Tom Jefferson & Carl Heneghan recently authored an article for the British newspaper The Spectator about the top ten COVID data failures for that country. In my opinion, most of the mistakes related to changing COVID from a pandemic to panic-demic.

Here are a couple of The Spectator’s choices:

1) Overstating of the number of people who are going to die

This starts with the now-infamous Imperial College London (ICL) ‘Report 9’ that modelled 500,000 deaths if no action was taken at all, and 250,000 deaths if restrictions were not tightened. This set the train of lockdown restrictions in motion. Some argue that Imperial’s modelling may have come true had it not been for lockdown. But this does not explain Sweden. Academics there said its assumptions would mean 85,000 deaths if Sweden did not lock down. It did not – and deaths are just under 6,000.

7) The Vallance graph

On 21 September, Sir Patrick Vallance held a press conference where he sought to raise public support for further restrictions. The only graph he showed was one where cases doubled every seven days. This time, at least, the ‘scenario’ could be measured against reality. The Vallance chart showed infections hitting 50,000 cases a day by 13 October without action. His graph did not lead to any change in policy and when this day arrived, the moving average was 16,228.

For the remaining eight, READ: The ten worst Covid data failures

I have a couple of top data failures of my own as well. This included a case out of Colorado. When authorities found a dead 35-year-old man, the local coroner registered his death as alcohol poisoning because the man had nearly DOUBLE THE LETHAL limit. However, the man also had COVID, so state health officials labelled it as a COVID death. READ: Man died of alcohol poisoning — but health officials later classified his death as coronavirus related

Another top one for me was from Britain. Because of their computer software, anyone who caught the Coronavirus could ultimately only die of the Coronavirus. Even if a person recovered and died two decades later of heart failure, he or she would have been labelled as a covid death. Oxford researchers cited several examples including one who had recovered from COVID and died in car accident, but had been labelled as a COVID death. READ: THIRD of UK Covid victims in July and August ‘died from OTHER causes’ – including cancer or being hit by a car – Oxford University scientists reveal