The CORONAVIRUS circus

[Flabbergasted]

Here is a strange piece of epidemiology: an official map of a Northeast Brazilian state capital (population somewhere near 3 million), dated 31 March 2020, showing areas reportedly affected ("confirmed cases") by the pandemic (yellow, orange and red color).



The affected neighborhoods happen to be the richest in town. This is where the population density is the lowest and people can actually indulge in the luxury of staying home. The rest of the metropolis, some of which with rampant poverty and high population density, seems to be doing fine (one suspects there is a lack of celebrities or of te$ting facilities in these areas). For example, Pirambu, a community west of downtown (along the coast, just north of 'Jacarecanga' on the map), which according to official statistics (IBGE) is "the 7th largest urban cluster in Brazil", and just over 10 km away from the high-income neighborhoods in red, is not even classified as "low concentration". And that´s in the middle of the rainy season.


A back street in Pirambu. Try "staying at home" in a place like this.

Added: If we presume the pattern of the map above merely shows the availability of te$ting and if we grant that the "Covid-19 flu" started spreading in Brazil in January (as the Ministry of Health now claims), a true map of contagion would show the entire city painted in red and we would be having many thousands of people from low-income communities agonizing or dead by now. Or so dictates common sense.

[aa5]

That is a good point Flabbergasted. If this was a real crisis requiring lockdowns and isolations . . . then the areas that didn't do those things would show why you have to do them. By people dropping dead by the thousands in those areas.

[alovas1980]

That is a good point Flabbergasted. If this was a real crisis requiring lockdowns and isolations . . . then the areas that didn't do those things would show why you have to do them. By people dropping dead by the thousands in those areas.

So, in Brazil where everybody is on the streets, there is no problem, where everybody is at home, there are a lot of people affected.
Also, South Korea outbreak is under control without resorting to draconian lockdowns.

I think this new coronavirus is just a simple ordinary cold virus. Nobody dies from it.

But can it be that actually the lockdowns, quarantines and curfew are the reasons it spreads so easily?
Flu is caused officially by virus, too. That’s what they say:

https://www.webmd.com/cold-and-flu/qa/w ... the-winter

Why is the flu more common in the winter?
Many things play a role in making the flu more common in the winter:

• The virus lives longer indoors in winter, because the air is less humid than outside.
• While it's alive and in the air, it's easy for people to inhale it, or for it to land on the eyes, nose, or mouth.
• We spend more time indoors and have closer contact with each other, which makes it easier for the virus to spread.

http://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2014/ ... in-winter/

A common misconception is that the flu is caused by cold temperatures. However, the influenza virus is necessary to have the flu, so cold temperatures can only be a contributing factor. In fact, some people have argued that it is not cold temperatures that make the flu more common in the winter. Rather, they attest that the lack of sunlight or the different lifestyles people lead in winter months are the primary contributing factors. Here are the most popular theories about why the flu strikes in winter:

1. During the winter, people spend more time indoors with the windows sealed, so they are more likely to breathe the same air as someone who has the flu and thus contract the virus.
2. Days are shorter during the winter, and lack of sunlight leads to low levels of vitamin D and melatonin, both of which require sunlight for their generation. This compromises our immune systems, which in turn decreases ability to fight the virus.
3. The influenza virus may survive better in colder, drier climates, and therefore be able to infect more people.
   So maybe because of the restrictions more people will get this harmless virus.

[mlebek]

Maybe this is the source of all this Corona?

Israel’s Health Minister: The Messiah will arrive in april

Israel’s Health Minister Yaakov Litzman belive that “The Messiah” will arrrive before Passover, that starts 8th of April. Behold: This will be the last man of lawlessnes.

You must know and understand: From the issuance of the word to restore and rebuild Yerushalayim until the [time of the] anointed leader is seven weeks; and for sixty-two weeks it will be rebuilt, square and moat, but in a time of distress. Daniel 9:25 (The Israel Bible™)

https://ivarfjeld.com/2020/03/22/israel ... e-in-april

[alovas1980]

Last night, a doctor I have known for 20 years told me, spontaneously, on the phone that "moronavirus" death certificates are getting issued for patients who die of entirely different causes. When this happens, I am told, the family has no access to the body, there is no autopsy, and no wake is allowed before the interment.

Scary since then there's no way of independently determining the cause of death if for example over-medication/malpractice is suspected.

Over-medication/malpractice happens, but even worse, I think people who have chronic diseases and caught the coronavirus don’t get treated for the chronic diseases. That’s why many of them die. Coronavirus will be on the death certificate, so the handling should be also for the coronavirus.

They put people on mechanical ventilation, they give them unnecessary drugs, and they are totally not concerned with the real illness.

Is it possible that doctors knowingly or unknowingly are killing the coronavirus patients?

Mechanical ventilation can cause pneumonia.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2199002

Complications associated with mechanical ventilation:

A constellation of adverse effects and complications may be associated with mechanical ventilation, although in many instances the causal role of the ventilator itself has not been established. Complications occur with greater frequency than is generally appreciated, and tend to be under-reported in the medical literature. Among the potential adverse physiologic effects of positive-pressure ventilation are decreased cardiac output, unintended respiratory alkalosis, increased intracranial pressure, gastric distension, and impairment of hepatic and renal function. Failure of the ventilator to cycle, of safety alarms to function properly, and of inspired gas to be properly heated or humidified are examples of equipment-related complications. Perhaps most feared among medical complications occurring during mechanical ventilation are pneumothorax, bronchopleural fistula, and the development of nosocomial pneumonia; these entities may owe as much to the impairment of host defenses and normal tissue integrity as to the presence of the ventilator per se. Finally, a variety of avoidable "misadventures," due primarily to lapses of understanding and communication among the physicians, nurses, and respiratory care practitioners managing the ventilated patient, can adversely affect comfort, morbidity, and ultimate outcome.

The magical malaria drug against the coronavirus causes all the symptoms of this coronavirus:

https://www.webmd.com/drugs/2/drug-5482 ... al/details

Plaquenil, Hydroxychloroquine Sulfate
Side Effects:

Nausea, stomach cramps, loss of appetite, diarrhea, dizziness, or headache may occur. If any of these effects persist or worsen, notify your doctor or pharmacist promptly.

Remember that your doctor has prescribed this medication because he or she has judged that the benefit to you is greater than the risk of side effects. Many people using this medication do not have serious side effects.

Tell your doctor right away if you have any serious side effects, including: arm/leg/back pain, slow heartbeat, symptoms of heart failure (such as shortness of breath, swelling ankles/feet, unusual tiredness, unusual/sudden weight gain), hair loss/color change, mental/mood changes (e.g., anxiety, depression, rare thoughts of suicide, hallucinations), ringing in the ears/hearing loss, worsening of skin conditions (e.g., psoriasis), severe stomach/abdominal pain, severe nausea/vomiting, easy bleeding/bruising, signs of infection (e.g., fever, persistent sore throat), dark urine, yellowing eyes/skin.

This medication may rarely cause low blood sugar (hypoglycemia). Tell your doctor right away if you develop symptoms of low blood sugar, such as sudden sweating, shaking, hunger, blurred vision, dizziness, or tingling hands/feet. If you have diabetes, be sure to check your blood sugars regularly. Your doctor may need to adjust your diabetes medication.

This medication may rarely cause serious (sometimes permanent) eye problems or muscle/nerve damage, especially if you take it for a long time. Get medical help right away if you have any very serious side effects, including: sensitivity to light, vision changes (e.g., blurred vision, seeing light flashes/streaks/halos, missing/blacked-out areas of vision), muscle weakness, numbness/tingling/pain of the arms/legs.

Get medical help right away if you have any very serious side effects, including: chest pain, fast/irregular heartbeat, severe dizziness, fainting, seizures.

A very serious allergic reaction to this drug is rare. However, get medical help right away if you notice any symptoms of a serious allergic reaction, including: rash, itching/swelling (especially of the face/tongue/throat), dizziness, trouble breathing.

This is not a complete list of possible side effects. If you notice other effects not listed above, contact your doctor or pharmacist.

[Undoctored]

“Circus” is right! It’s a clown show! Sure, we need to stay vigilant, but am I going out on a limb when I say things are different this time in a positive way? The difference is in the worldwide-acknowledged humor of the situation.

The Scriptwriters appear to have intended this. Got this one via Slashdot, Ted Chiang Explains the Disaster Novel We All Suddenly Live In.

The esteemed science fiction author, best known for movie "Arrival" that is based on his novel, on how we may never go "back to normal" -- and why that might be a good thing. From an interview on Electric Literature:

EL: Do you see aspects of science fiction (your own work or others) in the coronavirus pandemic? In how it is being handled, or how it has spread?
TC: While there has been plenty of fiction written about pandemics, I think the biggest difference between those scenarios and our reality is how poorly our government has handled it. If your goal is to dramatize the threat posed by an unknown virus, there's no advantage in depicting the officials responding as incompetent, because that minimizes the threat; it leads the reader to conclude that the virus wouldn't be dangerous if competent people were on the job. A pandemic story like that would be similar to what's known as an "idiot plot," a plot that would be resolved very quickly if your protagonist weren't an idiot. What we're living through is only partly a disaster novel; it's also -- and perhaps mostly -- a grotesque political satire.

[heniek1812]

Here is a strange piece of epidemiology: an official map of a Northeast Brazilian state capital (population somewhere near 3 million), dated 31 March 2020, showing areas reportedly affected ("confirmed cases") by the pandemic (yellow, orange and red color).


The affected neighborhoods happen to be the richest in town. This is where the population density is the lowest and people can actually indulge in the luxury of staying home. The rest of the metropolis, some of which with rampant poverty and high population density, seems to be doing fine (one suspects there is a lack of celebrities or of te$ting facilities in these areas). For example, Pirambu, a community west of downtown (along the coast, just north of 'Jacarecanga' on the map), which according to official statistics (IBGE) is "the 7th largest urban cluster in Brazil", and just over 10 km away from the high-income neighborhoods in red, is not even classified as "low concentration". And that´s in the middle of the rainy season.

Looks like Brazil is backing off from the date WHEN the initial "patient zero"was detected, Jan. 23. Now they say it is Feb. 26.

https://brazilian.report/coronavirus-brazil-live-blog/

Another parameter to consider when looking at that "heat map" is the fact that the poor work for the rich. So the poor would have been cleaning the house, doing laundry, cooking, washing car and vacuuming it ..... Hence, all points of contact to get the magical CORONA VIRUS. Smells like we are looking at a Giant Bullshit Show called "Fear me, my name is Corona".

[simonshack]

*

NURSES THREATENED OF DISMISSAL FOR TALKING WITH THE PRESS?




A rather curious article to be found on the website of the Italian Lawyers Association for hospital workers:

"NURSES THREATENED WITH DISMISSAL IF THEY INFORM THE JOURNALISTS OF THE REAL SITUATION IN THE WARDS" (March 12, 2020) - "The situation is particularly serious because nurses are raked in from foreign services [??!!] to the hospitals to throw them, without any training or screening, in the high-risk infectious wards and without equipping them with the most basic safety aids. "

Original Italian text:
"INFERMIERI MINACCIATI DI LICENZIAMENTO SE INFORMANO I GIORNALISTI DELLA REALE SITUAZIONE NEI REPARTI" (12 Marzo, 2020) - "La situazione è grave soprattutto perché si rastrellano infermieri dai servizi estranei [??!!] alla degenza per gettarli, senza alcuna formazione e screening, nei reparti ad alto rischio infettivo e senza dotarli delle più elementari presidi di sicurezza."

https://www.aadi.it/giornalisti-dite-la ... uQzkHmKKiU

Dear nonhocapito, if you have time, would you kindly contact your Italian hospital friends and ask them if they have heard of this and, if so, what they make of it? Thanks!

[anonjedi2]

SOURCE of the above image (at 2:45 of this TV newscast) :


full link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIRml8gyeSE

[simonshack]

*

Latest news from the USA:

"Hospitals are now telling doctors treating coronavirus patients they will be fired if they speak to the press."


https://www.rawstory.com/2020/04/heres- ... paign=4210


Ok folks, so now both Italy and the USA are firing their hospitals' medical staff IF THEY DARE SPEAK WITH THE PRESS.

Strange, isn't it? Why would this be? You decide.

[simonshack]

*
Good eyes, dear Anonjedi - great catch !

So now we know that those "Coronavirus patients" shown on TV are nothing but latex dummies...



Note the sign at upper right that says: "No food and/or drinks allowed near mannequins and/or task trainers"

Can it get ANY sillier than this ???


Yes, it can. Listen to this TV woman here: https://youtu.be/qIRml8gyeSE?t=288
"The World Bank also weighed in today saying that it saw...at least another 11 people being added...added to the poverty line across East Asia and the Pacific, it said - unlesss urgent action is taken"...

[bhicks]

"Coronavirus: To Swedes, it's the rest of the world engaging in a reckless experiment"
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health ... Og28gzkKic

Amazing Polly has done a great job analyzing the NYTimes piece with the staged video and a lot more.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAnSkQojE_4

[anonjedi2]

Simon,

It's all pretty silly, isn't it? Even the sign on the back wall reads:

"No food and/or drinks allowed near mannequins and/or task trainers"

Of course, the media will explain it away and say that it's normal to use stock footage and HIPPA laws prevent them from actually airing footage of real people, blah blah blah. The public will eat it up as usual.

[slowanon]

Some more information about advanced training mannequins:

https://www.dmu.edu/news/2019/10/new-me ... ns-at-dmu/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8RfWd84tfA

On the other hand, of course this is more a technical detail of how the pictures in the media might be made, for other pictures it could be crisis actors, probably doesn't make a big difference, in Europe there could possibly be pictures of real people (in hospitals, those new hospital trains are more suspect), from the group of those elderly people in home care who might have ended up being alone without care and have been forced into hospitals.

[slowanon]

Probably just better be on the safe side and quarantine for 14 days in any case.

Do you mind elaborating on that?

It's just that what they could say in that case in the question.

The symptomless infection / carrier story gets me every time. Claims are being floated that one can even have 'high viral load' with no symptoms:
https://www.newscientist.com/article/22 ... -19-worse/

Viral load, on the other hand, relates to the number of viral particles being carried by an infected individual and shed into their environment. [...] If you have a high viral load, you are more likely to infect other people, because you may be shedding more virus particles. However, in the case of covid-19, it doesn’t necessarily follow that a higher viral load will lead to more severe symptoms. [...] For instance, health workers investigating the covid-19 outbreak in the Lombardy region of Italy looked at more than 5,000 infected people and found no difference in viral load between those with symptoms and those without. They reached this conclusion after tracing people who had been in contact with someone known to be infected with the coronavirus and testing them to see if they were also infected.

Then combine the symptomless high viral load carrier concept with that symptoms, coughing and sneezing aren't necessary to spread the virus:
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/02/heal ... index.html

A prestigious scientific panel told the White House Wednesday night that research shows coronavirus can be spread not just by sneezes or coughs, but also just by talking, or possibly even just breathing. [...] "If you generate an aerosol of the virus with no circulation in a room, it's conceivable that if you walk through later, you could inhale the virus," Fineberg said. "But if you're outside, the breeze will likely disperse it."

Aerosolization is also a potential risk in the toilet and bathroom:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... aeces.html

Like most respiratory illnesses, coronavirus is spread in tiny droplets of moisture that carry virus particles.
Experts warn these are expelled when sick people cough or sneeze. However, talking can send the droplets into the air, too.
But the showering of bugs from not putting the toilet lid down can cause pathogens to settle on nearby surfaces, such as walls, towels and toothbrushes.
The virus is known to survive on different materials for several hours and even days, in some cases.