The Lemon Fool

As I said earlier there were early papers that covered the source of the virus. It was found in bats and pangolins several years before it transferred to humans, At that stage it wasn't capable of crossing over into humans. One change of letter in the genetic code and it did.

Conspiracy theorists may suggest that transcription error was created by humans but there is no evidence it was. There are certain aspects of viruses that are generally used to modify and weaponise them. None of those have been found to be present in SARS-CoV-2.

Anything is possible for conspiracy theorists I deal with them every day on the US boards I frequent for my investments. I've learnt to ignore then. (I put them on 'ignore'), they never post anything remotely usable from an investment perspective and I've got better things to waste my time on than wading through their wild imaginings.

Donald Trump should be given a Nobel Prize for his services to stupidity.

sg31 wrote:As I said earlier there were early papers that covered the source of the virus. It was found in bats and pangolins several years before it transferred to humans, At that stage it wasn't capable of crossing over into humans. One change of letter in the genetic code and it did.

Conspiracy theorists may suggest that transcription error was created by humans but there is no evidence it was. There are certain aspects of viruses that are generally used to modify and weaponise them. None of those have been found to be present in SARS-CoV-2.

Anything is possible for conspiracy theorists I deal with them every day on the US boards I frequent for my investments. I've learnt to ignore then. (I put them on 'ignore'), they never post anything remotely usable from an investment perspective and I've got better things to waste my time on than wading through their wild imaginings.

Donald Trump should be given a Nobel Prize for his services to stupidity.

I totally agree that the conspiracy theorists deserve to be dismissed but unfortunately, asking valid questions about the source of the virus seems to get one immediately dismissed as a conspiracy theorist.

The questions actually deserve a proper answer. Not "there were some early papers that found a similar virus" which no-one can actually cite. Honestly, this is so weak but is the only answer I ever get to my questions.

I remain to be convinced. I'm totally happy to be convinced but no-one seems to have any proper answers, when pressed.

I think the conspriracy theory is just that. The logical conclusion is that it was a natural development and the idea it was a virus engineered for biological warfare is less credible.

I'm sure just about every biological weapons unit and secret service has been over all the evidence and reached their own conclusion. That will have been reported to their Goverments and military. They won't tell you and me what they have concluded and why, we aren't in the loop so I'm afraid your conspiracy theory will never get an answer. If the authorities were to release information on their findings would you believe them anyway, they are likely to slant it anyway that suits their purposes.

Sorry I don't have an answer for you, I doubt anyone on TLF will have one either.

Mike4 wrote:Even so, there seems to be a remarkable lack of interest in tracking down the origin of the virus.

Where is your evidence that there is "a remarkable lack of interest in tracking down the origin of the virus"? I have no evidence that there isn't a great deal of interest in the subject!

Mike4 wrote: In pandemics there is usually mahoosive effort applied to identifying the source, but not this one.

Really? What do you mean by "the source"? Patient Zero? Or "the source" of just the particular virus that mutated/jumped? It seems unlikely that will ever be found, only likely sources. The likely source of HIV is believed to be monkeys, or apes, maybe as far back as the early part of the 20th century. But which particular monkey, or monkeys? No chance!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HIV#Origins

Mike4 wrote: Or perhaps more accurately, a lack of interest in reporting on efforts made to track down the origin.

Possibly, but that's another matter and it depends where you look.

Mike4 wrote:I'm quite happy to believe it occurred naturally as you assert, if someone comes up with some research on it. but I'm very taken aback by your astoundingly complacent acceptance that nature must the source simply because this is the "default assumption".

Well, viruses are "natural". If I find a stone on the beach am I wrong in assuming it is natural, lacking any evidence to the contrary?

Mike4 wrote:My point is that EVERYONE seems to be assuming this, and demonstrating no interest at all in checking. Why not? Every other avenue to deal with this virus seems to be having every resource available thrown at it.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41564-020-0771-4

https://www.cebm.net/study/covid-19-theories-on-the-proximal-origin-of-sars-cov-2-j/

https://time.com/5870481/coronavirus-origins/

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/07/who-led-mission-may-investigate-pandemic-s-origin-here-are-key-questions-ask

Interesting to see that Sweden's much criticised policy has now resulted in lower infection rates than its Nordic neigbours - https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/0 ... -doubters/

And no mandatory masks, either.

Sweden's GDP is now expected to shrink 4.6% this year, compared to a predicted 12.4% in the UK.

Their public sector debt is estimated to rise to 42.9% of GDP this year, compared to 35.2% last year, and compared with over 100% in the UK.

Swedes 2, Turnips 1?

Clitheroekid wrote:Interesting to see that Sweden's much criticised policy has now resulted in lower infection rates than its Nordic neigbours - https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/0 ... -doubters/

And no mandatory masks, either.

Sweden's GDP is now expected to shrink 4.6% this year, compared to a predicted 12.4% in the UK.

Their public sector debt is estimated to rise to 42.9% of GDP this year, compared to 35.2% last year, and compared with over 100% in the UK.

Swedes 2, Turnips 1?

Possibly too soon to reach a conclusion?

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries

Deaths per Million of population:

Sweden - 577
Denmark - 108
Norway - 49

Whether the virus is natural or engineered what does seems clear is that it is being used to accelerate the implementation of global collectivist government, specifically Agenda 21/2030. This will become more transparent when the Great Reset is launched next January, see the World Economic Forum website for details. This agenda is no conspiracy theory, it is there in plain sight for anyone who cares to research it, its just not discussed as far as I am aware in the mainstream media.

Clitheroekid wrote:Interesting to see that Sweden's much criticised policy has now resulted in lower infection rates than its Nordic neigbours - https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/0 ... -doubters/

Its interesting to see that they have achieved this feat by following Donald Trump's advice - don't test and and you won't find.

According to numbers submitted to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Contol (ECDC), Sweden registered an average of 12 new cases per million people over the past week, compared to 18 for Denmark and 14 for Norway.
Sweden is also still carrying out fewer tests per capita than Denmark and Norway, with an average of 1.2 per 1000 people at the end of last month, compared to 2.2 in Norway and 5.9 in Denmark.
So taking the statistically insignificantly small numbers of infections, and dividing them by the number of tests, who is still at the top of the Nordic list?

johnhemming wrote:

UncleEbenezer wrote:Why are the Asians coping better than the West?

One hypothesis is that there have been more other coronaviruses spreading in certain communities and as a result they have less susceptibility.

Yes, spread/actual sickness across Africa is also surprisingly weak to date. It has been hypothesised that the comparative youth of African populations as well as the possibility that, due to prevalent living conditions, there may have been comparatively (c.f. Europeans/N. Americans) more exposure to other coronaviruses/non-specific viruses in the past that has led to less susceptibility.

BP

BhotiPila wrote:Yes, spread/actual sickness across Africa is also surprisingly weak to date.

I would think there would be a lower viral load as well.

Clitheroekid wrote:Sweden's GDP is now expected to shrink 4.6% this year, compared to a predicted 12.4% in the UK.

Their public sector debt is estimated to rise to 42.9% of GDP this year, compared to 35.2% last year, and compared with over 100% in the UK.

Objection.

Those UK predictions come from the OBR's analysis
https://obr.uk/coronavirus-analysis/
Their Central scenario is still using assumptions that we know now to be inaccurate, eg.
Real GDP falls 35 per cent in the second quarter, but bounces back quickly. Unemployment rises by more than 2 million to 10 per cent in the second quarter, but then declines more slowly than GDP recovers.

Have not looked into the spending/debt side of the equation too closely, but safe to assume it is also mince.

Away from the economics ... I just came across this blog post, more discussion on the "Casedemic" and the difference between cases and infections.
https://drmalcolmkendrick.org/2020/09/0 ... y-matters/

JamesMuenchen wrote:
Away from the economics ... I just came across this blog post, more discussion on the "Casedemic" and the difference between cases and infections.
https://drmalcolmkendrick.org/2020/09/0 ... y-matters/

Interesting opinionated article from the author's own site in which he chastises others for errors he believes they have made
But the author's own huge error in his analysis that he seems to be unaware of is that there is not a single fatality rate! It is near zero for 5 year olds, a bit more for 50 year olds and substantially more for 80 year olds. And since he seems to want to compare it with flu - this is nothing like our biggest flu epidemic - Spanish Flu.
So why has the death rate gone down substantially, although the infection rate may now be climbing yet again? Once the oldies got the message as to how dangerous it was, they substantially changed their life styles - hence the decreased mortalities. And the younger generations realise that there is no substantial risk to themselves - and are behaving accordingly - hence the increasing infection rate. And hopefully Care Home managers will not allow suspected Covid-19 cases to be dumped back in their care from hospital - albeit this happened in extreme circumstances when the hospitals were being over-run by the pandemic. But I don't see much about any of that from this author.

johnhemming wrote:

BhotiPila wrote:Yes, spread/actual sickness across Africa is also surprisingly weak to date.

I would think there would be a lower viral load as well.

Possibly. And, shorter life expectancy so fewer elderly. No Care Homes with their concentrations of elderly and infected Carers carrying it between Homes. No dumping of infected elderly into Care Homes to make space in hospitals. Fewer elderly making fewer demands on the fewer ICU beds so less infection of the fewer nursing staff. Lower expectations and money for hospital care so more home care in extended families, where the majority are young people. Better governmental regulation and use of quarantine and better strategic use of very limited testing facilities. Better social and police enforcement of social distancing and masking - larger ratio of police/population and relatively compliant populations. Greater governmental and popular experience and awareness of disaster management. Less dependence on government for support, more self-reliance, so less actual reporting of illness and death . . . . . . ?
Still remarkable. . . .

BP

scotia wrote:But the author's own huge error in his analysis that he seems to be unaware of is that there is not a single fatality rate! It is near zero for 5 year olds, a bit more for 50 year olds and substantially more for 80 year olds.

I'm not sure that's a huge error.

You can have and measure (and compare with others) a single fatality rate. You can also break it down further into smaller sub groups. Some could be trivial, left vs right handers, blond vs brown hair etc. if you really wanted to, but the more relevant non-trivial ones would be age, gender, ethnicity, smoker, diabetic, population density etc. That would enable a better modelling where societies differed, where UK was more ethnically diverse than Ireland say, or Hackney more diverse than Cheltenham, or Japan more aged than Nigeria.

Just because he doesn't drill down into the various subsets of data doesn't mean he isn't aware of them, and the potential additional analysis that might come with it. It is legitimate to compare countries, and regions within countries, using a single population fatality (or infection) rate, unless you are aware of a specific reason why they may be legitimately different.

zico wrote:

Mike4 wrote:
I think the virulent and deadly virus you describe is more likely to originate in a laboratory than come from nature.

And as Dr Chris Martenson intriguingly points out in response to those who say there is no evidence to say SARS-CoV-2 escaped from a lab, there is no evidence it originated in nature either.

This looks like a logical error, not an intriguing point.
We know that in nature, living organisms do evolve, mutate and develop - so that is surely the default assumption, and not one that needs to be proved with evidence. It's the unusual explanation that requires evidence before it can be have any degree of credibility.

For example, modern humans could either have evolved naturally from earlier humanoids, or aliens from the planet Zog could have interfered with neanderthal DNA to create modern humans. There's no hard evidence either way, but the first explanation is consistent with everything else we see in the natural world, so is generally accepted as being the correct answer.

A more humdrum example is that I believe the letter that dropped through my letterbox yesterday was sent by Saga Insurance through the postal system, but my next-door neighbour may well have decided to create a fake Saga letter using technology in his basement, and hand-deliver it through my letterbox. I simply have no hard evidence either way, but am confident about my belief on this one.

If it was offering a 3 year fixed price car insurance, I had it too a few weeks ago and mine wouldn't have come from your neighbour. I wasted a heck of a long time getting a quote over the phone only to find their price was vastly more than my present insurers had quoted so hastily accepted the latter.

dealtn wrote:

scotia wrote:But the author's own huge error in his analysis that he seems to be unaware of is that there is not a single fatality rate! It is near zero for 5 year olds, a bit more for 50 year olds and substantially more for 80 year olds.

I'm not sure that's a huge error.

You can have and measure (and compare with others) a single fatality rate. You can also break it down further into smaller sub groups. Some could be trivial, left vs right handers, blond vs brown hair etc. if you really wanted to, but the more relevant non-trivial ones would be age, gender, ethnicity, smoker, diabetic, population density etc. That would enable a better modelling where societies differed, where UK was more ethnically diverse than Ireland say, or Hackney more diverse than Cheltenham, or Japan more aged than Nigeria.

Just because he doesn't drill down into the various subsets of data doesn't mean he isn't aware of them, and the potential additional analysis that might come with it. It is legitimate to compare countries, and regions within countries, using a single population fatality (or infection) rate, unless you are aware of a specific reason why they may be legitimately different.

But if you totally ignore the mortality variation with age, and the changes in behaviour that have resulted, then go on to suggest why the rate has fallen dramatically without taking this into consideration - then I would suggest that such an analysis is fatality flawed.
Instead of his barrow loads of invective about the opinions of others, I would like to see him justify his belief that Covid-19 is not a a deadly killer - in the company of Care Home managers who know otherwise.

Clitheroekid wrote:Interesting to see that Sweden's much criticised policy has now resulted in lower infection rates than its Nordic neigbours - https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/0 ... -doubters/

And no mandatory masks, either.

Sweden's GDP is now expected to shrink 4.6% this year, compared to a predicted 12.4% in the UK.

Their public sector debt is estimated to rise to 42.9% of GDP this year, compared to 35.2% last year, and compared with over 100% in the UK.

Swedes 2, Turnips 1?

Here's an interesting link to the FT Times coronavirus updates. They measure lockdowns by a "stringency index" (to compare different packages of lockdown measures in different countries) and there's also an animated interactive graph showing the world map on a timeline, which shows when countries locked down hardest, and when they partially lifted it - Spain was particularly slow to respond in March (and also UK of course). Germany stands out as the most cautious nation, given that it hasn't been too badly affected by coronavirus. (You need to press the "Play" icon for the sequence to play through - I think it's a really informative way of seeing the big picture on comparing speed and strengths of various lockdowns)

The relevant point for the Sweden comparisons is that since June 6th, Norway has had a very similar lockdown regime to that of Sweden, so after 3 months of similar lockdown stringency, you'd expect infection rates to be similar in the 2 countries.

https://ig.ft.com/coronavirus-lockdowns/

For anyone who still thinks lockdowns don't make any difference...ahem.
Just look at the following chart showing cases per million of population. When you click on the link, you have to wait a few seconds before the relevant graph appears. (The EU line in the chart is comparable to other countries because it's in cases per million of population).


https://ig.ft.com/coronavirus-chart/?ar ... lues=cases

For Sweden, after the first few days of the outbreak, it's at much higher levels than comparable European countries, worse even than us, and almost as bad as the USA.
What's the one big difference between Sweden and the other European countries? Yes, lockdown.
If anyone thinks Sweden has already hit herd immunity levels, they've only had around 11% of their population infected, so that requires drastic rewriting of the science on herd immunity.
Noteworthy that until last week, Norway's infection rate was still much lower than Sweden, and has overtaken Sweden just in the last couple of days.

This chart also shows that UK had higher levels of infection for longer because we locked down later, and then, because other European countries partially opened up before we did, our infections fell relative to other countries.

scotia wrote:

dealtn wrote:

scotia wrote:But the author's own huge error in his analysis that he seems to be unaware of is that there is not a single fatality rate! It is near zero for 5 year olds, a bit more for 50 year olds and substantially more for 80 year olds.

I'm not sure that's a huge error.

You can have and measure (and compare with others) a single fatality rate. You can also break it down further into smaller sub groups. Some could be trivial, left vs right handers, blond vs brown hair etc. if you really wanted to, but the more relevant non-trivial ones would be age, gender, ethnicity, smoker, diabetic, population density etc. That would enable a better modelling where societies differed, where UK was more ethnically diverse than Ireland say, or Hackney more diverse than Cheltenham, or Japan more aged than Nigeria.

Just because he doesn't drill down into the various subsets of data doesn't mean he isn't aware of them, and the potential additional analysis that might come with it. It is legitimate to compare countries, and regions within countries, using a single population fatality (or infection) rate, unless you are aware of a specific reason why they may be legitimately different.

But if you totally ignore the mortality variation with age, and the changes in behaviour that have resulted, then go on to suggest why the rate has fallen dramatically without taking this into consideration - then I would suggest that such an analysis is fatality flawed.
Instead of his barrow loads of invective about the opinions of others, I would like to see him justify his belief that Covid-19 is not a a deadly killer - in the company of Care Home managers who know otherwise.

Well it sounds to me you know more about him, and his views, than me. I have just read that single article linked above.

I'm not sure he is making a claim that the disease isn't a killer. I'm fairly sure, without re-reading it, that he knows people have died, and continue to die, from it.

My own view is that both the behaviours of all age groups have changed over the life of the pandemic. (The young enjoying the freedoms they were denied in "lockdown", knowing it is very unlikely to affect them. The old choosing less freedom than they had when the virus was in the community, but not yet locked down). Both will have had an affect on the spread and consequences of it.

In addition as the proportion of those infected, whether they show symptoms or not, increases as it spreads the population, that too will have an effect as the percentage of those yet to have it shrinks. In some areas this (misnamed) herd immunity might already have been reached, in others barely started.

in addition we are testing (hugely) more people so obviously detecting more "cases", that would never have been detected at other stages of the pandemic. That in itself doesn't mean it is of the same magnitude when similar case levels existed in "wave 1". Also the health system is better educated and placed to understand and treat anyone infected now than March/April/May etc.

scotia wrote:But if you totally ignore the mortality variation with age, and the changes in behaviour that have resulted, then go on to suggest why the rate has fallen dramatically without taking this into consideration - then I would suggest that such an analysis is fatality flawed.

You would have to be able to quantify the change in behaviour to make it anything more than a suggestion.

It's unlikely that all oldies are shielding to the extent that you suggest and you also seem to be taking a much more UK-centric view than the author.

Certainly, in Italy and Germany over the summer I have seen many oldies out socialising perfectly normally. Yet they do not seem to be dying.

Your comments about care-homes are also a stick that I have only seen used to beat the UK government.

So why are so many countries seeing the same trends?

zico wrote:For anyone who still thinks lockdowns don't make any difference...ahem.
Just look at the following chart showing cases per million of population. When you click on the link, you have to wait a few seconds before the relevant graph appears. (The EU line in the chart is comparable to other countries because it's in cases per million of population).
https://ig.ft.com/coronavirus-chart/?ar ... lues=cases

Whereas this one
https://www.ft.com/content/a2901ce8-5eb ... df5b386938
shows excess deaths, and we can compare to the above and see they currently bear no relation to the increase in cases after lockdown.

JamesMuenchen wrote:Whereas this one
https://www.ft.com/content/a2901ce8-5eb ... df5b386938
shows excess deaths, and we can compare to the above and see they currently bear no relation to the increase in cases after lockdown.

The excess deaths charts can't be matched onto the other charts, so I don't see how it's possible to compare them.
Here's a chart on Covid-19 deaths that looks to make a better comparison. After the very early days, Sweden is consistently above the UK in deaths/million.
On this graph, the USA was doing better than Sweden for a time and then it crossed over and started doing a lot worse. USA also went into lockdown and then came out of it much faster than other countries - which seems to pretty much completely explain the difference between USA and everywhere else.

https://ig.ft.com/coronavirus-chart/?ar ... ues=deaths

Here's the cumulative deaths/million chart, after the big first wave has worked its way through major western democracies.
USA/Sweden/UK at the top, with around 500 deaths/million. EU average 300 deaths/million. Germany 112 deaths/million. The chart speaks for itself.

https://ig.ft.com/coronavirus-chart/?ar ... ues=deaths