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Covid-19 has evolved into Mass Hysteria. I call this hysteria Covid-H
Covid-19 and Covid-H
Covid-19 has evolved into Mass Hysteria. I call this hysteria Covid-H.
Most humans prefer a good story over boring statistics. Numbers and statistics don’t come easily to us. In addition to this most humans also like to herd. Herding is psychologically less taxing than going your own way and it often makes perfect sense to just go with the flow anyway.
Many medical professionals, educators and various Covid-19 experts have proven themselves to be very human indeed. They have bought into and promulgated Covid Hysteria. Their preference for storylines and their natural herding instincts has blinded them to the science. Science is about observation and measurement. Facts are stubborn things. But history has taught us that society willingly ignores facts especially if they spoil a good story.
Covid-H in Ireland
EUROMOMO is the European Union mortality data agency. It sources its Irish data from the Irish Health Service Executive (HSE). Please examine the chart below. Above the dotted red line indicates higher than normal death rate and below the dark dotted line indicates lower than normal death rate. Covid-19 caused a spike in deaths in Ireland in April this year. This is now being balanced out by below normal deaths from mid-May onwards.
According to the Irish Central Statistics Office (CSO) about 2,500 people die every month in Ireland. Covid-19 reported deaths began in March, peaked in April and began to taper off in May and June. By the end of June the HSE had reported 1726 Covid-19 deaths. This would lead us to think that Ireland experienced an extra 1726 deaths during this 4 month period. Not so. The CSO tells us that Ireland had 1072 excess deaths during this period, (ref: www.cso.ie press statement July 3rd).
What are we to make of this? A third Irish government department, the Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA), offers an explanation (ref www.hiqa.ie press statement July 3rd).
“HIQA found the officially-reported Covid-19 deaths likely overestimates the true burden of excess deaths caused by the virus.”
“The excess mortality observed at the peak is now being followed by a period of decreased mortality as date of death for individuals who would ordinarily have died during this time occurred earlier than expected by a matter of weeks or months.”
At the end of June the over estimation stood at about 654. This figure is derived from the following equation.
Covid-19 Reported Deaths (1726) – CSO estimated excess mortality (1072) = 654
At the end of July the over estimation stood at about 877.
Covid-19 Reported Deaths (1757) – CSO estimated excess mortality (875) = 877
I want to be exact and precise in the language than I am using, so I have inserted a text box below from the CSO website to further illustrate that the numbers and opinions given belong to the HSE, CSO and HIQA and not the Great O’Neill.
This is their language and not mine. No contorted statistics. No conspiracy theories. The true burden of excess mortality caused by Covid-19 as of end of July was about 50% of reported Covid-19 fatalities (875/1757 = 50%).
I can find no further CSO or HIQA commentary for August or September. But we do have the HSE numbers given to EUROMOMO. The chart below is just a zoom in of the original chart above. We can see that excess mortality has continued to decline and stay below the dark dotted line.
My best guess is that our excess mortality since the onset of Covid 19 to end of September will be about 475, or 25% of our reported Covid 19 deaths (1798) at the end of September (475/1798 = 25%).
Covid 19 amounts to more than a bad flu season, but little more than a bad flu season. Infact Ireland’s spike in death rate in week April 15 of 2020 almost perfectly matches Italy’s spike in death rate in January 2017 during a bad Italian flu season. My uncle Tom (age 82) often jokes that he is in the ‘departure lounge’ of life. Sadly Ireland's departure lounge was thinned out by Covid-19 in April.
Like many other countries Ireland has become locked into a ‘Covid Fighting Beauty Contest’ with other nations. There is no empirical evidence for it to continue. But the Covid-19 storyline has captured the imagination of the country. We are told that ‘we are all in this together’ and that we must ‘hold firm’ to support our ‘frontline workers’. In the last 68 days (Aug 1 – Oct 7) our media has breathlessly reported the 53 deaths that have occurred with Covid-19 while ignoring the other 5,500 ordinary deaths.
Covid Hysteria will end. However, it will not go quietly into the night. It will seed and fuel further hysterias. In Ireland and Europe BREXIT will probably takeover as the crisis du jour. In the United States the new crisis will probably be a contested presidential election. All of this will be assisted by a developing economic depression, which in itself was partly seeded by Covid-H. Quite simply Covid Hysteria has put people in a bad and testy mood. No mood for reasoned discourse or boring drivel about excess mortality rates.
See part II - www.thegreatoneill.com/commentaries/covid-19-and-covid-h-part-ii
