The official Covid mortality numbers are down, and pretty significantly, in most countries. But we also aren’t testing as much and most countries aren’t collating and releasing figures as much either.
For now, however, we have excess mortality numbers. So, a guy named Diego Bassani produced these two excess mortality charts for Canada.
First, age 15-64.
Second, 0-14.
Compare the 2020 line for adults and children, then the 2021. In 2020 we protected kids, in 2021 we gave up and threw them to the wolves. I said at the time that the idea that kids were going to be just fine if we sent them back to school wholesale without ventilating and filtering schools was nonsense, and it was.
Anyway, it sure doesn’t look like Covid is over, does it?
And really, why would we think it would be over since we didn’t do anything to end it except say it was over and stop most of what was done to slow it down, from masking and isolation to widespread vaccination?
I rather suspect most governments are gaslighting their populations. Lying. And step by step they will lie more by changing the excess death baseline (the UK is already on this) and so on.
“No, this is how it’s always been.”
Of course, not all deaths are directly Covid, but the excess are mostly because of Covid. If you get cancer and the hospitals are slammed and you don’t get care for months then die, it won’t show as “Covid”, but it’s because of Covid, or rather our response. In Canada I keep seeing stories about overworked hospitals and how emergency departments are having to shut down for the weekend or whatever. That basically never happened pre-Covid.
Covid’s here. It’s still killing and Long Covid is still stalking the land. And we’re just pretending, like some “New Emperor’s Clothes” that it isn’t
I don’t see how adding a semi-permanent pandemic and mass disabling to climate change and environmental collapse is anything but bad and complete malpractice by our ruling class, even given that they are the enemies of all humanity except themselves, since it’s going to hit them too.
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Tallifer
Unfortunately governments are just shaping policy in response to their electorate. Speaking anecdotally, even my aged, overly cautious mother has stopped wearing her mask, and my woke sister says, “We can’t live in lockdown forever,” as if masks, vaccine passports and moderate maintenance of distance and crowds equals Chinese-style lockdown.
Soredemos
I feel I should point out that the vaccines do nothing to stop spread, they just lessen the severity of symptoms once you’re infected (it’s also highly debatable whether they do much for long covid).
Speaking of long covid, that’s another reason things like cancer deaths are going to increase; covid shreds people’s T cells and so other illnesses like cancer will only kill them faster (or even get off the ground in the first place and not just be snuffed out early, which is a thing T cells can do to cancer).
Ian Welsh
As I recall vaccines reduce viral load which reduces transmission.
But this is about death, and vaccines are (or were, when not so out of date) quite good at preventing death.
David Harrison
What about Long Covid. There are some things that worse than death. I was a caregiver and watched my parents slowly suffer to death before the pandemic. Which is exactly the death sentence given to Long Covid sufferers( unless they just drop dead like so many are doing nowadays). Ending the pandemic quickly through effective masking, ventilation, and closing of borders instead of acting like spoiled hedonistic children was the only solution. Not vaccines( full disclosure: I’ve had a J&J shot and the booster. After research showed that constant boosting could damage the immune system I will take no more) .
Troy
The only corollary I can think of is the forced infection of First Nations children in residential schools. Extrapolate from that but on international levels.
Things will get worse for years if not decades before they ever get better again.
different clue
The upper classes are planning on covid hitting us and NOT hitting them. They take steps among themselves to make sure they in particular are not hit. The WEF meeting at Davos was an example of this. Davos Safety for Them, permanent pandemic for Us.
Here is a link to an article about that.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucelee/2023/01/20/world-economic-forum-is-taking-all-these-covid-19-precautions-at-davos/?sh=c1a031630490
They are counting on many different things, including their carefully maintained on purpose covid pandemic, to reduce our population so they won’t have so many of us stinking up the joint and spoiling their view.
Hopefully, as we try to survive in a manufactured survival-prevention forcefield-matrix, we will be able to spare a thought and lift a finger to making very sure that every single one of THEM also gets covid, hopefully over and over and over again.
Steve
The White House was in part responding to a polling memo that got a lot of traction with Democrats in 2021. I wonder who was paying for it. https://twitter.com/scott_squires/status/1672636554173648897?s=20.
Most people would respond to clear and coherent messaging on the pandemic. Instead Biden has given them half-baked strategy based on bias and preconceived notions with a big nod to Charles Koch.
Robert M.
From Tallifer: ““We can’t live in lockdown forever,” as if masks, vaccine passports and moderate maintenance of distance and crowds equals Chinese-style lockdown.”
Tallifer, If the vaccines and the masks don’t work, then why should we have vaccine passports, and mask and other types of covid mandates?
Robert M.
(From David Harrison): “After research showed that constant boosting could damage the immune system I will take no more) .”
So how does that work? Do you take enough vax doses to fight the virus, but stop before they damage your immune system? Wow. “Timing one’s immune system” seems even more difficult than timing the stock market.
Guess what? The same quandary applies to all other vaccines as well.
anon
Everyone is in the dark about Covid and that is how it will remain. The majority of the population have “returned to normal” with no masking, no social distancing, and no more updated vaccines. I am more educated about Covid than most and still mask the majority of the time, and I have no idea how many people are being infected or dying each week, or what the predominant variant is in my area.
I support the push for updated vaccines and for everyone to be vaccinated. However, I wasn’t in support of mandates because the decisions made were so haphazard. Also, plenty of Democrats were saying they wouldn’t trust a vaccine put out by the Trump administration, yet they turn around and expect people to trust Biden more? Should we trust any of these folks? There is too much distrust on both sides to threaten people that they could lose their jobs if they did not get a vaccine.
I’ve said this before, but I’d feel more comfortable with people near me masked rather than vaccinated. Their body, their choice. If they want to risk getting a larger viral load and dying, that is on them. However, their mask will protect me from whatever they have. Vaccines and masking go hand in hand. If no one is mandating masks, why mandate vaccines?
I don’t agree with the anti-vaxxers, but the hypocrisy and lies from the powers that be only give credence to the anti-vaxxers and vaccine skeptics’ arguments about these mandates only benefiting big pharma deals with the government.
Willy
As a duly self-designated representative from the kids table (sometimes known as the common culture), I think it’s safe to declare that covid now has about the same level of common-cultural significance as does the flu.
It’s the old man’s friend, the fat man’s friend, and how could long covid be any worse than being old and fat anyways? So go ahead susceptible peoples, eat up those happy meals with supersize fries (unless You want to Rule at Burger King instead). Overconsumption to the point where your doctors get to spend your kid’s inheritance is the American Way, is it not?
NR
Steve:
I am not going to defend the Biden administration’s handling of COVID as it’s been pretty awful, but that tweet to link to says “almost everyone was masking in 2021, we were all in this together” and that is just flat-out wrong. It’s either ignorance or historical revisionism. By 2021 we were already well into right-wingers claiming that COVID was a fake disease and refusing to wear masks or do even the slightest little thing that might impede its spread. In fact this behavior on the right started back in 2020, just a few weeks after the pandemic began. We were never “all in this together,” there was always a faction on the right (about 20-30% of the country in America, don’t know about other countries) that would attack any measure designed to combat COVID, be it masks, vaccines, contact tracing, or anything else.
Glau
Yeah, I’m in the “the people are gaslighting the government” rather than the reverse.
Protecting yourself against COVID got turned into a liberal signifier, everyone hates being seen as a liberal, so the right wing won that fight. All hail the conservative deathcult.
Jeff Wegerson
WASTEWATER numbers are low but seriously above zero. The graph here ( https://biobot.io/data/ ) compares reported cases, essentially zero, to wastewater testing, very low but well above zero.
capelin
“Of course, not all deaths are directly Covid, but the excess are mostly because of Covid. If you get cancer and the hospitals are slammed and you don’t get care for months then die, it won’t show as “Covid”, but it’s because of Covid, or rather our response.”
“..or rather, our response.” Yes. Our response to Covid, not Covid itself.
There has been repeated overcounting of Covid deaths. At one point B.C., as well as several other large jurisdictions, had to revise their death attributations down by ~ 40%. The official Canadian definition of Covid death is as follows, and leaves a wide latitude of interpretation.
“Deceased case
A probable or confirmed COVID-19 case whose death resulted from a clinically compatible illness, unless there is a clear alternative cause of death identified (e.g., trauma, poisoning, drug overdose).
A Medical Officer of Health, relevant public health authority, coroner or medical examiner may use their discretion when determining if a death was due to COVID-19, and their judgement will supersede the above-mentioned criteria.
A death due to COVID-19 may be attributed when COVID-19 is the cause of death or is a contributing factor.”
https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/diseases/2019-novel-coronavirus-infection/health-
professionals/national-case-definition.html
“Or a contributing factor.” = overcount, especially if funding is tied to # of Covid cases.
Was reading a monthly provincial Covid summary recently, one of the Covid deaths was a 107 year old person. I don’t know, but did that person really die from Covid – or from being 107? Or being 107 and having had 3+ experimental gene therapy injections?
I will pointedly note that, looking at the charts, the excess deaths coincide with the introduction of said experimental gene thereapy injections.
“In Canada I keep seeing stories about overworked hospitals and how emergency departments are having to shut down for the weekend or whatever. That basically never happened pre-Covid.”
It absolutely did happen pre-Covid. Health care has been in crisis, especially staffing, for a decade plus. Plus, there’s _still_ hundred if not thousands of Canadian health care workers who are banned from working because they wouldn’t get the now-proven-worthless-at-best injections.
The “health care crisis”, like all the other actual crisisis (crisie?) we face, are totally predictable, preventable, and preferred by the elites.
different clue
@Glau,
The present and future regime of annual spring-summer-fall forest megafires will offer the covid-realist a politically palatable cover for wearing a mask in public. If a MAGAtard Trumpanon challenges your mask, just say it is to protect from Wildfire Smoke.
No reason to try educating the MAGAtard Trumpanons about “masks” and “covid” and “airborne”. It is a truth they don’t deserve to know and don’t deserve to benefit from, after all their violent efforts to destroy covid caution for everyone else. And in the spirit of even-handedness, the CDC/WHO pink pussy hat Clintanons against masking because ” I am SOOooo over covid” also don’t deserve the truth and its benefits either. So there.
capelin
https://www.saltwire.com/halifax/news/shunned-unvaccinated-doctor-says-he-might-have-saved-middleton-hospital-heart-attack-victim-100869337/
MIDDLETON, N.S. — While a man lay dying at Soldiers Memorial Hospital from heart failure, a doctor who may have been able to save him was raking leaves in his yard less than 10 minutes away.