Canada's COVID-19 strategy is an assault on the working class

OPINION: Canada's COVID-19 strategy is an assault on the working class: The Canadian COVID-19 lockdown strategy is the worst assault on the working class in many decades. Low-risk college students and young professionals are protected; such as lawyers, government employees, journalists, and scientists who can work from home; while older high-risk working-class people must work, risking their lives generating the population immunity that will eventually help protect everyone. This is backwards, leading to many unnecessary deaths from both COVID-19 and other diseases.

While anyone can get infected, a key feature of COVID-19 is that there is more than a thousand-fold difference in the risk of death between the oldest and the youngest. In fact, children have much less risk from COVID-19 than from the annual influenza. Considering this, we must do a much better job protecting the elderly and other high-risk groups until a vaccine is available.

Top medical journals compromised ethical, fact-checking standards amid pandemic

Coronavirus: Top medical journals compromised ethical, fact-checking standards amid pandemic, Australian study finds: New Australian research has brought into question the ethical and fact-checking standards of the world's most influential medical journals during the coronavirus pandemic.

 

The report, published in the Medical Journal of Australia today, found one in five COVID-19 studies published by the journals during the first five months of the pandemic had corrections issued after publication.

 

This compares to 7.4 per cent — or roughly one in every 13 studies — published at the same time last year. 

 

Changes in medical scientific publication associated with the COVID‐19 pandemic: Rapid dissemination of information should not come at the expense of quality, ethical standards or oversight

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) pandemic has resulted in wide‐ranging health, social and economic impacts. By October 2020, global cases exceeded 41 million, with 1.1 million deaths.1 Urgent requirements for information were met with data on epidemiology, clinical features and recommended management being circulated on social media and pre‐publication servers. While this has allowed timely sharing of data, it has also brought risk of misinformation, with consequent changes to medical practice and misdirection of scarce resources based on flawed evidence.

Medical publishing uses peer review to provide independent and critical assessment to verify data integrity, validity of interpretations, and confidence in conclusions. This process can take many weeks; however, in a rapidly spreading pandemic, speed is a competing priority.

We hypothesised that these considerations may have altered the nature of medical publication. Accordingly, we characterised various aspects of COVID‐19‐related articles published in the five leading general medical journals with the highest impact factors (Web of Science) compared with an equivalent period in the preceding year.

Covid-19 Deaths: A Look at U.S. Data

A closer look at U.S. deaths due to COVID-19 - The Johns Hopkins News-Letter: (aviso)

Johns Hopkins - Closer Look U.S. Deaths

Student newspaper deletes article on study that found COVID has had little effect on U.S. deaths this year: “Though making clear the need for further research, the article was being used to support false and dangerous inaccuracies about the impact of the pandemic,” the newspaper tweeted Thursday night. “We regret that this article may have contributed to the spread of misinformation about COVID-19.”

Fact Check: Johns Hopkins Student Paper Retracted Because CDC Data DOES Show Excess Deaths Caused By Covid-19: Is it true the lethality of COVID-19 is being overblown by government mortality data, and was a Johns Hopkins University student paper censored when it posted a story about that claim? No, that is not true. There is no evidence that official COVID-19 death tallies have hidden some other cause of unexpected deaths in 2020. The student paper's retracted article contained inaccuracies that should have been caught during the editing process -- errors that led to online sharing of misinformation, according to The Johns Hopkins News-Letter managing editors. A version of the story can still be found online and the News-Letter staff kept a PDF version, eradicating censorship concerns.

A closer look at U.S. deaths due to COVID-19 (original)

£6m borrowed for every Covid death: Economist calculates terrifying price UK's paying for pandemic

£6m borrowed for every Covid death: Economist calculates terrifying price UK's paying for pandemic: 

As for Britain's public finances, to say they are in ruins would be an understatement.

At the start of the year, the OBR expected public sector net borrowing to be £55billion in 2020-21.

In the summer, that jumped to £322billion. The OBR's latest forecast, published this week, expects it to rise to £394billion. The additional £339billion debt incurred to deal with Covid is the equivalent of £6million for every person who has died with the virus.

Government debt in total has passed the £2trillion mark for the first time and will amount to 105 per cent of GDP in 2020-21, its highest level since the 1950s.

The OBR expects the national debt to hit £2.7trillion within four years and that is probably optimistic given that the Prime Minister is on a permanent spending spree, recently pledging an extra £16.5billion for the military, up to £100billion on the Operation Moonshot mass testing programme and untold billions on achieving net zero carbon emissions.

Such gargantuan levels of borrowing are only vaguely sustainable if interest rates remain at historic lows for many years to come, but that is largely out of the Government's hands.

And let's not forget that the low interest rates needed double up as a stealth tax on savers.

Meanwhile, much of what is called borrowing is essentially money-printing.

So far this year, the Bank of England has conjured up £450billion through quantitative easing – the respectable name for debasing the currency – which it lends to the Government by buying bonds.

COVID-19 situation update for the EU/EEA and the UK, as of 27 November 2020

COVID-19 situation update for the EU/EEA and the UK: As of 27 November 2020, 12 709 336 cases have been reported in the EU/EEA and the UK: Portugal (280 394)

These are the countries that have pre-ordered the most COVID vaccines

Coronavirus: How many COVID-19 vaccines has each country ordered? According to a tally from the Duke Global Health Innovation Center, individual countries and the European Union have already ordered 2.8 billion doses of these potential vaccines. (Many countries have also pre-ordered vaccines from other companies, but these aren’t yet in late-stage clinical trials.)

 

What you need to know about the coronavirus pandemic on 27 November

COVID-19: What you need to know about the coronavirus pandemic on 27 November: Top stories: Britain asks regulator to assess Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine; WHO's Ryan says vaccine offers chance to gain progressive control; Berlin plans mass vaccination centres.