As we mark a year of this madness, I return to the subject of the places I've been tracking. Figures from Sunday unless stated otherwise.
I should also say that there is no sign of the European "third wave" from these countries as of yet, with only France, of the countries I am looking at, showing a very marginal increase in deaths compared to the previous week.
Firstly the global deaths, with a lower rate than any place I'm tracking, with
2,727,153 deaths, equivalent to about 23,884 in the UK. This shows how large areas of the world are barely affected by this shamdemic. eg Kenya, typical of Africa, with 2048 deaths in this moment, equivalent to 2551 in the UK. Yet, because of the economic impact of lockdowns and other restrictions worldwide, millions have gone hungry, giraffes are hunted for food, teenage girls have to do "bad things" for food. Easy for fat, well-fed Londoners to shout "conspiracy theorist", but these are serious issues that need debating.
Consider also that 75,000 people in the UK are expected to die long term because of lockdowns. Extrapolate this globally (8.56m) and then add millions more as the UN expects 71m to be pushed into extreme poverty by the global response to cv (ie lockdowns etc.). Many of these will be children - and yet as of September no child aged 28 days to 15 years had died of cv (the BMJ). Lockdowns will clearly kill more children than they save. Disgusting.
So far as the UK is concerned, even if we take the worst cae scenario - that we would have a death rate 20,000 higher per year than now (the highest I can find currently) with targeted protection instead of our extreme restrictions, even if these restrictions continued for another 2 and 3/4 years saving that many lives, it would still not have saved more than 75,000 lives. For the UK, lockdown is a failure, for the world, it appears genocidal, and we hope to see those culpable judged in the ICC.
Next is Utah, a US state that didn't lock down, with
2,062 deaths, equivalent to 42,344 in the UK. In fact, a chart showing the IFR of all the US states and highlighting those that didn't lock down shows them to be strikingly evenly spread through the chart, rather than all clustered at the high end of the IFR.
Germany comes next, with
75,270 deaths, equivalent to 60,937 in the UK. After being way below other European countries, it is now much closer, calling into question the difference its governments policies may have made.
Then Sweden, with
13,262 deaths, equ8ivalent to 89,148 in the UK. Worse than it was, it is still well below the UK and Belgium (which is closer to Malmo than Helsinki is). What I can say about Sweden is that they had a particularly mild flu season in 2019, a factor inthem having more deaths this year. Even so, their total deaths for 2019 and 2020 combined are still less than total deaths for 2017 and 2018 combined. And as of a report from 9/2/21, Sweden was seeing a similar decrease in "cases" to the UK, despite having less severe restrictions.
As for the rest of Scandinavia, they have lower deaths reported thus far from cv. Treating each in turn, I would say the following:
Denmark - the Oresund region covering parts of east Denmark and southern Sweden contains a fairly homogeneous population, and yet there is little difference in the IFR on the Swedish side and that on the Danish side depite different retrictions according to a report I read some months ago.
The isolated country of Norway locked down early and also had a more severe flu season previous to 2020 than Sweden.
The same can be said of Finland, which, like Norway and Denmark, had a soft lockdown, and at the right time - not too early or too late, and not continuing long into summer. For historical reasons, they are also fearsomely well prepared for any emergency. as well as adding vitamin D to basic foods.
I should also mention Belarus, which has continued with spectators at football throughout, and has an IFR a little higher than Finland's.
See
https://off-guardian.org/2020/12/19/how-belarus-exposes-the-lockdown-lie/Getting towards the higher ones now, and Brazil has
294,042 deaths, equivalent to 93,894 in the UK.. There was less restrictions, or less severe enforcement, than in lockdown fanatic neighbours Peru, and yet their IFR remains lower than them.
France has
92,305 deaths, equivalent to 94,140 in the UK. I also seem to remember that they didn't have the same scale of mass testing as us. Their deaths for the latest week (1876) are marginally more than the week before (1855) but I have my doubts over whether this will turn into a terrifying "third wave".
Next is California, with
57,184, equivalent to about 98,143 in the UK. California is a state which locked down particularly hard.
Florida, a broadly similar state which had much less severe restrictions - and has a much larger proportion of over 65's -
has 32,757 deaths, equivalent to about 101,486 in the UK. So about the same as California then. A fat lot of good their restrictions did them. Incidentally there is a report I read this week suggesting that Florida is marginally ahead of California rather than marginally worse. As I say, it is very close.
Lockdown zealots Peru, who are just entering their autumn, have
50,085 deaths, equivalent to about 102,947 in the UK. This is worse than neighbours Brazil, although they are now at a lower IFR than Belgium which is just coming out of winter.
Spain, who locked down hard last year, has
72,910 deaths, equivalent to 106,111 in the UK. Apparently they now have less severe restrictions than previously.
Texas, which had less sever restrictions than most states, has
47,595 deaths, equivalent to about 108,840 in the UK. Admittedly this is more than California, but not by a huge amount.
Last and worst of the nation-states I am tracking is predictably lockdown nuts Belgium (which is closer to Malmo than Helsinki is), with
22,650 deaths, equivalent to about 132,736deaths in the UK.. You could say they are more urbanised, or have a lot of vitamin D deficient people or whatever, but this just emphasises that lockdowns, to the extent that they do make a difference, and disregarding the damage and deaths they cause, are just one among many factors.
With the highest IFR is one of the US states I've been following, South Dakota, with
1,923 deaths, equivalent to about 146,254 deaths in the UK - even worse than Belgium! (10%). I suspect that this could have something to do with their exceptionally cold winters. as they previously had a much lower rate. On the positive side, their employment figures are great.
Well, they say freedom comes at a price, but it seems clear that, both locally and world wide, we would have been better off if we had followed the example of Belarus and continued going to our football matches , or at least followed the recommendations of the Great Barrington Declaration and pursued targeted protection. There seems no doubt that the past year has been a disastrous mistake. And it has 100% killed more children than the GBD would have. That on its own is reason to be angry for those of us who do not gloss over a million third world deaths. Jobs is money, and, as the Labour party used to say when they had a modicum of sense, money saves lives.
