Today,
a year later, little has changed in my original findings:
At certain times in certain places, what is happening is extraordinary.
On the whole, the pandemic has fortunately been overestimated in its
immediate effects determined by the infectious events - at least in
Europe, for which I have data - because even in phases of excess
mortality presumably triggered by the new virus, the virus remained -
unlike in the case of the so-called Spanish flu, the plague and cholera
- one of several main causes of death and much less significant than
cardiovascular diseases, tumours or other respiratory diseases. As I
said, in some phases of excess mortality, but not in that of summer
heat.
At other times or in relation to a period of one year, the virus, in
terms of virulence, remained far behind the latter, ever-present
diseases as a cause of death.
I have not yet compared the death rates of different years myself, but I
know of complicated calculations that take into account changes in the
population pyramid, which I have not yet been able to verify.
The indirect effects of the measures taken and the fear generated are
considerable in economic terms in particular, but also socially and
psychologically, especially for children and the so-called risk groups
and for all those who are directly related to these risk groups.
I found the best account of the problem on 02/06/2020 in an interview
with Amparo Larrauri, epidemiologist and head of the MoMo team and
researcher at the Spanish National Epidemiological Centre:
"The excess mortality observed, (...) 'May be due to confirmed COVID-19
cases, unconfirmed COVID-19 cases that surveillance systems do not
identify, and the pandemic indirectly. The latter is very important.
We
have experienced a change in the social and health structure, and this
has meant that many people with underlying pathologies have not gone
to the doctor for a multitude of reasons, such as fear of contagion or
that their consultations did not work as they usually did. And a host
of reasons that are not medical, but social. Many studies suggest that
the fact that a vulnerable, older person has been isolated and in
confinement affects their health and evolution more than younger
people. Unfortunately, we can all see such cases around us. These are
deaths that are not due to COVID-19, but they are related to this
whole process.'"
2 (Emphasis mine.)
I want to make it clear that my afterthoughts are not about an either -
or, but a both - as well. Life is not black and white. It consists of
infinite shades of grey. And colours! Which I would like to face up to.
First and second wave in Germany
Since April 2021, the Robert Koch Institute, Berlin, has thankfully
provided the EuroMoMo project in Copenhagen not only with data for
Berlin, but for all of Germany. It is now possible to easily trace
mortality since around early summer 2017 beyond the two regions of Hesse
and Berlin.
Thus, for influenza 2017/18 compared to COVID-19 in spring 2020, it is
clear at a glance what was a little more laborious to extract from this
table:
What also becomes clear, however, is the marked increase in deaths in
Germany around the turn of 2020/21, which goes far beyond what was
observed in the so-called "first wave" and - as in Spain in spring 2020
29
- is unusual for the time of year.
The peak values in Germany are still below those of the 2017/18 flu, but
the flatter curve stretches longer in time. In any case, the process is
more severe than what happened at the same time in Sweden
29,
which has always been unanimously condemned by the media.
The benefit of lockdowns?
It is true that one cannot draw any conclusions about the benefit of
lockdowns from excess mortality: Not only is Germany in a very different
situation than Spain, which implemented a much tougher lockdown in
spring 2020. Sweden, with its "only" recommendations for citizens and
relatively few restrictions, is also in a better position than
Switzerland with lockdown.
But not better than its neighbouring countries, but much worse:
29
Europe of the two scenarios
Indeed, neighbouring countries are among the 9 out of 27
participating countries with no current excess mortality. 7 have never
recorded excess mortality since the beginning of the pandemic.
29
A comparative study of the measures taken in each case would be
interesting in order to get closer to an answer as to the benefit of
lockdowns than I can here.
"Desired shock effect"
March and April 2020 will forever be associated with the beginning of a
large majority's fear of a new virus, and the beginning of a large
minority's fear that it is a set-up.
Thrown back on myself and forced not to leave my little house for weeks
during the extreme Spanish lockdown except for necessary shopping
28,
I could not believe my eyes and ears: I was constantly exposed to the
ubiquitous, frightening and completely detached, absolute figures of
infections, ill people, deaths and images in the media that demonstrated
the seriousness of the situation. Detached because without relation,
without reference to the norm, to the background, to the context: I
didn't know how many people were dying all the time anyway and from
what. But now I was constantly informed about infection and death
figures from every single Spanish autonomous region, from the largest
cities, from European and non-European countries -
without any
reference.
Neither did I know how many people lived there and died all the time
anyway, nor how high the share of "COVID deaths" was in the normal
mortality.
Like many things, I distrusted a paper entitled "How we get COVID-19
under control"
("Wie wir COVID-19 unter Kontrolle bekommen"), which
was "leaked" in the so-called "social media" as allegedly originating
from the Federal Ministry of the Interior in April 2020,
downloaded on 28/04/2020 (see also
Materials): It looked too much like the pipe
dream of a so-called "conspiracy theorist" and had too many stylistic
weaknesses for me to trust it to a German ministry.
It still had the note "Confidential - Only for official use" ("VS-Nur
für den Dienstgebrauch").
Today, exactly this
paper is publicly accessible on the page of the
Federal Ministry of the Interior, nur "VS-Nur für den
Dienstgebrauch" has been removed. (Also available at the
Materials,
downloaded on 16/05/2021.)
On pages 13 and 14 it said under "4. Conclusions for action and open
communication":
"4 a. Clarify worst case!
We have to get away from a communication that is centred on the case
fatality rate. With a case fatality rate that sounds insignificant in
percentage terms and that affects mainly the elderly, many then
unconsciously and unacknowledgedly think to themselves: 'Well, this
way we get rid of the old people who are dragging our economy down,
there are already too many of us on earth anyway, and with a bit of
luck I will inherit a bit earlier this way'. These mechanisms have
certainly contributed to the trivialisation of the epidemic in the past.
In order to achieve the
desired shock effect, the concrete
effects of the spread of infection on human society must be made clear:
1) Many seriously ill people are brought to hospital by their
relatives, but are turned away and die in agony at home, struggling to
breathe. Suffocation or not getting enough air is a primal fear for
every human being. Also the situation in which nothing can be done to
help relatives whose lives are in danger. The pictures from Italy are
disturbing.
2) "Children will hardly suffer from the epidemic": False.
Children
will easily become infected, even with curfew restrictions, e.g. with
the neighbour's children. If they then infect their parents and one of
them dies in agony at home and they feel they are to blame because,
for example, they forgot to wash their hands after playing, it is the
most terrible thing a child can ever experience.
3)
Consequential damage: Even though we only have reports of
individual cases so far, they paint an alarming picture.
Even those
who seem to be cured after a mild course can apparently experience
relapses at any time, which then quite suddenly end fatally, through
heart attack or lung failure, because the virus has found its way
unnoticed into the lungs or heart. These may be
isolated cases,
but they will constantly hover like a
sword of Damocles over
those who have once been infected. A much more common consequence is
fatigue
and reduced lung capacity lasting months and probably years, as
has often been reported by SARS survivors and is now the case with
COVID-19, although of course the duration cannot yet be estimated.
Furthermore, arguments should also be made historically, according to
the mathematical formula: 2019 = 1919 + 1929
One only needs to visualise the figures presented above in terms of the
assumed mortality rate (more than 1% with optimal health care, i.e.
well over 3% due to overload because of the spread of infection),
compared to 2% for Spanish flu, and in terms of the expected
economic crisis if containment fails, then this formula will be obvious
to everyone." (Emphasis mine.)
It read like the blueprint of the communication I experienced
simultaneously in the German and Spanish media: no case fatality rate at
all, which would have provided realistic information about the real
danger. Instead, shocks without end and scaremongering, fed back into
the media itself and thus amplified.
Somewhat earlier, around 20 March, a
"letter to my
friends" from a supposed doctor at the Val d'Hebron Hospital,
Barcelona, made the rounds on Spanish social networks. It
explained precisely, what would be in store for the Spanish health
system because of the new virus' extremely high contagiousness and its
transmission even through asymptomatic people: triage, wartime medicine.
"Why is COVID-19 so enormously dangerous? What determines the danger of
an infectious agent is the combination of 3 factors: the vector of
transmission, morbidity and mortality. COVID-19 has a vector of
transmission between 1.5 and 2.5, i.e. 3 times higher than influenza.
This means that its spread is
geometric:
1-2-4-8-16-32-64-128-256... but worst of all, unlike influenza and SARS,
which was the last coronavirus epidemic in 2003,
this one also
spreads during the two weeks of incubation, before even having
symptoms.
As for morbidity and mortality, it is as follows. One thing is clear:
WE
ARE ALL GOING TO BE INFECTED BY COVID-19 in the next three months.
Now, out of every 1000 people, 900 will have it asymptomatically,
including children and young people. 100 will show symptoms. Of those
100, 80 will go through it like a really bad flu: dry cough, headache
and muscle pain, i.e. two or three weeks at home sicker than a dog. Of
the remaining 20, 15 will develop bilateral pneumonia with difficulty
breathing, requiring hospital admission for bronchodilators,
corticosteroids and oxygen. The remaining 5 will develop pulmonary
fibrosis requiring immediate admission to the ICU with assisted
breathing. Of those 5, 3 will die. And the two who are saved will have
sequelae that will possibly require a lung transplant.
These are the figures currently used in the western scientific
community, as the data in China were worse, but because their health
system is not as prepared. Seen in this light, it doesn't seem so bad,
does it? The problem is that, unlike the flu, against which part of the
population is vaccinated and which attacks progressively over 5 months
of the year, this infection
is a wave (see Italy), so that in two to
three months all the infections will occur. So we already have the
data to do the maths.
Of the 40 million Spaniards, only 4 million will have symptoms. Of
these, 3,200,000 will suffer at home just like from a bad flu. 600,000
will need hospital admission with oxygen. And 200,000 will need ICU.
The problem is that in Spain, between the public and private health
systems, there are only 200,000 hospital beds and 3,800 ICU beds. Do
you see the problem? The real problem is not the disease itself,
although it has a significant morbimortality, but that, due to its
epidemiological characteristics, it comes in a wave infecting a whole
population that has no previous immunity in a matter of 2-3 months,
COLLAPSING THE HEALTH SYSTEM...!!!!
This means that when hospital beds and ICUs are full,
what is known
as war medicine will have to be applied, i.e. when for every bed that
becomes free there are 7 people waiting, the professionals will have
to decide who to treat and who to send home, telling them that they
will send them a doctor and an oxygen cylinder, which will never
arrive because they will also have run out.
This decision will be made on the basis of age and general condition.
In other words, the youngest patients will be chosen, who will have a
better chance of survival. This is without taking into account the
rest of the serious and urgent pathologies: heart attacks, strokes,
traffic accidents, etc. All this without beds and without ICU".
(Translation and emphasis mine.)
The hospital and the doctor exist; when interviewed, he stated that he
had not written the letter himself, but had only forwarded it.
Paternalistic fearmongering and shock doctrine?
The justification for all this was the danger perceived by the
decision-makers then and now. My paper tries to contribute to answering
the question whether the danger was and is realistically assessed.
Here and now I say that deliberately planned fearmongering by the
government to get the masses to obey orders is profoundly contrary to a
democratic polity. It is a prime example of deliberate manipulation. The
severity of the feedback in the communication media has already reached
the level of a pathogen in its own right, especially, but not only, when
I think of the psychological effects on the "risk groups" and on
children.
I have found out through press reports from past years that, for
example, the health system in northern Italy and some areas of Spain is
already on the verge of collapse in normal flu waves. In many Third
World countries, which have been in the headlines lately, it is
non-existent for the mass of the population anyway.
Images from these environments were and are the means of choice to
create compliant behaviour.
As an aside: I have no idea how funerals
normally go in northern
Italy, New York or Brazilian, Indian or Nepalese cities during times of
flu.
Hopeless questions
With questions like:
"How many people were tested?"
"How were they selected?"
"Was a representative cross-section of the population tested to gain
knowledge about the real spread of the virus?"
"What is the proportion of those tested in the total population?"
"What is the proportion of positive test results?"
"What is the proportion of those tested positive who become ill?"
"What is the proportion of those become ill who require hospital
treatment?"
"What is the proportion of those hospitalised who require intensive
care?"
"What is the proportion of those receiving intensive care who die?"
"So what is the proportion of deaths in the number of people infected or
ill in relation to other infectious diseases, e.g. influenza?"
I quickly stopped bothering because of both opaque testing strategies
and opaque communication of results focusing on absolute numbers without
any reference.
Furthermore: According to the Robert Koch Institute, the corresponding
data for influenza are only estimates, as there are no corresponding
test results: Whoever goes to the doctor gets sick with flu
statistically. The lethality of influenza is estimated on this basis,
not on the basis of those infected or actually ill, who are not tested
either, not to mention those who are asymptomatic. Comparison at this
level is difficult or impossible.
Accordingly, I know of comparisons between the lethality of influenza
and that of the new virus which are of only limited use. In the official
communication of danger, the small difference was compensated for by
emphasising the extraordinarily easy transmission of the new virus, even
by asyptomatics, which is also a regular theme with new variants: The
danger is not so much the high case fatality rate, which should not be
talked about anyway, but rather the overloading of the health system due
to an unusually large number of people being affected in an unusually
short time, as seems to be shown by the excess mortality in the first
wave in Spain. (See the statements of epidemiologist Amparo Larrauri at
the beginning of this chapter!
2)
"Corona deaths" and excess mortality
In Germany, during the period covered by my study, many more "corona
deaths" were reported than the mortality rate allows. What does this
mean logically?
The "corona deaths" are deaths
with a positive test result, but
did not die
of corona. It is also conceivable that all the
measures taken have reduced the overall mortality rate so much that the
"corona deaths" are not statistically significant.
However, all this has prevented neither the media nor politicians from
politically instrumentalizing these deaths with positive test results.
In Spain, the recording of the "corona deaths" lagged behind the excess
mortality. Amparo Larrauri, epidemiologist in charge of the mortality
monitoring team and scientist at the National Centre for Epidemiology,
whom I quoted above, has explained this perfectly.
5
What is reality?
I was deeply worried and frightened, which was triggered by the
initially puzzling reporting. At first, I did not believe it to have the
intention of scaring. I thought it was stupidity and unconscious
feedback from supposed sensationalist news. Fear was added by reports of
an extremely high contagiousness of the new virus. So in my own personal
situation an urgent need developed
for me and my going on living
amidst the fear created around me to gain information about the real
significance of what was happening. It was "for me", because this was a
kind of "therapy" against fear, anxiety and disorientation. It was an
attempt to defend myself against the rigidity of fear, whether because
of the virus or because of something else.
The most feasible thing seemed to me to be to inform myself about the
development of the death figures, because - according to my thinking - a
pandemic would have to be reflected there without a doubt.
If you put what is happening at the moment in relation to "normal",
everyday dying, which is blanked out in our culture, the omnipresence of
which we are hardly aware of and about the extent of which we usually
know nothing, you can get closer to reality than through the absolute
numbers and shocking images and ideas provided in abundance and with
attention to detail.
So I started to deal with a very narrow area, fortunately accessible to
me in my isolated situation and to all of us, that of so-called excess
mortality in Spain and Germany in comparison with each other, in the
temporal comparison of the present epidemic with past epidemics, and
against the background of the general mortality of the two societies. I
have chosen both countries because of my personal closeness to them as
home and adopted country and because of the strong contrast in the
course of the pandemic, of which most people with only a national
perspective are not aware. Everywhere the perception prevails: What is
happening here is happening everywhere. This is not even true within the
same state: the course of the disease varies greatly from region to
region.
Excess mortality is particularly suitable for getting closer to reality,
since the question of how many people have died in a precisely defined
region within a precisely defined period of time - regardless of the
cause - seems to be quite uncontroversial and relatively easy to answer
statistically. The authorities that register births do so just as
reliably for deaths.
The idea was that the officially recorded and presented course of
mortality - placed in the framework of the deaths that occur anyway and
usually - could allow conclusions to be drawn about the real
significance of the pandemic events. I have tried to portray my
conclusions above, at the beginning of these afterthoughts.
I have talked to a few people about my findings. Some were quick to see
me as a "conspiracy theorist" just because I asked questions and did
irreverent research on the un-topic of dying. Some agreed, some didn't
like it because I found out that COVID is something extraordinary at
certain times in certain places - and because lots of open questions
remain. Most have said nothing.
In the meantime, I have not been able to find any serious errors and
none have been brought to my attention. So in the last few days I have
set about publishing this on my internet site.
In view of everything that is happening, I wanted to do what I can to
support those who want to deal with the situation as sensibly as
possible. Unfortunately, there are not that many.
I, for one, know that I know and can know only a little. I don't believe
anything, I need evidence, and I have looked for and found some, for the
little I can know. And anyone who doesn't believe me can check it out -
and please let me know of any errors they find.
The "rest" of the world
Is it a coincidence that the African country that was most recently
decolonised and has a strong and still influential white minority seems
to be the most affected by the pandemic?
Or does it rather indicate that in the majority of African countries
either no or little data are collected or that these data are irrelevant
in view of other health (malaria, tuberculosis and other infectious
diseases) and political problems and the chronic health undersupply of
the population?
The events are multi-factorial
The course of infections, illnesses and deaths appears to be dependent
on
- demographics / age structure and the nature of social institutions:
The majority of deaths in the severely affected European countries
occurred in homes for the elderly, mostly privatised in Spain, with
obviously inadequate infection precautions and precarious employment
conditions that may even force people to work in several homes at the
same time, with all that this implies for the incidence of infection;
- the general health of the population;
- population density;
- possibly air quality;
- possibly the climate;
- the state of the health system: the supply of doctors, nurses, beds,
intensive care beds. Long-, medium- and short-term bad decisions
regarding health care are not addressed, neither at national nor
European level, not even by the socialist Spanish government vis-à-vis
its conservative predecessors, who - as in all southern European
countries - have imposed drastic austerity measures with the
corresponding effects on care, in addition to privatisation, as a
consequence of the financial crisis.
Cui bono?
Conservative German members of the Parliament (Bundestag), calling
themselves Christian, have enriched themselves on the masks that have
been declared compulsory. And who on the vaccines, beyond the
manufacturers and shareholders?
In her 2007 book
The Shock Doctrine, Naomi Klein writes about
former Secretary of Defence of the United States of America, Donald
Rumsfeld:
(The pharmaceutical company) "Gilead, for its part, sees epidemics as a
growth market, and it has an aggressive marketing campaign to encourage
businesses and individuals to stockpile Tamiflu, just in case. Before he
reentered government, Rumsfeld was so convinced that he was on to a hot
new industry that he helped found several private investment funds
specializing in biotechnology and pharmaceuticals. These companies are
banking on an apocalyptic future of rampant disease, one in which
governments are forced to buy, at top dollar, whatever lifesaving
products the private sector has under patent."
30
One of Gilead's three product groups is drugs and vaccines against viral
diseases. Pfizer and Gilead work together on the production of
remdesivir. I have no information about the ownership, i.e. which of the
investment funds have invested in which companies, and of course even
less knowledge about the institutions and people who have invested their
money in these investment funds.
The famous revolving doors between business and politics are certainly
also important when it comes to pharmaceutical products, not just masks.
--->
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