scratch.
Obesity is a problem and bariatric medicine has become a specialty in itself. Some of the health problems are problems of longevity that formerly people didn’t live long enough to get. I am surprised more people don’t actually cook for themselves more often, it’s a lot cheaper and you eat better tasting food.
Michael – “Then somebody invented convenience…”
A load of companies invented “convenience” – as a marketing ploy. Ingredients are just ingredients; you can get them from a street market, an allotment or your neighbours. But a supermarket meal requires factories, depots, refrigerated lorries, and – marketing departments. All things that only big companies can afford.
I can just imagine the headlines if reform of this were suggested – all those people who’d be out of work! Nothing to do with the adverts that fund the media, obviously 😀
ET – “I am surprised more people don’t actually cook for themselves more often…”
A lot of people don’t have much time and are completely knackered after work. Plus it’s hard to learn to cook from books or video, because judging when something is ‘done’ is a matter of smell. How many people have time to teach others to cook? In the industrialised world we’re losing all our traditional skills; abdicating them to the industrial system.
– – – – – – – –It amazes me how self-reinforcing the system is. This is why I have considerable sympathy for conspiracy theorists and take the time to discuss with them – it seems so much like a conspiracy, like someone incredibly evil has planned all this out in advance, but it’s an emergent phenomenon.
Even NATO is late to the party with its “cognitive warfare”. The advertising and PR industries have been doing this for decades.
Michael, I’m pretty sure you’re right that bad food and lack of exercise are making matters worse with covid, and all sorts of other poor health.
But people should avoid covid anyway, and avoid transmitting it. We’ve still had less than two years to discover its effects; what if it triggers cancer or something, ten years after infection? Maybe it’ll do that especially in people who had it when they were kids, heaven forbid, but biology is complicated so we’re not going to find out for years. It’s particularly worrying that the virus exploits our cells’ ACE2 receptors because so many different tissue types express them.
I’m very wary of the “it mostly kills those who were already old, ill or unfit” message because it spreads complacency – and to make matters worse, complacency seems to be exactly what the UK government wants. Yes, we know it often kills the old and the ill, but we won’t know for a long time yet what it might be doing to the young and healthy.
