Excess Mortality in Austria and Switzerland: Media Continues to Be Puzzled by High Death Numbers and Openly Lies to its Readers
Nothing new under the sun, that is, if one discounts the fact that 'journalists' are becoming either less careful or more brazen about lying (which, in their language, would be 'misinformation')
This is a long post; please go online or use the app to read it in its entirety.
On this autumn morrow, I was casually browsing legacy media sites over coffee—and then I spotted the below piece over at Der Standard. Now, seasoned readers of these pages here know too well that this particular outlet has a long, variegated, and above all troublesome relationship with objective reality; and while I wanted to write about the Norwegian Institute of Public Health’s all new and shiny ‘Risk Assessment’ that came out just yesterday, I shall prioritise the gaslighting here (and write about that assessment tomorrow).
Before we get to the particulars of today’s quite egregious lie, let’s take a short trip down memory lane, shall we?
Oh, Flurona
Some two-plus weeks ago, a bunch of ‘experts’ told the readers of Der Standard to be extra-afraid of ‘Flurona’ (see my report here). Consequently, many states began to ramp up pre-registration for this year’s flu shot, as the example of Vienna clearly shows; from 2 Nov. onwards (fittingly, that would be All Souls Day, or the Dia de los Muertos), it would be possible to get one’s jab, as reported by ORF Vienna. Surely, there would be no anticipated problems if one wished to combine both the flu shot and the Covid jab:
This year in particular, experts are expecting a strong wave of influenza’, warned Mayor Michael Ludwig (SPÖ). City Health Councillor Peter Hacker (SPÖ) drew attention to the fact that there was once again the possibility ‘to be vaccinated against both influenza and Covid-19 at a single appointment. Please take advantage of this offer so that we can get through this winter well.’ For combined vaccination appointments, people should book their own (longer) appointments because of the required information exchange beforehand that will have to be held for both vaccinations and more time will be needed for this.
Is the Jab Worth Your Time?
By late October 2022, it had dawned even on the most outspoken pro-injection acolytes over at Der Standard that the ongoing ‘booster’ bonanza would be, well, questionable. Hence, ‘enjoy’ the spectacle of the paper’s ‘science writer’ Klaus Taschwer who at least bothered to do some reading before posting online. In a piece entitled, ‘BA.4/5 Bivalent Booster Doesn’t Appear to Convey Big Advantages’ (25 Oct. 2022), a small crack in the frontline of lies built around the Covid injections appeared—but read and be amazed by the enormous cognitive dissonance. Mr. Taschwer opens his piece like this (my emphasis):
Have you already had a Covid-19 booster vaccination—presumably, the fourth vaccination and the second booster shot against Covid-19—for this winter? Was it a vaccination with the original vaccine, or did you wait for the vaccine adapted to the Omicron variants BA.4/BA.5? In any case, you did the right thing.
Citing and discussing, sort of, a pre-print by David Ho et al. (see here) as well as notorious pro-injection acolyte Eric Topol (I know), Mr. Taschwer writes the following (my emphases):
According to a new study, which is only available as a preprint so far (i.e., not yet peer-reviewed), it doesn’t really matter what you chose in terms of vaccine. There seems to be little difference between the original ‘monovalent’ vaccine and the new ‘bivalent’ one for the Omicron variants in terms of antibody production.
So, it doesn’t matter; just roll up your sleeve, eh? And here are the last two paragraphs:
The reason for these similar antibody titres is likely to lie in a phenomenon called immune imprinting, as medical scientist Eric Topol writes in one of his current and, as always, very informative review texts [pub. 23. Oct. 2022]. The results suggest—put simply—that the effect of strain-specific boosting is likely to be limited to memory B cells because of previous vaccinations and/or infections.
Topol does criticise that the regulatory authority FDA in the USA may have raised hopes too high with regard to the adapted vaccine. However, according to the Californian physician—who has already had his bivalent fifth jab, although he had to struggle with 36 hours of side effects in each case—the new results do not speak at all against a booster vaccination with the adapted active ingredient. On the contrary: even a ‘merely’ equivalent antibody reaction will help to extend immunity and also improve clinical results.
Expectably, Mr. Taschwer falls squarely on his face while intellectually wets his sheets on two accounts: first, he somehow magically fails to cite the more important take-away from Mr. Topol’s posting, which is tucked away in the penultimate paragraph (my emphases):
There are disappointing features about boosters that arose with arrival of the Omicron variant in 2021 (and subsequently its descendants). That mutation-laden new family of variants is what’s responsible for the ‘leaky’ feature of vaccines which, through the Delta variant wave, with a booster were 95% protective against infections and there was a <1% rate of reinfection. Boosters will not have a substantial or durable impact for preventing infections or transmission. That’s why the use of high-quality masks, ventilation, air filtration, and the known mitigation factors, still play a role in the right settings…we can’t, at a population level, be getting boosters every 4-5 months to maintain protection against severe Covid, especially knowing the proportion of people unwilling keeps increasing with each waning period. The idea that we could be looking annual shots is unrealistic given the waning period and lack of clearcut seasonal Covid as is the case with flu.
Garbage In and Out, with Intellectual Bedwetting in-between
So, this is but one of the more ‘realistic’ parts, which Mr. Taschwer fails to note. Gee, I wonder why…but, wait, there’s more, as I said. Here’s from Ho et al.’s pre-print, specifically, lines 51-6:
we collected a panel of sera from individuals who had received three doses of the original monovalent mRNA vaccines followed by one dose of a bivalent vaccine… We compared virus neutralization by these sera to panels of sera from individuals who received either three or four monovalent mRNA vaccines as well as to sera from individuals with BA.4/BA.5 breakthrough infection following mRNA vaccination.
That’s all one needs to know about the piss-poor ‘design’ of the study: there’s no control group, i.e., ‘unvaccinated’ people who got Covid once and are, since then, presumable exposed to whatever form of Sars-Cov-2 on a daily basis. What Ho et al. have been doing is actually checking on the likelihood of another round of breakthrough infections comparing quadruple original juice-recipients with those who took the product ‘tested’ on 8 mice and a couple of millions of humans.
How pathetic.
In passing, we may also note that reading these couple of lines should have sufficed for anyone who understands, you know, words, to figure this out, let alone Mr. Taschwer, Der Standard’s esteemed and venerable ‘science reporter’. Here’s a bunch of lines from Ho et al.’s abstract, which should be read in light of the above (my emphases):
When given as a fourth dose, a bivalent mRNA vaccine targeting Omicron BA.4/BA.5 and an ancestral SARS-CoV-2 strain did not induce superior neutralizing antibody responses in humans, at the time period tested, compared to the original monovalent vaccine formulation.
Let’s discuss excess mortality, then.
‘More Elderly are Dying, Mainly for Reasons Other than Covid’
Writing for Der Standard, Gerald John deserves credit (notoriety) for a rather egregious moment of gaslighting. In a piece that appeared today (9 Nov. 2022), we get to read the following (my emphases):
The curve shows the force with which the virus swept across the country. Time and again, Corona waves caused the death figures to skyrocket, especially dramatically in the autumn months of 2020 and 2021. Altogether, according to data from Vienna State Statistics Office [Landesstatistikamt], around 19,000 excess deaths have accrued in Austria since the beginning of the pandemic than would have been expected in ‘normal’ years.
There has also been an upward swing in recent weeks. Vienna’s mortality monitoring, which is based on data from Statistics Austria, shows a striking excess mortality for this autumn compared to the average for the years 2015 to 2019—which is exclusively due to people over 65. And yet history is not repeating itself: because this time the death toll can only be explained to a lesser extent—about one third—by Covid.
The above paragraphs are accompanied by the below graph:
So why do such large numbers of people die? Patience is needed for a final clarification, especially since Statistics Austria will only be able to completely evaluate the causes mentioned on the death certificates next year, because many certificates are still issued in handwriting instead of digitally. But the experts can come up with hypotheses.
First, we’re seeing a clear sign that Covid is disproportionally affecting the elderly; this hasn’t changed since the beginning of the ‘pandemic’, but that’s a factoid that Mr. John elected to disregard. Second, we may also not the absurdity of rendering available these Covid injections for new-born children as young as 6 (!) months who are at virtually zero risk.
First up, delayed, or deferred deaths
The Viennese statisticians offer several. One of them, as spokesman Franz Trautinger explains, is based on a carry-over effect. In normal times, older people in poor health die more often during the winter flu epidemics. Because these were absent in the first two Covid years, these de facto unavoidable deaths are now distributed differently throughout the year. [curiously, although unmentioned by Mr. John or Mr. Trautinger, is the media gaslighting about Covid spring and summer waves that accompanied this excess mortality ‘throughout the year’]
On the other hand, it can be ruled out that the wave of influenza expected for this winter has already claimed so many victims. Neither the monitoring of the World Health Organisation (WHO) nor the national health agency AGES see any signs that the flu could have already spread. [neither do other ‘public health bodies; it would be a first to claim having fallen victim to a virus before said pathogen actually spreads…]
Next up, pandemic policy blunders
Another explanation, offered not only by Trautinger and his colleagues, also falls into the category of possible delayed effects of pandemic policies. According to this hypothesis, cancelled doctor appointments and hospital visits could have caused ‘collateral damage’. Hospitals postponed surgeries and other examinations that were not immediately vital—be it out of caution or because of congestion during the Covid waves. Many people avoided preventive check-ups for fear of infection and sometimes avoid waiting rooms to this day. Moreover, Covid stress has drained the already scarce medical staff.
Don’t fall for this: hospitals didn’t postpone anything without politicians imposing ill-advised policies, such as ‘lockdowns’ and the like, with the active collaboration of medical providers and, yes, individual MDs participating in this. Without physicians such as Peter Balas, MD, who in early 2022 told his patients that all ‘unvaccinated’ would be treated in their cars, as opposed to those who are injected (who may enter the premises), the above paragraph remains…a lie by omission.
Read more about Dr. Balas here:
Absurdly enough, Mr. John also cites ‘scarce medical staff’ while omitting the fact that Austro-Covidistan had the harshest Covid régime outside China. Many a health-care worker left over injection mandates, and doctors appear to be leaving public hospitals for a variety of other reasons, too. No ill word may be found in Der Standard about the Committee of Public Safety (the federal gov’t) that’s ultimately responsible for these policy blunders.
However, primary care doctor Christoph Hörmann can only agree with some of the assumptions. It makes sense to the head of the intensive care department at the St. Pölten State Hospital [Landeskrankenhaus] that missed prevention could now take revenge—but he disagrees with the theory of poorer patient care. Even at the height of the pandemic, it was always possible to guarantee all life-prolonging treatments, says Hörmann. Even the lack of staff has not changed anything: ‘Acute medicine is the very last thing that doesn't work in an emergency.’
How reassuring to hear this. Note the continue collaboration by doctors on this issue (although any dissenting opinion may have simply been ‘edited’ by Der Standard).
Rather, Hörmann believes that the Coronavirus, which circulated more strongly in autumn, could be behind the excess deaths of recent weeks. It is difficult to assess the cause of death of an elderly person with several ailments. If a 90-year-old person is hospitalised for heart failure, for example, but is also diagnosed with a Covid infection, is he or she a corona victim or not?
There’s more Dr. Hörmann brings up, incl. statisticians over-counting Covid deaths (unheard of…/sarcasm). Then there’s the unintentionally comical Mr. Trautinger mentioning ‘inaccurate statistical models’ as a reason for excess mortality (here’s looking at you, Prof. Ferguson of Imperial College). I have no way of ascertaining the mental status of either ‘expert’, but I would have a bunch of questions about that…
Finally, what about the injections?
The mystery is not limited to Austria. A look at a neighbouring country, Switzerland: excess mortality among the over-65s since the end of September comes as a great surprise to him, the Tagesanzeiger quotes epidemiologist Martin Röösli of the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute in Basel. The summer peak in the number of deaths, which has affected both countries, can still be explained by the extreme heat wave. But now? ‘Like many other experts, I see several possible explanations.’
Röösli considers the fact that death figures are under-reported and that medical care has deteriorated to be plausible explanations: ‘Moreover, people have a higher risk of cardiovascular disease after Covid.’ It is also possible that they react more sensitively to other infections, but this amounts to speculation.
Isn’t that reassuring? Dr. Röösli is a known public figure, as a quick internet search also shows. Let’s continue with this charade, shall we?
However, the expert is certain that the excess mortality cannot be explained by vaccine damage: ‘There is no data to support this claim," says Röösli when asked by the STANDARD.
Vaccines Under Wrongly Suspected
This is underlined by a worldwide observation of the ‘Pandem-ic’ analysis platform run by World Bank economists. Especially in the previous year [2021], countries with low vaccination rates had to accept a much higher excess mortality, according to the conclusion, while vaccination pioneers had performed best [no link provided]. Over the course of this year, however, this correlation has increasingly evaporated, especially since more and more infections that have been overcome lead to natural immunisation.
So vaccination does play a role in the death rate—but in the opposite way than anti-vaxxers might assume.
That would be curious, eh? I’m assuming Mr. John refers to this piece by one Philip Schellekens. Entitled, ‘The demographics of excess mortality’, it’s full of stylistic gems and word-salad; I may or may not look at it again separately, but they are playing around with weighted and unweighted regressions, finding quite different outcomes (strange, eh?); there’s also the case to be made to look at ‘pandemic outcomes’ along demographic structures (mainly age) and income, but I’ll quickly point to two methodological flaws:
First, there’s no mention of ‘vaccination’ in the piece, which renders it quite a weird ‘argument’ on part of Mr. John when it comes to absolving the injections from contributing to the rise in excess mortality.
And, second, there’s no mention of higher mortality rates before Covid. No comparison can be done without something to compare to, and there’s nothing offered by Mr. John or Mr. Schellekens. I’m assuming the latter is an economist or the like, hence this omission is all the more glaring. You may, at that point, venture over to the UN Human Development Index 2019, which offers a clear-cut correlation between ‘human development’ and the relevant indicators, such as infant mortality and life expectancy at birth, which gets worse and worse the less developed a country is; data on p. 41, if you’re interested.
Yet, that’s not even the worst in the Standard piece, which Mr. John saved for the last paragraph (my emphases):
The Covid-19 Register of Gesundheit Österreich GmbH (GÖG) provides a clear picture. 57% of the population currently have sufficient vaccination protection according to the recommendations of the National Injection Consortium; however, only 28% of the people who have been hospitalised because of Covid-19 are vaccinated. Conversely, this means: those who are not vaccinated or insufficiently vaccinated still have a considerably higher risk of falling seriously ill—even during the Omicron wave.
So, let’s venture over to Covid-19 Register—and, lo and behold, this is what is there to see (accessed 9 Nov. 2022, data current as of 2 Nov. 2022):
I know, it’s probably hard to read such data (leaving aside the borderline insane colour-coding), but I fail to see how Mr. John comes up with these two numbers. Sure, the share of ‘vaccinated’ people mentioned is ‘true’: according to the Health Ministry’s ‘Corona Dashboard’, the share of ‘current with the injections’ stands at 57%, which proves to be correct.
Yet, that other number—the 28% of the people who have been hospitalised because of Covid-19 that are alleged to be ‘vaccinated’—I cannot explain. I mean: look at the above data Mr. John is citing.
While I seriously question the veracity and validity of any Covid data, but the Covid-19 Register clearly states that the share of those who have ‘no (sufficient) vaccine protection’ (sic) stands at 24%.
Conversely, even if we’re generous and merely keep the 2% whose ‘vaccination status [is] unknown’—itself a questionable category as all Covid injections are registered electronically in Austro-Covidistan’s ‘E-Vaccine Passport’—a whooping 74% of all those hospitalised because of Covid-19 are among those who received any number of injections, be that one, two, three, or four jabs.
By the way, note that the visualisation is super-odd as the categories ‘sufficient vaccine protection’ (Impfschutz ausreichend) is broken down into
‘D2’ = 2 doses, of which the second dose > 14 and < 180 or more days
‘D3+’ = 3 doses, of which the third soes > 7 and < 180 days or more, OR 4 doses > 7 and 3rd dose < 180 or more days
In other words: infection doesn’t play a role here, hence it’s hard, if not outright impossible, to deduce anything about vaccine (sic) efficacy, the role of infection for hospitalisation, or, even more generally, the problems deriving from waning injection-induced ‘protection’.
Also, none of these ‘nuances’ plays any role in the online content masquerading as ‘quality media’.
Bottom Line
I suppose we’ve entered the ‘Covid is an intelligence test’ phase of this scam.