Coronavirus Update XXXII — Melbourne: The Guntowers Are There For Your Protection. UK’s Re-Panic, USA Deaths, More!

We have reached the point most authorities are pretending to forget the difference between infections, “cases”, and deaths. Deaths have dropped to bottom levels, but because of huge increases in testing, positive tests are up, causing new panic. The hunger to lock back down is great.

It’s A Crime To Maybe Be Sick

The state of Victoria is and has been run by progressives (i.e. “labour”) for some time. Its government has moved to the concentration-camp phase of its “battle” against a typical, not-at-all-unexpected-or-unusual disease.

Before we detail this and answer why, here is state of the coronadoom crisis in all Australia (I took this snapshot from Google Saturday night).

There is no crisis in Australia. None at all. There is no crisis in Victoria, either. About a quarter of all Australians live in the state, so assuming the deaths are more or less uniform, coronadoom attributed deaths in Victoria are about 1 to 2 a day—with considerable variability, of course.

According to one source from 2019, all Australia saw an average 3.3 traffic deaths a day. So coronadoom is roughly on par with driving. Funnily enough, driving has not been outlawed.

Here are details of the COVID camps from one news source:

The Victorian government will debate a new bill in the State Parliament this week which would hand authorities the power to forcibly detain “conspiracy theorists” and people suspected to likely spread coronavirus, such as anti-lockdown protesters and their close contacts.

If passed, the Omnibus (Emergency Measures) Bill will allow the state to detain anyone they suspect of being “high risk” or likely to negligently spread COVID-19, either if they have the virus or have been in contact with an infected person.

According to The Age, a state government spokesman said the rule could be applied to “conspiracy theorists who refuse to self-isolate or severely drug-affected or mentally impaired people who do not have the capacity to quarantine.”

Those detained could then be placed in quarantine facilities, such as hotels, where they can be monitored by authorities.

I wonder if people who show actual data might be labeled “conspiracy theorists”. The data imply government is not needed, and this is a hateful message. Not only to those in charge, but to, it must be admitted, the majority of the population.

It’s not only these COVID camps, but the government is also creating an army of State Truth And Secrets Inspectors, or STASI. This new internal security forces corps “would allow people to be detained indefinitely and give sweeping powers to untrained people to become ‘authorised officers’ with sweeping powers to arrest and detain fellow Victorians.”

The best news, for those most terrified of the non-crisis, is that “Once detained you have no rights under law and can be detained for an indefinite period”. Also, “There is no provision whatsoever for a review of the detention.”

These harsh actions will keep the terrified safe from infection, or so the terrified believe, so the costs will be worth it. To them.

One more data point, this time form New York. Here is the state of the coronadoom crisis in NY state.

About 95% of people now wear masks outdoors in NYC, many even while jogging or far from any people. Most are more terrified now of the long-past crisis then they were during the actual crisis (when mask wearing was maybe a third or less).

Showing pictures like the above to the terrified does not bring them relief. Indeed, the only emotion they are likely to show is anger. At you. For showing them that their fear has no justification.

Like Melbourne, New York City is a progressive enclave. The citizens elect progressives to watch over themselves. The elected politicians promise to keep them safe from disease (and deny other threats, like riots). The people believe.

The citizens in these cities search for authority, as is proper, but since they value their own skin above all other things, they turn to false gods. All that matters is staying alive, never mind the quality, until such time as they tire of life, upon which they declare a “right” to death.

Did you notice that the people calling for the most punitive restrictions are strongest in support of this “right”? They haven’t been cackling about it at the moment, true, but the observation holds.

The Tongue Shakespeare Spake

Been a while since we did England, but given the UK is experiencing a second wave of freaking out, it’s time for a revisit.

'This is not a prediction' is not cover for publishing a graph like this without taking questions, and essentially laying out further restrictions on the public's liberties that are expected to be formally announced by politicians imminently. pic.twitter.com/JmPnOad7cQ

— Kate Andrews (@KateAndrs) September 21, 2020

That graph is criminal. But it was taken seriously. That’s how bad things have become.

Neil Ferguson is being trotted again. He is one man who proves you can’t be fired for being wrong in the right direction.

Headline: England-wide Covid lockdown needed ‘sooner rather than later’, says former adviser.

Prof Neil Ferguson, who resigned from the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), said the country was facing a “perfect storm” after controls were eased over summer.

On Friday, Boris Johnson admitted in a speech that Britain was entering a second wave of coronavirus. It is understood he is preparing to impose nationwide measures to curb the spread of Covid-19.

Sigh.

Here is the true state of the coronadoom crisis in England, from their own official ONS.

Interestingly, the ONS says somewhere between 51 and 54 thousand attributed COVID deaths as of 4 September (they have various ways of counting). But I see World Meter and others have 10 thousand fewer than this, as of 20 September. Hilarious, and proof much of what you see in nonsense.

Anyway, do you see the second wave there? Maybe a wee blip at the end? No? It has to be!
Their Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) prepared COVID-19 the new death forecasts. The media reported a “leak” on 29 August 2020 saying that as many as 85,000 additional people could die in a “second wave” through the fall of 2020 and winter 2021.

In other words, there will be an 60%+ increase of deaths in the second wave. I mean, the bump you see above will be repeated and magnified by 1.6+! Wow! Models says so! Ferguson says so.

Sigh again.

What they’re seeing in the UK is the same thing we’re seeing in the USA. Massive, humongous increases in testing.

Here are the DAILY number of tests made available across all of UK (and not just England and Wales, but the signals and shape there are the same; from this official source, summing across all “pillars”; last date available is 20 August, so ignore drop off at end).

There’s a max of 338,212—with the numbers only going up, Up, UP! Again, ignore the drop off at end; they’ve only released data through 20 August so far.

The second wave is a wave of testing! They’re seeing old and new infections, mostly asymptomatic, and so on, just like in the analysis of the USA below. Their first clue that this is so is the falling and disappearing coronadoom-attributed deaths. This should have been their last clue, too.

Worse—much, much worse—is that all this should be obvious to England’s decision makers. They must know what we know. But they choose to ignore it and go by the same failed models that led to all their troubles in the first place. The Deadly Sin of Reification has turned deadly in fact.

Anders Tegnell, Sweden’s chief epidemiologist, was interviewed recently again. We only need this excerpt.

As Tegnell has just told Spectator TV:

“We looked at the [Imperial] model and we could see that the variables put into the model were quite extreme.. Why did they choose variables that gave extreme results? So we were always quite doubtful. We did some work on our own that pointed in quite a different direction. In the end, it proved that our prognosis was much closer to the real situation. Probably because we used data that was coming from the actual situation, and not from some kind of theoretical model.”

Andrew asked Tegnell if he’s saying of the Imperial model: rubbish in, rubbish out. He replied

Whenever you mention Sweden to coronadoom fanatic they change the subject. Same with Japan, or Taiwan, or South Dakota, or North Dakota, or etc. etc.

Jay Bhattacharya, the director of Stanford’s Program on Medical Outcomes as well as the director of the school’s Center on the Demography and Economics of Health and Aging, was interviewed.

The professor said the global community largely abandoned the playbooks followed during earlier pandemics, instead “jump[ing] to a global lockdown.”…

“We essentially, in effect, exposed people who were at high risk in nursing homes, in assisted care facilities, elderly populations,” Bhattacharya said. “We essentially, in the early days of the epidemic, did the inverse of the right policy.”

“We quarantined the healthy, and we exposed the sick,” he added.

This is the same policy England, and now other countries, hit upon again.

Idiocies

We have more entries in the most idiotic response to coronadoom. Why Speaking English May Spread More Coronavirus Than Some Other Languages. In their “study”, they even admit not getting wee p-values, but say they could have been, or whatever.

We’ve all seen this headline by now: Emails Reveal Nashville Mayor’s Office Colluded with Metro Health to Hide Actual COVID Numbers from Citizens-Business Owners because They Were So Low!

Remember back when it was a “conspiracy theory” to suggest prog rulers were making it painful on purpose for political reasons? Good days, good days.

Argentinians have been under house arrest for five and a half months (thanks to BAP for reminding us): Coronavirus: Argentina’s never-ending quarantine. “People across Argentina have begun speaking of “quaranternity” while enduring the world’s longest lockdown.”

Has it helped? Nope. Deaths (shape) there look like any Southern Hemisphere country. But it doesn’t matter. Its government—many governments—have discovered newfound powers, which populations begged them to have.

Don’t think so? Here are Michigan “experts” last week arguing that everybody should remain in their homes. Because coronadoom? No, because of Eastern equine encephalitis, which was found in some horses.

“MDHHS continues to encourage local officials in the affected counties to consider postponing, rescheduling or canceling outdoor activities occurring at or after dusk, particularly those involving children, to reduce the potential for people to be bitten by mosquitoes,” said Joneigh Khaldun, chief medical executive and chief deputy for health at the MDHHS, in a statement, according to USA Today.

We haven’t reached the level of hersteria in Michigan where enough are panicked about this. But it only takes a signature from the Governor to create an uncontestable “state of emergency”. It’s for your own good.

USA! USA! USA!

The CDC, as of Sunday night, had just over 184 thousand attributed official coronadoom deaths. The media (Google etc.) had over 202 thousand. As I have told you from the beginning, medical data is always a mess, but the media was always higher than CDC. Golly.

Sources: daily tests, CDC official toll number one, number two (CDC has two official sources that have differences). The media reports are always greater than CDC numbers. Yes, these are the sources, which is why I call them “sources”, for the data. The other is the Goolge: type [LOCATION] coronavirus deaths. So when you email or comment asking for the sources, here they are.

Here’s the worst news of the week. Daily coronadoom tests:

There were over ONE MILLION TESTS last Friday. Tests, and I’m sick of saying this, reveal old and new infections, even no infections, even other coronavirus infections, and are not necessarily indicative of any open disease. Positive tests are not cases. Cases are active infections in people needing treatment. Positive tests aren’t even all infections.

That nobody gets this right, even the people in charge of getting it right, the same people who know the right answer, is telling.

Here are the official attributed deaths from the CDC, which of course include all deaths with, and not necessarily from, coronadoom. Or, that is to say, with positive tests.

This is hopeful, because even with the massive increase in testing, death attributions are still on the way down. Way down. But if you look close, you can see the inflection where the testing re-increased and the slope of the death attributions nudged up.

Here are the official CDC all-cause deaths. As always, last three weeks are dots, it takes up to eight weeks to get all counts, but most are in by three.

Dashed line is all cause minus attributed coronadoom.

Nothing to change the interpretation from last week. We’re at the year’s low. We still need wait another 7-8 weeks to get a full picture.

This year will likely be a low flu-death year, because many most susceptible have already succumbed. But I repeat my fear that they might class flu and other respiratory deaths this fall and winter as coronadoom to keep the “crisis” going.

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