The World Health Organisation estimates that the number of people dying from `seasonal influenza’ each year is between 290,000 and 650,000.
It’s worth repeating: in a bad year, well over half a million people die from the flu. In one bad winter month, the death toll from flu could approach 100,000.
That’s not the number who get it. That’s the number who die from it.
And the coronavirus?
Well, today (the 16th March) the official figure is that just over 6,500 people have died of the coronavirus since the first diagnosis was made. It’s difficult to know when that was. Some authorities claim that it was last November. Others say it was January. But if we are cautious and say that the coronavirus didn’t start killing people until a month ago then the disease has, in that time, killed 6,500 people. That’s the global figure – which includes China. In a bad year the flu would (at this time of the year) have killed more than ten times as many people. So we could say that the coronavirus is one tenth as deadly as the flu. I’m not trying to downplay the coronavirus. I’m just providing the facts.
The WHO also points out that the `ordinary’ flu is easier to catch than the new coronavirus.
And the USA’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that up to 45 million people a year catch the flu. The coronavirus will have to accelerate at quite a pace to get anywhere near that figure – especially since the flu is easier to catch.
(I’m not going to put down precise details of the number of people who have the coronavirus at the moment – or the number who have died of it – because the numbers are relatively small and are changing every few minutes.)
But a few other points are worth making:
1. Ron Templeman, who is a reader of www.vernoncoleman.com, kindly tells me that he rang the Department of Health and asked if they could tell him `how many people are dying of flu at this time’. They couldn’t. And they would only reply if the query were offered as an official freedom of information request. That is astonishing. It seems that the Government doesn’t have figures for the number of people with the flu but it can provide almost hourly figures for the number with the much less common coronavirus. That is really odd and one conclusion has to be that the figures for the number dying of flu are mixed in with the number dying of coronavirus. After all, very few people are being tested for the coronavirus, the symptoms of the two diseases are pretty well identical and a doctor writing a death certificate might put down `coronavirus’ rather than `influenza’ because he/she has been influenced by the media hysteria. Mr Templeman also telephoned the Daily Mail and the Daily Express but `got the impression they did not want to hear what I was saying and cut me off as quick as possible’. The papers did the same thing with AIDS, SARS, Ebola and a host of other diseases because scares sell papers.
2. As I pointed out on March 2nd, the mortality figures for the coronavirus are also probably distorted because statisticians and journalists divide the number of deaths into the number of recorded cases to find the death rate. But this is potty and these figures are worthless because the number of people who actually have the virus (and merely deal with their symptoms at home) is inevitably far, far higher than the number who have reported to their doctor and far higher than the number who have tested positive. It is worth pointing out that the NHS is now only testing people who are actually in hospital (and, by definition) very ill, and has apparently banned private testing for the coronavirus. (I only know this because top professional football clubs were complaining that they weren’t allowed to get their players tested privately.) All this enables the authorities to do pretty much what they like with the figures.
3. Many, many years ago I pointed out that the mortality figures for AIDS were being distorted because deaths from tuberculosis and a whole host of other diseases were being included in the official AIDS figures. The authorities needed the figures to be higher to justify the scaremongering and the vast amounts of money that had been spent on the disease. It seems to me that the same thing is happening with the coronavirus. People dying from the flu are being classified as having died of the coronavirus. Who will ever know the difference?
4. Italy is often quoted as the worst country in Europe for getting and dying of the coronavirus. But far fewer people have died in Italy of the coronavirus than would have died of the flu in a fairly normal year. And that doesn’t allow for the fact that many of the alleged coronavirus deaths were probably flu deaths. Incidentally, it has been said that the `crisis’ in Italy is now so bad that doctors are saying they can no longer treat the over 80s – whatever is wrong with them. Golly, isn’t that a surprise. This is exactly what has been said in Britain – though the cut off age is lower.
5. According to leaked NHS figures the coronavirus will put eight million Britons into hospital and 80% of the nation will become infected. Who the hell made up these figures? You might as well claim that the coronavirus will kill 90% of all citizens whose names begin with A. It’s meaningless drivel. The newspapers are reporting this nonsense as though it were real.
6. Some of the rules being introduced are stark raving bonkers. So, footballers have been told not to shake hands before a game. But they then run around hugging and holding one another.
7. So far all the people who have died of the coronavirus in the UK had underlying health issues. The youngest was 59 – rather proving my argument that it is nonsensical to lock up the over 70s. If the Government wants to lock people into their homes then it should lock in those who have underlying health issues – whatever their age. The fact that the government has selected the over 70s for locking in rather proves the point that this is all about isolating, dehumanising and marginalising the elderly.
8. My conclusion is that the coronavirus `crisis’ is being used to get people used to the idea that the elderly cannot be treated. Governments around the world can no longer afford to pay pensions. It is well known that aging populations are a real threat to the economies of a number of countries. Was the coronavirus designed to enable governments to get rid of the elderly? Or are governments merely taking opportunistic advantage of the virus to marginalise old folk?
9. In my sixth diary (The Game’s Afoot) I pointed out that Governments everywhere have been trying to kill off the elderly for years. Don’t believe me? What about the Liverpool Care Pathway which originated in Britain? That was the murderers’ charter, which allowed doctors and nurses to withhold food, water and essential treatment from patients who are over 65 and who are, therefore, regarded as an expensive nuisance. The Liverpool Care Pathway was then replaced by something called Sustainable Development Goals (which originated with the United Nations). Sustainable Development Goals allows the NHS to discriminate against anyone over the age of 70 on the grounds that people who die when they are over 70 cannot be said to have died ‘prematurely’ and so will not count when the nation’s healthcare is being assessed. The Government loves this new rule because it gives the State permission to get rid of citizens who are of pensionable age and, therefore, regarded by society’s accountants as a ‘burden’. It is hardly surprising, I suppose, that this officially sponsored disdain for the elderly has trickled through into our courts. If you mug a 40-year-old you are likely to go to prison for a good length of time. But if you mug and kill an 80-year-old you will be unlucky if you go to prison for more than a few months. The lives of the elderly do not count for much.
10. There have to be priorities within the health service. There isn’t enough money for everything but although there is plenty of cash for cosmetic surgery and gender reassignment programmes the NHS has little money for treating macular degeneration – which causes blindness in old people from going blind. The elderly are discriminated against without anyone seeming to notice or care.
11. Successive British governments seem to have decided that the elderly are surplus to requirements. Pensions are kept pitifully small. (The UK’s State pension is the worst in any developed economy.) Energy prices are allowed to soar so that subsidies can be given climate change programmes with the result that tens of thousands of older people die of the cold because they can’t afford to eat and to keep warm.
The only certainty is that all this is going to get sillier and we are being lied to and manipulated.
I find myself toying with all sorts of strange scenarios. Nothing now seems impossible.
In a couple of months’ time, will the rabid remainers use the coronavirus as an excuse to demand a rerun of the EU referendum – on the grounds that the elderly who voted for Brexit are now safely locked up in their homes and unable to get out to the polling stations?
Impossible?
Wouldn’t you have thought it impossible that the Government would order all citizens over the age of 70 to stay in their homes for four months because of a new bug which is killing one tenth as many people as the flu?
Nothing now seems impossible. As things unfold, and the hysteria is stoked up, I am ever more convinced that there are hidden agendas. There is doubtless going to be a vaccination programme (probably compulsory). But in Britain (and probably elsewhere) the main aim is to demonise, marginalise and dehumanise the elderly so that the Government has an excuse to stop providing health care for the over 70s.
The young who seem to welcome the idea of the elderly being deprived of medical care might like to reflect on two thoughts. First, they may one day be old themselves. Second, the age for cutting off medical services will get younger and younger – as the pension age gets older and older. Today’s 20-year-olds may well find that they are ineligible for medical care when they hit 50.
Copyright Vernon Coleman March 16th 2020
