By Simon Foster
As the saying goes, the first causalty of war is truth and in the ‘war against coronavirus’ that is certainly proving to be true.
Coronavirus?
Let’s start with the name ‘coronavirus’.The name refers to the shape of the virus. There are many types of coronaviruses. They are quite common. Coronavirus causes the common cold and flu, things we have learned to live with.
The ‘official’ line is that this coronavirus, classified as SARS-CoV-2, and the disease it causes, COVID-19, is far more dangerous than all the other coronaviruses diseases and requires extraordinary measures to contain it. But is this true?
The following facts extracted from official sources and esteemed experts in virology, will show conclusively that this is not the case.
Is COVID-19 very contagious?
First, the claim that COVID-19 is more contagious and spreads faster than other coronaviruses is fiction, not fact. Even the World Health Organisation (WHO) has finally conceded this fact (despite coming under criticism for initially exaggerating the dangers of COVID-19.) COVID-19 spreads slower than Influenza (the common flu).
The COVID-19 factsheet from WHO says that this new coronavirus is in fact 50% slower to spread than Influenza a.k.a. common flu.
The fact that COVID-19 is less contagious that the common flu has also been demonstrated by the closest thing we have to a controlled experiment – the cruise ship Diamond Princess that was quarantined off the coast of Japan. After weeks at sea and facing forced quarantine for 14 days, despite sharing a common ventilation system, only 18% of the combined crew and passengers (3,771 in total) tested positive for COVID-19.
Is COVID-19 more dangerous that the common flu?
All data collected and evidence to date indicates that COVID-19 is not more dangerous than the common flu. Possibly less dangerous.
Analysis of the COVID-19 breakout and aftermath in the Wuhan concludes that the virus is less fatal than the common flu with a mortality rate of 0.04% to 0.12%. Seasonal flu has a fatality rate of around 0.1%. The reason the mortality rates were initially reported as much higher was due to insufficient testing to get a representative sample. In other words, far more people had been infected with SARS-CoV-2 then had initially been suspected – because they showed no symptoms.
John P. A. Ioannidis, a Professor of Medicine, Health Research and Policy of Biomedical Data Science at Stanford University School of Medicine, has called the response to COVID-19 a fiasco. Using the case study of the Diamond Princess, that fatality of Covid19 is between 0.025% and 0.625%. In other words, in the range of a strong cold or the flu.
He writes:
“A population-wide case fatality rate of 0.05% is lower than seasonal influenza. Locking down the world with potentially tremendous social and financial consequences may be totally irrational.”
One study revealed that the common cold coronavirus (CoV-OC43) caused a 6% fatality rate in a Canadian nursing home. All data so far shows that COVID-19 is nowhere near this fatality rate. In Diamond Princess cruise ship case, 48% of the elderly passengers ages between 80 and 89 who were infected by SARS-CoV-2 showed no symptoms at all. And 60% of the 70 to 79 year olds who were infected also showed no symptoms.
Professor Yoram Lass, former Israeli Health minister, also contends that COVID-19 is “less dangerous than the flu”. A warning that the lock-down measures put into place will cause more death and destruction in the long run.
In response to increased data, on the 19th of March, Public Health England downgraded the seriousness of COVID-19 and it is no longer classified as high consequence infectious diseases (HCID) in the UK due to low overall mortality rates.Therefore, according to its own definition, it no longer “requires an enhanced individual, population and system response to ensure it is managed effectively, efficiently and safely”.
John Lee, Professor Emeritus of Pathology points out that the way COVID-19 deaths are reported exaggerates the number of people who died due to be infected by SARS-CoV-2.
“Recording cases where there was a positive test for the virus is a very different thing to recording the virus as the main cause of death.
Early evidence from Iceland, a country with a very strong organisation for wide testing within the population, suggests that as many as 50 per cent of infections are almost completely asymptomatic. Most of the rest are relatively minor.”
Looking at the larger statistics, the average mortality rate of any particular place and time, suggests that COVID-19 has not increased the normal death rate in any significant way.
A study from Oxford University suggests that SARS-CoV-2 has been circulating among the UK population since January and as many as half the population may already have been immunised.
Dr Sucharit Bhakdi, Professor Emeritus of Medical Microbiology, Mainz, Germany disputes the unscientific scare-mongering, and has written an 5 question open letter to Angela Merkel to raise these issues. He makes it clear that the medical martial law responses by governments to COVID-19 poses a greater threat to the health of a nation than the virus itself.
Below his video appeal to the German nation to rethink their approach. Click subtitle icon lower right to view subtitles in English.
Dr. John Lee, professor emeritus of pathology, has written an article examining the wildly varying claims over the danger of COVID-19 and explains why COVID-19 deaths are a substantial over-estimate.
After reviewing data available, professor John Oxford of Queen Mary University London writes he views COVID-19,
“as akin to a bad winter influenza epidemic. In this case we have had 8000 deaths this last year in the ‘at risk’ groups with over 65% people with heart disease etc. I do not feel this current Covid will exceed this number. We are suffering from a media epidemic!“
Coming up:
- The external factors (rarely reported in MSM) that made the death count in Italy worse than other European countries.
- How and why mainstream media has created a mass panic about COVID-19 by distorting the facts.
- How the lock-downs and draconian measures will create more deaths, misery, poverty, and long-term negative consequences for Wales and the UK than simply carrying on as normal.
- Will the media and politicians ever be held responsible for their reckless and destructive behaviour?
