UK Justifying Lockdown With Outdated Death Toll Data that may be 4 Times too High, Experts Suggest

Death toll data being used by the UK government to justify a 2nd national lockdown is outdated and may be four times higher than what reality reflects, medical experts suggest.

The Downing Street press conference lead by Boris Johnson on Saturday had presented research conducted 3 weeks ago by Cambridge University showing England could have up to 4,000 death per day by early December. This data drove the Prime Minister into explaining that there was “no alternative” to locking down social interaction and economic activity again.

There appears to be an issue with showing the 3 week old data according to clinical epidemiologist and director of the Center for Evidence-Based Medicine at Oxford University Carl Heneghan, as more recent data shows an estimated death toll that is considerably lower.

“I cannot understand why they have used this data, when there are far more up-to-date forecasts from Cambridge that they could have accessed, which show something very different,” Heneghan told the Telegraph.

The more recent data from Cambridge reportedly forecasts 240 daily deaths for next week, and around 500 in the second half of November.

Meanwhile, as Heneghan explained, the data presented at the October 31st presser paints a scenario where the death toll per-day as of November 1st is 1,000 deaths when in reality the average COVID-19 death toll per-day in England over the last week was 260 – roughly four times lower. In fact, there were only 162 COVID-19 deaths in the UK on November 1.

“Our job as scientists is to reflect the evidence and the uncertainties and to provide the latest estimates,” Heneghan said.

A blog post by both Heneghan and Dr Dan Howdon, a medical researcher at the University of Leeds, explains that the version of death data presented at the Prime Minister’s conference has been updated more than once.

Since the first autumn update on October 12, two subsequent updates have substantially revised down the estimated number of deaths. The October 12 update projected 588 deaths on October 30, and updates since have revised this down to 324 (October 21 for the 31st) and most recently 241 (October 28 for the 5 November). This most recent update goes up to 15 November, when 497 deaths are projected.

Also speaking out in the Telegraph’s Monday report, Dr Howdon explained that the 4,000 deaths per-day estimate was likely 4-5 times too high and that more accurate, lower estimates were available before the briefing was held on Saturday.

“I’m deeply concerned about how the data is being presented so that politicians can make decisions,” the doctor said.

“It is a fast-changing situation, which is very different in different regions, and it concerns me that MPs who are about to go to a vote are not getting the full picture.”

Member of Parliament, David Davis, would express to the newspaper his worry that the public is being misled.

“The first responsibility of the scientific advisers to the Government is to give the truth to the public and not to cherry-pick the data,” Davis said, adding, “this is a fairly major error on their part if they’ve used old data which effectively misleads the public.”

Currently the deaths in the UK remain well below their April peak of 1,166, all while cases are being recording at around 22,000 per day.

With the decision to lockdown England currently causing quarrel in the House of Commons, it would perhaps be wise for both Johnson and his scientist lackeys (or is it the other way around?) to explain why sending the nation into a lockdown – a measure which has been proven to send people into poverty and dangerously accelerate mental health troubles – is being justified with outdated data.

In the words of MP David Davis, the decision to lockdown is a “bigger decision than going to war from the point of view of many people in the country.”

********

Joseph Jankowski is an Editor-at-Large for Planet Free Will. His works have been published by major news publications such as ZeroHedge.com and Infowars.com.

Bypass the big tech censors with our free newsletter – SUBSCRIBE HERE