Would telling the truth about the coronavirus mean being a Bolsonaro supporter? The naive souls and the call for social confinement.

First and foremost, it's important to highlight that no authoritarian leader, or acolyte of liberal doctrine, or both, cares about the health of the population. Viktor Orbán in Hungary and Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil express the same indifference towards the people and collective well-being. Orbán chose the lockdown strategy to confront the supposed coronavirus crisis, but continues to implement ultra-neoliberal policies that erode workers' rights day after day, destroy the welfare state and, with it, public health services. Today, thanks to the coronavirus crisis, he governs by decree. A dictator in every sense. Locking everyone down at home is not synonymous with social care. Jair Bolsonaro, for his part, chose a more picturesque stance, characterized by statements and conduct worthy of a consummate actor. He could also have been in favor of lockdown without modifying his political philosophy, which translates into a total indifference to the ongoing genocide in Brazil against the poor, black people, and indigenous populations, the dismantling of public services, including sanitation services, and the progressive impoverishment of the population.

Therefore, lockdown is by no means synonymous with attention to public health, and the lack of lockdown is by no means certain proof of cynicism. Bolsonaro has been generous with displays of cynicism throughout his political career, culminating in his tribute to Colonel Carlos Alberto Brilhante Ustra in the Senate assembly during the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff. It was clear to everyone that Ustra led the team of butchers who tortured Dilma during her arbitrary detention during the military dictatorship. No further proof was needed to understand the moral stature of this individual.

In Sweden, no lockdown measures were implemented during this supposed health crisis, and no one accused that government of lacking social awareness. In contrast, the Dutch government, which leads a theoretically democratic country where lockdown was applied, stubbornly opposed any aid from the European Union to Italy to face the deep economic crisis generated by the coronavirus. As can be seen, lockdown is not synonymous with social awareness, and the lack of lockdown is not synonymous with irresponsibility.

Bolsonaro's recklessness has causes and evidence beyond the coronavirus. His stance against lockdown would be the last thing needed to remove him from government.

The case of Italy: a laboratory of social engineering.

The "naive souls" who call for social confinement as a necessary measure do not even remotely understand what this means. 

COVID-19 was the occasion, whether intended or accidental, to conduct the greatest social engineering experiment in human history. In Italy, where I live, the most important constitutional rights were suspended without prior parliamentary oversight. The Prime Minister decreed the lockdown through acts of legal hierarchy incompatible with such serious measures. Furthermore, the governors of the different regions, and even the mayors, were allowed to reinforce the confinement measures. We have reached the point where leaving home without a mask and without a certificate stating the reasons for leaving is risking a 500 euro fine. 

At the height of the restrictions, no one could stray more than 200 meters from their home. All public parks were closed, and even jogging was prohibited. The stance of the central government and the governors in this regard was such that the police felt entitled to harass the population, behaving abusively, such as invading private spaces, making threats, searching cars without authorization, and even interrupting religious services, arriving armed at the altar to prevent the priest from continuing. This happened in a small church, which was empty, with only a few worshippers, distanced from each other, attending the religious service in the churchyard. The video, available on social media, is quite impressive. As is the capture of a lone bather by helicopter and coast guard patrol ship. Tens of thousands of fines were imposed on citizens, including those imposed on people found walking their dogs more than 200 meters from their homes.

Governors, and mayors too, are threatening to reinforce lockdowns by recording videos that are made available on social media. Their statements pale in comparison to Bolsonaro's colorful pronouncements. The governor of the Campania region (in southern Italy) threatened to use flamethrowers to disperse alleged gatherings of people in the streets. Brazilians know very well, from sad personal experience, that this truculent language goes far beyond being a simple folkloric attitude.

It seems clear that the only thing not to do today is protest. A brutal violation of civil rights occurred on May 2nd in Sicily. A 33-year-old man was protesting against the lockdown, driving alone in his car, using a loudspeaker. He was arrested by the Carabinieri, dragged from his car, subjected to a so-called "mandatory sanitary treatment," sedated, transferred by ambulance to a hospital where a catheter was inserted, and kept confined to his bed for 5 days. All this happened in Italy. Can the "naive souls" who call for social confinement imagine the consequences of such a measure in Brazil today? 

As if that weren't enough, the government established a task force to combat alleged fake news about COVID-19. The task force is composed, needless to say, of journalists from the corporate media, accustomed to spreading fake news every day. The pressure on independent information has reached such an intense point that a manifesto defending freedom of opinion was recently launched (https://www.byoblu.com/firma-il-manifesto-del-patto-per-la-liberta-di-espressione/Every day, videos and posts published on social media that attempt to disseminate alternative information are hidden without prior notice and without the possibility of objection. I am referring to Italy. A country supposedly with a long and solid democratic tradition.

The population is terrified every day by frightening news reports that describe the progress of the epidemic in terms reminiscent of medieval plague accounts. Clearly, this health crisis is not going away, just like the economic crisis we have been mired in for over 10 years. The news emphasizes daily that the epidemic is poised to resurge and that the strict lockdown measures, eased since May 4th, could be reinstated until a vaccine is available.

The official acts that limit constitutional powers are so detailed and complex that well-meaning lawyers publish simplified versions of the measures on social media to make them understandable to the average citizen. The latest decree from the Campania regional government, which establishes measures to be taken during the so-called "phase 2," consists of 8 dense pages full of individual and collective restrictions and rules to be followed from May 11 to 17. Yes, only for 7 days. After that, new rules will be made available. To these regional rules, which differ in different regions, must be added the acts of the central government. This decree, like previous ones, establishes the obligation to submit to a coronavirus test at the simple request of the authorities. However, the official test, based on a technique called PCR, is not reliable. Research indicates that approximately 80% of results are false positives, simply because the technique is not suitable for testing viruses, as Kary Mullis, the inventor of this technique, which earned him the Nobel Prize in 1993, pointed out in a 2014 interview. 

The alleged pandemic.

The prevailing narrative speaks of a serious pandemic caused by an extremely dangerous and infectious virus, characterized by high mortality. A detailed analysis reveals a different reality. I want to refer only to Italy, a country I know well and whose official data I am familiar with.

How do you convince an entire population that we are in the midst of a dangerous epidemic? The simplest thing is to forget the recent past. What happened in the recent past that we should all know about? Many things. We'll try to summarize the most important ones.

1) How many deaths are caused by the flu?

The website of the Italian National Institute of Health (an agency of the Italian Ministry of Health) features a graph titled "Distribution of severe cases and deaths from confirmed influenza" for the period 2019-2020. The total number of deaths is estimated at 34 over 13 weeks (from the 48th week of 2019 to the 8th week of 2020). On another page of the website, it states that using a method for calculating influenza deaths employed in England, an estimate of approximately 8.000 influenza deaths per year is generated. Interestingly, the same page invites the reader to delve deeper into the subject by reading the article "Investigating the impact of influenza on excess mortality in all ages in Italy during recent seasons (2013/14-2016/17 seasons)”, published on International Journal Infectious Diseases In November 2019, a careful reading of the article, and some calculations, allows us to estimate around 34.000 deaths each year (this is the average of the last 5 years) due to respiratory complications caused by influenza in Italy. Deaths caused by cardiac complications due to influenza are not taken into account. This is a number that few people know. The best way to scare people is to set aside what has happened in recent years. Today, the supposed coronavirus crisis is nowhere near the number of annual deaths from influenza, and the deaths attributed to COVID-19 are far overestimated, as denounced by the president of the Order of Physicians of the Liguria region (northern Italy). To discover the true dimension of the problem, it would be useful to refer to the most reliable statistics, those that report total deaths (all causes of death) in the age group over 65, the most affected by the coronavirus. This year, from week 1 to week 10 (March 2-8), the observed deaths (blue line on the graph) averaged 230 per day, while the expected deaths (the average of the last 5 years, green line on the graph) were 240. From week 10 onwards, deaths began to increase sharply, reaching a peak in week 13 (March 23-20) and then decreasing until week 17 (April 20-29, latest available data). This "anomaly," undoubtedly due to the coronavirus, has come to an end. A simple projection allows us to calculate that the number of deaths should be around 6.000-7.000 more than expected. This is a much smaller figure than the 26.251 deaths reported on the WHO website on May 10, 2020. 

2) Are we facing a particularly high mortality rate?

No. In 2015, 54.000 more bankruptcies were registered than the average of previous years, concentrated in the first months of the year and in July. It was the highest mortality rate recorded since the Second World War. In total, in 3 months (January, February and March) 23.000 more deaths were registered than expected. I don't recall any extraordinary measures being taken at that time. Today we have about 6.000-7.000 more deaths than expected in 4 months and the government has employed draconian resolutions, suspended civil rights, terrorized the population and brought the country's economy to its knees. Is there any logic in this? 

3) Is it plausible to imagine that the Italian government wanted to protect the population with extraordinary measures? 

The answer is undoubtedly no. Let's try to find out why:

a) In the last 10 years, the public health service has suffered a reduction of approximately 70.000 beds and experienced a brutal budget cut (around 37 billion euros) due to the neoliberal policies imposed on the country. The current government has done nothing to reverse this trend;

b) The budget cuts include support services for families of people with severe disabilities and those suffering from seriously debilitating illnesses. These families, and the patients, have simply been abandoned by the State and remain abandoned to this day;

c) In the 80s, deaths from infections contracted in hospitals numbered around 18.000, with a much higher number of hospital beds than today. Today, there are 48.200. Once again, the government has done nothing to address this dramatic emergency;

(d) The European Environment Agency reports that premature deaths caused by air pollution in Italy are around 78.000 per year. Italy has been denounced before the European Court of Justice for this. The government has done nothing to try to reduce this carnage. 

Clearly, this government doesn't seem concerned about the health of the population. Why should it suddenly change course and become the people's defender?

The lockdown measures were effective.? 

The answer is, again, no. How can we clarify this point? Some help comes from recent research from Oxford University in England, which indicates an increase in infection rates directly proportional to the severity of the lockdown. It seems that the infection rate within families would be 20%, and in the community, 1 to 5%. Something perfectly normal in the case of the flu. 

Furthermore, the most obvious thing would be to see a decrease in flu cases during lockdown. If this measure were effective, locking an entire nation in its homes should have become a spectacular measure to modify the course of seasonal flu. Unfortunately, this was not the case. In Italy, influenza viruses circulated during the lockdown exactly as they did in the 2018-2019 period. It would be strange if the coronavirus, which belongs to a viral family that also includes influenza viruses, should behave in such an original way in this respect. 

What happened in Italy? 

Without a doubt, northern Italy experienced a dramatic crisis. What are the causes? It's very difficult to say if one insists on attributing the problem solely to the coronavirus. It undoubtedly had concurrent causes. It's very complex today to try to identify them. Air pollution, an aging population, gross errors in therapies, the collapse of the health system, and chaos in hospitals are all possible aggravating factors. 

One thing is certain: the epidemiological progression of the supposed coronavirus crisis is not consistent with the effects of a viral disease and, as such, is not transmissible. The Italian Institute of Statistics released, on May 4, 2020, complete data on deaths divided by infection severity zones: maximum severity in the northern provinces, intermediate severity in the center of the country, and low severity in the south.

 

Let's try to read these graphs. The graph on the left reports the total male deaths in the northern provinces. The graph on the right reports the total female deaths in the same provinces. The horizontal black line represents the expected deaths, and the colored lines the percentage difference in mortality between the expected and observed data, by different age groups. As you can see, the deaths begin to increase sharply from March 17th onwards. One rather curious thing is the large difference in deaths between men and women. Even more curious is the difference between the northern provinces and those in the central and southern provinces. 

Figure 4 contains data on deaths in the central provinces of Italy. As is evident, only the age group over 90 years (red line) shows a significant difference from the expected deaths. The green line (age group 80-89 years) shows only a slight difference from the expected data, probably not statistically significant. The other age groups are all below the black line. The data from the southern provinces (Figure 5) paint an even more different picture. Only the age group over 90 years deviates slightly from the black line from February 28th, 20 days before the increase in mortality in the north. All other age groups experience a mortality rate below the expected data. I wonder: but what kind of “pandemic” is this? A pandemic that causes different effects within the same country? There seem to be 3 distinct Italies, one in the north, one in the center, and one in the south. No epidemic can manifest itself like this. Failing to analyze the true causes of death in northern regions means putting those citizens at serious risk in the near future. If today's events are to repeat themselves next year, who will be blamed? Again, the coronavirus?

Conclusions 

Based on the analysis of available official data, a brutal falsification of reality, spread by the corporate media and supported by the government, seems evident. In light of all this, it is impossible not to conclude that what is at stake is not, in any way, a concern for public health. Quite the contrary, unconfessed interests are at play. The lockdown was the measure that allowed the population to be silenced, fundamental rights to be withdrawn based on a health alarm that does not withstand in-depth analysis, and the people to be terrorized with frightening news. It seems that only a vaccine would be the definitive solution; without a vaccine, the epidemic could suddenly resurface at any moment. And we arrive at the point: the vaccine. A magic remedy that should solve all the problems caused by communicable diseases. Today, the governor of the Lazio region illegitimately decreed mandatory influenza vaccination for all elderly people, to reduce their susceptibility to the coronavirus and to lessen the impact on the public health service. Something devoid of any scientific value. In an article published on the Brasil 247 blog (https://www.brasil247.com/authors/stefano-dumontet), I highlight the possible relationship between flu vaccination and susceptibility to COVID-19, as pointed out by American researchers. 

To reduce this complex scenario to a simple declaration of faith in the effectiveness of lockdown in the fight against the coronavirus means, among other things, handing us all over, once again, to the criminal hands of those who want to speculate on fear, imposing a useless and dangerous mass vaccination.