However, we do not - and never have - extensively tested for the presence of such viruses in the critically ill elderly population, so we really have no idea how frequently infection is present, or in fact what its contribution to death is.
In 2017, researchers at 2 morgues in Spain swab-tested a series of recently deceased elderly individuals and found respiratory viruses in 47% of them. In only 15% of these had a diagnosis been made prior to death.
The death certificates for all these individuals featured the usual wide range of pathologies that would be expected in this age group, but viruses were detected (post-mortem) across all categories of causes of death.
For this cohort - presumably representative of similar cohorts of subjects across Europe - what would the mortality picture have looked like had we applied a policy of recording the detected respiratory virus as the cause of death, irrespective of other pathologies?
That is, in effect, what we might be doing now, to some extent - Covid taking the place of other viruses (particularly influenza).
In other words, might some of the Covid deaths we are now seeing be those that would have sadly died in a normal winter anyway?
As is usually the case, the picture is more complex and there are probably a number of other factors contributing to the current mortality picture.
Firstly, there will of course be some additional "pure Covid" deaths as the virus moves into its endemic rather than pandemic stage.
This was seen in the year following the Swine flu pandemic:
Secondly, there is increasing evidence of deaths being caused by nearly a year of restricted access to healthcare.
In fact, given the nation's state of health and presence of multiple diseases, it would be more surprising if there was no such effect.
That attendances at A&E departments making up the Syndromic Surveillance System (currently covering 82 hospitals in England) are running below the same period last year is consistent with this:
Ambulance calls for cardiac/respiratory arrest calls are high, yet calls for chest pain appear to be lower than average.
This is worryingly consistent with a picture of reluctance to seek help in time.
This would be highly unlikely to result in no excess deaths.
The numbers involved are not small, the arrest calls appear to be ~50-75 more than expected (daily), but chest pain calls ~250 per day fewer than expected.
Surprisingly, attendances for acute respiratory infections are well below average for the entire Autumn and Winter so far; although rising recently they are still below average.
This is consistent with the point made above - ie could Covid be replacing flu this year?
Some have previously claimed that this category does not include Covid, but the notes in the report seem quite clear that it does.
Finally, it must be acknowledged that the emergence of Covid is currently causing significant strain on our NHS, although it is worthwhile acknowledging that several reasons must contribute to this.
Firstly, it appears that treating Covid patients is more complex and onerous than treating those who would previously have been patients with a variety of other
- mainly undiagnosed - respiratory viruses.
Secondly, the reduction in beds available for a growing and ageing population is a major problem; they fell from 240,000 in 2000 to under 165,000 in 2019.
The figure fell by a further 10,000 beds to allow for social distancing between patients in hospital.
The need to segregate suspected Covid from confirmed Covid and non-Covid patients has a detrimental effect of bed management, as does the need for smaller bay sizes to accommodate distancing.
A&E departments can easily become clogged up by delays in finding beds for patients.
In some hospitals patients are not being discharged until their Covid test returns as negative.
Clearly returning patients to care homes during the window of infectivity would be a bad idea.
Beyond that this policy is surely inadvisable.
It should be recalled that some patients continue to test PCR positive for weeks or even months after infection, as experienced by the unfortunate British students stuck in Italy last summer:
PCR testing has led to a staffing crisis, as asymptomatic staff - even those who must be immune through known prior exposure - are made to self-isolate for two weeks.
50,000 NHS staff are absent for Covid reasons, out of 100,000 total absences.
Finally, it should be acknowledged that staff are having to work in PPE and change it frequently, adding a significant additional burden to an already heavy workload.
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Much of the hysteria in Covid policy is being justified (post hoc) by a claim that public health officials and governments were following “precautionary principle”.
Yet this paper (which btw doesn’t cover boosters) tells us nothing that couldn’t easily be identified as at least a potential and likely as an actual risk over a year ago.
Yet onwards the injection program marched, damaging thousands of young hearts in the process.
2/
Many commentators were shouting about this risk last year.
They met secretly, instituted by Gates, to discuss how to to join forces to get over those pesky religious and political objections to their plans to “save the world”.
It's the one-year anniversary of these mask-free social-distancing free frolics enjoyed by these criminals in Cornwall.
At the same time 50k couples were cancelling their wedding plans.
Does their behaviour scream “we are in the middle of a deadly pandemic to you?”
1/
The difference between corrupt leaders and the people they govern has never been more stark.
Learning how few cared then and how few seem at all bothered now has been devastating for those of us who do.
2/
As such, the last 2 years has starkly exposed previously hidden aspects of people's value systems, and frankly I now find it difficult to respect many of the people around me.
Sadly, it's difficult to imagine these relationships reverting to what they were before.
3/
An assumption is made that because a large chunk of the excess deaths in the March / April 2020 "wave" were labelled as Covid, they were caused primarily by a virus.
We need to consider the possibility that policy responses were responsible for a large part of these.
1/
For one thing, we know that attributing death to specific cause(s) - especially in the elderly - has always been difficult.
In Spring 2020 there were a number of factors which created huge pressure to attribute deaths to Covid, even in the absence of symptoms.
2/
Excess deaths in most countries:
1. were absent before lockdowns despite apparent earlier cases 2. shot up concurrently with lockdowns 3. exhibit no spatial spread characteristics
What spreads like this?
A virus?
Or panic - augmented by our global interconnectedness?
3/
Such has been the power of the deliberate vilification strategy, that in one of the 3 comments remaining, even someone personally suffering feels the need to insist on not being an “anti-vaxxer” to still be heard.
It’s like living in the Soviet Union…
I think these @DailyMailUK journalists must get their news exclusively from the BBC.
Literally every safety signal is flashing red but apparently there’s “more proof than ever before” that they are “as safe as they can possibly be”.