The Flu (Health)

[Mick Harper]

It might be in line to win our "Name a conspiracy theory that turned out to be true" competition (no takers so far) except that this isn't. It would be 'an accusation of a government doing crazy things which turned out to be true' (many takers). Though not so many that I would take this at face value. An accidental release of a pathogen being studied for medical reasons would be as far as I would go.

But either way, if proved, China would be in line for a real worldwide shellacking. 'If proved'. As we saw with Skripal, all they have to do is woodenly deny it and eventually it'll go away. Nobody wants to make an enemy of China and there isn't a World Policeman to force us to work together. Even so there would be severe domestic repercussions. I find it impossible to believe that this current Emperor hasn't made a stupefying number of Chinese enemies. He forgot the Golden Rule, there's safety in politburos.

[Mick Harper]

I wrote an amusing (well, I thought so) squib as a round robin to my family and immediately started to worry about whether amusing squibs are acceptable. Consulting Hatty, she pointed out that it wouldn’t be if someone had just lost a relative but otherwise... This got me thinking because of course at 10-15000 nobody will have a close relative. On the other hand, it only takes a dozen to die in a terrorism incident and you're not allowed to joke about that, even in my family.

But, and this is the point, 10-15,000 die of the flu every year and nobody says you can’t make jokes about the flu. So what's the difference about this ‘flu’? The big difference (apart from the world grinding to a halt) is the Intensive Care factor. The ordinary every-year 10-15,000 flu sufferers don’t get the Intensive Care treatment. But why not? People don’t die of ‘the flu’ they die of respiratory failure or whatever that is caused by the flu. So why aren’t they getting put into Intensive Care on the offchance that it will save them? Even if it is accepted that coronavirus is especially vicious, there must be loads of borderline flu cases that could be saved if the kitchen sink is thrown at them.

Presumably because it has long been the administrative practice not to. We sort of know this because nobody has been building Nightingales in the Docklands every winter. We just moan a bit about stretched resources and go about our business which is that certain categories of life-threatening conditions get you into Intensive Care, but flu isn’t one of them. This year it is. The first year that it has been put about that, “We’re all in the firing line so let’s stop the world in case it’s you that will be getting off." And we say, "Right you are."

[Mick Harper]

This brings us on to all this PPE business. [And by the way, there is an AEL prize to the first person who says either “PPE” or says “Personal Protective Equipment” but doesn’t say “PPE, Personal Protective Equipment”.] Hospitals don’t put on PPE to deal with flu victims. Why not? Because they don’t do so with any infectious disease. Well, they do, in certain circumstances, but mainly they don't.

Except this one. And if anyone in the NHS thinks they won’t get infected by donning PPE they’ve got another think coming. It don’t work like that. You’ve got to go into full hazmat mode – not just the people but the entire environment to achieve that – so forget about it. Just do what you do every year. A few of you catch whatever it is, the rest of you don't.

[Boreades]

[Wile E. Coyote]

Have you noticed, everyone now knows someone who has had bloody awful flu-like symptoms this year. Which might have been.... or might prove....etc....But there again this could happen every year, it is just in other years folks don't mention it. Maybe?

[Boreades]

I had the bloody awful flu-like symptoms last year (for six weeks, mid Sept to Mid Oct). Nobody but nobody thought it was special or unusual, it just seemed to be "going round". Didn't get any sympathy. M'Lady said I wasn't dead, so I should carry on working.

[N R Scott]

These guys provide quite a useful perspective if anyone's in need of something to watch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KmyHP5szGY

Their general view is that it's all severely over-hyped. They are on the alternative / "don't believe the government" side of things however - i.e. my side :) so they might be a little biased. They do bring a lot of good statistics to the table though.

[Mick Harper]

And don't think viruses are not watching our behaviour very carefully. It is agreed that they are the oldest and most adaptive organisms around and while they have been content to control us by keeping one step ahead and communicating with one another via (the clue's in the name) the common cold, it has surely come to their attention lately that our role in panspermia of building space rockets to get them off this outpost-in-space -- arriving is a doddle via asteroids -- is slackening while our danger to them, wiping out life on earth, is accelerating.

So they give us a little flick of the whip.

[Chad]

The most interesting thing I learned yesterday, is that viruses aren’t actually living organisms... they are just bits of protein.

(I knew this of prions but was surprised it was also the case with viruses.)

[Chad]

[Mick Harper]

[Boreades]

[Chad]

Thanks for that little gem Borry.

The article was ‘tweaked’ half a dozen times on just the day it was first published. The original headline read:

[Mick Harper]

I didn't watch the videos at the time but did at your urgings. I was, I admit, slightly shaken by the two media manipulations. I had not realised -- though of course it's obvious enough -- that this kind of URL tampering took place. The Italian doctors were especially egregious because they had been presented as dying on duty in the first place which presumably could not have been the case since they had obviously been long retired. Publishing their birth dates was, again presumably, what led someone to point this out. Now just removing the doctors (with or without explanation) would have meant a mistake, maybe a sinister one, maybe not. Removing the birth dates and leaving in the dead doctors means definite malice aforethought after the thought.

One problem with the video was that while this particular one was excellent on this particular subject, the mindset behind it was less so. For instance the dude giving us the gen on the governments' motives linked it to Blair/Bush and WMD. The problem with this is that any sensible person (i.e. not in the grip of a conspiratorial view of the world) knows perfectly well that Blair/Bush believed in WMD. Hence the comparison I drew is that Johnson et al (not Trump) believe in the awfulness of the coronavirus. They just don't have a hidden agenda. They're just averagely (in)competent.

PS I liked everyone being so nice about China.

[Mick Harper]

Will this hysteria never cease? So, the Prime Minister catches coronavirus. Of course he does, he's meeting everybody and his dog. So he gets a bit peaky. That's coronavirus for you. So he gets a bit peakier still. Ditto, but he's the Prime Minister so he's taken over the road to St Thomas's. I should think so too. It has its privileges. He gets a bit peakier, so they give him some oxygen. But he's the Prime Minister so they put him in Intensive Care next to a ventilator just in case. Bleedin' 'ell, wouldn't you? This triggers national meltdown. Even Newsnight's melting down: "He's a family man, sob."

For Chrissake, he's coming out in two days. Back in the saddle in three. But he might die. Then we'll send a card. I'm warning you, Britain, much more of this and I'll be emigrating.