Coronavirus: COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown

[Zarathustra]

Will BSV help the Chinese people to finally chase their criminal government into the desert?

I don't know what disgusts me more, the political organization of that society or its animal markets.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-51403795

 

[KoKansei]

Will BSV help the Chinese people to finally chase their criminal government into the desert?

I don't know what disgusts me more, the political organization of that society or its animal markets.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-51403795

I have unfortunately been to many open air animal markets in my time, and let me assure you the political organization imposed on Mainland China by the CCP is far more disgusting on a completely different level.

To borrow an analogy from English literature, animal markets are like a Stephen King monster: horrible, but in a shallow and easily predictable way. The CCP, on the other hand, is more like something out of HP Lovecraft.

 

[Zarathustra]

I have unfortunately been to many open air animal markets in my time, and let me assure you the political organization imposed on Mainland China by the CCP is far more disgusting on a completely different level.

To borrow an analogy from English literature, animal markets are like a Stephen King monster: horrible, but in a shallow and easily predictable way. The CCP, on the other hand, is more like something out of HP Lovecraft.

Figures from China:

Hubei:
Confirmed: 33,366
Deaths: 1,068

Guangdong, mainland China
Confirmed: 1,219
Deaths: 1

Zhejiang, mainland China
Confirmed: 1,131
Deaths: 0

This is not variance, it's bullshit. Why doesn't the world question this CCP crap?

https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6

 

[AdrianX]

China cleans, locks away banknotes to stop virus spread
and so begins the cashless society it starts as a meme that spreads faster than a virus and we all welcome it as a life saver.

 

[Zarathustra]

It looks more and more like society's handling of the corona virus has the potential to becoming a black swan and could lead to the total collapse of our just-in-time society.
Influenza is not a black swan because we don't react with mass quarantines, closures and shut downs. We simply accept the death of a few promille of the population.

 

[Niner]

Chiro dude Dr. John Bergman puts the virus in perspective. No need to panic.

 

[Manfred]

Of topic, as Austria (South Tyrol) causing some chaos in Europe again and someone maybe affect with this new sickness, here is some serious positive 60 Minute report.
Works for any virus, and no eating a lot of oranges will not prevent from infections.

Something similar in print, by comparison a orange has less than 100mg
https://humansarefree.com/2020/03/shanghai-government-officially-recommends-vitamin-c-for-covid-19.html

Some countries have a lot success the last 24h, others not so much
https://i.postimg.cc/Y9HDj719/Untitled.jpg

 

[Zarathustra]

Prevention model is South Korea, not Chinese state terror, as their henchmen suggest.

https://www.inquirer.com/health/coronavirus/coronavirus-democracy-south-korea-trump-testing-china-20200312.html

 

[Zarathustra]

Can they close main parts of the economy for more than 3 weeks without civilization completely collapsing (= disappearing) in panic? I don't think so. South Korea has solved the problem through complete transparency. Anonymity/privacy would have been fatal.

 

[Bloomie]

I don't know what's more frightening, civilization collapsing or the fact that more than half of the population still does not believe that this is a serious problem.

 

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

I don't know what's more frightening, civilization collapsing or the fact that more than half of the population still does not believe that this is a serious problem.

The global overreaction to Covid-19 is the most striking popular delusion I've witnessed in my lifetime, besides of course BTC. Sad thing is people will learn nothing when it fails to significantly beat the death toll of a typical bad flu season which is the most likely outcome. They will say it is because we panicked to an unprecedented degree, or because we found a vaccine just in time to avert catastrophe, just like BTCers say the UASF defeated the miners or that the price proves Core was right. As data is not information, as history absent theory is meaningless, a false paradigm continually errs both in its interpretation of present events and their implications for the future.

 

[Bloomie]

Covid-19 "beat" the flu on day one. Minimum hospitalization rate is 10 percent. Hospitalization requires a bed and a doctor. There aren't enough beds or doctors in any country to handle a 10 percent hospitalization rate. The delusion is calling the current reaction an overreaction.

 

[Zarathustra]

The most meaningful figures are those of the Diamond Princess. Zero victims under 70 years.
7 victims of those 288 positive tested passengers over 70 years.

I think you are both right in some way. It is neither an overreaction nor an underreaction. It is wrong reaction. South Korea alone seems to be responding adequately, with full transparency and full reaction with technical means that made it possible to prevent a lockdown of the economy.

China had an underreaction when they covered up information and eliminated Kassandra. Classic state terror by anonymous criminal politicians.
Europe has an underreaction in the delivery of ventilators and intensive care units. This inevitably leads to chaos and panic, which they want to prevent with a lockdown of the economy, which is an overreaction that I believe leads to even more chaos, panic and victims.

And the society/swarm around Trump? Probably the dumbest of all possible democratic societies.

US airlines already need 50 billion Dollars. Imagine how much the whole econmy will need to survive.

At the moment I am having the greatest difficulty imagining a scenario how the demise of civilization can be averted again. If the numbers in Italy do not indicate a turnaround in the next few days, then it looks like Game Over.
My solution would be 'learn from South Korea' and try to solve the problem without a lockdown of the economy. @lunar's full transparency instead of ancap, privacy and anonymity. No lockdown, but full concentration in the provision of intensive care beds and temporary care staff. Social distance can be maintained without a lockdown.
A well-known virologist in Switzerland claims that we have enough money to survive a three-month lockdown.
They have no idea about the economy and society, historical breakdowns etc.
But politicians now seem to be listening to such experts. We will have a lockdown until 19th april, they declared.

 

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

There have been no grounds for any special reaction to Covid-19 over a typical bad flu year.

Seasonal flu kills about half a million people a year, there are always hotspots in polluted areas when there's a lung-intensive flu going around, and we have no data to suggest this virus will kill more people than a typical flu. (Diamond Princess's data is the only sort-of useful data we have, and given the notoriously adverse conditions for flus and colds on cruise ships it isn't particularly alarming that 0.5% of people 70 or older died on the worst-hit ship, and that's from a virus facing a virgin population (no recovered's in the SEIR model) kept under high stress.)

What we do have is unprecendented media hype, government virtue signalling and opportunism, the newly powerful force of social media cranking the hysterics and illogic up to 11 (as with Bitcoin), circular reasoning (appeal to governments panicking), invalid exponential growth extrapolations (flu cases typically grow exponentially...then peter out), wild speculation for XYZ new reason (as with every past viral scare), and the CDC's usual deliberate playing up of the deadliness (straight from the horse's mouth) based entirely on Case Fatality Rate statistics that are mainly just an artifact of how selective testing is and are all but meaningless for assessing threat levels (ditto for the "hospitalization rate").

Absent a random sample of various populations, using an antibody test, the only reliable data on which to warrant panic will come from actual body count, which yes is "too late" after it happens but that is the exact same situation as with every new virus. We can freak out and shut much of the economy down every time we think we find a new bug, but that seems likely to kill more people than it saves. (Think how many lives would be saved if the speed limit were 25 miles per hour.)

Knowing all this, the real story is how vulnerable social media and the world are to bogus panics, and all the politicians rubbing their hands together with glee over what this level of scare enables them to push through.

 

[kostialevin]

I live next to a hospital in Lombardia and I can assure you that I've never seen something like this. True that maybe there are better ways to manage this without disrupting the economy, but it's also true that nobody really know what this thing is. There's a lot of speculation, but the cemetery in Bergamo that works 24h/day every day Sunday included is a fact.

 

[Christoph Bergmann]

I'm so split.

One the one side, yes, this virus looks scary. Long incubation periods, and a high rate of icu required patients. Sounds like a good combination to harvest lives. But I am no virology expert, unlike an exponential growing number of Germans...

On the other side I am very scared of the reactions. It's like the governments decided in last two weeks to test they can quarantine the whole. In 2008 a milder crash (?) cached all the mass Hysterie, now hardly anyone is interested, because we have to celebrate watching exponential numbers go up while exercising social distancing.

Did being a bitcoiner just became mainstream?

 

[Zarathustra]

Wow, the Dutch prime minister is not stupid. They refuse to commit suicide. They seem to feel the consequences. Refuse a lockdown leads to the death of many. A lockdown leads to the death of everybody.

The third option is that we keep working endlessly to contain the virus.

That would mean shutting down the country completely.

Such a rigorous approach may seem like an attractive option, but experts say that this would not be a matter of days or weeks.

In this scenario, we would essentially have to shut the country down for a year or even longer, with all the consequences that would entail.

And even if that were possible in practice – making people stay in their homes unless they have permission to go outside, for such a lengthy period – the virus could simply rear its head again once the measures were lifted.

The Netherlands is an open country.

Until a vaccine is available, coronavirus will continue to sweep the world, and it won’t spare the Netherlands.

All the advice we’ve received, and all the measures we’ve announced so far, have been aimed at the first approach: controlling the spread as much as possible.

Television address by Prime Minister Mark Rutte of the Netherlands

Prime Minister Rutte addresses the country about COVID-19.

www.government.nl

In the Netherlands we are continually exploring appropriate measures: that is, measures that will prevent the spread of the virus without putting the country ‘on lockdown’.

Dutch advice to prevent Covid-19

Information about the Dutch advice to control the spread of coronavirus Covid-19 in the Netherlands.

www.government.nl

 

[Zarathustra]

These charts will be interesting to follow:

EUROMOMO EuroMOMO Bulletin, Week 1, 2024

EuroMOMO pooled estimates show elevated mortality This week’s pooled EuroMOMO estimates of all-cause mortality for the participating…

www.euromomo.eu

 

[Zarathustra]

I'm so split.

Then watch this video:

 

[Bloomie]

There have been no grounds for any special reaction to Covid-19 over a typical bad flu year.

Seasonal flu kills about half a million people a year, there are always hotspots in polluted areas when there's a lung-intensive flu going around, and we have no data to suggest this virus will kill more people than a typical flu.

I outlined those grounds for you. You're basing your arguments on the assumption that the quarantines and other social distancing measures are directed at preventing deaths resulting directly from Covid-19 when in reality they are directed at preventing the collapse of the health infrastructure by flattening the infection curve.

One out of 10 people who test positive develops an acute viral pneumonia and needs hospital care. This is statistically accurate. We don't have the infrastructure to support that many pneumonia patients in serious condition who may require a transfer to the ICU at any time. Those ICU beds and doctors are needed for people with heart attacks, strokes, car accidents, organ failure from other diseases etc. There are reports from post-Soviet republics that refused to test people early on (Russia still has less than 10 "official" cases or something laughable like that) that hospitals are already overflowing with patients lying in hallways and on floors. Think a horror scene from a WW2 movie. Western health systems are better but not that much better. We still don't have enough beds and doctors.

If the health system collapses, no one will need crypto or fiat, and the damage to the economy will be insignificant because we would be going back to using sacks of grain for currency (and probably milling that grain ourselves).