Source: Swiss Propaganda Research

[. . . Previous Updates: Saturday, 28 March 2020 . . .]

The increasing number of tests is finding a proportional number of infections, the ratio stays constant, speaking against an ongoing viral epidemic (Dr. Richard Capek, US data)

March 28, 2020

• A new study by the University of Oxford concludes that Covid19 may already have existed in the UK since January 2020 and that half of the population may already be immunised, with most people experiencing no or only mild symptoms. This would mean that only one in a thousand people would need to be hospitalised for Covid19. (Study)
• British media reported on a 21 year old woman „who died of Covid19 without any previous illnesses“. However, it has since become known that the woman did not test positive for Covid19 and died of a heart failure. The Covid19 rumor had arisen „because she had a slight cough“.
• The German media scientist Professor Otfried Jarren criticized that many media provide uncritical journalism that emphasizes threats and executive power. According to Professor Jarren, there is hardly any differentiation and real debate between experts.

March 29, 2020

• Dr Sucharit Bhakdi, Professor Emeritus of Medical Microbiology in Mainz, Germany, wrote an Open Letter to German Chancellor Dr Angela Merkel, calling for an urgent reassessment of the response to Covid19 and asking the Chancellor five crucial questions.
• The latest data from the German Robert Koch Institute show that the increase in test-positive persons is proportional to the increase in the number of tests, i.e. in percentage terms it remains roughly the same. This may indicate that the increase in the number of cases is mainly due to an increase in the number of tests, and not due to an ongoing epidemic.
• The Milan microbiologist Maria Rita Gismondo calls on the Italian government to stop communicating the daily number of „corona positives“ as these figures are „fake“ and put the population in unnecessary panic. The number of test-positives depends very much on the type and number of tests and says nothing about the state of health.
• Dr. John Ioannidis, Stanford Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology, gave an in-depth one-hour interview on the lack of data for Covid19 measures.
• The Argentinean virologist Pablo Goldschmidt, who lives in France, considers the political reaction to Covid19 as „completely exaggerated“ and warns against „totalitarian measures“. In parts of France, the movement of people is already monitored by drones.
• Italian author Fulvio Grimaldi, born in 1934, explains that the state measures currently implemented in Italy are „worse than under fascism“. Parliament and society have been completely disempowered.

March 30, 2020 (I)

• In Germany, some clinics can no longer accept patients – not because there are too many patients or too few beds, but because the nursing staff have tested positive, although in most cases they hardly show any symptoms. This case illustrates again how and why health care systems are getting paralysed.
• In a German retirement and nursing home for people with advanced dementia, 15 test-positive people have died. However, „surprisingly many people have died without showing symptoms of corona.“ A German medical specialist informs us: „From my medical point of view, there is some evidence that some of these people may have died as a result of the measures taken. People with dementia get into high stress when major changes are made to their everyday lives: isolation, no physical contact, possibly hooded staff.“ Nevertheless, the deceased are counted as „corona deaths“ in German and international statistics. In connection with the „corona crisis“, it is now also possible to die of an illness without even having its symptoms.
• According to a Swiss pharmacologist, the Swiss Inselspital in Bern has forced staff to take leave, stopped therapies and postponed operations due to the fear of Covid19.
• Professor Gérard Krause, head of the Department of Epidemiology at the German Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research, warns on German public television ZDF that the anti-corona measures „could lead to more deaths than the virus itself„.
• Various media reported that more than 50 doctors in Italy have already died „during the corona crisis“, like soldiers in a battle. A glance at the corresponding list, however, shows that most of the deceased are retired doctors of various kinds, including 90-year-old psychiatrists and pediatricians, many of whom may have died of natural causes.
• An extensive survey in Iceland found that 50% of all test-positive persons showed „no symptoms“ at all, while the other 50% mostly showed „very moderate cold-like symptoms“. According to the Icelandic data, the mortality rate of Covid19 is in the per mille range, i.e. in the flu range or below. Of the two test-positive deaths, one was „a tourist with unusual symptoms“. (More Icelandic data)
• The British Daily Mail journalist Peter Hitchens writes, „There’s powerful evidence this great panic is foolish. Yet our freedom is still broken and our economy crippled.“ Hitchens points out that in parts of the UK, police drones monitor and report „non-essential“ walks in nature. In some cases, police drones are calling on people via loudspeaker to go home in order to „save lives“. (Note: Not even George Orwell had thought that far ahead.)
• The Italian secret service warns of social unrest and uprisings. Supermarkets are already being looted and pharmacies raided.
• Professor Sucharit Bhakdi has meanwhile published a video (German/English) in which he explains his Open Letter to German Chancellor Dr. Angela Merkel.

March 30, 2020 (II)

In several countries, there is increasing evidence in relation to Covid19 that „the treatment could be worse than the disease“.

On the one hand, there is the risk of so-called nosocomial infections, i.e. infections that the patient, who may only be mildly ill, acquires in hospital. It is estimated that there are approximately 2.5 million nosocomial infections and 50,000 deaths per year in Europe. Even in German intensive care units, about 15% of patients acquire a nosocomial infection, including pneumonia on artificial respiration. There is also the problem of increasingly antibiotic-resistant germs in hospitals.

Another aspect is the certainly well-intentioned but sometimes very aggressive treatment methods that are increasingly used in Covid19 patients. These include, in particular, the administration of steroids, antibiotics and anti-viral drugs (or a combination thereof). Already in the treatment of SARS-1 patients, it has been shown that the outcome with such treatment was often worse and more fatal than without such treatment.

March 31, 2020 (I)

Dr. Richard Capek and other researchers have already shown that the number of test-positive individuals in relation to the number of tests performed remains constant in all countries studied so far, which speaks against an exponential spread („epidemic“) of the virus and merely indicates an exponential increase in the number of tests.

Depending on the country, the proportion of test-positive individuals is between 5 and 15%, which corresponds to the usual spread of corona viruses. Interestingly, these constant numerical values are not actively communicated (or even removed) by authorities and the media. Instead, exponential but irrelevant and misleading curves are shown without context.

Such behavior, of course, does not correspond to professional medical standards, as a look at the traditional influenza report of the German Robert Koch Institute makes clear (p. 30, see chart below). Here, in addition to the number of detections (right), the number of samples (left, grey bars) and the positive rate (left, blue curve) are shown.

This immediately shows that during a flu season the positive rate rises from 0 to 10% to up to 80% of the samples and drops back to the normal value after a few weeks. In comparison, Covid19 tests show a constant positive rate in the normal range (see below).

Constant Covid19-positive rate using US data (Dr. Richard Capek). This applies analogously to all other countries for which data on the number of samples is currently available.

March 31, 2020 (II)

• A graphical analysis of the European monitoring data impressively shows that, irrespective of the measures taken, overall mortality throughout Europe remained in the normal range or below by March 25, and often significantly below the levels of previous years. Only in Italy (65+) was the overall mortality rate somewhat increased (probably for several reasons), but it was still below previous flu seasons.
• The president of the German Robert Koch Institute confirmed again that pre-existing conditions and actual cause of death do not play a role in the definition of so-called „corona deaths“. From a medical point of view, such a definition is clearly misleading. It has the obvious and generally known effect of putting politics and society in fear.
• In Italy the situation is now beginning to calm down. As far as is known, the temporarily increased mortality rates (65+) were rather local effects, often accompanied by mass panic and a breakdown in health care. A politician from northern Italy asks, for example, „how is it possible that Covid patients from Brescia are transported to Germany, while in the nearby Verona two thirds of intensive care beds are empty?“
• In an article published in the European Journal of Clinical Investigation, Stanford professor of medicine John C. Ioannidis criticizes the „harms of exaggerated information and non-evidence-based measures“. Even journals had published dubious claims at the beginning.
• A Chinese study published in the Chinese Journal of Epidemiology in early March, which indicated the unreliability of the Covid19 virus tests (approx. 50% false-positive results in asymptomatic patients), has since been withdrawn. The lead author of the study, the dean of a medical school, did not want to give the reason for the withdrawal and spoke of a „sensitive matter„, which could indicate political pressure, as an NPR journalist noted. Independent of this study, however, the unreliability of so-called PCR virus tests has long been known: In 2006, for example, a mass infection in a Canadian nursing home with SARS corona viruses was „found“, which later turned out to be common cold corona viruses (which can also be fatal for risk groups).
• Authors of the German Risk Management Network RiskNET speak in a Covid19 analysis of a „blind flight“ as well as „insufficient data competence and data ethics“. Instead of more and more tests and measures a representative sample is necessary. The „sense and ratio“ of the measures must be critically questioned.
• The Spanish interview with the internationally renowned Argentinian-French virologist Pablo Goldschmidt was translated into German. Goldschmidt considers the measures imposed to be medically counterproductive and notes that one must now „read Hannah Arendt“ to understand the „origins of totalitarianism“.
• Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, like other prime ministers and presidents before him, has largely disempowered the Hungarian parliament under an „emergency law“ and can now govern essentially by decree.

April 1, 2020

On the situation in Italy

Italian doctors reported that they had already observed severe cases of pneumonia in northern Italy at the end of last year. However, genetic analyses now show that the Covid19 virus only appeared in Italy in January of this year. „The severe pneumonia diagnosed in Italy in November and December must therefore be due to a different pathogen,“ a virologist noted. This once again raises the question what role the Covid19 virus, or other factors, actually play in the Italian situation.

On March 30, we mentioned the list of Italian doctors who died „during the Corona crisis“, many of whom were up to 90 years old and didn’t actively participate in the crisis at all. Today, all years of birth on the list have been removed (see however the last archive version). A strange procedure.

We have also received the following message from an observer in Italy, who gives further details about the dramatic situation there, which is obviously due to far more than a virus:

„In recent weeks, most of the Eastern European nurses who worked 24 hours a day, 7 days a week supporting people in need of care in Italy have left the country in a hurry. This is not least because of the panic-mongering and the curfews and border closures threatened by the „emergency governments“. As a result, old people in need of care and disabled people, some without relatives, were left helpless by their carers.

Many of these abandoned people then ended up after a few days in the hospitals, which had been permanently overloaded for years, because they were dehydrated, among other things. Unfortunately, the hospitals lacked the personnel who had to look after the children locked up in their apartments because schools and kindergartens had been closed. This then led to the complete collapse of the care for the disabled and the elderly, especially in those areas where even harder „measures“ were ordered, and to chaotic conditions.

The nursing emergency, which was caused by the panic, temporarily led to many deaths among those in need of care and increasingly among younger patients in the hospitals. These fatalities then served to cause even more panic among those in charge and the media, who reported, for example, „another 475 fatalities“, „The dead are being removed from hospitals by the army“, accompanied by pictures of coffins and army trucks lined up.

However, this was the result of the funeral directors‘ fear of the „killer virus“, who therefore refused their services. Moreover, on the one hand there were too many deaths at once and on the other hand the government passed a law that the corpses carrying the coronavirus had to be cremated. In Catholic Italy, few cremations had been carried out in the past. Therefore there were only a few small crematoria, which very quickly reached their limits. Therefore the deceased had to be laid out in different churches.

In principle, this development is the same in all countries. However, the quality of the health system has a considerable influence on the effects. Therefore, there are fewer problems in Germany, Austria or Switzerland than in Italy, Spain or the USA. However, as can be seen in the official figures, there is no significant increase in the mortality rate. Just a small mountain that came from this tragedy.“

Hospital situation in the US, Germany and Switzerland

• The US television station CBS was caught using footage from an Italian intensive care unit in a piece on the current situation in New York. In fact, dozens of recordings by citizen journalists show that it is currently very quiet in the hospitals on the US East and West Coast. Even the „corpse refrigerator trucks“ prominently shown in the media are unused and empty.
• Contrary to media reports, the register of German intensive care units also shows no increased occupancy. An employee of a Munich clinic explained that they had been „waiting for weeks for the wave to hit“, but that there was „no increase in patient numbers“. He said that the politicians‘ statements did not correspond with their own experience, and that the „myth of the killer virus“ could „not be confirmed“.
• Also in Swiss clinics, no increased occupancy has been observed so far. A visitor to the cantonal hospital in Lucerne reports that there is „less activity than in normal times“. Entire floors have been closed for Covid19, but staff „are still waiting for patients“. The hospitals in Bern, Basel, Zug and Zurich have also been „cleaned out“. Even in Ticino, the intensive care units are not working to capacity, but patients are now being transferred to the German-Swiss departments. From a purely medical point of view, this makes little sense.

Other medical notes

• The director of the University Medical Center Hamburg, Dr. Ansgar Lohse, demands a quick end to curfews and contact bans. He argues that more people should be infected with corona. Kitas and schools should be reopened as soon as possible so that children and their parents can become immune through infection with the corona virus. The continuation of the strict measures would lead to an economic crisis, which would also cost lives, said the physician.
• In Spain, 15% of test-positives are doctors and nurses. Although many of them show no symptoms, they have to go into quarantine, causing the Spanish healthcare system to collapse.
• Dr. John Lee, professor emeritus of pathology, is writing about the highly misleading definition and communication of „corona deaths“ in the British Spectator.
• The latest data from Norway, evaluated by a PhD in environmental toxicology, again show that the rate of test-positives does not increase – as would be expected in the case of an epidemic – but fluctuates in the normal range for coronaviruses between 2 and 10%. The average age of the test-positive deceased is 84 years, the causes of death are not publicly reported, and there is no excess mortality.
• Sweden, which has so far managed without radical measures and has not reported increased mortality (similar to Asian countries such as Japan or South Korea), is remarkably put under pressure from the international media to change its strategy.
• Data from New York State show that the hospitalization rate of test-positive individuals could be more than twenty times lower than originally assumed.
• An article on the specialist portal DocCheck deals with the problem of ventilating test-positive patients. In test-positive patients, simple ventilation through a mask is officially advised against, among other things to prevent the coronavirus from spreading through aerosols. Therefore, test positive intensive care patients are often intubated directly. However, intubation has poor chances of success and often leads to additional damage to the lungs (so-called ventilator-induced lung damage). As with medication, the question arises as to whether a more gentle treatment of patients would not be medically more sensible.

Reports on political developments

• A German state minister has called on the population to „be vigilant and report violations of the rules for containing the corona epidemic to the police“. „Eagerly reported“ are, for example, „prohibited group formation, children in playgrounds, parties“ and hikers.
• German constitutional law experts are raising the alarm for „serious encroachments on fundamental rights“. Constitutional law expert Hans Michael Heinig warns that the „democratic constitutional state could turn into a fascist-hysterical hygiene state in no time“. Professor Christoph Möllers of Berlin’s Humboldt University explains that the infection protection law „cannot serve as a basis for such far-reaching restrictions of citizens‘ rights of freedom“. According to the former president of the German Federal Constitutional Court, Hans Jürgen Papier, „emergency measures do not justify the suspension of civil liberties in favour of an authoritarian and surveillance state“.
• Online petitions have been launched in several countries to end curfews and other encroachments on basic rights. At the same time, critical video contributions, even by doctors, are increasingly being deleted. In Berlin, a registered event on fundamental rights, at which the German constitution was distributed, was terminated by the police.

April 2, 2020 (I)

USA

Biophysicist Felix Scholkmann has visualized the fact that in the US (as in the rest of the world), it is not the number of „infected“ people that is increasing exponentially, but the number of tests. The number of „infected“ people in relation to the number of tests remains basically constant (oscillating between 10 and 20%), which speaks against a current viral epidemic.

Germany

According to the latest influenza report of the German Robert Koch Institute, the number of acute respiratory diseases has „fallen sharply nationwide“. The values have „dropped in all age groups“.

By March 20, the total number of inpatient cases with acute respiratory diseases had also fallen significantly. In the age group from 80 years and older, the number of cases had almost halved compared to the previous week.

In the 73 hospitals examined, 7% of all cases with respiratory diseases were diagnosed with COVID-19. In the age groups 35-59 years it was 16% and in the age group 60-79 years it was 13% who received a COVID-19 diagnosis.

These figures correspond to those from other countries as well as to the typical prevalence of coronaviruses (5 to 15%).

Flu-like diseases in general (left) and acute respiratory diseases in hospitals (right) (Robert-Koch-Institut, weeks 13 and 12)

An article in DIE ZEIT discusses the issue of intensive care patients in Germany:

„At present politicians, experts and many citizens observe with concern the exponentially increasing number of people who are newly infected every day. However, this is not the decisive indicator for assessing how badly the corona crisis is and will hit Germany. For it is distorted above all by the number of tests, which have been increasing for weeks.

In order to measure the burden on the health system, the number of those who are so seriously ill that they need to be ventilated is particularly important. As long as there are enough ventilation places for them, a great many of them can be saved. Only when these beds become scarce does a situation like the one in Italy threaten.

The DIVI register now shows that the situation in the German intensive care units has been relaxed so far. „We are still in a comfortable area,“ says Grabenhenrich. The number of seriously ill patients is not rising as steeply as the number of infected patients and even if it did, it would still be possible to provide a large number of intensive care beds with very good equipment.

Switzerland

The Swiss Federal Office of Public Health reports that approximately 139,330 Covid19 tests have been carried out so far, of which the result was positive in 15% of cases. This number also corresponds to the typical corona virus value known from other countries and, as far as can be seen, does not seem to be increasing in Switzerland either.

Only the number of tests often mentioned in the media is increasing exponentially, but not the number of „infected“, sick or even dead.

On March 31, however, a new weekly mortality statistic was published which for the first time forecasts an increase in overall mortality in the 65+ age group in Switzerland for the 12th calendar week (until 22 March) (see chart below). Specifically, total mortality is expected to increase by around 200 deaths per week.

According to the Federal Office, this increase is „an expression of the current pandemic“. The following problem arises here: up to 22 March there were a total of 106 test-positive deaths in Switzerland. An increase of 200 deaths per week would mean that a large part of the additional mortality is not caused by the virus but by the „countermeasures“.

Another explanation would be that the approximately 200 test-positive deaths of the following week (week 13) have already been included. This would mean that all test-positive deaths are assumed to be additional deaths. However, in view of the age and disease profile as well as international experience, this would be a very doubtful assumption.

In fact, the report adds the following disclaimer: „These initial estimates are still very uncertain, so that no exact figures can be published“.

If it turns out that a large proportion of test-positive deaths (median age: 83 years) are not additional deaths, either the overall mortality would not be increased, or it would be increased mainly because of the drastic measures, as some experts fear.

A Swiss newspaper has presented the current total mortality in comparison with previous years (see graph below). This illustrates that, even if actually increased, the current mortality rate is still below the stronger flu winters of recent years.

Further information

• Virus test kits destined for Great Britain had to be recalled because they already contained corona virus components.
• The British Imperial College study, which predicted hundreds of thousands of additional deaths but was never published in a journal or reviewed, was based on largely unrealistic assumptions, as has now been shown.
• The BBC asks, „Is coronavirus causing the deaths?„, and replies, „It could be the major cause, a contributory factor or simply present when they are dying of something else.“ For example, an 18-year-old man was reported as the „youngest Corona victim“ after a positive test the day before his death. However, the hospital later reported that the young man had died of a serious pre-existing condition.
• The European health authority ECDC has published very strict guidelines for handling test-positive or „presumed test-positive“ corpses. In view of the very low mortality rates to date, such guidelines appear questionable from a medical point of view; however, they significantly increase the burden on the health and funeral services, and at the same time have a high media impact.
• A German state media outlet has published a critical commentary on Professor Sucharit Bhakdi’s Open Letter to Chancellor Merkel.
• The ARTE documentary „Profiteers of Fear“ from 2009 shows how the mainly privately financed WHO „upgraded“ a mild wave of influenza (the so-called „swine flu“) to a global pandemic so that vaccines worth several billion dollars could be sold to governments around the world. Some of the protagonists of that time are again prominently represented in the current situation.
• The former judge at the British Supreme Court, Jonathan Sumption, declared in a BBC interview on the British measures: „This is what a police state is like“.

April 2, 2020 (II)

• Already in 2018, the Guardian wrote that „Pollution and flu bring steep rise in lung-related illnesses„: Shortage of specialists adds to worries that surge in respiratory diseases is putting pressure on A&Es.
• Professor Martin Haditsch, specialist in microbiology, virology and infection epidemiology, sharply criticises the Covid19 measures. These are „completely unfounded“ and would „trample on sound judgment and ethical principles“.
• Even representatives of German nursing homes are now complaining about the restrictive measures and inappropriate media coverage of Covid19.
• Figures from the northern Italian city of Treviso (near Venice) show that, despite 108 test-positive deaths by the end of March, overall mortality in municipal hospitals remained roughly the same as in previous years. This is a further indication that the temporarily increased mortality in some places is more likely to be due to external factors such as panic and collapse than due to the coronavirus alone.
• Professor John Oxford of Queen Mary University London, one of the world’s leading virologists and influenza specialists, comes to the following conclusion regarding Covid19: „Personally, I would say the best advice is to spend less time watching TV news which is sensational and not very good. Personally, I view this Covid outbreak as akin to a bad winter influenza epidemic. In this case we have had 8000 deaths this last year in the ‘at risk’ groups viz over 65% people with heart disease etc. I do not feel this current Covid will exceed this number. We are suffering from a media epidemic!“

„The only means to fight the plague is honesty.“
Albert Camus, The Plague (1947)

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