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Chad
In: Ramsbottom
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BBC news have been showing footage of patients in ICUs (or who have recovered, after being in ICUs). The majority seem to be of other than ‘white British’ ethnicity.
Not sure if that tells us something about the discriminatory nature of the virus... or the BBC.
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Boreades
In: finity and beyond
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Have we not mentioned ethnicity before? IIRC, that's what happened with Swine Flu and SARS. There was a genetic difference in play.
Meanwhile, some are taking this self-isolation a lot more seriously...
| 'All humans will self-isolate!': Dalek is filmed patrolling small village ordering residents to stay inside during coronavirus lockdown |
https://twitter.com/atxbazan/status/1246462503288221708
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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I don't know about the race angle (please expand, if necessary by sheer speculation) but I do know that ICU's are at the heart of this business. If it is true -- and I don't know whether it is or not -- that hospitalised 'ordinary' flu victims do not ordinarily go into ICU's but die in the 'ordinary' way on the ward, and since it is agreed by us (and tacitly by the authorities) that it is ICU provision that is the basic difference between coronavirus and 'flu', then we have to ask what elevated coronavirus? Is it truly a different animal (and one needing wholesale admittance to ICU's) or is it because something happened in China which had us all, as it were, at fever pitch?
Or is it something else entirely eg the world has developed a fondness for world stories.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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The race card has been played!
CNN: With each passing day there is mounting evidence the virus is impacting African-Americans at a much higher rate.
Governor Cuomo: It doesn't matter, natural disasters, Hurricane Katrina, the people suffering are not the rich, white people. Why? Why is it the poorest people always pay the highest price. Let's learn these lessons now. |
So far the evidence seems to indicate that it is the richest countries (Western Europe, USA) and the richest parts of those countries (Lombardy, London, New York, California) which are hardest hit. Sorry, liberals, on this occasion it looks to be nature over nurture. If you truly wish to help black people, follow the genes! You can still carry on being liberals about everything else, honest.
Voice off: No, you can't. One strike and you're out. I don't make the rules, liberals do.
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Boreades
In: finity and beyond
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As often happens (or increasingly happens in my case) it takes a while for some stray neurons to bump into each other and reopen a memory pathway to a relevant topic. Ethnicity (or as it is coyly called to avoid being called racist) Nationality.
| Cold weather kills 20 times as many people as hot weather, according to an international study analyzing over 74 million deaths in 384 locations across 13 countries. The findings, published in The Lancet, also reveal that deaths due to moderately hot or cold weather substantially exceed those resulting from extreme heat waves or cold spells. |
No surprises so far? Apart from "Climate Change" possibly being good for people. But that's a heretical thought, and I don't want local plod calling round to check my thinking, so please do read on.
| The study analysed over 74 million (74,225,200) deaths between 1985 and 2012 in 13 countries with a wide range of climates, from cold to subtropical. Data on daily average temperature, death rates, and confounding variables (eg, humidity and air pollution) were used to calculate the temperature of minimum mortality (the optimal temperature), and to quantify total deaths due to non-optimal ambient temperature in each location. The researchers then estimated the relative contributions of heat and cold, from moderate to extreme temperatures. |
A lot of people died, but it was not considered especially unusual, so still no surprises. It took a while to get to the interesting part. Curiously the death rates due to cold were low in Sweden, but high in China, Italy and Japan.
| Around 7.71% of all deaths were caused by non-optimal temperatures, with substantial differences between countries, ranging from around 3% in Thailand, Brazil, and Sweden to about 11% in China, Italy, and Japan. Cold was responsible for the majority of these deaths (7.29% of all deaths), while just 0.42% of all deaths were attributable to heat. |
"substantial differences" eh? But why? Frustratingly this international study didn't seem to bother to ask why. But another study did.
| Low vitamin D status in winter permits viral epidemics. |
| Vitamin D levels also correlate with lower rates of cancer, diabetes, high blood pressure, asthma, heart disease, dental caries, preeclampsia, autoimmune disease, depression, anxiety, and sleep disorders. Vitamin D influences over 200 genes. It’s so crucial, it was likely the reason northern Europeans evolved whiter skin. The lack of sunlight and the introduction of grains in diets (as opposed to eating liver and whales) meant that Europeans weren’t getting enough D from either food or sun. The selective pressure was so strong that lighter skin rapidly took over all the northern communities. Eskimos didn’t need to go white — they were still getting D from offal and plenty of fish. |
Anyone know what Swedish diets are like?
| Unlike most vitamins, D is also correlated with “that holy grail†– a reduction in all cause mortality. So even if a D supplement doesn’t help against coronavirus, side effects include less cancer and fewer heart attacks. Not too shabby for a five cent supplement. The cost of one night in intensive care would provide vitamin D supplements for a month for 3,000 people. |
Is this another classic case of the dull and ordinary causes just not grabbling headline MSM attention? But then, at the very end, the author adds a "bleeding obvious" paragraph which annoyingly adds another factor.
| Vitamin D or Cholecalciferol, is probably one of the main reasons that coughs and colds and death itself, almost always peak in winter when people have lower vitamin D levels. Of course, winter is also a happy-hour for most viruses because temperatures are cooler and people crowd indoors more. |
Of course? Maybe Swedes don't stay indoors in winter? Do people in China, Italy, and Japan crowd indoors more than other countries? Or is it just old people that crowd indoors?
I don't know, I've had enough. I'm going outside for some sunlight and my daily quota of exercise. The compost bins don't rearrange themselves you know.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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| Do people in China, Italy, and Japan crowd indoors more than other countries? |
Well, all three are famously family-centric, yes. But we'd still need to know the numbers on account of Godfather-type stereotyping. This reminds me of the rickets outbreaks in Tower Hamlets because Bangladeshi women refuse to allow any skin to show anywhere. Presumably Bangladeshi diets have taken this into account over the millennia in the case of Bangladeshi women in Bangladesh. Unless they go partying every night in mini-skirts over there.
I raise this disturbing point because when we are dealing with blacks in New York, it is going to be difficult to sort out too many differences, other than genetic, with New Yorkers in general. And while we're talking genes, let's not forget that New York blacks are not, genetically speaking, all that black.
PS I mean of course Americans of predominantly African heritage. We're going to have trouble with our own since "Britons of predominantly African heritage" is going to run into objections from West Indians, Nigerians and Somalis for different reasons. Though according to present palaeoanthropological orthodoxy, we are all Britons of entirely African heritage.
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Ishmael
In: Toronto
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Looks like I'm right again.
Covid-19 kills fewer people than the flu.
The medical establishment, on the other hand, is an unstoppable death machine.
It turns out it's not the virus that's killing people, It's the ventilators. The treatment has been, in the words of Donald Trump, worse than the disease. A perfect repeat of (according to me) 1918.
This explains why the Chinese have died in so few numbers outside of Wuhan. The communist party insisted there were no cases of Covid-19 outside of Wuhan and so the Wuhan protocols were never used outside of Wuhan---unless you count Italy, and New York City, and....
FYI - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4oBPmUZ5KU
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Ishmael
In: Toronto
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BTW - the medical establishment has responded by predictably doubling down on the Chinese (Wuhan) protocols. For you and me that is. Boris Johnson gets the life-saving oxygen treatment.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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This week's Horizon (i.e. not made by the BBC News & Current Affairs Department) on the virus made it quite clear that the Chinese acted with remarkable promptitude in terms of alerting the world when they found out what was happening. Far quicker than, for example, the labyrinthine bureaucracies of either Britain or America could possibly have managed.
So prompt that it raises considerable suspicions. China has a bureaucracy too and one that is not inclined to dish out bad news with great promptitude.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Just been out-and-about. This bloke is coming on an intercepting course, ninety degrees from the left. I pause to let him pass. He sneezes violently. I wait until he is well passed and proceed to walk on through the suspended particles of sneeze.
The police are out-and-about. In groups of three, chatting amiably. All from the same household, I expect.
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Boreades
In: finity and beyond
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| Mick Harper wrote: | | Just been out-and-about. This bloke is coming on an intercepting course, ninety degrees from the left. He sneezes violently. I wait until he is well passed and proceed to walk on through the suspended particles of sneeze. |
I've had to remind you of Interference Cross-Sections before. Whether it's blokes, bodies or particles, the faster you cross paths the less risk there is of interaction. Unless you collide, then the risk of other damage goes up.
In this particular (sic) case, there's the added component of what kind of mask you are wearing, as it can act as a deterrent as well as a damage limitation.i.e. how likely are yer blokes in the street to approach you on an intercepting course.
No mask = bugger all deterrent to social interaction. People continue to approach at 90 degrees. Frequent clouds (of particles)
Surgical mask = minor deterrent, people stand about two metres clear, decreasing as people desensitise. Course holding at 90 degrees, fewer clouds, sunny periods.
N95 mask = major deterrent, people stand about five metres clear, also decreasing as people desensitise. Course veering from 90 degrees, occasional words.
The *maximum* deterrent (at this time) seems to be a Hannibal Lecter mask. People stand about ten metres clear (increasing rapidly). Course veering rapidly from 90 degrees, backing, frequent screams, showers later.
And that's the end of the Covid-19 Interaction Forecast.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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As usual with well-intentioned busybodies, you are overlooking the human factor. Like every other human being who ever lived I would rather catch coronavirus than do something weird in public. Thus, it is no longer weird to wait, if necessary in mid-stride, for somebody to cross in front of you -- it is in fact de rigueur -- but to freeze as if playing a one-man version of What's The Time, Mr Wolf? and remain in that lambent position while an invisible miasma of death-dealing germs disperses 'pon the zephyrs of time that no man can count and still call himself a man' (Wordsworth) is more than anyone would be prepared to do. M J H Wordsworth as many of you spotted.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Did I miss it? Our single most important event in the whole coronavirus pandemic -- the daily death rate in British hospitals just went down for the first time -- is not reported on Channel 4 News. Did they know about it? Yes, 917. Did they report it? No, just "taking it to a record figure of 9875". I despair. I understand it might be a blip. I understand people must be stopped from pouring out of their doors as if it was VC-Day. I understand ITN is short-staffed and working from home (not). It is still the single most shocking dereliction of duty on the part of a news organisation. I've seen in this whole coronavirus epidemic.
I daren't watch the other news bulletins. Tell me they were better.
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Chad
In: Ramsbottom
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| Mick Harper wrote: | | Did I miss it? Our single most important event in the whole coronavirus pandemic -- the daily death rate in British hospitals just went down for the first time -- |
It also went down last weekend... and the one before.
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