From: https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/johns-hopkins-newspaper-removes-study-examining-covid-death-rate

Johns Hopkins Newspaper Removes Study Examining COVID Death Rate

BY TYLER DURDEN

TUESDAY, DEC 22, 2020 - 11:30

Authored by Benjamin Zeisloft via Campus Reform,

Johns Hopkins University’s student newspaper, the News-Letter, reported on a university presentation stating that COVID-19 “had no effect on the percentage of deaths of older people” and that the virus “has also not increased the total number of deaths” in comparison to historical data. However, the paper later removed the article, stating that it had been used to support “dangerous inaccuracies” on social media.

Assistant Director for the university’s Applied Economics program Genevieve Briand critically analyzed the net effect of COVID-19 on deaths in the United States based on historical data. Using information from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Briand identified the percentages of total deaths per age category both before and after the pandemic began.

“Surprisingly, the deaths of older people stayed the same before and after COVID-19,” said the News-Letter’s article.

“Since COVID-19 mainly affects the elderly, experts expected an increase in the percentage of deaths in older age groups. However, this increase is not seen from the CDC data. In fact, the percentages of deaths among all age groups remain relatively the same.”

Though deaths in categories like respiratory illnesses and heart disease seasonally rise and fall together in the United States, Briand noticed a strange trend.

“Instead of the expected drastic increase across all causes, there was a significant decrease in deaths due to heart disease,” in addition to “all other causes.” Additionally, “the total decrease in deaths by other causes almost exactly equals the increase in deaths by COVID-19.”

“All of this points to no evidence that COVID-19 created any excess deaths. Total death numbers are not above normal death numbers. We found no evidence to the contrary,” Briand concluded in her presentation. She told the News-Letter that “a decreased number of heart attacks and all the other death causes doesn’t give us a choice but to point to some misclassification.”

The News-Letter removed the article in late November after staff discovered its coverage of the study was "used to support dangerous inaccuracies that minimize the impact of the pandemic.” The paper linked a PDF of the original article with a watermark stating “Retracted by the News-Letter” to a statement explaining the decision.

The News-Letter explained that it made the decision independently and encouraged readers to take the article “in context with the countless other data published by Hopkins, the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).”

The staff of the News-Letter referred Campus Reform to an op-ed written December 3 by the paper’s editorial board, which said that “the article should not have been deleted in the first place.”

“Instead of temporarily removing it from our website, the News-Letter should have immediately retracted and provided a detailed explanation of the inaccuracies in Briand’s research,” explained the editors.

“We did not intend to silence Briand; instead, we sought to put her claims in conversation with findings from Hopkins, the World Health Organization and the CDC.”

Briand told Campus Reform that the News-Letter’s decision to remove the article was its own, and pointed out that she explained "during the presentation where I found and downloaded the data from, so anyone can easily replicate my analysis.”

[Here is only one of many comments. –FNC]

it is of utmost importance that we realise that the fake pcr test used to determine a sars-cov2 infection is key to unravelling the whole pandemic scam. for this, we now have scientific proof:

the new scientific peer review (27 november 2020) of the corman-drosten pcr test used worldwide to determine infection rates shows that the pcr test is unscientific and basically a complete load of hogwash.

among the team of peer reviewers were Kevin McKernan, BS Emory University, Chief Scientific Officer and founder of Medical Genomics and a major contributor to the Human Genome Project, as well as  former Pfizer chief scientist Dr Michael Yeadon  and twenty other international top-tier scientists.

the peer reviewers` major findings on the corman-drosten pcr test were the following:

1) major technical flaws in the application of primers, as well as heating procedures.

2) major technical flaws in the amplification processes; no standardisation of amplification cycles.

3) neither positive nor negative controls for virus detection were applied.

4) no application of standard operational procedure (SOP).

5) major conflicts of interest: individuals involved in development of the pcr test were also involved

in test approval for the EU (!)  ...etc.

as for the corman-drosten test being "a load of hogwash", please don`t take my word for it, see for yourself:

https://cormandrostenreview.com/report/

upplay_arrow 5     downplay_arrow 0

[Here is another of many comments. –FNC]

adr

6 hours ago

(Edited)

Fact:

The CDC removed the individual counts of death for Pneumonia, Influenza, and Covid. They lumped all deaths into a new category called PIC. They will no longer disclose the deaths recorded from each individual disease. They just put in a disclaimer that the "vast" majority of deaths are attributed to Covid-19.

Fact:

The CDC has only recorded 786 cases of confirmed Influenza since Sept 27th in the USA. Normally by now there would be close to 100k confirmed cases of Influenza in labs.

Fact:

Thanks to the CARES Act, hospitals are guaranteed payments of $18k for every Covid-19 case diagnosed at the hospital. Testing centers run by hospitals and care centers that report a positive test for SARS-CoV-2 will count as active cases of Covid-19 and will be eligible for the $18k payment. You do not need to be admitted to an ER to count as a hospital admission. Showing up at a testing center counts as an admission.

Fact:

Deaths from cancer, heart disease, stroke, sepsis, and advanced neurological diseases in 2020 are at the lowest levels ever recorded based on populaton size. 

There can be no other conclusion that can be reached other than Covid-19 deaths being inflated due to miss-classification, and cases being misdiagnosed because of a heavy financial incentive for doing so.