So far the following studies have been completed. 1.) LA County 2.) Santa Clara 3.) NY pregnant 4.) Chelsea MA 5.) Boston homeless 6.) Johnson County 7.) German 8.) French carrier – and the EMPTY hospitals – in any rational world, our conversation would be immediately turning to how quickly we can end the lockdowns and open schools.
Month: April 2020
Week of April 19th, 2020 Covid Good News
Demark to allow gatherings of 500 people
http://www.publichealth.lacounty.gov/phcommon/public/media/mediapubhpdetail.cfm?prid=2328
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.14.20062463v1.full.pdf
Absurdity
https://www.elle.com/uk/life-and-culture/g31658888/coronavirus-covid-19-good-news/
https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20200421/good-news-on-remdesivirs-power-to-treat-covid-19#1
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/17/coronavirus-latest-updates.html
Why Commit Collective Suicide? What is behind it?
Why do governments and societies take the actions that they take? Who is in charge? Are the elected leaders in charge? Are shadow leaders (the permanent staff) in charge? Is the media in charge? Is society, empowered via the internet, in charge? Is there a secrete “cult” in charge? Who is in charge and why are seemingly unwise decisions being made?
From the 16th to the 28th of October 1962 the world came very close to “Collective Suicide”. If an atomic war had broken out, there would have been hundreds of millions of lives lost, or perhaps even the extinction of the world. It is widely estimated that the world came within a 10-20% chance of total destruction. Why? Would a single rational human really accept this risk?
Now we are entering a new period of “Collective Suicide” that could change our world forever. It is not the virus that will change the world, but our reaction to it. Covid-19 will not kill hundreds of millions of people. The absolute worst case predictions cap the total world deaths at several million, and the truth is that it mainly would expedite the death of elderly people who would likely die anyway. I know that sounds crass, but it is truthful. The more likely outcome of just allowing the virus to infect freely would be less then 1 million deaths worldwide. The idea that we have “no idea” about the lethality of the virus is wrong. We have close to 5 months of data now, and the extreme examples of Wuhan, Northern Italy, The Diamond Princess Cruise Ship, ect. are all likely examples of the far extreme upper range of lethality. More importantly, as pointed out by many medical experts (1) we do not have enough data yet to make these drastic decisions.
So why is it that we are willing to potentially destroy the world as we know it, to save the lives of a very small percentage of people who were going to die anyway? Why? Would a single rational human really accept this risk?
First off lets get down to individuals. Did JFK fear for his own life and the life of his family when he made those dangerous decisions during the Cuban Missile Crisis? (2) I argue he did not. His life and actions revolved around his professional career and the pride that every man and women carries with them. Also, I am sure that Kennedy would have argued that he was powerless in his decisions. That others “forced his hand”. I am sure if we corned Dr. Anthony Fauci and asked him to defend his statement “If you count all the estimated cases of people who may have it but haven’t been diagnosed yet, the mortality rate is probably closer to 1%, he said, “which means it’s 10 times more lethal than the seasonal flu.” (3) that he would argue his point from a position of personal pride. I assume he believes that it is his job to only think about medical issues that kill. The fact that his words can cause massive economic suicide probably would not concern him. After-all, it is very unlikely that Dr. Fauci himself, or any of his immediate family would die from the virus, and it is even more unlikely that he will be harmed economically or professionally. In fact, we can argue that his involvement with this virus is the HIGH POINT of his personal and professional life. So looking at it from his shoes, it becomes clear why he can not think as a normal and rational human. His judgment is clouded by the wonderful high one feels when all of a sudden they are in the limelight. Doctors endure extreme conditions to become doctors. Why? There is some economic motivation, especially in the west, but the real reason people want to become doctors is because of personal pride and power. Being a doctor is one of the few professions that truly carries legitimate power. Those in search of power can choose to become police or military, but the truth is that those professions are plagued with a moral conflict. Your source of power is the condemning of other humans. A doctor on the other-hand has the moral high ground. Thus, I am sure Fauci truly believes he is taking the moral high ground and I assume he thinks it is up to “others” to sort out the death and destruction that his lock-downs could very well lead to. Why else would a sane & educated man advocate for collective suicide of millions?
So who are the “others” left to sort out the death and destruction of Fauci’s lock-downs? I think most people would assume it is the elected official in charge. In the USA that person is now Trump. This website is NOT political. So I will NOT analyze Trump from a partizan political perspective. I will analyze him from a neutral position. Kennedy was a democrat, Trump a republican. Both men seem to me to be powerless in their own mind to “do anything different”. I believe that both men believe they are backed into a personal corner. Neither was willing to commit “personal suicide”, so that leads them to “collective suicide”as the favorable choice. They succumb to what they believe is that “only choice” they can make which I argue is the choice driven by some complex social mechanism, which I don’t think has ever been explored or understood yet. I don’t even think there is a name for it. Let’s call it ” Social Darwinism” for lack of a better name. My assumption is that there are some complex forces of nature at work that drive Social Decision making. The media has played a very important role in modern history and now with the instant 24/7 nature of the internet, the media “or the medium” of news in general seems to me to play a pivotal role.
The question that I don’t know the answer to is “is the media driven by a select few individuals” or “is it an organic organism that is driven by some sort of complex Social Darwinism”?
I tend to believe that is it not driven by a select group of individuals, but rather I think it is an Organic Organism. I do believe there are many powerful interest groups that do try to influence, but I am not yet ready to consider the extreme position that some small group is in charge. (4) This interview with David Icke is actually 100% correct, in that he suggests that it is the “permanent government staff that are forcing Trump into a corner” This I believe is a 100% accurate interpretation. The next question is who is influencing the permanent staff? David Icke takes the extreme view to suggest that the “cult” is a race of lizard people. If you ignore this extreme interpretation, then actually David Icke’s research is extremely useful.
Dr. Jay Bhattacharya – professor of medicine at Stanford University
The issue of the death rate is that we don’t know how many people have actually been infected. The possibility is that millions have already been infected and never even knew they had the virus. If 10 million have been infected, then the death rate is lower then the flu. The key is we have no idea how many people have been infected. The key is to do a survey to find everyone who got the virus, regardless if the have symptoms or not.
Covid-19 vs Seasonal Flu in USA
I realize that given current cases are over 300,000 that there will be more deaths in the coming weeks. However, the information provided in the image below should help to put the Covid-19 virus in perspective. So far, even though the first case was 4 months ago, there are only 8,500 deaths. That makes Covid-19 milder then the mildest flu season in 10 years. While is is likely that deaths will top the low of 12,000, will deaths outpace the worst flu year of 2018 with more then 61,000 deaths (reported at 80,000 in other sources)? At this point it does not appear that is going to happen. So once again, does the collective economic suicide of the entire world make sense when the world largely went on without even noticing the 61,000 deaths of 2018? Data from https://www.ocregister.com/2020/02/08/how-influenza-is-much-more-of-a-threat-to-americans-than-coronavirus-right-now/
Italy & Covid-19
From EUSSR on Zerohedge.com – A very good explanation is given why Italy is impacted. The most important point is that each flu season more people in Italy died than in any other European country.
1.Italy always had a disastrous health care system, in 2018 nothing was different
https://www.thelocal.it/20180119/italy-worst-flu-season-in-14-years
This scientific publication documents that each flu season more people in Italy died than in any other European country,
it is not a new finding because of Corona, it always was the case
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1201971219303285
2. Can you imagine, during the main flu season over 34,000 people in Lomdardia, the main COVID problem county in Italy, were vaccinated against Meningokokkenbacteria that alone is a huge challenge for the immune system
https://www.lombardianotizie.online/meningococco/
3. Italy is the 2nd most old population in the world
4.The area of Milano and Bergamo is the most air-poluted in all of Europe. Many cement factories are in this area
5.Here are the EU statistics, as you can easily see, not more people are dying at all
12 Experts Questioning the Coronavirus Panic
Mar 24, 2020 951
12 Experts Questioning the Coronavirus Panic
Below is our list of twelve medical experts whose opinions on the Coronavirus outbreak contradict the official narratives of the MSM, and the memes so prevalent on social media.
* * *
Dr Sucharit Bhakdi is a specialist in microbiology. He was a professor at the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz and head of the Institute for Medical Microbiology and Hygiene and one of the most cited research scientists in German history.
What he says:
We are afraid that 1 million infections with the new virus will lead to 30 deaths per day over the next 100 days. But we do not realise that 20, 30, 40 or 100 patients positive for normal coronaviruses are already dying every day.
[The government’s anti-COVID19 measures] are grotesque, absurd and very dangerous […] The life expectancy of millions is being shortened. The horrifying impact on the world economy threatens the existence of countless people. The consequences on medical care are profound. Already services to patients in need are reduced, operations cancelled, practices empty, hospital personnel dwindling. All this will impact profoundly on our whole society.
All these measures are leading to self-destruction and collective suicide based on nothing but a spook.
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Dr Wolfgang Wodarg is a German physician specialising in Pulmonology, politician and former chairman of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. In 2009 he called for an inquiry into alleged conflicts of interest surrounding the EU response to the Swine Flu pandemic.
What he says:
Politicians are being courted by scientists…scientists who want to be important to get money for their institutions. Scientists who just swim along in the mainstream and want their part of it […] And what is missing right now is a rational way of looking at things.
We should be asking questions like “How did you find out this virus was dangerous?”, “How was it before?”, “Didn’t we have the same thing last year?”, “Is it even something new?”
That’s missing.
*
Dr Joel Kettner s professor of Community Health Sciences and Surgery at Manitoba University, former Chief Public Health Officer for Manitoba province and Medical Director of the International Centre for Infectious Diseases.
What he says:
I have never seen anything like this, anything anywhere near like this. I’m not talking about the pandemic, because I’ve seen 30 of them, one every year. It is called influenza. And other respiratory illness viruses, we don’t always know what they are. But I’ve never seen this reaction, and I’m trying to understand why.
[…]
I worry about the message to the public, about the fear of coming into contact with people, being in the same space as people, shaking their hands, having meetings with people. I worry about many, many consequences related to that.
[…]
In Hubei, in the province of Hubei, where there has been the most cases and deaths by far, the actual number of cases reported is 1 per 1000 people and the actual rate of deaths reported is 1 per 20,000. So maybe that would help to put things into perspective. Audio Player00:0000:00Use Up/Down Arrow keys to increase or decrease volume.
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Dr John Ioannidis Professor of Medicine, of Health Research and Policy and of Biomedical Data Science, at Stanford University School of Medicine and a Professor of Statistics at Stanford University School of Humanities and Sciences. He is director of the Stanford Prevention Research Center, and co-director of the Meta-Research Innovation Center at Stanford (METRICS).
He is also the editor-in-chief of the European Journal of Clinical Investigation. He was chairman at the Department of Hygiene and Epidemiology, University of Ioannina School of Medicine as well as adjunct professor at Tufts University School of Medicine.
As a physician, scientist and author he has made contributions to evidence-based medicine, epidemiology, data science and clinical research. In addition, he pioneered the field of meta-research. He has shown that much of the published research does not meet good scientific standards of evidence.
What he says:
Patients who have been tested for SARS-CoV-2 are disproportionately those with severe symptoms and bad outcomes. As most health systems have limited testing capacity, selection bias may even worsen in the near future.
The one situation where an entire, closed population was tested was the Diamond Princess cruise ship and its quarantine passengers. The case fatality rate there was 1.0%, but this was a largely elderly population, in which the death rate from Covid-19 is much higher.
[…]
Could the Covid-19 case fatality rate be that low? No, some say, pointing to the high rate in elderly people. However, even some so-called mild or common-cold-type coronaviruses that have been known for decades can have case fatality rates as high as 8% when they infect elderly people in nursing homes.
[…]
If we had not known about a new virus out there, and had not checked individuals with PCR tests, the number of total deaths due to “influenza-like illness” would not seem unusual this year. At most, we might have casually noted that flu this season seems to be a bit worse than average.
– “A fiasco in the making? As the coronavirus pandemic takes hold, we are making decisions without reliable data”, Stat News, 17th March 2020
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Dr Yoram Lass is an Israeli physician, politician and former Director General of the Health Ministry. He also worked as Associate Dean of the Tel Aviv University Medical School and during the 1980s presented the science-based television show Tatzpit.
What he says:
Italy is known for its enormous morbidity in respiratory problems, more than three times any other European country. In the US about 40,000 people die in a regular flu season and so far 40-50 people have died of the coronavirus, most of them in a nursing home in Kirkland, Washington.
[…]
In every country, more people die from regular flu compared with those who die from the coronavirus.
[…]
…there is a very good example that we all forget: the swine flu in 2009. That was a virus that reached the world from Mexico and until today there is no vaccination against it. But what? At that time there was no Facebook or there maybe was but it was still in its infancy. The coronavirus, in contrast, is a virus with public relations.
Whoever thinks that governments end viruses is wrong.
– Interview in Globes, March 22nd 2020
*
Dr Pietro Vernazza is a Swiss physician specialising Infectious Diseases at the Cantonal Hospital St. Gallen and Professor of Health Policy.
What he says:
We have reliable figures from Italy and a work by epidemiologists, which has been published in the renowned science journal ‹Science›, which examined the spread in China. This makes it clear that around 85 percent of all infections have occurred without anyone noticing the infection. 90 percent of the deceased patients are verifiably over 70 years old, 50 percent over 80 years.
[…]
In Italy, one in ten people diagnosed die, according to the findings of the Science publication, that is statistically one of every 1,000 people infected. Each individual case is tragic, but often – similar to the flu season – it affects people who are at the end of their lives.
[…]
If we close the schools, we will prevent the children from quickly becoming immune.
[…]
We should better integrate the scientific facts into the political decisions.
– Interview in St. Galler Tagblatt, 22nd March 2020
*
Frank Ulrich Montgomery is German radiologist, former President of the German Medical Association and Deputy Chairman of the World Medical Association.
What he says:
I’m not a fan of lockdown. Anyone who imposes something like this must also say when and how to pick it up again. Since we have to assume that the virus will be with us for a long time, I wonder when we will return to normal? You can’t keep schools and daycare centers closed until the end of the year. Because it will take at least that long until we have a vaccine. Italy has imposed a lockdown and has the opposite effect. They quickly reached their capacity limits, but did not slow down the virus spread within the lockdown.
– Interview in General Anzeiger, 18th March 2020
*
Prof. Hendrik Streeck is a German HIV researcher, epidemiologist and clinical trialist. He is professor of virology, and the director of the Institute of Virology and HIV Research, at Bonn University.
What he says:
The new pathogen is not that dangerous, it is even less dangerous than Sars-1. The special thing is that Sars-CoV-2 replicates in the upper throat area and is therefore much more infectious because the virus jumps from throat to throat, so to speak. But that is also an advantage: Because Sars-1 replicates in the deep lungs, it is not so infectious, but it definitely gets on the lungs, which makes it more dangerous.
[…]
You also have to take into account that the Sars-CoV-2 deaths in Germany were exclusively old people. In Heinsberg, for example, a 78-year-old man with previous illnesses died of heart failure, and that without Sars-2 lung involvement. Since he was infected, he naturally appears in the Covid 19 statistics. But the question is whether he would not have died anyway, even without Sars-2.
– Interview in Frankfurter Allgemeine, 16th March 2020
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Dr Yanis Roussel et. al. – A team of researchers from the Institut Hospitalo-universitaire Méditerranée Infection, Marseille and the Institut de Recherche pour le Développement, Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Marseille, conducting a peer-reviewed study on Coronavirus mortality for the government of France under the ‘Investments for the Future’ programme.
What they say:
The problem of SARS-CoV-2 is probably overestimated, as 2.6 million people die of respiratory infections each year compared with less than 4000 deaths for SARS-CoV-2 at the time of writing.
[…]
This study compared the mortality rate of SARS-CoV-2 in OECD countries (1.3%) with the mortality rate of common coronaviruses identified in AP-HM patients (0.8%) from 1 January 2013 to 2 March 2020. Chi-squared test was performed, and the P-value was 0.11 (not significant).
[…]
…it should be noted that systematic studies of other coronaviruses (but not yet for SARS-CoV-2) have found that the percentage of asymptomatic carriers is equal to or even higher than the percentage of symptomatic patients. The same data for SARS-CoV-2 may soon be available, which will further reduce the relative risk associated with this specific pathology.
– “SARS-CoV-2: fear versus data”, International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents, 19th March 2020
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Dr. David Katz is an American physician and founding director of the Yale University Prevention Research Center
What he says:
I am deeply concerned that the social, economic and public health consequences of this near-total meltdown of normal life — schools and businesses closed, gatherings banned — will be long-lasting and calamitous, possibly graver than the direct toll of the virus itself. The stock market will bounce back in time, but many businesses never will. The unemployment, impoverishment and despair likely to result will be public health scourges of the first order.
– “Is Our Fight Against Coronavirus Worse Than the Disease?”, New York Times 20th March 2020
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Michael T. Osterholm is regents professor and director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.
What he says:
Consider the effect of shutting down offices, schools, transportation systems, restaurants, hotels, stores, theaters, concert halls, sporting events and other venues indefinitely and leaving all of their workers unemployed and on the public dole. The likely result would be not just a depression but a complete economic breakdown, with countless permanently lost jobs, long before a vaccine is ready or natural immunity takes hold.
[…]
[T]he best alternative will probably entail letting those at low risk for serious disease continue to work, keep business and manufacturing operating, and “run” society, while at the same time advising higher-risk individuals to protect themselves through physical distancing and ramping up our health-care capacity as aggressively as possible. With this battle plan, we could gradually build up immunity without destroying the financial structure on which our lives are based.
– “Facing covid-19 reality: A national lockdown is no cure”, Washington Post 21st March 2020
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Dr Peter Goetzsche is Professor of Clinical Research Design and Analysis at the University of Copenhagen and founder of the Cochrane Medical Collaboration. He has written several books on corruption in the field of medicine and the power of big pharmaceutical companies.
What he says:
Our main problem is that no one will ever get in trouble for measures that are too draconian. They will only get in trouble if they do too little. So, our politicians and those working with public health do much more than they should do.
No such draconian measures were applied during the 2009 influenza pandemic, and they obviously cannot be applied every winter, which is all year round, as it is always winter somewhere. We cannot close down the whole world permanently.
Should it turn out that the epidemic wanes before long, there will be a queue of people wanting to take credit for this. And we can be damned sure draconian measures will be applied again next time. But remember the joke about tigers. “Why do you blow the horn?” “To keep the tigers away.” “But there are no tigers here.” “There you see!”
– “Corona: an epidemic of mass panic”, blog post on Deadly Medicines 21st March 2020
*
If you can find any other examples of noteworthy experts deviating from the mainstream narrative, please post them below. As always, this list have been impossible to build without Swiss Propaganda Research. Follow their work and share widely. An indispensable resource.
Filed under: coronavirus, latest, Other Media Tagged with: coronavirus, David Katz, Frank Ulrich Montgomery, Hendrik Streeck, Joel Kettner, John Ioannidis, list, Michael T Ostholm, Peter Goetzsche, Pietro Vernazza, Sucharit Bhakdi, Swiss Propaganda Research, Wolfgang Wodarg, Yanis Roussel, Yoram Lass
Subscribe newest oldest most voted AdminAdmin1
Hey all. This article is attracting an enormous number of readers and comments. We welcome all shades of opinion and totally open discussion, but we think we need to make one stipulation as follows –
If you are making a claim of fact, eg ‘hundreds of nurses are dying’, you need to support that with a published source, which you link to and preferably quote.
Posts that assert these types of sweeping ‘facts’ but don’t link to a source may be treated as spam, if the poster is persistent and refuses to offer supporting data.
This doesn’t impact on your right to offer any personal opinions you choose of course. 133-4 ReplyMar 27, 2020 10:49 AM
erm
Fake news, I suppose. Just a minute ago it was 45 and still counting.
‘As if a storm hit’: more than 40 Italian health workers have died since crisis began’
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/26/as-if-a-storm-hit-33-italian-health-workers-have-died-since-crisis-began 8-59 ReplyMar 27, 2020 1:55 PMAdminAdmin1
This is fear porn – scary headline burying less scary bits of fact it hopes you won’t stay to read.
5,000 health workers infected, 45 deaths is a CFR of o.9%. Exactly in line with the stats for the small numbers of previously healthy people who die of this virus.
And that doesn’t factor in that Italy admits to not distinguishing deaths FROM from deaths WITH.
No more replies to this thread please. But feel free to contribute below. 102-11 ReplyMar 27, 2020 2:38 PM
Dan
Actually that IS fake news. Only 11 have died at an approx CFR of 0.2%.
You can find the data on https://www.epicentro.iss.it/ 8-1 ReplyMar 29, 2020 12:04 PM
Mary Rose
The Guardian is bought. Not reliable or accurate journalism. 25-2 ReplyMar 30, 2020 12:37 AM
KRISTOFFER BERGEN
Notice the 33 in there? That’s a conveniently recurring number throughout covid news stories everywhere. Dark occult control symbolism there. Look into it for yourselves, but don’t put too much worry or energy towards it. Just notice the lies it accompanies and look for the Truth. 14-6 ReplyMar 30, 2020 6:45 AM
Trey
the number 3 is the most esoteric of numeral linguistics 20 ReplyMar 30, 2020 12:38 PM
Jay
Where have you noticed the number 33 popping up? Just curious bc I know what it means and what it doesn’t. I’m one that knows this is bigger than our government- it’s those who run the world. 10 ReplyApr 1, 2020 5:36 AM
Arthur Bogle
33 out of 5000 infected. That is less than 1%, and can we know for sure that because they tested positive for Covid, that non of these peoples died of heart disease or pneumonia or some other cause? 40 ReplyMar 30, 2020 7:13 PM
whatismyname
Guardian is part of the MSM and liberal media. Knowing how skewed and biased their reporting is I never look at their website when it appears as a recommendation or web search result when I am looking for something. Out of curiosity I have looked at their website twice and will never give their website anymore traffic.
Here are some resources to improve your selection of news sources that I share when the topic of news and sources comes up. Even though I am conservative I try to stay as close to Center on the left right news scale to avoid hyperbole and other scare tactics. I created a News bookmark folder to save these website links and to save sources that I look at infrequently. https://www.allsides.com/ https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/ and the Media Bias Chart https://www.adfontesmedia.com/ 3-1 ReplyMar 30, 2020 11:34 PM
Janck
These “experts” offer platitudes and little relevant data and no annotation, but Admin1 requires that readers offer proof of their comments. The discussion of the mortality rate is important , but the key issue is the hospitalization rate which the “experts” offer no solution for. 75-26 ReplyMar 27, 2020 5:10 PM
AdminAdmin2
No one is saying unsourced posts are going to be routinely removed, but we are warning that they could be if requests to substantiate are persistently ignored. No one is in a position to bring their credentials to the table BTL, and I think these measures are fair under the circumstances. 25-7 ReplyMar 27, 2020 7:16 PM
Bruce A Hamilton
OK I just spent 5 minutes at UrbanDictionary and AcronymFinder, and I still have no idea what Admin2 means by “BTL”. ??? 60 ReplyMar 28, 2020 4:51 PMAdminAdmin1
‘Below the Line’. Comments not editorial content. 7-1 ReplyMar 28, 2020 4:53 PM
I found it in about 30 seconds. It’s right there, all over the web. I saw it in last week on another thread here, ATL and then BTL and had never seen it in US so I searched and found: “Above The Line and Below The Line.”
Which web are you using? The non-sticky kind?
(I still don’t have a crystal clear sense of the meaning, but am arriving contextually, since Yanks are perrenially below the line, divided as we are “by a common language.”
We seem to be below THAT line, lol.) 4-3 ReplyMar 28, 2020 11:27 PM
Philip La Vere
Amazing how internationally prestigious and academically discerning institutions all hired these “experts’ to fill important, long term and productive positions, while your laser intelligence sees right through their “platitudes” and lack of data. 30-15 ReplyMar 27, 2020 8:35 PM
Dan Brown
Amazing how these prestigious institutions of yours predicted 2 million deaths in the UK, then 1 million, then 500K, then 200K and now 2oK – Imperial College Of London who triggered the panic and lock-down with their report. https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/sph/ide/gida-fellowships/Imperial-College-COVID19-NPI-modelling-16-03-2020.pdf
Or maybe The WHO and EU who demanded borders stay open and travel unrestricted all the way through February and coronavirus infected not be stigmatised.
Also the WHO said the mortality rate would run at 4% yet we know it is less than 1% when more widespread testing takes place and that figure is likely much lower still when we take account of how many people will have had the virus and remain healthy and untested including millions of children and that just 12% of CV-19 deaths in Italy actually list coronavirus as cause of death and where the average age is around 80 and where the majority of deaths were of people who had at least 2 other chronic diseases.
People like you are incapable of critical thought, you are mere drones regurgitating the mainstream narrative even where that narrative has already been debunked by reality.
You are a clear and present danger to free society and the nation state. 43-3 ReplyMar 29, 2020 3:41 AM
Dan Brown
Post above is responding to OP not Philip, apologies. 10 ReplyMar 29, 2020 3:45 AM
Philip La Vere
Whew! Thanks! 30 ReplyMar 29, 2020 1:39 PM
Philip La Vere
Mainstream narrative? Me? I was responding to someone above named Janck who was scoffing at the people who’s views are represented on this page (which I fully support) and called them “experts” in quotations. That person accused them of spewing “platitudes” and my response was directed at him. I don’t know why my comment ended up on it’s own and not in Janck’s thread, but you have completely misunderstood that and vented your anger in the wrong place. 30 ReplyMar 29, 2020 1:38 PM
Death from driving far riskier for those under 55 than death from COVID. 14-5 ReplyMar 28, 2020 5:37 PM
Way riskier. Maybe we should block off and quarantine all the freeways (of the planet) until we’ve flattened the curve of motorist deaths.
Once the curve has been flattened to near null, or nil, we can all start driving again. It will be SO much safer, see.
Oh, but then there’s the sidestreets. We’ll have to close them until the curve is flattened for vehicular accidents there, too.
(I’m sitting in my car, Saturday, the boardwalk in Newport Beach CA. has just been closed for the weekend, which has never happened before, since the year it was built, long before I was born. Again, temporary, with sandwich board signs, “Now is not the time for tourism.” A dissident and thankless concept, since the whole town markets mostly tourism.)
And when the curve is flattened for the virus, if ever, will it persist?
Unaddressed question. 19-2 ReplyMar 28, 2020 11:41 PM
Dennis Van Zandt
Your remarks about flattening the curve of motorist deaths reveal your misunderstanding of what that means. Motorist deaths (or otherwise, the accidents which lead to them) do not increase exponentially, as if one accident would engender two more, etc. It is the rate of new infections which must be slowed, so that the number of people getting sick all at once does not overwhelm our health care system. Even at a low death rate, when thousands are sick at the same time, people die because there is no hospital room for them, etc. 22-3 ReplyMar 29, 2020 11:06 PM
Really? No Scheiss Sherlock. With all due respect, I can’t believe how, ah, dense a non-comparison of a comparison that is. Are you feeling all right? Maybe you should check into a hospital or something. Go flatten that curve.
Or if that doesn’t add up as arithmetic, do it “inversely”.
Or just socially distance this.
In any event, you obviously have never driven the 405 in LA. All havoc there is clearly exponential. See?
BESIDES, AS MANY EXPERTS HERE HAVE POINTED OUT, A HELLUVA LOT OF PEOPLE GOT SICK ALL AT ONCE WITH THE 2009 PANDEMIC, AND MEDIA DIDN’T WHINE ABOUT OVERWHELMING.
I for one am underwhelmed. But maybe that’s just me.
See ya, I am going to go flatten a few curves, if nobody else will. 1-11 ReplyMar 30, 2020 1:22 AM
JAM
Excellent comment. Govt (in Aust) make it clear self-isolation/lockdown are about not overwhelming our hospital system & resources, NOT deaths. To say nothing of our overwhelming our hard working, highly skilled Medical staff…. And yes, more deaths will occur if our health system is overloaded…. it’s really quite simple, as you have written so clearly. 1-1 ReplyMar 30, 2020 1:37 AM
KRISTOFFER BERGEN
If this is overloading any health system, it is a more a sign of the poor quality and insufficiency of that system than of a system overwhealmed by some great enemy. Doctors make too many mistakes to be given this sort of power or discretion over all people! 5-3 ReplyMar 30, 2020 6:53 AM
Jo Dominich
Kristoffer, I agree, particularly where the UK NHS is concerned 10 ReplyMar 30, 2020 4:30 PM
Clearly we are talking about 2 completely different curves! 0-1 ReplyMar 30, 2020 1:46 AM
Rob Dunford
As Dirty Harry once said “do you feel lucky?” would you take a viral load of COVID19 voluntarily? 11-1 ReplyMar 29, 2020 2:18 PM
Josh w
Yes actually was considering signing up to test vaccines you are then after a few weeks exposed to the virus. Seeing as there is a pretty high chance they won’t work you are basically just exposing yourself to the virus. Only reason I didn’t was the trial was oversubscribed so they didn’t need more guinea pigs, sadly because it was really good money. 20 ReplyMar 29, 2020 8:24 PM
KRISTOFFER BERGEN
Risk of death from dying is higher for those over 55 than from covid as well. 30 ReplyMar 30, 2020 6:49 AM
CARL DAUBENSPECK
What are you talking about?! Each of these doctors have plied their credentials and even sited the communication, with OH MY gawd! Yes! the Washington Times!! As well as their being peer reviewed authors in medical journals. What, you want their pound of flesh as well??!! 150 ReplyMar 29, 2020 12:57 AM
David Bailey
The experts you refer to are putting their reputation on the line – why do you speak of them that way? 10 ReplyMar 31, 2020 12:01 PM
Siobhan
*Israeli virologist urges world leaders to calm public, slams ‘unnecessary panic’ *
https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-virologist-urges-world-leaders-to-calm-public-slams-unnecessary-panic/ 40 ReplyMar 29, 2020 5:50 PM
Michael Mackenzie
This article is a collection of Statements which use many non-referenced figures and facts, and somewhat resembles the social media sound bytes it seems to be trying to challenge. 12-5 ReplyMar 29, 2020 9:46 PM
Roberto
These are concise presentations by actual epidemiologists, scientists, and doctors, as a response to and opposed to hysterical crisis ‘reporting’ by news presenters and many in governments. There are another 10 opinions in another article on this site.
If you wish to delve into the thousands of pages of statistics there’s plenty of that available.
Anybody who knows what they’re talking about is saying the same thing, and they are puzzled and concerned about what is going on, and the reason for creating this unprecedented mania and panic. 11-3 ReplyMar 30, 2020 2:06 AM
Esther Lorenz
What?
Says the same as who? 00 ReplyMar 30, 2020 6:23 AM
Gerry
The sources to the quotes are in there, I gues one can do their own research, or just watch CNN 00 ReplyMar 30, 2020 5:43 PM
Giuseppina Solinas
Stefano Montanari in Italy says the same. 10 ReplyMar 30, 2020 12:43 AM
andrew
If 3000 people die in a year from a virus that is a stastic …If 3000 die in a week that is a problem..A BIG PROBLEM 20 ReplyMar 31, 2020 11:21 PM
Niculae Cojocaru
I totally understand the logic o f the dozen experts. They are all in the age bracket loved by this virus, they all have resources to isolate themselves from the contaminating environment for a limited period of time. The best for them is that the world go through as quickly as possible, die who may die, the rest get herd immunisation, then they can safely get out of hiding. Do not close the schools, do not stop working! Has any of those ‘experts’ volunteered to do shifts in hospitals? Lip service, that-s all they can offer! 4-3 ReplyMar 31, 2020 8:50 AM
Jerry
And they may be worried about their pension funds, if they outlive the pandemic. 0-1 ReplyMar 31, 2020 2:47 PM
McJensen
Here my list of names of German Doctors, who have expressed their non PC opinions about the Corona Virus hype on YouTube:
Prof. Dr. Stefan Hockertz, Immuntoxikologe der UniKlinik Hamburg
Dr. med. Spitzbart
Prof. Dr. Carsten Scheller, Professor für Virologie an der Universität Würzburg.
Dr. med. Claus Köhnlein [DFP 69]
Prof. Dr. Sucharit Bhakdi
Dr. Wolfgang Wodarg
Wolfgang Graninger, ehem. Leiter Tropenmedizin & Infektologie AKH
Very good website: Swiss medical doctor (Daily updates)
https://swprs.org/a-swiss-doctor-on-covid-19/ 20 ReplyMar 30, 2020 5:02 PM
JGoodman
http://https//www.statnews.com/2020/03/26/covid-19-tracker/ 00 ReplyMar 30, 2020 4:25 PM
JGoodman
Here is a site that gathers data and provides useful graphs 00 ReplyMar 30, 2020 4:22 PM
I do agree! I am a former scientist and medical professional (for the past decade working as holistic therapist) I am not famous and I have no public appearance or reputation. But with my background and knowledge I can only agree with these experts. I was delighted to find these experts statements finally being spread more! Just this morning I wrote a blog on my website https://innerspirithealing.wordpress.com/2020/03/30/corona-pan-ic-demia-just-wondering/ 3-3 ReplyMar 30, 2020 11:18 AM
Joe McQuack
Iranian doctor Mansoureh Tajik has many interesting things to say, and is highly critical of “social diatancing”.
https://thesaker.is/covid-an-infectious-disease-and-a-phantom-pandemic/ 2-2 ReplyMar 30, 2020 10:26 AM
KRISTOFFER BERGEN
The head of the WHO is a war criminal, communist rebel, and not a doctor. A strange one to be running the world right now. Look it up!! 10-1 ReplyMar 30, 2020 6:55 AM
Lynn
From Tx…The numbers simply do not warrant a shutdown. it’s a virus, if you get sick stay home.. this isn’t some “Magical Death virus”. 99% of people who get infected will have minor discomfort, develop a Natural Immunity to the strain. Tx population : 29,087,070 People infected 0.009% (2792 ) People dead 0.0001% (37) Meanwhile over 40 million people have been infected with influenzia , 26 million went to the hospital, 700,000 hospitalized, and 60,000 deaths. and not a single peep from the media. They are using Fear/Scare tactics to destroy the economy and your Rights… If there were Ever a time to turn off the Fake News and do your Own Homework, it is Now.. Don’t Panic,or Fear… Arm yourselves with Knowledge. Many Governors,Mayors etc are being led like Sheep because they Don’t Know anything but what the Media is saying, and They are Lying (the Media)… Be safe,Stay Clean, Be Prudent but Not Blind. Here’s the actual Data : https://corona.help/country/united-states/state/texas 11-1 ReplyMar 30, 2020 1:34 AM
bob
Why don’t you guys just be straight? In order to stop our hospitals being overwhelmed we just need to let the people over 65 die at home instead of trying to save them. 0-5 ReplyMar 30, 2020 9:13 PM
Cris
bob: I’m gathering you’re not over 65. Dying alone at home, terrified and in pain. What a wonderful world.
Or was that just sarcasm on your behalf? 10 ReplyMar 31, 2020 2:27 PM
bob
If we didn’t take the actions we did guess what will happen? It will spread, it will infect old people and they will die. So either we don’t lock down and save the economy while filling our hospitals with high risk and old people and most just die anyway or we lock down, slow the virus, lower the number of patients coming in at once.
Another thing just look at how many people under the age of 65 have underlying medical conditions that would count as high risk. It would be a massacre if we did nothing. 00 ReplyApr 1, 2020 1:30 AM
Lynn Clyde
30 ReplyMar 30, 2020 1:28 AM
Giuseppina Solinas
Scientist Stefano Montanari says the same 00 ReplyMar 30, 2020 12:45 AM
Enai
Yikes, “experts” spreading misinformation and conspiracy theories, this is genuinely terrifying. 6-25 ReplyMar 29, 2020 9:39 PM
Wesz808
What Osterholm is saying is currently the Dutch handling of things. We are not closing everything down but the call for a lockdown is getting louder since more people know someone who died. I hope we will continue this way. And that people take their personal responsibility.
I have my own small business and life is stressful because I have about 30% of my normal income.
My outlet is working out intensely. The health effects of no income and not being able to get outdoors would be severe.
Social distancing is one thing. Locking down everything is just crazy.
Osterholm said this btw. (so you don’t have to scroll up)
[T]he best alternative will probably entail letting those at low risk for serious disease continue to work, keep business and manufacturing operating, and “run” society, while at the same time advising higher-risk individuals to protect themselves through physical distancing and ramping up our health-care capacity as aggressively as possible. With this battle plan, we could gradually build up immunity without destroying the financial structure on which our lives are based.
70 ReplyMar 29, 2020 6:21 PM
Rob
A couple of points here, the lockdowns etc are because the west was totally unprepared (having been warned for decades) and reacted too late with possibly too little (USA).
S Korea made a very rapid effort to do massive testing and isolation of positive cases. They have not had to shut down the whole country. Their infection numbers are much lower and their healthcare systems have not been unduly overloaded.
So testing and isolation do work, they just have to be done on a massive scale.
I think it is clear that left to it’s own devices COVID19 would cause a high death toll and because of the way exponential curves work, the majority of cases arrive in the few days before the peak. This alone causes system failure.
Don’t forget, COVID19 is new to the human respiratory tract and thus a much higher % of people with less than ideal immune systems will succumb in some way, possibly fatally.
None of this is pointed out by any of those contributors.
Imagine say 40 million infected in UK. Infection doubles every 2/3 days. So it takes about a week to go from 5 million to 40 million, if only a small % require hospitalisation, that is still a huge number and that is why the systems will fail. 41-15 ReplyMar 29, 2020 2:06 PM
JAM
Spot on! 00 ReplyMar 30, 2020 1:47 AM
Jo Dominich
Rob – the actual stats don’t support some of your assertions I’m afraid. Covid 19 is in fact, the symptoms and disease of SARS Covid-2. CV-19 is not a strong virus or one with a high kill rate – far lower in fact than flu. Most people are asympmtomatic and most people who contract it display minor or mild symptoms only. It is the frail elderly and those with 2 or more underlying long term serious and chronic health conditions that get affected by it. 6-4 ReplyMar 30, 2020 4:37 PM
Adam
Yes the COVID-19 virus doesn’t kill as much as say influenza or other things but that’s not the point. The point is this virus spreads quicker and imagine the strain on the already strained system. Have you ever gone to hospital and it’s quiet? Always wait times in a&e, not enough beds in some wards or enough staff and many, many other problems. The system struggles on a good year, now throw in a new virus. What do you think would happen if we just left it? Didn’t go on lockdown? People who would need help wouldn’t be able to get it, if it was to do with the virus or not which causes a high death rate, maybe not solely from COVID-19 but in effect the virus has on the nhs and all the other hospital systems in the world. 2-1 ReplyMar 31, 2020 1:39 PM
Jo Dominich
Adam, the bed situation in the NHS is because for years now, they have been systematically reducing bed numbers to the extent that we are now second from the bottom in the world for the number of NHS beds per capita population. We have the lowest number of doctors and nurses at the frontline in the whole developed world. In the meantime, the tiers of managers and administrators has grown exponentially to the extent that I think it is now fair to say there are more managers and administrators than beds, doctors and nurses. Editor of the Independent questioned the Orange Buffoon and the Chief of the NHS on this – and neither could refute the evidence – mumbling something like they would put more on the frontline in the next 5-10 years. Remember this, it was only in December that the NHS said they were overburdened to a critical extent because of winter illnesses, they say this every single year – yet they do nothing year on year to make contingency plans for this. Do you think, really think, that the CV-19 is having any greater impact on the NHS than any average year, absolutely not. Do you think that the £40m pounds given my May in December 2018 to ease the so called ‘winter crisis’ went in creating more beds, more doctor more nursing posts? Hell no, it didn’t. Guess what though, it was spent on creating more bean counters, more managers and more administrators. Set CV-19 aside for a moment, week on week, month on month, year on year the NHS always grab the headlines and appear to be perpetually in crisis yet do nothing about it. They never make any managerial or administrative redundancies and Lord knows, at least 60% of them could be axed and wouldn’t be missed. The truth is they don’t know what they do with the £140bn worth of public money they get a year. Don’t forget, the Blair Government allocated hundreds of millions of pounds in the Modernisation Agenda which was allocated to introduce modern treatment and equipment in line with Europe, put more Doctors, consultants, nurses and GPs on the front line and improve early diagnosis and treatment. In addition to which, they also £300m of public money to bring outcomes for stomach, pancreatic and liver cancer in line with Europe, who have a huge success rate compared to us. Five years later, a senior spokesman for the NHS, interviewed on Radio 4 when asked to demonstrate the extra number of patients who were treated and diagnosed early, what new treatment had been adopted from Europe and the world that had proven to be successful and what new and highly effective new equipment had been purchased to achieve the desired outcomes, it became apparent that not a penny of that money had been spent on what it was allocated for. Not one extra patient had been diagnosed and treated, not one piece of new specialist equipment had been purchased, there was no improvement in outcomes and so on and so forth. Where did the money go – just as with the Modernisation Agenda money, it went on giving Consultants massive, and I mean massive, pay rises, technicians such as OTs and Physios were given massive regradings and massive pay rises, tiers and tiers of new managers were created and so on and so forth. So, when you talk about the CV-19 overwhelming the NHS – it is not and will not because every year, every month, every day, they are always bleating on about how treating x, y z or any condition is costing them billions of pounds of public money. Thing is, they don’t have any proper financial accountability systems so they haven’t got a clue where there money is spent, they haven’t even got a clue about how many people they treat for what diseases. Less sympathy please and more facts. CV-19 is just another headline the NHS can grab for an unashamed increase in their funding which will go nowhere other than on themselves and not the patients. I didn’t applaud our so called NHS heroes – the front line medical staff are treated like shit by the Managers and are not respected. I reserve my respect for them and their dedication not for the rest of the NHS. 10 ReplyMar 31, 2020 4:28 PM
GEORGE GALLO
First, I wanna say that it’s cool that we can ‘thumb up or down’ the comments.
I should have stopped reading after reading this- “Below is our list of twelve medical experts whose opinions on the Coronavirus outbreak contradict the official narratives of the MSM, and the memes so prevalent on social media.”
How can you have a counterpoint when you haven’t established a ‘point?’ Define the “official narrative(s) of …… wait, wait, ……. Define who/what is ‘Main Stream Media’ first. For example, if MSM is, media one doesn’t agree with, that’s too arbitrary to have any meaning. And then, what ‘so prevalent memes?’ (I don’t know if you are aware of this, but memes don’t really stand for much of anything.) Then, getting back to “official narratives,” is there really a consensus that no one told me about? Putting this article through the shredder and then filing under ‘Propaganda.’ Your premise is all too vague, along with the responses of the ‘experts.’
Let the thumbing begin. 26-44 ReplyMar 29, 2020 11:10 AM
Benglian
‘I should have stopped reading…’
So you didn’t, presumably?
What did you think of the actual opinions of the quoted medical experts? Did you find them interesting and provocative, and in contrast to the opinions you are hearing on most of the Broadacst TV stations, or broadly in line with those TV opinions? 26-1 ReplyMar 29, 2020 11:31 AM
Rob Dunford
I found the opinions quite misguided and not appraising all the facts known about COVID19. Read my comment here. 6-18 ReplyMar 29, 2020 2:15 PM
lisa
https://www.davidicke.com/article/565901/cough-19-not-virus-rather-5g-ge-electronic-battle-soul-forever-ever 6-3 ReplyMar 29, 2020 10:54 AM
Lisa Beck
I recommend this article by Franz Josef Allmayer (first link in english, second one in spanish). Another perspective not at all in line with what mainstream media is telling us:
https://medium.com/@franzallmayer_96499/we-are-in-the-uncharted-of-a-world-becoming-new-b335b5fc0a92
https://plazapublica.com.gt/content/una-oportunidad-en-el-caos-del-covid19 2-2 ReplyMar 29, 2020 10:39 AM
Is there also a Chinese translation? 00 ReplyMar 31, 2020 12:36 AM
Franklin E. Tompkins
https://youtu.be/KUw1Rzbde5U 00 ReplyMar 29, 2020 10:29 AM
Franklin E. Tompkins
Medical Doctor Explains How a “Virus Is Not The Cause” of Pandemic.
https://youtu.be/KUw1Rzbde5U 00 ReplyMar 29, 2020 10:28 AM
Keith Parkinson
I did cal BS on this a month ago! Still on the money, aren’t I? 14-4 ReplyMar 29, 2020 6:24 AM
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Open Letter from Dr. Sucharit Bhakdi
An Open Letter from Dr. Sucharit Bhakdi, Professor Emeritus of Medical Microbiology at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, to the German Chancellor Dr. Angela Merkel. Professor Bhakdi calls for an urgent reassessment of the response to Covid-19 and asks the Chancellor five crucial questions. The letter is dated March 26. This is an inofficial translation; see the original letter in German as a PDF.
The doctor’s comments in brief:
“This is the incredible tragedy, because all these measures are actually senseless.
“[The government measures] are grotesque, absurd and very dangerous.”
“The life expectancy of millions is being shortened.”
“The horrifying impact on the world economy threatens the existence of countless people. The consequences on medical care are profound. Already services to patients who are in need are reduced, operations cancelled, practices empty, hospital personnel dwindling. All of this will impact profoundly on our whole society. ”
“All these measures are leading to self-destruction and collective suicide over nothing but a spook.”
Open Letter
Dear Chancellor,
As Emeritus of the Johannes-Gutenberg-University in Mainz and longtime director of the Institute for Medical Microbiology, I feel obliged to critically question the far-reaching restrictions on public life that we are currently taking on ourselves in order to reduce the spread of the COVID-19 virus.
It is expressly not my intention to play down the dangers of the virus or to spread a political message. However, I feel it is my duty to make a scientific contribution to putting the current data and facts into perspective – and, in addition, to ask questions that are in danger of being lost in the heated debate.
The reason for my concern lies above all in the truly unforeseeable socio-economic consequences of the drastic containment measures which are currently being applied in large parts of Europe and which are also already being practiced on a large scale in Germany.
My wish is to discuss critically – and with the necessary foresight – the advantages and disadvantages of restricting public life and the resulting long-term effects.
To this end, I am confronted with five questions which have not been answered sufficiently so far, but which are indispensable for a balanced analysis.
I would like to ask you to comment quickly and, at the same time, appeal to the Federal Government to develop strategies that effectively protect risk groups without restricting public life across the board and sow the seeds for an even more intensive polarization of society than is already taking place.
With the utmost respect,
Prof. em. Dr. med. Sucharit Bhakdi
1. Statistics
In infectiology – founded by Robert Koch himself – a traditional distinction is made between infection and disease. An illness requires a clinical manifestation. [1] Therefore, only patients with symptoms such as fever or cough should be included in the statistics as new cases.
In other words, a new infection – as measured by the COVID-19 test – does not necessarily mean that we are dealing with a newly ill patient who needs a hospital bed. However, it is currently assumed that five percent of all infected people become seriously ill and require ventilation. Projections based on this estimate suggest that the healthcare system could be overburdened.
My question: Did the projections make a distinction between symptom-free infected people and actual, sick patients – i.e. people who develop symptoms?
2. Dangerousness
A number of coronaviruses have been circulating for a long time – largely unnoticed by the media. [2] If it should turn out that the COVID-19 virus should not be ascribed a significantly higher risk potential than the already circulating corona viruses, all countermeasures would obviously become unnecessary.
The internationally recognized International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents will soon publish a paper that addresses exactly this question. Preliminary results of the study can already be seen today and lead to the conclusion that the new virus is NOT different from traditional corona viruses in terms of dangerousness. The authors express this in the title of their paper „SARS-CoV-2: Fear versus Data“. [3]
My question: How does the current workload of intensive care units with patients with diagnosed COVID-19 compare to other coronavirus infections, and to what extent will this data be taken into account in further decision-making by the federal government? In addition: Has the above study been taken into account in the planning so far? Here too, of course, „diagnosed“ means that the virus plays a decisive role in the patient’s state of illness, and not that previous illnesses play a greater role.
3. Dissemination
According to a report in the Süddeutsche Zeitung, not even the much-cited Robert Koch Institute knows exactly how much is tested for COVID-19. It is a fact, however, that a rapid increase in the number of cases has recently been observed in Germany as the volume of tests increases. [4]
It is therefore reasonable to suspect that the virus has already spread unnoticed in the healthy population. This would have two consequences: firstly, it would mean that the official death rate – on 26 March 2020, for example, there were 206 deaths from around 37,300 infections, or 0.55 percent [5] – is too high; and secondly, it would mean that it would hardly be possible to prevent the virus from spreading in the healthy population.
My question: Has there already been a random sample of the healthy general population to validate the real spread of the virus, or is this planned in the near future?
4. Mortality
The fear of a rise in the death rate in Germany (currently 0.55 percent) is currently the subject of particularly intense media attention. Many people are worried that it could shoot up like in Italy (10 percent) and Spain (7 percent) if action is not taken in time.
At the same time, the mistake is being made worldwide to report virus-related deaths as soon as it is established that the virus was present at the time of death – regardless of other factors. This violates a basic principle of infectiology: only when it is certain that an agent has played a significant role in the disease or death may a diagnosis be made. The Association of the Scientific Medical Societies of Germany expressly writes in its guidelines: „In addition to the cause of death, a causal chain must be stated, with the corresponding underlying disease in third place on the death certificate. Occasionally, four-linked causal chains must also be stated.“ [6]
At present there is no official information on whether, at least in retrospect, more critical analyses of medical records have been undertaken to determine how many deaths were actually caused by the virus.
My question: Has Germany simply followed this trend of a COVID-19 general suspicion? And: is it intended to continue this categorisation uncritically as in other countries? How, then, is a distinction to be made between genuine corona-related deaths and accidental virus presence at the time of death?
5. Comparability
The appalling situation in Italy is repeatedly used as a reference scenario. However, the true role of the virus in that country is completely unclear for many reasons – not only because points 3 and 4 above also apply here, but also because exceptional external factors exist which make these regions particularly vulnerable.
One of these factors is the increased air pollution in the north of Italy. According to WHO estimates, this situation, even without the virus, led to over 8,000 additional deaths per year in 2006 in the 13 largest cities in Italy alone. [7] The situation has not changed significantly since then. [8] Finally, it has also been shown that air pollution greatly increases the risk of viral lung diseases in very young and elderly people. [9]
Moreover, 27.4 percent of the particularly vulnerable population in this country live with young people, and in Spain as many as 33.5 percent. In Germany, the figure is only seven percent [10]. In addition, according to Prof. Dr. Reinhard Busse, head of the Department of Management in Health Care at the TU Berlin, Germany is significantly better equipped than Italy in terms of intensive care units – by a factor of about 2.5 [11].
My question: What efforts are being made to make the population aware of these elementary differences and to make people understand that scenarios like those in Italy or Spain are not realistic here?
References:
[1] Fachwörterbuch Infektionsschutz und Infektionsepidemiologie. Fachwörter – Definitionen – Interpretationen. Robert Koch-Institut, Berlin 2015. (abgerufen am 26.3.2020)
[2] Killerby et al., Human Coronavirus Circulation in the United States 2014–2017. J Clin Virol. 2018, 101, 52-56
[3] Roussel et al. SARS-CoV-2: Fear Versus Data. Int. J. Antimicrob. Agents 2020, 105947
[4] Charisius, H. Covid-19: Wie gut testet Deutschland? Süddeutsche Zeitung. (abgerufen am 27.3.2020)
[5] Johns Hopkins University, Coronavirus Resource Center. 2020. (abgerufen am 26.3.2020)
[6] S1-Leitlinie 054-001, Regeln zur Durchführung der ärztlichen Leichenschau. AWMF Online (abgerufen am 26.3.2020)
[7] Martuzzi et al. Health Impact of PM10 and Ozone in 13 Italian Cities. World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe. WHOLIS number E88700 2006
[8] European Environment Agency, Air Pollution Country Fact Sheets 2019, (abgerufen am 26.3.2020)
[9] Croft et al. The Association between Respiratory Infection and Air Pollution in the Setting of Air Quality Policy and Economic Change. Ann. Am. Thorac. Soc. 2019, 16, 321–330.
[10] United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division. Living Arrangements of Older Persons: A Report on an Expanded International Dataset (ST/ESA/SER.A/407). 2017
[11] Deutsches Ärzteblatt, Überlastung deutscher Krankenhäuser durch COVID-19 laut Experten unwahrscheinlich, (abgerufen am 26.3.2020)
Translation generously provided by SPR
A Swiss medical doctor on Covid-19
Published: March 14, 2020; Updated: March 31, 2020
Languages: DE, EN, FR, ES, HU, IT, NL, NO, PL, RU
A Swiss medical doctor provided the following information on the current situation in order to enable our readers to make a realistic risk assessment. (Daily updates below)
According to the latest data of the Italian National Health Institute ISS, the average age of the positively-tested deceased in Italy is currently about 81 years. 10% of the deceased are over 90 years old. 90% of the deceased are over 70 years old.
80% of the deceased had suffered from two or more chronic diseases. 50% of the deceased had suffered from three or more chronic diseases. The chronic diseases include in particular cardiovascular problems, diabetes, respiratory problems and cancer.
Less than 1% of the deceased were healthy persons, i.e. persons without pre-existing chronic diseases. Only about 30% of the deceased are women.
The Italian Institute of Health moreover distinguishes between those who died from the coronavirus and those who died with the coronavirus. In many cases it is not yet clear whether the persons died from the virus or from their pre-existing chronic diseases or from a combination of both.
The two Italians deceased under 40 years of age (both 39 years old) were a cancer patient and a diabetes patient with additional complications. In these cases, too, the exact cause of death was not yet clear (i.e. if from the virus or from their pre-existing diseases).
The partial overloading of the hospitals is due to the general rush of patients and the increased number of patients requiring special or intensive care. In particular, the aim is to stabilize respiratory function and, in severe cases, to provide anti-viral therapies.
(Update: The Italian National Institute of Health published a statistical report on test-positive patients and deceased, confirming the above data.)
The doctor also points out the following aspects:
Northern Italy has one of the oldest populations and the worst air quality in Europe, which had already led to an increased number of respiratory diseases and deaths in the past and is likely an additional risk factor in the current epidemic.
South Korea, for instance, has experienced a much milder course than Italy and has already passed the peak of the epidemic. In South Korea, only about 70 deaths with a positive test result have been reported so far. As in Italy, those affected were mostly high-risk patients.
The few dozen test-positive Swiss deaths so far were also high-risk patients with chronic diseases, an average age of more than 80 years and a maximum age of 97 years, whose exact cause of death, i.e. from the virus or from their pre-existing diseases, is not yet known.
Furthermore, studies have shown that the internationally used virus test kits may give a false positive result in some cases. In these cases, the persons may not have contracted the new coronavirus, but presumably one of the many existing human coronaviruses that are part of the annual (and currently ongoing) common cold and flu epidemics. (1)
Thus the most important indicator for judging the danger of the disease is not the frequently reported number of positively-tested persons and deaths, but the number of persons actually and unexpectedly developing or dying from pneumonia (so-called excess mortality).
According to all current data, for the healthy general population of school and working age, a mild to moderate course of the Covid-19 disease can be expected. Senior citizens and persons with existing chronic diseases should be protected. The medical capacities should be optimally prepared.
Medical literature
(1) Patrick et al., An Outbreak of Human Coronavirus OC43 Infection and Serological Cross-reactivity with SARS Coronavirus, CJIDMM, 2006.
(2) Grasselli et al., Critical Care Utilization for the COVID-19 Outbreak in Lombardy, JAMA, March 2020.
(3) WHO, Report of the WHO-China Joint Mission on Coronavirus Disease 2019, February 2020.
Reference values
Important reference values include the number of annual flu deaths, which is up to 8,000 in Italy and up to 60,000 in the US; normal overall mortality, which in Italy is up to 2,000 deaths per day; and the average number of pneumonia cases per year, which in Italy is over 120,000.
Current all-cause mortality in Europe and in Italy is still normal or even below-average. Any excess mortality due to Covid-19 should become visible in the European monitoring charts.
Updates
Regular updates on the situation (all sources referenced).
March 17, 2020 (I)
- The mortality profile remains puzzling from a virological point of view because, in contrast to influenza viruses, children are spared and men are affected about twice as often as women. On the other hand, this profile corresponds to natural mortality, which is close to zero for children and almost twice as high for 75-year-old men as for women of the same age.
- The younger test-positive deceased almost always had severe pre-existing conditions. For example, a 21-year-old Spanish soccer coach had died test-positive, making international headlines. However, the doctors diagnosed an unrecognized leukemia, whose typical complications include severe pneumonia.
- The decisive factor in assessing the danger of the disease is therefore not the number of test-positive persons and deceased, which is often mentioned in the media, but the number of people actually and unexpectedly developing or dying from pneumonia (so-called excess mortality). So far, this value remains very low in most countries.
- In Switzerland, some emergency units are already overloaded simply because of the large number of people who want to be tested. This points to an additional psychological and logistical component of the current situation.
March 17, 2020 (II)
- Italian immunology professor Sergio Romagnani from the University of Florence comes to the conclusion in a study on 3000 people that 50 to 75% of the test-positive people of all ages remain completely symptom-free – significantly more than previously assumed.
- The occupancy rate of the North Italian ICUs in the winter months is typically already 85 to 90%. Some or many of these existing patients could also be test-positive by now. However, the number of additional unexpected pneumonia cases is not yet known.
- A hospital doctor in the Spanish city of Malaga writes on Twitter that people are currently more likely to die from panic and systemic collapse than from the virus. The hospital is being overrun by people with colds, flu and possibly Covid19 and doctors have lost control.
March 18, 2020
- A new epidemiological study (preprint) concludes that the fatality of Covid19 even in the Chinese city of Wuhan was only 0.04% to 0.12% and thus rather lower than that of seasonal flu, which has a mortality rate of about 0.1%. As a reason for the overestimated fatality of Covid19, the researchers suspect that initially only a small number of cases were recorded in Wuhan, as the disease was probably asymptomatic or mild in many people.
- Chinese researchers argue that extreme winter smog in the city of Wuhan may have played a causal role in the outbreak of pneumonia. In the summer of 2019, public protests were already taking place in Wuhan because of the poor air quality.
- New satellite images show how Northern Italy has the highest levels of air pollution in Europe, and how this air pollution has been greatly reduced by the quarantine.
- A manufacturer of the Covid19 test kit states that it should only be used for research purposes and not for diagnostic applications, as it has not yet been clinically validated.
March 19, 2020 (I)
The Italian National Health Institute ISS has published a new report on test-positive deaths:
- The median age is 80.5 years (79.5 for men, 83.7 for women).
- 10% of the deceased was over 90 years old; 90% of the deceased was over 70 years old.
- At most 0.8% of the deceased had no pre-existing chronic illnesses.
- Approximately 75% of the deceased had two or more pre-existing conditions, 50% had three more pre-existing conditions, in particular heart disease, diabetes and cancer.
- Five of the deceased were between 31 and 39 years old, all of them with serious pre-existing health conditions (e.g. cancer or heart disease).
- The National Health Institute hasn’t yet determined what the patients examined ultimately died of and refers to them in general terms as Covid19-positive deaths.
March 19, 2020 (II)
- A report in the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera points out that Italian intensive care units already collapsed under the marked flu wave in 2017/2018. They had to postpone operations, call nurses back from holiday and ran out of blood donations.
- German virologist Hendrik Streeck argues that Covid19 is unlikely to increase total mortality in Germany, which normally is around 2500 people per day. Streeck mentions the case of a 78-year-old man with preconditions who died of heart failure, subsequently tested positive for Covid19 and thus was included in the statistics of Covid19 deaths.
- According to Stanford Professor John Ioannidis, the new coronavirus may be no more dangerous than some of the common coronaviruses, even in older people. Ioannidis argues that there is no reliable medical data backing the measures currently decided upon.
March 20, 2020
- According to the latest European monitoring report, overall mortality in all countries (including Italy) and in all age groups remains within or even below the normal range so far.
- According to the latest German statistics, the median age of test-positive deaths is about 83 years, most with pre-existing health conditions that might be a possible cause of death.
- A 2006 Canadian study referred to by Stanford Professor John Ioannidis found that common cold coronaviruses may also cause death rates of up to 6% in risk groups such as residents of a care facility, and that virus test kits initially falsely indicated an infection with SARS coronaviruses.
March 21, 2020 (I)
- Spain reports only three test-positive deaths under the age of 65 (out of a total of about 1000). Their pre-existing health conditions and actual cause of death are not yet known.
- On March 20, Italy reported 627 nationwide test-positive deaths in one day. By comparison, normal overall mortality in Italy is about 1800 deaths per day. Since February 21, Italy has reported about 4000 test-positive deaths. Normal overall mortality during this time frame is up to 50,000 deaths. It is not yet known to what extent normal overall mortality has increased, or to what extent it has simply turned test-positive. Moreover, Italy and Europe have had a very mild flu season in 2019/2020 that has spared many otherwise vulnerable people.
- According to Italian news reports, 90% of test-positive deceased in the Lombardy region have died outside of intensive care units, mostly at home or in general care sections. Their cause of death and the possible role of quarantine measures in their deaths remain unclear. Only 260 out of 2168 test-positive persons have died in ICUs.
- Bloomberg highlights that „99% of Those Who Died From Virus Had Other Illness, Italy Says“
March 21, 2020 (II)
- The Japan Times asks: Japan was expecting a coronavirus explosion. Where is it? Despite being one of the first countries getting positive test results and having imposed no lockdown, Japan is one of the least-affected nations. Quote: „Even if Japan may not be counting all those infected, hospitals aren’t being stretched thin and there has been no spike in pneumonia cases.“
- Italian researchers argue that the extreme smog in Northern Italy, the worst in Europe, may be playing a causative role in the current pneumonia outbreak there, as in Wuhan before.
- In a new interview, Professor Sucharit Bhakdi, a world renowned expert in medical microbiology, says blaming the new coronavirus alone for deaths is „wrong“ and „dangerously misleading“, as there are other more important factors at play, notably pre-existing health conditions and poor air quality in Chinese and Northern Italian cities. Professor Bhakdi describes the currently discussed or imposed measures as „grotesque“, „useless“, „self-destructive“ and a „collective suicide“ that will shorten the lifespan of the elderly and should not be accepted by society.
March 22, 2020 (I)
Regarding the situation in Italy: Most major media falsely report that Italy has up to 800 deaths per day from the coronavirus. In reality, the president of the Italian Civil Protection Service stresses that these are deaths „with the coronavirus and not from the coronavirus“ (minute 03:30 of the press conference). In other words, these persons died while also testing positive.
As Professors Ioannidis and Bhakdi have shown, countries like South Korea and Japan that introduced no lockdown measures have experienced near-zero excess mortality in connection with Covid-19, while the Diamond Princess cruise ship experienced an extrapolated mortality figure in the per mille range, i.e. at or below the level of the seasonal flu.
Current test-positive death figures in Italy are still less than 50% of normal daily overall mortality in Italy, which is around 1800 deaths per day. Thus it is possible, perhaps even likely, that a large part of normal daily mortality now simply counts as „Covid19“ deaths (as they test positive). This is the point stressed by the President of the Italian Civil Protection Service.
However, by now it is clear that certain regions in Northern Italy, i.e. those facing the toughest lockdown measures, are experiencing markedly increased daily mortality figures. It is also known that in the Lombardy region, 90% of test-positive deaths occur not in intensive care units, but instead mostly at home. And more than 99% have serious pre-existing health conditions.
Professor Sucharit Bhakdi has called lockdown measures „useless“, „self-destructive“ and a „collective suicide“. Thus the extremely troubling question arises as to what extent the increased mortality of these elderly, isolated, highly stressed people with multiple pre-existing health conditions may in fact be caused by the weeks-long lockdown measures still in force.
If so, it may be one of those cases where the treatment is worse than the disease. (See update below: only 12% of death certificates show the coronavirus as a cause.)
March 22, 2020 (II)
- In Switzerland, there are currently 56 test-positive deaths, all of whom were „high risk patients“ due to their advanced age and/or pre-existing health conditions. Their actual cause of death, i.e. from or simply with the virus, has not been communicated.
- The Swiss government claimed that the situation in southern Switzerland (next to Italy) is „dramatic“, yet local doctors denied this and said everything is normal.
- According to press reports, oxygen bottles may become scarce. The reason, however, is not a currently higher usage, but rather hoarding due to fear of future shortages.
- In many countries, there is already an increasing shortage of doctors and nurses. This is primarily because healthcare workers testing positive have to self-quarantine, even though in many cases they will remain fully or largely symptom-free.
March 22, 2020 (III)
- A model from Imperial College London predicted between 250,000 and 500,000 deaths in the UK „from“ Covid-19, but the authors of the study have now conceded that many of these deaths would not be in addition to, but rather part of the normal annual mortality rate, which in the UK is about 600,000 people per year. In other words, excess mortality would remain low.
- Dr. David Katz, founding director of the Yale University Prevention Research Center, asks in the New York Times: „Is Our Fight Against Coronavirus Worse Than the Disease? There may be more targeted ways to beat the pandemic.“
- According to Italian Professor Walter Ricciardi, „only 12% of death certificates have shown a direct causality from coronavirus“, whereas in public reports „all the people who die in hospitals with the coronavirus are deemed to be dying of the coronavirus“. This means that Italian death figures reported by the media have to be reduced by at least a factor of 8 to obtain actual deaths caused by the virus. Thus one ends up with at most a few dozen deaths per day, compared to an overall daily mortality of 1800 deaths and up to 20,000 flu deaths per year.
March 23, 2020 (I)
- A new French study in the Journal of Antimicrobial Agents, titled SARS-CoV-2: fear versus data, concludes that „the problem of SARS-CoV-2 is probably overestimated“, since „the mortality rate for SARS-CoV-2 is not significantly different from that for common coronaviruses identified at the study hospital in France“.
- An Italian study of August 2019 found that flu deaths in Italy were between 7,000 and 25,000 in recent years. This value is higher than in most other European countries due to the large elderly population in Italy, and much higher than anything attributed to Covid-19 so far.
- In a new fact sheet, the World Health Organization WHO reports that Covid-19 is in fact spreading slower, not faster, than influenza by a factor of about 50%. Moreover, pre-symptomatic transmission appears to be much lower with Covid-19 than with influenza.
- A leading Italian doctor reports that „strange cases of pneumonia“ were seen in the Lombardy region already in November 2019, raising again the question if they were caused by the new virus (which officially only appeared in Italy in February 2020), or by other factors, such as the dangerously high smog levels in Northern Italy.
- Danish researcher Peter Gøtzsche, founder of the renowned Cochrane Medical Collaboration, writes that Corona is „an epidemic of mass panic“ and „logic was one of the first victims.“
March 23, 2020 (II)
- Former Israeli Health Minister, Professor Yoram Lass, says that the new coronavirus is „less dangerous than the flu“ and lockdown measures „will kill more people than the virus“. He adds that „the numbers do not match the panic“ and „psychology is prevailing over science“. He also notes that „Italy is known for its enormous morbidity in respiratory problems, more than three times any other European country.“
- Pietro Vernazza, a Swiss infectious disease specialist, argues that many of the imposed measures are not based on science and should be reversed. According to Vernazza, mass testing makes no sense because 90% of the population will see no symptoms, and lockdowns and closing schools are even „counterproductive“. He recommends protecting only risk groups while keeping the economy and society at large undisturbed.
- The President of the World Doctors Federation, Frank Ulrich Montgomery, argues that lockdown measures as in Italy are „unreasonable“ and „counterproductive“ and should be reversed.
- In Switzerland, despite media panic, excess mortality is still at or near zero: the latest test-positive „victims“ were a 96-year-old in palliative care and a 97-year-old with pre-existing conditions.
- The latest statistical report of the Italian National Health Institute is now available in English.
March 24, 2020
- The UK has removed Covid19 from the official list of High Consquence Infectious Diseases (HCID), stating that mortality rates are „low overall“.
- The director of the German National Health Institute (RKI) admitted that they count all test-positive deaths, irrespective of the actual cause of death, as „coronavirus deaths“. The average age of the deceased is 82 years, most with serious preconditions. As in most other countries, excess mortality due Covid19 is likely to be near zero in Germany.
- Beds in Swiss intensive care units reserved for Covid19 patients are still „mostly empty“.
- German Professor Karin Moelling, former Chair of Medical Virology at the University of Zurich, stated in an interview that Covid19 is „no killer virus“ and that „panic must end“.
March 25, 2020
- German immunologist and toxicologist, Professor Stefan Hockertz, explains in a radio interview that Covid19 is no more dangerous than influenza (the flu), but that it is simply observed much more closely. More dangerous than the virus is the fear and panic created by the media and the „authoritarian reaction“ of many governments. Professor Hockertz also notes that most so-called „corona deaths“ have in fact died of other causes while also testing positive for coronaviruses. Hockertz believes that up to ten times more people than reported already had Covid19 but noticed nothing or very little.
- The Argentinean virologist and biochemist Pablo Goldschmidt explains that Covid19 is no more dangerous than a bad cold or the flu. It is even possible that the Covid19 virus circulated already in earlier years, but wasn’t discovered because no one was looking for it. Dr. Goldschmidt speaks of a „global terror“ created by the media and politics. Every year, he says, three million newborns worldwide and 50,000 adults in the US alone die of pneumonia.
- Professor Martin Exner, head of the Institute for Hygiene at the University of Bonn, explains in an interview why health personnel are currently under pressure, even though there has hardly been any increase in the number of patients in Germany so far: On the one hand, doctors and nurses who have tested positive have to be quarantined and are often hard to replace. On the other hand, nurses from neighbouring countries, who provide an important part of the care, are currently unable to enter the country due to closed borders.
- Professor Julian Nida-Ruemelin, former German Minister of State for Culture and Professor of Ethics, points out that Covid19 poses no risk to the healthy general population and that extreme measures such as curfews are therefore not justified.
- Using data from the cruise ship Diamond Princess, Stanford Professor John Ioannidis showed that the age-corrected lethality of Covid19 is between 0.025% and 0.625%, i.e. in the range of a strong cold or the flu. Moreover, a Japanese study showed that of all the test-positive passengers, and despite the high average age, 48% remained completely symptom-free; even among the 80-89 year olds 48% remained symptom-free, while among the 70 to 79 year olds it was an astounding 60% that developed no symptoms at all. This again raises the question whether the pre-existing diseases are not perhaps a more important factor than the virus itself. The Italian example has shown that 99% of test-positive deaths had one or more pre-existing conditions, and even among these, only 12% of the death certificates mentioned Covid19 as a causal factor.
March 26, 2020 (I)
- USA: The latest US data of March 25 shows a decreasing number of flu-like illnesses throughout the country, the frequency of which is now well below the multi-year average. The government measures can be ruled out as a reason for this, as they have been in effect for less than a week.
USA: Decreasing flu-like illnesses (March 25, 2020, KINSA)
- Germany: The latest influenza report of the German Robert Koch Institute of March 24 documents a „nationwide decrease in activity of acute respiratory diseases“: The number of influenza-like illnesses and the number of hospital stays caused by them is below the level of previous years and is currently continuing to decline. The RKI continues: „The increase in the number of visits to the doctor cannot currently be explained either by influenza viruses circulating in the population or by SARS-CoV-2.“
Germany: Decreasing flu-like illnesses (20 March 2020, RKI)
- Italy: The renowned Italian virologist Giulio Tarro argues that the mortality rate of Covid19 is below 1% even in Italy and is therefore comparable to influenza. The higher values only arise because no distinction is made between deaths with and by Covid19 and because the number of (symptom-free) infected persons is greatly underestimated.
- UK: The authors of the British Imperial College study, who predicted up to 500,000 deaths, are again reducing their forecasts. After already admitting that a large proportion of test-positive deaths are part of normal mortality, they now state that the peak of the disease may be reached in two to three weeks already.
- UK: The British Guardian reported in February 2019 that even in the generally weak flu season 2018/2019 there were more than 2180 flu-related admissions to intensive care units in the UK.
- Switzerland: In Switzerland, the excess mortality due to Covid19 is apparently still zero. The latest „fatal victim“ presented by the media is a 100-year-old woman. Nevertheless, the Swiss government continues to tighten restrictive measures.
March 26, 2020 (II)
- Sweden: Sweden has so far pursued the most liberal strategy in dealing with Covid19, which is based on two principles: Risk groups are protected and people with flu symptoms stay at home. „If you follow these two rules, there is no need for further measures, the effect of which is only marginal anyway,“ said chief epidemiologist Anders Tegnell. Social and economic life will continue normally. The big rush to hospitals has so far failed to materialize, Tegnell said.
- German criminal and constitutional law expert Dr. Jessica Hamed argues that measures such as general curfews and contact bans are a massive and disproportionate encroachment on fundamental rights of freedom and are therefore presumably „all illegal“.
- The latest European monitoring report on overall mortality continues to show normal or below-average values in all countries and all age groups, but now with one exception: in the 65+ age group in Italy a currently increased overall mortality is predicted (so-called delay-adjusted z-score), which is, however, still below the values of the influenza waves of 2017 and 2018.
March 27, 2020 (I)
Italy: According to the latest data published by the Italian Ministry of Health, overall mortality is now significantly higher in all age groups over 65 years of age, after having been below average due to the mild winter. Until March 14, overall mortality was still below the flu season of 2016/2017, but may have already exceeded it in the meantime. Most of this excess mortality currently comes from northern Italy. However, the exact role of Covid19, compared to other factors such as panic, healthcare collapse and the lockdown itself, is not yet clear.
France: According to the latest data from France, overall mortality at the national level remains within the normal range after a mild influenza season. However, in some regions, particularly in the north-east of France, overall mortality in the over-65 age group has already risen sharply in connection with Covid19 (see figure below).
France also provides detailed information on the age distribution and pre-existing conditions of test-positive intensive care patients and deceased patients (see figure below):
- The average age of the deceased is 81.2 years.
- 78% of the deceased were over 75 years old; 93% were over 65 years old.
- 2.4% of the deceased were under 65 years of age and had no (known) previous illness
- The average age of intensive care patients is 65 years.
- 26% of intensive care patients are over 75 years old; 67% have previous illnesses.
- 17% of intensive care patients are under 65 years of age and have no previous illnesses.
The French authorities add that „the share of the (Covid-19) epidemic in overall mortality remains to be determined.“
USA: Researcher Stephen McIntyre has evaluated the official data on deaths from pneumonia in the US. There are usually between 3000 and 5500 deaths per week and thus significantly more than the current figures for Covid19. The total number of deaths in the US is between 50,000 and 60,000 per week. (Note: In the graph below, the latest figures for March 2020 have not yet been fully updated, so the curve is slumping).
Great Britain:
- Neil Ferguson of Imperial College London now assumes that the UK has sufficient capacity in intensive care units to treat Covid19 patients.
- John Lee, Professor Emeritus of Pathology, argues that the particular way in which Covid-19 cases are registered leads to an overestimation of the risk posed by Covid19 compared to normal flu and cold cases.
Other topics:
- A preliminary study by researchers at Stanford University showed that 20 to 25% of Covid19-positive patients tested additionally positive for other influenza or cold viruses.
- The number of applications for unemployment insurance in the US skyrocketed to a record of over three million. In this context, a sharp increase in suicides is also expected.
- The first test-positive patient in Germany has now recovered. According to his own statement, the 33-year-old man had experienced the illness „not as bad as the flu“.
- Spanish media report that the antibody rapid tests for Covid19 only have a sensitivity of 30%, although it should be at least 80%.
- A study from China in 2003 concluded that the probability of dying from SARS is 84% higher in people exposed to moderate air pollution than in patients from regions with clean air. The risk is even 200% higher among people from areas with heavily polluted air.
- The German Network for Evidence-Based Medicine (EbM) criticises the media reporting on Covid19: „The media coverage does not in any way take into account the criteria of evidence-based risk communication that we have demanded. () The presentation of raw data without reference to other causes of death leads to an overestimation of the risk“.
March 27, 2020 (II)
- German researcher Dr. Richard Capek argues in a quantitative analysis that the „Corona epidemic“ is in fact an „epidemic of tests“. Capek shows that while the number of tests has increased exponentially, the proportion of infections has remained stable and mortality has decreased, which speaks against an exponential spread of the virus itself (see below).
- German Virology professor Dr. Carsten Scheller from the University of Würzburg explains in a podcast that Covid19 is definitely comparable with influenza and has so far even led to fewer deaths. Professor Scheller suspects that the exponential curves often presented in the media have more to do with the increasing number of tests than with an unusual spread of the virus itself. For countries like Germany, Italy is less of a role model than Japan and South Korea. Despite millions of Chinese tourists and only minimal social restrictions, these countries have not yet experienced a Covid19 crisis. One reason for this could be the wearing of mouth masks: This would hardly protect against infection, but would limit the spread of the virus by infected people.
- The latest figures from Bergamo (city) show that total mortality in March 2020 increased from typically 150 people per month to around 450 people. It is still unclear what proportion of this was due to Covid19 and what proportion was due to other factors such as mass panic, systemic collapse and the lockdown itself. Apparently the city hospital was overrun by people from the whole region and collapsed.
- The two Stanford professors of medicine, Dr. Eran Bendavid and Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, explain in an article that the lethality of Covid19 is overestimated by several orders of magnitude and is probably even in Italy only at 0.01% to 0.06% and thus below that of influenza. The reason for this overestimation is the greatly underestimated number of people already infected (without symptoms). As an example, the fully tested Italian community of Vo is mentioned, which showed 50 to 75% symptom-free test-positive persons.
- Dr. Gerald Gaß, President of the German Hospital Association, explained in an interview with the Handelsblatt that „the extreme situation in Italy is mainly due to the very low intensive care capacities“.
- Dr. Wolfgang Wodarg, one of the early and vocal critics of a „Covid19 panic“, was provisionally excluded by the board of Transparency Internantional Germany, where he headed the health working group. Wodarg had already been severely attacked by the media for his criticism.
- NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden warns that governments are using the current situation to expand the surveillance state and restrict fundamental rights. The control measures currently put in place would not be dismantled after the crisis.
The increasing number of tests is finding a proportional number of infections, the ratio stays constant, speaking against an ongoing viral epidemic (Dr. Richard Capek, US data)
March 28, 2020
- A new study by the University of Oxford concludes that Covid19 may already have existed in the UK since January 2020 and that half of the population may already be immunised, with most people experiencing no or only mild symptoms. This would mean that only one in a thousand people would need to be hospitalised for Covid19. (Study)
- British media reported on a 21 year old woman „who died of Covid19 without any previous illnesses“. However, it has since become known that the woman did not test positive for Covid19 and died of a heart failure. The Covid19 rumor had arisen „because she had a slight cough“.
- The German media scientist Professor Otfried Jarren criticized that many media provide uncritical journalism that emphasizes threats and executive power. According to Professor Jarren, there is hardly any differentiation and real debate between experts.
March 29, 2020
- Dr Sucharit Bhakdi, Professor Emeritus of Medical Microbiology in Mainz, Germany, wrote an Open Letter to German Chancellor Dr Angela Merkel, calling for an urgent reassessment of the response to Covid19 and asking the Chancellor five crucial questions.
- The latest data from the German Robert Koch Institute show that the increase in test-positive persons is proportional to the increase in the number of tests, i.e. in percentage terms it remains roughly the same. This may indicate that the increase in the number of cases is mainly due to an increase in the number of tests, and not due to an ongoing epidemic.
- The Milan microbiologist Maria Rita Gismondo calls on the Italian government to stop communicating the daily number of „corona positives“ as these figures are „fake“ and put the population in unnecessary panic. The number of test-positives depends very much on the type and number of tests and says nothing about the state of health.
- Dr. John Ioannidis, Stanford Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology, gave an in-depth one-hour interview on the lack of data for Covid19 measures.
- The Argentinean virologist Pablo Goldschmidt, who lives in France, considers the political reaction to Covid19 as „completely exaggerated“ and warns against „totalitarian measures“. In parts of France, the movement of people is already monitored by drones.
- Italian author Fulvio Grimaldi, born in 1934, explains that the state measures currently implemented in Italy are „worse than under fascism“. Parliament and society have been completely disempowered.
March 30, 2020 (I)
- In Germany, some clinics can no longer accept patients – not because there are too many patients or too few beds, but because the nursing staff have tested positive, although in most cases they hardly show any symptoms. This case illustrates again how and why health care systems are getting paralysed.
- In a German retirement and nursing home for people with advanced dementia, 15 test-positive people have died. However, „surprisingly many people have died without showing symptoms of corona.“ A German medical specialist informs us: „From my medical point of view, there is some evidence that some of these people may have died as a result of the measures taken. People with dementia get into high stress when major changes are made to their everyday lives: isolation, no physical contact, possibly hooded staff.“ Nevertheless, the deceased are counted as „corona deaths“ in German and international statistics. In connection with the „corona crisis“, it is now also possible to die of an illness without even having its symptoms.
- According to a Swiss pharmacologist, the Swiss Inselspital in Bern has forced staff to take leave, stopped therapies and postponed operations due to the fear of Covid19.
- Professor Gérard Krause, head of the Department of Epidemiology at the German Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research, warns on German public television ZDF that the anti-corona measures „could lead to more deaths than the virus itself„.
- Various media reported that more than 50 doctors in Italy have already died „during the corona crisis“, like soldiers in a battle. A glance at the corresponding list, however, shows that most of the deceased are retired doctors of various kinds, including 90-year-old psychiatrists and pediatricians, many of whom may have died of natural causes.
- An extensive survey in Iceland found that 50% of all test-positive persons showed „no symptoms“ at all, while the other 50% mostly showed „very moderate cold-like symptoms“. According to the Icelandic data, the mortality rate of Covid19 is in the per mille range, i.e. in the flu range or below. Of the two test-positive deaths, one was „a tourist with unusual symptoms“. (More Icelandic data)
- The British Daily Mail journalist Peter Hitchens writes, „There’s powerful evidence this great panic is foolish. Yet our freedom is still broken and our economy crippled.“ Hitchens points out that in parts of the UK, police drones monitor and report „non-essential“ walks in nature. In some cases, police drones are calling on people via loudspeaker to go home in order to „save lives“. (Note: Not even George Orwell had thought that far ahead.)
- The Italian secret service warns of social unrest and uprisings. Supermarkets are already being looted and pharmacies raided.
- Professor Sucharit Bhakdi has meanwhile published a video (German/English) in which he explains his Open Letter to German Chancellor Dr. Angela Merkel.
March 30, 2020 (II)
In several countries, there is increasing evidence in relation to Covid19 that „the treatment could be worse than the disease“.
On the one hand, there is the risk of so-called nosocomial infections, i.e. infections that the patient, who may only be mildly ill, acquires in hospital. It is estimated that there are approximately 2.5 million nosocomial infections and 50,000 deaths per year in Europe. Even in German intensive care units, about 15% of patients acquire a nosocomial infection, including pneumonia on artificial respiration. There is also the problem of increasingly antibiotic-resistant germs in hospitals.
Another aspect is the certainly well-intentioned but sometimes very aggressive treatment methods that are increasingly used in Covid19 patients. These include, in particular, the administration of steroids, antibiotics and anti-viral drugs (or a combination thereof). Already in the treatment of SARS-1 patients, it has been shown that the outcome with such treatment was often worse and more fatal than without such treatment.
March 31, 2020 (I)
Dr. Richard Capek and other researchers have already shown that the number of test-positive individuals in relation to the number of tests performed remains constant in all countries studied so far, which speaks against an exponential spread („epidemic“) of the virus and merely indicates an exponential increase in the number of tests.
Depending on the country, the proportion of test-positive individuals is between 5 and 15%, which corresponds to the usual spread of corona viruses. Interestingly, these constant numerical values are not actively communicated (or even removed) by authorities and the media. Instead, exponential but irrelevant and misleading curves are shown without context.
Such behavior, of course, does not correspond to professional medical standards, as a look at the traditional influenza report of the German Robert Koch Institute makes clear (p. 30, see chart below). Here, in addition to the number of detections (right), the number of samples (left, grey bars) and the positive rate (left, blue curve) are shown.
This immediately shows that during a flu season the positive rate rises from 0 to 10% to up to 80% of the samples and drops back to the normal value after a few weeks. In comparison, Covid19 tests show a constant positive rate in the normal range (see below).
Constant Covid19-positive rate using US data (Dr. Richard Capek). This applies analogously to all other countries for which data on the number of samples is currently available.
March 31, 2020 (II)
- A graphical analysis of the European monitoring data impressively shows that, irrespective of the measures taken, overall mortality throughout Europe remained in the normal range or below by March 25, and often significantly below the levels of previous years. Only in Italy (65+) was the overall mortality rate somewhat increased (probably for several reasons), but it was still below previous flu seasons.
- The president of the German Robert Koch Institute confirmed again that pre-existing conditions and actual cause of death do not play a role in the definition of so-called „corona deaths“. From a medical point of view, such a definition is clearly misleading. It has the obvious and generally known effect of putting politics and society in fear.
- In Italy the situation is now beginning to calm down. As far as is known, the temporarily increased mortality rates (65+) were rather local effects, often accompanied by mass panic and a breakdown in health care. A politician from northern Italy asks, for example, „how is it possible that Covid patients from Brescia are transported to Germany, while in the nearby Verona two thirds of intensive care beds are empty?“
- In an article published in the European Journal of Clinical Investigation, Stanford professor of medicine John C. Ioannidis criticizes the „harms of exaggerated information and non-evidence-based measures“. Even journals had published dubious claims at the beginning.
- A Chinese study published in the Chinese Journal of Epidemiology in early March, which indicated the unreliability of the Covid19 virus tests (approx. 50% false-positive results in asymptomatic patients), has since been withdrawn. The lead author of the study, the dean of a medical school, did not want to give the reason for the withdrawal and spoke of a „sensitive matter„, which could indicate political pressure, as an NPR journalist noted. Independent of this study, however, the unreliability of so-called PCR virus tests has long been known: In 2006, for example, a mass infection in a Canadian nursing home with SARS corona viruses was „found“, which later turned out to be common cold corona viruses (which can also be fatal for risk groups).
- Authors of the German Risk Management Network RiskNET speak in a Covid19 analysis of a „blind flight“ as well as „insufficient data competence and data ethics“. Instead of more and more tests and measures a representative sample is necessary. The „sense and ratio“ of the measures must be critically questioned.
- The Spanish interview with the internationally renowned Argentinian-French virologist Pablo Goldschmidt was translated into German. Goldschmidt considers the measures imposed to be medically counterproductive and notes that one must now „read Hannah Arendt“ to understand the „origins of totalitarianism“.
- Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, like other prime ministers and presidents before him, has largely disempowered the Hungarian parliament under an „emergency law“ and can now govern essentially by decree.
„The only means to fight the plague is honesty.“
Albert Camus, The Plague (1947)
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Swine Flu – H1N1 a Historical Perspective
What can we learn from the H1N1 panic?
Here is some very interesting archived conversations from Redit that are very relevant to the Covid discussion. https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/aonng/wolfgang_wodarg_head_of_health_at_the_council_of/
464Posted byu/reanimated10 years ago
Wolfgang Wodarg, head of health at the Council of Europe, claims swine flu scare was a “false pandemic” led by drugs companies that stood to make billions from vaccines.
Epidemiologist here. The problem with swine flu was never how many people were getting it or dying from it. It was who was getting it. The age distribution was centered much younger than your average seasonal flu. This was the cause for worry. Thankfully it turned out this strain while particularly infectious wasn’t particularly fatal.level 2mikaelhg36 points · 10 years ago
This dude is essentially the Jenny McCarthy of Germany.Continue this thread level 2jaymeekae13 points · 10 years ago
Ooh. Do you think you could do an AMA?
Were there actually indications that h1n1 would turn out to be more fatal than other strains or was that just sort of assumed to err on the side of “caution”?
Also do you have any stats of the age distributions? I thought that it was still mostly old people/very young people/people with previous conditions who died?Continue this thread level 2phanboy7 points · 10 years ago
They also planned on including it in the seasonal flu shot, but they were a few weeks too late.
Vaccines aren’t the same high-margin expensive-research game as things like Prozac, and there’s not really that much money in them.Continue this thread level 2judgej23 points · 10 years ago
Who was getting it, or who was being made most ill by it?level 2mpness3 points · 10 years ago
Hey, on a side note, what kind of schooling did you have to take? You should really do an IAMANlevel 2cojoco3 points · 10 years ago
There’s a lot wrong with your statement.
I tried to find stats on this on Australian government websites, and the fact of the matter is that for most people that die of respiratory illness, no test for Influenza is performed. Such deaths are categorized as “Influenza and Pneumonia”.
Any statistics about the prevalence of swine flu after the big panic commenced would seem to be suspect, as a lot more young people would be presenting at emergency departments if they were showing any flu-like symptoms.
As far as I have been able to tell, the whole issue is immensely complicated, and any differences between swine flu and other forms of Influenza are buried in mountains of dodgy data collection.level 2kingius3 points · 10 years ago
It was blown out of all proportion on almost day one. A couple of people died and everybody panicked. An airport was shut down. The media speculated that someone being taken out of it had the flu. People were issued breathing masks. The media went crazy and said hundreds of thousands would die by october. Drugs companies made a killing producing vaccines that doctors since have said, don’t bother with.level 2[deleted]2 points · 10 years ago
It would have been nice for them to determine that prior to cause a world wide panic over it…level 2[deleted]2 points · 10 years ago · edited 10 years ago
There are reasons to worry as an Epidemiologist, but in my view, there was never a reason to be worried as a layman in the first world. The infectiousness was always obvious, but so was the relatively low mortality for people without complications.
Frankly, I think the panic made the job of folks like you harder, because a well-implemented rollout of vaccine became much harder. Perfectly healthy people were taking doses while at-risk people were being turned away from clinics.
This should never have been a panic, the media should never have pretended it was anything other than a particularly contagious(yes, wrong word, but you know what I mean — if you were exposed there was a higher chance of contracting it because your immune system didn’t have any immunity prepared), and a well-implemented roll-out in which groups at higher risk of death from the disease should have taken place.level 2[deleted]2 points · 10 years ago
I second the AMA. I think you have a particularly interesting job. What class of organisms do you work with?level 2phlux3 points · 10 years ago · edited 10 years ago
I have a naive question, or I guess, more conspiratorial than naive perhaps:
Is it possible that viruses can affect ones DNA – and change it? I thought I saw an article that stated than X% (6 or 8%? maybe) of our DNA was from bacteria…
If you wanted to don a particularly thick tinfoil hat; maybe the ‘swine-flu’ could be an attempt to affect the DNA of a larger population of future generations? That would make for some good SyFy…..
EDIT: virii->viruses for the pedant. However I now see that the in-box spell-check noted my mistake, I was too lazy to notice when I typed the original messagiiContinue this thread level 2I_divided_by_0-4 points · 10 years ago
Nice try BIG Pharmalevel 2anjunabeats3 points · 10 years ago · edited 10 years ago
From my understanding, it’s important to note the flu itself wasn’t exactly causing the deaths. Being a new strand of virus, it essentially exhausted our confused immune system and consequently opened the door to things that would have been normally be prevented.
In fact, many of the deaths attributed to H1N1 were actually caused by pneumonia.
Statistically speaking, children and pregnant women were afflicted most commonly.Continue this thread level 2Comment deleted by user10 years ago(More than 1 child)level 2[deleted]1 point · 10 years ago
Hope your company enjoys the profits :/level 2[deleted]1 point · 10 years ago
Yeah, I have some doctor friends who have said pretty much the same. They also said that we were really lucky it didn’t mutate and become a deadlier strain because it easily could have. They also said we should expect another influx of cases over the next few months.Continue this thread level 2Comment deleted by user10 years ago(More than 1 child)level 1aecarol36 points · 10 years ago
And if N1H1 had turned out to be really bad the same people would be shrieking out “unprepared” the Government was.
Y2K turned out to not be so bad BECAUSE billions were spent in advance to fix the worst of the problems. Had it not been done, there would have been anger about “how obvious the danger was” and how it was ignored.
Anti-vaccine people fume about having to get their kids shots, because “measles is so rare”. It’s “rare” because PEOPLE GET THEIR SHOTS.
It’s not fair to complain about the bother of the work to mitigate a problem using the excuse the problem turned out mild.
(i.e. Why are we wasting so much money on levy/dike maintenance, the town hasn’t flooded in years!)
When H1N1 was first found it was frightening because it spreads more easily than normal flu and it killed people that “ordinary flu” would not have. It’s also related to the flu strain that killed 30 MILLION people 90 years ago.
It turns out to not be quite as bad as feared and lots of people were vaccinated which acted as a firewall.level 2ThePurpleAlien6 points · 10 years ago
This is true. It’s impossible to prepare the “right” amount and people will complain either way. But, the decision making process still matters. Authority figures can make good decisions and bad decisions based on the information available to them. And they can be influenced by outside interests that don’t have the public good at heart. I would still like to know if the pharmaceutical companies had any influence over the decision making process as Wodarg alleges.level 2Kopias4 points · 10 years ago
The question is whether or not people with monetary interests influenced the decision or people with scientific data and human concern made the decision to start a costly immunization campaign, not how people would view it after the fact. I believe pharmaceutical companies like any other industry would choose to modify the reality of the situation in order to sell their products.Continue this thread level 2cojoco2 points · 10 years ago
Funnily enough, when the government are wrong, we complain.
When they are right, then we don’t
This seems like a great motivator to do the right thing!level 2G_Morgan2 points · 10 years ago
Comparing to Y2K is pointless. There was no guessing about the dangers of Y2K. It wasn’t an unknown. We knew with absolute certainty that the majority of bank COBOL systems were using a 2 digit picture to store the year. We knew with certainty that similar problems existed in how PCs stored dates. It was not speculative spending to fix this because the problem was not speculative to begin with.
H1N1 was entirely a gigantic guessing game. I could start a guessing game about bloody anything. If I said that reddit puts out radiation that kills narwhals should we invest billions in dealing with it?
The appropriate response always depends upon a function of the dangers of failure and the certainty attached to the underlying theory. Y2K was a problem that was absolutely certain and would cost us trillions of dollars world wide if we ignored it. The money was spent because of this combination. GW is a problem which is less certain (but still strongly suggested by evidence) but would result in incalculable costs which is why we take a strong response. H1N1 was almost entirely unknown and didn’t have as large a cost as either.level 2[deleted]2 points · 10 years ago
Nobody is angry that there’s a vaccine(the vast minority, at least). I’m pretty sure plenty of people are angry that the threat the flu posed was so out of proportion to the risk.
This flu was sold as the next big terror, when nothing justified that. It was slightly more virulent than previous instances of the flu, but the symptoms and treatment have consistently been in line with the seasonal flu.
There was an extremely deadly H1N1 strain on a military base a few years ago. It killed everyone who got it and killed itself off immediately because of it. There was immediate evidence that it was a deadly strain. In this case, we’re still treating H1N1 as somehow special, when it’s clear there’s no risk over the risk that comes with a standard flu.level 2Tecktonik1 point · 10 years ago
When H1N1 was first found it was frightening because it spreads more easily than normal flu and it killed people that “ordinary flu” would not have. It’s also related to the flu strain that killed 30 MILLION people 90 years ago.
There was no vaccine for the first 6 months of the H1N1 vaccine, so where are the piles of bodies due to this highly virulent strain that strikes down ordinary people? Certainly 6 months was enough time, wasn’t it?
Yes, some people died. And almost everyone who died from H1N1 had some known or unknown underlying condition that made them more susceptible. If you don’t know you have the type 2 diabetes and you get H1N1 you could die. But this kind of thing happens all the time.Continue this thread level 1[deleted]10 points · 10 years ago
i guess, and hey whatever im never getting a vaccine for it, but i still know a couple of people, one of whom was hospitalized for quite a while (a twenty-something, otherwise healthy male).
i never felt threatened (despite living in new york, and, at the time, working a few blocks from one of the schools that had a big outbreak) but it’s not like they just made it up or something.level 2KevMike5 points · 10 years ago
I had it for a couple of weeks, and I’m an athletic twenty something. It was pretty mild, but it ruined my entire semester because of it.level 2G_Morgan2 points · 10 years ago
You still paid for vaccines for it via taxation.level 2flynnguy4 points · 10 years ago
I don’t think anyone is saying they made up the swine flu, just that it was completely over hyped. Like everyone who didn’t get the vaccine was going to die.
I know a couple of people who probably had it (not sure if strain was tested) and they got sick but they certainly didn’t die.level 2akula-1 points · 10 years ago
Healthy people get hospitalized with the flu every single year. The difference this year is that they named the flu strain publicly, hyped the flu, created a scare with their named flu and created a new vaccine for this deadly flu. So the scare worked on many as they flocked to hospitals at the first sign of the sniffles when normally they would just ignore. The flu numbers were artificially inflated and still didnt hit numbers to impress. Anybody that got any flu called it the swine flu. The CDC never really had people tested other then the select “danger” group. Diagnosis of H1N1 was mainly left to symptom diagnosis. And whats the symptoms of H1N1? Flu like symptoms of course….because its the damn flu.Continue this thread level 1ooermissus46 points · 10 years ago
Wolfgang Wodarg was last heard from claiming that the flu vaccine might cause cancer.level 2cowoftheuniverse9 points · 10 years ago
Pretty harsh article considering he was only saying a new type of vaccine was not tested enough. I see words like “conspiracy theorist” “quack” and “fake expert”. It’s not like the guy is antivax or anything like that. So, is Steven Salzberg a shill or something?Continue this thread level 1fatmike8510 points · 10 years ago
I stopped reading when I got to, “UK tabloid The Sun reports”. Anyone have a more credible source? Perhaps from a newspaper without boobs in it.level 2florinandrei3 points · 10 years ago
There’s boobs everywhere, nowadays.Continue this thread level 2G_Morgan1 point · 10 years ago
What do you have against boobs?Continue this thread level 1[deleted]3 points · 10 years ago
It was real.
So was the Greed Pandemic.level 1will_itblend4 points · 10 years ago
In the daily confusion and obfuscation that is the corporate-controlled ‘news’, always following an agenda for increasing money or power for someone, fantasy was turned into an ‘appearance of reality’ published and promoted for all to see and be manipulated by.
What began as an idea, a suggestion of what ‘could happen’ in the future — much like a theme for a sci-fi movie, turned into a speculation of what might happen,and then quickly was morphed into a story of what IS happening — so easily accomplished with bad journalism and with a readership that is largely manipulated by fear and misinformation.
Naturally, certain rich people, certain corporations and politicians stood to increase their bank accounts significantly, while others, in pseudo-academic circles, went along with the theme, providing the bad-science to support wild speculation.level 1RightHereRightNow4 points · 10 years ago
Always ask yourself Cui bono?level 1Anthet8 points · 10 years ago
I managed to contract the swine flu (along with a couple of people at my employer at the time). had some issues with breathing ok and felt like crap, went to the ol dr got the tamiflu was better within one day. Some people had it worse and some people never contracted it, a vaccine would have been nice to avoid being bored out of my mind in quarantine but no vaccine was available at the time. I seriously doubt it was a conspiracy, some people over hypted it but thats to be expected by the media, they sell more papers.level 2cazbot2 points · 10 years ago
That’s pretty much my take on it too. Get the vaccine if you haven’t yet had the flu and want to avoid the cough and congestion, but don’t worry about any serious symptoms.Continue this thread level 1[deleted]29 points · 10 years ago
“It’s just a normal kind of flu. It does not cause a tenth of deaths caused by the classic seasonal flu,” Dr Wodarg said.
I seem to recall people on reddit saying this months ago and getting downvoted to hell because they were ‘endangering others.’level 2brufleth3 points · 10 years ago
Well the point he’s making is a little misleading. Sure the regular flu might kill more due to secondary infections. It might even take more directly simply because of how many it infects. Swine flu has (or at least could have potentially had) a much higher mortality rate due directly to the virus itself. It is the difference between a deadly flu that will actually kill you and a more typical flu that just makes you more likely to get a secondary infection.
Ultimately I kind of agree with him on this though. Flu vaccines are largely a means for drug companies to fleece the population. They might be helpful for high risk groups but many (maybe even most) people getting them don’t really need them and will still get other bad colds over the course of the season anyway.
People will potentially get the flu vaccines every year for the rest of their lives. If they can come up with some other vaccines and scare people into getting them every year they score big obviously.level 2ricLP8 points · 10 years ago
One honest question here (no irony intended): how did we know in the beginning that this wouldn’t turn into a serious pandemic? As far as I saw (and of course from the media) in the early stages there seemed to big a rather big number of deaths when looking at the total number of infected.
From what I learned in the meantime (which might also be wrong) the virus evolves because the objective is not to kill the host, but to spread as much as possible. Therefore at the time (in the beginning of this ordeal) people would say that later the proportional number of deaths would drop. But could we be sure of that since the beginning?
I hope I make some sense….Continue this thread level 2[deleted]2 points · 10 years ago · edited 10 years ago
As much as I’d like to agree with you, my own posts were fairly heavily upvoted for saying exactly this.[1]
Being correct against the tyranny of the majority would be really romantic and cool, but that’s just not what happened here.
On the other hand, reality rather proved me correct in this case — Wow, looks like the head of health at the council of europe is making my exact argument!level 2[deleted]2 points · 10 years ago
Dr Wodarg needs to take a class in statistics.level 2krakow0577 points · 10 years ago
No you didn’t . Everyone said this, they all got upvoted.
People here on reddit seem to have amnesia.
99% of “multinationals are fooling the sheeple” gets upvoted.
Go back and find one extremly upvoted comment about how the swine flu was a big deal.Continue this thread level 2[deleted]5 points · 10 years ago
Yes! I made a post asking about who was choosing to not get vaccinated, and I was quickly down-voted into oblivion.Continue this thread level 2stmfreak1 point · 10 years ago
Humans are herd creatures and reflexively cast out those that go against the group-think.Continue this thread level 2[deleted]1 point · 10 years ago · edited 10 years ago
I seem to recall people on reddit saying this months ago and getting downvoted to hell because they were ‘endangering others.’
They were endangering others. My school has been giving out free H1N1 shots since October, and other places around the town/state/country have been doing the same. Also, due the increased awareness about H1N1, more people sought medical care for their flu than would have otherwise. Both of these factored greatly into keeping H1N1 from having a high death rate.
In other words, you can come here and say that it wasn’t so bad because everyone else took precautions. What the hell ever happened to erring on the side of caution?Continue this thread level 2[deleted]-2 points · 10 years ago
I’ve been accused, on reddit and elsewhere, of actively wanting to kill off as many pregnant women as possible, due to my decision not to get this stupid unnecessary vaccine. Well, I’m exaggerating of course, but lots of impressionable twentysomethings on Reddit sure were a little too engrossed by the concept of “herd immunity” they recently discovered from Wikipedia and were very angry whenever someone questioned “The Vaccine”.Continue this thread level 2cazbot-3 points · 10 years ago · edited 10 years ago
I was saying this months ago too but still downvoting all the idiots who were using that to justify not getting vaccinated. Even getting mildly sick sucks and it makes sense to get vaccinated to avoid it, plain and simple.level 1rz200013 points · 10 years ago
The operating principle behind this argument is that a catastrophic pandemic cannot occur. The reason people believe this is because they have not experienced a global pandemic within their lifetimes. We are notoriously bad at understanding risk.
Additionally people are likely to point to numbers for tragic diseases such as malaria or point out that over 1 million children die each year from diarrhea from poor water supplies. The third world could use more resources for clean water and mosquito nets. However the numbers do not displace eachother, and a few million added to these numbers would be significantly traumatic to rich and poor countries. the 100-200 million of a worst case scenario, might lead to a complete breakdown of trade and many famines around the world.
We will never know if the pandemic would have become more severe if the vaccine had not prevented the vectors necessary for it to spread more rapidly or even evolve into a more dangerous pathogen.
We have such obvious examples of the unexpected occurring over the past 10 years that I am frankly surprised at the number of commenters here who claim that “common sense” was a good guide for analyzing the risk level of unlikely events, or who congratulate themselves on putting two and two together despite a lack of any training or education.
Auto accidents are extremely rare in the context of the number of car rides you will take in your life. That does not mean that you are smart if you complete a trip safely and were not wearing a seatbelt.
Similarly, you always see the people congratulating themselves for not having evacuated in front of a hurricane that ended up sparing their town. While it is easy for an outsider to see that these people are fools, and had less information to base their decisions than meteorologists advising them to to flee, they really are proud of themselves and think that they are wise.
It is also worth pointing out that it was common sense that lead people who saw fish flopping around, where the sea had just receded, to think it was probably a pretty cool thing to go check out. If you’ve never experienced a tsunami, how could you imagine something so foreign to your personal experiences.
Considering the tsunamis it would have been helpful if some of the less developed communities had strong superstitions about the sea receding. As much as people ridicule religion here it may have a beneficial effect on society if the manifestations include superstitions that override the pseudo-wisdom of: nothing can happen that I haven’t already experienced.level 2cwm442 points · 10 years ago
When the people who develop the vaccine manage to convince a serious majority of health practitioners who are qualified to evaluate such things I will be more inclined to listen. At least in Britain the number of doctors convinced of its value weren’t even a majority if I recall correctly according to a guardian article I read at the time. That stats were about 30/30/30. Also, better availability will work wonders in getting people to take vaccines.
I’d like to believe all scientists were perfect, and that people never exaggerate the truth when they stand to make money, especially politicians, but I don’t.
What really worries me about the whole issue is the story of the boy who cried wolf. If people keep flipping out about every avian or swine flu that comes along what will happen when a serious mutation does occur?
All in all it’s a great thing that quick largescale mass productions of such things are being practiced now, but I’ll take my chances until something dangerous comes along. Just enjoy the fact that people like you can get the vaccine easier while people like me exist and stop whining.Continue this thread level 2monolithdigital1 point · 10 years ago
but of a leap to the ‘religon’ part, but kudos nonethelesslevel 1thevoid27 points · 10 years ago
Cue loads of “Well duh, I knew it all along and was laughing at you idiots while you panicked” posturing. It’s sickening.
It’s Y2K all over again. People like to chuckle about how it turned out to be a storm in a teacup, forgetting that it was because there were people prepared to take it seriously and do something about it that it died out with a whimper. If everybody had sat on their hands and laughed it off, Y2K would have been a disaster and swine flu could have been the same.
Oh, hindsight. How the image-conscious with their rose-tinted glasses love thee.level 2ooermissus33 points · 10 years ago
Anthony Giddens – Reith Lectures 1999:
There is a new moral climate of politics, marked by a push-and-pull between accusations of scaremongering on the one hand, and of cover-ups on the other. If anyone – government official, scientific expert or researcher – takes a given risk seriously, he or she must proclaim it. It must be widely publicised because people must be persuaded that the risk is real – a fuss must be made about it. Yet if a fuss is indeed created and the risk turns out to be minimal, those involved will be accused of scaremongering.
Suppose, on the other hand, that the authorities initially decide that the risk is not very great, as the British government did in the case of contaminated beef. In this instance, the government first of all said: we’ve got the backing of scientists here; there isn’t a significant risk, we can continue eating beef without any worries. In such situations, if events turn out otherwise – as in fact they did – the authorities will be accused of a cover-up – as indeed they were.
Things are even more complex than these examples suggest. Paradoxically, scaremongering may be necessary to reduce risks we face – yet if it is successful, it appears as just that, scaremongering. The case of AIDS is an example. Governments and experts made great public play with the risks associated with unsafe sex, to get people to change their sexual behaviour. Partly as a consequence, in the developed countries, AIDS did not spread as much as was originally predicted. Then the response was: why were you scaring everyone like that? Yet as we know from its continuing global spread – they were – and are – entirely right to do so.
This sort of paradox becomes routine in contemporary society, but there is no easily available way of dealing with it.
Continue this thread level 2manganese5 points · 10 years ago
The trouble with doing something right the first time is that nobody appreciates how difficult it was.
Yesterday the sky was falling when it came to our energy concerns and we were asking why we weren’t thinking about it before. Now that oil prices have stabilized those same people have forgotten about such questions. But when the oil market becomes volatile once again, they will ask it again. Right now if you ask it, they look at you as if you’re crazy and it’s not a problem. People are stupid and don’t plan for the future is my best guess as to what causes such sentiment.Continue this thread level 2[deleted]2 points · 10 years ago
“When you do things right, people won’t be sure you’ve done anything at all.”level 2G_Morgan2 points · 10 years ago
Logic fail here. Just because two such crises ended up with similar minimal impact does not mean there is any relation between them. It is, without further information, possible that both were entirely over-hyped, both were real and solved by real effort, one was real and one was over-hyped. Your argument is equivalent to the Simpson’s bear patrol. I don’t see any bears therefore the bear patrol is doing its job.
As it stands we always had real reason to believe Y2K was a danger. There was no speculation, the situation was a fact. Swine flu infection rates were always uninteresting. FWIW I have a rock to sell you that can defeat terrorists.level 1the_big_wedding3 points · 10 years ago
Bingo!level 1koolhaus3 points · 10 years ago
Reactions are always overblown or sensationalized. People love to have shit to worry about to distract them from the day to day.level 1CountRumford3 points · 10 years ago
DUH.level 1[deleted]3 points · 10 years ago
of course it was. also the swine flu ‘vaccine’ damages your DNA.level 1[deleted]3 points · 10 years ago
[Any trial run that helps you prepare for a real epidemic is a good thing, look at the lessons learned, the USA would have been hit very hard by their failures, managing the swine flu, if it had been something more dangerous.]level 1[deleted]3 points · 10 years ago
http://www.flucount.org, what’s scary is how poorly USA did.level 1pac833 points · 10 years ago
It was also a false pandemic led by governments who wanted to use it as a way to eliminate civil liberties and inflate budgets in the name of “public health and safety”. Unfortunately for the U.S. government, nobody in this country really bought into it.level 1smek23 points · 10 years ago
Wolfgang Wodarg, head of health at the Council of Europe, claimed major firms organized a “campaign of panic” to put pressure on the World Health Organization (WHO) to declare a pandemic, UK tabloid The Sun reports.
Panic campaigns. The Sun. Panic campaigns… and The Sun.
Yeah, that sounds familiar.level 1captchinchilla7 points · 10 years ago
There’s a Council of Europe? That sounds scarier than swine flu…level 2mexicodoug2 points · 10 years ago
No shit. They might start exporting cradle-to-grave health care for all…level 1[deleted]6 points · 10 years ago
Any of you that bought the swine flu scare and relentlessly pounded the comment box with “GET YOUR SHOTS” need to learn from this event and stop being such gullible sheep.level 1stmfreak8 points · 10 years ago
Swine flu is just seasonal flu with a name. In a few year’s it will be monkey flu, or dog flu, or LGM flu. MSM cannot sell a flu scare, but when you put a name on it, suddenly you have a brand.level 2phandy5 points · 10 years ago
Viruses that came from animals are always more infectuous and deadly then those that come from humans because our bodies have never seen them. Yes, it’s true that the swine flu is a seasonal flu, but it’s a flu that has passed from humans, to pigs than back to humans again. The structure of the virus mutates and changes while in the pig and becomes an especially virulent strain.
Yes, the reaction against the swine flu was probably too much, but people made decisions based on limited information and an overreaction is preferable over an epidemic.Continue this thread level 2chakalakasp1 point · 10 years ago
Windows is just an operating system with a name. In a few years it’ll be OS10, or Linux, or BSD. MSM cannot sell an operating system, but when you put a name on it, suddenly you have a brand.level 1Jigsus9 points · 10 years ago
Whatever I’m still getting vaccinated.level 2terrycarlin2 points · 10 years ago
I’ve had the flu, its just flu. If I could go back in time and get vaccinated I just wouldn’t bother.Continue this thread level 2mwarden-5 points · 10 years ago(More than 1 child)level 1Andorage2 points · 10 years ago
same as i thoughtlevel 1rebot2 points · 10 years ago
i believe itlevel 1mhatmaker2 points · 10 years ago
I definitely thought that this swine flu thing was overdone. However, to single out the drug companies as culprit is ridiculous. The government and the media both did more than their share. They both love a good “crisis”.level 2helleborus2 points · 10 years ago
to single out the drug companies as culprit is ridiculous. The government and the media both did more than their share
The lines between the drug companies, the media and the government are pretty blurry – so it’s not that ridiculous.level 1cabcaraway2 points · 10 years ago
Isn’t The Sun, cited as the source for this story, a rag like the National Enquirer, or the NY Post? Just asking.level 1Radico872 points · 10 years ago
Well people do tend to overreact just a tad, especially when it comes to things more people don’t understand.level 1gsfgf2 points · 10 years ago
It wasn’t a false pandemic made by big pharma to sell vaccines. It was a false pandemic made by the media to sell ads. Gotta give credit where credit’s due.level 1EastYork2 points · 10 years ago
Who here is not surprised? We’ve seen nations go to war over imaginary threats for the purpose of getting richer. What’s a little flu-scare? It’s a slippery slope.level 1EastYork2 points · 10 years ago
I for one, declined to get the vaccine. I never thought this was a big deal to begin withlevel 1azdavy2 points · 10 years ago · edited 10 years ago
In the last couple of days I’ve heard and read reports that much of the H1N1 antivirus is going to be wasted. Then I read new reports that say it’s still crazy dangerous and everybody should still get immunized. Then I read about mass H1N1 groups being immunized in CA, I believe it was. That totally stinks of big pharma influence.level 1Valdus_Pryme2 points · 10 years ago
This almost seems reasonable… but isn’t the source the sun?
at the bottom it says
“To read more go to The Sun”level 1webauteur4 points · 10 years ago
Let’s use an Internet meme to summarize this article:
- Pressure the World Health Organization (WHO) to declare a pandemic
- Develop a vaccine
- ????
- PROFIT!!!
level 2noddyxoi5 points · 10 years ago · edited 10 years ago
You can add somewhere the following:
a) Spread contaminated samples
b) In early May the WHO changed its definition of a pandemic. Before that date there had to be not only a disease which had broke out in several countries at once but also one that had very serious consequences with the number of deaths above the usual average. This aspect was removed from the new definition, to retain the rate of spread of disease as the only criteria. And they claimed that the virus was dangerous because people had not been able to develop immunity against it. global research
c) Now note that the first flu case was registered in April but:
In January 2009 the United States Department of Health and Human Services awarded Novartis a $486 million contract for construction of the first U.S. plant to produce cell-based influenza vaccine, to be located in Holly Springs, North Carolina. The stated goal of this program is the capability of producing 150,000,000 doses of pandemic vaccine within six months of declaring a flu pandemic. wikipedia
Terasa Focales can explain in more detailContinue this thread level 1jasond33r5 points · 10 years ago
If it is so profitable why have many drug companies stopped making the vaccine? are we to believe that not “Big Pharma” but the few remaining drug companies producing flu vaccine are behind this conspiracy? Wouldn’t it make more sense for them to do like the rest and just not make the vaccine in place of more profitable drugs they could be making? Just doesn’t make sense.
The shortage is compounded because the number of companies producing vaccine has dropped significantly over the years because those companies could not makes a MUCH profit as they thought they should. The comapnies were profitably but not hugely profitable like they would be making other drugs. That is greed pure and simple.
only one company now makes MMR vaccine, and only three make flu vaccine, with two of them controlling over 95% of the market.
Sourcelevel 1skyrocker5 points · 10 years ago
hmm just like an antivirus company…level 1Pixelsmith2 points · 10 years ago
Much of the news media is still smarting that we didn’t all die of Bird Flu and SARS. They leapt on Swine Flu like hyenas at a corpse because readers and audiences were so sick of hearing about the recession.level 1bjs31712 points · 10 years ago
look. it’s good that government and news make a big deal out of things like this. people can get sick, and it’s clearly better to be over-prepared, but actual people need to learn to chill the fuck out. we have these things called immune systems. If a bug isn’t killing hundreds of people a day, chances are, most people will be fine. just wash your hands. with regular non-anti-bacterial soap, and you’ll be fine.level 2will_itblend2 points · 10 years ago
But…but…there’s big money, for certain people, in convincing everyone to get shot up with a mix of detergents, mercury and pesticides.
The real illness is characterized by a perceived lack of sufficient funds by a super-rich people. You don’t expect them to actually work for their money, do you?
Monsters like the Rumsfelds of the world rely heavily on the drug and food additive industries to perpetrate their ultra-profitable monstrosity!level 1Fleshflayer2 points · 10 years ago
WOAH! No shit, Sherlock?level 1grantmclean2 points · 10 years ago
A friend of mine died from H1n1 during the Christmas holidays. He was in his late 20’s but he’d had problems with his lungs previously. Still, the disease killed him, so I don’t know how false it was.level 1AngryConservative3 points · 10 years ago
Isn’t this just as bad as Global Warming deniers?level 2G_Morgan2 points · 10 years ago
No there is evidence of global warming.level 1nashife1 point · 10 years ago
Uh… I thought drug companies LOST money due to the vaccine being well… free… and they were being compelled to make it extremely quickly.level 2helleborus2 points · 10 years ago
Uh… I thought drug companies LOST money due to the vaccine being well… free…
It was free to some (by no means all) people who received the vaccine. That does not mean that it was the pharmaceutical companies giving it away. The US government purchased hundreds of millions of doses. It may be true that the the profit margin for vaccines is lower than for other drugs, but when you’re talking about hundreds of millions of doses – well, just do the math.
Can you tell us where you got the impression that the drug companies lost money?Continue this thread level 1[deleted]0 points · 10 years ago
Anyone who has the tiniest bit of common sense knew it wasn’t that serious. I don’t know if I’d go as far as a conspiracy theory, but the media certainly fanned the flames.
Breaking news: Young kids and old people can die when they get sick!level 2ooermissus2 points · 10 years ago
The question is when they knew it wasn’t that serious – and the answer to that is: when not many people died.
As far as I know (and perhaps I don’t have enough of this magic ‘common sense’ to rely on), there is no way of predicting beforehand what the fatality rate from a pandemic will be.Continue this thread level 2mothereffingteresa2 points · 10 years ago
the media certainly fanned the flames.
The media usually gets a lot of help from PR firms deciding which flames to fan.level 2theeth2 points · 10 years ago
Anyone who has the tiniest bit of common sense knew it wasn’t that serious.
There’s nothing common nor sensible about common sense.Continue this thread level 2manganese3 points · 10 years ago
Should we blame the media here? Yes, I think they overreacted to some things, but we are adults here who should be able to discern the seriousness of a story. We can’t blame the media for the idiots that overreact.level 1spamdefender1 point · 10 years ago
Conspiracy theorists are sitting around patting themselves on the back for being right all along. Unfortunately, they still have little to say about the dozens of times they claimed Bush would cancel the elections and declare Martial Law, the countless times we were going to invade Iran, the FEMA death camps and that Diebold would rig electronic voting in favor of McCain.
When you are always negative, you are bound to be right once in a while.level 2mexicodoug3 points · 10 years ago
Obama is preparing most of that shit now for his own usurpation of power. How do you know that the war profiteers didn’t buy off Diebold in exchange for Obama’s promise to expand the Mid-East conflict into a full-fledged world war? You heard about the seven new US bases in Colombia, no doubt.
I’m being 75% sarcastic, 25% serious here.level 1[deleted]2 points · 10 years ago
In other news NO SHIT! I always had a good laugh at the sheeple lining up to get their GOVT approved serum.level 2will_itblend2 points · 10 years ago
It’s times like this when i start to really love Reddit. Where are all you good people of the truth really late at night (EST), when the friggin’ sheeple are running wild and posting all those lies?
I have to try to hold up the truth all by myself, and I get lots of down-votes for it. I hope y’all appreciate it! heh heh
(Why do I say y’all? I’m not even from the South!)level 1Comment deleted by user10 years ago(More than 5 children)level 1Athiesmo3 points · 10 years ago
well, duh.level 1usernamedotcom1 point · 10 years ago · edited 10 years ago
Also the flu vaccine itself is a hoax, given that it is manufactured nearly a YEAR in advance, and it’s only a small chance that the type of flu it is meant to prevent is actually the one that breaks out.
Lastly, people who are ill may have the swine flu virus present, but the amount the have is NOT tested. In most cases it is not possible to truly attribute the persons illness to swine flu, it is almost always a pre-existing condition.
MEDIA HYPE?level 1geoff4221 point · 10 years ago
NO SHIT.level 1godhammre1 point · 10 years ago
Wolfgang Wodarg is a politician, not a health expert, check his Wikipedia pagelevel 2Comment removed by moderator10 years ago(More than 1 child)level 1Reductive1 point · 10 years ago
“Pandemic” refers to how widespread a pathogen is. It has nothing to do with the virulence or even danger. “False pandemic” would mean we thought it was global when it’s really not. H1N1 is indeed found throughout the globe, so Wodarg is simply wrong.level 1mwarden1 point · 10 years ago
How is that possible when the people I saw warning about it were all from the government?level 1[deleted]1 point · 10 years ago
Duh.level 1[deleted]-1 points · 10 years ago
I was never afraid of the flu and laughed in the faces of people who were.
Distraction, fearmongering, and more distraction. Governments deserve an A+ for bringing out the stupidity of their populations. What’s going to worry/distract us next? Another false-flag like the panty-bomber?level 2will_itblend2 points · 10 years ago
You just gave me a weird vision of a TV game show on some alien planet, where they watch the nutty antics of the Earthlings and try to guess which kind of mass hysteria will happen next.level 1[deleted]-2 points · 10 years ago
Somehow, I’m not surprised. I didn’t get a vaccination, because after putting 2 and 2 together, I realized it was NOT serious, and I was not at risk.
On the other hand, I suspected this from the beginning, and it irks me that pharmaceutical companies pushed for mass vaccination.
Who’s to say that H1N1 wasn’t also created in a laboratory?
They’ll just be infecting us with something more serious next time.
Slaps on tinfoil-hat!level 2ehcolem3 points · 10 years ago
Not a bad idea to make money. Except being totally immoral that is.Continue this thread level 2Comment deleted by user10 years ago(More than 1 child)level 1ubergeek4040 points · 10 years ago
No surprise that one of the largest culprits is Baxter Pharma. A huge Obama backer.
http://www.baxter.com/about_baxter/press_room/press_releases/2009/06_12_09-A-H1N1.htmllevel 1[deleted]0 points · 10 years ago
Well if their aim was to make billions, then hopefully next time they’ll be smart enough to make people pay for the vaccine and not have all those free clinics.level 2helleborus6 points · 10 years ago
Well if their aim was to make billions, then hopefully next time they’ll be smart enough to make people pay for the vaccine and not have all those free clinics.
Are you kidding? You think the pharmaceutical companies gave the vaccine away because the clinics were free? The government gave free vaccines, not the pharmaceuticals.level 1omaca0 points · 10 years ago
My father in law was on life support because of Swine Flu. My niece (who has cystic fibrosis) and her entire family caught it too. Many pregnant women and their unborn children died here in Australia due to Swine Flu.
Mr Wolfgan Wodarg can go fuck himself.level 2Comment deleted by user10 years ago(More than 1 child)level 1[deleted]0 points · 10 years ago
http://i243.photobucket.com/albums/ff182/darleenclick/blog%20images/tinyviolin01.jpglevel 1Starblade0 points · 10 years ago
So… if the media misreports an outbreak by over representing it, it’s corporations trying to make money on vaccines. If the media misreports an outbreak by under representing it, it’s corporations trying to stop having to pay out insurance claims.
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