Are the Coronavirus Covid-19 Death Figures Accurate or Would many have Died of Natural Causes?

IN 1975 TV viewers watched the opening credits of a new BBC series where an Asian scientist, assumed to be Chinese dropped a glass container in his laboratory which smashed.

He was then shown travelling to various destinations and within a matter of days, the majority of the world’s population was dead, leaving viewers to follow the Survivors.

It will be some time, if ever, before the truth will be revealed about how and why the Coronavirus Covid-19 appeared and whether it was a natural event or a man-made atrocity but in the meantime countries all over the world are trying to combat the effects with mixed success.

At the time of writing, latest figures suggest that 165,000 people have died and their death certificates list Covid-19 as the reason but it is possible that this figure is wildly inaccurate for two main reasons.

Firstly, not every death has been properly reported so it could be more but equally, the number of deaths attributable solely to the pandemic may be greatly inflated.

According to World Health Organisation figures up to 650,000 people die of flu each year and in an early study by the UK Office of National Statistics, deaths in March supposedly from the virus showed that 90 per cent of those who died had evidence of underlying health problems such as heart disease, upper respiratory tract infection, dementia or diabetes.

To be fair however, it was noted in the report that more people died in the UK in March than would have been expected when looking at the national average.

Another piece of research, this time from Imperial College suggests that 600,000 die in the UK every year and that 10 per cent of those over 80 would be expected to die due to one form of illness or the other, so it may well be that the pandemic has actually brought these deaths forward by up to six months.

There is no doubt that more people are dying than would have been expected in the first four months of 2020 and health services around the world are rushed off their feet trying to cope with the greatly increased number of patients needing treatment.

In no way could or should one belittle the sacrifices being made by health workers in particular as well as all of the essential services, but it just may be that the pandemic itself is not as virulent as world leaders are making out and that a high proportion of deaths would have occurred but spread over a longer period of time.

There are 2.5 million confirmed cases of the virus around the world and with a population of 7.8 billion, that equates to 0.03 per cent of those alive.

The figure for Spain with a population of around 46 million is 200,000 diagnosed with 21,000 deaths and for the UK there are even lower figures of 120,000 diagnosed with 16,000 deaths against a population of 67.5 million.

Some psychologists believe that the longer the lockdown lasts the greater the risk that death rates will increase due to the fact that some people are unable or unwilling to attend hospitals for cancer and heart checks, others will start to become mentally unstable due to the boredom, especially if living alone and many will suffer from economic hardship which will in turn affect their mental state.

In Spain, the lockdown has been particularly stringent and as the economy falters and people become increasing upset by the restrictions on their ability to work and even go shopping without fear of being fined, something needs to be done.

Already the Catalan authorities are talking about returning children to school regardless of the State of Alarm and the Junta de Andalucia wants to see that area to be the first to have the lockdown lifted whilst the opposition political parties are beginning to question whether they will support the minority government if it decides to extend the lockdown again.

There is no easy answer to the situation and it certainly isn’t simply black and white, but the attempt to cure may be more dangerous than the disease.