COVID-19 Coronavirus Thread

[Nigel]

Did you mean his "unreality"?

Phil

Are you suggesting that Trump's new UFO Force is not real?

US defense department creates taskforce to investigate UFOs

Taskforce to detect and anlyze unidentified aerial phenomena that could ‘potentially pose a threat’ to national security, Pentagon said

www.theguardian.com

 

[SawMaster]

You have to promise to not tell anyone This is actually a covert mission to recover their tinfoil hats which blew away in the last windstorm and appeared as UFO's on the radar

 

[Nigel]

You have to promise to not tell anyone This is actually a covert mission to recover their tinfoil hats which blew away in the last windstorm and appeared as UFO's on the radar

I think it is more important to find the missing mail sorting machines that disappeared from mail sorting offices across your country over the last few weeks. With no mail sorting machines you are going to need another civil war to sort things out after the election result is declared invalid and Trump settles in to the White House for another 8 years!

The world is observing:

International body says voting problems 'could harm integrity' of US election

OSCE office for democratic institutions recommends sending 500 monitors for ‘most challenging’ US election in recent decades

www.theguardian.com

An international election-monitoring body has raised concerns about the US vote in November, saying the “integrity of election day proceedings” could be under threat and recommended again sending observers to monitor the election. In many US states there is no guarantee that international observers will be allowed in polling stations.

A week-long needs assessment mission by the OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) beginning on 29 May found there was widespread concern that “election officials will face serious challenges prior to and on election day, due to new measures in response to Covid-19 pandemic, and expressed concerns over their ability to overcome them.” The tone of the 2020 ODIHR report reflects far more alarm than in 2016, and notes that only some of its recommendations for improvements in the US electoral system have been acted on.

Glover raised concerns about a shortage of poll workers and observers because of the pandemic and a lack of capacity of the postal service to handle the flood of ballots.

Despite the challenge presented by the November vote, the United States Postal Service (USPS) is implementing cost-saving measures, including a management hiring freeze, ordered by the new postmaster general, Louis DeJoy, a major Republican fundraiser appointed by Trump in May.

An ODIHR spokeswoman, Katya Andrusz, said: “Public confidence is a vital element of any democratic election process. If there’s a significant level of mistrust in any part of the system, it may weaken public confidence in the entire process.”

 

[Dashmellow]

This is not a "Trump" UFO force. It is an enhancement to a program(s) that have been in place in different forms for decades , this current one being an addition to what is called the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program which was put in place in 2007 and first made public three years ago. The New York Times ran a story about it at the time along with some rather remarkable video showing an encounter between a Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet and an unknown object. There have been other preceding programs going back decades, most notably, Project Sign (1947) , Project Grudge (1949) and Project Blue Book (1952).

UFOs are a serious issue that demands serious attention. The United States will be well prepared when the time comes, unlike The Untied Kingdom which was caught flatfooted when Germany started launching V2 rockets their way.

I've been increasingly concerned about this issue ever since capturing a UFO attacking a car on my dash cam when I left the camera running in parking mode one night several years ago!

 

[Nigel]

UFOs are a serious issue that demands serious attention. The United States will be well prepared when the time comes, unlike The Untied Kingdom which was caught flatfooted when Germany started launching V2 rockets their way.

Don't forget that the USA also suffered deaths from V2 rockets:

Another V-2 splashed into the Rhine, one mile from the bridge. A third landed inside the town of Remagen, destroying a building where 12 U.S. troops were billeted, killing three. A fourth V-2 struck the command post of the U.S. Army 1159 Engineer Combat Group, killing three and injuring 31.

Bridging the Rhine at Remagen: Infantryman Paul Priest Recalls the Historic Crossing

After Adolf Hitler ordered all bridges across the Rhine River blown up to prevent the Allies from crossing into Germany, one span remained intact.

warfarehistorynetwork.com

And the UK wasn't the worst hit, Belgium suffered more V2 impacts:

The most deadly day in the V-history was December 16 1944. On that day the Germans relaunched the V-offensive on Antwerp and Liège. One of the V2’s fell on the Antwerp Cinema Rex, where almost 1000 people were watching a western movie. 567 people died in the most deadly bomb impact in Second World War.

The V-terror on Belgium continued till the end of March 1945. More than 8000 people died in almost 9000 V-impacts.

The terror of the V1 and V2 in Belgium

During World War II German V1-flying bombs and V2-rockets were launched on cities in England and Belgium. In his book Elke dag angst (Every day fear) historian Pieter Serrien gives a voice to the w…

pieterserrien.be

The the highest death toll from the V2 was to the "Germans", "12,000 forced laborers and concentration camp prisoners died as a result of their forced participation in the production of the weapons."

The death toll in the UK was hugely reduced because we were able to direct them to land on countryside instead of where the germans were targeting, we only lost 1402.

 

[Dashmellow]

The UK was the primary victim of V2 attacks and was totally unprepared to deal with them, except for hiding in basements.

Funny how, whenever someone disposes of one of your trolling remarks about the US or any other country, in this case falsely claiming that the UFO task force that has been in place for many years is a "Trump"effort, you find a way to change the subject and/or focus on some minor, ancillary remark within the reply. Sad.

 

[Nigel]

Australia is poised to sign a multimillion-dollar deal with a British pharmaceutical giant to purchase and produce up to 30 million doses of its potential COVID-19 vaccine, in an agreement which would also support New Zealand and the South Pacific nations.

'Advanced negotiations': Australia aiming to lock in COVID-19 vaccine deal

The Morrison government is expected to sign off on a deal with the British drugmaker AstraZeneca to secure the University of Oxford's vaccine as soon as the first half of next year.

www.smh.com.au

 

[kamkar]

Nice.
Cant have infectious Aussies running around at home, when the lotto gods finally grace me and i can go visit them.

Putin i hear start jabbing people with a vaccine in a few months. i am thinking last summer i played Metro

 

[Nigel]

Putin i hear start jabbing people with a vaccine in a few months

We started months ago, done tens of thousands so far, but we called it phase III trials and kept track of any issues, seems Putin may just release it onto the market and see what happens. It will probably turn out OK, but impossible to know how well it works if you don't keep track of everyone and have at least some given a placebo.

I missed Pakistan last week, not much of the empire left now - Canada!

COVID-19: UHS to conduct trials of Oxford University vaccine in Pakistan

LAHORE: The University of Health Sciences Punjab has collaborated with the United Kingdom 's renowned Oxford University to conduct trials for the latter's coronavirus vaccine in Pakistan. According...

www.thenews.com.pk

 

[Nigel]

More coronavirus-vaccine volunteers needed

More than 100,000 people in the UK have already signed up to take part in future NHS trials.

www.bbc.co.uk

100,000 people for the vaccine trials is not enough?

Maybe our death rate has fallen too low for vaccine trials :

Speaking as she put out the call for more volunteers to come forward to take part in trials, Ms Bingham told Sky News: "I think we have a shot of getting a vaccine this year. There's two potential candidates, one would be the Oxford candidate and the other one is the German vaccine from BioNTech.

Oxford and German vaccine trials in race for jab this year, says UK chairman

www.telegraph.co.uk

 

[Dashmellow]

The notion that if someone dies more than 28 days after testing positive for COVID-19 it is somehow magically no longer a death caused by COVID-19 is arbitrary and capricious nonsense. This "change in methodology" is simply the Untied Kingdom government's cooking of the books to sway public opinion for political purposes exactly the way it was done in the lead up to Brexit.

The incubation period for COVID is up to 14 days. Nobody is ever admitted to a hospital on the day they test positive, they get admitted days or weeks later after they become seriously ill. Then, the average hospital stay can be greater than three weeks, depending upon the age group. Some patients stay as long as 28.3 days. Of course, despite the length of hospital stay, many do not survive anyway due to myriad complications of the disease long after the initial 28 day period since they first tested positive. In fact, COVID-19 now appears to actually be a vascular disease which causes strokes, heart attacks, kidney failure and other morbidities that can manifest long after the typical coronavirus respiratory symptoms subside. So, to now decree that any of these hospitalized patients, or anyone else testing positive for the disease who happens to die after a period of 28 days for that matter, are no longer COVID deaths is absurd!

And all this non-stop torch waving about the UK from Nigel is just ridiculous at this point.

In the last seven days there have been 7,659 new COVID cases in the UK as the uptrend continues. Curious how the case rate accelerates and the death rate drops. Still no answers about the many thousands of people found dead in their homes or at care facilities.

 

[Nigel]

So, to now decree that any of these hospitalized patients, or anyone else testing positive for the disease who happens to die after a period of 28 days for that matter, are no longer COVID deaths is absurd!

Almost as absurd as counting someone who has a positive test and then gets run over by a bus 6 months later as a covid death, just because they once had a positive test and may never have become ill!

"The conclusion from the review was that the vast majority (88%) of COVID-19 related deaths occurred within 28 days of the first positive specimen date"

Your table shows a big difference between UK and USA! Average hospital stay 8 days vs 22.4 days
" The UK’s Chief Medical Advisor Chris Whitty said last month the average patient spends eight days in hospital with COVID-19. "

The changes in the UK count are aimed at getting it to match the excess death count and thus be as accurate as possible.

The 3 UK deaths yesterday don't seem to confirm the massive spike in cases you keep talking about and the hospital admission graphs continue their smooth exponential decline. The USA 7 day average is still over 1,000 deaths and 50,000 cases per day, the epidemic in the USA could also have been over by now if it had been handled differently.

In USA, volunteers need to be paid?

COVID-19 vaccine trial kicks off in Palm Beach County. Volunteers will get up to $1,000.

Another major clinical trial is underway in the global race for a COVID-19 vaccine — with researchers this time planning to pay participants hundreds of dollars in Palm Beach County. The expe…

www.sun-sentinel.com

 

[SawMaster]

The client I worked for yesterday has mostly recovered from the effects of his bout of Covid-19, but he is still testing positive so he's still isolated at his home. I'm just glad his case wasn't a bad one.

Along with so many other aspects of this, there has not been one universally used method of counting cases and deaths- every Nation has chosen it's own course with this, so none are directly comparable. And most have chosen methods meant to achieve a goal of either under or over reporting of cases and deaths based on what they're trying to achieve with the numbers. It still seems that almost nobody us looking strictly and only for the truth

The WHO hasn't been much help with this because instead of issuing clear and concise instructions and demands, they are approaching the issue from the other end, only making overly-broad 'recommendations' which allows such incongruities So once again I have to question whether humans as a race are as smart as we think we are, and once again the answer is clearly "No"

The potential to do better (MUCH better) is there but nobody is trying to do it. Everyone wants things to look better than they actually are. Everyone has some kind of "hidden agenda" going in hope that nobody else will notice how they're trying to skew the truth to better fit their desires And it usually works because to expose someone else doing this means that your doing the same thing will become exposed too

Semper excretum solum profunditas mutat

Phil

 

[jokiin]

when this first started all you heard was how the numbers out of China couldn't be trusted, I'm yet to see anyone say that some other country has numbers that can be trusted, seems universal that nobody believes anything that any other government says, few even believe what their own governments say

 

[SawMaster]

Here in SC the number of hospital admissions has been on a steady decline while the numbers of cases testing positive has been climbing.

Hospital admissions have not proven to be an accurate indicator of what is actually going on.

Accurate numbers of cases can only be achieved by testing. The goal must be to test as many people as possible, being certain to test everyone who exhibits any of the known symptoms of Covid-19 or who had had contact with someone like this. No other approach can be accurate because they are not based on solid fact.

Accurate numbers of deaths is a little tougher to get, but should include those dying of pneumonia, organ failure where there wasn't a pre-existing problem, fevers causing brain issues leading to death, and respiratory or circulatory failure when that wasn't pre-existing to a degree which would have likely caused death. It should not include any non-related deaths based on time-frames or any other criteria.

Time is irrelevant here because there have been many cases extending into months and many cases where the person died within a few days/hours after treatment began.

Arguing whose numbers are correct or most accurate does not change the truth- nobody is doing this properly. Everyone is wrong

Phil

 

[Nigel]

Even if every dead person was tested, the numbers would still not be accurate since the tests still have a very significant false negative rate.

Accurate numbers of deaths is a little tougher to get, but should include those dying of pneumonia, organ failure where there wasn't a pre-existing problem,

That was OK here, but now the number of flu deaths are many times the number of covid deaths, and doctors counting flu caused pneumonia as covid was one of the reasons our figures had become ridiculously inaccurate.

There really isn't a way to get an accurate figure, best result is to use the excess death count, but even that doesn't take into account the drop in flu deaths caused by lockdown, so realistically we will never know the truth.

 

[Dashmellow]

Just more BS, propaganda. twisting of the facts and USA bashing, Nigel. I mean, what else could we expect from you?

Almost as absurd as counting someone who has a positive test and then gets run over by a bus 6 months later as a covid death, just because they once had a positive test and may never have become ill!

This entire pandemic is only six months old, so using an analogy about a person getting run over by a bus six months after testing positive is absurd and misleading.

Your table shows a big difference between UK and USA! Average hospital stay 8 days vs 22.4 days
" The UK’s Chief Medical Advisor Chris Whitty said last month the average patient spends eight days in hospital with COVID-19. "

Oh great, you cite an article from more than four months ago in early May, quoting a medical advisor mentioning an average from yet a month earlier in early April during the initial period of the pandemic when well over 1000 people were dying per day in the UK and hospitals were desperately trying to open up new hospital beds to make room for new COVID victims.

Also, at that time, early in the pandemic, little was known about the illness and it was thought to be merely a severe respiratory disease. Since that time, it has been shown to affect and permanently damage multiple organ systems and to be a severe vascular disease that causes illness and mortality well beyond the initial phases of the disease. When someone recovering from COVID-19 then later dies of a stroke or a heart attack or liver failure directly due to the damage from the disease, the UK now dismisses these deaths as actually having been caused by coronavirus if the death occurs more than 28 days after the patient first tested positive, How convenient!

I could understand if the UK had changed the time period for COVID deaths among those who test positive more conservatively, say 60 days, but to cut all the way back to 28 days considering the evidence is highly suspect! It suggests an agenda.

The changes in the UK count are aimed at getting it to match the excess death count and thus be as accurate as possible.

This is the "cooking the books" at work, along with some slick explanatory rhetoric. Yet somehow, the 65,000 excess deaths can't seem to be explained away even after abruptly dropping the death rate by well over 5,000.

In USA, volunteers need to be paid?

COVID-19 vaccine trial kicks off in Palm Beach County. Volunteers will get up to $1,000.

Another major clinical trial is underway in the global race for a COVID-19 vaccine — with researchers this time planning to pay participants hundreds of dollars in Palm Beach County. The expe…

www.sun-sentinel.com

These vaccine testing participants are being asked by a private, for profit clinical research center, that is engaged in a wide variety of investigative studies for the medical and pharmaceutical industry to engage in a rigorous study that will go one for two years. Rather than exploit these people who have willingly committed to two years of further testing and follow-up examinations, they are offering them modest payment during a time when many folks are otherwise out of work and trying to find a way to pay their bills and keep a roof over their heads. Apparently, AstraZeneca is funding payment to the vaccine research study participants as they are the party that engaged Headlands Research and their subsidiary JEM Research Institute. AstraZeneca received $1 billion from the U.S. Health Department's Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority and some of that Federal funding is a source for the payments to these US citizens who volunteer as vaccine study participants within the US.

Of course, you Nigel, attempt to use a news blurb without all the facts, to once again engage in USA bashing and slights. It's truly, despicable and yes, simply yet another example of you violating the rules of the forum. Your behavior, attitude and open scorn for the United States and other nations on this forum is shameful.

 

[Nigel]

This entire pandemic is only six months old, so using an analogy about a person getting run over by a bus six months after testing positive is absurd and misleading.

Exactly, there are now some people dying who tested positive 6 months ago, and the vast majority of them should not be counted as dying from covid! It was time for the rules for counting to be refined.

At least when Trump says there is a surge, there is actually a surge, unlike your surge claims!

Trump: "Big surge in New Zealand ... it's terrible. We don't want that."
(No covid deaths since May!)

Ardern slams Trump's 'surge' comments as NZ records 13 new coronavirus cases

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says there is no comparison between New Zealand's handful of new cases a day and the "tens of thousands" in the United States.

www.abc.net.au

 

[Dashmellow]

Exactly, there are now some people dying who tested positive 6 months ago, and the vast majority of them should not be counted as dying from covid! It was time for the rules for counting to be refined.

At least when Trump says there is a surge, there is actually a surge, unlike your surge claims!

Trump: "Big surge in New Zealand ... it's terrible. We don't want that."
(No covid deaths since May!)

Ardern slams Trump's 'surge' comments as NZ records 13 new coronavirus cases

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says there is no comparison between New Zealand's handful of new cases a day and the "tens of thousands" in the United States.

www.abc.net.au

When people die from COVID-19 complications, they have died from COVID-19! That's why this arbitrary and false designation is so objectionable.

Trump is basically a monster who is leading a toxic and failed response to the COVID pandemic. I can't disagree that the situation is dire but it is quite separate from the unfortunate situation in the UK.

Speaking of shameful, the UK's Boris Johnson is also a monster. His latest "stunt" was to use an algorithm to downgrade students grades for expediency during the pandemic, thus attempting to ruin the lives of a vast number of A level students who worked hard to follow their dreams. There are now students protesting in the street shouting "F**K the Algoritm, F**K Boris Johnson"!

A-level students speak: 'I always dreamed of going to Cambridge'
Students who results were downgraded protest over ‘classist’ bias of government algorithm

‘F**k the Algorithm’: How A-Level Students Have Shown the Future of Protest

 

[Dashmellow]

Exactly, there are now some people dying who tested positive 6 months ago, and the vast majority of them should not be counted as dying from covid! It was time for the rules for counting to be refined.

BTW, you apparently don't seem to pay attention. That's not what I said. I agree that people who die six months after testing positive for coronavirus should not (necessarily) be considered to have died from COVID. However, if the cause of their comorbidities such as heart, vascular or kidney damage are definitively tied to their bout with COVID-19, then that is another matter. That appears to be one of the unique aspects of this terrible novel disease. Unlike influenza for example, where people fully recover and move on with their lives we are seeing some people come away from COVID with permanent organ and vascular damage long after the acute fevers and respiratory related symptoms have subsided and this is leading to mortalities after the fact.

What I actually said, and which you ignored is that 28 days is a ridiculously short and arbitrary cut-off period and that a longer period, perhaps 60 days may be more appropriate so that outcomes can be better observed. Please stop twisting my words (or the facts) in an attempt to prove your point.