The Flu (Health)

[Boreades]

Nothing to see here, move along please.

[Mick Harper]

For most of my life Nature has represented some notional gold standard for dependability but it has certainly fallen among thieves over recent years. Or it may be just that my own standards have become harsher. This statement is quite appalling. Not just assuming to know who 'scientists' are, much less able to speak for them, but to signal that if they do, and if they can, that scientists 'believe' something that is at best a reasonable possibility. One hesitates to call it a hypothesis in case this gives it some sort of scientific status.

Mind you, Nature is perfectly correct to say what it did -- scientists are that stupid.

[Mick Harper]

Newsnight informs us that sixteen out of seventeen doctors who have popped off were from racial minorities. Seventy-five per cent of 'health workers' were. These are clearly ferociously significant figures for which I have no theory, but I can contribute a small piece of anecdotal evidence.

I had to spend a fair amount of time in Dorchester General on account of my mum and there was something weird about the place which I could not at first identify. Then the penny dropped. Everyone was white. (Even the patients, this being Dorset, but I mean the staff.) Not only were they white, they were 'beautiful white' i.e. attractive, young, cheerful. Real Stepford Wives territory, both sexes.

Not in London. Not in any of several teaching hospitals I have attended over recent years. You are surprised to encounter any kind of Stepford person and even then they will be Lithuanian or something. Now obviously London (and other large cities in the same bag) have more than their fair share of Covids but not sixteen out of seventeen more Covids. However, there's another factor...

Racism. If you are a blond Scotsman who plays rugger, you get into the specialty of your choice. If you are a dumpy Sri Lankan woman with exactly the same medical credentials, you don't. That's the way of the world and maybe that's the way of the virus.

[Boreades]

I didn't get where I am today by being attractive, young, and cheerful. Or talented.

Fortunately, here in Wessex, #1 Daughter (of the Boreadettes) is attractive, young, and cheerful, and talented, and also a keen rugby player. I can neither confirm nor deny that being a Red Belt in Taikwondo has aided her rugby tackling skills (while the ref isn't looking), and kept her attractive looks (but not necessarily helped the good looks of opponents). Plus, she's related to a junior member of the England (Female) Rugby Union team.

As she (#1 Daughter) might be qualified to have an opinion, I asked her for her opinion. Which is, things will be better when Sri Lanka has a female national rugby union team (instead of just a male one) and they can play in the World Cup.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sri_Lanka_national_rugby_union_team

[Mick Harper]

As a general rule, Borry, can you confine these sorts of posts to the threads provided for them. I noticed that the Newsnight chap went on to hint darkly that racial minorities continue to suffer in 'our' NHS. Unfortunately in ways that are socially ingrained, eg fifty per cent less likely to complain about inadequate protection, and thus only soluble with time. He batted back Emily's suggestion that they were actually being thrown to the Covid wolves.

[Boreades]

[Mick Harper]

Two international straws in the winds. Germany, the poster child for the orthodox approach, has seen death rates increase for the third day in a row, against trend. Sweden, the naughty boy, continues relatively untroubled on its wayward path. Now it really is too early to draw any conclusions, especially when you are hoping for one rather than the other, but listening to the savants it is vital for AE-ists to watch out for two things

1. Advance explanations for why Sweden is not to be taken as an exemplar.
2. Undue emphasis on death rates (which, by the way, are vastly higher in Sweden presently than in either Finland or Norway).

The point is, the final outcome ought not to be measured by deaths per hundred but using the felicific calculus i.e. avoiding a 1% dip in GNP is worth a 2% hike in deaths (or whatever); one death in the home is worth two in a care home (or whatever).

[Boreades]

Some news that, for some reason, reminded me of saturation bombing or a scorched earth policy.

[Mick Harper]

There is another, darker reason (maybe) why patients in care homes tend to die in care homes. A large number of the inmates are on insurance policies that involve a) selling the family home in return for b) the insurer paying the bills until death, however long that might take. It appeared to us, when we ran the numbers, up to two years they made a profit, after two years, we did. No criminality need apply, it is just that the sector is a seamless whole, running on established tramlines.

[Ishmael]

Intra-Species Chemical Communication in Humans

A couple of studies have now been conducted in America randomly testing the population for antibodies to Covid-19. These studies have revealed that the antibodies are present in up to 24% of the population, suggesting the virus is far more widespread than believed and that the mortality rate for the virus is on par with the flu.

I have another suggestion.

I suspect very few of the people who have the antibodies ever were infected with Covid-19.

In Newfoundland, there is a blight that occurs somewhat regularly, though when it began first to be measured in the 1970s, its regularity was completely unknown. That blight is the Spruce Budworm: A tiny insect that infests spruce trees in massive numbers and eventually eats them to the ground. This little insect caused quite a panic among the labcoat sect when it exploded in the 70s. It was destroying entire forests and the rate at which it was spreading suggested that Newfoundland would lose all of its trees by sometime in the 1980s.

But that didn't happen. The budworm scare faded away and the forests survived.

It was later discovered that the trees had a rather interesting means of defeating that little critter. It turned out, the trees were talking to each other.

When a tree became infected, it sent chemicals into the air that, drifting on the wind, alerted other trees to its state. Those trees slowly began to change their chemistry such that they were no longer appetizing to the budworm. The altered trees formed a line beyond which the infestation could not pass. Once the threat was gone, the trees returned to their normal state.

I have long been arguing that humans do the same thing. We communicate with one another chemically, most effectively through bodily contact. We do this for many reasons, but among those reasons is to form collective defences against disease.

The reason so many people in the USA have antibodies against Covid-19 is not because the infestation is so widespread---it is because antibodies spread faster than viruses.

[Ishmael]

If I am right, of course, this means that the whole "Social Distancing" strategy we've all been following will only extend the crisis.

We should be promoting Free Love!

[Mick Harper]

This is kinda covered by the herd immunity business but because they do not believe in action-at-a-distance it is never properly realised. I agree with your pheromone hypothesis. Otherwise, as I pointed out some time ago, we'd all be brown bread every time, but it is much more complicated than the trees. Who by the way, it will turn out, are only using pheromones as a cover (budworm have ears .. I mean noses). For really secure communications, it's gotta be the mushrooms.

[Boreades]

Slowly, slowly the quiet thoughtful news is percolating to the surface.

[Mick Harper]

A most valuable analysis. However we have to apply the felicific calculus and concede that, right now, one covid death is the equivalent of five Aunty Gladys's kicking the bucket in their nursing homes. "It was her time, you know. Not that I was wishing it on her but still what did she have to look forward to?"

We can only pray that the world goes back to ... when was was it? ... oh, yes, last year, when everyone was an Aunty Gladys. A statistic. Even the twenty-seven truly unlucky hospital doctors who died when they picked up a normally non-fatal infection when treating all the Aunty Gladys's.

[Mick Harper]

Under a caption St Corona -- patron saints of pandemics comes this