Coronavirus in Poland

Some interesting points but no real policy help... and some inaccuracies the idea that it was only at the end of January that it was known that human to human transmission was possible is a Chinese communist party talking point....

It would be interesting to hear the interview rather than get the grand'uians summary of what she said.... I suspect it was edited to sound as alarmist as possible.

@mafketis

Guardian not exactly the safe haven of unbiased facts. Coronavirus may be here to stay but it simply isn't the global killer it was made out to be. Then again, Wasn't ebola supposed to be a global killer too? That has simply faded into memory. SARS, Bird Flu and so many others. This looks more like a control exercise every day.

So should we let the Communist Chinese government get away with it again? How many more ppl will have to die before these liars are confronted?

Im not pointing you out, just saying.

Commies cant be trusted and the Europeans should know this from past experience.

They have to make it newsworthy. On the whole, they're one of the more reliable newspapers though.

It may well be that those countries that have been less affected so far are just delaying the inevitable.

@Joker
No problem, we all have a voice here. Different opinions are what create educated conclusions.

@jon357
I simply don't believe its a delayed inevitability. The numbers around the world just don't support it. Its a bad virus, and a killer for people who have other underlying conditions. It can also kill the outlier person with no underlying conditions. It's not an end of the human race killer, or one that wipes countries from the map that people would like to make it out to be.

It's usually best to listen to the experts.

The people in Northern Michigan have been virus free for three weeks now while Southern Michigan has been the hotspot in the whole U.S.

So the Governor opens the bars and restaurant in N. Michigan and guess where all the people who have been quarantined in Detroit for three months are heading for the long Memorial Day week end ?

Any bets the local people of N. Michigan will start testing positive again in the next week or two.
Then we start all over again with another three months of sheltering in.

@jon357

Experts are saying it will never go away. Therefor we have a choice. Stay locked up forever or face it. The panic is really getting over done. People at risk should stay inside, those that are not and want to take their chances...have at it.

I quite often read the Guardian among other papers but it's coverage of the virus has been very poor - as alarmist as possible and full of lockdown sanctimony as well as weak associations with air pollution, climate change etc.

for a paper that always bangs on about mental health they have gone out of their way to freak people out - a headline last week "headaches, rashes and tingling - the 3 unusual Covid symptoms" was squarely aimed as clickbait to hypochondriacs and anxious mums

This lady might know what she is talking about but it's now clear that we must address overall welfare at the same time. Even if a second wave comes we cannot just shut down again. This has cost tens of millions of jobs, many collateral deaths, ruined whole industries.

Unfortunately, those then infect others.


She certainly does, given her role.

but what did she say that could actually be acted on? how? why listen to experts when they have nothing useful to say?

They seemly tend to contradict one another in the US along political lines, so you dont know whom to believe. Its a shame that we couldn't come together as a country and not argue for once. Of Course, the Dems use any crisis to try and push their leftist agenda they cant achieve thru regular voting.

Its seem like Poland has their act together compare to the BS over here.


I still agree with Trump and blame the whole thing on the commies. Im sure all the other countries will succumb to China "as always" and not do anything at all.


I dont think they should call themselves "experts" its more like "guessers".

My guess is: some fresh air and sunshine would do plenty of good:)

It wasn't that sort of interview as far as I noticed.


...

So what was the point beyond a bunch of vaguely alarmist statements with no clue about what to do about them?

What purpose did it serve?

Why repeat a patently false claim by the CCP? (though gruanidas; reporter might have added that bit)

Intentionally of course.
Just look at the testing as an example.
First there were not enough test kits.
Then the people still weren't being tested in any great numbers that would matter.
Then when they claimed the test kits weren't accurate.
Now they still are not testing in any great numbers that would matter.
Could it be because they know that maybe 80% of the people in the world have been exposed to this virus and it would freak the world out if they knew the truth.

I think it is connected to global warming and de population as the carbon emissions have been cut in less then half with all the airplanes out of the sky, all the cars and busses off the roads, polluting industries shut down...................

They have selectively got rid of a lot of the old and unhealthy people along with minorities that are a drain to society.
Legalized abortion at one end and the China virus at the other end of life.

Information, interest, insight...

I can't help feeling like the whole world has over reacted, big time.
South East England. Including London, in the last 24 hours, zero infections.... down from 20,000 a day.
Either we are being lied to or we have massively over reacted.

Obviously both

A rare time that we agree Jim.....

Not really very much of that in the article...


Most people settled into a view very early on and try no to change that... I think the lockdown (for a month or so) was a good idea but it obviously can't be continued indefinitely since coronavirus is just not that dangeroous for most people.

She said some interesting things, for example about the peak...


One problem with continuing the lockdown is that it could be delaying the worst effects without really mitigating them; storing bigger problems for the future.

I started out being pretty concerned as I watched the infection numbers grow. But in Poland as they really plateaued a month ago at about 500 a day and stopped, I started questioning things. It never got to 1000 a day because of a lack of testing and I also suspect a lower level of infections because of the border closure. I also think that calling people home in March increased the rate of infection in late March and early April because many travelled through and from infected areas.

I agree that this has been politicized around the world. I am neither a Dem or Rep, I am a free thinker. But it does look like the Dem's have used this similarly to how PiS tried to use this to their advantage. Only in USA the infection rates are higher and it spread quicker. More deaths equal more panic.

The experts? I simply dont trust them. They are continually wrong and force over reaction in many cases. Ventilators? They have been replaced with having people being placed on their stomachs and allowing gravity to ease the bodys breathing work and recovery. Yet someone made a freakin fortune off ventilators.

As things in Poland return to normal, things in the USA will continue to go back and forth until November is my guess. I wonder what the experts will say when this doesnt go away and keeps returning year after year in smaller waves and they are less detectable. Southern hemisphere is getting crushed by this now, but again, its disproportionate in its death distribution. The old are dying, more in non white cultures. Darwin would be laughing.

I was extremely concerned back in early March but all the data (as opposed to hysteria from the media and politicians) have pointed the other way.


Wasn't there a financial incentive to use ventilators in the US?


Well one thing is that better organized countries do... better and historically poorly run countries... do worse because they have no history of handling problems in a timely and efficient manner...

Yes.
It seems they have done more harm than good, but as you say, some people made a fortune out of others misfortune.

Today's numbers... down

Another day, another round of numbers....

Hospitalization (running total): 2330 people are now hospitalized, down 84 from yesterday's 2414 (and the first below 2400 since April 4)

Fatalities (day totals): 10 people have died, down from yesterday's 14.... (total 972)

The plateau of around 2400-2500 in the hospital and between 10 and 15 fatalities each day is continuing and maybe slowly falling...

Obviously countries with underfunded health care systems are at an disadvantage, but 3 of the 5 worst hit countries are the USA, UK and Italy.

@Tacitus

Lets look at per capita then. USA is much larger and more populated than UK and Italy. Per capita numbers are much more telling.

Well, the USA has 5x the population of the UK and 6x the number of infections.

Same with Italy, 5x the population and 7x the infections.

@Tacitus

How ever you look at the numbers, unless you are in a third world level country this is not a massive killer per capita. Six times larger or five times larger, do the math. It is about the same death rate for developed countries. It is the same demographic that it kills or that has people in serious condition. The whole thing is becoming tedious to even talk about, and thats the sentiment most educated people have.

Those numbers are extremely unreliable, since many dead people might not have been tested. The only proper way to get a clear picture later will be to compare the death toll during the pandemic with the number of deaths the year preceeding it. That has e.g. revealed in the UK that approx. 20k died in carehouses more on average than the 5 years before, which means the xurrent number of deaths is probably way to low. In any case, most of the worst hit countries are (for now) not in the Southern hemisphere.