Nobody knows how many people died as a result of the UK/US Coalition of Death led destruction of Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and, by proxy, Syria and Yemen. Nobody even knows how many people western forces themselves killed directly. That is a huge number, but still under 10% of the total. To add to that you have to add those who died in subsequent conflict engendered by the forced dismantling of the state the West disapproved of. Some were killed by western proxies, some by anti-western forces, and some just by those reverting to ancient tribal hostility and battle for resources into which the country had been regressed by bombing.
You then have to add all those who died directly as a result of the destruction of national infrastructure. Iraq lost in the destruction 60% of its potable drinking water, 75% of its medical facilities and 80% of its electricity. This caused millions of deaths, as did displacement. We are only of course talking about deaths, not maiming. This very sober analysis from Salon makes a stab at 2.4 million for Iraqi deaths caused by the war.
The number of Iraqi casualties is not just a historical dispute, because the killing is still going on today. Since several major cities in Iraq and Syria fell to Islamic State in 2014, the U.S. has led the heaviest bombing campaign since the American War in Vietnam, dropping 105,000 bombs and missiles and reducing most of Mosul and other contested Iraqi and Syrian cities to rubble.
An Iraqi Kurdish intelligence report estimated that at least 40,000 civilians were killed in the bombardment of Mosul alone, with many more bodies still buried in the rubble. A recent project to remove rubble and recover bodies in just one neighborhood found 3,353 more bodies, of whom only 20% were identified as ISIS fighters and 80% as civilians. Another 11,000 people in Mosul are still reported missing by their families.
For a vivid illustration, here is a photo of Sirte, Libya, after it was kindly “liberated” by NATO aerial bombardment. NATO carried out 14,000 bombing sorties on Libya.
Sirte, Libya, after NATO bombing
The neo-con drive to dominate the Middle East, in alliance with Saudi Arabia and Israel, has caused an apocalyptic level of death and destruction. It really is very difficult indeed to quantify the number of people killed as a direct result of the policy of “liberal intervention” in these countries. Bombing people into freedom has collateral damage. There are also the vast unintended consequences. The destruction of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria launched a wave of refugee migration which led to politicial instability throughout Europe and contributed to, among many other consequences, Brexit.
For the purposes of argument, I am going to put an extremely conservative figure of 5 million on the number of people who died as a result of Western military intervention, direct or proxy, in the Middle East.
Now compare that to the worldwide death toll from coronavirus: 220,000. Let me say that again.
Western aggressive wars to coronavirus: 5,000,000 : 220,000.
Or put it another way. The total number of deaths from coronavirus in the UK so far is about half the number of civilians killed directly by the US military in the single city of Mosul.
Makes you think, doesn’t it? There are four horsemen of the apocalypse, and while of course I do not blame people for focusing on the one which is riding at them personally, do not forget the others. Coronavirus has not finished killing. But then nor have western wars.
The sight which I cannot stand is the mainstream media which cheered on the horseman of war as they argued for the invasion Iraq on the basis of lies – and still defend it as a “liberation” – who now pretend massive concern for human life. The hypocrites are disgusting.
I was wrong when I initially wrote about the coronavirus.
Before I detail where I was wrong, let me say where I believe I was right. Large general population sampling antibody studies are now just beginning to emerge, and I feel reasonably confident that I was in fact correct that the mortality rate of coronavirus is under 1%, and probably not too different from the 0.5% generally quoted for Hong Kong flu. The term “infection fatality rate” is now being used to describe this true mortality rate. The “infection fatality rate” is the percentage of those who get the disease who die.
These are very early days for whole population sampling antibody studies, and the true picture should become more plain over the next month or two. I must say I have found it alarmingly difficult to explain to people the rather simple concept that you cannot infer a mortality rate among everybody who catches the disease, from the results you get when by definition you have only been offering tests to the most acute cases presenting as needing serious treatment. Of course a fair proportion of the worst cases don’t make it through the disease. But there is a population of millions in the UK (and nobody has a serious idea how many) who have had the disease with no or mild symptoms, and who do not figure in the statistics.
The very large majority of people in the UK who have had coronavirus have never been tested. That is simply true. How many, nobody knows. That is also true.
I do not endorse the extrapolation from New York to the UK, in this Daily Mail piece, to try to calculate how many people may have had coronavirus in the UK. But buried in there is the best collection I can find anywhere of what sampling antibody studies are indicating for the “infection fatality rate” across various US and European locations, and there is a strong clustering under 1%. Now these are preliminary studies, though almost all from reputable institutions. Proper, large scale, antibody testing programmes to produce peer reviewed and authoritatively published studies are on the way, but not here yet. I repeat, though, that I think the infection mortality rate is somewhere below 1%.
Where I was wrong, was in not realising that what is different about this disease from a flu is that it is really very, very contagious. So a far higher percentage of the population get it, all at once. Over two seasons, only about 30% of the UK population got the Hong Kong flu. Unchecked, it seems this coronavirus can spread very much quicker than that. I do not know why, but it appears that it can. So the lockdown policies to prevent health services being overwhelmed are needed and do have my support.
I do not however support the level of alarmism and panic. Of course the disease is really appalling for those who get it badly. It is a painful, protracted and terrifying experience. But a similar level of scrutiny of extreme illnesses of other kinds would bring similar stories. I have had three brushes with death in my own life.
In 2003 I had multiple pulmonary emboli (bloodclots in both lungs), which left me in a coma for days, was incredibly painful and I understand very similar in terms of experience to the end phase of this coronavirus. In 1986 I was actually declared dead in a hospital in Kaduna, Northern Nigeria (salmonella paratyphoid B), and was woken up on a morgue trolley by a cockroach eating my nostril. In 1974 I had emergency surgery for peritonitis, and was in hospital for 5 weeks and then a convalescent home. Retailing the experience or images of any of these illnesses would be as capable or more of generating the terror being created by the detailed coverage of extreme cases of coronavirus.
Yes the coronavirus is horrible if you get it badly. Almost all severe disease is horrible and death very seldom consists of peacefully stopping breathing, despite Hollywood. I wonder if having lived so much in Africa has changed my attitude to death. We do not see death much in the UK. Did you know the British have a 350% higher propensity than the Italians to put their elderly into care homes? That is why the deaths in Italy were so much more visible, even though the truth is that the UK government is doing not significantly better, and quite probably worse, than the Italian government, at containing the virus. It is only now making a start at adding English care home deaths to the official statistics (Scotland has for weeks).
I do support lockdown, I do support every sensible precaution being taken because the virus is so contagious. I utterly deplore the vast quantities being spent on war, the $220 billion being squandered on Trident missiles while the most basic precautions stockpiling against the much more real threat of a pandemic were not undertaken, because Tories begrudged spending a few millions on the NHS. I get all of that and I repeat it. But we must not be panicked into believing that the threat is greater than it is. You have approximately a 99% chance, (still nobody knows for certain) of surviving this disease if you catch it. If you are under 60, your chance of death is almost certainly at worst 1 in 500 if you catch it. If you are older or like me have heart and lung issues, it looks a bit bleak. But we are not immortal, nor would I wish to be.
But remember this. Your odds of survival are massively better than were those of a civilian in a country that your country chose to invade in recent years. Did you, personally, do enough to try to stop that?
Remember, there are other horsemen.
——————————————
Unlike our adversaries including the Integrity Initiative, the 77th Brigade, Bellingcat, the Atlantic Council and hundreds of other warmongering propaganda operations, this blog has no source of state, corporate or institutional finance whatsoever. It runs entirely on voluntary subscriptions from its readers – many of whom do not necessarily agree with the every article, but welcome the alternative voice, insider information and debate.
Subscriptions to keep this blog going are gratefully received.
Choose subscription amount from dropdown box:
Paypal address for one-off donations: [email protected]
Alternatively:
Account name
MURRAY CJ
Account number 3 2 1 5 0 9 6 2
Sort code 6 0 – 4 0 – 0 5
IBAN GB98NWBK60400532150962
BIC NWBKGB2L
Bank address Natwest, PO Box 414, 38 Strand, London, WC2H 5JB
Subscriptions are still preferred to donations as I can’t run the blog without some certainty of future income, but I understand why some people prefer not to commit to that.
Censorship strikes again
David Icke banned from social media for spreading “conspiracies” on Covid19,
note this, Philip Cross and Nick Cohen…again.
“Writing in the Observer on April 25, Nick Cohen berated social media platforms for not banning Icke.
Less than 20 minutes after he tweeted his piece, the “mysterious wikipedia editor” Andrew Philip Cross had added the article to Icke’s wiki page.
And, just a week later, both Facebook and YouTube had obliged, deleting Icke and all his work.”
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/487741-david-icke-free-speech-banning/
Some of his stuff is still available, seems bitchute caters for the shunned prophets of doom, don’t laugh, the way things are going we might need to go there to find Craig’s work..
😉
https://www.bitchute.com/video/Kz4dRg80NePh/
Exactly, no, no, no
we must stick with the pre-programmed, programme.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-52529893
Now can we play at being adults and enquire of our masters, where the four of five thousand extra victims are being infected each day?
I strongly suspect that they are not being infected on their daily walk or cycle ride
but in institutions, like mental hospitals, old peoples homes, sheltered accommodation, prisons, hospitals, hospisis, orphanages, homless shelters.
As Trump put a big reward up for the capture of Venezulean leader Nicolas Maduro for drug trafficking, which is questionable at best.
Venezulean officials said that they’ve foiled a plot to assassinate Maduro. A group of armed men attempted to enter the country via a boat, eight were killed and two arrested, the prisoners apparently admitted the the plot and that Colombia was involved with US backing.
Of course with Covid-19 gripping the world right now, and in the headlines daily the removal of Maduro by proxy, with US backing probably wouldn’t have been seen as significant as it would have been, thankfully the Great Satan failed, as in the US proxy Bay of Pigs invasion.
The Nightingale “hospital” in London will shut next week.
Ever get the feeling you’re being lied to?
Meanwhile many other hospitals in Britain are largely empty because of all the surgery that has been cancelled.
Far more people have been killed by the authorities’ response “to the virus” than by the virus.
There will certainly be more shocks (or “chi” as Eugenics Cummings [1] would call them, taking the term from Sun Tzu). Whoever tells “health” secretary Matt Hancock what to say got him to boast today that the government may not even make a supposed future vaccine “compulsory”, because apparently almost everyone will flock to the vaccine stations crying “Oh please, please, Sir! Please vaccinate me!” Hancock obviously only says what he’s told, but he sounds so PROUD that the war on the population’s minds, a war in which he has played a visible part, has been so SUCCESSFUL. He must be so happy when he thinks of how he can continue to help out during Stage 2.
Note
1) He must be so happy too. Look at how the meme “NHS” is functioning… We are way ahead of both the 2016 referendum and the 2019 election now. “NHS” doesn’t mean anything to do with universal healthcare free at the point of use any more:
* most surgery has been CANCELLED
* GPs are pressurising patients to agree not to be resuscitated
* paramedics are being told not to attend elderly care homes if they receive reports that a resident has severe respiratory symptoms, except after she has died so they can carry out her corpse
“NHS” just means the Tory government now, and the state administration generally, to whom we are all being enjouned to submit “in the public interest”.
“Far more people have been killed by the authorities’ response “to the virus” than by the virus.”
And that of course could account to some extent as to why there is a spike in this year’s official death figures. Dr Malcolm Kendrick said months back that he was seeing other patients neglected because of the concentration on COVID-19. Though he did say it was rather a nasty virus if you got it – which I’m sure is true unless you are one of the lucky ones who have it but are not ill with it.
N_,
The comment from Matt Hancock is to sell the idea that vaccines might fairly be made compulsory, in violation of the Nuremberg Code which forbids medical coercion.
Compulsory vaccination is almost certainly an endgame of all this
On another site I have just read an otherwise apparently intelligent and well-educated person say that if you install the “contact tracing app” you can just as easily uninstall it. He is clearly 100% clueless regarding Google and Apple and thinks it will the contact tracing “app” will be an “app” in the same way as a minesweeper game or the latest bit of software that allows him to send a photo of his knob to his gf.
Likely that whether or not you install the app they can still and do track you anyway. Just as they already do even if you switch location off.
I would argue that in this instance this is one of the areas where “Big Data” could be useful if it hastens the return to a kind of normal life routine. Contact tracing is pretty difficult and laborious work and people are inclined to forget who they briefly bumped into, don’t want to disclose they were with others etc etc
IF, and it is a big if, any irrelevant contact data is deleted within a reasonable period (would have to be related to incubation time) , it is used for the purpose of contact tracing for SARS-Cov-2 only and not for any other purpose with credible oversight it could be a way for big data to be used for everyone’s good.
Given the greed of surveillence capitalism and propensity for other government agencies not to “look a gift horse in the mouth” I highly doubt that will happen.
My default position would be not to install it but I will wait and see.
The contact tracing app is a rootkit on steroids. Like that dodgy software Sony installed. This app has long and numerous tentacles. Even if you ‘root’ your device you still can’t get get red of it. Even your best steely knife won’t slay the beast. The only way to uninstall it is to buy a new phone.
Cheers Bill… can you provide any references/ proof to these claims?
Personally, I am very hesitant indeed to get on this programme.
Just don’t carry a cell phone.
Lysias
Osama bin Laden worked out that one.
Islam tells us that all electronic equipment will eventually be unusable. Time to go back to horses soon.
Bill G
New phone . New number. New name. New ID. New face. New car. New home.
Something like what gangster politicians get when they’ve been lifted out of jail in a coffin
Better not to press that button.
The contact tracking application is just a software tool, and therefore a cheaper tool. if there was a need to track infected people, then it would be correct to give to every citizen, after a relevant medical test, a pass to visit public places, like a travel card, or you can embed the chip in an item like a bracelet, ring, earring, keychain, etc.
but we understand that on a national scale this will be a big expense, because you still have to install reading devices. A great alternative to all of this is to wear the mask outside the house until the danger passes. in fact, we are now witnessing a battle between the big farma and the big digit, they argue who will profit on the epidemic.
Fwl
May 4, 2020 at 21:29
> No More Champagne is an exceptional history book and incredible that David Lough was able to gain access to such records. Im not
> sure if there is another like it. If only every leader’s financial records could be reviewed in the same way.
I’d never heard of that book, from reviews it looks more like coffee-table froth, never threatening any of the ‘greatness’ myth, worth a look maybe though if it mentions the ‘Focus’ (just one of its many cover names), but was thinking of a more thorough Churchill bio I’ve only partly read and a reference in a video which suggested Attlee was far from squeaky clean either and as bought and paid for, owned as Churchill. It was the hilarious review of Boris Johnson’s dreadful and ahistorical The Churchill Factor: How One Man Made History in Lobster 78 (a publication I’d gone off for its clear anti Scottish Independence editorial stance in past issues) which has really alerted me to just how unhinged Johnson really, how broken and dysfunctional our parties and electoral system are that he’s got where he is, is and the danger we are all in until he’s put out to pasture and the system that got us here junked pronto.
it’s not coffee table froth and it’s not a conventional biography as it’s based on his financial papers and follows the story of his personal finances, which is highly unusual and quite insightful approach. it basically sets out facts without drawing inferences, but if you read it you will probably find you have to put the book down every chapter and whistle over all the inferences flying through your mind. It leaves you repeatedly questioning his judgment in his personal financial affairs, his basic approach to risk calculation and his bail outs. It reminds me of say Mao’s doctor’s biography of Mao i.e. a specific narrow glimpse which is limited, sticks to what it knows and is quite telling.
However, whatever his faults he or people associated with him appear to have played a blinder in May 1941 (although it is very difficult to understand what happened at that time) and if he hadn’t then we might have been in permanent lockdown may decades ago.
So the ‘plutocracy’ {which, through its control of the media, eg J. Corbyn? remains unchallenged?} deliberately {at the request of W.H.G.?} makes thousands of young people unemployed?
And,
“Less obviously – but far more dangerously – actions which are being taken by governments around the world today threaten huge food shortages in the autumn.“
https://consciousnessofsheep.co.uk/2020/04/07/getting-the-economy-wrong/?fbclid=IwAR3Rml1S0lwcrTO1WkBXw_WzAKm1T_a0_VqAND4iWOr-t34zdTAJDvREbf4
Insurrection anyone?
What’s the latest theory doing the rounds as to why they want millions of young people unemployed?
What a sneery way to ask, as if you already “know” that what the other person might say to you can only be worthless, or of interest only in the sense of “how interesting I find it to study the anatomy of wrong ideas”.
Have you considered
a) that the rulers may have considered their “Covid-19” actions with regard to effects over a longer term than a few days or weeks, or
b) whether or not from a rulers’ cost-and-benefit point of view you feel they may consider there to be a large amount of over-employment?
(Maybe look at an office block some time, arrange a tour to an ex-industrial site, perhaps look at what types of course are on offer at many “universities”, and then ask the question? Of course there is huge over-employment and a huge number of people pre-virus were carrying out what in effect was “makework” and didn’t turn them into a “reserve army of labour”.)
(But wait – you’ll probably think I “found that idea on the internet somewhere”. LOL!)
Yeah I’ve no compunction whatever about asking why the WHO would want millions of young people to be unemployed. As for your explanation, I doubt you’ve convinced even yourself, so what was the point?
I certainly haven’t convinced myself that you have a serious interest in macroeconomic questions. Seriously, and I’m not saying this with any nastiness, but if you were less habituatedly scoffy you’d be open to understanding and learning more. If you want to discuss this, we can agree that the overall demand for labour varies globally over time, and regionally at a given time, right? Can we agree that the notion of “productive labour” is meaningful too?
We’ll agree you dislike any questioning of why the WHO wants millions of young people unemployed. Let’s leave it there.
The people the WHO serve want millions unemployed because they want an economic crash.
The young unemployed are ‘collateral damage’?
The ‘big capitalists’ see an opportunity to purchase the assets of the ‘smaller capitalists’ at ‘knockdown’ prices?
James Charles, your call for insurrection will now be associated with the Facebook Click Identifier (fbclid) in your link. It carries the following information, which I cannot decode for you:
fbclid=IwAR3Rml1S0lwcrTO1WkBXw_WzAKm1T_a0_VqAND4iWOr-t34zdTAJDvREbf4
🙂
Just for the record I am not calling for insurrection!
It could result from having a large number of young, underfed, unemployed?
Well I know that, but will Facebook’s software make the distinction before it reports to Five Eyes? How many actual humans are checking this stuff? They have an awful lot of it, and staff are under a lot of pressure these days. Remember what happened to Mr Buttle in Gilliam’s Brazil, you don’t want to end up in Information Retrieval.
That fbclid is effectively a 110 digit number. Personally I’d remove it before posting.
Hands off my holodomor you cad!
Deliberately? Probably not. Hanlon’s Razor.
Top 10 affected nations
1 San Marino
2 Belgium
3 Andorra
4 Spain
5 Italy
6 UK
7 France
8 St Maarten
9 Netherlands
10 Sweden
Why are these nations plagued this much?
That list looks out of date.
Laguerre
It should be as updated as it could be, I took the latest numbers in terms of Death for 1 million.people.
So what you did was to cherry-pick a way of ordering to make Britain look good, whereas in fact, today, UK has the highest number of dead in Europe, second only to the USA in the world.
Laguerre
I picked 10 worst off nations based on statistics (Death for 1 million.people).
You do realise they don’t “weigh” the deaths in the same way. Some count deaths in care homes and the community and did from the start, some don’t. Some don’t count those with an underlying condition of which the victim can be said to have died (um, or not, had they not been infected). That’s why Belgium ranks higher than it should, for example.
Bramble
Yes the list is not complete but a signal of which nations are the most affected at the moment.
It was very interesting how in the early days so many small and tiny countries reported cases. It was if somebody wanted the list of countries to be as long as possible. Of course the elites in tiny places must have wanted to get in on the picture so as to receive WHO money or whatever, but that is not a separate explanation.
Spain, Italy, UK and France all imposed restrictions late and thus let infections get out of control. Sweden’s restrictions are lax. The others I’d have to look up, but Belgium’s problem could well be politicians, lobbyists and staff constantly travelling to Brussels; it’s the travelling set that spread covid-19 around, as South Korea told us back in March, and as should have been obvious from all the politicians, celebs and famous sport people getting infected.
Clark
While all that is true, how come the center of this virus is in western europe? Just of coincidence or because of excessive travelling, tourism?
More testing in rich countries.
Given the scandal about the scantiness of our testing, I am surprised you say that.
But alot of testing doesnt mean you will have a high death rate necessarily if you look at the statistic.
I suppose it was carnival month in Italy, many may visit and a lot of goods ordered from China for the event.
There is also alot of chinese workers in Italy apparently but nothing is for sure where this actually started and why.
International winter sports (mainly ski) tourism to Austria, Italy, probably also Switz, France will have played an important role in getting the epidemic going early throughout western Europe.
It’s well known that Belgium, from the beginning, reported all sources of COVID deaths, including care homes, etc., that’s why their numbers were higher – they were honest. Whereas the Tories tried for the longest time to conceal anything like the real figures. The French included care home deaths at least two weeks before the Brits did. I remember it happening – there was quite a big fuss at the time, that the care home figure had been omitted. But still the Tories didn’t budge – they ignored what happened in France. They can’t say they didn’t know – it had been in all the media.
The Tories are secure in the knowledge that the English, on the whole, don’t give a fig about the rest of the world and are incapable of believing we are useless at preventing the virus from spreading and killing tens of thousands (including many of those who really do care, the NHS workers and carers who haven’t been supplied with what they need to do their jobs safely). Just try saying we are useless, and see the angry army of social network users rose up to howl in outrage and rally to the defence of their precious “Boris”. They care more about this lout than any of those already sacrificed to the virus.
Thank you, Bramble. Spot on.
Why are these nations plagued this much?
Nobody knows how many people in those nations have been infected with the virus and nobody knows how many died of rather than with the virus, therefore the most likely answer to your question is that the methods these countries use to record covid-related deaths are the ones most prone to exaggerating the mortality rate.
– “…nobody knows how many died of rather than with the virus
Overall mortality figures rubbished that argument weeks ago.
Overall mortality figures rubbished that argument weeks ago.
So you’re saying the published mortality figures for those countries is unaffected by whether they include …
# died with rather than from the virus?
# can include deaths when no test was done?
# can include deaths on basis of cold-like symptoms?
# can include deaths where no medical-trained person even saw the deceased?
# … and other practices that not even a dodgy accountant would stoop to?
… because I’m saying that the more of those dodgy practices that are involved in recording covid-related deaths, the higher the total will be. Obviously.
Something pushed the overall death rate through the roof. Restrictions were followed by it falling again, except in Sweden, where the restrictions were voluntary.
Obfuscate as much as you like; it’s your own credibility at stake.
You’re in a hole, Node. Stop digging.
“Something pushed the overall death rate through the roof. Restrictions were followed by it falling again, except in Sweden, where the restrictions were voluntary.”
In fact, the overall death rate for 2020 was less than that for 2018 until three weeks after the restrictions had been put in place. Source: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/datasets/weeklyprovisionalfiguresondeathsregisteredinenglandandwales:
You’d better lend Node your spade.
Node
Just let me give you a basic fact of modern life. Most people above the age of 70 have co-morbidities and some of them several co-morbidities, This sort of goes with ageing. People have lived longer with these co-morbidities, but have niot become immortal yet. So a lot of people above the age of 70 also die each year but they do not all die of their co-morbidities, these just render them more susceptible to die of other conditions which include chest infections with or without the seasonal flu, falls and broken bones, operations, which make them bed bound and again get chest infections and so on. It is these conditions, infections, post surgery complications, and so on that kill a lot of elderly people.The immediate cause of death is then recorded as pneumonia or heart failure or kidney failure or whatever and in the death certificate you also record all the other underlying causes. What it is is that these people would have lived longer, maybe a few months, maybe a year or two, maybe more. So if patients die having been diagnosed with covid-19 with tests and clinical picture, then they die of covid 19 it is not just a passenger.. Then there is this fact that now we have excess recorded deaths and a new virus, but these people are still dying of their co-morbidities in larger numbers and that is a coincidence?
As for Bayard. I really don’t know how he interpreted the statistics of ONS of deaths as due to the lockup. Fantasy statistics?
Bayard, the Daily New Deaths graph on the following page makes it perfectly clear what happened:
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/uk/
Deaths started to rise around March 13, the restrictions were applied on March 23, deaths peaked around mid April and have been falling since then.
Node
It has been reported an excessive death for most of these nations in the list compared to previous years.
It has been reported an excessive death for most of these nations in the list compared to previous years.
see my reply to Clark, above.
Node
The excessive death rate doesnt deal with what these people die from. It just say there have been excessive deaths. Compared to previous years.
Then, we can very much assume that the rise in death is related to Covid19.
Or why do you think so many extra have died during 2020 first months?
Or why do you think so many extra have died during 2020 first months?
How many have died because of the lockdown rather than the virus? This is essential information to determine whether the lockdown is saving lives, but we are not being given these figures. Why not? Do you agree that the excess deaths figure is meaningless until we know how many have died because of the lockdown?
Node
Additional deaths have been reported in nations where there is no lockdown.
There was an interesting report in the Guardian’s live feed yesterday (is it a full story yet?) on Italy’s excess deaths. The two points of interest were 1. higher excess deaths than the recorded Covid figures, and 2. lots of variation in the figures, with disproportionally higher excess deaths in the areas with lots of recorded Covid deaths. Some places – Rome, Palermo – actually had reduced deaths, I think it was 9% below the 5 year average.
My interpretation (YMMV): lockdown is an aggregate reducer of mortality (Rome has lockdown but not much Covid) and that Covid deaths are underreported (at least in Italy).
Jack, You have asked me to come back here and answer your question but you have not answered any of mine.
However …. So you claim there are additional deaths in some unspecified nations? What am I supposed to do with that?
Where? And even the phrase “additional deaths” is meaningless without qualification. Additional over what? Excess deaths annual totals vary wildly from year to year. There are spikes and troughs. over 50K in the uk in 2017-18, but only 23k the next year. You can choose to compare the figures week on week if that suits your agenda, or you can compare peak with peak.
Node
It has been reported in nations where there is no lockdown. You made the argument that the excess death were due the lockdown itself.
The additional death mean there is more deaths this year than past year. Do you even doubt that?
May I also ask you how many people that passed away due Spanish flu according to yourself?
Matt, thanks for posting additional evidence.
Node, note Matt’s finding: “lockdown is an aggregate reducer of mortality”
We might expect that; less road accidents, work accidents etc.
Node
You are indeed a genius. How many people died of the lockdown? What they just died of ennui or hunger or stabbed each other or how exactly? And why have the government not recorded such a steep rise of death by lockdown? Oh I forgot of course, they label all these deaths as died with covid-19 or of course they made up the figures.
And Node. Did they die of the lockdown, or with the lockdown? We shall never know.
SA
Hah. Thats a nice one!
“nobody knows how many died of rather than with the virus”
Or even if they had the virus at all.
Many diagnoses are clinical; covid-19 causes characteristic lung damage.
The mortality list skews to some of those really small countries because one or two deaths or recoveries has a disproportional impact. Probably half the tiny countries look really good, the other half look really bad.
Here’s the Guardian frantically dumbing you down about science:
– Report on face masks’ effectiveness for Covid-19 divides scientists – Experts clash over research into efficacy of public wearing even homemade face coverings
– “A row has erupted among scientists over a new report into the use of face masks by the general public as an approach to managing the spread of Covid-19 in the community.”
https://www.dumptheguardian.com/world/2020/may/04/scientists-disagree-over-face-masks-effect-on-covid-19
(notice that I did NOT link to the Guardian !)
“Divides scientists”… “Experts clash”… “a row has erupted among scientists”…
Is it any wonder that a load of commenters act just the same? Science isn’t about the opinion of scientists, or picking which scientist says what. Science is about about evidence. Not content with one piece of nonsense, here’s an even worse one, complete with cartoony graphic of a blue scientist “clashing heads” with a red scientist:
https://www.dumptheguardian.com/world/2020/apr/14/should-everyone-be-wearing-face-masks
If you bother to follow the link to the review of the evidence, you’ll find that some types of research found masks to be effective, while other types didn’t really find out anything at all. C’mon, it won’t make anything worse, will it? But Guardian writers have column inches to fill if they want to keep their jobs, so they interrupted various scientists to ask them their opinions (which are no more relevant than yours or mine), and duly wrote it all up, complete with the concocted human drama of some “clash” or “row” for which I can find no evidence at all. But hey, the corporate media has to include some conflict or the punters would get bored, right? And the government seems to be reluctant to say “wear a mask” (maybe ‘cos they’ve spent so much on surveillance), so the Guardian need to give them a get-out clause. Masks very probably help and definitely do no harm, so:
Wear a mask!
So “scientists” are like priests then, making some statements ex cathedra in their role as intermediaries with holy Evidence, and other statements, collars turned back the normal way round, which are statements of opinion made in their capacity as human beings like the rest of us?
Well journalists enjoy depicting scientists like Jedi Knights, I suppose.
The first article reports a systematic review of various research into the efficacy of masks. Research is what scientists are paid for, so read the review if you can be bothered; it is at least linked. Results varied from “masks help” to “we didn’t find much”, as you’d expect in a messy, complicated world, but journalists interpreted the variations as a “clash”, decided to interview a handful of scientists, pick out a few of their sentences and concoct a “story” with “human interest”, ‘cos that’s what journalists are paid for.
It’s all common sense, no mystery. Even if masks don’t stop all virus particles, they stop some and remind the wearer to keep their hands off their face.
Yes I dont get that, as you say it wont make anything worse so why this total rejection of face masks? Do they want an infected population?
“Terrorism”?
It’ll have to go some, to catch up with this virus!
90% Drop in Coronavirus Cases After Austria Requiring People to Wear Face Masks
https://www.newsbreak.com/news/0Op2yrCI/austria-has-90-drop-in-coronavirus-cases-after-requiring-people-to-wear-face-masks
I see that a load of European governments are about to remove restrictions, yet the highest infection rate found so far is only 15% ie. it could still get five times worse than the worst places. So lets all have a laugh as the death rate soars again, a load of people suffocate (who cares? they’re mostly decrepit anyway) and restrictions get reapplied.
Money, money, money…
Yes, the huge death toll from the Spanish flu came in a 2nd wave once social distancing had been lifted and troops returned from WW1. Many have blithely ruled out the possibility of history repeating.
No doubt they’ve played their role with the MSM/Elders now focused on playing it out in UK and US to sink Trump. The problem is, if ‘Impeachment 3’ doesn’t work Trump Derangement Syndrome will try and start another world war.
“Elders” Dave? With “protocols” I take it?
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/forums/topic/engineering-prof-releases-draft-report-on-9-11-collapse-of-wtc-bldg-7-in-nyc/#post-47480
Er, Trump’s good friends with Likud. Who might you be working for?
I wouldn’t be surprised if most people who had this virus at the time they died caught it in a care home or hospital, as may also be true of infections that cause pneumonia.
Agreed there will be more shocks this year, but they are unlikely to take the form of a mere return to a former level of restriction.
In the US Trump is probably finished…
Boris was initially (unless he was lying) in favour of the Swedish approach (noteworthy Sweden has a ‘socialist’ government).
But after saying he was, then (as if faced with new evidence) said he wasn’t and presented the ICL (made up) forecast of 500,000 dead if he didn’t impose a national curfew. Chicken or Egg! Did the government follow ICL advice, or did they follow the advice they advised ICL to advise them with, in order to hide behind the “best medical expert advice money can buy”?
But due to his supporters (naïve) expectation he would only allow the curfew to be temporary, Boris thought how do I change my mind and remain popular. Solution make out he’s caught the virus and spend some time in hospital with a “it could have gone either way” experience, that was faithfully carried by MSM.
Except in his report/interview in Sunday Mail and Sun, he said amongst all the emotional nonsense, “I had no trouble breathing”, which debunks the whole thing. I.e. cynical politics at its finest as it appears people believe him – and it allowed him to change his mind about lifting the curfew.
In other Boris has, surprise surprise, folded, leaving it to Trump to save western civilisation (or at least US) from the Money Power.
> Sweden has a ‘socialist’ government
I appreciate you placed quotes around the term, but I would place the government more in the neo-liberal category. The social infrastructure preserved from a previous era, would be unlikely to be created again today. Just as it’s difficult to imagine any British government in modern times creating the NHS from scratch.
Combine this with Swedish enthusiasm for NATO, conscription, ID chips embedded in the skin, and the cashless society, and a picture emerges of a right-of-center state.
To be fair, the law of Jante could be interpreted as socialist.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante
Indeed, Sweden has been on a Neo-liberal turn since the early 1980s.
“Twilight of Swedish Social Democracy”
https://newleftreview.org/issues/II113/articles/goran-therborn-twilight-of-swedish-social-democracy
As the authorities in Moscow launch drones and helicopters to help persuade Moscovites to keep using social distancing, as the weather becomes more conducive to lingering outside.
Renowned Russian film director Nikita Mikhalkov, has railed at removal of some of his films from outlets, which he thinks is due to his outcry that 5G, masts are the cause of the virus outbreak that plagues the globe.
Russian authorities, according to RT, are blaming Western mania that’s found it way into Russia, that’s saw feelings so strong against 5G in Russia, Moscow in particular that Moscovities have taken to burning down 5G masts.
The further the discussion develops, the more I regret that I can’t post memes here, because it’s extremely difficult to describe my reaction to such things in written text, when ‘упоротый лис’ or ‘ловите наркомана’ picture would express my feelings quite accurately
Nevertheless, Republicofscotland, I guess you’ve read it somewhere. Would you share the source link?
Tatyana.
I saw it on RT UK today on my tv, Mr Mikhalkov was very angry indeed.
You probably mean his program “Besogon”? The name of the program roughly corresponds to the translation “exorcist”.
Well, the attitude towards Mikhalkov in Russia is very ironic. His films idealize the Russian elite from the time of Tsarist Russia, and in his films Mikhalkov does not hesitate to take the main roles, where he plays a Nobleman, or a General, or … but always the main positive character. I love his “12” remake of “12 angry men”, and also “cruel romance”.
He is very avid for money, by the way; his requests to the state always concern profit. For example, he asked to allocate money from the state budget so that he would create a fastfood network in Russia to compete with McDonald’s. Or, he recently suggested to tax electronics stores, in favor of the community of authors, as the electronic devices sold there could potentially be used to play pirated content.
On the whole, a person, as we say, “with hops”, hinting that he possibly stimulates his creative abilities with some substances and therefore does not quite adequately perceive reality.
Tatyana
In western media it is now spread a news article that claim that atleast 4 doctors in Russia have been pushed out the window (the claim is that they have been murdered). I have heard time confirming such claims. Have you read something about that in russian media?
“You probably mean his program “Besogon”? ”
It was RT news Tatyana, not a documentary or anything like that.
Jack, yes, it’s true, nor sure about 4 doctors, but about 2 I’ve read myself. One doctor was found about 2 days ago under the window of his hospital ward, 2nd floor. He’s in the intensive care unit. Another doctor, lady, was reported about a weeek ago, fell off the window, dead.
RoS, I’m not that lazy, tried to google it, unable to find, but look what Google tells me in the first several results! They now bring it in the FAQ format! RT is Kremlin propaganda, while BBC is independent! Wow! Google tries to educate us, even when we don’t ask for advice 🙂
http://prntscr.com/sb9alz
http://prntscr.com/sb9cn0
http://prntscr.com/sb9d18
According to Joanna Cherry the UK government still isnt quarantining passengers arriving at UK airports. Its said the UK government has drawn up plans for a Singapore style plan of quarantining at UK airports, but so far the not so Priti Patel has failed to implement it.
Plan would see all arriving passengers at UK airports be asked to self-isolate for 14 days at home. At least half a dozen other countries use this procedure to stop the spread of the virus, Ireland included.
Cherry has been badgering the UK government on the matter since April 11th, citing that more than 260,000 passengers arrive in the UK each week, of which around 8,000 enter via Scottish airports. Unsurprisingly no action has been taken by the UK government to ask those passengers to self-isolate for 14 days.
We have a chocolate teapot for a government, and we’re not alone.
If there’s one foreign regime the Tories love, now that their beloved torturer Augusto Pinochet is no longer president in Chile, it’s the dictatorship in Singapore that still uses both hanging and flogging.
Worth pointing out that most air passengers arriving in Britain right now are business travellers or otherwise “international rich”.
The arrivals figure per week at the moment is more like 15000 a day or 100000 a week. Normally Heathrow alone gets 100000 a day.
OK Governments, I’m talking directly to you now. At least 27 of you supposedly still work for me, so do the following.
Ask the epidemiologists what will reduce Rt.
Ask the economists how to implement the above, while balancing out money to the population.
Tell the civil service to do the above.
Can you follow that? Going on telly is not in the list.
“Can you follow that? Going on telly is not in the list.”
Spoilsport!
The “Nobody Will Suspect A Thing If We Say It’s For the Holy NHS” contact tracing app is now live on the Isle of Wight in southern England, as a result of cooperation between the poshboy British government, Google, Apple, and unknown parties.
(With 140000 inhabitants, the Isle of Wight is England’s only “true island” – surrounded by water and reachable only by sea or air – that has other than a tiny population. The island is known to have been used for a number of chemical and biological warfare projects and exercises.)
The program’s symbol seems to be a notched shield in NHS blue.
The Israeli Ministry of Health’s contact tracing app also uses a blue shield, although not notched.
What is it with blue shields? (Wouldn’t a red one do? 🙂 [1] )
Note
1) Try asking that in German.
What may well happen is that there will be stories to push the idea that “Round 1 of Contact Tracing Didn’t Work” and that therefore tougher measures (not subject to prior public discussion) are being implemented.
Reasons publicised for the failure of round 1 could include the blaming of
* “low take-up among people from deprived socioeconomic areas”
* “youths from Black And Minority Ethnic cultural groups who engage in non-standard cultural practices and who have among their ranks some who appear dreadfully cocky in a most un-British way”, or perhaps
* “women who would rather stuff their faces with chips than wash their hands, while getting pregnant so they can be given free council houses just as their mothers did before them”.
As we await the next ‘moving of the goalposts’ so the lockdown can continue – thereby creating even more weirdness and, of course, problems to the health of people and the economy, this site appears to be not so much controlled opposition more likely controlling the opposition
The constant talk of ‘look at the science’ is no more than a plattitude towards the ‘status quo’ – afterall, aren’t politicians our betters and therefore, we should continue to doff the cap – equally, it prevents alternative views and also limits any debate about what the people, individually and collective, can do about this inhumane lockdown – afterall, it has no basis in law
When have the tories ever had any interest in our health and wellbeing – ask a disabled friend, if you’ve got one, what they think??
Totally agree with you, @Jazza. “Moving the goalposts” is an apt phrase. But I suspect rather than “continue the lockdown”, what will happen is that
* they ease it
* they say their easing measures haven’t worked
* they impose restrictions that are much heavier than current ones
There needs to be an international movement for “Resist the Lockdown” and “Refuse the App”. And there will soon come a time when we cannot use the internet to spread the resistance, because if anywhere is enemy territory, the internet is.
I’m told that in some of the suburbs of Paris most people are resisting the lockdown already, and the cops haven’t got the force to impose it. Once again in the history of our planet, Paris shows the way forward.
I asked a disabled friend of mine yesterday, spoke to him for nearly an hour. He knows governments and media like to pacify and subdue, he’s concerned, but most of all he’d like to help the NHS, he knows the bigger battle right now is that against the virus, but he also realises that he’s vulnerable to covid-19. Very clever chap; I should have called him weeks ago, but countering the idiotic and continual conflation of politics with science keeps me busy on here.
And it’s not the site you’re complaining about Jazza, it’s me. How dare a rationalist challenge the irrational, present evidence and have compassion for covid-19 sufferers when people want to get back down the pub?
There must be an upper-limit for safe exposure to electromagnetic radiation, claiming otherwise is foolhardy. Present routine exposure levels for whole populations might already be far in excess of safe limits. Spot exposures could be exceeding it by a multiple of millions. There will be cumulative -lifetime effects, newer applications could concertina that down to a much shorter interval, that what was a lifetime’s exposure and damage could now be obtained in a day. Strength, frequency, waveform, and duration of exposure all matter. There’s none so blind as those who will not see. The precautionary principal should apply, not a headlong rush, for gains which are at best marginal in terms of quality of life. There’s a clear correlation if not yet proven causation of more severe virus outbreaks where EMR is a factor.
There is no recognised limit, electromagnetic radiation is cited as a ‘possible’ carcinogen, actually classified as a 2B carcinogen by IARC (International Agency for Research on Cancer). They don’t know or maybe don’t want to know, there’s an awful lot of money invested in EMR.
https://www.iarc.fr/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/pr208_E.pdf
Russian and Chinese medicine appears to take a different, more cautionary view on exposure:
https://www.who.int/peh-emf/meetings/day2Varna_Foster.pdf
TM, there is a limit for safe exposure to electromagnetic radiation, claiming otherwise is foolhardy…
look up your specific device electromagnetic emission SAR, (SAR rating is used to estimate the maximum specific rate of non-ionising radiofrequency energy absorption by a user’s head and body when using the device, in USA it is limited to 1.6 Watts per kilogram) 1.6 W/kg)
To help, a few SAR are given on this random website – but you can find them all in official gov or manuf. literature –
https://www.devicespecifications.com/en/model-sar/39d02732
and if you are worried further, by 6G or 7G etc, then consider to perhaps move to live in Sweden where electromagnetic radiation electrosensitivity is uniquely considered a real, but rare, condition. Sweden is nice, but “only the clouds are interesting” (R.I.P: Dave Greenfield)
“too much time to think, too little to do”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6XyOVRHGFk
[Sweden (All Quiet on the Eastern Front)]
ICNIRP guidelines have been long established and being adopted.
ICNIRPis a non-profit independent scientific organisation that was set up to investigate possible adverse health effects from non-ionising radiation. ICNIRP is formally recognised by the World Health Organizationand is consulted by the European Commission.In 1998, ICNIRP published Guidelines for limiting exposure to EMF (up to 300 GHz)
The UK is being dragged into doing something about it and Ofcom are the body carrying out the compliance work.
https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0013/190003/emf-condoc.pdf
If you really want to worry yourself then think about what happens to EMR from your house wiring when using plc/plt (mainborne wifi) systems. The signal is pumped into and radiated by the entire wiring system.
Yes it has to be something technological, it can’t just be a virus. Fukushima’s too long ago, so’s wifi, what have we got left? Oh I know, 5G!
I have my reservations about the higher frequencies being deployed, but the obvious correlational issue is that 5G is being deployed in the busiest places, which is exactly where we’d expect fastest spread of covid-19 anyway.
Do you have to encourage the idiots burning down masts right now? We really need the infrastructure at present.
Tony M, light is electromagnetic radiation.
Brian c
May 5, 2020 at 09:46
> What’s the latest theory doing the rounds as to why they want millions of young people unemployed?
Not sure if it’s the ‘latest theory’ let’s say though one possibility: recruitment, impressment, conscription.
The “lockdown” is a blunt instrument. We need sharper ones to keep Rt down, and get it even lower. Pointless trusting the UK’s useless government; we need to work it out for ourselves.
Distribution maps of covid-19 density would help people avoid hotspots.
“Temporal quarantine” would distribute available work, and protect key workers, which would help close that infection route into the rest of the population:
https://www.ft.com/content/5c208540-831c-11ea-b6e9-a94cffd1d9bf
And wear a mask in public, especially shops etc.
Further suggestions?
“The UK’s Covid-19 death toll has now surpassed both Spain and Italy after breaking the 30,000 threshold according to the latest figures released by the Office for National Statistics.”
Oh dear, propaganda or truth, looking back at way Johnson has handled this pandemic, the latter appears to be more realistic.
Missing COBRA meetings, delaying the lockdown, downgrading the virus to save on purchasing more PPE, and classing cleaning equipment as PPE, yes the latter is by far morely likely.
As building sites in England get back to work this coming week, I fear this virus has finished reeking havoc in the UK yet.
Worse still is that the UK ignored Exercise Cygnus that virtually predicted an outbreak as severe as this, and it highlighted the UK governments woeful lack of PPE and ventilators as well.
https://www.rt.com/uk/487796-uk-covid-death-highest-europe/
I don’t think Exercise Cygnus was ignored, it was apparently immediately declared a national secret, as UK is “great” at solving things by hiding them! (why?)
This sad pandemic is a period of force majeure our continent/world has not experienced since the Second World War, but UK was/could have been ‘lucky’ in that the deaths were relatively slow to start; a government that had a clue could have started doing things smarter/better, by looking at the wider world, by implementing best practise, by doing clever things, at the right time
Spin, nudging, tells us that the international comparisons are difficult, and that “now is not the time to criticize…”
I will always personally criticize a government stuffed with PPE:- Politics, Philosopy & Economics covidiots, who wouldn’t know a scientist if it bit them!
there are hard-sums websites, like here https://www.euromomo.eu/how-it-works/what-is-a-z-score/ a Z- score?
The Z-scores are colour-coded here https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps/
and UK “wins” with an excess death rate Z-score > 15, impossible to compare internationally?
The deaths in hospitals are thankfully decreasing, but in the wider British countryside, homes, care-homes? another national secret? dodge, diffuse, dive, deceive?
RoS – I think you meant to say “I fear this virus has not finished wreaking havoc in the UK yet, and I agree
Interesting comment David.
“RoS – I think you meant to say “I fear this virus has not finished wreaking havoc in the UK yet, and I agree”
Yes David, thank you for pointing out that my proof reading isn’t up to scratch.
“The deaths in hospitals are thankfully decreasing, but in the wider British countryside….?”
If you look here (and scroll down to the interactive map, you will see that COVID-19 is almost non-existent in the countryside and remains, as it always was, a disease of the cities and areas of high population density: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/deathsinvolvingcovid19bylocalareasanddeprivation/deathsoccurringbetween1marchand17april
Yet the quarantine restrictions have been applied across the entire country.
Construction work here has NEVER stopped since the ‘lockdown’ was announced. Seems like years ago but it’s only a few weeks since 23rd March.
The five pillars
During a Downing Street press conference on 16 April, Dominic Raab, deputising at the time for Boris Johnson, said that the lockdown measures will remain in place for at least three more weeks, or up until May 7th. He also set out five tests that must be met before the government would consider lifting measures.
They are:
Evidence that the NHS can cope across the UK
A sustained fall in daily death rates
Evidence that the rate of infection is decreasing
Confidence that supplies of testing and PPE are able to meet demand
No risk of a second peak
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/05/05/boris-johnson-speech-lockdown-coronavirus-announcement/
Financial Times have presented an analysis of the five tests and the results:
https://www.ft.com/content/d0dc03f2-eafa-497e-a982-c10b147605ed
Can NHS cope?………………Tentative pass.
Fall in death rate?……………Tentative pass.
Infection rate decreasing?…Fail.
PPE supplies?…………………Fail.
Risk of second peak?……….Fail.
Meanwhile packed out flight from Belfast to London. It makes a mockery of the lockdown, no quarantining at UK airports, here comes the virus in a second wave.
https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/health/coronavirus/coronavirus-pictures-of-packed-aer-lingus-flight-from-belfast-spark-concerns-39181023.html
There is a pandemic underway, and absolutely any price must be paid in order to bring the pandemic under control.
In the UK new car sales have declined to levels last seen in the 1940’s and in the US over 30 million people have lost their jobs. Still it is all worth it as the value of human life cannot be measured by economic statistics.
It is surely then just a random fluke that since March 23rd US equity investors have made $109 million for every American that died of Covid-19.
This is like global warming. Pay now, or pay far more later. The harder we knock it back, the sooner we get back to normal.
Though in this case we do have the option of letting the virus run uncontrolled, overwhelming the hospitals and permitting half a million people to be effectively waterboarded for a week or more, most of them to death. If that’s how you treat your old folk, well, I can’t say I approve.
The question is who is paying?
It is certainly not the people who have been rewarded with $109 million per Covid-19 death.
All you are doing with your repetition of a wholly bogus figure of 500,000 deaths is creating interference for the great looters of the world.
The latest statistics from New York City show the Infection Fatality Rate at just about 1%, so if the entire UK population were infected that would be about 670,000. Sorry my 500,000 was a bit short.
Yes, what do you think should be done about the economic system? It’s grossly unfair, isn’t it?
Sorry, that’s New York State.
If an apparent rise in the overall mortality rate is to be used as an excuse to disregard various dodgy accounting practices in recording covid-related deaths, when will we be given figures, or even estimates, for the surely large numbers of excess deaths which are caused by the lockdown measures themselves? Instructions that care home residents are not to be taken to hospital and non-resuscitation orders – these two measures alone must be responsible for 1000s of excess deaths.
We can’t know whether lockdown is killing more than it is saving without such figures. Why are we not being given them?
– “We can’t know whether lockdown is killing more than it is saving…”
Yes we can, ‘cos the death rate is falling despite lockdown continuing. Pull the other one.
Pull the other one
What? are you implying that the lockdown isn’t causing significant numbers of deaths? Preposterous. Your figleaf excess death figures are meaningless without factoring them in.
The death rate seems to have about halved since peak around April 9, and is still falling fast, so the restrictions clearly seem to be the lesser of these two evils.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/uk/
It looks like it’s still accelerating downwards, so it’ll be a while before the decrease levels off, which will be the time that your concern will outweigh covid-19 deaths. By then it’d be nice to have some more scalpels and laser beams with which to replace this damn hammer, so why don’t you go and look for some? It’d be a more productive use of your time.
The death rate seems to have about halved since peak around April 9, and is still falling fast, so the restrictions clearly seem to be the lesser of these two evils…
Did it ever occur to you that elderly and vulnerable people can only die once? And that the reason that the death rate is now falling is that the elderly and vulnerable, having already died, are no longer around to die again? (All these people iin the Care Homes) And that this might be the reason why the death rate is now falling, and it has nothing at all to do with the glorious wonderful lockdown?
Since you have so much energy on this subject, why don’t you take this thought away and mull it over for a while:
The reason for the falling death rate is a demographic one, and has nothing at all to do with the lockdown. But if people are convinced or manage to convince theselves that it is because of the lockdown, then they will insist on continuing the lockdown to save them from death. And there will come a point where the lockdown starts to do serious damage to the economy, and cause huge numbers of deaths. And many of these people will die with coronavirus because it is very widespread in the population, and they will be classified as having died “of coronavirus”. And then people will start to run areound screaming and demanding even more draconian measures BECAUSE THE LOCKDOWN ISN’T WORKING ANY MORE!!!! And that will only make things even worse…
“Did it ever occur to you that elderly and vulnerable people can only die once? And that the reason that the death rate is now falling is that the elderly and vulnerable, having already died, are no longer around to die again?”
Do you mean we have now exhausted all people above the age of 70? They all died? Do you know how many people above the age of 70 live in UK? Did millions die while we were not looking?
Yes it did occur to me, but SA is right, there are 8.7 million people over 70 in the UK.
– ‘And many of these people will die with coronavirus because it is very widespread in the population, and they will be classified as having died “of coronavirus”.’
This is nonsense. There are many coronaviruses that are very common, but if the test for covid-19 were detecting these by mistake we’d have millions of (wrongly) confirmed cases rather than the hundreds of thousands recorded.
Really Stonky, you repeatedly omitted China’s lockdown from your comments, but this is the first time you’ve descended to posting directly misleading rubbish. I could start disliking China, you know.
good point Node – whilst increasingly death certificates are labelled covid19 even when people have no symptoms or have been tested using a problematic non-specific test or have killed themselves out of despair – it makes one wonder. There is no analysis yet of the consequences of the lockdown and knowing the current regime well, if there is any it will only be seen as a triumph for it eg the remarkable value of social distancing already being spouted by Gates/ GSK backed medical wallahs – these people are not credible and are part of the political decisions being made but called health decisions for effect. the whole thing is a lie to provide a cover for draconian measures to be ‘tested’ – the UK/USA/Israeli axis of imperialism is not about to give in easily where MONEY and CONTROL is concerned
sorry forgot to post this
https://www.politeia.co.uk/the-law-and-the-lockdown-by-anthony-speaight-qc/
where the use of 1984 Public Health Act is being used/misused
In this ‘virus’ led world it seems anything is up for grabs regarding abuse/misuse – all for our benefit of course – because we are not able to analyse and understand things for ourselves
Clark,
What do you make of the argument that the Imperial College model when applied to Sweden predicts deaths of around 100,000 without any lockdown, and, say, 10,000 – 20,000 with a lockdown. But they didn’t lock down and have had about 2.5k deaths?
I don’t know this argument, but a quick check indeed seems to show ICL’s Sweden model deviating from Sweden’s actual reported death figures.
But it’s a mistake to dismiss Sweden as “having no lockdown”. OK, restrictions haven’t been enacted in law and enforced as much as elsewhere, but the government has asked people to associate less and people have done so. That’s what its like in Sweden, so they say.
What I’d say is gather data. Post whatever measures the government has called for and/or actually imposed, and look at Swedish media, local media, social media and webcams to assess that actual behaviour of the population.
Sweden’s overall numbers are also comparatively low, which makes the testing, contact tracing and individual quarantine approach much more practical, so take a look to see to what extent that has been implemented.
It’s research worth doing, ‘cos if Sweden is implementing good strategies we could apply them here.
Sweden’s death number are actually very high and regarding the tests, they are doing very little compared to other western states.
Source – https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#news
Sorry, but with the greatest respect, I don’t understand your response.
I said the Imperial College model—which is ‘informing’ our own government’s policy—predicted 100,000 deaths in Sweden without a lockdown.
They didn’t lock down.
And, according to the site you link to, have had 2,854 deaths.
I would call that very low, not ‘actually very high’.
By mid April roughly half the Swedish workforce was working from home. The health agency recommended that secondary schools and universities use distance learning, schools followed suit all over the country. Organisations running the public transport systems reported a 50% drop of public transport usage. In Stockholm, the streets grew increasingly emptier, with a 30% drop in the number of cars and 70% less pedestrians.
According to an analysis of mobile network data from the Easter week carried out by mobile network operator Telia, most Swedes had followed the agency’s recommendations to avoid unnecessary travels during the Easter holidays. Overall, travel from the Stockholm region had decreased by 80-90%, and the number of citizens of Stockholm travelling to popular holiday destinations like Gotland and the ski resorts in Åre had fallen with more than 90%. Travel between other regions in Sweden had fallen as well. Ferry-line operator Destination Gotland, who previously had called on their customers to rethink their planned trips for Easter, reported that 85% of all bookings had been rescheduled.
On 11 March the Swedish government passed a new law banning all gatherings larger than 500 people, with threat of fine and prison. The reasoning behind drawing the line at 500 was to limit long-distance travel within the nation’s borders, as bigger events are more likely to attract visitors from all over the country. On 27 March it was lowered to 50 people, applying to arts and entertainment events including theatre, cinema and concerts, religious meetings, demonstrations, lectures, competitive sports, amusement parks, fairs and markets, but not gatherings in schools, workplaces, public transport, grocery stores or shopping malls, health clubs or private events.
On 11 March the unpaid first day of sick leave, was temporarily discontinued to encourage people to stay home if they were experiencing symptoms of COVID-19. On 13 March, the government decided to temporarily abolish the demand of a doctor’s certificate for 14 days for people staying home from work due to illness.
On 24 March 2020, the government introduced new restrictions to bars and restaurants requiring all service to be table service only. Restaurants were also recommended increase the space between the tables. Venues that do not adhere to the new restrictions could be shut down.
Beginning on 1 April, all private visits to nursing homes was outlawed by the government. Many municipalities had already forbidden such visits. The national ban was however general, and those in charge of the facilities would be able to make exceptions under special circumstances, provided that the risk of spread of the virus was low.
Charlie Says” One effect of over-censorship here is shorter posts, as few are going to venture to labour over a longer post to have it flushed down the tubes. So welcome to comments consisting of just LOL, AOL etc, as it’s not worth the effort to partake in such a lottery. Nor for anyone to dare to theorise outside of the smothering consensus, on the grounds some fool might run out and subsequently fall sick tendentiously as a result of something they’ve read here. This isn’t supposed to be a mirror of the msm.”
Clark: “Yes it has to be something technological, it can’t just be a virus. Fukushima’s too long ago, so’s wifi, what have we got left? Oh I know, 5G!”
Smartarse, It doesn’t have to be one or the other, but a combination, as my deleted 06:05am post which you no doubt nixed explains.
You’re killing this site.
– “You’re killing this site
Oh, you want to go unchallenged do you?
Why didn’t you pick sparrows, or foxes, or rats, or pet cats? There have to be more of one of them in covid-19 hotspots. “Could be a combination, you know”.
I ask you to leave the cats alone, Clark!
Multi-factorial if you want to dress it pseudo-scientific language in order more to dazzle than inform.
@Clark. You said, “Science isn’t about the opinion of scientists, or picking which scientist says what. Science is about about evidence.”
Quite true. But what about when all the evidence isn’t in yet?
A consensus of scholarly opinion once held that the earth was flat and that it was at the centre of the universe. The evidence available at the time seemed to support that viewpoint. However, it turned out to be quite wrong.
In the short term, the number of deaths in Sweden is concerning. It would seem that the hammer and dance method you describe is more effective. However, over the long term, it might be that Sweden’s approach results in less loss of life. That said, it could also prove to be the unmitigated disaster which some believe it to be.
Some epidemiologists support Sweden’s approach. A good many other epidemiologists disagree. Presumably both groups of epidemiologists are basing their opinions on science, and presumably neither group want to be responsible for vast numbers of deaths.So who is right?
We don’t know because all the evidence is not yet in and won’t be for quite some time.
See my reply here:
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/04/backing-the-wrong-horseman/comment-page-8/#comment-940149
Science is ours, any of us can do it for ourselves, we can all join in, and doing so helps, so long as we follow the tried and tested procedures.
Thank you. I had missed that. I had mistakenly thought that you were advocating the “hammer and dance” as the only acceptable scientific approach to the pandemic when there might be alternatives promoted by some epidemiologists such as the “tap/nudge and dance” which might prove more effective in the long term. Unfortunately, whether or not that turns out to be the case, will not be known until the dust settles.
There is a bit of confusion here
We do not have all the data
There some limited data
Some scientists say Sweden’s approach is not the correct one other scientists say it may be the right one in the long term
Both groups are basing their opinions on science.
Let me give you a clue. Because we do not have all facts, the disagreement is not about the science but about how to interpret the science. No?
The difference would seem to be about how to interpret and act upon the limited evidence available in a way that causes the least amount of harm.
Given the incomplete evidence, it seems difficult to decisively say at this point that one method is better than another if both are based upon a scientific approach. A strict lockdown is also going to cause harm and cost lives. A delicate balance needs to be found.
Also, one approach might not be ideal for all situations. A country which has a poor healthcare system might benefit from a stricter lockdown to buy it more time. Whereas a country with a more robust healthcare system might not need to take such a drastic approach to avoid overwhelming its healthcare system.
I had been under the impression that Clark was promoting a strict version of the “hammer then dance” lockdown as the only approach to the pandemic. It seems I may have been mistaken.
I’m commenting from a UK perspective, where the government acted too late permitting infections to rise to around 300,000. They locked us into needing a lockdown; only a hammer could hit our covid-19 hard enough.
There are better strategies, but they take time to arrange and become habitual. Mask wearing would help. Search what I’ve called “temporal quarantine” on this page; a fourteen day work cycle of four days work followed by ten days off. We could have “distributed households”, where people register to be of the same “household” even though they live in different dwellings; this would be particularly helpful to those living alone There are all sorts of things that could have been done, there were months to prepare, but too little was implemented too late, so the blunt instrument of lockdown had to be applied, which now makes it difficult to implement better measures.
But the argument on these threads is mostly just “lockdown or none”, and none would lead to catastrophic hospital overload and a calamity of death and untreatable suffering. People who want no restrictions at all try to rubbish the science of covid-19 itself, and deny that unrestricted it would overwhelm the hospitals and kill half a million people. I put so much time into countering this nonsense that I have none left to develop better solutions. It’s now 03:20 and I’m catching up on comments on an older page.
Thank you for the reply, Clark. Much appreciated. I had indeed misunderstood your position. Thanks for clarifying.
Clark,
How does this year’s excess mortality rate compare to 2017?
I dunno Node, but at a guess, you’d rather post the bulk figures than the week-by-week graphs. Am I right?
I dunno Node, but at a guess, you’d rather post the bulk figures than the week-by-week graphs. Am I right?
No. Here’s the weekly breakdown:
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/excesswintermortalityinenglandandwales/2017to2018provisionaland2016to2017final
Well obviously there won’t be an overlay of 2017’s weekly mortality graph against 2020’s until May 5, not in a 2018 document, so go and make or find one.
Are you claiming that the rise in 2020 overall mortality levelled off without the lockdown? Because you’ll need a plausible mechanism for that, and given that in Gangelt, with the highest death rate in Germany, the infection rate was found to be just 15%, ie. it had potential to get nearly five times worse.
– Researchers from Bonn University said on Monday that their preliminary study, based on fieldwork in the town of Gangelt in Heinsberg municipality, which had one of Germany’s highest death tolls, showed the risk of infection by asymptomatic carriers.
– The researchers concluded from a random sample of 919 people that about 15% of Gangelt’s population had been infected, with a fatality rate of 0.37%. Extrapolating nationwide, they said about 1.8 million people living in Germany may have contracted the virus, against 160,000 confirmed cases so far.
That’s from the Guardian, but it should be enough to find the paper from Bonn Uni, released Monday.
Amongst the many things I’m not an expert in is statistics. Luckily you are an expert in everything so you can tell me: How does this year’s excess mortality rate compare to 2017?
“Clink!” That was the sound of a penny dropping.
Clark, are the overall excess death figures you keep quoting just a direct comparison week for week with previous years’ figures? Because if so, that’s another way in which they are misleading. Why should the peaks match?
It sounds like this method of comparison has been chosen because it will give the desired result.
I’m not an expert in anything. Just get the two graphs overlaid and we’ll all be able to compare for ourselves 😀
Here, does this one help? It has flu and 2017 on it:
https://squonk.tk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/deng17.png
That graph is from this report:
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/879710/National_influenze_report_16_April_2020_week_16.pdf
Node, give it up. It’s not a big conspiracy; it’s a deadly virus!
England and Wales weekly deaths 2015-2020:
https://i.postimg.cc/8P8DKv1Z/England-and-Wales-weekly-Deaths.jpg
N.Ireland weekly Deaths 2015-2020P:
https://i.postimg.cc/3NNsWKCf/N-Ireland-weekly-deaths-2015-2020-P.jpg
Thank you ET.
Node, the sudden rise at the end of the England and Wales graph looks pretty conclusive to me, and matches what we have seen in many other countries. Not sure what’s going on in Northern Ireland.
It turns out that the Bonn Uni study of Gangelt is pretty poor, the Infection Fatality Rate calculated from only seven deaths. There have been two more since the study, and around twenty critical cases remain in hospital. This looks like another study that will eventually settle out around the 1% Infection Fatality Rate, as New York City is doing.
That was 2017-2018.
This is their latest release – https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/excesswintermortalityinenglandandwales/2018to2019provisionaland2017to2018final
Enough of them working for Sir Ian Diamond (everyone has to have a gong nowadays).
https://www.ons.gov.uk/aboutus/transparencyandgovernance/leadershipteam
He’s a Diamond geezer. Note the Univ of Aberdeen overpayment of £282k. Did he pay it back? 😉
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Diamond
‘The ONS has a head office in the city of Newport, South Wales, and other offices in Pimlico in London and Titchfield in Hampshire. The Family Records Centre in Myddelton Street in Islington, London, moved to the National Archives in Kew in 2008. They also have an Archive Storage site located in Christchurch, Dorset.’
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_for_National_Statistics_(United_Kingdom)_
3,300 employees
That was 2017-2018.
That’s the one I meant to post, Mary. It shows excess mortality deaths that winter of 50K+. It was a bad year for seasonal flu.
Node, I am not sure what point you are trying to make. The figures for 2020 are lower until week 13 when they show a sharp rise, and by week 17 they are double the 5 yearly average. H ere are the figures for weeks 12-17 and below are the 5 yearly average figures.
12 13 14 15 16 17
20-Mar-20 27-Mar-20 03-Apr-20 10-Apr-20 17-Apr-20 24-Apr-20
2020 10,645 11,141 16,387 18,516 22,351 21,997
5 yr av 10,573 10,130 10,305 10,520 10,497 10,458
“How does this year’s excess mortality rate compare to 2017?”
If you are talking about the winter of 2017-18, I can help you here:
Total deaths in 2018 up to week 15 = 187,720
Total deaths in 2020 up to week 15 = 184,960
Total deaths in 2018 up to week 16 = 198,943
Total deaths in 2020 up to week 16 = 207,311
So sometime between the 10th and the 17th of April, the number of deaths from all causes this year passed that of two years ago.
Lockdown
Why did the highly educated Germans embrace a lunatic like Adolf Hitler? The short answer is that bad policies caused economic, military and political crises – chow time for tyrants. German circumstances changed for the worse, and when people become angry enough or desperate enough, sometimes they’ll support crazies who would never attract a crowd in normal circumstances.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimpowell/2013/02/05/how-dictators-come-to-power-in-a-democracy/
On April 25th Christian Drosten (Advisor to the German Government) said in this interview that Covid is comparable with the Spanish flu
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EeluJJqQamg
Interview mit dem Virologen Christian Drosten zum Thema CoronaDer deutsche Charite-Virologe Christian Drosten gehört in der Coronavirus-Forschung zu den führenden Wissenschaf…
Four pandemics these estimates in chronological order showing excess pandemic-related deaths in Germany. Excess deaths is number of deaths above the 5 year average average death rate from all causes:
426,600 (1918-1919) Spanish Flu
29,100 (1957-1958)
46,900 (1968-1970) Hong Kong flu
350 (2009)
0 (2020) 7,000 deaths is below the (5 yr) average death rate
The poshboy kingdom’s media are trumpeting that more cases have been reported on its territory than in any other country in Europe. What a well-run country, eh? Lions led by donkeys doesn’t say the half of it. “Worse run than Italy and Spain” – what a thing to boast! That said, actually the deaths WITH the virus per million population are LOWER in Britain than in Spain, Italy, or Belgium. But who said a “number of reported cases” or a “number of reported deaths with the virus” should even count as a “fact” in the first place? That the police are hassling people who are out of their houses, and that the homeless seem to have disappeared from city streets, really are facts though.
I was in Chelmsford on Saturday, I think it was. In Moulsham Street I saw a wine bar with a few people, all men, all at separate tables, and then I saw their bundles of bedding under the tables. And I didn’t see any homeless people on the streets; first time in years.
here’s an interesting insight into the much vaunted CoronaApp as the uk regime continues its unremmiting attack on the population:
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/05/05/uk_coronavirus_app/
rest assured the regime is very interested in protecting you from this deadly virus, that has already been made a ‘notifiable’ disease due to the masses of bodies turning up on our streets, littering our parks and open shop entrances
People don’t fall to the ground dead upon contracting the virus, you know.
@Glenn – So presumably you think the Guardian is publishing fake news when it carries stories of people dropping dead in the street from Covid-19
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/31/a-man-lies-dead-in-the-street-the-image-that-captures-the-wuhan-coronavirus-crisis
“People don’t fall to the ground dead upon contracting the virus, you know.”
Oh yes they do:
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/22/health/strokes-coronavirus-young-adults/index.html
“Dr. Thomas Oxley, a neurosurgeon at Mount Sinai Health System in New York, and colleagues gave details of five people they treated. All were under the age of 50, and all had either mild symptoms of Covid-19 infection or no symptoms at all.
“The virus seems to be causing increased clotting in the large arteries, leading to severe stroke,” Oxley told CNN.
“Our report shows a seven-fold increase in incidence of sudden stroke in young patients during the past two weeks. Most of these patients have no past medical history and were at home with either mild symptoms (or in two cases, no symptoms) of Covid,” he added.”
It’s coming at you from all sides now. And no-one is safe. NO-ONE!
With the greatest of respect, George, you didn’t read what I said properly. I said _upon_ contracting the virus, as in immediately on receiving a dose. One might well fall down dead at a later date, of course, but not at the same instant.
With the greatest respect, glenn-uk, the commenter to who you were replying, jazza, didn’t even imply they were falling down dead “upon contracting the virus”, just that they were ending up dead “on our streets, littering our parks and open shop entrances”.
Have you seen this, Glenn?
https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-3d-model-reveals-how-covid-19-can-spread-in-supermarket-11971373
Isn’t it beautiful? It doesn’t matter if you’re 2m away. You could be 10m away on the other side of a shelf. But that nasty vaporous contagion is still GONNA GET YA!
Maybe it’s time to ask: Who does this bullshit really serve?
Would taking aspirin prevent these strokes? If so, maybe everyone should be taking aspirin during the epidemic.
And Vitamin D
Unsure about baby-aspirins, yes/no…
I’ve packaged up all aspirin, ibuprofen & similar non-steroidal meds from my home – stuck in a cupboard, as there was early concern that it might potentially make any mild infection with nCov-19 worse (due ACE2 receptor stimulation)
The paracetamol/Tylenol came out of the cupboard, as a generic pain med, whilst anti-inflammatory duties have been handed over to curcuma & piperine capsules.
So, dunno! Ask a real doctor, if you can find one, there’s certainly an audience for scientific facts that can help/hinder a recovery from an eventual coronavirus infection.
Read more about the ACE2 receptor…theoretical nCov-19 (negative) boost from NSAIDs such as acetylsalicylic acid etc https://www.healthline.com/health-news/what-to-know-about-ibuprofen-and-covid-19
It does seem reasonable to take daily doses of Vitamin-D, at sane levels , plus Vit C and Zinc (slow release) , with an occasional multivit with some Copper trace elements (as prolonged Zinc can depress body available Copper)
Alternatively, a healthy diet should be able to supply all micronutrients essential for best immune system, but many people are Vit-D lacking. Ask a pharmacist for more info…
Media around the world headlining the big news that the UK now has the highest European death toll, 32,000. But not the BBC website.