Flip Flop Flu (part 3)
With the NHS straining under impressive levels of seasonal respiratory infection I decided to take a closer look at influenza and pneumonia
In part 2 of this series I threw out some pertinent paragraphs that were extracted from ONS documents summarizing how death certificates are processed and how AI-laden software is used to automatically designate a single conforming cause of death (ACC). Multi-causal death is not permitted even though this represents a clinical reality; neither are certifying physicians trusted with what they have written. Each real world death, then, becomes an institutionally acceptable synthetic construct that fits in precisely with what WHO decree.
Let us remind ourselves of how the WHO want physicians to think when it came to COVID and death with another pertinent paragraph:
"With reference to section 4.2.3 of volume 2 of ICD-10, the purpose of mortality classification (coding) is to produce the most useful cause of death statistics possible. Thus, whether a sequence is listed as ‘rejected’ or ‘accepted’ may reflect interests of importance for public health rather than what is acceptable from a purely medical point of view. Therefore, always apply these instructions, whether they can be considered medically correct or not."
What are the chances that the majority certifying physicians across the UK ignored these recommendations (that would be bearing down on them from on high via lead clinicians and senior management) and went ahead as they saw fit, placing cause of death with viral/bacterial pneumonia and/or influenza and/or other non-COVID causes because that’s how it sure looked to them? Pretty much nil, I’d venture, but even if these physicians had gone ahead and made a bold stand the current incarnation of the MUSE ACC software would have simply overridden what they had written if what they had written didn’t conform to COVI-Law. All this is done in the best interests of public health, of course.
Flu Truth
We should thus expect a mangled version of flu truth for the years 2020 and 2021, that is mashed in with the coding-driven permanent flu dive of 2001 and temporary coding trial of 1984 – 1992, that are going to make a dog’s breakfast/pig’s ear of any historical analysis unless we get in there first with a few pit props (indicator variables). Then we’ve got some real world pandemics to deal with which, according to Wiki, stand at:
Spanish flu, 1918 – 1919
Asian flu, 1957 – 1958
Hong Kong Flu, 1968 - 1970
Russian Flu, 1977 – 1979
Swine (H1N1/09) Flu, 2009 – 2010
Let us then collectively get that kettle on, pop some Darjeeling in the warmed pot and reach for the biscuit tin (maybe the one with the crunchy nut jobbies). Now that we’re settled in I shall crank the handle on the statisticalator™…