ARGUMENT or CONSPIRACY?
UK NHS at odds with failed testing strategy
After the up-to-date claimed statistics yesterday, today’s it’s time for discussion and just a little debate. Here’s Today’s MATTERS OVER WHICH TO MULL:
WHAT IS A VIRUS and WHY DO CONSPIRACY THEORIES say THERE ISN’T ONE INVOLVED HERE?
Viruses are things, particles which can attack and enter a CELL. There are millions and millions of different viruses. They consist of a “genome” (a genetic code, like our DNA or more often RNA) within a protein shell. Viruses such as flu, HIV and coronaviruses also carry “envelopes” made from bits of the last attacked cell’s “membrane”. That’s basically the make up of a virus. Soap can break down these membranes, so washing hands really does help.
Viruses SPREAD by attacking and getting INTO a cell (by first “binding” with the protein on the surface of the cell, which basically can then let the virus in).
Once inside the cell, the virus can multiply (via things called “polymerases”) and then leave, having often severely damaged it, and it then charges off to infect the next cell, and so on.
USUALLY viruses with envelopes aren’t strong outside a cell, but unfortunately there are spike-like proteins sticking out of the virus surface which shield it against things like heat, and can attach themselves to our upper lungs. They also mutate a lot so you need, in the case of HIV say, a whole bunch of retroviral drugs to defeat the different mutations…
THIS virus (SARS-CoV-2) is a bit of a bugger. Loves to infect, spread easily, even possibly around the world airborne style, and damages the lung tissue badly. (I’m an Extremely Vulnerable, by the way, due to being infected in my late 20s until late 30s by a lung attacking disease called Sarcoidosis, so my lungs aren’t a pretty picture anyway).
OK. In Australia, conspiracy theorists have a load of different agendas. The 5G lobby claim that it causes coronaviruses. Well, 5G does need to be investigated further in my opinion , mainly down to the increasing number of scientists who have studied 5G and seen that its very high radiation frequency compared with other networks could cause tissue damage in humans, and possibly cancers. Several countries have banned 5G completely.
The claims in the online video “Plandemic” incorporate an American Doctor’s research and beliefs involving controlling the world population through vaccines and self-infection by wearing masks. Other claims in the video say that there is no epidemic, the deaths aren’t high enough, and that older people are being forced to die by being sedated and treated on high pressure ventilators.
There is good reason (and I mentioned it in an early blog entry below) that the way people have been placed on ventilators at very high oxygen pressure and sedated should be and should have been adapted to some different settings, and some hospitals in New York State have indeed done this with varied results.
But all in all, this coronavirus, with an infection rate of between 4 and 15 times the rate of standard influenza is pretty obviously something different.
It very much seems to me that there’s an awful lot of evidence to suggest this virus does exist, and though the statistics re-published below haven’t reached anything like the World’s worst pandemics, the rates of infection and the number of deaths in a short space of time are ample proof that a lot of the conspiracy claims are well and truly false. The eventual length of longevity plus total fatalities will be the only way to judge how severe this virus is, and how effective global lockdowns have been. It’s VERY PROBABLY not a hoax.
WHY HAVEN’T WE BEEN PREPARED FOR THIS VIRUS?
It has been clear for 20 plus years that the Scientific community has been warning about larger pandemics, and despite the experience and super fortunate containment of another coronavirus SARS in 2003, plus the outbreaks of MERS in 2012 and Ebola in 2014, austerity and absence of government protection policies have definitely contributed to this situation today.
In 2016, the UK study for a fictitious Flu Pandemic produced the figure of 200,000 UK deaths.
Initially people in the West sat back and assessed the threats as “moderate”. But China almost immediately quarantined entire cities, and locked down the country.
As a result, the delays, the mass incompetent shortages of protective Equipment for front-line staff resulting in so far over 200 deaths in the UK of Doctors and Nurses, and many other fatalities amongst transport staff, plus the total confusion and changes in policy involving testing (still totally incoherent and overwhelmingly underachieving in the UK) added to the huge number of deaths in Care Homes, has only given this observer the feeling that lack of preparation, and general incompetence has been prevalent all round.
I’m not reproducing Testing Charts here as its been discussed below in quite some detail, but it’s clear that Testing and Tracing involving a huge number of testing kits and effective Apps is the only way to begin to manage this pandemic. The UK is way way behind the majority of developed countries in this.
HOW LONG BEFORE THINGS CHANGE?
It’s been over 4 months since the World became aware of matters. China supplied the World’s scientists with a genetic profile of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, and later details emerged about its various strains, including the most virulent one which has been affecting Europe and the US.
Vaccine trials are already in progress on humans in over a dozen locations, the first truly accurate antibody or serological tests are only now being produced in the millions by Swiss pharmaceutical company Roche, and many countries from the Far East to Israel and Europe are using Apps to Test and Trace the population in order to contain the virus. This strategy should have been instigated weeks ago in the UK and US. A vaccine not only needs to be extensively tested for effectiveness and safety, it then needs to be manufactured in billions for global coverage, then hopefully updated annually as are the ubiquitous flu jabs. But there’s a long way to go.
LOCKDOWN POLICIES
This is where politics and economics enter the proceedings. In various places worldwide, there are very minor protests along the lines of “It’s our decision” “You’re overdoing it” “Stop controlling us” or the rather justified “We need to work.” The UK government has in the last few days decided (apparently, unconfirmed, due to wealthy Tory donors) that businesses must start to reopen. The extent of major recession and economic damage if and when this whole thing ends might suggest Global Catastrophe. Who knows?
There simply has to be a rather major consideration over Education in this. Students of all ages are having parts of their lives surgically removed for the time being. Lonely isolated people are having their mental health tested, and many people will no longer have a livelihood as a result, ongoing and post Covid-19. Heck, even my Dentist has thrown in the drill, and retired early.
In addition, countries including China, Japan and Germany are this minute reacting against Second Wave infections, and serious lockdowns may be reintroduced. While Africa and Australasia seem to have minimal epidemic status, the real figures may become apparent for Russia and, yes China too. India and South America have a progress in this that is by no means clear at present, whereas Antarctica is the only continent totally unaffected. If lifting of restriction strategies goes disastrously wrong, then fatalities will escalate. Vaccine arrival is by no means certain (N.B. there still isn’t a vaccine for HIV after 39 years), so the implications of actions by every major government on the planet are now the most decisive and important.
It’s not even Summer in the Northern hemisphere!
CONCLUSIONS
Travel, social life, employment, healthcare, education, sport, media, politics and industry will never be the same again. As I continually babble on here (mainly for myself) and am saddened by my own Government’s utter incompetence and dishonesty, my instincts have always been about doing things together. Sadly, it’s been every country for themselves, and on that level anyway, it proves we haven’t progressed too far since the Black Plague.
As ever, Love to the frontline staff worldwide, and to my very nice Sainsbury’s delivery person, not to mention the funniest Royal Mail postperson in town.
Comments welcome.
https://scopeblog.stanford.edu/2020/04/02/whats-a-virus-anyway-part-1-the-bare-bones-basics/
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/may/12/vaccines-5g-bill-gates-why-are-australians-gathering-to-spread-coronavirus-conspiracy-theories
https://www.jrseco.com/european-union-5g-appeal-scientists-warn-of-potential-serious-health-effects-of-5g/
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