A century of Epidemiology Tells us Something Different

 

 

“It would be time to use the knowledge of a hundred years of epidemiology in the management of this epidemic, instead of taking extreme measures that will certainly have a major negative impact on our lives.

Original (Portuguese) April 10 2020 By Andre Dias.   

English Translation by Marc Gauvin Spanish version Pdf

 

The initial data on infectious outbreaks is essentially noise, with very little to take away from the signal. First, because for a few weeks there is no agent identified, then there is no specific test for the agent, then there are only virological tests (where we are now) and, only much later, serological / antibody tests appear.

Virological tests can only be carried out in a very short time window or are negative, hence inducing a gigantic noise. Serological’s indicate if there has ever been contact with the virus, so they can be done in population sampling and allow statistically significant data.

At the moment (written on March 23), there is no reliable data to estimate the lethality of covid-19, it could be 0.001% or 5%. This is all noise. The number of infected people can be what we assume or ten thousand times greater (yes, ten thousand times).

Only with the arrival of serological tests do we begin to have a real picture of the disease in society. The Netherlands has announced that it has achieved a marker antibody test, but no results are known so far.

For example, Swine flu started with estimates of 30% - literally human extinction in a few months - and ended below 1%, below seasonal flu and did no harm.

This is the type of noise we are dealing with.

The only minimally reliable data we have from virological tests is from the Diamond Princess cruise, because everyone has been tested in a relatively short interval. They indicate 1% lethality in a very high age population, in a confined environment and sharing a canteen. We can be sure that the world outside the cruise will have much lower rates. In addition, less than 20% of people have been infected and there is still no explanation for this.

Since lethality cannot even be estimated at the beginning, all fear and panic are irrational.

Extreme, extreme care is needed with the release of initial data on outbreaks in particular with lethality. The World Health Organization (WHO) should answer criminally for not properly managing the data and indicating the order of magnitude of the noise data. It was only on the basis of this (incomplete data picture” that world has reacted to this “crisis”.

Looking at http://www.euromomo.eu something is immediately visible: The 2018/19 flu season was incredibly light and the 2010/20 season was even lighter so far.

Also worth noting in the detailed country charts is that all of the previous peaks, caused mainly by seasonal flu, are closed in week 19 of the year (first week of May) and peak before week 12. The baseline of mortality crosses the average at that time and represents the initial impact of lung disease mortality in winter.

There is almost a certainty that covid19 will behave the same and will cease to be relevant soon, at least until next autumn / winter.

The most vulnerable people, who died at home, homes, palliative care, are now sent to central hospitals for fear of caregivers becoming infected and because, as it is mandatory in reporting disease, they have to go to referral hospitals.

The National Health Service collapses every winter with the flu, covid 19 is clinically more complicated and occupies the intensive care beds longer, but fear and the bureaucratic processes associated with the disease explain a relevant part of the overload of services.

It was the same fear that made funeral services collapse in Bergamo and Madrid and now New York. The bodies have to be cremated as it is a formally contagious notification disease, and employees are required to take total protection measures that decrease productivity.

Allied to this decrease in the capacity of crematoriums, patients are concentrated in cities and families cannot take care of them, again because it is a contagious disease, causing the collapse.

Bergamo is one of the oldest cities in Italy, two years above average. In the central hospital's area of influence there are 300,000 people. In flu peaks, an average of fifty people per week per 100,000 inhabitants die. It is normal to expect 100 deaths a day on some peak days. The news reported that the crematorium could only handle 24. It was not an exceptional current mortality that created the problem it was the requiring everyone cremated given and the slowness inherent in the imposed rules for this disease. The flu also has epicenters.

The comparison with previous years in tight windows as it now circulates “four times more mortality in March, in Madrid and Bergamo” is disingenuous as flu outbreaks slide a lot within the flu season, mostly between December and February. Thus comparing mortality with in March this year, with covid19, has no statistical relation with the same periods of previous years.

A 140% increase in mortality in Bergamo is banal compared to last year, given the mild flu season. Mortality is likely to fall several times below 2014 when an excess of 54,000 died from all causes in Italy, an increase of three times even in relation to flu peaks. At that peak of 54,000 dead, not a single school was closed, nor was there any relevant research to determine the causes.

Current (April 1) estimates of lethality put covid19 at the level of the flu. The number of deaths by infected, IFR (infected fatility rate), of 0.26% is perfectly commonplace for flu peaks. The numbers that have been circulating are averages of the flu lethality of many decades that blur the peaks, where peaks with lethalities of 1% being considered as banal.

There is no lack of epidemiologists to come out in public, from the first day, to say that this is crazy. Some speak on behalf of Helmholtz Gesellschaft, a giant of medical science, where about 20,000 people are doing epidemiology. Most were insulted.

The Imperial College team that made catastrophic predictions has a macabre history of referring to the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of animals because of ‘foot and mouth disease’. It was found at the time that the model was wrong, essentially being the same used now. At a parliamentary hearing, Neil Ferguson reviewed Imperial College's estimates, without any plausible justification other than "measures" he did not specify, going from 500,000 to 20,000 dead!

Containment measures do not demonstrate the most remote effectiveness. All countries, with the exception of South Korea now, have perfect theoretical curves with 12 to 15 days until the peak of new cases, after entering exponential, which is the representative pattern of uncontrolled lung infections.

In Portugal, fifteen days have passed since a state of emergency, regarding a disease with 14 days from infection until diagnosis and has only slowed down with the same pattern as in all other countries.

There are indicators that the rate of infected people is much higher than what is believed. If so, not only did confinement not help the health system, it accelerated infection - unimportant, but ironic.

Schools should never have been closed. Children are virtually at no risk with this infection, and are immune quickly, with no symptoms in most. They become virus brooms to collect viruses from surfaces that do nothing to them and that are no longer available to infect vulnerable people.

It would be reasonable to ask the children-grandparents to stay away for a week to avoid the most active phase of contagion. Eventually it could be reasonable to send staff and teachers in risk groups home and reduce the teaching load with more physical contact activities.

It was probably the air quality in Wuhan that triggered the WHO outbreak alerts and the Chinese government went in. The images created panic in the world… then, there is a new alert in the Po valley, also with miserable air quality.

All epidemic monitoring is done computationally, with data collection. Until there was this alert, WHO did not seek anything.

Politicians were just after the creating fear in the population. The big exception is Marke Rutte, from the Netherlands, who makes an exemplary statesman speech, half the time talking about fear being real and recognizing that this fear cannot be denied, but that life will continue as if it were nothing.

Even if it was very bad, pulmonary viruses are always slow, never infecting more than 30% of people per year, no matter how “and” where “. Rapid viruses are viruses that are available on the skin or secretions, which are protected from the environment until the moment of infecting a new host.

Pulmonary viruses must be exposed to the hostile environment for a minimum to long time, which dramatically reduces their capacity to infection - for example they are destroyed by ultraviolet rays - which makes them much slower and greatly influenced by small increases in group immunity.

There was plenty of time to make decisions, observe how the epidemic evolved and decide accordingly, rationally and taking weight and measure into account.

The flu always has strains with zero immunisation. WHO predicts strains and often fails, leaving one or two strains out of the vaccine for which immunity is zero.

It would be time to use the knowledge of a hundred years of epidemiology to manage this epidemic, instead of taking extreme measures, which have never been tested anywhere, and which will certainly have a major negative impact on our lives.

Note: By his own choice, the author does not write according to the new spelling agreement.

Money's Misrepresentation and what we eat

By Marc Gauvin

Copyright © 12/2017
Reproduction expressly granted provided attribution is given and original link is provided.
 
 

 

Re:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7JE8j5Ncmw

 

Yeah, all those bacteria that feed off us and try to kill us just to consume us. All those carnivores and omnivores that just see us as food. Is this world immoral? What if morality is just a matrix/story?

When humanity was at its height in terms of health and physical strength we were hunter gatherers, 30% of our diet was animal protein much of it stolen from other predators' kills particularly the valuable organ meats with far greater nutrient value than flesh and far more portable.  When we "graduated" to an agrarian lifestyles it is reported that we lost physical health, brain mass and strength.

The American indigenous people saw killing for food as part of the cycle of life and death all beings are condemned to. The Buddhist's leave their corpses to be consumed by scavengers to "give back" to the system of life not humanity alone.

Are we doing a favour to animals when we hunt them for food when they are on the verge of losing their prime vitality, before succumbing to the decrepitude and crippling disability of old age?

What of the farmer who cares and protects the animals he feeds off and allows them to realise their full life cycle at the price of sacrificing it or its progeny in far less painful and terrifying fashion than would a predator?

Domestic cats play with their prey while wild cats aim to suffocate them before the anaesthesia of adrenaline wears off, is that moral or immoral?

The Spanish bull fighters justify their "art" because of the fantastic lives that the majority of the herds experience in a free range existence across massive territories where whole ecosystems are preserved only "economically viable" thanks to the income the Bull fighting festival produces.

It all boils down to pain and sufferance management that celebrates life while accepting and mitigating its ultimate conclusion - death.  In this light, it is evident that "industrial" farming is a crime against nature because it does not just rob living beings of their bodies but also robs them of their entire lives and purpose, in a foolish quest to short change the very system that gives all beings life. Such an abhorrent manifestation is the fruit of the attempt to sell the promise of an impossible and illusory permanence and status of "life" to the mind's and souls of people governed by money's misrepresentation while ignoring the very essence of life, death and our true nature.


Break out of  "The Money PSYOP" and give your kids

a future they can be proud of you for by supporting the MSTA

 



Proposed Resolutions for Financial Transition Draft V.1

Money Systems Transparency Alliance (MSTA)

Editors: Marc Gauvin (mg), Mark Heffernan (mkh), Jordan Soreff (sg)

January 2020 rev.2.3 Feb 26 2020 rev.2.4 April 11 2020

 

Preamble

More than ever the thing we call money is currently itself being questioned unprecedentedly. The time has come for money to be objectively specified in a fair and transparent scientific fashion without disrupting our day to day ability to operate nor sacrificing our core rights and freedoms. To this end,  we propose these simple Resolutions that can be briefly summarised by recognising the need for money to be properly specified and how in the interim we can render our current use of money “passive” in the formal scientific sense of the term. Passivity will ensure our uninterrupted day to day use of money as a valid record of what each of us do and achieve in the economy without itself being the ultimate distorting goal that it is today. Just as the scoreboard of a sports event “passively” and accurately reflects the play without determining how people behave to achieve their “goals”, so too ensuring that our money system fulfils the formal requirements of “passivity” it can serve to provide all of us valuable information,  without itself or its systemics interfering with what we choose to do or how we choose to do it.

Resolutions

Misrepresentation of Money:

Absent any formal definition of money and respective symbols (e.g. “$”) used in a wide array of contexts (e.g. dollar bills, checks and account entries) on similarly varied set of physical supports (e.g. paper, computer memory) and as an object of different contracts (e.g. mortgages, loans, derivatives, etc.), we are unable to identify any determinate relation between money denoted by such symbols and the value inherent in public or private goods and services money is expected to represent.  As a consequence, obligations, agreements or contracts in terms of such “$“ units are commensurately indeterminable such that a logical, fully reasoned and hence just rule of law is impeded.  Just as any mathematical expression is rendered indeterminate if its variables are not fully and unequivocally defined in terms of the reality in which they are to be applied, so too mathematical expressions in terms of units of money are rendered indeterminate, unless those units are unequivocally defined in terms of our common reality to which they are expected to be applied.
Common practice has adopted a notion of money where it is implicitly and explicitly assumed to be both a record/measure of value AND a commodity/tradable good without noticing how these two notions (measure/commodity) are, by logic, mutually exclusive. Such a logical misrepresentation, once identified and by the most fundamental principles of law and justice, must render any contracts in terms of such a notion invalid. To continue business as usual in spite of this revelation is to arbitrarily subject one or other parties directly or indirectly to unknown, incalculable and/or undeclared consequences and imperatives.

As a consequence of the mere knowledge of this common misrepresentation,  again by principles of law, it also becomes incumbent on all parties to contracts involving “money” to seek remedy by proactively assisting in providing a logical and independently evaluable (valid) definition of money for contracts.

 

Resolution 1 (Correction of Money's Misrepresentation by Legal Imperative)

We thus seek,  as set out by the Money Systems Transparency Alliance (MSTA), to immediately set out to pursue and assist all technical and legal avenues to resolve the aforementioned logical anomaly,  and to do so in relation with the highest monetary authorities i.e. Central Banks, leading banking and investment houses and related stake holders, by way of the necessary open ratification and publication of a valid formal logical definition/specification of money, its function, scope of use and corresponding logical requirements. This formal logical definition/specification of money shall be done in terms of independently determinable criteria. For example, money’s definition cannot be circular (i.e. in terms of itself, also known as “false confirmation”) but rather must be in terms of the reality in which it, money, is to be operated on and applied.

Resolution 2 (Immediate (Interim) Imposition of Formal Passivity):

Pursuant to the above and with the aim of eliminating all and any direct or associated adverse effects and consequences arising from implementing money under its commonly assumed current misrepresentation,  we move to IMMEDIATELY adopt an interim logical “Passive” specification of money’s current use in the formal scientific sense of the term as follows:

  1. That money’s logical function shall be strictly limited to that of record/annotation the “value” attributed to goods and services transferred between parties in transactions and denominated using the common unit symbol “$”.
  2. Thus money shall be created on account to represent value given in the form of “goods and services” pending future reciprocation of “goods and services” of commensurate value and money shall be cancelled on account upon value being reciprocated.
  3. Related Balances of such “moneys” shall be kept by all stakeholders (e.g. Central Bank, associated banking or credit institutions, public administrators and interested parties etc.)  along with periodic issuance of statements as required.
  4. In order to maintain a system of any number of such transactions “passive” according to the formal requirements of passivity the following shall be observed:

    1. Money is defined as an annotation of value expressed in currency units (e.g. $) and only comes about as a result of transactions after the fact.
    2. There is no prior circulation, supply or demand of units required.
    3. Each transaction generates its own independent units that are later resolved against existing balances (see creation and cancellation of money above).
    4. The sum of money in a system of any number of such transactions at any given point of time, represents all non reciprocated value (risk measured in currency units) and at all times is equal or less than the sum of input "cost"/"prices", thus conforming to Passive BIBO criteria for sampled LTI Systems.
    5. Value transacted may never be unilaterally determined.
    6. To avoid systemic distortion of the common perception of value by systemic compounding, the cost/price of all associated money (banking) services (e.g. maintaining of accounts, risk consultancy, etc.) must be attributed solely in terms of their own value and never as a percentage commission of the sums of value attributed to other transactions.

Publications (Marc Gauvin):

www.bibocurrency.com 2009-2015

Background Foundation

Methodology

Defining Money

Miscellaneous Articles

Spanish

Digital Media Value Chains and Ontology (2004-2010)

– Marc Gauvin (sDae), Jaime Delgado (UPF), Roberto Garcia (UPF), Eva Rodriguez (UPF) ISO/IEC JTC1/SC29/WG11 Issues Regarding the Practical Implementation of the RDD April 2005, Busan, KR

– Marc Gauvin (sDae), Roberto García (DMAG-UPF), Jaime Delgado (DMAG-UPF), Eva Rodríguez (DMAG-UPF), Report Preliminary Results of RDD Core Experiment CE for Expressing “Work”ISO/IEC JTC1/SC29/WG11 MPEG2005/ M12511 October 2005, Nice, FR

– Marc Gauvin, Oil Depletion, Energy Waste, Debt and Capital Production, Association for the Study of Peak Oil Newsletter, June 2005

Marc Gauvin, Jaime Delgado. Value Chain Ontologies for Intellectual Property Management September 2006. Europe-China Conference on Intellectual Property in Digital Media October 2006

– Marc Gauvin. Interoperable DRM & Content Business Modeling. Europe-China Conference on Intellectual Property in Digital Media October 2006

– Marc Gauvin BIBOCURRENCY. The Science of Stability Applied to Money Systems February 17, 2011 (Self published book online at: http://www.bibocurrency.com/index.php/downloads/downloads (english). Spanish translation:

– Víctor Rodríguez (DMAG-UPC), Jaime Delgado (DMAG-UPC), Marc Gauvin (SDAE) ISO/IEC 21000-10 Media Value Chain Ontology Reference Software Requirements April 2010

– Marc Gauvin, Jaime Delgado, Víctor Rodríguez Doncel, and Miran Choi (editors). First Draft International Standard of ISO/IEC 21000-19 Media Value Chain Ontology. Technical report, Output document N11146 in tI amO/IEC JTC1/SC29/WG11, Moving Picture Experts Group, January 2010.

– Marc Gauvin, Jaime Delgado, Víctor Rodríguez , and Miran Choi (editors). Final Committee Draft of ISO/IEC 21000-19Media Value Chain Ontology. Technical report, Output document N10768 in tI amO/IEC JTC1/SC29/WG11, Moving Picture Experts Group, July 2009.

– Sergio Dominguez and Marc Gauvin. Formal Stability Analysis of Common Lending Practices and Consequences of Chronic Currency Devaluation May 2009 (http://www.bibocurrency.com/images/pdfdownloads/Formal%20Stability%20Analysis%20and%20experiment%20(final)%20rev%203.4.pdf )

– Víctor Torres, Jaime Delgado, Xavier Maroñas, Silvia Llorente, Marc Gauvin: Enhancing Rights Management Systems through the Development of Trusted Value Networks. WOSIS 2009: 26-35 May 2009

– Marc Gauvin, Jaime Delgado, Víctor Rodríguez Doncel, and Miran Choi (editors). Final Committee Draft of ISO/IEC 21000-19 Media Value Chain Ontology. Technical report, Output document N10455 in tI amO/IEC JTC1/SC29/WG11, Moving Picture Experts Group, February 2009.

– Marc Gauvin, Jaime Delgado, Víctor Rodríguez Doncel, and Miran Choi (editors). Committee Draft of ISO/IEC 21000-19 Media Value Chain Ontology. Technical report, Output document N10264

in tI amO/IEC JTC1/SC29/WG11, Moving Picture Experts Group, October 2008.

– Marc Gauvin, Jaime Delgado, Víctor Rodríguez Doncel, and Miran Choi (editors). Working Draft of ISO/IEC 21000-19 Media Value Chain Ontology. Technical report, Output document N10070 in the

ISO/IEC JTC1/SC29/WG11, Moving Picture Experts Group, July 2008.

– Marc Gauvin, Jaime Delgado, and Victor Rodriguez. Ontology for IP Media Networks: A response to the MVCO CfP. Input document M15631 for tI amO/IEC JTC1/SC29/WG11, July 2008.

– Marc Gauvin, Challenges for IP Management as Represented & Communicated Digitally. Submission to WIPO “Foro sobre derechos de autor, industrias creativas y políticas públicas”Mexico City August 2007

– Marc Gauvin, Jaime Delgado, Eva Rodríguez, and Víctor Rodríguez Doncel. Requirements for a machine readable rights ontology.Technical report, Input document M14707 for ISO/IEC JTC1/SC29/WG11, Moving Picture Experts Group, July 2007.

– Víctor Rodríguez-Doncel, Marc Gauvin, Jaime Delgado: An Ontology for the Expression of Intellectual Property Entities and Relations. WOSIS 2007: 196-203 June 2007.

– Marc Gauvin, Jaime Delgado, and Victor Rodriguez. Proposed RRD Text for Approved Document No 3 – Technical Specification: Interoperable DRM Platform, ver. 2.1. Technical report, The Digital Media Project, March 2007.

– Marc Gauvin and Victor Rodriguez. Proposed RRD Requirements.Technical report, The Digital Media Project, January 2007.

– Víctor Rodríguez, Marc Gauvin, and Jaime Delgado. An ontology for the expression of intellectual property entities and relations. In 5th International Workshop on Security in Information Systems (WOSIS), June 2007.

– Marc Gauvin, Jaime Delgado, Víctor Rodríguez, and Eva Rodríguez. OWL Ontology to Represent the DMP Creation Model. Technical report, The Digital Media Project, October 2006.
– Marc Gauvin and Jaime Delgado. Value Chain Ontologies for Intellectual Property Objects. Europe-China Conference on Intellectual Property in Digital Media October October 2006

– Marc Gauvin, Eva Rodríguez (DMAG-UPF), Jaime Delgado (DMAG-UPF) MPEG 21 RDD spec vs MPEG 21 RDD versus 21000-1 (2nd edition) terms and definitions. Input document m11556 ISO/IEC/SC29/WG11. Hong Kong January 2005.

– Marc Gauvin (sDae, Spain), Mélanie Dulong de Rosnay (Medialive, France) The Notion of Underlying Work within MPEG-21, ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 29/WG 11 input document M10616 Munich, April 2004

Additional information