Covid Data Points
by David Archibald
16 February 2024
Covid is still with us, and so the questions are ‘How bad is it going to get?’ and ‘How fast will that happen?’ We can make a stab at the latter with new data out of the UK:
There are 37.5 million people of working age in the UK. The number of those not in the workforce due to long term sickness had begun a long-term decline in the mid-1990s to two million by 2019. Then along came covid in late 2019 and the downtrend reversed. The uptrend steepened up with the beginning of vaccination.
Based on the last two year of data, the increase in long term sickness is 300,000 per annum. It was 2.8 million in November 20023 and, on its current trend, will be 3.7 million by the end of 2026. This is close to 10% of the UK’s working age population of 37.5 million. Not only will these people be out of the workforce, they will require some sort of care from the remainder of the working age population. Around the world there are risings incidences of things like tuberculosis, measles and strange bacteria that used to be held in check by people’s immune systems. When will the health system break down from being overloaded?
Covid is still passing through the community in Perth, Western Australia, literally:
In the graph above, the blue line plots viral particles detected in sewage in Perth on a 14 day average and the orange line is reported covid cases per 100,000 population. With a population of two million, covid’s most recent peak was 4,000 cases in early 2023 if extrapolated from the sewage concentration. At that rate, half of Perth is being infected and reinfected each year. And from each of those whackings to their immune system, Perth residents currently in the workforce will also fall beside the wayside due to long term sickness as in the manner of the UK.
As you would expect with a corona virus, the genome of the virus continues changing. Again from the Perth sewer system, the following graph shows the proportion of the viral load due to individual variants.
The current dominant variant is called JN.1.X and is at 84.5 percent of viral particles.
What is being done about stopping the spread and reinfection from this insidious respiratory disease? The NSW Health Department is telling people to wash their hands:
The NSW Health Department is either evil or particularly stupid. Which brings up the subject of covid health advice. Who is qualified to provide medical advice on covid? A good place to start would be all the doctors and other health professionals persecuted by the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency for not following the diktats on covid vaccination. While the viral load detected in the sewage is above zero, the nation’s health is going backwards and we do need to turn that around.
David Archibald is the author of The Anticancer Garden in Australia.