Those whom the Gods wish to destroy, they first make mad

Overall conclusion on the coronavirus debacle? […] It’s this — we are governed by some seriously unpleasant bastards. Plus some fools and some who are both. But we knew that.

“The problem is that we are surrounded by otherwise intelligent people who, when faced with the Covid virus, are rendered incapable of rational thought.”

My cod-psychology theory explains this by way of a person’s attitude to death. I would suggest that those people who have either experienced a close shave with death, or have already considered their own mortality will be largely unaffected by covid, their personality will remain the same as it was before. A cautious person will still be cautious, a hedonist still out there partying. Whereas someone who has not ever really sat down and come to terms with the idea that they are going to die and have just pushed that inconvenient fact way to the back of their brain will have received a massive psychological jolt from covid – all their brain will be screaming to them is ‘You are going to die!!!!!!’ over and over again, and this will result in a fundamental change in personality. Formerly logical and carefree people will be spraying everything with dettol and driving around in the car wearing a mask, because their mortality has been dragged to the front of their mind, and its all they can now think about.

Jim, 20 June 2021

"Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one."

Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, Charles Mackay, 1852

Graph Update 2022 week 22

2022-07-05 11:37

ONS Weekly reported deaths 2010-2022 (mid-year to mid-year)

Comparing cumulative deaths on a mid-year to mid-year basis.

ONS Weekly reported deaths 2010-2022 by age group

ONS England and Wales weekly deaths under 75

ONS all deaths 2015-2022

ONS Weekly reported deaths 2010-2022

Sources

Notes from the ONS

Counting deaths involving the coronavirus (COVID-19)