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Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19): Conspiracy Theories & Claims

Aha! I was doing a search for Desiree Chub, not Desiree Chubb!
 
You are correct in saying that many people who are reported as dying of Covid-19 will be people who have died and just happened to have had it. However, some simple maths shows that this is only a small number of the total reported Covid-19 deaths.
This is an interesting idea for an analysis... but it doesn't change the fact that people are being careless when collecting casualty numbers.

Average no of annual deaths in UK = 500,000 (0.75% of pop)
Estimated no of infections this year = 10,000,000 (15% of pop)
Average no of people testing positive within any given 28 day period = 750,000 (just over 1% of pop)
Xanatic was right to question these figures. Why is it a 28 day period? Last I checked one of the most popular tests for Covid-19 exposure actually looked for ANTIBODIES and not the actual virus. The test has no value beyond "was this person exposed?" It's not meant to be used as part of determining cause of death.

Multiplying the number of people who would have died this year anyway by the percentage of all people who can be expected to have tested positive within 28 days of their death comes out at under 6,000.
This seems excessively arbitrary. What causation leads to this methodology?

This shows that over 90% of people included in the official death tally (71,000 so far) have died sooner than they otherwise would have.
As a counter-point... how many people in total died in 2020? The stated hypothesis of "died sooner" has not actually been tested.

Why? Because, statistically, only around 1% of natural deaths are likely to have coincidentally tested positive for Covid-19 within the previous 28 days and as a result be included in the official figures.
I find this conclusion questionable as I don't feel it's adequately supported by facts. The math is simply not backed up by causative reasoning.

It's a major problem when casualty figures are done like this, especially on a virus that's known to be generally harmless in 80% or more of the people infected. It's hard to say IF the number is only 80% since people haven't tested the entire population. how many people out there have the virus but simply never noticed? Well... a lot. With how many people just don't develop symptoms, it's hard to be sure.

BUT these casualty figures INCLUDE those people. No COVID-19 symptoms... dies of a heart attack... gets listed as a COVID-19 victim because he tests positive post-mortem? nope... doesn't make sense. Sure, one can make the assertation that being sick increased the odds of them dying in general.... that's equally true of the common cold. It doesn't mean that the common cold was the cause of death now does it? That is the problem. Cause of death isn't even being looked at.
Appeared on Facebook today, no attribution.
View attachment 33286
Pretty sure it's garbage that was made up by whoever posted it.
 
View attachment 33286
Appeared on Facebook today, no attribution.
I was thinking about this again. I personally suspect things like this are disinformation as part of a long game in propaganda where you discredit your opponent with lies. It's something I've seen a disturbing number of times. Some of it's clearly just people grumbling but some of it seems to be intentional misdirection and misinformation. Such as blaming new cases on "anti-maskers" when... it's an AIRBORNE DISEASE, you don't need direct contact with an infected person. Simply being in the same room can be enough. At least one case has been analyzed in enough detail to be certain that a person got it from someone who didn't come within 20 feet. Masks help, but not as much as some people would have you believe.

Like the bit about the way Covid-19 "deaths" are being counted. It's deliberately inflating numbers. Why? What purpose is there behind intentionally deceiving people like that? You can make an argument about how the official tally isn't technically inaccurate since it is including cases where Covid-19 was (possibly) a "contributing factor"... except the tally isn't PRESENTED as that. It's simply presented as "Covid Deaths". Which is generally seen as not "dead people with Covid who may or may not have actually died of it" but as "people killed by Covid". Thus it's fundamentally dishonest.
 
Hmmm... The Surgeon General Just Made a 'Scary' Admission About the COVID Surge (msn.com)
Yeah it really makes you wonder when you see stuff like this^
More than 350,000 Americans have died of coronavirus
Heh, two things jump out at me here.... Is he even talking about Covid-19? "Coronavirus" is actually the SHAPE of the virus... Some versions of the flu are also Coronaviruses. Coronavirus - Wikipedia

Second: Yeah the discussion about the way numbers have been counted. CDC figures: Provisional Death Counts for Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) (cdc.gov)
"Deaths involving COVID-19" 303,823 as of 31dec2020. (almost 50k less)
What does "involving" mean?
1 - Deaths with confirmed or presumed COVID-19, coded to ICD–10 code U07.1.
What does the code mean? COVID-19 Guidelines (cdc.gov)
The code is for people who tested positive for Covid-19. All of them even the ones who aren't even sick:
g) Asymptomatic individuals who test positive for COVID-19
For asymptomatic individuals who test positive for COVID-19, assign code U07.1, COVID-19. Although the individual is asymptomatic, the individual has tested positive and is considered to have the COVID-19 infection.

Which again... how many of those 303,823 actually died of Covid-19 and how many died of other reasons? The "news" piece throwing around a 350k death count... obvious scare tactic. Especially if the number is inflated.
 
More "Hoaxers".

Security officers removed Covid-19 "deniers" who were taking pictures of empty corridors at a NHS hospital where the intensive care unit is at maximum capacity, its chief executive said.

The incident took place at Colchester Hospital at the weekend. Chief executive Nick Hulme said it "beggars belief" some people were calling the pandemic a hoax. He said it was "the right thing to do" to keep corridors in outpatients units as empty as possible. Mr Hulme said hospital security had to "remove people who were taking photographs of empty corridors and then posting them on social media, saying the hospital is not in crisis".


"When you've got that sort of social media pressure and those people denying the reality of Covid it really concerns us. Words fail me," he said. "Why would people do that when we all know somebody who has died from Covid? Of course there are empty corridors at the weekend in outpatients, because that's the right thing to do. We are facing the biggest health challenge we've ever seen and we are still seeing people flouting the [social distancing] rules." ...

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-essex-55531589
 
"When you've got that sort of social media pressure and those people denying the reality of Covid it really concerns us. Words fail me," he said. "Why would people do that when we all know somebody who has died from Covid? Of course there are empty corridors at the weekend in outpatients, because that's the right thing to do. We are facing the biggest health challenge we've ever seen and we are still seeing people flouting the [social distancing] rules." ...
I don't know anyone who has died from - or even with - Covid. Nor do any of my friends. Many of my friends and their friends are in the high risk groups because of age and /or health problems. I do know several people who have had Covid, confirmed by tests.

This sort of statement will simply confirm the non-believers, and possibly even add to them.
 
I am in absolutely no way a Covid denier, have seen the results it's had on some people and have known people who've tested positive and been both ill and had no effects whatsoever (not the same individual, obviously).

But some of the really scary headlines that I've seen lately, particularly those regarding the new variant 'superspreading' Covid, which were phrased to make it sound as though this was about to be the death of humanity as we know it (with the information that the new variant spread faster but didn't cause Covid to be any more severe printed much much later on in any article) have made me think that the news is being diseminated in such a way as to distract us from the shambles that Brexit is becoming.

Keep us scared, keep us worrying about viral infection and possible death - and don't even look at what happens when countries close their borders to us. Sleight of hand.
 
I was in hospital a few times in last months of 2020 and yes, the corridors were pretty empty. But that’s because the nurses were working their arses off turning things around as quickly as possible. As well as making sure only the patients themselves were allowed in reducing the numbers you’d usually see by half.
 
I live opposite a hospital. It is in full view (the entrance road, main entrance to A&E and car parks) from my house, and since March of last year it has been, and continues to be, pretty much deserted.
It used to be the case that, due to the ambulance station being located right next door to it, that mostly every hour of the day you would see/hear ambulances with their sirens coming and going regularly. Now I can't remember the last time that happened, maybe before christmas I think.
And I am pretty much at home, all day, every day.
I'm not denying C19 is a thing, because clearly it is a thing, but what I am saying is that C19 has been given the over-riding priority over everything else, so much so that all the other services have basically closed down.
Several times I have wandered over to the hospital and had a walk around in the past few months , and compared to when I used to go there for regular physiotherapy after my bike accident (when it was ALWAYS busy, and I mean properly busy), it is now properly empty.
A&E usually has a handful of injured people sitting there but nothing like the dozens that used to be sitting there.
The rest of the place is devoid of patients and/or staff.
But there is absolutely no point in me telling people about it, or putting it on my facebook, or youtube, or any of the other sites that I frequent, as I just get labelled as a 'covidiot' or 'a denier'.........
But that's fine....I know what I know.
 
I live opposite a hospital. It is in full view (the entrance road, main entrance to A&E and car parks) from my house, and since March of last year it has been, and continues to be, pretty much deserted.
It used to be the case that, due to the ambulance station being located right next door to it, that mostly every hour of the day you would see/hear ambulances with their sirens coming and going regularly. Now I can't remember the last time that happened, maybe before christmas I think.
And I am pretty much at home, all day, every day.
I'm not denying C19 is a thing, because clearly it is a thing, but what I am saying is that C19 has been given the over-riding priority over everything else, so much so that all the other services have basically closed down.
Several times I have wandered over to the hospital and had a walk around in the past few months , and compared to when I used to go there for regular physiotherapy after my bike accident (when it was ALWAYS busy, and I mean properly busy), it is now properly empty.
A&E usually has a handful of injured people sitting there but nothing like the dozens that used to be sitting there.
The rest of the place is devoid of patients and/or staff.
But there is absolutely no point in me telling people about it, or putting it on my facebook, or youtube, or any of the other sites that I frequent, as I just get labelled as a 'covidiot' or 'a denier'.........
But that's fine....I know what I know.
I was volunteering at a large medical center that's a catchment for serious issues for about a 200-mile radius last March. First the visitors were removed, then the volunteers over 65, the all the volunteers and no elective surgeries, and chaplains were urged to do their work electronically, then at the same time people became frightened to go there even if they really needed to with heart problems, etc. and car accidents plummeted because no one was going anywhere or drinking at bars. By the time I left it was pretty quiet in the hallways. It loosened up in June (non-participating partners could attend deliveries) but shut down again in December. The interesting information would be number of beds occupied and/or clinical appointments 2019 and 2020 by covid and non-covid. I think that in the UK there was more shutting down of all services to preserve space - in the US they were begging people to keep their regular and needed medical appointments.
 
I am in absolutely no way a Covid denier, have seen the results it's had on some people and have known people who've tested positive and been both ill and had no effects whatsoever (not the same individual, obviously).

But some of the really scary headlines that I've seen lately, particularly those regarding the new variant 'superspreading' Covid, which were phrased to make it sound as though this was about to be the death of humanity as we know it (with the information that the new variant spread faster but didn't cause Covid to be any more severe printed much much later on in any article) have made me think that the news is being diseminated in such a way as to distract us from the shambles that Brexit is becoming.

Keep us scared, keep us worrying about viral infection and possible death - and don't even look at what happens when countries close their borders to us. Sleight of hand.
But there is absolutely no point in me telling people about it, or putting it on my facebook, or youtube, or any of the other sites that I frequent, as I just get labelled as a 'covidiot' or 'a denier'.........
But that's fine....I know what I know.
This sort of stuff is what bugs me most. Suppression of discussion. People preemptively scapegoated anyone critical of the official reports.. and raging about "anti-vaxxers" started before there was even potential vaccine in the works. And of course anyone who doesn't happily take the vaccine and thank the vaccine manufacturer for saving there lives... Last I heard this sort of "novel" approach to making a vaccine... has never worked before. And this one is definitely fully safe? unh huh...

COVID-19 definitely isn't fake... but it's being used for leverage in many unethical ways.
 
I have several relatives and friends who work in primary and secondary care in the NHS, and although it might seem to the casual observer that the hospitals are empty, they are not. The wards are at capacity without the normal 8-10% slack in the system. You can't see the wards from the ground floor entrance!

Outpatient clinics are taking place at about half the normal face-to-face rate with some of the rest being by telephone or at other satellite medical facilities (eg dialysis clinics after-hours, community hospitals and some GP surgeries). The time needed to clean surfaces and change PPE between appointments eats up a lot of the time.

ICUs are generally 'full' on any given date, let alone at the moment, they have a high in-out flow of patients as they juggle people with emergency illnesses, serious surgery both elective and emergency, and trauma. As soon as either a patient stabilises enough for them to return to a regular ward to recover or (sadly) there is nothing more to do for them and letting them go, peacefully and with palliative care then that ICU bed space has a number of candidates. The time and equipment needed to set up an ICU bay for a single patient stay is staggering. Add in extra cleaning and PPE protocols at the moment and I'd estimate that up to half a shift might be needed.

I would suggest that A&E seeming to be quiet from viewing the waiting room merely means that the normal numbers of walking wounded, alcohol-related attendance, people who couldn't get a GP appointment etc., has dropped off a lot. I have heard my relatives working in the NHS comment that A&E really is now just functioning as it should be - serious accidents and emergencies only.

A lot of staff have been deployed at smaller hospitals to man minor injuries and out of hours GP clinics (the local out of hours service give you a times appointment within the next 4-12 hours) to avoid going to A&E. This system has been running in my local area for about a decade and it works well (in my own experience).

If you're brought into A&E in an ambulance or other hospital transport then they don't pop you in the waiting room to wait! I've even been wheeled into the A&E waiting room due to a spinal surgical emergency by my husband in a hospital wheely chair thingy and I was called through within (literally) 3 minutes as I needed to be supine.

As with many situations, judging from exterior appearances is unwise. The NHS is still dealing with as many patients as 'normal' bar some minor electives (new knees, cataracts, bunion surgeries etc.,) and has to factor in the extra hours needed for Coronavirus cleaning and PPE changes.

It's busier than usual is what I'm hearing from them.

Edited to add: this news story from Leicestershire today is typical of what I'm hearing from them. The photo in this case is from a regular ward repurposed for the treatment of Covid-19 patients, not an ICU. The emotional toll on staff is becoming huge. One of my frontline NHS-employeed relatives is 4.5 months' pregnant with her first child and will not be offered the vaccines until a lot more research has been done on their effect on pregnant women, she is utterly torn between duty and self-preservation at the moment.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-55532469

"A woman who watched her mother die next to her in hospital after they both caught Covid-19 has pleaded with people to follow precautions.
Maria Rico, 76, from Leicestershire, removed her oxygen mask to speak to her two daughters one final time - despite knowing this would hasten her death.
Anabel Sharma described the moment as "heartbreaking" but said she was glad her mother did not die alone.
She has released their final photograph to raise awareness of the virus..."



Maria and Anabel in hospital
 
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I don't know anyone who has died from - or even with - Covid. Nor do any of my friends. Many of my friends and their friends are in the high risk groups because of age and /or health problems. I do know several people who have had Covid, confirmed by tests.

This sort of statement will simply confirm the non-believers, and possibly even add to them.
My Mum knows (or knew) a couple of people who died from the Covid.
A woman at work and a friend of mine knew people who've died of it. The same woman at work has a daughter who now has it.
 
But there is absolutely no point in me telling people about it, or putting it on my facebook, or youtube, or any of the other sites that I frequent, as I just get labelled as a 'covidiot' or 'a denier'.........
But that's fine....I know what I know.
You'd also get arrested and prosecuted for it, even though there is no law against taking photos of an empty corridor.
You'd be arrested for 'public disturbance' or 'resisting arrest'.
 
I can't understand why ALL of us who are over 60 and in a 'frontline worker' job, facing the public on a daily basis (in my case, in a shop) aren't being offered the vaccine* as a priority. We have faced this illness every single day since the virus broke out (in my case despite being told to stay at home for three months, my asthma was very well controlled at the outset so I made the decision to keep working). We should be classed with the 'clinically vulnerable' even if just as a reward for having faced angry irrational customers for the last nine months.

*all those who wish to have it, of course.
 
Oh, and this should include teachers, postal workers, and everyone else whose job brings them into contact with people, who've worked through the lockdowns and who won't otherwise qualify for vaccination until some point in the far distant future.
 
I can't understand why ALL of us who are over 60 and in a 'frontline worker' job, facing the public on a daily basis (in my case, in a shop) aren't being offered the vaccine* as a priority. We have faced this illness every single day since the virus broke out (in my case despite being told to stay at home for three months, my asthma was very well controlled at the outset so I made the decision to keep working). We should be classed with the 'clinically vulnerable' even if just as a reward for having faced angry irrational customers for the last nine months.

*all those who wish to have it, of course.

I expressed the same sentiments to my doctor when I saw her yesterday on an unrelated matter. I feel that those of us who have been shielding more or less from the start can surely just wait a bit longer and priority should be given for all the essential workers who have been keeping things going through it all. I feel that the shop workers and others are due some sort of reward. I'd feel bad having mine ahead of them. :(

Sollywos x
 
I don't know anyone who has died from - or even with - Covid. Nor do any of my friends. Many of my friends and their friends are in the high risk groups because of age and /or health problems. I do know several people who have had Covid, confirmed by tests.

This sort of statement will simply confirm the non-believers, and possibly even add to them.
My father in law died from Covid.
 
I can't tell anymore what is true and fake news:

View attachment 33497
Pretty sure this is fake news. the question isn't if it's fake, but who created the fake. The red labels don't look like they belong in the diagram. The name in the middle also looks out of place. Also if you look at the diagram it's a circuit board and not a microchip. Also marking it "confidential" seems a bit weird. But it's hard to be sure if it's an unscrupulous journalist making up a story or a journalist finding random stupidity.

Hmm interesting... the original source is seemingly a Twitter post. Mario Fusco on Twitter: "Here in Italy people started to share this figure claiming that this is the diagram of the 5G chip that has been inserted in the covid vaccine. In reality it is the electric circuit of a guitar pedal and I believe that putting it in the covid vaccine has been an excellent idea https://t.co/qXKnv7VVly" / Twitter

Hmm anyways he has a partial web link apparently in the post for a source.. but... the only readable part is the name of website. Hmmm attempting to look up the original source? I found at least 10 "news" articles that either attributed Mario Fusco as source or didn't attribute a source. Is this tweet the actual origin? One would think respectable news organizations would want to look up Mario's sources.. for additional information if nothing else. But after looking at something like a dozen websites(some of which don't count as news) I don't see that at all. They're just talking about the tweet. Many of them use the image in the tweet or fully quote the tweet, but don't back track to see where Mario got the information from? Smells fishy.
 
Pretty sure this is fake news. the question isn't if it's fake, but who created the fake. ...

There's no question it's a fake / hoax ...

That image was being circulated via the Telegraph (Telegra.ph) app and Telegram cloud-based service as early as 27 December 2020.

Because Telegraph is a messaging app that uses encryption the distributed image (and / or enclosing message) won't be found outside the message sender's and recipients' message files.

The Twitter posting apparently dates back to 28 December. It presented what appears to be a screenshot of the Telegraph message. Mario Fusco is claimed to be a software engineer who posted it once he'd discovered it (somewhere unspecified) online.

It's not clear how long the image was being circulated as fake COVID news prior to that. It's also unclear whether Fusco himself was a Telegraph recipient of the image.

The circuit diagram is for a Boss MT-2 Metal Zone guitar effects pedal.
 
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My father in law died from Covid.
'From' or 'with' ?

My point was not that nobody has died. Or even that nobody has died from Covid-19. I'm not going to keep repeating my posts because it is tiresome to me and probably everyone else.
 
I can't tell anymore what is true and fake news...

I'm currently using the rule of thumb that if someone says they 'know' something, it's probably fake.

Whereas, if they say they 'think' something, I can definitely work with that.
 
This is sure to fuel the CT fires...

WHO virus mission denied entry to China (rte.ie)
"An expert mission to China to find the origins of the coronavirus pandemic has stumbled before it even began, with the head of the World Health Organization complaining that Beijing was blocking the team from entering the country.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he was "very disappointed" with the last-minute bar on entry.

A ten-strong team was due to arrive in China this week after months of negotiations."
 
'From' or 'with' ?

My point was not that nobody has died. Or even that nobody has died from Covid-19. I'm not going to keep repeating my posts because it is tiresome to me and probably everyone else.
He got sick, went to hospital, had confirmed positive covid test, couldn't breathe on his own, intubated, dead.

So it would be like saying that no one has ever died from a grenade, just massive blood loss and the co-morbidity of sudden loss of limbs.
 
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There's no question it's a fake / hoax ...

That image was being circulated via the Telegraph (Telegra.ph) app and Telegram cloud-based service as early as 27 December 2020.

Because Telegraph is a messaging app that uses encryption the distributed image (and / or enclosing message) won't be found outside the message sender's and recipients' message files.

The Twitter posting apparently dates back to 28 December. It presented what appears to be a screenshot of the Telegraph message. Mario Fusco is claimed to be a software engineer who posted it once he'd discovered it (somewhere unspecified) online.

It's not clear how long the image was being circulated as fake COVID news prior to that. It's also unclear whether Fusco himself was a Telegraph recipient of the image.

The circuit diagram is for a Boss MT-2 Metal Zone guitar effects pedal.
So just to be clear, there is no evidence that you have found of the image actually being circulated initially fraudulently. I do wish that there were a method of turning off the social media of those people like the fake Mario who make up crap like this. Or at least get Twitter to take responsibility. At this point I think they could gather a large volunteer corps to assist.
 
He got sick, went to hospital, had confirmed positive covid test, couldn't breathe on his own, intubated, dead.

So it would be like saying that no one has ever died from a grenade, just massive blood loss and the co-morbidity of sudden loss of limbs.
My condolences, Kmalktk. When this is more over, I hope your family has the opportunity to mourn together.
 
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