The Guardian 14th February 2022

Yes it turns out Boris was right to end the the pandemic restrictions, since now hardly anybody is dying from Covid. Let us not forget that the 35 deaths above are people who have died within 28 days of their first positive test, and they did not all die from the direct effects of Covid. This manner of counting has greatly increased the number of deaths (and the level of panic). The BBC estimates that currently, fewer than two in every three Covid-related deaths are estimated to be caused by the infection. Fewer people are currently dying than the average for the last five years.

Another criticism was that he was not backed up by the scientists, who usually surround him. I presume that was because their projections had proven to be drastically wrong. The modellers from Imperial College and SAGE (Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies), who inspired the lockdown, have appeared to get lost in their own statistics and preferred to err on the side of caution, if not plain dystopia. To quote from The Guardian:

Prof Neil Ferguson, went further and suggested that, following the “freedom day” relaxation of restrictions on 19 July, the 100,000 figure was “almost inevitable” and that 200,000 cases a day was possible. Cases topped out at an average of about 50,000 a day just before “freedom day”, before falling and plateauing between 25,000 and 45,000 for the next four months.

Now that at is an error of 200-300%, plainly not acceptable. (Incidentally, Professor Ferguson had to resign from SAGE for breaking lockdown restrictions.) This is just one example of the scientific modellers getting it wrong, just think of those empty Nightingale Hospitals costing 530 million. Now that the dust is settling it is worthwhile to look at overall death rates to discover the reality of the situation. From one perspective Covid in 2020-2021 has proven to be just more than twice as deadly as Flu in 2014-2015. However it is more interesting to look at the Global Excess Death Rates, since this removes the problems about how you count Covid deaths. Undoubtedly Covid has been a major and deadly pandemic, shown by the fact that most countries have suffered excess deaths (that is more than the expected average). On a fascinating chart compiled by The Economist, the UK is roughly in the middle with 222 Excess Deaths per 1000 people, yet for Sweden, which did not have a lockdown, the figure is 126. Draw your own conclusions, here are some numbers:

Excess deaths since country’s first 50 covid deaths
Last updated on February 14th 2022

• Bulgaria: 919 Excess Deaths per 1000 people
• South Africa: 414 Excess Deaths per 1000 people
• USA: 305 Excess Deaths per 1000 people
• UK: 222 Excess Deaths per 1000 people
• France: 150 Excess Deaths per 1000 people
• Sweden: 126 Excess Deaths per 1000 people
• Japan: 16 Excess Deaths per 1000 people
• New Zealand: -51 Excess Deaths per 1000 people

Yes the -51 for New Zealand does mean that more people are living than expected! I hope they will be fully immunised by the time the the virus does hit them, which seems inevitable sooner or later. Another issue which has recently become clearer is that Covid basically preys upon the old and infirm, leading to this amazing quote from Professor Mark Woolhouse:

People over 75 are an astonishing 10,000 times more at risk than those who are under 15.

This statement is backed up by the graphic heatmap from the UK government website:

So why are we bothering to vaccinate children? In conclusion we have certainly made many mistakes, but I have been grateful for the vaccination programme and I am glad the restrictions are finally ending.

P.S. Boris is an arch manipulator and consummate liar!

Update 22/02/2022

A week later Simon Jenkins of The Guardian has written an uncannily similar analysis in the article “Johnson’s decision is political, but it’s right to end Covid restrictions in England“. In the course of said article he mentions Boris, excess deaths and Sweden, concluding about the scientists:

Too often scientists sound like just another interest group out to protect its reputation and budget. As Neil Ferguson’s Imperial College London modelling group were quoted as admitting: “We do not consider the wider social and economic costs of suppression.” It is why Sweden’s decision to avoid a draconian lockdown merits serious analysis. Its GDP fell by 2.9%, Britain’s by 9.4%. In the European league tables Sweden falls around the middle in deaths per capita, still well below Britain.

 Remember You Read It Here First!

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