Johan Giesecke: Why Lockdowns Are the Wrong Policy
April 21st, 2020Via: Unherd:
Professor Johan Giesecke, one of the world’s most senior epidemiologists, advisor to the Swedish Government (he hired Anders Tegnell who is currently directing Swedish strategy), the first Chief Scientist of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, and an advisor to the director general of the WHO, lays out with typically Swedish bluntness why he thinks:
– UK policy on lockdown and other European countries are not evidence-based
– The correct policy is to protect the old and the frail only
– This will eventually lead to herd immunity as a “by-product”
– The initial UK response, before the “180 degree U-turn”, was better
– The Imperial College paper was “not very good” and he has never seen an unpublished paper have so much policy impact
– The paper was very much too pessimistic
– Any such models are a dubious basis for public policy anyway
– The flattening of the curve is due to the most vulnerable dying first as much as the lockdown
– The results will eventually be similar for all countries
– Covid-19 is a “mild disease” and similar to the flu, and it was the novelty of the disease that scared people.
– The actual fatality rate of Covid-19 is the region of 0.1%
– At least 50% of the population of both the UK and Sweden will be shown to have already had the disease when mass antibody testing becomes available
Harvard Professor Recommends Ban on Homeschooling
April 20th, 2020Elizabeth Bartholet’s desperation is hilarious, uplifting and beautiful.
Via: Harvard Magazine:
A rapidly increasing number of American families are opting out of sending their children to school, choosing instead to educate them at home. Homeschooled kids now account for roughly 3 percent to 4 percent of school-age children in the United States, a number equivalent to those attending charter schools, and larger than the number currently in parochial schools.
Yet Elizabeth Bartholet, Wasserstein public interest professor of law and faculty director of the Law School’s Child Advocacy Program, sees risks for children—and society—in homeschooling, and recommends a presumptive ban on the practice. Homeschooling, she says, not only violates children’s right to a “meaningful education” and their right to be protected from potential child abuse, but may keep them from contributing positively to a democratic society.
YouTube CEO: “Anything That Would Go Go Against WHO Recommendations Would Be A Violation Of Our Policy”
April 20th, 2020Also, watch out for those Vitamin C and turmeric videos. Remove. Remove. Remove.
Via: CNN:
YouTube CEO Susan Wojcocki says users are using the platform during the coronavirus crisis.
It started with basic information but now users “want to know about life under quarantine… like exercise at home. How do I fix my freezer? How do I give myself a haircut.” pic.twitter.com/p8jxTUBRte
— Reliable Sources (@ReliableSources) April 19, 2020
TRUMP SUSPENDING ALL IMMIGRATION INTO U.S.
April 20th, 2020Via: The Hill:
President Trump on Monday said he will sign an executive order to temporarily suspend immigration into the United States amid the coronavirus pandemic, a move that is likely to draw prompt legal challenges.
“In light of the attack from the Invisible Enemy, as well as the need to protect the jobs of our GREAT American Citizens, I will be signing an Executive Order to temporarily suspend immigration into the United States!” Trump tweeted.
…
The order would mark an extraordinary use of executive power by Trump, who hours earlier was speaking optimistically about the ability of certain states to begin reopening their economies despite the threat of the virus.
Flu Shot Raises Risk of Coronavirus by 36%, Vaccine Derived Virus Interference
April 20th, 2020Via: Children’s Health Defense:
In searching the literature, the only study we have been able to find assessing flu shots and coronavirus is a 2020 US Pentagon study that found that the flu shot INCREASES the risks from coronavirus by 36%. “Receiving influenza vaccination may increase the risk of other respiratory viruses, a phenomenon known as “virus interference…’vaccine derived’ virus interference was significantly associated with coronavirus…”
Oil Gaps Down, Low Demand, Storage Running Out
April 20th, 2020Update: Oil Trading Negative
I thought there was a problem with the data. Nope. ZeroHedge is reporting it: Front-Month WTI Crude Crashes Below Zero For First Time Ever
—
Update: Penny
Via: CNBC:
West Texas Intermediate crude for May delivery tanked 98%, or $18.04, to trade at 19 cents per barrel, its lowest level on record. At the session low, the contract traded at 1 cent. Meanwhile international benchmark, Brent crude, which has already rolled to the June contract, traded 6.3% lower at $26.30 per barrel. The June WTI contract, which expires on May 19, fell about 10% to $22.54 per barrel. The July contract was roughly 5% lower at $28 per barrel.
—
Update: $1.25
—
Update: $2.25
—
Update: $3.04
—
Update: $4.04
—
Update: “Super Contango”
—
Update: Largest WTI Price Decline on Record
—
Update: $7.70
—
Update: $10.42
—
Update: $11.48
—
Update: $12.43 [???] Oil production remains profitable in only three countries at these levels: Iraq, Iran and Saudi Arabia.
—
$13.47 (NY Merc) as I post.
Madness.
Via: BBC:
The price of US oil has fallen to a level not seen since 1999, as demand dries up and storage runs out.
The price of a barrel of West Texas Intermediate (WTI), the benchmark for US oil, dropped 19.3% to $14.74 a barrel on Monday.
The oil market has come under intense pressure during the coronavirus pandemic with a huge slump in demand.
US storage facilities are now struggling to cope with the glut of oil, weakening prices further.
“The tech chief had never used the bunker and couldn’t remember how to unlock it”
April 20th, 2020Comedy gold.
Via: Bloomberg:
As coronavirus infections tore across the U.S. in early March, a Silicon Valley executive called the survival shelter manufacturer Rising S Co. He wanted to know how to open the secret door to his multimillion-dollar bunker 11 feet underground in New Zealand.
The tech chief had never used the bunker and couldn’t remember how to unlock it, said Gary Lynch, general manager of Texas-based Rising S Co. “He wanted to verify the combination for the door and was asking questions about the power and the hot water heater and whether he needed to take extra water or air filters,” Lynch said.
Dr. John Ioannidis, COVID-19 Serology Study: Fatality Rate Similar to Flu
April 19th, 2020Via: Medrxiv:
A hundred deaths out of 48,000-81,000 infections corresponds to an infection fatality rate of 0.12-0.2%. If antibodies take longer than 3 days to appear, if the average duration from case identification to death is less than 3 weeks, or if the epidemic wave has peaked and growth in deaths is less than 6% daily, then the infection fatality rate would be lower.
Spain: Military Planes To Spray Disinfectants Over Cities
April 18th, 2020Via: ZeroHedge:
The Spanish government has just “authorized” the military to prepare planes for aerial spraying of disinfectants across major metro areas as confirmed COVID-19 cases and deaths continue to rise, reported La Razón News.
The order was first published in the Boletín Oficial del Estado, the country’s official gazette, on Friday, that “authorizes the NBQ (Nuclear, Biological and Chemical) units of the Armed Forces and the UME to use biocides authorized by the Ministry of Health in disinfection efforts to deal with the health crisis caused by the coronavirus.”
According to the order, “the most effective disinfection techniques are the use of aerial means because through them, with nebulization, thermonebulization and micronebulization techniques, all surfaces are reached quickly, avoiding reliance on manual application, which it is slower, and sometimes it does not reach all surfaces because there are obstacles that prevent reaching them.”
Chinese Coronavirus Is a Man Made Virus According to Luc Montagnier the Man Who Discovered HIV
April 18th, 2020Via: Gilmore Health News:
Contrary to the narrative that is being pushed by the mainstream that the COVID 19 virus was the result of a natural mutation and that it was transmitted to humans from bats via pangolins, Dr Luc Montagnier the man who discovered the HIV virus back in 1983 disagrees and is saying that the virus was man made.
…
Professor Luc Montagnier, 2008 Nobel Prize winner for Medicine, claims that SARS-CoV-2 is a manipulated virus that was accidentally released from a laboratory in Wuhan, China. Chinese researchers are said to have used coronaviruses in their work to develop an AIDS vaccine. HIV RNA fragments are believed to have been found in the SARS-CoV-2 genome.
