News Coronavirus (COVID-19) Discussion Thread II

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This is what’s cooking people’s brains, they’re communicating with computers, although the researchers should probably be looking closer at home..


Nearly half of the Twitter accounts spreading messages on the social media platform about the coronavirus pandemic are likely bots, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University said Wednesday.

Researchers culled through more than 200 million tweets discussing the virus since January and found that about 45% were sent by accounts that behave more like computerized robots than humans.

It is too early to say conclusively which individuals or groups are behind the bot accounts, but researchers said the tweets appeared aimed at sowing division in America.

"We do know that it looks like it's a propaganda machine, and it definitely matches the Russian and Chinese playbooks, but it would take a tremendous amount of resources to substantiate that," said Kathleen Carley, a professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University who is conducting a study into bot-generated coronavirus activity on Twitter that has yet to be published.



At what point are random accounts going to start generating in Twitter and then proceed to do stuff randomly based on all the other stuff trending on Twitter?

I reckon it's already happened.
 
At what point are random accounts going to start generating in Twitter and then proceed to do stuff randomly based on all the other stuff trending on Twitter?

I reckon it's already happened.

Dear North Marketing Department,

Ive just thought of a great idea of how to promote the brand...
 
well yea, helps with existentinal dread. Again though, heaps of teetotalers in that.

Existence is random, chaotic, and overwhelming. Without some sort of authority to help you make sense of it all it gets a bit much. If your parents and some tribal elders (the telly, or these days some tablet) didn't tell and show you how to see stuff properly the chaos would be overwhelming. You'd be dead of starvation, or eaten before you stopped saying "whaaoooo....."

Conspiracy theorists are people who lose the sense of trust they had in whatever authority told them everything was gonna be all right. It's usually something like the government or their church. Not their parents. That bit is just growing up.

They need to create a structure that makes sense and gives the chaos meaning. Conspiracies happen all the time. Some of them are even ones conspiracy theorists go on about. But they take place against a background of chaos and if you aren't involved they're just part of the chaotic background noise of life. There is no meaning there other than people playing games with each other trying to get stuff. And laid.

All those Alex Jones true believers, John Birchers for the present day, and the rest are looking for some sort of certainty. And these are very uncertain times so s**t ramps up for them.
 
Jan 25, 2016
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Are NSW not doing as much follow up testing as other states? It seems strange that they still have 386 active cases and Victoria only has 93 active when you look at their respective new cases over the last month:

DEB9FFBB-BA2C-4B41-91BD-E6F49CBE3719.png

NSW obviously had more overall, but their peak was two months ago now so you’d think most of those would’ve well and truly recovered by now.
 
Existence is random, chaotic, and overwhelming. Without some sort of authority to help you make sense of it all it gets a bit much. If your parents and some tribal elders (the telly, or these days some tablet) didn't tell and show you how to see stuff properly the chaos would be overwhelming. You'd be dead of starvation, or eaten before you stopped saying "whaaoooo....."

Conspiracy theorists are people who lose the sense of trust they had in whatever authority told them everything was gonna be all right. It's usually something like the government or their church. Not their parents. That bit is just growing up.

They need to create a structure that makes sense and gives the chaos meaning. Conspiracies happen all the time. Some of them are even ones conspiracy theorists go on about. But they take place against a background of chaos and if you aren't involved they're just part of the chaotic background noise of life. There is no meaning there other than people playing games with each other trying to get stuff. And laid.

All those Alex Jones true believers, John Birchers for the present day, and the rest are looking for some sort of certainty. And these are very uncertain times so s**t ramps up for them.
Yes, definitely that. All of exactly that. Which is important to know, because we think of them as people off their face on something, or long stints of taking something that has bent their brain, but way more likely is exactly what you said.
 
Yes, definitely that. All of exactly that. Which is important to know, because we think of them as people off their face on something, or long stints of taking something that has bent their brain, but way more likely is exactly what you said.
Most of those people have been screwed over in some way. Maybe feeling it more than they should but still.... An American I know online only said something about the movie Plandemic. That it has caused a massive reaction not because it's true, but because people don't care anymore. They feel like mushrooms.

The same guy thinks the US is ****ed by the sound of it. He's talking about maybe expecting food riots and breakdowns of civil order. He can be a bit over the top but he's also smart enough and I think he gets paid to predict future trends to rich Americans.

Although the US is big and complex so food riots could happen in some places but most places might be okay.

In some ways it sounds far fetched but we've already been to the edge. We nearly had bog roll riots.
 
Haven't watched the vid but here's a simple question.

Do big Pharmaceutical companies make money off those three things?

Just cos it's anti vaxxer idiots banging on about big Pharma being evil doesn't mean they are wrong about it. Broken clocks and all that.

Not even evil, just powerful capitalist organisations.

They are obligated to make money for shareholders not to make the world a better place. It's not in their interests to have a healthy population.

You can get Vitamin D by sitting in the sun, the amount of time varies depending on the pigmentation in your skin and if you are obese you don't absorb Vitamin D as fast. So it costs nothing to get Vitamin D, the main vitamin that helps to boost your immune system. In America, about 40% of white people are Vitamin D deficient, 70% of Hispanics and 82% of black people and they wonder why black and hispanics are keeling over at a much faster rate, oh, it is because they are poor, obviously...

A lot of common food has Vitamin C, you just at worst make a minor adjustment to your diet, drink some OJ instead of a coke. It is hard to maintain high levels of vitamin C, orally, as your body passses it out. Oral vitamin C is helpful but they are starting to treat people with high doses of IV Vitamin C, I think it is something like 60x what your body can maintain orally, but this is for people who are very sick.

Zinc is also common in foods, average man needs 11mg and women 8mg, your body can't store zinc but there is plenty of zinc in meat or legumes (ie chickpeas, lentils, beans) for you vegetarians and vegans. It is also in dairy, eggs, whoe grains and some vegetables like potatoes. Despite that, one website claims that 85% of Aussie women and 67% of men do not get get the recommended daily intake.

When it comes to hydroxychloroquine, if anyone ever goes down that route, it is a 60 year old drug that is used to treat many things, it is no longer under any medical patent as those only go 25 years so it costs about $0.10 per tablet to make and when they give it to badly sick people the treatment is 3 to 5 tablets over a period of time, I doubt anyone is getting rich on that. I know they were hoping the $10,000 a shot HIV medicine would be a cure because that would have made them some money. Places like India and Africa who are using this medicine to prevent Malaria have remarkably low covid related deaths given how poor and overpopulated many parts of the country is.

What's better for a person? Cognitive therapy and ongoing benefits from life changes or Zoloft?

Yeah, I am not sure to be honest what motivations people have, my dad is on 13 different medicines and supplements and my mum is on 11 different medicines and supplements, they don't walk into the doctor without getting put on some other s**t but they haven't been told to take any Vitamin C, D or Zinc, they are old as dirt and their health is obviously ****ed up, if they get it and it runs amok in their system then they are going to die so they are playing Russian Roulette whenever they go outside.

I was laughing my arse of watching the Joe Rogan podcast last week i think, he is moving his podcast from YouTube to Spotify for a $100m deal and he has these doctors come on and talk about the benefits of these things and he is saying yeah, my personal doctor has me on all this s**t and they are talking about dosages, etc and this lady doctor said her mother was coming down with something and they hit her with some big hits of IV vitamin C and she came up fine after a few days. it just gives me a bit of a feeling that whenever some rich or powerful w***er's health is in doubt, all the stops come out to get them back up and running while for everyone else it is * it, you don't need masks, you don't need a healthy immune system, just stay in your house for the rest of your life and don't touch anyone.

Fat arse Johnson had one foot in the grave and they came out and pumped him full of every wonder drug on the market to keep him alive, we just put old people on ventilator death traps... it just seems we have different policies based on the worth of people's lives.

I still can't get over our mask policy, it is basically complete opposite to everywhere else in the world.
 
Can't we get Trump & Bolsonaro in a room together, ask them to chat about their favourite movie and simply lock them in!?

Brazil overtakes Russia with second highest number of coronavirus cases

Brazil has recorded more than 20,000 new coronavirus cases in a day, jumping ahead of Russia to be the second-hardest hit nation in terms of numbers of cases.

The most populated South American nation now has 330,890 confirmed cases, with 21,048 deaths.

Only the United States has more confirmed cases, with 1,598,631 cases and 95,847 deaths.

=====

South America becoming the new coronavirus epicentre

The World Health Organization has said that South America is becoming the new epicentre of the coronavirus pandemic.

Brazil has passed 310,000 confirmed cases with more than 20,000 recorded deaths. In neighbouring Peru, 111,000 cases have been recorded.

"South America has become the new epicentre for the disease," Dr Michael Ryan said. "We've seen many South American countries with increasing numbers of cases and, clearly there's a concern across many of those countries.
 
You can get Vitamin D by sitting in the sun, the amount of time varies depending on the pigmentation in your skin and if you are obese you don't absorb Vitamin D as fast. So it costs nothing to get Vitamin D, the main vitamin that helps to boost your immune system. In America, about 40% of white people are Vitamin D deficient, 70% of Hispanics and 82% of black people and they wonder why black and hispanics are keeling over at a much faster rate, oh, it is because they are poor, obviously...

A lot of common food has Vitamin C, you just at worst make a minor adjustment to your diet, drink some OJ instead of a coke. It is hard to maintain high levels of vitamin C, orally, as your body passses it out. Oral vitamin C is helpful but they are starting to treat people with high doses of IV Vitamin C, I think it is something like 60x what your body can maintain orally, but this is for people who are very sick.

Zinc is also common in foods, average man needs 11mg and women 8mg, your body can't store zinc but there is plenty of zinc in meat or legumes (ie chickpeas, lentils, beans) for you vegetarians and vegans. It is also in dairy, eggs, whoe grains and some vegetables like potatoes. Despite that, one website claims that 85% of Aussie women and 67% of men do not get get the recommended daily intake.

When it comes to hydroxychloroquine, if anyone ever goes down that route, it is a 60 year old drug that is used to treat many things, it is no longer under any medical patent as those only go 25 years so it costs about $0.10 per tablet to make and when they give it to badly sick people the treatment is 3 to 5 tablets over a period of time, I doubt anyone is getting rich on that. I know they were hoping the $10,000 a shot HIV medicine would be a cure because that would have made them some money. Places like India and Africa who are using this medicine to prevent Malaria have remarkably low covid related deaths given how poor and overpopulated many parts of the country is.



Yeah, I am not sure to be honest what motivations people have, my dad is on 13 different medicines and supplements and my mum is on 11 different medicines and supplements, they don't walk into the doctor without getting put on some other s**t but they haven't been told to take any Vitamin C, D or Zinc, they are old as dirt and their health is obviously f’ed up, if they get it and it runs amok in their system then they are going to die so they are playing Russian Roulette whenever they go outside.

I was laughing my arse of watching the Joe Rogan podcast last week i think, he is moving his podcast from YouTube to Spotify for a $100m deal and he has these doctors come on and talk about the benefits of these things and he is saying yeah, my personal doctor has me on all this s**t and they are talking about dosages, etc and this lady doctor said her mother was coming down with something and they hit her with some big hits of IV vitamin C and she came up fine after a few days. it just gives me a bit of a feeling that whenever some rich or powerful w***er's health is in doubt, all the stops come out to get them back up and running while for everyone else it is fu** it, you don't need masks, you don't need a healthy immune system, just stay in your house for the rest of your life and don't touch anyone.

Fat arse Johnson had one foot in the grave and they came out and pumped him full of every wonder drug on the market to keep him alive, we just put old people on ventilator death traps... it just seems we have different policies based on the worth of people's lives.

I still can't get over our mask policy, it is basically complete opposite to everywhere else in the world.

Western medicine isn't about maintaining health, it's about fixing broken stuff at the last minute. Aside from the corporate for profit side it's generally evolved to react to problems and deal with them as they arise. Not preventing them from arising in the first place.

It's amazing that western medicine can keep people alive when they should have died. There is some incredible stuff available to us. We need it I guess cos our environment is more dangerous too - full of vehicles and work environments far from what we evolved to deal with.

That other stuff is really what public health education is for. If you follow public health diet guidelines and think about what we learned in school your diet could be brilliant. It's more that most people don't have the time or energy to ensure they eat well. (Although vitamin D appears to be something it's worth supplementing wrt to respiratory illnesses even if you get plenty of sun.) Same with most of the public health stuff we are taught here. It is all good information but often life gets in the way.

I speak to people in The US about that sort of public health info and they have never come across it in many cases.

But not everyone here remembers that stuff. It seems like sometimes Drs think passing on that sort of information isn't part of their job.

Masks are an interesting one. Most data on spreading seems to indicate it's indoors and exposure to infected people or material that is the issue. Most infected material will end up on surfaces and even a s**t mask will stop you touching your face unconsciously. I wonder if that in itself helps slow the spread.

Also that data seems to indicate that you probably don't need a mask in the supermarket but the workers do cos they are there for hours not however long it takes for a load of groceries. Tho if everyone has one on infected shoppers are less likely to infect shop surfaces.

And if there is a shortage of masks I can understand why government isn't pushing their use given the dunny paper debacle.
 
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The folks at Crown will be on the phone to Dan quick smart:

LAS VEGAS READY TO ROLL DICE AGAINST CORONAVIRUS

Free parking, but no valet service. Bartenders, blackjack dealers and waiters wearing masks. Hand sanitiser everywhere. Yes, dice will roll, cards will be dealt and slot machines will beckon. But poker rooms? Closed.

Tourists returning to Las Vegas will see changes since gambling stopped in mid-March for the first time ever to stem the spread of the coronavirus. The stakes could not be higher, said Robert Lang, executive director of the Brookings Mountain West think tank at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. “Las Vegas can never be known as the place where people go and get sick,” he said.

Democratic Governor Steve Sisolak has not set a restart date, but could at any time. Resort owners have submitted health and safety rules to state regulators in anticipation of the end to the shutdown. workshop with operators and the state Gaming Control Board is set for Tuesday.

“We all know what we’ve gone through for the last 10 weeks. No one’s having fun,” said Bill Hornbuckle, acting chief executive and president of casino giant MGM Resorts International. “The simple idea that I could get out, come to a resort, lay at a pool, enjoy a nice dinner, sit at a blackjack table. There’s something to be said for all of that.” Many properties have aimed for a June 1 restart in the gambling mecca closed almost overnight in the middle of a hot streak – three consecutive $1 billion ($A1.53bn) months in statewide casino winnings. The city had been drawing more than 40 million annual visitors.

One given the green light, the marquees and the managers will welcome people back to this 24/7 town built for crowds, excitement and excess. But not every resort will be open. Nightclubs, dayclubs and large venues will remain closed. Cirque du Soleil shows will stay dark, at least for now.

Signs everywhere will remind guests of new rules: Wash your hands; keep distance from others; limit your elevator ride to your sanitised room to just four people. “You’re going to see a lot of social distancing,” said Sean McBurney, general manager at Caesars Palace. “If there’s crowding, it’s every employee’s responsibility to ensure there’s social distancing.” Dice will be disinfected between shooters, chips cleaned periodically and card decks changed frequently. At some resorts guests will be encouraged to use cellphones for touchless check in, as room keys, and to read restaurant menus.
 
The worldometer coronavirus pages have some interesting information.

If the figures are accurate.


Its nearly two weeks old now but anyway...

At the start of May 15000 people or more were tested for Covid19 antibodies across New York State and 12% were positive for antibodies meaning they had recovered from the virus (I assume they also tested for live virus at the same time, otherwise wtf?), and 20% of those tested in the city itself had antibodies.

That means the infection rate was 10 times higher than reported.

It also has figures for the number of deaths that are at least twice as high as the official numbers.
 

Go_Roos!

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Western medicine isn't about maintaining health, it's about fixing broken stuff at the last minute. Aside from the corporate for profit side it's generally evolved to react to problems and deal with them as they arise. Not preventing them from arising in the first place.

It's amazing that western medicine can keep people alive when they should have died. There is some incredible stuff available to us. We need it I guess cos our environment is more dangerous too - full of vehicles and work environments far from what we evolved to deal with.

That is really what public health education is for. If you follow public health diet guidelines and think about what we learned in school your diet could be brilliant. It's more that most people don't have the time or energy to ensure they eat well. (Although vitamin D appears to be something it's worth supplementing wrt to respiratory illnesses even if you get plenty of sun.) Same with most of the public health stuff we are taught here. It is all good information but often life gets in the way.

I speak to people in The US about that sort of public health info and they have never come across it in many cases.

But not everyone here remembers that stuff. It seems like sometimes Drs think passing on that sort of information isn't part of their job.

Masks are an interesting one. Most data on spreading seems to indicate it's indoors and exposure to infected people or material that is the issue. Most infected material will end up on surfaces and even a s**t mask will stop you touching your face unconsciously. I wonder if that in itself helps slow the spread.

Also that data seems to indicate that you probably don't need a mask in the supermarket but the workers do cos they are there for hours not however long it takes for a load of groceries. Tho if everyone has one on infected shoppers are less likely to infect shop surfaces.

And if there is a shortage of masks I can understand why government isn't pushing their use given the dunny paper debacle.
Wouldn't it be good if the Government could actually be honest and say of course wearing a mask is good because it helps to stop people with the virus from spreading it, however, because we haven't got enough masks we will tell you not to bother wearing them.
 
Apr 24, 2013
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Epitopes galore.

It's starting to look as though past adaptive immune responses to common cold viruses may be playing a role in neutralizing Sars-CoV-2 infections, thereby further confusing the epidemiological plotting & forecasting.

Moron translation: Blame Trump.

1590191399304.png

1590191554621.png


 
Apr 24, 2013
81,024
153,170
Arden Street Hill
AFL Club
North Melbourne
Other Teams
Essendon Lawn Bowls Club
Epitopes galore.

It's starting to look as though past adaptive immune responses to common cold viruses may be playing a role in neutralizing Sars-CoV-2 infections, thereby further confusing the epidemiological plotting & forecasting.

Moron translation: Blame Trump.

View attachment 879831
View attachment 879833


Anyone had one of these moments yet?

 
Or the board. JMac in the ruck. Re signing Shannon Wat?

“North Melbourne surprised everyone by redrafting Gavin Urquhart with Pick 3 today, at 32 years of age he is certainly seen as a left field choice”
 
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