Reading between the lines, based on the evidence presented here, I think the conclusion must be that "SARS-CoV-2" was not a "novel", "deadly" virus then? One can accept that it exists and even that it is sufficiently genetically distinct to be uniquely characterised as a virus without admitting that it caused a novel disease (COVID) for which there was no suitable, existing treatment. Because that seems to be the most plausible explanation right now. In that case, one must conclude that all the death was due to something else, some of which has been mentioned here - denial of regular treatment in the presentation of ILI symptoms, misuse of other treatments, disruption to the general fabric of social and medical welfare... The response was responsible for all the excess death, not a novel virus.
I learned today that conundra is an acceptable plural for conundrum - and that's what it seems we have here with trying to piece together what was *actually* going on with respect to The Great Cough of Catastrophe™ known as 'covid'.
On the one hand we have the diagnostic testimony of Pierre Kory who argues that we were indeed dealing with a virus that was novel enough to be able to come to a different diagnosis. Furthermore, he argues that 'standard' treatments one would apply for serious ILI type illnesses did not work as well as expected, which is why he (and others) developed an alternative protocol. His diagnostic sentiments were also echoed by the doctor who treated my brother when he was hospitalized for covid complications. He also didn't know how best to treat his patients.
Another member of my family is an ICU nurse who treated the seriously ill during covid and she gets quite cross when people suggest it was 'non-existent' or just a misdiagnosed 'normal' virus. Do we ignore the testimony of those who were at the sharp end dealing with some very ill people?
On the other hand we have the kind of testimony of today's post above which demonstrates a wholly inadequate protocol was imposed in the UK (I presume) and this *must* have significantly contributed to the death toll - assuming we were dealing with a viral respiratory infection.
But this is the material fact isn't it? We must explain why people were getting ill. Was this unusual for this time of the year? Did we see a higher incidence of illness in age groups we wouldn't normally expect to see it in?
This is probably where I'd look for evidence for the hypothesis there was a novel-enough virus doing the rounds. Did we see an atypical incidence of hospital admissions for respiratory conditions in, say, the 20-40 year age range? Or even 40-60, for example? I don't know where to get that data.
I did a 'back of the envelope' calculation of the excess death as a percentage of the 2015-2019 baseline broken down into age ranges using the ONS data, and it showed that, when expressed as a percentage, there were noticeable 'spikes' during 'covid' waves across all except the very youngest age ranges.
But, but, but . . . (a) it's death by registration date data and (b) it's using the most crude estimate of excess of a simple arithmetic mean. And confidence intervals and error bars? Well, let's just say they were nowhere to be seen! So my back of the envelope methodology is providing only a *hint* at a possible problem.
If you look at the data from OWID (which we now know to be highly questionable and based to some extent on computed models) we also see another curious thing during the first year. There's a geographic pattern to covid death in Europe. Certain countries get hit with a wave in the Spring, but other countries in more central Europe have very little covid death in the Spring and then massive rises in the Winter. Did their treatment protocols change in this period?
If we're going to argue that much of the death was caused by (a) panic brought on by the announcement of a pandemic and (b) hopelessly inadequate treatment protocols (not to mention overuse of midazolam) then what explains the 'delay' in deaths in central European countries?
It's all a big mess - and a large part of the confusion must be placed at the door of the 'data' collection which seemed to me to be wholly unsuitable for the job. Who in their right mind, in the midst of a supposedly deadly 'pandemic', would insist on anything but the absolute most careful and accurate data collection? We spent billions on useless shite like testing and tracking but couldn't invest in decent data collection? The breath-taking stupidity of designating anyone who died within 4 weeks of a positive covid test as a 'covid' death is still something I have not been able to get my head round (from a scientific perspective. As a propaganda tool it makes perfect sense)
Anyway, there's still a lot about the whole covid clownshow that I can't make full sense of. At the moment I tend to think that (a) there was a novel-enough virus doing the rounds that (b) a very large portion of the deaths were essentially iatrogenic and that (c) the 'pandemic', such as it was, came nowhere close enough to justify the crazy levels of panic and idiotic interventions we suffered.
"Novel-enough virus"? But, on what is that predicated? We know that influenza has different strains, and, they tweak their vaccines to counter those, so, 'covid' ( the label assigned) was in all probability a flu-like illness (fli). It was the power of propaganda that embedded the notion it was 'novel', or, as you conclude 'novel-enough'.
It was a rapid peer reviewed PCR test ( <48 hours) by Drosten which was apparently able to identify the 'covid' virus, and, which was quickly endorsed by WHO to be the gold standard diagnostic test!! Well known is the PCR's inventor, Kary Mullis's reservation, that the PCR cannot be a diagnostic tool.
I suppose we all different approaches to the 'covid' (fli) and it is interesting to read other's 'takes' on what went on
The hysteria was carefully manufactured from January 2020, the theme, 'a novel virus' established by msm publishing pictures of coaches carrying people to quarantine in nurses accommodation at Arrowepark Hospital on the Wirral. The visuals have to support the propaganda and vice versa.
I agree with b) in your conclusion.
I don't agree with "crazy levels of panic", unless you mean that induced in sections of the public by the industrial scale of fear propaganda. But, the 'interventions' as they were applied were idiotic and illogical. Certainly kept the public's confusion dialled the max.
It's based on the diagnostic testimony of the people like Dr Kory (and many others) who were seeing a pattern of symptoms that didn't fit 'conventional' experience. I suppose we might want to conclude that these people were just swayed by propaganda and seeing something that wasn't there, but I'm not persuaded by that.
This is why I suggested looking at admissions data to see if there was, truly, something unusual going on. The material fact is the illness itself. What caused it? Was it 'unusual'? How did it differ in its presentation of symptoms to other ILI-type diseases?
Whilst the PCR test itself should not have been used as a diagnostic test (in the absence of other clinical diagnostic indicators) it was not entirely useless; some information was obtained. We did see a correlated pattern of mortality and PCR positivity, for example, although we could argue about the direction of causality.
But whatever the mysteries about the cause of the illness (an illness which really happened - people did get sick) it was massively, outrageously, grotesquely, over-hyped. To what end, I have no good answer.
Yes....there was an fli going around but the symptoms of this as listed on the NHS website, for example,were the same as for notable preceding 'pandemics', the 1977/78 Russian flu, the 1968 -70 Hong Kong flu pandemic, 1957 Asian flu.
The NHS website even says "The symptoms ( of Covid-19) are very similar to symptoms of other illnesses such as colds and flu." If something is "very similar" then it is not 'novel'....however, the Hallett Inquiry is very keen to establish it was something that was an unknown, else how can all the draconian measures ever be justified then ( and in the future as they seem to think is now the default).
The end result of any fli for the already vulnerable in health, the aged and immobile, is maybe pneumonia ( viral or bacterial), seriously ill enough to warrant admission and treatment in hospital. A bad cold can lead to the same collapse in health ( eg, bronchitis, pneumonia) for this particular cohort.
I don't know what useful information could be obtained from the "gold standard" PCR or LFTs? Sufficient number of 'cases' to justify lockdowns and 'tiers'? Data to print in msm as a rolling tally? Fodder for the power point presentations and ubiquitous graphs? Getting the 'R' number down?
Whichever eminent epidemiologists or viral experts opine about it being something 'new', a novel virus, ergo, 'we didn't know what we were dealing with', is to perpetuate a false scenario, supports the factions who would shut down and ruin many of our lives again because an fli is 'novel', 'unusual', 'strange', or 'surprising'.
Yes, but the human body produces only a fairly limited range of symptoms which often overlap. This is why doctors perform differential diagnoses. Dr Kory explains his diagnostic reasoning in some detail in his Substack. It's worth a read even if you end up not agreeing (sorry - I don't have the link immediately to hand).
The PCR test was testing for exposure to something with the sequences tested for. It's a great (and very sensitive) well-established technique that should not, on its own, be used to come to any diagnosis. It was horribly misused and misinterpreted during the covid farce.
I understand the desire to dismiss the whole 'novelty' aspect. It does, as you say, play into the hands of those who want to weaponize our fears. But that's not enough to reject a claim of novelty if, indeed, there were novel aspects to this virus. I believe it was novel (but novelty is, in modern parlance, a spectrum).
I looked up the relevant article on Kory's substack.....I found that his 'musings' were somewhat mystifying. I wasn't convinced by his arguments it was a 'novel' pathogen. He asserts the "ability to transmit through the air" was the first evidence that the pathogen circulating in Wuhan had novel characteristics. Isn't aerosol transmission, for example, a feature of colds and flu down the ages?
Avoidance of poorly ventilated places would be a long held common sense approach for people with health vulnerabilities when colds and flu are circulating.
Kory asserts that the WHO declaration appeared to support "...the clinical reality on the ground", although he isn't sure why hospital capacity was overwhelmed in some urban areas but not others.
In the UK there was no matching 'clinical reality on the ground' to a declared pandemic...no ambulances rushing up and down streets, no old people, or, any people, falling to the ground in the streets or in shopping aisles. Of course, there were people who became very unwell, and they had to be treated in hospital, but the majority were aged, vulnerable to chest infections, pneumonia, and they died, as they did in flu pandemics prior to 2000.
I would say that 'novel' is not on a spectrum, but I believe you mean something like a virus could have 'novel features'. That is a far more accurate way to describe a pathogen, but what happens ( as in the Hallett Inquiry) the word 'novel' is used as a blanket term....smothering any intelligent questions about a pathogen's 'novelty'!
People don’t usually have many severe flu like illnesses in their life. I’ve had two & my wife one, in our 64y.
Please think. If I’d had a flu like illness in 2020, there’s about a 1:3 chance that it’ll be “the worst case I’ve ever had”. This because the next case could be less bad, roughly the same as or worse than my previous worst case.
Statistically it’s not faintly surprising that many people had their worst case in their lives in 2020.
You should expect this pattern.
Thus, it cannot be used to support the idea of a new pathogen let alone a pandemic.
The argument that there was not novel illness circulating is one that I find difficult to accept.
(1) the illnesses (in the UK) were happening at an odd time of the year for such a number of ILI's
(2) Just in my smallish circle of acquaintances I knew of serious cases which seem unusual in my (admittedly anecdotal) experience. A university friend of my daughter's died, ostensibly from covid, at age 25. The guy who fixes my clunky old PC is a fit early 30's fitness bod and he was hospitalized for 2 weeks and was in quite a bad way. My brother ended up having to go to hospital too. A family member is an ICU nurse and, because she was at the sharp end, she was seeing some people, including younger ones, in pretty dire circumstances. It's important to note that this pattern is not something she would typically see, except maybe during a more serious winter flu outbreak and then only in older patients primarily.
I might be wrong and I certainly have nothing like your relevant background, but can these things really be explained as just a 'rebadged' flu?
Like I said, I would like to see whether 2020 represented an atypical year for hospital admissions, for respiratory distress, in the younger demographic (say 20 to 40). If it turns out that this wasn't an unusual year, then I could be more persuaded of the argument that this wasn't something a little bit new.
2020 marked the first year I ever heard of younger people being hospitalized for flu-like conditions. Anecdotal, to be sure. Does my anecdotal experience match up with the reality, though? That's the question.
I totally agree that this was not a pandemic in any meaningful sense - and that perhaps most of the deaths were caused by medical mismanagement. But *what*, exactly, were they mismanaging - something was surely causing these illnesses.
The response was the killer not the virus, many people who died would have survived if given the chance to have established treatment for respiratory symptoms that was giving them problems. To ignore and not treat the symptoms properly was putting people on a path to severe illness and the next stage would be death. The treatment given to Covid patients was the same as the pre-antibiotic era if not worse, people with serious but treatable respiratory infections stood no chance.
How much of the detection of covid viruses has been from genetic sequencing of samples from sick people, versus a rapid pcr test? Are there other ways of detecting viruses such as a specialized electronic sensor, or a protein stain and spectrometer?
I saw some of my neighbors and family get a rough cold with a dry cough. We were dealing with wildfire smoke too though.
One more question: Is there a spring 2020 document, guideline, announcement, etc that was issued in the UK that said "only go to hospital when they are blue or breathless at rest" (or some version thereof). If so, can you post the link? Thank you!
Reading between the lines, based on the evidence presented here, I think the conclusion must be that "SARS-CoV-2" was not a "novel", "deadly" virus then? One can accept that it exists and even that it is sufficiently genetically distinct to be uniquely characterised as a virus without admitting that it caused a novel disease (COVID) for which there was no suitable, existing treatment. Because that seems to be the most plausible explanation right now. In that case, one must conclude that all the death was due to something else, some of which has been mentioned here - denial of regular treatment in the presentation of ILI symptoms, misuse of other treatments, disruption to the general fabric of social and medical welfare... The response was responsible for all the excess death, not a novel virus.
I learned today that conundra is an acceptable plural for conundrum - and that's what it seems we have here with trying to piece together what was *actually* going on with respect to The Great Cough of Catastrophe™ known as 'covid'.
On the one hand we have the diagnostic testimony of Pierre Kory who argues that we were indeed dealing with a virus that was novel enough to be able to come to a different diagnosis. Furthermore, he argues that 'standard' treatments one would apply for serious ILI type illnesses did not work as well as expected, which is why he (and others) developed an alternative protocol. His diagnostic sentiments were also echoed by the doctor who treated my brother when he was hospitalized for covid complications. He also didn't know how best to treat his patients.
Another member of my family is an ICU nurse who treated the seriously ill during covid and she gets quite cross when people suggest it was 'non-existent' or just a misdiagnosed 'normal' virus. Do we ignore the testimony of those who were at the sharp end dealing with some very ill people?
On the other hand we have the kind of testimony of today's post above which demonstrates a wholly inadequate protocol was imposed in the UK (I presume) and this *must* have significantly contributed to the death toll - assuming we were dealing with a viral respiratory infection.
But this is the material fact isn't it? We must explain why people were getting ill. Was this unusual for this time of the year? Did we see a higher incidence of illness in age groups we wouldn't normally expect to see it in?
This is probably where I'd look for evidence for the hypothesis there was a novel-enough virus doing the rounds. Did we see an atypical incidence of hospital admissions for respiratory conditions in, say, the 20-40 year age range? Or even 40-60, for example? I don't know where to get that data.
I did a 'back of the envelope' calculation of the excess death as a percentage of the 2015-2019 baseline broken down into age ranges using the ONS data, and it showed that, when expressed as a percentage, there were noticeable 'spikes' during 'covid' waves across all except the very youngest age ranges.
But, but, but . . . (a) it's death by registration date data and (b) it's using the most crude estimate of excess of a simple arithmetic mean. And confidence intervals and error bars? Well, let's just say they were nowhere to be seen! So my back of the envelope methodology is providing only a *hint* at a possible problem.
If you look at the data from OWID (which we now know to be highly questionable and based to some extent on computed models) we also see another curious thing during the first year. There's a geographic pattern to covid death in Europe. Certain countries get hit with a wave in the Spring, but other countries in more central Europe have very little covid death in the Spring and then massive rises in the Winter. Did their treatment protocols change in this period?
If we're going to argue that much of the death was caused by (a) panic brought on by the announcement of a pandemic and (b) hopelessly inadequate treatment protocols (not to mention overuse of midazolam) then what explains the 'delay' in deaths in central European countries?
It's all a big mess - and a large part of the confusion must be placed at the door of the 'data' collection which seemed to me to be wholly unsuitable for the job. Who in their right mind, in the midst of a supposedly deadly 'pandemic', would insist on anything but the absolute most careful and accurate data collection? We spent billions on useless shite like testing and tracking but couldn't invest in decent data collection? The breath-taking stupidity of designating anyone who died within 4 weeks of a positive covid test as a 'covid' death is still something I have not been able to get my head round (from a scientific perspective. As a propaganda tool it makes perfect sense)
Anyway, there's still a lot about the whole covid clownshow that I can't make full sense of. At the moment I tend to think that (a) there was a novel-enough virus doing the rounds that (b) a very large portion of the deaths were essentially iatrogenic and that (c) the 'pandemic', such as it was, came nowhere close enough to justify the crazy levels of panic and idiotic interventions we suffered.
"Novel-enough virus"? But, on what is that predicated? We know that influenza has different strains, and, they tweak their vaccines to counter those, so, 'covid' ( the label assigned) was in all probability a flu-like illness (fli). It was the power of propaganda that embedded the notion it was 'novel', or, as you conclude 'novel-enough'.
It was a rapid peer reviewed PCR test ( <48 hours) by Drosten which was apparently able to identify the 'covid' virus, and, which was quickly endorsed by WHO to be the gold standard diagnostic test!! Well known is the PCR's inventor, Kary Mullis's reservation, that the PCR cannot be a diagnostic tool.
I suppose we all different approaches to the 'covid' (fli) and it is interesting to read other's 'takes' on what went on
The hysteria was carefully manufactured from January 2020, the theme, 'a novel virus' established by msm publishing pictures of coaches carrying people to quarantine in nurses accommodation at Arrowepark Hospital on the Wirral. The visuals have to support the propaganda and vice versa.
I agree with b) in your conclusion.
I don't agree with "crazy levels of panic", unless you mean that induced in sections of the public by the industrial scale of fear propaganda. But, the 'interventions' as they were applied were idiotic and illogical. Certainly kept the public's confusion dialled the max.
It's based on the diagnostic testimony of the people like Dr Kory (and many others) who were seeing a pattern of symptoms that didn't fit 'conventional' experience. I suppose we might want to conclude that these people were just swayed by propaganda and seeing something that wasn't there, but I'm not persuaded by that.
This is why I suggested looking at admissions data to see if there was, truly, something unusual going on. The material fact is the illness itself. What caused it? Was it 'unusual'? How did it differ in its presentation of symptoms to other ILI-type diseases?
Whilst the PCR test itself should not have been used as a diagnostic test (in the absence of other clinical diagnostic indicators) it was not entirely useless; some information was obtained. We did see a correlated pattern of mortality and PCR positivity, for example, although we could argue about the direction of causality.
But whatever the mysteries about the cause of the illness (an illness which really happened - people did get sick) it was massively, outrageously, grotesquely, over-hyped. To what end, I have no good answer.
Yes....there was an fli going around but the symptoms of this as listed on the NHS website, for example,were the same as for notable preceding 'pandemics', the 1977/78 Russian flu, the 1968 -70 Hong Kong flu pandemic, 1957 Asian flu.
The NHS website even says "The symptoms ( of Covid-19) are very similar to symptoms of other illnesses such as colds and flu." If something is "very similar" then it is not 'novel'....however, the Hallett Inquiry is very keen to establish it was something that was an unknown, else how can all the draconian measures ever be justified then ( and in the future as they seem to think is now the default).
The end result of any fli for the already vulnerable in health, the aged and immobile, is maybe pneumonia ( viral or bacterial), seriously ill enough to warrant admission and treatment in hospital. A bad cold can lead to the same collapse in health ( eg, bronchitis, pneumonia) for this particular cohort.
I don't know what useful information could be obtained from the "gold standard" PCR or LFTs? Sufficient number of 'cases' to justify lockdowns and 'tiers'? Data to print in msm as a rolling tally? Fodder for the power point presentations and ubiquitous graphs? Getting the 'R' number down?
Whichever eminent epidemiologists or viral experts opine about it being something 'new', a novel virus, ergo, 'we didn't know what we were dealing with', is to perpetuate a false scenario, supports the factions who would shut down and ruin many of our lives again because an fli is 'novel', 'unusual', 'strange', or 'surprising'.
Thank you for your reply.
Yes, but the human body produces only a fairly limited range of symptoms which often overlap. This is why doctors perform differential diagnoses. Dr Kory explains his diagnostic reasoning in some detail in his Substack. It's worth a read even if you end up not agreeing (sorry - I don't have the link immediately to hand).
The PCR test was testing for exposure to something with the sequences tested for. It's a great (and very sensitive) well-established technique that should not, on its own, be used to come to any diagnosis. It was horribly misused and misinterpreted during the covid farce.
I understand the desire to dismiss the whole 'novelty' aspect. It does, as you say, play into the hands of those who want to weaponize our fears. But that's not enough to reject a claim of novelty if, indeed, there were novel aspects to this virus. I believe it was novel (but novelty is, in modern parlance, a spectrum).
I looked up the relevant article on Kory's substack.....I found that his 'musings' were somewhat mystifying. I wasn't convinced by his arguments it was a 'novel' pathogen. He asserts the "ability to transmit through the air" was the first evidence that the pathogen circulating in Wuhan had novel characteristics. Isn't aerosol transmission, for example, a feature of colds and flu down the ages?
Avoidance of poorly ventilated places would be a long held common sense approach for people with health vulnerabilities when colds and flu are circulating.
Kory asserts that the WHO declaration appeared to support "...the clinical reality on the ground", although he isn't sure why hospital capacity was overwhelmed in some urban areas but not others.
In the UK there was no matching 'clinical reality on the ground' to a declared pandemic...no ambulances rushing up and down streets, no old people, or, any people, falling to the ground in the streets or in shopping aisles. Of course, there were people who became very unwell, and they had to be treated in hospital, but the majority were aged, vulnerable to chest infections, pneumonia, and they died, as they did in flu pandemics prior to 2000.
I would say that 'novel' is not on a spectrum, but I believe you mean something like a virus could have 'novel features'. That is a far more accurate way to describe a pathogen, but what happens ( as in the Hallett Inquiry) the word 'novel' is used as a blanket term....smothering any intelligent questions about a pathogen's 'novelty'!
Thank you again for your reply.
People don’t usually have many severe flu like illnesses in their life. I’ve had two & my wife one, in our 64y.
Please think. If I’d had a flu like illness in 2020, there’s about a 1:3 chance that it’ll be “the worst case I’ve ever had”. This because the next case could be less bad, roughly the same as or worse than my previous worst case.
Statistically it’s not faintly surprising that many people had their worst case in their lives in 2020.
You should expect this pattern.
Thus, it cannot be used to support the idea of a new pathogen let alone a pandemic.
Best wishes
Mike
The argument that there was not novel illness circulating is one that I find difficult to accept.
(1) the illnesses (in the UK) were happening at an odd time of the year for such a number of ILI's
(2) Just in my smallish circle of acquaintances I knew of serious cases which seem unusual in my (admittedly anecdotal) experience. A university friend of my daughter's died, ostensibly from covid, at age 25. The guy who fixes my clunky old PC is a fit early 30's fitness bod and he was hospitalized for 2 weeks and was in quite a bad way. My brother ended up having to go to hospital too. A family member is an ICU nurse and, because she was at the sharp end, she was seeing some people, including younger ones, in pretty dire circumstances. It's important to note that this pattern is not something she would typically see, except maybe during a more serious winter flu outbreak and then only in older patients primarily.
I might be wrong and I certainly have nothing like your relevant background, but can these things really be explained as just a 'rebadged' flu?
Like I said, I would like to see whether 2020 represented an atypical year for hospital admissions, for respiratory distress, in the younger demographic (say 20 to 40). If it turns out that this wasn't an unusual year, then I could be more persuaded of the argument that this wasn't something a little bit new.
2020 marked the first year I ever heard of younger people being hospitalized for flu-like conditions. Anecdotal, to be sure. Does my anecdotal experience match up with the reality, though? That's the question.
I totally agree that this was not a pandemic in any meaningful sense - and that perhaps most of the deaths were caused by medical mismanagement. But *what*, exactly, were they mismanaging - something was surely causing these illnesses.
The response was the killer not the virus, many people who died would have survived if given the chance to have established treatment for respiratory symptoms that was giving them problems. To ignore and not treat the symptoms properly was putting people on a path to severe illness and the next stage would be death. The treatment given to Covid patients was the same as the pre-antibiotic era if not worse, people with serious but treatable respiratory infections stood no chance.
It’s not about ‘views’
There was no virus. There have never been any viruses in reality.
There was no novel disease. There were no novel ‘symptoms’.
There was no Covid.
At this stage there is no excuse for not being aware of and speaking plainly these facts.
How much of the detection of covid viruses has been from genetic sequencing of samples from sick people, versus a rapid pcr test? Are there other ways of detecting viruses such as a specialized electronic sensor, or a protein stain and spectrometer?
I saw some of my neighbors and family get a rough cold with a dry cough. We were dealing with wildfire smoke too though.
I am not surprised she was positive for influenza B.
This person is talking about her April 2024 experience, yes?
One more question: Is there a spring 2020 document, guideline, announcement, etc that was issued in the UK that said "only go to hospital when they are blue or breathless at rest" (or some version thereof). If so, can you post the link? Thank you!