30-10-2020, 04:55 PM
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Covid: Sir Rocco Forte's claims fact-checked
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/54735702Hotel owner Sir Rocco Forte has criticised the government's response to the pandemic, saying "they've overreacted, they've panicked", while also questioning the virus's fatality rate. But are his claims correct?
Claim: Flu deaths are currently higher
According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), between January and August there were 48,168 deaths due to the coronavirus, compared with 13,619 due to pneumonia and 394 due to influenza.
In England, there are currently 10,308 people being treated in hospital for Covid-19, whereas last week there were only two people admitted to hospital with influenza.
Claim: Covid-19 excess deaths are the same as 2017-18 winter flu season
He is confusing excess deaths (the number of deaths in a particular period compared with the average number for that period over the past five years) with winter excess deaths (the number of deaths in the whole of the winter compared with the number in summer).
Over the winter of 2017-18 there were about 50,000 winter excess deaths in England and Wales, but only about half that number of excess deaths - that's because you expect more people to die in the winter than the summer for various reasons, one of which is flu.
Since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, there have been 66,599 excess deaths in the UK.
Claim: Epidemiologists forecast 500,000 Covid-19 deaths in UK
Back in March a report by Prof Neil Ferguson, who worked as a government adviser in the early stages of the pandemic, predicted that 500,000 could die if the government did not take action.
Shortly after the UK went into lockdown Prof Ferguson said he was "reasonably confident" the UK death toll would not exceed 20,000.
She added: "The government didn't overreact, but rather underreacted. Evidence suggests that waiting on lockdown in March cost tens of thousands of lives."
Claim: Scientists suggested a third of the population would die
No credible scientist, or scientific publication has ever suggested that a third of the population will die from Covid-19. The overall infection fatality rate is approximately 1% and varies with age.
Forte's "fabrications" resemble Trump's "tall tales" .....
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