Coronavirus: Discussion and Information

[Haibane]

France (no comparison): according to health ministry, 25% astra zeneca doses are "lost" (people not coming?). In the meantime it's only for those 55 and more and in many place 60 unofficially.

France is a big concern. I reported a couple of weeks back that the anti-vax community in France is especially powerful and virulent. I think vaccine take-up there has been as low as 40% or some such insane percentage. I just don't get it as I rate France as a "very sensible" country in the world's rankings of "culturally reasonable". Yet on the anti-vax front they are up there well ahead of the right-wing segments of most other countries and that's an accolade nobody wants.

France is struggling to deal with an influential anti-vax lobby with some figures estimating as low as 40% of the population being prepared to be vaccinated.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-56638088

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-56526265

[RedRose]

France has changed. Even "once upon a time" (15 years ago?) it was "the doctor is always right"
Then internet happened
We have vax who end off in the trash, and in the meantime we have many under 55 who would like to be LEGALLY ALLOWED to vax, and we have over 55 who can't find an appointment. Health ministry said "25%" of doses (Astra zeneca) are lost due to (???)
There is no non Astra place in my mother's town, and she doesn't drive. She also cannot get an appointment anywhere but those Astra places. Some countries are rumored to let only Pfizer in and she doesn't want to take the risk, but she is thinking maybe too bad, Astra. And yes in the mean time even some pfizer (under 10%) gets wasted.

But of course no comparison to India.

[Azuresun]

France has changed. Even "once upon a time" (15 years ago?) it was "the doctor is always right"
Then internet happened

I doubt it's that simple, or the take-up wouldn't be so high in the UK. Conspiracy theories don't flourish if there aren't already existing stresses, divisions, resentments and uncertainties of some sort, that are scaring people.

[RedRose]

Oh, there are. But I saw a big difference when "the French" started to translate English language articles. Some good (finally breastfeeding wasn't so foreign), some, you imagine. Of course on the other hand we still have docs disregarding "research in English."

[Haibane]

The racism exacerbated by Trumps "China virus". I feel sure that if the US president had not made this a racial issue we would not be seeing racist attacks of this nature across the world. This is in the UK, so his influence has spread everywhere.

I feel that Trump should be tied to a chair and made to watch these videos but I suspect it would have no effect on such a mentally broken man.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-56937299

Trump's legacy spreads everywhere, even into lives you would not at first consider vulnerable to his words and acts.

[Lilias]

I feel that Trump should be tied to a chair and made to watch these videos but I suspect it would have no effect on such a mentally broken man.

Why would you expect him to have a problem with the actions of these very fine people?

[gaggedLouise]

The pandemic has now literally spread to Mount Everest, as there's an outbreak going on among climbers (and sherpas, too?) on the iconic mountain.  ::)

[Haibane]

A new video by investigative journalist Peter Hatfield (aka Potholer54) exposing Covid-19 deniers' tactics, stupidity, malice and narcissism.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5inXVPS1Is

[RedRose]

The pandemic has now literally spread to Mount Everest, as there's an outbreak going on among climbers (and sherpas, too?) on the iconic mountain.  ::)

OUCH.

[Haibane]

For me this says that the Indian government has just not done nearly enough to educate its population about the virus, nor put in place reasonable enforcement. Such a tragedy.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-57005563

[Haibane]

Independent newspaper investigations suggest that India's actual C-19 death numbers are far, far higher than official figures, possibly double or even three times. There are no effective government level measures at all in India, it seems, and no recording of accurate numbers. The administration is deceiving its people who consequently are not taking the pandemic as seriously as they should.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-56969086

[Haibane]

India. I have no words for this...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-asia-india-57067462

[RedRose]

India is huge and hard to control and some people do not have the educational level to comply even here...

[Haibane]

Once again, words fail me. India is almost certainly the country with the highest C-19 deaths the vast majority of which are unrecorded and unknown.

Holy river Ganges choked with bodies.

[Haloriel]

It’s so crushing that it was and still is nearly preventable. Hindsight is very painful in this case. Thank you for sharing.

[Oniya]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/21/mucormycosis-black-fungus-disease-linked-covid-spreads-india

Summation:  'Black fungus' is an opportunistic infection, caused by inhaled spores.  The overuse of steroids to treat COVID results in more immunocompromised patients, in addition to the extra humidity caused by ventilation equipment.  Adding to this is a high incidence of diabetes in the local population, which provides the spores with extra sugar levels to grow.

[Annaamarth]

Christ.  Things were bad in the states when the crematoria in LA were overwhelmed, when there were calls for military assistance in handling bodies.

This video from about three months ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdpSgEQKVNE

India's reported deathcount seems well below the states, but that deathrate is something else - something terrifying, and that's before considering the unreported numbers.

[Haibane]

Yes, India is in a terrible, terrible place right now. My heart goes out to all those poor people, the suffering is unimaginable. Tragically there is a culture of not-the-finest-hygiene, lots of large communal gatherings, strict religious observance of various practices that assist the spread of the virus, chronic overcrowding, poor communications systems to many small settlements and a general ignorance among the people. To heap the problem higher there's a good few quack advisors and doctors prescribing useless medicines and the final straw is a government entirely unprepared and unable to cope.

Its awful.

I would hazard a guess that the official figures are as low as a tenth if not more of the actual numbers which means that worldwide we could be looking at not ~3,400,000 deaths, but ~6,500,000 with half of those in India alone.

A link I gave a few days ago that suggests the big difference between official and actual figures

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-56969086

The number of deaths will never be known as people are dying at home before receiving any aid and are cremated by their families or their bodies merely floated away down the Ganges. Deaths are not even recorded.

[Haibane]

I meant to say not if not more, but if not less, there. Apologies.

[Kathadon]

People that suffered through covid or lost loved ones now stuck with millions in healthcare bills. And our government here in the U.S. is silent.


https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/21/upshot/covid-bills-financial-long-haulers.html

The worst is a man that lost his elderly father to the disease and now has an excel spread sheet with over 450 lines of just outstanding bills, totaling over a million dollars of debt.

[Haibane]

That's nonsense. The government should wipe all those bills out. End of discussion.

[TheGlyphstone]

But thats SOCIALISM.

[TheGlyphstone]

(Sarcasm to the Nth degree, by the way)

[elone]

Tell that to Bernie Sanders. The US healthcare system sucks!  Bring on socialism. After all, schools, gov't., roads, and everything the government does is socialism, most of it giveaways to corporations. But I digress.

I am interested to see what will happen after this holiday weekend. Most masking and even social distancing requirements are gone. Will we get another surge and destroy all the good work that has been done. Less than half the country has been vaccinated, and no children at all. I went to the food store here in Virginia the other day. Rules are that anyone who has not been vaccinated must wear a mask. Try to enforce that one. My observation was that around half still wore masks. One entire family, obviously pregnant mom, dad, and three kids were all unmasked. I am sure the kids had no vaccine.

Are we headed for disaster?

[Haibane]

Peru has recalculated its COVID-19 deaths and states the number is now 180,000 instead of the previous figure of ~63,000.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-57307861

I suspect world-wide we are probably looking at around 3x the number of deaths than have been reported, some of this is from countries such as India that are simply overwhelmed and people are being cremated almost casually, and some will be from secretive regimes who want to just plain lie about the deaths in their country.