Author Topic: "Excess" Italian Deaths Due to Flu Are not NEW/UNIQUE in 2020  (Read 2113 times)

Offline Garliv

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https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1201971219303285

In November 2019 scientists published in the International Journal of Infectious Disease WHY Italians were dying in EXCESS of up to 24k. They investigated impact of Flu on excess mortality during the winter seasons of 2013/14- 2016/17. Conclusion was Italians were old and Flu season took a toll on the old. Now, No one is allowed to mention that in the current hysteria.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/witchburning-cure-will-be-deadlier-than-the-virus/news-story/9a37a8529ac9e1265aadad2b6ecde70b

"Then only 12% of Italian deaths are attributable to Coronavirus according to Professor Ricciardi, Scientifc Advisor to Italy Health Minister...

Walter Ricciardi, scientific adviser to Italy’s Health Minister, recently reported: “On re-evaluation by the National Institute of Health, only 12 per cent of death certificates have shown a direct causality from coronavirus.”

The overwhelming majority of Italy’s deaths involved chronically ill and elderly patients.

This is not to diminish these tragedies. But the questions arise: why are we surrendering our hard-won civil liberties and committing economic suicide when this virus poses a danger to only a small portion of our society? Why do we not pour all of our resources into protecting the vulnerable?
"

Offline RV Pundit

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Re: "Excess" Italian Deaths Due to Flu Are not NEW/UNIQUE in 2020
« Reply #1 on: April 02, 2020, 02:57:50 AM »
Precisely. Let protect the vulnerable. WHO are not helping here.

Offline Dear Mami

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Re: "Excess" Italian Deaths Due to Flu Are not NEW/UNIQUE in 2020
« Reply #2 on: April 02, 2020, 06:18:06 AM »
What about Spain, Iran, France? Has it ever been the case in Italy that their ICUs were overwhelmed and they had to choose to let people die because they didn't have enough ventilators and other medical equipment/facilities to treat everyone who couldn't breathe on their own due to pneumonia?  I doubt all these govts with access to their own data and experts are just running on conspiracy theories.

Offline Dear Mami

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Re: "Excess" Italian Deaths Due to Flu Are not NEW/UNIQUE in 2020
« Reply #3 on: April 02, 2020, 06:39:47 AM »
Quote
The study didn’t specify how many fewer deaths there may have been, or by how much the pool of vulnerable people had increased. The total number of older Italians spared death directly from the flu this season may have been in the hundreds, based on an annual average of 8,000 nationwide flu deaths cited in the paper.
...

​The World Health Organization has cautioned against comparing Covid-19 to the flu.

“This isn’t just a bad flu season,” Mike Ryan, head of health emergencies at the WHO, said in a March 20 briefing. “These are health systems that are collapsing under the pressure of too many cases. This is not normal.”

The latest flu season started earlier in Europe than in previous years, peaking in the week ending Feb. 2, according to the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control. At that point Italy, France, Germany and Spain were all reporting influenza and respiratory illness outbreaks of medium intensity.

A chart included in the Italian report showed that deaths among those aged 65 and above during the coronavirus outbreak through March 17 had already reached the levels of the previous two flu seasons and were below the overall death total from 2016-2017. The virus has claimed some 10,000 more lives in the country since then.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-31/italy-s-mild-flu-season-may-solve-mystery-of-coronavirus-deaths

So, average annual deaths from Flu in Italy are only 8,000. But within just over a month, their health system has nearly collapsed with now over 13,000 deaths. I don't buy any story trying to pretend this isn't a terrible outbreak going on. Makes no sense that Italy would suddenly be overwhelmed with/by patients desperately needing help breathing (coz they can't on their own) and who just happen to test positive for Covid 19.

Offline RV Pundit

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Re: "Excess" Italian Deaths Due to Flu Are not NEW/UNIQUE in 2020
« Reply #4 on: April 02, 2020, 07:32:06 AM »
I think part of it is panic.  Looking at the stats https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ - you can see Germany despite having nearly 80K - has recorded only about 1K deaths. Switzerland that is close to Italy has 20K cases with 500K dead. These are examples of countries that didn't panic. The swiss are only focusing on old and sickly - everyone else doesn't get tested.Israel has 6,092 with only 22 deaths...that is 0.36% mortality.

What is important esp for Africa countries to do is to avoid PANIC and to make rational decisions.

There is no point to test or treat any healthy human being who has coronavirus - when body immunity will beat it.

Offline Dear Mami

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Re: "Excess" Italian Deaths Due to Flu Are not NEW/UNIQUE in 2020
« Reply #5 on: April 02, 2020, 08:53:47 AM »
But panic cannot cause/explain too many people needing ventilators all at once. If this was just a situation of too many mild cases flooding hospitals, I'd agree. But we are talking about a sudden spike of very seriously ill people. There's no reason to think these people would be ok if not for the panic. You guys surely don't think Italian doctors are running out of ventilators and using make-shift ones, 3rd-World style, just because they are using them on people who don't need them, do you?

Offline RV Pundit

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Re: "Excess" Italian Deaths Due to Flu Are not NEW/UNIQUE in 2020
« Reply #6 on: April 02, 2020, 09:17:45 AM »
It only serious in countries like Italy where the median age is 50(US median age is 40) and 25% of the population are retirees. For a country like Kenya where median age is 18-20yrs - we need NOT WORRY and start going Italy or Chinese way. Kenya has I think 3% of it's a population over 65%.  But we are now copy-pasting strategies and killing the economy for something that is not a big risk to many of us.

The fact is this is a new virus or new flu - so it will hit everyone hard but only the old and sickly will need hospitalization.

But panic cannot cause/explain too many people needing ventilators all at once. If this was just a situation of too many mild cases flooding hospitals, I'd agree. But we are talking about a sudden spike of very seriously ill people. There's no reason to think these people would be ok if not for the panic. You guys surely don't think Italian doctors are running out of ventilators and using make-shift ones, 3rd-World style, just because they are using them on people who don't need them, do you?

Offline Dear Mami

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Re: "Excess" Italian Deaths Due to Flu Are not NEW/UNIQUE in 2020
« Reply #7 on: April 02, 2020, 10:54:12 AM »
It only serious in countries like Italy where the median age is 50(US median age is 40) and 25% of the population are retirees. For a country like Kenya where median age is 18-20yrs - we need NOT WORRY and start going Italy or Chinese way. Kenya has I think 3% of it's a population over 65%.  But we are now copy-pasting strategies and killing the economy for something that is not a big risk to many of us.

The fact is this is a new virus or new flu - so it will hit everyone hard but only the old and sickly will need hospitalization.
I agree about changing approach: So far we have one death from Corona and three from Curfew/Police-brutality. Seems Corona is safer than Kenya Police.

But I'm willing to cut Kamwana a bit of slack since we've never faced anything like this and we are having to watch others (who are also learning as they go) and seeing what works for us. I think the Govt is right to start arranging for basic stuff we need like masks etc, i.e. getting them produced locally at a fast pace. We might even produce hand sanitizers in mass fashion. My idea is that given so many of our people are informally employed, our solution should combine several in moderate fashion, like intermittent lock-downs in certain places at a time, to prevent rapid spreads coupled with rules on showing up in public masked and maybe even gloved, until we get a solution. The key idea is not to have too many people needing ICU care and ventilators for the facilities we have and at the same time, maintaining healthcare for our other health issues. I heard the MOH talking about preparations for food etc to help the most vulnerable and I was glad they seem to be willing to learn and react/change tact. I really think Uhuru is trying. He even apologized for Police brutality and that made me glad. I was wondering where he is, watching police take advantage of the curfew to live out their sadism.

Offline RV Pundit

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Re: "Excess" Italian Deaths Due to Flu Are not NEW/UNIQUE in 2020
« Reply #8 on: April 02, 2020, 11:38:58 AM »
Yes - absolutely.

But I'm willing to cut Kamwana a bit of slack since we've never faced anything like this and we are having to watch others (who are also learning as they go) and seeing what works for us. I think the Govt is right to start arranging for basic stuff we need like masks etc, i.e. getting them produced locally at a fast pace. We might even produce hand sanitizers in mass fashion. My idea is that given so many of our people are informally employed, our solution should combine several in moderate fashion, like intermittent lock-downs in certain places at a time, to prevent rapid spreads coupled with rules on showing up in public masked and maybe even gloved, until we get a solution. The key idea is not to have too many people needing ICU care and ventilators for the facilities we have and at the same time, maintaining healthcare for our other health issues. I heard the MOH talking about preparations for food etc to help the most vulnerable and I was glad they seem to be willing to learn and react/change tact. I really think Uhuru is trying. He even apologized for Police brutality and that made me glad. I was wondering where he is, watching police take advantage of the curfew to live out their sadism.


Offline Garliv

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Re: "Excess" Italian Deaths Due to Flu Are not NEW/UNIQUE in 2020
« Reply #9 on: April 02, 2020, 04:41:34 PM »
You know this problem is acute in Northern Italy. A part of Northern Italy. Second, even US own network CBS used some Italian hospital footage to argue that NYC hospital was flooded. It has started some #Filmyourhospital trending because people are realising what media is putting out there is a lot sensationalism and spreading panic.
Remember when Kagwe CS was announcing an increase of positives from 7 to 15, he almost cried that doctors didn't have gloves or they were using their own funds to buy masks. Remember that was when it was at 15. It is as if mentally he had to say positives have crowded into hospitals. It is a made up sensationalism despite Coronavirus being real.

Indeed they are doctors who are now arguing treatment for coronavirus may actually kill more than the virus itself.

My point, there are a lot of hype. And governments should be ready with hospitals and equipments but there has been so much cry wolf.

I was reading an account of how say US emergency calls have flooded all over but majority, overwhelming, are mostly panic. Your neighbour coughs, then you call emergency. Somebody is not observing quarantine, you call police. Spreading panic is working and hospitals and emergency health workers have to deal with loads of such.


But panic cannot cause/explain too many people needing ventilators all at once. If this was just a situation of too many mild cases flooding hospitals, I'd agree. But we are talking about a sudden spike of very seriously ill people. There's no reason to think these people would be ok if not for the panic. You guys surely don't think Italian doctors are running out of ventilators and using make-shift ones, 3rd-World style, just because they are using them on people who don't need them, do you?

Offline Kim Jong-Un's Pajama Pants

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Re: "Excess" Italian Deaths Due to Flu Are not NEW/UNIQUE in 2020
« Reply #10 on: April 02, 2020, 05:36:26 PM »
My problem is the flood of numbers.  They do not share

1) medical history
2) how long they were infected
3) any other causes that can account for the mortality
4) whether and how much these causes are now subsumed under covid-19.  People still suffer and die of heart attacks, strokes, cancers etc.

I think we are at a point where the Anthony Faucis(he is worshiped in the media) of this world have taken over.  He can declare 10,000 dead in two weeks, and in two weeks "10,000 wiil die".  He is that type of guy.

There also appear to be some concerns among some that ventilators are being used unnecessarily.  That can mean using them on people who are otherwise not distressed, breathing on their own, but measurements show low oxygen levels. 

"I freed a thousand slaves.  I could have freed a thousand more if only they knew they were slaves."

Harriet Tubman

Offline Garliv

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Re: "Excess" Italian Deaths Due to Flu Are not NEW/UNIQUE in 2020
« Reply #11 on: April 02, 2020, 11:27:57 PM »
I take liberty in posting full article by Dr. Wolfgang Wodarg a distinguished physician and German politician. In 2009-2010, he was chairman of The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe Committee (PACE), which investigated the WHO’s motives in declaring the H1N1 2009 a Worldwide pandemic.

It concisely summarize what's going on at the moment.

https://www.globalresearch.ca/we-are-currently-not-measuring-the-incidence-of-coronavirus-diseases-but-the-activity-of-the-specialists-searching-for-them/5708477


We are Currently Not Measuring the Incidence of Coronavirus Diseases, but the Activity of the Specialists Searching for Them

By Dr. Wolfgang Wodarg

The corona hype is not based on any extraordinary public health danger.

However, it causes considerable damage to our freedom and personal rights through frivolous and unjustified quarantine measures and restrictions.

The images in the media are frightening and the traffic in China’s cities seems to be regulated by the clinical thermometer.

Evidence based epidemiological assessment is drowning in the mainstream of fear mongers in labs, media and ministries.

The carnival in Venice was cancelled after an elderly dying hospital patient was tested positive.

When a handful of people in Northern Italy also were tested positive, Austria immediately closed the Brenner Pass temporarily.

Due to a suspected case of coronavirus, more than 1000 people were not allowed to leave their hotel in Tenerife. On the cruise ship Diamond Princess 3700 passengers could not disembark., Congresses and touristic events are cancelled, economies suffer and schools in Italy have an extra holyday.

At the beginning of February, 126 people from Wuhan were brought to Germany by plane and remained there in quarantine two weeks in perfect health. Corona viruses were detected in two of the healthy individuals.

We have experienced similar alarmist actions by virologists in the last two decades. WHO’s  “swine flu pandemic” was in fact one of the mildest flu waves in history and it is not only migratory birds that are still waiting for “birds flu”. Many institutions that are now again alerting us to the need for caution have let us down and failed us on several occasions. Far too often, they are institutionally corrupted by secondary interests from business and/or politics.

If we do not want to chase frivolous panic messages, but rather to responsibly assess the risk of a spreading infection, we must use solid epidemiological methodology. This includes looking at the “normal”, the baseline, before you can speak of anything exceptional.

Until now, hardly anyone has paid attention to corona viruses. For example, in the annual reports of the Robert-Koch-Institute (RKI) they are only marginally mentioned because there was SARS in China in 2002 and because since 2012 some transmissions from dromedaries to humans have been observed in Arabia (MERS). There is nothing about a regularly recurring presence of corona viruses in dogs, cats, pigs, mice, bats and in humans, even in Germany.

However, children’s hospitals are usually well aware, that a considerable proportion of the often severe viral pneumonia is also regularly caused or accompanied by corona viruses worldwide.

In view of the well-known fact that in every “flu wave” 7-15% of acute respiratory illnesses (ARI) are coming along with coronaviruses, the case numbers that are now continuously added up are still completely within the normal range.

About one per thousand infected are expected to die during flu seasons. By selective application of PCR-tests – for example, only in clinics and medical outpatient clinics – this rate can easily be pushed up to frightening levels, because those, who need help there are usually worse off than those, who are recovering at home. The role of such s selection bias seems to be neglected in China and elsewhere.

Since the turn of the year, the focus of the public, of science and of health authorities has suddenly narrowed to some kind of blindness. Some doctors in Wuhan (12 million inhabitants) succeeded in attracting worldwide attention with initially less than 50 cases and some deaths in their clinic, in which they had identified corona viruses as the pathogen. The colourful maps that are now being shown to us on paper or screens are impressive, but they usually have less to do with disease than with the activity of skilled virologists and crowds of sensationalist reporters.

We are currently not measuring the incidence of coronavirus diseases, but the activity of the specialists searching for them.

Wherever such the new tests are carried out – there about 9000 tests per week available in 38 laboratories throughout Europe on 13 February 2020 – there are at least single cases detected and every case becomes a self-sustaining media event. The fact alone that the discovery of a coronavirus infection is accompanied by a particularly intensive search in its vicinity explains many regional clustersi.

The horror reports from Wuhan were something, that virologists all over the world are waiting for. Immediately, the virus strains present in the refrigerators were scanned and compared feverishly with the reported newcomers from Wuhan.

A laboratory which was the first to be allowed to market its in-house tests worldwide.

Prof C. Drosten was interviewed on 23rd of january 2020 and described how the Test was established. He said, that he cooperated with a Partner from China, who confirmed the specific sensitivity of the Charitè-Test for the Wuhan coronavirus. Other Tests from different places followed soon and found their market.

However, it is better not to be tested for corona viruses. Even with a slight “flu-like” infection the risk of coronavirus detection would be 7% – 15% . This is, what a prospective monitoring in Scotland (from 2005 to 2013) may teach us. The scope, the possible hits and the significance of the new tests are not jet validated. It would be interesting to have some tests not only on airports and cruising ships but on German or Italian cats, mice or even bats.

If you find some new virus RNA in a Thai cave or a Wuhan hospital, it takes a long time to map its prevalence in different hosts worldwide.

But if you want to give evidence to a spreading pandemic by using PCR-Tests only, this is what should have been done after a prospective cross sectional protocoll.

So beware of side effects. Nowadays positive PCR tests have tremendous consequences for the everyday life of the patient and his wider environment, as can be seen in all media without effort.

However, the finding itself has no clinical significance. It is just another name for acute respiratory illnesses (ARI), which as every year put 30% to 70% of all people in our countries more or less out of action for a week or two every winter.

According to a prospective ARI-virus monitoring in Scotland from 2005 to 2013, the most common pathogens of acute respiratory diseases were: 1. rhinoviruses, 2. influenza A viruses, 3. influenza B viruses, 4. RS viruses and 5. coronaviruses.

This order changed slightly from year to year. Even with viruses competing for our mucous membrane cells, there is apparently a changing quorum, as we know it from our intestines in the case of microorganisms and from the Bundestag in the case of political groups.

So if there is now to be an increasing number of “proven” coronavirus infections. in China or in Italy: Can anyone say how often such examinations were carried out in previous winters, by whom, for what reason and with which results? When someone claims that something is increasing, he must surely refer to something, that has been observed before.

It can be stunning, when an experienced disease control officer looks at the current turmoil, the panic and the suffering it causes. I’m sure many of those responsible public health officers would probably risk their jobs today, as they did with the “swine flu” back then, if they would follow their experience and oppose the mainstream.

Every winter we have a virus epidemic with thousands of deaths and with millions of infected people even in Germany. And coronaviruses always have their share.

So if the Federal Government wants to do something good, it could learn from epidemiologists in Glasgow and have all clever minds at the RKI observe prospectively (!!!) and watch how the virom of the German population changes from year to year.

***

Some questions for the evaluation of the current findings:

Which prospective, standardised monitoring of acute respiratory diseases with or without fever (ILI, ARI) is used for the epidemiological risk assessment of coronavirus infections observed in Wuhan Italy, South Korea, Iran and elsewhere (baseline).
How do the comparable (!) results of earlier observations differ from those now reported by the WHO? (in China, in Europe, in Italy, in Germany, etc.)
What would we observe this ARI-season if we would ignore the new PCR-testing?
How valid and how comparable are the detection methods used with regard to sensitivity, specificity and pathogenetic or prognostic relevance?
What is the evidence or probability that the observed corona viruses 2019/2020 are more dangerous to public health than previous variants?
If you find them now, how can you proove, they were not there (e.g. in animals) before.
How do you make shure, that a positive tested case is not in the same time suffering/dying from other virus co-infections?
What considerations have been made or taken into account to exclude or minimise sources of bias (sources of error)?
 Some important questions for science:

Is Covid-19 in Italy a model for the pandemics that threaten the world?
What does the SARS-2-CoV test really measure?
Does the test give positive results in human pets or other tame animals?
Is it possible, that so many infected are so easily recovering if it is a really new virus?
What is the pathogenetic role and impact of Covid-19 compared to „normal” flu?
Which preventive actions are necessary in addition to those during normal flu-seasons?