Flaws and Uncertainties in Pandemic Global Excess Death Calculations By Brian Simpson

A new paper by Professor John P. A. Ioannidis et al., is full of statistics and technicalities, but has an important conclusion about the number of deaths from Covid during the “pandemic.” As we know, the health authorities pushed the idea that Covid was a deadly disease threat, and so, lockdowns were necessary, and then mass vaccination, then more, and still more. And, here in Australia, although the population has Covid vax fatigue, the health authorities keep doubling down, especially with winter approaching, which in the light of global warming looks like being even colder! (Just joking of course, it is global warming which is the joke, and it is on us!)  

The paper looks at the way various factors were not properly considered in past estimates of Covid deaths, including adjustments for the age structure of populations, death registration incompleteness, and the fact that hospitals in many jurisdictions counted people dying with Covid, as dying from Covid. “It is difficult to disentangle deaths attributed directly to SARS-CoV-2, indirect pandemic effects, and effects from measures taken. Globally, deaths directly due to SARS-CoV-2 may be the minority of calculated excess deaths.”

And, we were locked down, as solitary confinement prisoners, for tht?

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4342889&utm_

“Abstract

Several teams have been publishing global estimates of excess deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic. Here, we examine potential flaws and underappreciated sources of uncertainty in global excess death calculations. Adjusting for changing population age structure is essential. Otherwise, excess deaths are markedly overestimated in countries that have increasingly aging populations. Adjusting for changes in other high-risk indicators, such as residence in long-term facilities, may also make a difference. Death registration is highly incomplete in most countries; completeness corrections should allow for substantial uncertainty and consider that completeness may have changed during pandemic years. Excess death estimates have high sensitivity to modeling choice. Therefore different options should be considered and the full range of results should be shown for different choices of pre-pandemic reference periods and imposed models. Any post-modeling corrections in specific countries should be guided by pre-specified rules. Modeling of all-cause mortality (ACM) in countries that have ACM data and extrapolating these models to other countries is precarious; models may lack transportability. Existing global excess death estimates underestimate the overall uncertainty that is multiplicative across diverse sources of uncertainty. Informative excess death estimates require risk stratification, including age groups and ethnic/racial strata. Data to-date suggest a death deficit among children during the pandemic and marked socioeconomic differences in deaths, widening inequalities. Finally, causal explanations require great caution. It is difficult to disentangle deaths attributed directly to SARS-CoV-2, indirect pandemic effects, and effects from measures taken. Globally, deaths directly due to SARS-CoV-2 may be the minority of calculated excess deaths.”