A senior lawyer criticized measures used to curb the spread of COVID-19 – but ripped facts and figures out of context to support her argument.
Irish lawyer Una McGurk shared her thoughts in a video posted on social media in late February about ‘other agendas’ being played out when governments decided on pandemic restrictions. She said she did her own research; However, some of the findings she cited were taken out of context and therefore misleading (here and here and here).
This piece focuses on the out-of-context demands. McGurk’s opinions and other claims are beyond the scope of the check.
DEATH FIGURES
McGurk says it is a fact that fewer people will die in Ireland in 2020 than in the previous five years. This is misleading because the conclusion was made using incomplete mortality data. Official statistics for the whole of 2020 have not yet been released.
“In Ireland, people may find it interesting to know that the total death toll last year, in 2020, was actually lower than it has been for the past five years – or the previous five years – too, that’s a fact,” she notes. on. in the video.
McGurk later told Reuters she drew the conclusion based on figures released by the General Register Office (GRO), which is run by the Department of Social Protection. A spokesman for the department, when contacted by Reuters, warned that the information was incomplete due to normal delays during the registration of deaths.
“Such data is provisional and subject to change as more deaths are registered. This is especially important, as deaths must be registered by the end of 2020, ‘the spokesperson said.
“Approximately 80% of all deaths that do not have to be referred to a coroner’s are registered in the three months after the date of death. Since all suspected COVID-19 deaths can be reported to the Coroners service, additional processing time may be entered into before the death can be registered. Further delays resulted in the registration process due to the restriction of public health on the civil registration service and the closure of public offices operated by the service. ”
According to the GRO, the preliminary number of deaths registered in 2020 is currently at 30 208. It is true that this number is less than the previous five years – which varies between 30 803 and 31 687 – but it is expected to rise. For example, there were an additional 3,206 deaths registered during the period between December 31, 2020 and March 8, 2021, which added 180 deaths in the count from September 2020 and 276 to October.
The GRO spokesman also told Reuters that the department was not responsible for analyzing these figures; it was rather a matter for the Irish Central Statistics Office (CSO).
Preliminary figures from the CSO, which in one study analyzed death reports analyzed by RIP.ie as a more timely data source than official GRO registrations, found that between 876 and 1192 total excess deaths were recorded from March 2019 to September 2020 in comparison with the previous three years (here).
When the CSO also analyzed official figures for the first two quarters of 2020, it found an increase in deaths compared to the previous year – especially in the second quarter (here and here).
COMPARISON WITH TUBERCULOSIS
Later in the video, McGurk compares comparisons between the COVID-19 pandemic and other diseases, including tuberculosis (TB). However, this particular equation cannot recognize the differences in transference and impact.
“Even during the last five years, the World Health Organization has on two separate occasions declared Tuberculosis as a pandemic and millions of people have died, but there were no closure measures anywhere,” McGurk said.
Reuters discussed earlier why this comparison is misleading (here). One of the reasons for this is that a TB infection can linger in the body for some time, unlike COVID-19 which transmits during a short period of exposure and develops symptoms within a few days.
Another reason is that the chance of obstruction is unlikely to occur if there is no evidence that TB threatens to overwhelm healthcare systems. In Ireland, for example, cases of TB have been declining steadily for decades (here) – and fewer than 280 cases were reported nationwide in 2019 (here).
In 2018, however, eight countries, including India, China and Indonesia, were found to account for two-thirds of TB cases (here). According to Dr Tom Wingfield, senior clinical lecturer and honorary consultant physician at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, national governments may end up dealing with a TB outbreak, but ‘it is likely to happen in a high-income environment that means have to do it as opposed to low income institutions where TB is more prevalent. ”
Wingfield told Reuters that most cases of TB were among poorer people in low- and middle-income countries. He added: ‘Often such communities have limited advocacy to increase the disease on the national and international policy agenda.
“If TB people, like COVID-19, were affected in such numbers in high-income conditions, it is very likely that people will be more aware and, to be honest, more will be done about it.”
SURVIVAL RATES
McGurk also claims to have taken data from the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) website about a ‘survival rate’ for COVID-19.
She says: ‘SARS-CoV-2, the virus, has a survival rate of 99.5% if you are between 50 and 69 years old. And a 95% survival rate if you are over 70. That’s a fact. These statistics come from the CDC website. ”
These percentages are repeatedly spread on social media (here,here,here) as ‘survival rates’ calculated by the CDC. The calculations were made using a table on the CDC website, entitled: “COVID-19 Planning Scenarios” (here).
In the section “current best estimate” the ratio “infection mortality rate” for the age of 50-69 years is listed as 0.005, ie: 0.5%. The age group 70+ contains the same ratio as 0.054, ie: 5.4%. Thus, some social media users, along with McGurk, interpreted the remaining 99.5% and 94.6% as a survival rate of COVID-19 (McGurk seems to have rounded off the latter percentage).
However, this is not an accurate representation of the CDC figures. In fact, the CDC places the entire table with an indemnity that explicitly states that the figures are “no predictions or estimates of the expected impact of COVID-19.”
COVID-19 survival rates are not completely known; However, Johns Hopkins University (here) calculated the fatal ratio for all series calculated: 1.8% for the United States, 2% for Ireland, and 2.9% for the United Kingdom. This suggests that deaths could rise as hospitals become overwhelmed and have fewer resources.
VERDICT
Missing context. Official figures for the number of deaths in Ireland in 2020 have not yet been released; however, preliminary analysis estimates an expected surplus on previous years. Comparisons between COVID-19 and tuberculosis are also misleading due to transmission and geographical differences, while the CDC has explicitly warned that the table for ‘survival rates’ should not be interpreted as a true estimate.
This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Read more about our fact-checking work here.