Mater’s Musings #18: More Perspective

2020

Source: COVID-19 Australia: Epidemiology Report 32

2017

Let’s put that side by side to make it as clear as we can (noting the slight variation of the 0-44 age bracket):

Yes, yes, I know – ‘But…but…but the lockdowns prevented greater deaths!’.

How do we know it wouldn’t have just dwindled away like every other one before it, just like the 2017 influenza did?

Either way, the figures show that the hysteria over the number of ACTUAL deaths was COMPLETELY at odds with the relatively nonchalant response to far greater deaths, in the recent past. Why is that? Were we primed for it? If so, by whom?

China didn’t just export a virus, it exported a narrative to go with it…and we devoured it like all the other cheap, nasty shit they send us.

Sep 7, 2021 7:20 AM

Mater

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48 responses to “Mater’s Musings #18: More Perspective”

rosie

Sep 7, 2021 7:49 AM

China plays games
rosie

Sep 7, 2021 7:50 AM

Sorry I get out of the mobile version and now it takes me straight to comment section of top article
cuckoo

Sep 7, 2021 7:57 AM

Is the previous flu death count as over-reported as the current ‘with covid’ toll? Inquiring minds want to know. I’ve thought for some time that when idiot state governments finally try to get out of the holes they’ve dug, one sign will be a change in the way ‘cases’ and ‘deaths’ are counted, and from what I see yesterday, NSW is starting to move this way.

Premiers. Can you picture any of these idiots in charge of even a medium-sized corporation?

4
Wally Dalí

Sep 7, 2021 8:07 AM

China didn’t just export a virus, it exported a narrative to go with it…and we devoured it like all the other cheap, nasty shit they send us.
Liberty Quote please, Dover.

8
Mater

Sep 7, 2021 8:21 AM

Is the previous flu death count as over-reported as the current ‘with covid’ toll? Inquiring minds want to know.

I’d say the 2017 figures are undercooked, if anything.

From the 2017 report:

“The number of influenza-associated deaths reported to the NNDSS does not represent the true mortality associated with this disease. The number of deaths is reliant on the follow up of cases to determine the outcome of their infection. The follow up of cases is not a requirement of notification, and are only inclusive of laboratory-confirmed cases of influenza.”

It makes the current situation even more intolerable, because they’ve done their damnedest to gather up numbers for Covid.

8
duncanm

Sep 7, 2021 8:26 AM

Maybe the latest report would be more useful.

Always found here: https://www1.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/Content/novel_coronavirus_2019_ncov_weekly_epidemiology_reports_australia_2020.htm

1
Mater

Sep 7, 2021 8:31 AM

Maybe the latest report would be more useful.

I picked the 3 Jan report because it represents a single, full flu season – for a fair comparison.
I’m trying to be fair to the Corona Virus.

1
duncanm

Sep 7, 2021 8:32 AM

Note also the tables on comorbidities: 55% of ICU patients had one or more comorbidity.
WolfmanOz

Sep 7, 2021 8:33 AM

Another virus was apparently spread at the same time as COVID was first noticed back in early 2020. Called “Lockdown virus” (LV). Forms of it were also noticed in China back in early 2020 and then spread quickly to most western countries. Not airborne spread, it apparently used communication channels like the internet. So, “lockdown virus” actually does move at the speed of light. This virus causes widespread dystopia and depression in the community with extremely high R? and CFR stats. It disproportionately affects the young and those independently minded people who own their own small business. In the first time in biological history those who initially spread LV ( the super spreaders) are generally the most immune to its insidious effects. Most notably politicians and public servants. Infectious disease experts are baffled because there is no known cure for it. Vaccinations wont help.

4
duncanm

Sep 7, 2021 8:35 AM

Matersays:
September 7, 2021 at 8:31 am
I picked the 3 Jan report because it represents a single, full flu season – for a fair comparison.
I’m trying to be fair to the Corona Virus.

fairy muff.

This years data (Jan-Aug) I suspect makes the argument even stronger – now that Delta has taken hold (and maybe the medical establishment has learnt a bit more about treatment from OS?).

CFR is certainly lower.

2
rosie

Sep 7, 2021 8:41 AM

Is this really an apples with apples comparison?
The 2017 flu epidemic was Australia wide with the biggest single death toll, 7 in a Wangaratta nursing home.
The 2020 covid death toll was almost exclusively Sydney Melbourne and the vast majority of deaths linked to a comparatively small number of nursing homes
St Basil’s topped the death chart with 45 deaths from 188 cases.
The table is available in a pdf at the federal government web site.

1
Tom

Sep 7, 2021 8:43 AM

The statistics are stunning: we’ve swapped our annual winter flu season for a far less lethal Kung Flu winter.

And, like the UK, Australia has a socialist health care system which effectively employs all of our doctors as even private practices rely on the government for most of their revenue.

With very little prompting, the Australian medical establishment – represented by state chief health officers – has become the biggest supporter of state governments’ mad Year Zero campaign to abolish the annual flu season and remake the human race.

And the news media is in its element as government’s chief enforcer of the new Year Zero rules, backing up state police.

The only reason 1984 was futuristic when George Orwell wrote it in the 1940s is that government was not yet big enough to make the nightmare real. Now it is.

11
Angus Black

Sep 7, 2021 8:46 AM

That’s a very nice summary – amazing what the data tell us, isn’t it?

I’m sure you’re right about the influenza death rate being undercooked and,of course, the COVID death rate is overcooked. It’s also worth looking at the historically amazing drop, during 2020+, in deaths from three headline categories: influenza/pneumonia, upper & lower respiratory infection…you’d almost think a COVID pandemic provided immunity!

Finally, the argument will be made that closing the international borders made all the difference (and clearly it did make a difference)…but if you do the same analysis for the UK and the US, the outcomes are surprisingly similar.

And you wonder why neither government nor the repressive establishment encourage the great unwashed to ge5 an education in statistical analysis.

Without that, you’re fully prepared for brainwashing!

6
Old School Conservative

Sep 7, 2021 9:52 AM

For additional perspective, look at our PM’s recent flouting of national Cabinet solidarity:

The Prime Minister travelled to Sydney on Sunday to see his family after he received an exemption from the ACT’s chief health officer, before returning to Parliament House yesterday.

One rule for the Davos crowd, another rule for 99.97% of the population.

7
Mater

Sep 7, 2021 9:54 AM

“The Immunisation Coalition chairman, Prof Robert Booy, said there has been a sustained and rising summer and autumn surge that is continuing to increase.

While the latest ABS statistics showed 1,200 people died due to influenza in 2017, Booy said modelling showed the actual number of deaths on average each season was about 3,000 to 4,000.”

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/may/07/flu-experts-predict-4000-australians-will-die-from-influenza-this-year
Zipster

Sep 7, 2021 10:12 AM

You will own nothing and you WILL be happy!

3
Ellen of Tasmania

Sep 7, 2021 10:18 AM

I don’t have a tellie but I have been wondering if any questions or discussions are being had in the MSM about early or on-going treatments for ‘rona. Does anyone ask if the procedures for hospital admitted patients has changed over the months? (I believe it has in other countries.) Also, when someone tests positive, what meds/treatments are they given to take at home?

I do listen to the radio, sometimes, but I’ve heard nothing about these issues. Can anyone help, please?

6
rosie

Sep 7, 2021 10:25 AM

nsw health guide on treatment for in hospital patients
rosie

Sep 7, 2021 10:26 AM

managing mild covid at home
Mater

Sep 7, 2021 10:28 AM

St Basil’s topped the death chart with 45 deaths from 188 cases.

And in a previous post, you’d strenuously highlighted how they were callously left to died in the nursing homes, and not admitted to ICU.

My reading of 2017 indicates that this didn’t occur back then.

Do you think this might be a factor in the inflated numbers within Victorian institutions around August 2020?

4
Mater

Sep 7, 2021 10:33 AM

NSW figures only:

“Influenza outbreaks in institutions
In December 2017, there were three influenza A outbreaks reported this month, all in residential aged care facilities. Overall in 2017 there was a significant increase in the number of influenza outbreaks in institutions reported (Table 3). Of the total of 591 outbreaks reported, 424 (72%) were due to influenza A, 114 (19%) were due to influenza B, both A and B strains were identified in 52 (9%) and for one outbreak the strain is not known. A total of 7,624 residents were reported to have had ILI symptoms and 784 were hospitalised. There were also 304 deaths in residents linked to these outbreaks, all of whom were noted to have other significant co-morbidities.”

And that’s with proper health care.

https://www.health.nsw.gov.au/Infectious/Influenza/Publications/2017/december-flu-report.pdf

1
rosie

Sep 7, 2021 10:37 AM

I strenuously said ambulances did not pick up patients from st Basil’s to attend the royal Melbourne and referred people to the shari markson article.
I also know that eventually patients were transferred eventually to hospitals like Bellbird private and Knox.

I don’t know why you feel the need to be so aggressive towards me mater.

Australia, by any measure has not had a full outbreak of covid and I am not convinced the comparison between the flu epidemic of 2017, which was the worst for a while because the flu vaccine was particularly ineffective that year and covid in 2020 in Australia serves any useful purpose

uk flu deaths
Suelyn

Sep 7, 2021 10:41 AM

rosie,
While I’m sure that the death toll would have been somewhat higher had Covid been treated the same as Influenza, you also have to allow for the fact that a flu vaccine was in fairly widespread use, particularly among the older population. In the end, there probably isn’t a significant difference in the fatality rate.

Certainly, with over a full years worth of data from around the world to look at, there is nothing to justify the ongoing fanaticism by world “leaders”. Particularly when you recognise all the significant harms that the various lockdowns and mandates (and fear mongering) have been doing to the population.

6
Dianeh

Sep 7, 2021 10:43 AM

Managing Covid at home means Panadol and rest. No other treatments, not even cortisone or antivirals, let alone Ivermectin or HCQ. All possible treatments are specifically listed as not recommended in the guidelines.

Thanks Rosie for posting that. I must admit I suspected it might have been the case but I am disgusted by it.

7
Mater

Sep 7, 2021 10:47 AM

Australia, by any measure has not had a full outbreak of covid and I am not convinced the comparison between the flu epidemic of 2017, which was the worst for a while because the flu vaccine was particularly ineffective that year and covid in 2020 in Australia serves any useful purpose

Because 1200 people died from it, and no one really seemed to care.
Yet, 900 people died of Covid, and the country (as we knew it) has ceased to exist.

It really is that simple.

As for ‘aggressive’, that’s your inference, though I do admit that your constant linking of articles (without any decent commentary) is wearing a bit thin, as is your apparent need to try to counter my posts with increasingly incredulous points.

I strenuously said ambulances did not pick up patients from st Basil’s to attend the royal Melbourne and referred people to the shari markson article.

You actually said this:

“Because the frail aged dying of covid in places like St Basil’s were never even admitted to hospital?”

6
MatrixTransform

Sep 7, 2021 10:55 AM

Mrs Sheen at it again ?

3
Suelyn

Sep 7, 2021 11:07 AM

rosie,
Further your comment about the vaccine being less effective that year (saw that after my previous post), that rather puts an even stronger condemnation on the entire push to mandate the Covid vax, to the point of excluding completely non-vaxxies from general life, would you not say? If they can’t get it right for a tried and tested vaccine for variants of a well established virus, what insanity is it that they think the current (rushed) vaccine for Covid will do any better when the virus is still relatively unknown and more likely to be mutating in unknown directions.

And that isn’t considering that some percentage of the population would have had some immunity/resistance from infections in previous years. Yes, immunity reduces over time, but that isn’t the same as completely lost.

5
Arky

Sep 7, 2021 11:45 AM

Rosie’s points occurred to me too.
The two data sets are collected under completely different conditions and are, I think, posted together not intended as a direct comparison, as in Mater isn’t saying “This is how flu spreads, this is how covid spreads”. Tell me if I’m wrong there.
..

“I don’t know why you feel the need to be so aggressive towards me mater.”

Rosie, that isn’t aggression.

3
rickw

Sep 7, 2021 11:49 AM

How do we know it wouldn’t have just dwindled away like every other one before it, just like the 2017 influenza did?

Exactly, the greatest preventative of COVID and Influenza is hot weather, NOT these highly destructive lockdowns.

4
Arky

Sep 7, 2021 11:50 AM

The main point I see is this: influenza type illnesses take the weak and the old.
The distribution of deaths by age in the above comparison tells us that in this way, covid is not different to influenza. It takes the old and those already weakened by other factors.
This is the information that the government and media has obscured because it is contrary to their political aim of getting as many people vaccinated as possible.

5
Arky

Sep 7, 2021 11:54 AM

You may agree or disagree with the government’s aim of vaccinating as widely as possible.
But you should definitely disagree with their tactic of obscuring and confusing the information that citizens and their doctors require in order to make good personal health decisions rather than decisions based on notions such as “protecting the community”.

10
Mater

Sep 7, 2021 11:54 AM

Tell me if I’m wrong there.

You’re not wrong.
My post was clearly to put some perspective around the deaths associated with similar recent events, and draw attention to the differences in the respective responses.

4
Brian

Sep 7, 2021 12:01 PM

Thanks Rosie
Treatment guidelines for at home care = absolutely no medicines recommended at all.
Just think positive thoughts and isolate.
The result of 18 months of medical investigation…sigh

5
Boambee John

Sep 7, 2021 12:05 PM

Zipstersays:
September 7, 2021 at 10:12 am
You will own nothing and you WILL be happy!

I think that you should use the imperative SHALL, rather than WILL.

3
cuckoo

Sep 7, 2021 12:37 PM

I think that you should use the imperative SHALL, rather than WILL.

No, no, you’re both wrong. It should be: You VILL be happy!

1
Angus Black

Sep 7, 2021 12:44 PM

the imperative SHALL, rather than WILL.

I did not think there’s general agreement that “to be” conjugates that way. I remember being taught “l/we shall” but “you/he/she/it/they will”

I’m reasonably confident that the popularisation of the use of shall as a more dictatorial version of will in the imperative can be traced back to American software manuals.

I find it every bit as offensive as the replacement of the perfectly satisfactory “zed” by the rather bumptious “zee”.

Oh, how curmudgeonly I’ve become.

2
Miss Anthropist

Sep 7, 2021 1:06 PM

Tis as I said and was howled down.
“A prophet is not without honour except in his native place and in his own house”.

3
Boambee John

Sep 7, 2021 1:37 PM

Angus Black

I’m reasonably confident that the popularisation of the use of shall as a more dictatorial version of will in the imperative can be traced back to American software manuals.

Two quick responses:

The old (English) joke about the pedantic would-be suicide, “I will jump and you shall not stop me”, and the US Constitution, which includes more than once “Congress shall make no law …”

1
Roger

Sep 7, 2021 3:18 PM

China didn’t just export a virus, it exported a narrative to go with it…

And with the exception of Sweden, Western epidemiologsts bought it.

It’s time to consider the methodology of epidemiology, which treats the public as a patient rather than as an aggregate of indviduals (and their families) who have certain rights, both natural rights and rights at law.

It has become quite clear that this collectivist approach of most epidemiologists is at odds with traditional Western values. Setting aside the science, about which we have been given numerous reasons to be doubtful (hello, Dr. Neil Ferguson!), what are the philsoophical assumpotions that lie behind it?

4
Perfidious Albino

Sep 7, 2021 3:18 PM

Wait, I thought this was a deadly ‘beast’ of a pandemic?

People who test positive for COVID-19 are most likely to only experience mild symptoms and recover without requiring special treatment or hospitalisation.

RACGP

1
Mater

Sep 7, 2021 3:30 PM

It’s time to consider the methodology of epidemiology, which treats the public as a patient rather than as an aggregate of indviduals (and their families) who have certain rights, both natural rights and rights at law.

Ohhhhh, Roger.
There is much to be done when this is over.

It’s been like using a hose which has laid stagnant on the front lawn for five years. Like we’ve seen of our ‘Democracy’, only when you force a little pressure through it, do you recognise how badly it’s degraded, and how unfit for purpose it has become.

4
Roger

Sep 7, 2021 4:57 PM

Ohhhhh, Roger.
There is much to be done when this is over.

Yes…I’ve got a list.
Roger

Sep 7, 2021 5:17 PM

Mater,

Our democracy has certainly degraded in recent times, but I would also add that that may be because the foundation was never properly laid in the first instance. We may be a young nation, historically speaking, but we have never truly been a free people. And we are less so now than ever. That may be the catalyst for change on that front.
Winston Smith

Sep 7, 2021 5:19 PM

Tom:

The only reason 1984 was futuristic when George Orwell wrote it in the 1940s is that government was not yet big enough to make the nightmare real. Now it is.

Ain’t it the troof.
The first priority isn’t to change the government – it is to reduce the government.
Until an axe is taken to the bureaucracy, it will only become more voracious and capable.

2
Mater

Sep 7, 2021 5:34 PM

Our democracy has certainly degraded in recent times, but I would also add that that may be because the foundation was never properly laid in the first instance.

I agree, but I’ve also got another theory, too.
I think our politicians have been lazy, especially oppositions. They’ve been so tied up with polling, social media and tripping around the country, that they’ve neglected to read, analyse and understand the legislation that has been passed. Not nearly enough critical analysis or intellectual horsepower devoted to it.

I’ll use the Victorian Public Health and Well-being Act 2008 as an example. It removed safeguards from the old act. It didn’t replace them with an equivalent. It is a dangerous piece of legislation, with an incredible scope of powers, but it went through with little to no fanfare (to be fair, though, who could have thought it would be used so extensively, and with such cruelty).

I think our society has been spoilt to the point that politicians simply don’t or can’t extrapolate what some of these “laws” can do, when applied with malice.

Perhaps this was needed to refocus our elected representatives (and those yet to come), but they better pull up their fucking socks, because I’m sure this is not the only time bomb that’s slipped through to the keeper and is currently sitting on our books.
Roger

Sep 7, 2021 6:05 PM

I’ll use the Victorian Public Health and Well-being Act 2008 as an example. It removed safeguards from the old act. It didn’t replace them with an equivalent. It is a dangerous piece of legislation, with an incredible scope of powers, but it went through with little to no fanfare (to be fair, though, who could have thought it would be used so extensively, and with such cruelty).

Historically, though, it’s the job of parliamentarians to imagine how legislation can be misused and amend it accordingly so it can’t be so used. One would have to conclude that either they haven’t been paying attention, as you suggest, or they support such draconian measures.

And then there is the bigger problem of the lack of moral principle among our political class. Case in point: the Liberal Party, which bleated about the presumption of innocence in the case of Christian Porter, was found guilty of not applying that very principle to citizens – many of them among our most vulnerable – in receipt of Centrelink payments in the Robodebt affair. In fact, they were told it was unlawful, but went on ahead with it anyway. I’ve no problem with governments retrieving fradulently obtained public monies and pursuing the culprits in the courts, but the principle of innocent until proven guilty applies. This was an egregious example of government bullying citizens. The treatment of Bettina Arndt by Liberals and Nationals parliament is another example (I expected no better from Labor). I believe – I hope not naively -that most Australians are decent people who still believe in the “fair go.” It’s a standard we need to hold our politicians accountable to in the future.

1
Boambee John

Sep 7, 2021 6:18 PM

Mater

I think our politicians have been lazy, especially oppositions. They’ve been so tied up with polling, social media and tripping around the country, that they’ve neglected to read, analyse and understand the legislation that has been passed. Not nearly enough critical analysis or intellectual horsepower devoted to it.

Those in government are no better.

In an earlier life, I had the task of drafting a response to a complaint from an opposition member about the impact of a piece of legislation on some of his constituents. My boss deleted the bit where I pointed out that the member concerned had been a member of the government which passed the legislation.

Indeed, though I didn’t bother to check the dates (I knew my boss would delete that bit anyway), I suspect that the good member was actually a junior minister at the time the legislation was presented “debated” and passed. I doubt that he, or any of his colleagues, actually read the Bill, much less thought about its implications.

1
Mater

Sep 7, 2021 6:18 PM

So in summary:

Our current problems stem from a poorly designed system, packed to the gunnels with lazy, shortsighted, popularity focused and unprincipled (possibly evil) politicians.

Yep! We’ve sure got some work to do.

1

New Catallaxy

Mater’s Musings #18: More Perspective

2020

2017

48 responses to “Mater’s Musings #18: More Perspective”

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