Dear Senator, Dear Parliamentarian,
A few days ago we tried to inform you about the current figures regarding Covid-19 and Omikron. As we now understand, Minister Kuipers has succeeded in changing your mind with different figures. He told you that the mortality of “Corona” is 0.9%, a figure that apparently convinced you to vote for the motion to place Covid-19 on the list of A epidemics.
Now Corona is a type of virus. We would like to emphasize that the A-List does not include viruses, but diseases. This distinction is important. Sometimes a disease can be caused by different viruses (Ebola for example). Sometimes a single virus can cause several diseases over time. Lists A, B1, B2 and C include infectious diseases caused by viruses or bacteria. The Coronavirus is therefore not on the list because it is a list of diseases.
The A-List understandably states “Covid-19”, not “Corona”. Covid-19 was caused by certain dominant variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus: including the Wuhan variant, the British Alpha, the South African Beta and the Delta variant. These four variants caused the same disease: Covid-19. Fortunately, this disease has now disappeared.
We recognize the current “corona disease” caused by the Omikron variant as a “flu” or “cold”. This disease, which we could call Omikron-21, is not on the A-list and certainly does not belong there. It goes without saying that no arbitrary disease should simply be treated as a List A disease such as Ebola or Covid-19:
- Omicron disease is not a serious lung disease, it is a mild disease of the throat
- The characteristic Covid-19 symptom, loss of smell and taste, is rare
- Fever and cough has been replaced by pain in the throat
- Hospitalization is very rare (much less than with flu) and hospital stays are short
- ICU admission has normalized, approximately 10 times less than with flu
- Mortality is very low, approximately 200 times lower than with flu
Vooral dat laatste punt zal u verbazen: de mortaliteit is niet 0,9%, zoals minister Kuipers u deed geloven, maar 0,004%. Dat is maar liefst meer dan tweehonderd keer lager. De mortaliteit voor alle overlijdens in Nederland bij elkaar is "slechts" 0,85%!
With a number of 80,000 positive PCR tests (or approximately 300,000 real infections per day), the number of corona deaths is now around 12 per day. Omikron-21 has replaced all Covid variants and we have arrived at a clearly different clinical picture. Also, given the more than 4,000,000 positive PCR tests, between 12,000,000 and 16,000,000 Dutch people have been infected with the Omikron virus (immunity for corona does not work against Omikron-21), a very small proportion of whom have actually become ill. Of these, a total of less than 500 have ended up in the ICU so far.
The average flu has a mortality of approximately 0.3%. Omikron-21 is therefore almost a hundred times milder than flu. Unnecessarily: flu is also not on the A-List.
The fact that Covid-19 ended up on the A-List will be disputed afterwards, but it is actually no longer relevant. This means that parliament's actions have been sanctioned retroactively - a course of events that will undoubtedly raise questions in subsequent investigations and parliamentary inquiries.
Fortunately, we can now conclude that that disease is no longer there. People will therefore only be able to rely on the A-List when it comes to Covid-19. This special status does not apply to other diseases such as a cold, Omikron-21 or flu.
Minister Kuipers nevertheless warns of dark times as long as the virus has not disappeared. “It can add up very quickly.” Now we are visited by viruses every year and every flu is slightly different. Yet this is no reason to put flu on the A-List. After all, an influenza virus is also potentially life-threatening: more people died in the 2017-2018 flu season than in an average corona season.
It is not up to us to judge to what extent this affects the relationship of trust with the minister.
On the website OurWorldInData you can also see how the CFR value has developed since the arrival of Omikron-21:
It is also good to see that until December the CFR of Covid-19 was even below the level of an average flu. On this website you can convince yourself (click on the link above) that this development is taking place in the same way in all countries. Very strange that Kuipers nevertheless refers to a percentage of 0.9%, which is even far off the scale. You may be inclined to question the minister again about the figures he mentioned.
A transparent and honest representation of the situation will improve confidence in Dutch politics. We can see from Canada how the situation can change if that does not happen.
Always willing to provide further information,
Sincerely,
Herman Steigstra
Anton Theunissen
I'm tired:
Open letter 2 – to the Senate and the House of Representatives
All articles about the A-List:
A clear account substantiated with facts. The manipulation of government figures and models, including RIVM, has been confirmed for the umpteenth time.
It is indeed incomprehensible and worrying that supervisory boards, healthcare authorities, civil servants, health organizations, etc., etc., etc. do not look at the underlying figures but only listen to the interpretations of Ab1 and Ernst Kuipers.
Previously, you were declared eccentric if you only supported doomsday scenarios. The man with the sign “The world is ending” Now they make you an advisor or minister and follow him blindly. What drives people nowadays to only want to believe in doomsday scenarios? Although it is not consistent. I am quite level-headed and have been thinking for decades that plastics should be banned from packaging materials. NOTHING happens! This plastic problem is a doomsday scenario that is already happening. “Nanoplastics” is apparently too science fiction to believe in? But the nonsense that costs billions, such as a bad flu variant or a CO2 and nitrogen policy that is scientifically full of snags and is more likely to be incorrect than to be eagerly followed as if they were new messiahs. Apparently the brains of many have already been damaged further than scientifically expected by the manufacturers of crop protection products.
Good story, short and powerful. But unfortunately it will have little influence on MPs from government parties, whose votes do not depend on logic or truth, but on party interests and self-preservation. Too sad for words.
We have seen in “Regarding a position elsewhere” that when it comes to something, they are all willing to ignore the truth.
Still, I'm glad you're not giving up.
My hope is that this does not appeal to logic but to terminology and legal definitions. I hope that we have made a translation into their lingo. Then they might know how to discuss it... Well, you try something.