________
Source: RT New
The 1% blunder: How a simple but fatal math mistake by US Covid-19 experts caused the world to panic and order lockdowns
6 September, 2020
By Malcolm Kendrick, doctor and author who works as a GP in the National Health Service in England. His blog can be read here and his book, 'Doctoring Data – How to Sort Out Medical Advice from Medical Nonsense,' is available here.
When you strip everything else out, the reason for lockdown comes from a single figure: one percent. This was the prediction that Covid, if left unchecked, would kill around one percent of us.
You may not think that percentage is enormous, but one percent of the population of the world is 70 million people – and that's a lot. It would mean 3.2 million Americans dead, and 670,000 Britons.
But where did this one percent figure come from? You may find this hard to believe, but this figure emerged by mistake. A pretty major thing to make a mistake about, but that's what happened.
Related: Up to 90% of people who test positive for Covid barely carry any virus & are not contagious. Every stat about the disease is bogus
Such things occur. On September 23, 1998, NASA permanently lost contact with the Mars Climate Orbiter. It was supposed to go round and round the planet looking at the weather, but instead it hit Mars at around 5,000 mph, exploding into tiny fragments. It didn't measure the weather; it became the weather – for a few seconds anyway.
An investigation later found that the disaster happened because engineers had used the wrong units. They didn't convert pound seconds into Newton seconds when doing their calculations. Imperial, not metric. This, remember, was NASA. An organisation not completely full of numbskulls.
Now you and I probably have no idea of the difference between a pound second and a Newton second (it's 0.67 – I looked it up). But you would kind-of hope NASA would. In fact, I am sure they do, but they didn't notice, so the figures came out wrong. The initial mistake was made, and was baked into the figures.
Kaboom!
With Covid, a similar mistake happened. One type of fatality rate was substituted for another. The wrong rate was then used to predict the likely death rate – and, as with NASA, no-one picked up the error.
In order to understand what happened, you have to understand the difference between two medical terms that sound the same – but are completely different. Rather like a pound second or a Newton second.
Which fatality rate, did you say?
First, there's the Infection Fatality Rate (IFR). This is the total number of people who are infected by a disease and the number of them who die. This figure includes those who have no symptoms at all, or only very mild symptoms – those who stayed at home, coughed a bit and watched Outbreak.
Then there's the Case Fatality Rate (CFR). This is the number of people suffering serious symptoms, who are probably ill enough to be in hospital. Clearly, people who are seriously ill – the "cases" – are going to have a higher mortality rate than those who are infected, many of whom don't have symptoms. Put simply – all cases are infections, but not all infections are cases.
Which means that the CFR will always be far higher than the IFR. With influenza, the CFR is around ten times as high as the IFR. Covid seems to have a similar proportion.
Now, clearly, you do not want to get these figures mixed up. By doing so you would either wildly overestimate, or wildly underestimate, the impact of Covid. But mix these figures up, they did.
The error started in America, but didn't end there. In healthcare, the US is very much the dog that wags the tail. The figures they come up with are used globally.
On February 28, 2020, an editorial was released by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Published in the New England Journal of Medicine, the editorial stated: "… the overall clinical consequences of Covid-19 may ultimately be more akin to those of a severe seasonal influenza."
They added that influenza has a CFR of approximately 0.1 percent. One person in a thousand who gets it badly, dies.
But that quoted CFR for influenza was ten times too low – they meant to say the IFR, the Infection Fatality Rate, for influenza was 0.1 percent. This was their fatal – quite literally – mistake.
The mistake was compounded. On March 11, the same experts testified to Congress, stating that Covid's CFR was likely to be about one percent, so one person dying from a hundred who fell seriously ill. Which, as time has passed, has proved to be pretty accurate.
At this meeting, they compared the likely impact of Covid to flu. But they used the wrong CFR for influenza, the one stated in the previous NEJM editorial. 0.1 percent, or one in a thousand. The one that was ten times too low.
Flu toll 1,000 – Covid toll 10,000
So, they matched up the one percent CFR of Covid with the incorrect 0.1 percent CFR of flu. Suddenly, Covid was going to be ten times as deadly.
If influenza killed 50, Covid was going to kill 500. If influenza killed a million, Covid was going to get 10 million. No wonder Congress, then the world, panicked. Because they were told Covid was going to be ten times worse than influenza. They could see three million deaths in the US alone, and 70 million around the world.
The 1% blunder: How a simple but fatal math mistake by US Covid-19 experts caused the world to panic and order lockdowns
6 September, 2020
FILE PHOTO: Adriana Cardenas, a medical technologist processes test samples for the coronavirus at the AdventHealth Tampa labs on June 25, 2020 in Tampa, Florida. © Getty Images / Octavio Jones
By Malcolm Kendrick, doctor and author who works as a GP in the National Health Service in England. His blog can be read here and his book, 'Doctoring Data – How to Sort Out Medical Advice from Medical Nonsense,' is available here.
When you strip everything else out, the reason for lockdown comes from a single figure: one percent. This was the prediction that Covid, if left unchecked, would kill around one percent of us.
You may not think that percentage is enormous, but one percent of the population of the world is 70 million people – and that's a lot. It would mean 3.2 million Americans dead, and 670,000 Britons.
But where did this one percent figure come from? You may find this hard to believe, but this figure emerged by mistake. A pretty major thing to make a mistake about, but that's what happened.
Related: Up to 90% of people who test positive for Covid barely carry any virus & are not contagious. Every stat about the disease is bogus
Such things occur. On September 23, 1998, NASA permanently lost contact with the Mars Climate Orbiter. It was supposed to go round and round the planet looking at the weather, but instead it hit Mars at around 5,000 mph, exploding into tiny fragments. It didn't measure the weather; it became the weather – for a few seconds anyway.
An investigation later found that the disaster happened because engineers had used the wrong units. They didn't convert pound seconds into Newton seconds when doing their calculations. Imperial, not metric. This, remember, was NASA. An organisation not completely full of numbskulls.
Now you and I probably have no idea of the difference between a pound second and a Newton second (it's 0.67 – I looked it up). But you would kind-of hope NASA would. In fact, I am sure they do, but they didn't notice, so the figures came out wrong. The initial mistake was made, and was baked into the figures.
Kaboom!
With Covid, a similar mistake happened. One type of fatality rate was substituted for another. The wrong rate was then used to predict the likely death rate – and, as with NASA, no-one picked up the error.
In order to understand what happened, you have to understand the difference between two medical terms that sound the same – but are completely different. Rather like a pound second or a Newton second.
Which fatality rate, did you say?
First, there's the Infection Fatality Rate (IFR). This is the total number of people who are infected by a disease and the number of them who die. This figure includes those who have no symptoms at all, or only very mild symptoms – those who stayed at home, coughed a bit and watched Outbreak.
Then there's the Case Fatality Rate (CFR). This is the number of people suffering serious symptoms, who are probably ill enough to be in hospital. Clearly, people who are seriously ill – the "cases" – are going to have a higher mortality rate than those who are infected, many of whom don't have symptoms. Put simply – all cases are infections, but not all infections are cases.
Which means that the CFR will always be far higher than the IFR. With influenza, the CFR is around ten times as high as the IFR. Covid seems to have a similar proportion.
Now, clearly, you do not want to get these figures mixed up. By doing so you would either wildly overestimate, or wildly underestimate, the impact of Covid. But mix these figures up, they did.
The error started in America, but didn't end there. In healthcare, the US is very much the dog that wags the tail. The figures they come up with are used globally.
On February 28, 2020, an editorial was released by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Published in the New England Journal of Medicine, the editorial stated: "… the overall clinical consequences of Covid-19 may ultimately be more akin to those of a severe seasonal influenza."
They added that influenza has a CFR of approximately 0.1 percent. One person in a thousand who gets it badly, dies.
But that quoted CFR for influenza was ten times too low – they meant to say the IFR, the Infection Fatality Rate, for influenza was 0.1 percent. This was their fatal – quite literally – mistake.
The mistake was compounded. On March 11, the same experts testified to Congress, stating that Covid's CFR was likely to be about one percent, so one person dying from a hundred who fell seriously ill. Which, as time has passed, has proved to be pretty accurate.
At this meeting, they compared the likely impact of Covid to flu. But they used the wrong CFR for influenza, the one stated in the previous NEJM editorial. 0.1 percent, or one in a thousand. The one that was ten times too low.
Flu toll 1,000 – Covid toll 10,000
So, they matched up the one percent CFR of Covid with the incorrect 0.1 percent CFR of flu. Suddenly, Covid was going to be ten times as deadly.
If influenza killed 50, Covid was going to kill 500. If influenza killed a million, Covid was going to get 10 million. No wonder Congress, then the world, panicked. Because they were told Covid was going to be ten times worse than influenza. They could see three million deaths in the US alone, and 70 million around the world.
I don't expect you or I to get this sort of thing right. But I bloody well expect the experts to do so. They didn't. They got their IFR and CFR mixed up and multiplied the likely impact of Covid by a factor of ten.
Here's what the paper, "Public health lessons learned from biases in coronavirus mortality overestimation",says: "On March 11, 2020,... based on the data available at the time, Congress was informed that the estimated mortality rate for the coronavirus was ten-times higher than for seasonal influenza, which helped launch a campaign of social distancing, organizational and business lockdowns, and shelter-in-place orders."
On February 28 it was estimated that Covid was going to have about the same impact as a bad influenza season – almost certainly correct. Eleven days later, the same group of experts predicted that the mortality rate was going to be ten times as high. This was horribly, catastrophically, running-into-Mars-at-5,000-miles-an-hour wrong.
Enter the Mad Modellers of Lockdown
In the UK, the group I call the Mad Modellers of lockdown, the Imperial College experts, created the same panic. On March 16, they used an estimated IFR of 0.9 percent to predict that, without lockdown, Covid would kill around 500,000 in the UK.
Is this prediction anywhere close?
So far, the UK has had around 40,000 Covid deaths. Significantly less than 0.1 percent, but not that far off. Of course, people will say... "We had lockdown... without it so many more would have died. Most people have not been infected…" etc.
To answer this, we need to know the true IFR. Is it a 0.1 percent, or one percent? If it is one percent, we have more than 400,000 deaths to go. If it is 0.1 percent, this epidemic has run its course. For this year, at least.
With swine flu, remember that the IFR started at around two percent. In the end, it was 0.02 percent, which was five times lower than the lowest estimate during the outbreak. The more you test, the lower the IFR will fall.
Please go to RT New to read the entire article.
Here's what the paper, "Public health lessons learned from biases in coronavirus mortality overestimation",says: "On March 11, 2020,... based on the data available at the time, Congress was informed that the estimated mortality rate for the coronavirus was ten-times higher than for seasonal influenza, which helped launch a campaign of social distancing, organizational and business lockdowns, and shelter-in-place orders."
On February 28 it was estimated that Covid was going to have about the same impact as a bad influenza season – almost certainly correct. Eleven days later, the same group of experts predicted that the mortality rate was going to be ten times as high. This was horribly, catastrophically, running-into-Mars-at-5,000-miles-an-hour wrong.
Enter the Mad Modellers of Lockdown
In the UK, the group I call the Mad Modellers of lockdown, the Imperial College experts, created the same panic. On March 16, they used an estimated IFR of 0.9 percent to predict that, without lockdown, Covid would kill around 500,000 in the UK.
Is this prediction anywhere close?
So far, the UK has had around 40,000 Covid deaths. Significantly less than 0.1 percent, but not that far off. Of course, people will say... "We had lockdown... without it so many more would have died. Most people have not been infected…" etc.
To answer this, we need to know the true IFR. Is it a 0.1 percent, or one percent? If it is one percent, we have more than 400,000 deaths to go. If it is 0.1 percent, this epidemic has run its course. For this year, at least.
With swine flu, remember that the IFR started at around two percent. In the end, it was 0.02 percent, which was five times lower than the lowest estimate during the outbreak. The more you test, the lower the IFR will fall.
Please go to RT New to read the entire article.
________
The political battle over a COVID vaccine: your health is of no concern
by Jon Rappoport | September 7, 2020
(To join our email list, click here.)
The news media are accusing Trump of trying to rush a COVID vaccine into use by November 1, just before the election: "The president is playing politics."
Suddenly, the press is expressing "deep concern" about the safety and efficacy of the vaccine. Experts are being trotted out to issue warnings.
The White House is saying they would never compromise the safety of the public.
The FDA is strenuously insisting their decision to authorize a COVID vaccine will be undertaken with extreme care, and will not bow to pressure.
Of course, if Obama or Hillary were in the White House now, the press would be praising them for their efforts to move "full speed ahead."
If Trump were now talking about a need to delay the vaccine, in order to "get it right," the press would be screaming about the necessity of approving a vaccine quickly "to save lives."
As I've been writing, the media definition of science is now "the opposite of whatever Trump says."
The White House definition is whatever the White House says.
The public is caught in the middle.
There are three leading corporate competitors vying for an upcoming COVID vaccine. One of them is Moderna. This is a small US company that has never brought a product of any kind to market. In other words, their credibility is zero. Yet they've garnered half a billion dollars of federal money for research. The press isn't screaming about that.
Fauci likes Moderna. Bill Gates likes Moderna.
Why?
Mostly because Moderna's vaccine is deploying an experimental RNA technology. RNA tech never been approved for any product. In past clinical trials, serious adverse effect have occurred. But who cares?
RNA vaccine technology allows cheaper, faster, and easier production of vaccines. That's the whole point. IF Moderna's COVID vaxx can be jammed through the approval process, then all future vaccines can be developed within months, not years.
"We've just discovered twelve new viruses that are causing human diseases…and we'll have twelve new vaccines ready to go by Christmas."
Again, the health of the public is of no concern. Adverse effects, such as the body attacking itself (RNA technology)? The permanent alteration of genetic makeup (DNA technology)? No problem. Plunge ahead.
There is more. Two recent developments have cancelled the need for a vaccine, even for those who love vaccines and believe a novel coronavirus a) exists and b) is causing harm:
ONE: The CDC quietly announced that only 6 percent of all official COVID deaths have occurred in cases where the virus was the single factor. In all other cases, the patients had several prior medical conditions—meaning, in effect, there was no need to invoke a virus to account for their deaths. (I have explained this in great detail in past articles. We are talking about the forced premature deaths of the elderly.)
TWO: The New York Times stated the result of a broad study, which showed that up to 90 percent of all COVID cases, based on a positive PCR test, were false positives. Non-cases.
Combining these two developments, the implication is quite clear: we’re in the middle of a less-than-average "flu season."
No need for any vaccine.
No need for any Tony Fauci.
No need for any Bill Gates.
No need for any CDC or WHO.
It's over.
But as in any war, there are people who don't get the memo. They keep fighting and lying and destroying. They're war criminals. In this case, their true intent has nothing to do with the fake pandemic. They want vast economic destruction leading to a Brave New World.
The political battle over a COVID vaccine: your health is of no concern
by Jon Rappoport | September 7, 2020
(To join our email list, click here.)
The news media are accusing Trump of trying to rush a COVID vaccine into use by November 1, just before the election: "The president is playing politics."
Suddenly, the press is expressing "deep concern" about the safety and efficacy of the vaccine. Experts are being trotted out to issue warnings.
The White House is saying they would never compromise the safety of the public.
The FDA is strenuously insisting their decision to authorize a COVID vaccine will be undertaken with extreme care, and will not bow to pressure.
Of course, if Obama or Hillary were in the White House now, the press would be praising them for their efforts to move "full speed ahead."
If Trump were now talking about a need to delay the vaccine, in order to "get it right," the press would be screaming about the necessity of approving a vaccine quickly "to save lives."
As I've been writing, the media definition of science is now "the opposite of whatever Trump says."
The White House definition is whatever the White House says.
The public is caught in the middle.
There are three leading corporate competitors vying for an upcoming COVID vaccine. One of them is Moderna. This is a small US company that has never brought a product of any kind to market. In other words, their credibility is zero. Yet they've garnered half a billion dollars of federal money for research. The press isn't screaming about that.
Fauci likes Moderna. Bill Gates likes Moderna.
Why?
Mostly because Moderna's vaccine is deploying an experimental RNA technology. RNA tech never been approved for any product. In past clinical trials, serious adverse effect have occurred. But who cares?
RNA vaccine technology allows cheaper, faster, and easier production of vaccines. That's the whole point. IF Moderna's COVID vaxx can be jammed through the approval process, then all future vaccines can be developed within months, not years.
"We've just discovered twelve new viruses that are causing human diseases…and we'll have twelve new vaccines ready to go by Christmas."
Again, the health of the public is of no concern. Adverse effects, such as the body attacking itself (RNA technology)? The permanent alteration of genetic makeup (DNA technology)? No problem. Plunge ahead.
There is more. Two recent developments have cancelled the need for a vaccine, even for those who love vaccines and believe a novel coronavirus a) exists and b) is causing harm:
ONE: The CDC quietly announced that only 6 percent of all official COVID deaths have occurred in cases where the virus was the single factor. In all other cases, the patients had several prior medical conditions—meaning, in effect, there was no need to invoke a virus to account for their deaths. (I have explained this in great detail in past articles. We are talking about the forced premature deaths of the elderly.)
TWO: The New York Times stated the result of a broad study, which showed that up to 90 percent of all COVID cases, based on a positive PCR test, were false positives. Non-cases.
Combining these two developments, the implication is quite clear: we’re in the middle of a less-than-average "flu season."
No need for any vaccine.
No need for any Tony Fauci.
No need for any Bill Gates.
No need for any CDC or WHO.
It's over.
But as in any war, there are people who don't get the memo. They keep fighting and lying and destroying. They're war criminals. In this case, their true intent has nothing to do with the fake pandemic. They want vast economic destruction leading to a Brave New World.
_______________________________________________________________________
Here is a backgrounder on that subject. I wrote it in March:
Notes on the fall-out from the present unnecessary disaster
This covert op called PANDEMIC is about LOCKDOWNS, economic destruction, and the further pacification of the population.
A bereft population more dependent than ever on governments and official authorities. Long-term, a dazed population gradually guided into a heavily technocratic future—wall to wall surveillance, smart cities, Internet of Things, universal guaranteed income tied to social credit score. Most importantly: assigned energy quotas for every citizen. CONTROL.
Social distancing and the suspicion of people directed against each other, owing to possible "infection," will create a more isolated and atomized society.
The tendency for people to think of themselves as eternal medical patients, under doctor's orders, will be encouraged, non-stop. Accept diagnoses, take drugs and vaccines.
Governments and their media partners will continue to broadcast warnings about future epidemics and the need for vigilance. Talking heads will intone, "We have a new normal now. We're never going back to the way things were before. The world of interdependence gives us many benefits, but it also carries dangers…"
As I've emphasized, technocracy has the goal of using energy production and consumption as the monitor of our lives. A voice comes from the wall of the apartment: "Mr. Smith, this is your Meter Friend, Sam. Your energy use for the month is nearing its limit. As you know, that use is measurable in real time, and as of the moment, you only have sixteen units left, owing to the large diversion of electricity to medical emergency centers. We will institute dimming and brownouts in your home, to keep your social credit score stable…" CONTROL.
Please go to Jon Rappoport's blog to read the entire article.
Here is a backgrounder on that subject. I wrote it in March:
Notes on the fall-out from the present unnecessary disaster
This covert op called PANDEMIC is about LOCKDOWNS, economic destruction, and the further pacification of the population.
A bereft population more dependent than ever on governments and official authorities. Long-term, a dazed population gradually guided into a heavily technocratic future—wall to wall surveillance, smart cities, Internet of Things, universal guaranteed income tied to social credit score. Most importantly: assigned energy quotas for every citizen. CONTROL.
Social distancing and the suspicion of people directed against each other, owing to possible "infection," will create a more isolated and atomized society.
The tendency for people to think of themselves as eternal medical patients, under doctor's orders, will be encouraged, non-stop. Accept diagnoses, take drugs and vaccines.
Governments and their media partners will continue to broadcast warnings about future epidemics and the need for vigilance. Talking heads will intone, "We have a new normal now. We're never going back to the way things were before. The world of interdependence gives us many benefits, but it also carries dangers…"
As I've emphasized, technocracy has the goal of using energy production and consumption as the monitor of our lives. A voice comes from the wall of the apartment: "Mr. Smith, this is your Meter Friend, Sam. Your energy use for the month is nearing its limit. As you know, that use is measurable in real time, and as of the moment, you only have sixteen units left, owing to the large diversion of electricity to medical emergency centers. We will institute dimming and brownouts in your home, to keep your social credit score stable…" CONTROL.
Please go to Jon Rappoport's blog to read the entire article.
________
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