The year the Earth stood still

Whatever happens to society after Covid-19, the answer for investors has barely changed form over the last few years, writes Tim Price.

“So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is… fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance…”

– From the first inauguration of Franklin D. Roosevelt as the 32^nd President of the United States, Saturday, 4^th March, 1933.

First the virus. Then the governmental overreaction. Now the backlash. At the end of May, a German official, Stephen Kohn, blew the whistle on the established Covid-19 narrative, and leaked a 93-page report entitled Analysis of the crisis management. Among its key findings:

1. “The dangerousness of Covid-19 was overestimated: probably at no point did the danger posed by the new virus go beyond the normal level.”
2. “The people who die from Corona are essentially those who would statistically die this year, because they have reached the end of their lives and their weakened bodies can no longer cope with any random everyday stress (incl. approximately 150 viruses currently in circulation).”
3. “Worldwide, within a quarter of a year, there has been no more than 250,000 deaths from Covid-19, compared to 1.5 million deaths [25,100 in Germany] during the influenza wave 2017/18.”
4. “The danger is obviously no greater than that of many other viruses. There is no evidence that this was more than a false alarm. A reproach could go along these lines: During the Corona crisis the State has proved itself as one of the biggest producers of Fake News.”
5. “The report focuses on the “manifold and heavy consequences of the Corona measures” and warns that these are “grave”. More people are dying because of state-imposed Corona-measures than they are being killed by the virus.”
6. “A Corona-focused German healthcare system is postponing life-saving surgery and delaying or reducing treatment for non-Corona patients.”
7. “Therapeutic and preventive measures should never bring more harm than the illness itself. Their aim should be to protect the risk groups, without endangering the availability of medical care and the health of the whole population, as it is unfortunately occurring”.
8. “We in the scientific and medical praxis are experiencing the secondary damages of the Corona-measures on our patients on a daily basis.”
9. “We therefore ask the Federal Ministry of the Interior, to comment upon our press release, and we hope for a pertinent discussion regarding the [Corona] measures, one that leads to the best possible solution for the whole population”.

The following day, the US entrepreneur JB Handley published a definitive guide to the accumulated governmental and medical mis-steps in handling the pandemic, most notably the lockdown itself. His executive summary is clear:

Knowing what we know today about COVID-19’s Infection Fatality Rate, asymmetric impact by age and medical condition, non-transmissibility by asymptomatic people and in outdoor settings, near-zero fatality rate for children, and the basic understanding of viruses through Farr’s law, locking down society was a bone-headed policy decision so devastating to society that historians may judge it as the all-time worst decision ever made. Worse, as these clear facts have become available, many policy-makers haven’t shifted their positions, despite the fact that every hour under any stage of lockdown has a domino-effect of devastation to society. Meanwhile, the media—with a few notable exceptions—is oddly silent on all the good news. Luckily, an unexpected group of heroes across the political landscape—many of them doctors and scientists—have emerged to tell the truth, despite facing extreme criticism and censorship from an angry mob desperate to continue fighting an imaginary war.

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