1 Apr: Quadrant Mag Australia: One Dozen Dissenting Second Opinions
by Geoffrey Luck
Here is a list of twelve whose opinions contradict the popular narrative:
Dr Sucharit Bhakdi, microbiologist and infectious disease epidemiologist, formerly of Mainz University Germany: “All these measures are leading to self-destruction and collective suicide based on nothing but a spook.”
Dr Joel Kettner, Professor of Community Health Sciences and Surgery, Manitoba University, Canada: “I’ve seen pandemics, one every year. It is called influenza, and other respiratory illness viruses. I’ve never seen this reaction, and I’m trying to understand why.”
Dr John Ioannidis, Professor of Medicine, Health Research and Policy and Biomedical Data Science, Stanford University USA: “If we had not known about a new virus out there, the number of ‘influenza-like illness’ would not seem unusual this year. At most, we might have casually note that flu this season seems a bit worse than average.”
Dr Yoram Lass, former Director General of the Israeli Health Ministry: “We all forget the swine flu in 2009. That was a virus that reached the world from Mexico and until today there is no vaccination against it. At the time there was no Facebook. The coronavirus, in contrast, is a virus with public relations. Whoever thinks that governments end viruses is wrong.”
Dr Pietro Vernazza, infectious diseases specialist, St Gallen Hospital, Switzerland: “In Italy, one in ten people diagnosed die, one for every 1,000 infected. Often – similar to the flu season – it affects people who are at the end of their lives … If we close the schools, we will prevent the children from quickly becoming immune … We should better integrate the scientific facts into the political decisions.”
Dr Wolfgang Wodarg, physician specialist in pulmonology, Germany: ”Politicians are being courted by scientists – scientists who want to be important to get money for their institutions. Scientists who just swim along in the mainstream and want their part of it. And what is missing now is a rational way of looking at things.”
Dr Yanis Roussel, speaking for researchers at the Mediterranean University Hospital Infection Insitute, Marseille: “Systematic studies of other coronaviruses have found that the percentage of asymptomatic carriers is equal to or even higher than the percentage of symptomatic patients. The same data for Cov-19 may soon be available, which will further reduce the relative risk associated with this specific pathology.”
Dr David Katz, founding director of the Yale University Prevention Research Centre: “I am deeply concerned that the social, economic and public health consequences of this near-total meltdown of normal life will be long-lasting and calamitous, possibly graver than the direct toll of the virus itself … The unemployment, impoverishment and despair likely to result will be public health scourges of the first order.”
Michael T Osterholm, director of the Centre for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, University of Minnesota, USA: “The best alternative (to a shutdown) will probably entail letting those at low risk for serious disease continue to work, while advising higher-risk individuals to protect themselves through physical distancing. With this battle plan we could gradually build up immunity without destroying the financial structure on which are lives are based.”
Dr Peter Goetzsche, professor of clinical research design and analysis, University of Copenhagen, Denmark: “Our main problem is that no one will ever get in trouble for measures that are too draconian. They will only get in trouble if they do too little. Remember the joke about tigers: ‘Why did you blow the horn?’ ‘To keep tigers away’. ‘But there are no tigers here.’ ‘There, you see!’”
Frank Ulrich Montgomery, radiologisst, former president of the German Medical Association: “I am not a fan of lockdown. Anyone who imposes something like this must also say when and how to pick it up again. You can’t keep schools and daycare centres closed until the end of the year. Because it will take at least that long until we have a vaccine.”
Professor Hendrik Streeck, epidemiologist and clinical trialist, director of the Institute of Virology, Bonn University, Germany: “The new pathogen is not that dangerous. Covid-19 replicates in the upper throat area and is therefore much more infectious because the virus jumps from throat to throat, so to speak. SARS-1 is not so infectious but it replicates in the deep lungs, which makes it more dangerous.”
https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2020/04/one-dozen-dissenting-second-opinions/
Bring Out Your Dead
Post to me or FReep mail to be on/off the Bring Out Your Dead ping list.
The purpose of the “Bring Out Your Dead” ping list (formerly the “Ebola” ping list) is very early warning of emerging pandemics, as such it has a high false positive rate.
The false positive rate was 100%.
At some point we may well have a high mortality pandemic, and likely as not the “Bring Out Your Dead” threads will miss the beginning entirely.
*sigh* Such is life, and death...
If a quarantine saves just one child's or one old fart’s life, it's worth it.
In France
http://www.rfi.fr/en/france/20200402-france-health-coronavirus-covid19-demographics-mortality
Impact on elderly
In addition to the sex ratio, expanded demographic research confirms Covid-19 is far more deadly for the elderly.
For example, of the 3,523 deaths due to Covid-19 recorded in France on Tuesday evening, “84 percent of deaths are people over 70,” Robine says, adding 19 percent are over 90.
Although younger people come down with serious enough cases to be admitted to ICUs, data show they are far likelier to make a recovery. Less than 2 percent of deaths in France have been patients under age 50.
“This information helps to tone down the worries about the scale of consequences young people, and provides a more informative and alarming picture of consequences for older people,” Robine says.