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Coronavirus information with context

coronavirus sars bird flu swine flu west nile virus covid19 covid-19

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#1201 Hip

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Posted 04 November 2021 - 04:26 PM

Agree Mind.  The inverse of Florida/Sweden should also be obvious to all.  I'm in San Diego, & during the Winter surge we were locked up tight as a drum.  

 

Restaurants closed...  No indoor or outdoor dining.  Mask mandates everywhere indoors and in San Diego, outdoors.  Stay at home order in effect.  Holiday gatherings strongly discouraged.  We were told two different households could meet outdoors (with masks) to exchange presents, with one person at a time allowed indoors only to use the toilet, which should be disinfected after each use.  

 

What followed in Southern California was the biggest surge of the entire pandemic.  It truly seemed like the end of the world.  Empty streets, sirens blaring, & the numbers just kept getting worse.  

 

All around the world it seems surges come & surges go, and measures to avoid them or even flatten the curve have had little effect.  Wise men will learn from this, fools will continue to believe they can change the course of pandemics at will.  

 

I don't think you can reliably compare Florida to California. Different climates. Florida has very mild winters, meaning that for most of the year, it's hot enough to keep doors and windows open, which helps prevent coronavirus spread in enclosed public places like restaurants as well as in homes. California winters are colder than Florida winters. See this map of average US winter temperatures by state.

 

And as most people know, localized variants in coronavirus can greatly affect transmission, and are one of the main factors responsible for surges in the pandemic. Last winter in Southern California, a nasty variant hit.


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#1202 Dorian Grey

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Posted 04 November 2021 - 05:04 PM

I lived in Florida for 5 years before moving to San Diego.  Doors and windows open in Florida?  Oh dear!  Its air conditioning my friend that makes life in Florida possible.  My front entrance didn't even have a screen door, as no one in their right mind would want humidity of 90% in their home, let alone the heat.  Overnight lows in the Summer were upper 70s, often very near 80.  

 

California can essentially be divided into two distinct coastal regions...  North & South.  The inland areas are largely farms & barren desert.  Southern CA is remarkably similar to Florida in climate, though the heat & humidity is not nearly as severe.  I do have a screen door on my entrance in San Diego, and enjoy the cool dry air most of the year.  What I recall from my trips to Northern coastal CA was that it was quite windy & cold.  No one goes to the beach in the Northern half of the state. 

 

Interestingly, it was the Southern half of CA that took the worst hit during the Winter surge.  The Northerners were all huddled in their homes, afraid of their own shadows.  Perhaps truly strict isolation did help them some, but sooner or later, we'll all catch this bug.  You can hide, but best to hide in an abandoned mine if you expect to avoid the 'rona for the rest of your life.  


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#1203 Hip

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Posted 04 November 2021 - 06:14 PM

Its air conditioning my friend that makes life in Florida possible.  My front entrance didn't even have a screen door, as no one in their right mind would want humidity of 90% in their home, let alone the heat.   

 

Well that is interesting in itself. Do these air conditioning units used in Florida draw in fresh air from the outside, cool the air, and then blow the air into the building? In which case, you are constantly replacing the air inside the building, and that would reduce viral spread indoors. That would be equivalent to having your windows open.

 

Or do these air conditioning units in Florida just recirculate the air, drawing in air from within the building? If so, and if the air conditioning unit is fitted with a HEPA filter, that would remove viruses from the air, and again reduce viral spread indoors.

 

There is currently a study running in the UK to see if simple air purifiers with HEPA filters or UV air purifiers can reduce coronavirus spread in schools. Results should be in by the end of this year.


Edited by Hip, 04 November 2021 - 06:17 PM.


#1204 geo12the

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Posted 04 November 2021 - 06:37 PM

I lived in Florida for 5 years before moving to San Diego.  Doors and windows open in Florida?  Oh dear!  Its air conditioning my friend that makes life in Florida possible.  My front entrance didn't even have a screen door, as no one in their right mind would want humidity of 90% in their home, let alone the heat.  Overnight lows in the Summer were upper 70s, often very near 80.  

 

California can essentially be divided into two distinct coastal regions...  North & South.  The inland areas are largely farms & barren desert.  Southern CA is remarkably similar to Florida in climate, though the heat & humidity is not nearly as severe.  I do have a screen door on my entrance in San Diego, and enjoy the cool dry air most of the year.  What I recall from my trips to Northern coastal CA was that it was quite windy & cold.  No one goes to the beach in the Northern half of the state. 

 

Interestingly, it was the Southern half of CA that took the worst hit during the Winter surge.  The Northerners were all huddled in their homes, afraid of their own shadows.  Perhaps truly strict isolation did help them some, but sooner or later, we'll all catch this bug.  You can hide, but best to hide in an abandoned mine if you expect to avoid the 'rona for the rest of your life.  

 

For what it's worth I'm from northern Cal (the beaches here are beautiful (and more dog friendly than SD beaches) but yes it's too freezing to swim here except if there is a rare El Nino event),. I visited San Diego several times since the pandemic started. MY observations, 100 % what I observed  and my mind digested, TIFWIW,   while I was there is that there was much much much less masking and social distancing than in Northern Cal.  And I was never huddled in my home during the pandemic. I've been working like crazy and was shopping almost every day to buy stuff to equip a startup I am consulting for. I just wore a mask when shopping and it was no big deal. I have not discussed it here before but I may have caught COVID, though the timing was off: New years day 2020 before anyone had heard of COVID.   


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#1205 Dorian Grey

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Posted 04 November 2021 - 09:02 PM

Well that is interesting in itself. Do these air conditioning units used in Florida draw in fresh air from the outside, cool the air, and then blow the air into the building? In which case, you are constantly replacing the air inside the building, and that would reduce viral spread indoors. That would be equivalent to having your windows open.

 

Or do these air conditioning units in Florida just recirculate the air, drawing in air from within the building? If so, and if the air conditioning unit is fitted with a HEPA filter, that would remove viruses from the air, and again reduce viral spread indoors.

 

There is currently a study running in the UK to see if simple air purifiers with HEPA filters or UV air purifiers can reduce coronavirus spread in schools. Results should be in by the end of this year.

 

I worked in apartment maintenance before I became a Surgical Technologist.  Recirculated air is the norm for all home heating & air conditioning, & i reckon most businesses as well.  Cooling & de-humidifying 90 degree Florida air from the outside would take a monster sized AC unit and use monstrous amounts of power.  The same is true for sub-zero air during the Northern Winters.  

 

Interestingly, the operating room is one exception to this rule.  Due to the (toxic to staff) anesthetic agents & aseptic technique, a substantial amount of fresh/outdoor air is introduced into the mix.  I still remember working in a Florida operating room when the "chillers" failed one day.  The entire OR filled with hot humid air in around 5 minutes time, & we were drenched with sweat 5 minutes later.  

 

My only experience with HEPA filters was when my girlfriend bought some HEPA vacuum cleaner bags.  We've got cats, & these bags would clog up with remarkable swiftness.  When you're filtering down to a couple of micron size particles, you don't change the bags when they are "full", you must change them every third or forth run across the carpet, as the filter bag becomes so clogged, the vacuum doesn't move any air through it anymore.  I expect heating & AC filters would run into similar problems, though perhaps not as impressively swift as a vacuum cleaner.  

 

Don't know that ambient viral loads are a significant cause of contagion, compared to personal interaction.  If my gal picks up 'rona visiting one of the grandkids, is a home HEPA system really going to keep me safe?  Or will I simply catch it from sitting next to her on the couch talking, HEPA or no HEPA?  


Edited by Dorian Grey, 04 November 2021 - 09:04 PM.

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#1206 Hip

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Posted 04 November 2021 - 09:30 PM

Don't know that ambient viral loads are a significant cause of contagion, compared to personal interaction.  If my gal picks up 'rona visiting one of the grandkids, is a home HEPA system really going to keep me safe?  Or will I simply catch it from sitting next to her on the couch talking, HEPA or no HEPA?  

 

I think the UK schools study on HEPA air purifiers should throw some light on that question.

 

I've got an old HEPA air purifier which I always use in the pollen season, and find it is very effective at eliminating hay fever symptoms in a matter of 20 minutes. 

 

I currently am using this air purifier in the living room. Our living room volume is around 140 cubic meters, and my air purifier pushes through 230 cubic meters of air per hour on the low setting (which is less noisy than the high setting).  

 

So that means the air in the entire room is cleaned of viruses every 40 minutes. HEPA filters will typically remove 99.9% of viruses. 

 

 

If someone sitting right next to you has COVID, I suspect a HEPA air purifier at the other side of the room may not offer much protection. But if you go to a bar or restaurant, and someone located 5 or 10 meters away has COVID, my guess is that an air purifier in that room may offer substantial protection, because it will mop up the coronavirus aerosols that are thought can float in the indoor air for hours.


Edited by Hip, 04 November 2021 - 09:33 PM.


#1207 lancebr

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Posted 15 November 2021 - 04:14 AM

The following information, by a Professor in Risk Manegement at the University of London, raises the question "is vaccine efficacy a statistical illusion?"

 

https://probabilitya...l-illusion.html



 

 


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#1208 geo12the

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Posted 16 November 2021 - 12:16 AM

 

The following information, by a Professor in Risk Manegement at the University of London, raises the question "is vaccine efficacy a statistical illusion?"

 

https://probabilitya...l-illusion.html



 

 

 

 "is vaccine efficacy a statistical illusion?"   No

 

One of my jobs is doing statistics. His analysis is not valid or relevant. He is basing his hypothetical examples on a hypothetical study of 1,000,000 people where 5,000 are vaccinated and 950,000 are not. That is not how the trials showing vaccine efficacy work. they start with roughly the same number of vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals.  Then he says he shifts the data collection by one one week, and since there is a giant gap in the data sets of course the data will look distorted. Again this is not how the trial data is collected. His hypothetical statistics example in no way support the hypothetical question "is vaccine efficacy a statistical illusion?"


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#1209 Gal220

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Posted 16 November 2021 - 08:14 AM

Some all cause mortality threads

https://twitter.com/...382973405114373

 

https://twitter.com/...199964724502535

 

 

Not a good year for the athlete

https://twitter.com/...615061543055361


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#1210 Gal220

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Posted 16 November 2021 - 04:26 PM

Sobering message from Israel (video from local news)

 

"Warning? Israel is months ahead as it has used the MRNA therapeutic on virtually everyone there but it has not stopped the spread and efficacy is waning.

Also asking about immune system damage and questioning use of continued boosters."


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#1211 Mind

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Posted 18 December 2021 - 09:05 PM

The same organization that counts every death as dying from COVID, no matter if they died in a motorcycle accident, from a gunshot wound, or from a respiratory ailment (all that matters is if they tested positive),  cannot count how many people in the U.S are vaccinated (CDC).

 


Edited by Mind, 04 January 2022 - 08:47 PM.

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#1212 Mind

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Posted 02 January 2022 - 11:07 PM

As has been pointed out numerous times, the COVID mortality statistics are wildly inflated, because everyone who enters a hospital gets tested. Even if they obviously die from something else, they are counted as a COVID case/death (in the U.S. anyway). County coroners, medical professionals, funeral directors, have been demonstrating this overcounting since the beginning. Now finally Dr. Fauci is admitting it on TV, that the deaths/cases are being over-stated.


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#1213 Mind

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Posted 04 January 2022 - 08:53 PM

I recall when some posters railed against any suggestion that COVID outcomes and mortality were significantly associated with obesity. Anyone who mentioned the link was called dumb, anti-science, a conspiracy theorist, a body-shaming bigot, etc...

 

New York Times: Sars-cov2 virus attacks fat tissue.

 

Most teens hospitalized for COVID have SEVERE obesity

 

If public health bureaucrats in the U.S had acknowledged this early on, many lives could have been saved.


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#1214 geo12the

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Posted 04 January 2022 - 11:01 PM

I recall when some posters railed against any suggestion that COVID outcomes and mortality were significantly associated with obesity. Anyone who mentioned the link was called dumb, anti-science, a conspiracy theorist, a body-shaming bigot, etc...

 

New York Times: Sars-cov2 virus attacks fat tissue.

 

Most teens hospitalized for COVID have SEVERE obesity

 

If public health bureaucrats in the U.S had acknowledged this early on, many lives could have been saved.

 

I don't remember seeing people questioning the link between COVID severity and obesity, it was something known almost from the beginning,  but it's possible. With all of the silly controversy over wearing a mask, I can just imagine the crazy complaining that would have ensued had health bureaucrats told people to lose weight: "It's muh freedom to eat a big mac. Fauci will have to pry it from my cold dead hands".  I was just talking with my MD brother. His observation is that with the current wave going on now the majority of  COVID cases filling up the hospital where he works are obese.  He told me the story of one 45 year old 350 lb man with a skinny wife whose family was bringing him burgers.


Edited by geo12the, 04 January 2022 - 11:55 PM.

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#1215 DanCG

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Posted 05 January 2022 - 12:52 AM

 

Most teens hospitalized for COVID have SEVERE obesity

 

If public health bureaucrats in the U.S had acknowledged this early on, many lives could have been saved.

 

 

 I can just imagine the crazy complaining that would have ensued had health bureaucrats told people to lose weight:

I agree that public health officials should have tried harder. But I don’t think that it would have made all that much difference. It is sadly true that any message that says “lose weight” would not be well received. Also, if an obese person had started to try to lose weight a year and a half ago, they might only now be just reaching enough weight loss to make a difference re Covid. Some messaging about the effect of body fat on available vitamin D might have done some good.

 

To be fair, it is especially difficult for the obese to lose weight,. Their physiological response to hunger is very different from that of people who are at least close to normal weight. Still, that is no excuse not to try. I hate the term “fat shaming”. Any harm caused by “fat shaming” pales in comparison to allowing people to wallow in their ignorance about the harm done by obesity.



#1216 Mind

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Posted 05 January 2022 - 07:24 PM

Good point about the obesity issue. We have seen through the last couple of decades (in regards to heart disease, diabetes, joint problems, etc), that people would much rather take an expensive big pharma drug with numerous risks of debilitating side-effects - including death - than exercise and eat a better diet (which is free).

 

However, the denigration of people highlighting this obesity link early in the pandemic did not help anything. Lives could have been saved with a more comprehensive diverse approach to promoting health during the pandemic. Sadly, this was not allowed. It is still barely allowed in public discourse.


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#1217 Hip

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Posted 05 January 2022 - 08:51 PM

Obesity is a disease, not a condition of overeating. Only intellectually challenged right wingers blame the patient for their obesity. 

 

Did you ever hear the story of the mother who had to receive a fecal microbiota transplant (FMT) from her daughter, as an emergency medical treatment? An FMT is transplanting some stool (feces) from a donor into the intestines of the receiver. The FMT saved her life, but then afterwards, the previously very skinny and athletic mother suddenly became as morbidly obese has her daughter. No matter what the mother did, she kept putting on more and more weight.

 

It's clear some pathogen in the feces of the obese daughter was transmitted to the mother, and triggered the disease of obesity in the mother.

 

This is an absolutely fascinating story, and tells us a lot about the nature of obesity; it suggests that obesity is very likely caused by a pathogen; although for most people on this forum, the penny probably will not drop, and they will not understand this story.

 

 


Edited by Hip, 05 January 2022 - 08:52 PM.

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#1218 Hip

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Posted 06 January 2022 - 09:36 PM

For those asking for references for the above post, where the mother became obese after an FMT from her daughter, let me introduce you to Google: mother daughter obesity FMT.


Edited by Hip, 06 January 2022 - 09:37 PM.

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#1219 Advocatus Diaboli

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Posted 06 January 2022 - 10:41 PM

Re: post #1218: "For those asking for references for the above post, where the mother became obese after an FMT from her daughter, let me introduce you to Google: mother daughter obesity FMT."

 

 

The onus of providing substantiating references doesn't belong to the reader, it belongs to the person making the assertions.

 

Let me introduce you to the scientific reality of providing citation to back up non-trivial claims.


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#1220 Hip

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Posted 06 January 2022 - 10:54 PM

The onus of providing substantiating references doesn't belong to the reader, it belongs to the person making the assertions.

 

Exactly, yet many members on this forum attempt to support their assertions with weblinks to quack doctors, Mickey Mouse news sources and conspiracy websites. These are not proper references.

 

Worse still, members here do not even appreciate links to reliable sources, because they have been conditioned only to believe Facebook, YouTube, and conspiracy websites. 


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#1221 geo12the

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Posted 06 January 2022 - 11:35 PM

Exactly, yet many members on this forum attempt to support their assertions with weblinks to quack doctors, Mickey Mouse news sources and conspiracy websites. These are not proper references.

Worse still, members here do not even appreciate links to reliable sources, because they have been conditioned only to believe Facebook, YouTube, and conspiracy websites.

Hip has a point. I recently questioned if Zerohedge was a valid source of science information and got some pushback. It's a political site. Regardless of ones political bent, I don't take science information from sources like Tucker Carlson (referenced so often here you would think he was a virology expert) and Steve Bannons "War room" seriously. Neither would I take science information from Rachael Maddow seriously. People ask for sources but at the same time don't question Steve Bannons War room as a reliable source of information. It doesn't add up. People are ensconced in their algorithm produced partisan news bubbles that feed them information that riles them up but fails to get them to consider views other than their own. That's fine if people want to live in that fuzzy artificial imaginary world. I try to post sources to back up what I say if I have time but then I'm like "but they are just posting fluff they regurgitate from Bannon and Tucker, what's the point?"

Edited by geo12the, 06 January 2022 - 11:36 PM.

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#1222 DanCG

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Posted 07 January 2022 - 02:10 AM

Since the quality of the links seems to be hot topic here, I thought I would do some analysis. As I write, this forum is on page 41, with 1221 posts. Starting with the most recent post and working backward, I made note of all of the links. I have only gotten through pages 40 and 41. 25 links in total. Here are some highlights:

 

Hip’s Google search link has a Pubmed abstract as the first hit.

There was 1 link to Worldometer.

 

These two are the closest anybody came to citing primary scientific literature.

 

There were 16 links to news/opinion sites. 3 Tweets, 1 weather site, 1 informational advertisement, and 2 that are hard to categorize (Alex Beronson; Norman Fenton). No Tucker, Bannon, or Maddow.

 

In general, I have no problem with posted links to news articles, tweets, blogs, videos, etc. When such sources are linked, the linked author is considering some fact of interest. They may quote some credentialed expert or policy maker, or they may discuss a scientific publication Whether their analysis or interpretation is correct is a matter of debate, and we can do that here.

 

I started to list the links each individual tends to post, but I don’t want to get into naming names. Suffice it to say that I don’t see any basis for any participant here to consider themselves to be superior in the quality of their links.

 


Edited by DanCG, 07 January 2022 - 02:29 AM.

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#1223 pamojja

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Posted 08 January 2022 - 12:11 PM


‘COVID Chronicles’ available for free viewing until 1/10:

https://articles.mer...&rid=1373118406

or available for €8.95 otherwise. https://store6861251....site/products/

#1224 Hip

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Posted 09 January 2022 - 04:13 AM

Since the quality of the links seems to be hot topic here, I thought I would do some analysis. As I write, this forum is on page 41, with 1221 posts. Starting with the most recent post and working backward, I made note of all of the links. I have only gotten through pages 40 and 41. 25 links in total. 

 

I commend you on your scrupulous work.

 

I think it would be interesting to analyze the links using the unique website https://mediabiasfactcheck.com 

 

This is a site which rates media (newspapers, webzines, etc) according to the left or right political affiliations. More importantly for our purposes, Media Bias / Fact Check also reports on the factual accuracy of a media news source, and provides an index on the degree to which a new source is a promotor of conspiracy theories, and pseudoscience

 

 

For our purposes here, the left or right bias is not really important, but a propensity to conspiracy theories and pseudoscience is something to be concerned about, when we are trying to establish scientific truth. And news and information sources of low factual accuracy are not great either.

 

 

It would be great to have a software script that analyzed all the links posted by members on Longecity, using the Media Bias / Fact Check service, and gave each Longecity member a score on their propensity to conspiracy theories, pseudoscience and factual accuracy, based on the links they post.


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#1225 Hip

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Posted 09 January 2022 - 02:25 PM

So for example, if we look on Media Bias / Fact Check at Pamojja's link just above, it comes out as 100% quackery.

 

See HERE.

 

So using Media Bias / Fact Check, we could see who is often posting links to quack or pseudoscience websites, and who is posting links to sane, reliable, high accuracy scientific sources.

 

 

 

 

 

 


Edited by Hip, 09 January 2022 - 02:25 PM.

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#1226 pamojja

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Posted 09 January 2022 - 02:39 PM

‘COVID Chronicles’ available for free viewing until 1/10:

https://articles.mer...&rid=1373118406

or available for €8.95 otherwise. https://store6861251....site/products/



Here a summary by Dr. Mercola before its gone:

Story at-a-glance

“COVID Chronicles” gives a concise look at the pandemic, answering some of the questions that have left many people scratching their heads, because the reality and science don’t seem to match up with what the media is reporting
Every positive COVID-19 test is considered a case, but these are two completely different things, since you can test positive without being ill
When COVID-19 was left to behave in a manner that would allow it to spread amongst the healthy, about two-thirds of the population displayed antibody levels naturally
Mask mandates did not noticeably change the number of cases or deaths the way they should if they actually reduce transmissibility; countries that used minimal masks were not worse off than neighboring countries with mask mandates
It’s important to stay grounded and think critically to avoid falling victim to unnecessary panic and stress


The “COVID Chronicles” movie1 gives a concise look at the pandemic, answering some of the questions that have left many people scratching their heads, because the reality and science don’t seem to match up with what the media is reporting.

Ivor Cummins is a biochemical engineer with a background in medical device engineering and leading teams in complex problem-solving. On his website, TheFatEmperor.com,2 he offers guidance on how to decode science to transform your health. He produced “COVID Chronicles” along with Donal O’Neill, a documentary filmmaker in the field of health and human performance.

There were red flags in the pandemic from the start. Because the symptoms of COVID-19 overlap with so many other diseases, the only way to know you have it is to test for it.

The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests used for COVID-19 use a powerful amplification process that makes them so sensitive they can even detect the remains of a dead virus long after infection, Cummins explains. But even beyond that, every positive COVID-19 test is considered a “case” — and therein lies a major problem.
A Positive Test Isn’t the Same as a Case

Dr. Wolfgang Wodarg, an internal medicine doctor and former head of health at the Council of Europe, is among those who referred to the COVID-19 pandemic as a “test pandemic” due to the PCR test.3

“It was accepted by WHO, and they said when the test is positive, we have a case of COVID-19. And this is how they started counting the cases,” Wodarg says. “What they counted was the activity of testing. And the more they tested, the more cases they found.”4 When labs use excessive cycle thresholds, you end up with a grossly overestimated number of positive tests, leading to a "casedemic"5,6 — an epidemic of false positives.

Wodarg says COVID-19 “was a ‘test’ pandemic. It was not a virus pandemic,”7 because PCR tests may give a positive result when it detects coronaviruses that have been around for 20 years.8 In “COVID Chronicles,” Cummins speaks with John Lee, a former clinical professor of pathology at Hull York Medical School and consultant histopathologist at Rotherham General Hospital, who later became the Rotherham NHS Foundation Trust's director of cancer services.

He echoes Wodarg, stating that during the pandemic, every positive test is considered a case, but “these are two completely different things.”9 Normally, if you have a typical cold, for instance, you only become a “case” if you’re hospitalized, but this all changed with the pandemic. Lee says:10

“In coronavirus, we’ve been counting every single positive test as a positive case. Now this is scientifically and medically wrong. You can have a positive coronavirus test and be completely well. You can have a positive coronavirus test and be excreting minimal amounts of the virus.

To conflate positive tests with cases is simply wrong, and yet the positive cases have been driving government policy and the entire panoply of restrictive actions that have been taken.”

January 13, 2021, “WHO finally questioned the accuracy of PCR testing,” the film notes, and released an information notice that clarified instructions for interpreting results of PCR tests, including the fact that “careful interpretation of weak positive results is needed.”11 “Reported case rates collapsed in the U.S. the following day,” “COVID Chronicles” points out.12
Lockdowns Didn’t Work

Lockdowns can be effective if they're implemented when no one has the disease, but once it's already spreading in your population, they don't work. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the lockdown was implemented far too late and caused much more harm than benefit.

The film highlights COVID-19 outcomes around the globe, including in vastly different regions, like densely-populated Khayelitsha in South Africa. It was originally assumed that COVID-19 would devastate the area. They were strictly locked down along with the rest of South Africa, but due to the dense population, the lockdown in Khayelitsha only served to force people further right on top of one another.

Because the area has a long history of battling diseases like HIV and tuberculosis, it was easy for officials to use data from the area, which quickly showed that those most at risk from COVID-19 were elderly, frail or suffering from other conditions like Type 2 diabetes. What surprised many, however, is that Khayelitsha fared much the same during the pandemic as everywhere else in South Africa.

Further, as the second and third waves struck, those in Khayelitsha were much better protected, even as new variants emerged. It was later found that as many as 68% of local residents had COVID-19 antibodies.13 As noted in “COVID Chronicles”:14

“[A]s Delta cut a swathe across the world and indeed South Africa, it was bigger here than any of the prior waves or the variants that we had seen. But in Khayelitsha, that 68% level of antibodies across the community proved to be extremely powerful and very, very protective, even against the new Delta variant.

So while the U.K. was in complete disarray, here we had an informal settlement in an economically deprived region with a population of half a million outperforming the U.K. and many First World nations … they had not intended … for COVID to spread throughout the community. But in doing so, they arrived at a point where herd immunity, if you like, had been reached.”

Other communities also enjoyed high levels of COVID-19 antibodies in the community, including in India, the Orthodox Jewish community in London and Amish communities in the U.S. So, when this virus was left to behave in a manner that would allow it to spread amongst the healthy, they were typically getting to about two-thirds of the population displaying antibody levels.15
Mask Mandates Didn’t Work

Like lockdowns, mask mandates are another pandemic control measure that’s been pushed as gospel despite lack of effectiveness and evidence of harm. The “Danmask-19 Trial,” published November 18, 2020, in the Annals of Internal Medicine,16 found that among mask wearers 1.8% (42 participants) ended up testing positive for SARS-CoV-2, compared to 2.1% (53) among controls.

When they removed the people who reported not adhering to the recommendations for use, the results remained the same — 1.8% (40 people), which suggests adherence makes no significant difference. Initially, numerous research journals refused to publish the results, which called widespread mask mandates into question.17

If masks work, the film points out, you should immediately see a dramatic change in the curve, within 14 days. “If you look at around 10 or 12 countries where they brought in mask mandates, there was no impact on the curve … whatsoever so the empirical science of our own eyes is screaming at us: masks and lockdowns don't really move the needle much, maybe a little, but no one wants to know. It's an ideology now. It's a religion,” Cummins says.18

Dr. Reid Sheftall also studied mask usage extensively and found mask mandates did not noticeably change the number of cases or deaths the way they should if they actually reduce transmissibility. Countries that used minimal masks were not worse off than neighboring countries with mask mandates.19

“That makes sense,” Cummins says, “because 40 years of science have been unanimous, pretty much, that for influenza viruses, surgical masks and coverings are highly ineffective. So it agrees with the science.” Yet, the media claim masks are effective, based on a “flurry of papers” that came in around June 2020 saying masks could be good. “So a few weeks of papers have overturned a few decades of scientific sense,” he adds.20
Injections Aren’t Working

It’s now been uncovered that the viral loads of COVID-19 are similar among people who’ve been injected and those who have not.21 “What kind of a vaccine needs three vaccinations, and a maybe a fourth, and more, within months?” Cummins asks. “The answer is a vaccine that’s not really working very well at all.”22

The media message that the pandemic is now a “pandemic of the unvaccinated” is also misleading, since data from Israel showed that similar numbers of people were being hospitalized for COVID-19, whether they were injected or not.23 Cummins notes:24

“There’s a lot of trickery with the data. The hospitalizations are difficult because you can’t get the raw data, and they’re very confounded data. In one case … the U.S. came out with shock stories that 99% are unvaccinated. However, they were accounting for way back … before the vaccines were available.

So the lion’s share back then were unvaccinated because the vaccines weren’t here yet. So there’s a lot of trickery — I would say fraud — in the way the data’s being presented.”

People who’ve received only one injection of an mRNA series are also referred to as unvaccinated, which further biases the data to again make it look like more uninjected people are being hospitalized. What’s more, the film notes, “In 2021, professor Sir Andrew Pollard, director of the Oxford Vaccine Group, stated that, ‘… herd immunity by vaccination is not a possibility because it [Delta] still infects vaccinated individuals.’”25
Is This a Pandemic of Lifestyle?

Dr. Aseem Malhotra, a consultant cardiologist and chairman of public health collaboration in the U.K., is also featured in “COVID Chronicles,” speaking about the underlying factors that make certain people more vulnerable to COVID-19 — namely lifestyle-related diseases driven by poor diet.

This aspect of prevention via a long-term healthy lifestyle, which could save lives in future pandemics, is another tenet that’s ignored by the dominant narrative. Malhotra explains:26

“I think what we’ve had is a fast pandemic, in terms of COVID, that has exacerbated and taken advantage of a slow pandemic, which is the pandemic of chronic, lifestyle-related diseases that have been putting stress on our health care system for many, many years, and our NHS, certainly even before COVID, was already at a breaking point.

But actually, COVID has broken the back of the NHS, and the main reason behind this is because we failed, for many, many years, to tackle prevention head on, specifically the biggest driver of these chronic diseases: poor diet.

Ultraprocessed food, which is the heart of the problem, is now half of the calorie consumption in the British diet. It’s about 60% of the calorie consumption in the United States, and there’s a very clear correlation between, already, countries that had 50% or more of the population overweight or obese had 90% of the deaths from COVID-19. So, poor metabolic health means poor immune health.

But beyond this, we know that the real drivers of this problem are structural. These are to do with the environment and with misinformation that is being subjected on the public for the purposes of profit. And the two real culprits behind this, in my point of view, are the food industry and the pharmaceutical industry.

And the collusion of academics, medical journals, doctors and politicians for financial gain with these industries is the heart of the problem. This needs to be exposed, and the public needs to understand and realize that the biggest enemies of democracy are the food industry and the pharmaceutical industry.”

If Not for Media, Would You Know There’s a Pandemic?

The film implies that COVID-19 presented an opportunity that multiple entities have used to further their own agendas, while media have served as a tool for overriding science and common sense. It’s important to stay grounded and think critically to avoid falling victim to unnecessary panic and stress. Cummins notes:27

“A key thing to remember, I think, is if you turned off the media, no one would know there’s an epidemic. Even during the surges in Ireland, in both seasons, if you did not have access to the media, you would never know.

No one really knew anyone who died — outside of someone in a nursing home, someone of elevated age or with stage 4 cancer — most people did not know anyone who died. Right? Isn’t that incredible, in a massive pandemic, as we’ve been told?”

Sources and References

1 Covid Chronicles Movie
2, 18, 19 The Fat Emperor, Podcast, December 11, 2020
3 Rumble, Planet Lockdown, Wolfgang Wodarg, Full Interview, October 18, 2021
4 Rumble, Planet Lockdown, Wolfgang Wodarg, Full Interview, October 18, 2021, 8:50
5 PJ Media October 27, 2020
6 AAPS October 7, 2020
7 Rumble, Planet Lockdown, Wolfgang Wodarg, Full Interview, October 18, 2021, 14:02
8 Rumble, Planet Lockdown, Wolfgang Wodarg, Full Interview, October 18, 2021, 9:40
9, 10 Vimeo, COVID Chronicles, 15:00
11 WHO January 13, 2021
12 Vimeo, COVID Chronicles, 17:16
13 Sunday Times Live March 25, 2021
14, 15 Vimeo, COVID Chronicles, 1:07
16 Annals of Internal Medicine November 18, 2020 DOI: 10.7326/M20-6817
17 City Journal, The Panic Pandemic, Summer 2021
20 Vimeo, COVID Chronicles, 37:00
21 UC Davis October 4, 2021
22 Vimeo, COVID Chronicles, 56:00
23 Science August 16, 2021
24 Vimeo, COVID Chronicles, 1:02
25, 26 Vimeo, COVID Chronicles, 1:09
27 Vimeo, COVID Chronicles, 1:13



#1227 lancebr

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Posted 09 January 2022 - 04:44 PM

I wouldn't give to much credibility to the Media Bias/ Fact Check (MBFC) website or the majority of other so called fact checking websites. 

Just doing a basic search about this website brings up some interesting information about their credibility...or lack of.

 

 

Here are some quotes from individuals who did a more thorough check of the people behind the MBFC website:

 

"There is nothing to suggest that this website has any value beyond the opinion of one Dave Zandt…and some ‘writers’ and ‘researchers’ which include a retired accountant and insurance saleswoman, someone with a degree in politics from Ireland, a pleasant seeming chap named Ken, married, who hates nazis…and another man who is studying psychology.

I have nothing against some lad fresh out of uni with a politics degree, or those who hate nazis, and aspiring psychologist but what I register from this team is that they have zero experience to suggest their opinions are any more accurate than my own when it comes to judging the veracity of news sites. In fact given I could produce 10–15 years of writing editorials in various places about the news, I find myself more qualified. They are not experts, of anything to do with the main task in hand - judging credibility of news platforms online.

Dave Van Z, whose methodology is basically he decides what is fact and what is fake. These decisions are not presented as in ‘found X’ and this is false as proven here at ‘Y’. The judgements are delivered, a colourful chart and some generic texts found on all the entries, slightly adjusted to meet the rating.

My suspicion, with any of the plethora or ‘fact checking’ websites which have abounded in the last decade, many promoted by the corporate sector, is that they have been created, generally, to look as independent as possible yet all have been given lists of the sites to condemn as fake and dodgy, and the sites to promote as trustworthy.

The rating scale used on the website that fails to base its ratings on quantifiable data is worthless. Van Zandt's ratings are worthless except to tell you his opinion and the opinion of a retired insurance saleswoman, a married man who hates nazis and a lad who completed a politics degree in Ireland.

Media Bias / Fact Check's rankings are based on a scale that Van Zandt developed on his own; the research and reporting are done by volunteers, with none of them having any demonstrable expertise to persuade you they should be more trusted than someone you meet at a bus stop and know nothing about."

 

------------------------

 

"Any site attempting to measure the highly subjective issue of bias should be taken with a grain of salt, if not a heaping tablespoon. That appears to be the case with the popular Media Bias / FactCheck web site.

The well-respected nonprofit journalism organizations Poynter Institute and the Columbia Journalism Review have raised questions about the site, its research credentials and owner Dave Van Zandt. Most troubling is its lack of serious research methods or credentials. "

The Poynter Institue notes, "Media Bias/Fact Check is a widely cited source for news stories and even studies about misinformation, despite the fact that its method is in no way scientific."

The Columbia Journalism Review describes Media Bias/Fact Check as an amateur attempt at categorizing media bias and Van Zandt as an "armchair media analyst."

 


Edited by lancebr, 09 January 2022 - 05:14 PM.

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#1228 geo12the

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Posted 09 January 2022 - 06:20 PM

Since the quality of the links seems to be hot topic here, I thought I would do some analysis. As I write, this forum is on page 41, with 1221 posts. Starting with the most recent post and working backward, I made note of all of the links. I have only gotten through pages 40 and 41. 25 links in total. Here are some highlights:

 

Hip’s Google search link has a Pubmed abstract as the first hit.

There was 1 link to Worldometer.

 

These two are the closest anybody came to citing primary scientific literature.

 

There were 16 links to news/opinion sites. 3 Tweets, 1 weather site, 1 informational advertisement, and 2 that are hard to categorize (Alex Beronson; Norman Fenton). No Tucker, Bannon, or Maddow.

 

In general, I have no problem with posted links to news articles, tweets, blogs, videos, etc. When such sources are linked, the linked author is considering some fact of interest. They may quote some credentialed expert or policy maker, or they may discuss a scientific publication Whether their analysis or interpretation is correct is a matter of debate, and we can do that here.

 

I started to list the links each individual tends to post, but I don’t want to get into naming names. Suffice it to say that I don’t see any basis for any participant here to consider themselves to be superior in the quality of their links.

 

There is misinformation and distortions of reality posted here regularly.  What passes for "research" is regurgitating Mercolla or some other puppetmaster guru or some slanted far-right wing news source.   We've had people here say the Covid vaccines are not really vaccines, they don't work etc. Endless lies and distortions. Here is the reality: The vaccines did exact what they were supposed to do: They introduced our collective immune systems to the virus WITHOUT people having to suffer the consequences of being sick from COVID. THEY SAVED LIVES. 

 

At this point the pandemic is coming to an end. I predicted that it wasn't in the best interest of the virus to kill people and that natural selection would result in variants that were less severe and that is exactly what is happening with Omicron. COVID will be another annoying respiratory virus we have to contend with along with the flu and cold viruses. 

 

At the end of day we survived the pandemic. But I see COVID as sort of a canary in a coal mine for the human race. It showed how gullible people were to puppetmasters like Tucker, Mercola etc. convincing them that everyone who didn't agree with them was the puppet. Can society function when people believe lies and distortions are truth?  You see that in the numbers of people who believe that the last presidential election was stolen. You see that in the number of people who follow the crazy Qanon cult (Qnaon cultists lurk on this forum too). It's all linked. Our society has a disease where people place their tribal identity above truth and reality and that played out here with the "the vaccines are not vaccines" and other nonsense. God help us.


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#1229 Hip

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Posted 09 January 2022 - 06:35 PM

Here are some quotes from individuals who did a more thorough check of the people behind the MBFC website:

 
I would suggest using your own judgement on this matter, rather that relying on quotes from random individuals online.
 
Presumably you are familiar with the left or right political leanings of a wide range of newspapers, TV channels, and other news and information sources.

 

Presumably you are familiar with which websites constantly serve up conspiracy theories, and which websites constantly post pseudoscience.

 

Thus all you have to do it take any media source you are familiar with, and check it against Media Bias/Fact Check, and see if their rating of the source matches you own understanding. I've found Media Bias/Fact Check always align with my own judgement of a media source.

 

 

 

Of course, if you are someone who thinks a bone-cracking osteopath like Joseph Mercola (who I think has crazy looking eyes) is a reliable source of scientific and medical information, or if you are a conspiracy theorist who thinks 9/11 was really orchestrated by the American Government, then of course you are going to disagree with Media Bias/Fact Check.


Edited by Hip, 09 January 2022 - 06:36 PM.

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#1230 DanCG

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Posted 09 January 2022 - 06:38 PM

I wouldn't give to much credibility to the Media Bias/ Fact Check (MBFC) website or the majority of other so called fact checking websites. 

Just doing a basic search about this website brings up some interesting information about their credibility...or lack of.

 

 

Here are some quotes from individuals who did a more thorough check of the people behind the MBFC website:

 

"There is nothing to suggest that this website has any value beyond the opinion of one Dave Zandt…and some ‘writers’ and ‘researchers’ which include a retired accountant and insurance saleswoman, someone with a degree in politics from Ireland, a pleasant seeming chap named Ken, married, who hates nazis…and another man who is studying psychology.

I have nothing against some lad fresh out of uni with a politics degree, or those who hate nazis, and aspiring psychologist but what I register from this team is that they have zero experience to suggest their opinions are any more accurate than my own when it comes to judging the veracity of news sites. In fact given I could produce 10–15 years of writing editorials in various places about the news, I find myself more qualified. They are not experts, of anything to do with the main task in hand - judging credibility of news platforms online.

Dave Van Z, whose methodology is basically he decides what is fact and what is fake. These decisions are not presented as in ‘found X’ and this is false as proven here at ‘Y’. The judgements are delivered, a colourful chart and some generic texts found on all the entries, slightly adjusted to meet the rating.

My suspicion, with any of the plethora or ‘fact checking’ websites which have abounded in the last decade, many promoted by the corporate sector, is that they have been created, generally, to look as independent as possible yet all have been given lists of the sites to condemn as fake and dodgy, and the sites to promote as trustworthy.

The rating scale used on the website that fails to base its ratings on quantifiable data is worthless. Van Zandt's ratings are worthless except to tell you his opinion and the opinion of a retired insurance saleswoman, a married man who hates nazis and a lad who completed a politics degree in Ireland.

Media Bias / Fact Check's rankings are based on a scale that Van Zandt developed on his own; the research and reporting are done by volunteers, with none of them having any demonstrable expertise to persuade you they should be more trusted than someone you meet at a bus stop and know nothing about."

 

------------------------

 

"Any site attempting to measure the highly subjective issue of bias should be taken with a grain of salt, if not a heaping tablespoon. That appears to be the case with the popular Media Bias / FactCheck web site.

The well-respected nonprofit journalism organizations Poynter Institute and the Columbia Journalism Review have raised questions about the site, its research credentials and owner Dave Van Zandt. Most troubling is its lack of serious research methods or credentials. "

The Poynter Institue notes, "Media Bias/Fact Check is a widely cited source for news stories and even studies about misinformation, despite the fact that its method is in no way scientific."

The Columbia Journalism Review describes Media Bias/Fact Check as an amateur attempt at categorizing media bias and Van Zandt as an "armchair media analyst."

The ratings buttons don't quite do justice to this post. We need one that says "Epic takedown"


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