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SA, absolutely no apologies necessary; I asked you to clarify and you did; job done, unlike responses from so many commenters I could name.
Yes, the bar charts for daily figures show the effectiveness or otherwise of the suppression responses. I frequently refer to the charts at Worldometers, and the following page has all countries classified as red, amber or green by the effectiveness of suppression:
https://www.endcoronavirus.org/countries
Something I’m fed up with from the denialists and minimisers are oversimplified legalistic interpretations, the most common of which is “Sweden has no lockdown, but…”. It’s public behaviour that affects the spread; emergency laws have only indirect effects.
Excellent new page at EndCoronavirus about green zones:
Thank you. That is a good website and just provides the information I was looking for.
So. The “Vaccine Contaminants and Safety” thread comes to a shuddering halt. With fireworks…
Clark
Have you seen Dr Edd’s last contribution from 26/06. I think it said it all.SA, yes, I saw it.
I find the situation very sad. Conspiracy theory not only displaces political awareness; those who accept it become so suspicious that they won’t even discuss it, to compare it with other ways of thinking. Anyone challenging any claim of any conspiracy theory that has been accepted becomes themselves suspected of being part of the conspiracy. It is a self-reinforcing belief system.
It is hugely damaging. Not only does it provide a ready supply of supporters for crooks like Geier and his son, and David Noakes; it also polarises debate, thereby obstructing progress in exposing genuine scientific corruption.
But always remember that conspiracy theory is a symptom not the cause. Secrecy and opacity in all their forms are the underlying problem. Their form is less extreme in science than in foreign policy, but more widespread.
So at last everyone seems to acknowledge that SARS-cov2 is a respiratory virus and that the predominant method of transmission is through aerosols and droplets. The predominant thrust of the prevention should have been social distancing, true quarantine in proper facilities of all diagnosed and suspected cases, wearing of face masks and avoidance of indoor crowding. Early diagnoses and contact tracing should then have been instigated but this can only be meaningful if proper wuarantine is implemented. Instead we went for a distraction of concentrating on hand washing and other rituals as a political distraction, being only a minor measure to reduce the infection rate. So much time was spent on sourcing expensive ventilators but little on prevention.
These are well tried and tested public health measures that are bread and butter of prevention of epidemics. Instead reliance was placed on high profile reliance on ‘data’ and ‘science’. Empty words used by ignorant politicians relying on unproven ‘modelling’ which of course is based on so many assumptions. No wonder the country and the planet are in such a state.This was all known by the Chinese and Koreans and other Asian countries in January 2020. Why did it take so long for this to be realised by the rest of the world?
Clark
‘But always remember that conspiracy theory is a symptom not the cause.’
It is a reaction not a symptom. But now it is easy for governments to give out half truths and let the conspiracy theories make the rest of the case for them.
An example here is how incompetent our government has been in dealing with Covid-19 and some spent so much time instead concocting theories that it was just the flu, not only condoning actions by extreme right wing governments, but ignoring or even condoning their actions. We now have the major consequences of clamping down on dissent and secrecy in contract award produced by this emergency, and the anti- Vaxxers and Covid denialists have no comments to make.
Hello SA, good to see you back. I’ll reply as soon as I have time.
– “This was all known by the Chinese and Koreans and other Asian countries in January 2020. Why did it take so long for this to be realised by the rest of the world?”
Somebody else’s problem:
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: Somebody Else’s Problem field theory – YouTube (3m 32s)
Something I find highly ironic about the modelling is that you reach almost the same predicted number of fatalities just by multiplying the IFR by the population.
– – – – – – – – – –– “But now it is easy for governments to give out half truths and let the conspiracy theories make the rest of the case for them”
I know. So disappointing, isn’t it?
– “…and the anti- Vaxxers and Covid denialists have no comments to make”
To be fair a couple of the most vocal managed to get themselves banned just in time.
Australia is leading the way together with US and UK in ‘weaponising’ the SARS-Cov2 pandemic and also now the developement of vaccines.
“MELBOURNE (Reuters) – Australia on Sunday added to growing pressure on China over its handling of the novel coronavirus, questioning its transparency and demanding an international investigation into the origins of the virus and how it spread.”
This was the first shot started by the Australian government and robustly refuted by China.
But the most recent spat is the recent story that Russia is trying to sabotage or steal research on the vaccine. Apparaently Canadian and UK intelligence have uncovered a plot by Russia. But meanwhile, scientists involved in the actual vaccine research are more wary of the US buying anything for their sole use, and probably then selling it for extortionate prices.And Lisa Nandy has jumped on the Russian demonisation bandwagon and at the same time criticizing Corbyn. The woman is shameless.
Politics is broken, SA; join Extinction Rebellion! (If you haven’t already, of course.) You don’t have to get arrested; there are dozens of useful roles. At any action, the public come up and ask questions or argue or just get into conversations; anyone who can talk accurately about science will be busy all day.
The governments have broken and continue to break the social contract by not protecting the people; covid-19, climate change, ecological destruction, gross inequality or rampant poverty, it’s all the same thing. Governments’ power over the people has no legitimacy, which is why we peacefully break their laws, those of us who choose to getting arrested.
Come and join us. Love and Rage.
Clark
Thanks for your answer and invitation. I admire those who give up a lot of their time and comfort in order to endure hardsguke you do. Sadly I can’t join for many reasons but I am with you in thoughts and spirit.Craig –
I follow you on Consortium News and am very impressed with your investigative writing. A public comment posted today to an article by Caitlin Johnstone on 7/19/20 really stirred my interest. The commenter (Antisandman) said that Julian Assange was not targeted for exposing war crimes but for threatening the international private banking cartel. He gave a time-line with very convincing support for his theory. I wonder if you have any particular insight on this. If true, it would be great to see it exposed. Perhaps in an article on CN.
Thank youCould you give the link to Caitlin Johnstone’s article, please. The only article of hers on 7/19/20 that I could find on Medium was about overpopulation.
On another matter, I did, however, come across this article by Caitlin on the Uighurs in China and the consequent western propaganda –
https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/i-dont-always-believe-cia-narratives-but-when-i-do-i-believe-them-about-china-5c1b5ccf8d74and the Twitter thread that relates to her article –
https://twitter.com/caitoz/status/1280675013419397120Sorry, I realise now that you meant Caitlin Johnstone’s article on Consortium News; I didn’t know she also wrote on that site. I still can’t find the article there – her last article is given as July 17th, 2020.
This* is a good update of some of the findings relating to Covid 19 written in an easy to understand style.
The salient points are:- The virus causes symptomatic disease in only a fifth of those infected and serious illness in only a quarter of those.
- The virus can affect other organs either by direct invasion of cells or indirectly by damage to blood vessels or inappropriate activation of the immune system or clotting system of the Blood.
- Long term immunity to virus still unknown.
- Some people may have long term sequelae.
- The multiplicity of organs affected is due to the ability of the virus to invade and multiply in cells using the ACE2 as a docking point, this receptor, involved in blood pressure regulation, is found in many cells and not just airways, the gut and heart muscle and most other organs.
* “We Thought It Was Just a Respiratory Virus: We were wrong” – UCSF Magazine (University of California San Francisco, Summer 2020)
Excellent, informative article. Thanks SA.
The Moon of Alabama has a current thread about the Russian vaccine and MSM propagandistic distortions. Of course this was all preceded by the misinformation that the Kremlin had been trying to steal secrets of vaccines from U.K. and others.
For the RT-PCR test:
* true positives (“sensitivity”) are around 70%.
* true negatives (“specificity”) are around 95%.
This info is from BMJ propaganda to low-level quacks (“Practice Pointer”), but still. So prevalence is being over-estimated.
The government recently decided to say it had actually tested 1.3 million fewer people than it “thought” it had. That’s 2% of the population.Although the 1.3m may have been for a different test. I dunno. I don’t believe a word of what the authorities or big business say about “statistics”. I take a Soviet view.
“ICL’s “total infected so far” figure seems to match post-peak antibody studies within a factor of two, which is damn good modelling for a brand new disease.“
Only a small number of tests (say a few thousand) are needed to estimate incidence (“total infected so far” per population), assuming the test works reasonably well. With the new SARS strain this happened through the biowar defence network and was done covertly. All sorts of tests are done covertly all the time. One can hardly talk about serious biowar defence unless this happens, routinely, even when there is no particular reason to think a particular pathogen is abroad. Otherwise an opponent with good BW offence will wipe the floor with you. Back tests can be run on samples collected earlier too, probably going back several years. I am sure they have had reasonably reliable and constantly updated current figures for “total infected so far” with SARS-CoV2 since March at the latest.
Officially the authorities probably don’t admit that a single covert SARS-CoV2 test of material taken even from a single individual was ever conducted, let alone tests for other kinds of nasty. “Ethics” and stuff.
“The SAGE committee were witnesses that the government had seen the numbers, denying the government the option of claiming ignorance post-disaster.“
What mechanism would hold the authorities to account? Few who comment on this blog believe the media would. Nor a parliamentary committee either. An inquiry chaired by his ennobled lordship or her ennobled ladyship who spent their career as a “red” judge or a senior mandarin?
Anyway, wait a while…a cull is coming and not just in what remains of the “care homes” this time.
“We tried loosening up a bit and giving the dirty proles the benefit of the doubt, treating them like adults, but they all went to Spain and came back with the lergy, and the blacks don’t listen anyway and reasoning with them won’t stop them partying in the streets”. These are the kind of extremely ugly attitudes that are prevalent among low-level managers of different types…
Correction:
I meant
* true negatives (“sensitivity”) are around 70%.
* true positives (“specificity”) are around 95%.Just for background…
Let’s assume the above figures and that 6% of people are infected.
A person is chosen from the population at random.
They test positive.
Before the test, the probability they were infected was 6%.
After they test positive, what is the probability they are infected?Any NHS medics reading this might like to have a go at answering (without checking any “practice notes” or calling your insurer to check whether you’re covered for ballsing it up) …
…and the answer is…
the probability is 16.8%.
Working:
prior odds = 0.06 / 0.94 = 0.0638298
Bayes factor = likelihood ratio = true positive / false negative = 0.95 / 0.3 = 3.1666667
posterior odds = prior odds * LR = 0.2021277
convert odds to probability:
posterior probability = (prior odds) / (1 + prior odds) = 0.2021277 / 1.2021277
= 0.1681416N_
The accuracy of the test in clinical practice does not mean that the test itself is useless, it means that there are other factors such as the way swabs are taken, the number of samples, the timing of the swabs and where the swabs come from, nasal swabs, urine BAL etc… Also as stated a positive result is more significant than a negative result. This is not really a reflection on the test itself. In a fast moving situation, practice evolves and what this paper is saying is that the practice of swabbing and the interpretation of results is important.
So if you are well today and have a swab which is negative then you become ill two days later and the swab then is positive, it does not mean that any of these tests were unreliable, it just means that there was not enough virus two days ago to be picked up on testing on the first occasion.
I am not sure what the reference for the bit on the block quotes is, could you please provide one?
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