It was reported in the U.K newspaper The Telegraph last week that the coronavirus “was not the leading cause of death for nearly a third of registered Covid-19 victims in July and August.”
The Oxford University study they cited stated, “This means that someone who has had a heart attack or even died in a traffic accident may have been included in the numbers if they also tested positive for coronavirus at some point or if doctors believed the virus made their condition worse.”
The Telegraph goes on to note, “Throughout the pandemic, about one in 13 people currently classified as Covid-19 victims did not have the disease as the underlying cause of death. This means that 3,877 deaths (7.8 percent) where the coronavirus was not the main cause are included in the numbers.”
The article goes on to report, “In July and August, that number rose to 28.8 percent of all registered deaths, meaning Covid-19 was not the leading cause of death in 465 out of 1,617 registered victims.”
Dr. Jason Oke, a member of the team at Oxford Center for Evidence-Based Medicine, stated the new data shows many people “died with” coronavirus but not “from it.”
He added, “The true death rate is important to know as it gives us an idea of the effects… The effects seem to be wearing off now and if that’s true – as it certainly looks right now because there doesn’t seem to be the same death rate – then that will guide risk management decisions, so it is important to get this number right.”
The BBC reported on 17 July, “Health Secretary Matt Hancock has called for an urgent review into how coronavirus deaths have been recorded in England.”
The controversy was around PHE’s protocol which, according to the BBC report, “included anyone who has tested positive for coronavirus, but then died at a later date, be included in PHE’s Covid-19 death figures.”
The BBC then quoted Professor Carl Heneghan from the University of Oxford, who looked at the data and stated, “We need correct and accurate statistics so we can really understand the trend – otherwise it’s very difficult to know what’s going on.”
The Telegraph also quoted Paul Hunter, Professor of Medicine at the University of East Anglia, on the challenge of determining cause of death when a patient already sick contracts the coronavirus: “For example, let’s say you have a patient with leukemia, you get COVID and a few weeks later you die. There is evidence that they had some degree of pneumonia. So, what is the main cause of death? How much COVID causes is not easy to say.”
The Telegraph reported the researchers are concerned that as the pandemic matures, more deaths are going to be attributed to the virus and “over-counting” will only get worse.
TRENDPOST: The Oxford team worked to itemize coronavirus deaths that involved people who died “from” the disease and those who died “with” the disease.
Thus, the study supports our long-stated contention that the blanket lockdowns imposed by politicians across the globe were both economically unwise and based on faulty scientific data, and that the most vulnerable in society – not entire nations – should have been isolated.
TRENDPOST: The Telegraph story and these facts were not reported in the mainstream media. Instead, they continue to blast out the number of new “cases,” again ignoring the fact that a person infected with the virus has 99.8 percent chance of surviving. [See Off-Guardian article here.]
