Questions waiting for Answers
How did we get it so wrong?
"The only means to fight the plague is honesty." Albert Camus, The Plague (1947)Dateline 19 April 2020. Newly published Stanford study shows Covid-19 much more widespread than thought, while "being NO MORE DEADLY THAN FLU,".
Even if this is a magnified statement, there is growing evidence that the original WHO death estimate of 3.4% based on official Chinese numbers was wrong.
What is in a name? Would CO-19 have had the same emotional response as COVID-19?
Perhaps it was not just the lack of information, but maybe the reaction was due to some deeply evolved response to disease and fears of contagion reactions. We might question whether our media and leaders thoughts were the results of rational reasoning, or whether they might have been shaped by an ancient response that evolved millennia before the discovery of germ theory. Are we simply still barbarians?
There will be consequences. Who will be blamed?
Dateline 19 April 2020. The first to blame will be the WHO. Apparently at no time did the WHO recommend lockdowns, so they are not responsible for the wholesale destruction, but some will say that their instructions were not clear enough.However they did commend China for their lockdowns!
29 April 2020. Mike Ryan, the WHO's top emergencies expert, has said Wednesday there are "lessons to be learned" from the Scandinavian nation, which has largely relied on citizens to self-regulate.
"I think there's a perception out that Sweden has not put in control measures and just has allowed the disease to spread," Ryan told reporters. "Nothing can be further from the truth."
Ryan noted that instead of lockdowns, the country has "put in place a very strong public policy around social distancing, around caring and protecting people in long term care facilities."
Source https://nypost.com/2020/04/29/who-lauds-sweden-as-model-for-resisting-coronavirus-lockdown/
However reports from Sweden would not fully support this statement, since restaurants, shops and most businesses have been open. There have also been reports that by care workers that Sweden did not take enough care of the aged. This statement would appear to allay blaming the WHO for countries applying lockdowns. Let's see if they and the politicians can fool all the people. . . .
Many politicians will be replaced at their next elections or earlier, with some firing and blaming their advisors.
The politicians will claim that they were right and that they saved a much worse situation, and by the time that the statisticians come out with correct figures, they will be retired and our memories will be faded.
Dateline 29 April 2020. We already see phrases like "Mkhize said the lockdown had slowed the spread of the virus and avoided an "explosion" of Covid-19 cases. It bought time to prepare the health system to respond and allowed people to adapt to hygiene and physical distancing guidelines.
"The phased ease of the lockdown is to make sure that we change our behaviour," he said.
In future, the people might trust their leaders and the so-called experts even less, while the media will get some blame, and lose even more credibility.
The accounting is starting
24 April 2020. In Italy, about 45,000 relatives of coronavirus victims who believe not enough was done have joined a Facebook group called "NOI denunceremo" ("We will denounce you.")
Prosecutors in Italy are investigating whether errors by the authorities contributed to the country's deadliest clusters. and directors of one nursing home where residents died may potentially face charges of manslaughter.
Quote of note: "Phase 3 is going to be the criminalization of the contagion," said one journalist. "The pandemic is going to turn into a big collective trial."
The first signs of anger are starting to appear. As we go through the stages of grief how much could result in violence?
The Effect of False News
We all know that social media spreads much incorrect information, such as the 5G story.
However, there is also much misinformation that terrifies the public spread by the drama seeking media.
, For example, is the post article that says "Visualization shows how droplets from one cough can infect an entire airplane". The article says "Researchers found that passengers sitting with a SARS patient in a seven-row section of a Boeing 767 would have a one-in-three chance of getting sick from a 5-hour flight."
"It's worth noting that the Purdue study assumed the virus that caused SARS could stay airborne for long periods, which is different from what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says is typically occurring with the novel coronavirus." What impression are you likely to carry away from this statement? You will need a strong mind to fly after reading it?
Source https://nypost.com/2020/04/30/visualization-shows-droplets-from-one-cough-infecting-large-number-of-passengers/.
What changes can we expect
Google will continue to be a big winner, since with the access to raw information and a better understanding of and by search engines, "laypeople" with effort can out-expert the experts. "An expert is a professional based on yesterdays knowledge," or "The truth changes every two hours".Remote working and flexible work-times will be boosted, but face to face communication imparts more connection as we are social animals there will still be demand for offices and meetings.
Business, friends and families have been introduced zoom and similar software, which will boost visual digital communication.
Freedoms will be lost
Above police patrolling Manly beach Sydney after it was closed this month. Mathew Abbott for the New York Times
Justified by the need to track COVID-19 carriers, the public has mostly has meekly accepted powers that were previously unacceptable, powers that will never be withdrawn. Never again could it possible to have a secret meeting, unless you switch off or travel without your phone. Eventually could this need to be tracked will lead to a future with a chip implanted in everyone so that your location will always be known?
"Australia now has its long-awaited COVID-19 trace tracking smartphone app, COVIDSafe.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has been pushing its use as a national service, on Sunday 26 April, adding that Australians "need the COVIDSafe app as part of the plan to save lives and save livelihoods".
"The more people who download this important public health app, the safer they and their family will be, the safer their community will be and the sooner we can safely lift restrictions and get back to business and do the things we love," he said." Source https://www.zdnet.com/article/covidsafe-australias-new-trace-tracking-app-is-now-live-but-registration-isnt/
Above is a picture of 4 armed police officers patrolling a beach forbidden to all in case you get too close to another person.
There have reports around the world of heavy handed actions by the police and army to control restriction orders, not related to the above images.
Why did most countries follow the China plan without considering options?
For years we have seen pictures, especially of Asians wearing masks whenever there was contagion. Masks prevent disease spreading.
But why was there no early worldwide call for the compulsory wearing of masks in public instead of lockdowns?
Almost certainly that given a choice most would have overwhelmingly voted for masks. The compulsory wearing masks have only become popular after lockdown.
"China has rolled out perhaps the most ambitious, agile and aggressive disease containment effort in history." Source https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/who-china-joint-mission-on-covid-19-final-report.pdf.
This strategy has been adopted by most countries except Sweden.
The China plan may have been suitable in a state-controlled Communist society, but disastrous in a free enterprise society.
The China detractors are already accusing China of delayed and limited information sharing, such as the ages and known pre-existing medical conditions of the dead that could have helped the world understand the virus and prepare better.
The paranoid and the conspiracy believers are looking for evidence of virus manufacture, but there is no reasonable basis for this idea.
Western leaders might be wondering whether the plague was an unofficial attempt to damage their economies.
What happened to logical thinking?
The age-old remedy to contagion is to confine the infected. We confined the healthy! Logical, but also confusing.
What is going to happen when the quarantine ends, as it must. Why will it be different than the friend who I could not see during the lockdown will now suddenly not infect me after the quarantine? What has changed?
I was taught that doing the same thing but expecting a different result was insanity or has my friend been coated with magical non-infecting pixie dust during the interim?
I fall into the Vulnerable category, and as such must take all the precautions when going out. What if there is no early vaccine, no proven herd immunity, no new protection strategy?
Does that mean that I must isolate, lockdown or stay in place until whenever it is safe?
Does that mean that for a sizable part of the rest my expected lifespan, I must not do the things that I love, based on uncertain science>? I know the answer, but do others in my position?
The Dr Erickson of Kern County's video that was pulled from YouTube
Video now at https://www.bitchute.com/video/NkiM9fo1Ba0h/
27 April 2020. Although the hypothesis of this video is almost certainly correct, the calculations and assumptions used to draw their conclusions are incorrect. The Doctors have realized that something did not make sense, and have tried to prove their hypothesis the wrong way. At about 3 minutes Dr Erickson says that they have tested 5213, with 6.5% or 340 positives, while in the State of California there were 280,900 tests. With 12% or 33,865 were positives. He then extends this to say that 12% of California was positive. If the tests had been random, he is correct, but those tested would have been the more likely to have come in contact or shown symptoms of the disease, making the positive tests % higher than if random tests. Against this, the positives were those that had COVID-19 at the time, not last week or last month. This reasoning makes the tests as a guide for the occurrence of the disease in the population barely relevant. If the tests had been for antibodies to the virus, then we could have valid data.
At 5.40 minutes he says that you have a 0.03 % chance of dying from CO-19. Well if divide 1237 deaths by 39.5 million the % of deaths of the Californian population is 0.003% or about one in 32,000.
Whatever way he gets his figures, the principle that he is trying to prove, namely that the government response to the minimal risk of death is illogical.
The Secondary Effects of Lock-Down
There are increasing reports of increased alcoholism, family assaults and molestation, suicide, missed medical checkups, all with lasting and lifelong effects.
Already, polio vaccination campaigns have been put on hold, and in some countries, routine immunization services are being scaled back or shut down. WHO Director-General's opening remarks at the media briefing on COVID-19 - 27 April 2020.
Why is there no worldwide central database with information on every COVID-19 patient?
Deciding on the best government policies and to make an educated judgment by individuals and organisations also needs information, of which there is a paucity. We require answers to the below questions.
It is unbelievable that there is such limited information available to decision-makers, especially medical professionals who cannot decide on treatment options with statistics.
- We know the number of daily confirmed cases from published test results, information that frightens governments and the public, but without numbers of hospitalised cases and their degree of illness, of limited practical use. We need to know the reason why the patient is in hospital, whether for isolation or illness, days in the hospital, age, sex, known pre-existing ailments, past vaccinations, medical history, nationality, recent travel, hospital location, daily hospital report as to condition and treatment, face touching habits, even outside weather temperature and humidity and more. With this information we will be better equipped to handle future contagions, as well as this one.
- This information can be gathered on a worldwide website that would be simple to create. Only the hospital treating the patient would be able to access the patient's personal information, but all other information should be downloadable to a database or spreadsheet for analysis.
- With this information we can answer questions between the relationships between age, health, culture, and treatment success.
- Each patient would be allocated a number, with only the treating facility having the name and detailed access, with only limited personnel having semi-personal information.
- Within a week of having the database running there would be useful information to help decision making.
- Existing databases can easily be adapted.
There will be some loss of privacy, but being alive and partially exposed is a small price for getting the statistics.
Medical Research that should have been known
What are the Financial Consequences of Lockdowns
Who dies?
27 April 2020. It might be time that the modern world re-examines its approach to death and the degree of its attempted postponement.Is our society doing the right thing in spending large amounts of state funds on keeping very sick or elderly persons alive possibly just a bit longer because we can? Would society be better off if we instead spend that money on eradicating a disease like malaria, subsidising safety features in cars, or providing healthy food for growing children? Why do we value the life of even a sick, dying person so much that we will continue to devote resources to try one more procedure? Should we consider more the concept of an earlier "Good Death", but one with dignity and often less pain?
There has been little discussion on these type of choices except in the NY Times article Restarting America Means People will die. .."
When the bad times come, it is the weakest animals that don't survive. Disease is natural, and virus's like COVID-19 could be nature's way in a society with limited resources of speeding the removal of the weak who might not have lived long anyway?