Table of Contents
COVID Transmission/Infection
Falsity #1: Children Can Easily Spread COVID to Adults, Including Their Teachers
Falsity #2: COVID is Easily Spread By Asymptomatic Carriers
Falsity #3: COVID Can Be Easily Spread Just By Someone You Cross on the Street
Falsity #4: COVID Can Be Easily Spread on Surfaces
Falsity #5: You Can Get Re-Infected With COVID
Falsity #6: Social Distancing Is Based On Sound Science
Falsity #7: Mask-Wearing-For-All Is Based On Sound Science
Falsity #8: COVID has started spreading in Wuhan in December of 2019
Falsity #9: COVID is Spreading In An Exponential Manner
COVID Risks/Death Toll
Falsity #10: Returning Children to School is to Gamble With Their Life
Falsity #11: COVID is Very Deadly For the General Population
Falsity #12: COVID is a Death Sentence For The Elderly
Falsity #13: COVID is a Death Sentence For Prisoners
Falsity #14: COVID Has Killed 500,000+ Extra People Around The World This Year
Falsity #15: Cont’d — 2020 Has Been A Very Deadly Year
COVID Policies/Treatments
Falsity #16: We Need More Ventilators
Falsity #17: Lockdowns Have Saved Millions of Lives
Falsity #18: Sweden Was Reckless in Its COVID Approach And Failed
Falsity #19: Every Life Counts, And Lockdowns Don’t Have Health Consequences
Falsity #20: Those Who Question the Corona-Panic Narrative Are Conspiracy Theorists
Falsity #21: The US is Facing a Dangerous 2nd Wave
Falsity #22: We’re Very Far From Herd Immunity, And Reopening Too Early Is Deadly
When Will The Corona Madness End?
***For the audio deep dive version of this article, visit https://theemfguy.com/018/***
On March 24th, right around the time I urgently came back to Quebec with the family over the fears that the entire country of Canada was about to lockdown to stop the spread of a terribly deadly virus, Dr. Didier Raoult — considered the #1 expert worldwide in Communicable Diseases — called the COVID crisis a “collective hallucinated drama” [translation mine, from French].
That same week, John Ioannidis — professor of medicine and epidemiology at Stanford, one of the most influential US-based scientists alive, and described as “the scourge of sloppy science” by the BMJ, said that the COVID crisis might end up being a “once-in-a-century evidence fiasco”.
Another “COVID skeptic” — Dr. Sucharit Bhakdi, medical doctor and specialist in microbiology, and one of the most cited research scientists in German history — said that “all these [COVID-related] measures are leading to self-destruction and collective suicide based on nothing but a spook.”
These statements left me speechless. Were all these prestigious scientists right, or completely out of their darn minds? Was our reaction to this virus completely exaggerated? Were we in the middle of a mass hysteria event?
In the first article I published on the topic on April 1st, I chose to be extremely prudent considering the climate at the time… and simply said that there were a lot of “inconvenient facts” that had been ignored in the entire COVID narrative we had been hearing for weeks.
Then I dove even deeper, spent way too much time looking at the crisis from all angles to make sure I wasn’t the one losing my mind, and at the end of May/early June I published a new 3-part article series.
That’s where I made the case that the world has been turned upside down over a virus that’s orders of magnitude less dangerous/deadly/serious/threatening than the Imperial College London had originally predicted (reminder: they said 2.2M Americans would die if we did nothing, and 1.1-1.2M if we did everything perfectly…).
Months later, the scientific data is confirming what Ioannidis and others have been suspecting for months: COVID was a pandemic similar to a harsh flu season, and the global reaction to this virus was rooted in sheer panic, not in sound and rational science-based policies.
This article will be very different from my previous ones. I don’t have hundreds of hours to put into a 30,000 word article, so I’ll make my points short, and will simply present a list of falsities that have been said about COVID, and give you a few links to read further on each one of them, should you want to go deeper.
Again — if I didn’t make that clear in my previous posts — if you want to comment below, be warned that I will tolerate zero ad hominem attacks, useless politics, and other nonsense. Stick to commenting/discussing/debating the facts that are presented and you’ll automatically become more rational than the vast majority of journalists, scientists, doctors and laypeople I’ve seen comment on COVID since the beginning of this madness.
COVID Transmission/Infection
Falsity #1: Children Can Easily Spread COVID to Adults, Including Their Teachers
“Scientists now know young children don’t transmit the virus.”
— Dr. Daniel Koch, Switzerland Health Ministry’s infectious diseases chief
Nope. We’ve known for months that children extremely rarely transmit COVID, possibly because their virus load is smaller compared to adults.
In fact, some scientists recently shared that they could not find a single case in the world where a child infected a teacher.
- In the French Alps, a 9-year-old child was in contact with 172 people, and transmitted COVID to only one of them (source)
- In the Italian town of Vo, which was under a complete lockdown very early and where almost all residents were tested, not one child under 10 (out of 234) tested positive for the virus (source)
- Dr. Ebere Okereke, a consultant in global public health for Public Health England, has recently claimed — based on a recent review of the evidence done by the Royal College of Paediatrics (RCP) — that “children do not appear to transmit coronavirus”. “So no risk of children passing it on to their teachers – or their parents or their grandparents” (source)
- There are many other sources on that topic in my latest article here.
Falsity #2: COVID is Easily Spread By Asymptomatic Carriers
“The problem is the political pushback, presumably motivated by fear, because [Dr. Van Kerkhove] was correct in her facts. […] The fact is that a huge percentage — 50% or more — of those who are infected are asymptomatic.
The other fact that she said is true, it’s not common — in fact, it’s rare to get an infection transmitted by an asymptomatic person. […] She was quoting the studies, but what we should be saying is from the studies.”
— Dr. Scott Atlas, senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and former chief of neuroradiology at Stanford University Medical Center
On June 8th, Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, head of the WHO’s emerging diseases and zoonosis unit, said that asymptomatic spread of COVID is “very rare”. Then, two days later, the WHO slapped her wrist and had her “walk back” on her statements.
But the reality is that Dr. Kerkhove was completely right — the best scientific data we currently have from countries who have done extremely detailed contact tracing does show that transmission from asymptomatic carriers is very rare!
In plain English? The little science we do have supports the idea that people who do not currently display symptoms of COVID, very rarely transmit COVID. If this is true, it begs the question why we are moving forward with mandating masks and continuing the social distancing game?
As it is the case during flu season, people who display any kind of flu-like symptom should stay home, period.
Falsity #3: COVID Can Be Easily Spread Just By Someone You Cross on the Street
“There is no significant risk of catching the disease when you go shopping. Severe outbreaks of the infection were always a result of people being closer together over a longer period of time.” [emphasis mine]
— Professor Hendrik Streeck, HIV researcher, epidemiologist, clinical trialist and professor for virology and the director of the Institute of virology and HIV Research at the University Bonn
The data we have shows that COVID does not spread easily in people you are in contact with for just a few seconds, or even a few minutes. In reality, the main vectors of transmission are prolonged contact inside near a COVID carrier, and nosocomial (hospital-acquired).
This shows that wearing a mask outside is downright silly, and that wearing a mask outside while jogging is even more insane.
- Study: Out of 318 COVID clusters across China with 3 or more infections, not one occurred outside.
- From early March (was valid then, and still holds true to this day): “‘Casual contact’ isn’t cause for concern at the moment, as most recorded cases of community transfers are from people who have been in close contact with the infected person for prolonged periods of time. The chances of someone contracting the virus from a casual contact are ‘fairly low’” (source).
- New England Journal of Medicine, Universal Masking in Hospitals in the Covid-19 Era: “Public health authorities define a significant exposure to Covid-19 as face-to-face contact within 6 feet with a patient with symptomatic Covid-19 that is sustained for at least a few minutes (and some say more than 10 minutes or even 30 minutes)”.
- Masks Likely Do Not Inhibit Viral Spread by Dr. Joseph Mercola
Falsity #4: COVID Can Be Easily Spread on Surfaces
“We know [COVID] is not a smear infection that is transmitted by touching objects, but that close dancing and exuberant celebrations have led to infections.”
— Professor Hendrik Streeck, HIV researcher, epidemiologist, clinical trialist and professor for virology and the director of the Institute of virology and HIV Research at the University Bonn
Nope. The CDC has been saying for months that transmission on surfaces is unlikely. As soon as early April, German virologist Hendrik Streeck found that COVID cannot be easily transmitted on surfaces, after studying grocery stores, hairdressers and other public places.
Falsity #5: You Can Get Re-Infected With COVID (Just After You’ve Had It)
“Patients in South Korea who re-tested positive had very little to no ability to spread the virus.”
— Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (source)
Many hypothesized that the reason some people previously tested positive for COVID, then tested negative (showing they didn’t have the virus anymore), only to then re-test positive is that the tests were not precise enough, and produced a huge amount of false-positive results. I talked about this issue extensively back on April 1st.
Since late May, Korean researchers have confirmed that you cannot get reinfected with COVID, and that these seemingly positive tests people get after being infected and recovering are just false-positives.
“As a result of these findings, published online Tuesday, the South Korean CDC no longer recommends that people in this situation be isolated.”
I personally know someone who works in one of the nursing homes in Montreal where the COVID death toll has been among the worst, and he has confirmed that as of few weeks ago, staff members who test positive and then follow a 14-day quarantine period (South Africa recently reduced this period to 10 days after new evidence came in) can go back to work without additional testing. (Too many of them tested positive again, but even health officials now recognize that the tests are too often bogus.)
All that being said, it’s true that immunity to COVID, just like it is the case with other coronaviruses, might last for just a few years. It’s known that most people get reinfected with cold-inducing coronaviruses around every 5 years.
- Good News, Reinfection Unlikely by Dr. John Campbell
Falsity #6: Social Distancing Is Based On Sound Science
“Handwashing and encouragement are what we need, not formalised rules. This means trying to keep a distance from each other where possible and avoiding spending time indoors in crowded places. Much of the evidence informing policy in this outbreak is poor quality; let us hope that evidence-informed decision-making will at some point resume.” [emphasis mine]
— Carl Heneghan (director) and Tom Jefferson (honorary research fellow), Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine, University of Oxford
Stay two meters/6 feet apart? Why has the WHO been recommending 1 meter from the very beginning?
The idea of social distancing is thought to have originated in a 14 year old’s science fair project. The distance that has been used in different countries has been “conjured out of nowhere”, certain countries like the US and Canada essentially doubling WHO’s 1 meter rule to “be on the safe side”.
Social distancing has never been scientifically proven as a valid tool to slow down or stop the spread of a respiratory virus. Its efficacy is unknown.
Given all this, my humble opinion is that we should at least stick with the 1 meter rule which will make it possible to save many struggling businesses like restaurants and bars that are currently going bankrupt.
- Jefferson and Heneghan from the Oxford Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine: “There is no scientific evidence to support the disastrous two-metre rule”
Falsity #7: Mask-Wearing-For-All Is Based On Sound Science
“It is also clear that masks serve symbolic roles. Masks are not only tools, they are also talismans that may help increase health care workers’ perceived sense of safety, well-being, and trust in their hospitals. […] Expanded masking protocols’ greatest contribution may be to reduce the transmission of anxiety, over and above whatever role they may play in reducing transmission of Covid-19.” [emphasis mine]
— Recent study by researchers from the Department of Population Medicine, Harvard Medical School and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute (M.K.), Brigham and Women’s Hospital (M.K., C.A.M., J.S., M.P.), Harvard Medical School (M.K., C.A.M., E.S.S.), and the Infection Control Unit and Division of Infectious Diseases, Massachusetts General Hospital (E.S.S.) — all in Boston.
The science behind the efficacy of face masks in entire populations to slow down the spread of COVID (or any respiratory infection) is flimsy at best.
Denis Rancourt, PhD, explains:
“There have been extensive randomized controlled trial (RCT) studies, and meta-analysis reviews of RCT studies, which all show that masks and respirators do not work to prevent respiratory influenza-like illnesses, or respiratory illnesses believed to be transmitted by droplets and aerosol particles.” [emphasis mine]
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) website confirms that both cloth face masks and surgical masks “will not protect the wearer against airborne transmissible infectious agents due to loose fit and lack of seal or inadequate filtration.” (source)
- Dr. Brosseau — national expert on respiratory protection and infectious diseases and professor (retired), University of Illinois at Chicago: Masks-for-all for COVID-19 not based on sound data
- Impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions against COVID-19 in Europe: a quasi-experimental study: “requiring the wearing of facemasks or coverings in public was not associated with any independent additional impact.”
- New England Journal of Medicine, Universal Masking in Hospitals in the Covid-19 Era: “It is also clear that masks serve symbolic roles. Masks are not only tools, they are also talismans that may help increase health care workers’ perceived sense of safety, well-being, and trust in their hospitals. […] Expanded masking protocols’ greatest contribution may be to reduce the transmission of anxiety, over and above whatever role they may play in reducing transmission of Covid-19.” In other words, the protection masks offer is more psychological than physiological…
- June 2020: Do facemasks protect against COVID‐19? “During [previous] pandemics […], many people in Asia and elsewhere walked around wearing surgical or homemade cotton masks to protect themselves. One danger of doing this is the illusion of protection. […] A pre‐symptomatic or mildly infected person wearing a facemask for hours without changing it and without washing hands every time they touched the mask could paradoxically increase the risk of infecting others.” [emphasis mine]
Falsity #8: COVID has started spreading in Wuhan in December of 2019
“As I’ve been saying, with a rapid and completely novel virus, and daily flights from Wuhan to LA, SF and Europe, the idea that this virus wasn’t everywhere back in November or even earlier is now impossible to defend.”
— Joel Hay, PhD, Professor of Pharmaceutical and Health Economics, USC School of Pharmacy
In the last several months there’s been several indications that this is completely implausible and untrue. The virus was around way sooner than we previously expected, and has likely not originated from a market in Wuhan.
This explains why lockdowns and most interventions have been highly ineffective in slowing down infections. The virus had already spread widely, and can hardly be “controlled”.
- The first confirmed COVID case in the US was not in Washington State on February 29th as previously thought, but on February 6th in California (source)
- COVID has been identified in sewer samples in Barcelona, dating back from March of 2019 — this still needs to be confirmed but would change the entire timeline, again (source)
- The first case in France was identified on November 16th, 2019 (source)
- The first case in Quebec, Canada is suspected to be in December of 2019 (source)
- COVID was already present in Italy in mid-December, as reported by Italian officials (source)
- Genetic studies indicate that the virus was spreading all around the world in late 2019 (source)
- SARS-CoV-2 in human sewage in Santa Catalina, Brazil, November 2019 (source)
Falsity #9: COVID is Spreading In An Exponential Manner
“We see now, by just looking at the data, that from the very first confirmed case, the rate of growth of COVID-19 is not constant. It’s growth is never exponential.” [emphasis mine]
— Michael Levitt, winner of the 2013 Nobel in Chemistry
This meme has been constantly repeated in the media, and was included in the original ICL paper that made the world panic.
The truth is that starting from early February but probably sooner, it was already clear that the spread of the virus did NOT follow an exponential curve.
- 2013 Nobel winner Michael Levitt: COVID19 Never Grows Exponentially
- Mathematician Andrew Mather: Covid-19: Debunking the Exponential-Lockdown lies so beloved by Gates, Johnson, Ferguson, Hanington
COVID Risks/Death Toll
Falsity #10: Returning Children to School is to Gamble With Their Life
“The risk of death in children is about one in five and a half million and they’re rather more likely to die in road accidents or even from lightning strikes than from the virus.”
— Robert Dingwall, professor of sociology at Nottingham Trent University whose focus is on the interdisciplinary study of law, medicine, science and technology, and member of the UK government’s Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (NERVTAG)
Completely wrong. We now have months of data which clearly shows that children are in fact less likely to die from COVID than the flu.
There have been and will always be some exceptions, in children who are immunocompromised, for example. These children are at risk from dying from many transmissible diseases, including the flu. That being said, the idea that COVID was responsible for “rare cases of a Kawasaki-like disease” has been recognized weeks ago as a non-issue.
Millions of kids have returned to school since May in many European countries, without a significant increase in both COVID cases and COVID-related deaths.
- Characteristics and Outcomes of Children With Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Infection Admitted to US and Canadian Pediatric Intensive Care Units: “Thus, up to this time of the pandemic in North America, children continue to face a far greater risk of critical illness from influenza than from COVID-19”
- Dr. Malcolm Kendrick, author of Doctoring Data: How to Sort Out Medical Advice from Medical Nonsense: “How many people aged 15 or under have died of Covid-19? Four. The chance of dying from a lightning strike is one in 700,000. The chance of dying of Covid-19 in that age group is one in 3.5million. And we locked them all down.” (source)
- Dr. Andrew Bostom, associate professor of family medicine (research) at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University: “The relatively benign nature of COVID-19 in children, compared to seasonal influenza, should further give us pause. For example, using mortality data available through May 8, 2020, U.S. children 0-14 years old were ~7 times more likely to die from influenza this year, despite vaccination programs, than from COVID-19.”
Falsity #11: COVID is Very Deadly For the General Population
“This is nothing more than a flu epidemic if you care to look at the numbers and the data, but people who are in a state of anxiety are blind.”
— Yoram Lass, former Director-General of Israel’s Health Ministry
Scary images coming from Italy, and then New York, made the world panic, but that panic is unsubstantiated. The reality is that COVID has a lethality similar to a harsh flu season — with an Infection Fatality Rate (IFR) of anywhere between 0.1-0.5%.
A telling example is that more people under 45 years old in the UK have died in traffic accidents than from COVID this year.
- Find a list of dozens of serological studies and analyses which support the idea that COVID is as lethal or even less lethal than the flu: https://theemfguy.com/covid-part2/#t41
- Extensive list of PCR and serological studies around the world showing an average IFR of 0.38% (thanks to SPR).
- Many international experts such as Prof. Sunetra Gupta from Oxford still predict that the final IFR of COVID will be closer to 0.1%, similar to the seasonal flu.
Falsity #12: COVID is a Death Sentence For The Elderly
“There’s some sort of mob mentality here operating that they just insist that this has to be the end of the world, and it has to be that the sky is falling. It’s attacking studies with data based on speculation and science fiction. […] But dismissing real data in favor of mathematical speculation is mind-boggling.”
— John Ioannidis, professor of medicine, of epidemiology and population health, of biomedical data science, and of statistics at Stanford University and co-director of Stanford’s Meta-Research Innovation Center. Among the top 100 most cited research scientists worldwide
There’s no denying that COVID is very deadly in the elderly, especially in people who are 80+ and who have multiple chronic conditions.
But it still isn’t clear if COVID is any more deadly than other coronaviruses which are already known to be very dangerous in the elderly, or even more dangerous than the flu. In a recent interview, 2013 Nobel prize winner Michael Levitt said that the age profile of those who died from COVID across Europe is virtually identical to people who normally die from the flu.
The difference between these two respiratory viruses is that COVID-19 is more recent, less understood, and that fewer treatment options are available. The future will tell, but we can already say that COVID is simply nothing like the Spanish flu — a completely irresponsible comparison that the World Health Organization (WHO) kept making throughout this crisis.
- Many analyses have shown that the risk of dying from COVID is similar in the elderly as the overall risk you face from old age. (see here, just one example) If this is true, the vast majority of our elders — and the rest of society — can simply go back to normal while we take extra care to protect the nursing homes, where the real COVID crisis has been.
- Very recently, a study done by the UK government found out that more than 80% of all care home residents who tested positive for COVID were asymptomatic — further indications that the final lethality of COVID will likely be multiple times lower than we previously thought.
- How much ‘normal’ risk does Covid represent? by David Spiegelhalter, Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication
Falsity #13: COVID is a Death Sentence For Prisoners
“And take prisoners: 2.3 million American prisoners … and only 35 deaths? Here we have forced social mixing, and less deaths than the rest of the country. C’mon. How do they explain that?” [Note: that’s an older quote, but the death rate is still so low among prisoners months later that it still holds true. 681 as of July 14th.]
— Joel Hay, PhD, Professor of Pharmaceutical and Health Economics, USC School of Pharmacy
The freakout about prisoners is one of the most bizarre parts of this COVID madness. About 8,000 prisoners will be released from the Newson prison in California by the end of August over fears of COVID outbreaks.
The problem? An April study performed in 4 State prisons revealed that 96% of prisoners who were COVID-positive were asymptomatic. As of July 8th, the death rate in prisons was 39 per 100,000 prisoners — which equals an IFR (infection fatality rate) of… 0.039% — around 3 times less than the flu. The question is: Do we normally release prisoners earlier because of the seasonal flu?
Falsity #14: COVID Has Killed 600,000+ Extra People Around The World This Year
“A lot of the people that died from COVID would have died anyway, sadly, in that period.”
— Professor Karol Sikora, Founding Dean and Professor of Medicine at the University of Buckingham Medical School and an ex-director of the WHO Cancer Programme
Sensationalistic coverage of the death toll has made most people believe that everyone who (allegedly) died from COVID has died prematurely, and would have otherwise survived and thrived for years.
The reality is that many experts agree that a very large fraction of COVID victims would have not survived the year anyway, and would have died from something else. I’m not sharing this without sadness, since this reflects the tragic reality that we have millions of elders worldwide who are extremely sick at the end of life (often in nursing homes), and at risk of dying from respiratory infections that are essentially mild for the rest of the population.
- Professor Sir David Spiegelhalter, statistician at Cambridge University: “Many people who die of COVID would have died anyway within a short period.” (source)
- Professor Neil Ferguson from the Imperial College London, AKA “Mr. Lockdown” himself: “The proportion of COVID victims who would have died anyway could be ‘as many as half or two-thirds’.” (source)
- Professor Klaus Püschel, forensic doctor at the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE): “All of his autopsies who died of COVID had previous illnesses and would not have survived this year anyway.” (source)
Falsity #15: Cont’d — 2020 Has Been A Very Deadly Year
“The excess deaths from COVID [in Europe] are actually 15% more than the flu season of 2017-2018.”
— Michael Levitt, winner of the 2013 Nobel in Chemistry
This will leave many people speechless, but it’s the truth. All around the world, the COVID pandemic has not led to a very large increase in overall mortality that’s above what has been seen in previous flu seasons.
The latest data (July 5th 2020) from Europe, analyzed by Ivor Cummins, clearly shows that excess mortality has barely increased compared to the 2017-2018 flu season.
In other countries, overall mortality has not increased compared to previous years (see sources below), begging the question… where is the deadly pandemic everyone has been talking about for months?
- USA: USC Professor of Health and Pharmaceutical Economics Joel Hay, PhD, maintains that overall mortality has not increased so far, and that while we did see a huge initial spike in mortality in the beginning, overall mortality is now well under the yearly average. See this tracker created by researchers at the National Cancer Institute Division of Cancer and Epidemiology and Genetics.
- Sweden: Overall mortality has not been worse than previous years, which essentially means that COVID cannot even be seen in their statistics. Their new COVID deaths and hospitalizations are near zero (as of early July), and they already seem to have herd immunity.
- UK: Overall mortality is slightly worse than the 2017-2018 flu season, but less than during the 1999-2000 flu season.
- Norway: Overall mortality during this COVID year is below average.
COVID Policies/Treatments
Falsity #16: We Need More Ventilators
“More ventilators!’ cried the journalists on Twitter. ‘Yes, more ventilators!’ replied the politicians. ‘Where are the ventilators?’ demanded the journalists, now screaming on television. ‘Yes, even more!’ replied the government, somewhat nonsensically.
I am a critical care physician, specialising in the use of such machines. I’m flattered by all the attention our tools are receiving. But I fear the current clamour reminds me of nothing so much as the panic buyers of toilet-paper stampeding over each other in early March.” [emphasis mine]
— Dr. Matt Strauss, former medical director of the critical care unit at Guelph General Hospital, Canada, and assistant professor of medicine at Queen’s University
This might have seemed true at first, but it’s rapidly been increasingly clear that ventilators are the wrong medical intervention against COVID in a lot of cases.
Data from late April in New York City confirmed that an extremely high number of patients (97.2% over 65 years of age) who were put on ventilators died. Normally, you would expect around 40 to 50% of patients with severe respiratory distress to die while on ventilators.
Ventilators are still a useful tool in certain situations, but clearly have not been a panacea in treating COVID patients, and might have done more harm than good in many situations.
- Dr. Matt Strauss: Ventilators aren’t a panacea for a pandemic like coronavirus
Falsity #17: Lockdowns Have Saved Millions of Lives
“Scientists are getting away scot-free for causing billions of dollars’ worth of damage and this is something that cannot be allowed to happen. It’s not just the World Health Organisation. Ferguson wanted Sweden to lockdown, got Britain to lockdown, and when the numbers become normal, exactly what you would expect without lockdown.
He then says, ah it’s because of lockdown. This is terrible science. This is science which should go on trial. Scientists cannot cause damage like this and refuse to listen.” [emphasis mine]
— Michael Levitt, winner of the 2013 Nobel in Chemistry
This is the flawed belief that explains why most people are still on the COVID apocalypse bandwagon.
The math seems simple: COVID was deadly, and millions were predicted to die. We locked down. We saved millions of lives.
But the reality is: COVID was like a bad flu, and the predictions were wildly exaggerated. The lockdown came in way too late since COVID was already circulating around the globe back in December 2019, and in most countries COVID cases peaked before the lockdown. (I explained this in length in part #3 of my last article).
Image source: The Flawed COVID-19 Model That Locked Down Canada, iedm.org
In reality, there’s simply no correlation that can be established between lockdowns and a reduction in COVID cases, or COVID deaths. Quite the opposite: Oxford’s data on 160 countries showed that the more strict lockdowns were, the more COVID infections — possibly because most COVID infections are due to close proximity in enclosed spaces.
A recent study published in the Lancet which included data from 50 countries showed that lockdowns did not led to a significant reduction in COVID deaths, or the number of critically ill patients.
- Military scientist Prof. Isaac Ben-Israel has also demonstrated that “simple statistics show the spread of the coronavirus declines to almost zero after 70 days — no matter where it strikes, and no matter what measures governments impose to try to thwart it” (source)
- Ivor Cummins: Ep80 The Latest DATA and EVIDENCE – Have our Lock-downs been Effective?
Falsity #18: Sweden Was Reckless in Its COVID Approach And Failed
“We have really, really failed as a group. There have been smart people in Sweden, and that’s about it.
[…] Sweden is the only country that has done the right thing by heading for what they consider to be herd immunity. It occurs at 15%, not at 80%, another error that the epidemiologists made. Sweden is going to end up with about 600 deaths per million.” [emphasis mine]
— Michael Levitt, winner of the 2013 Nobel in Chemistry
People who still cling to the idea that lockdowns saved millions of lives point the finger at Sweden and argue that their approach has “failed”, considering they have a higher mortality compared to their neighbouring countries.
In reality, Sweden has now reached herd immunity, and their ICUs are now essentially free of COVID patients. Their overall mortality has not increased (also see here) compared to previous years. And they stand in the middle of the pack internationally when it comes to COVID deaths per million capita.
Where Sweden — and virtually all other countries — did fail in a major way is when it comes to protecting nursing homes early. This was not done properly, and explains why 50% of their COVID deaths were in nursing homes. This number has been similar in Canada, the US and 24 other countries.
- Ivor Cummins: Viral Issue Critical Update Some of the Science Logic and Data Explained (in depth review of Swedish data, no increase in excess deaths)
- Daniel Hannan, late April: If Sweden succeeds, lockdowns will all have been for nothing
- Joel Hay, PhD, expert in public health policy: “It is now absolutely clear that Sweden did it correctly by NOT locking down, and the rest of the world, particularly the US, created enormous additional disease and suffering with the destructive lockdowns.” (source)
- Michael Levitt: “Sweden is the only country that has done the right thing by heading for what they consider to be herd immunity. It occurs at 15%, not at 80%, another error that the epidemiologists made. Sweden is going to end up with about 600 deaths per million.”
Falsity #19: Every Life Counts, And Lockdowns Don’t Have Health Consequences
“I’m still projecting more than 100 lockdown deaths for every C19 death avoided through lockdowns! Anyone could have foreseen that the economic and health consequences of the lockdowns were going to be severe and fatal.”
— Joel Hay, PhD, Professor of Pharmaceutical and Health Economics, USC School of Pharmacy
Trying to prevent everyone from dying from everything has never been, and will never be a viable strategy. But COVID is the exception.
Many pro-lockdown people afraid of COVID tried to argue that those who were against end of lockdowns put money before lives.
In the end, the debate for me has always been lives VS lives — the health cost of the economic devastation and the side effects of the lockdown, versus how many lives the lockdown itself will save by slowing down the spread of COVID and preventing hospitals from being overwhelmed.
Dr. David Katz, former director of the Yale-Griffin Prevention Research Center, is one of the few experts who’s been openly talking about this devastatingly ignored issue:
“There is more than one way for this pandemic contagion to hurt people. It can hurt them directly via infection, and it can hurt them indirectly via our responses to the contagion. And both are bad, preventing both is good, and we should be gathering more data […] to navigate between those two perils.”
Many health experts already predict that the death toll from COVID-related lockdowns will be much, much worse than from COVID itself (see sources below).
- See section 5.3 of my latest article for a long list of lockdown-related deadly consequences
- Perspectives on the Pandemic | Dr. David L. Katz – by Journeyman Pictures
- “According to a preprint in the Lancet, more than one million children under five and 60,000 more mothers could die in the next six months alone as a result of disruptions to health services caused by the pandemic in low- and middle-income countries.” (source)
- Mathematical models (that I sure hope are wrong) predict that hundreds of thousands will die from tuberculosis in the next years because of the COVID-related lockdowns which prevented proper screening and treatments. (source)
- Professor Karol Sikora, former advisor to the WHO on cancer care, estimates that way more people will die from a lack of cancer screening in the UK than there have been COVID victims (source).
- Nobel-winning Michael Levitt: “We should never have listened to the epidemiologists. […] They have caused hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of suffering and damage, mainly on the younger generation. […] It’s going to make 9/11 look like a baby story.” (source)
- We already know that 5,000 already died in the UK from heart attacks because of a lack of proper urgent care (source)
Falsity #20: Those Who Question the Corona-Panic Narrative Are Conspiracy Theorists
“I was just explaining what [science] we had. […] They don’t tell you. They just say it violates our community standards. There’s no explanation for what those standards are or what standards it violated.”
— Knut M. Wittkowski, former head of biostatistics, epidemiology, and research design at Rockefeller University, who got entirely banned from YouTube for offering a scientific analysis of the COVID data that goes against the current narrative
The world has been turned upside down, and even Dr. Sucharit Bhakdi, one of the most cited research scientists in German history, has been called a “conspiracy theorist”.
John Ioannidis (top 100 scientists in the world) has been attacked for his calm, rigorous, science-based analysis of the COVID data. His response was: “There’s some sort of mob mentality here operating that they just insist that this has to be the end of the world, and it has to be that the sky is falling. It’s attacking studies with data based on speculation and science fiction. […] But dismissing real data in favor of mathematical speculation is mind-boggling.”
2013 Nobel in Chemistry winner Michael Levitt has revealed in a recent Lindau Nobel Laureate meeting that he has received nothing but “abuse” from his fellow scientists since he started analyzing the COVID data and quickly predicted that the initial projections made by the Imperial College London were off by a factor of at least 10-fold.
The COVID story that has been presented in the media has been one-sided, and these scientists whose research came to different conclusions than what was popular at the time were simply not invited on mainstream media shows to share their opinions.
Being skeptical towards the COVID narrative doesn’t make one a conspiracy theorist, a pro-Trumper, or an insane person. It’s probably the opposite.
Falsity #21: The US is Facing a Dangerous 2nd Wave
“OF COURSE THERE ARE RECORD CASES! WE’RE TESTING LIKE MAD! It would be a shock if we didn’t see a surge in new “cases” with all this testing!
Pardon my screaming, but we have gone, as the phrase has it, stark raving mad. I am beside myself with frustration trying to explain this to people who are so panicked they can’t listen to reason.” [emphasis mine]
— William M. Briggs, PhD from Cornell University in statistics, writer, philosopher and scientist
I had been warning my readers in Part 1 of my last article series that the media would start reporting on “scary COVID outbreaks” when we start ramping up our testing capabilities. That’s exactly what happened.
Since COVID-related hospitalizations and COVID-related deaths are constantly dropping, it seems that COVID alarmists are re-focusing their attention on COVID cases, and how they have been increasing.
In reality, the COVID-positive test rate (what fraction of all COVID tests are positive) has not increased by much — going against the idea that COVID is spreading exponentially once again.
Here’s how the number of daily tests in the US has evolved over time:
Image source: Statistician William M. Briggs
And here are tests over time, compared to the COVID-positive test rate:
Image source: Lockdown Skeptics
In the meantime, the COVID-related deaths are still going down — that’s the real figure we need to look at:
Image source: Statistician William M. Briggs (CDC data, ending July 20th)
- Statistician William H. Briggs: Coronavirus Update XXI: Calm Down! Record Testing Is Why There Are Record “Cases”
- Also see his next article Coronavirus Update XXIII: Yes, More Testing Leads to More ‘New’ ‘Cases’
- After a week of apocalyptic media coverage about the 70,000 new cases in Florida, reporter Alex Berenson found out that the ICU admissions had increased by just 130 — in a State with a population of more than 20M people…
- Joel Hay, PhD, has pulled out the overall mortality data from Texas, Florida and California, 3 States that the media has been arguing are facing a dangerous second wave. The overall mortality is in fact barely higher or even lower than previous years. (source)
Falsity #22: We’re Very Far From Herd Immunity, And Reopening Too Early Is Deadly
“It looks like at least 50% of the population seems to not be susceptible [to COVID] at the present time.” [Note: he also mentioned this proportion could be up to 80%]
— Dr. Karl Friston, considered one of the most influential brain scientist of our time
Many media reports argued that up to 80% of all people needed to have caught COVID and developed antibodies before the pandemic died down on its own — the so-called Herd Immunity everyone has been talking about.
There are now strong indications that the presence of antibodies alone is a poor indicator of how many people have had COVID in the past, and that a T-cell response (you fight off the virus but never actually develop antibodies) might occur in about 80% of cases. If this is proven true, this means that COVID is 5 times more prevalent and 5 times less deadly than previous thought.
This is still subject to scientific debate, but this might explain why:
- On May 31st, leading doctors in Northern Italy were already saying that the virus was essentially gone — even though the prevalence of antibodies in the Italian population was only around 2.5-9%
- In London, there were less than 100 COVID cases detected per day during the entire month of May — even though the antibody prevalence was only around 15%
Some scientists now suggest that the real threshold for COVID Herd Immunity is around 10-20%. This is plausible, and would finally explain why lifting COVID lockdowns has essentially not led to a significant increase of COVID cases, deaths or hospitalizations, virtually anywhere in the world.
- Prof. Sunetra Gupta from Oxford: “I think we will and have already developed Herd Immunity.” (source). Oxford followed up with a study that showed that 10-20% of saturation might be sufficient to reach herd immunity. (source)
- JB Handley – LOCKDOWN LUNACY 2.0: Second wave? Not even close.
- Compiled by Swiss Policy Research:
- “A Swedish study showed that people with mild or asymptomatic disease often neutralized the virus with T-cells without the need to produce antibodies. Overall, T-cell immunity was about twice as common as antibody immunity.
- A large Spanish antibody study published in Lancet showed that less than 20% of symptomatic people and about 2% of asymptomatic people had IgG antibodies.
- A German study (preprint) showed that 81% of the people who had not yet had contact with the new corona virus already had cross-reactive T-cells and thus a certain background immunity (due to contact with previous corona cold viruses).
- A Chinese study in the journal Nature showed that in 40% of asymptomatic persons and in 12.9% of symptomatic persons no IgG antibodies are detectable after the recovery phase.
- Another Chinese study with almost 25,000 clinic employees in Wuhan showed that at most one fifth of the presumably infected employees had IgG antibodies (press article).
- A small French study (preprint) showed that six of eight infected family members of Covid patients developed a temporary T-cell immunity without antibodies.”
- Around the world, several countries like Switzerland, Germany and Canada have started opening up, without any significant increase in COVID-related deaths or hospitalizations.
When Will The Corona Madness End?
“This crisis has been produced entirely, by politicians themselves. There is no REAL existing crisis. So the ‘crisis’ will be over when politicians decide for it to be over. It has nothing to do with the virus.” [emphasis mine]
— Dr. Sucharit Bhakdi, medical doctor and specialist in microbiology, one of the most cited research scientists in German history
This interview from Pathology Professor Dr. John Lee sums up my current thinking perfectly. If there’s one you should watch it’s this one.
Dr. Lee: “Instead of patting ourselves in the back about how well we’ve done with this, how well governments approached this, how well we’ve all pulled together…
We need to be grown up enough to stand back, actually have a look at this and think ‘this was wrong’, ‘it was a mess’, ‘we shouldn’t have done it’ and “how will we be able to deal with this in the future’.” [emphasis mine]
When you step out of the hysteria, it becomes clear that the COVID crisis was a bad flu, at best. In most countries, it’ll barely be seen in statistics of excess mortality.
This crisis has been a crisis of nursing homes, mostly. This is where we still need to focus. Protect those at risk, and stop quarantining the healthy.
Young, healthy people very rarely die from COVID, and the same people who are at risk of dying from the flu or other respiratory illnesses are those affected by this virus. Given the facts presented above, the global reaction to COVID has been completely overblown, hysteric, and as Prof. Bhakdi had predicted back in March, akin to “collective suicide”.
The question is… how long will it take for the Corona-Panic take to subside? When will we finally go back to normal? How much time can politicians try to save face and continue spouting nonsense around how lockdowns saved us all?
I don’t know, to be honest.
When I look at other parts of the world, I see hope: Like when I realized that the city of Prague has set up a 1,600 feet table to celebrate the end of COVID. Everyone sharing food, talking, laughing, singing… no social distancing, no masks, no worries. The “old normal”. Are the Czech the crazy ones, or are we losing it in North America?
Image source: Gabriel Kuchta/Getty Images via CNN Travel (ironically, since no one travels these days)
The truth is slowly coming out in many countries, where politicians are realizing that they probably made a terrible mistake buying into the hysteria:
- Russia: top health official responsible for the COVID response says “it’s all bulls**t. “It’s all exaggerated. It’s an acute respiratory disease with minimal mortality. […] Why has the whole world been destroyed? That I don’t know.”
- United Kingdom: Health officials are starting to admit that COVID was in full retreat before lockdowns were imposed (we already knew this in April…)
- Denmark: Leaked emails show that the Danish Health Authority (who said COVID isn’t that dangerous) didn’t agree with lockdowns and got pushed aside by the government.
- Norway: The prime minister admitted she panicked and locked the country down. Health officials express regrets.
- Germany: A devastating report by the Ministry of the Interior which showed that lockdowns were useless and destructive was ignored by the government, and released anyway by its authors (including scientists from several German universities, stirring massive controversy.
- Switzerland: The Swiss chief physician of infectiology, Pietro Vernazza, admits that lockdowns made little difference, and that the virus was already under control before they were imposed.
Nothing is all black or all white, and I’m doing my best to stay balanced. But one thing is sure: Reality is extremely different from what has been presented so far in the media.
My hope is that by sharing the work of scientists who have been trying to present facts and calm the world down for months, we’ll accelerate the process of getting out of this nonsense.
If you want to stay informed about the latest COVID developments, follow these scientists and public health experts:
- Nobel winner Michael Levitt (Twitter)
- Oxford Center for Evidence-Based Medicine (+ listen to a great interview from Tom Jefferson here)
- Ivor Cummins’ YouTube Channel
- Joel Hay, PhD (Twitter)
- Interviews on UnHerd
- Del Bigtree’s The Highwire (I don’t agree 100% with everything presented, but he has done incredible work on COVID)
- Reporter Alex Berenson (Twitter) — his style is not for everyone but he also has done incredible work
- William M. Briggs’ Blog
- Lockdown Sceptics (UK based)
COVID-ly yours,
Nick

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I love it, I have been saying similar things since the beginning. Thank goodness my Wife, and I aren’t the only people in the world that believe this. Keep spreading the word, and ignore the haters. The economy has to reopen, all we are doing at the moment is insuring a worldwide depression, and the demise of any, and all Mom, and Pop businesses.
Amen!
Cited old data. Check the current u.s.hospitalization numbers. Bad flu doesn’t normally occur in summer time. Current numbers are many people under 40. While I usually find your research very interesting this time I felt you cherry picked data to only support your point of view.
I respect your right to your point of view and wish you a blessed day.
.
Hey Bonnie, what State in particular are you talking about? Hospitalizations are fairly low in some states, and higher in others. There are many intricacies of how hospitalizations are reported which I did not get into. Critical cases and deaths remain low, and on a constant downward trend.
A bad flu does not happen in the summer — very true. The US has peaked back in March and what we’re seeing is virus circulation in States where a small % of the citizens were ever exposed to the virus. It’s inevitable that the virus needs to circulate, it’s already widely circulating and I agree with scientists who say it cannot be “controlled” or “contained”. We need to isolate nursing homes, improve patients outcomes (already a third of the death rate in the UK compared to the beginning, so this is helping big time) and young, healthy people can go back to normal.
I loved your comment, and I understand that my article might seem like cherry picking. Because of a lack of time I wasn’t able to bring the depth and nuance I brought to the table in my last one.
Thank you for taking the time to do this report.
Glad you liked it!
Let’s have a televised national debate between the proponents of the current virus impact, as reported by the main stream media, and the dissenters who beg to differ. Let them have their say as in a presidential debate. Both sides present their evidence as in a court of law. Then we the people can decide and choose which is the truth. The dissenters should have the same access to the same audience as the proponents.
I completely agree Jim. Michael Levitt who is in my opinion the most important scientist alive reporting the accurate truth on covid has yet to find a single person who is able to “debunk” his stance. He has been right on nearly every prediction he made since February.
I agree and I’m a nurse, thank you
Thanks Eva!
Thank you so much for such a comprehensive article. I would love to send it on unfortunately I have been banned by my community here in Washington state who refuses to wake up.
This is unfortunately the bizarre state of affairs a lot of people are in. Hang in there.
In 2017-18 Flu season there was 45 Million cases in the USA alone and 61K deaths. I don’t recall any draconian measures then.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2kJv3XnlVs
https://www.davidmartin.world/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/BotW_slides_07132020.pdf
Yep.
Thanks Nick………posted it to my FB page
I ain’t made at you Nick. I’ll come back and read this article within the next 24 hours. I’ve skimmed through it and didn’t see anything I disagreed with. I tried to tell a dear friend this morning that it’s coming to light that people are being misdiagnosed with Covid19 when there’s a less lethal strain of coronavirus that’s being detected in their bodies! Like the strain found in the common cold. The misdiagnosis is more likely intentional. But you can’t help those people who will reject all truth over whatever they’re spoon fed by the mainstream media.
No doubt that everyone has or have had some type of coronavirus in their body. But not covid19. I see the handwriting on the wall here. Part of the plan is to fearmonger everyone into lining up for the covid19 vaccine. Most of us know that humanity is viewed as nothing more than cash cows for the medical cartels.
The powers that be know that when a person has one ailment and takes drugs that cause 2 or more medical conditions. That person has to take more drugs to deal with the side effects of the other drug or drugs. Not saying that this always happens. It’s likely that’s how people end up taking 20+ prescription drugs a day.
Then I have those folks who tell me you’re gonna have to take medication one day. My answer to that is not really. I can choose to take or choose to not take medications. People seem to forget that they’re gonna die one day with or without medications in their blood. In my opinion it’s best to stick with natural remedies, good nutrition and to build and have a strong, healthy Immune system. I understand that there is sometimes a need, a benefit, or a time and a place for modern medicine. However. I do my part to not have to depend on it to stay alive. In other words. Having done my part. Modern medicine is my last resort. Not my first choice.
Falsity #23: the virus has been isolated, photographed and purified, scientists know all about it, how it causes disease
Falsity #24: the PCR and antibody tests are accurate and reliable
Falsity #25: there must be a new disease going around, because it is clinically unlike any other disease
Falsity #26: the government cares about your health
Falsity #27: Tom Hanks and Greta Thunberg are infectious disease experts
Falsity #28: politicians are licenced to practice medicine
Falsity #27: you can trust the BBC
Truth #1: if you believe you are are a goat or a paw-paw because you have a positive test result, you are probably right
Love it!
Hi Nick – thanks for this analysis and update.
Question: do you know of any people / resources who have recommendations for what we should be doing instead of mass business closures and other restrictions? For instance, how do we effectively go about shielding higher-risk groups such as the elderly or immunocompromised without excluding them from society?
Thank you!
Hey Adrienne, this is a great question. I would follow what the Swiss have been doing — their response seems to be one of the most intelligent so far, even if they did lock down. I’ve heard good things about the nursing homes policies in Germany but need to investigate further.
Thank God for your careful research and factual article. Like many, I’ve been attacked on Facebook by people who think I want people to die, mask shamed in stores, even long-term friends lecturing me. My brother is a cop and he got COVID, even after wearing an N95 mask and gloves. Pretty sick, but fully recovered. His wife, partners and fellow officers didn’t get sick. He got a letter from Metro saying he would be ARRESTED if they found him out in public during his quarantine period. Thank you so much for your sanity. I was losing hope against the tsunami of hysteria.
Thank you Nick for doing all the research and staying sane. I keep telling people this stuff and they just look at me funny and tell me I should wear a mask. I want to just go smoke a bowl. And I don’t smoke.
Haha!
thank you for showing us the “contrarian” opinions. once again you have done an excellent job. the death rate remains the key statistic in all of this. like Bonnie i wonder about the southern states and the number of hospitalizations and icu cases. are these all nursing home patients? i also worry about two viruses circulating this coming winter
Which State are you referring to? I can find more info, but so far I’ve seen low ICU numbers in most states. Some of them are artificially high since everyone who comes in for any reason is considered a covid patient if they test positive, even if they came in say for a broken arm.
Nick, Excellent analysis. I got the same reaction you get when I question out loud to friends, coworkers, what authorities and MSM are doing, I get extreme reactions, spanning from indifference, akin to killing the messenger,
being called “irresponsible” that they have lost so and so to COVID. “Keep your opinion to yourself!” I had to meditate to regain my balance, and not attack back. After reading your article, I got an aha moment: Aristotle’s Rhetoric describes modes of persuasion. The MSM uses Pathos to persuade people that it is right thing to use masks, social distance, etc. Scientists, Drs use Logos and point out the issues, and better ways. Unfortunately, their logic falls on deaf ears as the public and politicians have already been convinced on what is right, and to do otherwise is to be irresponsible, etc. Is there a better way to break through this barrier?
I have no idea how to break the barrier, unfortunately. There are so many assumptions that most people have like “lockdowns saved millions of lives” that just engaging into a conversation and getting on the same level of understanding would take 30 minutes. Very difficult situation.
Great article! I’m not elderly but I am 64. I manage a restaurant and a bar in Southern CA. We have been open the entire time to service airline flight crews who stay at local hotels.
Beginning March 16th, I worked double shifts for 3 months. 12-16 hour days; 5 days a week. I had close contact with ppl from all over the country. Hard to give ppl change from 6 ft away. Would usually only have 5-6 hours to unwind, sleep & get ready for the new day.
I’m not saying this to complain AT ALL. Simply to say that I am “older”, have not quarantined, gotten little sleep and interacted with many, many ppl and I DID NOT GET SICK!
In my opinion this is all political & I’m sick of it! But not sick from Coronavirus.
Hey Lynn, this corroborates the data I’ve seen — among essential workers, the infection and mortality rates are extremely low.
I love love love your article – but the title does make it seem that “Covid is just a bad flu” is ALSO a falsity…which it isn’t – that’s the true bit! :)
Great article!
Oh, I see how it could sound that way. I’ll edit it a bit, I meant “Plus 22 Falsities”.
Hi Nick,
What are your thoughts on things like other ongoing harms in survivors beyond just deaths: https://english.elpais.com/science_tech/2020-07-17/over-half-of-coronavirus-hospital-patients-in-spain-have-developed-neurological-problems-studies-show.html
It seems there are many effects we don’t quite understand yet.
Hey Sam, this is a concern of mine, but so far I have not seen any credible science that backs up these claims that there are more “long-term effects” from covid compared to other serious respiratory infections.
I stay open to the possibility, but we need science to differentiate between long-term damage from COVID VS symptoms that were already there before (neurological disease are already rampant, so is chronic fatigue, etc.) and the side effects of drugs/interventions that were used to treat COVID (antibiotics can have dramatic long-term effects, being on a ventilator can cause long-term lung damage, etc.).
It looks to me like the medical community is looking for bizarre long-term effects. I might be wrong on this. A kind of “COVID has been the focus so much that it MUST be special” kind of situation.
I have a comment about the mask.
I noticed politicians wear black mask and other people also
in different color. Why nobody say white cotton even if you have to make it double if it is very light fabric.
To me it doesn’t make sense you breath dye fabric what is the irony of this?
It is time to wake up before it is too late we are not in the US but we get lots of influence from South.
Start producing here in Canada instead of having everything made in China.
I’m also concerned about the toxins that might be found in masks. I wouldn’t be surprised if masks that are commonly use expose us to a decent amount of toxins… not sure how regulated they are.
Excellent compendium – hats off to you! As to #15, it’s already been established that the excess deaths were largely due to the lockup and its spin-off of cancelled surgeries and diagnosis, as well as suicide, increased substance abuse, and as you know (being a Quebecois as I am), the tragedy of elderly being abandoned in nursing homes by panicked staff. This has been a crime against humanity, and I hope against all odds that accountability will come.
Hey Sasha, I agree it’s likely, and there are many indications of that already. I think that the spike in excess death is a combination of 1) panic and lockdown — but also 2) sending covid-positive patients to nursing homes, and creating a real mess. This was deadly in Canada, in the UK, in NYC… everywhere they did this we saw a massive death toll.
Normally during influenza seasons we don’t take a very serious and dangerous virus and spread it around liberally to the weakest population possible. This was a terrible policy mistake that was made in many, many countries.
I have also said even before the virus “arrived” in Canada and based on the then media reports that it looked like a manufactured crisis, with likely an agenda behind. There were too many holes and not enough logic in the official narrative. I kept reading on the subject and I have had no cause to change my mind. I am thought by many friends (and I suspect in part by my family) as being in denial of the “facts” and dreaming in la-la-land. I have felt the fear even by people I thought of as critical thinkers. I agree with you.
It might be nice to mention the powerful private economic interests that 1) have enormous influence on the government and media, 2) have a giant stake in profiting from this pandemic, and 3) seem to have little or no concern for anyone or anything but their own monetary gain.
(I wish it would be very different!)
Great point Linda. A big part of why we had this media crisis, but I also think that journalists, scientists, politicians, etc were scared themselves. I was terrified for 2 weeks too before I started actually looking at the facts and data.
As usual you are thorough in your research and willing to share with all of us that read your emails. I thank you for your noble efforts. I hate to get political but will the tone of the media reporting of COVID-19 diminish or escalate after 11/03/2020 depending on the outcome of the US election?
My reporting on COVID-19 has nothing to do with whatever election might be happening in the US. The virus isn’t political.
Trump has said extremely inaccurate things about the virus, and some things he said were completely accurate. A clear problem is that a lot of people hate him so much that they have a strong bias to think that the truth MUST be the opposite of what he says. It’s not as simple.
EVERYTHING you have said is CORRECT. I mean, I get sick REAL easy and if I get sick, it is usually DECEMBER/JANUARY during the winter. I NEVER get sick any other time of year and I have NEVER been sick with this new virus they say is going around – STRANGE or maybe NOT. I have NEVER been HEALTHIER in my whole life than I am now.
Thank you for a great article. I have never worn a mask during this whole crisis. Now I wear a face shield so I can enter a store. I’m not sick, so what would I worry. If I was sick, I’d stay home and avoid contact with people. I’m a pharmacist. I’m retired, but when I was working, I was exposed to so much sickness and I was never sick. People coughed and breathed on me, shocking, huh? The only thing I was ever compulsive about was frequent hand washing. We also cleaned the counters and other places that sick people touched. This stopped the spread of everything. No fancy gel cleaners, just soap and water and alcohol on the counter. This whole crisis has been crazy. I can’t believe all the people have gone along with this craziness. People are like sheep. They all think they’re safe by wearing a mask despite all the evidence proving they don’t work. Very scary times for America.
Scary times for America, but this is a worldwide crisis. The hysteria has been especially bad in the US though.
Thank you for doing all this comprehensive research. This is what a lot of us are thinking but it’s just nice to see the factual evidence.
You’re welcome!
Good compilation …. but, with all the retrospective data that u have, don’t forget that this was a new virus with no known patho-physiology. Scientists and Epidemiologist were confused and were coming out with contradicting data n hypothesis every few days only to take another U turn a few days later.
In such a scenario, when u see a ‘possibly deadly virus’ on the move and the ‘thinkers’ (read scientists, epedimeniologists, doctors) were on different roads, what do u think would have been the best possible decision ? … Do what u can, and lockdown possibly gives a rational approach to decrease the infection as the infected person no longer contacts the uninfected ones .
Had the lockdown not put in place, the same people would have. been asking the govt as to why lovkdown was. not placed to have a ‘possibly lesser impact’ of C-19 !!!
Heads I Win, Tails U Loose !
Hey Khadijah, trying to argue what decision would have been best at the time is tricky, I agree with you here. That’s not the point of my article and why I still spend so much of my time researching about COVID.
The ICL paper around mid-March made the UK government turn around and lockdown instead of following an evidence-based approach like Sweden, and the rest of the world pretty much followed (just like it just happened with mandatory masking… it’s a political trend, basically.)
But as the data made it very clear that the tsunami of COVID patients that was predicted would never happen — a few short weeks after the beginning of lockdowns — we should have changed our approach, re-opening extremely quickly.
MONTHS after this whole mess, the media, politicians and citizens who follow their public health recommendations still haven’t updated their thinking about COVID. They still think it’s as bad as Ebola, it can be contained, it’s dangerous for children, etc. The reality around the virus is extremely different than how it’s being perceived, and this is what needs to be fixed. We’re on a destructive trend that is completely useless, and our health policies are based on panic and politicians wanting to save face over the incredible fiasco they’ve helped create.
Let’s supposed only 20% of what you say is undeniably correct, It does make a BIG hole in all the lies vehiculated by the elves of the WHO? One critical question remains, WHY? I refuse to be politically correct because, (if I was) an elected politician, I would be responsible in making the people who voted for me: sick, brainwashing them while hiding behind a mask only to accelerate the agenda of an elite who has ONLY ONE GOAL: vaccination to bring humanity to a robotic state and ill health. Or maybe I would do it because I owe favors to the Elite who were instrumental in winning my elections or even, maybe just for being a good sport and play along, and in return I get dispensation from this deadly vaccine for myself, my family and a few close friends? BUT’ I am not a politician, just a well-informed 80 years old, quebécoise, home caregiver, who will not wear a mask, not even to go buy food, by conviction that giving into this unhealthy symbol, I am forfeiting my rights as a thinking human being. I am better equipped to decide how to care for my health, especially having listen and read a thousand time more information on the reasons WHY, that your fantastic article present. I am vaccine free and no one will force me into getting one, so my last stand to show how well-informed I am, by saying NO to a MASK which is the symbol of submission. One day if, I have to die of hunger, it will be my choice and not to the hands of our fake leaders.
Hey Denise, I think this whole mess is a mixed bag of financial interests, geopolitics/financial games that are honestly way above my head, opportunism from people who hop on something trendy to make billions, the very poor state of global mental health, and possibly a few people with “evil” intents as well.
Thanks for your nice comments and for taking the time to tell it like it is.
Hello Nick,
Congratulations on your excellent article!
Sam is asking you about neurological damages caused by COVID-19. There is a video (in French) by Claude Gelinas explaining that the problem comes from the test (long Q-tip) rubbing against the blood-brain barrier, which becomes damaged and can leak.
Here is the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SuWYueDHdQI
The title is Saurez-vous protéger votre barrière sang-cerveau du frottis des écouvillons?
Take care!
Hi NIck,
Thanks for this thought provoking article. I am immunocompromised so I do wear a mask even though, I do wonder how much it helps. I wish our country truly cared for it’s people and that we could trust the president. You said people hate him so they don’t trust what he says. A more fair statement is it’s hard to trust someone who is inconsistent with the truth. This is a very frustrating time. I do have teenagers and it scares me but I let my daughter continue to go to her dance class as long as they wear mask and do their best so she doesn’t bring it home to me.
Thank you for sharing this. I will share it with my friends and family so we all stay open minded. We should all do the right thing for the country and it’s citizens.
Thank you and well said. The Emperor has no clothes.
The one driving force behind all the panic has yet to be made public. C-19 takes out the folks with AIDS rather quickly. No one is talking about aids. The Lgbtpqwam army are the ones pushing the buttons of the left leadership and mediam
Hi Nick,
re #6 (Social Distancing) and #7 (Mask Wearing), it’s unfortunate that you have chosen to be so dismissive of the two actions over which people have the most direct impact in helping to reduce spread of the virus. As a responsible journalist seeking to present a balanced view, you surely are aware of the advice and rationale offered by the CDC (and numerous other respected science-based organizations) on both topics, as follows:
https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2020/p0714-americans-to-wear-masks.html
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/social-distancing.html
The first article emphasizes the “growing body of evidence that cloth face coverings provide SOURCE (my emphasis) control – that is, they help prevent the person wearing the mask from spreading COVID-19 to OTHERS. The main protection individuals gain from masking occurs when others in their communities also wear face coverings”. On the social distancing issue they point out that “spread happens when an infected person coughs, sneezes, or talks, and droplets from their mouth or nose are launched into the air and land in the mouths or noses of people nearby […and] can also be inhaled into the lungs. Recent studies indicate that people who are infected but do not have symptoms likely also play a role in the spread of COVID-19. Since people can spread the virus before they know they are sick, it is important to stay AT LEAST 6 feet away from others when possible, even if you—or they—do not have any symptoms. Social distancing is especially important for people who are at higher risk for severe illness from COVID-19”.
Hi Kirk, I strongly disagree with a lot of assumptions you’re presenting. 1) “The two actions over which people have the most direct impact in helping to reduce spread of the virus” — highly debatable.
The evidence on masks-for-all is lacking. It is not an evidence-based policy. A recent interview from Tom Jefferson from the Oxford Center for Evidence Based Medicine reminded me that the majority the data we have on cloth masks during pandemics actually points in the other direction… they increase infectivity of the wearer, and make the weaver more prone to infection.
2) “Recent studies indicate that people who are infected but do not have symptoms likely also play a role in the spread of COVID-19.” Very arguable. The data we have shows they play virtually no role.
3) “Since people can spread the virus before they know they are sick, it is important to stay AT LEAST 6 feet away from others when possible”. The 6 feet away rule was conjured out of nowhere — again, not based on any evidence.
These interventions are a mixed bag of some science and a lot of health policies made up and adopted widely by citizens because it makes them “feel safe”.
I’ve reposted your excellent article on my website, http://www.WomensMedicineBowl.com. Now it will be interesting to see if Facebook doesn’t censor it. The threats to our health freedoms during this time of politicians damning the press, and the major media failing to provide the surveillance of the (whole) environment, which is their raison de entre, is more frightening than any particular virus. And a vaccine for this virus, another for the next virus–that’s just whack-a-mole health policy (my comment that FB has already blitzed!) God help us all to wake up! Thank you so much for your writing!
Thanks for gathering and summarizing this information. The mainstream media is exploitive. Non-stop Covid19 coverage and sensationalism (remember Kawasaki Disease & “Covid toes?”) is probably a ratings gold mine.
Despite evidence from scientists who are highly revered in their fields, why do people WANT to believe the apocalypse scenario?
Nick, you said you would look into what is happening in Germany. There was a time that they had an infection rate, fourth in the world. Now they are at the bottom, and opening up. This is from my daughter who works inside a COVID-19 clinic in Germany. How did they achieve this success? By a much tighter lockdown. Example: the fine for not wearing a mask in public was something like $25,000. It is hard to afford to “express one’s freedom” at that price. But, as a result, their recovery is way ahead of ours.
I agree that we are being manipulated by politics, and we are being manipulated in both directions. Some of your points illustrate manipulations from one side, some of them are manipulations the other way. Just being straight-forward here.
Hey Bill,
Good on Germany. We don’t know if the masks made any difference, but we can speculate that they did, or that they did not. Germany also had exemplary policies in nursing homes. The future will tell.
I’m not against the idea that masks might work, but starting masks mandates when the pandemic is basically over is nonsense and perpetuates the panic.
As Bonnie Schlosser noted, you’ve “cherry picked” your data and your “experts.” Your first reference, Dr. Didier Raoult, has been banned by the American Society for Microbiology. And after claiming positive results from hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin on just 24 patients, his results were rejected by the International Society of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy for not meeting rigorous testing standards. Subsequent clinical trials found no benefit and noted an increased risk of potentially fatal heart problems.
Your “expert” for #21, William M. Briggs, is a member of The Independent Institute – a right-wing think tank (ranked 54 out of 60 in the US) that has promulgated positions against large government, against government health insurance (including Medicare), against laws controlling guns, and a disbeliever of climate change. And if you look today, the death curve in the US has taken a sharp turn upward as a result of the explosion of infections across the southern tier of the US.
And finally, your claim that the IFR is between 0.1% and 0.5% is entirely wrong. Worldwide, about 4.5% of identified cases have resulted in death. In the US, the number is just under 4% – both about 10 times as deadly as ordinary flu. I’m sure, however, that your article will be widely disseminated amongst fans of Donald Trump in an attempt to show that the federal government has not botched the response on his watch.
Peace out and stay safe.
Hey John,
Your analysis itself is cherry picked:
1) Couldn’t care less about Raoult, but it looks to me that he’s been targeted by a huge industry who wanted to discredit him. Regardless, the science around HCQ has been horrible, and most trials used lethal doses of it. I won’t comment further, this is a rabbit hole that would take pages to go down into.
2) I don’t care what Briggs does politically, all I care about is that his numbers are right. Check the data. The overall deaths in the US are still on a downward trend, and will soon enough reach zero — in states where the virus has circulated widely, that is. It’ll take more time in states with less saturation.
3) “Worldwide, about 4.5% of identified cases have resulted in death.” — that’s the CFR, case fatality rate. I’m talking about the IFR — infection fatality rate. We know that at least 50% (but possibly up to 99%) of covid infections are asymptomatic, which changes the game. The data has been clear, and top experts have been saying it — the IFR will be in the ballpark of a harsh flu season.
Sources who say this include: officials from Sweden, Gupta from Oxford, Jefferson from the Oxford Center for evidence-based medicine, Ioannidis, and many, many more. Do your research.
Not making the difference between the CFR and the IFR has been one of the reasons the media has perpetuated the crazy idea that covid is extremely deadly… but it’s not.
4) I couldn’t care less if fans of Donald Trump share this article widely. What I sure hope is that people who hate Trump wake the hell up and actually look at the data, instead of being stuck in a weird paradigm where covid MUST be the apocalypse since Trump said it was not.
I used to consider myself someone progressive who you could call as leaning heavily on the left. I’m not sure what I am anymore, but the degree of nonsense displayed by so many leaders on the left has left me with a profound disgust.
Someone on Facebook said a church member shared this article and wanted opinions. I shared this:
Holly Ravenhorst That’s a lot of cherry picking, and a lot of taking valid statements and twisting them to support pretty outlandish claims.
Example: “‘This is nothing more than a flu epidemic if you care to look at the numbers and the data, but people who are in a state of anxiety are blind.’
— Yoram Lass, former Director-General of Israel’s Health Ministry”
Whoever wrote that post is really reaching by quoting an obscure former government official in Israel. Further, when was the last time 140k Americans died from the flu? And how many people walk away from the flu with lung and organ damage?
Most of the sources cited are from May—as understanding of this virus rapidly progresses, anything from May has a high chance of now being outdated. Consider, also, that they quote Sweden officials—Sweden’s very permissive approach has led to both enormous amounts of death and economic harm and largely been dismissed as an abject failure. I would be very hesitant about quoting any of that country’s experts.
They also claim masks don’t work, and quote the recent Harvard study; but that study, even the quote, never says they’re infective. It says they can ease anxiety *in addition* to their protective capabilities.
It basically comes down to this: if you have an argument you want to make, if you Google long enough and pick out short quotes, eventually you’ll be able to find “experts” who back up what you’re saying. But when the vast consensus among experts is “this is serious. This is not the flu. This is deadly. Masks works,” ESPECIALLY if you have elderly/high risk loved ones, it’s probably a better idea to listen to what *most of the experts* are saying and not a random blogger.
The critic itself is a lot of cherry picking.
1) “Obscure health official” — there are dozens of top scientists experts who have said the exact same thing… including Ioannidis, top 100 most impactful scientists in the world.
2) “When was the last time 140k Americans died from the flu?” — mortality statistics cannot be trusted, there are too many indications that other causes of deaths are being reported as covid, for example. What really counts is looking at excess mortality, and so far it’s barely up in Europe compared to 2017-2018, and has not increased in the US. Not more people are dying this year compared to previous years.
3) “And how many people walk away from the flu with lung and organ damage?” Speculation, fear-mongering.
4) “Most of the sources cited are from May” — the article contains the latest stance of top experts on what is really happening. The data that is time-sensitive is up to date.
5) “Sweden’s very permissive approach has led to both enormous amounts of death and economic harm and largely been dismissed as an abject failure.” — very flawed view based on the New York Times et al. propaganda about how Sweden’s approach has “failed”. Pro-lockdown zealots have flagged Sweden as a failure by comparing it to neighbouring countries, which is comparing apples to oranges. A more fair comparison (similar characteristics) is Belgium and the UK — Sweden has faired better than both, and now has herd immunity.
Their non-lockdown approach will likely save many lives compared to the countries where lockdowns themselves have been destructive on so many levels. No one talks about these side effects — increases in drug overdoses, child abuse, violence towards women, suicides, etc. Also to take into consideration.
6) The Harvard study says the biggest effects of mask might be psychological… and that’s the bottomline. The way masks are being used is not evidence-based, and is political guesswork.
7) “But when the vast consensus among experts is “this is serious. This is not the flu. This is deadly.” This is the consensus among people who have bought into the hysteria, correct.
8) “it’s probably a better idea to listen to what *most of the experts* are saying and not a random blogger.” — don’t take my word for it, couldn’t agree more… listen to Levitt, Gupta from Oxford, Tom Jefferson from the Oxford Center for Evidence Based Medicine, Dr. John Lee, Dr. Sucharit Bhakdi, and the few other scientists who are calm and rational.
Yes, I’m just a blogger, and wouldn’t expect anyone to trust me blindly. My goal is to offer a counterview to the current one-sided narrative, and demonstrate that very serious scientists who have been mostly censored throughout this whole crisis have opinions that differ from what we hear in the mainstream. Both sides are important to reaching a balanced understanding.
Very interesting. But on face masks, the mqin npoint is not that they protedt the wearerbut that they protect other people.
That’s the theory based on weak evidence on rats. Still a theory. In practice, the best studies we have simply do not show that masks have much of an effect on slowing down the spread of respiratory viruses.
Hi Nick,
I enjoyed your article- as usual well thought out and researched. Like Sam commented, I am wondering about the long term effects of those who have been infected and hospitalized. For example, what happens to some people that required amputations? Especially those who were supposedly young and healthy with no known risk factors? Could they have had undiscovered hypertension, or could they have had sky high cholesterol and or triglyceride levels? Anything’s possible, I suppose, but I wouldn’t expect a “bad flu” to cause such horrible complications. What are your thoughts?
Thanks for your work!
Dana
Hey Dana, we need more data on whether these complications come from pre-existing conditions (rampant in the young and old in today’s society — hypertension, chronic fatigue, diabetes, autoimmunity, and many more), covid-related treatments, or covid itself. Most of what I’ve seen are anecdotes at the moment.
The flu also kills young people — it’s in fact much more deadly for people under 45 years old.
Hi Nick,
Thank you for the fantastic work you have done compiling the evidence out there from very reputable sources about Covid. Work like yours and that of many others has kept me sane and has completely dimished my fear during this “pandemic”. What I have found very sad and overwhelming, though, is how this issue became so politically polarized in the US and has caused people to pick sides and then refuse to look for the truth. I think that polarization was done purposefully but we will probably never know by whom. Because I know it’s incredible counterproductive to present information about Covid as a right vs left thing I will not watch or read or share anything from someone who promotes that type of agenda. Therefore I stick with Unherd, Dr Jon Ioannidis, Swiss Policy Research, Dr Michael Levitt and Ivor Cummings to name a few. You are another one who does not go down that road and I really appreciate it. When I read what you put together a few months ago I was hoping you would provide us with more information and when I found it today I was very pleased. You have helped restore some sanity to the world. Bless you.
Thanks Maureen, couldn’t have said it better.
#`13. Incorrect. Prison deaths are at 1.69%. A far cry from his 0.039% which only represents Ohio.
“The study, published as a research letter in JAMA Wednesday, analyzed cases and deaths from March 31 to June 6 using publicly available data from corrections departments websites.” As of June 6 it was 0.039% — and that’s just based on known cases. If we account for asymptomatics we can probably at least divide this number by 2. Looks like another media scare to me.
Where does your 1.69% come from? Couldn’t find anything.
Sure, my reply analysis is cherry-picked – otherwise, I would have to write a post as long or longer than your original. That’s what most of us who disagree with you are doing – picking the four or five items that are most easily refutable.
1) Raoult is not well-respected in his home country. He keeps his office in Toulouse simply because he founded the department, and they’re not willing to kick the founder out.
2) Your reply mechanism won’t let me post a graphic to show you’re wrong about the downward trend, but the numbers tell a different tale. On July 4, the 7-day moving average of daily deaths was 519. On July 11, it was 724. July 19 – 791. As of yesterday, it’s 918.
3) The CFR can be calculated from real numbers. The IFR is just a SWAG. There’s no way to prove someone has been infected without a test. So far about 52 million tests have been run in the US – and there’s no way to know how many of those were repeat tests. If you assume best case of one test per person, only about 15% of people have been tested. If the rest of the US climbs up near the deaths per million in New York State, there will be more than a half-million dead by the time this is done. That’s 1.6% of the US population or about double the death rate from influenza.
4) I dislike DJT intensely, and I AM looking at the data. Your interpretation of said data makes no sense to me.
You say you used to consider yourself a left-leaning progressive, but now you’re not so sure. What specific “nonsense” from leaders on the left has turned you off?
Hey John, good point — we can only say so much in a comment. Touché.
2) Can you share a link to your date? Not sure if comments allow URLs. The CDC provisional numbers still show a downward trend on a weekly basis. Anyhow, it’s very likely that we can see an uptick in States where the virus had previously not circulated much. Levitt has been sharing great things about that — States with a certain saturation see their death rate drop to next to nothing, ex: New York. Points towards herd immunity.
The models predicting another apocalypse upon reopening have been catastrophic, once again. Why do we still trust mathematical models that have been overblown at every turn? https://www.aier.org/article/the-models-were-wildly-wrong-about-reopening-too/
3) You’re completely wrong on calculating the CFR based on real numbers. We cannot act on the CFR alone and extrapolate it to say that COVID will kill 1.6% of those it infects. That’s simply bad science. COVID is pretty much done in Europe and the data we have is solid… the IFR is 0.5% maximum. We now that an extremely large % of cases are completely asymptomatic. The Swedish claim this number could be as high as 99%, other studies 50-80%.
4) The most important point of this entire data fiasco is that it’s extremely well known that looking at death certificates or death statistics to take decisions is shaky. We need to look at excess deaths — this data doesn’t lie. And we know for certain that excess mortality is 15-30% higher than harsh flu seasons in Europe.
Excess mortality is currently not up in the US. There aren’t many more people who are dying compared to previous years — in all countries, regardless of lockdowns, masks or interventions that have been taken. This is what makes zero sense. If COVID is extremely deadly, why aren’t more people dying? If we argue that lockdowns and masks are saving millions of lives… why aren’t countries like Sweden and Belarus dropping like flies? (no excess mortality at all in Sweden, in fact it’s below previous years…)
The most disgusting thing I’ve seen is the willingness to jump on massive surveillance tools, and applauding when the police forces where patrolling certain US cities to find people who did not follow the COVID guidelines… only to turn around the next week and scream about how surveillance and drones are being used to intimidate people in BLM protests.
This double standard, especially in American media, has been stunning.
I’ve been appalled at how much certain American media who are anti-Trump are being blinded by their political stances. “If Trump says something, the opposite is true”. This leads to massive mistakes and a severe lack of fact-checking — like the time the media claimed that Trump had a vested interest in hydroxychloroquine… except that he actually had something like a few hundred dollars invested.
Stories like these have been abundant in The New York Times and other outlets I used to consider trustable sources… horrible, horrible journalism. Other scares have included the Kawasaki disease nonsense, a constant horrible reporting about what really happened in Sweden and what the stats really mean (like when they claimed that OH NO, SWEDEN HAS FAILED — and their ICUs were basically empty… happened several times.)
I’m far from being perfect myself, but can spot BS when I see it.
Hi Nick,
Thank you so much for the effort you have put in here, and I couldn’t agree more !!
Our biggest challenge now is how do we convince our respective governments that they need to change tack, and stop this economical, financial, and social suicide ??
Brian, Melbourne Australia
Hey Brian, that is a huge challenge for sure… the politicians want to save face, and so many financial interests have their tentacles around the covid madness. They’ll do everything they can to keep the panic going and make the big buck off of that crisis.
Really liked your article. It really made me think about what we are told and what the media is telling us.
COVID-19 is one virus, the flu is various, not a good comparison. I’m saying this not as an expert which I’m not. Just that I do not agree with all you have to say. We do not know enough about this virus to make any assumption especially as you only sited one source for each of your claims.
Hey George, these two viruses are different, but their importance is similar. That’s why I’m still making that comparison. We should not act very differently towards covid then how we react to the flu. The difference might be in nursing homes, which might need much more careful protection.
I cited a few sources to keep things simple. If you want my more in-depth analysis, check out my latest article series — 30,000+ words: https://theemfguy.com/covid-part1/
No.11, the number of deaths regards those under 45 for COVID19 are not actual deaths FROM C.19 at all, those are deaths WITH C.19 mentioned on the death certificate.
Thus by definition, and per the official register of deaths in England and Wales (82% of UK population) – and also Scotland/Northern Ireland, this cannot mean that the numbers of deaths given for C.19 are in fact a registered death from C.19. A death can only lawfully be recorded/counted as a ‘death’ by the underlying cause,
the more accurate count of deaths FROM C.19 without any underlying health condition is from the NHS website.
The register of deaths for England and Wales, shows us that there have been fewer deaths FROM respiratory diseases (incl C.19, influenza, pneumonia et al) as underlying cause of death than any of at least the previous 5 years. the beginning of the year in January was already fairly low compared to other winters.
The point death toll high point during the alleged pandemic FROM respiratory diseases as underlying cause was week 14 -10th April 2020, this figure for England and Wales is 1,968 deaths, as a comparison, the highest respiratory disease death toll in the previous 5 years was week 2 of 2015 when 3,521 people died from respiratory diseases. The threat to public health has never been at any point higher than any of the previous 5 years, the register of deaths proves this as an undeniable fact, despite the government lies/fake news.
Year to date the number of respiratory disease deaths in England and Wales is significantly lower than even 2019s ‘good’ flu year.
Here are the latest complete figures for respiratory deaths by underlying cause to week 28/beginning 17th July 2020 for Eng & Wales.
2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015
40153 42274 49400 44160 42833 48732
Great point Tony. The death statistics are extremely unreliable, and we can argue about them all day. What doesn’t lie is the excess mortality, which is comparable to harsh flu seasons at best, and inexistent in many countries.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm
If you go to this CDC website and scroll down a few pages you will come across chart that shows the weekly 5 year average of all cause mortality plotted from 2015 to today along with the weekly all cause mortality.
On that chart you can see that the weekly all cause mortality is now at the 5 year average for the US. This means the virus has run it’s course. You can also observe the chart for various states. For Florida, for example, despite the large number of new cases the weekly all cause mortality is very near it’s 5 year average. So to all you CNN watches please review the real data instead of your unknowlegable fake news reporters
Couldn’t agree more Mike, thanks for sharing.
Thank you for your research !
It would be nice to have a printer-friendly version to have the article on paper to show it to others.
Hi, Nick. I am happy because of the way my government is dealing with this issue. I agree with you and yet I am a little bit scared. I guess that after having listened to so many real and false information ( and manipulation) in the media from all over the world, I was infected with fear. And yet, I am calmed. Careful but calmed. I want to thank you for having done all this research and sharing it in a so clear way. Greetings from Uruguay, South America.
Glad you liked it Isabel.
Thank you Nick for your great effort in putting this all together. I was suspicious of the hysteria and the mono-media stance from the start.
I began my own research in April, including a number of the experts you cite, and I initially thought it was misguidance in the face of an unknown adversary but I’m increasingly convinced it’s agenda driven
Thanks again
Mike
Thanks Mike.
Why don’t you go volunteer in an ICU that handles COVID-19 patients for 8 months.
Get back to us afterwards with your ridiculous science.
This has nothing to do with the debate at hand.
Awsome job. It is so encouraging to read things one already thought about, but even more when all of it is so nicely, clear, linked and explained.
My biggest congrats.
Thanks, glad you liked it. Months after this article, my conclusions have only been reinforced. The “2nd wave” we’re seeing right now is merely a reflection of horribly inaccurate tests and a lot of misrepresentation of hospitalization/mortality data.
Nick,
You are a COMPLETE QUACK and FRAUD! Everything you stated about COVID is COMPLETELY WRONG! Osterholm is THE one scientist who is COMPLETELY right about COVID! He has COMPLETELY DEBUNKED, DISCREDITED, and DISMANTLED all of the skeptic scientists that you cited!
Well I did not expect that months later. Not sure if this is ironic, so hard to tell these days. I laughed, but I’m still not sure I should have!
You should not laugh at all, you need to be completely fearful and afraid! Osterholm will completely straighten you out and teach you the REAL FACTS on COVID! You should repudiate all of your statements and ERASE this blog of misinformation! COVID19 is far worse than 1918 flu!
Nick:
You summarise well the science based facts and data of this event in an intelligent rational way, unlike the society at large which is operating irrationally with a government induced fear of death.
One thing you neglect, though, is the dimension of stupidity. To close down and punish 99.95% of the population for a .05% (John Ioannidis) that dies with Covid has never made sense and is totally irrational. And for this I would suggest you start with economic historian Carlo Cipolla who some years ago deduced the law’s of stupid people. The Covid-19 panic showed that very many people in society exemplify the operation of these laws, particularly politicians.
This is not to say that politicians are completely stupid: they are geniuses at manipulating people so as to gain control over them. But of course, why else would one want be a politician if not to control people? All these stupid politicians were stupid enough to get themselves into a stupid hole at the start of this Covid-19 event by stupidly doing everything wrong which includes lockdowns (the epitome of control), social distancing, and a failure to improve the state of nursing homes particularly their ventilation. By nature, politicians are control-freaks and I now believe they are actually lying to get themselves out of this hole by pushing vaccines on everyone as the messiah that will save humanity, despite the Nuremburg Code which forbids such pushing of experimental medicines on citizens, while deliberately ignoring the vaccine casualties as necessary collateral damage, not to stop any virus which the human immune system naturally does in healthy people, but to get themselves out of their own hole of incompetence. They should all be jailed and tried for crimes against humanity.
Well said Ted. Quite unfortunately, your analysis is sound and I agree that we need to see Nuremberg 2.0 — asap.