Andrew Bolt: Are they dying from the virus — or with it?
The coronavirus panic that has led to Victoria’s looming economic disaster has been exaggerated by one simple counting confusion, writes Andrew Bolt. Not all the almost 400 dead were actually killed by the virus.
Andrew Bolt
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The coronavirus panic has been exaggerated by a simple counting confusion. Not all our nearly 400 dead were actually killed by the virus.
Many almost certainly were dying already.
As a very senior leader of the fight against the virus confirmed to me, the official death count includes not just people “dying from” the virus, but those “dying with” it.
This became obvious last Friday, when Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews announced the virus had just killed the youngest Australian yet, a man in his 20s.
Sure, it suits some politicians to make healthy young Australians think this virus “does not discriminate” and can kill them, too, even though most of our dead were aged over 80.
That terrifies the young into obeying lockdowns, and excuses governments for not doing more to save the people overwhelmingly most likely to die – the very old, especially in nursing homes.
Only under questioning did Andrews admit this youngest victim may actually have had other comorbidities, saying it was up to the coroner to decide if he’d actually died of the virus, or just with it.
But how much more true is this of the more than 220 people – dozens aged more than 90, many extremely frail – who we’re told were killed by the virus in nursing homes, but may actually have died of other conditions?
We also know at least three other deaths in Victoria were of patients in a cancer ward. At least two were in residential care for the disabled.
How many were really killed by the virus?
Britain last week checked exactly that with its own 46,706 dead, and lowered its official death toll by more than 5000.
Until then, Britain – like Australia – counted people “dying with” the virus among those “dying from” it.
I am not accusing our own governments of doing this to exaggerate the danger and spread panic. I’m told their motivation was “transparency”. They didn’t want to be accused of hiding deaths.
But now they should clear this up so we can calm down and better understand what exactly we’re panicking about.
How many of our nearly 400 dead would really still be alive today if this virus had not hit?
Could we have saved them all by smashing our economy so hard that suicides rose and a million Australian were thrown out of work?
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