The Core

How's the data looking in your country ?

Here's the daily deaths stats from NHS England from the start up until a few days ago :



Data source : https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/covid-19-daily-deaths/

Worldmeters.iinfo is a good place to dig down into individual country data.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries

>> huge outlier

Might have something to do with the huge liar ...

I think we can all agree now that the government has massively over-reacted, so why are the policies in opposition to the data still ?

If we were investigating a crime-ring then the fact that lots of the people in place to 'advise' govs on the matter of COVID policy also have a vested financial interest would be a rather large red flag. There are a multitude of individuals in the West who are policy influencers in this regard but also have what would normally be called a conflict of interest.

Why are the gov policies based on cases rather than the actual risk that the virus poses, which is very low for most of us?

Why are so many health professionals speaking out against the COVID measures ?

Why are the COVID 'rules' being passed via Statutory Instruments (giving parliament less than an hour in some cases to read the relevant material, which is feet-high stacks of paper) before 'voting' on the 'bill' ? (in the UK, a parliamentary vote usually means doing what 'the whip' tells you to do - the whip being some arrogant bastard running around Westminster telling everyone to be 'on message').

And please don't tell me they use Statutory Instruments because it's an emergency, they used the same process to pass the UK/US extradition treaty, and other laws that benefit the state but not the people in most cases.

Why are most governments passing dictates that are flying in the face of the data ?

Even Piers Pigface Morgan was questioning the stats on Morning TV the other day, ITV have been very good at allowing people to question the stats on air without calling them COVIDIOTS and the like.

I am incensed, as all of us who are informed should be, businesses have crumpled and many people have died due to policies, not virii.

The regular protests at Trafalgar Square in London aren't full of nutcases who worship at the Church of Icke (why the f### did they choose him as one of the spokepersons!?), they are an incredible cross-section of London society, from the working class and beyond. The protests were all peaceful until the riot police showed up and started 'kettling', and then hitting people with their batons, pushing old ladies to the ground.

Here is last Saturday's protest in full, it's mostly boring until the police (lots of whom had Eastern European accents, according to many protesters) decide to send in the Territorial Support Group (who have had bad press since the '80s) :

https://youtu.be/RVqDKi8Qr6A?t=1113

And of course, the only footage the media show us is the sensational footage with the one or two bad apples that go to all protests to cause trouble.

Don't Believe The Hype.

I also would not say that governments did or did not overreact. The data is still extremely noisy. Like Buckworks, it is obvious that our government did not react intelligently, certainly not optimally.

I can't find the article but they are saying that Manaus (Brazil) gives perhaps the best estimate of what would have happened if we had let it run. Manaus did take measures, but the disease seems to have run to herd immunity or close enough to slow it down a lot.

The huge caveat is that only 6% of the population is over 60, as opposed to 20+ percent in most European countries.

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/coronavirus-covid-19-brazil-city-manaus-herd-immunity

The researchers estimate close to 4,000 people died from COVID-19 in Manaus, a high death toll for a city where only 6 percent of the population is over 60. The city had an infection fatality rate between 0.17 and 0.28 percent, the study suggests. The costs of reaching herd immunity via infection in other cities, especially where there are more older people could be much, much higher. Estimates of São Paolo’s infection fatality rate range as high as 0.72 percent.

Overall, Manaus’ experience reveals “that an unmitigated outbreak will lead to very significant morbidity and mortality,” says Bill Hanage, an epidemiologist at Harvard University, “which is basically what we’ve been saying since February.”

So that's roughly 2,000 deaths per million people. So in the US that would be about 700,000 deaths. Of course, that has be balanced by two facts:
 - again, the US population is much older (and I'm *guessing* that we also have much higher rates of diabetes and obesity)
 - on the other hand, for all our problems, I'm again *guessing* that we have more hospital beds per capita than Manaus, but I don't know.

https://www.popsci.com/story/health/covid-19-herd-immunity-brazilian-city-manaus/

Herd immunity may indeed have slowed the transmission of COVID-19 in Manaus, Russo says, but this isn’t a strategy that we should be striving for elsewhere. Roughly three million people would die in the process in the US alone, and researchers worry that COVID-19 may lead to long-term health issues even in some people who had mild or asymptomatic cases.

As one of the articles says, New York blood assays show about 27% were infected. Having two family members who are medical professionals in the NY area, we can say that the system was stressed right to the breaking point. If you imagine doubling the number of infections, things would have gotten extremely ugly.

What's harder to guess is what would have happened in my county where we have had only two deaths to date. Did we avert dozens of additional deaths or simply destroy dozens of businesses for now reason? I honestly do not know. Maybe both.

At one point in South Africa it felt like a run away freight train - case numbers were rapidly climbing with individual provincial numbers hitting 6K a day (at least for Gauteng) and national numbers around 14K a day. But over the last 2 months the numbers have dropped dramatically and our numbers are under 1K a day at present.

• https://corona-stats.mobi/en/ZA/national.php - national stats
• https://corona-stats.mobi/en/ZA/provincial.php - provincial comparison stats
• https://corona-stats.mobi/index.php - links to other African country stats