COVID is not and ‘has never been a pandemic’

[Eddy Edson]

I'm confident about that because Covid kills a small number of people it infects. Spanish flu kills half the people it infects.

Where do you get that from?? The numbers you see estimated/guessed at are more like 500M infections for 50M deaths, globally. But in places with better infrastructure mortality was much lower: 30M infections for 600K deaths in the US, so 2% IFR; 11M infections for 240K deaths in the UK, so similar IFR.

Doubt you can be very confident in those numbers but like I say, also don't see much reason for absolute confidence that this virus ends up being hugely better.

 

[Eddy Edson]

Are you really trying to convince the majority of the Public or yourself about the devastating effects of coronavirus?
The initial article that you refered to in your thread was presented by a). an Australia anchorman and b). Sky news
The one thing that I probably agree with you on is the media especially when it presents Oceana as being an example of containment. But if you are going to use Sky News as your source of expert knowledge you are truely way off track.

Try this link https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

43,000,000 plus positive cases worldwide 1.1 million plus deaths. Get real! If covid was the cause or even part of the cause your logic just doesn't hold.

Sorry but your arguement doesn't convince me . Time to move on to reality

Speaking from Oz, Sky News here has staked out the "moronic covid-19 denialism" niche for itself & is a seething hive of scumbaggery.

 

[Welsh Wizard]

Thanks for your insulting reply. As soon as you resort to insults to make your case, then you've lost the argument.

What else is anyone going to refer to? This is the offical record, showing how deaths have dropped dramatically since it was announced as a pandemic. I am not and have never suggested it isn't serious or that people haven't or aren't still suffering.

b.t.w my argument is more about the response, than the virus.

If the cap fits wear it buddy. My arguement stands the test does yours? and yes I have lost a friend through this Pandemic

 

[Docb]

Whoa chaps. Being rude to each other is not helping anybody. This is a complicated subject which deserves airing but in a civilised manner please. I don't want to have to get my moderator stick out!

 

[Docb]

@mikeyB, I am intrigued by your comparing Covid 19 with the 1914 flu epidemic. Are you suggesting all other factors are equal?

 

[Gyles77]

There’s a chart somewhere online showing how Covid is not like flu and how the numbers killed are much higher. Worth a google.

What it is then if not flu?

 

[Gyles77]

@mikeyB, I am intrigued by your comparing Covid 19 with the 1914 flu epidemic. Are you suggesting all other factors are equal?

I don't have more idea about it. But your reference I accept.

 

[Amity Island]

If you are merely relying on the graphs you are pretty sad. Everyone of those million people is a life lost . You cannot argue with that. I am sorry to say that I just hope that for your sake you don't become one of those statistics.

I'm certainly not arguing about the million people that have lost their life either directly from covid19 or as a result of being classified as a covid19 death from a positive test during their hospital stay.

I am however trying to understand what the presenter meant by "this is not and never has been a pandemic". He is not going to go on national TV (would you?) and make that kind of statement unless he has solid reasons to believe it is true.

 

[Docb]

I am however trying to understand what the presenter meant by "this is not and never has been a pandemic". He is not going to go on national TV (would you?) and make that kind of statement unless he has solid reasons to believe it is true

Maybe I'm too old old too cynical or too something else but I assume that anybody spouting opinions on national television is trying to influence rather than to inform. I personally don't take anything like that at face value, especially when the opinions expressed are towards the extremes of the range in any direction.

Look up pandemic in the dictionary and make your own mind up whether it describes COVID. You do not need some publicity seeking pundit.

 

[Eddy Edson]

Maybe I'm too old old too cynical or too something else but I assume that anybody spouting opinions on national television is trying to influence rather than to inform. I personally don't take anything like that at face value, especially when the opinions expressed are towards the extremes of the range in any direction.

Look up pandemic in the dictionary and make your own mind up whether it describes COVID. You do not need some publicity seeking pundit.

Particularly if that pundit is Alan Jones, well-known climate change denier, covid-19 denier, serial defamer, bigot, idiot.

 

[Jodee]

There's a so called movement in UK that are 'supposedly' spreading the same fake news.

I do believe it all originates with a troll type character in the US who gets paid to generate fake news and conspiracies.

Sadly some people do believe them.

 

[Bruce Stephens]

At what point, at what level of deaths caused by a virus does one use lockdowns (devastate the economy, kill off peoples incomes, way of life, prevent people for going about their given human rights and preventing them from meeting friends and family for months and months perhaps years?

The answer for some places (like North Italy and the UK in March) is that you lockdown when you can see disaster is imminent and you can't see what else to do.

Seriously, in early/mid-March what else could the UK do? They made errors, sure: they should have tried harder to emphasise that people who would otherwise be seeking emergency medical attention should continue to do so.

But otherwise (looking at the chaos in some Italian hospitals, and seeing numbers in UK hospitals rising) they knew what was coming. They surely had to act?

 

[Inka]

What it is then if not flu?

I’m not quite sure what you’re asking? The chart I saw compared Covid with seasonal flu. There were possibly other viruses included in the chart but I can’t remember for sure.

If you’re simply asking if it’s flu, no it’s a coronavirus not an influenza virus:

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2
(SARS-CoV-2)

 

[Bruce Stephens]

What about after April? Why are we still in lockdown with absolutely no sign of the restrictions changing.

During the summer restrictions were eased significantly. (I think the plan was for that to happen even faster and further, but they used fear a bit too successfully earlier. I think the intent was that many more people should continue to go to work if they could not work from home in the initial lockdown, but they messed up the communication, so the early lockdown was more strict than was intended.)

And now they're seeing hospital admissions (with coronavirus) increasing, and our healthcare system is near capacity in ordinary winters. (Last winter, before Covid, Matt Hancock praised the NHS for planning so well for winter; by postponing elective surgery early.)

And they know they're criticised for not acting quickly enough in March so they don't want to do that again (though it looks to me like they have).

Do you think this is something, like other viruses, other risks we could learn to live with and get back on with something that resembles a healthy happy world.

Maybe. Especially with vaccines and/or effective treatment options. (It seems plausible that we'll never get a vaccine that's close to as good as for polio, so it seems plausible that the virus will become endemic.)

If we'd started months ago we might have been able to drive numbers low enough to keep low with border controls and an effective tracing and isolation system. Maybe, though it's looking like few places have been able to do that.

What we seem to be going for is the worst of both worlds: restrictions bad enough to harm the economy while not being good enough to effectively control the virus. (Because our government is split internally, they end up with compromise.)

Why do some find the economics/health trade-off so hard to get? Because it’s like the Phillips curve.

The distinction between the short run and long run traditional Phillips curve (not the New Keynesian variety) is so ingrained in economists...

mainlymacro.blogspot.com

 

[Bruce Stephens]

In terms of transmission, respiratory symptoms, deaths, they are very similar.

Treating it more or less like influenza was the UK plan (as far as anyone outside government can tell). The two viruses seem different enough that that just doesn't work. (It didn't work for us in March, anyway.)

Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

Protecting Health, Saving Lives—Millions at a Time

www.jhsph.edu

 

[Inka]

Hi Inka,

I had to look it up too, what the difference was, nearly all the articles tend to concentrate in symptoms, rather than discussing the actual difference between the two viruses.

The second thing to ask is, has Sars-cov 2 been isolated so we know what it looks like compared to flu virus?

It’s always been made clear it’s a coronavirus - and so can never be a kind of flu (because that’s the influenza viruses) In the early days, the SARS part was emphasised too (comparing it to the previous SARS virus).

Of course we know what it looks like 🙂 Much has been written about its ‘spikes’ and there are lots of pictures showing them and the general shape of the virus.

 

[Inka]

https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/hea...ronavirus/coronavirus-disease-2019-vs-the-flu

“Coronavirus vs. Flu Deaths
COVID-19: There have been approximately 1,138,671 deaths reported worldwide. In the U.S, 223,059 people have died of COVID-19 between January 2020 and October 23, 2020.*

Flu: The World Health Organization estimates that 290,000 to 650,000 people die of flu-related causes every year worldwide.

The COVID-19 situation is changing rapidly. Since this disease is caused by a new virus, the vast majority of people do not yet have immunity to it, and a vaccine may be many months away. Doctors and scientists are working to estimate the mortality rate of COVID-19, but at present, it is thought to be substantially higher (possibly 10 times or more) than that of most strains of the flu.”

 

[Eddy Edson]

Eddy,
I understand what you are saying about the chaps reputation, but even idiots can make a valid point even if most of the time they don't. What I am saying is, you can't write off someone's opinion just because they have made other comments which defy common sense at other times in the past.

Why would anybody care what some unqualified blowhard has to say? "Because he's on television" isn't a very good answer. Neither is, "Because he says stuff I agree with".

 

[Inka]

Hi Inka,

It seems that the more deadly a coronavirus is (it's CFR), the easier it is to contain. From what I've read, the last sars outbreak ended quickly and killed about 1 in 10 of those infected, which is incredibly deadly, the sort of thing that would definitely warrant a lockdown. If one caught it, there was little chance of being an asymptomatic carrier and thus world wide mass daily testing with daily updates wasn't required.

Yes, because the original SARS virus was ‘too deadly’ - it killed people before they could infect lots of other people. This SARS virus is different and thus effective in spreading, infecting and killing.

 

[Inka]

According to what I was reading only the other day the distinction between the flu virus and the Covid-19 virus is clear under a microscope. Apparently the fragment of viral genetic material from the coronavirus looks like a bit of spaghetti while the flu genetic material looks like eight pieces of penne.

Martin

And the distinctive spikes on Covid show it’s a coronavirus (the spikes form the ‘crown’). Influenza viruses are a different family and are not, by definition, coronaviruses. I’m a terrible pedant, but I get so annoyed by people saying it’s flu. It can’t, by definition, be flu anymore than an insect can be a mammal.

I’ve never heard the pasta description