Crazy (and not-so-crazy) shit about Covid-19

[Trick]

So most of those who died in Sweden weren't Swedish, but elderly immigrants in nursing homes? Do you have a link for that?

Yeah, immigrants often live in worse conditions than citizens anywhere they go. It's also likely that they have higher incidences of all diseases. Still, let's say all the victims were immigrants. They didn't bring the virus to Sweden, and it really doesn't matter in terms of the statistics. Sure, we could say, "If we don't count ____s, the numbers would be lower."

My point is that it doesn't matter who died.

Mmmm, there are of course reasons why the Mr,Swedish Prime Minister doesn’t go out and say something as

. My point is that it doesn't matter who died

[Trick]

So most of those who died in Sweden weren't Swedish, but elderly immigrants in nursing homes? Do you have a link for that?

I don't exactly know how many of the deceased are born in Sweden o have parents born in Sweden. But the virus here is focused to clusters. The most affected areas are either those with much immigrants and nursing homes.

Sure. It doesn't seem unusual. But, I thought the issue was how many people in Sweden who died could have been saved if the government had reacted differently. It didn't really matter to me who the dead were. I'm just saying.

Steve, mentioning immigrant doesn’t necessarily mean a negative focus toward immigrants.
The negativity here is directed toward the Swedish government, who has not manage to provide adequate living standards to especially the refugees that has come to Sweden since 2014/15.
No one here criticizing immigrants, we all criticize the governments inadequate actions, both as for preventative and for the acute situation.

Sweden’s population has increased drastically the last two decades which is directly linked to immigration, So yearly death toll will anyway naturally be higher than previous years, viruses or not

[Giles]

That study in Lancet that disputed the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine may have serious flaws.

https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opin ... here-67595


https://spectator.org/lancetgate-pullin ... loroquine/

Yes, you're right. Looks like a big screw-up in this study.
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-52929916

So it's good that the drug group is now once again undergoing other studies, which will provide a clearer picture. So the jury is still out on this after all. Doesn't mean that (hydroxy)chloroquine is effective for Covid-19 after all, doesn't mean it's not.

Really bad that this study was so flawed. Still, the story also shows that the medical scientific community as a whole is functioning, because the process of peer review caught up with the study and the Lancet has withdrawn it and publicly apologized for (premature) publishing. That in turn is 'good science': being willing to (publicly) self-correct on the basis of new evidence. In the permanent-emergency public health situation at the moment, everyone in the sector needs new information and results fast. Under normal circumstances the study would probably have been more scrutinized more closely and for longer before publication. Difficult times.

[Steve James]

It's good practice that the authors retracted the paper on their own. It was published on the basis of data that can't be confirmed. Getting good data is essential.

[windwalker]

Really bad that this study was so flawed. Still, the story also shows that the medical scientific community as a whole is functioning,

When the discrepancies become so great that it could no longer be ignored they corrected it .
Do find it interesting, that’s some cited the same study aligning with their particular bias, ignoring
findings in other parts of the world showing positive results.

Three of the study's authors said they could not longer vouch for its veracity because Surgisphere, a healthcare firm behind the data, would not allow an independent review of its dataset

Seems like they would’ve wanted to see the data sets in the beginning.

[Steve James]

Three of the study's authors said they could not longer vouch for its veracity because Surgisphere, a healthcare firm behind the data, would not allow an independent review of its dataset

Seems like they would’ve wanted to see the data sets in the beginning.

Umm, the point is that they used the data that had been collected by Surgisphere to write their article. When they asked Surgisphere to have its data reviewed independently, Surgisphere refused.

So, what exactly does that prove about the drug? Absolutely nothing. A company was supposed to collect and collate data (information). "Garbage in, garbage out" if the data is corrupt. However, if it was simply data corruption, then it's possible the drug is more deadly.

Iirc, Surgisphere used 90K patients. The benefit of the study was that breadth. X number of people WITH the virus were given the drug/s, and X number weren't. The results were compared, and it showed that those who did not take the drug survived at a higher rate. Since Surgisphere apparently won't allow independent confirmation of the raw data, the authors of the easy retracted their conclusion.

And, when it comes to other studies that claim it works, are their studies and data independently reviewed? If they were, wouldn't Lancet publish them? If it's honest enough to retract, doesn't that show that they want to print what's correct? (No, I don't believe they're holding back or anti-anything. I think if it worked, they'd print it right away).

We know the authors are honest because they retracted the article. They did the ethical thing. Let's here what they say next.

[Peacedog]

FWIW,

Here is a resource that allows for a broad based search of research articles in the medical community. The NCBI in conjunction with PubMed covers virtually all vetted research papers. If you limit the search to "full free text" you will find links to complete papers with all of their research data as well.

Tools like this, along with slaved AI, are largely responsible for the spate of rescinded papers as of late. The simple truth is that it is much easier to vet data than at any point in history and it is producing a lot of "discovered" bullshit. Also keep in mind that the editor of the Lancet a few years back publicly stated that at least half of the research papers out there could not be verified and should be thrown out.

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

It's a fun resource that you can spend days at a time on.

Anecdotally, I've seen some cases indicating hydroxychloroquine only works on Covid-19 when combined with a zinc supplement. Hopefully some of the new studies will look into this.

[Steve James]

Anecdotally, I've seen some cases indicating hydroxychloroquine only works on Covid-19 when combined with a zinc supplement. Hopefully some of the new studies will look into this.

Iinm, it's given in combination with an antibiotic too. But, anecdotal evidence is anecdotal. Iow, there are cases where it's worked (i.e. the patient recovered), and there are cases where it hasn't. So, if it's given to a patient, how do we know that it worked. There's no conclusion, yet. Do we give it then to all patients today? Otoh, if some patients have died after receiving the treatment, does that mean it doesn't work?

Peer review also means reproducible results, and that's when it's not anecdotal.

[Giles]

Returning to the issue of the general pandemics threat to humanity, I think this is an easy-to-understand and interesting article + short video about the risk and nature of future pandemics.

"In the last 20 years, we've had six significant threats - SARS, MERS, Ebola, avian influenza and swine flu," Prof Matthew Baylis from the University of Liverpool told BBC News. "We dodged five bullets but the sixth got us."

"And this is not the last pandemic we are going to face, so we need to be looking more closely at wildlife disease."

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-52775386

The Nipah virus mentioned in the text (not the film) sounds extremely nasty. In the Malaysian outbreak it made the jump from fruit bats to pigs and then from pigs to humans, but thankfully didn't appear very 'competent' in spreading from humans to humans. (This time around at least). Just a few isolated cases of it doing that, apparently (see Wikipedia article on "Nipah virus").

The article and film also make clear (again) why medical researchers collect and study selected animal viruses in certain dedicated labs. And why this essentially is more of a 'good idea' than a 'bad idea'. As the researcher puts it: "To find them before they find us". And hence to have better information for recognizing and combating an outbreak caused in the real world by a 'mystery' virus. But of course this also creates a risk, theoretically at least, of a dangerous virus 'leaking' from a lab. On the other hand, the risk of further new viruses in the outside world making the jump to humans and, er, going viral, would seem to be much greater than a possible route via research labs. (If anyone has some new actual evidence to back up this claim regarding Covid-19, then shoot. Otherwise BTDT). Assuming that these labs are run properly and also monitored properly by other bodies. A risk trade-off, in other words. Ending all research on such viruses would, IMO, be a head-in-the-sand approach because when the new pandemic comes, sooner or later, we would probably start off with a much poorer knowledge base than we would otherwise.

-- But I've just had a great idea. Don't try and reduce human encroachment on, and destruction of, jungle habitats. Accelerate it! Carpet napalming of every jungle in the world, followed up by mass spraying of herbicides and cyanide. No more jungle, no more jungle wildlife, no more nasty emerging viruses. Sorted.

[Steve James]

No more jungle, no more jungle wildlife, no more nasty emerging viruses. Sorted.

Some might argue that this is Nature's way of sorting things out.

[Trick]

. -- But I've just had a great idea. Don't try and reduce human encroachment on, and destruction of, jungle habitats. Accelerate it! Carpet napalming of every jungle in the world, followed up by mass spraying of herbicides and cyanide. No more jungle, no more jungle wildlife, no more nasty emerging viruses. Sorted.

And more on the plus side, much more land to build on, to house an ever growing population so we don’t need B.Gates depopulation vaccines.......

[grzegorz]

It's odd that people keep throwing out the Swedish model perhaps is has a nice ring to it here. Good marketing...

But to me the Japanese (and Czech) models are much more interesting. The Japanese were slow to respond and didn't go into lock down but everyone threw on a mask and less than a thousand died.

[Michael]

Trick, you asked a while back how much training US police receive. It varies depending on the city or jurisdiction where they are. Maybe 6 weeks is common?

[Bao]

It's odd that people keep throwing out the Swedish model perhaps is has a nice ring to it here. Good marketing...

But to me the Japanese (and Czech) models are much more interesting. The Japanese were slow to respond and didn't go into lock down but everyone threw on a mask and less than a thousand died.

“The Swedish Model” is something that has been dead for at least 30 years. Sweden has no model. Not in general, not for handling viruses. The modern Swedish system is built so no one needs to take responsibility and everyone can blame someone else. There’s no leadership and no one taking charge.

[Trick]

Trick, you asked a while back how much training US police receive. It varies depending on the city or jurisdiction where they are. Maybe 6 weeks is common?

As i guessed, those police academy movies where true then...