Mark Twain famously said: “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.”

He was right. When it comes to this corona virus story there is no end of misinformation. It is not just that however. The biggest problem is the complete lack of context. But then reporting these things correctly just might not have the desired effect. That of scaring the population into hiding, terrified, in their own homes eh? Think about it.

Here is a look at some statistical data and how it can put this present “crisis” into context. A serious, but sometimes light-hearted, look at some numbers the media will probably not be telling you (just yet)…

Finding Data – Not as Easy as it used to be…

Firstly a quick point to be aware of. Finding this kind of data is actually harder now than it was only a couple of months ago. More on this to come in future posts…

Italy

I love Italy (just thought I should say) so let’s start there. Italy is now supposedly the hot-spot. That’s if China’s figures are now to be believed -and we all know that China would not hide anything from the rest of the world right? 

There have already been reasonable explanations as to why the Italian outbreak was so intense (e.g. the extremely high number of Chinese imported as slave labour to make fashion items so they can be labelled “Made in Italy”). Similarly for Iran, being another area of high incidence. I decided to look into some data about Italy….

After a little digging I found a report on deaths in Italy between the 2013/14 and 2016/17 winter flu seasons. In those four winter flu seasons the report highlighted the following:

• An estimated average of 5,290,000 flu related cases occurred in Italy, corresponding to an incidence of 9%.
• More than 68,000 deaths attributable to flu epidemics were estimated in the study period.
• Italy showed a higher influenza attributable excess mortality compared to other European countries. Especially in the elderly. (Does this last one sound familiar?)

Now for the interesting detail. In the “Results” section it lists numbers of deaths per season over this period:
“We estimated excess deaths of 7,027,  20,259,  15,801 and 24,981 attributable to influenza epidemics in the 2013/14, 2014/15, 2015/16 and 2016/17, respectively…”

Those figures are quite a surprise eh? The first one has already been passed with this corona thing. But only if you believe that all the deaths in Italy this past few months were corona related and there are no (zero/zilch/zip/nessuno) normal flu deaths. Is that even possible in any given year? I think not, but I will come to this in a moment. It is also worth noting that in this study there were several strains of “flu” in action.

If you want to read the article yourself, in full, then here is the Link:  https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1201971219303285

ONS Data…

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) is, by their own words, “…the UK’s largest independent producer of official statistics and its recognised national statistical institute. We are responsible for collecting and publishing statistics related to the economy, population and society at national, regional and local levels.”  So its data should be the best place to start for UK cases. Right?
Wrong!

Up to week 10 they only had deaths by ‘respiratory disease’ (often brought on by influenza).  And this is quite normal, every year. Then came the government lock-down. What a surprise that (as of week 12) the numbers are being shunted under a new heading! And that heading is the star of the show, Covid-19 of course. What else? Over the coming weeks this ONS data will (have to) show that it is Covid-19 doing all (or most of) the killing. Once again we will be led to believe (more or less) that only the corona virus is killing people. This seems to be the case in most countries. However bad (or otherwise) this outbreak is, they are most certainly starting to ‘cook the books’.  (For Source Data: Click here )

Do you really believe that shit? Is this Covid-19 some super intelligent and scheming bug that can muscle other flu viruses out of the picture?
“Hey H1N1. Feck off. I’m the daddy now.” (“Scum” movie link there folks!)
“The Coronaleone family will make these other bugs an offer they can’t refuse.” (Yeah, “Godfather” reference there.)
Come on folks. It has to be time to wise up. This hysteria is mainly just that. Whipped up by governments and mainstream media presumably for some other (as yet) hidden agendas.

Germany

The German scenario has attracted a little interest from the mainstream media. Not least because it seems to have weathered the storm better than other European countries. Could it be because they have just been through all this recently? Well achtung baby…read on.

Around 25,100 people lost their lives in Germany in the exceptionally strong flu wave in 2017/18, according to the Robert Koch Institute (RKI). This was the highest number of deaths in the past 30 years. The following season (2018/19), the flu caused 3.8 million doctor visits – less than half as many doctor visits as in the previous season. That following year some 40,000 patients were hospitalised “many with acute respiratory distress”. Does that symptom ring any bells? Yet there was no hysterical news about lack of respirators (vee haf vays of making you breath). Nobody proclaiming the end of the world was there? About either of these two flu seasons. I only found the data almost by accident. 

Maybe the German health system is so much better than Italy and the the rest of the world? Maybe the just took it in their stride. I wouldn’t know. Can anyone help out on that one?

What I definitely know however, is that in different years, in different countries there are huge numbers of deaths by flu. There will be various strains with various medical names. Sometimes called “coronavirus” – because there have been several already. This Covid-19 is only so called because it was a coronavirus discovered in 2019. 

When it’s all over…?

What will happen after the dust settles? It’s a good question. If my predictions are correct then that should happen sooner rather than later. Plus, there will be a lot of red faces trying to look as though locking up all your citizens was all the right thing. No doubt actually claiming that the measures worked in “preventing the spread of the virus”. There will be a lot of questions being asked.

Will it be the social distancing that made all the difference? Or the lock-down?
Will the death toll be as bad as predicted or not?
Should the governments have acted quicker or not?
I really don’t know the answers to these questions. Nor do I  particularly care what the politicians and media responses are. Those responses will almost certainly be biased and untrue. Twisted statistics etc…

The one thing I do want to know is this: What will the western world’s response be to China? We certainly need to become more self sufficient and less reliant on China. We also need to recognise and protect our borders a lot more. What is the point in putting your entire population under house arrest if you still allow flights in from the country which started the outbreak?

That type of policy has no sense, and no amount of lies, damn lies or statistics can make it seem otherwise.

End of Term 1

There is was. Gone! In no time at all 10 weeks of school has passed.

Dani was the only one of his class who never missed a day – at school. I am sure some others did so their work online form home. But Dani was in the school every day of the term. One or two other kids almost made it but ‘fell off the map’ as Dani himself says. They used to give some sort of prize for that kind of attendance when I was a lad. And usually only one kid ever managed it.

A New Home Schooling

Now there is a new form of schooling that has pretty much been successfully trialled these past few weeks. Home schooling now does not mean teaching the kids yourself (as it would have done when I was in school). Now in this age of internet and online access (and in this particular case ‘Google Meet’) most of Dani’s classmates were following their teacher on a PC screen. Crazy, but effective.

I don’t blame the parents as such. The confusing and ambiguous messages coming from the NSW government did not help. Then there was all the scaremongering, courtesy of the media. Most parents just panicked and kept their kids at home. As far as I am concerned for no apparent reason. But time will tell… Meanwhile, Dani continued to go to school like a good little boy.

The Really Scary Thing…

The real scary part has nothing to do with that “c” word. It’s that ten weeks have gone by in the blink of an eye (seemingly). TEN weeks of school! Where does that time go? The most important thing for me is that Dani has settled in very well and made a lot of new friends.

Now it’s a three-week Easter holiday for the little lad. Three weeks of lock-down, effectively, if we remain in Sydney. Not a good idea. So, we hope to get away to a more remote setting – if we can. I have no idea what new measures the government are planning to bring in this weekend, maybe tonight. Time to check the news…

First Term Down-under

Dani’s first term of Australian school draws to a close. Only two days to go. To say it has been an eventful first term for Dani would be an understatement. With all this coronavirus crap it has been an interesting introduction (to say the least) to life down-under for all of us.

I went for a jog this morning. Just after dropping Dani at school. I decided to go and check out the scene at Bondi Beach. The beach itself was empty. I am sure until this virus bullshit it would never have been empty at this time of day – ever! This was known as a 365 beach, never closing.

While the beach was empty the surrounding streets and grassed areas were busy enough. How long before they close off the streets and green areas? Any day now surely.

First Term of School Almost Over

Not that Dani has to worry about any of that nonsense. I do all that for him. That is to say I don’t really worry about it and encourage him to be the same. But that’s digressing slightly here. For more on that you can just read any of my ‘virus’ based posts (there’s a few of them here).

As for school. He likes it. I mean he really seems to like it. I really can’t complain on that score. Of course there is the odd day when he says he doesn’t want to go in. Especially when the kids in his class were disappearing to do the remote learning from home – i.e. over the last two or three weeks. Apart from that he has been great.

Lost in Video

Outside of school he is easily and happily lost in his daft iPad games. He will sit quite happily giggling away watching youtube videos of other people playing the bloody games. Nuts!

His personal favourite right now is a young man (American or Canadian I think) who demonstrates the various versions of games like Mr. Bullet; basically a bloodthirsty ‘shoot ‘em up’ game. Despite the primitive graphics it leaves very little to the imagination. Actually, I quite like it too…

He will get completely engrossed in these videos of videogames. So I asked him what he was doing the other day.

What are you watching Dan?
Look dad. These videos are by this man. They are great. I really like him. Look how many subscribes (sic) he has.
Subscribers.
Yes, subscribers. Loads. I am not subscribed yet, but I am going to.
Are you? How are you going to do that?
Just click on this button, look. It says ‘Subscribe’.
And then what?
I don’t know. But mum will show me.
Oh. OK. Well you will have to ask her first won’t you?
Yeah.

And back to the video watching. Seamless…

The problems come when you try to amputate the iPad from his arm. You would swear that you were torturing him. No different from any other kid his age though. Worse than that; try taking a mobile phone off a teenager. They would happily go without food first.

Easter Getaway?

And so, the Easter holidays are almost upon us and look destined to be ruined by this virus thing. Actually, it will be the government that does that, not some microscopic bug. But what can we do? I do not fancy being locked up in this apartment with no beaches or parks open. It’s time to act.

The problem for us is that our container is in quarantine somewhere in Sydney. It seems unlikely that we will be able to get its contents delivered for some time now. We have been managing with minimal furniture and utensils etc… Having to be in the apartment full time does not look like an option.

Best Bet

Looking at where we have just visited, there are houses and apartments for rent (still). Maybe many who have booked months in advance will not be going on their holidays. Those new rules released here yesterday suggest as much.

The main thing for me is to get out of the city. If we can. At least down in places like Jervis Bay the towns are so small and the outdoor space so big, that if you wanted, I am sure you can take your daily exercise with a long walk and swim on the beach. Effectively staying there for a couple of hours. Like you would on a (normal) holiday in fact. Then stroll back to the house. Without bumping into anyone else. Who would notice? Who would care? Beats being on lock-down in a city suburb.

I happen to think that Dani deserves it, so that’s the plan. But can we get out? What will be the restrictions come this weekend?

As always, we will have to wait and see…