Overweight and target weight, excess mortality and willingness to vaccinate

by Anton Theunissen | 21 Jul 2024, 13:07

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39 Comments
  1. Marjan

    Great article again, Anton. I've been following you, Maurice de Hond and Herman Steigstra since 2020. It remains frustrating that most people don't want to reflect on what has happened in recent years. Blind faith in the government and
    Medics, in the meantime it has mainly become cognitive dissonance, I suspect. We will continue the fight!

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    Reply
    1. Anton Theunissen

      I think I've seen it on X, haven't read it yet, but I have read his earlier report on the southern hemisphere. (I couldn't find the link anymore, so I've added it to the article.)

      Reply
      1. a reader

        What I keep seeing is that judges rely on external expertise, such as the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM). You can argue with that, but then you have to come up with a very good story. As far as I can see, that didn't happen in the Netherlands, possibly because legal and medical heavyweights were afraid to go against the RIVM story.

        Reply
      2. Anton Theunissen

        There are plenty of good stories, but the big media are propagandists. Such a story has no chance.

        Reply
  2. a reader

    Agree with implausibility official story and reprehensible that people try to sweep the dangerous desire to experiment under the table.
    But don't fall into easy simplifications, such as the assumption that judges have so much medical knowledge that they can recognize the mistakes of RIVM et al.

    Reply
    1. Anton Theunissen

      Well, then I have not made it very clear that I do not think judges are capable of doing that. In fact, this judge approves unusable junk in response to a thorough WOO request. But then again, is that incompetence or malice?

      Reply
  3. Harry

    Hi Anton,

    Thank you for this powerful story, you give a good overview of the state of affairs here. And maybe there is still something to do with the PDF files? Especially together with the Excel files? Really painstaking work, but it could be divided among a dozen volunteers.

    Furthermore, I agree with almost everything you write here, but that of the repeat vaccination from the RIVM does not seem illogical to me – I can imagine their reasoning.
    They already start with "almost everyone has built up protection" and specifically acknowledge protection from infection. Only, as far as we know (unfortunately they forgot to explain that), defenses against coronaviruses are similar to those against flu, it becomes less effective with time – even natural defenses. This is partly expressed in the sentence "Nevertheless, people can still get very sick from the coronavirus". Some people who were sufficiently immune six months ago may not be sufficiently protected next autumn.
    Incidentally, my view is different from the RIVM, I try to maintain my natural immunity by staying in contact with people a lot (continuous boosting). Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems to work.

    Reply
    1. Anton Theunissen

      We will have to see to what extent the autumn vaccination will still be relevant in the future. So far, this is debatable, to say the least, given ACM's developments so far. A month ago, an infection was still protective, but now it is not. Still crazy.

      Reply
    2. Anton Theunissen

      By the way, you can't do anything with the Excel files. They were the source files for the PDFs.

      Reply
      1. Harry

        Hi Anton, I tried to download the PDF files of minivws.nl, both as a subfile and also as a zip, and on two different machines. Everything failed. The zip always fails at 69 Mb. Do you happen to have the entire file?

        Reply
      2. Harry

        By email? I don't see anything and how? Max. approx. 10Mb – that's 100x less than the zip file...

        Reply
      3. Harry

        Thank you Anton, the link to the Excel file is good. And your answer here is only now dawning on me – so those PDFs that you can't download, on
        https://open.minvws.nl/dossier/VWS-WOO/3455207-1038323-pdo
        are worthless because they are just a bad copy of the mangled Excel file we already have.

        Reply
        1. Anton Theunissen

          Yes, indeed. Try something with it, you will see that Hans Verwaart has managed to squeeze out the most important things.

          Reply
  4. xipeng

    I assume that your material and interpretations/articles are kept well secured.
    The government's criminalization of the spread of self-defined 'disinformation' is in full swing. Germany is leading the way in this. Usually, the Netherlands follows. The EU with Van der Leugen is also doing its utmost. See Thomas Fazi's recent article on Unherd https://unherd.com/2024/07/inside-the-eus-war-on-free-speech/

    Reply
  5. Cees Mul

    A word about the Rancourt report. They've figured out things that I've actually been curious about for a long time. Countries compared, the measures per country, the composition of the population, geographical location, vaccination approach, etc. It has become a bulky piece of work. As a layman, I am impressed, but the debunkers will have something to say about it. According to the authors, the pattern in which 'the virus' has spread does not make any sense at all for a respiratory virus. The Netherlands is also mentioned as a country where excess mortality persists because they compare the numbers before 2020.

    It is a very strange situation in which we find ourselves. Assume that other readers also occasionally feel like they're in the wrong movie. How can 'we' see so clearly what has (gone) wrong while others are convinced that there was a deadly virus circulating that was defeated by heroic virologists and sensible politicians by deploying a rapidly developed vaccine.

    I recently had a few conversations with believers, and what surprised me is that they don't really know any details. Not from the severity of Covid, not from the effect of mRNA vaccines, not that there is serious excess mortality. Nor can they contradict my arguments. They have blind faith in the government and de Volkskrant. That's what their worldview is based on. They know that this gives them a limited view of the matter, but apparently they are fine with that. I tried to explain to them that I'm not just shouting something. But that my opinion is based on data. Only I don't get it from Volkskrant or NRC. The framing in those magazines is also becoming clearer and clearer to me.

    If there is anyone who can explain to me why mRNA vaccines against a relatively mild respiratory virus is a good idea, I would be happy to do so and maybe I will convert. On this site, that chance is small.

    Reply
    1. Anton Theunissen

      Haha, no you won't find that here anytime soon. If you're on Facebook, you might want to take a look at the open group Corona Middenweg. There are some active members there, Jans Velzing and Bernard de Boeck, who might be able to convince you. I wouldn't hold my breath for it.

      Reply
      1. Cees mul

        No, never been on facebook. Has always disliked me. From day 1. I think 'social' media is one of the biggest problems of our time. In addition to being overweight, medication use. Has to do with each other.

        Reply
      2. Anton Theunissen

        Without social media, you would have missed out on all the information you read on sites like this.

        Reply
    2. Godfather

      Of course, if mRNA were bad, the government in the UK would never help build a megafactory of Moderna, endsarc.

      Reply
    3. Jan van der Zanden

      The good thing about mRNA is that you can develop a new vaccine very quickly and cheaply in the event of mutations. That then no longer needs to be tested and no longer validated. So cheap and fast.

      There is a "small" disadvantage to it: the working principle behind mRNA vaccines appears to have disastrous side effects. That was already somewhat known but seemed to be rare; but that relative "rarity" has only really manifested itself with the massive rollout of Corona vaccines.

      Here are the pros and cons of mRNA vaccines in a nutshell.

      Reply
      1. Anton Theunissen

        Who knows, they might be able to set a timer on it and make it cell-specific. As long as that is not possible, you can also give everyone preventive chemotherapy. Irresponsible.

        Reply
  6. Thera

    Professor Theo Schetters said, with Jorn Luka on the Trueman Show, that Bourla of Pfizer had said: After corona, cancer is the next moneymaker. Count your winnings!

    Reply
  7. el

    But don't you understand that a.o. Billie and friends their mission is fully on track to protect humanity and the earth? There are far too many people and there is far too much prosperity, our planet cannot handle that so the mission is a few billion fewer people and we can get back to work. And to prevent things from going wrong again and people multiplying like rabbits again, you need a totalitarian power that can ensure that humanity continues to get its jabs to shorten life to an acceptable standard. It has become clear that poisoning food through the food industry alone is not going to work. The people are like cockroaches, impossible to exterminate. Prosperity is also being addressed, prosperity is not good for the world at all, through an energy transition it now appears to work well, those stupid people really fall for everything. Bill wants a world full of lazy, fat, stupid, slavish, poor people. For the elite, his friends, he has a different plan, which should be twice as old as it should be and as healthy as a... yes like that actually, because nothing is really healthy anymore.
    You would almost believe that there are Aliens who want to take over the world. The fact is that a lot of history also refers to this if you want to believe the videos on YouTube. But then again, what is another explanation for this super-successful mass hypnosis that has fanatically convinced many millions of people that they are doing the wrong thing, while if they were awake they would declare themselves crazy.

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    1. Jan van der Zanden

      I don't understand why you seriously believe these kinds of stories..... Go talk to "people like that". They really don't work like that.

      The correct explanation is a combination of fear, stupidity, tunnel thinking, groupthink and especially Rule of Rescue (RoR) thinking instead of utilitarian thinking. And from the pharma point of view, of course, purely selfish action. These are all very rational explanations.

      Unfortunately, you come across a lot of RoR thinking: climate, migration, energy transition.

      All utopian thinking to quickly "save" something here and now, but with a multitude of negative side effects. Cool analytical reasoning and drawing logical conclusions has disappeared with all those highly educated alpha and gamma educated people who have the power. In the past, power was somewhat more occupied by science-educated people and rational decisions were made by governments a little more often (but certainly not always!).

      Reply
      1. Anton Theunissen

        I sum up all those traits with the umbrella term "incompetence".
        There are three others, financial or career motives:
        – self-interest (money, position)
        – bribery sensitivity
        – be blackmailable

        Reply
  8. JVI

    The theme of the article is interesting, but it is desirable to place the explanation of the behaviour of RIVM (and CBS) and others in a broader (international) context.

    1. The average level of mortality in EU countries in the period 2016-2019 is still a good basis for determining excess mortality in 2024 and analysing the differences between EU countries. See also the recent EUROSTAT Monthly Bulletin of July 2024:

    https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?oldid=509982

    2.View the monthly figures of percentage changes of the countries in May 2024 compared to the average mortality in May months in 2016-2019. These are neatly spread out around 1.6% for the EU average (first line, first table and third graph). And the average level is not that high at all. So there seems to be no need to change the basis of mortality in the EU.

    3.If we look further back in time (first graph and last graph), we see that in the past, excess mortality has regularly been much higher, but that a significant decline started around January 2024, which will continue until June 2024. For the first time since 2020, the EU average excess mortality has been so low for a long time (almost half a year). Is this the end of the COVID crisis in the EU?

    4. Perhaps, but not for the (few) countries where the level of excess mortality is still far above 10% compared to 2016-2019. The Netherlands belongs to this group of laggards (see the third graph and the first table). This is surprising, because our neighbouring countries are not one of them. From 2021 onwards, the development of excess mortality in Belgium and Germany seemed to be linked to that in the Netherlands (Belgium was somewhat more distant). Since the end of 2023 (Belgium) and the beginning of 2024 (Germany), the Netherlands seems to have been decoupled from its neighboring countries.

    N.B. This can also be seen in the last figure of the EUROSTAT monthly bulletin (press legend; then select 'Belgium', 'Germany' and 'Netherlands', perhaps turn off 'European union').

    5.Why is it that the decline in excess mortality in the Netherlands is apparently being slowed down? This can only be due to specific national factors in 2020-2024. So many possible causes, including the well-known drivers of pandemic mortality, are immediately excluded. Inhibiting factors should mainly be sought at a high level: for example, the reluctance of VWS bureaucrats to switch back from a system with central control to the old, pre-pandemic, decentralized system of 'regulated market forces'. Of course, such a return means budget and job losses. This is countered with all kinds of excuses: maintaining 'pandemic preparedness', for example. It is an old and well-known problem in public finances that a 'disaster' often results in structurally higher budgets in the relevant policy areas. Such a WHO pandemic treaty is also intended, among other things, to consolidate higher budgets for health care worldwide. Rabid, of course, given the catastrophic failure of that policy (global excess mortality 20-30 million)!

    6. The motive for adjusting the definition of excess mortality is now clear: RIVM and CBS are tinkering with that definition because they do not behave like public institutions but like consultants or even alibi agencies. They have to keep their clients (VWS, politicians, etc.) out of the wind by changing definitions to hide the fact that excess mortality in 2024 has changed little in the Netherlands, but it has changed elsewhere in the EU.

    7. Perhaps the adjustment of the excess mortality expectation is informative after all, albeit differently than intended: the increased expectation reflects the hidden price (in human lives) of pandemic preparedness!

    Reply
    1. Anton Theunissen

      I only see your comment now (malfunction in the email notifications), sorry. Sounds very plausible, but a few things are not clear to me. So where do these excess mortality differences with our neighbouring countries come from? Look at Germany, where it was exactly like here.
      But I don't see those excess mortality differences decoupled on OWID either... That's crazy, isn't it?

      Reply
      1. JVI

        The OWD chart does not go beyond December 2023!

        In my response, I talked about the fact that since the end of 2023 (Belgium) and the beginning of 2024 (Germany), the increase in mortality compared to the average in 2016-2019 in our neighboring countries has clearly decreased compared to the consistently higher level in the Netherlands.

        You can read the development per country in 2023 and in the first months in 2024 from the first table of EUROSTAT. As a rule in the Netherlands, percentages above 10% are stated for all months in the half year from December 2023 to May 2024 (except for March 2024: 7.9%). For Belgium, there are only percentages in the table far below 10%, and in the last months in 2024 even only negative percentages. Germany reached the last very high rate (above 10%) in January 2024, after which there has also been a clear decline.

        It may be interesting to note that, apart from the Netherlands, only islands in Europe (Ireland, Malta and Iceland) structurally exceed 10% compared to the average level of 2016-2019
        will be listed in the first 5 months of 2024!

        Reply
      2. Anton Theunissen

        I see it, very special. Very curious to see how that continues. Eurostat also shows that we have had higher excess mortality rates than Belgium since 2021 and the difference is increasing.

        Reply
  9. Jan van der Zanden

    In the 2-minute excess mortality debate of March 27, 2025, Thiadens (PVV) should have used the analogy with BMI as a "fixed standard" very graphically to convince his audience, the media and the public. That's just NLP.
    Missed opportunity. What a bumbling.
    I can have AI write an article like this:

    ====================
    Why a fixed baseline for excess mortality is crucial
    When measuring excess mortality, it is essential to use a fixed baseline rather than simply the average of recent years. This may seem like a technical detail, but it has far-reaching implications for how we identify and address public health problems.
    Imagine if we adjusted the BMI standard of 25 as a healthy weight every year based on the average weight of the population. In a society where obesity is increasing, the norm would slowly but surely rise. Over time, someone who is overweight would be considered "normal" simply because the average has shifted. The real health problems would be masked by this.
    Exactly the same thing happens with excess mortality if we do not use a fixed baseline. If we take the average of the previous years as the new norm every year, excess mortality gradually disappears from the picture. A persistently elevated mortality rate then becomes the new 'normal' situation, making structural problems invisible.
    Take, for example, a city where the mortality rate has been 5% higher for years due to environmental pollution. With a shifting baseline, this excess mortality would no longer be noticed after a few years. The problem remains, but we have simply come to accept it as normal.
    A fixed baseline works like an alarm system that alerts us when something is wrong. It enables us to recognize patterns and intervene in time for structural problems that would otherwise slowly become 'normal'.

    Reply
    1. Jan van der Zanden

      This is also how it can be:
      =========
      Why a fixed yardstick is needed for excess mortality
      Imagine a school where children are measured annually. The teacher uses a ruler to determine which children are growing extra. First, he neatly marks what 'normal growth' is.
      But then he decides to adjust the definition of "normal growth" every year, based on how all the children have grown in the past year. What happens if the whole class starts to slow down due to a mysterious cause?
      After a few years, no one notices that there is a problem anymore! Because the slowed growth has slowly become "normal" on the shifting yardstick.
      This is also how it works with excess mortality. If we say every year: "the new normal is the average of recent years", then excess mortality will automatically disappear from the picture. A problem that persists becomes invisible.
      It's like a scale that keeps adjusting itself. A person who gradually gains 20 kilos would never receive a warning because the scale always considers the new situation to be 'normal'.
      We need a fixed yardstick – an unchanged baseline – to be able to see when something is really wrong. Otherwise, we run the risk of serious problems going unnoticed, simply because we have become accustomed to the new situation.

      Reply
    2. Anton Theunissen

      Misschien heeft Thiadens het ook alleen maar van horen zeggen. Ik weet niet hoe die mensen werken.

      Reply

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