Are the powers that be hiding something from the public

[Meat Pie 47]

2 minutes ago, rabas said:

Can you show me that data, monthly?

I can't copy a report on TV but you can see here

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=covid+cases+india+today

[rabas]

4 minutes ago, Meat Pie 47 said:

I can't copy a report on TV but you can see here

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=covid+cases+india+today

I think you quoted the wrong post.

Your data is unrelated to Thailand excess death in  April 2020.

You quoted current cases India.

                  

[Brierley]

2 hours ago, Meat Pie 47 said:

Rubbish, nobody in India shakes hands they had 300.000 cases in 1 day

Perhaps if you were to read the rest of the post it may help you better understand, shaking hands was only one element of the argument. Over 34% of India's population live in cities in close quarters and that is where the infection rates are the highest.

[DavisH]

8 hours ago, ronaldo0 said:

Possibly as they don’t really check . Wife’s father died and they put it down to cancer he had before . Several others in area up north died in same area and none were checked why they died . They mostly had health issues before so that was assumed as cause and off to temple they went . 

If they had problems breathing they would have ended up on a  ventilator in hospital. Noone gets that sick and just stays home and dies.

[chessman]

If you look at previous pandemics (2009 swine flu is a good example but not the only one), the number of dead reported day-to-day is fairly low compared to what researchers find when they analyse all-cause mortality data a few years later. So with the swine flu, the day-to-day number was just over 18,000 dead worldwide but researcher believe the real number was 10-30 times higher than that. A similar pattern can be seen with the ‘Honk Kong’ flu and the ‘Spanish’ flu.

 

With Covid, it is clear that some countries have been tracking and testing for it much more closely and thus the day-to-day mortality data is fairly accurate (deaths in the UK are definitely not 10 times the reported 125,000). But in countries like Thailand, that are not testing that much, it’s possible that the day-to-day figures follow this pattern and severely underestimate the number of dead. Of course, even if the true figures were a few thousand dead in Thailand, this would still be a relatively low number. 
 

so the numbers could be wrong in Thailand without it being a deliberate cover up.
 

 

 

 

Edited April 20, 2021 by chessman

[ronaldo0]

1 hour ago, DavisH said:

If they had problems breathing they would have ended up on a  ventilator in hospital. Noone gets that sick and just stays home and dies.

2 of 4 I know off were perfectly healthy going about daily life and few days later just died . One 50 yr old woman who just felt sick and was dead two days later and a 60 year old who said he had headache and also died about two days later . I have been in the area almost three months and for a rural place with hardly any people they are dropping like flies .

[ericthai]

On 4/18/2021 at 6:20 PM, Brierley said:

I read an article that asked the same question, why has Asia experienced so few deaths by comparison to say Brazil. One conclusion was that Asians are exposed to more viruses in their lives because they are predominantly a rural population, Brazilians are most urban city dwellers and haven't built up similar levels of immunity over time.

 

A second aspect is that people in SE Asia don't shake hands so the extent of person to person transmission is reduced. Asians are also accustomed to wearing masks because of poor air quality and this helps extend protection further.  A further point is that Thai's seem more willing to self isolate without question or fuss than many of their Western counterparts. The climate in countries such as Thailand  also means that families don't huddle in sealed rooms with the heating turned on and very little air flow, a factor that also helps reduce transmission rates - obesity is also less of an issue in Asia than it is in the West. Perhaps all these factors combined result in people contracting lower viral loads than in the West plus their immune systems are better equipped to manage the resulting illness.

 

 

I think you missed a big part, which is SE Asia has been through this before with SARS back in 2003 so they had some experience aready on what to do. However with SARS thankfully there were no shut downs!! 

As for the numbers look around, Vietnam, Cambodia, S Korea etc all have low numbers. 

Do I believe the govt numbers are real or correct? no way! 

[rabas]

1 hour ago, chessman said:

 So with the swine flu, the day-to-day number was just over 18,000 dead worldwide but researcher believe the real number was 10-30 times higher than that. A similar pattern can be seen with the ‘Honk Kong’ flu and the ‘Spanish’ flu.

This is not correct, numbers for the 2009 swine flu are way off.  (did you slip a decimal?)

 

H1N1-2009  had a unusually low case fatality rate of 0.01%,  even lower than seasonal flu.

 

Total deaths were also lower than seasonal flu in spite of more cases. It's known as the non-lethal pandemic. And researchers don't think 10 to 30 times more died. The numbers quoted here are current researcher best estimates.  See here WIKI-2009-H1N1

 

 

OTH, I agree that all pandemic numbers are well over what they can record.

[chessman]

25 minutes ago, rabas said:

This is not correct, numbers for the 2009 swine flu are way off.  (did you slip a decimal?)

From the website you linked to... ‘lab confirmed deaths as reported to the WHO was 18,449. But estimates of deaths ranged from 150,000 to 575,000... so roughly 10-30 times higher. 
 

the point is that under-reporting deaths during pandemics is the norm... seems very likely that in countries without that much testing this will happen with Covid too.

[rabas]

6 minutes ago, chessman said:

From the website you linked to... ‘lab confirmed deaths as reported to the WHO was 18,449. But estimates of deaths ranged from 150,000 to 575,000... so roughly 10-30 times higher. 
 

the point is that under-reporting deaths during pandemics is the norm... seems very likely that in countries without that much testing this will happen with Covid too.

Those numbers are total deaths for the entire pandemic, not per day as stated in your first post.

 

Further, 18,449 is confirmed deaths for the whole pandemic sent to WHO, This does not represent national death totals because many countries do not send information the to WHO.   You are mixing apples per year with oranges per day.

[daveAustin]

17 hours ago, 1FinickyOne said:

They locked down early and strong... and thus whatever virus was here did not spread... was it 2 months of only supermarkets and essential places being open? While other countries were having fist fights over the idea of wearing a simple mask so that it does not spread... 

No they did not. Thousands of Chinese were piling in, including from Wuhan, way before they closed shop. 

 

Brierley made good points. It's a combination of all those + (A BIG +) reluctance to report more on the strange viral pneumonia that swept the place late 2019, together with woeful testing and potential for loss of face/always look good. Only those fresh off the boat would overlook last point.

 

Regards deaths, best to ask those living near crematoria.

[chessman]

10 hours ago, rabas said:

Those numbers are total deaths for the entire pandemic, not per day as stated in your first post.

You misunderstand me, I used the term ‘day-to-day’, which is not synonymous with ‘per day. Maybe a more exact phrase would be ‘reported at the time’. I wanted to show the contrast between the two sets of mortality figures and how analysis on all-cause mortality done after pandemics always increases the death toll.
 

 

[rabas]

24 minutes ago, chessman said:

You misunderstand me, I used the term ‘day-to-day’, which is not synonymous with ‘per day. Maybe a more exact phrase would be ‘reported at the time’. I wanted to show the contrast between the two sets of mortality figures and how analysis on all-cause mortality done after pandemics always increases the death toll.

Ok, I understood 'to' like midnight to midnight.  And I fully agree, a lot always goes undetected.

 

I still think official WHO flu database numbers are not the same as local day-to-day counting.  AFAIK, the WHO database is only for genome sequenced or 'lab' tested cases that determine the flu strain (H1N1, A, B) for tracking purposes. Many countries do little such testing. So WHO database to actual number, is not the same as day-to-day to actual number. The later I think is about 3-4X. But like you point out, it is unknown.

[cmarshall]

On 4/19/2021 at 8:23 AM, rabas said:

Possibly the biggest factor, and certainly the easiest to prove, is that the initial spread in Asia was a much weaker variant called D614. What hit and then dominated the West was the much more infectious G614 strain.  Now Thailand has the UK B117 variant. Three bugs.

 

If you look at Thai cases, you can see 3 waves each with increasing R0. Thailand's screening and tracking was the same if not better prepared each time. (red notation mine)

 

https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus/country/thailand

 

 

A natural experiment is currently under way that will answer the question of whether the containment of Covid in Asia last year was due merely to the luck of a less transmissible variant or effective public health measures vigorously applied.  If the UK B117 variant is indeed much more transmissible, then it has or will soon crowd out the original wild variant throughout Asia.  If the resultant wave of infection, hospitalization, and death then approaches the levels of the US, Italy, or the other Western countries that failed then we will know that indeed the underperformance of the West was just down to the ill luck of the draw. 

 

However, what I expect to see is that the Asian countries that have been highly successful at controlling Covid will continue to keep it under control.  These countries include China, Taiwan, South Korea, Viet Nam, Hong Kong, and Singapore, but also Iceland and Greece.  The reason is that the standard public health measures that were applied conscientiously in the successful Asian countries are quite capable of containing a still more transmissible variant if discipline is maintained.

 

For those countries like Thailand and Japan, whose containment efforts to date have not been so transparent, the results may indeed be different.  

[Ryan754326]

1 hour ago, cmarshall said:

The reason is that the standard public health measures that were applied conscientiously in the successful Asian countries are quite capable of containing a still more transmissible variant if discipline is maintained.

I don’t believe that these health measures are necessarily capable of containing the spread, even when applied with discipline. 
The city I live in has had a mask mandate in all public spaces since October, along with all kinds of additional rules at most work places. I’m seeing a much higher level of compliance here than I ever did in Thailand; I don’t remember the last time I saw someone without a mask on outside of my own house. Despite all of this, cases have kept going up and up. Shouldn’t we see at least some noticeable reduction if the measures are really as effective as we’re led to believe?

 

People will keep blaming the guy who they saw walking his dog without a mask on an empty soccer field for all of the cases that keep popping up, but I’m not buying it. 
 

I think you’re probably on to something with your theory that Thailand and the rest of East Asia (also Australia/NZ) were dealing with a less contagious strain the first time around. 

 

Edited April 21, 2021 by Ryan754326

[cmarshall]

1 hour ago, Ryan754326 said:

I don’t believe that these health measures are necessarily capable of containing the spread, even when applied with discipline. 
The city I live in has had a mask mandate in all public spaces since October, along with all kinds of additional rules at most work places. I’m seeing a much higher level of compliance here than I ever did in Thailand; I don’t remember the last time I saw someone without a mask on outside of my own house. Despite all of this, cases have kept going up and up. Shouldn’t we see at least some noticeable reduction if the measures are really as effective as we’re led to believe?

 

People will keep blaming the guy who they saw walking his dog without a mask on an empty soccer field for all of the cases that keep popping up, but I’m not buying it. 
 

I think you’re probably on to something with your theory that Thailand and the rest of East Asia (also Australia/NZ) were dealing with a less contagious strain the first time around. 

 

 

I have no theory about whatever strains Thailand and other countries faced last year.  In fact, I am uninterested in strains per se, because I suspect that they are just a red herring.

 

If you want to know whether the standard public health measures are effective against the currently dominant strains just watch the results in Australia, New Zealand, China, South Korea, Taiwan, and Viet Nam, for example.  All countries are or soon will be infected with the most transmissible strains which will quickly dominate other, less transmissible strains.  If the countries that I just enumerated are able to control their outbreaks then that will settle the question as to whether testing, isolating positives, and contact tracing can control the spread, at least among countries with competent governments.  Mandating masks alone is not adequate.

 

But what do we mean by "control?"  What I mean by it is "not become Italy or the US" or "keep the Covid deaths per million number below 10."  That number is the final scorecard for how well or how poorly a government has performed.  So far, the countries cited above, large and small, have all performed superbly with Covid deaths per million in the single digits, unlike the US with 172.95 deaths per million.  

Edited April 21, 2021 by cmarshall