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Pass the Corona ese... Novel Corona aka COVID-19


abrasivesaint

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6 minutes ago, Kults said:

They aren't though. As he explained if you remove the retirement homes and isolated people at risk the death toll would have been much, much smaller. Its disingenuous to use those inflated stats based on one segment of the population to support your argument for a full lockdown.

How can you remove dead people from a stat of dead people? The stats aren't inflated, that's the number of people who died.

 

Their decision to not isolate the retirement homes was part of the strategy their being judged on.

 

Anyone going to answer me as to what measure we use to judge a successful response to the pandemic?

 

 

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You're asking me to ignore the part of their strategy that failed in order to say that their strategy didn't fail.

 

They didn't isolate their at most risk people so you can't remove that part of the tally when judging the success of their strategy.

 

IF they did make the decision and those people didn't die, then we'd be having a different conversation.

 

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1 minute ago, Hua Guofang said:

How can you remove dead people from a stat of dead people? The stats aren't inflated, that's the number of people who died.

 

Their decision to not isolate the retirement homes was part of the strategy their being judged on.

 

Anyone going to answer me as to what measure we use to judge a successful response to the pandemic?

 

 

No one is gonna answer you cause no one knows yet. Its been pointed out many times now. As for the retirement homes, its already been acknowledged the ball was dropped on that. Had we all done that sooner, it would have had a much larger effect on lowering the death toll than locking everything down did. 

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1 minute ago, Kults said:

No one is gonna answer you cause no one knows yet.

If you don't know how to judge a successful response, why then up the page did you (and @misteraven) judge Sweden's response to be right/successful?

 

I'm not trying to be a cunt here (that's only part of it!), I just can't understand how, in any way, Sweden's outcome can be considered successful.

 

And now I'm wondering how you thought Sweden that could be doing alright, when you don't yet know how to judge what that actually means. (now I'm just being a cunt)

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7 minutes ago, Hua Guofang said:

If you don't know how to judge a successful response, why then up the page did you (and @misteraven) judge Sweden's response to be right/successful?

 

I'm not trying to be a cunt here (that's only part of it!), I just can't understand how, in any way, Sweden's outcome can be considered successful.

 

And now I'm wondering how you thought Sweden that could be doing alright, when you don't yet know how to judge what that actually means. (now I'm just being a cunt)

You're narrowing the focus now, using a single metric and ignoring the specific reason why that stat doesn't tell the whole story cause you can't support your original position. Sweden (barring old folks homes) did better than most with full lockdown, which is the point. 

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Dude, it was 2am in the morning here...

 

 

 

9 hours ago, Kults said:

You're narrowing the focus now, using a single metric and ignoring the specific reason why that stat doesn't tell the whole story cause you can't support your original position. Sweden (barring old folks homes) did better than most with full lockdown, which is the point. 

I didn't take a position, it was you and @misteraventhat took the position that Sweden was doing good and I'm asking you how you came to that position and STILL, nobody can answer me.

 

Not using a single metric, I've cited deaths and econ.

 

If they're not the right metric, tell me what the right metric is.

 

 

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He did though.

 

Go and re read his response. You’re arguing for a full lockdown no? You’re saying Sweden is not a good example of why no lock down works. He specified if you took retirement homes out of the equation( not affected by full lockdown or no lockdown) the high death rate per capita you cited as proof for why a lockdown works is disingenuous and doesn’t tell the whole picture. 

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11 minutes ago, Kults said:

 

You’re arguing for a full lockdown no?

No, this is the part that you and he are getting wrong, I'm not arguing for anything, I'm asking YOU why you think Sweden has done well when it has high death per capita and the economy is getting shitted. But you won't answer me, instead, you try to make up and argument for me so you can attack that instead, because you have no answer to my question.

 

To me the logic seems to be that during the pandemic the highest priority is lives and the second priority is the economy (can't have a good economy without healthy population, so health comes first). Sweden has not achieved either of these things, so how can it have done a good job?

 

The lesson seems to be that prioritising high-risk populations is the way to go for a second wave or similar virus. But we've only learned that lesson because Sweden fucked it up this time. However, there's more to it than just that, as there are other countries to look at that did have full lock downs with less death per capita than Sweden, even if you do remove the oldies from the equation. Just as there are countries with full lockdowns with high death rates.

 

So even if you do follow your approach of ignoring where Sweden fucked it up, there's a chance that other countries with different strategies still did a better job.

 

Of course, measuring the economy will be difficult. If we use Sweden and New Zealand as a comparison, for argument sake, say Sweden experiences an anual contraction of 10% and New Zealand only contracts 5%. Some one might say that New Zealand's strategy of early lockdown and early opening was the best strategy as it had less deaths and less econ contraction. But New Zealand may have a bigger share of its economy in domestic consumption and low exports, where as Sweden might have a big export economy that is dependent on other countries also doing well. So Sweden may not be able to do anything to protect its economy, meaning that their strategy of defending against the pandemic is not relevant to the equation and you can't compare them to New Zealand.

 

So, it's a very difficult thing to judge without a lot of complex analysis. But for now, high-death rate and a shitted economy does not seem to be a great outcome, unless, of course, if you just ignore the bits that they fucked up!

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It also goes to the point about the virus being novel.

 

As the Swedes have said, in hindsight they would have protected their elderly better. But you don't have hindsight/experience when the situation is novel, so the risk averse strategy was lockdown. That's not to say that strategy would have worked either, compare Belgium to Australia, hugely different per capita death rate.

 

But the point is, none of us really knew what we were dealing with, still don't to a degree, and most govts, like the Swedes were trying to do their honest best for the country under the circumstances.

 

The interesting part about Sweden is that whilst they didn't lock down, the people responded in much the same way as if there was a lockdown and that's why they've had such a big hit to the economy. So, they might as well have gone into lockdown and if they did, maybe they could have saved their oldies too. That's a pretty simple way to put things but it's a question that has to be asked.

 

I've spent a lot of time there as was with a Swedish girl for 10 years before I fucked off to China. It's one of my favourite countries in the world and I take no pleasure pointing out how bad things were there. I don't talk that girl anymore but she was cool and her family was awesome. I hate to think that her family was affected by this.

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1 hour ago, Hua Guofang said:

 

Of course, measuring the economy will be difficult. If we use Sweden and New Zealand as a comparison, for argument sake, say Sweden experiences an anual contraction of 10% and New Zealand only contracts 5%. Some one might say that New Zealand's strategy of early lockdown and early opening was the best strategy as it had less deaths and less econ contraction. But New Zealand may have a bigger share of its economy in domestic consumption and low exports, where as Sweden might have a big export economy that is dependent on other countries also doing well. So Sweden may not be able to do anything to protect its economy, meaning that their strategy of defending against the pandemic is not relevant to the equation and you can't compare them to New Zealand

Do you have any stats on this or just guessing?

 

1 hour ago, Hua Guofang said:

 

The interesting part about Sweden is that whilst they didn't lock down, the people responded in much the same way as if there was a lockdown and that's why they've had such a big hit to the economy. So, they might as well have gone into lockdown and if they did, maybe they could have saved their oldies too. That's a pretty simple way to put things but it's a question that has to be asked

Again, source?

 

How do you figure that would have saved "their oldies"? Assuming they had been isolated from the start how would a general lockdown affected them at all?

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7 hours ago, Kults said:

Do you have any stats on this or just guessing?

 

Again, source?

 

How do you figure that would have saved "their oldies"? Assuming they had been isolated from the start how would a general lockdown affected them at all?

No, that was just making an example - just saying that national economies can be so tied to export markets (such as Australia) that even if a country did everything right to protect their economy, sometimes the outcome is reliant on things they have no control over, such as what happens in their export markets or even the global economy.

 

There are a huge amount of sources out there, including comments from their folk leading the response saying that people chose to stay home from work/school/shops/social events. Just google it and you'll find pages worth of articles discussing it.

 

Regards the last point, I'm hypothesizing that if the country was on lockdown, so would the nursing homes be and there would be less chance that their oldies were smashed as badly as they have been. Of course, that's not black and white, as I mentioned in the above post, as it seems Belgium was locked down but their oldies got belted too.

 

 

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And to clarify, I'm not specifically for lockdown. I understand why govts would have taken that choice in the face of a novel virus that was doing shit they've never seen before. But, I'm not about to go out saying that it definitely was the right strategy. As I've said heaps of time, I can see why a tailored response is a smart way to go, but I Also acknowledge that I'm not a Virologist, epidemiologist or some one that will be responsible if the wrong choice is made. I have some experience around crisis management, but that's about it. So, I don't know what the right answer is.

 

What I am doing is questioning why you and MR think Sweden did the right thing. I get the feeling that you and Raven think that because they didn't lock down but maybe you didn't actually check how that actually played out.

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Fuck me....

 

REad down to the first subheading and just skim read the rest.

 

 

 

 

Governments and WHO changed Covid-19 policy based on suspect data from tiny US company

 

Surgisphere, whose employees appear to include a sci-fi writer and adult content model, provided database behind Lancet and New England Journal of Medicine hydroxychloroquine studies

 

The World Health Organization and a number of national governments have changed their Covid-19 policies and treatments on the basis of flawed data from a little-known US healthcare analytics company, also calling into question the integrity of key studies published in some of the world’s most prestigious medical journals.

A Guardian investigation can reveal the US-based company Surgisphere, whose handful of employees appear to include a science fiction writer and an adult-content model, has provided data for multiple studies on Covid-19 co-authored by its chief executive, but has so far failed to adequately explain its data or methodology.

Data it claims to have legitimately obtained from more than a thousand hospitals worldwide formed the basis of scientific articles that have led to changes in Covid-19 treatment policies in Latin American countries. It was also behind a decision by the WHO and research institutes around the world to halt trials of the controversial drug hydroxychloroquine.

Two of the world’s leading medical journals – the Lancet and the New England Journal of Medicine – published studies based on Surgisphere data. The studies were co-authored by the firm’s chief executive, Sapan Desai.

Late on Tuesday, after being approached by the Guardian, the Lancet released an “expression of concern” about its published study. The New England Journal of Medicine has also issued a similar notice.

An independent audit of the provenance and validity of the data has now been commissioned by the authors not affiliated with Surgisphere because of “concerns that have been raised about the reliability of the database”.

 

The Guardian’s investigation has found:

  • A search of publicly available material suggests several of Surgisphere’s employees have little or no data or scientific background. An employee listed as a science editor appears to be a science fiction author and fantasy artist. Another employee listed as a marketing executive is an adult model and events hostess.

  • The company’s LinkedIn page has fewer than 100 followers and last week listed just six employees. This was changed to three employees as of Wednesday.

  • While Surgisphere claims to run one of the largest and fastest hospital databases in the world, it has almost no online presence. Its Twitter handle has fewer than 170 followers, with no posts between October 2017 and March 2020.

  • Until Monday, the get in touch” link on Surgisphere’s homepage redirected to a WordPress template for a cryptocurrency website, raising questions about how hospitals could easily contact the company to join its database.

  • Desai has been named in three medical malpractice suits, unrelated to the Surgisphere database. In an interview with the Scientist, Desai previously described the allegations as “unfounded”.

  • In 2008, Desai launched a crowdfunding campaign on the website indiegogo promoting a wearable “next generation human augmentation device that can help you achieve what you never thought was possible”. The device never came to fruition.

  • Desai’s Wikipedia page has been deleted following questions about Surgisphere and his history.

 

 

Doubts over Lancet study

 

Questions surrounding Surgisphere have been growing in the medical community for the past few weeks.

On 22 May the Lancet published a blockbuster peer-reviewed study which found the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine, which has been promoted by Donald Trump, was associated with a higher mortality rate in Covid-19 patients and increased heart problems.

Trump, much to the dismay of the scientific community, had publicly touted hydroxychloroquine as a “wonder drug” despite no evidence of its efficacy for treating Covid-19.

The Lancet study, which listed Desai as one of the co-authors, claimed to have analysed Surgisphere data collected from nearly 15,000 patients with Covid-19, admitted to 1,200 hospitals around the world, who received hydroxychloroquine alone or in combination with antibiotics.

The negative findings made global news and prompted the WHO to halt the hydroxychloroquine arm of its global trials.

 

 

But only days later Guardian Australia revealed glaring errors in the Australian data included in the study. The study said researchers gained access to data through Surgisphere from five hospitals, recording 600 Australian Covid-19 patients and 73 Australian deaths as of 21 April.

But data from Johns Hopkins University shows only 67 deaths from Covid-19 had been recorded in Australia by 21 April. The number did not rise to 73 until 23 April. Desai said one Asian hospital had accidentally been included in the Australian data, leading to an overestimate of cases there. The Lancet published a small retraction related to the Australian findings after the Guardian’s story, its only amendment to the study so far.

The Guardian has since contacted five hospitals in Melbourne and two in Sydney, whose cooperation would have been essential for the Australian patient numbers in the database to be reached. All denied any role in such a database, and said they had never heard of Surgisphere. Desai did not respond to requests to comment on their statements.

Another study using the Surgisphere database, again co-authored by Desai, found the anti-parasite drug ivermectin reduced death rates in severely ill Covid-19 patients. It was published online in the Social Science Research Network e-library, before peer-review or publication in a medical journal, and prompted the Peruvian government to add ivermectin to its national Covid-19 therapeutic guidelines.

 

The New England Journal of Medicine also published a peer-reviewed Desai study based on Surgisphere data, which included data from Covid-19 patients from 169 hospitals in 11 countries in Asia, Europe and North America. It found common heart medications known as angiotensin-converting–enzyme inhibitors and angiotensin-receptor blockers were not associated with a higher risk of harm in Covid-19 patients.

On Wednesday, the NEJM and the Lancet published an expression of concern about the hydroxychloroquine study, which listed respected vascular surgeon Mandeep Mehra as the lead author and Desai as co-author.

Lancet editor Richard Horton told the Guardian: “Given the questions raised about the reliability of the data gathered by Surgisphere, we have today issued an Expression of Concern, pending further investigation.

“An independent data audit is currently underway and we trust that this review, which should be completed within the next week, will tell us more about the status of the findings reported in the paper by Mandeep Mehra and colleagues.”

 

 

Surgisphere ‘came out of nowhere’

One of the questions that has most baffled the scientific community is how Surgisphere, established by Desai in 2008 as a medical education company that published textbooks, became the owner of a powerful international database. That database, despite only being announced by Surgisphere recently, boasts access to data from 96,000 patients in 1,200 hospitals around the world.

 

When contacted by the Guardian, Desai said his company employed just 11 people. The employees listed on LinkedIn were recorded on the site as having joined Surgisphere only two months ago. Several did not appear to have a scientific or statistical background, but mention expertise in strategy, copywriting, leadership and acquisition.

Dr James Todaro, who runs MedicineUncensored, a website that publishes the results of hydroxychloroquine studies, said: “Surgisphere came out of nowhere to conduct perhaps the most influential global study in this pandemic in the matter of a few weeks.

“It doesn’t make sense,” he said. “It would require many more researchers than it claims to have for this expedient and of multinational study to be possible.”

Desai told the Guardian: “Surgisphere has been in business since 2008. Our healthcare data analytics services started about the same time and have continued to grow since that time. We use a great deal of artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate this process as much as possible, which is the only way a task like this is even possible.”

 

It is not clear from the methodology in the studies that used Surgisphere data, or from the Surgisphere website itself, how the company was able to put in place data-sharing agreements from so many hospitals worldwide, including those with limited technology, and to reconcile different languages and coding systems, all while staying within the regulatory, data-protection and ethical rules of each country.

Desai said Surgisphere and its QuartzClinical content management system was part of a research collaboration initiated “several years ago”, though he did not specify when.

 

“Surgisphere serves as a data aggregator and performs data analysis on this data,” he said. “We are not responsible for the source data, thus the labor intensive task required for exporting the data from an Electronic Health Records, converting it into the format required by our data dictionary, and fully deidentifying the data is done by the healthcare partner.”

This appears to contradict the claim on the QuartzClinical website that it does all the work, and “successfully integrates your electronic health record, financial system, supply chain, and quality programs into one platform”. Desai did not explain this apparent contradiction when the Guardian put it to him.

Desai said the way Surgisphere obtained data was “always done in compliance with local laws and regulations. We never receive any protected health information or individually identifiable information.”

Peter Ellis, the chief data scientist of Nous Group, an international management consultancy that does data integration projects for government departments, expressed concern that Surgisphere database was “almost certainly a scam”.

“It is not something that any hospital could realistically do,” he said. “De-identifying is not just a matter of knocking off the patients’ names, it is a big and difficult process. I doubt hospitals even have capability to do it appropriately. It is the sort of thing national statistics agencies have whole teams working on, for years.”

 

“There’s no evidence online of [Surgisphere] having any analytical software earlier than a year ago. It takes months to get people to even look into joining these databases, it involves network review boards, security people, and management. It just doesn’t happen with a sign-up form and a conversation.”

 

None of the information from Desai’s database has yet been made public, including the names of any of the hospitals, despite the Lancet being among the many signatories to a statement on data-sharing for Covid-19 studies. The Lancet study is now disputed by 120 doctors.

When the Guardian put a detailed list of concerns to Desai about the database, the study findings and his background, he responded: “There continues to be a fundamental misunderstanding about what our system is and how it works”.

“There are also a number of inaccuracies and unrelated connections that you are trying to make with a clear bias toward attempting to discredit who we are and what we do,” he said. “We do not agree with your premise or the nature of what you have put together, and I am sad to see that what should have been a scientific discussion has been denigrated into this sort of discussion.”

 

‘The peak of human evolution’

An examination of Desai’s background found that the vascular surgeon has been named in three medical malpractice suits in the US, two of them filed in November 2019. In one case, a lawsuit filed by a patient, Joseph Vitagliano, accused Desai and Northwest Community Hospital in Illinois, where he worked until recently, of being “careless and negligent”, leading to permanent damage following surgery. 

Northwest Community Hospital confirmed that Desai had been employed there since June 2016 but had voluntarily resigned on 10 February 2020 “for personal reasons”.

“Dr Desai’s clinical privileges with NCH were not suspended, revoked or otherwise limited by NCH,” a spokeswoman said. The hospital declined to comment on the malpractice suits. Desai said in the interview with the Scientist that he deemed any lawsuit against him to be “unfounded”.

 

Brigham and Women’s Hospital, the institution affiliated with the hydroxychloroquine study and its lead author, Mandeep Mehra, said in a statement: “Independent of Surgisphere, the remaining co-authors of the recent studies published in The Lancet and the New England Journal of Medicine have initiated independent reviews of the data used in both papers after learning of the concerns that have been raised about the reliability of the database”. 

Mehra said he had routinely underscored the importance and value of randomised, clinical trials and that such trials were necessary before any conclusions could be reached. “I eagerly await word from the independent audits, the results of which will inform any further action,” he said.

Desai’s now-deleted Wikipedia page said he held a doctorate in law and a PhD in anatomy and cell biology, as well as his medical qualifications. A biography of Desai on a brochure for an international medical conference says he has held multiple physician leadership roles in clinical practice, and that he is “a certified lean six sigma master black belt”.

It is not the first time Desai has launched projects with ambitious claims. In 2008, he launched a crowdfunding campaign on the website indiegogo promoting a “next generation human augmentation device” called Neurodynamics Flow, which he said “can help you achieve what you never thought was possible”.

 

“With its sophisticated programming, optimal neural induction points, and tried and true results, Neurodynamics Flow allows you to rise to the peak of human evolution,” the description said. The device raised a few hundred dollars, and never eventuated.

Ellis, the chief data scientist of Nous Group, said it was unclear why Desai made such bold claims about his products given how likely it was that the global research community would scrutinise them.

“My first reaction is it was to draw attention to his firm, Ellis said. “But it seems really obvious that this would backfire.”

Today Prof Peter Horby, Professor of Emerging Infectious Diseases and Global Health in the Nuffield Department of Medicine, University of Oxford, said: “I welcome the statement from the Lancet, which follows a similar statement by the NEJM regarding a study by the same group on cardiovascular drugs and COVID-19. 

“The very serious concerns being raised about the validity of the papers by Mehra et al need to be recognised and actioned urgently, and ought to bring about serious reflection on whether the quality of editorial and peer review during the pandemic has been adequate. Scientific publication must above all be rigorous and honest. In an emergency, these values are needed more than ever.”

 

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Hands up those that did a double take when seeing the US econ figures out today

 

Me - 🤚

 

 

Back onto the Sweden issue:

 

 

Sweden: Will COVID-19 Economics be Different?

June 4, 2020

Sweden’s less restrictive containment strategy may have resulted in a milder economic contraction at the onset of the crisis, but uncertainty remains about its implications for the rest of the year.  Other factors, including falling external demand, will heavily weigh on growth. Concerns have also been raised about the country’s death rate which, although lower than in Europe’s worst-affected countries, is a multiple of its Nordic neighbors.

 

TL;DR - it basically reiterates what's been said up the page, that Sweden is on track to be hurt economically, maybe not as much as other similar Euro countries but still bad. They did lose a lot more people to the virus, 50% of which in oldies homes, and there is no evidence to say either way whether they were able to move toward herd immunity because there's not enough known about the virus.

 

Read it all here: https://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2020/06/01/na060120-sweden-will-covid-19-economics-be-different

 

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My senior citizen mother was talking about quitting her job (with health benefits) over something her shit boss did

 

told her to drop those thoughts right away because of the number of people unemployed. She had no idea. We gotta look out for our old, they are out of touch. 

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This is the moment that the final restrictions were lifted in New Zealand.

 

They have not had a new case of CV19 for two weeks, or something like that. They locked down early and hard, now their economy has fully reopened.

 

The only restriction is the border, the rest of the world can still go fuck itself, as far as the Kiwis are concerned.

 

 

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11 hours ago, Hua Guofang said:

This is the moment that the final restrictions were lifted in New Zealand.

 

They have not had a new case of CV19 for two weeks, or something like that. They locked down early and hard, now their economy has fully reopened.

 

The only restriction is the border, the rest of the world can still go fuck itself, as far as the Kiwis are concerned.

 

 

No actually I think the all blacks just scored a try.

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So traveling cross country a few weeks back before they opened shit up was interesting. The response to the virus varied greatly from state to state, town to town, person to person.. 

 

In a small town in Texas the local sports bar was functioning as normal, walk your ass in and get some food and drinks like nothing was going on. In other small towns everyone was masked up and the place looked deserted. 
 

Walked in one store in Denver without a face covering and got scolded, walk in the next store and had a dude tell me i looked like i was about to rob the place. 
 

Other places employees were required to wear masks but didn't give a fuck less if you did. 

The hospital i’m at now seems to not give a fuck, they’re social distancing the seating, but 10 people will walk in an elevator without a mask in sight. 

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1 hour ago, Schnitzel said:

Infection found in one of the Black lives matter protestors in Melbourne.

 the reckon he wouldn't have contracted it there but he was in fectious while he was there.

 

 and here we go again

 

I'm quietly confident that this won't see another peak of community transmission, especially if that person was masked up.

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