[continued from previous message]   
      
   >> death certification. A second, more senior doctor should agree the   
   >> proposed cause of death. This would mean arbitrary rules like 28 days or   
   >> 14 days since seeing the deceased could be relaxed, and it should also   
   >> safeguard against another Harold Shipman. The implementation varies   
   >> across different hospital trusts, there is no software yet to manage it   
   >> nationwide, and the senior doctors who should act as Medical Examiners   
   >> were called to frontline work during the epidemic.   
   >>   
   >> The anonymous scientific advisor is frank about the result: “We have no   
   >> idea how many people died because of this disease.” Easthope confirmed   
   >> that “we have a crisis in death recording.”   
   >>   
   >> 15,460 deaths have occurred in care homes in England and Wales, which is   
   >> over a third of the total Covid-19 deaths, and approximately another   
   >> 5,000 care home residents have died with Covid-19 after being   
   >> transferred to hospital. Another 746in hospices. However, there is   
   >> growing uncertainty about some care home deaths.   
   >>   
   >> I spoke to a care home worker in the north of England about this   
   >> problem. They have had cases where Covid-19 has been inaccurately put on   
   >> the death certificate as the cause of death or an underlying cause of   
   >> death. One resident, well into her 80s, tested positive for coronavirus   
   >> at the end of March, when she had mild symptoms. She recovered but went   
   >> on to die in August. A covering doctor who had never met the resident or   
   >> seen the body, insisted that Covid-19 must have been a cause of death.   
   >> The care home worker says, “She actually died of old age, quite   
   >> peacefully and contentedly. Old age isn’t supposed to be used on death   
   >> certificates, but sometimes it’s what it is.” How many times has this   
   >> happened in care homes across the country?   
   >>   
   >> There are a number of dangers. The Covid-19 death total is probably   
   >> inflated as it has been liberally applied on death certificates. But a   
   >> positive test doesn’t mean Covid-19 was necessarily a contributing cause   
   >> of death. As all of my interviewees said, we have no idea how often this   
   >> has happened, and now we never will.   
   >>   
   >> Lockdown itself has caused a horrifying number of excess deaths, just as   
   >> Easthope warned. By the end of July, one report attributed 21,000 of the   
   >> excess deaths to lockdown, as a result of delays to treatment. There is   
   >> an “epidemic” of people needlessly dying at home because they are   
   >> reluctant, or unable, to seek medical help.   
   >>   
   >> Frontline mental health professionals are concerned about the impact of   
   >> lockdown. One ONS study showed that the number of people experiencing   
   >> some sort of depression increased from one in ten to one in five during   
   >> lockdown. Suicide is the biggest killer of young people in the UK. Some   
   >> children remain on lengthy waiting lists for mental health treatment.   
   >> Ged Flynn, CEO of suicide charity Papyrus says, “This is scandalous.   
   >> Saving young lives is no longer a national priority and we must change   
   >> that.” Nine out of ten calls to Papyrus during lockdown reflected the   
   >> impact of Covid-19 and lockdown, with many concerned about a loss of   
   >> income, reduction in service provision, domestic violence and abuse, and   
   >> the potential to become infected with Covid-19. Ged warns of the   
   >> “longer-term problem of emotional distress” for young people as the   
   >> impact of lockdown continues and mental health services are stretched.   
   >>   
   >> We have never recorded and announced the deaths of one disease with such   
   >> dedication. Was this in the spirit of public information or was there an   
   >> intention to use the metrics designed to create fear? At the outset the   
   >> British public was informed how many people had died every day. As the   
   >> numbers started decreasing, the focus moved to the “R” number – the   
   rate   
   >> of transmission, seemingly generated by a mysterious alchemy – and then   
   >> to new cases, where we are now. Increasing cases are, of course, also a   
   >> result of increased testing. Crucially, this means the number of cases   
   >> can be as large or as small as public policy determines, rather than   
   >> indicative of the spread or danger of the virus.   
   >>   
   >> It’s just been announced that positive results will be repeatedly   
   >> tested, hopefully eliminating some false positives. It’s interesting   
   >> that this coincides with the lockdown screws tightening, as gatherings   
   >> are reduced from 30 to six, and the first curfew since the Second World   
   >> War is threatened. Ministers will be able to proclaim the success of   
   >> these restrictions when “cases” can be influenced depending on   
   >> sensitivity and volume of testing. We cannot leave the counting to them.   
   >>   
   >> Public Health England death totals had to be revised down after their   
   >> counting fiasco was exposed by Carl Heneghan. If you tested positive for   
   >> Covid-19, your death at any time would have been counted as a Covid-19   
   >> death. Professor John Newton, Director of Health Improvement at Public   
   >> Health England, said, “The way we count deaths in people with Covid-19   
   >> in England was originally chosen to avoid underestimating deaths caused   
   >> by the virus in the early stages of the pandemic.” Did the statistics   
   >> become politicised?   
   >>   
   >> “Death endures as a metric. Even if the death tolls are revised down, as   
   >> with PHE’s count, the numbers endure,” said Easthope. “In the UK and   
   the   
   >> US, death is the metric that we have to come to measure catastrophe by.”   
   >>   
   >> The anonymous scientific advisor wonders if the choice of metrics   
   >> reported and the way we count deaths might be part of a plan to increase   
   >> fear. After all, we know that SAGE recommended that people’s sense of   
   >> personal threat needed to be increased to encourage compliance with   
   >> rules. Even now we have passed the peak of the pandemic, government   
   >> messaging still centres on fear.   
   >>   
   >> Easthope is worried that “we’ve done something incredibly traumatising   
   >> to the families that is potentially bigger than the bereavement itself.   
   >> In any disaster you should still allow people to see the dead. It is a   
   >> gross inhumanity of bad planning that people couldn’t visit the sick,   
   >> view the deceased’s bodies, or attend funerals. Had we had a more   
   >> liberal PPE stockpile we could have done this. PPE is about accessing   
   >> your loved ones and dead ones, it is not just about medical p   
   ofessionals.”   
   >>   
   >> Good planning was cast aside. We were not equipped to process the Covid   
   >> dead, and we’ll never be able to properly count them. In decades to   
   >> come, when the inevitable reports and studies are published they will be   
   >> littered with asterisks and freighted with footnotes. Or worse, taken   
   >> dangerously at face value.   
   >>   
   >> Beyond counting the dead, how do we count the cost to ourselves? Dying   
   >> alone in a hospice, last rites delivered in full PPE, no family beside   
   >> the bed. People unable to visit elderly relatives in care homes for   
   >> months. Funerals limited to ten people. The young calling suicide   
   >> helplines, bewildered and traumatised. The uncertainty over cause of   
   >> deaths, the lack of closure. For this, we need the ultimate inquest and   
   >> then the birth of better ways to count the dead.   
   >   
   > In the interim, we are 100% prepared/protected in the "full armor of   
   > GOD" (Ephesians 6:11) which we put on as soon as we use Apostle Paul's   
      
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   --- SoupGate-DOS v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)