Analysis of official data by Professor Anthony Brookes, an expert in genetics and health data at the University of Leicester and a Daily Sceptic contributor, has shown that the risk of death from Covid for over-70s has decreased by tenfold compared to a year ago. Speaking to the Express, Prof Brookes said Covid no longer posed a significant threat to “the vast majority of people”.
We will not be in anything like the same place in January 2022 as we were in January 2021. Infected individuals are at dramatically less risk of becoming seriously ill or dying than a year ago. Over the last month the risk has been dropping further thanks to Omicron now accounting for around 95% of cases in England. Omicron is around four-fold less dangerous – it’s like nature’s vaccine. There has always been over a thousand fold difference in risk of serious illness or death between the old and the young. Currently the risk of death for the population as a whole is no worse than for seasonal influenza. For healthy children the risk is miniscule.
Younger people now have a higher risk of dying from a car crash in a whole year, than they do from COVID-19. Since their serious Covid risk is already very low, it is hard to identify any good reason for imposing or coercing youngsters to take on the known risks of vaccination. COVID-19 is progressively evolving to become another form of the common cold. Omicron takes us further down that path by reducing IFR at least three-fold. Would a normal society undertake mass testing and require isolation for the common cold?
His analysis, based on ONS infection survey data and death data, shows that at the start of the pandemic people over 70 had roughly a 10% risk of dying from COVID-19 if infected, but the infection fatality rate (IFR) has now fallen to 1-2% for this age group. The chart below, which owing to the three-week lag runs to the end of November, so does not cover the Omicron surge, has been supplied to the Daily Sceptic by Prof Brookes.
Professor Paul Hunter, an expert in infectious disease at the University of East Anglia, said:
There is no doubt the illness we are seeing now is less severe than at the start. We are seeing a big shift towards Covid becoming the common cold due to a range of factors including prior infection and vaccines. There is a point where we have to ask why are we testing and isolating people who just have a common cold?
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