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Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19): Conspiracy Theories & Claims

AlienView said:
And as for the origin of conspiracies - who knows, I suppose if I searched hard
enough I could find conspiracies on why Cain slew Able.








“They talk about me not being legitimate. Nobody’s on the legit, you know that and so do they. Nobody’s really-on the legit when it comes down to cases.”
Al Capone

“Capitalism is the legitimate racket of the ruling class.” – Al Capone

“Bolshevism is knocking at our gates, we can’t afford to let it in. We must keep America whole and safe and unspoiled.” – Al Capone

“…Don’t ever talk to me about the honor of police captains or judges. If they couldn’t be bought they wouldn’t have the job.” – Al Capone
So Capone had poor moral judgment? We already knew that.
 
I'm still concerned that they report deaths in their press conferences as if they all happened in the last 24 hours. The politicos must know that isn't true. It hardly helps their credibility.
 
I take your point completely, but Ferguson was the driver. A complicit media battened onto his tales of Götterdämmerung, ignoring his lengthy track record of exaggeration and his impenetrable GIGO computer program; and the rest - and the UK's economy - is history.

maximus otter

Well it was the media that somehow got hold of his numbers and shouted them to the rooftops. The 500,000 (actually 510,000) was if we did nothing at all, and that was never going to be the case. The report above was from the whole of SAGE, not just one individual.

You would hope the words 'following the science' won't be heard again for a long time.

It was the cabinet who gave the figures to the media.

Whilst @Cochise you have correctly pointed out the flawed and dated code, something I am convinced the mainstream media picked up on after (and probably because) you posted about it on here, there has to be an allowance made for the government's decision on lockdown and opening temporary hospitals.

Simply, that they did not have much data to go on in early March, in that the Chinese obscured the true extent of the outbreak, and the Italians were doing the best they could to provide data on a new virus, with a strange mixture of symptoms that did not fit previous respiratory diseases, and hence a practice of putting people on ventilators that was not as effective as expected. It now seems Covid 19 is not a respiratory disease, but a virus affecting the whole body.

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/how-coronavirus-kills

To some extent the outbreak reminds me of the Grenfell disaster, a terrible storm of Sod's Law, where negligence and cost cutting, combined with emergency services facing an unprecedented situation - doing the best they could using the data and methods available to them at the time, putting their lives at risk with in some cases not the right equipment or correct procedures - hindsight's a wonderful thing.
 
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Victory - that is fair comment. But I still think the Government panicked - combination of the media and Ferguson's model - and if Boris ever thought he lived in Churchill's shoes he blew it then. One thing Churchill could do (and he was far from perfect) was give the country bad news while still keeping them on side.

We are going to come out of this as one of the worst in the world both through casualty rates and economic damage - at the end of the day that is the Government's responsibility.
 
Uh-oh. Does that mean even more people will be going about, saying 'we don't need experts'?

I'm concerned about this too. That said, if there's a second wave, let alone a third or fourth, they may change their tune. Or they may double down on the dumbing down.
 
Uh-oh. Does that mean even more people will be going about, saying 'we don't need experts'?
No. But scientists are perfectly capable of being as blinkered as the rest of us. Especially when they have convinced themselves that their bit of crappy code is better than anyone else's.
 
Roads today were very busy.
loads of people out walking and obviously not giving a shit about social distancing.
Dont know what to expect from Boris on Sunday but it appears that a lot of people think lockdown is over.
Not here NY, if so they can be report for the danger they present. Going stir crazy but as a > 60's YO with a few health concerns I've been on total lockdown for > 6 weeks with the rest of family as are >>95 % of the people (wearing masks -social distancing, etc). Perhaps as your area approaches 200K deaths in last last 6 weeks as we have they'll buck up and take covid-19 serous.
 
God forbid, what with the possibility of 'waves' that at some point some clever chappie on the tele says 'we're surfing on the waves of new cases'.

Well I'm still working on temporary morgues, quoted on another new one last week, and the stuff I have installed already will be staying out on rental till "at least the end of the year", rather than the initial 3 months. Someone somewhere is obviously quietly confident that there will be plenty more deaths to come, in a big rush, but they aren't making a song and dance about it.
 
I'm not qualified to comment on Neil Ferguson's code & it's crappiness, but what about all the other countries who've indulged in lock-down measures? ie much of the world. They presumably haven't been using his coding predictions but have used their own methods. Have they all used bad coding leading to similar conclusions?
 
- Personally I'm skeptical, see what you think.

STORY AT-A-GLANCE
  • Cellular and molecular biologist Judy Mikovits, Ph.D. believes COVID-19 — the disease — is not caused by SARS-CoV-2 alone, but rather that it’s the result of a combination of SARS-CoV-2 and XMRVs (human gammaretroviruses)
  • SARS-CoV-2 also appears to have been manipulated to include components of HIV that destroys immune function along with XMRVs
  • Those already infected with XMRVs may end up getting serious COVID-19 infection and/or die from the disease. Mikovits’s research suggests more than 30 million Americans carry XMRVs and other gammaretroviruses in their bodies from contaminated vaccines and blood supply
  • Mikovits believes 40 years of data suggest Type 1 interferon at very low dose would be an ideal treatment for COVID-19
  • RT-PCR (reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction) testing, currently used to diagnose active infection by detecting the presence of SARS-CoV-2 genetic material, overestimates infection rates. For an accurate account of COVID-19 prevalence, we need to test for antibodies.

Mikovits is desperately wrong about pretty much everything. How she can reach these conclusions is beyond me, asn there is nothing to support her findings at all. There are plenty of people who would like to point the finger at China and say "this is a manufactured virus", but it isn't one. There is clear evidence for genetic evolution from earlier strains.

I can only surmise a couple of answers for why she is spreading disinformation this way (1) As her specialty is in retroviruses, "when your only tool is a hammer, everything begins to look like a nail" kind of thinking. (2) She is hoping that her scaremongering will get an investor to provide her with money.

I take particular issue with the notion that SARS-CoV-2 has been manipulated to include elements of HIV. That is patently and provably wrong.
Link

It is also worth noting that Mikovits is an anti-vaxxer. How you work in virology and can't see the value in vaccines is quite beyond me, given that they are our best defence against so many illnesses that killed millions of people, is beyond me.
Link

Mikovits did some good early work on HIV, but I am actually a bit worried about her mental health based on her reported behavior. I don't think her career is beyond salvage, but also I don't think she is the persecuted individual she claims to be.
 
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Well I'm still working on temporary morgues, quoted on another new one last week, and the stuff I have installed already will be staying out on rental till "at least the end of the year", rather than the initial 3 months. Someone somewhere is obviously quietly confident that there will be plenty more deaths to come, in a big rush, but they aren't making a song and dance about it.

Sorry, you're working on building them?
 

The White House has apparently confirmed it (they may, of course, be verbal testiculars). But I'd worry about the prescribing physician, who just gave one of the most powerful people in the world a dangerous drug that wasn't needed and may well kill him.
If El Presidente dies from the drug, that doctor's going to have a whole bunch of armed-up, redhatted crazies after him/her.

And the conspiracy theorists would go wild.
 
Sorry, you're working on building them?

Sort of, I'm involved in fitting some of them out.
They are rigid-walled marquees with a number of refrigerated shipping containers (approx capacity 250 each) to one side. Ambulances/hearses drive in one end, drop off the goods and boogie out the other end. Bodies are kept until they can be dealt with (by, presumably, funeral directors, who will be running round like blue arsed flies, making money like it is going out of style. Which it is, apparently, but that's another story...).

I am waaaaaay down the food-chain, on the electrical side, but there's a nice cheque in it for me. Some of the specialists on-site, like the guys putting in all the refrigeration pipework, turning plain old shipping containers into cold rooms, have been working flat-out, up and down the country since lockdown started, and have plenty of future sites lined up - they've done 100+ already.
As I said above, there are more new jobs coming in, and the large company at the top is being asked if they can provide yet more.

They've been going up in the grounds of Distribution Centres by motorways. Perhaps the operators will leave "Sorry We Missed You" cards if they come to pick up your dead parents and you don't answer the door?

The initial swathe of installations would have been requested, contracts signed, before infections peaked and I can appreciate that the company at the top is going to fulfill their part, even if they aren't needed, so they get paid. It's a lot of money, I'm sure, but hey, the Govt didn't know if they'd be dealing with bodies choking up hospitals. Better to be safe than sorry.

What concerns me is that no-one has slammed the brakes on all this now we're apparently over the peak, things are under control, right? So why are more jobs being drawn up? Regardless of how many fuckwits work for the Govt, and how much money has been sprayed around, good or bad, I can't believe the bean counters haven't put even a temporary halt to this outlay to see how things pan out.
 
Sort of, I'm involved in fitting some of them out.
They are rigid-walled marquees with a number of refrigerated shipping containers (approx capacity 250 each) to one side. Ambulances/hearses drive in one end, drop off the goods and boogie out the other end. Bodies are kept until they can be dealt with (by, presumably, funeral directors, who will be running round like blue arsed flies, making money like it is going out of style. Which it is, apparently, but that's another story...).

I am waaaaaay down the food-chain, on the electrical side, but there's a nice cheque in it for me. Some of the specialists on-site, like the guys putting in all the refrigeration pipework, turning plain old shipping containers into cold rooms, have been working flat-out, up and down the country since lockdown started, and have plenty of future sites lined up - they've done 100+ already.
As I said above, there are more new jobs coming in, and the large company at the top is being asked if they can provide yet more.

They've been going up in the grounds of Distribution Centres by motorways. Perhaps the operators will leave "Sorry We Missed You" cards if they come to pick up your dead parents and you don't answer the door?

The initial swathe of installations would have been requested, contracts signed, before infections peaked and I can appreciate that the company at the top is going to fulfill their part, even if they aren't needed, so they get paid. It's a lot of money, I'm sure, but hey, the Govt didn't know if they'd be dealing with bodies choking up hospitals. Better to be safe than sorry.

What concerns me is that no-one has slammed the brakes on all this now we're apparently over the peak, things are under control, right? So why are more jobs being drawn up? Regardless of how many fuckwits work for the Govt, and how much money has been sprayed around, good or bad, I can't believe the bean counters haven't put even a temporary halt to this outlay to see how things pan out.
Where is this?
 
The White House has apparently confirmed it (they may, of course, be verbal testiculars). But I'd worry about the prescribing physician, who just gave one of the most powerful people in the world a dangerous drug that wasn't needed and may well kill him.
If El Presidente dies from the drug, that doctor's going to have a whole bunch of armed-up, redhatted crazies after him/her.

And the conspiracy theorists would go wild.

Trump said that he decided to take it of his volition, and then asked his physician if it was OK, and the physician OK'd it.
I wonder who prescribed it then?
 
Sort of, I'm involved in fitting some of them out.
They are rigid-walled marquees with a number of refrigerated shipping containers (approx capacity 250 each) to one side. Ambulances/hearses drive in one end, drop off the goods and boogie out the other end. Bodies are kept until they can be dealt with (by, presumably, funeral directors, who will be running round like blue arsed flies, making money like it is going out of style. Which it is, apparently, but that's another story...).

I am waaaaaay down the food-chain, on the electrical side, but there's a nice cheque in it for me. Some of the specialists on-site, like the guys putting in all the refrigeration pipework, turning plain old shipping containers into cold rooms, have been working flat-out, up and down the country since lockdown started, and have plenty of future sites lined up - they've done 100+ already.
As I said above, there are more new jobs coming in, and the large company at the top is being asked if they can provide yet more.

They've been going up in the grounds of Distribution Centres by motorways. Perhaps the operators will leave "Sorry We Missed You" cards if they come to pick up your dead parents and you don't answer the door?

The initial swathe of installations would have been requested, contracts signed, before infections peaked and I can appreciate that the company at the top is going to fulfill their part, even if they aren't needed, so they get paid. It's a lot of money, I'm sure, but hey, the Govt didn't know if they'd be dealing with bodies choking up hospitals. Better to be safe than sorry.

What concerns me is that no-one has slammed the brakes on all this now we're apparently over the peak, things are under control, right? So why are more jobs being drawn up? Regardless of how many fuckwits work for the Govt, and how much money has been sprayed around, good or bad, I can't believe the bean counters haven't put even a temporary halt to this outlay to see how things pan out.

So what's been created so far would deal with 250,000+ bodies and they have commissioned more? Doesn't bode well, I wonder if they are prepping more for the knock on effects of this and deeper societal issues than the virus itself. If Alex Jones knew he'd ejaculate on the spot.
 
Whoever the current Dr Feelgood is.

Still touring - but with not even one original member.
A real "Trigger's Broom" of a band.

IMG_0995.JPG
 
"Triggers broom" is such a great expression. I'm going to start using that (But the kids won't have a clue what I'm on about). Where do I send the royalties?
 
I'm not qualified to comment on Neil Ferguson's code & it's crappiness, but what about all the other countries who've indulged in lock-down measures? ie much of the world. They presumably haven't been using his coding predictions but have used their own methods. Have they all used bad coding leading to similar conclusions?
I think the world of Epidemiology crosses borders. When the outbreak happened, scientists in all countries started running models based on the sparse data and then compared it. Ferguson is a bit of a big hitter based on his previous experience so when his team produced a report (it was never published or peer reviewed) others read it and thought "This might be true" and reacted accordingly.

So I think the other lockdowns may have been as a result of Fergusons calculations as he and his team didn't do them at the request of the UK government, they did them off their own bat. Also, the first countries to adopt lockdown were already under immense pressure to do something...anything. So they went with an extreme reaction based on what "might" happen. But this also why the Swedish teams rejected the report because it was based on assumptions and not scientific data.

My main criticism of the Swedish model is that it is reactionary. They look at the data from other countries who are further along the infection time line and decide what the next steps here are, based on how Swedes live. Which is all well and good but it means that you're reacting to someone else's infection all the time. A little more proactive action would have been nice although generally speaking, had the disease not ravished cared homes, then the stats for the general population would be looking good.

90% of all deaths here are over 70's. Of the total deaths so far (3,745), 50% were in old peoples homes and 25% had daily carer visits. So according to the press release I just read, had we managed to keep old folks homes safer and had better routines around those needing care, we would have had approx 937 deaths instead of 3745. So that's 937 deaths without a lockdown.

But it's too general to believe that figure as is. Still, the lesson being, just like in Italy, it will knock off the oldest with ease.
 
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The White House has apparently confirmed it (they may, of course, be verbal testiculars). But I'd worry about the prescribing physician, who just gave one of the most powerful people in the world a dangerous drug that wasn't needed and may well kill him.

"Hydroxychloroquine, the anti-malarial drug being taken by Donald Trump as an unproven protection against coronavirus, is being bought in bulk by the UK in case it does turn out to be an effective Covid-19 treatment.

Ministers are seeking 16m tablets in packets of up to 100 as part of a £35m contract put out to tender on Friday."

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/19/uk-to-test-hydroxychloroqine-as-coronavirus-treatment

maximus otter
 
Where is this?

Up and down the country (UK).
If you live near a Hermes distribution centre, go and have a look at the temporary structure in their yard. I'm assuming they will be a nationwide player in this, because several of their sites have been used by the company that booked me.
I've also been to one on MOD property near Gatwick, where they were training up squaddies in how to move gurneys, and what to do if the alarm goes off (if someone locks themselves in the fridge or the temp drops). I believe it was an old military hospital, now a military trauma rehab unit, which was being dusted off for Covid casualties.
Everyone knows about the one at Birmingham Airport (nothing to do with this contract), but there's also at least one of these other large Distribution centre facilities been installed in the past month.
On top of those, I am waiting for the OK on another in that city - apparently in a specific retailer's warehouse - but the actual structure hasn't been erected yet, so it'll be a week or two before I visit to do my bit.

I'm concerned that they are going up already. Why not just put the site on notice? They could, if necessary, get them up and running in less than a week if they had enough people working on them - and with fuck all else to do, people like me will be on them like a shot. With what they have already, it puzzles me that they want more, which will (hopefully) lie empty. Why not give the green light when they get the first customers in the ones already built?
We'll find out soon enough, I imagine. September-ish?

I think I'm going to start stocking up on tinned food, properly this time. The little dress rehearsal we just had will be nothing like what's coming, I really won't be leaving the house for anything.

***Let's hope I'm wrong, but nothing I've seen from any "expert" makes me feel they can control or treat this virus, or even have a clue exactly what it is.
I'd be happier if they just said "We don't really know much more than you, stop expecting us to have all the answers. We are learning all the time, and even what we think we have learned might turn out to be false.
You might get it and die tomorrow, you might not. It's up to you if you go out, but if you do go and rub shoulders and get it, don't expect to be healed like Boris. There might be a long queue of people ahead of you, we have finite resources, and we don't know who is more likely to die. Your choice - where do you want to be? Roll the dice..."

All the fuckwits could go and hold hands, I'll be holed up at home and anyone who comes near and isn't in an Ocado van better be wearing Kevlar. Maybe I'll be shown to be the fuckwit and the hand-holders will live long and happy lives together. Time will tell.

When I go out to play, I wear condoms. I don't have to, it's not the law, but the consequences of not protecting myself were made absolutely clear 20+ years ago. I might get away with it, maybe cause the odd pregnancy, but I chose the safer, but arguably less pleasurable option. Better than being dead.***

Ahhh, OK, so the bits inside the asterisks was a little rant, not really relevant to Naughty_Felid's question, but I think I might send it in to Radio 4's Thought For The Day.
 
It certainly isn't a generally known thing. This is the first place I've heard this. I can see why the government would want to keep a lid on it but I'm surprised it hasn't leaked out in the mainstream..
 
Up and down the country (UK).
If you live near a Hermes distribution centre, go and have a look at the temporary structure in their yard. I'm assuming they will be a nationwide player in this, because several of their sites have been used by the company that booked me.
I've also been to one on MOD property near Gatwick, where they were training up squaddies in how to move gurneys, and what to do if the alarm goes off (if someone locks themselves in the fridge or the temp drops). I believe it was an old military hospital, now a military trauma rehab unit, which was being dusted off for Covid casualties.
Everyone knows about the one at Birmingham Airport (nothing to do with this contract), but there's also at least one of these other large Distribution centre facilities been installed in the past month.
On top of those, I am waiting for the OK on another in that city - apparently in a specific retailer's warehouse - but the actual structure hasn't been erected yet, so it'll be a week or two before I visit to do my bit.

I'm concerned that they are going up already. Why not just put the site on notice? They could, if necessary, get them up and running in less than a week if they had enough people working on them - and with fuck all else to do, people like me will be on them like a shot. With what they have already, it puzzles me that they want more, which will (hopefully) lie empty. Why not give the green light when they get the first customers in the ones already built?
We'll find out soon enough, I imagine. September-ish?

I think I'm going to start stocking up on tinned food, properly this time. The little dress rehearsal we just had will be nothing like what's coming, I really won't be leaving the house for anything.

***Let's hope I'm wrong, but nothing I've seen from any "expert" makes me feel they can control or treat this virus, or even have a clue exactly what it is.
I'd be happier if they just said "We don't really know much more than you, stop expecting us to have all the answers. We are learning all the time, and even what we think we have learned might turn out to be false.
You might get it and die tomorrow, you might not. It's up to you if you go out, but if you do go and rub shoulders and get it, don't expect to be healed like Boris. There might be a long queue of people ahead of you, we have finite resources, and we don't know who is more likely to die. Your choice - where do you want to be? Roll the dice..."

All the fuckwits could go and hold hands, I'll be holed up at home and anyone who comes near and isn't in an Ocado van better be wearing Kevlar. Maybe I'll be shown to be the fuckwit and the hand-holders will live long and happy lives together. Time will tell.

When I go out to play, I wear condoms. I don't have to, it's not the law, but the consequences of not protecting myself were made absolutely clear 20+ years ago. I might get away with it, maybe cause the odd pregnancy, but I chose the safer, but arguably less pleasurable option. Better than being dead.***

Ahhh, OK, so the bits inside the asterisks was a little rant, not really relevant to Naughty_Felid's question, but I think I might send it in to Radio 4's Thought For The Day.

I had assumed you were in the U.S., the fact that this is in the UK is more worrying. Not just because it's closer to home simply because facilities for 250,000 corpses is a bigger deal in our country with its smaller population and better healthcare.

Ultimately there is satisfactory long or even medium term solution at the moment and it may never change. If you are going to die of it, there's a fair chance that's going to happen regardless of when you catch it. Staying indoors may simply delay the inevitable.
 
The 5G conspiracy hit New Zealand ...

... And it's apparently continuing to roll along. Here's an updated overview ...
Phone Towers Are Being Vandalised in NZ, And The Reason Rhymes With 'Shmonspiracy'

Cell phone towers across New Zealand are being set on fire and authorities believe the attacks are linked to the increasing proliferation of conspiracy theories connecting 5G networks to the coronavirus pandemic.

As of May 18, 17 cell towers had been attacked in Auckland, Wellington, and Northland, causing hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage. The fires were deemed suspicious but have not been definitively tied to conspiracists.

On Monday, New Zealand Police Commissioner Andrew Coster said anyone who set fire to a cell tower because of 5G conspiracy theories would be dealt with "very firmly," according to RNZ. ...

This week, three of New Zealand's largest phone providers released a joint statement after another fire.

Vodafone NZ infrastructure director Tony Baird said the "infuriating" attacks could have "real connectivity impacts for New Zealanders," especially those in rural or remote areas.

"While we've been able to keep customers connected so far, each attack has a cumulative negative impact," Baird said.

Spark NZ's technology director Mark Beder added the attacks could threaten access to emergency services and encouraged anyone who saw suspicious activity to contact authorities.

There has been little correlation between countries who have upgraded to 5G and those worst hit by the coronavirus, Newsroom reported. ...

FULL STORY: https://www.sciencealert.com/models-suggest-us-virus-deaths-could-top-113-000-by-mid-june
 
Trump's not the only one claiming to be taking hydroxy. Seems it's the new Miracle Cure for the faithful that makes you look younger, gives you more energy, increases mental abilities and only occasional death. Can't buy it? Make your own! Want to own the libs? Claim you're taking it!

Be interesting to see how many fatalities arise from this.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump...-even-trying-to-cook-it-themselves?ref=scroll
 
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