We’re all in the big numbers now

The Critic ^ | May 20, 2020 | Alistair Haimes

[kabar]

It is the end of the affair. We are no longer at epidemic levels of covid-19 prevalence in the UK (0.27% of the population infected, where 0.4% is the low end required to be “epidemic”), and all-cause deaths have slipped back below average.

It seems a good time to look back on the extraordinary past few weeks and try and draw conclusions.

First: who has the disease killed? Covid-19 targets the old and the sick; this is not to be callous, but to understand the enemy and to provide context. The average age of those dying of covid-19 in the UK is over 80, and fully a third are residents of care homes where average “stay” (a euphemism I’m afraid) was only 30 months from admission before the virus anyway.

Second: who hasn’t it killed? Parents, unions and nervy adults fret about the risk, but there is little need. With no serious pre-existing conditions, the young-ish and healthy are far more likely to be hit by lightning (49 occurrences per annum in UK) than to die of covid-19 (33 in England under age 40, of which only 3 under the age of 19). Panning out, among healthy under 60s (i.e. children and the vast majority of our working population), 253 people have died of covid-19 in English hospitals; this compares to 400 (non-suicide) drownings per year in the UK. And taking all age-groups where there are no pre-existing conditions serious enough to be mentioned as contributary causes of death, covid-19 has taken about 2/3rds the lives that British roads do every year, and we wouldn’t think of outlawing driving, swimming or going outside in a storm.

[kabar]

Brilliant insights. Fauci and Birx should read this.

[Secret Agent Man]

and governments around the world deliberately helped the virus kill off old people by putting covid-infected folks into assisted living facilities.

[rarestia]

They won’t read anything, and this article will fall on deaf ears among those who find it counter to their beliefs.

We’ve transcended “truth” as a society. We enjoy our echo chambers and just live in our own bubbles, not confronting raw facts when they’re presented. I know I’m guilty of it. There’s so much misleading shit out there nowadays, I feel like I live in a constant state of cognitive dissonance.

[AFB-XYZ]

Wouldn’t want to be them on Judgment Day.

Have no idea why Judgment Day is popping into my mind so often these days. but it is. This will sound silly, but I think I’d feel better knowing other Freepers are experiencing the same thing.

[cuban leaf]

Think of the money they saved in Social Security payments. :)

[kabar]

SAGE minutes make it clear that the public was explicitly petrified in order to ensure compliance with lockdown. Mind-control is objectionable in itself, but has a real cost in lives: before a policy lever like lockdown was pulled, where was the cost/benefit analysis, or was SAGE only thinking of covid-19? Lockdown, after all, affects not just this thing over here (covid-19) but also that thing over there (cancer, cardiac, sepsis, etc.).

Through lockdown, A&E cardiac admissions have been as much as 50% down, so around 5,000 people per month have not been turning up at hospital with heart attack symptoms; heart attacks outside hospital have only a 1-in-10 chance of survival. Same story with strokes. And downstream, many cancers are touch-and-go even if you catch them early; give them a two month head-start and Stanford’s Professor Bhattacharya estimates the impact of urgent cancer referrals running 70% below normal levels will be around 18,000 deaths.

Chris Whitty (CMO) warned two months ago of the toll of these “indirect deaths” (=’lockdown deaths’), and the figures are in: there have been over 13,000 non-covid excess deaths since the start of lockdown, of which over 12,000 in care homes. Can the scale of these figures in the context of the disease be remotely acceptable?

[kabar]

There is an interesting study, Lengths of Stay for Older Adults Residing in Nursing Homes at the End of Life that shows that 53% of people die within the first six months after admission, and 65% die the first year. How many of these deaths attributed to the virus are really from other causes?

[kabar]

Did you read the article?

[oldbrowser]

Think of the money they saved in Social Security payments. :)

I was thinking that overpopulation in China was might be reason they were tinkering with viruses.

[UCANSEE2]

[SoCal Pubbie]

What is SAGE?

[kabar]

The Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) provides scientific and technical advice to support government decision makers during emergencies.