Quote from https://www.city-journal.org/article/unscientific-american (add. May 2024)
In recent weeks, the offices of virusvaria have been dominated by the creation of sterftemonitor.nl. A logical addition to virus varia, where in 2021 we started a discussion with the very first unexplained (excess) mortality graphs. Over time, the subject became commonplace. When the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) decided to phase out the unexplained excess mortality, there was a gap in the provision of information. I told Herman Steigstra of my intention to create sterftemonitor.nl and he immediately took action with data and other content. A joint project was born. With donate button.
The Donate Button
"...volgers die de donatieknop er boven volstrekt normaal vinden 🤷♀️ "
Niet alleen Chantal Rovers snapt er weinig van, ook de Emka's (Marion Koopmans en Maarten Keulemans) mikken met regelmaat op donatieknoppen. Een recente denigrerende tweet van Marion richting Maurice op X heeft ze inmiddels verwijderd. Ook daar was de donatieknop een argument. De achterliggende opvatting is duidelijk: "Kijk die donatieknop, een verdienmodel, dus niet geloofwaardig". Men valt er nogal voorspelbaar op terug bij gebrek aan argumenten. Terwijl het een blijk van onafhankelijkheid is. Er zit meer wetenschappelijk vrij denken achter donatieknoppen dan in legacy en/of overheidsgesubsideerde media.
I've decided to put one on sterftemonitor.nl as well, if only to tease a bit. And yes:
This is from a criticism on LinkedIn, van de hand van Anne Laning. Wie geen LinkedIn heeft kan hieronder klikken op "Review van sterftemonitor.nl"
Review of sterftemonitor.nl
Excess mortality monitor in the Netherlands
Now that the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) has indicated that it will no longer be hashtag#overmortality (https://lnkd.in/e4YhCjjC), a new initiative has been born: the Excess Mortality Monitor Netherlands. Excess mortality is the difference between actual mortality and expected mortality. CBS continues to publish actual mortality on a weekly basis, so that is not where the challenge lies. In essence, it is therefore about the calculation of the expected mortality.
But why would you want to calculate the expected mortality when there has simply been an institute for decades that has a solid track record in the field of calculating the expected mortality? That's it Royal Dutch Actuarial Association. Publish every two years a hashtag#forecasttable which shows the mortality probabilities per age, per sex, per future year. With an internationally calibrated methodology, developed by a committee of wise people who have studied for it. The 2020 projection table https://lnkd.in/exUn3FcM was still without the influence of corona (see extract in picture (for men)), the CBS expected mortality was almost the same. Although this does not yet include a seasonal pattern, it is easy to determine a seasonal pattern for mortality per age group based on CBS figures for 2015-2019. This expected mortality is used by all kinds of parties.
So why would a group that didn't study for this think they can do better? In fact, they don't even refer to this.
Red flags with this website are: the names of the initiators are not listed, and there is a donate button on the first and last line. This casts doubt on the intentions.
There are also substantive inaccuracies:
- Een van de grafieken toont CBS sterfte door corona t/m oktober 2023. Dat kan niet, want CBS heeft nog maar t/m augustus gepubliceerd.
- RIVM National Institute for Public Health and the Environment Figures on corona mortality are unusable for statistical purposes, because they depend on voluntary reports after an official corona test and have proven to be incomplete. Besides, who gets tested these days? The fact that this line is therefore virtually zero is therefore meaningless.
- De stelling "Komt de huidige oversterfte niet gewoon door corona? Nee dat is vrijwel uitgesloten" is flagrant in strijd met de data dat de oversterfte synchroon loopt met de prevalentie van corona zoals die uit de rioolwaarden blijkt: https://lnkd.in/eW4dkuEh.
- Het bericht van Herman Steigstra https://lnkd.in/e8Gx224U suggests that CBS calculates the expected mortality based on figures for 2015-2019, which is incorrect, it takes into account a larger history of trends in mortality probabilities, including trends from abroad. They only use 2015-2019 for the seasonal pattern.
My conclusion: not really confidence-inspiring. Won't you take it from me? Read a selection of reactions to the launch in the second image.
[Following some screenshots with reactions]
Mr Laning had already touched on a single point at Researchgate. Below is my answer to his LinkedIn piece.
Dear Mr. Laning,
Thank you for your rather extensive review of the website sterftemonitor.nl. Now I like to leave numerical fitties to my companion Herman Steigstra who is statistically much better than me. In your LinkedIn post, however, you mainly expose issues that have little to do with our methods, figures or statistics. I would also like to reply to you because I see that this is a matter of concern to you; As someone who takes the trouble, I want to appreciate that, without wanting to set precedent.
I'm commenting on that here on my blog because LinkedIn has removed my content before. I will post a link to this article as a comment on LinkedIn.
In response to your questions.
“Why would you want to calculate the expected mortality when there has simply been an institute for decades that has a solid track record in the field of calculating the expected mortality?"
That's for several reasons. Firstly, because we are questioning the RIVM expectation of mortality. A cross-check of our own figures is the least you do. Can you plausibly replicate outcomes based on the available sources? It turned out that CBS's figures correspond well with ours. You note that this also applies to the Actuarial Society's forecasts. This confirms the quality of our method.
The second reason is that we now have granular data so that we can also perform analyses other than just the output data from CBS.
Take a look at the Actuarial Society: they have also recalculated everything and that was also well in line with the CBS forecasts. I'm sure they also wanted to look at something more than just the output of CBS.
So I don't quite follow the argument: you sing the praises of the AG, but if someone else does the same, you will sound a different note.
"So why would a group that didn't study for this think they can do better? In fact, they don't even refer to it."
You fill in a number of things for us here. For example, it would be a group that did not study for this. That's not too bad. I myself did a few blocks of Statistics and Methodology - albeit as a minor - during my studies at the University of Amsterdam and then further developed my practical skills in analyzing, interpreting and presenting data (market research, later marketing). Entirely in line with that, I was the first to see in summer 2021 (!*) that excess mortality was not going well. Later, I was the one who saw that the bandwidth of RIVM graphs was no longer correct, which the RIVM corrected. After all, new, additional or corrective insights do not come exclusively from the centre of a field.
I can be brief about Herman Steigstra: an experienced statistician with a specialization in medical research and healthcare statistics. He played a key role in the national quality control of hospital laboratories. He also studied at the University of Amsterdam and elsewhere.
* I put an exclamation mark after 'first' above because the excess mortality phenomenon should have been identified by our institutes as early as the autumn of 2021. On behalf of the government, we have apartment buildings full of calculators so that we do not miss just such a signal. Let alone ignore it when it is pointed out to them. Not a single healthcare institute, civil servant or regulator sounded the alarm. Keeping signals and suggestions from other disciplines out is unscientific. A concrete example is the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM), which kept the KNMI's knowledge of aerosols out of its gates. (There were no epidemiologists at the KNMI either, so they didn't know that the droplet theory is an important basic principle to keep virological research affordable. An undesirable discussion in medical circles.)
You then suggest that we should have referred to the actuarial society. That could have been done, and I understand from you that their data matches ours. If that had not been the case, we would have had to investigate where those differences came from. It now appears to be a validation of our method, for which I am grateful. We could have mentioned it, it would not have been out of place. Incidentally, there will be more organizations that have started working with these figures themselves. We cannot provide an exhaustive list of these.
Red flags with this website are: the names of the initiators are not listed, and there is a donate button on the first and last line. This casts doubt on the intentions.
The red flags. At the bottom of the 'bottom bar' are the credits with references to contact options (via twitter and my aforementioned virusvaria website). You have overlooked it. Or is it? Because you describe us as "a group that didn't study for this". We have already made the bottom bar a little more visible and we are considering adding short bios. But it's all about the numbers. methodology and transparency. Who exactly is behind this is less important in our view.
Then the donate buttons.
A donate button makes you doubt the intentions. Coincidentally, I was just writing a blog about that because I am well aware of that. That has now been transformed into this article. The original idea summarized: Higher-ups who themselves work for governments, institutes or large organizations look at such a donation button very differently than the people on the shop floor. It is going too far to elaborate on that here, it should be a new article. But take a look at other initiatives with a donate button: Médecins Sans Frontières, Eyes on Animals, Warchild, The Human Dimension Foundation – websites with more prominent red flags than the modest light blue buttons on sterftemonitor.nl. Is that doubt really because of the donate button?
It is questionable that citizens' initiatives such as ours are needed to establish truth and transparency, especially in light of the political preparations to classify substantiated dissent as 'disinformation'. This is also evident from the direction in which the noses of the Heads of Government are currently being set, in Davos.
- Een van de grafieken toont CBS-sterfte door corona t/m oktober 2023. Dat kan niet, want CBS heeft nog maar t/m augustus gepubliceerd.
That's right. Of the more than 40 months depicted, the last two are indeed derived, namely from the admission figures of NICE. Since that number is virtually nil, it has no further relevance. We will either add this in the accompanying text or make the flat line a little shorter. It is a detail that makes no difference to the line of the argument. But it has to be right of course, so thanks for this feedback.
... This is contrary to the data that excess mortality is synchronized with the prevalence of corona, such as that from the sewage values.
The sewer values are indeed fascinating. There may very well be a link between mortality and sewage values somewhere. The relationship between them is becoming increasingly difficult to interpret: as immunity increases, we see less effect of high sewage values. Although they are in sync with the number of hospital admissions, compared to the number of deaths from corona, the sewage figures have now become 1000 times higher than at the beginning of the epidemic.
U refereert aan andere posts van Herman dus ik neem de vrijheid om ook te reageren op een comment van u, waarin u stelt dat de correlatie tussen rioolwaarden en sterftecijfers verdwijnt omdat niemand meer test op corona. Maar het hele punt is wel dat er een correlatie is tussen ziekenhuisopnames en rioolwaarden. Dus daar wordt dan wel getest en thuis niet, huisartsen doen dat ook niet - alleen ziekenhuisartsen. Daar volgt dan uit dat er flinke aantallen ongeteste coronadoden moeten zijn die het ziekenhuis niet halen. Worden die niet ziek, overlijden die plotseling, hoe zit dat dan? Die onverklaarde fenomenen zouden wij graag helder hebben.
Wij zouden niet durven stellen dat de coronacijfers niet deugen, zoals u suggereert, doordat er niet meer getest wordt. Artsen kunnen nog steeds diagnoses stellen – althans het is mij niet bekend dat ze dat nu slechter doen dan voorheen. Om de minimale aantallen corona-overlijdens nu maar gewoon van tafel te vegen als 'niet goed gemeten' gaat ons wat ver. We zullen het met die cijfers moeten doen want het is het beste wat we hebben. Onderbouwd plausibiliseren kan zeker tot interessante inzichten leiden maar dat blijven speculaties en hypotheses waar de noodzaak van verdwijnt als er geen extra sterfte meer is. Ook hier biedt onderzoek uitkomst.
Then follows the criticism that Herman Steigstra "suggests that CBS calculates the expected mortality based on figures for 2015-2019" and then you say "They only use 2015-2019 for the seasonal pattern." Herman does not give an exhaustive methodological description, because the exact calculation is indeed not known and has not been published. 2015-2019 definitely plays a role and is corrected for the following years on the basis of demographic trends, a plausible compromise. That said, the resulting CBS values are pretty much in line with the trend line that follows from 2015-2019. So here too, this brief description does not detract from the figures shown or the line of argument.
I hope that this has cleared up some of your doubts.
Sincerely,
Anton Theunissen (editor virusvaria.nl)
Ach, mensen die op een donatieknop afknappen hebben eigenlijk toch niets op zo'n site te zoeken. Zij categoriseren dat onder "wappie-sites" die zich ten doel hebben gesteld om rijk te worden van donaties: desinformatie als verdienmodel. Dat vinden ze iets heel anders dan een paywall. Vrienden van mij, fervente NRC- en Volkskrantlezers, hebben mij ook wel eens onthutst aangekeken nadat ik ze had verwezen naar een nuttige website. "Ja maar daar staat een donatieknop op". Beiden werkzaam in de zorg.
Sigh.
Very correct answer!
I'm going to find the donate button now
Thanks, Anton and Herman
Haha, very good, good search!
Found it and donated!
Addendum to Mr. Laning:
At a time when trust in government information and in its institutions is undeniably declining (and rightly so in several institutions), critical citizenship is becoming increasingly important, especially if it comes from well-versed individuals and groups.
A donate button for their work is a signal to a growing group of people that they are not financially dependent on the government and its institutions, which is considered a recommendation by this group.
For Anton and Herman:
Compliments for the decent handling of criticism of the critics. Criticism of the critics is also useful, provided that it is equally decent and substantive. It only makes you sharper.
I'm in favor of you briefly describing your credentials on the websites. Especially important for newcomers to the sites. Even though education and scholarship are not the be-all and end-all for skill (of which we unfortunately see examples up to the very highest levels of government), it is at least an indication of the substantive right to speak in relevant areas.
Hiding mortality, who could have ever imagined that it would be considered the most normal thing in the world. Thank you so much for the mortality monitor! Your time alone is priceless. I've been following you for years and I'm happy to finally be able to donate something. The fact that people with salaries for paid nonsense are paying attention to this means that you have hit the mark.
Hmm, I don't think the mortality is glossed over. Not by CBS, not by RIVM. In fact, both institutes are transparent about it. What RIVM has done is to adjust (read: increase) the bandwidths within which mortality is considered 'normal'. You can think all kinds of things about that, but not that the mortality is covered up. Moreover, the bandwidths will be increased more often in the coming decades, given the increasingly ageing population.
1) The baseline is indeed going up and 2) no one is claiming that mortality is being covered up, not even that 3) CBS is doing something wrong. 4) Ageing does have an impact on the baseline.
In short, I can't make soup out of this. First read at least the explanation of the mortality monitor or be a bit more specific in what you write, maybe I have misunderstood everything.
By "concealment of mortality" I also mean the reactions of the people around a deceased person. People come up with assumptions and possible diagnoses or remain silent instead of sadness, but above all you have to be convinced that the corona jabs can certainly not be a possible cause that we see each other again at a funeral (or at a sickbed or condition), which was many times less common before 2021. This is something that can be said for sure without proper research. We don't know for sure. I feel supported with hard figures. Also because we are looking for possible solutions and help with all this damage for those it happens to. We could also think "it's your own fault big bump"...
My compliments for the mortality monitor.
I think it is very wise to keep a critical eye on CBS and the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM).
So I came across the following on CBS's statline. You expect the sum of the weeks to equal the annual totals. That's not the case for many of the years. The first broken week of the year is probably not mentioned separately in the table of weeks.
Year sum weekly figures annual totals
2009 134235 134235
2010 134879 136058
2011 134917 135741
2012 140402 140813
2013 141245 141245
2014 139223 139223
2015 147134 147134
2016 147735 148997
2017 149745 150214
2018 153363 153363
2019 151885 151885
2020 168678 168678
2021 169231 170972
2022 169159 170112
2023 168815 169331
Of course, I could go and see how the correlation is with the length of the first and last week. If only I had nothing else to do... There are also sometimes differences if you add Men and Women, for example. I have no idea how they sync that internally with each other.
This difference is mainly due to the 52 weeks and 11/4 days that the year has. Where the 1/4 once every 4 years yields a "leap year". Which in turn results in a 53rd week every 5 to 6 years.
This is indeed sometimes a bit more difficult to compare. But normally doesn't detract from the trends.
Nice initiative again.
I keep coming back to the question of why so few people see how we are being fooled by dubious statistics and government disinformation. As Anton also pointed out on Maurice's site: the burden of proof is piling up, but it has no effect on the masses who believe in the government narrative. I'm trying to get to the bottom of that. If you understand what keeps these people shackled in their opinions, it might be possible to reach them. It seems that the skeptics are still a minority.
A thought experiment: suppose the narrative is correct: So: our governments have made the right decisions, have informed us correctly, have rightly influenced the media to protect us from a terrible evil. The vaccines have saved millions of lives, and mass vaccination has brought the terrible pandemic to an end. That's how the believers see it, I think.
Then, on the other side of the coin, I see a virus that was no more extreme than the Hong Kong flu in 1968/1969. The Hong Kong flu has also claimed deaths like any flu wave, but after a few months it was over, with a brief peak in the following autumn. Without lockdowns, without mass injections, without border closures, without discriminatory CTB and all those other measures. We, skeptics, see no evidence that any of the draconian measures taken around Covid-19 have had any effect. In fact, the cure is worse than the disease. Evidence is readily available. I'm not going to go through them all here, but the damage done is enormous, and it's still going on.
These positions are so far apart that one of the 2 parties must be wrong. I'm open to being convinced. Maybe I'm completely wrong. Personally, I think my opinion is based on facts. To the extent that they are available. But perhaps the proponents of the narrative also have facts that indicate that the whole operation saved millions of lives. I would like to hear them.
Or maybe it's not about the facts? We can make the pile of evidence even higher, but if the narrative followers have based their 'opinion' not on facts but on belief, it is not going to change them. Or maybe it's fear, they unconsciously push reality away. After all, if any of the undisputed facts (e.g., that the "vaccines" are safe and effective) turn out to be false, then they must acknowledge that they have been cheated. And then the next domino in government confidence falls. As a result, their worldview shifts, and it turns out that almost all information that they have always seen as reliable has been manipulated. Not necessarily wrong, but it is an interpretation of media that interpret a certain narrative.
I've gone through that process myself. Right from the start, and gradually coming to see more and more how we are being manipulated. Then you have just changed from a law-abiding taxpayer to a conspiracy theorist.
Is that behind it? Or are we skeptics completely wrong? Which genius is going to convince us, based on facts, that an mRNA jab is a good idea? That the uncontrolled production of (spike) proteins is less bad than a severe flu? That the lockdowns have made any sense at all? That it was right that an entire population group was discriminated against in order to force them to get a jab? I could go on and on. How do we get this discussion on a broader platform than on dissident sites like this one?
Anton, have you seen this research by John Beaudoin?
https://thehighwire.com/ark-videos/new-data-reveals-tsunami-of-covid-19-vaccine-deaths/
Unbelievable that they hand over all death certificates within a few days.
Some of the numbers he shows are very, very low!
Massachusetts has a population of 7 million
Translation to the whole of USA= factor 50
Book
https://therealcdc.com/
It is indeed not a good idea to leave the education of the general public about mortality rates to a trade association of actuaries, as Mr. Laning proposes.
Although actuaries could probably accurately visualize mortality, they also have a very strong tendency not to do so. After all, insurers rely on the differences between real and imaginary risks.
For the profitability of life insurers in particular, it is necessary that the public has a far too high estimate of the risks of mortality. In fact, life insurers have an existential interest in grossly exaggerating mortality risks.
It would be equally foolish to have a trade association of casino owners provide information about the actual odds of gambling.
LOL, I've been looking for numbers for a while and compare with RIVM & CBS etc.
Nice, so found and contrarian as I am, so I used the payment button! 😉
€15 is 3 coffees these days... So oh well.