"Facts about COVID-19": Swiss Propaganda Research Article

[YippeeKi YOW !!]

Your very detailed calculations to one side, @pamojja, the mortality rate in the US from an ordinary seasonal flu is 0.1%, per the US Center for Disease Control, NCBI, Medscape, LiveScience, Bloomberg, The New York Times, health.com, and numerous others.

I know that you're aware that the current rate of both hospitalizations and deaths from COVID far exceeds that 0.1% figure, and that there is no longer any doubt about the depth and reach of this global pandemic, unrivaled since the 1918 misnamed Spanish Flu that followed WW I.

If I'm reading your posts right, you've been determined to dismiss the idea that COVID was any different from any other seasonal flu. I'm sot sure what your position is now since I dont have the time, strength, or focus to do justice to your many many posts of charts, maps, statistics, and figures. I just dont have the oomph, but I suspect that your position is the same, in spite of the overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Here's an interesting article from Ars Technica:

Experts demolish studies suggesting COVID-19 is no worse than flu
Authors of widely publicized antibody studies “owe us all an apology,” one expert says.
https://arstechnica.com/science/202...ies-suggesting-covid-19-is-no-worse-than-flu/

I have other, irrevocable, unshirkable, energy and time-draining obligations that don;t leave me the luxury of spending a few days putting together several reams of "proof" of my position. So just take my word for it: that's what I believe, that's what the world believes (except for our president, and this nation is paying a high price for his ill-supported position), and tho I don't share your opinion, I applaud and support your right to believe whatever you need, or want, to believe.

I'm tired. All the time. Thinking is almost physically painful for me right now. I've been thru what Drs like to call "mild" COVID and I'm paying the price.

So I'm going to take a day or two off to recharge, but I'm thru arguing the fine, broad, or medium points of all this. It's not even a zero-sum game. It's just a no-win, a sort of mental rope-a-dope, and I'm done.

Peace out.

 

[YippeeKi YOW !!]

Something that I think is strange about this virus is how some people, despite being in close contact with a confirmed case, dont get infected

Here in the US, COVID testing is very very hard to get, so we really have no idea if those in close contact are actually immune, or are asymptomatic carriers.

Such a jolly little pandemic.

Yes flu does kill many,many people every year.

At last count, including by the UIS CDC among many others, the annual seasonal mortality from "regular" influenze is 0.1%. Compare that to the current mortality and infection rate from COVID.

 

[ljimbo423]

At last count, including by the UIS CDC among many others, the annual seasonal mortality from "regular" influenze is 0.1%. Compare that to the current mortality and infection rate from COVID.

The number I've heard, that feels the most accurate to me so far, is 0.5% mortality among people that have been infected with covid 19. I have 2 main reasons for my view- one is my state representatives and senators have said that this is the number their experts have given them.

The second reason is, listening to the Governor of New York's press conference the other day, Andrew Cuomos'. He said they did 3,000 antibody tests throughout the state and figured out that the mortality rate in New York state was also about 0.5%.

This number will probably be different in different places but seems like the best average so far to me. Having said all that, that still would make covid 19 about 5 times more lethal than the flu.

 

[Rufous McKinney]

Interesting article comparing COVID-19 with the Spanish Flu outbreak....this article brings a bit of hope to- the mix. Some of these folks likely overdosed on aspirin! Invented in 1899.

https://www.biospace.com/article/compare-1918-spanish-influenza-pandemic-versus-covid-19/

 

[pamojja]

I know that you're aware that the current rate of both hospitalizations and deaths from COVID far exceeds that 0.1% figure, per the US Center for Disease Control, NCBI, Medscape, LiveScience, Bloomberg, The New York Times, health.com, and numerous others.

Covid deaths untill now is at 60% of the usual flu deaths for the same time period for the whole world. All those institution have already repeatedly downgrated their estimates repeatedly. And certainly will have to downgrade again.

Estimates based on wrong assumption never can override real numbers of deaths. Covid very likely will come very close or exceed flu deaths in the end of the year and the whole world. But then also each flu season can be of multiple strengths.

It was never my intent to dismis covid, but also raise awareness how bad the yearly flu and pneumonia mortality really is in comparison. And that swift actions would have been needed, while untill now too late and brute lockdowns didn't bring any advantage. But much much more suffering in the long run.

My very intent for starting this thread was to give also the neglected studies, voices and expert opinions at least one thread - beside all other threads till then only spreading panic. Based on nothing but worse-case-scenario-hypotheses. Already manytimes shown to be completely off.

The Swiss Propaganda Research (SPR, founded in 2016, is an independent nonprofit research group investigating geopolitical propaganda in Swiss and international media) has an article daily updated very detailed, on all the missinformations in the media and everywhere about covid-19. Worth reading if this whole mess just doesn't add up for you.

Facts about Covid-19 (translations in other languages available at site)

Therefore you must understand that it makes me sad to see also this thread repeatedly overtaken by chat of mass-media tales never really verified. Still not based on any real, but by now plenty available numbers.

This is serious, but all the panic from modeling - which couldn't arise from the real facts - only makes it worse. Much worse.

 

[andyguitar]

This number will probably be different in different places

Yes it will be and I think it will be a long time before we know the truth about all this. The way deaths are counted varies from one country to the next. Belgium counts hospital deaths AND all those outside of hospitals. UK only counts hospital deaths. So rate is possibly 25%- 50% more than is reported.

 

[pamojja]

pamojja, on 25 Apr 2020 - 02:32 AM, said:

Now we stand at 94 countries with clear lockdowns. Only 16 countries where I couldn't find any information about lockdowns implemented.

With lockdown since the first reported covid death: 26 days untill mortality plateaued.

Without lockdown: 19 days.

Again, I wouldn't read too much into this result. Lockdowns have been mostly implemented because of panic by being worse affected. And therefore clearly self-selected for much worse outcome. Additonally, 31 countries reached their highest mortality within the last 10 days only, and therefore might increase again (almost all under lockdown)

My calculation increasingly get screwed due to lack of information about lockdowns.

As it stands now: 37 days with lockdown (100 countries)

27 days without lockdown (25 countries)

The wikipedia page about countries with lockdowns is very incomplete (https://en.wikipedia...avirus_pandemic). And mentions Sweden and Nicaragua without lockdowns only.

But I can't find any mentioning of strict lockdowns for those further countries under their respective pages (https://en.wikipedia...avirus_pandemic):

Hongkong
Taiwan
South Korea
Egypt
Iceland
Bulgaria
Guinea
Burkina Faso
Cyprus
Niger
Cameroon
Sri Lanka
Mali
Uruguay
Togo
Djibouti

By chance, anyone in the known if in those countries stricter lockdown meassures have been implemented? And at which date?

With strict lockdown I mean closing down of non-essential business and social distancing rules in public. I don't consider less strict curfews during the night, or closure of educational institutions only, or lockdown of only very small regions very strict.

An unique case I came across was Malawi:

On 14 April, President Mutharika announced a 21-day lockdown starting Saturday 18 April at midnight.[16] However, on 17 April, the Malawi High Court temporarily barred the government from implementing the 21-day lockdown following a petition by the Human Rights Defenders Coalition.[17] The argument made by the Human Rights Defenders Coalition was that more consultation was needed to prevent harm to the poorest and most vulnerable of society.[18]

Malawi only had seen 3 covid deaths since Apr. 7th. Since I stayed there for 3 months, as one of the bitter-poorest countries in this world, they truely have more monstrous problems than covid.

Further upcoming countries which don't seem to have a strict lockdown implemented:

Syria
Myanmar
Tanzania
Senegal
Zambia
Kyrgyzstan
Ethiopia
Somalia
Gabon

 

[Hufsamor]

Iceland

Iceland didn't need a lockdown, so far, but have taken some measures.
Read this article if you like, very interesting
Bottom line....they have tested an unbelievable amount of people.
They started this testing very early.
And they have been very strict with isolation and quarantine in connection with confirmed cases.

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/01/europe/iceland-testing-coronavirus-intl/index.html

 

[percyval577]

Yes it will be and I think it will be a long time before we know the truth about all this. The way deaths are counted varies from one country to the next. Belgium counts hospital deaths AND all those outside of hospitals. UK only counts hospital deaths. So rate is possibly 25%- 50% more than is reported.

One must but also say that in Belgium most corona deaths outside the hospitals are not tested, so they are supposed ones. But clearly we would like to have the accurate number of corona-positive deaths outside the hospitals as well.

I completely agree that it will take at least a couple of months until we really can estimate what the situation is (or "was" then). Without the excess mortality over the course + and - 3 months minimum we will not be able to tell. But I think it is quite less dramatic than it might look like.

E.g. If Sweden had 21 corona deaths per a certain number of people, and Germany only 7, one might say that this is due to the absence of proper care in Sweden - three times as high! But in fact these corona deaths - so far -reflected only the spread of the virus under the dying, and Sweden might not experience an excess mortality. I read this today, but sadly didn´t bookmark it. But this needs to be checked in a thorough manner, we need a whole picture, also in comparison to other epidemics.

 

[andyguitar]

It might be that infection control in those countries is not very good. There are cases where people appear to have contracted it in hospital. How many I don't know. Also secondary infection might be a factor if infection control is poor. UK has a history of this problem. The superbug MSRA was a big issue here about 10-15 years ago If I remember correctly. Not a problem in Germany perhaps?

 

[percyval577]

@andyguitar I split the last post, here it comes what you answered, first paragraph:

Then it seems that the virus behaves different at different places. Why is the death toll in the US, the Uk, Spain and Italy comparable high (if really so)? Is it a different strain? Is it genetics (maybe a malaria adaption)? Is it air pollution? Is it the earth magnet field? Is it indirect effects from lockdowns or overwhelmed health care? At least it doesn´t seem to be the lack of lockdown at the beginning (here other countries behaved more carefully), as Sweden didn´t do this as well (or the Swedish population behaved automatically wise), or other good fortune leveled it out.

In Switzerland in Germany the lockdown doesn´t appear to have been very effective, at least not at the stage it has been implemented, though other measures might have been effective on the longer run (one should note that both countries differ in the percentage of corona deaths - but then in Switzerland no excess mortality is apparent).

So the lockdown in Switzerland has in fact been implemented after its supposed success.
The R0 may have been drawn from testing which increased over the time, which would catch more positives.
Nevertheless:

2.29 - Large gatherings forbidden, hygiene recommendation. (This seems to have been effective).

R0 estimasted for Germany:

3. 23. - Lockdown
3. 16. - Schools closed and some other measures
3. 09. - Large gatherings forbidden. (R0 went down even before this should have been able to succeed)

 

[roller]

Is it a different strain? Is it genetics (maybe a malaria adaption)? Is it air pollution? Is it the earth magnet field? Is it indirect effects from lockdowns or overwhelmed health care?

... how are patients "treated" in the very countries?

perhaps figures, like the mortality rate in hospitals or the death rate of treated patients in general could explain the differences...

if in countries like spain or the US always a lot of people die when seeking treatment... ?

 

[andyguitar]

Is it indirect effects from lockdowns or overwhelmed health care?

Health care system in UK is not overwhelmed. We have more than 4,000 empty critical care spaces.

 

[pamojja]

My calculation increasingly get screwed due to lack of information about lockdowns.

Guess I could as well trash my calculations right away , and dedicate more to karuna bhavana.

Its anyway like talking to the

The lack of scientific justification for the corona measures

25. April 2020 Christof Kuhbandner​

Why the thesis of the epidemic spread of coronavirus is based on a statistical fallacy

Practically all over the world, we are experiencing an unprecedented situation: drastic measures are being taken all over the world to combat an epidemic that is obviously looming. In Germany, for example, so many basic rights have been restricted so comprehensively and comprehensively as never before in the history of the Federal Republic of Germany.

Numerous virological experts are advising politicians. One might therefore think that the need for dramatic interventions in our basic rights is well founded by sound science. However, if you, as a scientist experienced in research methods and statistics, look at the scientific basis of what justifies the drastic measures, doubts arise.

Virtually all the measures taken are justified by the fact that they are intended to prevent an increase in the number of new infections every day, in order to counteract the alleged exponential spread of the coronavirus. For example, at a press conference on 18 March, the president of the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) projected - based on the increase in new infections observed at that time - that there would be up to 10 million infected people in Germany in two to three months if it were not possible to effectively and lastingly reduce contacts between people over a period of several weeks.

The Leopoldina - the National Academy of Sciences - formulated a similar statement in its second statement: "Although the increase in registered new infections with SARS-Cov-2 in Germany has been slowing down for a few days now, the political measures for contact restriction, which were adopted on 22 March 2020 and are valid nationwide, must remain in place". And the Federal Minister of Health, Jens Spahn, said in the ZDF Heute Journal on 19th April: "If we have managed to bring down the number of new infections together in the direction of 3,000 to 4,000 per day, then we must also succeed in staying there, only then can we gradually return to a new normality.


The actual point in time of the decrease in daily new infections

In view of the fact that all measures taken are justified by the increasing number of new infections every day, we would like to take a closer look at these figures. To do so, we will first take a look at the typical graph of the increase in new infections, as it has been presented for a long time in the dashboard of the RKI (as of April 23rd):



What you can first note..: The numbers seem to have been decreasing at least since April 3. But now we need to take a closer look. A first question is: What exactly is meant by the date in the above graphic? In this graph in the RKI dashboard, the date corresponds to the so-called reporting date - i.e. the time when the case became known to the public health department.

This is the first exciting point: It should actually be about the number of new infections per day, i.e. the time when a person became infected with the corona virus. But at the time when a case becomes known to the public health department, the person has not become newly infected. According to the RKI, an average of 5-6 days elapse between the time of infection - i.e. the actual time of the new infection - and the development of the first symptoms. As people do not go to the doctor immediately after the first symptoms, it often takes several days before a doctor is consulted who may then carry out a test, the result of which is often only available one or sometimes even two days later. The above graph therefore lags far behind the true time of the new infection.

This is exactly the reason why the RKI dashboard has a new graphic for a few days now. It shows the number of new infections per day according to the date of onset of the disease - i.e. the day on which the first symptoms were formed. The onset of the disease is currently known from 94,078 of the 145,664 cases confirmed by laboratory diagnosis. The following picture shows the chronological course of the new infections (the blue bars show the course of the new infections at the beginning of the disease):



A decrease in the daily number of new infections is therefore in reality much earlier. In order to determine the exact time, the yellow bars can be included. The yellow bars correspond to cases where the start of the disease is unknown. They are therefore still fixed at the date of notification.
In order to estimate the onset of the disease, these cases can be assigned the most probable date of onset based on the cases for which the onset of the disease is known (technical term: "imputation"). In the daily situation reports of the RKI, this is done in order to better estimate the true course of new infections. Then the graph looks like this (the height of the grey bars shows the true course estimated with the help of imputation, fixed at the beginning of the illness, situation report of 22.4


According to this, the number of new infections per day has been decreasing since at least March 19. However, it must be remembered that the date in this graph corresponds to the time of development of the first symptoms of the disease. As already described, however, there are another 5-6 days between the time of infection - the time of the real new infection - and the time of the formation of symptoms. The above curve must therefore be shifted back in time by another 5-6 days, and so the new infections have in reality already been falling since at least 13-14 March.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)​

The rest of this very long article translated by DeepL.com at https://www.longecity.org/forum/top...native-views-theories/?view=findpost&p=890868

 

[percyval577]

Professor Johan Giesicke from Sweden in an interview:

• Swedens policy is quite similar to the original one in the UK
• the goal for the Swedish is to protect vulnerable people, herd immunity is a byproduct
• Icus´s have been tripled
• number of death will decrease b/c of immunity and frail ones having died
• differences between countries will turn out to be small, regardless of measures
• fatality rate is going to turn out much lower than estimated, maybe 0.1%
• 50% of the population will have had it, South Korea is not able to contain it anymore
• measures do more harm than good
• in democracies you can´t people lock up
• vaccine takes too long
• don´t meet too often with your grandparents until you had it
• in Sweden restaurants are controlled on a local level, only few have violated the rules
• it will take a couple of months to come down from measures

youtube.com/watch?v=bfN2JWifLCY

 

[pamojja]

The most unblieveable model I've seen, and I'm sure many of its conclusions wont hold up. If only the selected western countries curves wouldn't fit so well until now:

When would COVID19 be over from a data science perspective and what’s the fatality rate?

Ali S. Razavian - intactive graph at site:

 

[andyguitar]

It's interesting to read what he says @pamojja and I have been following what has happened in Iceland. One thing that makes me cautious about comparing Iceland to other countries is that there is less genetic diversity there. So maybe their genetic make up gives them some protection?

 

[pamojja]

Agree, to take the age-distribution from Iceland to Sweden/Italy/Spain for unreported cases, seems too speculative to me. Too many factors possibly making it to naught.

But then I'm more intrigued by his curve (death per million above; 2 weeks later its peak already updated from 37 to 45 days), certainly cherry picking almost exclusively similiar western countries. Additional all of the 9 largest and worse affected countries (according to my comparison to the average pneumonia mortality, only Ireland is missing; the other very strong affected countries are all very small: San Marino, Sint Maarten, Andorra, Channel Island, Monaco, Isle of Man, Bermuda and Aruba. Most populations even below 100 000. While China and Iran most certainly underreported).

Interresting in what they could have in common. Like for example SAD, pollution, polypharmacy...

 

[andyguitar]

Interresting in what they could have in common. Like for example SAD, pollution, polypharmacy.

And maybe a lack of care for the elderly?

 

[pamojja]

And maybe a lack of care for the elderly?

You beat me. Just wanted to edit to add nursing homes too. Most developing countries don't have.