MedEwok wrote:
However, in the “real world”, to borrow one of your favourite phrases, things do not work that way. I believe you live in a social bubble of sorts and surround yourself with like minded people of similar status, who are probably all able to take care of themselves and their family, like you obviously are. This is natural: all people automatically tend to surround themselves with like-minded individuals.
I am as far from surrounding myself with a ‘social bubble’ as one might imagine. I do however believe in people, any of them, over central authority, which always ‘works’ for a little while, then fails.
I’ve spent a lot of time in northern Italy, and describing it as wealthy is decidedly odd. It has some pockets of wealth. Travel around on the Milano subway for a while and you’ll get the picture. I’ve spent several weeks doing that with friends from near Rome who were sporadically living there temporarily for school or work, I love the place but wealthy it is not.
As a student I went to a conference in Fort Lauderdale and had a similar impression: everybody seemed to live in shacks you could fit in my living room. I’m told there are wealthier parts of the city, but they didn’t seem to be on the bus routes.
Florida is probably half lower middle class, trailer trash by choice. A friend says who lives in Jupiter, not too far from Ft Lauderdale, says people don’t move to Florida to work hard 
He’s retired after being an itinerant CAD designer, rarely home for more than a few days, supporting his wife over the 25 years that she built an insurance agency. They ended up in FL because of a job he had for a while at Pratt & Whitney. I don’t believe she has any education beyond age 18 but the local insurance business now has them living very well indeed: his plan for this summer was to to pick up a new Mercedes in Germany (like me he keeps a motorcycle there) and ship it home but given travel restrictions he ended up with a new Tesla bought locally. Boys and their toys.
If you start off with low expectations for people, anybody, they will generally prove you correct. If you start off with higher expectations, a whole lot of them will likewise prove you correct. Not all, but the net result is better.
From here (in Norwegian)
Had to include that cool picture
Each year an average of about 900 dies in Norway due to influenza. So far only 274 has died due to Covid. Which is more deadly? It’s all rather nonsensical. Nobody dies due to influenza alone. Influenza is the last nail in the coffin, same as Covid. Something HAS to be the last nail when we get old and waiting to die. We should also remember those in the risk category (old and already have some illness) are encouraged by their doctors to take influenza vaccine each year. The “real” fatality rate (without vaccine) must be much higher than 900.
Nevertheless, the article conclude that Covid is indeed much more fatal than influenza, by a factor 3-10, but it also say that this is a best guess, because no one really knows yet.
Another conclusion is that Covid19 + influenza is a substantially more deadly mix than Covid 19 alone. Now we are heading right into the influenza season, and the best protection you can do is to take an influenza vaccine. But again, if you are not in the “risk group” (old and sick), there really isn’t all that much risk.
On the news right now: Most people who get Covid now, gets it in their homes. Not in bars or social places, but at home. The reason is of course that someone in the home brings it inside from the outside somewhere (bars, work, school etc).
WOW looking at the size of that thing, it’s no wonder it makes people really sick when they get it into their lungs.
I can believe most people that are likely to get seriously ill catch it in their home. These people (the demographic) are not normally found clubbing and boozing, etc. But somebody does have to bring it into the house; it isn’t going to jump in through the window. And it is those people who are catching it outside the home.
My Q still stands: why do nearly all policymakers take such a different view of the risk and how to address it, from the dissenting voices? If the answer was really so obvious, it would mean most scientists working for the govts are really stupid.
I am a “scientist” too and know well how much dissent there is within any leading-edge field. And everybody in the business knows how much different groups of scientists can hate each other (they are competing for research grants, after all; TV interviews don’t put much bread on the table). But it doesn’t explain this situation.
Peter wrote:
Hmng – why do you think the govts are all, or nearly all, following the line which you say is wrong? Why is everyone, or almost everyone, not “getting it”?
Like you, I don’t know. Can only speculate. But it seems to me that there is a whole industry creating fear out of thin air, not by malice (at least by most) but by professional deformation; if your whole career is about preparing for apocalyptic scenarios, that’s you end seeing all the time.
This short news clip from 2010 about the way a lot of countries ended up with millions of unwanted vaccines and anti-viral drugs at staggering cost for the tax payer, shows how this can go horribly wrong. And no, ’better safe than sorry" or “nobody knew” does not apply, voices tried in vain to stop the madness then too.
As for almost every govt doing the same, I have to ask how that brings any credibility. How much do you generally trust politicians and govts? If there are extraordinary claims, without extraordinary data to back them up, seeing a herd mentality, “monkey see, monkey do” behaviour everywhere, should raise eyebrows, not a-critical acceptance.
“Herd stupidity” is actually an apt description:
https://twitter.com/DesmondSwayne/status/1319298302538645504 (link to the source, not a general endorsement)
The P.M. of Norway actually admitted it was a mistake to close schools. I have not seem that humility much anywhere else. Politicians sem to be so invested on the wrong policies that they will never admit they are wrong and will keep pushing to “fight” or “eradicate” an endemic virus. Ideas on how they can save face and stop the madness are welcomed.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/comment/almost-starting-think-whole-pandemic-really-conspiracy/ (Notice the “almost” before you discard it, it’s tongue in cheek)
“Occam’s Razor would suggest that most politicians are merely too stubborn to concede they were wrong in their approach to this pandemic. Not just slightly, but catastrophically wrong. “Governments are continuing with these lockdowns because their scientific advisors are so emotionally invested in their initial projections,” Alex reckons.
But it’s not just our leaders. The prospect, for most citizens, that we’ve wasted nearly a year of our lives for no good reason is just too bitter a pill to swallow. Most of us are happier telling ourselves that it was all warranted, and for the greater good. "
Peter wrote:
My Q still stands: why do nearly all policymakers take such a different view of the risk and how to address it, from the dissenting voices?
You are not the only one puzzled. From the previous quoted article (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/comment/almost-starting-think-whole-pandemic-really-conspiracy/), non pay-wall here https://www.sott.net/article/443220-I-m-almost-starting-to-think-this-whole-pandemic-really-is-a-conspiracy:
“I don’t believe there are darker forces at play here – surely Hanlon’s Razor explains it? – but I do continue to puzzle over the motives of our world leaders as we stare down the barrel of yet more financially-ruinous lockdowns. This week I was a guest on Escape from Lockdown, a podcast that features interviews with the hardiest of sceptics. Its host Alex, who has discussed this very question with many prominent scientists, sociologists and politicians, says their theories vary.
Good old fashioned peer pressure seems to play a big part (Boris Johnson initially stood firm on refusing to join the rest of Europe’s unprecedented, untested lockdown hypothesis, but ultimately fell), and it’s not the first time in history that vast numbers of otherwise sane people have succumbed to a case of mass hysteria. "
Peter wrote:
My Q still stands: why do nearly all policymakers take such a different view of the risk and how to address it, from the dissenting voices? If the answer was really so obvious, it would mean most scientists working for the govts are really stupid.
I think it is rather complex. What happened in Norway with the schools was “worried moms” refused to send their kids. The spread here was initially one of the worst anywhere, except Italy. Then the local authorities (being equally worried and afraid) started to close the schools. The government could initially do nothing, because it is up to the local authorities to handle pandemics. Then on Mars 12 the parliament/government was given increased “corona”-authorities. All the schools and education were closed. This was done because the public (with no clue) demanded it. The experts were against it and said so many times. It didn’t take long though before the “worried moms” got tired of having their kids at home 24/7, so the schools opened up again a month or so after they were closed.
I mean, it’s a mix of people being afraid, politicians have to do something to show they are handling the situation, or their political lives will be over. In addition, the experts don’t really have much clue. This virus is brand new, the pandemic is new. The end result is politicians reacting to people being afraid just as much, or more than to the experts, in a very unstable and changing situation. Exactly in which way it goes, and what actions are taken, is seemingly random IMO.
Nobody seems to have picked up on the point from the UK map a few dozen posts ago that SE England is doing MUCH better than the north. Why? You also see something similar ib the US< where NY and California are doing much better than e.g. Wisconsin, where it is absolutely rampant.
Personally I’m convinced that in the places where the early outbreaks were worst, there is already significant herd immunity. Not enough to take R below 1, but enough to get it below 1.5. My model showed – and the reality now is showing it too – that at 1.5 you don’t get “exponential” growth, you get a fluctuating, slowly increasing rate – because not every vulnerable person is exposed to every infectious person, so the simple epidemiological model is broken.
As I’ve said before, nearly all my family and friends in the UK have had some exposure – someone in the family or group has had it. Probably, because few people were being tested.
Also, why has the mortality rate dropped so much? I think it’s because there is way more testing going on, so the actual number of infected people is actually a lot less than it was in April/May, when most cases went undetected and unreported.
I looked at the above.
Sure; the swine flu thing was a case of a govt pushed into it; politicians don’t want to be responsible for getting that sort of thing wrong, so they will always bet one way. Then, years later, they are open to criticism for having covered that scenario… can’t win!
The Twitter stuff seems mostly twaddle, like almost everything on Twitter. There are as many opinions as there are people and that’s where you find them. Never before in the history of human communication has more twaddle been concentrated in one place, spread by so few and trusted by so many Some of it could be right…
Telegraph is behind a paywall. Maybe some countries will use this as an excuse for reducing liberties, but I doubt it will happen anywhere near here. European democracy is fairly well established, corruption in some places notwithstanding.
Exactly in which way it goes, and what actions are taken, is seemingly random IMO.
I think that pretty well summarises it. Lots of small things affect individually which way it goes, which is why different countries do so differently. And most of these effects, even when identified by e.g, track/trace, can’t be addressed because the downside is as big as the upside, or due to PC issues. For example closing schools has really bad side effects. This opens up the dialogue to all sorts of contrarian theories (some of which are going to be right) all the way to outrageous conspiracy theories.
And ultimately you have to prevent people getting too scared to go out (which would happen if you just let it run, and ramped up coffin production as required) because then the whole economy will collapse, so even if you knew that e.g. going to a supermarket was a major spreader you could not go public with that, because home delivery capacity is only ~10% of the population and most people buy the cheapest food which doesn’t fit the home delivery model. And then the govt of the day will get thrown out…
SE England is doing MUCH better than the north. Why?
It’s pretty obvious why
there is still a lot of open space which is usually easy enough to reach (and “essential travel only” lockdowns don’t work)It certainly isn’t due to herd immunity, because the SE UK, exc. London, never had it much to start with.
Today’s news is from 350k random antibody tests during 2020. 6% showed positive for antibodies, though this reduced to 4% after a few months. This confirms the earlier numbers for the UK generally (this 6% figure includes the big cities) and suggests that this particular type of immunity declines over some months (vaccines work differently to natural immunity so it isn’t clear how a particular vaccine will degrade over time).
why has the mortality rate dropped so much?
Different procedures in hospitals. In the 1st wave, everybody thought ventilation would be the answer, and no other answer was known. Now they are doing other things (anti clotting, etc). Deaths in ICU are down from ~25% to 8% here. But most of those in ICU would still have died, or suffered permanent damage, without treatment.
However, the “exponential” (I am sure most of the press had to learn how to spell this new word ) growth may have slowed down
The above is despite some northern ICUs being full, so it is just as well better treatments are available.
nearly all my family and friends in the UK have had some exposure
Unless they had been tested, this is speculation. I’ve heard this type of story from loads of people. The reality is that of the order of 0.1% of people are infectious with CV19 (a lot of variation around this; more like 75% at your local university) so if you go about your life as you did before, and many do exactly that, you are much more likely to catch some nasty “normal” virus, and nowadays everybody who gets a cough and a temperature tells everybody they had CV19 Many people, myself included, have changed their procedures drastically, and they are catching nothing. I’ve not even had the slightest sniff since ~Feb 2020, which is amazing.
Everything I see is consistent with the theory that few people really know the answers, and those which are known mostly can’t be acted on usefully.
The reason lockdowns often don’t work, or work badly, is because people just move from going out to pubs, to running “pubs” in each others’ houses. This is reportedly the predominant mode of spread in the north of the UK now, where the breweries which used to supply pubs are reporting nice sales to the public. This discontent is fuelled by boredom and by local politicians (what the BBC calls “leaders”) who are smelling blood and opportunity, like all politicians Boredom with restrictions was to be expected (especially knowing how so many people live, in cities) but the 2nd bit I find a bit depressing.
Boris started on an anti obesity drive which sems to have fizzled out, unfortunately. We have a “victim culture”. Everybody is a “victim”. You park yourself in Macdonalds/KFC for a year and when you come out half dead, 150kg, cholesterol around 10, angina, and walking on crutches because your joints have given up, nobody can criticise you. You are a “victim” of [list everything wrong with society]. And your kids, who haven’t gone to school for that year because you weren’t around, are victims too, and are starving because the govt has refused to feed them. Just my opinion, you understand
