WEDNESDAY, 16 DECEMBER 2020
Some questions about the Coronavirus, just to make it clear where one stands:
1. What is the origin of the virus? If the origin is not yet clear, despite the value it will hold to know, and despite technological and human resources available, what is the reason for this?
2. How deadly is the virus? Specifically, assuming a reasonably healthy person in their twenties gets the virus, what is the probability that the person will die from the infection? What is the probability if the person is in their forties, or fifties, or sixties, or seventies, or eighties? What is the probability that a healthy child or teenager will die from a coronavirus infection? How deadly is the virus for people in their twenties who already have other health problems (diabetes, heart problems, asthma, obesity, high blood pressure)? And for people with other health problems in their thirties, forties, fifties, sixties, seventies, eighties?
3. How effective are lockdowns in controlling the spread of the virus? How well does it work to close restaurants and other places of entertainment, and to close schools? Has the type of measures the world has seen in 2020 ever been utilised in other pandemics and epidemics? If not, why not? Was the data on which health officials and government leaders based their decisions accurate and complete enough to make such decisions? At the beginning – in February or March – one could understand that there was not enough data available yet, but after more than eight months the picture should be clearer, right?
4. How effective is the wearing of masks by healthy people to combat the spread? Are there any studies that prove that masks make a significant difference between healthy people getting the virus and healthy people not getting the virus? Are there any negative consequences for healthy people if they wear a mask for hours on end – even outside when walking on a beach or in a park?
5. Since lockdown measures were put in place to control the spread of the virus, how many people have died as a result of the measures, and not from the virus itself, for example from cancer and heart problems for which treatment had to be postponed?
6. What is a reasonable projection for the number of people who will die over the next decade as a direct or indirect consequence of poverty caused by measures that have destroyed their businesses or other sources of income?
7. Over the course of 2020, the WHO has made divergent statements on the severity of the virus, on international travel, and on masks. There is also a spectrum of opinions among epidemiologists, medical doctors, and other experts about the virus and the most effective ways to combat it and protect the population. Yet free discussion in the news media and especially on social media is strongly discouraged. Only opinions approved by the WHO and by national governments get the stamp of credibility. Alternative opinions are labelled “Disinformation” or simply banned. Yet it has repeatedly been shown that experts who hold these banned opinions were right, and government leaders and health officials working with governments wrong. Who should the public trust? If free discussion is not allowed, and criticism of approved opinions is punished, how does one arrive at the truth?
MONDAY, 28 DECEMBER 2020
Two most important questions:
1. Is SARS-COV-2 the deadliest virus that has hit humanity in the last hundred years? If not, why implement measures that have never been tried on such a large scale, and that even a politician could work out for him- or herself would always have destructive effects on the population, as they are having now?
2. How many people will eventually die as a result of measures intended to save lives?
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