Saturday, July 18, 2020

Covid 15, False positives and Sweden success in "flattening the curve"

A good FB post here by Dr Roy Spencer, an academic climatologist from U. of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) yesterday July 17. It's about false positives, patients found to be positive and symptomatic of the virus but upon double checking, are actually suffering from bacterial infections.
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Roy W. Spencer
A COVID-19 story & the dangers of politicizing a virus:

I just asked a friend in a major U.S. city who owns a successful medical testing business his opinion about masks. He is on the advisory board to one of the top hospitals in the country (you'd recognize the name), and is an expert in immunology, epidemiology, and a couple other medical-ologies. His wife is an ER nurse. They both believe that the public wearing masks is probably doing more harm than good, because cloth masks are being reused, laid down on unsanitary surfaces, and recycling bacteria from the wearer.

But that wasn't the main point he wanted to make.

He told the story of a friend whose wife recently got very sick with COVID-like symptoms and was admitted to a very good hospital in the city. She was told she had COVID by three top medical professionals.

The husband called my friend to say her health was failing and was not expected to live. My friend told him to INSIST she be tested for other illnesses. They did, and discovered she had Legionnaires disease, which is bacterial, not viral. She was treated and released a day or so later.

(He also related that he has personally known more people to commit suicide in recent months than have had COVID.)

COVID-mania is causing harm. "Following the science" means making rational decisions, but when the government pays hospitals extra $$ for having COVID patients, you can bet that every illness will suddenly look more like COVID than before the financial incentive existed.
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Two recent good articles I discovered, 

(1) Why Sweden Succeeded in “Flattening the Curve” and New York Failed 
Wednesday, July 15, 2020
By Jonathan “Jon” Miltimore, Managing Editor of FEE.org
https://fee.org/articles/why-sweden-succeeded-in-flattening-the-curve-and-new-york-failed/

The reason New York failed to "flatten the curve" and Sweden succeeded probably has little to do with lockdowns.

Sweden took such an approach (NO LOCKDOWNS) for two reasons:

First, as Tegnell has publicly stated, there is LITTLE TO NO SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE that lockdowns work.

Second, as evidence today shows, lockdowns come with WIDESPREAD UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES: mass unemployment, recession, social unrest, psychological deterioration, suicides, and drug overdoses.

(2) The Media's Jihad against Sweden's No-Lockdown Policy Ignores Key Facts
07/14/2020   Ryan McMaken 
https://mises.org/power-market/medias-jihad-against-swedens-no-lockdown-policy-ignores-key-facts

As soon as it became clear that the Swedish state had no plans to implement harsh lockdowns, global media organizations like the New York Times have implemented what can only be described as an ideological jihad against Sweden.

For many weeks, there has been an incessant drumbeat of articles with titles touting the "the failure of the country's no-lockdown coronavirus strategy," that "Sweden Has Become the World's Cautionary Tale," and "How Sweden Screwed Up."

Indeed, looking at this, one might conclude that thanks to Sweden we know what both lockdown and nonlockdown countries look like: they look remarkably similar in some cases.

My Swedish friend Peter Eriksson also commented, The Swedish government is getting a lot of shit since the are not promoting use of masks as general. It can be useful in some situations such in small isolated areas with bad air flow. But in open spaces the use of masks increase the possibility to get sick.

Back to the Philippines.

Pneumonia, an infectious and contagious disease, has killed on average 57,278/year, 2016-2018 in the country. Or 157 deaths per day, every single day. We never heard a single proposal to have a lockdown to stop the spread of pneumonia.

Tuberculosis, another infectious and contagious disease, has killed 23,409 people in the PH in 2018, average 64 TB deaths per day, every single day. No proposal for any lockdown to control the spread of TB.

Now virus cases and deaths are rising recently, why?

At least two possible reasons. One, these are deaths many weeks ago and reported only recently. And two, just my hypothesis -- hard lockdown the past four months didn't prevent the spread of the virus. But it made many people poorer, hungrier, sicklier, have weaker immune system and become more vulnerable to viral and bacterial infections, diseases.

Open up the economy, remove the government lockdown and encourage more personal responsibility in personal and household hygiene, scared people to have double mask, double the 6ft social distancing if they want. But the economy must open up, wide and clear. Lockdown dictatorship should end.
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See also: 
Covid 12, Open up the economy, lockdowns are wrong, June 03, 2020 
Covid 13, Hard lockdown and hysteria caused the 17.7% unemployment rate, June 09, 2020 
Covid 14, Selected articles by Mahar Mangahas on the pandemic, July 05, 2020.

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