On Tuesday, figures from the Johns Hopkins University ticked over the grim milestone of one million coronavirus deaths.
But that figure does not depict the full scale of the loss.
Is the death toll accurate?
Professor Alan Lopez from the University of Melbourne — a leading international expert on the burden of disease — said the death toll is probably not accurate, and there were a few reasons for this.
The first is that we don’t know how each of those one million deaths was counted, as well as how many deaths have simply not been counted.
The article raises a number of good points about how COVID deaths are diagnosed (or not), reported (or not) and the use of excess death figures to estimate a possible higher COVID death toll. Obviously there is a lot of conflicting information on this whole issue but this is just one more piece of the puzzle that I found interesting.
Some good points, especially about the reporting of Covid deaths. My concern is always the same. If one is not using a test, which is a real test, not just PCR test amplified to get the “right” result, how do we know? With all the pressure on doctors to class deaths as Covid, all the “mistakes” in the counts (UK, USA, and I’m sure elsewhere), The true number could also be half of that 1 million figure.
And coming from John Hopkins University, well the original figure has really to be questioned very, very carefully.
Seconding that scepticism, Pat, for the same reasons. I suspect we won’t get a fairly reliable idea of just how bad - or not - it was until stuff has trickled out completely over the next few years. How long did it take hindsight to demonstrate that the previous ‘deadly, mass-killing pandemics’ of the past few years were all damp squibs in reality?
I reckon that at least 10 billion people have died from the fairy tale known as covid 19.
Now sit comfortably, children, and I’ll tell you a story…
In the meantime:
This is all I can find so far on the Coronavirus Act, an extension of which was voted through Parliament yesterday (Wednesday) evening…
This hasn’t been reported at all in both the MSM and the so-called ‘alternate media’. I still can’t find out if the Coronavirus Act has been extended by another six months, or by two years which was what the government wanted.
Around 80 Tory MPs revolted against an extension to the Coronavirus Act, but they were placated by Hancock’s Half Hour, who said that MPs might be given the chance to vote on further restrictions. Labour under Sir Keir Starmer voted for it almost entirely.
This extension to the Coronavirus Act allows Bojo & Co to continue to rule by decree, and to continue to completely destroy the UK economy and make millions of people destitute.
Right on time, more excellent stuff from the UK column. I’ll outline the key issues they address, and with relevance to this thread, the 1 million deaths and the military coup or rule by decree referred to by @RobG above.
First, the scare figure of 1 million by that reliable source John Hopkins. Compare it to cardio vascular disease, 17.79 million and cancer, 9.56 million in the same time-frame. In fact, Corona virus deaths are 14th on the league table!
Second, all those ventilators we bought when the country was already under austerity measures and the NHS starved of funds.So, of the £569 million spent on 30,000 ventilators, only 2,150 have actually reached the NHS (figures from the National Audit Office at end Sept).
Third, they deal with how the British Bullshit Corporation deals with the alleged figure of 1 million (sorry, but I can’t believe a thing that comes from John Hopkins). Cognitive dissonance, and mind control, linking the deaths (be afraid, be very afraid), with the loss of revenue to lower league football clubs.
Finally, the coup taking place in Britain. I can’t paraphrase all the stuff they cover, so you’ll have to watch it yourself.
Thanks @JMC, an interesting article. My feeling is also that we are undercounting deaths around the world, and the likely number of deaths is higher. Statistically, I can’t really see how it could be anything other than an undercount.
It’s hard to estimate by how much though… I’d like some error bounds around the estimate (on a separate rant, I don’t think any estimate should be presented without corresponding error bounds, but that’s just cranky old me!)
It’s also a hard question to determine how much early intervention stopped the spread. There’s no doubt in my mind that if China, say, had done nothing, their death toll now would be at least million all by themselves… That might be true in other countries too, especially in East Asia.
We don’t know what the death toll might have been in the absence of any control measures.
From the best estimates of the dynamics we have so far, we believe that the R0 is 3.5, the IFR is 0.3%, and perhaps 30% of the population has pre-existing immunity. What would that translate to for China (pop 1.4 billion)?
R0 of 3.5 means to achieve herd immunity, 71% of the pop needs to have immunity.
Let’s say 40% of the pop has pre-existing immunity from previous Corona viruses. That means we need another 31% to become immune
31% is 420 million odd cases to reach herd immunity in China
At 0.3% IFR that translates to 1.26 million deaths, just in China. That’s with 40% pre-existing immunity.
Covid might not be as deadly as it was first thought (10 times less than first estimates in fact), but it could have killed many millions if it had been left totally unchecked.
One more credit to UK Column. I’ve already posted this link before but if you have not watched it and are short of time, watch the 5 minutes from minutes 50:40.
School propaganda, teachers acting out, only believe what is on BBC or Sky News, report anyone (including your own family, in your own home) who expresses a view not in the mainstream. They are terrorists
I have real trouble not using an excess of expletives on this one.
That is disgraceful, but why isn’t the school named, so that they can be asked to give an account of themselves? I would like to write to the school myself to ask if this report is true.
On another topic:
Did I completely misunderstand the segment from 53m50s to 56m50s, which begins with a remark about “the military now being unleashed on British streets”, and proceeds immediately, with no discernible sense of irony, to claim that the Bloody Sunday investigation is a divide-and-conquer regime directed against “the veterans community”, who are “afraid to speak up” and “need support”, and the Government - a “Government of occupation”, no less! - are “frightened” of veterans, because they “know that veterans have an inherent sense of right and wrong”?
(Oops, my irony meter just exploded! And I’m an Northern Irish “Prod” myself!)
Just who are these people? The name “UK Column” sounds sinister to me (or do I mean it sounds dexter?), and I’m not reassured after watching the first 17 minutes of this clip and the bit you directed us to at the end. But I’m not very awake yet (I’m going back to bed soon), so I may have got the wrong end of the stick.
I’m in 16150 where we run a gite. We had 50 plus guests through this summer, just about all of whom came from regions in northern France (mostly Paris) which are categorised as ‘high risk’.
I shook hands with them, I told them not to wear masks, and I was generally in close contact with the guests every day.
Amazingly, if you believe the MSM, I’m still able to type this post…
@RobG We too run a gite. Similar number of guests. I shook hands with every one of them including the group from Marseille the “hot spot”, except one Belgium woman and she was the only one who wore a mask
Couldn’t have put it better. If you want a beer and some food while talking to another “covididiot”, contact me on pat at rusty-bernstein dot com.
@Twirlip To understand that comment, you can not tale it out of context. You have to have at the very least seen the whole of the video. Preferably the last few months of their videos, where they very plainly lay out how the military is directing a large part of British government policy.
In view of what happened to the Skripals, and is happening to Assange, I have little doubt that extremely sinister forces - or indeed Forces - are directing British government policy.
But “the military” against “veterans”? I just can’t make sense of that on any level at all, or even imagine ever making any sense of it at all. I’m now desperately trying to clamber out of this rabbit-hole ass-backwards!
Think of it as a potential dispute between the ranks: The staff-officers, who are largely English-raj-class people, versus the lower ranks, who are, much more usually, plebs and petty bourgeois, including quite a lot of Celts and of course of English yeomen.
The inherent fascism, always carefully nurtured from generation to generation by the rajistas is always there, behind the polite ‘democratic’ facade; they being - inherently - the ‘natural rulers’ of Britain, in their own mythology; properly seen, the only segment of British society who have been fed the royal jelly and who are therefore up to the job (as they fantasise; Bozo, anyone? ).
Amongst we hoi polloi, support for these fascistic attitudes can be awakened and whipped-up by proper manipulation, for a percentage of us at least, but across the whole populace of the common Brits it’s by no means so universal.
My sense is that the UK Column crew are of the latter persuasion, and much more committed to the idea of Britain as a genuine democracy, if imperfect, in which they believe. Also the primacy of the right rule of law, and the military as a justified, principled, patriotic defender of Britain in time of need, but absolutely not for gangster-capitalist foreign adventures overseas, under the overlordship of the US imperial thugs; nor for standing idly by whilst a fascistic dictatorship is quietly worked into place in Britain.
You have the bones of a potential Second English Civil War right there…
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