New coronavirus in/from China

[clv101]

Portugal now has the highest case and death rate per million, last year they locked down early and were relatively successful, now nearly half of all Covid deaths have been reported in January.
https://theconversation.com/coronavirus ... ard-154352

You can have all the lockdowns you want but if you don't close your borders at the same time then you will get constant new infections being introduced by international travellers. Not good for the economy but a decision has to be made with the inevitable trade offs.

What do you mean "not good for the economy"? I thought the countries that had ~closed boarders had done much better economically? Thinking of your part of the world and SE Asia?

[BritDownUnder]

Portugal now has the highest case and death rate per million, last year they locked down early and were relatively successful, now nearly half of all Covid deaths have been reported in January.
https://theconversation.com/coronavirus ... ard-154352

You can have all the lockdowns you want but if you don't close your borders at the same time then you will get constant new infections being introduced by international travellers. Not good for the economy but a decision has to be made with the inevitable trade offs.

What do you mean "not good for the economy"? I thought the countries that had ~closed boarders had done much better economically? Thinking of your part of the world and SE Asia?

Very hard to tell what is good for the economy. I am happy with my own personal experience of the closed borders and lockdown in Australia. It may be that with a lot of the country's wealth being drawn from mining and resources which seem to be pretty much lockdown and closed border-proof it was a good decision to take. I am not sure if the UK could have done without the international travel as well. Don't forget Australians are also (with few exceptions) prevented from leaving too. A bit like the prison colony of old. The Fatal Shore.

A large amount of debt has been accumulated by the government over here to pay out one-off, or more correctly two-off, stimuli and various welfare benefits (imaginatively called job keeper, job seeker and job maker by the government) to bar staff, cafe owners and workers, tourist workers and airline crew. Even prostitution was banned briefly! I did not get any of the one offs or benefits as I have been working throughout.
This debt will need to be paid off, inflated away or quantitatively eased somehow.

The Australian Universities are whining about not being able to take large numbers of foreign well paying students anymore. Maybe they should back to the old model of educating one's own future workforce.

[kenneal - lagger]

Some people!! They post you data showing the success of lockdowns in reducing case numbers and deaths and then try to convince you how bad they are!!

[Snail]

An opinion concerning lockdown should not be so narrowly constrained. I'm not sure cancelling lifesaving cancer treatments counts as success. The hyperbole of "bodies piling up in car parks and filling the streets" vs the stark ongoing reality of indirect and direct consequences of lockdown.

[kenneal - lagger]

The idea of a lockdown is so that the NHS isn't inundated with covid patients so that they can still do some regular treatments. If there are so many covid patients that the hospitals are full of emergency covid cases there would be no other treatments available.

It's a balancing act and I'm glad that I'm not the one in charge of it.

[Little John]

It's morally really, really simple. All that is required is for one not to be a selfish c*nt.

* Avoiding a potential increase in some people dying of Covid19 with an average age at death of 82.4

Versus

Historically unprecedented levels of suicide amongst working people as they see their jobs and lives go up in smoke and being unable to house and feed their families

Historically unprecedented levels of alcohol related deaths

Historically high levels of mental illness in both adults and children

An estimated waiting list of people waiting for medically critical treatments for over a year of 200,000. Which, is that estimate turns out to be anywhere near accurate, is up 190,000 from 2019.

Children massively disadvantaged (as well as the mental health issues already mentioned) due to missing out on critical education

Our descendants, for generations to come (hitting the the poor the hardest of all - obviously) beggared paying back the debt that has been lent into existence on the back of the lockdowns (I read somewhere it is now equivalent to three times the cost of the Second World War) such that we may be assured their lives will be shortened on the back of that poverty in numbers that are simply incalculable.

When this is over, if there is any justice in this world, some fuckers will be hanging from lamposts.

[Snail]

Yes. Also the accelerating trend into authoritarianism: Governmental, and individuals submitting to it. And all the baggage that goes with this trend. The last year must have at least increased this potentiality. One of the forum's uses is about predicting the future so the individual members can prepare or be more ready. Even if it ends up as just a mental preparation.

*Of course it's a balancing act. But I'm not sure how balanced the policy actually is. And the government giving up responsibility to a vague bunch of 'experts' isn't good either imo.

Also, what about nursing home deaths?

We had the whole of summer to calm down and come up with a more balanced approach too.


* Taking the conventional view of the virus if that's the right term. I believe it's been exaggerated; to what extent I remain unsure.

Some of the lockdown stuff just doesn't make sense from any perspective. And what's the deal with the unreliable mass testing.

[Little John]

.... And what's the deal with the unreliable mass testing.

The deal with the unreliable mass testing is so that the cycles can be adjusted according to how many people they wish to test as having Covid19 this week.

[clv101]

Historically unprecedented levels of suicide amongst working people as they see their jobs and lives go up in smoke and being unable to house and feed their families

Historically unprecedented levels of alcohol related deaths

Historically high levels of mental illness in both adults and children

An estimated waiting list of people waiting for medically critical treatments for over a year of 200,000. Which, is that estimate turns out to be anywhere near accurate, is up 190,000 from 2019.

Children massively disadvantaged (as well as the mental health issues already mentioned) due to missing out on critical education

Indeed!! And much of this could have been avoided had we acted fast and hard in February. Had we capitalised on the summer to achieve ~zero covid, and established a robust test, trace and isolate system before the winter. Instead we got the bloody eat out to help out! It's the 'freedom' loving libertarians, especially Johnson and his near perfect record of too little, too late that has lead to this situation.

All that is required is for one not to be a selfish c*nt.

Couldn't agree more!

[Little John]

"zero Covid" is just about the most infantile, scientifically illiterate, not to mention economically illiterate, thing I have read of yours on here during my entire time here

[clv101]

Yeah, I agree. I knew you'd flag that!

[Catweazle]

"zero Covid" is just about the most infantile, scientifically illiterate, not to mention economically illiterate, thing I have read of yours on here during my entire time here

Some people actually believe in "zero covid" . They're all nutters though.

Creating a virus out of thin air is a cruel and vicious deceit, but the Fed will no doubt have claimed to its allies that it is far less painful than the total economic implosion we will face in the brewing economic collapse

[Little John]

Creating a virus out of thin air is a cruel and vicious deceit, but the Fed will no doubt have claimed to its allies that it is far less painful than the total economic implosion we will face in the brewing economic collapse

If you are going to quote a singe sentence by another author out of an entire article I have linked to, then quote it as a single sentence by another author out of an entire article I have linked to as opposed to quoting it as if it is something I have written myself.

[Catweazle]

Creating a virus out of thin air is a cruel and vicious deceit, but the Fed will no doubt have claimed to its allies that it is far less painful than the total economic implosion we will face in the brewing economic collapse

If you are going to quote a singe sentence by another author out of an entire article I have linked to, then quote it as a single sentence by another author out of an entire article I have linked to as opposed to quoting it as if it is something I have written myself.

I must have deleted one too many "quote boxes", but it sums up one of your previous positions well enough, it's not out of step with your early implications that the whole thing is a hoax.

[Catweazle]

https://off-guardian.org/2021/01/22/the ... wed-a-fly/

The Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly Is the covid ‘pandemic’ merely economic theatre?
by Maribel Tuff

... I’m sure a major false flag terror attack would have been discussed as an alternative to Covid, but the US is in no fit position economically to respond militarily, and without a military response to a terror attack the US would fear looking weak. Although Wars have been thought to resolve many an economic crisis, it is just as likely, in this instance, that a proxy war with Russia or a direct war with Iran would precipitate a dollar collapse, rather than create growth and a flight to ‘safety’. China would no doubt gleefully humiliate the US during such a conflict. So I speculate that major wars, as an economic solution, are off the table, at least until this crisis is resolved. ...

... Creating a virus out of thin air is a cruel and vicious deceit, but the Fed will no doubt have claimed to its allies that it is far less painful than the total economic implosion we will face in the brewing economic collapse, where financial contagion from the US would cause most western financial institutions to become insolvent, debt would remain unpaid, trade would cease, asset values would crumble, bank machines stop, riots start, martial law be declared, and in many ill-prepared, import-dependent countries like the UK, rationing and eventually hunger would begin. ...

... They would have claimed that this time around the economic dangers are of such a magnitude that they even persuaded their foes, Russia and China, to partake in the hoax ...

... Believing this to be the case, I am less confused as to why most of the USA’s allies were so helpful and so consistent in making this Covid operation happen ...

... Japan has been strangely reluctant to take part, indicating to me their brooding irritation with US hegemony, which has been growing amongst their population for some years and expressed through the Osprey protests. It looked at one point like they were flirting with the idea of ignoring Covid altogether. Prompting the US to ‘invite’ Japan to join 5-eyes, perhaps to exert more direct control over them, via their security services? ...

... Russia has even invented a non-existent vaccine for the non-existent virus ...


... Notably the UK, France and Australia, each week pushing yet another absurdly fascist response to a non-existent problem to scare their population stiff. ...

... I’m sure, in the dark bowels of Langley, Virginia, this scenario has been pre-rehearsed and stress-tested for years, and pieced together from a huge portfolio of coups and psychological terror operations from around the world. ...

... Perhaps with lessons learned from Climate Change where, as with the weather, the common flu can easily be weaponised. In the case of Covid via a swiftly implemented ‘testing’ regime, simply testing for the common cold and producing millions of false positives,
Like Brexit and like the War on Carbon, I believe that if an operation or manufactured event seems to offer multifaceted advantages to the USA and their Corporate & military elite, then that operation has revealed its origins. ...

... US Corporations and Internet services are benefiting massively from the ‘Covid illusion’. ...

... It is not only the Corporates that benefit from US ‘operations’ like Covid, ...

... If I am right guys, in one respect you can breathe a sigh of relief: world tyranny, forced vaccinations with harmful DNA changes, sterilisations, and mass genocide are not the main aims of this ‘operation’. They may be the end result of it, if we are not careful, but I don’t think they are the main aims. ...

I hope this works better. There are so many paranoid rantings it's difficult to know which ones to quote.