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Monday Message Board

John Quiggin15 Comments

Another Monday Message Board. Post comments on any topic. Civil discussion and no coarse language please. Side discussions and idees fixes to the sandpits, please.

I’m now using Substack as a blogging platform, and for my monthly email newsletter. For the moment, I’ll post both at this blog and on Substack. You can also follow me on Mastodon here.

15 thoughts on “Monday Message Board”

  1. From News dot etc we get this headline and report on July 5 2024:

    “‘Top five’ (diseases): Shocking Covid stat as cases soar.

    “Experts have sounded a warning over “complex” and highly-transmissible Covid subvariants taking off in Australia — as new data shows the virus is among the nation’s top five killers.

    Queensland chief health officer John Gerrard told the Courier Mail three sub-variants are now spreading in the state – FLiRT, FLuQE and most recently de-FLiRT.

    “Due to this mutation, as well as fluctuating community immunity, we are witnessing more than one wave each year,” he said. “Covid-19 has not yet developed a clear seasonal pattern.”

    The FLuQE subvariant is ripping through the US will likely produce a bulge in new cases in Australia, experts have warned.

    This comes as newly-published data shows the illness has become the third leading cause of death in Australia (sic) — marking the first time in over fifty years an infectious disease has ranked so highly in the nation’s mortality statistics.

    According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW), with 9,859 deaths attributed to the virus, Covid-19 trailed only coronary heart disease and dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease, as a leading cause of death.

    The AIHW’s “What do Australians Die From” report released this week provides a comprehensive overview of the health conditions involved in the 191,000 registered deaths in Australia in 2022.”

    Note: From my reading of the data in the AIHW report, COVID-19 had become the EQUAL THIRD leading cause of death in Australia and not outright third. This is still of grave concern (pun unavoidable).

    “The AIHW report also noted that Australia’s life expectancy has declined for the first time since the mid-90s.”

    Queensland’s intrepid CHO bewails the fact that COVID-19 hasn’t become seasonal yet. COVID-19 isn’t behaving as it was supposed to. Peaks seem to be happening all over the place if we look at the annual graphs over several years for different countries.

    Covid-19 and the other pandemics it enables (by damaging human immune systems) are in full swing in the Northern Hemisphere this northern summer. So much for “hybrid immunity” and predictable seasonality. “Hybrid immunity” gets air quotes because there is no such thing.

    “Resistance in biology and medicine implies a reduced susceptibility to a disease or toxin, resulting in less severe symptoms when exposure occurs. On the other hand, immunity refers to the body’s ability to completely ward off the pathogenic effects of an infection, preventing the disease from taking hold.” – AskDifference.

    When people dissemble, they often start by mixing up or ignoring clear and accepted terminology. False comparisons and category mistakes are their stock in trade. There is (some) hybrid resistance to COVID-19. There is no immunity as proven by the empirical outcomes to date. People are catching it over and over again, often several times in a year, with more damage to their bodily systems each time. The pathogen itself is still mutating rapidly, further increasing its infectiousness and escaping immunity rapidly. New variants are arising far faster than we are creating (or even can create) new variant vaccines. This is something I predicted by the way by following the real science, not the faux science of the infectionists.

    This whole pandemic situation is still worsening, I will add a post with some links to some very concerning new data, when I have put it together. Of course, I will just hear crickets. Nobody cares, yet. I predict that sooner or later people will care. The global multi-pandemic is only going to become worse, far worse, and will become impossible to ignore.

    Also a post about Australia’s impending Modoki La Nina is probably in order. I will follow up on that. Of course, nobody cares about climate change either. When I say “nobody cares” I mean the great majority of people clearly still do not care. If you don’t care enough to take real and effective action, you don’t care. That’s my functional definition.

    I still get every C-19 booster as available. I still isolate all the time on my property away from the gormless infected multitudes who believe every lie the elites tell them. And I still mask, (on a rare unavoidable errand in my case) as do my wife and adult daughter who both have health vulnerabilities. I haven’t caught COVID-19 yet to the very best of my knowledge. Nor has my wife. Nor has our adult son. Our adult daughter, who has to work with the public, has caught it once, unfortunately.

    This pandemic isn’t over. It will get much worse yet. Protect yourselves and others by getting vaccinated and then testing, isolating, masking and distancing. Sure, you can wash your hands too. That might help stop the gastro epidemic currently under way. I mean do you wonder why all these epidemics are arising now? Measles? crypto, RSV, bacterial pneumonia, etc.? It’s not “immunity debt” (there’s no such thing in the sense that it is promoted as a thing) it’s immune system damage from COVID-19. How long will people keep denying the evidence? That’s the question.

  2. Addendum to above post.

    It is clearly not “immunity debt” causing the problems. It is immune dysregulation. This study just out.

    “COVID’s Hidden Toll: Full-Body Scans Reveal Long-Term Immune Effects”

    https://www.sciencealert.com/covids-hidden-toll-full-body-scans-reveal-long-term-immune-effects

    That’s it I am afraid. Game over. Case closed. COVID-19 is wrecking human immune systems. The empirical evidence is in. I speculate forward at this stage, that sooner or later on the nth infection of COVID-19, a large minority or even a majority of people will have some significant, disabling or fatal degree of immune dysregulation. Expect the global multi-pandemic facilitated by serious immune system damage and dysregulation from COVID-19 to worsen inexorably from this point. This is unless we take stringent, comprehensive and extensive national and global emergency action to reduce the incidence of and then largely prevent all infectious diseases, especially all airborne infectious diseases and very especially COVID-19 disease.

  3. Biden is past it

    To remind you just how bad Biden’s performance was at the “debate” with Trump, Kevin Drum has published a literal transcript of ten excerpts from his answers. https://jabberwocking.com/ten-excerpts/ (He also documented thirteen lies by Trump it’s not a biased hatchet job). Here for instance is Biden’s comment on Roe v Wade. Abortion is a straightforward issue of enormous electoral importance to Democrats. Their position – the restoration of the Roe v Wade compromise – is stable, crystal clear and very popular. Trump had just repeated the outrageous lie that Democrats would allow infanticide of newborn babies.

    Biden: “I supported Roe v. Wade, which had three trimesters. First time is between a woman and a doctor. Second time is between a doctor and an extreme situation. A third time is between the doctor — I mean, it’d be between the woman and the state.”

    It’s true that ordinary informal speech is typically pretty ungrammatical. Only a few like Churchill and Obama speak even in informal contexts in well-formed and clearly delineated sentences. This is not the problem with the example. It’s that the content is at the level of an average teenager discovering the problem for the first time. This level of incoherence is not acceptable in a candidate for the most powerful single office on Earth. This remains true even on the most charitable explanation, offered by the Biden campaign, that he was suffering from a “cold”, not a senior moment, fatigue or jet lag, or something worse like Parkinson’s. Whatever the trigger, he will be increasingly vulnerable to such spells of incapacity as his second term advances. As it happens, I have early-stage Parkinson’s, and my public persona is still Grumpy Old Man not sleepwalking zombie. You would still be crazy to hire me for any job requiring a full working week.

    It remains true that a senile Biden, a sack of potatoes, a chatbot AI, Liz Truss, or even me would be far preferable to Trump. So what? The real universe of alternatives to Biden includes hundreds of experienced Democratic politicians who meet a much higher standard of energy and coherent speech, starting with Biden’s Vice-President, Kamala Harris. After a brilliant first Biden term, the risk of a disastrous second one is now high.

    I have a Hollywood idea for staging a graceful withdrawal. Biden runs up to the Democratic Party Convention on August 19. He and Harris are nominated by acclamation. Biden then makes a terrific speech – stuttering as much as he likes – refusing the nomination, on two conditions. One is that Harris becomes the candidate for President. Two is that whoever he and Harris proposes as VP candidate is approved by acclamation, since there isn’t time for anything else. Then Harris makes the speech of her life, very reluctantly supporting the deal and proposing XX as VP candidate. Convention bursts into tears and huzzahs. It would make unbeatable TV. A pity the scenario is very improbable.

    Who could XX be? Newsom makes two Californians, bad culturally and useless electorally. Besides he comes across IMHO as too calculating and smarmy. Whitmer comes from a battleground Midwest industrial state, a good electoral balance, but makes two women on the ticket, a uterus too far for now. Buttigieg? The gayness is a risk, but he is married, and the homophobe bigots are hardcore Trumpists anyway On the plus side, he comes from a smallish Eastern town, is currently an effective Transport Secretary and Cabinet member, is intelligent, young, and personable. Having previously run for the Presidential nomination, he has demonstrated an appropriate level of ambition and nerve, and been effectively screened for skeletons in the closet.

    Why Harris? In the abstract, she’s no better or worse than many other Democratic politicians, with no signature issue. But she has done a very acceptable and disciplined understudy job as Veep for three years, just as Biden did for Obama, not seeking more than the visibility Biden gave her. She knows how everything works, and would be running on a platform of continuity of policy with the sainted Joe, so her lack of distinctive ideas is a plus not a negative. Fox and company hate her, but as with Buttigieg there is probably no more dirt to be found.

    Unfortunately for both the USA and the world, my scenario is a picturesque fantasy. It is somewhat more possible that the same effect could be achieved by plotting in smoke-filled rooms or encrypted video calls over the coming weeks, but there are only six of them left. Biden eventually talked round the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, to unblock arms for Ukraine. There is even more riding on the ability of the other leading Democrats to persuade Joe. It’s time to quit, and take the gold watch engraved with all our thanks.

  4. Unfortunately, I think we are in a time when we actually have to listen to pollsters. Voldemort must be defeated soundly at the polls – by enough margin that it is convincing to all ordinary people – all else is subsidiary to it.

    And I don’t know for sure who could do this. If I can’t get someone good, maybe I’d stick with Biden. (Some people I know think this whole thing is hysteria.)

    I also think we should consider running Hilary again. She can definitely do the job. (Harris would be okay too I think. I am just not sure she could win though.) Well, unless there are health issues I don’t know about. I think she might get under Voldemort’s skin. And, she beat him in the popular vote once already. We just need to take the Midwest’s temperature – have they learned anything?

    For VP, I am wondering about Mark Kelly, the astronaut senator from AZ. Could there be a bald crossover vote? I don’t know that much about him but he seems smart enough, likable, is married to a strong partner, and he’s been in the military. And, he won in AZ. So, I feel like he brings a lot to the table. He may not have been vetted enough though.

    I do not care for Buttigieg in the least in policy terms – though as a person he seems okay. He was going to let NY do congestion pricing. I know that some people think that’s a good idea – but I think it would have just brought more anger. We have too much of that. And it would only have cleaned the air in Manhattan. I don’t see those policies as being that solid. He also had promoted at least one nominee I didn’t care for – so, to me he’s iffy.

    Or maybe this Shapiro person. There are also a few other whitish male Dems in the Eastern part of the country who might work – I don’t even know their names. Maybe even we could pick a Republican who isn’t insane, for VP. Whatever it takes.

    Meanwhile, some people think there would be political risks if Harris weren’t chosen. So, again, pollsters. (Though, polls seem less reliable now that people don’t have landlines and also don’t answer them. There seem to be sharks in the water.)

  5. James W,.

    Agreed. Biden is completely past it. What is wrong with the dynamics of US party politics? In one party it leads to the selection of a person with serious physical and cognitive decline as a presidential candidate. In the other party it leads to the selection of a candidate who intends to overthrow the constitution and execute an autocoup or self coup. Pun intended on “execute”. After self coups there usually are executions. The self coup has a long history.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-coup

    I guess the answer to my question may be that it is mass irrationality (a form of mass hysteria) or emergent global irrationality from a number of smaller, local, seemingly rational expeditious or self-interest decisions. Whatever… it’s a total mess.

    You showed honesty, humour and grace under (personal) pressure in writing , “As it happens, I have early-stage Parkinson’s, and my public persona is still Grumpy Old Man not sleepwalking zombie. You would still be crazy to hire me for any job requiring a full working week.”

    I agree. There is this whole fallacious notion that we are all going to be working to 70, running marathons until 90 and remaining as intellectually perky as Bertrand Russell (did) to boot. This is not the fate of most people, especially those who have had hard lives. It never was and it will be even worse going forward. The explosion of physical and cognitive decline from multiple covid-19 infections and the inevitable Long Covid will see to that. (See my covid posts). People have no idea what’s coming.

  6. Ditto what Iko said, and I apologize for not responding – I couldn’t think of a response that wouldn’t sound smarmy! We have a friend in the same boat, and it seems to be progressing slowly. I will hope for the same – and for selfish reasons, as you are one of my favorite people whom I don’t actually know IRL. For real, as the kids say.

  7. We are now living with COVID-19. It was the equal third highest killer disease of Australians in 2023 and the highest infectious disease killer. For the first time since the early 1990s, Australian life expectancy dropped. These are recaps. I said all this above.

    What are we doing about it, the COVID-19 disease which is now the highest *infectious* disease killer and disabler of Australians? We are neglecting all measures, that’s what we are doing. The vaccinations and boosters are dropping away in number, especially among the vulnerable due to anti-vaccine propaganda and practical barriers which almost intentional. Masks are nowhere to be seen. There are next to no clean air efforts and testing, isolating and distancing are ghosts of the past.

    Dr David Berger here shows how deeply buried the information promoting COVID vaccination is right now in W.A.

    https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1809926529696375123.html

    TLDR? The information on eligibility and how to get a vaccine for COVID-19 is buried many screens deep on the WA site and it takes assiduous searching to find. This is for the worst infectious disease in Australia, killing and disabling the most Australians! This is bizarre and a sign of the deep denial surrounding the dangers of COVID-19.

    What has happened in some other parts of the world? Here I refer to impacts not vaccination COVID-19 vax rates which are also hopeless everywhere. There’s only room for a couple of points, two indicators.

    Note sure how well this image link will come across. Note how since the C-19 pandemic started, the number of people economically inactive in the UK due to long-term sickness has soared (a 32% rise). Note the US figures for “Civilian Labor Force with a disability” which have also soared from something like 2.3 million to 3.4 million, almost 50%.

    Of course, I am wasting my time. Nobody cares. I guess it is going to take a death or disabling event in every house in the nation before anyone pays attention. Sadly with climate change and the pandemicene, that time is coming.

  9. I’m rather disappointed at the ongoing discussion as to Joe Biden’s mental and physical state. It’s well known that he has a stutter yet this has somehow become a sign of dementia. There is no medical evidence to support the negative opinions on his functionality, in fact the latest medical report shows there to be no sign of disability other than just age.

    Biden just gave a speech at NATO which was well received and Trump gave a talk at a rally in Florida which was just gibberish. But the media don’t say this as they need to keep Trump onside as they feed off Trump’s ability to attract attention.

    To portray Trump as a viable alternative to Biden is nonsense and people shouldn’t form opinions based on media.

  13. On the topic of out with the old and in with the new, recently Biden said ‘I’m getting so frustrated by the elites in the party’

    By elites he means millionaire donors.

    At some point people are going to have to choose between the opinion of the elites, like George Clooney, or their own opinion.

  14. The old warpig sure has some stutter!

    Paraphrasing Biden this morning (AEST): “In the event, Vice President Putin is able to hold the fort.”

    Can Putin really do for Harris when also being Zelenski’s stand in?

  15. All the key people who unleashed rampant COVID-19 infections on our society, without adequate protections, are such a bunch of geniuses! That’s sarcasm by the way.

    Now we see (and this is just one of several outbreaks), “Australia battles biggest gastro outbreak in more than 20 years as parasite responsible for cryptosporidiosis spreads rapidly.” – from Sky News.

    “There have been a reported 11,747 cryptosporidiosis cases in 2024 so far – which is the highest number recorded by the National Notifiable Disease Surveillance System since the NNDSS began collecting data in 2001.

    This figure dwarfes (sic) last year’s 3,716 cases.

    A quarter of cases this year have been found to be in children under the age of four.”

    No mention of why crypto cases might be up. “Immunity debt” could be the cry from those who know nothing about immunology. Fortunately, Sky News did not go there in this report.

    Actually measles, RSV, seasonal flu, cryptosporidiosis and Mycoplasma pneumoniae (to name five) are causing large, atypically large outbreaks in many countries this year. Why might this be? Somehow the pathogens’ infection parameters are up or people’s (and especially children’s) immune systems are down in effectiveness. I wonder why? Well, there is actually a lot of evidence that COVID-19, especially via multiple infections and Long Covid, damages and degrades human immune systems.

    BTW, it is not immunity debt (so-called) according to the best science. “‘Immunity debt’ is a misguided and dangerous concept.”

    https://www.ft.com/content/0640004d-cc15-481e-90ce-572328305798

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