Mortality level in Europe as high as broadcaster claims need to go into hospital
This evening, as the seconds ticked down to the BBC’s flagship 6pm news bulletin, the Corporation broadcast grossly false information to the public about the proportion of coronavirus sufferers who need to go into hospital.
The evidence says that 19% of those infected require hospitalisation, with 5% requiring intensive care – with around half of that 5% dying:
In Europe so far, the death rate among sufferers has been even higher, at 3.5-5%.
Yet the BBC told viewers that only 4% of the total infected need to go into hospital – and only a third of those needs intensive care:
The fake news was broadcast just after the BBC showed Boris Johnson claiming the UK would ‘turn the tide‘ on the pandemic in around twelve weeks – a claim the PM then had to admit he couldn’t support, saying “we don’t know where we are“.
The BBC is well aware of the real data – it has been published on its website this month:
The BBC’s Domestic Current Affairs press office was not answering when the SKWAWKBOX attempted to contact it for comment.
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Also noted on LBC this pm, they gave a “news package” of 60 something thousand tested, to give the impression that lots of test have been done. Then they jumped 60 something negative, to underplay the infection spread.
Serious spin going on. On TV i expect they will hypnotise to viewers with graphs and lots of pointing theatrics and i would not be surprised subliminal messaging. A good test of the “low weight” of TV current affairs compared to radio, is to listen with the sound off and compare to non BBC “news” radio progs.
BBC’s non current affairs progs, even on radio, are excellent+++, but their “current affairs” is nothing more than current propaganda. Preaching to the converted but also for the increasing new readership of Skwawkbox.org the home of fresh vibrant exchange of ideas & observations. Collective education. Courages contributions and dynamic intelligent responses
Thanks Jack T
Together we will get things right🌹🌹🌹
I like your drift here windchimes , maybe as the months progress and the inevitable sadly happens with many 10000s of deaths , instead of perhaps pointing out the obvious and having discussions POV etc which imo will be reinforcing what we already knew would happen , then SB might like to put up items for debate and discussion unrelated to the news.
I’d like to see views / debate etc on UBI or free social housing for the homeless etc etc .
Maybe even have a separate section for such items outside of the news.
I guess it’s trying to make the best of things to come and help with eduction so in 5 yrs as many folks as poss understand the consequences of the Tories and their ilk .
HOW ABOUT IT STEVE W ?
i agree rob. we need to start the deep education now. Where the emphasis is on substance, evidence, analysis, logic, persuasion. Rather than the obsession with so called safe spaces. The are neither safe nor spaces. They are unsafe re transformation and not spaces but dead weights squeezing the life out of ideas just sprouting. Result? The poor dispiriting performances of our MPs and spokes people. It is a lack of practise, not a lack of ability. Last October i was chatting with a scenario planner, astonishingly employed to help prep the agri sector for Brexit.
We were in concert that the “Left” are poor in presenting their ideas. They are accustomed to having pleasant chitchats with people who are already of one mind. The result ? Many are dead and just twitching in the same spot. They seem alive but are very very dead. That death has infected true Labour from top to bottom. Result? If one dares suggest areas for improvement, the nearly dead spring to life to ensure that dating one becomes as dead as the cosy self satisfied bunch. Tis the only time the spring to life… oh and for matters the feel will have no opposition eg “propose building be council houses”… as if it is a new fresh idea not already on a list of proposals. It is embarrassing to witness.
It was a relief to here Tory Gavin Williamson on the news clips today. A relief to know that we do not have a monopoly on heart sinking ineptitude on the MSM. I do hope Johnjohn’s Cumings our up Williamson & Liz Truss more often oh, and the one who gave contracts to a ferry co with no ferries‼️
🌹🌹🌹
ps we must prep as if the GE will be next year, Not five years.
Signpost is just spouting complete bollocks as usual. Every other post he pontificates in full negative mode about the ‘left’ or his ‘CLP’. His objective in doing this repeatedly since the GE is to have people who read and follow skwawkbox believe that it’s all down to being too ‘nice’ and ‘kind’ (but doesn’t actually mention Jeremy although he is of course referring to him), and now – ‘in concert’ mind you – he pronounces that:
‘the “Left” are poor in presenting their ideas. They are accustomed to having pleasant chitchats with people who are already of one mind. The result ? Many are dead and just twitching in the same spot. They seem alive but are very very dead. That death has infected true Labour from top to bottom.’
Oh right signpost, so given that Jeremy and the LP did so well and came so very close to winning in 2017, has all this ‘poor’ presenting of ideas and ‘pleasant chitchats’ etc, etc, etc and the ‘twitching’ and this ‘death’ that has infected blah, blah, blah all suddenly happened in the intervening two-and-a-half years?
Signpost is just churning out complete and utter B/S on a regular basis, and please don’t be taken in by it. The reason the LP lost the GE is for two reasons, and two reasons only – ie the non-stop smear campaign of Jeremy and the left (which trebled in intensity since the 2017 election AND did so precisely because the result was so close), and Jeremy having his hand forced regarding Brexit, and all this negative B/S that signpost streams on a regular basis is just THAT – ie a stinking pile of B/S!
Believe me, he is a total fraud.
Practically EVERYONE who comes on this website – apart from the shills – are on the left AND are Jeremy Corbyn supporters, so when signpost pronounces that the “Left” are poor in presenting their ideas, and that ‘They are accustomed to having pleasant chitchats with people who are already of one mind’, he is saying this about YOU. And when he says that ‘Many are dead and just twitching in the same spot’ and that ‘They seem alive but are very very dead’, he is talking about you.
I mean how can ANYONE possibly take someone seriously when they spout that ‘If one dares suggest areas for improvement, the nearly dead spring to life to ensure that dating one becomes as dead as the cosy self satisfied bunch.’
And being ALL-KNOWING, he dismisses the whole of the left as such’
So can you give us one or two examples signpost of the ‘pleasant chitchats with people who are already of one mind’, or an example or two of the ‘nearly dead’ springing to life to ensure that one becomes as dead as ‘the cosy self satisfied bunch’?
Apart from different views about the EU and Brexit, we ALL know what the left stand for, so what the feck can signpost be be on about!
It is of course all just poisonous lies and one big falsehood, on a par with the Sun and the Mail and the Express!
Right, so everyone on the ‘Left’ is poor at ‘presenting their ideas’ (as opposed to the corporate media misrepresenting or denigrating or completely ignoring their ‘ideas’), and they ALL spend their time having ‘pleasant chitchats’ etc, but pray, do tell, what percentage of the 62,403 subscribers to skwawkbox (at the time of writing) are ‘dead’ and ‘twitching’ etc, etc, and a ‘cosy self-satisfied bunch’ in your all-knowing estimation signpost?
Allan – What is self evident is that this is your third attempt and you still appear to be flogging a dead horse.
The shills monitor this site 24/7 so that they can disparage and ridicule anyone (or try to) who draws attention to the negative B/S about the ‘Left’ that is part and parcel of their agenda on skwawkbox, and Steve H is so often one of those doing precisely THAT.
They have to defend their own you see!
But they NEVER have anything to say regarding the criticism itself – ie in this particular case, signpost spuriously denigrating the left, as he so often does. So anyway, I think we can take it that Steve H agrees with signpost about the ‘Left’, but then THAT’s no surprise given that he’s a fraud himself as well!
And signpost, did what you said in your above post about ‘The poor dispiriting performances of our MPs and spokes people’ apply in 2017, or only in 2019? And I take it you include Jeremy, yes?
Signpost also said the following a while ago: ‘As much as I admire Jeremy, the approach is too laid back and intermittent.’
Yep, ALWAYS criticising, albeit illegitimately and falsely. Think ‘jellied weakness’!
Signpostnotwindchimes…..Keep on with the refreshing ideas that are inspiring and positive.Ignore the clown who would start an argument in a empty box.Negative criticism is the sign of defeatism and,he really should be ashamed of his cruel and thoughtless remarks.that do more damage than good to those that listen to the pathological misfit White flag man.
Oh, so you agree with signpost about the ‘Left’ do you Joseph, and have no problem whatsoever with the fact that he is always slagging them/us off – ie the leadership, his CLP, and the left in general?
Yeah, sure Joseph, it’s so refreshing and inspiring and positive!
And what exactly ARE these refreshing ideas Joseph you refer to? Can you relate one or two of them, cos I must have missed them?
Allan Howard Windchimes attempts to motovate and also offers encouragment for new posters.You offer nothing but demotivation and insults.You should concentrate on understanding that we all have a common enemy “The Conservative and unionist party and strive to behave decently to most posters on here.Some deserve no respect,because they are tory trolls and you should not constantly attack comrades because you have your own problems and worrys.We are all innit together,so try to get some sleep and wake up with a refreshed attitude.
Says Joseph, ‘defending’ someone who spends half their time slagging off the leadership and his CLP and the left in general, albeit totally spuriously and disingenuously.
What a joke you are Joseph, but then you TOO have done your share of falsely criticising the leadership during the past six months or so, haven’t you!
And needless to say, I have nothing but complete and utter contempt for shills!
And I couldn’t help but notice that you didn’t give any examples of these ‘refreshing’ and ‘inspiring’ and ‘positive’ ideas you claim signpost has posted on here. I wonder why that is?! Could it be because he hasn’t?
So anyway, can you clarify whether or not you agree with him regarding what he said about the ‘Left’ in his post, or are you going to prevaricate and avoid doing so?
Allan, your posts are a great meme for the right wing.
The fight is outside, not in here. Think someone is a troll? Simple. DO NOT FEED! Otherwise, try to remember that whilst others have similar goals, their opinions will not be.
Corbyn _was_ too laid back. He failed to counter the lies of anti semitism yet he wasn’t lacking the proof needed. He could, and should, have slapped the PLP into line. Instead he took their crap.
Whilst I like Jezza, and would be the first to say that the election was robbed, Corbyn did himself no favours.
Oh, and the education idea is a great one. Got anything better?
So you too are spouting falsehoods!
There is absolutely NOTHING Jeremy could have done about the A/S smears, or do you somehow think that the very media who conspired in smearing him (and the left in general) during the past four-and-a-half years were going to give him – or anyone else – the opportunity to expose the very falsehoods that they were disseminating! Of course they weren’t.
As for ‘slapping’ the PLP into line, I take it you don’t recall what happened when the LP announced it was going to take disciplinary action against Margaret Hodge? Or when one or two CLPs passed a No Confidence motion in one of the saboteurs etc.
And if someone repeatedly keeps slagging off Jeremy and the left – along with his CLP – then I will keep calling them out for doing so, and you can just mind your own business.
Funny how none of you have any problem with someone spewing all the negative B/S signpost spews about the left on a regular basis, just repeating the same things over and over and over again. Now WHO but a shill would do that, and yet all three of you are defending him. Needless to say, practically no-one on the left reads the Sun or the Mail or the Express etc, and THAT’s where the likes of signpost come into the equation – ie to do as much damage as he can, lying and smearing and denigrating just like said newspapers.
And please don’t give me the bollocks about the Tories! No-one who comes on this site needs persuading that the Tories are the enemy, and it’s the hidden enemy within skwawkbox that needs exposing. And THAT is what I am doing, and will keep on doing.
White Flag Man. “There is absolutely NOTHING Jeremy could have done about the A/S smears”
Yes there is and it’s more than obvious to anyone who can think for themselves what he could and should have done to counteract them.
Just an observation; you appear to be a little more agitated than normal today WFM, calm down.
There was plenty Corbyn could have done, including alternative media to get the message through. He didn’t.
And the PLP? Right wing odious gits surrounded by yellow bellied malleable gits. A firm hand would have nipped it in the bud. Instead he let it continue. He had ample opportunity to cease the attacks before the stages you mention. These episodes happened because people got sick of spectating.
Even his closest like Abbott and McDonnell crapped on him by convincing him to back remain.
You post in the public Allan, and I’ll comment if I please. Maybe you should think about possible replies before posting? As I said before, the fight is outside.
Stay safe.
Joseph……can you explain to me why Jeremy Corbyn threw Chris Williamson under a bus or why JC endorsed the IHRA definition of AS? Nothing he could do?
I seem to remember somewhere on the BBC web site it says “why you can trust the BBC”. I think there are more than enough examples to show that the opposite is the case.
Regarding the virus: Covid-19 will be the multiplier which shows why leaving the EU will be a massive example of self-harm.
Au contraire mon ami…….this island fortress should have ensured protection, but the globalisation process of the EU ensured the pandemic keeps spreading. Stop reliance on ‘just i time supply chains’ that are uneconomic & anti-Green……..we need to become more self sufficient & encourage local industry & markets. Your ‘globalisation’ belongs with Macron; Merkle & Blair.
So Steve, when we need supplies from outside the UK but can’t get them urgently because we’ve left the EU. Is that a price worth paying to return to our Little England status? When we need extra doctors and nurses from abroad because under the Tories not enough were trained, is that the fault of the EU?
ITs “US” and them,and its never been more obvious than now with a virus that seems to be able to disable the economy and the minds of the establishment in our country.Panic by the establishment and the financial industry with the Bank of England boxing itself into a corner and the elite including the Royals finding out that whats planned for us elderly and vulnerable will infect them as well.Hopfuly this virus will unite the world into realising that the Neoliberal and global Capitulation to an ideology will and his killing more than any virus.The voice of the establishment must be destroyed along with the rest of the flotsom.
It must be remembered that the State Broadcaster has always been the mouth piece of the ruling classes and generations of brainwashing has embedded in the minds of many that it is “ politically impartial “.
The Tories are panicking don’t be surprised to see the military imposing curfews, road blocks and lockdown to prevent the pandemic reaching epidemic proportions because of the ineptitude, incompetence and total ignorance of the Public schoolboys educated beyond their intelligence. Their only concern is power and money and the working classes are expendable.
Not forgetting of course that the Tories de facto allies amongst the “ moderates, centrists,” Blairites, Labour First, Progress, Nathan Yeowell, Luke Akehurst, the Amazonian fighters in the vanguard against the fight against AS plus Starmer, Thornberry etc all paved the way for the imbeciles to hold the levers of power.
Where is the government’s plan?
Read
‘Wages, Welfare and Wellbeing: Labour’s Economic Plan for Individuals Affected by Coronavirus’ here.
https://labourlist.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Wages-Welfare-and-Wellbeing.pdf
The government are pushing a corona virus of emergency powers through Parliament,which will give sweeping powers of arrest and detention without trial for a period of 2years.Someone somewhere has to stop them…and the man to do it has gone Corbyn!.Why o why in the democratic socialist Labour party did this have to be when every lodgical action would have been to leave an experienced civil rights activist in charge of the Labour party.?
Joseph – Given that we appear to have a choice between an ex corporate property solicitor or a very distinguished QC and Human & Civil Rights barrister who is a member of ‘The Bar’ in multiple Commonwealth jurisdictions I would have thought the wise choice for our next leader is obvious.
Steve H I am not going to get into a leadership argument as none of them are fit to do the job and its a case of who will do the least damage .Titles and honours do not impress real socialists,but its always interesting to hear the thoughts from the moderates.
SteveH you may want to investigate Starmers actions over the Julian Assange case when he was DPP in Blairs NULAbour , he didn’t respect Assanges Human rights then.
The very fact Starmer is so far “into” the Establishment and you forgot his title of SIr Kier then that in itself is reason not to vote for him .He doesn’t represent me , his past actions and his voting records all don’t represent what a honest Socialist would stand for .
BTW do we yet know his full donors list or is that something STarmer is STILL hiding from us . That might to most people raise some concerns don’t you think , or are you not worried about who might be pulling his strings ?
The rest of the whole field pale into real mediocrity and as Joseph has said , it’s about the least damaging and most honest one , and so far that is RLB . At least we know who her donors are .
For me we already have the best leader and that is one JEREMY CORBYN .
Correct…….none of the 3 amigos.
From an article today in TruePublica bringing to light the complete ineptitude of the government’s preparedness, as shown in their very own documents, and no doubt the reason they’re so desperately trying to conceal the truth:
“The government’s roadmap for how to respond to a coronavirus-like pandemic has long been available online, and the three key documents [links are in the article] were published in 2011, 2012 and 2014 respectively. What is striking about this exercise and subsequent published plans was that these plans were properly tested and emphatically failed, yet these documents were not rewritten or revised and provided no new preparedness recommendations towards what would happen in the event of another virus outbreak, which was expected in due course. Except for one thing. That the health services would not be able to cope.
All these documents and plans share a common failure – not one of them mentions ventilators. In typical warcry theatre for the purposes of rallying the troops, as it were, Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary, told British manufacturers on 14 March, “If you produce a ventilator, we will buy it. No number is too high.” It’s as if they read Davies comments only last week, thought they might get caught and reacted to stave off yet more criticism of their casual handling of the state.
The result is that the government has no stockpile of ventilators at all. All three of the plans refer to stockpiles, but only of antivirals, antibiotics and personal protective equipment for NHS staff. As for the latter, many NHS frontline staff from ambulance crews, to porters and medics are already complaining they have run out and facing being ‘cannon fodder’ in these warlike hospital circumstances that Hancock now realises will become a reality.
Hancock’s pleas come six weeks after the first cases were reported in Britain and two months after an epidemic was called in China.”
https://truepublica.org.uk/united-kingdom/covid-19-the-truth-govt-docs-emerge-to-show-how-theyve-failed-us-all/
Hancock today on the BBC said engineering companies could check the specifications of the desperately-needed ventilators on the YouGov website but that was yet another lie – all that was there was a request for any companies that thought they might be able to help – to get in touch.
A company can’t know whether its existing machine tools can meet the demands of manufacturing components for ventilators without seeing specifications or having the opportunity to examine one – but many companies without the least familiarity with ventilators will have the necessary machine tools and skills and not know it.
It’s far, far, too late on the ventilator issue now. Non medical equipment firms simply cannot re-tool and re-skill their staff in the time available before mega infection levels are reached. And unlike WW2 where US and UK governments were able to instruct firms to set aside patent rights and share blueprints for key weapons systems like fighter planes – no such setting aside of commercial secrecy on ventilator designs are going to happen here.
A hundred thousand or so ventilators would be needed in just a month or two as the infection rate reaches the millions in the UK due to the utter failure to test, test, test, and isolate on a nationwide scale – PLUS the skilled staff to operate them ! The stats suggest MILLIONS of people will need critical care – with ventilators for hundreds of thousands by May/June, with London the worst affected. So utter un-contained plague-level disaster looms, (see what is happening in Northern Italy now – that’s London hospitals in about a month or two) and still the government and their mass media propaganda arm spew out the reassuring nonsense. The disastrous culmination of the entire forty year global neoliberal experiment !
jpenney, at some point maybe some doctor will figure out that a conscious patient can self-ventilate with nothing more than a half-inch air line hose end in the mouth with the pressure set to what feels comfortable – probably no more than about 20psi – at the air regulator on the wall.
Oxygen can be added with a simple Y-piece if the patient needs it – the fire risk is increased without a demand valve but that’s easily countered.
In the Philippines and Caribbean fishermen untrained in Western diving technology go down to fifty feet plus with nothing more than a hose in the mouth so the principle is perfectly sound.
Lips closed, lungs inflate – lips open, exhale.
Piece of piss.
You obviously have no idea of the state people will be in by the time they need ventilators, David McNiven. This is a full-on pneumonia-type illness of a severe type, not anything like ‘flu’. Patients will be semi-conscious and confused and panicy and traumatised by the severe lung damage this infection quickly produces in the vulnerable . In no state to self-ventilate. As far from a ‘piece of piss’ as could possibly be. Ventilators , even of a proper type, even in large numbers, are not going to help us now – with grossly inadequate numbers of vital appropriately trained staff to oversee the ventilation. Hundreds of thousands are going to unnecessarily die over the next few months, and your daft ‘DIY self ventilation’ nonsense just shows you are not a serious person, laddie.
Humanity at its best and worst
After two Italian volunteers used a 3-D printer to manufacture a desperately needed ventilator component for those stricken by the coronavirus, the medical company with the patent for the device threatened to sue—even as the printed valves saved at least 10 people’s lives in a hospital in the northern Italian city of Brescia.
“There were people whose lives were in danger, and we acted,” Cristian Fracassi, who along with fellow volunteer Alessandro Ramaioli made the valves, said in a Facebook post on Sunday. “Period.”
Fracassi and Ramaioli, who work at 3-D printing startup Isinnova, were asked by physicist Massimo Temporelli to assist with producing the valves for only $1 after supplies from the source medical company were not forthcoming. The company, which charges $11,000 a piece for the devices, did not share the technical specifications for producing the valve—leading the volunteers to measure the valves and print from those numbers—and has threatened to sue for patent infringement.
TechDirt’s Glyn Moody noted on Tuesday that the greed at the heart of the threat to sue was staggering and indicative of the deeper problems in the world economic system laid bare by the coronavirus outbreak:
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/03/18/italians-found-way-3-d-print-key-ventilator-piece-1-help-battle-coronavirus-so
Thanks for the info PW..
You’re most welcome Joseph.
By the way, I note with interest that you live in Cambodia. My nephew and his wife and young family recently spent several years there teaching, presumably connected with some sort of Missionary work as they’re both fully committed Baptist Christians (I’m not religious myself) and do a lot of work for organisations connected with the Church. I rarely ever see them but I know from my sister, who went out there herself for a visit, that they loved the country and its people very much.
Having watched ‘The Killing Fields’ and the devastation wrought by Pol Pot, who the USA/CIA hypocritically supported when it suited them during the Vietnam debacle and which many in the West are probably not aware of, I can only admire their outstanding courage and fortitude in the face of such abject cruelty.
They should stand her on a podium beating the desk.. Its getting more like NKorea daily and just as ugly
Pw You may be aware that my final home will be Cambodia and I would have thought like many people it would have been the last place on earth for settling.But hey ho,we can all be pleasantly surprised even in a recent war torn country like Cambodia.the humanity and kindness of the soul shines through.We rarely talk about the Pol pot years,perhaps because its still an open wound,with land mines and many people in positions of influence ex khmer Rouge including the PM who has maintained peace and relative improvement of the people for nearly 30years.Hun Sen the PM with the CPP have obtained massive economic growth with the help and partnership of The Chinese government and people.The help and support of China must be a Road map for the whole of SEAsia.Courage and fortitude to remove a despot must also be used in Britain and the Labour party are the ones to unite the people.All we need now is a leader to mobilse the democratic socialist Labour party,so careful of knights bearing gifts and sponsored by the establishment.
For the first time ever I watched the dreaded beebs Newscast ( News-spin) last night. They had a lady on there who they ( Laura K & co ) called their disinformation detective. She gave three reasons/ pointers on how to spot someone online/social media spreading fake information. One of these points were ‘un-named source’. Pissed myself laughing at this as this is Laura K’s go to for her news-spin. Boom !