First of all let us consider the facts. In 1957 1.1m people world wide died of the flu. In England and Wales in the week of 5th to 11th January 2015 there were 15,000 deaths. So far there have been 1789 coronavirus deaths in the whole of the UK. “Excess winter deaths” in 2015 were 44,000. In 1999-2000 there were 48,000 excess winter deaths due to high flu levels.
Between January 1st and March 25th 2020 world wide deaths were: 21,297 by Coronavirus, 113,034 by Seasonal flu, 228,095 by Malaria and 249,904 by Suicide
LOCKDOWN SUICIDES
I predict that the suicides from the economic and social effects of the economic lockdown will far exceed the number of deaths actually (see below) caused by the Coronavirus.
Given that reasons for suicide are hopelessness, isolation and poverty one wonders what 3 or 6 months of those attributes caused by Lockdown will do compared to the Coronavirus death rate! There are increasing reports of family killings and suicide in Britain as families face the desperation of lockdown and financial worry. A tragic case from Germany was the suicide of the Finance Director of the State of Hessen, Thomas Schaefer because he had become depressed about how to cope with the economic collapse due to the lockdown.
The provisional number of deaths registered in England and Wales in the week ending 13 March 2020 (week 11) was 11,019. The average number of deaths for the corresponding week over the previous five years was 11,205. The provisional number of deaths registered in England and Wales in February 2020 was a decrease of 2,143 deaths in comparison with the same month in 2019.
Today winter is almost over and the total deaths attributed to coronavirus in the whole of the UK over February and March are a mere 1,789 – with probably only 90 of those as a result of the virus alone (see below).
WHAT ARE EXCESS DEATHS?
We must note that the term “excess winter deaths” is not used by politicians and “experts” in this crisis. Ministers and their experts had no answer to the journalist’s question about “how many would have died anyway?” Indeed they do not differentiate between those who “die of Coronavirus” and those who “die with Coronavirus”. I wonder why? A study in Italy showed that 88% of those who have died did not have “Coronavirus” as the cause of death on their death certificate!
“On re-evaluation by the National Institute of Health, only 12 per cent of death certificates have shown a direct causality from coronavirus, while 88 per cent of patients who have died have at least one pre-morbidity – many had two or three,”
said Professor Walter Ricciardi scientific adviser to the Italian Ministry of Health.
Other statistics show that these “Coronavirus deaths” correlate with other health problems – in order of importance: 1. heart problems 2. diabetes 3 respiratory problems, all of which could also of course lead to death in a normal winter.
The very high death rate in Italy has many causes as we have noted in previous posts – poverty, pollution, an ageing population (Italian hospital patients’ average age is 67 whereas in China it was 46) Chinese migration, and a history of chronic respiratory illnesses three times worse than any other European country as Professor Yoram Lass has pointed out: https://en.globes.co.il/en/article-lockdown-lunacy-1001322696
UK GOVERNMENT INCONSISTENCY
While warning daily of mass deaths and general armageddon, factual statements from the same authorities seem to contradict this “project fear”. Indeed a statement from the NHS made it clear that only 13 individuals out of 260 did not have underlying health conditions. So of the 1,789 deaths in the UK so far only some 89 might not have died in the normal course of events.
‘Patients were between 33 and 100 years old and all but 13 (aged between 63 and 99 years old) had underlying health conditions.’
And then on 19th March 2020, the Government officially announced that COVID-19 was no longer considered to be a high consequence infectious diseases (HCID) in the UK. It had originally been recommended that it be so designated but “now that more is know about COVID19” and mortality rates were lower than thought it is no longer seen as a “HCID”. The Advisory Committee on Dangerous Pathogens (ACDP) is also of the opinion that COVID-19 should no longer be classified as an HCID.
DRACONIAN AGAINST THEIR OWN PEOPLE BUT…
- Stopping vehicles of legal citizens on the road but not stopping illegal migrants crossing the Channel,
- Stopping family members visiting each other but allowing flights from coronavirus hotspots to land at Heathrow – see below,
- accusing Chinese of human rights abuses but watching British police using drone spies, smashing up barbecues, blackening lakes in beauty spots and preventing easter egg sales.
- The Government evacuated many Britons from Wuhan and forced them into quarantine for 14 days but did not force people from other flights out of China to go into quarantine but merely asked them to “self isolate if they felt unwell”!!!!
The Government seeks to “Save the NHS” even though it is the NHS (now to receive £170bn per year) whose lack of capacity to save us has led to a ruinous Lockdown. The NHS’s complete lack of care has been responsible for the deaths of hundreds in various hospital scandals and has for years been responsible for infections which kill more people than the UK Armed forces! By all means applaud doctors, surgeons and nurses as they risk infection – BUT THERE IS NO CALL TO APPLAUD THE NHS AND ITS VERY POOR TRACK RECORD!
According to Worldometer statistics hardly anyone in Britain recovers from coronavirus! Despite having over 17,000 cases only 135 have, according to the statistics, recovered. By contrast in France 7,900 and in Germany 15,800 have recovered. Either our health service is a disaster or we have some very incompetent statisticians!
VIRUS FLIGHTS AND THE HEATHROW SCANDAL
A leading London virologist said some weeks ago that there might be no great problem if the “virus did not land in some place like Heathrow Airport”. But that is what the British Government deliberately allowed to happen – because their “experts” told them planes landing from infected areas of the world was not a great threat!
On the 30th March the following number of flights which landed in Heathrow from COVID-19 hotspots were:
From Madrid 12
From Shanghai 4
From Milan 12
On January 1st 175,000 left Wuhan, the centre of the coronavirus in China. By the end of January 7m Wuhan residents had left for other cities and human to human transmission had begun in Beijing, Shanghai and other cities. Wuhan locked down on the 23rd January.
But international travel continued as normal. 900 to New York every month on average, 2,200 to Sydney, 15,000 to Bangkok (first overseas case in mid January). The USA confirmed the first case in Seattle. By the time the USA shut down flights for Chinese, 30 cities in 26 countries had been infected.
So both within China – as the virus spread from Wuhan to surrounding towns and other major cities – and between China and the rest of the world it was aircraft flights which carried the infection.
But British “experts” thought differently.
AND NOW THE PANIC OF THE EXPERTS
Professor Whitty the Chief Medical Officer for England told the British people in January when the first cases were identified that the NHS was ‘extremely well-prepared for managing infections’. But not apparently this one with its modest number of deaths.
On the BBC’s Question Time the Editor of the Lancet said Richard Horton said the coronavirus was
“a national scandal…we knew this was coming…with pandemic potential to hit cities”
Unfortunately for him he had said in January:
A call for caution please. Media are escalating anxiety by talking of a “killer virus” + “growing fears”. In truth, from what we currently know, 2019-nCoV has moderate transmissibility and relatively low pathogenicity. There is no reason to foster panic with exaggerated language
The Times noted that just five weeks ago, on 21st February, Professor Neil Ferguson of Imperial College London was a member of a Public Health England Committee which judged Coronavirus was only a “moderate risk” to Britain.
He then caused the Government to abandon its strategy (of social distancing, protecting the old and vulnerable and allowing “herd immunity” to defeat the virus) and instead impose complete social and economic lockdown as he predicted 260,000 dead and even with a lockdown 20,000 dead.
A week later he said that “it could be a lot less than 20,000 dead”. Shortly after that Ferguson said that the dead would probably total 7,000 “but it could be much less”.
Is that consistent advice? Is that calming the situation? Is that giving Government confidence in their “experts”?
THE WORLD HEALTH ORGANISATION
When Taiwan reported the existence of a novel coronavirus with potentially widespread effects to the WHO this organisation for world health ignored it.
In early March the WHO grossly overstated the fatality rate for the coronavirus by manipulating flawed statistics and assumptions. The death rate WHO said was 3.4% for the virus while the flu killed less than 1%.
But in the USA alone this season 2019-2020 (to 16th March) confirmed cases of flu (through testing) are 222,552 while deaths were 22,000 – a 10% rate! As testing rises for coronavirus the number of cases will rise and so the death rate will probably fall even further.
TIME WILL TELL
Time will tell which country’s strategy has been successful. Different countries had different forms of lockdown and at different times on their coronavirus “infection curve”.
I believe there will be remarkable little difference in the progress and dying out of this virus (since the standard curve will apply regardless, deaths will not be greatly different from annual flu and herd immunity will develop) but there could be a big difference in the condition of the economies of each nation – and the devastating effects of the lockdown on most individuals and families could be far worse than the virus itself.
