Category: Uncategorised

This recession is by design, of course, the design of the knee jerk and out of proportion and inappropriate covid response.

It would be better if the nation were seen as a collection of ‘cells’ with each cell populated by people who volunteer to be part of it.

Within that cell they live and work as usual, mixing and mingling without onerous and restrictive, debilitating covid restrictions, just as we do at home.

This enables work to continue as usual. Building projects, housing, is a main contender for inclusion in such a programme.

In the event of one person in the ‘cell’ being infected with covid then every person in the cell immediately has to be subject to the same restrictions as that person and that all infected persons are restricted to.

That’s the natural concomitant of being part of that cell, of any cell.It is precisely what happens in the case of our actual present day ‘cells’ – our family homes. If one member of our family gets infected the whole family is subject to the same processes.

The current approach is to see everyone of us as infected and demands that we take precautions against every other one of us, all against all.

It has killed and is killing and will kill the whole nation.It is very largely wasted effort.

It is obvious, it is a matter of record, that Australia has had a minute level of covid contagion in the last couple of months. this means, of course, that over the vast preponderance of the country the measures have been not necessary.

Wasted effort. Wasted loss of production. Wasted loss of jobs. Wasted failure to create wealth.Waste.

Massive waste.

If a granular approach were adopted then the nation largely returns to full on performance, natural life.

The assumption being that we are all healthy until proven not to be. At least within our working, productive environments. Which is the guts of the matter.

And when an infection breaks out then it is immediately contained within a ‘cell’.

The mechanism springs into action and we all know what we’re doing and where the danger is.

The actual danger to those within a cell can also be assessed on the basis of information now available.

It becomes very clear that the vast majority of infections of young healthy people are asymptomatic.

Hence if you get infected within a cell your chances are heavily weighted in that direction.

The actual death rate amongst infected is down around 0.1% and if you remove the elderly and infirm from the equation it is even less.

The elderly and infirm, of course, would be removed from such ‘cells’ not permitted for their own sake to participate in such cells unless they were clearly aware of the risk and volunteered for it.

The death rate for the elderly and infirm can get as high as 15% it is said in some reports.

So a real danger for them.

But for the rest a much less danger and an avoidance of all the danger of a destroyed economy, a crippled country.

If we just adopt a military type strategy and assume our ‘cells’ to be healthy and use them as they are intended to be used for the benefit of the larger body while ever we can.

Our human bodies do not cripple the arm or the head because there’s an infection in the foot and neither should we.

Our current policy is almost an insult to us all inasmuch as it bespeaks an apparent attitude that we’re incapable of devising anything better than slow suicide.

I recently saw a child change his mind about the computer game he was making.

Small children can apparently make computer games nowadays with little or no programming skills. I imagine some kind of template and select and order components thing. Very good whatever it is.

The child witnessed a reconciliation between warring adults. Doing their warring in front of, within earshot of, the children as they so often thoughtlessly, carelessly and dangerously do.

As, in fact, to look for a second much further afield to a closely allied area, the ‘child protection’ agencies up to and including militant police do – astonishingly. Self assured and self justificatory to an astonishing degree and glowing with righteous indignation and as prepared to wield instant power and inflict damage on a hapless parent or family as any trigger happy terrorist they think nothing of demonstrating, manifesting their awful presence right there in front of children.

In fact they seem to prefer it.

Perhaps believing they are manifesting in a child’s mind a rescuing ‘super man’ ( or ‘superwoman’ ) coming to save them from the clutches of these awful parents.

I think such self deceiving ego centricity is more than merely possible, I think it probably.

They are sadly – very sadly – criminally sadly – mistaken in many, many instances.

They in fact strike unnamed terror into the hearts and minds of children is what they do.

So back to this child. It witnessed in numb silence an exchange of adult psychodrama power which in this instance concluded on a happy note.

The child, unprompted, came forward after the event and without mentioning the event, of course, as is the norm, announced he was making a game and had suddenly thought he could make a game without nasties in it, without bad and evil things, but a game that was happy !

Imagine the dynamic. Imagine what might have happened within that child. To be set like a stone in a sea of apparent hurt and violence and pain and anger and injustice with a heart and mind in anguish because of how that environment was the whole world to that child – ‘acting out’ as the psychologists say, mimicking reality as he knew it, by devising computer games which – as so many today – all ? – were full of violence and hatred and hurt – and hunched over and head and trying desperately to ignore and avoid the ‘war’ , the conflict going on around him, which involved him so much.

Numbly set in a sea of darkness.

And then a light broke through. Came peace. Came a little ray, a little example, a little of the presence of kindness, understanding, forgiving: love.

Just a tiny.

And the child’s heart rushed to meet it and his whole world changed in a moment….

Here we in what – the fourth day ? – of ‘heightened tensions’ and ‘worsening relations’ and ‘trade war’ or whatever, between the USA and China.

And the media follows it all with relish, eagerly, salivating as it goes.

Clearly prepared to follow it to where they are reporting on troop movements, military actions… death.

You can almost see them panting at the leash wanting to be first to report the first casualties of this ‘situation’.

But to my knowledge at any rate not a word as yet about the Chinese People of the American People.

It is not they who are doing this. It is just they who are and will suffer.

But they never get a mention.

Strikes me as wrong.

I was unaware of this excellent source for information.

https://lockdownsceptics.org/

I don’t think anyone is listening. Is the trouble.

Here’s an extracted paragraph from an excellent little article I will link to, later:

As usual, the politicians don’t admit their shocking mistakes. Had they done so they might at least have ensured this disaster won’t be repeated during the next inevitable pandemic. Instead they are now prescribing increasingly demented restrictions, such as a maximum of ten diners in all restaurants whatever their size, ten worshippers in vast cathedrals, and schools not immediately re-opened. On top of which they refuse to admit the obvious, that sun and fresh air have always been the enemy of the virus.

Isn’t it totally true? Isn’t it totally condemning in the awful truth of those simple examples it gives? Totally condemning of our political and media establishment and – this is the really awful bit – our own complicity in their crime inasmuch as we don’t speak out, don’t object, don’t put a stop to it, don’t demand better behaviour?

It is an article in the Spectator by a Mr David Flint who I’ve been unaware of until now.

https://www.spectator.com.au/2020/05/comfort-the-comfortable-afflict-the-afflicted/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=OZWH%20%2020200523%20%20Back%20to%20Brexit%20%20AL&utm_content=OZWH%20%2020200523%20%20Back%20to%20Brexit%20%20AL+CID_517511bdc5c51e25ab5812d5304d2256&utm_source=CampaignMonitor_Australia&utm_term=Comfort%20the%20comfortable%20afflict%20the%20afflicted

That’s known as the IFR. It means the chance of dying if you get the illness.

It shows the percentage of infected people that consequently die of that illness.

A very important number.

That generally we are not told. In the beginning because it was not known – in the middle because the media didn’t care, being more interesting in whipping up the fever and the hype and promoting panic lockdowns and now – I don’t know. Shame perhaps. They (media, politicians, et al) don’t want the truth to come out until they’ve prepared some ‘ass-covering’ stories.

Well here’s an authoritative report – Mr John Ioannidis again, a much ignored authority from the very beginning – mentioned in an article from the Spectator magazine.

He estimates the true figure to be in a range always below 0.5%

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.13.20101253v1.full.pdf

and this is the Spectator article:

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/stanford-study-suggests-coronavirus-might-not-be-as-deadly-as-flu

Here’s an article saying things I like to hear:

Seems to me that nowadays therapy doesn’t begin until you get into the Doctor’s room.

I mean it is not out there in the waiting room. Is it? Ever sat in a hard chair with nothing to do and can’t go away for even five minutes and with some physical discomfort – for half an hour, an hour, an hour and a half?

In a doctor’s waiting room? I have. And I know, of course, many others have. Why ‘of course’ ? Well they were all around me, waiting, as I waited.

And many is the time I’ve seen them waiting and declined to join the queue, gone away till another day. My illnesses not being so immediately critical.

Yes. Not ‘therapeutic’. Not at all. Quite the opposite if anything.

And that’s not to mention the queue before the encounter with the ‘receptionists’ and the actual encounter. Intimidating, wearying, annoying and downright aggravating as they can often turn out to be.

Why not? Why not therapeutic?

It seems the attitude the medical profession nowadays believes that their Hippocratic oath to dispense therapy is satisfied by dispensing a ten minutes (timed, planned ‘consultation’) face to face with a patient.

The conditions the patient waits in, the environment the patient comes from, goes to, is none of their concern apparently. Today.

I just found today’s ‘modern Hippocratic Oath’ . Apparently there’s a number them.

A Modern Version of the Hippocratic Oath

I swear to fulfill, to the best of my ability and judgment, this covenant:

I will respect the hard-won scientific gains of those physicians in whose steps I walk, and gladly share such knowledge as is mine with those who are to follow.

I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures which are required, avoiding those twin traps of overtreatment and therapeutic nihilism.

I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon’s knife or the chemist’s drug.

I will not be ashamed to say “I know not,” nor will I fail to call in my colleagues when the skills of another are needed for a patient’s recovery.

I will respect the privacy of my patients, for their problems are not disclosed to me that the world may know. Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death. If it is given me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty. Above all, I must not play at God.

I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person’s family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick.

I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure.

I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as the infirm.

If I do not violate this oath, may I enjoy life and art, respected while I live and remembered with affection thereafter. May I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling and may I long experience the joy of healing those who seek my help.

The modern version of the Hippocratic Oath was written in 1964 by Louis Lasagna, Dean of the School of Medicine at Tufts University.

I particularly like these paragraphs as they seem to me to point to what is missing in to day’s waiting rooms and general attitude of the medical profession :

I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon’s knife or the chemist’s drug.

I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person’s family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick.

I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as the infirm.

Just heard Radio National reporting on a survey in Sweden that showed the highest approval rating in Sweden for the Swedish Covid policy was amongst the elderly.

And they found that a bit puzzling and essentially, I think, put it down to politics – the elderly simply approving of anything ‘their’ party (which is in power) is doing – and the general docility of the elderly.

I don’t know what it is. But it could be something else. The elderly may be acutely aware that they are the most at risk. Overwhelmingly. 70% of the infected simply have no symptoms at all or very mild. The elderly generally don’t fall into that category.

And so on. There’s no debate. The elderly are the major risk group.

So why be in favour of a permissive ‘lockdown’ policy?

Well maybe because the elderly are practicing self isolation and waiting for the infection to spread through the populace to where herd immunity is reached.

And then they can come out of ‘hiding’.

This is a sensible approach. The only really sensible approach all things considered.

The sensitive are protected – protect themselves – and the ‘forcible’ (by the forces of nature) ‘vaccination’ of the populace proceeds in the quickest possible manner – slowed only by some modest social distancing measures that enable the hospitals to cope with the load.

Which in any case in the absence of the elderly will be a modest load even when the virus spreads at its quickest.

So as testing methods slowly improve it gets easier and easier to discover what percentage of the population has been exposed to the virus and fairly quickly it becomes apparent that ‘it is over’, that nearly everyone (save the ‘hidden’ elderly ) have had it.

And the elderly can relax.

In contrast to the Australian model.

Which seeks to keep the virus out. Which quarantines all of Australia.

Which isn’t bad in itself, arguably but which means that the elderly will never be surrounded by a safe ‘immune herd’.

They will be surrounded by a susceptible herd, a herd very prone to infection and therefore very prone to rapidly spreading it. They don’t report the rate, to this day we are without accurate figures for the main parameters: death rate/infected, R nought, infection rate/population. But we can clearly see it could move at its quickest among a totally susceptible population.

Aware of this ‘spreading’ danger – which exists right now – the govt. has introduced severe lockdown and social distancing measures which are currently killing the country and actually killing individuals in the country owing to various associated factors that come into play and which had not been considered.

The govt is trying to reduce these measures – ‘roll them back’. And if they are successful they’ll get to where all the measures have been removed and we are back to ‘normal’ life among the ruins and can make a start rebuilding, hopefully.

But we will remain a susceptible population. And any successful invasion of the virus from outside, any case that gets through our border controls – will find itself in a virgin population through which it can travel at its best speed.

The elderly in Australia will not find themselves embedded in an immune herd.

There will be no immune herd.

They can never feel that measure of safety. The virus still stalking them. Death still waiting in the wings.

Owing to border controls and residual ‘distancing’ measures which the govt. is saying it will continue in the foreseeable future, I believe, any new invasions by the virus into Australia will be prevented from making a sudden widespread ‘blip’ on the radar indicative of a sudden outbreak and calling forth an instantaneous full scale response such as we’re all embroiled in right now.

Rather there’ll be one or two cases here and there or something of that nature. A much slower spread. Almost a stealth spread. Not slowed by natural herd immunity making it difficult for the virus to travel through the population, but by the artificial distancing practices making travel difficult.

But, of course, travel it will.

And invasion from outside, breaching of our border controls will almost – almost, I suppose, or certainly? – occur.

So the virus will be at all time exerting a pressure, will at all times be stalking us.

And we will be at all times socially and economically ‘crippled’ by our efforts, our measures, to slow its spread within the nation if it gets in.

That’s the planned future.

The plan is to make the nation artificially ‘covid sterile’ in a covid world.

All in order to protect me. I’m elderly. So – the Swedish puzzle. Why do they approve? Well I’d approve, too. For the sake of myself and for the sake of the nation.

If you all get it and recover then I’m finally safe in an immune herd which is good for me. And the nation’s work and social life can continue which is good for you and the nation.

But hopefully I’m looking at it not perhaps all wrong but perhaps without full information or full understanding of what will happen.

Perhaps the virus will simply die out in the wider world. Run its course. Mutate itself out of existence. Polio did not. The common cold did not. Many virii do not. But many do mutate into milder forms which then coexist with us for millenia or something.

Perhaps something like that will happen. And as the Australian border controls report fewer and fewer incidences of covid detection down to where eventually there are none at all and it seems clear the virus has gone from the world the danger will have passed and all controls will be relaxed and we’ll get back to normal. Get down to counting the cost. Get down to figuring a better way to handle the next one.

I hope so. I do. 🙂