Coronavirus

[mugz]

https://youtu.be/TxBSPqJd2_Y]

https://youtu.be/TxBSPqJd2_Y[/url]

[astfgyl]

My point is that Icke has not been censored. He has simply been removed from a privately owned website. His own website is still up and running, no? His thoughts are still available to  anyone who cares to look for them, right? So where is the censorship? It has never, in the history of humanity, taken less effort to get your opinion - no matter how detached from reality - exposed to the greatest amount of people, ever.

The real problem is most of the western world has devolved into a rut of getting most of their information spoon-fed from just three privately owned companies with their own agendas and most people seem to be either too lazy, too disinterested or too thick to bother their hole tondo anything about it. That, to me, is what is truly alarming about this situation.

I mean, even the Nazis went to the trouble and expense to set up Der Angriff and got off their arses to get their bullshit out to the people. We're lamenting the fact that some cunts have to exercise their thumb here. Seriously.

That is a fair point actually. I was thinking about it a bit this morning as well and upon reflection I think a certain amount of censorship is good. Even on the likes of the social media platforms. For example I don't use those sites a whole lot but if I do, I'd rather I wasn't exposed to religious extremist propaganda or racist hate speech. So I am sort of contradicting myself there.

Maybe what is getting to me about it is the whole idea that anything going against the accepted info on Covid 19 in particular will fall under the umbrella of spreading misinformation on it, in spite of the fact that so little is known about it so far. The info is changing all the time as would be expected with an emerging disease and I hate to see it used as an excuse for general censorship. I might be wrong but I would be amazed if this initiative didn't end up spreading much farther.

And I still reckon people should be allowed to talk what might be seen as shit because not everybody who goes against the accepted information is David Icke. The fact all his usual stuff about New World Order never got him a ban but this one did seems like a new era of censorship. I hope I turn out to be wrong or getting over excited about this tbh.

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

He never posed a serious public health risk before.

[astfgyl]

I suppose, but I would still have thought we should be rational enough creatures to make up our own minds up that it is shite he is talking. Like I can't emphasise enough here that I do think he is full of bull and I am in no way a supporter of anything he does say. I have read a bit of it an odd time for a giggle is as far as I've gone with it.

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

The fact we have to censor people like Icke in situations such as these is absolutely a sign of failure, on a massive and global scale, to properly educate people. That is true, if that's what you're getting at.

We're not rational enough because we're badly educated, with respect to rational thought. Rational thought, when you take that to include things like diagnostic thinking, falsification approaches to hypotheses... basically everything that the success of conspiracy theories relies on an absence of, here's the clincher; none of that comes spontaneously. If you're not explicitly trained in it, your brain ain't going to do it spontaneously, no more than reading or writing which also have to be explicitly taught. So no, in short and on the whole, we're not rational enough creatures to make up our own minds, so our only option is to take the low road out; censorship.

[astfgyl]

I can't disagree with it as you've put it there however difficult I find it to accept.

I guess it is a bit like how I felt about the Swedish approach to locking the country down vs our own. I was thinking how unfair that we all have to be forced to do the right thing here where in other countries they can be advised instead of forced and get on with it.

Then I thought about what the Irish attitude to such advice would be, that like if we were told here no gatherings over 10, there would immediately be reports of lads gathering in groups over 50. And if social distancing wasn't to be enforced by Gardai, half the population wouldn't bother with it. So the feeling that all must be forced into something to protect us from the idiot contingent is a tough one to accept, but stands to reason. Then it brings me on to thinking does that general attitude stem from a general public mistrust of successive governments in this country over the years, so a large portion of the population immediately think "fuck em" no matter what they are saying, like a boy who cried wolf situation, vs a place like Sweden where confidence in their government seems to be higher than what we generally enjoy.

I guess this is much the same regarding censorship of crazy ideas. Will it add fuel to the fire of their supporters though and make somewhat of a martyr of them I wonder.

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

Also, I say "censor" but I agree with everything Juggz has said on that topic. In pragmatic terms, however, the simple fact that it's perceived as censorship already means it will be fuel to the hardcore, as you say. Conspiracy theories are built on the idea that some truth is being withheld, so any form of silencing is water thrown on a grease fire.

[astfgyl]

Well I don't doubt that truth is being withheld all the time in all sorts of situations but the self-styled conspiracy theorists don't seem to me to be the sort that would be privy to anything beyond pure fantasy anyway. Actually styling themselves as a conspiracy theorist at all fairly nails their flag to the mast as I see it and they are only looking for things where there is likely nothing to see. I like to think I am an advocate of freedom of speech though and my attitude is still to let them talk all the shite they want and hope I would have the brains not to get caught up in it. Someday, one of them somewhere might put 2 and 2 together and not come up with 6.

Back to something a bit more on topic, I see that the general approach to the pandemic is to slow it down until either a cure or a vaccine is found. Like if a vaccine or cure turns out to be as elusive as for something like the common cold where would we all go from there? Vaccination seems unlikely to properly work due to the mutation factor but of course that isn't fully clear as of now, and all the promising treatments put forward so far haven't fallen into the category of an actual cure. Is it a future of rolling shutdowns each time a new wave of this picks up for ever or how do we all get around this if no treatment ever works? Indefinite social distancing? Or is it possible to actually get rid of this through testing and quarantine once the testing capacity makes that feasible? If all countries stopped all incoming passenger flights from all countries that still had even a single case until they had something like 2 months with none would that be enough? Quarantining all freight or imports might work in some cases but not with perishables so there is a doorway for it to come back even if we had no cases of our own. It's a tough one to figure in the no treatment scenario.

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

Read to end. Is Rome Italy's 'Tipperary' so? 'Evidence' all the measures were a waste of time? Or are both more likely the fortunate outcome of strict measures?

Italy's death toll far higher than reported - stats office
Italy's coronavirus death toll is much higher than reported, statistics bureau ISTAT said on Monday, in an analysis pointing to thousands of fatalities that have never been officially attributed to Covid-19.

In its first report of the epidemic's impact on Italy's mortality rate, covering 86% of the population, ISTAT said that from 21 February, when the first Covid-19 deaths occurred, until 31 March, nationwide deaths were up 39% compared with the average of the previous five years.

Of the 25,354 "excess deaths", Covid-19 was registered by the Civil Protection Agency as the official cause for 13,710, leaving around 11,600 deaths unaccounted for.

These occurred overwhelmingly in the northern part of Italy most heavily hit by the virus.

The statistics bureau said it was reasonable to assume these people either died of Covid-19 without being tested or that the extra stress on the health system due to the epidemic meant they died of other causes they were not treated for.

Starting today, more than four million Italians will get back to work as manufacturers, construction companies and some wholesalers reopen after two months of lockdown.
Starting today, more than four million Italians will get back to work as manufacturers, construction companies and some wholesalers reopen after two months of lockdown. Photograph: Emanuele Cremaschi/Getty Images
Officially, up to 3 May, the Civil Protection Agency recorded 28,884 coronavirus deaths, the second highest toll in the world after the United States. The tally only includes people who tested positive.

The agency compiles data from the regions on deaths of people who tested positive for the virus and issues them in a bulletin at 6pm every day.

ISTAT's report, drawn up with Italy's National Health Institute, confirmed the massive concentration of the epidemic in the country's northern regions, where the vast majority of unreported deaths have also taken place.

In the northern region of Lombardy, which includes the financial capital Milan and has been most ravaged by the disease, deaths were up 186% in March from 2015-2019.

Looking at individual cities, the worst-hit was Bergamo, near Milan, where deaths were up 568% in March compared with the 2015-2019 average.

The nearby cities of Cremona and Lodi saw increases of 391% and 370% respectively. In Milan they rose 93%.

In Rome, Italy's most populous city, which has been relatively lightly hit by Covid-19, overall fatalities were down 9% from the previous five years. The Sicilian capital Palermo also posted a 9% decline.

[astfgyl]

You're really dining out on the Tipperary thing. They (Tipperary Star) got their figures from publicly available data, I didn't pull it out of my arse. The fact remains that the Tipp residents were smarter this year than they were for the 4 years previous in the not dying stakes.

Joking aside, I imagine that the lower rates in certain parts of Italy were due to the extra warning time they had and that northern Italy was well riddled by the time anybody chose to start getting worried about it. I suppose also though that things like traffic accidents and drunken mishaps and violent crime and the like which is probably rife in large cities worldwide was massively reduced by the lock down to the extent that the reduction overtook the increase from covid 19.

Also way back in this thread I linked to a study on Italy's death rate and their extremely high excess mortality rate since around 2012 which has been way higher than the average with no explanation, and that study said that their 2018 excess mortality rate was their highest since WW2. I guess that has been forgotten about in the run of things but maybe the non Covid 19 deaths they speak of here might be in some way attributed to whatever was causing that spike in the years covered by that study and maybe there is some other as yet undiscovered cause of death in Italy that still needs to be looked at outside of Covid 19. I must find that link again, it's definitely worth a read. The report you have quoted there does compare to the last 5 years though so these excess deaths must be in excess of that increase I mention there as well or maybe some correlation there which hasn't been spotted yet. It's certainly food for thought at the least.

The fact that Tipp's mortality rate is down to a 4 year low so far this year in spite of the current situation might not say much good about our general drunken, violent, car crashing and death by misadventure ways now I look at it. I guess it is all in the presentation of the figures

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

These figures are excesses based on the averages from the previous five years, meaning it's excess above the normalized excess of 2018 also. And they're not attributing all of it to COVID19, they're saying many may be from inability to access medical care for unrelated issues.

I'm jabbing a bit about Tipperary, but only to try and highlight the need to try to put any narrative in parentheses before looking at the figures.

[astfgyl]

These figures are excesses based on the averages from the previous five years, meaning it's excess above the normalized excess of 2018 also.

Yeah I actually edited my own post to make reference to that as well, I was thinking along the lines of some possible correlation between the non covid deaths and whatever was the cause of that other excess mortality. Maybe the Covid flooded the hospitals and those who might have received treatment for whatever the other cause is didn't receive it or something along those lines. Maybe but who knows as I reckon it will be a good while before anything like that has figures available and up for consideration. There is only the one disease in town at the moment and knowledge on it is still fairly light in spite of how hard it is getting studied worldwide so the picture is only emerging as we speak. It's mad to think what all of this will look like in say 2 years time from a medical perspective. It must have put a stop to an awful lot of unrelated research being completed since the start of this, with funding and resources from all sorts of places being diverted

[astfgyl]

https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus?country=IRL#deaths-from-covid-19-background

Interesting looking resource here, might make interesting reading. Seems to be coming from a slightly different angle than worldometers

[astfgyl]

Somewhat encouraging news today with the announcement that over 17,000 of the 22,000 confirmed cases here are considered recovered.

Somewhat discouraging news however with the several gentle reminders about the bill there will be to pay, although I doubt any of us thought there wouldn't be one. Surely austerity is not the answer, as that wasn't great for any of us last time and led to a lot of funding cut in healthcare areas although mismanagement by the HSE accounts for a lot of the issues there as well as lack of funding. This will be a big test for the European Union depending on how individual countries are treated in the aftermath of the initial shock of this.

Not a bad result either for the healthcare workers regarding childcare, although I feel that the fact they have to pay at all is a bit rough as they have been repeatedly feted as heroes.

Also surprised that (now it is being talked about a bit more regarding its' sustainability) the covid unemployment payment wasn't in some way related to the wage the person had actually lost out on. I personally know of several people who were getting much less than that amount in their part time jobs and have gotten a pay rise from it. A simple requirement for a wage slip would have helped with that, and reduced the cost of the scheme, thus enabling it to be sustained for longer for those who cannot return to work until the later phases.

[Carnage]

I think the thrust of getting the payment rolling out as quickly as they did was operating on a 'pay first, ask questions later' basis, I'd be very surprised if they didn't follow up on how much they've paid to who when the dust settles a bit.

I'm on about the same as I was when I was working, so I'm not worried on that score, but I reckon a lot of people will be under some very unwelcome scrutiny in the near future. We'll see the likes of Jobpath, or whatever new name they roll out the same craic under, expanded by a huge margin.