Coronavirus
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“If they refused to, they would be faced with social breakdown and revolts which could endanger their personal position as members of a ruling class. Of course social breakdown is something they want to avoid but avoiding it isn’t an unreasonable aim.”
Paddy on Spintcom suggests much the same point that it might be for self-preservation from what would be the alternative.
https://groups.io/g/spintcom/message/19699
What I find very hard to accept is that the ruling class have been struck by altruism (although they make a good pretence of it such as Bill Gates philanthropy)
I am minded of the Tolstoy quote:
“I sit on a man’s back choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that i am sorry for him and wish to lighten his load by all means possible…except by getting off his back.”
I think we need a message that goes beyond the conclusion that when push comes to shove, the ruling class acts in the interest and well-being of everybody. After this pandemic, we cannot return to normal – because the normal was what got us into this predicament in the first place, a shaky welfare state and healthcare system from decades of austerity and cut-backs.
The promise I expect to receive is that future governments will repair the damage until our collective amnesia re-imposes itself and they once again make us bear the burden of restoring the health of the economy.
I think our emphasis must be that we do not need the trillions in government bail-out money to end the consequences of the pandemic.
I don’t think that the ruling class and their political representatives have been “struck by altruism”. In fact I don’t think they are doing what they are doing for any ideological reason.
Their representatives happen to be in charge of society’s central organ (currently taking the form of a state) at a time when there’s a threat to the whole of society. They are essentially just taking pragmatic measures to try to mitigate the consequences. Objectively these are in the interests of all the members of society, including themselves. But I don’t think we can say that have made a conscious decision to do what they are doing this just or even primarily to protect themselves. They are just doing it because they have to do something. They are navigating by sight.
I think someone who knows what they’re talking about should explain to us exactly what “asymptomatic” means. Until I looked it up I thought it meant you hadn’t got it, but I see it means you’ve had it but didn’t show the symptoms ie you didn’t know you’d had it. Is this right? And is it a good thing or a bad thing?
As far as I understand it I think the thing with asymptomatic carriers of the virus is that they could be spreading the virus around without realising it. It’s another factor that contributes towards complicating how hard it is to know how many people may have already had the virus, which would be needed to be known in order to work out the seriousness of it all.
Here is something Paddy has just put on our internal discussion forum:
Here’s an indication of the ruling class’s worst nightmare, if this news report is reliable:
Footage shows him shouting at officers, telling them the family has no money, his mother begging them to go to their home so she could show them they have no food. It’s hard to watch. It’s what desperation looks like.
He gestures to his little girl who is eating a piece of bread and says: “Like my daughter, other children in a few days won’t be able to eat this bit of bread. Rest assured, you will regret this because we’re going to have a revolution.”
Images have also emerged of police descending on supermarkets in Palermo in Sicily after reports people have started stealing to feed themselves. And groups have been set up in the last few days on social media to organise raids of supermarkets.
“Discomfort and malaise are growing and we are recording worrying reports of protest and anger that is being exploited by criminals who want to destabilise the system,” said Leoluca Orlando.
Italy is ahead of other countries in this outbreak and unrest threatens to be the next chapter in this crisis.
From https://uk.news.yahoo.com/coronavirus-italy-becoming-impatient-lockdown-social-unrest-brewing-203100320.htmlIt is a pity that members do not focus discussion on one website because Paddy has also made a contribution to how socialism can be organised.
This is a very interesting article. So capitalist agribusiness may very well be what lies behind this virus https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/spotlight/is-factory-farming-to-blame-for-coronavirus/ar-BB11Qjbo?ocid=spartandhp
If anyone else was intrigued by that Sucharit Bhakdi video, I’ve found an interesting critique. It’s in German but the Google translate version is readable.
https://www.zdf.de/nachrichten/panorama/coronavirus-faktencheck-bhakdi-100.html
Seems it wasn’t so accurate after all, he is using figures that are far to low. We really should be wary of anything pushed the conspiracy and anti-vax industry right now…
Dave B wrote – I am giving my opponents a chance here by winging it.
You most certainly are!
I think the Princess Diamond dataset indicated that 85% of the cases where asymptomatic,
The numbers were as follows and show nothing of the sort:
eventually all 4,061 on board were tested, 705 tested positive, therefore 3,356 tested negative, a negative test does not mean you are asymptomatic, it means you do not have the virus it means the the virus is not currently active in your system. of the 705 who tested positive 392 or roughly 4/7ths were asymptomatic (have the virus active in your system but are not showing outward symptoms). This is very different from 85% asymptomatic
And in the village of 3000 called Eugano in Italy near Venice ? isolated and tested it was 75%
The actual story is as follows and relates to Vo Euganeo nor Eugano:
“Professor Cristani directs the Molecular Medicine Department in Padua. His team carried out 3300 coronavirus swabs on the entire population of one of the initial 11 lockdown towns in northern Italy, Vo Euganeo, the only one in the Veneto region.
No one else decided to test every single member of the lockdown community. The results immediately showed that 3 percent of all those tested were positive. “We did not realize at the time this was a huge number but we immediately were able to see that the majority of those who were positive did not have any symptoms”, said Cristani.”
This is from the RFI website who are – “a French news and current affairs public radio station that broadcasts worldwide in French and in 13 other languages”- “It draws on the expertise of its Paris-based editorial teams and unique global network of 400 correspondents to provide news bulletins and features”
Actually with even two different haplotypes of the virus ; I think that is the right spelling it might be halotype or something- this is a really interesting subject but will save that for later as they say.
The word I think you are talking about is haplotype. It might be easier to use the term strain, Haplotype has a couple of technical meanings, but strain is probably the best word to describe what I think you re referring to. There is evidence that there are two strains which have been labelled the L type (which is the more lethal) and the S type (which is less lethal). The L type was more prevalent in Wuhan (about 70% of cases were of this type), whereas the S type is the one that seems to be spreading most quickly. This fits in with what is generally understood about viruses, they tend to become more lethal as they multiply. There is a evolutionary reason for this, the mutations that don’t kill spend longer in their hosts, have a higher chance of multiplying and overtake the more lethal ones. From an evolutionary point of view a virus does not gain from killing its host.
There were empirical and theoretical reasons why it could be higher.
Some are arguing at 90%
But anyway for every symptomatic case there are 4 times as many asymptomatic.
No there are not, As you can see from the Diamond Princess statistic, it is closer to 4/7 ths, all be it in a skewed sample in terms of age profile health, etc.
So from that any number you want to come up eg 1% should be divided by 4.
No it shouldn’t
We don’t know or I don’t know who these symptomatic cases are that are being tested.
I don’t have the data.
Are they mostly over 70?
Do they live in cities with high nitrous dioxide [car exhaust] pollution.
It is weather, does the wind blow and geography as much as anything, so watch Madrid.
Are there lots of old fogies still on 40 unfiltered a day?
You say you don’t have the data, then go on to make an awful lot of assumptions about data that you don’t have! All of the evidence suggests that areas of dense population are the first to be hit and that the spread in these areas is the quickest. You don’t have to be a genius to work out that the most probable reason for this is the likelihood of human to human transition and lack of social distance in big cities, rather than the prevaling wind, cigarettes or car pollution!
I also find it somewhat amazing that a Socialist of all people would dismiss the possible early deaths of 1,000s of fellow workers in terms of “old fogies”. If it was mainly killing black people, or Asian people would you dismiss it that easily, is it not ok to be racist but perfectly fine to be ageist?
There is data of up to 8% mortality rates for common colds in old peoples homes; never mind flu.
What data, I have searched on line and found nothing to suggest such a death rate and also your lack of clarity is surprising what do you mean by the term “old people’s homes” are you talking about sheltered housing, residential homes, nursing homes, EMI units, there is a huge difference between them
Ah yes nurses! I think it is 8% of nurses are tested positive and asymptomatically self isolating.
That is a really interesting number!
That is overloading the NHS.
I have no idea what you mean by the term “asymptomatically self isolation”, but I am working on the assumption that by asymptomatic, you mean that they do not have the virus, this is not what asymptomatic means, as explained earlier it means you have the virus but do not display symptoms, you are however still infectious. If you think its a good idea that asymptomatic nurses go back to work then I assume you would be happy to have your dinner prepared by Typhoid Mary!
The evidence is stacking up that about 5% have it over a time period that might rank up to 30% had it and with ‘herd immunity’.
You have clearly put together a few random, figures, which are demonstrably wrong and come with an equally random and incorrect figure
I have just talked to a friend and said I can’t deal with this shit and bat flu drones telling me to get back in the house.
And if you end up on a life support machine because of your decision, that’s a life support machine that a fellow worker (aged or not) could have used to save their life, not a very fraternal or cooperative action, in my view.
Bijou, I think you can take over from Dave B. Sc. as our Chief Scientific Adviser.
I wouldn’t want to risk the ire of L Bird!
Even so, can you advise on whether or not flu is a virus that crossed to humans from our feathered friends?
Is the capitalists’ anthem Gloria Gaynor’s “I will Survive”
Almost half of company bosses in 45 countries are speeding up plans to automate their businesses as workers are forced to stay at home during the coronavirus outbreak.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/30/bosses-speed-up-automation-as-virus-keeps-workers-home
Italy’s unrest?
“We have no money to pay, we have to eat.”
The Italian government has designated €400m (£358m) for food vouchers amid brewing social unrest as the country’s coronavirus lockdown takes its toll on the poor. Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte made the announcement late on Saturday after reports emerged of people in the south running out of food and money. He said that €4.3bn would immediately be made available to mayors to help their citizens and another €400m would go towards an emergency food-relief fund.
“We know that many suffer, but the state is there,” Conte said.
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