A reader has shared with us the complaint he submitted yesterday to the BBC about the way in which Radio 4 presented the news that Britain’s Covid death toll has reached 150,000 – a figure which is also on the front of most of today’s papers. I think his irritation is one which a lot of Daily Sceptic readers will share.
The 1800 News on Radio 4, Saturday January 8th 2022 began with this headline:
“More than 150,000 people now have died of Covid in the UK since the start of the pandemic two years ago.”
This clearly stated that the deaths of 150,000 people had been as a result of contracting Covid. This is at best misleading, at worst a falsehood. The truth is stated on the BBC website, which said, correctly, “More than 150,000 people in the UK have now died within 28 days of a positive Covid test since the pandemic began.”
This isn’t a question of semantics. It’s a really important point and a crucial distinction between accurate news reporting and ‘number theatre’ (as Professor Sir David Spiegelhalter calls it). I can include two of my neighbours who died ‘with Covid’ and went down in the Covid total, even though one in fact died from the leukaemia that had kept him in hospital (where he caught Covid) for two years as he deteriorated, and another from liver cancer, also catching asymptomatic Covid in hospital.
On the 1800 News the Health Correspondent Katherine da Costa made no attempt to contextualise the figure of 150,000 in terms of annual normal deaths in the UK (this might in fact have strengthened her piece), interviewed a family member of a victim without clarifying the actual cause of death, and ignored the much larger number of people who have died of other causes.
Although Ms Da Costa did not repeat the inaccurate headline, she did not qualify her reference to the number of deaths by making it clear, as the news website did, that these were of people who had died within 28 days of testing positive. It was also quite evident that the interviewee had no framework of reference for the 150,000.
There is a stark contrast here with the coverage by Nick Triggle which always contextualises the figures and makes it clear what they actually are, without seeking to sensationalise as the inaccurate headline in the 1800 did.
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What on earth are you even watching the bbc news for anyway?
Agenda-driven half truths and lies.
Get your news elsewhere
People still listen to Today? The only reason I ever do is to remind me why I don’t. Always works. The BBC and the NHS are the bloatocracies we are enjoined to worship. They can fuck off.
I wonder why we don’t count the “with” covid deaths for a respiratory season. We’ve never kept a running total of type a and b flu deaths. I guess that would be a horrendous total truly worthy of the BBC’s attention.
Spot on. But it’ll not change anything.
I began submitting complaints about BBC Covid coverage from early on in the pandemic. A completely futile exercise as was getting any internal responses about BBC bias. With the regulator OfCom in the pocket of the Government, other ways need to be found to stem this insidious and seemingly relentless propaganda campaign. I think it is time to directly name the journalists and editors – and there are an awful lot of them, who spread misleading information about Covid. I would start with the worst offenders, the BBC, Channel 4 and the Guardian and then work downwards.
150,000 deaths within 28 days of a positive covid test in the last two years!!? Where’s the pandemic in these statistics? This time last year we were being screamed at by the media that there were already over 100,000 deaths. So why the sudden drop in year 2? Dam lies and statistics.
I have commented before on the poor presentation of inaccurate or unqualified facts, most particularly a BBC News at 6 in which the headline story of the emergence of the Omicron variant was presented with a trembling, almost hysterical voice, as if to say “Everyone PANIC!” But I have railed for months over the daily tally of “cases”, aka positive tests, and deaths within 28 days of such a test. Given the qualifications on accuracy as outlined here (with or from, hospital acquisition etc) the precision, to six significant figures, is absurd.
at least if we are now entering an endemic phase we might be able to abandon all of this unnecessary preoccupation. For nearly two years the 6 o’clock news has contained more COVID content than anything else…
The true death count may well be even more contrived than most of us thought. Reading the ONS data on the ‘Covid 19 Latest Insights’ page (https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/articles/coronaviruscovid19latestinsights/deaths) I noticed the following interesting point in the Pre-existing Health Conditions section
“Deaths may be counted more than once as someone may have more than one pre-existing condition.”
It would be interesting to know how many deaths from/with Covid have been multiple-counted. To put this in simple terms, it would be interesting to know whether each Joe Bloggs that dies from/with covid and has a chronic lower respiratory infection is a different Joe Bloggs than the one that dies from/with covid and has severe diabetes.
Doubling down https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/health-59915289
It’s good to know I was not the only one screaming at the television over this.
Aside from the deliberately dishonest description of the deaths, it’s important to remember that it is unprecedented that stats are being amassed over more than one year.
As far as I’m concerned, there’s no room for redemption for the BBC and it’s staff. If justice were ever to be served appropriately, they’d be joining the corrupt scientists and politicians in the stocks. I would welcome a reintroduction of capital punishment for these people.
Perhaps you should point out that in the last two years over 800,000 people have died within 28 days of either listening to or seeing BBC news.
Are there any casual estimates of how many of those 150,000 actually died of covid .Will we ever find out .I would bet a large amout of money that its one or two less than 150.000.And why would a government have to make an already scary thing look worse than it is for gods sake ,a virus doesnt need marketing does it ??
The BBC can’t even present a football match without endless virtue-signalling bullshit. Two of three pundits are black (par for the course, usually there’s a Lesbian thrown in for good measure) and a seemingly endless feature on trying to set up safe spaces for young black kids who otherwise would be out stabbing one another.
Typical BBC, fluff around the issue and try and make apologies for it instead of tackling it head on. Any black teen/young adult found with a knife, throw them in prison for life…..job done.
Stop pretending it’s because they’re disadvantaged. It simply isn’t. It’s because they can’t behave themselves and there’s insufficient deterrent.
BBC et al have been exponentially engaged in what bolshevik György Lukács defined as ‘cultural terrorism’. It’s a steady campaign to pervert and morally destroy a nation, leaving it ripe for revolution.
We’re at that point now with the covid fraud, and their efforts have paid off with the vast numbers of braindead goons complying and self policing, and policing others. It’s sickening and boils my piss.
Exactly! And look at this just published in The Telegraph (paywall):
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/01/09/bbc-broadcaster-nigel-rees-quit-46-years-diversity-drive/
Here’s the intro:
A Radio 4 presenter has revealed that he resigned after 46 years because he felt under pressure from the BBC to book more “diverse” guests.
Nigel Rees, 77, had presented the hugely popular programme ‘Quote… Unquote’ since 1976 when he left last month.
The veteran broadcaster has now said he felt pressured by the corporation to invite diverse speakers onto the show who were not necessarily the most suitable guests.
“We had prescriptions to have diverse groups and disabled guests. I didn’t agree with it at all but I went along with it because I had to. It came from upstairs and it seemed to be a general priority,” he told The Sunday Times.
“I am not willing to go on having my choices interfered with in order to tick boxes in the name of diversity and representation. It is difficult having it enforced for the sake of it. It is also patronising, not least to the people who don’t want to be on because they feel they are ticking a box.”
The BBC’s focus on diversity in recent years has been criticised as out… Read more »
TV is becoming unwatchable because every single presenter is black and talentless and we all know why they’re there. Not to say some aren’t genuinely good, but the vast majority are riding the woke wave and currying favour they would never otherwise have had.
What is with women and football? They’ve never been remotely interested in it until the past few years when there was “fame” to be had from reading autocues as badly as their talentless black counterparts.
In America the “scare figure” is 800,000 deaths. You can quickly slash this figure by ….
1) Dividing by two to get the “with” number (not from): That takes us to 400,000.
2) Report the number over 12 months – annualized deaths – like all the other causes of deaths are reported. That gets us to 200,000 deaths in a year.
3) Note that 97-98 percent of the deaths were among those over the age of 40 (the approximate median age).
4) Note that 80 percent of the deaths were among those over the age of 65.
5) One could also correctly note that the mortality rate for healthy children under 18 is 0.0001 percent (one in 2 million odds of death).
6) One could note that in the U.S. among those middle age and younger, the odds you would die in a traffic accident are approximately 3 times greater than the odds you will die from COVID.
Just from photos of the lost alone, here in the UK you can probably deduce that 90%+ were ancient, morbidly obese, or both,
A survey in the US found that 43% of Democrats believed that the rate of hospitalisation after contracting covid was over 50% (quoted by Bill Maher who, surprisingly, is taking something of a pro ‘freedom of choice’ stance against vaccine mandates)
BBC Radio 4 resonate at a harmful frequency.
It’s funny how the BBC is still seen as impartial, relative to other news outlets.
The big eye opener was James and Toby discussing just how much money the government has given to news outlets over the last two years under the coronavirus guise – over £500m.
Everybody should cancel their TV licence and stop this hatred, propaganda and utter bullshit being peddled for free. I withdrew mine over a year ago, there’s nothing but dross on the BBC anyway.
Having said that I’ll probably watch a bit of FA Cup football, I’ll consider it “reparation” for all the harm they’ve done with my money over the years.
This “number theatre” is the most obvious deceit of the whole coronapanic era yet the least complained about .Ist such an obvious case of cooking the books that its almost comedic .Saying really “look we cant manke it look as bad as we would like so we are going to get a bunch of dead peole and tag them with covid ,no one will mind will they .Of course no one minded did they !!
Excellent complaint and well done to the reader who put it in.
It’s worth doing so to try to keep some pressure on the liars, but the reality is that the BBC as an institution will never face any criticism from those who actually matter to it for pushing the elite propaganda line.
There’s only one real solution – defund the BBC.
Why should we pay for out own indoctrination?
The 28 day criterion is what caused me to come out of the trance – it’s so obviously illogical.
I’ve said many times on here that the BBC are a disgrace. I only watch or listen know to either have a laugh or if my blood needs boiling. Trusted News Intiative, my arse. They are as guilty if not more so than anybody of lying and misinformation.
BBC still piling on the fear https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/health-59915289 people unable to visualise 150000 deaths. Never has two years of deaths been reported as a single figure.
This is a graph of all cause mortality for the past 50 years, from John Dee.
If your still partaking of the Neo Pravda bbc daily propaganda/psy-ops bullshit??? Give your head a shake!
The round number alone betrays the propaganda.
Indeed – and the continuing failure to provide details of average age of the dead as well as whether they had significant comorbidities.
Agreed – see my reply to timsk above
There are three common ways of recording Covid deaths.
1) 28 days of a positive test (used widely throughout the world and so helps with comparisons). UK so far: 150,057
2) Mentioned on the death certificate. UK so far 173,248
3) Documented as underlying cause on the death certificate. UK so far 139,385 (this took a bit of tracking down and does not include any this year.
Is it really deceptive to use the 150,000 figure?
What if the criteria and/or collection practices were influenced by falsehood? Or propaganda, hysteria, fear, conflation, mere ‘following of orders’, in short ERROR?
All stats recorded in ‘wartime’ conditions must be questioned.
Isn’t 50,000 more realistic?
More people die of other things every year.
Also, let’s not forget that tens of thousands of people were collecting and analysing the data across the whole UK.
If they ever did it the same way, I’d be surprised.
The test does not provide a diagnosis of CoViD19, which is a disease, only the possible presence of the RNA of a virus called SARS-CoV-2.
A test never gives a diagnosis, it may assist in the diagnosis. If a child is unwell with a fever they are never tested for the presence of a measles or rubella virus, the disease is diagnosed on the presence or otherwise of a rash.
This has been the single biggest problem, the presence of a virus being labelled as having a disease.
Mentioning on the death certificate doesn’t actually prove anything, particularly in the early days when certifying medics didn’t even see the patient before or after death, but depended on third part information. Thus a person dies in a care home, the GP is informed, the care staff confirm death and state the person had had a positive test result. That appears on the death certificate either in part 1(primary cause of death) or Part 2(underlying cause) Also don’t forget right at the beginning a death any time after a positive result was counted as a CoViD19 death.
If a child is unwell with a fever they are never tested for the presence of a measles or rubella virus, the disease is diagnosed on the presence or otherwise of a rash.
I will take your word for that. However, if someone presents with a fever and respiratory problems then a doctor may well ask for a PCR test for flu to diagnose the problem.
Mentioning on the death certificate doesn’t actually prove anything, particularly in the early days when certifying medics didn’t even see the patient before or after death, but depended on third part information
It turns out (slightly surprisingly) that the majority of Covid deaths are in hospital where presumably that patient is seen by a doctor. (I can’t find the relevant dataset right now but it is somewhere among the many ONS reports.)
That appears on the death certificate either in part 1(primary cause of death) or Part 2(underlying cause)
I think that primary cause/underlying cause are the same thing and go in part 1. Part 2 is other causes:https://gpnotebook.com/en-gb/simplepage.cfm?ID=x20120623140607030327
In the US private sector no doubt as per your link they might well test for flu. But I a m told by a consultant in an NHS hospital that is very very rarely the case in Britain.
John’s claim was that a test never gives a diagnosis. This is false.
How common is it in the UK? Hard to tell but I can tell you that in the last week of 2021 – a time of very low flu incidence – there were 6,291 tests for flu just in the one week. Look at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1045027/Weekly_Flu_and_COVID-19_report_w1.pdf page 21. Of course it is not certain they were used to give a diagnosis but it is hard to think what else they were for.
We do not regularly test for influenza even in hospital, there’s no need to know the pathogen as it makes no difference to the management of the disease. I think the flu was tested for as part of the SARS-CoV-2 testing regime.
What does happen are regular annual or biennial screenings for breast cancer, cervical cancer and prostate cancer being offered. However, no diagnosis is given based purely on these screenings. Also, if a person presents with symptoms (lump in the breast particularly males who are never screened, pain/discomfort around cervix, or discomfort in prostate) then further tests are used to verify the diagnosis.
Diagnosis = symptoms plus signs including various tests.
Diagnosis != test results.
If someone presented at the urgent care centre where I worked as a nurse practitioner with a temperature and respiratory problems then depending on the presentation of the respiratory problems they would either be diagnosed with a viral upper respiratory tract infection or advised to attend A&E if serious, usually abnormal chest sounds suggestive of pneumonia or bronchiolitis.
In 2019 there was an increase in patients presenting with persistent cough and temperature, who were diagnosed with an URTI, this included children.
Patients were always safety netted, if no improvement after 7 days to see own GP, if become very unwell to attend A&E.
The reason that there is no testing for influenza or indeed SARS-CoV-2 is that there is absolutely no treatment to cure the disease only treatment to support the body whilst the immune system fights it. CPAP, intubation or ECMO don’t provide a cure. Only if there’s evidence of a bacterial infection can antibiotics be given. There may be other drugs given to support the body such as noradrenaline, but they are not a cure.
The only reason that SARS-CoV-2 is tested for in people with symptoms is because CoViD19 (not SARS-CoV-2 infection alone as that is not… Read more »
John
Lots of good stuff in both your comments. You may be interested to know that according to these flu reports we have been testing for flu for many years. But I have no idea under what conditions – maybe you have to have symptoms first. However, the main point is your claim that you never diagnose a disease based on a test alone. I am afraid that is clearly false.
It is common for a cancer to be picked up as part of a screening and then confirmed with a biopsy without any symptoms. It sort of happened to me – I had a blood test for an unrelated condition, the GP noticed there was something odd and with a couple more tests and a biopsy it was diagnosed as myeloma – no symptoms at that stage.
There are many genetic diseases that are diagnosed without symptoms. My nephew’s wife got herself tested for Huntingdon’s chorea when feeling perfectly well because she knew she was at risk and they had to decide whether to have children. She has it and presumably one day she will have symptoms.
Remember the gay community getting itself tested for HIV in the 80’s… Read more »
CDC have abandoned PCR as beyond useless.
Now the damage is done, so to speak.
I don’t think so. They have replaced one PCR test with another because the new one is quicker and cheaper.
By classifying Covid as a “notifiable disease” the govt has ensured that it will be noted on the Death Certificate even if it demonstrably has had no contribution towards the death of the individual concerned.
Ys – but the doctor doesn’t have to put it on part 1.
If one or more of the three common ways of recording Covid deaths is woefully inaccurate and/or plain wrong – then yes – it really is deceptive to use the 150,000 figure. Clearly, #1 on your list falls into this category.
For a statistic to be inaccurate or there has to be something that it is accurate that it is failing to reflect. But there is no unambiguous answer to the question: how many people died of Covid? Covid may play a part in a death ranging from sole cause of premature death to a small contribution which shortens the life of someone by a few weeks. That’s why it is appropriate to measure it in several different ways. The 28 day criterion is easy, unambiguous and up-to-date, is standard across many countries and is not wildly different from alternative measurements. It is not as though anyone is trying to hide the definition.
“. . . It is not as though anyone is trying to hide the definition.”
I accept your point MTF. The problem is that the definition masks the truth, i.e. inflates the numbers of those that allegedly died ‘of’ covid rather than those that died ‘with’ covid. That it’s a standard measure used by many countries neither validates the method nor (in the U.K.s case) the 150,000 death toll. The very best one can say is that covid may have contributed to the deaths of up to 150,000 people – but even that’s really pushing it and being extremely generous to those who are desperate to inflate the figure as high as possible.
Again – you are assuming that there is a truth to be hidden, that “dies of Covid” is an unambiguous statistic (and also that someone is desperate to inflate the figure some reason). As I tried to explain, for a disease such as Covid (and many other diseases come into this category) there is a scale from – “one and only cause of premature death” through to “possibly speeded up demise by a few days”.
At the one and only cause end of the scale is “underlying cause on the death certificate” – unless you can suggest a better statistic that can actually be measured in practice? At the speeded up demise end of the scale is “mentioned on the death certificate”. The figures I produced shows that over the last two years the 28 days figure came somewhere between the two. With the advantage that it is timely (registration can take weeks) and a de facto standard. I wouldn’t call that deceptive given that it is not pretending to be either.
I’m not assuming there’s a truth to be hidden – it’s blindingly obvious to anyone who’s been on this forum for more than a few hours that there are many truths to be hidden!
If you think the current measure of death within 28 days of a positive PCR test is fair and reasonable – so be it. In spite of your best efforts, as far as I’m concerned it’s anything but. It’s highly deceptive – not least because as the author of the article makes clear, it enables those with an agenda (such as the BBC in this case) to abuse it and give the completely false impression that 150,000 people have died of covid. And that’s just plain wrong.
If there is a truth to be hidden please describe it. Or to put it another way – define what it means to die of Covid and suggest how we can measure it.
Really MTF?! I sense you’re just yanking my chain. So, this is my final comment – feel free to have the last word if you want . . .
If someone is admitted to hospital suffering from covid and they are diagnosed as such (as opposed to ‘normal’ flu or pneumonia), and they subsequently die, then covid would be listed as the primary cause of death on the certificate. If the patient happens to have a comorbidity, then that could also be listed as a contributory factor at the discretion of the medics.
If someone is admitted to hospital suffering from covid and they are diagnosed as such (as opposed to ‘normal’ flu or pneumonia), and they have a deadly heart attack while in hospital, then myocardial infarction is (or should be) recorded on the certificate as the primary cause of death – along with (not of) covid – as a contributory factor at the discretion of the medics.
If someone goes into hospital having had a heart attack, tests positive for covid but has no symptoms of the disease and then dies (due to heart related complications), then myocardial infarction is recorded on the death certificate – and… Read more »
In short, he is yanking your chain – likely 77th. He has form for this on here.
I agree with your assessment and would go further, with all the algorithms and technology we have at our fingertips in the third decade of the 21’st century rather than lumping everyone into one big unspohisticated covid total, to bump up the numbers, those who compile health data should be more than capable of providing a breakdown along the lines of:
etc, which would give a much more informed picture of what is happening and the true level of threat.
But, from a propaganda point of view, it is much cleaner and easier to say in a news bulletin that 150,000 people have died of covid (and put ‘within 28 days of a positive test’ in the tiny print at the foot of the screen).
And, for good measure, the death certification process shouldn’t have been changed when the ‘pandemic’ was announced, and maybe there is a case for looking at that process, the way it is done and the structuring of the death certificate itself.
I am sorry you think that and that you do not want to continue this dialogue which is one of the few dialogues here that seem to be getting somewhere. Nevertheless, I will lay out my position.
You give three interesting examples and what should be recorded on the death certificate. If you look at these instructions you will see that you are close but not totally correct. It is not just a case of primary cause and contributory factor. Part 1 should include the chain of events leading to death. The top item in part 1 will be the final event, the bottom item is called the underlying cause. So in example 2, if the heart attack was a result of having Covid then Covid would be included in part 1 as the underlying cause. If the heart attack was independent of having Covid, then Covid should appear in part 2. Note that Covid (or flu) would be very unlikely to be the final event in the top of the chain. That event will be something like a heart attack or asphyxiation In example 3, Covid would be recorded in part 2 of the certificate.
Having cleared that… Read more »
Hopefully this helps to explain where the problem is.
How many people who died since the start of 2020 were obese? Did all of them die of obesity?
How many were smokers? How many had liver or kidney disease? How many had cancer? How many got a positive result, recovered, then 28 days later stepped in front of a bus?
All other factors have become irrelevant. Whatever you actually die “of”, whatever coofs symptoms you had, including none, if a 45-cycle PCR test (never intended for binary yes/no diagnosis) came back positive, you are recorded as a kill for the Wuhan bioweapon, and for nothing else.
PCR uber alles.
See my response here. “Died of Covid” (or indeed many other conditions) is an ambiguous statement. That’s why you need more than one way of measuring it. If the reported statistic is not wildly different from the others, and you are clear how it is measured, then that is not misleading.
Well, if you are talking about deception, how about this? Someone is admitted to hospital for non covid reasons. Despite having no symptoms, they test positive for covid. Throughout their 14 day stay they are tested daily for covid and each test comes back positive. The patient never develops covid and is discharged home. Each of the 14 tests is recorded as a new individual case of covid for that hospital though. Mad? Totally, but apparently true. Just one of the many ways to massage the figures.
That would indeed be crazy. So much so that it sounds implausible. What is your source?
Yes. If you didn’t die FROM Covid you didn’t die from Covid. I know that’s complex, but the figures are fraudulent. Why not ask – why has this approach “had whatever in the past 28 days” used with ANY other disease?
Not sure what you answering “yes” to.
. If you didn’t die FROM Covid you didn’t die from Covid.
Of course a tautology is true. However, it doesn’t help define what “die from Covid” means in practice or how best to measure it.
why has this approach “had whatever in the past 28 days” used with ANY other disease?
There has never been a similar requirement – report on the fatalities connected with a disease within 24 hours of them happening.
Isn’t it fascinating that these fearmongers and propagandists have never kept a running tally of mundane influenza deaths (whether of or with) over the course of years with no regard for seasonality? Anyone would think there’s an agenda here.
I did a rough calculation after hearing this figure yesterday –
150000 divided by the number of days since this all began (approx.656) = 228 per day. Given that the average number of daily deaths in the UK is around 1753, the number of ‘Covid’ deaths works out at about 13%. Many deaths will be due to other conditions and will also include people who died within 28 days from completely unrelated causes. So the actual percentage will probably be more like 6% which is probably very close to the percentage who die of flu, pneumonia, COPD etc every day,
Yes, and the Portuguese judicial review that investigated their government’s figures found that 0.9% of the deaths reported as being Covid were actually FROM Covid. I imagine it’s similar everywhere.
I say keep the hysteria going until it destroys the participants
Other than the financial consideration of tanking the economy I have no problem watching the bedwetters clamour and queue for their fourth, fifth and sixth life saving booster. Let the stupid fucks destroy their immune systems
I suspect that by the middle of next year some of the jabbers will begin to flag. After years of jabbing all day every day the jabbers will move on to more fulfilling roles as Covid Marshalls or Just Eat bike riders
May even get myself a job as a jabber if I run out of popcorn
Cecil B,
Yes very true.
I found this little gem on my other favourite website -The conservative tree house .com today by a blogger called Getoutahea .Its copied from a site called Bogbeagle.
The third jab strengthens the immune system, so after the fourth dose you are protected, and when 80% of the population has received the fifth dose we are close to a resolution because the sixth dose stops the virus from multiplying and prevents it from spreading, which means the seventh dose will solve our problems and we no longer have to be afraid of the eighth dose because clinical studies with the ninth dose have shown that antibodies are more stable after the tenth dose and the eleventh dose ensures that that there will be no new mutations, so there is no reason to critisise the idea of a twelfth dose.
I’s a bit like the twelve days of Christmas, but I love satire. I sometimes think its what will restore sanity to this sad world.