Re: When do you shut down the covid-industrial complex?
"Deaths from covid-19 are now at endemic levels in comparison to other endemic diseases"
You do realise that "endemic" simply means the level of cases is stable (i.e. R = 1), don't you..? Given that we're seeing the equivalent of 50,000 deaths a year (pro-rating the current average), and the UK will on average see 650,000 deaths per year, that means on average 1 in 13 deaths will be due to COVID (naive maths, but you get the point). That's before we start to consider the knock-on effect in hospital capactiy due to infection control measures, the fact that a COVID patient is more likely to end up in ICU, and every COVID patient in ICU means a scheduled major surgery (e.g. heart operation) can't go ahead (because they need the spare ICU bed in case the surgery doesn't go well).
Also, there is debate on the reporting of flu fatalities, as it gets combined with pneumonia (which it is associated with), e.g. one Professor of Public Health stated that the 25,000 reported flu & pneumonia deaths one year, 1,500 were directly due to influenza, with a large number of the pneumonia deaths being due to privation, and pointed out that the Scandinavian and other European countries don't see the level of flu & associated deaths that we do.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
