Flu used to kill huge numbers world-wide until vaccines came along; I had my flu jab in December.
Covid is serious because it’s a new & highly contagious respiratory virus which, until recently, we had no vaccine for.
However, and with every empathy and respect for those who have died from it, it is not particularly deadly. Ebola for example, kills 90% of those it infects; fortunately it's nothing like as infectious as Covid-19.
Covid-19 kills less than 1% on the evidence of the first 12 months.
But back to the vaccines; don’t get carried away with euphoria.
The new Covid vaccines aren’t effective for 2 -3 weeks after you have them; they don’t, strictly speaking, stop you catching Covid, they just reduce the severity of most (not all) people's reaction to it; it appears you CAN pass it on after being vaccinated; and there hasn’t been time for long-term safety trials.
[Indeed, the currrent mass vaccination programme IS in effect the long-term safety trial!]
It's also intersting that the German regulators are refusing to allow the AstraZeneca vaccine to be used on the over 65s at the moment citing insufficient data. So have we jumped the gun or are they beoing over-cautious? Only time will tell.
With more time, Covid vaccines will improve in both effectiveness and long-term safety, which is great news for all, especially the most vulnerable groups but I won't be rushing to have mine for a few months yet.
Covid numbers
Moving away from vaccines, by the NHS’s own admission, 15-20% of those counted in their Covid case statistics caught Covid IN HOSPITAL.
So, the percentage of patients going to hospital for non-Covid reasons & showing no symptoms who then test positive for Covid after they’ve been admitted is 15-20%. They are then automatically counted as Covid cases and, should they die, Covid deaths, irrespective of the actual or main cause.
The WHO have recently changed their guidance on the PCR test, saying that weak positive results ALWAYS need follow-up tests because they know that if no symptoms are apparent, they are likely to be a false positive. [The German scientist on you tube getting a positive result from a kiwi fruit should make anyone think].
Yet single weak positive tests have always been and continue to be automatically counted in the Covid figures and importantly are not removed should a subsequent test show negative!
Anyone who has tested positive for Covid in the month before they died is counted as a Covid death. Even if they were run over by a bus; or committed suicide; or died when they would have anyway due to cancer, for example.
Doctors have not been ordered but been encouraged to put Covid on death certificates as at least a contributing factor if they have even a suspicion of Covid being present.
Any such mention of Covid is automatically counted in the Covid death statistics.
So, to me, there is no doubt that the Covid case and death figures have been knowingly manipulated upwards, presumably in an attempt to play it safe and convince as many people as possible to be obedient to the restrictions.
We can’t know by exactly how much they've been manipulated upwards, but it’s likely to be significant.
Lockdowns
Remember, we are told by Government, SAGE, the Opposition Parties and Mainstream-Media that none of the problems caused by lockdowns are as important as ‘beating’ Covid. Indeed lockdown-caused problems are barely mentioned & certainly not used to critique the lockdown policy itself.
No, we’re told unequivocally that lockdowns are the correct policy; in fact, harder lockdowns would be preferable to many.
The fact that, despite the restricitons and lockdowns, Covid is having exactly the effect on health that you would expect moving from Winter to Summer and back into Winter again seems to be seen as irrelevant.
Any optimism in the figures is all down to the lockdown & restrictions policy, but if figures go in the wrong direction it’s solely down to idiot people not doing what they’re told. Hmm....
This is how the pattern of announcements seems to go:
1. This is a catastrophe; be afraid, be VERY afraid; we’re locking down or putting in important restricitons; then
2. ‘Oh you’re doing well, thanks'; then
3. ‘restrictions might ease soon, keep it up’, followed by
4. ‘nope, some of you have been bad, look at how bad it is because of YOU’ then
5. ‘more restrictions/lockdowns required and it’s all YOUR fault’.
Fear, praise, hope, criticise, punish; fear, praise, hope, criticise, punish – and repeat.
So what's happening?
And no, I'm not a consiracy theorist.
I see a combination of silo-thinking, simple politics and incompetence, not some Machiavellian world order takeover.
We seem to be playing an ‘out of sight, out of mind’ game and focussing solely on Covid.
Does the death and suffering caused by non-Covid health issues, both physical & mental not matter?
Does the soaring unemployment rate, which will rise even higher once Government salary support is removed, and will devastate the lives of many for years if not decades to come not matter?
Does the educational deficit for our children, particularly from the poorest backgrounds, not matter?
Does the uncontested removal of civil liberties we thought we had secured centuries ago, not matter?
Well, the answer is of course, YES for those who have been directly affected by any of these things but as that’s not yet the majority, too many just go along with it all, presumably because they can ‘feel’ Covid all around them but not these other problems.
Either that or they simply choose to believe the official catastrophe narrative.
The attitude seems to be ‘focus solely on the immediate problem and the future will just have to sort itself out as best it can’.
Oh, great! That's what we want from our politicians, head in the sand short-termism!
If Covid, like the Black Death, was killing 30 to 40% of the population or even 2 to 3% of the population as the Spanish flu did immediately after the First World War, then I could understand this focus on Covid to the exclusion of all other important societal issues.
But since, one year on from the first suspected cases, 0.15% of the population have died from Covid according to the official figures [which you will recall are exaggerated], I don't understand the ‘only Covid matters’ policy.
Now, I am willing to believe that there may be very good reasons for ignoring all the other vital societal issues being negatively impacted by the lockdown & restrictions policy. However, any such reasons are not being volunteered and no politician or member of the media even seems to be asking these questions.
Why almost no one with any power or influence is asking questions about the trade-off between the assumed but hard to quantify benefits of focusing solely on Covid and the known but hard to quantify disbenefits of focusing solely on Covid, is a question I would love to know the answer to.
But the University of Bristol estimated late last year that the equivalent of 560,000 extra deaths would occur due to the lockdowns, so I am very concerned.
Scepticism
Finally, but very importantly, it’s never wrong to look more deeply into what those who have power & influence over you are telling you.
We’d all like to believe that we can relax, sit back, and rely on those with power to do what’s best for us at all times, but that’s wishful thinking; no-one’s quite that naive are they?
There will always be political biases and agendas as well as well-intentioned error in what those with power & influence say and do, and if you don’t identify what they are, you can’t properly judge the extent to which you agree or disagree, can you?
We don't simply decide whether we like the Party in Government or not and then just accept or dismiss whatever they say, do we? I mean, that would be stupid wouldn't it? 😉
After all, and with the Covid figures being an exemplar, if they don’t trust the people enough to be 100% honest so we can make our own minds up, why should the people 100% trust them?
My advice
Do your own research & thinking on ALL important issues.
Honest, open-minded scepticism of those with power & influence is not just acceptable, I think we should consider it our duty as citizens of a free & democratic country - that is, if we want it to stay that way!
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