Title of an article in yesterday's the New York Times
"More Americans Should Probably Wear Masks for Protection"
A document from the Italian Health Ministry, tracing mortality for the 65+ age brackets, up to and including Week 11 (that's March 8th to 14th)
http://www.salute.gov.it/portale/cal...si_2020w11.pdf
Data for all three brackets are significantly above expectations (defined as > 1.96SD, if I understand correctly). Data is collected from 19 cities (from the look of it, the 19 biggest cities in Italy).
IPB
Title of an article in yesterday's the New York Times
"More Americans Should Probably Wear Masks for Protection"
Sweden is taking balanced mitigation actions and remains open for business.
The article raises several interesting questions about the feasibility and efficacy of contrasting approaches to dealing with this scourge.
In the Coronavirus Fight in Scandinavia, Sweden Stands Apart - The New York Times
Some of the most interesting reading of all:
Neil Ferguson reduces the British death toll estimate to 5,700.
Two things to notice:
- The man upon whose advice the British government destroyed our economy and abolished our liberty has reduced his estimate of deaths by almost 99%. The notion that Mr Ferguson should ever again be taken seriously as a scientist is now laughable. On his advice we have done untold damage to ourselves in reaction to something even the chief panic-monger now believes is as deadly as a below-average seasonal flu.
- They are already trying to credit the lockdown for the reduction, and to paint the reduction as contingent upon the lockdown's continuation, thereby justifying their decisions, and at least one of the national newspapers is going along with it. This must be vigorously challenged before the government successfully convince the public that they are the saviours of the nation. No thinking person should give credit to this nonsense given that the lockdown has not even been in place for as long as the virus's purported 'incubation' period, which would make it impossible to assess the lockdown's affect on the virus even if we had reliable statistics up until now on the rates of infection and death, which we absolutely do not.
The local NPR outlet continues to feature news stories shaped in to their usual tales of misery and woe with a slightly different cast from their national sources. Increasingly, those stories are focusing on the harm and pain wrought by the lockdowns, house arrests, and Stalin-like (my term, not theirs) declarations of "non-essential" businesses, and by extension their employees.
Then too, the local AM/FM commercial news radio station WJPF continues to knock it out of the park with this interview with a local doc, name of Jeff Ripperda. It was all about the Kung Flu and well worth a listen no matter where you are for a little more sanity to the current madness that has overtaken the nation in general and Illinois along with a few others in particular. Hang in there to near the end where the discussion turns to a more targeted approach to working through the current situation. Dr. Ripperda talks about how DC is working on such measures but they have not yet been finalized and disseminated to the states as of yet. Newsradio WJPF interview with Jeff Ripperda | March 27, 2020 | Newsradio WJPF
Perhaps some resistance is building to this media driven debacle.
Rip,
I'm confused. Why is it that the doctors who tell me that if I go outside I will kill grandma are the same doctors who can't wait to euthanize her?
This is damned good information, but I'm afraid it's too late for that. The issue now is not the virus. It is the baser totalitarian instincts of our Betters In Charge, and what we will do about it. At this point, they are pushing us, and measuring the distance we back up.
UK Police Force Creates Tool That Lets People Snitch on Others For Not “Social Distancing” – Summit News
"This Is Unprecedented" - South Africa Invokes Military-Controlled Lockdown As Infections Soar | Zero Hedge
Everything is not going to be okay. The Pandemic. The Revolution. Doesn't matter the title. The local authorities here are threatening to arrest violators of their little martial law ordinance. How will they be regarded on the other side of this? I can't think of a better way to piss a lot of people off than to do something like this. And this "rat your buddy out" thing in the UK was devised by people too young to remember East Germany. It tears a society apart.The sale of alcohol and cigarettes has been banned for three weeks, along with any outdoor activity such as jogging, walking dogs, and or going to the park. The government warned that offenders would be prosecuted and either fined or jailed.
I'll be more specific...we'll be alright means 'a minimum amount of people will die from the virus.'
I am not happy with the shit that's happening to small businesses. I also would be cautious to be gloom & doom in this direction, like the virus scarers were at the start. The virus was never going to be as bad as they said, and I choose to believe the repercussions, while very bad, probably won't be as bad as you think.
China already has a large scale version of this called the "social credit score". Ratting out someone who is "unpatriotic" will increase your social credit score while lowering theirs.
If China is already in a 1984 society, Britain and the US are 1984 Lite. Liberty is not a single test. It has to be constantly reinforced every day, and I don't really see us doing much of it.
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