Shock: Official Statistics Expose UK’s COVID-19 Lockdown Fail

Sweden was right all along – lockdown not needed. Official statistics reveal that the UK’s death toll due to COVID-19 is no worse than the country’s last bad influenza outbreak 20 years ago.

But before PM Boris Johnson claims victory for his quarantine measures he should take note of Sweden (which had no lockdown).

There is little, if any, discernible difference between the two countries on the rate or extent of deaths due to the disease. However, England did suffer more ‘unrelated deaths.’

As reported today by the BBC, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) publishes the proof based on all death certificates which show both fatalities in hospital and in the community on a weekly basis.

It is believed that the peak of morbidity in the UK was reached in the week of April 10th. Separate analysis by NHS England shows that since April 8th the number of deaths in hospitals have been falling.

Overall deaths topped 18,500. This is the highest since January 2000 when there was a bad flu outbreak.

So, it is official: the COVID-19 pandemic – the global crisis of our age – is looking like it may be no more deadly than a bad flu outbreak. Death is regrettable and inevitable.  But read further and see that there is a devil here in the detail.

This is because the ONS reports that deaths from ‘other causes’ rose too, suggesting that the unprecedented ‘lockdown’ of the entire nation may have inadvertently caused thousands of unnecessary extra deaths.

This is where comparisons with Sweden may end up proving unpleasant reading for PM Boris Johnson.

Comparing COVID-19 Morbidity: England with Sweden

Unlike the UK Sweden chose not to enforce a national lockdown. As Maddy Savage reported for the BBC (March 29, 2020):

“While swathes of Europe’s population endure lockdown conditions in the face of the coronavirus outbreak, one country stands almost alone in allowing life to go on much closer to normal. Swedes love the outdoors and officials have said that keeping people physically and mentally healthy is another reason they’re keen to avoid rules that would keep people cooped up at home.

Dr Emma Frans says history will be the judge of which politicians and scientists around Europe have made the best calls so far.

“Nobody really knows what measurements will be the most effective,” she says. “I’m quite glad that I’m not the one making these decisions”.”

Anyone can check the data for themselves by accessing the official  EU website  ‘European Monitoring of Excess Mortality for Public Healthwww.euromomo.eu

Below we show a comparison for Week 15 (April 20th). Contrast and compare the relative death toll between Sweden and England during the pandemic and for previous years and note that there is an eerie similarity between the two countries.

Highlighted in red below: How is it possible that both nations, using opposing strategies, show a rise and fall in death rates in almost perfect synchrony?

How can it be that both countries, with such an extreme contrast in the social and economic measures they put in place, demonstrate no discernible difference in the rate or extent of mortality?

‘Cure Worse than the Disease’

More medical experts, economists, scientists and a president are declaring that the extreme measures in shutting down entire national economies could be a case of the ‘cure being worse than the disease.’

In America citizens are starting to demonstrate publicly against weeks of medical house arrest. Dr. Paul Offit, a professor in the infectious diseases division of the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (and on the team that developed the vaccine for the Rotavirus) lamented:

“There will be a lot of unanticipated consequences that will be dire. The ripple effect will be very damaging. At what cost are we ultimately preventing this?”

In Britain the BBC and other mainstream broadcasters have more or less quelled the masses and no mass demonstrations (so far) have occurred. But alcohol consumption and takeaway deliveries have certainly ‘spiked’. No doubt some mums and dads have been getting pickled and beating their kids while piling on the pounds.

Closing down all “non-essential” businesses was an enormous risk — not just economic – the impacts are ubiquitous. How is it possible to truly assess whether or not a business is “essential” for public health.

Occupations that may seem “non-essential” at the outset may prove essential later. For example, some doctors, nurses, etc, will need to replace brake pads on their car and parts and paper for computers are needed for hospitals. In a cohesive, well-managed society very little is non-essential.

To be told your work is not essential causing you to become unemployed is a blight on self esteem;  the negative impacts, including mental stress, will compromise your immune system.

No society can safeguard public health for long at the cost of its economic health. We can be sure the law of unintended consequences may yet reveal that the death toll from ‘other causes’ will continue to rise in the wake of this draconian mass lockdown. We can only guess at what will be the final tally from the grave impact on mental health, livelihoods, etc. but it could be in the millions.

The lesson from this pandemic lockdown may be that the true overall price is far greater than we could have thought. Better to keep our societies running as near normal as possible and never again try this insane experiment in mass quarantining of entire nations.


About the author: John O’Sullivan John is CEO and co-founder (with Dr Tim Ball) of Principia Scientific International (PSI).  John is a seasoned science writer and legal analyst who assisted Dr Ball in defeating world leading climate expert, Michael ‘hockey stick’ Mann in the ‘science trial of the century‘. O’Sullivan is credited as the visionary who formed the original ‘Slayers’ group of scientists in 2010 who then collaborated in creating the world’s first full-volume debunk of the greenhouse gas theory plus their new follow-up book.

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Comments (17)

  • Avatar

    Dev

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    Great clarity and could not agree more .
    It would have been far better for those falling ill with flu to just stay at home as per normal.
    Since the governments behaviour has been extreme and well outside of the norm then it must raise questions regarding the nature of government and to question whether such a small group should have monopoly of power.
    Devastation – optional

    Reply

  • Avatar

    Andy Rowlands

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    Nice article John. It’s unfortunate that after three days of falling numbers of deaths, today’s ‘official’ number has shot up to 828.

    Reply

    • Avatar

      John O'Sullivan

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      Cheers, Andy. Yes, the numbers are being padded now to include any cases that may appear to be coronavirus – testing not required. If it continues on the current path then Sweden will have sooner beaten the virus while the UK will have a falsely higher mortality thanks to fakery.

      Reply

      • Avatar

        Alan Stewart

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        Hi John, Andy,
        One possible change above – the word regrettable might be changed to inevitable. My older brother died at the young age of 40 – certainly regrettable to my parents. The majority of influenza type diseases strike the elderly and infirm – inevitable probably the correct word. You might also want to wander a thought. Average worldwide lifespan is ~72 years. If medicine could increase that in decadal increments what would the social and economic cost be??

        Cheers gents

        Reply

        • Avatar

          John O'Sullivan

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          Alan, agreed – now amended!

          Reply

    • Avatar

      Finn McCool

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      Andy,
      I stopped looking at the reported ‘COVID-19’ mortalities mainly because I had no faith in the way these were being classified. I believe it is more clarification is gained from looking at overall deaths and where they are when normalised to the previous 5 year mean. Of course, I’m more interested in the Scottish figures (which for Jan – Mar 2020 do not have any statistical difference). Hopefully that should negate classification problems. I suspect April’s figures may give a better idea. To be brutally honest, even 5,000 extra deaths in Scotland won’t make a blind bit of difference to the overall health of the nation.
      Unfortunately, for a maths and stats nerd like me, it makes the numbers completely boring.
      However, the political ramifications of the hysterical over-reactions are truly frightening.
      I had written a few hundred words until I read this article by Iain Davis at the offGuardian:
      https://off-guardian.org/2020/04/20/coronavirus-lockdown-and-what-you-are-not-being-told-part-2/
      His article is well written, well researched and says it far better than I ever could.

      Reply

  • Avatar

    richard

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    The year the world went full on stupid. I cannot believe what I have seen. People, even friends, convinced they could die from it. It doesn’t matter what I show them.

    It took three weeks to brainwash the population. Back in the 30’s it took a few years to control a people.

    Reply

      • Avatar

        dev

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        Thanks for the link- its always shocked me how so much science has been distorted into dogma.

        Reply

  • Avatar

    Josh

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    “No Discernible Difference”? I don’t think you’re reading those graphs correctly. The Sweden and UK graph LINES look to have produced a similar shaped and sized spike, but look at the scale on the left. Sweden’s peak at 8, and UKs are off the scale, somewhere around, maybe 16… hard to tell. Please explain.

    Reply

    • Avatar

      John

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      I agree. If you go to the website, the UK (England) graph lines are compressed to mimic the peaks in Sweden’s graph. France, Netherlands, Spain, etc. are also compressed.

      Reply

  • Avatar

    judy

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    Hello Finn,

    I followed your link to the Guardian

    https://off-guardian.org/2020/04/20/coronavirus-lockdown-and-what-you-are-not-being-told-part-2/

    I found an interesting graph .To find it word search on …Perhaps they can’t say it directly….

    I then went to the National Health site

    https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/deathsregisteredweeklyinenglandandwalesprovisional/weekending10april2020

    And searched on year-to-date analysis and came to Figure 4 which is the graph that the image came from.

    Thank you. I will put this up on PSI-Australia

    bit.ly/psi-au

    Reply

  • Avatar

    judy

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    0.02666234 % covid deaths = 2/100ths of numeral 1
    Its the same crazy deceitful pseudo maths they used in climate change. It’s designed to make a minuscule amount look large.

    Reply

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