Newsflash: Update

Usually I contribute a little bit of fun to the Abc site, but this time I ask you to consider some serious questions.

Virologists have often made the point that viruses tend to weaken as they mutate. This is beneficial to the virus because comparatively healthy hosts will better spread the disease. It's also better for the hosts as they suffer fewer and fewer disabling symptoms. Limitations like these are probably programmed into all organisms in order to maintain ecological balance.

In my view, there are now far fewer people dying 'of' Covid than they are dying of NHS backlogs in assessment and treatment of other illnesses, due to Covid obsession. This is particularly the case when we begin to question the daily death statistics, which simply report deaths of people testing positive, without informing us what OTHER diseases they had at the time of death. Many (and probably the vast majority) will have been suffering from much more serious illnesses than the Delta cold variant, including cancer, cardio-vascular diseases, advanced dementia, sepsis and hospital born infections.

There can only be a very small number now who are dying of Covid by itself. And over 500,000 people die every year in the UK of other illnesses...

So why are we still stumbling from one Covid 'crisis' to another?

A) the media have amplified Covid into melodrama and now cannot let go of it.

B) Covid treatment and testing has become big business and (some might argue) vested interest

C) government policy is largely driven by media alarm.

D) scientific advice has been concentrated within one wing of opinion, and appears blinkered to its effects on mental health, education, the economy, and other diseases.

Policy is now costing lives, as well as billions.

Postscript
The infection rate has risen to nearly 100,000. The death rate remains constant at around 120 (Covid plus other illnesses).
I leave readers to draw their own conclusions.

Update
Surprise, surprise. Studies are now indicating that the latest variant is less likely to lead to serious illness than the Delta variant (which was itself less pernicious than the Alpha). But we'll carry on ruining hospitality businesses, dragging valuable NHS staff into booster programmes and consolidating a society of endless neurotic misery.

Merry Christmas.

Update 1/1/22

Optimistic news from southern Africa now that the Omicron surge has peaked. Allowing for a time lag complication, due to Christmas and New Year mixing, the UK figures should follow suit by the end of the month.

Then it'll be all systems go for a decent summer.

Happy New Year!