As I mentioned in a recent blog, the numbers presented nationally and internationally, are virtually useless. The amount of people diagnosed with CV 19 is likely to be a fraction of the likely infection rate, and what size fraction depends on which country you look at. South Korea has invested in aggressive testing and have a better idea of the demographics affected by the disease than most other countries. In the UK we are still waiting for front line NHS staff dealing with the pandemic to be tested.
Another worrying number is the number of recorded deaths. It's not at all clear if the deaths recorded against CV 19 are reporting deaths that are wholly or largely attributable to the virus, or just recording the number of people known to have died while the virus is live within them. As the main health scientist for the UK admitted a few weeks ago, there 'may be some overlap' between the number of CV 19 deaths and deaths that would have occurred with or without the virus. In all probability many of those deaths may have been brought forward by an indeterminate period of time - hours, days, possibly weeks - but it could be argued that it didn't substantially change the outcome.
Put another way, suppose a bus was transporting 30 CV 19 patients who were otherwise fit enough to travel in this way to one of the field hospitals being set up around the country. A truck goes out of control and rams the bus off the motorway, killing everyone on board. Would we class those deaths as CV 19 as all 30 passengers were diagnosed with the virus at the time of death? I know, you could argue that without the virus they wouldn't have been on the bus in the first place, but the distinction is still important. Without knowing or appreciating how dangerous the disease is to those of us with a reasonable expectation of life into the end of this year, into next, hopefully the decade after it will be difficult to maintain the lockdown conditions. Assuming it is considerably more than the imminently dead that are at serious risk then until the population have a reason to believe this then many will start to challenge the lock downs until perhaps the stats locally show them that there is a reason.
Getting clarity on the recording is difficult, and this in itself isn't a new thing. The annual winter flu deaths are openly recorded in the US - they seem to be available in the UK but are harder to drag out into the open - but seem to make the same assumption that I suspect is being made with CV 19 - if someone dies while fighting the flu it is recorded as a winter flu death. I suspect not all are only attributable to the winter flu and many wouldn't have seen the spring without being infected.
Some are openly critical of the UK government's stance, notably a renegade Scottish GP based in Cheshire, England. I'm generally a fan of Dr Malcolm Kendrick, he makes bold and well measured arguments about over medication and is particularly outspoken on Cardio-vascular disease (CVD), which he has spent all his professional life studying and unravelling. He is especially critical about the apparent and officially supported link between cholesterol and heart disease, and the subsequent mass distribution of statins. If you have an apparently high level of cholesterol and are on or being advised to take statins then I highly recommend your read his book The Great Cholesterol Con. I also recommend his book Doctoring Data where he looks critically at the way Big Pharma distorts data to support their industry, at our personal financial and health costs.
Dr Kendrick has taken a pop at the way the CV 19 pandemic is being managed in his latest blog entry (dated 29 March 2020 in case you're stumbling across this some time after being published) - be warned, the man doesn't pull his punches and doesn't mind being controversial. He thinks the costs associated with the government strategy outweighs the good it actually will do, particularly if we are merely helping to prolong very ill people for a relatively short duration at the expense of other people who will suffer harm through missed appointments and the harm to the economy that affects peoples' health - he has evidence of this which is repeated in his books. I'm not convinced by the good doctor's opinion in this case, although I believe it bears reading and discussing. There are many reasons I'm unconvinced, but one reason is back to the points I made at the top of this blog - I don't think we have enough quality data from anywhere to make a really hard-nosed decision.
My greatest fear is not the virus but the missed opportunity governments around the globe are creating by not testing and retesting early and often enough. This is data we really can only obtain in the here and now - what we've missed already, we've missed. We need to start gathering quality data now, if not for this pandemic then for the next one so the world can be better informed and better prepared.
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