Reader Mail: Did I Get it Wrong on COVID-19?

My recent string of COVID-19 articles have drawn a lot of interest. Despite their distinctly contrarian stance, the response has been overwhelmingly positive.

However, not everyone is enamoured by my attack on the monumental coronavirus con job that is currently taking place around the world. It seems my 4 September 2020 article, in particular, was a little too much for some readers to comprehend. Within a couple of hours of sending out my newsletter alert for that article, I had 342 unsubscribes. It seems the contentions of that article – despite being backed by official statistics – created a state of disarray in 342 brains that struggled to reconcile what I was saying with their mainstream brainwashing.

There was a 343rd reader who took a somewhat different tack. He chose to remain a subscriber and instead sent me an abusive email. This reader, Paul Hughes, wasted no time in writing to confidently – and rather caustically - tell me how wrong I was. Paul, according to his online bio, was a squash player who suffered a life-altering case of salmonella poisoning many years ago, which caused him to give up playing squash and instead become a “fantasy-fiction” writer. As the following exchange demonstrates, Paul does indeed have a penchant for spewing fantasy-fiction.

Fantasy-fiction know-it-all, Paul Hughes.

In addition to the Hughes’ exchange, I have reprinted another two dissenting exchanges. One shows how to respectfully disagree with someone, while the other quite literally takes a “fuck you!” approach that lucidly demonstrates how not to win my respect or favour.

Bizarre, Sick and Talking Bollocks? A Proud Idiot Speaks Out

On 4 September 2020, Paul Hughes wrote:

Wow, You often talk a lot of bollocks, but this takes the cake.

Are you sick? Because you are getting more and more bizarre.

Paul Hughes L.C.S.P. (Assoc)

My reply:

Dear Paul,

please provide me with the evidence to show I am wrong. Please explain to me why the statistics I quoted are wrong.

Please, I am all ears.

If you can't provide it, I will assume you are the sick, bizarre one with bollocks dangling in his mouth...

Kind regards,

Anthony.

Paul Hughes replies:

You are saying that people with covid live longer. OMG

Your Scottish chart shows that you do not understand basic statistics or how to extrapolate information.

That is all that needs to be said.

I reply:

"You are saying that people with covid live longer. OMG "

I said they live just as long, if not longer, than the typical life expectancies of their nations.

Hardly the kind of thing that justifies the alarming police state behaviour we are now seeing, is it?

"Your Scottish chart shows that you do not understand basic statistics or how to extrapolate information. That is all that needs to be said. "

All that needs to be said at this point is I made a simple request for you to provide the evidence to refute what I wrote in that article, and you completely failed to do so. You simply followed up with yet another smug ad hominem swipe. Because that's all you've got.

Paul, you are just another cocksure twat who launches insults at those with the temerity to state what his feeble, brainwashed little mind cannot bear to hear.

Oh, and one other thing: Your previous comments, "You often talk a lot of bollocks," and "you are getting more and more bizarre," indicate you are a repeat reader of my material.

Why do you persist in reading my material, if you find it so distasteful? Are you one of these masochistic wankers?

Tell me again how I am the bizarre one? lol

Paul, I think the salmonella infection that ended your squash career also irreversibly damaged your brain.

Now please, I'm busy here. Run along back to your fantasy fiction world and leave those of us with a firmer grasp on reality alone.

Paul Hughes replies:

Hehehe.

It is amazing that when someone gets angry and launches insults it is a sign that they know they are wrong.

Your logic about living longer is fallacious. You have totally misread the graph. To imagine that people live longer who have had covid ignores the fact that the virus has been around for about 6 months or so. How on earth can you extrapolate that people may live several years longer if they have had covid when only 6 months have passed???? Hahahahahahahaha

That is your problem - you make statements not based on fact or scientific evidence but on what you want to believe.

As to why I read your stuff? You occasionally put something interesting up with references. However, you are getting to invent more and more stuff without any scientific back up. Desperate for attention?

By the way, you need to check your grammar as I think the insult you made was supposed to be for me but you actually launched it at yourself. But there again, perhaps you were saying it about yourself as it seems to be true. lol

I reply:

"It is amazing that when someone gets angry and launches insults it is a sign that they know they are wrong."

You got that right: Without provocation, you sent me a hostile, snide and insulting email attacking me personally but not even beginning to address the substance of my article.

You tell me I write a lot of bollocks, that I am becoming increasingly bizarre, and that I may even suffer an unspecified illness!

Take a good look in the mirror, Paul. You're just another blissfully ignorant hypocrite. A feeble little malevolent who thinks its perfectly fine to address me like I am a common criminal - despite a complete lack of provocation on my part. Yet when I exercise my right of reply and return in kind, you get your panties in a right royal twist.

The reason you still have not been able to provide any kind of rebuttal to that article is because you have none. Being upset at something I write because it challenges your mainstream programming and then launching an unprovoked ad hominem attack on me, does not constitute any error on my part - it is a sad reflection of your own highly deficient character and intellect.

"Your logic about living longer is fallacious. You have totally misread the graph. To imagine that people live longer who have had covid ignores the fact that the virus has been around for about 6 months or so. How on earth can you extrapolate that people may live several years longer if they have had covid when only 6 months have passed???? Hahahahahahahaha"

Paul ... you're an idiot.

Seriously.

Let the record show I NEVER said "that people may live several years longer if they have had covid." I repeat, nowhere in my article does it state this, and I would never state it, because I have seen absolutely nothing to indicate COVID-19 has life-extending properties.

Time to brush up on your reading skills, Paul.

Or are you just pulling fallacious nonsense from your ass in a desperate attempt to prevail in your ill-thought argument?

Also, if we are to believe the first recognized case of COVID-19 occurred in November 2019, then COVID-19 has been around for longer than 6 months - so it might also be time to brush up on your basic arithmetic.

But whether it's been 6 months or six decades, it doesn't matter - the patients we are talking about are ALREADY DEAD!

Hahahahahahahaha.

To be sure, death isn't funny. But your simple-mindedness is.

And as my article clearly stated, in Scotland and Australia the median age of death in these patients is SLIGHTLY LONGER than the national average. I will remind you that this information comes from the authorities themselves, not me. Unlike you Paul, I don't pull numbers and statements from my ass.

You keep smugly telling me I have misinterpreted the Scottish graph, but you completely fail to explain what part of "SCOTS DYING WITH COVID-19 ARE LIVING SLIGHTLY LONGER THAN THE NATIONAL AVERAGE" I have gotten wrong.

Smug assurances that I have misread a graph, without explaining why, do not constitute a valid argument. They merely constitute yet another personal snipe and further highlight both your evasive style of argumentation and your lack of valid criticism.

Oh, and if you have proof the figures in that graphic are wrong, it's the Scottish authorities you really need to be contacting. If they ever issue a correction, I'll be the first to share it. But I'm guessing they will read your email, shake their heads, and exclaim, "this lavvy heid sounds like a fookin doolally! His bum’s oot the windae! Next!"

Or something similar.

For the umpteenth time, I am not saying it is COVID-19 that made the deceased live longer than the national average. I am saying COVID-19 is a weak virus with a very low infection fatality rate that pretty much had sweet fuck all impact on their lifespan. These people were going to die anyway.

Are you seriously too stupid to understand this?

Wait, I think we already know the answer to that...

In Italy, we know that people with COVID-19 are dying, on average, a couple of years short of the national average. But, intelligence-insulting media alarmism aside, there is nothing to show it was COVID-19 that caused their early demise: 99% of Italians dying with COVID-19 already had one or more health problems, and 50% had three or more co-morbidities!

But when shameless researchers make the absolutely ludicrous claim that these already sick patients would have lived another 12-14 years if not for COVID-19, you write to attack me instead!

You have the audacity to claim - without any evidence whatsoever - that I make shit up. Meanwhile, you happily accept the word of 'researchers' who make the absurd claim - without any supporting evidence - that Australian people dying with COVID-19 could have lived another 14-17 years - even when the typical life expectancy of a COVID-19-free 85 year old woman in Australia is 7.5 years!

Do I need to point out again who is really the sick, bizarre entity here, Paul?

The only way your demented ramblings could make any sense is if the majority of people currently with COVID-19 will suffer long-term and eventually life-shortening damage after they shake the flu off without issue - as over 99% of them do.

But there is nothing to suggest this is the case.

All the evidence to date shows COVID-19 is no more dangerous than any other severe strain of seasonal flu. Even none other than Dr Anthony S. Fauci wrote in March:

"If one assumes that the number of asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic cases is several times as high as the number of reported cases, the case fatality rate may be considerably less than 1%. This suggests that the overall clinical consequences of Covid-19 may ultimately be more akin to those of a severe seasonal influenza (which has a case fatality rate of approximately 0.1%) or a pandemic influenza (similar to those in 1957 and 1968) rather than a disease similar to SARS or MERS, which have had case fatality rates of 9 to 10% and 36%, respectively."

Fauci himself, in a rare moment of candor, was admitting that COVID-19 appeared to be similar in pathological consequences to any other nasty but seasonal strain of flu.

That paragraph also reveals something else interesting about Fauci, widely proclaimed as one of the "world's leading infectious disease experts." It seems he doesn't know the difference between case fatality rates and infection fatality rates. The two are often confused, even though they mean very different things.

With an infection like COVID-19, which is so piss-weak most people don't even experience symptoms, the infection fatality rate will always be far lower than the case fatality rate, which is calculated from symptomatic cases.

To be fair, it could have been a typo, but he repeats this typo a number of times. And the New England Journal of Medicine, purportedly one of the most prestigious medical journals in the world, also completely failed to spot the error.

Fauci and NEJM bumbling aside, all the evidence does indeed indicate that - in terms of pathology - COVID-19 is a weak virus. I discussed in my 27 July 2020 article the abundance of evidence showing COVID-19 has an infection fatality rate of 0.5% or less.

I have since come across another study dealing with the subject authored by Greek-American and Stanford researcher John Ioannidis, someone whose writings I hold in great esteem (you, however, would probably despise him because he also has a habit of upsetting the applecart by telling the truth).

Using seroprevalence studies with sample sizes of at least 500 and published as peer-reviewed papers or preprints as of July 11, 2020, he found that, across 32 different locations, the median infection fatality rate was 0.27%.

Because you're such a stickler for references, here are the citations for the Fauci and Ioannidis articles. Although if you're too dumb to click a hyperlink (see further comments below), I'm not sure how the standard format citations are going to help you, but here they are anyway:

Fauci AS, et al. Covid-19 — Navigating the Uncharted. New England Journal of Medicine, Mar 26, 2020; 382 (13): 1268-1269.

Ioannidis JPA. The infection fatality rate of COVID-19 inferred from seroprevalence data. medRxiv. doi.org/10.1101/2020.05.13.20101253.

So ... the real danger with COVID-19 is the manner in which it is being manipulated for ulterior purposes. This is leading to widespread and devastating economic and mental health consequences. People are also shying away from emergency wards for treatment of truly deadly conditions such as heart disease and stroke.

COVID-19 is a mild virus with a very low infection fatality rate, similar to other seasonal flu viruses. People who have had repeated bouts of seasonal flu throughout their lives have lived to very old ages.

The onus, therefore, is on you and your hopelessly brainwashed ilk to provide evidence that this mild virus somehow departs from the pathological course of other flu viruses and possesses as yet-unidentified life-shortening properties.

You have not done that and, judging by the extremely low level of intellect you have displayed in this exchange thus far, I sincerely doubt you will ever do it.

To quickly address your remaining bullshit:

"As to why I read your stuff? You occasionally put something interesting up with references."

Paul, there are these things in my COVID-19 articles called "hyperlinks". The articles are replete with them. If you bother to click on them, you will discover many lead to the full text of research papers.

If you would prefer I instead write out the full citation for each and every one, no problem - you start paying me for the extra time this would incur, and I will be happy to do so.

As it stands, I post these articles entirely for free, despite the considerable time and effort it takes to research and write them. And in return, I have to endure smug derision from malevolents like yourself who have absolutely nothing of value to contribute.

"That is your problem - you make statements not based on fact or scientific evidence but on what you want to believe ... However, you are getting to invent more and more stuff without any scientific back up."

Paul, please grab the nearest rough-textured object, and go forth and engage in a vigorous act of self-buggery.

Seriously.

You're accusing me of deliberate dishonesty, of making things up.

That's precious, coming from a fantasy-fiction writer who has completely failed to highlight a single fallacy in my writings!

"Desperate for attention?"

Oh dear, another pathetic ad hominem cheap shot.

But to answer your question: Considering my low profile, the infrequency of my writings and my almost complete lack of social media presence, I guess the answer would have to be no.

"By the way, you need to check your grammar as I think the insult you made was supposed to be for me but you actually launched it at yourself. But there again, perhaps you were saying it about yourself as it seems to be true. lol"

I'd provide a rebuttal if I had some idea what the hell you were talking about with this comment, but I don't. And neither do you.

Paul, enough is enough. Despite your hypocritical whining about my alleged lack of niceties, I have been more than patient with you. I could have told you to fuck off from the outset, or even just ignored you, but I instead gave you the opportunity to submit an evidence-based response to back your initial imprudent email.

But all I'm getting from you is smug little insults and condescending remarks about my ability to correctly interpret a graph from Scotland.

You clearly have nothing intelligent to say, so it is time for you to kindly crawl back into whatever dark crevice you emerged from.

Paul, kindly fuck off. Don't spend too much time on your reply, because I will be adding your email address to my spam filter. As I have stated ad nauseum over the years, I don't have the time to engage in endless (and non-remunerated) exchanges with irrational idiots.

Per,

Anthony.

PS. I just checked, and your email was still on my subscriber list ... ?!? Therefore, I have taken the liberty of removing your email from my newsletter list. For starters, you simply do not deserve to receive my material. I don't expect everyone to agree with everything I say, but I do ask that any criticisms be of a constructive nature - not pissy little snipes and insults. I am always happy to correct or clarify in the case that I have gotten something wrong or apparently did not explain it clearly enough.

Furthermore, I wouldn't want to subject your poor little self to any more "bizarre, sick" material that you find to be "bollocks." May I suggest, instead of wasting others' time with your highly illogical emails, that you seek the help of a counselor to address your hypocritical, self-defeating tendencies?

You Can’t Compare Average Age at COVID-19 Death with National Life Expectancy?

On 6 September 2020, Stuart wrote:

Hi Anthony

That article by Dr Mark Imisides is pretty weak. You can’t compare average age at death of covid lives with the life expectancy in the population.

Even in the population as a whole, over a given time period the average age at death will not necessarily correspond closely to the life expectancy because age at death depends on who is “available to die” during the period i.e. the population pyramid.

I can appreciate your lack of trust in statistical adjustments etc. because it’s prone to abuse to say the least but nevertheless in principle it is valid whereas the above is not.

Cheers

S.

[Note: Stuart is referring to an article by Dr Mark Imisides that I hyperlinked to in last week's article. I linked to the article for the pertinent quote he made about COVID-19 having about as much impact on someone's lifespan as their preferred ice cream flavour. He too presented a discussion of the actual Australian longevity data, albeit somewhat briefer than mine].

My reply (slightly edited to avoid a repeat here of material already posted in my reply to Paul Hughes):

Hi Stuart,

"You can’t compare average age at death of covid lives with the life expectancy in the population."

It's by no means a perfect comparison, but nonetheless the best we've got. Everything else is simply wild speculation.

In fact, claiming people dying with COVID-19 would have otherwise lived another 12-17 years is not just speculation, but an exercise in unbridled, intelligence-insulting bullshit.

As it stands, in Scotland and Australia, people dying with COVID-19 are living a tad longer than the national average.

This is NOT a virus that is gunning down otherwise young, healthy people en masse. It's a virus detected in people who, upon all available evidence, appeared to be at the end of their life anyway.

Sure, in places like the US, where they are hastening people's deaths with the reckless use of intubators, COVID-19 patients are dying somewhat earlier than the national average (75 years for the US as a whole, versus the latest UNDP life expectancy estimate of 79.11). There's also the issue of runaway misreporting that is occurring in the US.

But needless to say, these are the actions of humans, not the virus.

So does this really justify the global devastation occurring in the name of this so-called pandemic? Have you seen videos of the shit transpiring in the state of Victoria, Australia?

Cops arresting a pregnant woman in her pyjamas and literally smashing into people's houses because of Facebook posts organizing PEACEFUL protests? Police chiefs proudly boasting on TV about arresting elderly people with the temerity to protest? Assaulting people who attend these protests? Violently arresting a father pushing a pram in the CBD?

As I just wrote to another (far less diplomatic) reader [see exchange with Paul Fantasy-Fiction Hughes above], the only way the bizarre claims of McAllister et al and the AIHW could even begin to make any sense is if there was valid evidence COVID-19 will cause long-term and eventually life-shortening damage to those infected even after they shake the flu off without issue - as over 99% of them do.

But there is nothing to suggest this is the case.

All the evidence to date shows COVID-19 is no more dangerous than any other severe strain of seasonal flu. Again, refer to what I wrote above in response to the obnoxious snipes of Paul "Hehehe Hahahahahahahaha" Hughes.

Again, sweeping aside all the alarmist bullshit and looking only at the actual evidence, all indications are COVID-19 is a mild virus with a very low infection fatality rate, similar to other seasonal flu viruses. People who have had repeated bouts of seasonal flu throughout their lives have lived to very old ages.

The onus, therefore, is on the alarmists to provide evidence that this mild virus somehow departs from the pathological course of other flu viruses and possesses as yet-unidentified life-shortening properties.

They haven't done that and, based on what has transpired so far, I doubt they ever will. The virus may have lasting consequences in select susceptible individuals, but any researcher who boldly proclaims COVID-19 strips an average 12-17 years of life from infected people across the board is, in my opinion, a charlatan that should be stripped of their degree and made to go work in a menial job where they will receive less pay but be doing something far more constructive.

Cheers,

Anthony.


The dystopian future portrayed in George Orwell's 1984 has well and truly arrived in the Australian state of Victoria - and a virus that kills a FRACTION OF A PERCENT of those infected is being used as the justification.

Further Comment by Yours Truly

I'm not sure why people are having such a hard time grasping the gist of my 4 Sep 2020 article. Sure, Paul Hughes and his ilk are irrational dimwits, but I've corresponded with Stuart before and he's no dummy.

So let me approach this from another angle and cite another highly pertinent set of statistics.

In the US, around 40% of all deaths ascribed to COVID-19 have occurred in nursing homes.

Do you know what the average life expectancy of someone admitted to a nursing home is?

Here's a clue: It ain't 12 years, and sure as shit ain't 17 years!

A 2010 report from the The Health and Retirement Study (HRS) found a mean age of 83.3 years at the time of admission to a nursing home. The median length of stay was only 5 months. Over 53% died within 6 months of admission, and 65% percent of decedents had lengths of stay of less than one year.

And in the UK? As of May 9, 21% of deaths related to COVID-19 occurred in British care homes. In Wales, the percentage rose to 25%, while in Scotland the share of COVID-19 deaths in care homes was 45% of the total as of May 10.

A UK study by BUPA researchers found the mean and median lengths of stay in a nursing home were 2.5 and 1.6 years, respectively.

In Australia, 589 of the country's 625 COVID-19-associated deaths occurred in aged care residential homes as of 5 September 2020. That's a whopping 94% of deaths!

In Australia, where life expectancy is longer than in the US and UK, the average length of stay for permanent nursing home residents in 2010-11 was 2.8 years. In 91% of cases, the stay was brought to an end by the patient's death.

Let me reiterate:

In Australia, 94% of people dying with COVID-19 are in a situation where their average life expectancy - even without COVID-19 - is only 2.8 years.

Yet the AIHW are claiming that, if it weren't for COVID-19, they would have in fact lived an extra 14 to 17 years!

Seriously, how many different ways do I need to explain this for people to understand that the claims of McAllister et al and the AIHW are complete and utter bullshit?

I will repeat: Pretty much everything we are being told about COVID-19 is unbridled bullshit, and it's about time people pulled their heads from their lazy, unthinking asses and accepted this.

And Fuck You Too, Sweetheart

On 15 June 2020, anonymous coward "wenjen" (wenjenaz@yahoo.com) wrote in response to my initial COVID-19 article titled "Scientific Evidence Indicates COVID-19 Was Almost Certainly Made in a Laboratory":

Fuck you... It was proven it was NOT! Stop it with the conspiracy theories! Unsubscribing!

I reply:

Gee "wenjen", you sound rather worked up there. Maybe switch to decaffeinated for a while?

"It was proven it was NOT!"

Wow, hours upon hours of research and I missed this elusive proof!

Can you please forward this "proof" at your earliest convenience?

Anonymous coward "wenjen" replies:

I listen to science not fitness people when it comes to these matters. Conspiracy theories only seek to divide and misinform. Try reading some scientific papers sometime.

Here are a few to get you started beginning with an international study of the virus' genome:

https://www.scripps.edu/news-and-events/press-room/2020/20200317-andersen-covid-19-coronavirus.html

https://directorsblog.nih.gov/2020/03/26/genomic-research-points-to-natural-origin-of-covid-19/

https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-lab-manmade-myth-debunked-2020-6

And DON'T contact me again.

I reply:

Dear wenjen,

thank you for confirming you are a brainless twat.

You said " Here are a few to get you started."

"A few" generally refers to a quantity of around three or so.

Yet your copy and pasting efforts only contain one (1) mention of a 'scientific' article.

And it just happens to be the Anderson et al paper.

That paper - that you and I both know you have NEVER read - mentioned in the article you have copy and pasted is the exact same paper I discuss and debunk in my article!

Clearly, you are an idiot.

Of course, if you wish to believe easily-debunked bullshit, than that is entirely your right. There is no law against being an easily-led fool.

But could you kindly do me a favour and cease and desist in polluting my inbox with your abject stupdity?

And try reading some scientific papers sometime!

No further response received from anonymous coward "wenjen". But further to his/her ill-tempered outburst, I would like to make the following points:

Greeting someone with “Fuck you,” then audaciously complaining the object of your unprovoked disaffection is in fact the one seeking to “divide and misinform” is a truly fucktarded display of hypocrisy and irrationality.

Also, for any of you other wenjen and Paul Hughes types who think you’re going to win me over to your point of view by taunting and insulting me instead of furnishing me with valid evidence … keep dreaming.

Post updated 6 September 2020 to include nursing home information.

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