robbo203
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Sounds like a partial rehash of his 1993 book Towards a New Socialism….
Cockshott’s arguments in favour of labour time accounting, central planning and calling the Soviet Union “socialist” are very weak. Its a pity because he has done some useful work on the labour theory of value but this undermines his credibility in that area
How can we control subsequent surges of Covid-19 without accurate testing? How can we find plasma donors who have been infected, if the antibody testing is similarly shoddy as the tests for acute infection? Medscape article on the problem follows.***************************************COVID-19 Test Results: Don’t Discount Clinical Intuition
<p class=”yiv6380061908ydpe499e55ameta-author”>Heather Boerner</p>
<p class=”yiv6380061908ydpe499e55ameta-date”>May 16, 2020</p>
Editor’s note: Find the latest COVID-19 news and guidance in Medscape’s Coronavirus Resource Center.Recently, a patient arrived at the UC San Diego Health medical center with what are now classic symptoms of COVID-19: a history of coughs, pneumonia, and severe respiratory distress that required immediate intubation.
What he didn’t have was a positive SARS-CoV-2 test — neither the first nor the second time clinicians swabbed the back of his throat. SARS-CoV-2 is the virus that causes COVID-19.
“The two negative tests didn’t convince anybody,” said Davey Smith, MD, a virologist and chief of the division of infectious diseases and global public health at UC San Diego School of Medicine. It was only on the third test, when they sampled fluid from a bronchial wash, that they were able to find the virus.
Smith’s patient is not alone. Though almost all experts agree that broad testing for SARS-CoV-2 will be critical to understanding, containing, and eventually treating COVID-19, the effort is hampered by limitations of current tests.
The tests today, experts say, are so new that it’s unclear how reliable they are. Anecdotally, clinicians report false negative rates of anywhere from 2% to 30%, depending on what part of the body is being tested and what means they are using to get a sample, as well as epidemiological and clinical factors.
And the US Food and Drug Administration issued an alert earlier this week warning of false negatives with one of the most commonly used tests, Abbott Labs’ ID NOW rapid test for COVID-19.
Data published earlier this week in the Annals of Internal Medicine show that test accuracy varies widely over the course of the disease in a mixed population of inpatients and outpatients. On the day symptoms appear, the median false negative rate was 38%. That figure dropped to 20% on the third day after symptom onset, but climbed again to 66% about 2 weeks later.
But test results should only be part of the picture. The key is clinical suspicion informed by all the above factors, said Joshua Metlay, MD, PhD, chief of the division of internal medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, and coauthor of a series of articles on clinical decision-making in the Annals of Internal Medicine.
“How we treat patients is going to depend on understanding this concept,” Metlay told Medscape Medical News. “It isn’t one number. It’s actually much more complicated and very nuanced.” If clinicians don’t understand that, he added, “We’re really going to make mistakes about how to use all these negative tests.”
<b>When Hope Outstrips Reason</b>
A positive SARS-CoV-2 test sets off a cascade of actions, in and out of clinical settings: In patients with symptoms, it triggers a set of protocols, as recommended by the National Institutes of Health and individual hospitals, around use of personal protective equipment (PPE) for staff, whether patients are placed in rooms with others or singly, and specific treatment choices, such as which ventilator protocol to use. By contrast, a negative test, in an ideal situation, should lead a clinician to keep looking for a causative agent or underlying problem. Quality care, in other words, relies on accurate diagnosis.
In patients without symptoms, a positive test means suggesting quarantine and isolation for two weeks, said Colin West, MD, PhD, professor of medicine and biostatistics at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.
But because of the relatively high rate of false negatives, a negative test in an asymptomatic person can’t confer the kind of relief patients, the public, or policymakers would like it to, West said.
“People can’t relax their physical distancing, their handwashing, their surface hygiene, their mask-wearing” even with a negative test, he said, because they still could be carrying the virus.
“When hope outstrips reason, we sometimes prematurely pin our hopes on tests that aren’t as good as we want them to be,” said West, who wrote a perspective for Mayo Clinic Proceedings warning about the dangers of false negatives. “Smart clinicians all around the country are not believing the test results when their clinical suspicion is high enough.”
<b>Calculating Clinical Suspicion</b>
With false negative rates ranging from 3.2% in a cohort of seriously ill COVID-19 inpatients in New York City, to 66% in the mixed population in the Annals of Internal Medicine study, it’s understandable that clinicians might be skeptical of the results in front of them.
The first thing to understand, Metlay said, is that the sensitivity of the test isn’t the same as the rate of false negatives. Sensitivity only describes the absolute ability of a given test to detect SARS-CoV-2 when it’s present.
A false negative is a combination of the accuracy of the test itself and its handling, along with clinical symptomology, local epidemiology, and the individual behavior of the person in front of you.
“This is why people don’t usually report false negative rates as one number — because that number can only be calculated or interpreted in the context of the group that you’re talking about,” Metlay said. “Two hospitals could report completely different false negative rates and that’s completely reasonable. Even within the same hospital, the false negative rate in the clinic could be different than the false negative rate in the emergency room.”
That is to say, people showing up with symptoms in an emergency department should be met with a higher pre-test probability of having COVID-19 than well people who show up for drive-through testing, he said.
The same holds true for the background rate of COVID-19 in a community.
“If you get into a community where almost no one is infected and you tested everybody, your false-negative rates are going to be very low, because almost everybody there is negative,” he said. In Boston, where Metlay practices, the community rates of COVID-19 are substantial, so even those with mild symptoms might be met with higher suspicion of having SARS-CoV-2. And that’s even before the patient opens their mouth and explains where they’ve been or who they’ve been in contact with.
This helps explain why Rajesh Gandhi, MD, Metlay’s colleague at Mass General, said the inpatient false negative rate there is between 2% and 3%, while Smith from UC San Diego reported that their false negative rates are no more than 10% — or that unpublished data first reported by NPR found that the most commonly used, fastest turnaround tests also churned out 15% false negatives.
<b>No Gold Standard</b>
Another factor in all of this are the tests themselves. Back in March, Chinese researchers at Central South University in Changsha, Hunan province, lamented that “existing PCR methods have very good specificity but low sensitivity, meaning that negative test results cannot exclude the presence of SARS-CoV-2.”
PCR stands for polymerase chain reaction, a means of testing for viral genetic material, currently most commonly used in a nasopharyngeal swab.
But we don’t know how inaccurate the tests actually are, said Stephen Rawlings, MD, PhD, an infectious disease fellow at UC San Diego’s Center for AIDS Research, who has been helping to validate RT-PCR tests for SARS-CoV-2 since repatriated Americans were held in isolation at military bases starting in March.
For one thing, we have nothing to compare current tests with.
“To truly determine false negatives, you need a gold standard test, which is essentially as close to perfect as we can get,” Rawlings said. “But there just isn’t one yet for coronavirus.”
For another, the studies that have been done on the accuracy of the tests themselves are filled with flaws, said Mayo Clinic’s West.
Sensitivity estimates are usually based on testing the tests against people who they already know have COVID-19. But that’s a bias — you know what you’re looking for, West said. Without control groups or blinded testing, it’s impossible to get “good information about where these imperfections lie, or even the magnitude of those imperfections,” said West, who conducted a tweetorial on how to understand the accuracy of current RT-PCR tests.
A recent non-peer reviewed preprint meta-analysis of five COVID-19 studies comprising 957 patients found that the underlying poor quality of data made it impossible to judge how effective the tests in the nation’s labs are at all.
“We’re trying to have informed conversations about how good are these tests, and how helpful are they in ruling in or ruling out diagnosis, when the source literature is so poor,” West said.
This is where the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention should step in, according to UCSD’s Smith. Local labs are doing their best to validate tests on their own, but if they could send their results in a blinded way to the CDC, he’d have a lot more confidence in every test.
“We really need these panels to help with the quality assurance internally,” Smith said. “It’s not about the nasal swabs or not. It’s about the potential sources of error within the lab.”
<b>Human Error and Biological Process</b>
Now add in the human piece of gathering, transporting, and reading an RT-PCR test, said Daniel Griffin, MD, PhD, an infectious disease physician and associate research scientist in the department of biochemistry and molecular biophysics at Columbia University in New York City.
“Basically, I tell my patients that unless you feel like they were trying to biopsy your brain, it wasn’t done correctly,” he said. And the less well done the test, the less likely the results will be reliable.
But even if all that is correct, there’s one more hurdle: What part of the body should be sampled and at what point in the illness? A viewpoint published in JAMA earlier this month synthesized known data on the accuracy of different tests at different points in the disease process.
For instance, it shows that within the first week of exposure before symptoms and in the first week of symptoms, nasopharyngeal swabs are most accurate. But by the end of week 2 of symptoms, bronchoalveolar lavage/sputum is most accurate.
This conforms to what clinicians report anecdotally. The number of copies of the virus in the nose and pharynx is highest in the early days infection, just like the flu, said Columbia University’s Griffin. And that may mean the RT-PCR tests of the nose and pharynx work best in the first few days of infection — when patients still have mild or moderate symptoms.
“If you do the test that first day or so when you’re sick, you’re going to have pretty good sensitivity” with nasopharyngeal swabs, said Griffin, who often provides COVID-19 updates on the podcast “This Week in Virology.”
“The interesting thing is, when people get admitted to the hospital, now they’ve been feeling crummy for a week or more,” he said. “Now it’s day 13 or day 14, and now the virus is actually starting to get to a lower level of activity” in the upper respiratory tract.
And that means, said Griffin, “there’s not as much virus around” the nose and pharynx to test.
That’s when UC San Diego’s Rawlings said they’ve found that passing a catheter through the tracheal tube of someone who’s already intubated can “often find [the virus] there at very high levels.”
This may explain the phenomenon that Smith described, as well as what Neera Ahuja, MD, of Stanford University, said in a “Medicine and the Machine” podcast recently, that “this virus actually moves from proximal upper airway nasal-pharyngeal down to the lower lungs.”
“If you catch it in a stage where it’s already progressed, you may have a false negative,” she said.
<b>Using Clinical Judgment</b>
It’s a lot to take in for a single clinician interpreting a single test result. The good news is that clinicians are literally trained for this, said Carlos del Rio, MD, of Emory University and coauthor with Gandhi of a recent article on mild or moderate COVID-19.
“We as clinicians use our brains,” he said. “We don’t say, ‘Oh the person doesn’t have the disease’ — we use the test in the context of our clinical expertise.”
So clinicians should ask: Are the patients sick themselves? What are their symptoms? Have they traveled to or from COVID-19-endemic areas recently? Have they been in touch with someone they know has COVID-19? Have they been practicing physical distancing, mask-wearing, and other protective behaviors? said Metlay.
They may even want to consider other questions, said Gregorio Millett, MPH, vice president and director of public policy at the American Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR). Millett and colleagues have unpublished data showing that although disproportionately black counties account for just 22% of US counties overall, they make up 52% of counties with COVID-19 cases and 58% of counties with COVID-19 deaths. In those communities, lack of insurance and living in crowded households were associated with increased risk for acquiring COVID-19 — opening another potential data point to consider in those communities.
The bottom line is that “nobody can integrate all this math in their head every single time” they see a patient, Metlay said. Still, keeping all these factors in mind will help clinicians look at that negative result with clear eyes.
“This,” he said, “is what helps people not get tricked by these tests.”
A third batch of links covering nearly every conceivable aspect of the coronavirus pandemic which peeps here can use for research purposes , writing articles etc
https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/05/13/whos-in-a-catch-22/
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/coronavirus-pandemic-who-covid19-years-vaccine-a4439981.html
https://eand.co/the-american-economy-is-imploding-and-america-is-too-e998d3cfb1d9
https://areomagazine.com/2020/05/11/boris-johnson-and-the-language-of-lockdown/
https://gen.medium.com/the-harsh-future-of-american-cities-7263da52fd1f
https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/05/07/two-truths-from-the-pandemic-no-one-is-mentioning/
https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/05/07/covid-19-and-the-high-cost-of-dying/
https://gen.medium.com/the-harsh-future-of-american-cities-7263da52fd1f
Hi AllHere are some of the many links I have been collecting on various aspects of the the coronavirus pandemic . Comrades might find them of some use for articles pamphlets. leaflets etc.I have not organised the links under any particular categories but they cover a multitudes of aspects. Some of the links are particularly interesting from a socialist standpointRegardsRobin__________________________________________________- http://chuangcn.org/2020/02/social-contagion/
- https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/coronavirus/halt-destruction-of-nature-or-suffer-even-worse-pandemics-say-world-s-top-scientists/ar-BB13g3zY?ocid=msedgntp
- https://www.msn.com/en-gb/health/medical/mysteries-about-covid-19-that-science-has-yet-to-solve/ss-BB13bWvk?ocid=msedgntp#image=25
- https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-02-04/Expert-explains-why-Hubei-has-higher-mortality-rate-of-coronavirus-NNKmnf0Boc/index.html?utm_source=bluef&utm_medium=CgtnWebsiteCampaign&utm_campaign=Coronavirus&dicbo=v1-ba42493f3ba9f828a2acd40b6c482d80-00f192aff9b9584c961b1d5e1d5b306374-hfsdsmlfhfrgmljygzsweljuga3daljygm4toljygq3gimbyhbsdiodcgu
- https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/coronavirus/up-to-6-million-uk-residents-may-have-already-had-coronavirus-nhs-adviser-says/ar-BB13dWbC?ocid=msedgntp
- https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/reasons-for-hope-the-drugs-tests-and-tactics-that-may-conquer-coronavirus/ar-BB139Xlz?ocid=msedgntp
- https://www.ft.com/content/6bd88b7d-3386-4543-b2e9-0d5c6fac846c<
- https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/26/5g-coronavirus-and-contagious-superstition?CMP=share_btn_fb&fbclid=IwAR0oI7JejtYr0Us2ML2gp6P4gMtCUWWVNOoDNowHSFr_2mWxgJG7Np3O_7M
- https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/this-government-is-lucky-coronavirus-quiets-global-protest-movements/ar-BB134JPZ?ocid=msedgntp
- https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/coronavirus/what-the-great-pandemic-novels-teach-us/ar-BB13801J?ocid=msedgntp
- https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/coronavirus/opinions-suing-china-over-the-coronavirus-won-t-help-here-s-what-can-work/ar-BB137Jy6?ocid=msedgntp
- https://medium.com/the-atlantic/the-real-reason-to-wear-a-mask-e6405abbc484
- https://medium.com/@drhassaballa/what-ive-learned-treating-patients-suffering-from-covid-19-41adc282e973
- https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/coronavirus/they-are-starving-us-millions-in-india-facing-hunger-during-lockdown/ar-BB13ctbU?ocid=msedgntp
- https://medium.com/@ASlavitt/the-coronavirus-crisis-will-force-us-to-reconsider-universal-health-care-d5e26380e744
- https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/25/far-right-hijack-coronavirus-crisis-to-push-agenda-and-boost-support?CMP=share_btn_fb&fbclid=IwAR0s300XS3kPWIijh2On2lQWc7HSCLtbmz_ZQszShoQfHLW9JAsdbxBzrg0
- https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/04/antibody-surveys-suggesting-vast-undercount-coronavirus-infections-may-be-unreliable
- https://www.zerohedge.com/health/data-stop-panic-end-total-isolation
- https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/23/coronavirus-antibody-studies-california-stanford
- https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2020/04/19/fatal-flaws-in-stanford-study-of-coronavirus-prevalence/
- https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/04/04/coronavirus-new-stanford-research-reveals-if-youve-been-exposed/
- https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/indepth/poland-and-hungary-use-coronavirus-to-punish-opposition/ar-BB134OsT?ocid=msedgntp
- https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/coronavirus/is-comparing-covid-19-death-rates-across-europe-helpful/ar-BB1396Xz?ocid=msedgntp
- https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/coronavirus/revealed-how-coronavirus-attacks-your-veins-heart-brain-and-blood-as-well-as-lungs/ar-BB137Qmg?ocid=msedgdhp<
- https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/coronavirus/coronavirus-detected-on-particles-of-air-pollution/ar-BB139bVG?ocid=msedgdhp
- https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/coronavirus/instead-of-coronavirus-the-hunger-will-kill-us-a-global-food-crisis-looms/ar-BB134dLz?ocid=msedgntp
- https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/coronavirus/the-meat-we-eat-is-a-pandemic-risk-too/ar-BB1331PQ?ocid=msedgntp
- https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/the-stark-differences-in-countries-coronavirus-death-rates-explained/ar-BB132tVC?ocid=msedgntp
- https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/other/mutations-provide-a-road-map-to-taming-coronavirus/ar-BB133SPW?ocid=msedgntp
- https://www.msn.com/en-gb/health/medical/coronavirus-health-chief-warns-second-wave-of-covid-19-could-be-even-worse/ar-BB133onL?ocid=msedgntp
- https://time.com/5824836/greece-coronavirus/
- https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/coronavirus/china-coronavirus-cases-might-have-been-four-times-official-figure-says-study/ar-BB134dXT?ocid=msedgntp
- https://areomagazine.com/2020/04/22/the-post-pandemic-paradigm-and-why-china-has-won/
- https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/coronavirus/coronavirus-in-sweden-what-the-data-shows-about-the-hands-off-and-deeply-divisive-approach-to-the-covid-19-outbreak/ar-BB136nko?ocid=msedgntp
- https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/coronavirus/coronavirus-pandemic-is-becoming-a-human-rights-crisis-un-warns/ar-BB136mc5?ocid=msedgntp
- https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/coronavirus/africa-sees-a-43-jump-in-coronavirus-cases-in-a-week-as-who-warn-the-continent-could-become-the-next-epicentre-of-the-pandemic/ar-BB136hvP?ocid=msedgntp
- https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/columnists/no-matter-how-you-crunch-the-numbers-this-pandemic-is-only-just-getting-started/ar-BB12Igrj?ocid=msedgntp&fbclid=IwAR2AbisgI6nslz37SqWzRBfeuywtsDX4bJLGBo5JgUZ2Dc7S9jokE-TgcDY
- https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/04/21/coronavirus-and-rightwing-rebellion-retreading-a-tired-narrative/
- https://www.rt.com/usa/486227-alex-jones-coronavirus-austin-protest/?fbclid=IwAR0UGHbUfLHEb017Kf678CnXeHz1aMB9Wv1lehpJIrBJ0RiQIwRB3Zv1luE
- https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/why-africa-s-coronavirus-outbreak-appears-slower-than-anticipated/ar-BB12u3GD?
- https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/when-will-we-have-a-coronavirus-vaccine/ar-BB12vfLp?ocid=msedgdhp
- https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/04/09/plan-save-capital-and-let-people-die?utm_campaign=shareaholic&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwAR2HkjY2oLJCUrey11uyZFpGINxQzNp8iycnEcbnDBJCeUt-wY-kCBkiha4
- https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/04/10/capitalism-the-state-religion/
- https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/us-military-chief-weight-of-evidence-that-covid-19-did-not-originate-in-a-lab/ar-BB12D9xs?ocid=msedgntp
- https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/spotlight/humanity-s-exploitation-of-wildlife-is-putting-us-all-at-risk/ar-BB12QAOV?ocid=msedgntp
- https://democracycollaborative.org/learn/publication/coronavirus-rent-strikes-home-occupation-and-fight-housing?mc_cid=2acf88bbb4&mc_eid=4d206a8851
- https://areomagazine.com/2020/04/17/a-libertarian-response-to-the-coronavirus/
- https://areomagazine.com/2020/04/21/coronavirus-and-social-interaction/
- https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/other/how-fossil-fuels-propel-covid-19-and-the-next-pandemic/ar-BB12LpA8?ocid=msedgntp
- https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/coronavirus/no-evidence-that-people-who-have-survived-coronavirus-have-immunity-says-world-health-organisation/ar-BB12O5iZ?ocid=msedgntp
- https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/coronavirus-socialism-politics-sick-pay-income-childcare_uk_5e70e64fc5b60fb69ddeafc6?ncid=fcbklnkukhpmg00000001&fbclid=IwAR1OQTbkLD0oGobx_k4AgJugdV7ADAVoPmvtLEH5uVwHkL5LJ7xegoxr8CY
- https://www.thepause.com/consciousness/how-did-this-guy-get-to-bankrupt-the-world-see-the-timeline-of-errors-for-yourself/?fbclid=IwAR3x0j23dq0l3VCaytafQcFUMGiop8JdQ0Zz9daRXLQPQ7RQZHJiDPHlj8g
- https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-52204724
- https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/five-months-on-what-scientists-now-know-about-the-coronavirus/ar-BB12vjXk?ocid=msedgntp
- https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/coronavirus/recovered-coronavirus-patients-test-positive-again-in-blow-to-immunity-hopes/ar-BB12rSb0?ocid=spartanntp
- https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/coronavirus/who-warns-of-deadly-resurgence-if-coronavirus-controls-lifted-too-soon/ar-BB12syxN?ocid=spartanntp
- https://www.propublica.org/article/what-we-need-to-understand-about-asymptomatic-carriers-if-were-going-to-beat-coronavirus?fbclid=IwAR0MJWZ-t-ruTpZG5V80_Lv7CHeTS6Hf2EZKRb0K1SXFNOWuCp07Bf84geA
- https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/coronavirus/the-best-hopes-for-a-coronavirus-drug/ar-BB12mvwb?ocid=spartanntp
- https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/spotlight/what-might-the-post-pandemic-world-look-like/ar-BB12pgCw?ocid=spartanntp
- https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/spotlight/the-coronavirus-threat-for-the-billion-people-living-in-slums/ar-BB12pncV?ocid=spartanntp
- https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/news/imf-chief-flags-up-grim-global-economic-forecast/ar-BB12nzXL?ocid=spartanntp
- https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/04/08/the-impact-of-covid-19-on-the-body-politic/
- https://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2020/04/06/lives-or-livelihoods/
- https://patternsofmeaning.com/?fbclid=IwAR1nNjPrsrhv_MXaW8Tmnkwvfi9OEjTY247I0kL2rfBPrIviQ-f47NwICPA
- https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/sph/ide/gida-fellowships/Imperial-College-COVID19-Europe-estimates-and-NPI-impact-30-03-2020.pdf
- https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/the-hunt-for-the-next-potential-coronavirus-animal-host/ar-BB12fqe5?ocid=spartandhp
- https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/03/11/iran-m11.html?fbclid=IwAR0o45B0OTxmYIXauxS3NpDfWEK20ajvXYRoHZm4dffzqUzhmafLqC2qtJs
- https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/coronavirus-deaths-trump-stock-market-pandemic-economy-bankrupt-italy-a9394891.html
- https://tsakraklides.com/2020/03/07/the-virus-that-dared-to-stand-up-to-capitalism/?fbclid=IwAR3JS6auLokUHunQSj5-JiV6SSw_edr8qjk3dga7q3Aifx7BzCZEwQtyfH0
- https://jezebel.com/rich-people-have-always-been-assholes-during-plagues-1842126456?utm_source=jezebel_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow&utm_campaign=socialflow_jezebel_facebook&fbclid=IwAR3gY-aEwJklaff5gSSkf6tEUP6WXF1yu56Kbyn2nlS5hIhBOIFdXsfAOdg
- https://dissidentvoice.org/2020/03/capitalism-is-an-incubator-for-pandemics-socialism-is-the-solution/
- https://www.businessinsider.com.au/coronavirus-treatment-costs-americans-health-care-broke-2020-2?r=US&IR=T&fbclid=IwAR3slCihvBXT-6bhf5MnMQD1EUhxT9OD90YVagakdMoXSIkC5bejnQWCbV0
- https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/news/virus-lockdowns-confront-billions-working-in-the-shadow-economy/ar-BB127OW0?ocid=spartanntp
- https://www.msn.com/en-gb/health/medical/coronavirus-how-south-korea-is-successfully-tackling-covid-19-without-shutting-down-country/ar-BB1250SA?ocid=spartanntp
- https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/coronavirus/if-anyone-tells-you-a-date-theyre-using-a-crystal-ball-when-can-we-really-expect-coronavirus-to-end/ar-BB124sGK?ocid=spartanntp
- https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/why-are-so-many-more-men-dying-from-coronavirus/ar-BB124Qq2?ocid=spartanntp
- https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/03/20/death-of-the-usual/
- https://areomagazine.com/2020/04/02/the-case-against-covid-19-skepticism/
- https://www.cambridgeindependent.co.uk/news/cambridge-virologist-explains-what-we-know-and-dont-know-about-covid-19-9104220/?fbclid=IwAR2C3lAWBWD42vxNjqbiR_txNNTVvnBcO04hV23i8rJTxDR1S-UYAZ5Nn_0
- https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/04/02/the-dark-secrets-in-the-feds-last-wall-street-bailout-are-getting-a-devious-makeover-in-todays-bailout/
- https://areomagazine.com/2020/03/17/does-beijings-covid-19-victory-prove-the-superiority-of-the-china-model/#respond
- https://books.google.es/books?hl=en&lr=&id=nZ05AAAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA163&dq=coronavirus++as+metaphor&ots=oNfoSXMrCt&sig=qjTVIYhOjn9yp_W6VH71rD8ZbcQ&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false
- https://tsakraklides.com/2020/02/29/coronavirus-is-earths-message/
- https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/coronavirus-could-prompt-worst-recession-in-a-century-in-uk/ar-BB11uryz?ocid=spartanntp
- https://www.socialistparty.org.uk/articles/30461/19-03-2020/the-new-crisis-and-its-consequences?fbclid=IwAR3rSTar4E-5KMvd-Jb0rLhR8vuZOQC-TGqcPaZAlJAopoar19CUM-lS8Uo
- https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/disinformation-and-blame-how-americas-far-right-is-capitalizing-on-coronavirus/ar-BB11opbn?ocid=spartandhp
- https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/03/china-s-aggressive-measures-have-slowed-coronavirus-they-may-not-work-other-countries?fbclid=IwAR3u2tr9_IztP1BDDeXN3aiFqk2cuY2_92KTcVQj7bcDE6_3zsUoTwQCgp8
- https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/coronavirus-socialism-politics-sick-pay-income-childcare_uk_5e70e64fc5b60fb69ddeafc6?ncid=other_facebook_eucluwzme5k&utm_campaign=share_facebook&fbclid=IwAR0XmzRHMcDRVh832aA1aJRRxZ6T_1KgY1NhIoWhpMl51GlRHZhRxznlkvE&guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly9sLmZhY2Vib29rLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAGLVJ_TwVvKXIkZE-6OFVeKalQlJPn_Y6LXce7StFBHapHO0aYsfc1gAWdZZlxCSPBtqy3PLxoZqVe40NJCal7BMNv_QUqwSQaibUe1j7b6LyRHGbGS4Rd_Kks_2Zlk276m4jN_S63pBFgzAjUcJM8vU91UVPRZQoGQg49V-ceZP
- https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/5dmqyk/naomi-klein-interview-on-coronavirus-and-disaster-capitalism-shock-doctrine?utm_campaign=sharebutton&fbclid=IwAR2Fv8AlGQWe7e02ieQP6TWwyFzJAqcDL6G3ROj1005FWVb-sJYn9x2g36o
- https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/editorpicks/opinions-the-british-governments-response-to-the-coronavirus-has-been-a-disaster/ar-BB11h6eV?ocid=spartanntp
- https://www.weareplanc.org/blog/pandemic-demands-and-mutual-aid/?fbclid=IwAR24gbMjn0UlsTDrQz0kQ3QQa3qw562CWjbmN9AhXvpNx-4WRQfuEkiiPfY
- https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/15/america-public-health-system-coronavirus-trump?fbclid=IwAR3TR0TCpT3x6ZchRDyILEm-gLNDItjIj56J_o5-iV1EANe-vlcFIL5eKzA
- https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/03/17/coronavirus-for-all/
- https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/uks-herd-immunity-approach-to-tackling-coronavirus-questioned-by-world-health-organisation/ar-BB11blel?ocid=spartanntp
- https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/03/20/capitalism-is-an-incubator-for-pandemics-socialism-is-the-solution/</p>
- https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/2/27/1922487/-America-is-about-to-get-a-godawful-lesson-in-why-health-care-should-never-be-a-for-profit-business?fbclid=IwAR3Z0kGhW_NlM2LfOwhSXrJdl1ZYK_XgGgEd5wc5x5XA9PcrrtWmKa_6IoU
- https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/03/20/the-virus-and-capitalism/
- https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/03/19/on-the-front-lines-of-the-coronavirus-pandemic-a-doctors-view/
- https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-03-09/china-boasts-abroad-of-victory-over-coronavirus-as-quarantine-hotel-collapses-and-domestic-anger-simmers
- https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/03/19/civilization-ruffled-by-another-perfect-epidemiological-storm/
- https://canadiandimension.com/articles/view/the-unexpected-reckoning-coronavirus-and-capitalism
- https://www.weareplanc.org/blog/pandemic-demands-and-mutual-aid/?fbclid=IwAR24gbMjn0UlsTDrQz0kQ3QQa3qw562CWjbmN9AhXvpNx-4WRQfuEkiiPfY
- https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/news/coronavirus-1-million-jobs-at-risk-as-government-leaves-pubs-bars-and-restaurants-in-limbo-over-pandemic/ar-BB11heBs?ocid=spartanntp
- https://www.ted.com/talks/alanna_shaikh_why_covid_19_is_hitting_us_now_and_how_to_prepare_for_the_next_outbreak?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=tedspread&fbclid=IwAR2EtHtHx4jOYayT4GoUPcjqIVYHNPw7Q352SQUbtDGTfbBxOdDYS6RiJGo
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnS0NjLA8Zo&feature=share&fbclid=IwAR3eh6h4U9Jdp2TwTidG5bRy9DODx9SDiCgcbzd3fR1ZCzfoG7DPL0VBa7g&app=desktop
- https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/5dmqyk/naomi-klein-interview-on-coronavirus-and-disaster-capitalism-shock-doctrine?utm_campaign=sharebutton&fbclid=IwAR2Fv8AlGQWe7e02ieQP6TWwyFzJAqcDL6G3ROj1005FWVb-sJYn9x2g36o
- https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/03/china-s-aggressive-measures-have-slowed-coronavirus-they-may-not-work-other-countries?fbclid=IwAR3u2tr9_IztP1BDDeXN3aiFqk2cuY2_92KTcVQj7bcDE6_3zsUoTwQCgp8
- https://www.ft.com/content/48be1cac-6511-11ea-a6cd-df28cc3c6a68?fbclid=IwAR25YQqUfFqRYg1Nb6VWGdsLrRJtYGSWjDPNu23xjRHi1c3PD4EWX5azTYg
- https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/coronavirus-socialism-politics-sick-pay-income-childcare_uk_5e70e64fc5b60fb69ddeafc6?ncid=other_facebook_eucluwzme5k&utm_campaign=share_facebook&fbclid=IwAR0XmzRHMcDRVh832aA1aJRRxZ6T_1KgY1NhIoWhpMl51GlRHZhRxznlkvE&guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly9sLmZhY2Vib29rLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAGLVJ_TwVvKXIkZE-6OFVeKalQlJPn_Y6LXce7StFBHapHO0aYsfc1gAWdZZlxCSPBtqy3PLxoZqVe40NJCal7BMNv_QUqwSQaibUe1j7b6LyRHGbGS4Rd_Kks_2Zlk276m4jN_S63pBFgzAjUcJM8vU91UVPRZQoGQg49V-ceZP
- https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/economy/2020/03/coronavirus-crisis-economic-collapse-capitalism?fbclid=IwAR2uyt-oCzgwU1pcvD-3Z0_l0J0D5Ax9NyD6oND2fDVF2Iwo2f5yqUn_3Mk
- The virus is an economic emergency too
-
https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/03/13/four-reasons-civilization-wont-decline-it-will-collapse
Alan here’s a temporary 24 hour duration invite. Just click on the link
I notice the number if people joining Discord is rising though not as fast as one would have hoped. Is there any way of spreading the word further and faster? As I understand it you dont need to be a member of the SPGB to join
Can a constantly updated 24 hour invite be posted on this thread for people t click and join
Since people are talking about Sweden here’s some info on the pandemic there
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden/
Also, this might be relevant
And there is no comparison with flu
”
That is no reason for optimism, as the authors of the study in The Lancet note. The researchers offer an overall CFR for Covid-19 at 1.38 percent, which reflects their estimates for lack of testing and other factors, including potential censorship. This number, they noted, is still “substantially higher than for recent influenza pandemics (e.g. H1N1 influenza in 2009)” — “swine flu” — which had a case fatality rate of 0.1 percent. Their estimated CFR, “combined with likely infection attack rates (around 50-80 percent), show
that even the most advanced health-care systems are likely to become overwhelmed.” It is clear that this is far worse than the seasonal flu.”We are gonna have to change the way we farm
It is sometimes argued that the mortality rate of the virus is overestimated because of the number of asymptomatics or individuals presenting mild symptoms who are not aware they have the virus. I read somewhere that the real number of people with the virus may be at least double the number of confirmed cases. Perhaps someone with more up to date information can post a link on this.
However the flipside of the coin is that the real number of deaths from the virus – be it a primary or contributory cause – may be underestimated. In the UK for example only hospital deaths are officially counted but the actual death toll may be at least double this…
So, assuming all other countries had strong shelter in place rules, note that there are at least 6 countries in Europe that have a higher COVID-19 mortality per capita than Sweden, even though they have shelter in place.
I note that a lot of Ancaps on the Ancap versus Ancom FB forum i am on have cited Sweden as an example of how to deal with the virus because it involves a less heavy handed approach by the state. Unfortunately, the figures now coming through show that this approach may not be working:
“Alarming data has shown Sweden’s approach to containing coronavirus has led to a far greater number of fatalities than their Nordic neighbours.As a result of the spiralling numbers, the country’s prime minister, Stefan Lofven, has received criticism for his government’s light-touch strategy to contain Covid-19.”
Looking for ‘anarchic capitalists’? Well here for example: http://ronpaulinstitute.org .
Ancaps Ive debated with on FB upheld Sweden as a shining example of a more libertarian approach to the the virus. Now that the number of cases has risen sharply there and th Swedish government has come under heavy criticism. our Ancaps have gone distinctly quiet
Quite an interesting article on why India has been relatively unscathed thus far by the virus. This could have implications for other parts of the world
Grim and this comment in the comment section adds a further dimension – the aftercare needed for those who survive the virus :“Finally, a piece which speaks to something near the truth. Some people cannot or refuse to understand that this virus is different and will not follow a predictive course. Those same people are burying their heads in the sand and wishing for a return to their lives pre-Covid19. Newsflash that reality isn’t coming back, ever. For the avoidance of doubt read what drs etc have learned about the after effects of those lucky enough to recover from a dose – lung, heart, liver and kidney damage which require ongoing medical care. So even if the predicted deaths of 600,000 isn’t sobering enough or ‘worth it’ has some would suggest, the prospect of hundreds of thousands needing for example ongoing dialysis care should be enough to knock the herd immunity hypothesis on the head. So forget going back to ‘normal’, think about how we go forward.“According to this article the UK is predicted to have the worst death toll form the virus in Europe
Predictable I guess. The limits of Sander’s vision is a humanised form of capitalism. Now he is discovering that, to keep capitalism ticking over in any form, certain unpalatable measures have to be taken that favour the interests of the capitalists as against those of the workers
