Many
people are waking up to the fact that the Covid-19 “pandemic” is not turning
out as billed. When we finally emerge from it, the big question will be how
many people have died from the virus. Here’s the most likely outcome.
You
can bet that the institutions of international government, and the “experts”
advising them, will try to massage and cherry-pick statistics to present the
version of events that most closely matches their worst-case scenarios. The
fact is, according to their early predictions, we are already long overdue
millions of Covid-19 deaths that have failed to materialise.
But even when Covid-19 deaths are recorded, we have seen how it could
be that people are dying with coronavirus
rather than dying of it. This concept is easy enough to
understand, and it encourages one to take a closer look at the breakdown of
deaths across an entire society. The more you follow this rabbit hole down, the
more interesting the numbers become. It may be somewhat morbid, but it is
nonetheless very important.
The most popular two articles on the
website of The Spectator over the weekend
were by Dr John Lee, a recently retired NHS consultant and professor of
pathology. He remarks that ‘’we have yet to see any statistical
evidence for excess deaths, in any part of the world’’.
To check this out, I looked
at the British government’s own statistics on
total deaths registered weekly across the UK. It shows that in the week ending
on the 8th of March 2019, 10,898 people died in total in the UK. This year, in
the week ending the 6th of March 2020, the equivalent figure was almost
identical: 10,895. Make of that what you will. Statistics are currently
available up to March 20, and while there is a lag between the spread of the
virus and the resulting deaths, so far only about 1 percent of all mortalities
bear any relation to coronavirus, and there is no visible spike. If nothing
else, it helps to view the extent of the crisis in proportion – thousands of
people die each week, and from the long-term view what we are seeing is not a
plague, but a blip.
So
when all is said and done, will any additional people die of the coronavirus?
And what is meant by extra or additional?
Risk of dying
Understanding
this requires a bit of lateral thinking, but it helps to remember that everyone
on Earth has a terminal disease: being alive. We all have to go sometime.
Recording exactly how and
when we do is a big part of the job of statistician Professor Sir David
Spiegelhalter. In a recent blog post, he outlined the
concept of background risk. This is
obtained by recording all of the people dying in any given year, at any given
age. At its most simple, this is the percentage chance a person has of not
reaching their next birthday, based solely on their age. Of course, that is not
to say that if you are a 40-year-old man you have precisely a 0.2% chance of
dying this year – the data are based on averages, and do not apply to
individuals.
But nonetheless, across a
country or given populations, the averages will be right, and it is possible to
predict with great accuracy how many people will die in a given year. In the
UK, for example, 600,000 people die annually. But wait a minute! A novel,
brand-spanking new coronavirus is terrorising us all. Therefore surely we can
expect more people to die this year than would in a normal year? And come year’s
end we should be able, with simple arithmetic, to count exactly how many more
there were.
Spiegelhalter, chair of the
Winton Centre for Evidence and Risk Communication at Cambridge University,
won’t say exactly what he does think that figure will be. But he does say that
if the deaths are towards the lower end of the current estimates, say at around
20,000 in the UK, Covid-19 will end up having ‘’a minimal impact on overall
mortality for 2020’’. He told R4 that his findings showed, to his
own professed astonishment, that if someone contracts the coronavirus, they’ve
got almost exactly the same chance of dying over the ensuing few weeks as they
would normally have of dying over the next year, no matter what their age or
background health.
And
depending on who you ask, that 20,000 figure might still be an overestimate. In
fact, Spiegelhalter says that if extra people die it will likely be as a result
of the knock-on effects of the lockdown, such as delayed normal health
care, depression and isolation.
American political commentator
Candace Owens has been Tweeting consistently
about the apparent insignificance of Covid-19 deaths compared to overall
trends. She tweeted about this issue in relation to New York City, where
meaningless figures are being waved around by the media.
An
article this morning claims NYC is facing a catastrophe because they have had
450 Coronavirus deaths since January & someone is dying every 17 minutes.
So you know—regularly, NYC
has 419 deaths every single day & loses a person every 9 minutes.
Just for perspective.
—
Candace Owens (@RealCandaceO) March 28, 2020
Final destination
With all of the numbers being bandied about these days by various
universities and governments, one would swear that they knew exactly what they
were talking about. Make no mistake: this air of certainty is just a front. It
is definitely too early to accurately gauge how many – if any – extra
people will die because of coronavirus. It will depend on how four key pieces
of information intersect.
These
are:
1.
How many people will become infected by Covid-19?
2.
How much does Covid-19 increase the risk of death?
3. Are
deaths being properly recorded? Of those people who die having contracted
coronavirus, are they dying from the virus,
or just with it?
4.
Of those who died, how many had comorbidities that would have
killed them this year anyway?
Since
all of this began, the mainstream media have focused almost entirely on the
first of these points, and stressing with an onslaught of material how
important it is to slow the spread. The most extreme possible measures have
been implemented to do that. Meanwhile, the three other points could end up
comparing Covid-19 pretty much to the common flu. Only careful consideration by
governments of all the key factors will result in the best future decisions.
It is hard to believe that when this
all blows over, the damage that will have been done by the shutdown
measures – to businesses, to civil liberties, to individual lives and, of
course, to the global economy – could have been for nothing. Nonetheless,
it seems entirely possible based on the present data. Remember above all to
not take the figures the mainstream media throw at you at face value;
there are lies, damned lies and statistics.
The statements, views and
opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not
necessarily represent those of RT.
Peter Andrews, Irish science journalist and writer, based in
London. He has a background in the life sciences, and graduated from the
University of Glasgow with a degree in genetics.
Copyright © Autonomous Nonprofit Organization “TV-Novosti”
Copyright © Autonomous Nonprofit Organization “TV-Novosti”
