The BBC ‘Superflu’ Contradiction
In response to the ‘Superflu’ story, Helen McArdle pointed out the stark contradiction between the position of the BBC and its commentators on November 9th and December 20th.
James Gallagher, BBC News
New flu virus mutation could see “worst season in a decade”. These are not Covid-style lockdowns, but short-term measures the country uses to disrupt the spread of the virus.
But a “broadly typical flu season” is probably not the sense you’d get from watching or reading the news. Statistical artistry was used to compare an early flu season to one that started much later, allowing claims of flu cases being “an incredible 10 times higher” than in 2023.
Professor Chris Fraser, Pandemic Sciences Institute at the University of Oxford
It’s highly likely it’s going to be a bad flu season, and it’s going to happen quite soon – we’re already well into it. … There are indicators that this could be worse than some of the flu seasons we’ve seen in the last 10 years.
It was basically spreading at a very similar speed to previous years, it was towards the upper end, but it wasn’t an outlier. … I don’t think [super flu] is a helpful term, there isn’t a particularly unusual set of symptoms, there’s no indication of it being associated with exceptional severity, exceptionally rapid spread or exceptional health impact.
Professor Nicola Lewis, Director of the World Influenza Centre at the Francis Crick Institute
“We haven’t seen a virus like this for a while, these dynamics are unusual.” … “It does concern me, absolutely,” she adds. “I’m not panicking, but I am worried.” … “We’re miles ahead,” says Prof Lewis. “I think it’s going to be a strong flu season.” … “H3 is always a hotter virus, it’s a nastier virus, it’s more impactful on the population.”
The virus was “not particularly unusual” and that she saw “no evidence” the virus was “particularly different” and superflu “wouldn’t be my description”.
“Meanwhile, NHS hospitals are still requiring staff to wear masks, with all the predictable adverse effects on dementia patients. Absolutely shameless reporting, as if there are no consequences of irresponsible fear messaging other than they’ve twigged that this particular strategy might backfire if overused,” commented Helen. Indeed, Helen, why let the facts get in the way of a good story?
This post, based on Helen’s list, was edited by the two old geezers while singing “flip flip flop flop, flip, flop…”
Dr Carl Heneghan is the Oxford Professor of Evidence Based Medicine and Dr Tom Jefferson is an epidemiologist based in Rome who works with Professor Heneghan on the Cochrane Collaboration. This article was first published on their Substack, Trust the Evidence, which you can subscribe to here.
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The sheep got bored a long time ago and have wandered off into the surrounding fields. The fear mongers have realised they don’t have enough sheep dogs this time, so they now have to pretend they weren’t really trying to round up the sheep.
While I imagine there are still a fair few covidian true believers out there, I think you’re right. I was down in that London yesterday, trains, tubes, theatre, people coming and going from football, darts, pubs packed. I saw a tiny handful of people wearing masks.
I think they are mainly those who crave something to be afraid of. Life for them can never be straightforward.
Some of them probably yes. All I would say is that, for me, trying to be a good parent and a good husband offers more than enough challenges for a lifetime.
The BBC seems to be covering all bases with its reporting, ensuring that they are bound to be right at some point. The trouble is, they never say which bit until after it is all over.
Do people really take any notice of the BBC still?
Meanwhile not a peep out of BBC Verify and the Trusted News Initiative.
Desperation
As a project manager might say, it’s all moved to the left (based on a Gantt chart). As most people know, there is no such thing as good news on BBC News, or any other main channel. Happy New Year!
Good news is not news… from a media viewpoint.
The legacy media has disappeared down the personality plughole and can’t help filling their news stories with the plight of people as opposed to the actual issue. The Channel Tunnel coverage is all about the poor people with very little factual information. The Mail has a photo of mangled cables but barely mentions it. GB News spent all day saying it was a power supply problem with no mention of downed overhead cables in one of the running tunnels meaning the other could run a reduced service.