That’s the problem with personal anecdotes. I personally know of several people who died and others who got sick but survived.
Doubting the stats is fine, but then you have to be willing to throw out Ivor Cummins and UKC and everyone who uses stats, equally.
Where does that leave us?
Where? Gatherer-hunters on the trail: all channels wide open, taking nothing for granted, nimble and alert; all shamans with intuitive mode at full power… and always open-mindedly-sceptical… Best chance we’ve got of sussing what’s really happening! 
Lol. Ok, I can’t argue with that. I was wondering where our modern day Terrence McKenna was hiding out. Turns out he’s on 5F!
Right @PontiusPrimate here we go. Lets start with what we agree.
a) We agree I don’t like long complex posts
b) We agree that the UK column graphs I posted are correct
c) We agree that 2020 was an increase in per capita deaths after a period of decline
Here is the fundemental basis of our disagreement. We disagree on the seriousness of SARS Cov 2. More important than that is you do not address the spikes in mortality, just after the lockdowns. As I have said on many occassions, the almost straight line rise in deaths cannot (in my opinion) be natural. I fail to see how one can dismiss deaths caused by the many effects of lockdown, which include:
i) Sick elderly being pushed out of hospital into care homes
ii) Increased death caused by isolation of the old and very vunerable
iii) Increases in suicides
iv) Increases in deaths due to untreated illness beacuse people were terrified about going to hospital
v) Increases in deaths due to the final and total visceration of the NHS e.g. 2,000 cancer cases a week going undiagnosed during lockdown
I do not know what the total number of deaths is, but I cannot accept that it can just be left out of the thinking.
What we really ought to agree on is this: The manipulators are playing a very high-stakes game. In some countries - especially with the widespread smouldering anger which I sense amongst we commoners - they are at risk of life-imprisonment or death (possibly even by lynch mobs “chasing [them] down the street” as Bush the elder once said) if the truth comes out too clearly, and tout a coup. That being so, they’re going to do whatever they can get away with to keep us confused and unclear. THAT being so, how can we mere keyboard warriors sitting at home be sure that ANY statistics we can find have absolutely not been tampered with? Anything at all?
The short answer is: we can’t. Sorry folks, but waiting for the dust to settle and hindsight to be let in at last is the only reliable tactic we have; whilst maintaining high level watchfulness about everything that’s happening. Irksome, innit? 
Hi @PatB
To be honest, I think we agree on a lot. Not everything, but a lot. I’ve addressed the sharp spike in mortality just after lockdown a few months back, I remember. To my mind, the lateness of the lockdowns, and the way numbers are reported, combined with exponential spread do account for it. .
As for the seriousness of Covid, I do agree with a lot of your points (i)-(v) above. But, I also note that our hospitals and ICUs were overflowing with dying people who didn’t fit into any of the (i)-(v) categories, so let’s not forget them. This was after a massive effort to increase ICU capacity, and draft in extra doctors and nurses from wherever they could.
Covid (according to the ONS) was responsible for something like 30% of the total deaths in 2020. That’s what it said on the death certificates. The suicides, deaths from other illnesses like cancer etc. most likely make up the remaining 70% of deaths.
I just don’t see what’s controversial here. Covid killed many people, and many people also died from other things. The desire to minimise covid deaths in the face of all the data, evidence and testimony of the frontline staff seems weird to me.
@RhisiartGwilym - I find testimony from frontline doctors, including the couple I know and others I trust (Pierre Kory etc) to be of high reliability. They tell a story completely consistent with the stats. The dust has already settled, my friend. It won’t get more settled over time. We already know what we need to know about the mortality of 2020. Waiting ain’t gonna get us anywhere beyond what we know now.
Cheers both
PP
Fancy a bullion-bet, P! 
haha!
If I had any bullion, I would!
Sadly I have none. And no bitcoin either…
I know there have been a lot of deaths these past two flu-seasons. Whether they’ll turn out to be a confirmed excess over recent trends may - perhaps - get settled as true over time. I’m still waiting.
But in any case, this alternative hypothesis coming into view now - that the air-plankton are in fact vital, accelerated-evolution messengers between at-risk members of a species, which only kill those whose immune systems are already shot to hell by micro-radiation, glyphosate and friends, stress, chronic shite-food, physical idleness, obesity, etc, etc, etc - is still viable, even through all the spikes.
The point is: we Westerners are already in a parlous state of chronic ill-health, through the shite lifestyles which have been foisted on us by the profit-seeking-above-all thugs, together with the tsunami of iffy for-profit drugs which have drowned the practitioners - and the users - of Western allopathic ‘medicine’.
In that predisposed condition, the exosome/virus messengers have a different effect from what they have in immune-strong recipients: in the former, the message-processing produces severe distress and even death, in the latter - such as me and mine - it produces slight discomfort at worst, asymptomia more often, plus a useful message-with-sample that results in an acquired, long-term, nicely-balanced immunity, and also an incorporated, instant-evolution addition to our inheritable DNA (!!!)
Don’t you like that picture better P? I sure do. Hope it’s right. Seems in any case that by continuing to discuss and tease at the questions with amicable civility, we-all shall arrive at an honourable consensus which stands a high chance of being real-world accurate. Good - adult and civilised - moderation rools, OK!
Agreed. In that vein, Off Guardian has a very pointed take on why the Corona “cases” started falling worldwide in late January. And one guess why that is?
" Well, on January 13th the WHO published a memo regarding the problem of asymptomatic cases being discovered by PCR tests, and suggesting any asymptomatic positive tests be repeated.
This followed up their previous memo, instructing labs around the world to use lower cycle thresholds (CT values) for PCR tests, as values over 35 could produce false positives."
Who would have thunk it?
Hi @PatB
I just checked the article, but as with just about every article by Off-G on covid, I was far from convinced.
1 - A step change in the measuring criteria seems unlikely to lead to a trend downwards.
2 - The UK was already double checking borderline results, as far as I know
3 - the UK has been using PCR to check for three distinct SC2 markers to increase confidence that a PCR positive is correlated to exposure to the virus, and not a random fluke
4 - we have had similar falls after lockdown in this country before, without any apparent changes in testing protocols. This is a familiar pattern now
Essentially the points I made in the post on some thoughts about the PCR test and false positives etc still stand, as far as I can see.
Cheers
@PontiusPrimate I’m astounded. There is so much clearly documented explanations of the PCR “test” and cycles, that I won’t even bother to debate this with you. All I can say is perhaps you (like all of us) have a massive blind spot on the whole issue of effectiveness of the PCR test.
The PCR “test” for Corona visus does not allow for “borderline” results. It is positive or negative. There is nothing in between.
“… without any apparent changes in testing protocols”. Perhaps this would be more accurate if you said “… without published reductions in PCR cycles”
Morning @PatB
I suspect you’ve not understood the point I was making. It was about a step change in something leading to a trend rather than another step change. I suggest you have another think about that. To me it’s not at all convincing as an explanation.
Yes, one of us most likely has a blind spot here Given that’s it’s been a month since I wrote extensively on the subject on this board, and you’ve yet to reply to it, acknowledge it, rebut it or even read it, as far as I can tell, I’ll respectfully suggest it’s not me. I remain open to any evidence or thoughts that contradict my analysis. If I’ve made any mistakes in my analysis please do point them out to me.
I don’t think you’re right about that. Labs check for three markers for certainty. The guidelines call tests with only 1 out of the 3 inconclusive and require a further result. Although, in the interests of transparency, I will say that I’ve just found out that some labs seem to have been skipping the double check on inconclusive results, although it’s not clear to me yet how big an impact that has had. Something new for me to look more deeply into.
Perhaps. But as you have no evidence either way, then again perhaps not…
Cheers
Can I just chip in again here with the assertion that we should treat literally ALL alleged sources of information with buckets of salt. I’d say that, in this time when rampant global corruption meets desperate gic-panic over the upcoming grand 1929-on-steroids socio-economic crash, there are, quite literally, NO published sources of information of which we can be fully confident that they tell objective truth and haven’t been got at. Only calm hindsight is going to give us any true perspective. Till then, the handy Scots legal category of ‘Not Proven’ remains our best bet of all.
Certainly we can - and should - surf about all sources of information, and let our on-board gambler estimate the odds of truthfulness. But it remains clear that it’s ALL a gamble. There are NO certainties…
That may well be a good position, RG, but until someone can point out the flaws in my reasoning, I still firmly believe that PCR testing is far and away the best tool we have for monitoring and controlling the spread of the virus. As I said above, if I’ve got something wrong in my thinking then I’m happy to have it pointed out to me.
So far everything that off-guardian have written on this subject has been very disappointing…
P, if you really, seriously believe that PCR is anything but a fraud in ‘pandemic’ testing, then yes, old buddy, I’d call that a blind spot. (Please feel free too enlighten me on any of mine you’ve spotted. In the nature of things, we absolutely need friends to make us see them, since - by definition - we can’t do it ourselves. )
Hey RG
Did you read my long post where I outlined in some detail all of my reasons for thinking what I think? I laid it out pretty clearly.
If you think I have a blind spot, then please feel free to go through my arguments and show me where. I’m serious - I’d be very happy if you can point to an actual mistake in my reasoning - I’ve posted loads on the subject. Otherwise on what basis are you saying that? Sounds like you’re not reading my posts and simply dismissing them because they don’t fit with your preconceived ideas…
Now, what does that sounds like? Let me look up “blind spot” in the dictionary…
Similarly, if you or anyone else has a better alternative than PCR for tracking the spread of the virus, then I’d be happy to hear it.
Cheers
Well you’ve got me there! I’m just confused.com
There are stat’s on the board (I believe) that show how long someone has spent on any thread. I have read it more than once, did not understand it all (my bad), and did not reply as I do not have the time to analyse a very detailed and complex post, and then compose and post an alternative. But here is my dumb guys logic on PCR “tests”.
Say that 1 in 1,000 people have Corona virus (Matt Hancock’s figures). Then if one tests 100,000 people with a perfect test, there should be 100 “cases”. Test 100,000 people a day for one week and one will get 700 “new cases” (aka a spike). Cut the test numbers down to 10,000 people a day and there will be 70 “new cases” (aka a spike if the previous week there were no tests, or, a decline in “cases”). So, easy peezy to manipulate numbers, not that our government would dream of such a thing.
And exactly the same applies to the PCR “test” itself. If the PCR was actually a test, set the number of cycles correctly (say 30), test 100,000 people and there will be 100 “cases”. Up the cycles to 40 or even 45 (as reported in several places) and there will a lot more than 100 cases (aka, a spike). Reduce the cycles to say 25, and there will be less than 100 “cases”. A decline (of course attributable to great government handling of the crisis). And I know you have put forward detailed arguments against this, but many experts I trust implicitly (notwithstanding @RhisiartGwilym 's comment above), say the same, including Kary Mullis (remember him?). He said (I don’t remember the exact words) “using PCR you can find anything in anyone”.
Thanks @PatB
I don’t think there’s much to be gained by going round this exact same subject again. I’ve dealt with all these points before. In fact, I’ve set out my thinking about all this as clearly as I can. I’ve repeatedly invited folk to point out any mistakes in my reasoning. If I’ve made a mistake I’ll happily correct my view. So far the only feedback has been that we don’t trust the ONS, and you don’t trust published papers written by Canadians.
Not exactly convincing to me but hey ho.
Until people are ready to honestly engage with what I’ve written, I don’t see a whole lot of point in continuing with this subject.
See you around on other threads!
Cheers
@PontiusPrimate Hi PP. OK. On this thread we agree … to disagree! Perhaps we’ll do better on other threads. On a light note, maybe let me have the last word which is this