Ok, so lets overlook the fact that you've already been proven wrong repeatedly here and you are reverting to type by simply ignoring the huge holes in your position to go back to a reductive argument that completely ignores pretty much every point Ive made about testing and reporting, and indeed the evidence Ive presented with facile 'if this is true' nonsense.
Lets flip this around instead. I didn't want to post graphs, but you've left me no choice.
You suggest that Omicron is intrinsically less severe (despite the numerous studies that say otherwise) and less people are dying as a result. If this is true how do you explain the sustained burden of excess deaths throughout 2022 and into 2023, which, coincidentally was the period when we decided to let everyone be infected repeatedly by covid?
This is Dec 22. Excess deaths through the roof all across europe, exceeding 50% in germany. IIRC it was over 30% in the UK
Here we see all of 22. The 'less severe' Omicron hit in late 21, so why are we seeing consistently high levels of excess deaths for the entire year?
Excess mortality rates in Europe: Why are they so high post-pandemic?
As the world marks the third year since the start of the pandemic, excess deaths remain high. We asked the experts why that is.
www.euronews.com
And here we have global deaths up until April 23. The red line is Covid deaths, the pink is excess mortality.
Our model suggests that global deaths remain 5% above pre-covid forecasts
Attributing this increase to covid would make it the fourth-leading cause of death
And here we have EU excess deaths up until August 23. We can see the period after the huge surge in Winter 22/23 when excess mortality drops off and then we see it rise again in August when infection immunity wanes and new variants move in. Note that the number of excess deaths in winter 22 from the 'mild' Omicron strain are almost equal to all other covid waves:
Weekly death statistics - Statistics Explained
This article examines the evolution of the number of deaths that occurred each week, in the European Union and EFTA countries, compared with a 'baseline' of the average number of deaths for a particular week over the 4 years from 2016 to 2019.
ec.europa.eu
And here again we see excess deaths through to August 2023 in the UK. It looks an awful lot like 2021, worse in fact.
And here we have the % increase in excess mortality for the UK in 2023 up until August broken down by age, note again the huge rise in deaths amongst 15-44 year olds, a cohort that doesn't normally die of disease.
So it seems clear that up until very recently loads of people are still dying but that is not being attributed to Covid. And one reason is that testing is severely limited.
Actually speaking of covid being no worse than the flu, how do you explain this?
If what youre saying is true, that covid is basically harmless, no worse than the flu, then why do we see this sustained rise in long term illness in the UK?
And the same thing in the US?
Civilian Labor Force - With a Disability, 16 Years and over
Graph and download economic data for Civilian Labor Force - With a Disability, 16 Years and over (LNU01074597) from Jun 2008 to Dec 2024 about disability, civilian, 16 years +, labor force, labor, household survey, and USA.
fred.stlouisfed.org
And, indeed if what I say is false how the fuck are we seeing massive spikes in the severity of relatively benign illness and hospitalisations? In Ireland in 23 we saw a quadrupling of severe flu, a tripling of severe chickenpox and RSV and and 18-fold(!) increase in Strep A
Well no. As I have shown, there a shit-ton of extra people probably dying as a result of covid whose deaths are not being attributed to covid, and ofc, some of those deaths are the result of delayed treatment and other factors, but regardless, we would not necessarily see a return to 2020/21 levels of death (even though we kinda did in winter 2022) for a few reasons. The immune landscape is complex, and many people have had some level of immunity from vaccines and previous infections. Many of the most vulnerable are already dead and other vulnerable people are living extremely restricted lives to protect themselves.
So what we would expect to see (as I mentioned above) is sustained high levels of excess mortality with some waxing and waning punctuated by irregular spikes in covid related deaths as immunity wanes. Sustained and rising levels of disability, continued strain on healthcare due to society-level immune dysregulation, and a slow grinding degradation in population level health as more and more people get sickened by recurring infections. Endless slow tides of suffering and disease that are easily ignored until one day you or someone you love gets hit by an reinfection that never improves, or by a mysterious stroke or heart attack weeks or months after a covid infection.
So, Ive answered your questions here in good faith, to the best of my knowledge, and Im not happy about this situation and really wish none of this was true - but heres some for you:
How do you explain this sustained level of excess death if covid is now no worse than a flu? How do you explain the record numbers of people with long term illness or the insane spike in hospitalisations for normal illness? You've clearly aligned yourself with Trump, Johnson, and our resident eugenicists by ignoring the science and suggesting that covid is somehow benign now - are you also gonna tell us that all of this unremarked upon death and suffering is the result of the vaccines?
