Side remark: in 1932, scientific articles and books still looked beautiful. The ugly phase (typewriter with some manual supplements) came later, in the 60s and 70s - until personal computers and Donald Knuth (LaTeX) saved us.
... and thanks for the interesting perspective. I am currently staring at the RKI and DIVI data, in order to get an idea about recent underreporting of Covid (I promised Fabian Spieker to write about this...).
Thanks very much, CM. Looking forward to your post on underreporting of Covid!
To be honest, I was kind of shocked when I noticed the regularity of the intervals in the test positvity data for German and UK data from 2022!? To me it is really suggestive of significant underreporting of cases. Of course not necessarily a bad thing - many of these will be asymptomatic. And I am reminded of Eugyppius' observation that we have vastly more data about this virus than perhaps any other so it is difficult to know how significant some of it really is. But I suspect it could be masking Covid's influence in underlying trends of mortality rates.
Naturally, if you merely assert "1918 but first year distributed over 4 years," you wind up with no post-1918 deficits. And, in the present era, seropositivity tells us that SAR-CoV-2 receded in 2020 with a lot more fuel left to burn than 1918 H1N1. So it isn't that surprising that H1N1 had some deficit years given that it made a much bigger splash to begin with.
Sure, the impact of initial Spanish Flu waves was proportionally much greater, which must have accounted for the lower base level post 1920.
I still think the main argument about mortality displacement and that deficits should follow excesses holds. Though, I take your point that SARS-CoV-2 still had much more fresh pickings to go after in 2021 compared to H1N1 in 1920?
That book "Epidemic Influenzy: A Survey" looks interesting but very difficult to navigate/read on that site :(
could you write me another email with Christian in CC? For some reason my mail client seems to have swallowed our emails. I've been searching hi and lo, but the emails have just disappeared it seems.
There is another German who is taking part in the Steve Kirsch discussion, so it might be interesting to have him join us.
Thanks for reading. I was very pleasantly surprised at the nuggets to be found in the short paper from 1932 especially after the way the vlogger had presented it!
I have often found that going back to the earliest papers on a subject can be very revealing and interesting... hardly any modern scientists do this - they just regurgitate and repeat received ideas which get mangled over time like "chinese whispers"...
Yes, it's the difference between "what am I supposed to know and think" versus "if I understand the first principles, I can think for myself". I am probably biased, but I think many engineers tend to the latter and modernday scientists to the former.
Note, I'll happily confess my own knowledge and understanding of the fields of immunology, epidemiology, molecular biology, and so on, are basic! But I can certainly read tables of data and charts and form logical analyses.
Here is an interesting twitter thread from Eugyppius highlighting historical research which pointed early on to the existence of sub microscopic viral pathogens.
There is a LOT of money in virology/vaccines. The simple fact is, the supposed "isolation" technique used in virology is a joke. I can't imagine anyone with a functional brain doing that process and thinking they are isolating anything... But 200 years of pretending does tend to inure people to using critical thought. I don't expect many people can just drop all that very quickly. Terrain Theory is extremely intriguing to me, and makes a lot more sense than this Germ Theory nonsense, none of which has ever been demonstrated to be real... On the contrary, contagion has never been proven. Viruses are most likely to actually be exosomes, which are made BY the body to enable detoxification, they don't exist outside the body, and have never been shown to be pathogenic, much less actually, truly, isolated. I know, it's hard to believe, but give it a chance, you'll likely be intrigued as I was...
Side remark: in 1932, scientific articles and books still looked beautiful. The ugly phase (typewriter with some manual supplements) came later, in the 60s and 70s - until personal computers and Donald Knuth (LaTeX) saved us.
... and thanks for the interesting perspective. I am currently staring at the RKI and DIVI data, in order to get an idea about recent underreporting of Covid (I promised Fabian Spieker to write about this...).
Thanks very much, CM. Looking forward to your post on underreporting of Covid!
To be honest, I was kind of shocked when I noticed the regularity of the intervals in the test positvity data for German and UK data from 2022!? To me it is really suggestive of significant underreporting of cases. Of course not necessarily a bad thing - many of these will be asymptomatic. And I am reminded of Eugyppius' observation that we have vastly more data about this virus than perhaps any other so it is difficult to know how significant some of it really is. But I suspect it could be masking Covid's influence in underlying trends of mortality rates.
The post is almost finished but I will wait until substack sends mails again (yesterday and today, I have not been getting any notifications).
I've been frustrated by the lack of reach I'm seeing. Twitter seems to be broken and too many substack subscribers seem to never open the posts?
The status page mentions mail delivery problems for Jan 27, but nothing for yesterday or today.
https://substack.statuspage.io/
My stats page says the emails do send, but that only half the recipients open the post.
Just checked, and Substack says this is normal.
Naturally, if you merely assert "1918 but first year distributed over 4 years," you wind up with no post-1918 deficits. And, in the present era, seropositivity tells us that SAR-CoV-2 receded in 2020 with a lot more fuel left to burn than 1918 H1N1. So it isn't that surprising that H1N1 had some deficit years given that it made a much bigger splash to begin with.
Very good H1N1 paper, thanks for the link.
I refer a lot to Jordan, Edwin O. (1927.) “Epidemic Influenza: A Survey.” Archived online at https://quod.lib.umich.edu/f/flu/8580flu.0016.858
Sure, the impact of initial Spanish Flu waves was proportionally much greater, which must have accounted for the lower base level post 1920.
I still think the main argument about mortality displacement and that deficits should follow excesses holds. Though, I take your point that SARS-CoV-2 still had much more fresh pickings to go after in 2021 compared to H1N1 in 1920?
That book "Epidemic Influenzy: A Survey" looks interesting but very difficult to navigate/read on that site :(
Oh my god Witzbold, you are my hero. Thanks so much for this. I was just talking about needing this element in my narrative. Perfect.
Hey Witzbold,
could you write me another email with Christian in CC? For some reason my mail client seems to have swallowed our emails. I've been searching hi and lo, but the emails have just disappeared it seems.
There is another German who is taking part in the Steve Kirsch discussion, so it might be interesting to have him join us.
just sent you a mail
Thanks, very interesting and thought provoking.
Thanks for reading. I was very pleasantly surprised at the nuggets to be found in the short paper from 1932 especially after the way the vlogger had presented it!
I have often found that going back to the earliest papers on a subject can be very revealing and interesting... hardly any modern scientists do this - they just regurgitate and repeat received ideas which get mangled over time like "chinese whispers"...
Yes, it's the difference between "what am I supposed to know and think" versus "if I understand the first principles, I can think for myself". I am probably biased, but I think many engineers tend to the latter and modernday scientists to the former.
Note, I'll happily confess my own knowledge and understanding of the fields of immunology, epidemiology, molecular biology, and so on, are basic! But I can certainly read tables of data and charts and form logical analyses.
You seem like an intelligent person, so allow me to tempt your brain with this:
What if the "Spanish Flu" was actually EMF's?
What if "Covid" is actually 5G?
Check out the videos done with Thomas Cowan and Mark & Sam Bailey... I think you might find the idea of Terrain Theory really interesting...
Here is an interesting twitter thread from Eugyppius highlighting historical research which pointed early on to the existence of sub microscopic viral pathogens.
https://twitter.com/eugyppius1/status/1621498360568979457?s=20&t=w_uMoX6niuXgxjq2W5latQ
There is a LOT of money in virology/vaccines. The simple fact is, the supposed "isolation" technique used in virology is a joke. I can't imagine anyone with a functional brain doing that process and thinking they are isolating anything... But 200 years of pretending does tend to inure people to using critical thought. I don't expect many people can just drop all that very quickly. Terrain Theory is extremely intriguing to me, and makes a lot more sense than this Germ Theory nonsense, none of which has ever been demonstrated to be real... On the contrary, contagion has never been proven. Viruses are most likely to actually be exosomes, which are made BY the body to enable detoxification, they don't exist outside the body, and have never been shown to be pathogenic, much less actually, truly, isolated. I know, it's hard to believe, but give it a chance, you'll likely be intrigued as I was...