[conspire] CABAL in the time of Cholera^W SARS-CoV-2: March event cancelled

[Ruben Safir]

On Mon, Mar 16, 2020 at 11:42:54AM -0700, Rick Moen wrote:
> Quoting Ruben Safir (ruben at mrbrklyn.com):
> 
> > Y2K is not a good analogy at all.  
> > 
> > the cure for Y2K is not shutting down Western Civilization, which is the
> > proposed cure for this virus.
> 
> It's truly unfortunate that you utterly disregarded the actual (valid)
> comparison I made

I know you said it is valid, but it isn't.  First of all, Y2K wasn't a
disease that affected biological systems that evolve and killed people
and can also kill the researchers.  

So there is that right there.

covid-19 is also not a static problem that can be solved with a
technological fix.  You can't operate on the covid-19 virus in the wild,
and modify it.

The Y2K problem was simple and defined.  

Viral diseases are NOT well understood, although we learn more every
day, have complex interactive properties with hosts, and have vectors of
transportation, all of which are not descriptive of Y2K.

And the best one is that Y2K had a cure... Covid-19 does not, and it
might not have one in our immediate, or even intermediate future.
or at all.

The Y2K problem was examined by a group of people with an area of
expertise.  Medicine requires a broad number of different domains of
expertise to understand, let alone combat.

Y2K problems didn't make people or computers sick while it was being
solved.

So it fails in all these ways.

As for the theory that solving the Y2K problem made people under value
the problem, as opposed to heading off the virus early,  I find that
wholy unsatisfactory.  The Y2K problem really wasn't that complex. I
have reviewed at NYU Dental School nearly all of the systems for Y2K
bugs, and the time the only software to suffer from the Y2K problem was
a clinical system that was already being replaced, because we outgrew
it.  Alas, we had no cobol systems in our immediate control.  Regardless
of that.  The Covid-19 virus actually is VERY complex, and presents a
problem that the Y2K problem just didn't scale.  And the action that
would have been needed to head it off would be truly draconian by
comparision to any solutions for Y2K.  It was and does cut right to the
core of our existence as a social species, tangles internation trade,
international and domestic politics, making life and death decisions to
isolate populations, media response, public expectations, civil
liberies, medical research, etc etc.

The problems in a nutshell don't compare even in that narrow
perspective.



> and, instead pretended as if I had made an entirely
> different (stupid and invalid) comparison.  This embarrassing public
> blunder on your part would have been avoidable if you had exercised a
> tiny amount of impulse control and _thought_ before posting.
> 
> The _sole_ point of comparison I made is that it was possible to make
> Y2K seem like a non-event through diligent hard work behind the scenes
> that prevented a technology-failure blowup and then allowed idiots in
> the press and elsewhere to draw the non-sequitur conclusion that there
> never had been a threat in the first place.
> 

Right, it doesn't really compare.

> By comparison, it is provably possible through painstaking but pervasive
> public health measures to slow down community transmission of SARS-CoV-2 
> in the USA to the extent that an overwhelming of and collapse of the
> nation's medical system (such as recently happened in Italy) will be
> averted, 
>

It is not provable actually, but for whatever it is worth, epidemenics
generally fail to be contained by trying to control peoples behavior.

Isolating people in there apartments for 6 months or a year is certainly
going to fail on SO MANY LEVELS, and that is largely what is going to be
needed.

The economy will fail, the supply lines will fail and people will
starve and die because of a lack of infrastructure.  It is really a
non-starter, but I am not in charge.


> 
> > Is it being overblown, 100%.
> 
> Fuck off, idiot.  

I am not an idiot.  I'm not an armchair expert on this.  I spent years
before we even met working mostly on infectios disease.  

This is being overblown, seriously.  

> And this time, _this_ is the sort of idiocy that can
> cause tens of thousands of deaths of people lying on gurneys in hospital
> corridors, suffocating from ARDS.  (Look it up.)
> 


Actually 1000's of deaths over a virus worldwide is rather routine.
This virus will not kill more peolle than MRSA and Step, and those are
easy diseases.

It won't kill more people than TB, Psuedomonous, viral hepatitis, food
born bacterial poisoning, e-coli...

The reaction is worst that the disease.  This is hysteria.


> 
> > No, I don't go along with these current actions.
> 
> OK.  So, seek out crowds and spend your days breathing on each other.  

I live in NYC so that is a daily thing with infectious diseases all
around me all the time, so it is not much of a threat.  Any of them can
turn deadly, which you would know if you ever worked in a hospital
pumping out and reject requsts form Imepenin, Zyvox and a dozen other
anti-biotics that we strengnously try to regulate to use of so that we
don't end up killing everyone.

I spend a decade working over Morbity and Mortality reports.  You should
have been here when we had no idea what was causes PCP and miliary
Mycoplasmosis, as rows of people died every day at hospitals like
Woodhul, Brookdale, St Vincents, Belvue, etc etc.

It took 20 YEARS to get a handle on HIV and billions of dollars.

I am sorry, your comparision with Y2K doesn't work on analysis and
isolating the entire nation is pure madness.  It is not like a blackout
where we can all go home for 3 days until the power goes back on.  This
virus is likely NEVER going away.  


> Maybe Roosevelt Island can be isolated and dedicated to housing the
> small subpopulation of NYC Dunning-Krueger (look it up) basket-cases who
> 'disagree' with public health measures.  The City can call over every
> few days and ask how's it hangin'.
> 
> 
> > Putting this in perspective, our closes analogue is the 1917-1920 flu
> > epidement.  My grandmother was born in 1917.  In New York City,
> > theaters, sports and other public ciritical cultural venues remained
> > opened:
> [blah blah]
>

The blah blah blah was the meat and potatoes of the argument.  Never
have we should down society in total in the face of an epidemeic,
regardless of the threat.  But here we are, over a virus that is in a
known family of pathogens, and whoes history looks like the influenza in
most regards.

I don't want to live under a police state for the next year because of a
virus that has a morbity of about 3%.  It is dreadful, 3%, but not
something to shut down all of civilization.


> 
> I am willing to spend a couple of minutes putting this 'in perspective':
> 
> 1918, Philadelphia vs. St. Louis experiences, in one comparison chart:
> https://bshm.org.uk/can-history-help-us-in-the-covid-19-epidemic/
> (scroll down for the chart).
> 
> After becoming aware of the Spanish Flu in September 1918, St. Louis
> authorities took strong measures to prevent assemblies of people
> including cancelling a city-wide parade.  Philadephia blew off the risk
> and did essentially nothing.  The resulting death rates above base-line
> for pneumonia and influenza in the two cities for the subsequent months:
>

Put this in perspective.  NYC just shut down ALL THEATER, BARS, SCHOOLS,
LIBRAIES, MUSEUMS, RESUTURANTS, GOVERNMENT OFFICES, and is considering a curfew,
among other things.  The panic has created shortages of essential
medical supplies and groceries, like diapers, toilet paper, thermonters.

Every Church, Synagaugue, wedding hall, and public space is shut down
indefinetely.

There is no way to describe that other than totally insane.

> Philadelphia:  257 per 100,000 population
> St. Louis:  31 per 100,000 population
> 
> In case you're also math-challenged, that's an eight-fold higher death rate.
>
In case you are math challenged that is different of about 500 deaths?
I really don't feel like looking up the death rates in Phili and St
Louis.  Neither city shut down its baseball parks and most other venues.  
I wrote that in detail and anotated it and you called it blah blah
blah..

That is an old trick by pharmacy marketing reps, misrepresnet facts by
using percentages.  An eigth fold higher death rate is code for listen
closer and look over the statisitics.  

And BTW you cherry picked the WORST case which was Philedephia where
they completely screwed up the management of the epidemic.

So many people died in Philedephia as a fact, from the epidemic. And so
many did in St Louis, and Milwaukee and Chicago and NY and Boston and
Madrid, and London.  You need to examine ALL these samples and examine
couses and affects.  Philedephia's actions were particularly gregious.
Some 12,000 people died after the city held a specific parade.  

QUOTE:
“The epidemic is assuming more serious proportions,” the story
cautioned, citing a warning by the city’s health director, Dr. Wilmer
Krusen. “If the people are careless thousands of cases may develop and
the epidemic may get beyond control.”

If only health officials had followed their own advice.
END QUOTE:

QUOTE:
“There were multiple letters from physicians not just asking, but
demanding, that they cancel that parade,” Barry said. “The incubation
period is 24 to 72 hours. Right on track, the disease exploded in the
city after the parade.”
ENDQUOTE:

QUOTE:
But the damage had been done. The flu ran rampant in Philadelphia for
weeks, claiming nearly 1 percent of the city’s population.
ENDQUOTE:

1 percent... of about 1.7 million people, the number is wrong.  It would
seem to be logical that the number is closer to 0.2% of the total
population.  


And BTW, in that 10 year stretch, from 1910 - 1920
even  with the blundering over the Spanish Flu, the population still GREW
about 17% that decade.


St Louis, on the other hand, was a little town of about 600K people
spread out, and had a completely different dynamic than Philedephia.

You see Rick, I didn't learn about infectious disease of the History
Chanel.  I actually practiced it for a decade in hospital and military
settings and learns from the Journal of Infectious Disease.  The
stupidity of the Philedephia government is discected and taught to
nearly everyone who has every practiced any medicine in infectious
disease.  There major blunder was the allowance of the Parade and
preventing crowd control at the parade and knowingly including infected
soldiers at the parade.

St Louis's response was overkill, but it was for a limited time.  Some
of there measures were effective, and others were much more questionaly.
What helped them most was that they had a lower density, a much smaller
downtown area, and centralized control, and a largely cooperative
population.

the KEY FACTOR was density and the parade.

This particular study, BTW, https://www.pnas.org/content/104/18/7582 has
serious and fundemental flaws.  For one thing, this wouldn't even pass a
serious study in most scientic journals because comparing just two data
points to draw conclusions in inherently WRONG.  This article only
passed because at the time the H5N1 epidemeic was in the news and
drawing concerns.  

BTW - there is also the Journal of Epidemiology... I forgot about that
one.

IF a large cycle of infection and mortality rises locally, then indeed,
flatening out the contagion with more severe measures might be
necessary, LOCALLY and as needed.  

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2862336/

Live and learn.  

QUOTE:
KEEPING SCHOOLS OPEN

In an October 5 New York Times story, Commissioner Copeland outlined the
logic behind one of his most controversial decisions during the
epidemic: the continued operation of New York's public schools.

    “New York is a great cosmopolitan city and in some homes there is
	 careless disregard for modern sanitation… In schools the children
	 are under the constant guardianship of the medical inspectors. This
	 work is part of our system of disease control. If the schools were
	 closed at least 1,000,000 would be sent to their homes and become
	 1,000,000 possibilities for the disease. Furthermore, there would be
	 nobody to take special notice of their condition.”7

	 In Copeland's mind, there was no real danger of influenza spreading
	 in schools and during the epidemic, he repeatedly defended his
	 decision not to close them.

	 Copeland's argument was three-fold. First, he advocated for keeping
	 children in schools where “… educational propaganda against
	 influenza can be kept constantly before them.”39 And it was. At the
	 end of September, the Department of Health distributed nearly one
	 million circulars, one for every pupil in the public and parochial
	 schools to take home.40 Second, Copeland believed that the city
	 could do a better job keeping the students healthy than could their
	 families. Last, Copeland made use of the existing school health and
	 medical surveillance programs already in place in New York City
	 schools, which at the time were perhaps the nation's best.


	 cont... 

	 In an interview with the New York Times printed on November 17,
	 Copeland recounted the story of New York’s recent epidemic and
	 offered his argument for why the city had fared so well while other
	 East Coast cities had been so hard-hit. First, he said, the health
	 department worked to isolate the early cases coming from ships
	 landing at the port. Once cases began to appear amongst the resident
	 population and the disease gained a foothold in the city, the health
	 department turned its full attention to combating the epidemic,
	 organizing several advisory panels and committees and working in
	 cooperation with volunteer organizations to allocate resources,
	 recruit and direct nurses, and relieve the suffering of the ill and
	 their families. ***Unlike other cities, he said, New York did not issue
	 school closure orders. “They may have been just the right things to
	 do in those places; I don’t know their conditions,” he wrote. “But I
	 do know the conditions of New York, and I know that in our city one
	 of the most important methods of disease control is the public
	 school system.” Three-quarters of New York’s one million
	 schoolchildren live in tenements, he said, where their homes were
	 frequently crowded and unsanitary and where their parents were
	 primarily occupied in putting food on the table and keeping a roof
	 over their heads. *** 
	 
	 (incidently that is EXACTLY what triggered the Italian situation.
	 When they closed businesses everyone gathered together in caffes and
	 local venues and sped up the transmision of the disease...because
	 hey, you can't control people!).

	 Those parents simply could not afford the time or
	 money to provide proper medical attention. It was much better,
	 therefore, to keep the schools open so that children could be
	 monitored for illness by school physicians and nurses.

	 As for theaters and movie houses, Copeland said that the big, modern
	 establishments were not places that spread influenza. The smaller,
	 hole-in-the-wall theaters that had improper ventilation were
	 problematic, and his department worked hard to close those
	 establishments until the issues could be rectified. Those theaters
	 that remained open were made “centres of public health education”
	 through instructions on proper cough and sneeze etiquette,
	 information on how influenza spreads, and instructions on how to
	 properly treat and recover from the disease. By keeping theaters and
	 places of amusement open, Copeland said, he helped maintain morale
	 and kept the city from “going mad on the subject of influenza.” 

UNQUOTE:


A real analysis looks more like this:
http://www.mrbrklyn.com/resources/flu_stats.pdf

Maybe I will log onto the LIU's library and see if I can dig something
specific upi, in the medical database that is less bias than what you quoted.

But I will be at work tomorrow dealing with frightened patients and a
hysterical public.

Regardless, in no cases have they locked everyone down indefinitely as
they have no.  NEVER.  This response is UNPRECEDENTED to a disease that,
by and large when compared to other epidemeics, routine.

The situation in Italy is bad but it is also exasperated by a half assed
public safety response that threw fuel on the fire, and very aging
population, and a socized medical system.

Now here is the good news for you.

First, the first trial vaciene took place today, which is actually to
likely cure for this.

Secondly, several MD's I know of now have recieved lab test kits for
the virus in there offices, so that it seems obvious that this tech is
spreading out to primary care physicians.

Thirdly, there are a number of pharmacological treatments that might be
available and work, if we can ramp up supply... which sucks since that
is tied to SE Asian plants... HUGE ERROR BTW
(Ketetra and Chloroquine is one such combination).

Meanwhile we are all now prisinors of our own hysterical fear.  NEVER
has there be broad quarantining of 10's of millions of people in
response to a disease.  It is using a bazoka to shoot a fly and it is
the nature Socialist response to a problem in a government that is
increasingly socialist regardless who is in power.  We don't give
information to people now and help them decide... we lock them up,
isolate them and track them through Google....

This world is shit and Meschiach better come soon or there won't be
anything left.


> 
> And, Ruben, if you wish to court death this year, 


You ain't living forever and neither am I.  But if going to Shule in the
morning and doing my morning prayers, and attending lectures in
preperation of Passover, and getting a cup of fucking coffee in the
moring is going to kill me then DEAD I WILL BE AND BE HAPPY FOR IT.

I am a Pharmacist ANYWAY so everyday I stand with and deal with sick
people.  Some of us actually DO take care of the sick and others do not.

I will not live in a prision over the next year surrounded by a
collapsing economy, and the inevitable food shortages because the
response to this virus is FAR WORSE than the disease.

There is worst things that can happen to you than dieing.  I've already
had my children and have Grandchildren.  I have lived a full measure
and every new day is potentially gravey.


> I might suggest that
> pretty much any method of exit is preferable to suffocating from fluid
> in your lungs.
>

You, you aint seen all the methods.  The worst is probably when your
kidneys give out... but others will disagree.


> 
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-- 
So many immigrant groups have swept through our town
that Brooklyn, like Atlantis, reaches mythological
proportions in the mind of the world - RI Safir 1998
http://www.mrbrklyn.com 

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Being so tracked is for FARM ANIMALS and extermination camps, 
but incompatible with living as a free human being. -RI Safir 2013