Coronavirus Pandemic: Apocalypse Now! Or exaggerated scare story?

[Donjuan]

Hello to every one (i posted my intro on Newbies section - Greeting from Italy).
I think that my personal experience could be useful. I am Doctor (MD - Neurologist) and i am working in a large public hospital in eastern piedmont - 30km near Milan (ITALY) since 2007.
I will try to be concise. The information that i write are all based on direct experience with patients or indirect experience (colleague and medical report). Every one can contact me privately and i can forward every details/information you need if you don t believe me. I have recently done a ward round in a COVID department (last Tuesday).

This is not a hoax.

-In the last 3 weeks the total ER access are composed of 50-85% of COVID suspect ( fever, dispnea, cough and combinatiion of symptoms). NEVER HAPPENED with other infective disease. Most are elder with comorbidities but we see also young people without previous illness.
-Our hospital have converted about 50% of total beds to COVID + patients (250 beds of 600+total). Normally the infective patient are about 50/80 total max beds (infective division beds + internistic divisions beds). Meanwhile some pathology are decreased (stroke patient reduced 30-40% for example). NEVER HAPPENED
-Our ICU beds has been doubled (25 beds) and is occupied with COVID patients only (before we had 14 beds in TOTAL for all patient with various pathology that needed ICU). Unfortunately there are many young people (at least 3 people in 30s - NO previous comorbidities) in ICU and the median age is 60 about. One of this is a colleague that was doing residency in anesthesia in our hospital.
Never seen many young people in ICU together with pneumoniea and insufficient respiratory syndrome in my life.

Other clinical data:
-we see many young people with coronavirus and we have many people in 40-50 years hospitalized (i think about 1/3 of total admission)
-the clinical presentation in young and elderly is the same: atypical pneumonia. Some develop ARDS and extreme infiammatory response. 70% recover after 2-3 weeks
-is true that that old people goes worse and people with comorbidity also.
-i have seen many patient hospitalized and not hospitalized with mild form (MOST).
-the mortality is gauged due to hospital resource collapse and management problem.
-the real number of cases is very underestimated due to the mild form which escape testing. The health personal are contributing to the spreading due to lack of protection and lack of control (i was tested yesterday after 4 contacts).

The clinical presentation is the same everywhere. The difference is that in some area the number of cases is lower in other are higher (like Bergamo/Brescia). We don t now why.
we NEVER SEE a high number of atypical pneumoniae like these TOGETHER. This virus is highly contagiuos.

I can give you other clinical informations in case. It is not easy to give a brief description of the situation. I can clarify in case.

Finally i can also tell that today i was positive to COVID screening (pharyngeal swap) due to job exposure. I have colleague in ICU and many colleague with pneumoniae (some hospetalized some not). And also this was never happened.

I don t want to create fear. Most of the infection goes mild (I hope mine too..). But i want to tell how is the real situation is in most affected area of Italy. This virus is something completely different with every other pathogen of the last times..
I read the last transcript... hope for the best..
I apologize for my english

 

[youlik]

ВОЗ поставила Путина в пример всему миру (ВИДЕО)
26.03.2020 - 18:15

Translation

WHO put Putin as an example to the world (VIDEO)
26.03.2020 - 18: 15

It would be useful for world leaders to listen to measures to combat the Covid-19 coronavirus. Yesterday's address by Russian President Vladimir Putin to the Russians and the measures proposed by him were evaluated by the world health organization. The who special representative in Russia recommended that all world leaders listen to the statement made by the head of the Russian state.

"In fact, I wanted to say yesterday:" let's ask Vladimir Vladimirovich to address all countries in the who," " Melita Vujinovich said.

She noted that the measures taken by Russia from the first day of notification from China of the new virus, in fact, allowed the country to "get ahead of the infection with its preparedness", due to its complexity and scale.

Vujinovic noted that who has warned for many years that the fight against large-scale diseases must be conducted not only through medicine, but also in the socio-economic sphere. This is exactly what the President of Russia demonstrated in his speech to the citizens. As the who representative noted, the organization's recommendations and Russia's strategy on this issue coincide, and Vladimir Putin's address is "an absolute demonstration of this policy."

Separately Vujnović said he was very happy, which is the representative organization in Russia.

ВОЗ поставила Путина в пример всему миру (ВИДЕО)

 

[luc]

I think that Putin, like Trump, is having to follow the "guidelines" to some extent because of the fear domination created by the Consortium and its tools: WHO/MSM.

Yes, it looks to me that while Putin goes about it a bit smarter and more humanely, it seems he kind of knows that you can't mess with the forces behind this whole thing. It's curious, because Putin and his government are directly hurting the Russian economy with these nonsensical measures. I'm sure he wouldn't do that if he didn't have a good reason. I was wondering too if the "beams" and "hyperdimensional bleedthrough" the Cs mentioned do their thing on Russia as well, with all the mass psychosis that they cause in the population?

 

[Persej]

In my country we have a website where you can schedule an appointment with your general practitioner. Usually, you have to wait about 10 days for the available date. In the winter time more, in the summer less. I just cheeked the available dates and guess what? For almost all doctors you can get an appointment either today or tomorrow!! Which means that nobody goes to GP! Which then means that nobody goes to specialists! Which then means that all health centers are empty!!!

Which then means that either people stopped being sick, or that they are all waiting for this 'pandemic' to stop. And how many people will die before this ends?! Will we ever get that number, as we are getting for corona? Does anybody who runs this show think about that?

If you have such website in your country you can check this yourself.

Anyway, we have 7 deaths now. They are probably waiting for a double digit to announce what we are waiting for the weekend - total lockdown of our capitol and a few other cities. Even after all these measures, they are still yelling at people. Now they don't like people walking on the street or walking their dogs, even when they are alone and it is not a curfew.

I also found a website which you might find useful. It's updated on a daily basis: A Swiss Doctor on Covid-19

 

[Siberia]

Just today Russia has banned all flights starting Friday.

Yes, that's what I meant when I said that Russia has now closed the borders for travel completely, so no international flights anymore, with few exceptions.

Inside the country though, the airlines are still mostly operating as usual, meaning they are not prohibited.

However, next week during the extended holidays even the flights inside the country are not recommended, although not prohibited either.

In practice though, few people are flying now just naturally.

It's a bit nuanced, and I just try to report only the most basic developments without much detail, hence there may a bit of confusion.

 

[JEEP]

From today's editorial page of the Columbus Dispatch - Catapulting the propaganda and validating the justified rightness of the corona lockdown:

The history of COVID-19 and the virus that causes it
March 26, 2020

COVID-19 is now a global pandemic disease. The disease is caused by a coronavirus that has been officially named SARS-CoV-2. The virus originated in November 2019 in Wuhan, China, a city with a population of 11 million. A seafood wholesale market in the city is thought to be the origin of the virus, with infected wild animals transmitting the virus to humans.

SARS-CoV-2 infects the lung in humans and induces pneumonia. Unlike many animal viruses, it was able to initiate a deadly chain of human-to-human transmission.

Analysis of the virus genome shows that SARS-CoV-2 is most closely related to a virus circulating in bats, suggesting that bats were the source of the virus. Many other viruses have emerged from bats to infect humans, including the SARS coronavirus, Ebola virus and Zika virus.

Pangolins, an endangered species of small mammals, harbor a coronavirus similar to SARS-CoV-2, leading to speculation that they may be an intermediate host that transfers virus between bats and humans. Recent data do not support this. Nonetheless, genetic analysis has confirmed that the virus emerged from animals, and this finding should dispel unsubstantiated allegations that the virus was manmade.

The transmission rate for a virus can be measured by its reproductive number, or R0, which represents the number of people on average that will acquire the infection from a single infected person. The R0 for SARS-CoV-2 is estimated to be 2.7, which is higher than that of seasonal influenza virus (with R0 estimated at 2.0). However, this value for SARS-CoV-2 is likely an underestimate because it is based on confirmed positive cases and does not account for undiagnosed mild or asymptomatic cases.

SARS-CoV-2 can cause severe lung damage with pneumonia and even deaths. However, asymptomatic infections, which some have proposed are the majority of infections, are likely a primary source of transmitted virus. Hence, social distancing currently being practiced in the U.S. and other COVID-19-afflicted countries is critical and should be heeded by all and enhanced as the most effective way to contain the virus in the absence of antivirals and vaccines.

The virus is transmitted by respiratory droplets that can remain airborne for several hours. These droplets can also settle on surfaces and remain infectious for several days. Thus, personal hygiene with frequent handwashing and social distancing are the most effective means of slowing spread of the virus. Because eye infections may occur in SARS-CoV-2-infected individuals, eye protection is needed for health care workers, and individuals should avoid touching their eyes with potentially contaminated hands.

Vaccination is the most effective strategy to prevent infectious diseases. Unfortunately, there is no FDA-approved vaccine for SARS-CoV-2-induced COVID-19. With unprecedented speed, a candidate vaccine has just entered the first phase of a human clinical trial. If successful, this candidate vaccine, or one of the many others in the pipeline, will be a breakthrough for the control of COVID-19.

In the meantime, many researchers are actively screening drugs for antiviral effects on SARS-CoV-2. Media coverage in recent days has focused on an anti-malaria drug known as chloroquine. While we are cautiously optimistic, results of ongoing clinical trials are needed to prove conclusively whether chloroquine is effective and safe for treating COVID-19 patients.

At Ohio State University, as co-directors of the Viruses and Emerging Pathogens Program of The Infectious Diseases Institute, we are working with the community of immunology and virology researchers as teams to better understand and combat COVID-19. The teams are contributing their collective expertise and new ideas to aid in this battle.

Our ultimate goals are to develop effective vaccines and antivirals in order to combat COIVD-19. In addition, the research community is assisting in generating COVID-19 testing reagents to overcome national shortages. Through focused interdisciplinary research, we will be better able to enhance knowledge and devise solutions to combat COVID-19 and viruses that emerge in the future.

Shan-Lu Liu, M.D., Ph.D., is co-director of the Viruses and Emerging Pathogens Program of the Infectious Diseases Institute at Ohio State University. The author acknowledges co-directors Drs. Linda Saif and Jacob Yount for critical input and comments. The opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily represent the viewpoints of Ohio State. liu.6244@osu.edu

https://www.dispatch.com/opinion/20200326/column-history-of-covid-19-and-virus-that-causes-it

Sooo, this M.D., Ph.D. doesn't know that both China and New York are treating/curing with IVC? How's this for an expert, authoritarian face you can trust to give the absolutely most accurate, up-to-date CV-19 info there is?

Drink the koolaid people.

New York hospitals treating coronavirus patients with vitamin C -- Sott.net

Seriously sick coronavirus patients in New York state's largest hospital system are being given massive doses of vitamin C — based on promising reports that it's helped people in hard-hit China, The Post has learned. Dr. Andrew G. Weber, a...

www.sott.net

NY Doctor says his hospital already using Chloroquine for coronavirus patients and have had ZERO deaths -- Sott.net

Laura Ingraham had a doctor from New York's Lenox Hill hospital on with her last night who explained that they are already using Hydroxychloroquine to treat acute coronavirus patients and are seeing tremendous results. Dr. William Grace told...

www.sott.net

 

[dredger]

Hi all,
I'm now 40 pages late but found what seems like to be a much interresting track to follow. At least, quickly searched on the name of the french website which posted this (neosante - i like the "Neo" in the name :) ) and also searched on the name "meningococci", both on this thread, but found no results. So there i post it, because i'll not have time to catch up all the +/- (15x40=600 answers) posted here, I also have work to catch up on the job side ... 1 colleague is waiting for something i have to do, and i feel a bit sorry/sad not to be in measure to participate to this nice team search here

Here's a recent article from the french guy who own the website Accueil | NéoSanté Editions
Link to the french article : Covid-19 : On Tient Un Suspect ! | NéoSanté Editions
Link to the google auto translation - click here

His aim in this article was to try to figure out WHY there are so much deaths in Italy, subject already much discussed here. He passes in review a part of the reasons already discussed here (but not the fact that there are more elderly nor talking about 5G), and he found quite an interresting reason : a recent vaccination campaign of early 2020 for the meningococci launched following a mini-epidemy of bacterial meningitis, here the traduced quote from the article :

last January, Lombardy was the theater of a major meningococcal vaccination campaign. Following a mini-epidemic of bacterial meningitis which impacted… 6 people (with 2 deaths), the regional authorities have indeed decided to massively vaccinate the population free of charge. In just a few weeks, more than 33,000 people received the vaccine

I think we can assume that the elderly were principally the targets (victims) of this vaccination, but it's an hypothesis.

At almost the end of the article he writes what should be done, but of course, PTB will do the maximum to avoid this :

What should we do now that the suspect vaccine is identified? In my opinion, it would be urgent to check the vaccination status of the deceased Italian and their relatives

The article also gives interesting links to other articles, and also point out that China is suspecting now that all could come from Italia (but which would not be the case if we refer to the C's and what we already find)

I want to terminate this quick post to thanks the owner of the french blog Pour comprendre ce qui cloche dans cette "épidémie" (you also have here the link to the article reposted on his blog, this is where i found the information, it's worth it to look at it regularly because he's used to debunk a lot of information. Thanks to him !

 

[biuta]

As a long time forum member, although not very active in terms of contribution, I would like to first thank everybody for sharing on this thread. I think it is a very good example of global networking and collaboration. The information collected is extremely interesting and valuable in times like these.
I would like to raise a few points, to see what everybody thinks about this.
My first point is about the global hysteria. Everybody seems to be hooked on following those numbers (mostly provided by Johns Hopkins and WHO) and I see a parallel in the way people get hooked on following these numbers to the way elections seemed to be manipulated for a while now, in various places on Earth, in recent years, where almost every important political race was a race on the edge, up to the very last minute, a lot of times with a surprise winner... The same seems to be happening here, some numbers being pushed and nice info-graphics being used as a means for manipulation and keeping the people in fear and at the same time busy. While it is hard to question these numbers, and we can think of different ways of how they could be manipulated, I think we still need to try to get to the source of it all and try to separate the facts from fiction, as much as we can. I think a good exercise is to look at Italy. For some reason the numbers there seem to be much higher than in other places, and those numbers are being used extensively by some Countries to push various agendas, as shown in this article (sorry, can't remember who mentioned it). There is the information from an Italian Doctor explaining why these numbers are higher in Italy, but at the same time there are numerous reports from the Italian media of Italian Hospitals and funeral homes being overwhelmed. If the numbers do not reflect reality, the Hospitals and funeral homes should not be overwhelmed. If they really are overwhelmed, then the numbers might be closer to the truth and in that case we need to explain why they would be so much higher in Italy vs other Countries. Either the other Countries are hiding the truth, or, there are additional factors that have to be taken into consideration in the case of Italy, as @Niall mentioned the issue with the recent vaccinations, or the link to the Malaria (which might also mean there might have been some vaccination going on in that area) mentioned in this article (thanks @Javi ), etc.
What is interesting though is how the Global media seems to have flicked a switch at one point to start pushing this agenda, just like with the Climate Emergency.
@RevChristoph mentioned here an interesting link between the people pushing hard the Climate Emergency agenda and the ones pushing for the Covid panic one. I bumped into this article today and I have a feeling that the author is trying somewhat to push the discussion away from the explanation given by the Italian Doctor in terms of the discrepancy in the numbers in Italy compared to other Countries, and, steer away the conversation from the way we count things (which is probably the crux of the matter) towards a different area: demographics. It is interesting to note that one of the other articles written by this author covers Greta. Coincidence?
Another interesting parallel that I noticed was in relation to toilet paper. Although I now reside in Canada, and also lived in the US for a few years, I was born and raised in Communist Romania. Here in Ontario, Canada, the crisis really only started less than two weeks ago. Initially there was still merchandise in the stores, but it was evident that people started to stockpile canned food and toilet paper. Then things were accelerated a bit with the decision of some areas to declare an Emergency situation, and all of a sudden, stores were wiped out of mainly canned food, chicken and toilet paper. Speaking with people in Romania, which went through this crisis two weeks prior, everybody said that after the initial panic, stores were replenished and you can more or less find everything again. I went out yesterday and it was interesting to note that while chicken returned to the stores, canned food was still somewhat scarce in some stores, but toilet paper is still completely out, even though the Ontario Premier thinks it is not. This thing with the toilet paper reminded me that back in ~ 1978 / 1979 when the economic crisis started to happen in Romania, one of the first things to become scarce was toilet paper. Then I remembered the crisis a little while back in Venezuela, where again, one of the first commodities to disappear, was... toilet paper. Again, are these coincidences? Why are we able to replenish the stock for chicken but not for toilet paper on stores that are well known to have just in time delivery such as Walmart and Costco?
The other thing I wanted to mention was that I bumped today into an article on a Romanian FB group that was discussing the case of a mother in South Carolina who is separated from her two months old infant due to Covid-19. I understand that you may want to stop the spread of the disease, but I don't think it is normal to separate an infant from its mother. If I am not mistaken, the way China acted was to move the entire Family of a person that tested positive into quarantine, which makes sense, less anxiety and it is very likely that everybody is infected anyway, so this approach would in fact reduce further the risk of spreading the infection. Wanting to verify the information, in order to avoid hoaxes like the one mentioned by @Alana with the fake Spanish doctor, I tried to find a source for this piece of news and it is interesting that this only seems to appear in UK and AU news, but nothing in US or Canadian news, at least on Google search, therefore I think the filtering of news has already been cranked up.
We are still lucky to have access to internet and having such a great community to exchange information and try to collectively figure things out, but who knows what the future has in store and at what point the rulers might think of banning beyond the alcohol and cigarettes, also the internet, or start labeling some venues as fake news and shut them down... (by the way, Romania, beyond swiftly passing a law for forced vaccinations, it is now trying to push a law that allows the Government to shut down sites that they deem are distributing fake news. Not sure who is the judge of that...)

 

[etezete]

Hello to every one (i posted my intro on Newbies section - Greeting from Italy).
I think that my personal experience could be useful. I am Doctor (MD - Neurologist) and i am working in a large public hospital in eastern piedmont - 30km near Milan (ITALY) since 2007.
I will try to be concise. The information that i write are all based on direct experience with patients or indirect experience (colleague and medical report). Every one can contact me privately and i can forward every details/information you need if you don t believe me. I have recently done a ward round in a COVID department (last Tuesday).

This is not a hoax.

-In the last 3 weeks the total ER access are composed of 50-85% of COVID suspect ( fever, dispnea, cough and combinatiion of symptoms). NEVER HAPPENED with other infective disease. Most are elder with comorbidities but we see also young people without previous illness.
-Our hospital have converted about 50% of total beds to COVID + patients (250 beds of 600+total). Normally the infective patient are about 50/80 total max beds (infective division beds + internistic divisions beds). Meanwhile some pathology are decreased (stroke patient reduced 30-40% for example). NEVER HAPPENED
-Our ICU beds has been doubled (25 beds) and is occupied with COVID patients only (before we had 14 beds in TOTAL for all patient with various pathology that needed ICU). Unfortunately there are many young people (at least 3 people in 30s - NO previous comorbidities) in ICU and the median age is 60 about. One of this is a colleague that was doing residency in anesthesia in our hospital.
Never seen many young people in ICU together with pneumoniea and insufficient respiratory syndrome in my life.

Other clinical data:
-we see many young people with coronavirus and we have many people in 40-50 years hospitalized (i think about 1/3 of total admission)
-the clinical presentation in young and elderly is the same: atypical pneumonia. Some develop ARDS and extreme infiammatory response. 70% recover after 2-3 weeks
-is true that that old people goes worse and people with comorbidity also.
-i have seen many patient hospitalized and not hospitalized with mild form (MOST).
-the mortality is gauged due to hospital resource collapse and management problem.
-the real number of cases is very underestimated due to the mild form which escape testing. The health personal are contributing to the spreading due to lack of protection and lack of control (i was tested yesterday after 4 contacts).

The clinical presentation is the same everywhere. The difference is that in some area the number of cases is lower in other are higher (like Bergamo/Brescia). We don t now why.
we NEVER SEE a high number of atypical pneumoniae like these TOGETHER. This virus is highly contagiuos.

I can give you other clinical informations in case. It is not easy to give a brief description of the situation. I can clarify in case.

Finally i can also tell that today i was positive to COVID screening (pharyngeal swap) due to job exposure. I have colleague in ICU and many colleague with pneumoniae (some hospetalized some not). And also this was never happened.

I don t want to create fear. Most of the infection goes mild (I hope mine too..). But i want to tell how is the real situation is in most affected area of Italy. This virus is something completely different with every other pathogen of the last times..
I read the last transcript... hope for the best..
I apologize for my english

Hi Donjuan,
I think noone here on this forum questions the factual situation in italy, I have the impression it is not seen as a hoax as such (that is at least my opinion), but the whole procedure with quarantines and curfews and the restriction of basic rights and liberties worldwide is new. Also new is that people with an influenza like illness are ushered into hospitals in masses, which is in my eyes due to the mass media scaremongering. Of course, being really ill is no fun at all (I once when 26 years old experienced a horrible influenza with pneumonia myself, at one point i thought i have to die now, but I was at home and I recovered, so did most of those who got it, maybe except very old people) and I don't want anyone die of such a disease, but truth is: people die. older people die more likely than young. Don't get me wrong. I do not doubt what you describe as your first hand experience, what you saw with your own eyes. I appreciate your insights. Perhaps you understand better what the concernes of this forum or especially this thread are AFTER having read the last session. And this thread from the beginning.
thanks for sharing!

 

[SlipNet]

This is a 14m vid on how working people are dealing with the lockdown in the UK. Some interesting perspectives, and the testimony from people really makes me think UK folks are rising to the challenge here.

I went to the supermarket today, mostly empty shelves, but I got most of what I needed and my parents are happy with what I got for them. It was pretty quiet in the store, and the staff were excellent, very helpful and understanding.

Here's the vid:

 

[Persej]

I have to write what one doctor that is all the time on TV in my country just said. I swear I'm not making this stuff up:

Asked whether or not pregnant women are protected against coronavirus, he states that they are free from ailments even when they are infected. "Most infected people have almost no ailments, that's a big problem," he adds.

Bizarro world!

They also found two babies which are positive but have no ailments.

 

[Siberia]

It's curious, because Putin and his government are directly hurting the Russian economy with these nonsensical measures. I'm sure he wouldn't do that if he didn't have a good reason. I was wondering too if the "beams" and "hyperdimensional bleedthrough" the Cs mentioned do their thing on Russia as well, with all the mass psychosis that they cause in the population?

It's hurting the economy, yes. But there may be multiple reasons why he is implementing these measures as I see it.

The reasons include the expectations and concerns of the Russian people, who are witnessing what is going on in other countries.

The reasons also include the recommendations of Russian and foreign specialists. Russian top healthcare specialists are concerned and recommend to err on the side of caution.

The reasons also include his own concerns. Can he be sure that in Russia the situation cannot turn worse than elsewhere? Who knows if the virus is more or less dangerous for Russia due to the climate, genetics, geography and a myriad other factors?

I think he is just genuinely concerned that he cannot be too sure about this virus, and it's better be safe than sorry. Or so it seems to me.

 

[Laura]

The problem with the numbers is, as Gaby has pointed out, they really aren't doing testing as they ought. There's a whole lot of assumptions going on out there even among medical personnel who should know better.

I would expect for every person who actually IS TESTED POSITIVE, there are at least 25 people infected around him or her. In some cases, as many as 50. But you have to be sure that the person has actually been tested!!!

I don't know where the hell they are getting some of the numbers they are coming up with unless they are pulling them out of a hat or using one of those "answer balls" or something.

 

[Cosmos]

Putin addresses the nation:

 

[etezete]

The Robert-Koch-Institut (RKI) here in Germany has changed its way of counting two days ago and "corrected" it to the italian way: Every dead person who is corona positive will find the way into the CV-deads statistics. Simple as that. So you can fall off a roof down on the street, being overrun by a car, the attacked by a lion, get into a hospital alive, die there and get positively testet on CV (yes, they take probes from dead people) and voilà, here you are as a Corona Death.