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Debunking Some Ideas About The Virus
We still do not know for certain where the virus that causes the current pandemic has come from. China's first known Covid-19 case has now been traced back to mid November. While the virus is most likely a natural creation the U.S. State Department officials now point to alleged insecurities at the safety level 4 laboratory in Wuhan which did research on similar viruses. It spreads unfounded rumors that the virus escaped from there. But the U.S. itself has many such laboratories with long documented security issues and there is reasonable suspicion that the real patient zero case has happened in the U.S.
Science will eventually solve that conundrum. Until it does there is little to gain from further speculation about it.
There is a loose group of people who think that the current pandemic is some conspiracy with a nefarious purpose.
Some of them still compare the disease caused by the novel coronavirus to a flu. Some doubt that current restrictions of their personal liberties are legitimate and justified. Still others doubt the value of masks (Yesterday I deleted a comment that argued against masks.)
It is probably a waste of time to counter the arguments of such people. But I will give it a try.
The graphs show the normal mortality rates in the England and Wales and in New York City and the current deviations from it. The flu does not create such graphs. Nor do the lock-downs.
England & Wales – Weekly Mortality – Blue: historic range, Red: 2020
Source: Ed Conway / Skynews – bigger
New York City – Deaths by Month 2000-2020
Source: NY Times – bigger
A lot of the currently occurring death get misclassified. This happens in both directions. Death caused by an underlying disease may be classified as Covid-19 death if the person was tested positive. But the extreme increase of 'cardiac arrests' in New York City is certainly related to Covid-19 even as those deaths are not counted as such:
New Yorkers are making four times as many emergency calls about cardiac arrests as they did last year […] about 200 of these heart-attack victims are being pronounced dead at the scene each day, up from around 30 this time last year.
New York, Cardiac Arrests
Source: Economist – bigger
Some people in 'western' nations fear for their freedom and mistrust their current governments when they order a lock-down. There must be some nefarious purpose behind it. But why have the governments of China, Iran and Russia ordered similar measures? Are they part of a global conspiracy? I don't think so. Lock-downs are simply a sensible method to slow the spread of epidemics. They have been used with more or less success for hundreds of years.
Personal freedom is not an unlimited right. Diana Johnstone has given a convincing argument for its limits. One's freedom and rights end where they infringe on the freedom and rights of others:
[V]irtually all key aspects of any civilized society go contrary to the absolutism of individual rights. Every civilized society has some sort of legal system, some basic rules that everyone is expected to follow. Most civilized societies have a public education and (except for the United States) a public health insurance system designed to benefit the whole population. These elements of civilization include constraints on individual freedom.
The benefits to each individual of living in a civilized society make these constraints acceptable to just about everybody. The health of the individual depends on the health of the community, which is why everyone in most Western countries accepts a single payer health insurance system. The only exception is the United States, where the egocentricities of Ayn Rand are widely read as serious thought.
It is without doubt that masks are helpful to limit the spreading of the epidemic. An infected person begins to spread viruses by breathing, talking, singing or coughing on day 2 after the infection. Only on day 5 or 6 will the symptoms of the disease set in. Some people will never feel symptoms but can still infect others usually up to day 10 after the infection.
Masks stop the viruses one sheds from reaching other persons. They do this effectively.
Without mask
Source: Flow analyses to validate SARS-CoV-2 protective masks
bigger
With mask
Source: Flow analyses to validate SARS-CoV-2 protective masks
bigger
The German government is currently evaluating when to lift the current lock-down. It's science advisors are pushing for making it mandatory to wear a mask in all public settings. It is likely that the government will follow their advice. The above pictures show that this makes sense.
The graphs show the normal mortality rates in the England and Wales and in New York City and the current deviations from it. The flu does not create such graphs. Nor do the lock-downs.
I’ve got a nice bridge for sale, B, 2000 miles long and entirely made of NYT articles and twitter tweets.
The Twitter chart leaves the impression that the number of deaths suddenly soared up almost vertically by around 5500 just in the last few days …
Good panic porn stuff that. Also take note of what sort of people appear in that thread – it is not a list of nobodies!
But wait – look more closely! That upturn is for week 14 – the week ending 3rd April, already 12 days ago. You can see the release of the data by the Office for National Statistics here (there is no more recent data released by ONS)
As soon as you see the real data released by the ONS you will immediately see that the cited twitter is blatent fake news!
That chart is specifically constructed to deceive. No actual cited figures, no actual dates, no links to the real data – just pure panic porn. Why not cite the specific dates covered? Because that would raise immediate suspicion with that sudden spurt, because it does not correspond to previously available figures. Why not cite the specific figures in the tweet? Because then it would be immediately obvious that this is fake news. Why not explain the cause of the strange shape of the graph? Because that would give the whole game away.
So what do you see when you look at the real data released by ONS, instead of the fake news in that twitter?
1) Total deaths registered in week 14 16387
2) Increase over week 13 5246
3) Increase over 5-year average for week 14 6082
*** BUT ***
4) Note that these figures are not the deaths which occurred in week 14, they are the deaths which were registered in week 14, irrespective of when the deaths actually occurred (registration is often delayed)
5) Note the warning given on that page: “Please note, where Easter falls in previous years will have an impact on the five-year average used for comparison”
6) 3475 deaths in week 14 “mentioned novel coronavirus (COVID-19)” on the death certificate – NOTE – this is not the cause of death specified on the death certificate!!!
7) 539 deaths in week 13 “mentioned novel coronavirus (COVID-19)” on the death certificate
8) But wait – 3475 is only about half the alleged excess deaths, and these are not even the deaths caused by covid-19 (see below) these are only the deaths where covid-19 “happens” to have been tested positive (car accident, for example!)
Look further!
9) Look at the row “Deaths where the underlying cause was respiratory disease (ICD-10 J00-J99)” under official WHO standards, that is the broad category under which the covid-19 deaths are to be listed, if it is considered by the doctor to be the cause of death. The row gives figures for each week of 2020 as follows (from weeks 1 to 14 in sequence):
2141 2477 2188 1893 1746 1572 1602 1619 1546 1581 1492 1515 1534 2106
VOILA!
This category – which is the actual recorded cause of death – includes covid-19 deaths, but it is a broad category of respiratory-related deaths which also includes many deaths which have nothing whatsoever to do with covid-19. Those 2141, 2477 and 2188 deaths registered in each of the first 3 weeks of 2020 were before there was even a single death from covid-19 in the UK! The average of the first 13 weeks is 1762, and the value for week 14 (2106) is only 344 more than that!
Also note that the deaths which “mention” covid-19 are 1369 greater (including car accidents, unrelated illness, etc) than the number of deaths caused by respiratory illnesses (including Covid-19), which already includes another 1500 to 1700 deaths not caused by covid-19!
This spurt of extra deaths registered in week 14 most certainly does not represent a sudden spurt of genuine covid-19 deaths – that is conclusively proven by the row of figures giving the underlying cause of death for each week’s registrations.
If anything, the data may show a sudden spurt of deaths from other causes such as stress caused by the lockdown, food shortages, money shortages, unexpected homelessness, non-covid-19 illnesses not treated because the hospitals cancelled appointments and operations, stress, fear etc.
Such causes probably underlie at least a few of the unaccounted for excess deaths (conceaveably even most, perhaps), but it is also possible it is simply a statistical aberration and/or related to delays in registering deaths, including the unspecified effect of the Easter holidays on death registration. The aberration may also have been deliberate, to cover up government mishandling of the crisis, or it may result from staff shortages, or perhaps completely irrelevant reasons – we cannot know without detailed investigation of how the data were prepared and the patterns of death registration.
What is absolutely certain is that that twitter chart is unmitigated fake news deliberately designed to deceive.
The NYT is no better – completely non-sensical presentation of the data with no explanation of the meaning of the non-sensical presentation, deliberately designed to misrepresent.
Comments, B? Time to reconsider what you are doing?
I’ve been urging people to look more closely at what is happening, because the magicians have been very successful with their acts, recently. Things are not as they seem on the surface – you need to look more carefully at the small print.
That includes the details of lockdowns. Lockdowns kill, when they are done in the irresponsible and brutal and dishonest way they have been done in the UK and the USA.
China did NOT rely on lockdowns – they relied on an integrated combination of social distancing (including, where necessary, lockdowns, but mostly not, except in Hubei Province), tracing, and isolation of those infected or at risk.
Lockdowns as imposed by the UK and the USA are just suicide pacts, as described by Professor Sucharit Bhakdi, and are ineffective in dealing with covid-19.
Posted by: BM | Apr 15 2020 11:08 utc | 162
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