Madison Area Lyme Support Group

In announcing the most far-reaching restrictions on personal freedom in the history of our nation, Boris Johnson resolutely followed the scientific advice that he had been given. The advisers to the government seem calm and collected, with a solid consensus among them. In the face of a new viral threat, with numbers of cases surging daily, I’m not sure that any prime minister would have acted very differently.

But I’d like to raise some perspectives that have hardly been aired in the past weeks, and which point to an interpretation of the figures rather different from that which the government is acting on. I’m a recently-retired Professor of Pathology and NHS consultant pathologist, and have spent most of my adult life in healthcare and science – fields which, all too often, are characterised by doubt rather than certainty. There is room for different interpretations of the current data.  (See link for article)

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**Comment**

Important take-aways:

1. As of now COVID-19 deaths are lower than other infectious diseases (such as the flu)
2. Testing that is based in hospitals will over estimate virulence of infection because sicker people are in the hospital
3. They have updated the list of notifiable diseases to include COVID-19 which means every positive test for it must be notified in a way that the flu and other infections would not be – making it appear more prevalent and dangerous due to record keeping. Criteria for recording deaths must be tightened.
4. If anyone with a positive test for COVID-19 dies, staff will record the COVID-19 on the death certificate contrary to usual practice for most infections of this kind. The author astutely points out that there is a big difference between finding something and it directly causing illness or death.  Ironically, this very fact has been used against Lyme patients for decades as authorities are so careful about stating that finding Bb in a person doesn’t mean it is causing anything let alone death. Bias is clearly evident in how they are handling COVID-19 vs Lyme disease
5. Taking drastic measures to reduce COVID-19 follows that deaths will go down convincing authorities that they have averted something that was never going to be as severe as feared
6. If the flu or seasonal viruses were tracked as COVID-19 is, they too would show exponential rises. The flu, according to the CDC states that since September, 38 MILLION Americans were infected which killed 23,000
7. He states comparing data from different countries is like comparing apples and oranges
8. With time, most infections tend to decrease in virulence as an epidemic progresses
9. There isn’t any statistical evidence for excess COVID-19 deaths in any part of the world
10. Social distancing for the elderly and immune-suppressed is reasonable but there’s no evidence that drastic measures should be taken
11. TV is not science – no matter how how shocking
12. When lock-down measures are lifted, there WILL be more cases again but shouldn’t be alarming
13. It will take months, even years before wider implications can be seen (damaging children’s education, increased suicides, mental health problems, taking resources away, effects on food production and global commerce – will have unquantifiable consequences for people)
14. Rushed science is almost always bad science
15. Policies have been decided without concrete evidence
16. We must keep an open mind and look for what is, not for what we fear might be

Great article!  Please share this as people are being led by the media and do not understand what’s going on with numbers.  Everything is being stacked to make numbers look high – from the inaccurate testing with false positives to the way deaths are being recorded.

For more:  https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/17/a-fiasco-in-the-making-as-the-coronavirus-pandemic-takes-hold-we-are-making-decisions-without-reliable-data/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2020/03/27/cdcs-deadly-testing-fiasco-centralization-of-public-health-authority-a-threat-to-national-security/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2020/03/21/study-shows-covid-19-testing-as-bad-as-lyme-msids-testing/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2020/03/17/stunning-insights-into-the-corona-panic-by-dr-wolfgang-wodarg/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2020/03/16/does-the-coronavirus-exist/