@Juan Moment #145
nCOV is absolutely here to stay.
It still doesn’t follow that it should be allowed to run rampant. That is a political decision: to trade off deaths vs. economic losses.
Note I don’t advocate blindly for either side. The whole point of politics is hopefully deciding that which is acceptable/best for the most people.
However, there is a huge difference between “ought to” and “is”.
There is also a huge difference between what one person thinks is better vs. another.
The reality is that for wealthy persons, managers, professionals – the lockdown is great.
Yet for working class people, the economic impact of the lockdown is devastating.
Who controls the government? Seems pretty clear.

Posted by: c1ue | Apr 23 2020 0:41 utc | 203

Anyone wish to explain why there is no flu any more in the US of A? Where did it go? CDC reported it no longer exists in the last two weeks.
And why such a reduction in pneumonia deaths?
And why coincidentally did the CDC change it’s decades old protocols on death reportage giving liberal interpretations for listing COVID deaths when it had never specified for any other disease to get such treatment in it’s history?
And why if this COVID thingie is so infectious and deadly are no upstate college towns (which hold thousands of NYC students each Fall/Winter and they were there until recently) having any deaths from COVID?
And why are they listing deaths as COVID deaths in NY State (the epicenter- oooh NYC as center of universe again) AND openly admitting they won’t test for COVID on many of these cadavers?
And why has overall US death toll gone down by 30,000 over the first 14 weeks of this year when compared to last year? I know no careening around in autos and assorted death-like activities but shouldn’t the Black Plague more than make up that shortage?
And why are those who question the MSM about so much in the past all of a sudden believing the corrupt corporate media and the Pharma funded CDC (60% of funds from Pharma) and WHO (80% of funds from Pharma)?
Why do people point to Italy’s excess death total when Italy had a bigger excess death total in 2017 due to interstitial pneumonia (BTW same thing is happening this year and does happen their yearly now)?
Once you’ve read through these questions- tip of the iceberg- head back to comment #4 by Russ- he is correct.

Posted by: Allen | Apr 23 2020 0:51 utc | 205

There are empirical models of societies that have controlled Covid-19 without lockdowns.
Hong Kong and Macau were among the first territories to record virus cases in late January. Hong Kong had its first Covid-19 death in January.
In January both Hong Kong and January adopted similar measures. All residents were asked to wear masks when in public among people and especially when using public transportation. In Macau buses and taxis would not pick up passengers without masks. In Hong Kong there was no law regarding use on public transportation but the government’s advice was adhered to and many taxi drivers would not pick up people without masks. Taxis also started carrying bottles of hand sanitizer so that after paying the driver and getting their change passengers could make use of the sanitizer. Virtually everyone in Hong Kong walks with their hand sanitizer. Hong Kong also diligently traces all cases to find the source of infection.
Many employers allowed their employees to work from home wherever possible.
Hong Kong has had airport temperature screening since the SARS epidemic. From January, airport staff were masked and gloved as are post office workers, policemen and other public servants that interface with the public. Unlike in the UK, no bus drivers or other public transport personnel are known to have been affected due to their jobs.
Cinemas, casinos were closed and concerts, street parties etc banned. Even Lion Dances and other public celebrations for Chinese New Year were canceled (Unlike the Carnival celebrations in France, Spain and even most of Italy).
However, there was no lockdown. People continue to take trains, buses, minibuses, taxis and ferries as usual…but everyone is masked and carrying their sanitizer.
On entering public buildings and restaurants people are subject to scanning with thermal image scanners or non-contact thermometers as are delivery people and visitors to apartment buildings. Restaurants remain open but observe table spacing by either keeping tables further apart or leaving an empty table between occupied tables. Many restaurants have now focused on pick up and delivery.
The result is that at this time Hong Kong has had 4 Covid-19 deaths and just over 1,000 confirmed cases with a population of 7.5 million people. Macau with a population of around 700,000 has had zero deaths and around 50 confirmed cases. Macau also started using the anti-viral / HIV medicine cocktail first introduced by doctors in Thailand for treatment with good effect.
By Mid-March new virus cases in Hong Kong had slowed to a trickle with several days recording no new cases. However, when the US and Europe started to announce lockdowns etc tens of thousands of returning residents came into Hong Kong and some of them did not diligently observe their 2 week self-quarantine. In particular, some of them frequented certain bars which became hotspots that were revealed by contact tracing. This caused a spike in new cases, the vast majority of whom had recently returned to Hong Kong or had frequented one of the hotspot bars.
Hong Kong then closed bars and pubs in early April and limited public groups to 4 people. Banks also began temperature screening. HK also closed the airports to non citizens or residents.
Daily new cases have now declined to single digits and some days there are zero new cases.
In Hong Kong and Macau people go to work, use public transport, go to malls, supermarkets and restaurants etc. but the virus situation is under control.
Recommendations:
Masking in public
Temperature screening on entering public buildings. If area temperature scanning cannot be implemented then use hand-held non-contact thermometers.
Hand sanitizer at the entrance to buildings, supermarket checkouts etc. Encourage people to carry around their own sanitizer.
Diligent contact screening for infected persons with testing and possible quarantine for those who may have been infected.

Posted by: Othello | Apr 23 2020 1:06 utc | 207

Othello

Posted by: Peter AU1 | Apr 23 2020 1:10 utc | 209

Allen @210:
You can’t have been criticizing official narratives for your entire existence and then uncritically swallow the official narrative now.
This is a narrative that USA/West can’t control. It’s in other countries that are highly unlikely to participate in a hoax.
The a-priori assumption is that there is a pandemic- that is false.
It’s not a-priori. Everyone here is also skeptical. But there’s no way to hide something this big. This is not a WMD in Syria or the Skripals.
<> <> <> <>
And we all want to open the economy too. We just want it done in a responsible way. And that might mean a few weeks longer than libertarians like. But the blame for that lies with our governments, not sensible people.
!!

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Apr 23 2020 1:14 utc | 211

a few days ago, I linked to a report on litigation over COVID-19 – Missouri sues China for billions of losses caused by Coronavirus….they hid and did not disclose….
I opined the sovereign immunity issue will impede this suit making it to case management.
Just in case I am proven inept; here is what China’s defense [in part] may include: there is this helpful Special Report.
Former Labradoodle breeder tapped to lead U.S. pandemic task force
Source

Washington. On January 21, the day the first U.S. case of coronavirus was reported, the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services appeared on Fox News to report the latest on the disease as it ravaged China. Alex Azar, a 52-year-old lawyer and former drug industry executive, assured Americans the U.S. government was prepared.
“We developed a diagnostic test at the CDC, so we can confirm if somebody has this,” Azar said. “We will be spreading that diagnostic around the country so that we are able to do rapid testing on site.”
While coronavirus in Wuhan, China, was “potentially serious,” Azar assured viewers in America, it “was one for which we have a playbook.”[.]
Shortly after his televised comments, Azar tapped a trusted aide with minimal public health experience to lead the agency’s day-to-day response to COVID-19. The aide, Brian Harrison, had joined the department after running a dog-breeding business for six years. Five sources say some officials in the White House derisively called him “the dog breeder.”[.]
Harrison, 37, was an unusual choice, with no formal education in public health, management, or medicine and with only limited experience in the fields. In 2006, he joined HHS in a one-year stint as a “Confidential Assistant” to Azar, who was then deputy secretary. [.]
Before joining the Trump Administration in January 2018, Harrison’s official HHS biography says, he “ran a small business in Texas.” The biography does not disclose the name or nature of that business, but his personal financial disclosure forms show that from 2012 until 2018 he ran a company called Dallas Labradoodles.
The company sells Australian Labradoodles, a breed that is a cross between a Labrador Retriever and a Poodle.[.]

A very close CV for the task. No? Some Vets have advised we keep our pets inside.

Posted by: Likklemore | Apr 23 2020 1:26 utc | 213

YUM YUM EAT DON’T THINK
making moon bat soup
is a simple recipe
with one part messy market
and two parts jumping species
bitter ingredients be gone!
your lab leak heresy
will not be discussed here
unless defending the Chinese
your sick will go to stadiums
the rest wait for vaccines
await further instruction
and totally reliable testing
skeptics are killing grandma
skeptics must be stopped
only a selfish, right-wing loon
would take the face mask off!

Posted by: lizard | Apr 23 2020 1:31 utc | 215

Trump told us the novel coronovirus was nothing to worry about. Two weeks later he declared a national emergency.
We were told that masks were useless. A few weeks later, they were mandatory.
We were told that hydroxyChloroquine treatment is dangerous. Then that it is unproven/unapproved. Then that it has bad side effects and that bogus studies show that it doesn’t work. Yet people WITH NO FINANCIAL INTEREST tell us that it IS working.
As soon as Trump got his Wall Street bailout he was pushing to get people back to work. Because he doesn’t work for us. He presides over the neoliberal work camp known as USA. And furloughed workers means lost profits for THOSE THAT MATTER.
Now we are told to hate China. Yet the recognized timeline doesn’t support the assertion that China withheld information. In fact, Congressmen were briefed on the upcoming pandemic and acted on that info, selling stock and telling their close friends about the coming pandemic. And NYTimes wrote about how China had bought the West time and the West squandered it.
Where is the testing? China had developed a cheap 15-minute test by mid-February. South Korea has widespread tests. USA has a national emergency but Trump won’t force companies to produce what is needed. His song and dance about ventilators was a farce when it was already clear that testing, masks, and hydroxyChloroquine are really the answer.
The ‘problem’ with opening the economy lies with the failed government response.
!!

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Apr 23 2020 1:40 utc | 217

If our government leaders would provide more detailed information and educate the public rather than just saying without a lockdown millions would die and, it might help people understand the situation better. And since many areas of the US are virtually untouched people are starting to believe this was much to do about nothing DP @ 79 <= whenever government is conducted in secret the governed always lose.. The biggest failing of the USA constitution is sovereign immunity..preventing the governed the right to sue and imposing on the guilty life behind bars. Deep discussions are often not between right and wrong, but between two right ideas, like: 1. let's change to make things better 2. let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater or 1. individual liberty is important 2. responsibility to the group is important deltaeus @ 109 <=yes that is because big business expects to make massive bucks from the problems infectious agents cause humans. The enslavement of the world population (enslavement by virtue of poverty, insecurity etc.). It has provided the perfect cover, just as the lock downs are hiding the collapse and now all blame is on Covid19, not the collapse it hides. Had a big picture of this been grasped from the start, a calculus of lives lost via lock down versus jobs lost, stores closing etc., might have suggested it better to use traditional medical methods (focus on high risk, allow rest to go about their lives) than extreme administrative methods. by: Brad @ 130 Just like the street light system the virus has provided perfect cover for surveillance, crowd control and laws that remove civil and human rights. IF you have tested positive to SARS-CoV-2, then you are a danger to others. by: Peter AU1 @ 134 <= but that conclusion assumes your test results are not among the false positives of which there are many. No the uninfected others are the danger to our society, because they are not wearing sufficient personal protection to be safe from infecting agents. Big government should fund personal protection methods, not vaccinations vaccination are both too late and of the wrong kind at infection risk times. WG @ 96 said;"Like it or not, you need government, ..for civilized society (at least until you grow up a little more), and the reason your government sucks is because YOU let it suck. In the meantime, you need that government to provide the discipline that you lack so that you don't kill yourself and your neighbors due to your own lack of self-discipline." by: ben @ 140 BS..<= what is needed is sufficient cheap enough personal protection to protect every living human from every other living human.. Iran announced the right idea they developed a virus detection system for public places that detects infection risk in crowds and places of business. which allows the infected person in the crowd to be identified. ...it is clear that the lock-downs were the correct policy. Those who hate the lock-downs should be appealing for governments to speed up testing and early treatment. That is the way toward lifting the lock-downs responsibly. Jackrabbit @ 143 <== not true the government lock down and massive testing would have been unnecessary, and the testing is highly problematic, if governments had not put into law monopoly powers that allowed big business to privatize into profitable money making enterprises, at the expense of everyone else, patents and copyrights. Because if there were no monopoly profit possible in virus there would be adequate personal protection everywhere, and the PPP would protect not from just one virus, but from all virus type infections. Now government could require everyone to wear it, during times when infection risk (from any virus or fungi) was on the rise, just as they do when the sea is too dangerous at the beach. Assuming such equipment were available, I would agree government should strictly enforce the requirement that everyone protect themselves and wear the protection clothing and apparatus. the virus is just like the street light surveillance system, it can hold up traffic so that rebels can not get from home to the demostration while the government brings in its troops. What is true is that infectious pandemics could long ago have been denied a route to attack humanity.. Patents are responsible for the recent years pandemics ..I remember when everyone said nothing could be done to avert being tossed from the vehicle during highway collisions, but government passed a law, and safety belts were invented ..big pharma says nothing will work but their next big vaccine, but those vaccines are of little value, by the time they can be developed and tested, and worse, vaccines are generally virus specific so vaccines cannot be developed until the next virus arrives.
The better way, is to eliminate not the threat of infection, but the route by which the infection happen, do it with clothing and apparatus, much like the safety seat belt, merely make a safety belt (a zero tolerant virus outfit, one that can be worn by all, install UV shelters and walk through antibiotic disinfection showers) and who cares how many new virus come to town, A new vaccination, is almost useless, but it makes big pharma trillions, and cost the poorest the most, so no one is going to work on developing an infection in-tolerate personal protection outfit and no government is going to enforce that everyone wear such IIPPO because Big Pharma wants a patented vaccination they can bilk everyone in the world for.

Posted by: snake | Apr 23 2020 1:43 utc | 219

In 4 weeks NY went from a total of 6,075 cases of the flu to 143. For the entire state! The entire state of NY has 143 cases of the flu during statistically a high activity time of the year.
Where did the flu fly too?
And in December the CDC said this was going to be a rough flu season.
If the state-run mainstream media news never mentioned a thing and didn’t generate panic and hysteria the population would not have thought anything of it. They would just assume it was a more severe flu season like the one in 2018.
You didn’t really say much of anything JRabbit- and I’m a socialist BTW. But overall isn’t this all very encouraging- our masters have finally shown a sincere interest in our health and are protecting us.
Too many have abandoned their critical thinking skills.

Posted by: Allen | Apr 23 2020 2:03 utc | 221

Questions about the Coronavirus “Pandemic”
Why is the mainstream media engaged in constant fear mongering?
Why aren’t we seeing daily death counts of far more deadly diseases like TB, Hepatitis B, HIV/AIDS, Malaria?
Why aren’t we seeing daily death counts of vehicular deaths and injury every day – worldwide?
Why don’t we ever see the increasing number credible professionals with alternative, less drastic viewpoints on the subject of this “pandemic?”
Why is there absolutely no questioning the fatality level of the disease or why we should even shut down society to this extent?
Why aren’t we looking at shocking Italian Coronavirus death numbers more closely, when according to Prof Walter Ricciardi, scientific adviser to Italy’s minister of health, “only 12 per cent of death certificates have shown a direct causality from coronavirus, while 88 per cent of patients who have died have at least one pre-morbidity – many had two or three”?
Why aren’t we looking at health statistics based on ‘Deaths of Despair’(according to a study for every 1% of unemployment added there are 40,000 deaths) over unemployment in contrast to potential viral deaths?
Why aren’t we quarantining the most at risk population first and protecting them to the fullest extent rather than destroying our entire planet’s economic infrastructure?
If the government really cared about our more vulnerable segments of society, why is our older population being made to wait in long lines in the freezing cold at the grocery store without aid or assistance?
Why are there no questions being raised about the effectiveness of the Coronavirus test, when several studies and experts have said it is not reliable?
Why are so many “beloved” public figures being paraded out as having contracted the virus?
Why are we trusting Big Pharmacy/Medical INDUSTRY interests to decide our entire planet’s approach to the virus when it has been show time and time again that they continuously create products that are unsafe and have little regard(I.e. Oxy-leading cause of accidental death, third leading cause of death = medical mistakes) for the public over profit?
Why are we trusting Dr. Anthony Fauci, who is a Big Pharmacy spokesperson, to dictate our health policy now or ever?
Why are we trusting any government officials or medical experts who have highly profitable ties to ‘Big Pharma’?
Why will Big Pharmacy interests be allowed to make a profit during this planet-wide emergency while so many are suffering from an economic crisis that they have mandated?
Why isn’t there more accountability on Big Pharmacy interest and governments around the globe that do research on dangerous biological cultures?
Why are the quarantine levels being pushed up by people who have no fear of having lost jobs or who have very large reserves of wealth?
Why are leaders like Cuomo unnecessarily scaring the public with talk of 9 month quarantines?
Why are they pushing the invention of a vaccine as the cure for this virus when vaccines don’t work against the common cold or flu and have been shown to actually make you more susceptible to Coronavirus?
Why is Bill Gates, a computer geek geek with NO medical training, a person who can’t keep viruses off his monopolistic software in charge of this vaccine push?
Why are inexpensive alternative medicines being overlooked and/or being outlawed while the vaccine mandate is pushed when some of these treatments(i.e.mass doses of Vitamin C) have been shown to be extremely effective?
Why is the social distancing narrative being pushed over and over again when studies have proven that it does little or nothing to slow the virus?
Why are social distancing and ‘quarantine shaming’ videos being posted on international news when they are small isolated incidents?
What is the agenda as more articles are published saying this social distancing will be the ‘new normal’ going forward?
Why are health insurance companies making profits and even considering executive bonuses during this crisis?
Why aren’t any members of government who make an insider profit during this pandemic being stripped of their positions and put on trial immediately?
Why are ‘mom and pop’s stores going out of business, while large corporations like Amazon hiring by the 10’s of thousands?
Why are gyms being closed down in junk food restaurants allowed to stay open, when clearly the obesity epidemic far outweighs this pandemic?
Who decides what is an ‘essential business’ and what is not?
Aren’t all businesses essential, if it is your livelihood and puts food in your mouth?
Why is Game Stop considered an essential business, while my local Acupuncturist shut down?
Why are banks getting bailed out again?
Why are the stock markets permitted to trade and very wealthy people allowed to make even larger fortunes while the average person is losing their retirement fund?
Why aren’t public stocks and pension funds ‘protected’ first and foremost over individual profit?
Why is stock trading considered ‘essential’?
Why aren’t absurdly wealthy billionaires who pay virtually nothing in taxes being allowed to acquire more wealth, while millions of people will have their wealth stripped away?
Why won’t there be a massive wealth tax imposed on these people for the good of the community?
What has the FED done to ease this crisis?
Why is there no escape from this Coronavirus scare on absolutely any modern communication device, broadcast, or app when it is far less deadly than many other diseases?
Who sets the standard for shutting down society for illness or disease in the future?
Will we be required to destroy lives and the economy every time there is some type of viral scare moving forward?
Why are so many accepting virtual house arrest without the slightest push back, questioning, or struggle?

Posted by: Allen | Apr 23 2020 2:08 utc | 223

Allen | Apr 23 2020 0:51 utc | 209
Frustrating when reality won’t slide the way that you want it to, eh? Christ, such whining. If you want an ongoing pandemic that comes back in waves, don’t worry, your moronic countrymen are ensuring that you’ll get it.
Meanwhile, we’ll have to insist that all of you moonbat snowflakes remain on your own side of the Canada/US border. Don’t bring your shithole problems up north, eh?

Posted by: Zengine3 | Apr 23 2020 2:22 utc | 225

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Apr 22 2020 18:34 utc | 10
“Strange how complaints from this group align so well with exactly what the governments want: ignore the financial looting and focus on getting the wage slaves back to work, even if that means killing a bunch of people (that heartless capitalists find to be useless”
Please dun feeds the trolls. Anyone who are against “locked down” and with good writing skill long comments, no interest in Big Pharma are most likely trolls. You and I has been here for long time. I still remember Arnold, he’s from Thailand missing almost 3-yrs. Take care 🙂

Posted by: JC | Apr 23 2020 2:40 utc | 227

@B
The same ONS data was used by the Financial Times to produce this probably better visual:
That you depend on such a blatently fraudulent and discredited graphic, one that is clearly contradicted even by subsequent corrections to the ONS own reports, speaks volumes about the quality and reliability of your arguments.
Is it wise, B, to cling so voraciously to the claim “this alone is true, everything else is false” when steadily growing numbers of esteemed scientists, doctors, and professors of biomedical research are daring to step forward – against the mainstream media, against the main swell of (propagandised) public opinion, and against the government elites – to criticise the basis of such claims on scientific grounds and using scientific research to support their criticisms?
So doing does not lead to a dispassioned and enlightened evaluation of the evidence based on scientific criteria. Rather, it leads to an increased reliance on dogma, on propaganda, on the voices of those who shout loudest, on blind faith, on ignorance – and especially – on the power and dishonesty of the elites. So doing profoundly undermines the most important foundations of MoA that have long distinguished MoA in the past as an important and valuable source: namely, and precisely, balanced, independent and well-sourced analysis that is unswayed by elite interests or propaganda.
Have you any conception, B, of the extent to which your desperate clinging to the view “this alone is true, everything else is false” has already changed the assumptions many will unconsciously rely on when reading and judging your articles in the future? Assumptions about the quality and reliability of your analysis, about the balance of your judgement. MoA has a well-deserved reputation built up over many years. Will you discard that reputation so readily in the moment through ill-considered dogma?
You would do well at this point to reconsider the relevance of sound, balanced and independent analysis to the historical development of MoA’s reputation. You would do well to consider which articles have been enduringly most successful, and why, what qualities make them stand out.
You would do well to ponder this general question: what makes a person cling to the idea (whatever idea it may be) “this alone is true, everything else is false”? What are the inevitable consequences of such thinking?

Posted by: BM | Apr 23 2020 3:06 utc | 229

Twitter is far more toxic and dangerous to society than Covid 19. I have no clue why people [..] still validate that CIA censored turd of a platform.
Do yourselves a favor and quarantine yourselves from it.
Posted by: dave | Apr 23 2020 2:50 utc | 232
Very nicely put, Dave. Much the same applies to Arsebook, which is even more of a toxic curse on this planet, and which also needs to be quarantined, and also Google. All three are crucial propaganda tools of the elites which they use to manipulate, brainwash, exploit and repress the silent majority and thereby reinforce their power.

Posted by: BM | Apr 23 2020 3:18 utc | 231

@ bm 233.. i am curious how you explain the graph from the ons that shows a real increase in deaths for 2020 then?? it is on this page
here.. thanks…

Posted by: james | Apr 23 2020 3:25 utc | 233

San Francisco Opens Select Streets to Pedestrians, Bicyclists Amid Pandemic
https://tinyurl.com/yb6fh39w
Among the streets listed is Ellis Street between Polk and Leavenworth streets.
I live on that street this side of Leavenworth.
The block on the other side of Leavenworth is relatively sparse on one side – because PG&E has a huge building on it with a parking lot (plus a convenience store I shop at.) Still a few homeless hang out there on that side. The other side is *loaded* with homeless in tents. The next block up has a motel with night club, an apartment building, and a Kentucky Fried Chicken on one side, and supported housing and miscellaneous shops on the other. That side is loaded with black people from the supported housing hanging out.
So what part of that is a “slow street” which should be used by pedestrians and bicyclists? Makes zero sense to me. This appears to be a sop to people who are demanding an end to the lock down without any real benefit.
And San Francisco has *still* done *nothing* for the homeless and SRO residents. And they never will, despite all the alleged promises.

Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Apr 23 2020 3:37 utc | 235

Posted by: Othello | Apr 23 2020 1:06 utc | 211
Thank you so much Othello for your detailed description of the methods used in Hong Kong and Macau, which match very well with what I witnessed in China (what you described was slightly more relaxed, but entirely the same principle). As I have emphasised numerous times, China didn’t achieve their enormous successes through blind and destructive lockdowns like in parts of Europe and the US, but used selective lockdowns profoundly integrated with contact tracing, constant temperature screening, testing, quarantining, and moderate social distancing measures. Lockdowns in China were limited, measured, and carried out flexibly and with wisdom and compassion according to local need. Using such an approach automatically gains the respect and cooperation of citizens, especially with the long-standing reputation of the Chinese government for looking after their citizens.

Posted by: BM | Apr 23 2020 3:42 utc | 237

live video feed from wuhan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6bcICxR3p8
wonder what paveway is up to??

Posted by: james | Apr 23 2020 3:46 utc | 239

New Map Shows San Francisco’s Coronavirus Cases by Zip Code
https://tinyurl.com/y74fl7ng

According to the data, the 94107 zip code in the South of Market neighborhood, has one of the highest rates of COVID-19 infection in the city.
The high numbers there are partly because the Multi-Service Center South homeless shelter is located there, where an outbreak resulted in 96 residents testing positive.
The zip code with the highest number of cases is 94110, which is located in the Mission District. Even though Latinos make up just 15 percent of the city’s population, 25 percent of the city’s positive coronavirus cases are among Latinos.
Additionally, Latinos make up 80 percent of coronavirus patients at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital, a sharp increase from the regular 30 percent Latino hospital population.

On the other hand, their “Unknown” Race/Ethnicity data point is… 30%. Really? 30% no one knows? The page says: “The “Unknown” includes individuals who did not report a race/ethnicity to their provider, could not be contacted, or declined to answer.” Guess who is likely to do that…
The Black data point is…5%. Really? Or is that why 30% are “Unknown” – because no one wants to be accused of being “racist”? They’re trying to tell me that the huge percentage of black people I see without masks, no social distancing, hanging out all day with their homies – and they have few if any cases? While Latinos have *five times* that many cases?
Something’s wrong there.
Best news: My Zip code has only 9.9 cases per 10,000 population in a population of 56,000. Only 56 confirmed cases total. City-wide rate is 14.23.
Except I’ll bet they’re all on my block… LOL

Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Apr 23 2020 3:49 utc | 241

Posted by: Antonym | Apr 23 2020 3:43 utc | 242
I’m becoming increasingly of the opinion that NZ and Australia are getting off lightly because they have a different strain and population density. Time will tell when there are any 2nd waves. Also here in Ontario we are surrounded by the the NA epidemic in the US now. Again time will tell what strain and what measures worked for Canada, geographically we are stuck with the hand we were dealt.

Posted by: Gravatomic | Apr 23 2020 3:55 utc | 243

So obvious , even the troll dont make an effort to differentiate his sock puppet”s posts
a glance thru history of posts showed David F , Pupile , Disabuser and many more are from one person. Puppet accounts that support each other and congratulate each other are so typical. The method of claiming as an ‘expert’ or ‘marine’ or ‘veteran’ and then proceed to insult regular posters in MOA
Classic Hasbara 101 ‘Poison the well’ to make regular ppl abandon the comment section overran by bots and sock puppeters

Posted by: milomilO | Apr 23 2020 4:01 utc | 245

Posted by: pilpul artiste | Apr 23 2020 3:47 utc | 244 I think the idea was to make it easier for people to be able to walk around their neighborhood and still maintain social distancing…
That might make sense except in reality in most places in San Francisco today under the lockdown, you can walk all over the place and be fifty to 100 feet away from someone, let alone six feet – unless you’re going by a homeless tent city where that is *impossible* since they’re all over the sidewalk. Even on Market Street, there’s hardly anyone except depending on the flow of foot traffic eddies around specific corners, etc. So I don’t buy it – I’m pretty sure it’s a way of easing social pressure.
“I don’t really remember any residential neighborhoods”
SF has residential neighborhoods. I just never visit them because there are fewer shops I’d want to visit there. Also depends on what you’d consider “residential.” Neighborhoods with a lot of free-standing houses and yards are relatively rare until you get into the outer areas of the county – San Francisco is *small* – unless you’re talking the rich neighborhoods where everyone has a *wall* and a yard like feudal barons. (Gotta keep those “coloreds” away from the rich white folk, ya know…except for your Mexican maid, your black gardener, etc.) But there are places with row houses with a *small* yard and a garage either by the side or *under* the house. Most everyone else lives in apartment buildings (and the real estate developers who own this town like it like that – when they aren’t building massive hotels for the tourists.) But again, San Francisco is small, and with a population of 883,000 crammed into 47 square miles (population density 21st in the nation, 6,658.9 per square mile), there isn’t room for a lot of single family homes.

Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Apr 23 2020 4:06 utc | 247

Pft | Apr 23 2020 1:28 utc | 218
Brilliant post Pft. It aligns with the experts’ latest research, see my post 246.
People have gone mad here. As I said a week or so ago, my diagnosis is Trump Derangement Syndrome.

Posted by: fairleft | Apr 23 2020 4:11 utc | 249

fairleft | Apr 23 2020 3:54 utc | 246
The Standford Study was flawed. Several people at moa pointed this out. gm @190 posted a link to a video in which the presenter states that the Stanford Study was withdrawn.
From the link you provided actually makes points that favors the position favored by b and others that argue for a responsible lifting of lock-downs:

Some leaders, including US President Donald Trump, have proposed lifting some of the pandemic restrictions, but the paper warned that doing so was a wrong and dangerous way to go.
The researchers said that relaxing the lockdown measures without significantly ramping up infection control capacity such as testing could create a humanitarian disaster in the US similar to that experienced by Ecuador, where corpses of coronavirus victims were wrapped in cardboard and left on streets because too many people died.
. . .
One solution, according to the study, was to tighten lockdown measures while rapidly increasing testing and patient isolation…. This meant a stricter ban on public activities and the construction of makeshift hospitals to house all patients so they would not infect others.
China’s strategy of “elimination” was the most effective way to suppress the outbreak quickly, but was unsustainable due to its high cost, with 40-90 per cent loss of economic output in a month, they said.
The researchers suggested authorities consider the less stringent but equally effective strategies adopted by South Korea and New Zealand.

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Apr 23 2020 4:17 utc | 251

Continuing from @255
In the US we currently use a ‘virus mitigation’ strategy that demands social distancing and self-isolation. Masks were added later.
South Korea’s ‘virus suppression’ strategy is pro-active but requires mass testing, early treatment, housing infected people (instead of sending them home to infect their family), etc.
AFAICT, there are no plans for USA to change strategies. USA still has a shortage of PPE and a severe shortage of tests. But USA is determined to “open the economy” asap.
!!

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Apr 23 2020 4:29 utc | 253

I just wish, when covoid19 statistics are presented, then side-by-side they also present the statistics for flu/influenza/pneumonia. These would include daily, weekly, monthly stats, with trend lines going back ten years.
That way, when we know that covoid19 deaths are 150,000 people, and the annual deaths for influenza and pneumonia are usually 600,000 deaths, then we can calculate that we at 25% of our annual planetary allocation!
This would take all the steam and panic out of the ‘pandemic’ and allow us to make cool and educated decisions.
And I have never heard of a ‘pandemic’ which leaves children untouched. We have entered the twilight zone of the absurd!
And now that we have emptied the hospitals, cancelling all non essential surgery, are we now in a pandemic of heart/cancer/bowel deaths?

Posted by: Ric G | Apr 23 2020 4:33 utc | 255

@203
Foot note #2 on the CDC sight.
2Percent of expected deaths is the number of deaths for all causes for this week in 2020 compared to the average number across the same week in 2017–2019. Previous analyses of 2015–2016 provisional data completeness have found that completeness is lower in the first few weeks following the date of death (<25%), and then increases over time such that data are generally at least 75% complete within 8 weeks of when the death occurred (8).

Posted by: Michael Weddington | Apr 23 2020 4:44 utc | 257

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Apr 23 2020 4:29 utc | 257
So, what you, I and even angry Richard Steven Hack are advocating is to re-open the economy after we ramp up testing and monitoring and make sure those with the virus and the vulnerable are isolated properly. Like in South Korea, Qatar, Norway and New Zealand. That’s what the authors of the study recommend.
Or do you recommend we keep on destroying the US economy?

Posted by: fairleft | Apr 23 2020 5:09 utc | 259

Posted by: fairleft | Apr 23 2020 5:09 utc | 263 So, what you, I and even angry Richard Steven Hack are advocating is to re-open the economy after we ramp up testing and monitoring and make sure those with the virus and the vulnerable are isolated properly. Like in South Korea, Qatar, Norway and New Zealand. That’s what the authors of the study recommend.
Seriously, you’re enlisting *me* in support of your bullshit position – which you have been touting here for *days* if not longer? You claim you are recommending the same methods advocated in the article – the same methods used in South Korea – when there is *zero evidence* that such things are even possible in this country – and certainly not any time soon – and you have been denouncing the lockdown *without once* mentioning that using those methods? And *continuing* to *ignore* what I and others have *repeatedly* said – that the lockdown was only necessary *because* the US wasted *two months* of bullshit from people like *you* and Trump and that had the US *been* prepared, it would not have been necessary.
And you have failed to address *ANY* of the points I made – and that in fact the article made!
Seriously, you are unbelievable. Someone who is completely incapable of reading comprehension – and still less capable of caring about that as long as you can recite another version of your bullshit.
The textbook definition of a TROLL.

Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Apr 23 2020 5:24 utc | 261

I wrote this on my Facebook page to address the idea that calculated giving in to authority in some areas is not anti freedom in the colloquial sense of the word. It seems appropriate to repost it here as it addresses the rather clumsy approach people like Corbett take on the subject. I like James a lot and think he’s a good man who serves an important function in society.
At the risk of drawing fire from my own allies, there seems to be a widespread misunderstanding of the concept of freedom. Every and any encroachment on what many see as personal freedom are quickly labeled fascism. And, while that has certainly been the trend in western countries, and I certainly sympathize with the assumption, it’s not always the case.
Necessarily, freedom and liberty must strike a balance in a country or a world where the good of the people, including yourself, is present and the concept of tyranny is absent.
What does this mean?
Rousseau, who greatly influenced the modern western legal system, framed it loosely like this:
Freedom and liberty are two opposing points on a spectrum.
Absolute freedom is a condition where we are absolutely free from harm others can cause us, whether it be crime or things like pollution, or even infection. Absolute freedom would necessarily be a police state.
Absolute liberty is a world with no restraints. No one can tell you what to do, or who you can and can’t harm. Absolute liberty is the law of the jungle and rule of the strongest.
Rousseau argued that we are “forced” to be free. What did he mean by that? He meant that we are forced to give up some of our liberty so that we will be free from harm that we will all suffer should we be exposed to the laws of the jungle.
In layman’s terms, I am not allowed to ravish your daughters and steal your chickens because if I am, then you would be allowed to ravish my daughters and steal my chickens, because a world where I can harm and be harmed is not a free world. All reasonable people agree to this I think.
Likewise, a world where I am absolutely free from harm is a world where I’m a prisoner, therefore, we must find the sweet spot in the middle where I won’t be harmed by you, but I won’t be a victim of the police either.
So, the argument today, when we can be harmed by others inadvertently, is how much liberty must we temporarily cede in order to be free? It’s an unavoidable argument by nature.

Posted by: Don | Apr 23 2020 5:34 utc | 263

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2020/7/schedule/13/enacted
In the Coronavirus Act 2020 all legislation has been amended and this Act stays in force until 2022 giving the Government powers to override all existing legislation

Posted by: Paul Greenwood | Apr 23 2020 5:42 utc | 265

allen 225, 227
What is the agenda as more articles are published saying this social distancing will be the ‘new normal’ going forward?
The whole concept of self-isolation and anti-social “distancing” is radically anti-human. We evolved over millions of years to be social creatures living in tight-knit groups, and although modern societies ideologically and socioeconomically work to massify and atomize people, nevertheless almost all of us still seek close human companionship in our lives.
This terror campaign seeks to blast to pieces any residual human closeness, which means any residual humanity as such, the better to isolate individual atoms for subjection to total domination. Arendt wrote profoundly on this goal of totalitarian governments, though even she didn’t envision a state-driven cult of the literal physical repulsion of every atom from every other atom.
If the state-run mainstream media news never mentioned a thing and didn’t generate panic and hysteria the population would not have thought anything of it. They would just assume it was a more severe flu season like the one in 2018.
I’d bet money on that.

Posted by: Russ | Apr 23 2020 5:46 utc | 267

Globalization always has sought to dig up and propagate every pathogen it can. Now it may have found a type of flu which is not qualitatively worse than other flus, but somewhat more contagious.
And that latter circumstance, if true, is what guarantees that this natural process of the virus cycling through the population will assert itself. Society’s options are to meet this flexibly and adaptively, or to try to use rigid force to resist. The latter is guaranteed to fail, can only excruciatingly drag out the process of developing herd immunity, and brings horrible ancillary evils on top of whatever the virus is going to do.
What we see here is a version of Dominion theology which thinks it can dominate nature, the totalitarian technocratic mindset which is delusional in thinking it can control nature.
There’s no comparison between this and e.g. medieval epidemics. As with every other evil, globalization carried out its function of propagating this flu bug worldwide as fast as it could. There was never any opportunity for quarantines to work. All we’re left with is the demented notion of closing the barn door after the cow is out, locking people inside and then setting the barn on fire.

Posted by: Russ | Apr 23 2020 5:56 utc | 269

The latest study provided by experts, referred to in my posts above, can be found directly here:
https://arxiv.org/abs/2004.07765
The study recommends the strategy taken by what it labels the “control group”: “This group includes South Korea, Singapore, Qatar, Norway, Slovenia, Russia, and New Zealand, etc., all with R0< 1, but still not sufficiently small, such that the epidemic can be reduced to a lower level (but not eliminated), depending on the stringency of intervention measures. Singapore in February was the most prominent example within this group, where antiepidemic measures have been mild enough not to affect everyday life by aggressive social distancing. Through regular epidemiological control practices, they managed to maintain a daily increase of infected cases fewer than 10, and only suffered 0.5%–4% loss of economic outcome in a month. The control strategy requires a highly capable epidemic control system. Given the aforementioned long-term uncertainties, even with such a capable system, the strategy is still a tightrope-walking game with the risk of abrupt system overload by accidentally untracked surges of infection, which, unfortunately, appears to be the case in Singapore in early April. ..." "Only suffered 0.5%–4% loss of economic outcome" sounds fantastic! If you're not lucky enough to be a citizen of one of the "control group" countries, please urge your country to imitate the wise policies they have implemented. We need to avoid a massive worldwide economic depression, don't you think? On the other hand, a poster above (#260) has called the authors of the study I cite "by definition sociopaths" so be warned.

Posted by: fairleft | Apr 23 2020 6:13 utc | 271

Hi there. This is the first time I comment in this, one of my most admired ones, blog.
I admire B and lots of people who comment in here. I have been following this blog since the beginning of the crisis in Siria, daily with lots of admiration for B.
I am writing cause I totally concur with Mr. James Corbett. I admire him as much as I admire this blog and your enlightening labor for years.
I agree with him with the idea that you should have use this platform to voice other voices than the main stream ones. We have the MSM to know about the benefits of lockdowns an quarantines. Alternative media should use its platforms to air the voices of the people (scientist and experts in this case) that can not find a way to explain and share publicly their valid and profesional points of view.
There are hundreds of respectable virologists and epidemiologists that don’t agree at all with the draconian mesures our governments are imposing in our societies. It is gonna be very difficult to come out of the lockdowns and because of them nothing is going to be the same afterwards, and them what?, Mr Gates vaccine?
I think B, you should have choose to use this platform to help other voices of judgement be heard. Corporative MSM is not good and you are fully with them in this one.
As I see it we are dismantling society to save the very old ready to dye and people with other morbidity issues. We should have just lock down them and continue with business as usual. Aside from that I don’t think is the same to dye with Covid than to dye with Covid. In my country and I think in most countries If I dye tomorrow in a car accident and I have tested with cover my death certificate is gone say that I died of Covid. Why this obsession in counting all deaths as Covid deaths. Too many loose ends my friend.
All your Covid articles about Covid are superb but I don’t read your blog to get this kind of information. To do that I read the New York Times.

Posted by: Alfrodenas | Apr 23 2020 6:21 utc | 273

OK my turn since everyone else appears to have a lot to say. I got home about half an hour ago poured my first scotch (Good news 4 me my local bottle-O tired of seeing big city corporations milking their customers by charging $100 for 1,5 liters of cheap scotch delivered to the door, but taking two weeks to get it to ya, has put one of their young Pakistani blokes in a van & is delivering everywhere including all the way out to my joint. I dunno why this but I’ve noticed for a while that the best booze sellers are Islamic – eg my bottle-O is owned by a personable young Iranian).
Anyway I dunno if I’ve mentioned this but Jacinda & her crew of worthless neo-libs have succumbed to the pressure form corporate lobbyists is about to lift the lockdown by slackening off a bit for two weeks, then if there hasn’t been a spike, slackening off totally.
The flaw is obvious, two weeks isn’t long enough to judge the first slackening off.
Worst off all it is late autumn & we have just had the first couple of cold snaps. I have already told many of our ‘clients’ that we cannot keep delivering once the lock comes off because it is just too dangerous for them as well a us (most of the crew are boomers so fit into the “could get really crookfrom the coronovirus” category, but the big danger is that when the thing does get loose & can be caught in any old supermarket, we could become unwitting vectors. We keep distance, use gloves and masks but sanitizer is quite difficult to source & very expensive. Someone could catch it off a tin or carton. I’ve been making hand sanitizer from 70% methylated spirits 30% aloe vera gel, but I dunno if some of our most vulnerable customers use it enough.
The anti-government types would be smarter to kick up about the way governments have been lobbied into lifting the lockdown, rather than worrying about getting plucked by the bill & slotted up.
I drive around most days & have a piece of paper signed by a doctor authorising me to do so as an alleged ‘essential service’ yet haven’t been pulled once. That said I know others who are known members of gangs that the police gang is at war with who have been repeatedly pulled over.
The lockdown is a handy excuse for harassing ‘the enemy’ sure, but coppers harass these guys all the time regardless of lockdown, this is just a bit of novelty for cops who can pretty much do what they want regardless of any pandemic.
If the whiners moaning about abuse of power were truly honest they wouldn’t pissfart about whinging over a tiny weapon in the oppressor’s arsenal, they would be pushing to remove all the powers that are abused by so-called law enforcement.
At least lockdown is an attempt to promote a social good, show me one drug or sex work law that can rightly claim that – there are none, at best those laws enable easy harrassment of the marginalised, at worst they enable corruption by large criminal enterprises.
So freedom-fighters why doncha fight for something more useful than stopping the proven method of slowing down, sometimes halting an epidemic?

Posted by: A User | Apr 23 2020 6:27 utc | 275

Apple and Google are teaming up to force contact tracing onto our phones

How Apple and Google Are Enabling Covid-19 Contact-Tracing
The tech giants have teamed up to use a Bluetooth-based framework to keep track of the spread of infections without compromising location privacy.

I just dont trust the “without compromising location privacy”. Initially perhaps, but software changes over time and features will be added.

Posted by: Joost | Apr 23 2020 6:44 utc | 277

Richard Steven Hack at 282, please re-read Deltaeus’ comment:

Covid19 has made people fearful, perhaps including commenters here. When we are fearful, we are less tolerant of uncertainty and disagreement, more likely to be dogmatic.
When this crisis passes, I hope to see a return to respectful disagreement focusing on bringing forward missing facts to enlighten the conversation, and abhorrence for ad hominem attacks.
It is a sad observation that these days so many people regard anyone who disagrees with them as mentally defective and morally contemptible.
It is so much healthier to be curious: how did you come to that position? why would you believe that? do you have facts of which I am unaware?

Posted by: Deltaeus | Apr 22 2020 20:52 utc | 98

Posted by: fairleft | Apr 23 2020 6:57 utc | 279

Without reference to the merits of your views versus Off-guardian I would advise caution in propping up any argument on the basis of ONS statistics unless you have very clear knowledge of how such data is compiled. It combines CSO with OPCS and therefore accesses Death Registration data.
You should know how UK death registration occurs. In hospital it is Part 1 that is filled in by a Doctor usually a Junior. The Part 2 must be completed by a completely different doctor if cremation is proposed – that takes time since that doctor must be completely separate from the first in all respects. The second doctor gets a fee “ash cash” to sign off on the entries by Doctor 1.
Death Certificates read upwards with ailments contributing to death in rising order of significance until the top item states proximate cause with others as contributory. Since UK Hospitals have for many years been obliged to publish mortality statistics by hospital and rankings they may well be included to book “Exceptional Items” currently by logging everything as Covid-19. The Medical Defence Union , the malpractice insurer is asking government to indemnify doctors for all Covid-19 cases in a blanket immunity.
There are highly political factors at work. There is a vested interest in Whitehall in having as many deaths booked to Covid-19 as possible to justify extreme measures and extreme spending. It is an essential fig-leaf for very naked politicians.
Typically around public holidays nursing homes used ri decant their elderly into NHS hospitals because relatives did not want to take them and it was easier to have them die in hospital. The effect was “bed-blocking” by 80 year olds which has also been a problem as local government lacked funds for social care so left them with NHS. Now we have the absurd situation of Governments in Europe funding bed-blocking by >80 and >90 year olds directly and re-purposing hospitals. So the death statistics are questionable as a policy guide.
Further, when filing a death in UK there is a window of 5 days to register a death and 8 in Scotland. To do this you need the Death Certificate which is delayed by needing 2 doctors to sign off, often in remote locations. Then you need a Disposal Certificate from an undertaker to permit removal of the body and disposal. That Dione it is registered in the local office and in time collated in London electronically.
So the deaths reported on any one day may be spread over 6 weeks.
The statistical inferences from the data are invalid because they are nothing other than a running average in terms of inferences.
As for Flu in UK – MOST respiratory deaths occur around March. UK is damp and housing stock is oldest in Europe
Posted by: Paul Greenwood | Apr 23 2020 5:36 utc | 268
Oh what a breath of fresh air! Thanks for that common sense Paul Greenwood.
So the deaths reported on any one day may be spread over 6 weeks.
I suspect that that “infamous” twitter chart with the vertical spike suddenly appearing from nothing in week 14 (and reproduced in the FT) is probably entirely due to an accumulation of delayed death registrations (only about 1 third of them covid-19), that were forced to be published in one go due to pressure to clear backlogs of unregistered deaths before Easter holidays. When idiot published the vertical spike chart on twitter, the government liked the effect it had on raising panic, and decided to fit the statistical narrative around it.
It is absolutely certain that the ONS had specific information about the patterns of delays of death registrations leading up to week 14, which would have made a critical difference to understand the real data. Why didn’t they publish that information (especially differences in delayed registrations registered in week 14 compared to earlier, and why they were delayed)? That is a conspicuous absence from the lengthy analysis they published on 16th April. It seems reasonable to suspect they were likely exploiting registration delay anomalies in order to nurture the false interpretations of the data desired by the government.

Posted by: BM | Apr 23 2020 7:07 utc | 281

Don’t let the door hit you on your very welcome way out…

No one reads. No one thinks. No one is capable.
I’m done here. The unrelenting crew of idiots with their policy of just repeating the same bullshit over and over in comment after comment by the same trolls has indeed won out.
I recommend Bernhard just delete all the coronavirus articles he has posted since this started, as they are doing nothing but importing the most useless irrational trolls I’ve ever seen here at MoA, despite the several years I’ve been coming here. If he goes back to discussing Syria, Iran, or other foreign policy issues primarily, I shall return, at least to read his posts.
There’s only so much idiocy I can take in one day, and fairleft and the rest of her scumbag cronies have exceeded that limit.
Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Apr 23 2020 6:47 utc | 282

Posted by: Avid Lurker | Apr 23 2020 7:25 utc | 283

We’ve accepted politicians’ orders with zero scientific studies, using test subjects, to back up those edicts. We have just been following orders. Not all of us have, though. My family needs sunshine for Vitamin D and human contact. To sacrifice our children in this mess is especially cruel, but my children’s lives have been put on hold and they are missing out on things they will never get back, all because of politicians’ unscientific orders. This dud of a pandemic will be blamed for everything. Putting families under house arrest, and closing down businesses, is bizarre and unhealthy. Unfortunately, MoA cannot see through the illusion, or chooses not to. I can’t help but wonder why.

Posted by: trishwriter | Apr 23 2020 7:36 utc | 285

There is a lot of poorly devised research projects on COVID-19 that wastes precious time. One of these is testing the efficacy of Hydroxychloroquine as a means to suppress the virus.
This chlorinated organic, only serves to lower the cell pH and transport zinc into the cell to block the viral replicase during early stages in the infection. Unfortunately, US studies only use it in late stages of the dis-ease and fail to incorporate zinc in the treatment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=481&v=dLSYRqcg0wo&feature=emb_logo
Besides taking zinc+copper at a 15:1 ratio (30 mg zinc) and quercetin at a dose of 1-2 grams a day works as well to suppress the viral infection in the early stages without the toxicity issues.
Once infected, a treatment with IV vitamin C plus a arthritis medication saved the life of a Seattle doctor who came down with the virus. Turns out that once the virus gets into the bloodstream the vitamin C levels drop to zero.
Posted by: krollchem | Apr 23 2020 7:38 utc | 290

Shionoiri et al.: All ACE inhibitors bind to zinc ions located in the active site of the ACE molecule. ACE2 is a zinc metalloenzyme and carboxypeptidase located as an ectoenzyme on the surface of endothelial and other cells. Reeves et al. Effects of Dietary Zinc Deprivation on the Activity of Angiotensin-Converting Enzyme [ACE] in Serum of Rats and Guinea Pigs.
Effects of Dietary Zinc Deprivation on the Activity of Angiotensin-Converting Enzyme in Serum of Rats and Guinea Pigs
Supplemental zinc (total, 24 microM) increased both Vmax and Km. EDTA inhibited the enzyme activity, and the inhibition was totally reversible by zinc. Copper at 30 microM had no effect on ACE activity. The results of this study show that ACE activity in serum of rats and guinea pigs is highly sensitive to the dietary intake of zinc and suggest that metabolism of the vasoactive hormones, angiotensin II and bradykinin, might be affected in vivo.

Posted by: Avid Lurker | Apr 23 2020 7:54 utc | 287

Chloroquine Is a Zinc Ionophore

Posted by: Avid Lurker | Apr 23 2020 8:15 utc | 289

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=74&v=meLGD-tX6Jo
NYTimes Doug Mills caught on a hot mike.
“You can take off that mask, everyone here has been vaccinated anyway”

Posted by: Ship Track | Apr 23 2020 8:28 utc | 291

Facts: Trump has been twitting endlessly about “fake news” since his election. The major news outlets have been lying about most everything ever since JFK’s assassination.
Conclusion: When determining if any information is true or false first consider the source. Is the source reliable? Does the source have a history of being false? Second do your own research.
Given that, I personally do not trust any of the information that has been put forth by the CDC, WHO etc (known to be compromised by money). My drive past our local hospital showed an empty parking lot and zero wait time for ER. Hmmm…that is an observable fact.
Here is another fact: The lady in line behind me at the store said her husband is a nurse at a hospital and they are giving him time off because things are so slow.
Conclusion based on observable facts: This is all a bunch of nonsense. The major news outlets are doing today what they do every day. Lie, lie, lie.
Question: Why does Trump believe them TODAY when all along he has touted them as (what they are) liars?
PS do yourself a favor and do some real research by real scientistsdoctors about viruses. Please educate yourselves and you will find out that a “virus” is not a living thing!!!!! Also educate yourselves about the 5G rollout in Wuhan.

Posted by: ceaclearly | Apr 23 2020 9:18 utc | 293

Wow, Canada is doing pretty good, numbers wise, vs. the US but we aren’t overrun with imbeciles. Reading the covidiot comments here I can definitely see why. Seems that every one of them has latched onto a single piece of a puzzle and they’re using it to deny what’s happening all over country, like a person who’s too stupid to look out the window to check the weather.
Tell ya what, deniers. You guys have about 70 years of total $#%& karma stored up. I’ve decided that I agree with you. End all quarantines, lock-downs, distancing measures, relief measures, and just go out there and do what you want. It probably won’t involve a living wage, but like I said, your karma is in the toilet.
You also have to remain within your own national borders. K? Thx.
Remember, covidiot: If you cough up bloody goo, it’s not real. Just a panic response, so get back to work you lazy snowflake.

Posted by: Zengine3 | Apr 23 2020 9:42 utc | 295

Lots of new police statist pro-lockdown trolls in this thread, spewing venom and performing Orwellian inversions turning the English language on its head. I wonder who sent them.

Posted by: Russ | Apr 23 2020 9:55 utc | 297

I’m neither qualified or have the appropriate data to argue in favor or against a lockdown in this case. I think the only thing we really can do is look back in 1/2 years time to see which countries have done better. I wonder if there’ll be a difference between those who have locked down and those who have not.
It is intersting to look at the euroMOMO data to compare the mortality rate for this year to previous years for the EU countries.
https://www.euromomo.eu/
The worst infected countries are all showing increased mortality relative to recent years. Interestingly, Sweden is one of those. That would suggest that the argument that Sweden is somehow doing better than the UK is a moot point. Time will tell ultimately.
Here in Ireland, our Chief Medical Officer has said we don’t have any excess mortality relative to previous years yet. The euroMOMO graphs agree with his statement. It makes sense given our official death toll from Covid-19 is 769 at the time of writing. I’m sure multiples of that figure have died already since the start of the year from other causes. The natural argument there is that the death toll would be much higher without our lock down, but again time will tell there.
Stay safe everyone. Irrespective of what the actual Infection Fatality Rate (It will of course end up much lower) ends up being, I would rather not catch it or have any of my loved ones catch it either.

Posted by: Mark | Apr 23 2020 9:59 utc | 299