In its latest “reality check” the BBC attempts to rebut seven of the “most frequently-shared” “false and misleading claims”.
It’s written by Jack Goodman, a “producer, newsreader and reporter at BBC Radio Derby”, and Flora Carmichael, a “journalist and producer with a strong track record of developing media partnerships and managing international projects and teams”.
So you can see why they would be well-qualified to set straight Oxford’s Professor Sunetra Gupta, Harvard’s Professor Martin Kulldorff, Stanford’s Professor Jay Bhattacharya and other eminent sceptics.
Let’s take each of the seven “myths” in turn.
1. “Here we are a year later – the world shut down for a 99.97% survival rate”
Verdict: This figure and similar figures being widely shared, are incorrect.
One recent estimate shows that overall, on average, about 99.3% of people who catch coronavirus survive it, according to statistics analysed by University of Cambridge.
That might not seem like a big difference, but it means that about 70 in 10,000 people are expected to die – not three in 10,000.
The death rate is much higher for older and more vulnerable people.
The “fact check” does not cite any sources for the claims it is debunking so it’s hard to know what the full context is. However, a search on Twitter brings up a number of recent tweets claiming that Covid has a 99.97% survival rate. While taken by itself this is not in line with current best estimates, a number of the tweets claim this is the survival rate once the over-65s have been vaccinated, though without citing a source. One tweet uses data from Minnesota to estimate a survival rate for the under-60s of 99.97%.
The BBC quotes 99.3% (IFR 0.7%) from the Cambridge MRC Biostatistics Unit, but it’s worth bearing mind that this is the same modelling team that produced the notorious projection of more than 4,000 deaths a day by the start of December, modelling which was already wrong on the day it was presented to the public by Witless and Unbalanced.
Professor John Ioannidis has estimated the global IFR for the WHO at 0.23% overall (survival rate 99.77%) and, for people under-70, 0.05% (survival rate 99.95%).
The BBC’s “fact-checked” IFR of 0.7% is therefore on the high side, and if the 99.97% claim refers to the under-60s (or to a scenario where all the over-60s have been vaccinated) then it would be within the ballpark of current data.
The wider point though is that the death rate has been greatly exaggerated, especially for those who are young and without underlying conditions. The median age of death with Covid is 83, and only 388 people under 60 with no underlying conditions died with Covid in English hospitals in 2020. Sweden, a country which did not implement strong restrictions (retail, hospitality and most schools remained open, there were no limits on private gatherings and no mask mandate) experienced only 1.5% excess age-adjusted mortality in 2020.
2. “Suicides increased ‘200%’ during lockdown”
Verdict: The only reliable recent data available on suicides in England – from the University of Manchester – has found that rates have not risen during lockdown.
Stay-at-home orders and the economic impact of the pandemic have undoubtedly taken a toll on people’s mental health. However, shared posts saying suicides have gone up by 200% during the pandemic are false.
It’s not clear where this statistic came from or who said it, but data on suicides is currently preliminary and incomplete. While 200% seems on the high side, mental health charities have certainly warned of a “second pandemic” of mental health problems and hospitals have said they are struggling to cope with the demand for children’s mental health services. According to a recent report in Irish News, suicide helpline volunteers in Dublin have doubled their hours to cope with surging demand during lockdown, while London Ambulance Service in October reported they were attending almost twice the daily number of suicides and attempted suicides compared to 2019 (37 vs 22).
3. “Every winter hundreds a day die from respiratory diseases…’why are we locked down?'”
Verdict: Flu, a serious respiratory virus can be deadly – but there are vaccines and treatments available. Only very recently have vaccines for COVID-19 started to be rolled out, and only now are more effective treatments available.
The long-term effects of Covid can also be much more severe for many people and it’s more infectious than flu…
The risk of serious illness and death from coronavirus is significantly higher for older age groups.
While the pandemic phase of COVID-19 has been worse than a bad flu year in many places, it notably was not in Sweden, which suffered no excess deaths in 2019-2020 (July to July) despite going light on restrictions. COVID-19 is (or was prior to the population developing greater immunity to it) in many places one of the more deadly pandemic pathogens for older people in recent decades in the sense that it has claimed the lives of more older people than most previous pathogens. However, that is partly because of the older age profile of countries compared to pandemics in the past. Furthermore, the difference should not be exaggerated. The number of those who died from Covid, including in places which did not lock down such as Sweden, Florida (in the winter) and South Dakota, is only a very small percentage of the population. For instance, in South Dakota, which has not imposed any restrictions, only 0.22% of the population died with COVID-19 in the past 12 months, meaning 99.78% of the population survived the great pandemic year.
There are now numerous options for treatment and prophylaxis for COVID-19 that have been shown to be remarkably effective. They include (often taken in some combination) vitamin D, vitamin C, zinc, hydroxychloroquine, ivermectin, favipiravir, monoclonal antibodies and budesonide. In a number of cases, such as vitamin D and zinc, strong evidence of their effectiveness emerged early on.
4. “COVID-19 death rates have been falsely inflated”
Verdict: More than 125,000 Covid deaths have been recorded in the UK so far.
There are different ways of recording these deaths, but all broadly agree on the scale of the crisis.
About 90% of the deaths where Covid appeared on the death certificate had the virus as the underlying cause attributed by a doctor, according to the ONS.
The ONS total roughly matches up with Public Health England’s count, which looks at anyone who died within 28 days after a positive test, as well as the number of excess deaths, which is measured against a five-year average.
Almost all of these have been attributed to coronavirus, according to the UK’s three national statistics agencies.
All this “fact check” really shows is that all three UK statistics agencies have used a similar definition for a “Covid death”. However, there is certainly anecdotal evidence of widespread misattribution of deaths. A group of pathologists and medics have set up an audit to attempt to get to the truth of the matter. Consultant Pathologist Dr Clare Craig, who is leading the project, explains:
Many concerns about the coding of Covid deaths have been raised including:
– The side-lining of inquests.
– The deficiencies of tests.
– The alleged pressure on medical and care home staff to enter ‘Covid’ on certificates if a death has occurred within 28 days of a positive test.
This follows the publication of an article by Bel Mooney about the death of her father. Since then many similar cases have been recorded by Covid19 Assembly in which a loved one’s cause of death was recorded as ‘Covid’ although the deceased was never exposed to an outbreak, never showed any Covid symptoms and never tested positive to the virus. The Government has not responded to calls for a public enquiry.
Overseen by pathologist, Dr Clare Craig, the Covid19 Assembly team comprises experienced health professionals, researchers, data analysts and legal experts. They are now collecting evidence from medical staff, coroners, bereaved family members, registrars, funeral directors and mortuary staff. The aim is to ascertain to what extent (if any) official figures have been skewed by legislative changes to the registration of deaths.
One piece of data that is clear is that the Covid deaths peak was higher in winter, but the excess deaths peak was much higher in spring. That by itself is an indication that something is not right in how Covid deaths have been classified and the matter needs looking into further.
5. “No-lockdown Sweden fared better than the UK”
Verdict: It’s true that Sweden has had a lower Covid death rate than the UK, but it has fared significantly worse than its neighbours, all of which had tighter initial lockdown restrictions.
Many people opposed to Covid restrictions point to the example of Sweden, a country which at the beginning of the pandemic avoided introducing a compulsory lockdown, and instead issued voluntary distancing advice.
However, Sweden is a very different country to the UK and has characteristics that may have helped it during the pandemic.
It has a lower population density, and a high proportion of people live alone. The capital, Stockholm, is also less of an international transit hub than London.
When compared to other Scandinavian countries with similar population profiles, Sweden has fared much worse and recorded a significantly higher number of deaths than its neighbours, all of which have had tougher restrictions during much of the pandemic.
This “fact check” concedes the point in the first 14 words then spends the rest trying to minimise the importance of that with some version of the ‘neighbour argument‘. The truth is Sweden came out pretty average for a European country, and it is Norway and Finland (not so much Denmark anymore) which are outliers in terms of Covid cases and mortality, being unusually low.
Really, though, the neighbour argument misses the point. Lockdowns are sold to the public on the basis that without them you will see “hundreds of thousands of deaths”. That’s what all the models threaten and what seems to persuade people that There Is No Alternative. If, then, a country like Sweden (or a state like Florida or South Dakota) doesn’t lock down and doesn’t experience the threatened catastrophe then that invalidates the models and shows the threat is a false alarm. The inability or refusal of lockdowners to accept this basic point of empirical science is both mind-boggling and maddening.
6. “There was no pressure on the NHS all winter”
Verdict: Hospitals were very busy, particularly over the winter months, but the NHS has been able to cope, largely because of restructuring and lockdown restrictions.
The strain on critical-care beds has been acute, along with the specialist staffing required.
The number of adults in critical care was far higher than previous winters. In the last week of January 2021, some 2,000 more critical care beds a day were occupied in England compared with the previous year.
It seems clear that it was a particularly busy winter in intensive care this year, though it’s important to acknowledge that the NHS did cope (there was always spare capacity in the expanded provision), and the expensive Nightingale hospitals were barely used. A lot of additional pressure came from high staff absences due to constant PCR testing and the requirement for contacts to isolate. The claim that the health service coped because of “lockdown restrictions” is pure assertion as the hospital systems in Sweden, Florida and South Dakota also coped this winter and those places did not lock down.
7. “With PCR, if you do it well you can find almost anything in anybody”
The PCR (polymerase chain reaction) test is considered the most reliable way to detect coronavirus.
The process was invented in the 1990s, long before Covid appeared, by Californian scientist Kary Mullis. At a public event, he once said: “With PCR, if you do it well you can find almost anything in anybody.”
This has since been used to discredit PCR testing for Covid, but these criticisms are unfounded.
Mr Mullis was referring to the high level of sensitivity of his test.
PCR testing can pick up a tiny amount of virus, so it is possible for someone to get a positive result if they go for a test days or weeks after an infection and are not actually infectious any more.
However, this is unlikely to have a significant effect on the number of cases, and people tend to have a test when they have symptoms.
The “fact check” does not provide any sources for its claims that cold positives are “unlikely to have a significant effect on the number of cases” and that “people tend to have a test when they have symptoms”. In fact, about 12% of those who have symptoms and get tested are testing positive at the moment (see graph below), whereas overall positivity for Covid tests is around 2%. That suggests that the large majority of tests (around 83%) are being done on asymptomatic people.
Once again, the BBC has failed to recognise that when prevalence is low (as it is now) almost all positives are false positives as the true positives make up a smaller and smaller proportion of the total.
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Have you raised an official complaint?
I have in the past made several complaints to the BBC about things like factual inaccuracies, religious bias and inappropriate content for toddlers.
In every instance, my complaint has been brushed aside with platitudes (the inappropriate content was “vital” for toddlers) or more lies.
There is no point complaining to the BBC about anything.
There is no way they can be penalised or punished for spreading lies or working to an agenda (in direct contravention of their charter).
They are, to all intents and purposes, untouchable.
Which is why I don’t go near them
The only point is really to remind them that someone is watching them. The same as writing to your MP. It may or may not have an impact, but if you don’t write then they’ll assume no-one is watching and there is zero chance of anyone’s conscience being pricked. If enough people complain/write, more notice may be taken.
Anyone who relies on the BBC for “facts” has clearly had some kind of lobotomy.
Your point about Sweden is so often missed in pointless bickering around minutea: We were promised an apocalyptic disaster if we didn’t lockdown hard and fast. This was the justification for the extreme measures and utter loss of liberty. Even if, say, Sweden had done twice as bad as us then they would only have seen 0.4% of their population die – is that enough to destroy liberty? It’s on a par, frankly, with prior epidemics which had seen very light touch public health measures, and well within our pandemic preparedness plan which allowed up to 375000 UK deaths (0.55% of population). So even if they had been twice as badly affected they would have been justified under pre-pandemic planning to have stuck to their guns.
But they didn’t – they actually saw fewer deaths than us.
Then to quibble over them being lower density (debatable, and not correlated to COVID deaths anywhere) and more people living alone (something like 22% compared to 17%) is sophistry, and in any case all these two things do is reduce contacts slightly – and similar effect could very likely have been arrived at in UK under much lighter lockdown conditions, such as public health information, maybe max gatherings reduced – life would have been really quite tolerable though.
I think more desperation than sophistry
The UK’s pandemic plan estimated up to 750,000 deaths, an order of magnitude more than the alleged figure and Ferguson GIGO computer model
“pointless bickering around minutiae”
A trap that we can easily fall into (see my last post).
It’s the secure big data picture that is our strength, and sticking to basics when it comes to scientific justification : the refutation of a null hypothesis against credible probability levels. (Only the fascist insane can argue that lock-ups are justifiable without a massive weight of evidence for benefit).
Similarly on vaccines. Don’t argue about decimal points regarding risk (we know that, so far, the absolute risk reduction seems vanishingly small) – just point out the two key issues:
Like being told when coming from outside “soaking wet” and saying “it’s raining” that you are mistaken and have “got it wrong” because you are not educated to university degree level
Patronising or what?
Best to turn off MSM, including the taxpayer funded bbc.
BBC: The long-term effects of Covid can also be much more severe for many people and it’s more infectious than flu…
Human being after 5 minutes on Google: ‘Human rhinoviruses (HRV) are RNA virus from the Picornaviridae family……. Currently, more than 100 distinct serotypes have been identified. Every year, these viruses cause both upper and lower respiratory tract infections in young children and adults.
Despite the clinical importance of HRV infection, the clinical characteristics and mortality risk factors have not been well described.’
‘Rhinovirus infection in the adults was associated with significantly higher mortality and longer hospitalization when compared with influenza virus infection. Institutionalized older adults were particularly at risk.’
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5343795/
Holmes: Does that mean that the common cold is more deadly for the elderly and infirm than influenza? And that ‘covid 19’ is now another endemic common cold coronavirus?
Dr Watson: No shit……..
Last year the public seemed to forget the old harsh, but true saying ” even a cold will finish them off”
The BBC has never been reliable when it comes to science reporting, especially medical science. I can still remember when any serious infection was invariably attributed to a ‘virus’ including TB, anthrax and leprosy!
the newspapers are terrible too. even New Scientist seems to have arts grads as science reporters
In this harsh commercial world, such moves are sadly inevitable. Magazines feel they need to appeal to the widest possible readership, so they employ arts graduates to make their dumbed down content “more accessible”.
any other steves wish to comment?
Don’t get diverted into alternative mickey-mouse arguments about ‘science vs arts graduates’.
Instead, have a look at those highly qualified and honoured ‘scientists’ who populate that cesspit of bad science – SAGE.
A close member of my family (admittedly more sceptical than most of the population) constantly argues with me about the actual data and its implications : he has a university fellowship in one of the hardest of hard sciences.
For myself – I straddle the fence with qualifications tagged both ‘..A’ and ‘..Sc.’ There is much commonality in the relevant forms of logical analysis employed – or not, as is the case for poor practioners on both sides of the fence, be they in public health or journalism.
Its true that you get bad scientists and good people from the humanities. It’s more about credulity and the ability to absorb data and organise it. I’ve known some terrible ‘science’ academics. But academics are a pretty poor bunch anyway. They know a lot about their subject area and like to expound outside it.
I don’t know the full make up of SAGE but they don’t really stand out as scientists to me. Behaviouralists, psychologists, some public health ‘5 a day’ poster designers, a couple of medics. Many people in epidemiology are code monkeys with no deep understanding (I know a few) – its one of those areas where all you need to have is a computer and you can be a computational epidemiologist. Ferguson was a Physicist once but he’s just a coding clown now. The good epidemiologists will be medics turned epidemiologists – Heneghan, Jefferson etc
I saw a good youtube early in the pandemic – by a historian of pandemics. That was great because it put it into its historical context (ie nothing to worry about)
My company employs a medic turned epidemiologist and unfortunately he’s as idiotic as SAGE.
Either that, or he’s towing the line to keep his job & pension intact.
“But academics are a pretty poor bunch anyway”
Stay away from generalisations, Steve – they are dangerous and almost always inaccurate. You end up with guff such as ‘The working class are all heroes” and “The middle class are all comfortable with lockdowns” – i.e what is known in technical rhetorical terms as ‘Shite’.
The point I’m making is that ‘scientists’ and ‘academics’ – like any other broad grouping vary as much as the population as a whole.
Some general statements do have broad validity – such as highlighting the general decline of journalism, or noting the innumeracy of broad swathes of the population – particularly when it comes to risk assessment.
Similarly, one can regret the poor grasp of good scientific method within the academic-scientific community, and the related distortions of data.
But specifics where possible. And yes – the imbalances of SAGE in terms of expertise are well-known – but have little to do with inherent flaws in the disciplines per se. Ferguson, and other ‘code monkeys’, for instance are just driven too much by confirmation bias and self interest – this is the sense in which they neglect ‘good’ science as much as any ignorant arts graduate.
A lot of it comes down to the willingness to go outside groupthink – courage. And integrity in not exploiting your position for dishonest gain. Scientists, doctors, public health experts etc are as likely to be flawed human beings as the rest of us.
I work with real epidemiologists – including those involved in the investigation of the effects of exposure to lead on the cognitive development of children. They unanimously regard Ferguson as alarmist. That is evidenced by his consistent track record since the 2001 F&M fiasco.
I think the 99.97% claim at the start, is quite revealing. It’s more proof, if needed, that Twitter and social media have become the go to source for most news coverage. The dangers of reliance on these tech giants for news and decision making, was warned of long before C19 was a droplet on a dead bat.
with the 99.97% claim – it just depends how you cut it.
whole population? normal ‘man in the street’ etc
the person at the rally holding the banner is probably correct if applied to themselves or their family
it wouldn’t apply to a resident of a care home
THIS is what you do best , refute ,refute,refute.
Coupled with Toby Young articulate disappointment in those Press Conferences et al.
Keep up the good work
If “The death rate is much higher for older and more vulnerable people.” then by definition the death rate for everybody else must be much lower
The longer you live the sooner you die…
Thanks for this. We should all know raise an official complaint to the BBC using this information. Also hopefully one of the mainstream press will pick up on ot. The DM seems to be starting to smell the coffee, or the Spectator.
Maybe JHB would raise it on her show?
I think your last sentence is more to the point – until other MSM outlets start picking up on this sort of thing, not much will happen. Letters of complaint on the issue are just the proverbial water off a duck’s back.
IFR is hugely dependant on who is being infected.
It’s been suggested that lockdowns increase the probability of an older vulnerable person becoming infected relative to a much younger, less vulnerable individual. There is some logic to this.
Even Fergusons modelling shows lockdown kills more from covid. It slows down the herd immunity from the unaffacted part of society
https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m3588
So was it really all about greed, hyping up the promotion period of the vaccine before the big sell?
Greed may have played a part but I think conceit and fear were major drivers. Realising they had made a huge cock up by going against the researched and agreed Pandemic plan Boris and his Clowns had a choice. Admit it and face the consequences, which at the time would have been manageable, (Hancock under a bus), or continue the deadly charade. Fear of possible political fallout coupled with the conceit of believing they could get away with it drove them into where we are now. BS upon BS until the ‘calvary’ of the vaccine.
Remember Watergate? The incident itself was minor and could have easily been managed. It was the cover up that toppled a president.
Good point.
For Boris and co it is as eastender sez. Though ambition can be a form of greed.
But for Whitty, Ferguson, Vallance, Fauci etc yes. That is the clearest explanation for their ruthless behaviour. And it is intensifying. And China is milking the advantage economic collapse is giving them.
Notice BBC does not “correct” anything that goes in favour of lockdown/vaccine? Where’s the supposed impartiality?
Sadly, that ‘impartiality’ went out of the window a while ago.
Of course, it was never absolute, by a long chalk. No outlet does absolute ‘impartiality’, and the state broadcaster is always going to be aware of the state’s/establishment’s interests.
But there has been a notable – and noticeable – shift towards sheer unbalanced propaganda in the BBC’s News and Current Affairs where there was once a manageable (to the audience) bias.
First of all the death rate isn’t a fixed value. It varies according to several variables. My guess it is between 0,5% and 1 – this is huge for a non seasonal virus for which no one has previous immunity. Unchecked it surely collapses the hospitals with a hospitalisation rate much higher than that and an R higher than 2
The fact that “only” 388 people died bellow 60 years old with no underlying conditions, says very little. First of all many people of all ages have underlying conditions. Secondly are we suggesting their lives don’t matter? Lastly this says nothing about hospitalisation rates in this age group
Evidently countries are not all the same due to a number of reasons. Is hard to explain India’s numbers for example. On the other hand countries with higher healthcare quality seem more affected.
Sweden is number one in the world with the highest percentage of one person households. It is in the household where a large chunk of infections occur.
Furthermore there’s an oddity in Sweden’s second wave – lots of cases and almost no deaths. This pattern is not observed anywhere else, thus probably unrepeatable.
With all that said, I’m not cheerfully welcoming lockdowns, I think they are the atom bomb and should only be used as a last resort.
I prefer the South Korean approach. Test cases and contacts and mandatory isolation of positives. Effective and aggressive surveillance. This has the benefit of controlling the epidemic and minimising the economic impact.
On one hand we cannot be in lockdown for a long time, is unsustainable. This lockdown lasted for too long already. On the other hand we cannot afford to be in Brazil situation which became isolated from the rest of the world with a caotic response to the pandemic, no really enforced nationwide lockdown and chaos in hospitals and a huge death toll.
Even if we do not lockdown and the situation spirals out of control the rest of the world will lock us out which will have the same negative economic impact.
I prefer the approach of ignoring it – or making your own risk assessments as you see fit. Nationwide lockdown should never be on the cards.
“Secondly are we suggesting their lives don’t matter?”
No – quite the reverse if you have a sane view of the term ‘life’.
In outcome, this episode is nothing particularly exceptional. Not Ebola. How have we ever coped with something as bad or worse every 3 to 5 years???
You really don’t want the South Korean approach, trust me. You can’t buy that pizza by the slice, you get the whole thing, most of which you would find unpalatable.
I still can’t believe the BBC put this piece out, it was so laughably bad. Especially the part about Sweden; beginning your fact check with “it’s true” isn’t exactly a stunning rebuttal.
BBC? Have you seen that Eastenders clip doing the rounds? https://youtu.be/CiKntfB4kFY
Par for the course for the BBC.
If they told me the sky was blue, I’d look up to check
The problem is that the BBC is believed by many people, even tho’ it has become the propaganda arm of government as never before (i.e. that always-present role has been massively intensified). Almost everything it touches regarding Covid is misinformation.
Piddling around with ‘Covid’ statistics is a black hole, as can be seen by the misleading ‘refutations’. Forget them; as John Lee has consistently pointed out (at least until the Spectator went native), the revised death registration process meant that ‘Covid deaths’ were nonsense from the start.
So – stick with the ‘all-cause’ mortality figures as refutation of the ‘disaster’ scenario. The only ways the Covidiots can wriggle out of that data of ‘no (or small) signal’ is by bent modelling adjustments or bare-faced lying.
The only way to show your displeasure to the BBC is to cancel your TV license. I really do like the term ‘old media’ when referring to them. I have great hope for the up and coming GB News. Here’s hoping I’m not disappointed.
Some years ago I had need to complain to my local authority about themselves. Realising that any such complaint would be pointless I encouraged them along a route that would end with them taking me to Court.
We duly ended up in Court (multiple times due to their incompetence) where I won which was in itself satisfying especially after the magistrate expressed his dim view about the way the local authority had handled it’s own case by offering me costs.
The info around suicides used by the BBC was taken from this blog from the BMJ;
https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2021/03/10/louis-appleby-what-has-been-the-effect-of-covid-19-on-suicide-rates/
But I think I would trust these guys;
https://twitter.com/Ldn_Ambulance/status/1321566876732952581?s=20
Thank God someone has the patience to Fisk – is that still a phrase? – the BBC. Only thing I would say is that’s its shame there aren’t more references generally in this and across lockdown sceptic pieces generally to the places which technically had lockdowns, but which were either poorly enforced/non existent or less severe than in say the UK. As it is this piece and some others seem a little too reliant on a few examples like Florida – possible to live outdoors a lot and have windows open, through winter – and South Dakota, where nobody lives. For the latter I find it impossible to believe that the scale of the unit under analysis does not matter. Such that it probably wouldn’t have fared any different if it had or hadn’t locked down, but don’t think this can be extrapolated to larger population units.
Thank you for this. Debunking the ‘debunkers’ is so necessary in this intellectually-challenged shit show.
But why oh why can’t 99% of people see the guff for what it is? How have people got through life being so thick?!
Just been blanked by Faecebook for 30 days for posting a quote from Mein Kampf about the ‘Big Lie’. I believe it’s still possible to buy Mein Kampf so the quote is not illegal. I referenced the source so it’s not plagiarism.
When I complained I received a message that because of the Pandemic (which they perpetuate) they may not be able to address my complaint.
What a world awaits us!
I hope you used an unimpeachable source for the quote:
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/joseph-goebbels-on-the-quot-big-lie-quot
P134 of Mein Kampf. Goebels was a disciple. Mein Kampf is a very very dangerous book. It leads to a society where by blaming a virus (oops, the Jews) for all ills it is possible to not just coerce society but actually make them willing participants in their own slavery.
THE ‘PCR is the gold standard’ is total BS. In early 2020, the Chinese authorities publicly released their protocols for diagnosis, treatment, triage, etc. Their protocol for confirming a diagnosis of SAR-CoV-19 in symptomatic, hospitalized patients was ‘positive results from two PCR tests at two weeks interval and a chest x-ray’. Clearly, a single PCR test on asymptomatic non-hospitalized individuals has no merit whatsoever, unless the inevitable false positives produced was an intended outcome.