Version 2.199

Around September 11 and 12, RTP published some of the first news regarding Covid-19 explaining only a portion of excess deaths in Portugal, about 30%. On September 17, the number of death certificates started to revert to the mean and so we went from Covid-19 explaining 30% of excess deaths to it explaining more than 50% in a few weeks. It also helped that the international media started to look at excess deaths and the Portuguese miracle did not come across as very credible.

But here's the catch: death certificate data are not considered final until 2 years from now and, by then, very few people will be paying attention to see if any changes have been made to history. Revisions to the pandemic data follow mostly a whimsical schedule.

Two days ago, on November 16, 4375 cases, which had taken place earlier in the pandemic, were added to the cumulative number of cases. The reason for the increase was a change in the data analysis system used. That explanation does not hold water because, obviously, data analysis systems do not produce cases. These cases had to have been reported in some other form and were being witheld from the old system for no obvious reason. But why add them now, after all, what are 4375 in a total of over 200 thousand? They would have had more weight earlier on.

I do not trust the data from the Portuguese authorities because much of Portuguese data is manipulated for political reasons: how else would a country without a functioning justice system be considered the 7th ranked democracy in the world? The level of absurdity would be comical were it not for the fact that by manipulating the data on the pandemic, people are unable to evaluate risk properly, which leads to more people getting sick and dying.