Now there are THREE cases in England and SIX in Scotland. Oh my God!!! The end of the world. What amazes me is the media simply continuing this panic when over 40,000 new cases of Covid are found every day in the UK and when the public are so stupid not to spot this and ask media please to stop this insanity. Why global governments are now locking down again and banning travel when this global virus CANNOT be stopped, just like Flu cannot be stopped or catching colds cannot be stopped, nor are they likely to be slowed. COVID is with us forever and we'll cope, as we have with colds and flu. It is NOT Ebola or Leprosy or TB. It is like measles or polio or any other disease that we cope with, as a species, in one way or another. And there will be dozens - hundreds - more over the next few decades until the big wipeout comes.

The WHO boss has just condemned misinformation before stating that Covid has killed 5 million people globally. Has it? Or did many of those die WITH Covid (as the BBC daily tells us - "who tested positive within 28 days")? Does that 5 million include people run over by a bus "who tested positive within 28 days"? Does it include cancer sufferers who "tested...."?? Does it include those who developed pneumonia or had strokes or heart attacks yet also happened to "test positive..."???

Or is the WHO spreading misinformation?

Unfortunately, the death rates are at best misleading - a "Covid Death" is defined as "Death for any reason within 28 days of testing positive.

Also, I understand that the UK's Office of National Statistics is about to change the definition of "Unvaccinated" from "someone who has received no covid vaccination", to "someone wo has been double jabbed, but has not yet had a booster"

Tim Griffiths wrote:
Unfortunately, the death rates are at best misleading - a "Covid Death" is defined as "Death for any reason within 28 days of testing positive.

Also, I understand that the UK's Office of National Statistics is about to change the definition of "Unvaccinated" from "someone who has received no covid vaccination", to "someone wo has been double jabbed, but has not yet had a booster"

I think they changed this quite recently to a death where covid is listed high up as one of the causes on the death certificate.

I think my friend who died of pneumonia following covid infection will be included in the latest figures, but the friend who took six weeks die of covid was not included last year.

I don't know how it is possible to compare this year's figures to last years when we are not comparing the same thing?

The WHO recommend countries follow the definition below for a Covid death:

"...a death resulting from a clinically compatible illness in a probable or confirmed case (of Covid), unless there is a clear alternative that cannot be related to Covid-19 disease (e.g trauma)..."

I suppose this must be why we have "died with" because from the above you actually can't die of Covid; or if you can this isn't included in the stats - which wouldn't make much sense...

I can't find a definition of "clinically compatible deaths". Presumably anything to do with any vital organs shutting down as a result of the immune system going into overdrive.

You can be a Covid death even if no one knows whether you had Covid (probable). But people hit by buses shouldn't be included...

So Covid can cover most ways we can die in hospitals and the WHO aren't overly fussy about whether you had Covid or not to start with. If it looks like it, count it.

Now I am no medical expert...but surely this leaves a very significant margin for definitional over-reach?

So if someone is in the final stages of cancer and tests positive for Covid; then dies three weeks later, he or she is counted as a Covid death? As, I suppose, they would be if they caught a cold - "Death with a cold". Has the world gone mad?

JK2006 wrote:
Has the world gone mad?

I actually think it may have...

I think it will also miss out the cases that we are all familiar with when we say that someone was "never the same after they had" covid/pneumonia/flu or whatever.
Not the direct cause, but sometimes it is the turning point.

I suppose some will be included in the list of excess deaths, but how would you know if it was covid, flu, or Surrey police that caused the decline?