Evidence suggests that China managed to contain Covid for almost three years following the initial outbreak in Wuhan – through a combination of strict border closures and brutal lockdowns. Yet in December of 2022, the country finally abandoned its contentious zero-Covid policy, leading to a surge of cases.
How many people died in this post-zero-Covid outbreak? Because the Chinese government doesn’t publish accurate or timely data on Covid deaths, it was very difficult to know. And the official figure of 60,000 always seemed implausibly low.
Thanks to a new paper by Hong Xiao and colleagues, we now have a decent estimate: 1.87 million among people aged 30 and older (who of course account for the vast majority of deaths). That’s about 32 times greater than the official count.
How did the researchers arrive at this figure? Their method was quite clever. Xiao and colleagues began by tracking the number of obituaries for three major universities: Peking University and Tsinghua University in Beijing, and Harbin Institute of Technology in Harbin. (The New York Times also used obituaries to show there was a spike in deaths around the time China abandoned zero-Covid.)
Here’s the clever part. The researchers correlated changes in the number of obituaries with changes in the number of Baidu searches for the terms ‘burial’, ‘cremation’, ‘crematorium’ and ‘funeral parlour’ in the corresponding regions. (Baidu is China’s equivalent to Google). They found that the relationship was extremely strong: obituaries and mortality-related searches shot up at precisely the same time.
This allowed them to work out by how much mortality rises when mortality-related search terms increase by a given amount. For example, the number of obituaries for the two Beijing universities rose by 400% in December of 2022, while mortality-related search terms in that region approximately doubled (an increase of 100%).
Since they had Baidu search data for every region of China, they were able to estimate the number of excess deaths in each region based on that region’s increase in mortality-related search terms. (Every region of China except Tibet saw a clear increase in mortality-related search terms in December of 2022.)
As noted above, their calculations yielded a figure of 1.87 million for the total number of excess deaths. This represents an increase of about 20% over the average number of deaths from 2015–2019, which means that China saw about the same level of excess mortality as France and Germany.
It seems that you can run from Covid but you can’t hide. Despite suppressing the virus for almost three years – going as far as locking people in their homes and forcing them into quarantine camps – China saw about the same level of excess mortality as major Western countries. The Chinese turned their entire society upside down fighting Covid, and in the end did no better than the Swedes.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
I’d rather not read this one in full as I have no wish to give them any ad revenue.
Actually I have no idea who Andrew Tate is. I only came here because my Andrew Bridgen antennae pinged.
You’re not missing anything good, that’s for sure. Andrew Tate is the latest misogynistic “guru” to appeal to angry, confused, and disaffected young men and boys. He thinks he is being “edgy” and transgressive, but he really just ends up being banal and regressive. His disgusting verbal defecation is bad enough, but to make matters worse, he was recently arrested in Romania for rape and human trafficking. Real Nice Guy (TM), it seems, right?
The fact that anyone would downvote this really boggles the mind.
You are right but my concern is that the Bridgen affair gives the readers and supporters of the Guardian – the Progressive elite – the opportunity to rage at anti vaxxers, answer seeking MPs and Daily Sceptic subscribers.
I suppose they’ve both publicly expressed some awkward truths.
Awkward truths are part of what is now known as harmful speech…
Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
In Tate’s case, he did openly, and with no Vaseline, call out the globalist elites, and urged young men and boys not to be cogs in their machine. That is the proverbial stopped clock being right twice a day, and probably what put the biggest bullseye on his back, as seems to be the zeitgeist. But that does NOT make him one of the good guys, and assuming so is a fallacy. Evil against evil is also a thing as well.
https://www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/2022/12/30/andrew-tates-defenders-are-out-in-force-after-his-arrest/
He is grossly misogynistic, regressive, and was recently arrested for rape and human trafficking. And he is certainly not a good role model at all by any stretch of the imagination!
Sounds like a right charmer. No wonder he’s a hit with the resident Misogynist Society. They evidently aspire to be like him. Well they can go choke on a bag of dicks! Pff..
Indeed. Good riddance to the lot of them!
People casually throw around the words “toxic masculinity” all the time these days, so much that its meaning is diluted, but the miscreant Tate (and his fan club) is literally a textbook example of it. Healthy or “tonic” masculinity can and does exist for some men, of course, but these creeps are NOT among them.
While the Ragaidun may be pathetic, it’s not comical. Bridgen said nothing about his right of free speech being threatened, that’s just woke boilerplate to smear people as (somehow dangerous) right wingers. He categorically denied being an antisemite or racist and announced legal action over that. And then, he elaborated on vaccine-injured and stated that he felt duty-bound to keep speaking up for them.
In another universe (located in Gun Street) a gay guy (most likely) who had already been targetting me in the past yesterday punched me in the face when I wouldn’t let him stroke my head. Because of this, I presently cannot chew without pain as the jaw is bruised. Of course, this caused me to be manhandled out of the place an not him. And that’s the kind of behaviour protected groups the Agdiuarn especially loves are notorious for. I’ve also been repeatedly attacked by violent lesbian who saw a lone, small man as the ideal opportunity to pay something back to the patriarchy. This was rather a comical than painful affair but that’s not for want of trying.
I hope you karate kicked him in the nuts! If you can’t perfect a decent right ( or left ) hook you need to start carrying around mace spray. I’m worried about you.
Pretty sure self defence sprays are illegal and considered the same as firearms.
As they’re illegal it’s a hard mistake to make, as for other defensive items that can be purchased for other uses and carried, admitting they were for defence when questioned turns them into offensive items in the eyes of the plod.
When I worked as a postie many moons ago we all got given pepper spray to carry. It was for the dogs should you get attacked. I suppose a spray bottle of deodorant or even WD40 could be carried as they’d look more legit if you got pulled over, especially deodorant if you’re out socializing. Anything that’ll irritate the eyes would work. I swear by WD40 to kill wasps, unless they’re especially badass.
In the UK most likely. In the USA they are generally allowed, and while they are banned in Canada they have a loophole for “bear spray”, lol.
I had my eyes closed at that time when the punch landed. This obviously made me open them, but I didn’t see him again before I was forced out of the room for – hahaha – punching someone in the face. Presumably, after the intended effect didn’t materialize (like me falling consciousless to the floor or running away crying or whatnot) someone, possibly the same someone who had just hurt his fingers badly (never punch someone in the face unless you’re a lot stronger than him — the stomach is a much better target) hastened to get a bouncer who hadn’t witnessed the scene (instead of the lady who had) to avoid finding out what future developments might bring.
I have a handy size (1.69m, 69kg) but have had quite a few run-ins with much stronger people in the past and while I obviously didn’t score any points (except maybe honourable ones), nobody managed to damage me seriously, either (knocked unconscious a couple of times, face bloodied and stuff like that).
This personal stuff aside, the point was supposed to be that, if words
cause violence against members of certain groups, the Guardian (here without the Eye joke) with its unrelenting hate-preaching (yes, that’s what it is) against specific groups must certainly be responsible for quite a bit of it.
But why are you getting into so many scraps? Please revise the places you go to hang out. I feel that they are at odds with your personality. OK, I shan’t get any more personal nor labour the point further.
But taking somebody down with a well-aimed spritz of Axe/Lynx in the eyeballs is surely doable and not unheard of.
The universe (or rather, mankind) is at odds with my personality. That’s what autism is mostly about. It means whereever you are, you’re the odd one out who doesn’t belong there. This attracts suspicion and violence. And it’s always your fault. I get accused of attacking other people when they attack me (despite – objectively – the notion of me attacking other people unprovoked is rather ridiculous, considering that I’d be bound to lose everytime because I’m always going to be outnumbered, even with opponents I could physically handle, ie, who aren’t much taller and heavier than me) and everybody naturally believes this, because there’s surely something odd about this guy! This started some time in school in the late 1970s and has been the constant background melody of the more than forty years since.
I think both Andrew and Aseem are getting it from all angles now so they’re obviously well over the target. They can support eachother all the more now I think. Andrew totally needs to stick it to Hancock though. Absolute scourge to the earth and a vile excuse for a human being.
“Matt Hancock has still not removed his defamatory tweet falsely alleging that I am antisemitic. I will allow Matt three days to apologise publicy for calling me an antisemite and racist or he will be contacted by my legal team.”
https://twitter.com/ABridgen
There is dross, double dross and then there is the woeful piece of shyte dirtying the planet with his very presence going by the name of Midazolam Mat.
That Next Tuesday will poison the planet even when he is supposed to be turning to compost.
Indeed, may he choke on pain and stomach bile!
Andrew Bridgen is clearly being ruthlessly targeted for his stance against the jabs. He is a whistleblower. One look at his Twitter feed confirms that is precisely why the powers that be want to shut him down.
He is nothing even remotely like Andrew Tate.
And Hatt Mancock can go stuff it!
This is a superb article and an excellent take-down of the Guardian hit piece on Dr Malhotra. Who fact checks the fact checkers? Well thank the gods for substack!
https://lawhealthandtech.substack.com/p/who-fact-checks-the-fact-checkers
Wow. That’s brilliant
The cardiologist Aseem Malhotra is a huge force for good here. He’s a brave very decent man, who knows how to advocate for a position based on evidence against the dark forces of big pharma, the global ‘elites’, biased media, conflicted factcheckers, authoritarian governments and politicians, and corrupt scientists and their institutions.
Well done to Mr Law, Health and Technology for the detailed defence here
Yes it’s spot on isn’t it and I really hope Malhotra has seen it and it goes viral. These people are risking it all by sticking their necks out in the attempt to spread the truth and the least people can do is have their backs, and this substacker has certainly done that. It’s a 10 from me!
It makes me laugh though, all these haters and nutjob journos that pile on. All they do is out themselves and are easy pickings for the astute, such as Mr Lawhealthandtech. And praise the gods Twitter is now in a better position to accommodate the growing number of dissenters who can provide all the necessary contradictory evidence to expunge the BS holding up the Official Narrative and all of its rotten little acolytes.
Thanks Mogs. Sound article.
On the basis of the Guardian’s own logic it should have been closed down years ago.
Good to know how thin the veneer of democracy covers the authoritarian attitudes of the left.
I am astounded that anyone thinks that being a Tory MP adds authority to their pronouncements.
So Andrew Bridgen (see Neil Oliver, GB News today) has been “groomed by ‘anti-vaxxers’ ” (the Times muppets). And who exactly have the Times muppets been groomed by? Why do they keep silent about serious and credible claims about big pharma corruption in the last few years, and not least those relating to an expperimental MRNA coronavirus medication? Silent despite having a journalist who has written on exactly this subject in the past? And if they expect us to believe that this problem has mysteriously disappeared, why not write explaining how this supposedly happened and celebrating this? Muppets!
Bigpharma has, for over 35 years, stopped any debates over vax safety by simply ensuring that there is NO debate. Ever.
Vaccines have saved humanity from extinction you see, and anyone who dares to question this is deemed an heretic and ignored/cancelled.
So, as regards mRNA jabs, they’ve just carried on as before ie a total blackout of any criticisms no matter who from. Just continue with the banalities and the sheep swallow it.
To help, as if they really needed any, the RPTB are well onside as it suits their agenda full well.
However, what is increasingly interesting is that the MSM seem to have decided that it is time to crush the likes of Bridgen/Mulhotra in public.
That can only benefit us. The Guardian actually asked Mulhotra for a response. Hitherto unheard of.
With any luck all this and similar will be in the public domain and can only continue to benefit us.
“Men it is well said, think in herds, it is seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, one by one.” Charles MacKay.
As per Joel Smalley, aka Dead man Talking/Melatron
I’ve realised that take downs like this in the BBC and the Guardian do us no harm and can only help us.
Basically, no one who is moderately awake uses these sources for information. We know they are bought up and comically biased. All this does is prove it again and persuade us even more how corrupt and dangerous they are.
Those who go to the mainstream for information are normies.on the other side.of the argument. So every piece.like this is a shot to nothing for us. They bring attention to our side of the argument. Those who swallow the bs fact check are zombies anyway. But anyone who wonders a bit and goes to the interview to see what he said might just start wondering.
In short, the mainstream isn’t going to bring any “red pilled” people back. But the more it is talked about the bigger the chance normies get picked off and leave the dark side.
Guardian, please carry on.
Agreed. I’d say if after 3 years you’re still watching the BBC and reading the Guardian, and consequently consider yourself informed, you’re a lost cause. Good riddance!
Seconded.
The motion carries then.
Oh boy I’m afraid I can’t see the funny side to this Nick et al. It doesn’t fill me with any giggles at how rediculous it is.
Instead, I guess that means I’m black pilled, it fills me with anxiety. I think there are most normies who will take this sheite at face value snd will add it to their impression that something must be done to contain hate speech.
There’s a reason I don’t read that drivel. They’ve lost their minds!
The Guardian?. Both their readers will be utterly shocked.
The Grauniad printing the garbage that its peculiar readership are addicted to. Same old, same old.
Andrew Tate in his own words: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReL8Do6A9Hg
This also shows you who Andrew Tate is : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KX-_ThbIeYY
I see the “A Bridgen Too Far” DS article has been removed. Which is good, as it was way too mealy-mouthed, namby-pamby, milquetoast Neville Chamberlain for DS.
https://dailysceptic.org/2023/01/14/a-bridgen-too-far/
Nooo, why would it be? Probably just another technical glitch in the DS matrix. Happens regularly around here.
By Jove you’re right! What skullduggery is at play here?? Are we in the FSU or are we in the Schrodinger’s cat version? Past my bedtime here so I’m off to climb the hill to Bedfordshire…Maybe it’ll have reappeared from the ether in the morning..