Spoof BBC Article

Based Directly on a Genuine BBC article ..
 

Use of PCR tests to determine COVID-19 cases

What is a PCR Test

The term PCR test is understood by the majority of the public to be a well established, reliable and accurate way of determining whether someone does or does not have COVID-19 disease. This is the line strongly promoted by most governments and the MSM. That is far from the case and as the saying goes "it's more complicated than that "- in this case much, much more complicated. 

The Wikipedia definition of PCR is :

Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is a method widely used to rapidly make millions to billions of copies (complete copies or partial copies) of a specific DNA sample, allowing scientists to take a very small sample of DNA and amplify it (or a part of it) to a large enough amount to study in detail. PCR was invented in 1983 by the American biochemist Kary Mullis at Cetus Corporation. It is fundamental to many of the procedures used in genetic testing and research, including analysis of ancient samples of DNA and identification of infectious agents. Using PCR, copies of very small amounts of DNA sequences are exponentially amplified in a series of cycles of temperature changes. PCR is now a common and often indispensable technique used in medical laboratory research for a broad variety of applications including biomedical research and criminal forensics.^[1][2]

A COVID-19 PCR test is based on the PCR process and essentially amplifies by repeated cycles the DNA/RNA from e.g a sample nasal swab. If target SARS- CoV2 viral RNA is detectable at or below a chosen number of cycles designated the Cycle threshold  (Ct)  the test is positive and the person providing the sample is deemed to have COVID-19 and if not detected by the designated Ct the test is  negative and the person is deemed not to have COVID-19. 

Limitations of mass COVID-19 PCR Testing 

If your understanding of PCR tests is as described at the start of post alas your understanding is unfortunately almost entirely wrong. Consider these extracts from official and mainstream sources (not some random ill informed  site on the web):         

• Public Health England (PHE )  

"RT-PCR detects presence of viral genetic material in a sample but is not able to distinguish whether infectious virus is present." 

 A single Ct value [i.e one PCR test] in the absence of clinical context [i.e The subject being tested has not been assessed by a clinician] cannot be relied upon for decision making about a person’s infectivity.  n.b. the inserted text in [ ] are my clarifications  

• article in the British Medical Journal website  (my highlighting)

It’s also unclear to what extent people with no symptoms transmit SARS-CoV-2. The only test for live virus is viral culture. PCR and lateral flow tests do not distinguish live virus. No test of infection or infectiousness is currently available for routine use.678 As things stand, a person who tests positive with any kind of test may or may not have an active infection with live virus, and may or may not be infectious.9

• the Oxford University Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine (CEBM) says[1, 2]:

“PCR detection of viruses is helpful so long as its accuracy can be understood: it offers the capacity to detect RNA in minute quantities, but whether that RNA represents infectious virus may not be clear.”  

• fullfact.org -  A site that often presents a highly misleading conclusion but from some good research. 

 "The exact relationship (between Ct value and infectivity) is still being researched, and interpreting these results depends on the clinical context.

So picking apart the widely held understanding of mass of PCR tests for COVID 19 as outlined above:

• Well established ? - NO
• relationship between the Ct values used in test and infectivity and is still being researched
• Reliable ? - NO 
• a person who tests positive with any kind of test may or may not have an active infection with live virus, and may or may not be infectious.
• majority of PCR tests e.g home /school administered PCR tests have no clinical context 
• single PCR test cannot be relied upon 
• Determine whether you do have COVID-19 - Not reliably 
• see points above  and note that simply because some specific disease virus/bacteria are present in your body does not necessarily mean you have the associated disease (see notes )
• Determine whether you don't have COVID-19 - Not reliably    
• With a high Ct a PCR test will detect even minute quantities of viral particles so one might think if these aren't detected it is basically impossible to have the disease. However, the amount of virus present in an individual varies greatly as an infection progress and in cases of respiratory disease as opposed to e.g blood borne diseases the virus is not evenly distributed in the body. In the early stages of an infection where the level of virus - the viral load - is usually minute and a PCR test, especially one using a sample taken by a non medical professional, may falsely produce a negative result hence the PHE caution that 
•  A single Ct value in the absence of clinical context cannot be relied upon ..."

Flawed Statistics - Virus vs. Disease 

It should be self-evident from the above that officially published statistics on the number of COVID-19  cases where numbers are presented as simple facts e.g. like taking a count of passengers on a plane grossly misrepresents the true situation which is that nobody knows with any real confidence how many cases of the disease/illness COVID-19 there are or have been. 

The self contradictions in the process used to produce the official statistics can be seen by these extracts from the key UK government publication ref.  https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/about-data

First we have this clear and factual statement:   

"Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests are lab-based and test for the presence of SARS-CoV-2 virus."

Yet two sentences later in the same documents we have this  :

"Daily and cumulative numbers of cases

Number of people with a positive COVID-19 virus test (either lab-reported or rapid lateral flow test) on or up to the specimen date or reporting date (depending on availability)."

and somehow a PCR test for "the presence of SARS-CoV-2 virus" has become,  i.e a lab reported "positive COronaVIrusDisease-19 virus test" despite, as shown above the government knowing  full well that a single PCR test is neither a reliable indicator of whether an individual or doesn't have COVID-19 nor whether they are or are not infectious.  

This mixing of true statements about the well established PCR process for testing the presence of a virus with falses statement/implications about PCR tests without any clinical context being a reliable test for cases of COVID-19 disease are endlessly repeated on the Internet, the mainstream media and those self appointed and misnomered "fact check"sites . Taking this example from  https://fullfact.org/health/cycle-threshold-values/ 

The summary is far from being a non-partisan impartial fact check and closer to a lawyer's summary putting their case i.e. to defend PCR tests in the best light and deliberately misrepresenting their opponents argument to present it in the worst  i.e   

• they have omitted to specify whether the original claim (n.b  no longer available on the web ) was about PCR tests for disease, where they are flawed, or for simple presence of virus where they are not   
• while they have correctly stated that interpreting high Ct result requires clinical context they have disingenuously omitted to acknowledge that with advent of mass PCR testing the huge majority of tests have no clinical context whatever in which to interpret them so in a very real sense they can be considered invalid.    

So how many COVID-19 Cases are there?

Well it should be abundantly clear I don't know and nor does anyone else - but as ever there are polarized arguments either way with some factions arguing that cases are under reported and others that they are over reported. The flaws in PCR test for identifying diseases and hences cases (I'll leave the thorny topic of asymptomatic cases to another post!) can result in both false negatives and false positives.

It is generally the case in the early stages of an outbreak of disease that cases are under-reported with the true number of people infected not being known due to there not being a perfect testing process i.e there is no cheap, 100% reliable, instant test you can simultaneously administer to everyone to know the true number of people infected. 

However COVID-19 is unique in that by early March 2020 there was already widespread fear of  the disease in the UK inflamed by extensive and almost universally alarmist media reporting on the COVID outbreaks in China and Italy. The UK government along with most others were already preparing to impose policies they knew would be incredibly expensive and far reaching in their impact  on society as a whole i.e the lockdown. In such a scenario I contend there were actually very strong vested interests in seeing over reporting of cases to justify the policies already committed to and there are numerous other areas of concern regarding the attribution of COVID deaths - this however requires another post to cover it in any in detail.

Summary - Can it really be that bad ?

Alas the situation is even more complicated in that, along with the serious limitations of mass COVID-19 PCR tests, there is not even general agreement on what constitutes a COVID-19 case with different countries and organisations have differing definitions. This is all presented clearly by the CEBM here:

 https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/when-is-covid-covid/

Government policies on lockdown, school closures, mass testing, quarantine for travellers, imposed isolation after positive test are all to a greater or lesser extent based on an assessment of COVID cases and how fast they are spreading. To me it is genuinely shocking that despite the difficulties in even defining what is a case of COVID-19 and the acknowledged, understood and accepted limitations of PCR tests in identifying disease and infectiousness governments have still used mass PCR tests (see notes) as a cornerstone for the most far reaching, draconian and costly polices ever imposed outside of war time. 

It is equally shocking how the mainstream media, the majority of medical, health and scientific organisations -who know full well the PCR tests limitation - and even opposition politicians, have not just gone along with but acted as active proponents of the simplistic and misleading narrative/propaganda used by the Government. 

I remain convinced this is not all part of a world wide strategic plan, "the great reset", but is primarily the result of fear induced groupthink and a tragically flawed "end justifies the means" way of thinking - see my COVID part 3 post. However the idea there were/are no cynical opportunists developing lucrative careers and numerous companies and organisations making massive profits from the COVID crisis and hence active in supporting and promoting disinformation when is suits their interests and discouraging analysis criticism when its doesn't is to my mind more than simply naieve.  

Notes  

• Lateral flow tests outside of a clinical context are acknowledged as even more unreliable then PCR tests at identifying COVID-19
• One in 10 people i.e 6.6 million people in the UK  would test positive for meningitis on a PCR Test. See https://vk.ovg.ox.ac.uk/vk/meningococcal-disease#:~:text=Between%205%25%20and%2011%25%20of,in%20the%20winter%20each%20year. 

COVID-19 : Part 3 Pandemic ?

It's now September 2021, some 18 months after the start of the "pandemic" (see below), and over 15 months since my last post. I had hoped something approaching normality would have returned by now along with an understanding of the SARS CoV2 virus, the associated disease COVID-19 and how best to treat /contain it from a medical and public health policy perspective. Alas that is not the case and while many aspects of the virus and associated disease are now relatively well understood many remain contentious e.g. the extent of asymptomatic spread, the level of transmission by touch, the effectiveness of social distancing and so called "lockdowns", the effectiveness of vaccines in preventing the spread of COVID-19, concerns over vaccine side effects and many more. Since my first post many of the polices adopted in early 2020 to try and deal with COVID-19 e.g. masks, restrictions on travel, work at home orders, forced isolation etc remain in place to some extent while others, compulsory testing, forced vaccination (for some), quarantines for travellers have been introduced. 

What is however clear is that governments, many scientists and medical professionals and the majority of the mainstream media have not provided the public with clear, accurate and balanced information on the situation. The mainstream media have largely acted as both an uncritical and supportive mouthpiece for the prevailing government narrative and as click-bait alarmists providing endless highly emotive stories of individual suffering, ever rising death tolls", "spikes" "surging", highly deadly variants of the virus etc etc . 

I consider that it is self evident that Governments and their uncritical supporters remain firmly in the grip of "groupthink" whereby they are so convinced of their own "rightness" they refuse to consider, and in many cases try to suppress and discredit, anyone and anything that questions or challenges the position they hold and policies they are implementing. A key element of groupthink is an "end justifies the means" mentality whereby those stuck in groupthink believe that any negative consequence of their actions however terrible are both morally and practically justified i.e. a price worth paying.

My aim remains to try and provide a more accurate and balanced view of what has happened over the last 18 months by analysing the main elements of the mainstream position and in some cases the counter narratives e.g. it’s all a fake "scamdemic". To start however it is essential to try and characterise the true extent of COVID-19 crisis - a term I will use as, whatever the true causes, there has been and remains a crisis - to help assess to what extent the polices imposed to deal with it were and remain justified. 

Pandemic or Scamdemic? - Definitions 

If asked last last year what I considered a pandemic I would have said something like the medieval black death or the Spanish flu of the early 1900s that killed 10's of millions of otherwise healthy people world-wide. This understanding would probably be held by many others. A typical dictionary definition:

Definition of pandemic (Entry 1 of 2)

: occurring over a wide geographic area (such as multiple countries or continents) and typically affecting a significant proportion of the population

with an examples of usage being;

"The 1918 flu was pandemic and claimed millions of lives".

The definition of a flu pandemic used by the WHO until 2009 was: .

“An influenza pandemic occurs when a new influenza virus appears against which the human population has no immunity, resulting in several simultaneous epidemics worldwide with enormous numbers of deaths and illness.”

This definition was altered in 2009 by WHO to: 

“An influenza pandemic may occur when a new influenza virus appears against which the human population has no immunity.”

The current COVID-19 crisis does meet the first criterion of the 2009 onwards WHO definition of a pandemic i.e there is a consensus [see later posts on disputes about this] that SARS CoV2 is a new (corona) virus. However, as immunity to any given disease is in reality a complex and variable phenomenon and I can't see how a total lack the immunity of the "human population" could ever be proven, meeting the second criterion of the WHO definition can never be determined in practise. 

Taking the earlier WHO definition and generic dictionary definition of a pandemic in addition to having to be novel and for no prior human immunity to exist, to be considered a pandemic COVID-19 has to affect a "significant proportion" of the population and/or cause "enormous deaths and illness" - to what extent is this true?

Pandemic or Scamdemic? - The numbers 

If we ignore for the moment concerns over the reliability of COVID-19 deaths statistics from Our World in Data site the numbers of people who died in UK during 2020 were :

 All causes: 604,045 

 Confirmed COVID-19 73,622 

So, from a UK population of 66.65 million 73,622 deaths represent just over 1 in 900 people with COVID deaths accounting for about 12% of the deaths on 2020.

Looking at worldwide statistics: 

 All causes 58.32 Million 

 COVID-19 1.88 Million 

From a world population of 7.674 billion the 1.88 million attributed to COVID-19 represents 0.02% or about 1 in 4000 people and about 3% of all deaths in 2020. Before considering these numbers, one must also consider to what extent COVID-19 affects the "human population” i.e affects everyone equally. 

It was established early on in 2020 from Italy that the distribution of COVID-19 deaths was massively unequal. The vast majority of deaths being in the elderly and those with one or more existing serious conditions (comorbidities). According to the ONS for England and Wales the average age of people dying from COVID-19 was 80.3 years whereas the average of people dying from all causes was actually two years younger i.e 78.2 years. The number of people under 24 who died in 2020 whose death involved i.e some may not have been caused by, COVID was some 55 out of a total of 4579 deaths whereas the number of 65 year olds and over whose deaths involved COVID was 77,987 which is 1400 times greater. 

Pandemic or Scamdemic? - Analysis 

From the above :

• It is arguable whether COVID-19 is truly a pandemic in the sense of the term generally understood and the definition by the WHO, prior to 2009

• Given that most people know less than 900 people it is actually unlikely that the average individual in the UK - a country with one of the highest level of infections and deaths due to COVID-19 - will personally know someone who has died from COVID-19. If they do it is highly likely that person will have been “elderly” and /or with other comorbidities 

Given the above some have concluded, perhaps not that unreasonably, that as they and possibly many of their friends' and family don't know anyone who has died of COVID this is somehow all a “scam” or fake issue - this is not a valid conclusion to draw. Despite the true impact of COVID-19 being deliberately exaggerated and serious questions about the accuracy of the official statistics regarding deaths attributed to COVID (see post on PCR tests) excess mortality statistics confirm that many hundreds of thousands of people around the world have died due to some new cause and SARS COV2 is the only credible cause I am aware of. Attempting to claim therefore this is all "fake", a "scamdemic" is simply not true. 

European published excess mortality clearly show the impact across Europe of the “first wave” of SARS COV2. The first wave was largely over by week 20 of 2020 yet resulted in an increase in excess mortality across Europe relative to 2018 of some 50 thousand deaths. 

Source https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps

I must be noted that, particularly for the second wave, it is impossible to accurately determine from excess mortality statistics alone how much of the increase was caused directly by COVID-19 and how much was due to other factors e.g the policies implemented in early 2020 to deal with it e.g massive cancellation of operations, vastly reduced GP and A&E services, curtailment of screening for diseases like cancer, shortages of medical staff due to enforced isolation, reluctance to visit hospitals and GPs due to fear of infection. Even some mainstream news outlets (but of course not the BBC) reported on a UK ONS public health modelling study carried out in 2020 where the percentage of excess mortality due to the lockdown policies themselves rather than the virus could be as high as 40%.

https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-lockdown-may-have-indirectly-caused-16-000-excess-deaths-study-12044923 

 

Even assuming 40% of excess deaths resulted from government policies rather than the virus by the end of 2020 COVID-19 would have been the cause of 150,000 excess deaths across Europe relative to 2018. [i.e 60% of the 250,000 difference at week 52 - see graph above]

Conclusion 

The use of the terms pandemic and scamdemic are both to some extent flawed and to differing extents misleading characterizations of the true situation and continue to have serious consequences. Future posts will take a critical look at the consequences of these flawed characterisations. 

Notes / References

Groupthink https://www.britannica.com/science/groupthink

Our World in Data Example Plot

The 2020 Coronovirus Crisis - Part 2 of 3

Lock-down Policies - Some Comparisons

Initially in March 2020 the UK government appeared to be intending to take what was called a mitigation strategy for COVID-19 relying on building up herd immunity. Opponents of this strategy claimed that recent “modelling by scientists” showed such a strategy would result in a huge number of deaths in the UK. Additionally there would be massive overloading of the NHS caused by the rapid spread of COVID-19 which would result in additional deaths due to lack of  both ICU capacity and of the medical staff and facilities to deal with the normal non-COVID medical care required.

As reported by the BBC on 17th March https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-51915302 the modelling projections were :

Do nothing - 81% of people would be infected 510,000 would die from COVID-19 by August.
Mitigation - 250,000 deaths and completely overwhelm intensive care in the NHS.

The experience of Italy's severe problems in dealing with the rapid spread of COVID-19 was used as supporting evidence for the projections - by March 17th the official Italian COVID-19 death toll was 2,185 and rising rapidly by over 300 a day and still rate accelerating. The UK government therefore  decided to change tack and on 23rd of March moved to suppression rather than mitigation and implemented a “lock down” i.e. closing all schools and non-essential businesses, banning all non-essential travel, all public events etc. This was similar to the policy implemented by Italy a couple of weeks earlier, by China in February and being adopted by many, but not all countries world wide. 

It was hoped that the lockdown could reduce the number of UK deaths caused by COVID-19 and “a very good result" would be limiting the deaths to 20,000. As it has turned out the impact of COVID-19 on the UK compared to on Italy has been worse, both in terms of deaths per million and total UK deaths now reported as over 42,000.

I should point out that for the comparisons I'm using,despite their limitations covered in Part 1, the figures for officially reported COVID-19 deaths. I consider that as they are consistent with the available excess mortality statistics they are suitable for drawing relative comparisons i.e countries with higher EM also have higher reported COVID-19 deaths. They also provide a more detailed picture of how events have unfolded over time (and also the data on excess mortality is simply not readily available for one of the countries I compare the UK  with).  

Note:    All graphs shown are from the excellent Oxford University Site, "Our World in Data", where you can select the specif data you want to plot.  Example as per link. 

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-covid-deaths-per-million-7-day-average?country=BLR~ITA~SWE~GBR

 COVID-19 Reported Deaths per Million - UK vs. Italy

However some EU countries have had vastly lower levels of deaths than those experienced in the most severely affected countries i.e UK, Italy, Spain, France, Belgium and the Netherlands. In particular Greece has fared remarkably well as shown below :

 COVID-19 Reported Deaths per Million - UK vs. Greece 

So why the huge difference? A possible often cited and certainly, given experience on how previous epidemics have been controlled, credible explanation is that it was because Greece had implemented a lock-down faster than the UK and Italy. Greece closed schools as soon as the 3rd death in Greece from COVID-19 was confirmed, non-essential shops the day after and banned non-essential movement 9 days later. The UK took two weeks from the 3rd confirmed UK death before banning non-essential movement and closing schools. For details of the various lock downs and when they were implemented see here:

https://www.politico.eu/article/europes-coronavirus-lockdown-measures-compared/

However, some European countries did not implement a lock-down. Sweden in particular came and still comes under heavy criticism for not doing so and it was widely claimed they were recklessly ignoring "the science". A comparison with the UK however shows that the outcome to date in terms of deaths per million has been lower in Sweden than the UK .

 COVID-19 Reported Deaths per Million - UK vs. Sweden

Even more surprising is a comparison with Belarus with a population of 9.45 Million similar to Sweden. Belarus did not implement any form of lockdown and has received wider and harsher media criticism and claims of virus "denialism". As it has turned out the reported situation in Belarus is actually much more comparable to that of Greece and vastly better than the UK and Sweden

 COVID-19 Reported Deaths per Million - UK vs. Belarus

Comparison with Modelling

If we simply scale, to allow for their smaller populations, the early March UK modelling projections of UK COVID-19 deaths to the strategies applied by Sweden and Belarus we get.

Projected Deaths - note 1	Sweden	Belarus	UK
Do Nothing	n/a	69,690	500,000
Mitigation only -note 2	37,000	n/a	250,000
Suppression (lock down)	n/a	n/a	20,000 - note 3
Total reported to date	5,053	331	42,000

note 1 The modelling projections always acknowledged they were based on a number of uncertainties
note 2 The Swedish strategy implemented was not as severe as the UK proposed mitigation strategy 
note 3 As above the 20,000 figure was essentially only ever a hope

We will never know what would have happened in UK if we had not implemented or only implemented a less severe lockdown strategy.

If we reverse the logic and scale the Belarus experience to the UK then doing nothing hypothetically should have resulted in only 2375 UK deaths. Despite my significant misgivings about the accuracy of officially reported COVID-19 deaths (see Part 1) a death toll of only 2375 in no way aligns with the reality of the huge increase in UK excess mortality that has occurred and there is no credible argument available to explain how the suppression tactics adopted in the UK could have resulted in a much higher COVID-19 death toll relative to doing nothing  

However see Part 3 for further discussion on this point since excess mortality that is not directly due to COVID has increased substantially - 12,900 above the the 5 year UK average by 1 May 2020 - as reported and discussed in the official UK statistics published by the ONS where it is clear, albeit not stated as such, that this increase may be due to both direct and indirect consequences of the "lock down" itself rather than COVID-19.  

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/articles/analysisofdeathregistrationsnotinvolvingcoronaviruscovid19englandandwales28december2019to1may2020/technicalannex

Conclusions 

The vastly differing experiences of countries in dealing with COVID-19 are still not properly understood and no convincing (see Part 3) explanations have been put forward as to why the lack/limited level of lock-downs in Belarus and Sweden did not result in a much higher death toll. 

note:  I hope it goes without saying that i don't consider it credible that it's due to "drinking vodka having saunas and driving tractors"  https://www.politico.eu/article/belarus-lukashenko-is-defying-the-coronavirus-and-putin/

We still don’t properly understand the new virus nor how COVID-19 will affect a given population.

Part 3  .....

The 2020 Coronovirus Crisis - Part 1 of 3

Why this post?

This set of three posts aim to give a different and more balanced perspective to that being presented in the mainstream media on the current crisis resulting from the the emergence of the new virus, SARS-CoV-2 and the new disease it causes, COVID-19. At the time of writing, June 2020, there are still major gaps in our understanding of how the virus spreads - how many people have been infected by it and how many have died from COVID-19. The various policies implemented by Governments around the world to deal with the impact of this new virus were and continue to be made in a fog of uncertainty and confusion resulting in some very poor decision making that has and will continue to have grave and lasting consequences for huge numbers of people.

You don't know what you don't know

Attempting to understand what's happening using any analysis based solely on official published numbers of COVID-19 related deaths or cases is beset with difficulties since where a death has been recorded as a COVID-19 death i.e. the person who died had tested positive it is uncertain whether COVID-19 was:

• the primary cause of death
• a contributory factor
• not a factor

Also the limited testing and varying approaches to reporting of COVID-19 deaths across countries means we don't know how many people actually have or have had COVID-19, nor how many deaths that were due or partially due to COVID-19 have not been accounted for. However, there is a well understood and established measurement that is not influenced by the uncertainty associated with published COVID-19 statistics. That measure is Excess Mortality (EM) which is simply the number of recorded deaths above the average for a particular time of year. This measure has been gathered by an independent European body of epidemiologists for many across 20 European Union countries. It is also monitored at a UK level as published by the Office of National Statistics (ONS). The statistics and details of the 20 countries involved and methods used are freely available at :

https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps

Excess Mortality - Overall Statistics across twenty European Countries 

The graph below how shows how excess mortality EM varies year to year and week to week due primarily to seasonal flu and excess winter mortality i.e. more people die in winter than summer. The impact of COVID-19 is shown by the sharp spike in EM starting March.

Excess Mortality - 2016 to June 2020

 
You can see from the graph that currently (week 23 - June) there is now NO significant overall excess mortality albeit there still is in some individual countries notably England.  So, to get these numbers into context we need to consider the total number of excess deaths in 2020 to date, the cumulative EM, relative to the total population of the twenty countries involved . This 2020 cumulative excess mortality up till week 23 June is 194,284. 

Annual Cumulative Excess Mortality 2018,2019,2020 

The population of the twenty countries is 435 Million. So, making for the moment the incorrect assumption (see later posts) that COVID-19 was the sole cause of all excess mortality in 2020:

EM (all ages)           = 194,284

Total Population      = 435,010,967

As a percentage 

        Excess deaths             = 194,284 / 435,010,967 
                                           = 0.045% or  1 in 2239

However, COVID-19 affects elderly people much more severely than younger people with 91% of all excess deaths being in the 65 and over age group. Breaking down the figures for excess mortality by age group, in percentage terms they are:

Age 0 to 14   = 0.00001% or 1 in 7,131,327

Age 15 to 64 = 0.00399% or 1 in 25,063

Over 65         = 0.04046% or 1 in 2,472

A comparison that might help to get these numbers into context is to compare these figures with the risk of dying in a car accident. Assuming you travel in a car regularly your annual risk in the UK is roughly 1 in 25,000 or over a lifetime 1 in 500.

Comparison with Seasonal Flu / Previous years

The cumulative EM graph for the twenty EU countries shows clearly the higher number of excess deaths in 2020 than in 2018 and 2019. So again, making for now the (false) assumption that all 2020 excess mortality is due solely to COVID-19 then in percentage terms the increase in EM across the 20 countries that can be attributed to COVID-19 is at most. 

85% above 2018  and 239% above 2019

These are of course very significant increases.

 At a world wide level however the total COVID death figures published on Worldometer are approximately 450,000 (still rising). By comparison the number of deaths worldwide due to seasonal flu is typically as described below: 

“According to new estimates published today, between 291,000 and 646,000 people worldwide die from seasonal influenza-related respiratory illnesses each year, higher than a previous estimate of 250,000 to 500,000 and based on a robust, multinational survey.”  

https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2017/p1213-flu-death-estimate.html 

So at a worldwide level the current figure of 450,000 deaths officially recorded as COVID-19 deaths, albeit still rising, is pretty much in the middle of the range. So in terms of number of deaths worldwide COVID-19 so far is directly comparable to seasonal flu.

Conclusions /Comment

See COVID-19 Parts 2 and 3 

BBC - The New Puritans Alcohol & Smoking & Yet More ALARMISM

The BBC and temperance campaigners and those who just love ever more regressive taxation - ie taxes that hit the poorest hardest are yet again pushing ALARM about alcohol based on studies in the Lancet headlining with any amount of alcohol, however small, being damaging and conflating smoking and alcohol.

The ALARMIST type headlines from the BBC articles are :

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-47723704

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-47817650

Note Lancet Report title is actually :

"Risk thresholds for alcohol consumption: combined analysis of individual-participant data for 599 912 current drinkers in 83 prospective studies"

but that's nowhere near as ALARMIST headline grabbing  ...

#Before rushing off to take the pledge I recommend you read this as an antidote :

https://health.spectator.co.uk/a-glass-of-wine-wont-shorten-your-life-moderate-drinking-is-still-good-for-you/

If you're short of time the summary is :

• NO - the evidence doesn't support the implied argument that if you're a light drinker stopping drinking will further reduce your risk of drink related diseases 
• Their own data (but hidden in an Appendix that you have to have a subscription to the Lancet or a copy of full article to read) still shows that moderate drinking -one or two units per day (= 56g to 112g per week) is "statistically" better than being teetotal ..

So here are some figure - firstly from the main report :

The figure on the left above shows that among those who drink  the ones that drink the least <100g a week are less likely to die from drink associated diseases and that as you drink more the risk goes up. WOW that's a Surprise!. The graph on the right above even still shows that benefits of drinking about 100g a week on reducing the relative risk of cardiovascular disease.

The trick used by temperance campaigners (my so called New Puritans) to undermining sensible public health advice on alcohol is hidden away in an appendix in the Lancet report and is to exclude teetotallers (and ex drinkers) from the results shown above in the main report.

When these are included you get these two graphs below (annoyingly the are swapped around relative to the ones above) but I'm sure you see the point that teetotallers and ex-drinker have much higher mortality rates  until you get to at least 300g/week or to make that easier for some that's 16.3 pints of London Pride a week !

Science & Belief

The current debate and concerns over climate change and the highly politicised and bitterly polarised debate usually involve both sides invoking in some sense "science" as providing support for their  position. The article below by Dr Judith Curry however provides a very clear exposition of why you really do need to start listening very carefully and switch into skeptical mode whenever you hear anyone using the phrase "I believe in science"  .. as support for their position .

https://judithcurry.com/2019/03/26/why-i-dont-believe-in-science/