ICNARC: 50% of those dead of “Covid-19” were over 70; any different from NHS care as usual?
The Intensive Care National Audit & Research Centre (ICNARC) has released updated figures for “confirmed Covid-19” cases in critical care units in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and this is the third report at FBEL covering this series of data (links for previous pieces are to be found as the foot of the page).
The headline information is that ICNARC has received full notification of the accumulative admission of 2204 patients (“with confirmed COVID-19”) into critical care units. Of these, there are 680 known outcomes; 340 patients have died, and 340 have been discharged from critical care. 1524 patients are considered as remaining yet in critical care, and very interestingly, 924 of these are in London. The significance of this is two-fold. Firstly, in all the rest of England, Wales and Northern Ireland, there are 600 patients “with coronavirus” in critical care that ICNARC is aware of. Secondly, by this we perhaps see explanation as to why The Guardian yesterday reported the following:
The new 4,000-bed Nightingale emergency hospital in London was opened by Prince Charles via videolink on Friday, but it is hoped it will not be needed as urgently as previously thought because hospitals in the capital are coping better with the coronavirus.
A week ago it had been thought that intensive care units in London would be overflowing by this point, but political sources said they had been told the capital’s hospitals were three-quarters full, which is better than expected.
Indeed, the capital’s hospitals may be doing spectacularly well relative to the imagined (or designed and hoped for) inundation†. And we might make a connection to a pronouncement by a Professor Graham Medley, which appeared at about the same time in the Mirror (via The Times). Medley is described “a senior adviser to the Prime Minister”, and as being connected to the Imperial College London (“the government’s chief pandemic modeller”), and so we can presume he advises with regards the so-called Covid-19 pandemic. Medley now thinks that a reconsideration of the “herd immunity” approach has become of matter of preventing the so-called Covid-19 cure being much more damaging than the disease itself. But before anyone suspects the professor of regretting any advice that he might have given that is leading to what has always been (even for an Imperial College academic) an entirely predictable economic catastrophe, let them consider another idea.
It is quite possible that the lockdown has had unintended consequences whereby it has slowed the rates of contagion of other viral illness. Flu has a well-established history of overstretching entire health care systems, and not just individual hospitals (as told in this useful Off-Guardian article), and at FBEL it has been explained that a PCR test, although it may detect SARS-COV/SARS-COV-2, cannot determine the real nature of any flu-like illness being experienced by its sufferer. In other words, flu could be the driving force behind the UK’s coronavirus “epidemic” – or it would have been (or so the author suspects) if a lockdown had not, potentially, kept the spread of flu in (relative) check. Naturally, the theory requires a lot more exploration (and data for support), but basically it goes like this: based on the premise that “Covid-19” provides a pretext for action by UK Government to slow down the British economy, there has nevertheless been a failure to create the optics by which the public could be made to perceive the NHS being inundated and overwhelmed by coronavirus cases; i.e. the cover story is not being experienced viscerally, and therefore runs a risk of not being believed. And maybe this is the real reason that “herd immunity”, or allowing for wide spread contamination in as large as possible swathes of population by any viral material, is now being reconsidered.
In any case, and returning to the subject matter at hand, the ICNARC report noticeably claims low rates of very severe comorbidity for patients who have died. However, it must be recalled that very severe comorbidity is not the be-all and end-all of the pre-existing illness that will inevitably be a factor in causation of “Covid-19” death. Once again, the reader’s attention is drawn to flu as the hidden killer, and he is asked to bear this in mind whenever there is a discussion or presentation of “facts” about very old people receiving treatment for a complication that is officially declared as being from coronavirus. Moreover, there is the “true” Covid-19 which develops through usage of prescription drugs for hypertension (and other illnesses that are said to have obesity at the root) – as explained in the FBEL article here. Then, of course, while the author is not in possession about the specific (and toxic) antiviral drugs that are used in the treatment of “Covid-19”, he does know that vasoactive and rhythm controlling drugs are used in giving cardiovascular life support in critical care units, and there remains the possibility that any of these could be having an adverse effect, not just on older patients, who will undoubtedly be most statistically prone, but also on younger people who are potentially, in fact, victims of avoidable deaths at the hands of the NHS.
The ICNARC data is indeed interesting reading when it comes to the phenomena of cardiovascular support. Of the 680 patients whose outcomes are known, 570 received the basic variety – which does appear by its definition to involve the dispensation of drugs: “central venous catheter [for intravenous introductions], arterial line [for monitoring blood], single IV vasoactive/rhythm controlling drug”.
Another interesting piece of data is the fact that 50% of those who died were aged 70 years and older. Only a measly 8% were aged between 16 and 49, with the rest falling into the 50-69 years-old range.
It would be helpful indeed to know if there was a normal correlation between very old critical care unit patients and their needing cardiovascular support, and a tendency to die as a result of the combination of the two factors. It will indeed form a future research task for the author, as will the finding out of any side effects of the particular vasoactive and rhythm controlling used by the NHS that could introduce dangers to younger patients.
To wrap up this bulletin about the ICNARC data, we must note that of 302 patients who died (for some reason, there appears to be data missing for 38 patients in this case), 111 had a Body Mass Index (BMI) of over 30. That is 36.7%. To explain the significance, the NHS considers a person to be obese if he is found to have a BMI of 30 and above. If a person gets into the clutches of the NHS, and is found to be in this state, there is a very good chance that he will begin a course medication (in fact, the NHS benchmark for treatment by drugs is a BMI of 28). The drug is called orlistat, and given that obesity is the continual bane of the NHS, it empirically does not make people well, but in fact leads to further illness and to yet more risk from other medicine for hypertension and other illness at the root of which is claimed to be obesity [please see the article, Is “Covid-19” an NHS prescribed drug-induced pneumonia (amongst other things)?, and follow the links there for a fuller explanation]. The point is this: arguably, there is a link between NHS treatment for obesity and related illness to capacity to become sick by SARS-COV/SARS-COV-2.
Moreover, the question that increasingly requires an urgent answer at this time is not how are people in danger from what is essentially a cold, but how are they threatened by the NHS, and how can they avoid becoming another one of its victims?
As for the new ICNARC data, once again it does nothing to dispel what has become an established feature of death in the British health care system by something that is called “Covid-19”: the elderly are most susceptible. Given that they were most susceptible anyway, with a whole lifetime of NHS treatment potentially contributing to their demise, does “with coronavirus” even make a blind bit of difference?
† Update, 19:40, date as published.
And lo! From the ridiculous “coronavirus daily briefing”:
Hospital admissions are stabilising in London, but rocketing in Yorkshire, the North East and the Midlands, Michael Gove has said.
Speaking at the Government’s daily press conference Mr Gove said the number of coronavirus hospitalisations fell slightly between April 1 and 2 in London, but soared by 35 per cent in Yorkshire and the North East and 47 per cent in the Midlands.
Of course, whether or not something is soaring by a suspiciously too-high looking percentage depends on the initial number from which the percentage is reckoned. An increase to 2 from 1 is an 100% one.
That being said, when the UK Government is announcing the building of 7 other NHS emergency hospitals (or sets for the production of propaganda) in the provinces, it looks better if there is an apparent need for them.
First British critical care data: no effort to distinguish the disease from death as usual; Covid-19 still a matter of faith (link).
ICNARC’s new “Covid-19” report: the disease is still discriminatory (despite efforts to find young and healthy victims); peak hinted at? (link).
