exfocx
 

Originally Posted by Numero Crunchero View Post

The initial reaction to covid was probably the right one(let history decide) - the ongoing reaction is an economic own goal - a stupendous achievement in self destruction for no good reason.

Population of earth - 7.6billion. Average life expectancy - just over 72 years. So mathematically speaking about 105million people die per year(if population was evenly distributed by age - it is not- real figure is lower). So about 50-60m people have died from all causes so far this year. Covid has killed 800K or about 1.6%. From a WSJ article a few weeks ago the median age of death for covid in the US was 80. So you're going to average out the WHOLE world and treat every situation as one.

I can easily get US data – not the rest. I have read that the average mortality age for covid is very close to life expectancy age for each region. In other words - it kills you when you were statistically going to die from something anyway.

So we are locking down the world because 1.6% of all deaths are from covid and it is killing people around the age they usually die. Sounds a bit like the flu (etc) to me. How many times do you need to hear from the med experts that it's nothing like the flu. Or the damage it's doing to peoples health (heart, lung & brain) who didn't even need a ventilator.

I know it is not the flu – but then please go tell them to rename the Spanish Flu – it wasn’t a “flu” either- it was a coronavirus. And the flu usually kills older people – so does covid. So that is the comparison to the flu.

The naysayers will go "yeah but if we hadn't locked down it would be much worse". Ok - we can rely on mathematical models OR we can look at a real world 'model' - Sweden. LMFAO, see below. Even the experts who haven't lambasted Sweden have said it'll take yrs to know the answer the Q was the Swedish path correct. How about looking at the US, Italy, Spain, Britain etc.

Years to know the answer? They have had single digit mortality for almost a month now in Sweden. I did an analysis of the US as someone else mentioned that.

Sweden - popn 10.3m - life expectancy 82. so mathematically speaking they should have lost say 60-70,000 from all causes in the last 6-7 months. They have lost just over 5,800 due to covid. So less than 10% of the normal number of deaths have died of covid - median age of deaths is 84. Eighty nine percent of all deaths were 70 and over. Their rate of infections/death is very low now - no second wave. strange huh? (sarcasm alert). Sweden? Really, what a poor example. Death rate that is 3 to 5.5 times the other Nordic counties with NO BETTER ECONOMIC OUTCOME!!!!

So are you saying 3- 5.5 times as many people have died in Sweden than normal? Or are you saying that the deaths attributable to covid are 3-5.5times their neighbours? Look at my US analysis – you will see that in the US the total number of covid deaths is well inside the ‘venn’ diagram for deaths due to the prevailing co-morbities. Your assertion implies unique and additional deaths – when in fact they could simply be displacement deaths. Time will tell. Yes Sweden apparently trades – so because every other country has shut down, they have been affected economically.


Next argument - they didn't want to overwhelm the health system. Ok - Sweden again - they have about 25,000 hospital beds, They have had a total of 85K positive diagnoses of covid. Worldwide approx 80% or more of covid cases are either asymptomatic or have mild symptoms. So if 20% needed hospitalisation then that means 17,000 beds needed. And let's face it- those 85K cases were spread over time though peaking a few months ago. So perhaps at its peak maybe 10,000 beds were needed - or 40% of them? So is that overwhelming the health system? Actually as of 2017 they had 22237 beds, declining from 31365 in 2000 (statista.com). By the way, what was the occupancy level prior to CV? How many ICU beds are there and how many ventilators?

Ok Google lied to me – it said they had 24,000 odd a couple of years ago – so you got me – if 10,000 went to hospital, that would have been more than40% not 40% as I quoted – you got me – excellent point! (sarcasm alert)I don’t know how many icu beds and ventilators. I tell you what, why don’t you research it and tell us all how wrong I am – or just guess and pontificate? The latter is probably a lot easier isn’t it.


Victoria Australia. They have a population of 6.4m - which means, mathematically speaking, about 219 people should die per day. They have lost a total of nearly two days worth of deaths due to covid. So that works out to be about 1% or so - 2 days out of the last 200 or so.

Australia had 7,500 ventilators before covid- they rushed out and bought another 2,500. As of a week or two ago, Victoria was using 42 of them - so only 9,960 spare - lucky they are in level 4 lockdown. According to the AGE, Vic had 1000 as of late March and had ordered 2000, so I doubt that the rest of the country had another 6,500. Do you think they should wait until they get inundated before buying more, or after seeing what was happening in Med countries they should be a little proactive.

(AFR 14/7) “Behind the scenes, ventilators,like almost all medical supplies, were proving difficult to procure from traditional overseas sources. The government turned to domestic suppliers to procure an additional 7500 units.” (my highlight)

So we were both wrong – whatever they had, they now have 7500 extra( I did read elsewhere (AFR) that it was 10,000 but can't find it now). So did Australia have zero before covid? Maybe 5,000? IDK.
I think it was Resmed who supplied them - in the first three months of this year they produced 55,000 ventilators with the vast majority for export.

If you think having only 7450 spare(+what we had precovid) is a significant and important difference to my original assertion of having 9,950 spare, so be it.

And I don't know the long term stats but I will make an assumption about nursing homes. I will assume most in there are 70-90 and average longevity is 80. I will assume they are no more or less healthy than those aged 70-90 outside nursing homes. Well with 6.4m people you would expect, very roughly, about 800,000 or more to be in that bracket (very very rough guesstimate). If the average age of morality is 80, then you would expect up to 10% of them to die per year- which is up to 80,000 of them per year. or say 40,000 in the last 6 or so months. Victoria has had, what , around 400 deaths due to covid. So about 1%. I would say best leave the stats to the professionals. I doubt your high school maths attempt is really up to it.

Don’t worry, I don’t rely on my high school maths- I use my Finance Grad Dip and my US MBA maths – same maths, more cachet ;-) And I was also pretty god damn good at maths at school, even if I say so myself ;-)

As an aside – using US figures it is 7.3% mortality average for 65 and over – so if you assume those that go into nursing homes are on the ‘less healthy’ side of being alive, then a figure higher than 7.3% would be appropriate – so I am pretty impressed with my 10% guesstimate ;-)

It's simple boys. The politicians massively overreacted based on bad science and a snowball effect. Wuhan locked down because at that point right at the beginning they didn't know how serious and dangerous this virus may be. Which in a way is actually a credit to them.
Unfortunately then the next stop was Bergamo/ Northern Italy - practically the old age home of Europe - so plenty old folks get infected and die and the whole thing looks super dangerous and snowballs from there. Politicians panic since they figure they won't get re elected if granny dies and thus they blindly follow the example of Wuhan and Italy and the rest is history....

I am willing to bet the cx half of my provident fund that in the next few months we will get the data to prove that this was the over reaction of the century by elected idiots, compromised government funded scientists and histerical media. All combined to lead to the ultimate demonstration of the idiocy of crowds in this era of Facebook and fake news.

And all of this makes no difference to the fact that most of the planet will be back in business once the penny drops while HKG is still locked down and taxi drivers here still pump their accelerators like mad to an empty airport of cluelessness and despair.

So simple isn’t it missingblade. Yet the most eminent epidemiologists around the globe are struggling to understand how this virus behaves and what long term damage it will have for sufferers. Experts in pandemic control with years in the field are struggling to know what sort of NPI’s are appropriate at any given time, yet you and the likes of Numero Crunchero and mngmt mole seem to be absolutely clear with your understanding with what should or shouldn’t have been done. Could you enlighten us as to why we should believe your solutions as opposed to the vast weight of expert opinion around the world?



Oh and Numero Crunchero, could you give me the reference that leads you to believe that Spanish Flu was a Coronavirus and not influenza.

You said this.....

...’I know it is not the flu – but then please go tell them to rename the Spanish Flu – it wasn’t a “flu” either- it was a coronavirus. And the flu usually kills older people – so does covid. So that is the comparison to the flu’

Yup....although the initial reaction was somewhat understandable because no one knew what they had, everything out of China is a lie, and the Chinese would certainly exploit a virus that kills the old and sick to cull their population. The subsequent follow ons have been a bunch of Wesley Mouches trying to outdo each other to use the situation for power and control (and foster their agenda). Same as for masks; properly fitted sterilized single use protective gear can certainly have benefit. When it comes to reused constantly touched (between surface and everything else in the world) cloth providing an ideal breeding ground for pathogens in a warm moist environment you're dealing with propaganda (and potentially making the situation worse). But faceless mask laden droids help foster the illusion of control.

Now, that the science supports going back to school and restarting things, it's ignored as the goalposts have shifted towards an unattainable bubble wrapped world paradigm of 'safety' -- when such an approach actually makes things less safe (rather than fly people now drive increasing their risk and making other skewed decisions; the OTHER risks in life have not gone away and everything is a trade off).

I cannot imagine the deleterious psychological effects this is having on smaller children who are unable to see facial expressions and experience basic human contact -- instead being handled by scary faceless robots. Can't be good for the whole human race either.

Now that we DO have data we find we have a pathogen which exploits certain health conditions and has a strong gradient towards mortality particularly among older individuals (as might ANY flu or additional health condition). The marginal effect of the WuFlu is disregarded and IT becomes the primary cause. None of that data support either mask wearing by the general public or lockdowns have worked to do really anything. And the numbers get skewed to reflect just about any death as WuFlu related; whether that was the primary cause or not. The propaganda around this is frightening; it's not so much the pathogen but the constant propaganda driving bad decisions. No flu should be trivialized but at the same time there's significant opportunity cost to everything AND this WuFlu isn't the only game in town health-wise.

So most of the governments of the world have made panic based decisions and royally stepped on their schlong. Those who've been more rational deserve great credit. But I don't see things as changing anytime soon. And there's a huge aftermath to deal with in terms of lost economics (that 'free' money HAS to come from somewhere).

LOL I love how so many aviators are also now pathogen experts and infectious disease epidemiologists, in addition to being financial advisors and economists.

'The Spanish flu was actually a coronavirus' I expect this to be headline news tomorrow as epidemiologists around the world scratch their heads at this brilliant new finding!

Meanwhile, when do I have to drop my drawers?

01Sep or a bit later than that, any ppRUMOURS?

No, you used yr 9 maths at most. You're another example of the old pilot joke about God.

What is it with conspiracy theorists, it isn't intelligence as there's lots of intelligent believers. World Gov, Rothschild / Jewish conspiracy etc; really blows my mind.

Oops - I misspoke - spanish flu was a H1N1 - my bad.

Does that mistake make any difference to any of the numbers I quoted? Or is the focus on where I didn't dot the "i"s and cross the 't"s?


Discussing covid seems to be like religion - or better yet, US politics. You are either a rabid Trump supporter or a rabid trump hater. Apparently there is no middle ground any more - nor can you possible question said "for" or said "against" positions because clearly you are unqualified.

Next time the nice man in uniform tells you to take off your clothes, shave your head, leave your jewellry and get into the nice shower with many other people, in Poland, just go ahead. No need to question authority -ever.

PS exfocx - nice to see a troll in action ;-)

Sorry Faman - I'll leave this topic now ;-) Back to the topic ;-)

The math is easy. Statistical application is hard. Notice how none of the lockdown proponents show any math at all. Coincidence?

We’ll see the new contract in the next couple of weeks with the choice of sign and stay, or take three months notice and go. Everyone on CoS 20/21. Expat housing phased out over two years for those already on approved leases or mortgage; they can’t afford to have too many STCs disappear immediately. That will give them the numbers to work with for the restructuring to be announced Q4.
All bases closed and they can chose whether to come to HK on CoS 20/21 or not.
It is all going to look very different by Christmas and unrecognizable by CNY.

If so it’s goodbye from me. The one thing sls/slv has done for me is make me realise how much I dislike the job. A strange revelation as before I thought I really enjoyed it.

Mngmt Mole’s last post summed it up best, and is worth re-posting:

Well, that outcome was solely due to Sweden having a courageous, sensible and focused leadership. Not the headline seeking careerists who inhabit most western Governments. We've destroyed a decade of economic growth in 5 months, allowed craven politicians to become authoritarian despots and harmed and killed millions through economic distress and poverty of health care (think of the other illnesses that haven't been treated over the past half year, involving millions of people worldwide...cancers, heart disease etc..). This will prove historically to have been the greatest and most tragic farce in modern human existence. Nothing short of an abomination and outrage.

So, no rumours about the company conducting itself iaw the agreed contracts and using reverse seniority redundancy to solve the issue?

No news is good news :}

First 2, possibly 3, vaccines will get approvals somewhere around November/December this year.

CP

Hmm. Unlikely. They’ll rip up every agreement if they feel they have to. Just like every other organization has done. And who’ll stop them ?

Last time I looked stats were maths and I'm just guessing, but I'd have thought the application is the nuts and blots of it! I doubt there is a pilot here who'd have any idea of how to apply the stats for something like this, let alone where to get the raw data from. You are a perfect example of the know it all pilot! No one knows your job, but your an expert on all other fields. You must be deserving of a 3rd flr office.

It's not a case of us being 'pathogen experts and infectious disease epidemiologists' or 'financial advisors and economists'. Rather it's seeing the BS with which this virus is being handled... The facts which we can all read show that the actual deaths from Covid are FAR LESS than these epidemiologists predicted and that several economies have had there GDPs plummet. The UK for example is down 20% since the beginning of the year!

Some of you want to be sucked in? Feel free...

The UK is down 20% because they stuffed their response. We've had WA, NT, SA, TAS & QLD locked down for some months with most of them just opening up recently, and Australia's GDP impacted nowhere near as much.

Tell me, how do you see the BS when you have no expertise in any fields involved?

NC
 

So are you saying 3- 5.5 times as many people have died in Sweden than normal? Or are you saying that the deaths attributable to covid are 3-5.5times their neighbours? Look at my US analysis – you will see that in the US the total number of covid deaths is well inside the ‘venn’ diagram for deaths due to the prevailing co-morbities. Your assertion implies unique and additional deaths – when in fact they could simply be displacement deaths. Time will tell. Yes Sweden apparently trades – so because every other country has shut down, they have been affected economically.
[/QUOTE]

According to what I've read, they're referring to 3 to 5.5 times as many cv19 deaths. Using a death rate Vs pop, Sweden is doing worse than the US.

Btw, your last sentence doesn't make sense. Sweden has had far higher cv19 deaths than the other Nordic countries, that face the SAME trade issues, so Sweden traded off a non existent economic return by "remaining open" for a REAL higher death rate. How do you explain that?

That’s very likely your problem. If what your reading begins with the header CNN, BBC, or similar; then you are simply gulping up propaganda.

Don’t know if anyone remembers, but the UK also had a little issue called “Brexit”.
Must be nice for Boris to blame the 20% downturn on COVID.
Also, he wants you all to go on a diet, since he himself lost a lot of weight.
I believe his dieting plan is also called COVID. Pretty effective and useful “thing”, COVID, in more ways than one.
As a sidenote: I love the fact that his life was saved by an immigrant.

I'd love to see the headlines downline if we'd ascribed to this WuFlu madness through known history.

"Even in 2020, the area west of Pittsburgh remains largely unexplored. Early in the 19th century an expedition was planned under then-president Jefferson for Captain Meriwether Lewis and Lt. William Clark; however, congress later forced the cancellation of the journey because thirty people in New York had developed rheumatism. Out of an abundance of caution, it was never accomplished."

You need to hear the real news from Fox or Breitbart, or even better Q’Anon

Nah, Faux and Breitbart are still woke news. Alex Jones and Qanon, they tell it how it is!

My guess is they’ll only close pax bases, Anchorage will be kept, it is currently far busier than HK.
Another guess is that they’ll merge the seniority of all four of the Group airlines which will give more flexibility in the coming bloodbath/restructuring.

Closing a base would cost 6 months salary, changing terms and conditions would cost 3 months salary (if AOA consent)
Closing bases would result in the loss of more pilots than the T&C’s because people would rather stay employed at their home base, while a lot of people don’t want to re-locate to HKG especially with family.

Dont you think that would be the idea? Management would probably be counting on it, it would avoid involuntary redundancies & they might also be able to argue that since the offer of a position in HKG was made it isn't even a voluntary redundancy and not pay 6 months. Many people probably wouldn't want to return or re-locate to Hong Kong, sadly given the state of the world doubt most wont have much choice.

You think a significant number of based pilots would resign! I very much doubt it, other than those close to retirement I expect every single pilot will return to HKG. It would be utter madness not to, given the current job prospects out there. 3-4 years down the line when aviation picks up, many of those who were based would be leaving for new jobs closer to home.

Somehow I do not think HK pilot numbers will be the limiting factor or driving force behind the restructure!
When required, a reduction in headcount will be the result of the new size/structure of the CX group.
Why would pax bases close and not freighter bases?

What's the evidence for herd immunity? Medical experts I've heard talking about it seem to think post-infection antibodies have a half-life of around six weeks. So any post-infection immunity would be short-lived, assuming it even works for any mutated virus encountered a second time around.

From Elaine Stevenson, Australian Infectious Disease Epidemiologist, who is aghast by the Swedish approach:

“Herd immunity is a concept which only applies to vaccine preventable diseases as a measure of program efficacy.

It does not apply to the situation that we are currently in vis a vis COVID-19

We do not have enough follow up on the virus to be anything other than extremely cautious”.

Well, I always assume the Australian expert must be correct.

Well, if the option is to accept a non expert such as yourself, yes.

You're Australian...you must be correct. See how that works. All kidding aside, there are just as many experts that disagree with your expert...the main point being we've destroyed our societies and economies for something that will prove to have been barely more potent than the regular flu. Idiocy on a grand scale.

Never liked the toungue in cheek handbagging that you fellas thrive upon but admit to being greatly humoured by it until I got biffed in the ollies a little to personally, a while back. but, mngmt mole, your comment on the CV-19 hoohaa displaying "Idiocy on a grand scale" is a comment I I totally support. Well said.

Ya can't make this stuff up! Quoting you: "there are just as many experts that disagree with your expert." and then you say this "Idiocy on a grand scale", so the experts disagree, yet YOU say that!

I'd have to agree on that comment, but directed elsewhere.

The whole pandemic is probably just an excuse to reset the economic system. Since 1971 when the USD was taken off the Gold standard by President Nixon, the dollar has become nothing but a printed piece of paper. Decades of printing and accumulation of global debt has got to end somewhere. Covid is the perfect excuse now to get the human population in desperation so that the powers that be can change up the system. What that system will be is the million dollar question. Now I am not denying that Covid-19 is a fake disease but the whole shut down of the global economy for a disease which has taken the lives of 3.4% of those infected is an over reaction. Notwithstanding that most of those who sadly die are old and/or frail; which would be at a higher risk of dying from flu related illnesses anyway.

I hate to sound like a conspiracy theorist but for me i'll be hesitant to let them inject me with their vaccine (yes the one that only took a few months to get into the advanced phase of testing). But what choice do we have when they would exclude us from society if we don't comply with annual injections. Don't quite know where i am going with this post but just wanted to say the world is Royally :mad:ed. Stay healthy and fly safe boys n gals. :ok:

Things sure are turning out that way; I think it's more opportunistic exploitation by statists than having some grand plan (and I can't fathom them either being smart or competent enough to orchestrate such a thing). But wide fractions of capital markets have been effectively nationalized with draconian state control over movement as well as which businesses are 'allowed' to operate. Along with crazy indoctrination rituals dehumanizing people and creating faceless droids which has done nothing to mitigate the disease.

What really worries me isn't cv19, we'll eventually either get a vaccine or work our way around it, while protecting those who are more vulnerable and limiting the damage it appears to do health wise. But the continued rise of conspiracy theories, both medical like cv19, G5 etc, worry me. How do people who consider themselves intelligent / educated/ critical thinking go down this path? For me it certainly debunks the saying about a uni degree teaching CT, imo, we are controlled by our reactive psychology more so than any critical judgement.

The on top of that, we get the financial ones. How the hell anyone connects the financial response that's happening to world gov / control, with me, is mind boggling. Read any of the articles on what's happening and it's large corporations that are benefitting just as they did through the GFC. In Australia they're abusing the Job Keeper payments, making increased profits off it, while paying out massive div in places and bonuses to execs etc. And just like during the GFC the tax payer will foot the bill.

No conspircay, no Rothschilds or Bill Gates bs etc, and it's written about in the papers everyday. Our political system has been bought by donations to our political parties, so much so there is not a lot that distinguishes them, meanwhile we get this conspiracy bs on a daily basis while political control is being bought out right in front of us.