Going down the wrong path

Deaths in the New and Old Normals

"Pandemic" the WHO cries, and our governments have no recourse but to start testing, to enforce surveillance, and force isolation of suspected populations. And, the show must go on till WHO decides to end the Pandemic!

Our governments have no other recourse than to follow WHO, because their hands are tied by the International Health Regulations of 2005, which followed on decades of scaremongering with acronymed fears such as HIV/AIDS, Ebola, SARS, H5N1, H1N1, MERS and Zika.

But, lest we forget, this is the same WHO which callously lied about Chernobyl casualties in 2005; the same organization which recommended ipse dixit highly addictive opioids to children in 2011; the same whose 'Swine Flu Pandemic' bought billions of dollars in profit to Big Pharma, and insufferable anguish to thousands of children, young adults and their families.

⊕ Further reading

Dhiman et al., 2018, Correlation between Non-Polio Acute Flaccid Paralysis Rates with Pulse Polio Frequency in India, Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health, 15(8), 1855, https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph15081755

WHO plays down risk to Indian children from tainted polio vaccine, Reuters, October 2, 2018

T. J. John, D. Dharmapalan, 2019, The moral dilemma of the polio eradication programme, Indian Journal of Medical Ethics,DOI:10.20529/IJME.2019.060

Oral polio vaccine causing paralysis in kids: Study, The New Indian Express, 23rd October 2019 Lest, we forget, it is the same WHO that through an unnecessary polio vaccination scheme created an epidemic of paralysis among Indian children.

Our governments have no recourse, but we have a responsibility for our children and future generations, and a gratitude to repay our parents and the senior citizens in our nations. It is our solemn duty to examine the facts, to understand the situation objectively, and to take appropriate action, rather than propagate superstitions mindlessly.

To be skeptic is our solemn duty. We must question the facts, and investigate whether a new disease suddenly alighted on our communities in late 2019.

A new deadly, highly contagious disease — we may expect — must stand out in some aspects: it may be that it produces extraordinary illnesses, or that it kills a lot of people whom the natural course of life leaves unaffected.

But COVID-19 is the cold, it is the flu, it is the blood clots,White, Richard H. "The epidemiology of venous thromboembolism." Circulation 107.23_suppl_1 (2003): I-4. it is the pneumonia, Malin, Adam. "Review series: old age: pneumonia in old age." Chronic respiratory disease 8.3 (2011): 207-210. it is the heart attacks, the cancers, the breathlessness, and even the traffic accidents; in short, it is everything that causes sickness and deaths in people all the time. And ironically, it could be nothing at all; the WHO says that you could be carrying the virus without even showing the least of symptoms.

It is not only the vagueness of the disease definition that is of concern. So far, in Japan, as in most of the world, there is no objective evidence of a killer disease decimating large swaths of the population. To truly understand what I am saying, we need to put the reported deaths in Japan in the context of deaths prior to 2020, i.e. during our Old Normal.

Deaths in the Old Normal

⊕ Fig. 1: Monthly numbers of deaths in Japan since January 1978. In recent decades, on the average, about 4000 people die on any given day.

In data of mortality that I present in Fig. 1, we can find a strong increasing trend of deaths with time. If there are X deaths in a given year, then the next year is most likely to have X+20,000 deaths. These extra 20,000 deaths are seen every year since around 2002.

We can see other interesting phenomena, such as a 2–3 year cycle. Also since 2010, the number of winter deaths seems to have suddenly increased.

⊕ Fig. 2: The leading causes of death in recent years are from cancer, heart disease, pneumonia, and senility (dementia). Since 2010, deaths from senility are rising rapidly and most deaths take place in hospitals and nursing homes.

According to Mitchell et al., (2009) people with advanced dementia die of complications associated with pneumonia, episodic fever, and eating problems.

⊕ Further reading

Steeman et al., 2014, Reversal of English trend towards hospital death in dementia: a population-based study of place of death and associated individual and regional factors, 2001–2010, BMC Neurology

Mitchell, Susan L., et al. A national study of the location of death for older persons with dementia. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society 53.2 (2005): 299-305.

Houttekier, Dirk, et al. Place of death of older persons with dementia. A study in five European countries. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society 58.4 (2010): 751-756.
As in most of the developed world, a large part of the additional deaths that occur every year in Japan are due to senility (dementia, black curve in Fig. 2 above). Every year, 10,000 more people die of dementia compared to the previous year. Most of them need the special care of nursing homes, due to severe functional and cognitive disability, and increasing behavioural disturbances such as aggression.

Deaths in the New Normal

In 2020, if there was really a killer disease, we should see it change the death statistics in an outstanding way. For example, there is nothing unusual about people dying of old age, but it is unusual if unexpected deaths occur among the younger population. It is also unusual, if a large number of older people suddenly pass away.

In Japan, 8810 deaths have been reported as of 20 March 2021, that were associated with a positive PCR test. This may sound like a large number, but it is not! About 3000–5000 deaths occur in Japan any given day.

⊕ Fig. 3: Deaths in 2019 (black line, data for Jan–Dec), compared to a preliminary estimate of deaths in 2020 (blue line, data only for Jan–Sep).

These unimpressive changes, are clearly seen through Fig. 3, which shows that deaths are, if at all, lower in 2020 compared to 2019. However, as seen in Fig. 1, we should expect deaths to rise by 20,000 every year, or roughly a monthly increase of about 1500 deaths. Don't you find it unusual that deaths are much lower than expected in 2020, compared to previous years?

Further, as in other countries, the vast majority of deaths occur in people who are past the average life expectancy. In Japan, about 5000 of the 8810 deaths were of people aged 80 and above!

Perhaps, you may think that this is due to extraordinary care that people in Japan took during 2020 to avoid catching and propagating the killer virus! This is unlikely, because other countries that took vastly different approaches also had similar outcomes.