The followup from Off Guardian this morning is very interesting and well worth the read. Much of the issue is one of credibility. There is not any good reason to believe the “Authorities” and MSM due to their history of lying to us repeatably. (e.g. 9-11, JFK, etc.) As a Roman said 2,000 years ago, “A liar is not to be believed even when he is telling the truth.” How are we to know he has repented? (He hasn’t.) I value B’s opinion too, of course.
https://www.zerohedge.com/health/global-covid-19-lockdown-what-youre-not-being-told-part-2

Posted by: Roger Wilo | Apr 23 2020 10:03 utc | 304

Russ @ 271 says:
The whole concept of self-isolation and anti-social “distancing” is radically anti-human
indeed, but in the USA at least, where it’s not uncommon to live next door to someone for 10 or 20 years without exchanging more than three words, this concept becomes almost moot, but nonetheless certainly precludes the likelihood of engendering a healthy sense of civic responsibility; of course pixelating visions in front of plasma screens for HOURS every day doesn’t augur well in this regard either.
no, endemic loneliness compounded by enforced isolation = deep psychosis.
in fact, this could already explain some of the paranoia cropping up around here.
…
for the record, here in central Italy(Umbria), where the Covid numbers have always been relatively low, where we’ve had 61 total deaths and no new cases for almost a week, things are starting to open up, but…
the psychological sop has been ratified, so, we’ll see…

Posted by: john | Apr 23 2020 10:14 utc | 306

“Expect hot southern states to perform better in this Pandemic, as studies has found that 15 minutes sun kills the virus and that it survives 2 days at 30 C vs one week at 22 C. High humidity plus hot air helps too”
That would explain why Canada is “performing better” than the US, eh?
No, it’s just a lower concentration of fools and not quite as much $#%& national karma.

Posted by: Zengine3 | Apr 23 2020 10:25 utc | 308

@308 “demonstrating ultimately the superiority in this case of their systems of governance”
No, doubtful. That’s simplistic.
The Asian countries have done so well because they had been through this before with SARS.
So they learnt their lesson: be prepared, be well stocked with PPE, have a plan and Know When To Enact It, and when the time comes you COME DOWN HARD with social distancing, early detection and exhaustive backtracking when someone comes up positive.
The “western” countries like the USA, UK, Italy and Spain mistook medical expenditure for preparedness and so they were totally unprepared when reality stepped up and wiped that smugness away by slamming its fist into their face.
It has nothing to do with “system of governance”.
It is hubris, plain and simple, and now that “the west” has been disabused of their notion that pandemics only happen in developing countries then they will regroup and do what is necessary the next time this happens.
Too little, too late *this* time around, sure. But they won’t make the same mistake a second time. Just as China and Vietnam and South Korea made that same mistake first time around with SARS.

Posted by: Yeah, Right | Apr 23 2020 10:31 utc | 310

“if this were a real plague killing crazy numbers of people, would we still be arguing about how deadly it is a month on?
That right there tells you that something’s wrong with the official narrative.
Posted by: Seamus Padraig | Apr 23 2020 10:00 utc | 305”
No, seeing how COVID-19 has surpassed heart attacks and cancer as the number one killer of Americans, it only tells me that you make crap up out of whole cloth and rebrand it as fact. Typical American way of thinking. “I farted it, so it must be true.”
https://www.healthleadersmedia.com/covid-19/coronavirus-becomes-number-one-cause-death-day-us-surpassing-heart-disease-and-cancer

Posted by: Zengine3 | Apr 23 2020 10:36 utc | 312

Posted by: Zengine3 | Apr 23 2020 10:25 utc | 313
The US is not a hot southern state. This will help more in equatorial or tropical countries. There are also many factors involved, not only this one.
But taken on average, northern countries performed far worse than southern tropical countries.
The poor South will be lucky this time. It will be rich countries that will be hit the most.
The data is clear – virus does not like sun and heat.

Posted by: Passer by | Apr 23 2020 10:45 utc | 314

@Pft #220
Asians travel through SF and LA because the Pacific is wide.
Mainland Chinese don’t mix with the local Chinese population in LA or SF, hardly at all.

Posted by: c1ue | Apr 23 2020 11:10 utc | 316

@skeptic23 #203
Thank you for the latest installment in: statistics by dummies.
National mortality data is seriously lagged – they are always behind and revised for up to 2 years.
Here’s more relevant data:
National Center for Health Statistics, flu deaths
Your attempt to show “no difference” is wrong because there is normally a reduction in deaths from January to April – we’re not seeing that this year because of nCOV.
And more importantly, the stats only go to the very beginning of April – again due to data lag.

Posted by: c1ue | Apr 23 2020 11:29 utc | 318

@john #312
Wow, you really need a study to understand that being trapped in your house with one or more persons infected with nCOV greatly increases the risk of the rest of the household getting it?
Do you not understand that overall population attack numbers do not equate to infection rates from first-hand, prolonged exposure?
Even if you can’t get that – what about medical personnel getting nCOV in very high numbers?
nCOV infection is a function of *both* innate immunity and exposure.
If you get a high dose, your immune response is less important.

Posted by: c1ue | Apr 23 2020 11:38 utc | 320

@Passer by #319
Possibly, but the global South nations also happen to be much, much younger on average. The entire continent of Africa – age averages 19.4 years. Given that nCOV doesn’t affect people under 20 almost literally at all – Is it (lack of) age or the sun?

Posted by: c1ue | Apr 23 2020 11:41 utc | 322

re: Posted by: Passer by | Apr 23 2020 10:45 utc | 319 who said
“The poor South will be lucky this time. It will be rich countries that will be hit the most.”
If only, the real difference between North & South is that we in the South are coming out of summer & the North is coming out of winter. The South is going to cop it real hard because too many of the citizens down here have convinced themselves that they live in a lucky country who have somehow mysteriously deserved to be let off the worst of Covid 19.
As a result it has been all too easy for the global capitalists promoting the fact free views which the Off Guardian obligingly laps up, to convince the neolib pols who rule the roost down here, to wind back the lockdown regimen and get back into generating wealth for the corporatists (question if the Off G mob are so deprecating of global capitalism why are they carrying water for the rich pricks?).
Winter is coming on here and everything points towards rampant covid 19 infection.
The lame excuse that people are suffering because they cannot generate income is a furphy. Responsible pols are ensuring all citizens are recompensed, the issue is that the same crooked fucks persuading them that lockdown is un-necessary are denying them access to a liveable income purely to force them into submission. The winning response is not to go along with such oppressive cruelty but to make it plain to prince maga of orange that if all citizens are not provided with a decent income during the pandemic, prince maga will lose his gig. that will get him concentrating because he needs one more term to fully realise on the occupied Palestine property development deals which Jared has stitched together with nuttyahoo.
Even worse, that dashed uncooperative congress was hurt that no one offered them a piece of the action, so managed to delay prince maga’s infrastructure expenditure sufficiently to make getting past go and collecting $200 kazillion impossible until next term. The wall is the biggest single earner but there are also over-priced under-engineered civil projects in virtually every state that prince maga is depending upon to keep him out of the bankruptcy courts for the rest of his natural.
Rather than playing into maga of orange’s hand by agitating for a stop to the lockdown, true humanists are arguing for a decent income for all citizens regardless of some type of crooked ‘book balancing’. As the banksters demonstrated in 2008, printing money is no problem, the only issue arises when a government hands that money over to the citizens rather than the elite – that is when the wall st journal & the financial times run beat ups about ‘impending inflation’.
Amerikan workers have spent the last two decades working harder than ever before for less income than ever before, kowtowing to the elite by begging to go back to work, thereby risking catching a fatal illness isn’t at all revolutionary, it is typical rightist indoctrination telling decent humans that kissing the hand that bashes them is their xtian duty.

Posted by: A User | Apr 23 2020 12:03 utc | 324

@ Glossopteris | Apr 22 2020 21:13 utc | 113
Thank you for a valuable report from inside a hospital.
It worries me to hear that patients are still stuck on to ventilators by default. For weeks the insight from South Korea and other countries has been that ventilators on balance do more damage than good – oxygen masks are more effective and gentler. Another insight the West has chosen to ignore, whether out of arrogance or intent, and that we now slowly and unnecessarily replicate.
Ventilators need to be adjusted carefully for each patient, pressure, flow rate etc. Else they can easily damage the lungs even of healthy people. Up to 15% of medical staff including the required experts are quarantined, add to that overload and confusion in hospitals, and unless ventilators are meticulously sterilised they become an effective tool to implant hospital super bugs deep in the lungs. In Italy and Spain, that is the suspected cause of many Covid-attributed deaths.
Hospitals in the UK have doubled their ICU beds and are coping well. That says a lot, as the NHS is pushed beyond its limits by every more severe flu season. The much touted “Nightingale” makeshift hospital in the huge Excel convention centre saw a mere 19 patients over Easter. Remember how UK panic propaganda had been reaching peak shrillness over that evocatively named field hospital.

Posted by: Leser | Apr 23 2020 12:30 utc | 326

That looks like a small number but remember that nearly no one has yet acquired immunity.
Posted by b on April 22, 2020 at 18:02 UTC | Permalink
The issue has always been your insistence on accepting the pandemic response program and oddly not taking apart the laughably poor data inputs.
Based on what data?
There is no data to back your assertion, B. The only thing that is supporting that assumption is your assumptions about the actual nature of geopolitical state in the world and the integrity and honety of Communist China.
“CCP wouldn’t lie about this and shut down Wuhan if this was nothing!”, right?
Right?
All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when we are able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must appear inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near. — A Chinese fellow
So the problem here, B, is that you have WASTED valuable weeks of posts arguing the Red Herring of “in a pandemic of course we must do this”.
We would expect a freedom and truth loving fellow like you, with your demonstrated expertise in taking apart psychological warfare crap using bad data and lies to first and foremost VET the story, instead of harping the rational preventive measures which the corporate media was already informing us of anyway) and which is really not the issue anyway.
So sorry to break this to you, but it is in fact possible that your heroes in China have been fucking with our heads.
I assert that there is no danger to humanity via Covid-19.
I demand that anyone pushing maximalist police state future on us first make demonstrated extraordinary effort to gather correct, complete, and viable data, first.
ANYONE who refuses to do that former but insists on the latter is suspect, dear B. Nothing personal.

Posted by: concerned | Apr 23 2020 12:42 utc | 328

c1ue | Apr 23 2020 11:32 utc | 324
No c1ue, you’re the one searching desperately for confirmation that Covid is far worse than the data tell us. Because I’ve discussed or touched on pretty much all the studies. I’ve cited a review by Ioannidis of Stanford that looked at every single study (of a certain minimal size and scientific quality) up to April 4, which included assessment of the German and Iceland studies. Later the Santa Clara County and LA County studies. ALL confirm the University of Oxford assessment that the virus very rarely kills under-65s in good health, and that the virus infection fatality rate (IFR) is likely between 0.36 and 0.1. 0.1 is the same IFR as the flu.
In fact the LA County study indicates the IFR might be as low as 0.09, lower than the flu. Soumya Karlamangla: “This study suggests that the covid fatality rate in LA County, currently estimated to be around 4%, is probably more likely between .15 and .09%, when accounting for all the infections that have not been counted.”
So, I have all the studies on my side. There are problems with all the data, it’s not perfect. But do you really think there’s a conspiracy among leading scientists around the world to lie about and downplay the Covid IFR in every statistical study done so far? Why do all the studies point in one direction, down, for the IFR?
By the way, the same information process has happened with previous epidemics — SARS, bird flu, Ebola virus, MERS, and so on — initial media hysteria followed by calming, more scientific information.

Posted by: fairleft | Apr 23 2020 13:02 utc | 330

‘b’ opened the discussion of ‘b’…so it must be a desired topic.
When ‘b’ writes “If that makes me an ‘authoritarian’ in the view of some then let it be so.”
He’s saying what important to him, an apology, which is that he seeks authority but in disguise. He wants the power but not the responsibility. He’s suggesting that “some views” may be be seeing properly, they ought to trust not their lyin’ eyes… and “let it be so” seems to imply a surrender to power in the guise of fates. Disingenuous, my mother might have said about that.
And his recent change in the disguise, which some have remarked upon, may be related to a visit from “authority”.
Rest in peace Brother b.
Of course saying that an authoritarian political position is not authoritarian is a bald give-away.
I too have snapped to attention, on occasion, if memory’s not faded.

Posted by: Walter | Apr 23 2020 13:16 utc | 332

Richard Steven Hack @282: “I’m done here…”
If people like you leave then the trolls win.
Take a break. Get some fresh air (in a safe place!). Then come back when you feel like it and give us updates and analysis from your neck of the woods. People do read your posts, or at least I do, but I am sure there are many more. Don’t let the trolls frustrate you. Let the BS slide off like water off a duck’s back. Don’t feel you have to respond to everything the trolls say. Make your point and defend it, but if you find yourself circling back to responding to the same attacks from the same posters all over again then ignore them and move on. Rely upon the readers being smart enough to see the trolling as a charge that you’ve already answered and if they really are smart enough then they will pass it by as well.

Posted by: William Gruff | Apr 23 2020 13:37 utc | 334

Very astute observation @321. Absolutely brilliant, irrefutable logic.
—
WG@322
Where do they advertise the paid positions? How would one go about finding one of these jobs? What entity do you suppose is so threatened by the conversation here that they had to hire people to counter that narrative? How is it that you are so intimately familiar with the technique and inner workings? Why would anyone take the time to develop the skills necessary and to attend seminars for such a low pay position ($5/hour is what I believe you had stated elsewhere)?
No offense to b, but nobody here is changing the world, nor taking down any corporations.
I think what you, and most other people, deem a troll is anyone who disagrees with you, or possesses a different ideology.
I tend to think a troll is one who engages with no intention of having a good faith conversation.
Just for the record, I don’t think you are a troll.

Posted by: pilpul artiste | Apr 23 2020 13:49 utc | 336

@ Ed Butterworth | Apr 22 2020 21:32 utc | 122

Firstly we know that the government of China has an appalling record of hiding its mistakes, covering up international crimes, and painting pictures of its internal affairs that are the opposite of reality.

No we don’t. This is just Western propaganda carried over from Mao’s time. Mao hasn’t been in power for more than forty years. And in any case, even Mao’s supposed crimes are debatable anyway. But that’s by the by. The point is that you are just repeating outdated propaganda tropes. Modern China is not the China of Mao’s day.

At the time of writing we know the COVID-19 outbreak started months earlier than China admitted, the outbreak spread far beyond Wuhan, serious cases numbers and deaths were vastly under reported and the Chinese epidemic is stil running.
And all that is in spite of the Chinse government having ‘disappeared’ several doctors and journalists who broke ranks and tried to warn the world of what was happening.

Outright bullshit.

Posted by: Herr Ringbone | Apr 23 2020 14:11 utc | 338

Hi B,
Hope you can see my comment and shed some light on this. What is your opinion about the fact that more people can die with the closing of economy. This is especially the case in countries in south east Asia and Africa where poor people are employed on daily wage basis and sometimes they cannot find work even in an open economy. They will die of starvation if they don’t die with covid19.

Posted by: RussianSoul | Apr 23 2020 14:21 utc | 340

In New York’s largest hospital system, 88 percent of coronavirus patients on ventilators didn’t make it
That’s why we don’t use isolated statistics for a pandemic. A pandemic can only be scientifically assessed with worldwide numbers – because, guess what, they are worldwide phenomena.
Cherrypicking only serves to advance one’s hidden political agenda.
Meanwhile, on the economic front, the USA has 4.4 million more unemployed (as per unemployment benefits requisitions):
4.4 million more workers file for unemployment.
American economy, based on “postmodern jobs” (overpaid jobs in the services sector), is now crumbling with the MMT policies.
The MMTers may well go to History as the American Gorbachevs.

Posted by: vk | Apr 23 2020 14:48 utc | 342

@fairleft
The lock-down decision
If USA and other Western governments could “open the economy” in 2 weeks or “open” in 6 weeks with a regime like South Korea, which would you advocate?
Opening in 2 weeks risks a resurgence in the virus. Those who claim the virus is a hoax or much less of a hazard than we have been told would naturally choose to open asap.
Opening in 6 weeks creates a regime for pro-actively identifying those with the virus and separating and treating them so the rest of us can live a normal life.
This is the decision at the heart of this dicussion.
!!

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Apr 23 2020 15:07 utc | 344

Quarantine or lock down or whatever.. that does not satisfy the real need.. Over and over again humanity is challenged by corrupt government and insistent nature.. .. infection by a viral agent requires contact at an interface between the live infectious part of a virus and susceptible life forms.
Since the infection agent changes, a new one every several years, it does not make sense to make antibodies to the many infecting virons each time pathogenic virus are discover, or to engage in economically destructive lock downs. But voiding contact by shut down destroys economies and gives the governors who enforce such shut downs even more dictatorial powers.
What is needed is to recognize infection happens at the interface between infectious agent and mankind.
So like at the beach, when the current or winds are too high, merely flying the warning flags, alerts everyone not to swim.. or fish, or boat or whatever. But unlike at the beach, it is necessary for all persons to have readily available proper equipment to be able to deny infections at the interface..
When authorities turn on the virus warning lights, in any area, everyone should be required to wear the safe from infection garb, no exceptions. We don’t need yet another useless probably unsafe immunization what we need is a foolproof, always available for everybody, a suit of armor and places to decontaminate the outside of the armor. We also need wide area virus detection devices that function in all work space, retail space, and place space all of the time. These VDDs should be made to be capable of detecting the presence of a virus in persons in the room, crowd or place, and to sound alarms until the infection source is identified by more specific technology and removed from the space.
No more immunizations, no more trillion dollar vaccination campaigns, just clothing or a simple spray armor available to everyone all of the time. so that detection eliminates “people space contamination” and people protection denies virus entry at the people:virus interface. .
many different virons are likely to come and to go, but the same safe at the interface equipment can keep us safe from them all. No one thought an automobile could be outfitted with safety device capable to prevent passengers from being thrown out of the care at impact, but it took very little time for the seat belt, and advanced warning systems. I am thinking a body spray with hood and hand protection..and public place decontamination places; but getting the world working on it, no telling what might be developed..

Posted by: snake | Apr 23 2020 15:10 utc | 346

Voluntary quarantine is common sense.
Forced quarantine is tyranny.

Posted by: Bob Dobbs | Apr 23 2020 15:17 utc | 348

Nathan @340
you articulate the struggle quite well, echoes my own thoughts.
one concept I return to is the concept of Chapel Perilous. Writers like T.S. Eliot and Robert Anton Wilson have used this concept in their writing. Wilson wrote this:

“Chapel Perilous, like the mysterious entity called ‘I,’ cannot be located in the space-time continuum; it is weightless, odorless, tasteless and undetectable by ordinary instruments. Indeed, like the Ego, it is even possible to deny that it is there. And yet, even more like the Ego, once you are inside it, there doesn’t seem to be any way to ever get out again, until you suddenly discover that it has been brought into existence by thought and does not exist outside thought. Everything you fear is waiting with slavering jaws in Chapel Perilous, but if you are armed with the wand of intuition, the cup of sympathy, the sword of reason and the pentacle of valor, you will find there (the legends say) the Medicine of Metals, the Elixir of Life, the Philosopher’s Stone, True Wisdom and Perfect Happiness.
That’s what the legends always say, and the language of myth is poetically precise. For instance, if you go into that realm without the sword of reason, you will lose your mind, but at the same time, if you take only the sword of reason without the cup of sympathy, you will lose your heart. Even more remarkably, if you approach without the wand of intuition, you can stand at the door for decades never realizing you have arrived. You might think you are just waiting for a bus, or wandering from room to room looking for your cigarettes, watching a TV show, or reading a cryptic and ambiguous book. Chapel Perilous is tricky that way.”

Posted by: lizard | Apr 23 2020 15:23 utc | 350

“The difference between the two arguments is the OG set up will kill more now, and b approach will kill more later.”
That’s funny, thats the same argument you essentially had in 2008. No bailouts, everyone will die, with bailouts they die but with a slow burn. I think we had more death due to the bailouts then without but its one of those fun things that you can’t ever prove because you’d have to have another crisis (we are now, not even any debates about bailouts anymore) or be able to time travel. I believe the virus is real, and i believe it was released on purpose. Do i know anything about the virus from the media? That’s hard to say because the freaking information changes week to week. Here is a question for the people that read this site, which i was not allowed to post at nakedcapitalism, which is strange, but Yves Smith is not a nice person if you ever read her comments on that site. Do people here believe that the government starts wars for profit and power? If so, why would they not release a virus for those same reasons?

Posted by: Trent | Apr 23 2020 15:34 utc | 352

This is a fine text which i find rather quietening.
https://swprs.org/contact/

Posted by: Lily | Apr 23 2020 15:41 utc | 354

Just depositing a point which needs to be underlined. It’s not only the orange one who misleads us:
“UK hospital death toll exceeds 18,700” (23 April)
The British figures are getting seriously deceptive – and deliberately so, without question. All the rest of Europe runs on total deaths – but not Britain! It is a real scandal.
The French figures today are: 21 340 total – 13 236 morts à l’hôpital et 8 104 morts dans les Ehpad et établissements médico-sociaux (care homes).
That means there have been more deaths in Britain than in France, in the only comparison possible – that of deaths in hospital: 18,700 UK : 13,236 France. But it’s being presented as the other way round. For example in the Guardian graphic today based on the Johns Hopkins data, where Sunday’s figures are given as 16,060 UK : 19,718 France.
This is scandalously misleading. The UK government knows perfectly well what the situation is, but they continue to mislead, in order to present the situation as better in Britain than it really is, and particularly to suggest that Britain is better off than the dirty foreigners of the EU, to whom all noble Englishmen are superior. It is not the case.

Posted by: Laguerre | Apr 23 2020 15:53 utc | 356

Posted by: LOL | Apr 23 2020 16:03 utc | 367
Why is nobody discussing truly staggering differences in death rates between Eastern and Western Europe?
Yeah, this is big too. Western Europe is a big embarrassment, that’s for sure. The wealthiest world region is also the most epidemic struck world region.
I see 3 reasons – lots of lockdowns in EE, less open borders/migration going around, most elderly not in nursing homes but cared by family. Some are suggesting tuberculosis vaccine widely used in Eastern Europe could be affecting things too.

Posted by: Passer by | Apr 23 2020 16:12 utc | 358

Looks like the number crunching deniers are losing the half-leg that they hobbled on. This will only get worse. You can go to the graveyards and preach to the corpses about “tyranny”

Posted by: Zengine3 | Apr 23 2020 16:32 utc | 360

@ trent, i absolutely think they would, i just don’t think they did. like with 911 i think they knew there was a threat and let it happen, and took advantage of it with the patriot act, endless wars–here we have yet more corporate and 1% bailouts, while the labor force is slowly forced into desperation. geez a subservient labor force, no more unseemly demands for raising the minimum wage, just gratitude for the increasingly sparse crumbs. crisis capitalism.

Posted by: pretzelattack | Apr 23 2020 16:38 utc | 362

@264 shane…. i am not sure where you are getting this – “So the quarantine argument, in the case of forcibly removing people from their homes and families, is a pretty weak one. ” who is making the case to forcibly removing someone from their home and family??? you think b is recommending this?? i am missing that part.. obviously the dynamic is much more nuanced this this!!
@ 274 bm….first off, lets ignore the FT graph and FT altogether.. i didn’t bring that up but you seem determined to continue on with it.. i am addressing the ons details.. i read your post on the previous thread… i have too many questions to all of it… as i see it there is plenty of room for many questions and i don’t have the answers to these questions.. you are basically saying the graph is a lie, because the stats are built up on a stack of dubious actions on the part of the ons… you might be right.. i have no real way of knowing.. at present uk as 138, 078 cases and 18,738 deaths attributed to covid 19… thanks for the additional links to the graphs and etc.. regarding lockdown having unfortunate consequence, i don’t think anyone would disagree with this.. however the black and white thinking goes that without lockdown there would be other very negative consequences too.. i would be arguing for some sort of balance in all of this… as i see it, finding out who is carrying the virus and putting them in some form of lockdown is necessary, but the problem is many people seem to be carrying this who don’t show signs – asymptomatic cases… a question i have is how long does a person who is asymptomatic able to infect other people? some posters have answered 14 days, or maybe a bit longer… this is where i would appreciate clarity and clarification…
and i did read @ 268 paul greenwoods comment on the ons data – “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.” basically never believe anything the UK tells us is the ongoing message i have gotten since 2003 war on iraq!! – @366 laguerres comment reinforces your viewpoint as well BM – “The British figures are getting seriously deceptive – and deliberately so, without question. All the rest of Europe runs on total deaths – but not Britain! It is a real scandal.”
@ 365 lily… it is quietening because there isn’t a comment section to go with it!!!

Posted by: james | Apr 23 2020 16:43 utc | 364

Disabuser @205–
Looks like I’ll need to sue you for slander and defamation of character for your false accusatory statement @205. I’m sure William Gruff would also become a party. Pepe Escobar didn’t participate at all in that thread, although his article was the primary catalyst.
You have one opportunity to recant your accusation within the next 24 hours. Afterwords, I’ll instruct my lawyer to proceed to discover who and where you are so you can suffer the consequences of your actions.

Posted by: karlof1 | Apr 23 2020 16:50 utc | 366

here in canada, people are largely supportive of the quarantine measures… it seems people in the usa-uk are much more divided on this.. i have to agree with the title of b’s post – “It Is Not ‘Authoritarian’ To Support Quarantine Measures – It Just Makes Sense” i don’t support 100% lockdown, but i see the difficultly in adopting quarantine measures in large urban areas which i don’t happen to live in… its a real dilemma for congested populations how to maintain social distancing.. but i think the worst part is as others have noted – the rich can ride this out, but the poor are the ones most likely to suffer.. this is especially so in a country like the usa where only the rich get bailed out and the poor are always left to suffer… thus it seems the most angst and fanaticism is generated from the posters from the usa… i am generalizing…

Posted by: james | Apr 23 2020 16:53 utc | 368

james | Apr 23 2020 16:44 utc | 377
I agree with you, there are a lot of posters here who I used to think were intelligent and I used to be interested in what they had to say. Now, not so much.
I doubt there is a single person commenting here who doesn’t think that at least some of the other posters are idiots, trolls, or just plain assholes. I am certain that some posters include me in the last half of the previous sentence.
I think this place, at least for the time being, is beyond any kind of rational discourse. I don’t expect it to improve any time in the near future.

Posted by: pilpul artiste | Apr 23 2020 16:55 utc | 370

William Gruff @314–
Here the overall velocity of all activity has dropped off a cliff and that includes observed police presence, which never was feet on the streets here to begin with. But then I don’t get out as much as I did either to observe. But anecdotal evidence such as emergency vehicles with sirens blaring is greatly reduced. I do imagine there’s been a drastic drop-off in revenue generated via traffic tickets and auto confiscation from DUIs. Will such “policing” escalate above normal when the economy’s reopened is a good question worth looking at.

Posted by: karlof1 | Apr 23 2020 17:19 utc | 372

“Voluntary quarantine is common sense. Forced quarantine is tyranny.” Bob Dobbs@357
So you will defend, presumably to the death, Typhoid Mary’s right to practice her trade as a cook in a public restaurant?
If one man breaks quarantine- one sailor from the ship slips ashore- then, willy nilly there is no quarantine. Cannot you see that?
What you are saying is that the freedom of one individual is of more importance than the lives of the rest of the community.
This is typical of the way in which crude libertarians reason: those hailing the decisions of, those bastions of freedom, Georgia and South Carolina to re-open businesses, factories and public places think only of the ‘freedom’ of the owners of those businesses to make money. There is no recognition of the fact that, should Cargills, for example, order a meat packing plant to re-open the workers in the plant lose their freedom to protect themselves from dangerous conditions and are forced- at peril of their livelihoods- to go back to work already proven to be dangerous to them, their families and the community at large. In a country in which a mere 6% of the private sector workforce is unionised, workers live at the mercy of their employers, who also control the state and its police forces.
What of their most basic freedoms, including the right of self preservation?

Posted by: bevin | Apr 23 2020 17:30 utc | 374

@Passer by #354
As for searching for nCOV being worse – I am only looking at all data points to understand what is really happening.
I don’t know about you, but I happen to think 45K potentially avoidable deaths – which will rise to probably 90K is already plenty serious enough.
South Korea, Taiwan, Russia and China have shown that it isn’t a requirement to suffer 1500 to 5000+ nCOV deaths per 10M population – which is what the US and all of Western Europe have experienced to date.
I will also note that I have stated multiple times that the lockdowns are not clearly the best policy – not only because they hurt the working class and poor far more than the wealthy, but because they don’t clearly result in better outcomes.

Posted by: c1ue | Apr 23 2020 17:40 utc | 376

bevin @389–
BRAVO!!!
And Libertarians are supposed to be the #1 protectors of property rights. A person’s life is his/her most precious and important piece of property, and by all rights everything that can be done to protect that property ought to be done!

Posted by: karlof1 | Apr 23 2020 17:47 utc | 378

slight correction: New York State 14% positive

Posted by: mk | Apr 23 2020 17:52 utc | 380

@Posted by: mk | Apr 23 2020 17:50 utc | 394
Fatality data in the linked RT report doesn’t look right.
Fatality rate for New York State is already above 0.1% (1016 deaths per million total population of approx 19.5million.
NYC ,likely to be closer to 0.15%.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

Posted by: Joey Deacon | Apr 23 2020 18:02 utc | 382

Posted by: c1ue | Apr 23 2020 17:35 utc | 390
>>You are assuming temperature is a factor
Yeah, because all the studies out there on the temperature issue show that it does not like heat and it is more stable at cold. Newer ones also show that the sun kills it pretty fast (15 minutes). So it is a factor definitely.
It can stay stable for at least month at 4 C, 7 days at 22 C, and 2 days at 30 C. One hour at 50 C.
>>Density. Southern states are far less dense than New York. 2) International travel. New York is a major international hub.
Southern states have lower average death rate even when New York is excluded from Northern ones. Note that southern cities are better than New York too, including those with lots of migrants and travelers in California or Florida or Texas.
>>I’m sure there are many others. I’ve pointed out elsewhere that the Global South nations are both extremely young.
Yeah, i know about that obviously and this will help them weather the epidemic better actually. Herd immunity for Africa for example should be very easy to achieve. Almost no one will die.
But i also added that among the tropical nations with higher average age (Cuba, Australia, Thailand), their performance is also good. This fits nicely with the temperatue/sun factor.
Obviously there are various factors in place, but since the heat/sun factor is backed up by studies, researching the climate relationship is important IMO.
Posted by: c1ue | Apr 23 2020 17:40 utc | 391
My estimate is around 100k deaths in the US by the summer. This estimate does not include a possible second wave. Yes, i also think that nCOV 2 is worse than the flu, it propagates better and it looks that it has higher death rate than the flu.
On lockdowns imo it depends on situation – if it is early stage in the epidemic, blocking international trafic and using smart measures are possible. Probably in younger and hotter countries too.
But if it is big city, especially polluted, especially in a more northern country, then lockdown of the city is needed. If it has lots of international traffic it is urgent.

Posted by: Passer by | Apr 23 2020 18:10 utc | 384

pretzelattack @373, et al–
Your defense of MMT was 100% correct. Yes, I’ve been the #1 promoter of Hudson’s work at MoA over the past several years, and I’ve now added Steve Keen and Richard Wolff to the mix. Max and Stacy of the Keiser Report have done excellent reporting, as has Rosh Ashcroft at Renegade Inc and the team of reporters at Boom Bust. It’s no coincidence that the best news and information shows are all on RT, which is precisely why it’s demonized. Hudson finally posted a transcript of his 3-way interview with Ben Norton and Max Blumenthal which is somewhat dated but still relevant. Hudson’s most recent interview to my knowledge can be seen during the 2nd half of this Keiser Report. KR viewers have lobbied RT for more episodes which RT, Max and Stacy have agreed to provide. Today’s program is here, with this synopsis:
“In this episode of the Keiser Report, Max and Stacy look at how the ‘everything bubble’ that’s ballooned since the Fed began printing money with reckless abandon after the last crash has become the almost-everything bailout, as cronies and insiders receive trillions in credit from the Fed and funds meant for ‘small businesses.’ In the second half, Max interviews entrepreneur and former commodities analyst Josh Crumb about the bizarre situation in the oil market and explores how our financial system got us into this mess.”
Yes, it’s becoming hard to keep abreast of it all and continue to do research. I just received my copy of Giants: The Global Power Elite, which appears to be indispensable despite its publication in 2018.

Posted by: karlof1 | Apr 23 2020 18:14 utc | 386

Swedish Epidemiologist Johan Giesecke: Why Lockdowns Are The Wrong Policy
Apologies beforehand if this interview has been posted at MoA already.
UnHeard: Professor Johan Giesecke, one of the world’s most senior epidemiologists, advisor to the Swedish Government (he hired Anders Tegnell who is currently directing Swedish strategy), the first Chief Scientist of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, and an advisor to the director general of the WHO, lays out with typically Swedish bluntness why he thinks:
UK policy on lockdown and other European countries are not evidence-based.
The correct policy is to protect the old and the frail only.
This will eventually lead to herd immunity as a “by-product.”
The initial UK response, before the “180 degree U-turn”, was better.
The Imperial College paper was “not very good” and he has never seen an unpublished paper have so much policy impact.
The paper was very much too pessimistic.
Any such models are a dubious basis for public policy anyway.
The flattening of the curve is due to the most vulnerable dying first as much as the lockdown.
The results will eventually be similar for all countries.
Covid-19 is a “mild disease” and similar to the flu, and it was the novelty of the disease that scared people.
The actual fatality rate of Covid-19 is the region of 0.1%.
At least 50% of the population of both the UK and Sweden will be shown to have already had the disease when mass antibody testing becomes available.

Posted by: Avid Lurker | Apr 23 2020 18:21 utc | 388

Posted by: oglalla | Apr 23 2020 18:15 utc | 403
“I learned something by watching my hero Corbett in “Lies, Damn Lies, and Coronavirus Statistics” (a) play a clip of Dr. Fauci agree that models are flawed and must be updated as real data comes in and then (b) react to Fauci’s statement by continuing to call models a sham.”
“I completely believe in Corbett’s personal integrity. But, I wholeheartedly disagree with him calling models a fraud and in his disinterest in using the best available information we have and to plan our actions off of it.”
I’m sorrie the vid interviewed with the “professor” was deleted by b earlier… and I will not named the professor here knowing b may delete my comment. May I further add that professor is wrong and I’m for locked down.

Posted by: JC | Apr 23 2020 18:42 utc | 390

@Norwegian
“Btw. where I am things are opening up, people are out and about, and I have yet to see a mask.”
And in a few weeks many of those people will likely be very sick or dead. You’re downright psychopathic if you think this thing isn’t a big deal if it kills ‘only’ a couple million people instead of tens of millions.
“I don’t want to project motivation for what we are seeing, but I can see patterns in what is going on now and in ‘climate change’. Both rely heavily on flawed computer models instead of reality (look up Feynman on that) and both implement draconian measures on us common folks.”
Yes, but you’re an idiot. That’s why you think things like this.
Meanwhile out here in the real world governments have uniformly failed to actually confront the climate crisis in any meaningful way, because to do so would require changing much about how industrial civilization works on a fundamental level. It would also require a WW2 level of mobilization, that most (or perhaps even all) Western governments have neither the inclination nor the capacity for after half a century of neoliberalism. What the flying fuck ‘draconian measures’ do you imagine governments have imposed because of climate change? The most we can manage is non-binding reduction agreements that wouldn’t actually do much even if they were successful and enforced.

Posted by: Benjamin | Apr 23 2020 18:48 utc | 392

@ 408 benjamin.. it does you no good referring to someone as an idiot..figure out how to let others have an alternative viewpoint without referring to them as idiots..

Posted by: james | Apr 23 2020 18:54 utc | 394

fnord @Apr23 18:52 Estimates of the virus’s lethalness should include …
Yes but it should also be recognized that the danger of the virus is not just in its immediate lethality. There is lung damage and possibly other effects.
We also don’t yet know if a vaccine is possible. So taking measures that err on the side of eradication is warranted.
!!

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Apr 23 2020 19:22 utc | 396

re sweden… i was listening this morning to cbc radio with a man in sweden being interviewed from malmo… apparently many people are maintaining the social distancing, but as others have noted – it is up to the person… places are much less busy then usual and the death rate is higher then the other Scandinavian countries per million people.. today none of this has changed…
sweden – 16,755 cases 2,021 deaths..
denmark – 8,073 cases 394 deaths..
norway – 7,361 cases 193 deaths..
finland – 4,284 cases 172 deaths…
the death ratio is skewed to the high side with sweden… now there might be some reason for this, but looking at the ratio of death numbers to case numbers, something is out of whack in sweden…

Posted by: james | Apr 23 2020 19:36 utc | 398

I’m very disappointed in the attention this Moon of Alabama site is paying to this virus issue. “b” whomever he is has really gotten off track and strayed from the military tactical/geostrategic issues of which he seems quite informed and capable.
I will restate, that I know it had been written here:
This coronavirus is a hyped thing to cause fear and panic as a means of control of the populations. It’s an illness that is dangerous only to elderly people and then only those with 2-3 other health conditions. Politically and economically, I’ve heard it described as just another Beltway/Wall Street bailout of the parasitical speculators.

Posted by: H. Manfred | Apr 23 2020 19:46 utc | 400