RE: Covid reporting31 Mar 2020 23:06
Thanks for the link to a very interesting article.
I said yesterday that it would be interesting to compare the numbers who usually die (of all diseases) with the numbers dying now.
Well, according to Dr Lee, one would normally expect about 51,000 people to die during the time that 422 died of CV here, so it doesn't really matter how many died in total this time, because the CV numbers are so small compared with the total numbers that usually die.
'If a new infection is causing many extra people to die (as opposed to an infection present in people who would have died anyway) then it will cause an increase in the overall death rate. But we have yet to see any statistical evidence for excess deaths, in any part of the world.'
'The average age of those dying in Italy is 78.5 years, with almost nine in ten fatalities among the over-70s. The life expectancy in Italy — that is, the number of years you can expect to live to from birth, all things being equal — is 82.5 years.'
'Much of the response to Covid-19 seems explained by the fact that we are watching this virus in a way that no virus has been watched before.'
That's because our lives are now dominated by the mass media in a way that previous generations' were not dominated before.
They tell us what is serious, how seriously we should take it, and how we should react.
The television news set the attacks on the Twin Towers to music; the media told us 'the world will never be the same again'; they tried to get members of the public to cry on camera when Princess Diana died, and they will milk this story until something better comes along.
As usual, they are doing what they like best: making history.
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