Coronavirus **personal experiences** thread

Firelight2 · 2020-03-31T23:31:59.000Z

Joshk:

Since we are talking devils advocate, the correct way to create a weapon like this would be to secretly include a vaccine in the previous year’s flu-shot for your country’s residents. Then the world would be on it’s knees while your country was left standing with vaccine and herd-immunity.

If you did that, the rest of the world might declare war on you when they saw that none of your population got sick. They’d read between the lines and realize what your country did.

klrman · 2020-03-31T23:38:38.000Z

Some numbers from Sweden vs Canada. Canada shut down a lot of the economy etc etc inducing severe hardship for many whilst Sweden was more or less business as usual. Taking numbers from both countries when there were around 4,000 cases, Sweden grew the next day by 10% and Canada grew the next day at a rate of about 16%. Sweden basically did nothing with virtually no hit on the economy and cases grew 6% less. Should be interesting what happens in 14 days to see where it goes.

I didn't count Italy as from what I have read so far they count mortality rates based on different facts.

BurningPlayd0h · 2020-03-31T23:44:24.000Z

klrman:

Some numbers from Sweden vs Canada. Canada shut down a lot of the economy etc etc inducing severe hardship for many whilst Sweden was more or less business as usual. Taking numbers from both countries when there were around 4,000 cases, Sweden grew the next day by 10% and Canada grew the next day at a rate of about 16. Sweden basically did nothing with virtually no hit on the economy and cases grew 6 less. Should be interesting what happens in 14 days to see where it goes.

I didn’t count Italy as from what I have read so far they count mortality rates based on different facts.

Too many variables to even wildly estimate the impact of that one factor. Prior infection rates, rate of testing, etc. can wildly skew those numbers. We won’t have any grasp on much of the data regarding this pandemic for years.

M4D_M4X · 2020-03-31T23:45:14.000Z

"every dead one with the virus is counted innitaly

not only those who died because of the virus"

(saw a video posted on Facebook)

also I read the Spanish numbers are low, because they did / do not test dead people

klrman · 2020-04-01T00:11:21.000Z

BurningPlayd0h:

Too many variables to even wildly estimate the impact of that one factor. Prior infection rates, rate of testing, etc. can wildly skew those numbers. We won’t have any grasp on much of the data regarding this pandemic for years.

I know, I was just throwing it out there. If Sweden runs the course it would still be interesting to see what it looks like maybe 6 months down the road.

SKV89 · 2020-04-01T20:20:13.000Z

BurningPlayd0h:

Great info about Falun Gong for those that didn’t know about it. Curious what you think about the reverse narrative however? https://asiatimes.com/2020/03/china-locked-in-hybrid-war-with-us/

Also I may have missed it but are there some good links to the research that is conclusively declaring this as a naturally mutated disease? I hear that a lot but few articles or news reports list or link to sources.

Read through this thread for links. Should be easy to google as I read similar confirmations several times already.

There’s two speculations I read from your link. One is the speculation about the Maryland bio lab.

Here is a video I saw about this topic and was very impressed with the author’s immense research and very logical explanation of evidence, but I never shared it because I don’t like to propagate conspiracy theories. It is a very interesting video nonetheless and I did my own verification of some of the things he said and they actually checked out unlike the Epoch Time conspiracies that I just debunked above. Fortunately, this guy has the decency to label it “CONSPIRACY” in CAPS and said “if you take these events and line them up on a time line, it can seem very nefarious, but none of it is actually proof”. Now this is what I call professional and RESPONSIBLE reporting. If it is a conspiracy theory, please label it that way and emphasize it is just speculation and not deceive your readers to think otherwise.

Regarding China’s foreign ministry spokesman saying “it might be US Army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan”, because the first case occurred several weeks after the Wuhan games. My take is it is plausible. But the US would not be the only culprit as there are 9,308 participants (excluding international spectators and support staff) from 110 countries that participated in the games so any other countries could also have brought it over and infected other participants that brought it back to their countries. It is also possible Wuhan already had it.

Giuseppe Remuzzi, director of a renowned medical research institute in Italy, spoke in an interview with U.S.’s National Public Radio that General Practitioners in Italy “seen very strange pneumonia, very severe, particularly in old people in December and even November,… This means that the virus was circulating, at least in [the northern region of] Lombardy and before we were aware of this outbreak occurring in China.” So it is possible the virus was introduced from Italy but it is also possible that Italy brought it back from Wuhan.

NPR

'Every Single Individual Must Stay Home': Italy's Coronavirus Surge Strains...

The country has universal health care. But now, fighting tens of thousands of coronavirus cases, Italian hospitals and medical staff are overwhelmed, prompting anguished debate.

The speculation that COVID-19 is a bioweapon I would not believe given confirmation from true experts say it is not engineered. But the possibility that the virus occurred in other countries before China such as in the US is not impossible.

CDC director Robert Redfield admitted that the US had deaths from COVID-19 before they were able to test for it and even now test kits for the virus is in great shortage and people requesting to be tested for it has been denied. Therefore there’s no way we can tell if the assumed flu patients in the past few months are actually COVID-19 patients. The Atlantic could only verify 4,384 people as of 03-09-2020 have been tested for the Corona virus in the US, which is unacceptable considering even a small country like South Korea already tested over 100,000 during the same time averaging 15,000 test per day.

The Atlantic – 10 Mar 20

The Dangerous Delays in U.S. Coronavirus Testing Haven’t Stopped

Without adequate testing, people with coronavirus symptoms are left to agonize over the right course of action on their own.

https://www.rt.com/news/482990-china-coronavirus-us-come-clean/

The CDC did all they can to prevent testing for this virus until the last week of February after a virologist in Seattle secretly tested assumed flu patients defying federal government orders not to test, which exposed that COVID-19 patients were hidden among assumed flu cases. With this data revealed to the public, the CDC have no choice but to officially allow testing in very limited numbers just this month, which is why we are seeing soaring number of cases in March.

MyNorthwest.com – 12 Mar 20

How Seattle Flu Study defied federal government to test for coronavirus

The Seattle Flu Study tried testing for coronavirus in Washington for weeks, defying the federal government in a bid to track the illness back in February.

Est. reading time: 2 minutes

Spotify

Why the U.S. Wasn’t Ready for the Coronavirus

Listen to this episode from The Daily on Spotify. Developing a strategy for testing was supposed to be a relatively simple part of preparing for the coronavirus in the United States. So what went wrong? Guests: Sheri Fink, a correspondent for The...

Besides mind boggling low number of tests performed in the US, there is also severe sampling bias that muddles our understanding of the origin of the virus and how it has been transmitting around preventing us from devising containment strategies. The US CDC’s extremely narrow criteria for testing basically requires persons with direct travel to Hubei, China or direct contact with a known COVID-19 patient (which rules out almost everyone) to even be considered for testing, potentially creating an illusion that all identified strains genetically stem from the Wuhan strain. You pretty much have to be a celebrity or the testing facilities do not follow the CDC criteria strictly in order for you to have a chance to get tested.

Per the CDC, the number of hospitalized patients in the last 5 months due to flu-like and pneumonia like symptoms is 400,000 to 730,000 resulting in 24,000 to 62,000 deaths. Even in China, the total number of Corona virus cases is only about 80k (a good portion likely hospitalized) .

The death rate of hospitalized flu/pneumonia patients in the US is about 6-8.5% whereas Corona Virus death rate is reported at 1-3%. Also if the US hospitals did not have the ability/capacity to test for the virus, other countries that are not as advanced as the US in the medical field will likely also mix corona virus cases with the flu. Keep in mind, there are 38-54 MILLION flu-like cases in the US alone this flu season, which is many times more than the total global covid-19 cases. I also remember reading that WHO reported a global high flu season this year.

If the patient and/or medical institution did not know of the corona virus and did not have the capability to test for it, these cases would be treated as the common flu or pneumonia in which case, the patients would be staying at home instead of being hospitalized.

80% of people with COVID-19 only have mild symptoms and children seems to be “almost” immune to the virus. Age group 10-39 only see a death rate of 0.2% per China’s CDC which is not much higher than the common flu. For this age group people would likely be staying home treating it as the common flu. But for elderly patients, the Corona virus is much more serious. So for non senior age group, the majority of the people would be staying home and even a couple hundred thousand infections would not result in any tangible difference in the flu case numbers and its impact on medical facilities would not be noticeable if those cases are handled as flu cases.

The governor of Ohio made a statement early this month that although there are only 5 confirmed cases in Ohio, he estimates 100,000 infections in his state went undiagnosed due to lack of testing and he said other states are in the same situation. Though I think this number is exaggerated but for a state with only 11 million and a very low population density especially compared to China, it would take quite a long time to reach even 1/10 of this estimate, which is more than every state in China besides Wuhan, Hubei. Also the experts in Ohio must not think limited hospital capacity would contradict this belief probably for reasons similar to my theory above.

Fox News

Gov. DeWine: 100,000 believed to have coronavirus in Ohio, number projected...

The state of Ohio is seeing "very difficult times" under the threat of the coronavirus pandemic, Gov. Mike DeWine said Friday.

Anyways these are just my opinion. Biowarfare is ruled out by experts around the world. But global transmittance of the virus through the Wuhan military games whether it originated from China, US, Italy, Iran, etc. is a possibility. I believe the virus was spread unintentionally instead of foul play like all these bias-toned conspiracy/propaganda pieces want us to believe.

Joshk · 2020-04-01T00:14:46.000Z

Fixed:

Joshk:

If it did escape from a lab, where did the lab get it? It was not found in nature before, and not synthesized.

Joshk · 2020-04-01T00:15:51.000Z

Firelight2:

Joshk:

Since we are talking devils advocate, the correct way to create a weapon like this would be to secretly include a vaccine in the previous year’s flu-shot for your country’s residents. Then the world would be on it’s knees while your country was left standing with vaccine and herd-immunity.

If you did that, the rest of the world might declare war on you when they saw that none of your population got sick. They’d read between the lines and realize what your country did.

I agree.

SKV89 · 2020-04-01T00:19:06.000Z

MtnDon:

All the intrigue aside, how many BLF’ers have a stock of face masks, either surgical types or N95 or both and how long have you had them? Are you using them? If you don’t have any do you wish you has some?

I ordered 6 boxes of surgical masks from Fireflies to donate to my wife’s hospital that is running out. May order more if they are good quality. Still waiting for them to post up a video of the testing.

BurningPlayd0h · 2020-04-01T00:32:56.000Z

:+1: FANTASTIC info SKV89, I haven’t read all the links yet but will be perusing them later. The contributions you and others have made to this thread should really be pinned into the OP at some point perhaps, but I understand that’s a great deal of work to collate.

It’s always good to remind ourselves that humans are excellent at looking for patterns… and finding them where none exist.

Joshk · 2020-04-01T01:31:34.000Z

SKV89:

Giuseppe Remuzzi, director of a renowned medical research institute in Italy, spoke in an interview with U.S.’s National Public Radio that General Practitioners in Italy “seen very strange pneumonia, very severe, particularly in old people in December and even November,… This means that the virus was circulating, at least in [the northern region of] Lombardy and before we were aware of this outbreak occurring in China.” So it is possible the virus was introduced from Italy but it is also possible that Italy brought it back from Wuhan.

That is really interesting and I hadn’t heard it before, thanks.

LEDicrous · 2020-04-01T02:00:44.000Z

electricjelly:

This Harvard biology student is 100% sure this novel corona virus was engineered in a lab. He says it looks like there are segments of HIV-1, SARS, and bat corona viruses spliced together. Much of what he is saying is way over my head, but he sounds convincing, and I think it’s totally possible. Very scary if its true.

The reality is worse than that. If that student pushed a bit further his analysis, a portion of that virus looks like coming from a banana. Digging further you’ll see trace of peanuts too. Some RNA from ants should be there too. This is why this virus can crawl into your lungs and make the victim cough and scratch, because of nuts allergy. This virus is indeed a disaster, it only has peanuts trace without accompanying gene of chocolate and milk. A weird thing like that has to be man-made in a lab.

Lightbringer · 2020-04-01T02:13:51.000Z

LEDicrous:

The reality is worse than that. If that student pushed a bit further his analysis, a portion of that virus looks like coming from a banana. Digging further you’ll see trace of peanuts too. Some RNA from ants should be there too. This is why this virus can crawl into your lungs and make the victim cough and scratch, because of nuts allergy. This virus is indeed a disaster, it only has peanuts trace without accompanying gene of chocolate and milk. A weird thing like that has to be man-made in a lab.

I sure hope not.

Joshk · 2020-04-01T02:29:05.000Z

LEDicrous:

electricjelly:

This Harvard biology student is 100% sure this novel corona virus was engineered in a lab. He says it looks like there are segments of HIV-1, SARS, and bat corona viruses spliced together. Much of what he is saying is way over my head, but he sounds convincing, and I think it’s totally possible. Very scary if its true.

The reality is worse than that. If that student pushed a bit further his analysis, a portion of that virus looks like coming from a banana. Digging further you’ll see trace of peanuts too. Some RNA from ants should be there too. This is why this virus can crawl into your lungs and make the victim cough and scratch, because of nuts allergy. This virus is indeed a disaster, it only has peanuts trace without accompanying gene of chocolate and milk. A weird thing like that has to be man-made in a lab.

Yes, when I read the ‘student’ was ‘100% sure’, I had a little chuckle. Not all students are good students. Heck, half are below average.

phouton · 2020-04-01T03:45:11.000Z

SKV89 :+1:

Really appreciate the extensive research and considered commentary. So many plot twists are possible. It’s great when possibilities are explored without going past what the evidence supports.

In other news, is anyone else enjoying the quietness, lack of bustling traffic and crowds, and the pleasant chirping sounds of spring? There’s talk of fear and panic, but I’m really liking the calm and serenity.

Joshk · 2020-04-01T03:49:34.000Z

This global slowdown should cut our carbon emissions for the year.

SKV89 · 2020-04-01T03:59:30.000Z

BurningPlayd0h:

:+1: :+1: FANTASTIC info SKV89, I haven’t read all the links yet but will be perusing them later. The contributions you and others have made to this thread should really be pinned into the OP at some point perhaps, but I understand that’s a great deal of work to collate.

It’s always good to remind ourselves that humans are excellent at looking for patterns… and finding them where none exist.

Thanks for reading! When I read news, I try to keep a neutral and open mind. But most importantly, I am always aware that almost all news are biased and likely propaganda. This whole COVID-19 is a disinformation war. So I try to do independent fact checks whenever time allows. With all the information I gather, I can see a bigger, more complete picture instead of simply allowing the media’s biased narratives mold my perception.

Ragsy · 2020-04-01T04:31:46.000Z

BurningPlayd0h:

klrman:

Some numbers from Sweden vs Canada. Canada shut down a lot of the economy etc etc inducing severe hardship for many whilst Sweden was more or less business as usual. Taking numbers from both countries when there were around 4,000 cases, Sweden grew the next day by 10% and Canada grew the next day at a rate of about 16%. Sweden basically did nothing with virtually no hit on the economy and cases grew 6% less. Should be interesting what happens in 14 days to see where it goes.

I didn't count Italy as from what I have read so far they count mortality rates based on different facts.

Too many variables to even wildly estimate the impact of that one factor. Prior infection rates, rate of testing, etc. can wildly skew those numbers. We won’t have any grasp on much of the data regarding this pandemic for years.

I also tend to agree. It would be great to be able to look at the numbers and rates in other countries to give us an indication of what we might expect but the reality is there are too many 'local factors' that come into play.

When I look at other countries and their numbers, I also think about :

1) What level of lockdown (if any) has been adopted in that country and when did they call it

2) Community Spread - how active is it in the community,...has a cruise ship recently been allowed to offboard and passengers allowed to roam free?

SubLGT · 2020-04-01T04:41:42.000Z

ProPublica

A Major Medical Staffing Company Just Slashed Benefits for Doctors and Nurses...

Alteon Health, backed by private-equity firms Frazier Healthcare Partners and New Mountain Capital, will cut salaries, time off and retirement benefits for providers, citing lost revenue. Several hospital operators announced similar cuts.

…….Emergency room doctors and nurses many of whom are dealing with an onslaught of coronavirus patients and shortages of protective equipment — are now finding out that their compensation is getting cut.

Most ER providers in the U.S. work for staffing companies that have contracts with hospitals. Those staffing companies are losing revenue as hospitals postpone elective procedures and non-coronavirus patients avoid emergency rooms. Health insurers are processing claims more slowly as they adapt to a remote workforce.

“Despite the risks our providers are facing, and the great work being done by our teams, the economic challenges brought forth by COVID-19 have not spared our industry,” Steve Holtzclaw, the CEO of Alteon Health, one of the largest staffing companies, wrote in a memo to employees on Monday.

The memo announced that the company would be reducing hours for clinicians, cutting pay for administrative employees by 20%, and suspending 401(k) matches, bonuses and paid time off. Holtzclaw indicated that the measures were temporary but didn’t know how long they would last……Alteon and its private-equity backer, Frazier Healthcare Partners, didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment……

…….However, another major staffing company for emergency rooms, TeamHealth, said its employees would not be affected. “We are not instituting any reduction in pay or benefits,” TeamHealth said in a statement to ProPublica. “This is despite incurring significant cost for staffing in anticipation of surging volumes, costs related to quarantined and sick physicians, and costs for PPE as we work hard to protect our clinicians from the virus.”………

……Hospital operators have also announced cuts. Tenet Healthcare, a Dallas-based publicly traded company that runs 65 hospitals, said it would postpone 401(k) matches and tighten spending on contractors and vendors. Emergency room doctors at Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center have been told some of their accrued pay is being held back, according to The Boston Globe. More than 1,100 staffers at Atrius Health in Massachusetts are facing reduced paychecks or unpaid furloughs, and raises for medical staff at South Shore Health, another health system in Massachusetts, are being delayed. Several other hospitals have also announced furloughs……

BurningPlayd0h · 2020-04-01T06:24:57.000Z

phouton:

SKV89 :+1: :+1: :+1:

Really appreciate the extensive research and considered commentary. So many plot twists are possible. It’s great when possibilities are explored without going past what the evidence supports.

In other news, is anyone else enjoying the quietness, lack of bustling traffic and crowds, and the pleasant chirping sounds of spring? There’s talk of fear and panic, but I’m really liking the calm and serenity.

I’ve been going for lots of late night walks and getting to enjoy the brisk air and lack of traffic sounds at night (plus getting to crank up my lights without having to watch for cars ).