Covid death classification - Does this happen with flu?

[Mike Yeadon]

I don’t find it baffling for the same reason U.K. media have trumpeted all sorts of lies, partiality & lack of balance: because they’ve been told to strictly follow the OFCOM Coronavirus Broadcasting Guidelines. These came into force on Mar 23 2020 & essentially required the license holder to broadcast what they were told to, from government & its health advisors (mostly SAGE).
We’re in a sorely censored state. Those powers are still in force 11months on.
Why?

It's baffling that so little media attention has been given to this specific issue.

Given that it's so easy to ascribe any death to Covid, it's obvious that the death toll will look inflated. And if there is a high death toll, the government will find it easier to continue with the restrictions.

But we wouldn't do this with cancer. It simply wouldn't inform our understanding of the disease.

A related question is: if the official Covid death toll is inflated, then what is the true Covid death toll?

Using the IFR, maybe it's possible to arrive at an estimate.

[miahoneybee]

What about all the deaths contributed to c 19 in care homes prior to the tests?.....how was that measured?no pm but it was on the death certificate ?

[bradw4]

Now the rate of attribution of death to covid19 is in large measure a function of the operational false positive rate of the tests used & frequency of testing as well, of course, a function of true prevalence. I believe if we’d applied the rules we’ve used in cases of people dying while infected with flu, that is, basing most of the decision on clinical judgement, we’d have recorded far, far fewer deaths as being caused by covid19.

And with a much lower Covid death count, the government's case for authoritarian lockdowns falls apart.

I've struggled to rationalize government policy since this started. The death and infection data - the contextualized data - obviously demonstrate that lockdowns do not meaningfully succeed in stopping the spread. Or that the measure is warranted.

So the most charitable interpretation of the government's actions that I can come up with is this: the government badly overreacted. And, out of an overabundance of caution, it continued with the 'three weeks to flatten the curve' a little longer than planned.

But soon ministers realized they could not about-turn. The campaign to terrorize the public worked so exquisitely that an abrupt volte-face would have caused great embarrassment to the government and its advisers. It would have dissolved the government's credibility. So the lies and hysteria continued, because it was easier than owning to the original miscalculation.

Is this plausible, or is there a more sinister explanation?

I'm well aware of the Great Resert agenda, and how the wealthy are trying to further their political agenda in this window of opportunity (Bill Gates, Blair, Dorsey). But I'm still wary of the suggestion that a truly global conspiracy is in train, fundamentally reshaping the prevailing world order. Yet, I am at a loss to explain what is happening globally.