by Iain Davis
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[45] - https://archive.is/vnV67
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Chapter 7 - Covid Catch 22
One of the most pervasive pseudopandemic deceptions was the inappropriate and misleading conflation of tests with cases. All pseudopandemic State franchises insisted that a test for SARS-CoV-2 equated to diagnosis of COVID 19. They were ably assisted in this deceit by the mainstream media who continually claimed tests were cases. This was a disinformation and propaganda operation on a global scale.
This duplicity had a considerable impact upon the claimed number of COVID 19 deaths. The WHO classification for a COVID 19 death [1], published in April 2020, stated:
"A death due to COVID-19 is defined for surveillance purposes as a death resulting from a clinically compatible illness, in a probable or confirmed COVID-19 case."
This meant that a COVID 19 death could be ascribed based upon probability. This isn't unusual for determination of cause of death. Often doctors have to make a judgment based upon probability, but in the case of COVID 19 this opened the door for State franchises to create a registration system that cast a very wide net over deaths from a broad range of causes and classify them as COVID 19 mortality.
Most State franchises categorised COVID 19 mortality as death within 28 days of a positive RT-PCR test. Some, such as the UK, also added mortality 60 days post positive test. This met with considerable resistance which we will discuss later. Consequently, in the overwhelming majority of cases, the test was a key determinant in the attribution of mortality.
The likelihood of positive RT-PCR test accurately identifying a SARS-CoV-2 infection fluctuated along a spectrum. If identified in a sample using a low Ct threshold it would suggest a high viral load which in turn would indicate a probable "active" infection. Above a Ct of 30 it rapidly became increasingly unlikely that there was any "active" infection.
A freedom of information request made by independent statistical researchers [2] to King College Hospital London revealed the extent of this problem. The hospital confirmed they had recorded 575 COVID 19 deaths between March and December 2020. Of those 486 had died within 28 days of a positive RT-PCR using a Ct threshold of 45. This rendered the identification of SARS-CoV-2 meaningless in these cases. As Karry Mullis stated, this threshold would "detect anything in anybody."
Furthermore, the false positive rate of RT-PCR meant deaths attributed predominantly on the basis of a tests were highly dubious. The UK Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) estimated the RT-PCR false positive rate to be between 0.8% - 4.0%. The median false positive rate was 2.3% [3]. While this initially sounds low, it is important to fully understand the implications.
The 2.3% was the median false positive rate for all conducted tests, not just positive results. With an overall 2.3% false positive rate, if you conduct 1000 tests and 4% are found to be positive then of those 40 people 23 will be false positives. The number of false positives is 2.3% of 1000, not 2.3% of 40.
Currently the UK State franchise claim they have conducted 182 million tests [23]. They define cases as "people tested positive" and allege the cumulative total of "positive" cases is 4.5 million: a positive test rate of 2.5%.
However, if 2.3% are false positives this suggests that of the 4.5 million alleged cases 4.2 million weren't cases at all. It is possible that up to 93% of claimed UK COVID 19 "cases" are false.
In reality the false positive rate isn't this high. The State franchise claim total tests "may include multiple tests for an individual person." Unfortunately they don't say how many are duplicates and we can only use the available figures. Nonetheless, the false positive rate calculated by SAGE applied to all tests, including those conducted upon people who allegedly died of COVID 19.
Even if the test accurately identified the presence of SARS-CoV-2, absent a clinical diagnosis, it still didn't mean the person had COVID 19. They could well have been asymptomatic, in which case the presence of the virus alone would not indicate that COVID 19 contributed towards their death.
Diagnosis takes various forms. Clinical, differential, medical, physical etc. However, in the public health context, the common element for a clinical diagnosis is the observed presence of symptoms. Clinical diagnosis can be defined as [4]:
A study of asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 patients [5] in China found that the presence of the virus alone had little to no impact on their presenting conditions. Nearly 80% of the studied patients did not develop COVID 19, although CT scans possibly indicated signs of the disease.
The British Medical Journal [6] reported that Australian researchers tested all the passengers on a quarantined cruise ship. Approximately 59% of the 217 passengers tested positive for SARS-CoV-2. Again, 81% of those infected were asymptomatic. Asymptomatic rates [7] on two quarantined aircraft carriers, the U.S.S. Theodore Roosevelt and the French Charles de Gaulle, were 58% and 48% respectively.
A similar figure of 78% asymptomatic infection was found in a study by Chinese researchers [8] who tested overseas arrivals. They showed no symptoms and therefore there was no evidence they were suffering the ill effects of COVID 19.
Another study of an isolated community of approximately 3000 people in the northern Italian village of Vo’ Euganeo found similar results. Sergio Romagnani, professor of clinical immunology at the University of Florence, stated that between 50%-75% of positive test cases were asymptomatic [9].
Careful symptomatic diagnosis was crucial, regardless of the test results. Symptoms suggest a possible diagnosis which a test may confirm. But if someone asymptomatic tested positive, a doctor could easily misdiagnose associated symptoms caused by some ailment not tested, like flu, as confirmatory of the asymptomatic RT-PCR test result.
With its speculative testing regime in place, the UK State franchise then decided that it needed to completely overhaul the death registration process for COVID 19. This ensured a huge inflation of COVID 19 mortality statistics. While we focus upon the UK State franchise, it is important to note that the pseudopandemic was a global operation and similar statistical distortions were applied worldwide.
For example, On the 24th March 2020 the US the Centre for Disease Control (CDC) issued COVID-19 Alert No. 2. [10] to all physicians and healthcare professionals. In it they advised those signing death certificates that the CDC expected them to use the WHO authorised clinical code U07.1. for possible COVID 19 decedents. This meant that COVID 19 would be recorded as the underlying cause of death whether or not that was the case. The CDC stated:
"The rules for coding and selection of the underlying cause of death are expected to result in COVID-19 being the underlying cause more often than not."
In the UK numerous, significant changes were made to the death registration process and in each and every case they increased, and never decreased, COVID 19 mortality statistics. This clearly indicates the intention to portray COVID 19, a low mortality disease, as something it was not.
Harold Shipman was a British General Practitioner (GP) and mass murderer who was convicted of killing 15 vulnerable patients in 2000. The evidence showed that he almost certainly murdered at least another 200 other vulnerable people by overdosing them with diamorphine. Following his trial, the Shipman Inquiry considered the case and found that Shipman had managed to cover up his crimes by falsifying the death certification process.
The Shipman Inquiry Report [11] recommended a number of improvements to the death registration process. It was published in 2003 but the State franchise did nothing and, partly as a result, between 2005 and 2008, an estimated 400 - 1200 patients died unnecessarily due to the atrocious neglect of Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust (Mid Staff's).
Like the Shipman case, dangerous malpractice at Mid Staff's had remained undetected due to shortcoming in the death registration process. The subsequent Francis Report recommended changes again which, 13 years after the Shipman Inquiry, the UK State franchise finally implement in 2016 [12].
In 2020, as the UK faced an alleged global pandemic, the State removed all of these safeguards. Thus recommencing the system that had been identified as a danger to patients.
The Coronavirus Act indemnified all NHS doctors [13] against any claims of malpractice or negligence. It also effectively removed the possibility of a jury led inquest into any COVID 19 death. The Act restarted a legislative and regulatory framework which was known to have contributed towards undetected medical error, was prone to abuse and had led to thousands of otherwise avoidable deaths.
In concert with WHO guidelines, and in response to the Coronavirus Act, the NHS issued guidance to doctors [14] for the completion of the Medical Certificate of Cause of Death (MCCD). The regulations and policy guidance from health and statistical authorities applied exclusively to COVID 19. The COVID 19 death certification and registration process they produced beggars belief. The guidance stated:
"Any medical practitioner with GMC registration can sign the MCCD, even if they did not attend the deceased during their last illness."
There was no requirement for a positive test result, the NHS guidance also stated:
"If before death the patient had symptoms typical of COVID 19 infection, but the test result has not been received, it would be satisfactory to give ‘COVID-19’ as the cause of death….In the circumstances of there being no swab, it is satisfactory to apply clinical judgement."
However, COVID 19 symptoms were largely indistinguishable from a range of other respiratory illnesses. A study from the University of Toronto [15] found:
“The symptoms can vary, with some patients remaining asymptomatic, while others present with fever, cough, fatigue, and a host of other symptoms. The symptoms may be similar to patients with influenza or the common cold.”
The MCCDs, which inform Office of National Statistics (ONS) mortality figures in England and Wales (after subsequent registration), were completed inline with the WHO's recommendations [16]. The MCCD is split into sections. Part 1. a) "Disease or condition directly leading to death"; b) "Other disease or condition, if any, leading to (a)"; and c) "Other disease or condition, if any, leading to (b),"
Part 2 records "Other significant conditions contributing to the death, but not related to the disease or condition causing it." For example, a person may have died from heart failure caused by pneumonia but obesity, though not directly related to the immediate cause of death, could have contributed and would therefore be recorded in Part 2.
In the case of respiratory disease, the direct cause of death could be Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS). This may be brought on by, for example, pneumonia which was caused by influenza. In this instance the direct cause of death would be recorded in Part 1. a) as ARDS, prompted by pneumonia in Part 1. b) and the underlying cause would be set as influenza in Part 1. c).
Following the genomic sequencing of SARS-CoV-2, the WHO Family of International Classifications (WHOFIC) Network Classification and Statistics Advisory Committee (CSAC) created new International Classification of Diseases codes (ICD-10 codes) for COVID 19.
A "confirmed case" was dependent solely upon a positive test result [17] and was given the code U07.1. Observable symptoms were not necessary for U07.1 code to be recorded on a death certificate. This was the code US physicians were ostensibly compelled to use.
A suspected COVID 19 case was coded as U07.2. A decedent known to have had contact with a SARS-CoV-2 positive person, while neither testing positive nor having any symptoms themselves, could be considered a suspected/probable COVID 19 case and given the code U07.2.
Neither the U07.1 nor the U07.2 codes required any evidence that the decedent had COVID 19 disease. The only requirement was that they, or someone with whom they had contact, tested positive for the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
The U07.1 code indicated a "confirmed case" and so, unless the decedent passed away from something that could not possibly be related, such as head trauma, a SARS-CoV-2 positive RT-PCR test would almost automatically confirm COVID 19 as the underlying cause.
The WHO clearly described this process in their International MCCD coding guidelines [18]. They defined what a death "due" to COVID 19 was. Doctors were advised that a death from a "clinically compatible
illness, in a probable or confirmed COVID-19 case" indicated a "death due to COVID-19."
A clinically compatible illness could be any respiratory illness, flu or pneumonia for example, or any respiratory distress. Whether coded as confirmed (U07.1) or suspected (U07.2), perhaps based on nothing more than a positive RT-PCR test, COVID 19 would be recorded as the underlying (due to) cause of death.
Potentially, even if the individual died from cancer, as long as they tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, or the Doctor suspected respiratory distress, the death would be registered as "due to" COVID 19. That is, COVID 19 would again be the reported as the underlying cause.
Additional WHO guidance stated:
"COVID-19 should be recorded on the medical certificate of cause of death for ALL decedents where the disease caused, or is assumed to have caused, or contributed to death. Although both categories, U07.1...and U07.2 ....are suitable for cause of death coding......it is recommended, for mortality purposes only, to code COVID-19 provisionally to U07.1 unless it is stated as probable or suspected."
Where doctors merely suspected a probable COVID 19 case, they were advised to record it on the MCCD as a confirmed case (U07.1 and not U07.2). Again, effectively ensuring it would be reported as the "underlying cause."
The Office of National Statistics recorded COVID 19 mortality as [19]:
"Deaths involving the coronavirus (COVID-19) include those with an underlying cause, or any mention, of U07.1 (COVID-19, virus identified) or U07.2 (COVID-19, virus not identified)."
If the Doctor held firm and coded COVID 19 as U07.2 on Part 2 of the MCCD, the ONS would still report it as a COVID 19 death in the UK mortality statistics.
The vague Ct thresholds, high asymptomatic and false positive rates meant that attribution of COVID 19 death, based solely upon a positive test, that may have been reported weeks prior to the time of death, was close to meaningless. A positive test combined with a detailed examination of observed symptoms would be required for COVID 19 death registration to be plausible.
