Covid conspiracies / rants/ BS

[DefTrap]

Also, I we probably need to recognise the proportion of our population who have ‘pre-existing conditions’.

It's a minefield I imagine. I'm over 50 and have a achy neck, I imagine that puts me on the list of "Don't care, probably should be dead by now."

[Count Steer]

That video is utter horseshit. What’s his black belt in? Tinfoil? What a throbber.

He's not a black belt in statistics. He's linked one data set (excess deaths) with another and interpreted it how he wants to see it. Just goes to show, if you want to believe something, there's someone out there with a camera and internet access that will tell you what you want to hear.

The excess deaths is an interesting stat. They're higher than predicted ie excess. Presumably, fewer people than expected (possibly also with pre-existing conditions and/or over 65) died with flu during periods of lock-down/isolation/social distancing - suppressing the number of expected deaths. So the figure is actually worse than it appears to be...unless you think only previously healthy people that die with Covid should count as Covid related. In which case, flu doesn't kill many people either...they probably die of ingrowing toenails or something.

[Yambo]

An exercise in asking a very specific question to get the answer you want and then pretend it's the answer to a more general question.

Indeed. I think that if you are going to ask questions of the Office of National Statistics under the Freedom of Information Act it is probably wise to ask for specifics cos if you ask a general question, you're going to get a general answer. It was therefore a good exercise in getting the answer you want - in this instance, 'Please supply how many people have died from covid-19 alone with no underlying health issues, from November 2019 to December 2021.'

Now, I have no idea what this guy has a black belt in (note, I personally have a black belt), whether he's actually a barrister or whether he's a conspiracy theorist or not and I couldn't give a shit either. What I am interested in though is the answer to the question asked of the Office of National Statistics: 'Please supply how many people have died from covid-19 alone with no underlying health issues, from November 2019 to December 2021.' because for 18 months or more I've been asking the same question. I wanted to know how dangerous covid actually was.

If a death is recorded as a covid death when it occurs within 28 days of a positive covid test it may make the numbers look good (or bad) for the government who, lets face it are trying to sell a product and protect the fantastic NHS but it's not exactly a true reflection of the severity of covid 19. Your opinion may differ of course and that's fine. If you want to believe what the government tells you, in general terms, then believe it.

However, the specific question asked has a specific answer and it would appear that only 9400 people with no pre-existing conditions died from covid alone in 2020 and only 7971, again with no pre-existing conditions died in the first 3 quarters of 2021. When you compare this to the scientific projections of covid deaths (half a million?) then you have to say the actual deaths from covid falls woefully short. If you bear in mind that around 6000 people a year die from pancreatic cancer (for which there is currently no cure and no vaccine) and around 75,000 people die every year from smoking related diseases covid isn't very special. Of course, it killed a lot of people with underlying health issues and pre-existing conditions which made them vulnerable but that simply underlines the fact that if you keep yourself healthy, covid should not be a big issue - mortality wise.

It's also interesting for me to see your reactions to the video - conspiracy theory! black belt in anything but statistics! not a statistician, a load of bollocks etc which is to be expected when you are all experts at everything so it should be enough to shoot the messenger. As I said before I don't give a shit about the messenger but I was interested in the answer to the question he's bringing to peoples' attention. Some of you clearly don't give a shit about that - and that too is fine but you could do me a favour and tell me whether I should believe the answer from the Office of National Statistics to the question asked and if I shouldn't believe it, what number of people died from covid alone is the right one to believe.

[Mussels]

I don't think the ONS set out to deceive him, his question is more complicated than he thinks. They need to be careful to answer the question accurately as they know they will be quoted but they only have a best guess, FOI doesn't require people to make guesses, just release the info they have.

[wheelnut]

But……lots of people do have underlying health conditions and they will still occupy an icu bed.

The amount of deaths really isn’t the issue that the government are concerned with, it could be 5 times the amount that it is and they wouldn’t bat an eyelid.

The issue with covid, and I don’t know why people struggle to grasp this, is the speed and ferocity it had the potential to totally overwhelm available health resources.

Having people choke in their lungs in hospital car parks because there’s no resources to access doesn’t look good on news at 10. It had the potential to lead to a fairly swift breakdown of society.

In the early-ish days it wasn’t that far away from happening,

[gremlin]

In the early-ish days it wasn’t that far away from happening,

And there was me thinking it was just a shortage of bog roll and G&Ts in the garden at 10.30am...

[Mr. Dazzle]

But……lots of people do have underlying health conditions and they will still occupy an icu bed.

The amount of deaths really isn’t the issue that the government are concerned with, it could be 5 times the amount that it is and they wouldn’t bat an eyelid.

The issue with covid, and I don’t know why people struggle to grasp this, is the speed and ferocity it had the potential to totally overwhelm available health resources.

Having people choke in their lungs in hospital car parks because there’s no resources to access doesn’t look good on news at 10. It had the potential to lead to a fairly swift breakdown of society.

In the early-ish days it wasn’t that far away from happening,

Its also why Irie's "anti vaxxers will just have to take their chances" argument misses some rather key points out.

I'm fully vaccinated but if I have a car accident I don't want to be kept out of ICU by all the Covid victims.

[DefTrap]

It's also interesting for me to see your reactions to the video - conspiracy theory! black belt in anything but statistics! not a statistician, a load of bollocks etc which is to be expected when you are all experts at everything so it should be enough to shoot the messenger. As I said before I don't give a shit about the messenger but I was interested in the answer to the question he's bringing to peoples' attention. Some of you clearly don't give a shit about that - and that too is fine but you could do me a favour and tell me whether I should believe the answer from the Office of National Statistics to the question asked and if I shouldn't believe it, what number of people died from covid alone is the right one to believe.

Are you telling us were being lied to? Or you just one of those who likes to ask open questions and then stand there waiting for fury?

In these cases it's often just easier to ask why?
Why is there a cover up?
What's in it for the interested parties?
Why are there so few of them prepared to break the silence?
Why is literally the whole world of numerous left, right and couldntgiveafuck oriented governments all ploughing the same path.

[irie]

But……lots of people do have underlying health conditions and they will still occupy an icu bed.

The amount of deaths really isn’t the issue that the government are concerned with, it could be 5 times the amount that it is and they wouldn’t bat an eyelid.

The issue with covid, and I don’t know why people struggle to grasp this, is the speed and ferocity it had the potential to totally overwhelm available health resources.

Having people choke in their lungs in hospital car parks because there’s no resources to access doesn’t look good on news at 10. It had the potential to lead to a fairly swift breakdown of society.

In the early-ish days it wasn’t that far away from happening,

Its also why Irie's "anti vaxxers will just have to take their chances" argument misses some rather key points out.

I'm fully vaccinated but if I have a car accident I don't want to be kept out of ICU by all the Covid victims.

Of course what I said "misses some rather key points out", but what I said is the key issue.

Consider this: if one of your children had an accident and required ICU treatment but ICU beds critical to their recovery were blocked by anti-vaxxers who had voluntarily avoided vaccination which would have obviated their need for ICU beds, how would you feel about this?

Such choices are made every day when resource are critical.

[Yambo]

Are you telling us were being lied to? Or you just one of those who likes to ask open questions and then stand there waiting for fury?

I'm not telling you anything, that's not the way I roll. I certainly lean towards asking questions but of course I run the risk of being told I'm asking the wrong question. I'm well aware though that in that situation I'm actually asking a question you don't want to answer. I don't know why you don't want to think about any possible answer but that doesn't make the question wrong.

In these cases it's often just easier to ask why?
Why is there a cover up?
What's in it for the interested parties?
Why are there so few of them prepared to break the silence?
Why is literally the whole world of numerous left, right and couldntgiveafuck oriented governments all ploughing the same path.

All perfectly legitimate questions. Do you want me to answer them?

[Cousin Jack]

Yes, especially the last one.

I am reminded of the story of the proud mum at a passing-out parade, who remarked that her son was the only one in step.

[DefTrap]

You could try, see where we go from there.
If your numbers are right then we're having our plonkers pulled nationally and globally, I'm interested to know how that might work.

[Yambo]

You could try, see where we go from there.
If your numbers are right then we're having our plonkers pulled nationally and globally, I'm interested to know how that might work.

OK, I'll try but you have to understand a couple of things.

1. Any answer I give will be an opinion. You don't like opinions that differ from yours - you've made that perfectly clear with your responses related to Brexit - over the last few years.
2. You can be a right arse sometimes and you're being one again. The numbers I quoted and that are shown in the load of bollox video are not my numbers. Try and get your head around that, they are not my numbers. They are numbers from the Office of National Statistics. I don't work there, I don't do any work for them and I've never done any work for them. They are not my numbers. The Office for National Statistics is the executive office of the UK Statistics Authority, a non-ministerial department which reports directly to the UK Parliament. They are not the numbers of a retired expat living in S.W. Turkey. I'm just the messenger.

If you still want me to answer your questions then you're going to have to tell me that you understand those couple of things because quite simply I can't really be bothered just throwing words around that will be misconstrued, taken out of context or lead to accusations of being a racist, gammon idiot.

[DefTrap]

Bit defensive.

Ill say again, lm genuinely interested in why you might think these quite clear numbers aren't being seized upon by lucid governments as "nothing to see here" or whatever your conclusion is. Just trying to see what your opinion is because currently it's not clear at all.

[Count Steer]

If you think this:

'Either covid is scared of me or I have similar genes (I'm from Dover so hardly Sahf Luhnden). I'm still to be convinced the 'rona is actually a thing. I've never had flu either but now and again some twat gives me a cold so I'm no superman but 'rona? More like mass hysteria I think.'

TBH What you make of ONS figures doesn't really matter much. If the disease is mass hysteria, the numbers are probably an illusion.

[Yambo]

In these cases it's often just easier to ask why?

Why is there a cover up?

I don't think there is a cover up as such. The numbers are there, in the public domain and all it took was a FoIA question to reveal them. What the government and the media are doing is distraction or obfuscation. It suits their narrative and rhetoric to use big numbers to keep the population scared ("Trust us, only the government can keep you safe.") and to hide the cock ups. It's easier to hide the old folks/care home massacre in big numbers than it is in small numbers for example.

One of the main roles of government is to protect the people (sometimes from themselves) so it is rather embarrassing when they fail in this primary aim. Governments don't like to be embarrassed so they use selected data to camouflage the fuck ups.


What's in it for the interested parties?

You're assuming I know who the interested parties are. Who are the interested parties? Government, I guess is one and what's in it for them is staying in power. The media perhaps? If the media outlets start questioning the wrong thing or stop reporting the governments narrative then they'll lose out on all those little snippets from insiders or those in the know. They won't be trusted and if they can't publish juicy little tidbits they'll not sell papers. Other's? Dunno. It's people we're talking about here, in some cases individuals or groups of them and they all have their little insecurities, jobs to keep hold of, families to feed, status to maintain. They'll make a lot of decisions based on how things will affect them. A governments primary aim is to keep themselves in power. I don't know how far down the list of priorities 'the country' is but it's certainly not No 1.


Why are there so few of them prepared to break the silence?

Jobsworth


Why is literally the whole world of numerous left, right and couldntgiveafuck oriented governments all ploughing the same path.


Because they hadn't got a clue what to do. I'm guessing there was an awful lot of "let's see what other governments are doing, make allowances for our being a bit different, different political systems etc and do something similar."

"What did the Chinese do? Lock people down and make dissenters disappear." OK, we're British, we can't go that far but we can do some of it.

It was probably seen as a good idea to get some scientific/medical science advice, try and decide which scientists to believe, go for the worst case scenario and tell the ones you don't believe to fuck off. Of course, maybe the ones you've told to fuck off had more accurate predictions but once you've started down a particular path "You turn if you want to . . ." These are people, individuals making decisions for the big organisation and people make mistakes and don't like those mistakes broadcast to the world and his dog.

It's always about people, often individuals (how come Bolsanaro is still alive ffs?) and they are all flawed in some way. Unfortunately, those flaws can have a huge impact on everyone else when they are involved in decision making.

There you go, I can't answer your questions properly because I don't know, I just have an opinion. It certainly hasn't been a black and white situation
but rather complicated and as far as the UK goes, Boris is no great, original thinker, has no leadership qualities at all and will lie like fuck to cover his arse. It was certainly too complicated for him.

It's all down to people, people cutting corners on lab security, people messing about with viruses, people allowing them to do so, people having to suffer sensory overload and make decisions that will affect other people because other people got it wrong. Governments don't make decisions, people do, under the umbrella of government and those people will do what we all do when necessary, they'll use whatever method they can to avoid embarrassment.

[Yambo]

If you think this:

'Either covid is scared of me or I have similar genes (I'm from Dover so hardly Sahf Luhnden). I'm still to be convinced the 'rona is actually a thing. I've never had flu either but now and again some twat gives me a cold so I'm no superman but 'rona? More like mass hysteria I think.'

TBH What you make of ONS figures doesn't really matter much. If the disease is mass hysteria, the numbers are probably an illusion.

I don't take many subjects seriously. I certainly don't take/haven't taken covid as seriously as many of you on here. I also do not share the same sense of humour as a lot of you, don't jump to conclusions like some of you and I don't see things in black and white.

I was joking, in response and in support of gremlin's tongue in cheek post. If that goes over your head then find something to stand on.

To be serious for a moment, I don't want to catch covid and I've taken precautions to prevent catching it. I've had 4 vaccinations, because I didn't want to catch it and I wanted to travel to the UK where it had been decided that my 2 Sinovac vaccinations were not going to be recognised so I had two BionTech jabs as well. Of course, if I did catch it then I'd have to take my chances but I keep myself fit and I'm generally healthy so I reckon I'd have a decent chance of surviving it. The ONS figures support that.

I don't want to catch flu either, or malaria. I don't want to suffer a stroke, get dementia or AIDS either so I take general precautions and try and stay as healthy as possible. Covid, to me, is simply another reason to get sick and maybe die. I don't think it's any more dangerous than many other reasons to die so while I'll take some basic precautions to keep it from getting me, I'm not going to let it dictate my life. I'm certainly not going to let it be detrimental to my sense of humour.

[DefTrap]

Well, thanks for colouring it in a bit.

"The government" can't even keep Boris's little garden parties a secret for long - what chance is there really of them keeping down a plan to delude the Public? "The government" are fractured by schism and dissent - why wouldn't Cummings have exposed this plot the second he walked out the door? Written a book on it? He's distanced himself from every other shit Boris decision after all. What about the dozens, if not hundreds, of other MPs, aides, advisors and scientists - that would need to be party to the big lie to make this work? - who would leap at the chance to expose this? How are they all so tightly bound by the deceit that nobody has ratted them out?

I ask so many questions because raw stats don't really answer those. laying down a fact and going boom and walking away is too easy.

The trouble with conspiracy, or distraction obfuscation as you call it, like this is that it takes a huge amount of effort to keep it going. It would be easier, cheaper and more effective to be the one that fixed COVID in 5 minutes and make the other countries, political parties, regimes and media outlets look like corrupt fannies. After all Britain is Best, right?

[Count Steer]

Looking at the stats again, my thinking is that the excess deaths are the important one. These have a pretty good track record and, quite importantly, you can compare countries directly. As seen, people can slice and dice the death certificate figures to suit because of the pre-existing conditions and the 28 day thing. Plus, different countries do things differently.

The excess is people that weren't expected to die at that time, pre-existing conditions or no. The figures will include people who couldn't get to see a doctor, couldn't get an ambulance, got depressed and topped themselves etc. Some have therefore died, not of covid, but because if it. As said before, they're worse than they appear because covid actions actually reduced flu deaths (I expect RTA deaths were down too).

Unfortunately, they're a lagging indicator so detailed analysis will have to wait.

Scientists said the deaths could be much higher, but fortunately vaccines, isolation, treatments etc reduced it because, happily, some took them seriously. You can argue until the cows come home that they were too pessimistic but unless you rerun the past two years with less intervention or look in more detail at genuine stats from countries that didn't respond well it's post hoc guesswork.

When the next pandemic comes along, as it surely will, what would people do differently? At least we should be better prepared. Personally, I think that the UK has managed a reasonable balance - with a few stupid wobbles like Sunak's 'eat out to help out'. Could have been better, could have been worse, tried hard, wasted a lot of ££s but some of the spend did hit the mark. 6.5/10.

[Yambo]

It can't be denied that covid has killed a lot of people, but mainly those who's health was compromised or were vulnerable - old for example. I have been interested for some time now though in simply wanting to know how many people actually died from covid alone. It was just a personal issue brought about by the knowledge that vulnerable people were dying but children weren't.

I could be considered vulnerable having had a heart attack and a bypass op a few years ago - I still have coronary artery disease, high blood pressure and atrial fibrillation (didn't know that 18 months ago) but I'm generally healthy and keep myself fit so just how much at risk was I? When I found out that a death within 28 days of a positive covid test was classed as a covid death I thought that can't be right so what are the numbers of actual covid only deaths?

The video popped up on my YouTube feed and I watched it out of a piqued interest. I didn't know what it was about at first but then it suddenly showed the numbers I'd wanted to know (but had done nothing to find). I doubt I'll watch the blackbelt barrister again but not because of the content of that one video. To be honest I'm every bit as amazed, and puzzled as you that governments the world over have 'ploughed the same path' but as wheelnut has said, the virus clearly had the potential for overloading health services the world over. Governments had to do something. Could they have done things better? In hindsight I guess they could have done and I'm guessing again that in the cabinet meetings with scientists, virologists etc the nature of the virus's attack was discussed fully. But then decisions have to be made and the scientists don't make them, the politicians do. Act to protect just the vulnerable won't go down well with some people just as slapping restrictions on everyone won't sit well with others. Damned if you do . . .