Coronavirus Crisis: Main Thread

[Belligerent Savant]

It's a narrative which interprets current events through a globalist illuminati conspiracy lens.

I know you meant that your takes turned out to be spot-on, but by the way you phrased it, it looks like you've said that the criticisms of your takes are spot-on.

That's a decidedly obtuse reading of my commentary here, and serves only to showcase your penchant for bucketing certain takes in neatly-categorized containers, based in part on establishment tropes. The spectrum is broad, not narrow.

Shall I quote Leaves of Grass?

Perhaps I'll paraphrase:

We are large; we contain multitudes.

That aside,

Let's check back in with the fear-based prognostications by our representative talking heads:

[dada]

No, I think it was fairly accurate to call your interpretational framework of current events a globalist illuminati conspiracy lens.

[Joe Hillshoist]

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Some added perspective on India --

(of course, "confirmed covid deaths" also include deaths by other primary causes)


Correlation? At a minimum, testing positive shortly after taking a shot is not anomalous.



The message managers understand that as the flu has long since left the northern hemisphere they require a fear narrative to sustain the hysteria throughout the summer until the flu season arrives again in late autumn:



The sheep can now go back to their regularly-scheduled programming.

Yes, I typed 'sheep'. Those that subscribe to token narratives deserve no better.

What do you think those graphs mean?

[stickdog99]

No, I think it was fairly accurate to call your interpretational framework of current events a globalist illuminati conspiracy lens.

Is this a "fairly accurate" representation of your interpretational framework of totalitarian leaders?

"They exist only insofar as they are sustained and succored by anyone who tries to fight against them. But otherwise they are merely pawns who are just trying their best to play their necessary role in a greater drama well beyond their control."

[dada]

I think I'd like to consult an attorney before answering. Kind of have the feeling that whatever I say may be used against me in a court of public opinion.

[Belligerent Savant]

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Moving the following talking point(s) to this thread:

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Re: realistic #s for COVID: perhaps impossible to calculate or determine -- ever -- given how metrics have been occluded, manipulated and conflated, among other sorcery conjured by modern-day wizards, AKA 'modeling statisticians', bureaucrats, or simply those following orders. Last year there was a report that as much as ~94% of the deaths listed as 'covid' were due at least in part to more serious illness, but the deceased tested positive at the time of death -- or had flu-like symptoms. This figure sounds right to me. The more time that passes the clearer it is that we've been egregiously scammed, particularly since they've yet to isolate the covid-19 strain.

DrEvil:
Yet another lie/distortion. If someone with a compromised immune system or a bad heart get covid and dies then it was covid that tipped them over the edge and killed them, even though they already had underlying conditions. Without covid they could have gone on for years with proper care. All that report said was that sick and frail people were more at risk.

That is a grossly simplified and just as much disinfo, or more than what you claim. Most of the dead don’t have autopsies performed unless there is something suspicious or questionable. MANY elderly that die, which is by far the largest segment of alleged deaths by the Rona, would not have had an autopsy in the U.S. anybody with elderly in their family would know this based on personal experience.

Without an autopsy the docs can fill out whatever they want and with great latitude based on the new instructions the CDC published in 2020 allowing enormous latitude in putting the Rona as the primary cause. What do you imagine the administrators of these hospitals is going to be pushing hard for?

$$$$$

The more deaths attributed to Rona the bigger the reimbursement check from there Feds. Medicine is a business.

The below article breaks it down in some detail. Plenty of embedded links, which can't be transposed/pasted into this anachronistic forum:

https://www.ukcolumn.org/article/decept ... statistics

A Deceptive Construction - Why We Must Question The COVID 19 Mortality Statistics

According to the UK Government, as of 27 March 2021, 126,515 people have died as a result of contracting Covid-19, and an additional 21,610 people have died with COVID-19 on their death certificates.

The government alleges, therefore, that a total of 148,125 people in the UK have died as a result of COVID-19. As we shall see, this claim is not credible.

Justifiable Policy?

Claims about mortality have been used by both the government and the mainstream media to justify the policy response.

The pace of change driven by that policy response has been astonishing. With Health Secretary Matt Hancock's recent announcement of the creation of the UK Health Security Agency and its commitment to take "action to mitigate infectious diseases and other hazards to health before they materialise," it is clear the government’s new (ab)normal is here to stay.

There is clearly an agenda; one entirely founded upon the idea that COVID-19 presents a significant threat. The primary evidence offered to substantiate this claim is suggested COVID-19 mortality.

Age Standardised Mortality

Just like nearly every other mortality cause, COVID-19 risks increase proportionately with age. Statistics for those of working age show a population mortality risk of between 0.0166% and 0.0046%, depending upon who you believe. The COVID-19 risk to the working age population is statistically insignificant. For the under 18's it is statistically zero.

Mortality risk disproportionately impacts men. In 2018 the average age of death for men was approximately 80, and 83 for women in England and Wales.

The average age of COVID-19 death is just over 82. When we look at standard mortality distribution, there is no observable impact from COVID-19.

UK all cause mortality doesn't suggest any need to panic either.

The ONS released data estimating a total of 607,173 deaths from all causes in England and Wales for 2020. Given demographic changes over time, the ONS use Age Standardised Mortality Rates (ASMR's) to calculate relative death rates. The ASMR showed that 2020 was the worst year for mortality in the last decade.

ASMR's were in continual decline throughout the post war period. That decline stopped abruptly in 2009 as the economic impact of the global financial crisis took its toll on public health. Thereafter it showed a marginal rise to 2019. Mortality in 2020 and 2021 should be seen in the context of a global financial crisis that dwarfs the credit crunch of 2008.



ASMR's fluctuate annually and 2020 showed a significant increase above the 5 year average mortality rate. This was higher than most rises but by no means "unprecedented." ASMR's in England since 1938 show similar increases in 1947, 1949, 1951, 1958, 1963, 1970, 1972, 1976, 1985, 1993 and 2014.

Most of these spikes in ASMR's were in the region of 35 to 45 points. For example, in 2014 the ASMR rose by 40.2, in 1993 by 38.4 and in 1985 by 46.3 points. It rose by 90.5 in 1947, by 83.5 in 1963, it went up by 104.9 in 1970 and in 1951 by 216.3. So the 2020 rise of 118.5 is by no means the worst.

The death toll in 1951 was attributed to the the influenza epidemic which struck some parts of the UK (most notably Liverpool) but left others relatively unscathed. To this day science has struggled to account for this.

2020 not only didn’t have the highest mortality rate in the post war period, it didn't have the highest mortality rate in the 21st century either. 2020 ranked 9th, out of 20 consecutive years, for all cause mortality in England and Wales. It was the 11th least dangerous year in the last 50.

While there is no statistical evidence of an unprecedented global pandemic in England and Wales (nor in Scotland and Northern Ireland) this tells us little about how many deaths were genuinely attributable to COVID-19. Nor does it indicate at which point we should sacrifice our rights, freedoms, children's educations and economy in the service of public health.

We certainly didn't sacrifice them in 1947, 1963, 1970, nor even in 1951. Why was 2020 different?

PCR Does Not Mean COVID

For the purposes of this analysis, we will use the government's higher claim of 148,000 deaths. The vast majority of these deaths were attributed based upon a positive RT-PCR test. The UK Coronavirus Act makes a clear distinction between the virus and the disease. It states:

Coronavirus means severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2); coronavirus disease means COVID-19 (the official designation of the disease which can be caused by coronavirus).

SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 are not the same thing. The detected presence of SARS-CoV-2 does not mean the person has or will develop COVID-19.

Therefore the attribution of mortality based solely upon a positive test result in no way proves the person died of COVID-19. The extent to which the disease caused or contributed towards a death is a precise medical assessment. The UK government created a death certification and registration process where this did not occur in an unknown number of cases. We need to know what that number is.

COVID-19 has a distinct presentation that requires careful diagnosis. The unique symptoms are severe hypoxemia (low blood oxygen levels), hypercapnia (elevated blood Co2 saturation) and unusually no corresponding loss of respiratory system compliance.

Measurement of gaseous exchange and fluid retention in the lungs appears normal, meanwhile the patient, in serious cases, struggles to breath. This is unlike other influenza like illnesses (ILI's).

Yet the NHS describe a list of COVID-19 symptoms that could be attributable to any ILI. A high temperature, continuous cough and loss of taste and smell are associated with many. While this is public information, intended to guide our decision to seek medical advice or a test, the list of possible causes expands further given that the NHS state just one of these symptoms possibly indicates COVID-19.

Without precise symptomatic diagnosis, it is difficult to distinguish COVID-19 from a range of other respiratory illnesses. A study from the University of Toronto found:

The symptoms can vary, with some patients remaining asymptomatic, while others present with fever, cough, fatigue, and a host of other symptoms. The symptoms may be similar to patients with influenza or the common cold.

A Cochran Review meta analysis of available studies looked for a clear definition of COVID-19 symptoms. Published in June 2020, the reviewers noted:

The individual signs and symptoms included in this review appear to have very poor diagnostic properties ... Based on currently available data, neither absence nor presence of signs or symptoms are accurate enough to rule in or rule out disease.

Even using advanced diagnostics, such as a computer tomography (CT) scan, won't always provide a clear result. A study attempting to improve differential diagnosis using CT scans found:

Although typical and atypical CT image findings of COVID-19 are reported in current studies, the CT image features of COVID-19 overlap with those of viral pneumonia and other respiratory diseases. Hence, it is difficult to make an exclusive diagnosis.

Regardless of their SARS-CoV-2 test status, without a very accurate diagnosis of symptoms, suspected COVID-19 patients could be suffering from one among a range of ILI's. Again, a positive test result does not mean the patient died from COVID-19, even if they had corresponding symptoms.

Notifications of Infectious Diseases

In England and Wales it is a legal requirement for all registered medical practitioners to notify their local health authority of any suspected cases of notifiable diseases. The list of Notifiable Infectious Diseases (NOIDS) includes COVID-19. This is not optional.

All diagnosing doctors must complete a NOIDS report upon making a diagnosis. Testing laboratories are also required to notify Public Health England (PHE) of positive tests for notifiable diseases.

According to the fact checker FullFact there were 18,152 COVID-19 notifications made by doctors in the whole of 2020.

Yet the government claim that there were 70,853 COVID-19 deaths, never mind cases, in England and Wales in the same year.

Fullfact offered an explanation for this apparent huge discrepancy:

People with Covid symptoms are advised to get a test, but not to visit their doctor, which may be part of the reason why doctors reported so few cases of the disease through NOIDS. Since Covid became widespread in the UK, and began to be monitored in other ways, it is also possible that doctors felt there was little need to continue notifying PHE about each case.

This is not credible. While it is true that people were told not to go to a doctor if they suspected they had COVID-19, a diagnosis by a doctor was still necessary at some point. Self diagnosis doesn't usually afford access to hospital treatment. The suggestion by FullFact that doctors unilaterally decided not to bother with their statutory obligations is ridiculous.

What this massive difference between claimed cases, subsequent COVID-19 mortality and NOIDS indicates, is that Doctors were largely reliant upon laboratory testing to fulfil the duty to notify the authorities. This adds considerable weight to the notion that laboratory testing was the leading determinant in the overwhelming majority of COVID-19 diagnosis.

Until mid August 2020, a UK COVID-19 death was reported if the decedent had tested positive at any point during the preceding months. An individual may have have tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 in March, have died of cancer in August and subsequently have been recorded as a COVID-19 statistic.

The scientific rationale for this did not exist. Research conducted by scientists at Oxford University analysed the COVID-19 Hospitalisation in England Surveillance System (CHESS) and calculated the average time between infection (positive test) and mortality to be 26.8 days.

And so, in response to public and scientific pressure this approach changed to only recording a COVID-19 death within 28 days of a positive test. Still the UK government would not let go of its inflated number system, adding nothing but statistical confusion, they announced:

In England, a new weekly set of figures will also be published, showing the number of deaths that occur within 60 days of a positive test. Deaths that occur after 60 days will also be added to this figure if COVID-19 appears on the death certificate.

The August methodological change reduced claimed COVID-19 deaths by 5,377 in England alone. This didn't make any difference to the number of people who had died from COVID-19, it just changed the number of people who had reportedly died from COVID-19.

This wasn't the only notable change to the data gathering process. Just before the significant spring spike in mortality, on the 30th March 2020, the MSM reported that the government had instructed the ONS to change the way they record COVID-19 deaths. Hitherto the ONS only reported a COVID-19 death if it was recorded as the direct or underlying cause. This was changed to recording "mentions" of COVID-19. A spokesperson for the ONS said:

It will be based on mentions of Covid-19 on death certificates. It will include suspected cases of Covid-19 where someone has not been tested positive for Covid-19.

The reporting of COVID-19 comorbidity rates was"paused" in July and has yet to resume. The final published ONS analysis that directly reported the number of pre-exiting conditions for deaths "with" COVID-19 mentioned on the death certificate, was released for the period ending 30 June 2020.

From this we learned that 91.1% of alleged COVID deaths had at least 1 serious additional comorbidity. The mean number of comorbidities for a those under 70 was 2.1 and for the vast majority over 70 it was 2.3.

It is preposterous to claim that a decedent who had cancer, pneumonia and had just had surgery, but tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 four weeks earlier, could reasonably be categorised as a COVID-19 death. Yet that is precisely what happened, and continues to happen to this day.

Covid-19 Cures the Flu

COVID-19 also cured influenza and other respiratory disease, such as adenovirus. Early January is always a period of notable influenza outbreaks, resultant hospital admissions and mortality. This is evident if we look at PHE's Weekly Influenza Report for week 2 in any year prior to 2020.

In 2020, according to the newly combined PHE Weekly Influenza and COVID Report, there have been virtually no cases of influenza, treatment or related deaths.

The ONS note all the details on a death certificate. In their mortality roundup for the January to August 2020 period they stated:

Influenza and pneumonia was mentioned on more death certificates than COVID-19, however COVID-19 was the underlying cause of death in over three times as many deaths between January and August 2020.

How can flu and pneumonia possibly be on more death certificates than COVID-19 if, as the media and PHE allege, it has been wiped out? It seems the medical profession didn't get the memo.

[snip]

What was the Cause of Death?

SAGE assessed the UK mean operational false positive rate (FPR) for RT-PCR to be 2.3% of all conducted tests. The government say they have conducted just over 118M tests of which 4.3M were positive. This includes an unknown number of multiple tests of the same individual. A mean FPR of 2.3% suggests 2.7M of those 4.3M positive tests were false positives. This equates to 62.7% of all positive test results.

As we have already discussed it is highly likely that laboratory testing was the primary determinant for a diagnosis of COVID-19. Therefore it is not unreasonable to surmise that at least 50% of claimed COVID-19 deaths were attributed on the basis of false positives. We can halve the claimed 148,000 to 74,000 COVID-19 deaths.

The 2020 ONS mortality data for England showed a reduction in deaths from a number of other causes.

Deaths from Ischaemic heart diseases were 1,450 below the 5 year average. Cerebrovascular disease was down by 2,276, malignant respiratory neoplasm by 1,537, chronic lower respiratory disease by 2,764 and influenza and pneumonia deaths were 7,313 below the 5 year average. An apparent reduction of 15,340 deaths from other causes.

It seems highly likely that these deaths were wrongly recorded as COVID-19.

As we have seen above, approximately 90% of supposed COVID-19 decedents had at least one other comorbidity. Using the Government’s 148,125 figure, we might claim, therefore that only something like 15,000 of these died of, rather than with.

Is this claim justifiable? Well, consider this:

The Department of Health and Social Care published a study of residents in care homes which purported to show the total number of confirmed cases. Among this number they claimed:

80.9% of residents who tested positive were asymptomatic.

A meta analysis by the Oxford Centre for Evidence Based Medicine found that asymptomatic rates among those who tested positive varied between 5% - 80%. If there are no symptoms, then the disease cannot have contributed towards a death.

Taking everything into account, from high rates of comorbidity, to low rates of symptomatic individuals, the impact of false positives on testing and a death certification regime heavily biased towards recording COVID-19 as the underlying cause, then it is reasonable to conclude that the total number of deaths from Covid-19 is not 148,000, nor 126,000, but much closer to 15,000.

[Joe Hillshoist]

BS you are suffering from one of the worst cases of confirmation bias I have seen in this thread.

if you can't answer this question then I suspect you don't understand the information you are posting.

If there are no symptoms, then the disease cannot have contributed towards a death.

Why?

[Belligerent Savant]

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I'm not the author, Joe.

And what do you mean, "Why?" Oh, I see -- covid is the silent killer, is that it? a patient may display no covid symptoms, but covid will still be the primary reason for a death of, say, a terminally ill cancer patient, is that your position? How many that were listed as asymptomatic -- and with NO OTHER AILMENTS OR MORBIDITIES -- died?


Is my answer to the "Why" question going to dispel all the other points raised by the author? What's your position on the other points the author raised? Do they have any merit? If not, WHY not?

[Joe Hillshoist]

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I'm not the author, Joe.

And what do you mean, "Why?" Oh, I see -- covid is the silent killer, is that it? a patient may display no covid symptoms, but covid will still be the primary reason for a death of, say, a terminally ill cancer patient, is that your position? How many that were listed as asymptomatic -- and with NO OTHER AILMENTS OR MORBIDITIES -- died?


Is my answer to the "Why" question going to dispel all the other points raised by the author? What's your position on the other points the author raised? Do they have any merit? If not, WHY not?

I was planning on writing several questions addressing but thought what is the point. Nothing I say is going to change your mind.

But re the red. Yeah that is a possibility. A patient with terminal cancer and decreased lung function (a result of ground glass opacity, which manifests in asymptomatic covid patients) will have the potential to die faster than one without, especially if its a lung related cancer.

And you're avoiding the question. if you don't understand what you are reading why are you so sure its accurate?

[Elvis]

Proceed with whatever storylines help pacify you. Good luck with it.

[Joe Hillshoist]

Proceed with whatever storylines help pacify you. Good luck with it.

The irony of that comment is that there is a novel SARS-like virus that appears to target age, illness and physical weakness ie non productive people economically, emergent across the planet. Said virus is almost identical to documented versions of SARS created in labs. One of those documented versions was created by a team including the person running the level four biosecurity facility in Wuhan. That facility is the prime suspect for a lab release (if there was one, either accidental or deliberate) given the virus appeared in Wuhan with timelines that appear to predate the official story of the virus' emergence.

There appears to be a worldwide propaganda campaign that claims the virus is harmless or non existent that seems targeted at aged people, the people who are potentially most vulnerable to the virus and the people with the highest potential economic cost to "society". This is a separate issue to the various totalitarian responses to the virus and is being ignored on this board.

It would certainly appear that this idea that COVID is nothing to worry about is a storyline that certainly pacifies any questioning or investigation into any potential Malthusian inspired release of the virus.

[Belligerent Savant]

There appears to be a worldwide propaganda campaign that claims the virus is harmless or non existent that seems targeted at aged people, the people who are potentially most vulnerable to the virus and the people with the highest potential economic cost to "society". This is a separate issue to the various totalitarian responses to the virus and is being ignored on this board.

It would certainly appear that this idea that COVID is nothing to worry about is a storyline that certainly pacifies any questioning or investigation into any potential Malthusian inspired release of the virus.

No one here is claiming covid is "nothing to worry about". The author of the last article i posted above isn't claiming it either.

It's an over-simplification and gross misrepresentation to suggest this.

The core point is this virus does not, and has never, justified the extent and duration of lockdowns, ineffective mask use directives, or any of the unprecedented mandates/related measures imposed by govts.

Your commentary completely ignores the devastating impact extended lockdowns have had on LIVES and livelihoods -- and it will continue to have devastating impact in the years ahead.

Irrespective of lab creation, the coordinated actions taken by govts in response (lockdowns, closure of small/mid-sized businesses, suppression of practical treatments, mass distribution of experimental 'vaccines', etc) to a virus that is, indeed, on par or perhaps slightly more virulent than influenza (once the numbers are stripped of misleading/inflated metrics) are more responsible for DEATH and lower-quality of life than the virus itself.

There is indeed a culling in progress, undertaken by govts over the past year (a scaled-up and expedited version of historical activity, double-timed): extended shutdowns causing mass transfer of wealth; stripping of privacy rights and civil liberties; continued lower quality of health care and over-reliance on pharma drugs, all of which in turn have their ripple effects; fear of seeking necessary treatment in hospitals, especially for those seriously ill; suicide, depression, overdoses -- all have contributed to hundreds of thousands of deaths due to restrictive lockdown measures and related propagation of fear. Keeping people indoors for extended periods without access to fresh air, sunlight, in-person social interaction, and/or means for exercise/movement, all contribute to worsening health prospects.

And then, of course, there's the mass-scale coercion to participate in clinical trials of experimental drugs without informed consent.

Poor or struggling sick people with increasingly limited options don't have long-term survival rates, needless to say.

Those of you that continue to train your entire focus on covid alone are like cats chasing the red dot projected on the wall by its owner, who amuses himself by observing the cat's futile attempts to 'catch' a red dot that will never be caught.

Do better. Or wait another 3 years and revisit this post.

[dada]

You clearly don't understand the familiar relationship between cat and human. The game is amusing for the two, and it has nothing to do with some kind of futile pursuit.

In a way, the metaphor is more of an ink blot, what you see in it says much about you, and little about the laser game.

[Belligerent Savant]

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Yes, the cat is amused because it believes it's chasing something that can actually be caught. The cat is being deceived.

You're right, though: it's an imperfect comparison as no harm will ever come to the cat, and the owner enjoys offering entertainment for the cat (ah, but does the owner 'enjoy' offering this entertainment because they see the cat is entertained, or do they enjoy observing how easily a cat can be deceived? Perhaps a bit of both; depends on the owner).

This is more about belief vs. actuality.

[DrEvil]

BelSav wrote:

Irrespective of lab creation, the coordinated actions taken by govts in response (lockdowns, closure of small/mid-sized businesses, suppression of practical treatments, mass distribution of experimental 'vaccines', etc) to a virus that is, indeed, on par or perhaps slightly more virulent than influenza (once the numbers are stripped of misleading/inflated metrics) are more responsible for DEATH and lower-quality of life than the virus itself.

You've repeatedly claimed to not know the real death toll of the virus, but here you claim it's about the same, or slightly worse than the flu (assuming that by 'virulent' you mean 'death toll', otherwise the comparison in meaningless). The flu has statistics going back ages (35K dead on average the last ten years), so now you do have a pretty good idea after all?

Lets say it's like a really bad flu season and put the death toll at 100K. That leaves just under half a million extra dead not accounted for. Can you break down what killed them, or if you believe the number is bogus, can you supply the real one?