I had the misfortune to catch the BBC’s Misinformation at Ten on Saturday night. After the first ‘dum-titty-dum’ of the theme tune we were told that UK Covid deaths had just passed 150,000. My first reaction was one of relief. It seems like a big number but it hardly compares with Professor Neil Ferguson’s initial predictions that the Covid pandemic would lead to the death of 500,000 people within then first half of 2020. Why, therefore, did the headline—dutifully echoed by all other major UK news outlets—not report that 350,000 people, along with the other 99.8% of the population had not died of Covid even as we enter the third year of the pandemic?
It is worth reiterating, as the relevant diagram in the Imperial College London report states, that the figure of 500,000 related to deaths if the pandemic went ‘unmitigated’. And we all know what that led to. We have had nearly two years of mitigation including lockdown, face coverings, social distancing and vaccines. Of course, the smugness of our political masters and their media megaphones about how effective these measures were is something else that is unmitigated. Their attitude is one of “just think how bad it could have been”. But this argument is holed below the water line by the fact that there is little to no evidence that these measures have been successful. Indeed, they may have been very harmful. Countries such as Sweden—where Covid deaths were high, but which is slightly more urbanised than the UK—did not lock down and US states where lockdowns were not imposed fared no worse than ones which did. Widespread wearing of face coverings is not supported by evidence. Obviously, social distancing if maintained may prevent the spread of a respiratory infection but it has proved farcical and impossible to maintain and flouted by our political masters. Vaccines may have brought some short term benefits which is hard to miss as the mainstream media makes much of this. But what is not reported is, generally, how ineffective the Covid vaccines are and after time how they are making people more susceptible to Covid infection. This effect has been observed in more than one country. The mainstream media, including the more Covid sceptical ones such as talkRADIO, do not report this. Instead, they push the rollout of multiple boosters.
Returning to the 150,000 deaths reported over the weekend, the most remarkable thing is that it is not true. As one reader has written in a complaint to the BBC, the figure “is at best misleading, at worst a falsehood”. As usual the BBC and its cohabitees in the Covid orthodox echo chamber did not contextualise the figures. It was stated that these were deaths within 28 days of a Covid diagnosis but that does not mean that all these people died ‘of’ or even ‘with’ Covid. If you contract Covid on any particular day you will be clear of infection long before 28 days but if, in your joy at being Covid free you go to the pub for a few beers and then step in front of a bus you will be classified as a Covid death. If you suffer from a terminal illness but Covid helps to carry you off, then you will be classified as a death with Covid. But so what? A cold or the flu would have done the same only without being reported on the BBC. The number of people who have died of Covid at any given point is always lower than the numbers being reported by the media and the government already had to knock 5000 off the figures for Covid deaths in the middle of last year.
There is clear evidence that the pandemic—however defined and measured—is ending and we are hearing some excellent sense about the vaccine rollout (ie stop it!) with no necessity for a fourth booster. Hospitals are not presently overwhelmed, but the ‘state of fear’ so aptly described by Laura Dodsworth is being maintained (officially). Once the scales fall from enough people’s eyes and more people take to the streets, as the Scots did this weekend, it will be interesting to see what the government’s next move will be. I think that a short-lived Indie band of the early naughties had a song about this. I predict…
Unity News Network (UNN) Staff Writer | To find out more details about our staff, please head to the About Us section on our website.
