1/ OPEN LETTER to the Belgian government @alexanderdecroo @GLBouchez @ducarmedenis @torfsrik @StevenArra All my friends on here, please re-tweet.

"Dear government, elected to act in your citizens’ best interest,
2/ With this open letter, I ask you to consider several points before you take the next decisions regarding your country’s handling of the “Covid situation”.
3/ Let’s make it less abstract than that: your decisions about how your citizens are allowed to live their lives (the people who voted for you, by the way).

I’m going to make this very easy to understand and very easy to digest and very easy to share.
4/ This letter will be shared with every single person I can think of and they will re-share in turn – so do expect that considerable parts of the Belgian population will have read this letter.

I want you to look at three images to start with.

1) Seasonality
5/ This is an image of Belgium’s “Covid deaths” in 2020 (we know many deaths should not have been classified Covid but I won’t go into that here, I want to keep it simple).

What does this image tell us?
6/ Well, first it tells us that the virus is, contrary to what our “experts” told us for the biggest part of last year, exclusively seasonal. Influenced by humidity and temperature as all other Coronaviruses are.
7/ Secondly, it tell us that, though you might not like to hear that, the official story of “how we beat the virus last spring” is fundamentally incorrect.
8/ There is considerable doubt that the isolation measures did any good at all as the virus followed the expected Gompertz curve and disappeared in the summer, only to come back with the same-shaped curve.
9/ This also means that the stories published by some “experts” that “the rule of 15”, the loossening of the rules in September, the “loss of discipline in the population”, the “students” or the “travelers” had any influence at all on the virus coming back in autumn are wrong.…
10/ …This is a serious bit of misinformation that would have massively increased the sense of panic, anxiety and distrust in the population.

2) “Waves”

Throughout last year, the concept of “waves” has been popularized and used to intimidate the population.
11/ Currently, we are in our “third third wave” if you believed the “expert” communication.
I have done an experiment where I have removed seasonality from the virus development – basically simulating an eternal winter.

Official image from Sciensano:
12/ My version removing summer:
What does this show us?
13/ It shows that the virus attacked the population very strongly but that without summer (forget about restrictions and loosening them) it would have looked like my image above – with a clear peak and, independent of changing restrictions, end point.
14/ This means we need to very quickly move away from portraying the virus as a “constant threat that could erupt again at any time”. It is following its completely natural downward trajectory.

Note that masks have not made any difference at all.
15/ They were introduced in shops in July, when there was no virus. They were worn almost universally, even outdoors (with no scientific foundation whatsoever), also during what is called the “second wave” (the fastest rising in all of Europe) in autumn.
16/ They do however traumatize children and see to it that the population lives in fear while the country is turned into an outdoor hospital.

3) The impact of measures

Forget about population density. Forget about “the Scandinavian neighours”.
17/ Just look at this curve and consider that Germany has been in a very strict lockdown for a long time, of changing severity. Sweden, contrary to how the media likes to portray it, has been following the same restrictions, with only slight modifications, this whole time.
18/ You can find their current rules here:
https://www.krisinformation.se/en/hazards-and-risks/disasters-and-incidents/2020/official-information-on-the-new-coronavirus/restriktioner-och-forbud

How come the Swedish curve resembles the German one so much if this is not about seasonality and natural virus development?
19/ If you have no answer to that question, then we must conclude that very strict measures serve no purpose. I am not going to start listing the obvious damage they do to your voters here, though. Not enough time!

Other points to consider, very briefly:
20/ • You are no doubt aware that the PCR tests are inaccurate and find old infections. This means that for a long time after peaks, they return false positives (non-infectious people).
21/ This is clear when you look at deaths (going down all the time) vs “cases” (pretty steady since January)
• You probably know that there are very serious and very real chances to introduce life-saving medication.
22/ I am no expert in this, so I do not want to make this the main point of this communication but do consider that vaccine approvals are subject to there being no generally effective medicine and there being a crisis situation (i.e. significant excess death).
23/ It is arguable both points are no longer fulfilled.
24/ Would you agree that any severe restriction and change to our way of life, especially those that severely impact the basis of human interaction, like masks and lockdowns, should show not only improvement in the number of deaths from one disease, but that these improvements…
25/ …must be balanced versus all collateral damage (short-term and long-term) and must have a dramatically positive impact that would completely destroy the natural shape of the death curve.
26/ Can you, on the basis of everything that I have listed above, in good faith confirm that you still believe it is the good and honest thing to do to your voters to impose:
• Mask wearing, in particular outdoors and for children
27/ • A situation where individuals are told they can only choose one person to have close contact with
• Forcing people to stay in their homes at certain times of the day
• Forbid your voters to hug BOTH THEIR MUM AND DAD – make them choose one
• Etc, etc

Can you?
28/ Please consider to move to a model where:
• If you want, you limit gatherings to a certain number of people but under no circumstances impose that these people need to be the same all the time
• Masks are made voluntary, as they should have always been
29/ • All businesses can operate, under certain conditions yes, but definitely not under mask mandates
• You immediately restore the individual’s right to choose how to live their lives and with who
30/ Do you think you are fulfilling a doctor’s Hippocratic Oath by deciding, in essence, which parts of the population will suffer from a virus (assuming that it mainly hits older and unhealthy people but shifting the impact to young people, kids, business owners, etc)?
31/ I am now counting on you and I believe you have the class and decency to consider all the above to take your next steps.
If you need help, please call me!

Thank you
Tobias
END
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