Lockup/ lockdown. How to end it?

[AtomKraft]

It's not just employees who are scoring from HMGs lucrative furlough scheme.
There's a drink in it for desperate or unscrupulous employers too.

[AtomKraft]

India is trying hard now, to end the lockdown.
Unemployment has gone from 6% to 23%, so 123 milion unemployed.
These same people, whose jobs have vanished are streaming out of the cities in droves and walking hundreds of kilometres back to the villages they were born in.

80 million workers are trying to leave the cities. Well, ex workers.

[Capetonian]

These same people, whose jobs have vanished are streaming out of the cities in droves and walking hundreds of kilometres back to the villages they were born in.

That will achieve what, exactly? Placing a further strain on the resources of those impoverished villages and their people. I can only see it exacerbating the impending tragedy.

[G-CPTN]

123 milion unemployed.
These same people, whose jobs have vanished are streaming out of the cities in droves and walking hundreds of kilometres back to the villages they were born in.

Yes, I saw that - families unable to afford public transport, walking . . .

What will they do? Do they have piles of money stored in their homes?

[AtomKraft]

Well, they have no work, no food and no money in the cities

So, what to do?

Might as well starve in their villages, than starve in the city.

Meanwhile the Indian government argues about who is to blame, who should pay for transport etc.

Saw a video of a tiny child trying to wake up his dead mother, as she lay on a railway platform. India TV doesn't blur this sort of stuff out.
It's gruesome.

[G-CPTN]

What would it cost to provide the 'unemployed' with a subsistence diet?

I know that there are some places handing-out food, but the demand outstrips supply.

[AtomKraft]

The problem is that there's 80million of them.

[Capetonian]

Much as I love India and her people, life there for the majority is brutal and gruesome, and the attitude of wealthy Indians to those lower down the scale is sickening.

[G-CPTN]

At one time I worked with an Indian (very senior engineer).
Whenever a particular (Indian) junior draughtsman entered his office he always immediately stood up and remained standing until that draughtsman left.

[AtomKraft]

On the subject of lockdowns.
The first to do a lockdown were the Chinese Communist Party.
Exactly what you would expect from a totalitarian commie state.

But why did we all copy them?

If Sweden had got the virus first, there would be a very different reality today.

WTF do we copy a Communist country?

[barkingmad]

I presume the computer code-writers here in O-N can cast some light on this aspect of Professor Pantsdown's computer and statistics forecasting abilities.
It's a real horror story if the UK and the world in general have calculatedly wrecked their respective economies based on information as dodgy as this appears to be.
I appreciate the video is from April but the content either stands or falls on whether Ferguson was using suspect code and programming which even our friends at MS have been unable to correct.



Also I would have thought that a cursory glance at the good Prof's previous predictions of Armageddon have since been proven to be utter bollocks.

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/six ... d-be-asked

And yet now with the lockdown restrictions being nibbled away we've got population(s) still in panic mode, neither trusting their guvvment nor the 'science' on which this pan(dem)ic decision was supposedly based.
Meantime the economy lurches ever further into meltdown with lives ruined and a horrendous number of 'ordinary' medical conditions left untreated and for some that will be too late.

[ian16th]

Such problems are not usually a programming fault, but a specification error.

The programmer would write code to meet a specification.

[probes]

On the subject of lockdowns.
The first to do a lockdown were the Chinese Communist Party.
Exactly what you would expect from a totalitarian commie state.
But why did we all copy them?
If Sweden had got the virus first, there would be a very different reality today.
WTF do we copy a Communist country?

It seems to me that the major scare came from Italy (and Spain) - maybe their medical systems were just too fragile? - with their med.personnel infected and several (was it hundreds?) dead, truckloads of coffins, and by then it was known the ones in intensive care needed it for weeks, which is unusual. So it was not the let's-copy-China. Plus, without the drastic measures the hospitals would have been flooded with patients infecting other patients (if they had been there), and by now it's known mostly it's the vulnerable who die. Plus, the countries that managed to act promptly, seemed to "suppress" the virus so that it did not mutate and develop more deadly forms or affect children as well.
The Swedes are said to have voluntarily kept the 'social distance' (that needed govt imposures in other countries), and they haven't managed to protect their elderly (care home deaths), AND their economy is not in a much better state, and they can't fly or travel anyway. Plus, they seem not too happy about being excluded from the "Nordic bubble" of free movement, based on death rate and the mysterious infection coefficient R. Plus, their statistics is said to be insufficient by their own experts, we don't know how many were infected, and the 'herd immunity' has not happened.

But then, the US of A seem to have worked out their own way of ending the lockdown (suits well with Mr. Trump musing about being a wartime president in one of his press conferences)... and the virologists say that the time to count the chickens is in a year or so. Meaning, we'll have to go on being patient.

[Rwy in Sight]

There was a football/soccer game in Italy that helped spread the virus immensely between an Italian and a Spanish team. And the health system of Lombardia is/was judged to be among the best in Europe.

[AtomKraft]

Probes.
The first to "lockdown" were the Chinese. It's exactly the sort of extreme measure favoured by autocrats like the CCP.

The Italians were the first to copy them, as you say- followed by lots of other countries.

Now, by all means, lockdown for a short period while you reinforce your health service, make preparations etc, but to keep lockdowns going after that is just crazy.

We cannot hide in our houses forever.

All it does is destroy the economy more, and prolong the crisis.

We need a policy that destroys the economy less, and shortens the crisis!

[probes]

Probes.
The first to "lockdown" were the Chinese. It's exactly the sort of extreme measure favoured by autocrats like the CCP.
Now, by all means, lockdown for a short period while you reinforce your health service, make preparations etc, but to keep lockdowns going after that is just crazy.

Well, true - but they in Asia do have more experience with nasty bugs among millions of people, don't they?

And yes, I'm lucky to be in a country with low population density and comparatively short lockdown with 'mild' restrictions - schools closed, working form home if possible and avoiding crowded spots (no confinement to flats, unless you're the extra-vulnerable risk group), hospitals mobilized and the non-covid sent home. From mid-March to about mid-May, when the R started to go down. But our govt responded when there were fewer than a hundred cases, which seemed overkill at the time, and proved to be right, as the 'thing' moves in about 2-week cycles. Luckily again, our govt really relied on med and virology specialists, and somehow it seemed to work.
But, having a leader like Mr. Trump who just ... dunno how to call his press conferences with his idle thoughts, or Mr. Johnson with his interesting helping hands... well, that must be tough. Or India, where there's no way a lockdown would work with SO many people wandering and around...

[barkingmad]

“Buy a mug, with my mug on it!”.

As the controversy over the UK’s pathetic excuse for quarantine for arrivals into the country runs into opposition from Tory MPs, it’s of interest to scroll down in this piece to read how our chief pointy-head opposed port-of-entry screening 2 years ago when it was proposed.

https://lockdownsceptics.org/

Add this to Ferguson’s many howlers in the past and my confidence in the UK science advice sinks under the floorboards!

Add this to the long list of total Hancock bollocks posted in WTF...UK by boac and I’m convinced I’m in some “Alice in Wonderland” remake.

[Undried Plum]

Well, true - but they in Asia do have more experience with nasty bugs among millions of people, don't they?

The East Asian countries were successful in getting a grip on the epidemic because they followed the WHO guidelines and were ready for it.

Sure, their experiences with MERS and SARS were useful experience for them. Sure, some of them, such as China and Singapore have rather authoritarian forms of government. Neverthless the reason why they succeeded while we have failed is that they were prepared for it while were/are not.

[AtomKraft]

"Probably" the reason for the low death toll in India, is that most men are already dead at 65.

Btw, I am no longer in India- How did I leave? Not easily.

[barkingmad]

Food for thought over/after your evening meal today. This report, though it refers to Germany, could very well be talking about any of the western countries' actions in the light of the pandemic. It is disturbing reading and the aspect of "collateral damage" is especially sobering, bearing in mind in the UK they've started to think, belatedly, of the cancer, heart problems and other urgent but non-plague conditions which have been blown out of the system in the obsession with 'saving lives' 'protecting the NHS', most of which were on a limited lease anyway.

"On or just after 7 May 2020 a senior civil servant – “Oberregierungsrat” Stephan Kohn – of the German Ministry of the Interior in Berlin sent, on official notepaper, his analysis of the response to the Corona pandemic to his counterparts in the sixteen constitutive states (“Länder”) of the Federal Republic of Germany.

This paper was leaked to at least two websites (Achgut and Tichys Einblick). The author was suspended and a Ministerial statement issued, unusually on a Sunday (10 May), dismissing the contents as the opinion of a rogue official who did not have permission to distribute the paper (i.e. not even to the aforesaid officials). It was put about that the author of the paper was mentally disturbed. This is how the matter was reported, briefly, by the German public broadcaster. (Incidentally, this broadcaster is financed by a harshly enforced annual levy of over 200 euro on every German household, whether or not it has a television or internet access.)"

"DENIAL in the TIME of CORONA
Comment on the paper by Stephan Kohn and generally on the topic
by Paul Charles Gregory

The leaked paper by Stephan Kohn, a man of rare integrity, gives rise to wider reflections, or rather, reflections that are implicit in parts of his analysis. I shall come to those later. First some comments on the paper itself.

It was addressed to other civil servants and especially his counterparts in the Länder, i.e. the devolved administrations in Germany. Correspondingly, my summary, in length a quarter of the German source text, is designed mainly to be informative.

There is much in the paper that is of interest for a non-German public. The salient argument is that there must be a weighing up of the costs of Covid-19 against both the immediate and long-term costs of the response. These two items must not be confused, yet that is exactly what has happened everywhere. Confusion has been sown, one must assume deliberately, with mass media and politicians postulating a conflict between “saving lives” and the economy.

Something that Herr Kohn does not say, but which is implicit, is how the death counts could be statistically presented to reflect, rather than distort, reality. If nothing unfortunate intervenes, people age and eventually they die. The passing of a ninety-year-old means a loss of actuarial life years in single digits, whereas the death of a forty-year-old represents a loss of actuarial life years in double digits. So the figures that are relevant are the number of life years lost directly to the virus, this number being calculated on much the same basis as actuaries calculate pension obligations or life insurance policies. It seems that no journalist and no opposition politician has demanded these figures. Are they really innumerate? Or must a last year of life, spent very possibly in distress, be valued more highly than half a lifetime of accomplishments beckoning ahead?

The common conflation of the number of deaths caused by Covid-19 and those where Covid-19 was present, but not the cause of death, e.g. in cases of morbidity, is further evidence of a manipulative mindset on the part of those shaping public opinion, whether as journalists or politicians. Herr Kohn’s analysis confirms what has been observed elsewhere, namely that death counts are headlined without the essential context of how they compare with earlier or average death counts. This selective and misleading information does indeed constitute Fake News, even tho technically it is not incorrect. Without intelligent and value-based filtering, information is only data, and such raw data is near-infinite, unmanageable and meaningless, opening up the way to misinformation.

At one point Herr Kohn does indeed imply that his government is itself guilty of spreading fake news – i.e. while itself condemning “fake” news.

One of the most obtuse phenomena in this sorry Corona tale is miscounting, such as when a death caused by the (ill-conceived) response to Covid-19 is registered as one caused by Covid-19. Regularly, journalists and politicians have been pointing to a death toll in excess of the average for this time of year. In policy terms this death toll is irrelevant and meaningless.

The nature of a plague, as the nature of a war, is such that there is loss and diminution of life. Once plague or war begin, it is inevitable that people die. One of the tasks of policy-makers, or generals, it to see that they do not die from friendly fire. But it is this that is happening, as when cancer check-ups or cardiac operations are postponed. Worse still, it is this which will continue to happen, long into the future, with economic resources deplenished and so no longer available to maintain life expectancy. The popular (populist) opposition of health and economy is wholly misplaced.

There is another element, that Herr Kohn does not touch on, which is featured regularly in the Washington Post, but not much in the British and European media. It is the effects of Covid-19 not on the elderly, but on younger people. Patients may recover less completely than imagined, with long-lasting organ damage. But, it must be said, these cases are numerically not so significant that they alone would justify the drastic response there has been to the pandemic.

Towards the end of his analysis Herr Kohn makes a number of more wide-ranging points, which apply similarly to developments in other jurisdictions.

One of these is the misfunctioning of policy formation within the apparatus of government (politicians and civil service).

Another is the role of the mass media, both those financed by voluntary subscriptions and advertising, and the public broadcasters which are financed by compulsory levies. The MSM have been complicit in nurturing fear and panic. They have largely failed in the duties of a Fourth Estate to furnish constructive criticism. I would add that, with their sentimental focus on the direct victims of the virus, it was surely they who pressurised politicians to take drastic and largely unwarranted measures.

Herr Kohn rightly draws attention to the psychological effects of the lockdown on vulnerable souls and the fact that these effects may be long-lasting. He mentions also the loss of trust in the powers that govern us. These are passages that bear re-reading.

The question of how to return to normality is another area where similar issues arise across the nations. In his pleas for the cancellation of expensive (and meanwhile unaffordable) infrastructure projects, including those that which would transform our society and the nature of our human interactions, he will find ready supporters among those in the UK who are opposed to G5, and indeed HS2. Here he fields arguments that are not often heard in the English-speaking world: such projects must also be cancelled not least with a view to healing the psychological and social damage inflicted by the lockdown.

Let me address now a most fundamental matter, one which Herr Kohn deals with more implicitly. It is maintained that life is the highest good and therefore it is lives that must be saved. This is wrong. All individual lives come to an end, whether one’s own or of those one is attached to. Such lives will, it is hoped, have had some intrinsic value, but this value is fleeting and destined to be soon forgotten. The highest good, if such a superlative makes sense, is the culture and civilisation we are embedded in and which defines who we are. (Environmentalists might want to maintain, metaphysically, that it is the chain of life, including non-human life, which is the highest good, but that is a generalisation too far for reflection here.)

What remains of our individual lives is what we shall have passed on in the manner of a filter, eliminating much of less or negative value while preserving or re-creating for posterity what we have most appreciated.

Covid-19 is not remotely as contagious or as devastating as was the Bubonic Plague, or Ebola, but this is what much government policy would have us imagine. There is an irony in government and mass media success that the emerging societal problem now is how to accommodate or combat the overblown fears which have been so diligently nurtured.

Herr Kohn is right: It has indeed been a false alarm. The real alarm, now, must be the abject failure of our institutions to turn the alarm off and restore normality. That failure has wide-ranging roots and is not merely the product of individual failings of character and judgement."

Edited some of the report text as the original submission exceeded the page capacity.

Whilst I appreciate none of the so-called First-World countries have approached water, electricity and internet serious failures, the paper looks hard and coldly at the damage done above and beyond the initial aims of lockdown and the unfortunate harvest we are about to reap by trashing economies for such an aim. Submitted for info and discussion, I have no axe to grind here beyond my scepticism over the correctness of the lockdowns as implemented. I am still honing another cutting edge for the longer term...