For example, the latest statistics from NHS England showed that in the East Midlands, only 533 (29 per cent) of the 1,817 people included in coronavirus hospital data were being treated primarily for the virus.
In England overall, nearly half (47.9 per cent) of Covid patients were admitted to hospital for other conditions, but also tested positive.
As a result of this, some scientists are calling for the scrapping of daily covid case updates because they are giving an inaccurate picture and also because people are becoming addicted to them. According to The Daily Telegraph:
This week, it also emerged that the number of daily reported deaths is starting to diverge significantly from registered Covid deaths recorded by the Office for National Statistics. Sajid Javid has now admitted the dashboard figures are too high.
Deaths are reported as Covid on the dashboard if they occur within 28 days of a positive test. But so many people are now being diagnosed with omicron that a large proportion of natural deaths are now also ending up in the figures.
Francois Balloux, professor of computational systems biology at University College London, said: “Until recently, monitoring deaths within 28 days of testing positive was a good proxy – it mirrored the real world.
“Now that is obviously not the case. At the moment, the numbers look horrible and worse than they should.
“The upside is they will soon look fantastic. I think we’re in a better situation than we have ever been since March 2020, and especially in the UK, I am pretty optimistic that we can soon call a day and then we’re finished.”
For the week ending January 7, the Government reported 1,282 deaths. However, the Office for National Statistics registered only 992, of which just 712 had Covid as the primary cause of death.
Usually, Office of National Statistics data is higher because it also includes care home deaths. Now the trend has changed, with dashboard figures much higher than those published by the ONS.
Jonathan Ball, professor of molecular virology at the University of Nottingham, said: “It’s always been the case that the data was unable to discriminate between people in hospital, or people who died, because of Covid-19 rather than with Covid-19.
“It will be important to understand the future impacts of Covid-19 and the only way you can do that is to record numbers, just the same way we do with other important infections. But the assumptions and potential errors inherent in those figures do need to be acknowledged more.”
On December 15th, Boris Johnson announced that Baroness Heather Hallett would chair the public inquiry into the Covid-19 pandemic. It will begin in the Spring.
The terms of reference of the inquiry have yet to be published. Speaking in December, Hallett said:
“I am honoured to be appointed to chair the Covid-19 Inquiry. The pandemic has affected us all, some much worse than others. I am acutely conscious of the suffering it has caused to so many.
In the new year I shall be seeking views from those who have lost loved ones and all other affected groups about the Inquiry’s terms of reference. I want to assure the British public that, once the terms of reference are finalised, I shall do my utmost to ensure the Inquiry answers as many questions as possible about the UK’s response to the pandemic so that we can all learn lessons for the future.”
Will Hallett investigate how the deaths were counted? Jonathan Ball was unequivocal when he said that the data has been unable to discriminate between people who died of covid or who died with it and that errors in the collection of data need to be acknowledged.
I don’t believe there were any errors in the data collection. The government and its scientific advisers deliberately falsified the data to inflate the death numbers. This was done to terrify the public into complying with lockdowns.
The terms of reference will be published any day now. Will Hallett seek submissions from those who believe that the lockdowns were unnecessary and devastating for public health? We’ll have to wait and see.
I believe that it’ll be a whitewash and that Hallett will conclude that the government should have locked the country down sooner than March 2020. Time will tell.