When the government people talk about coronavirus cases increasing and the possibility of more lockdowns and social distancing measures, they’re implying that somehow an increase in cases is obviously going to result in an increase in the number of deaths.
But here’s what’s actually happening: due to testing, the number of cases is higher than ever and the number of deaths is lower than ever.
The more cases and the less deaths, the lower the death rate of the virus.
Coronavirus was never anything more than just another flu.
Dr. Ellie Cannon wrote a piece for the Daily Mail talking about the huge difference in the number of cases and deaths.
Dreadfully itchy, blistering red spots – usually in clusters – and possibly a fever. One grizzly, over-tired toddler; one rather fed up but vaguely concerned parent. The diagnosis? Chicken pox.
It’s one of the most common illnesses I see in surgery, week in, week out. And I’m always glad to reassure mums and dads that this viral infection – also known as varicella – is a mild illness for most children. A bit of calamine lotion to reduce the itching and most are back to normal in a week.
My other standard bit of advice often comes as a surprise, though. I always warn them that if there are siblings at home, they’ll get it within a couple of weeks – but it’ll probably be much worse.
The reason? Basically, the first child to get it usually catches it from another kid they’ve had fleeting contact with in the playground. They get a small dose of the virus – enough to make them unwell. They then go back home to their siblings, who they hug, fight, share food and bedrooms and baths with, and the sustained contact means they pass on a much bigger dose of the virus.
I was taught this as a junior doctor, and I’ve since seen it play out endlessly in patients, in my own two kids and in friends’ children.
So why, you may ask, am I telling you about this. Well, there’s a question that’s been perplexing me and just about every other person I’ve spoken to over the past few weeks. And, fascinatingly, the chicken pox phenomenon I’ve described might just give us an answer to it.
We all know cases of Covid-19 are on the rise, here and on the continent. And yet no one, it appears, is very ill. Last week, Health Secretary Matt Hancock claimed ‘a second wave was rolling across Europe’ and that ‘we must do everything in our power to protect the UK’.
But, right now, not many people are ending up in hospital. Very few are dying, either here or in other European countries.
During the pandemic, social media was awash with people reporting that they were horribly unwell and stuck at home. That’s all gone silent, too. Why is this happening? Well, part of the reason is due to increased testing.
Last week this newspaper revealed how screening programmes have been quietly rolled out across the UK over the past few months, and thanks to this approach it was highly likely that mild or even asymptomatic cases were being picked up in large numbers.
Whether or not many of these people are even infectious, and, therefore, the point of testing them at all, has rightly been questioned by some experts. And, until the Government start publishing how many cases are picked up that are asymptomatic, we won’t have a very clear picture of what’s really going on.
But even then, it won’t properly explain why people are still getting the infection in large numbers but not getting sick any more.
Various ideas have been floated. Some say the virus is becoming ‘less nasty’ or ‘fizzling out’.
But it’s a theory that seems to get instantly shot down by scientists actually studying the thing. There’s just no hard evidence to suggest this is true.
Others say it’s because younger people are getting it now.
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Might it also be that the infection is being passed around, but at a low dose because we’re keeping our distance, washing our hands, wearing masks and all that stuff?
So, in a similar way to that first child with chicken pox, the amount of virus inside people’s bodies could mean they suffer a very mild illness, or no symptoms at all, but still test positive.
Dr. Ellie Cannon’s take is that what’s likely happening is that now that we’re doing insane social distancing stuff like wearing masks and staying meters apart from people, the virus spreads by smaller amounts that are easier for people’s immune systems to handle.
This is enough reason to go back to normal and forget about this whole mess, but it isn’t necessarily correct. The situation may in fact be much stupider.
Her take assumes that the whole coronavirus thing is not a hoax being used to take away all of people’s rights and build a new kind of society where The Greater Good is used as an excuse to sustain the power of the rulers.
- Back in April, we already knew that the real number of coronavirus infections was at least 50 times higher than what authorities claimed.
- We also know that in the United Kingdom, hospitals were found to be making up numbers about coronavirus.
- Then there’s the fact that some people are convinced that coronavirus only killed very old and sick people who were going to die this year from something else anyways.
An alternative take would be that the government has ran out of corpses to blame on the virus, and is trying to keep the hysteria alive by presenting the number of cases as proof of the ULTIMATE DOOM caused by the virus.
Powerful people have already spent huge amounts of money on making vaccines for this. Deals have been made. They can’t just come out and say that the virus is not a threat anymore because no one would take the vaccine.
For some reason, they really want people to take the vaccine.