To be very angry the government is lying to us.

[user1468867871]

Followers of Professor Sikora ( head of Rutherford Cancer Centres) were shocked when he revealed last night that the government has been lying to us. They have been hugely inflating numbers of people dying from COVID. They have been trawling the database of dead people and anyone who dies and has had a Covid test is being recorded as dying with Covid. This is because they seriously over estimated how dangerous the virus was at the beginning. Cancer patient have been denied treatment, children missing education and millions unemployed because the modeling was wrong and they’ve doubled down.
mobile.twitter.com/ProfKarolSikora/status/1283851195396902912

This might be a stupid question but isn’t PHE ultimately run by the minister for health? Surely if they are blaming PHE for inaccurate figures they are basically admitting that the government didn’t have a remote handle on the figures or methodology?

I have personal experience of this. My grandad died and it was recorded as Covid even though he tested negative.

I saw this blow up on Twitter last night and don't know what to make of it.

Someone posted stats from PHE stating 1400 people had died directly from the virus but whether that is accurate, god only knows.

But it now trending on Twitter and some of MSM are picking it up now. Matt Hancock has announced also launched a public enquiry as of now.

There might be something to it, even if Prof Sikora is a bit of a wanker.
It would help to explain the fluctuations in ONS figures.
Also, re excess deaths, these have actually been negative over the last 3 weeks.

@RufustheRowlingReindeer

Yes. Many families have raised concerns regarding how deaths have been recorded. It hasn't been headline news but has been mainstream. Deaths have been recorded where people have been symptomatic but not necessarily tested back in April.

Care home deaths again, were very much called by non clinical staff, via Skype or other means. It was in guidance issued by PHE.

@madcow88 so sorry to hear of this. Just so unfair.

I have personal experience of this. My grandad died and it was recorded as Covid even though he tested negative.

So sorry for your loss but this truly is awful if this has been happening. And rightly being looked into now

If anything, they have underestimated the numbers if you compare the number of expected deaths to actual deaths. 'Prof' Sikora has his own right wing agenda (as others have already commented). Another thing to bear in mind is the chronic health effects of COVID19 which are only just becoming clear - such as chronic lung disease, strokes, cognitive problems, etc. This is all going to place a huge strain on our NHS for years to come - and we do not have a vaccine and we are expecting a 2nd wave in the winter. Also, look at countries who implemented a stricter lockdown sooner than us and their figures compared to ours. What you should be angry about is the way the NHS and public services have been starved of cash for years, carers work for below minimum wage in a dangerous job and how families are living in severe poverty, this is what makes me so angry, sad and despairing.

I thought this was true I know someone who had a heart attack was taken to hospital who was negative never even tested for COVID and they put that on the death certificate. The family managed to get it off.

If anything, they have underestimated the numbers if you compare the number of expected deaths to actual deaths.

Well, allegedly we will all now find out. And pigs will also fly too.

I have known of a couple of deaths where Covid was put on the death certificate but not tested. Why would the government want to inflate the numbers though?

Don't be ridiculous. It's not the government who makes out the death certificates. Matt Hancock is already saying they are going to review figures to see if they can be portrayed more accurately. The government would not be inflating the Covid deaths if they could possibly help it -it's already making them look incompetent. I am not a fan of the government or their handling of the situation, but I really do think the conspiracy theorists are getting totally out of hand now,

@GingerAndTheBiscuits

That measure doesn’t change the ONS excess deaths stats.

This all over...

Also death rates aside, you forget to consider the other consequences of covid such as long term health implications after having the virus.

Death isn't the only consequence of having covid, and frankly im more scared of potential long term side effects.

The nasopharyngeal swab test has in the region of 30% false negative rate, so it would be expected that for every 100 negative tests, 30 people would actually have Covid.

The two ways of determining this more clearly are:

1. if the person is alive, they can be intubated, ventilated and have more invasive samples taken to test for covid (not 100% accurate)
2. if they are dead they can have a post-mortem for tissue sampling and testing (not 100% accurate, lack of histopathologists to carry out PM would mean deaths would wait months before certification, many families are not keen on their relative having a post-mortem)

The excess deaths are not going to all be from Covid though. Many will be due to the lockdown policy and not getting adequate healthcare for heart attacks, strokes, cancer, dementia e.t.c. Sounds like hospitals were never overrun or even at risk from it, I've heard several stories that they were in fact quite empty during the peak.

Also want to point out Prof Sikora is also incredibly bias, I've had plenty of twitter debates with him over the past few months, due to.him posting bias and/or manipulated information which supports his points but dosent give a accurate or balanced opinion.. which frustrates me as due to being a prof he really should know better.

@BeijingBikini

The excess deaths are not going to all be from Covid though. Many will be due to the lockdown policy and not getting adequate healthcare for heart attacks, strokes, cancer, dementia e.t.c. Sounds like hospitals were never overrun or even at risk from it, I've heard several stories that they were in fact quite empty during the peak.

This ^

It has always been the case that if you have COVID, are treated, recover, leave the hospital and walk straight under a bus then you will be counted as a COVID death. This is a known and well-advertised limitation of the data, but not a “lie”.

In the first couple of months when a negligible percentage of the population had tested positive and thousands of people were dying of the disease every week this was a tiny contributor to the figures and an acceptable inaccuracy. It absolutely didn’t lead to the government taking decisions which they otherwise wouldn’t.

Now however there’s a backlog of a small but noticeable proportion of the population with positive tests on their NHS records, and the number of them who will die of other causes is a significant proportion of the number actually dying of COVID, so it could skew the numbers and is no longer an acceptable error. Matt Hancock is apparently going to do exactly what you’d expect him to do and say “Hurray! An opportunity to get the England death toll down by legitimate means!” and implement a change in the death certificate protocol ASAP. None of this looks like a conspiracy.

OP, the (non-peer reviewed) article he links to suggests incompetence as opposed to some big conspiracy.

Even this professor refers to incompetence in his tweet.

How did you get from that to "the government is lying and this is why"?

I can well believe that government departments having to cobble together statistical data at a moment's notice can often make decisions with algorithms that lead to glaring inaccuracies (just look at the shielding algorithms), and I can get behind the notion that many of these exercises display incompetence in publishing these figures before they have been filtered/properly checked.

I just can't see how you've made the leap to this huge evil cover-up.

The excess deaths are not going to all be from Covid though. Many will be due to the lockdown policy and not getting adequate healthcare for heart attacks, strokes, cancer, dementia e.t.c. Sounds like hospitals were never overrun or even at risk from it, I've heard several stories that they were in fact quite empty during the peak.

Definitely this

And yes, the false negative rate on the standard tests are so high that if someone had clear COVID symptoms and contact with a COVID case then even if they tested negative you should assume they had it. The joy of Bayes Theorem.

I believe the ons has said the the vast majority of excess deaths were covid related. The excess deaths is the most accurate by far. There were few tests done at the start of this and deaths were definitly undercounted then. This overcounting will be minimal the government figure Is still is not accurate ( too low) and they appear to clutching at straws. And an urgent inquiry can now be done but not for the PPE or care home fiasco.

[quote BakedCam]@RufustheRowlingReindeer

Yes. Many families have raised concerns regarding how deaths have been recorded. It hasn't been headline news but has been mainstream. Deaths have been recorded where people have been symptomatic but not necessarily tested back in April.

Care home deaths again, were very much called by non clinical staff, via Skype or other means. It was in guidance issued by PHE.[/quote]
Absolutely

Its going to be very interesting

I do think that different countries are recording differently which would explain the huge disparity between similar countries

Although obviously how countries have handled lockdowns etc are a contributing factor

Prof. Karol is a twat Did Someone really write that? ! This thread reads like Hancock has many different names to justify their absolute horrific handling and many lies from the start of all this. Karol Sikora is far from a twat he is an experienced oncologists with decades of experience and has saved lives ultimately can’t save all.. Some of you just can’t handle the shambles this has all been. He also isn’t the only medical profession stating that the government are lying about a lot of things..Quite a few on here who absolutely can’t handle that things are not what they are trying to present us with Karol is right this appalling manipulation of statistics. He isn’t the first medicial professional to call it out and will not be the last.

Much as I suspect you may be a troll, OP, I’m going to reply to your question with a question.

Why would you form your steadfast opinion the government is lying about COVID deaths on the basis of one tweet yet dismiss the overwhelming evidence available from across the globe that it is a killer virus?