Finally both The Times of India (18th June 2020) and The Indian Express (19th June 2020) have cited an editorial published by the Indian Journal of Medical Research that all mathematical models on the Covid-19 pandemic were incorrect, and worse carry a “strong element of bias.”
Sadly the edit does not provide any further elaboration on this “bias”. It was expected that the authors dived deep into their “bias” hypothesis. Especially because of the fact that the numbers sprayed by the doomsayers have just not materialised. The exaggeration was so obvious that it took ones breath away. Data from all over the world kept pouring in that mortality in Covid-19 ranged around 1-2 infected per thousand, at times even less than this. But the doom sayers persisted with their doom and gloom predictions as recently as this week.
Astonishingly the doomsayers have been provided platforms by the media all these months. The predictions made for terrifying headlines. The protocol in the media was rapidly established, the bigger the numbers for people infected , the greater would be force the force behind the news stories published and interviews recorded.
Editors scrambled without exception to provide more and more sensational headlines. No one questioned the source of these deeply flawed models. Neither has this editorial. The authors of the editorial need to answer as to why they presume there was a strong bias by the modellers ? What is a weak “bias?” What were the forces behind the “bias?” Does it really matter whether the modellers were from the university of Kurukshetra or the University of Washington? Was there any influence of these modellers with “bias” on the ICMR?
Who funds these newly established non governmental centres for disease control in India? These are some hard questions that need to be checked. Did the media inadvertently provide publicity to these modellers? Or were they hand in glove? Did the editors not realise that despite large-scale infectivity the death rate of the SARS-CoV-2 was very low amongst Indians. As opposed to death rate in Western countries of 3 figures per million, the Indian death rate has been a single digit per million of the population.
As of today there have been 12,605 deaths in India at a rate of 9 per million. A remarkably low number but true. There is always the probability that a considerable number of these deaths may be with Covid-19 virus as a bystander, rather than because of it. The modellers however has predicted lakhs of deaths.
Unfortunately these modellers were taken at face value, and not unlike the rest of the world, the government was compelled to over react. Who wants lakhs of deaths on their watch? Certainly no sane or responsible government. The English government responded to the Imperial college “document” as did we to our own brilliant modellers. The repercussions will be felt far and wide and sadly for a long time.
It is so obvious that lakhs of business lie ruined, lakhs of people were forced to literally walk thousands of kilometres back to their villages. Hundreds succumbed in the ordeal. Little girls walked bare feet hundreds of kilometres to drop dead due to exhaustion and starvation. Many got ploughed down by vehicles as they trudged home in utter despair. The harrowing list of miseries is endless.
But despite the clearly visible and palpable sufferings of lakhs of people the media refused to suspend sensationalism around Covid-19. The interviews kept coming, guests repeated ad nauseam that millions would be infected by SARS-CoV-2. That millions would get infected is so obvious that repeating this fact again and again is downright stupid or deliberate scare mongering.
The number of infected people infected so far are 381,485. Any public health student will know that in reality at least 10 times this number are actually infected. There is considerable serological data from across the globe ascertaining to the fact that at least 10 times more people are infected that those detected by a positive RT-PCR test. We therefore have at least 3.8 million people infected.
3.8 or 4 million people infected seems like a huge number till we bear in mind that we have 1,350 million people in our country. This implies that only 0.296% of our population has been infected by Covid-19. The mainstream and alternate media however keeps drumming the “millions” number.
When you keep repeating the “millions’ figure, knowing very well that as the denominator expands the mortality rate gets lowered there is a strong chance that some agenda is at play. Sensationalism for 4 weeks my be considered an inadvertent error, but to keep flogging a weakening horse over months becomes more than suspicious.
Why an online so called alternative media magazine priding itself on objectivity repeatedly invite doomsayers for interviews is downright baffling if not suspicious. There is neither science nor any substance in the interviews.
I have been repeatedly (in my blogs, videos and interviews ) underscoring the low mortality rate in Covid-19 patients. This was not based on astrology but on painstaking evidence gathered from peer reviewed medical literature. Above all there was absolutely no agenda. It certainly was not for applause or being in the spot light. The panic was becoming both visible and palpable, the ramifications of the fear will cast a large shadow for years to come.
According to the Swiss Policy Research the overall lethality of Covid-19 is about 0.1% as per the latest immunological and serological studies. Thus in the range of a strong seasonal flu.
The overall mortality in in the range of a strong flu season in countries like the UDS,UK, and also Sweden ( without a lockdown). In country like Germany, Austria and Switzerland overall mortality is in the range of a mild flu season.
Upto 80% of test positive cases remain without symptoms. Even among 70-79 year old, about 60% remain symptom free. Almost 95% patients develop moderate symptoms.
Importantly 60% of people may have cellular background immunity to Covid-19 due to previous common colds (coronavirus infection).
The average age of people dying is 80 years and 96% of these have chronic illnesses.
When people sit down to write about these times centuries from now, they surely will notice that more people died of fear of this virus than by the virus itself.
A lot of this fear has been fuelled by the modellers and the media. Mercifully some in the print media have finally realised that the mathematical models presented all these months are manifestly incorrect.