bauhauswerk

Dear Coilers, new week – new Brew! As you could notice, last few weeks Brew! is diving deeper in the substyles of the main beer styles you learned about from the beginning of this series of articles.

We are back to Belgium again. In Coil’s taproom for the subscribers, Croatian version of the brew will be presented. The second most expensive beer till now in Brew!

What do we know about...

QUADRUPEL – is the strong heavyweight brother in this family. It can be put in the Belgian Strong Dark Ales sub style. It is strong in alcohol, it goes over 10%. Malt and spicy yeasts are here as expected. It is deep because of the caramelized sugar and Munich malts but no roasty flavours. Here you’ll get, with high alcohol, spices, dried fruit, molasses... with dry to medium sweet finish.

We all have romantic perceptions of Belgian brewing, pastoral farmhouse and monastic settings with contemplative, attentive artisans producing beers from centuries-old recipes. This may be true to some degree. Mostly though, Belgium has worked as hard and been as transformative as anyone over the past 200 years. Sure, lambic, Flanders sours and witbier are all examples of old beer styles that have endured, but the majority of the rest, including quadrupel and strong dark ales, have been either invented or reinvented during the 19th and 20th centuries, often as a retort to contemporary tastes.

The easygoing palate of these brews is deceptive. They are full of dark malt and dark fruit. Very complex and potent beers.

Quadrupel has a precise and historical designation, hearkening to when beers were identified by numbers corresponding to strength and roughly characterizing the original gravity.

An original gravity of 1.060 is denoted 6, 1.080 8, and so on. This old method was used often used to designate single (3), dubbel (6), tripel (9), and quadrupel (12) strength beers. This scale was developed by the Trappist monks, but these days, beers from the Trappist Order, abbeys, and independent breweries are indistinguishable for the most part as far as names are concerned. This is reflected by the fact that the numerical tradition had been abandoned by most Trappists, while being used by some non-Trappists.

Quadrupels are very simplistic in production, yet complex in character. Usually it is pilsner malt with one or two darker malts. The dark malts vary among the breweries, but all serve to add color, depth and complexity, offering notes of raisin, fig, date, cherry and plum. Prolonged boils and kettle caramelization can also be employed to further deepen the brew and add nuance. The brews are usually fortified with light or dark candy sugar, or brewer’s caramel, to make the body lighter, giving the beer a distinct “rummy” flavour and aroma. Hops are used in minimal doses, enough only to add a bit of backdrop bitterness, but noticeable alongside the lightened body. As with most Belgian ales, the top-fermentation gives substantial flavor contribution. Cinnamon, clove, nutmeg and anise, among others, are familiar yeasty notes in Belgian brews. Many of these yeasts have common origins, but the breweries mostly have their own strains which give “in house” character to their brews. Actual spices are added to the kettle by some brewers, though in small quantities. those brews can be aged, just like whiskies, to make them even better.

The superb combination dark malts, spicy and attenuative yeast, soft palate and drinkability is unique indeed among the great beers of the world. If you have not yet investigated these most revered and sophisticated brews, you have a path of great enlightenment ahead.

The Coil’s taproom serves a Quadrupel made in Croatia in collaboration of 3 Craft breweries...

Dear Coilers, I bring you something different today...

Quarantine days are boring, being locked in at home is boring even more. That’s why going out and enjoying nature is much more appealing than it was during “the old days”.

Today I took a walk to the nearby park, in which I like to sit on a bench and read Coil articles.

As I was enjoying the moment, it crossed my mind that I could film some scenes and make tranquilizing film which would portray that very moment...

At one point, a small caterpillar had fallen on my hoodie... there was not a chance to miss its beautifully awkward moves.

I’ve opened FiLMiC Pro app, adjusted settings (unfortunately I didn’t have ND filters with me) and have taken few shots.

Few hours later, here’s (fastly; it took just 2 and a half hours) edited film for you dear Coilers.

I’ve tried to put 25 minutes of material into those 2:17 minutes...

Please spend them watching it, I’m sure you’ll have a feeling it lasted much longer.

https://www.cinnamon.video/watch?v=299854513425089624

I hope you’ve enjoyed it...

Thanks for watching,

Srdan

Dear Coilers, how many of you really know what socialism is? How many of you lived in socialism?

I was born in Croatia which was part of ex Yugloslavia, a communist country with socialism as a system where the only party was Communist Party of Yugoslavia with is branches in every of its Socialist Republics, like the Communist Party of Croatia in my country.

Was it all bad?

Definitely not! Healthcare and education systems, thanks to those days, work good enough even today. People still pay depending on their income yet all are covered. State education is free and mostly better than any of the private educational institutions.

Was it all good?

“God not!”... hmm have I just said God? Should I say “There’s NO God not!“ – OK that’s better...

Free thinking and believing wasn’t something that The State wanted nor liked.

Private entrepreneurship was allowed but not praised at all...

But let’s keep to the facts and prove that this Coronavirus pandemic is made up phrase to cover socialism...

Here are some facts I remember from socialism in communist days of my country and are proven by the most prominent professors from the Sorbonne University:

1. Those who have a job work strict 8 hour day and finish on time every day.

2. On Friday at 4 PM working week ends, you go home and can rest till Monday.

3. No after hour calls from your boss, no hurry at all, work will be done when is done.

4. There is as much money as there is, but there is always enough.

5. Those who don’t work also get payed.

6. Everyone is interested in your health situation.

7. Household members talk to each other, whole families play board games, parents help children with schoolwork.

8. Oven is used as an oven not as a depo for never used baking pans; cakes, cookies and even bread are baked at home again.

9. News on TV are watched with heightened attention and everyone has to be quiet and listen.

10. You are not allowed to say anything against the President nor government.

11. It is forbidden to go to church or gatherings.

12. Noone cares about luxury, only about essential needs.

13. Everyone waits in lines without objection and noone complains about government made you wait for hours yet to go home without milk and toilet paper.

14. People started caring about elderly.

So?! Do those facts from socialism look familiar to you?

Do you still think it’s a pandemic?

Pandemic?! There’s no such thing! There’s only a cheap British attempt to introduce Socialism and take our hard won freedom! – Thomas Jefferson

Thanks for reading,

Srdan

(Yes, it was a sarcastic post but I hope it made you think...)

Dear Coilers, welcome back to whisky lessons. In previous article about flavours in whisky you’ve learnt about The Flavour Wheel and the flavours, the development of which, is connected to certain process of making whisky.

As you’ve learnt in my Dram! vlog 1. there are different categories of Scotch whiskies, differed by the raw materials used in production.

SINGLE MALT WHISKY – made out of malted barley, water and yeast, within single distillery.

SINGLE GRAIN WHISKY – made out of malted barley and other cereals like corn, wheat, rye..., water and yeast, all within a single distillery.

BLENDED MALT WHISKY – is a blend of 2 or more single malts thus from 2 or more distilleries

BLENDED GRAIN WHISKY – is a blend of 2 or more single grain whiskies

BLENDED SCOTCH WHISKY – is a blend of 1 or more single malt whiskies with 1 or more single grain whiskies. Usualy a blend of whiskies from numerous distilleries.

https://youtu.be/-JluMTankS4

(Vlog No1)

As you can see, the main difference is in the raw material used in production. We are going to stick to the single malt whiskies here. Malt whisky is full of flavour, grain whiskies are light and not as flavourful. Single malts keep the full flavour profile of the product, from malting to the bottling apart from blended malts which are designed to match the flavour profile which Master Blender wanted to get.

RAW MATERIALS in single malt whisky are malted barley, water and yeast. Barley can be peated or unpeated.

BARLEY – First to answer why barley?! It was the grain which thrived better than other cereal crops in Scotland, which has pretty challenging growing conditions. As simple as that!

only top quality malting barley can be used in whisky production.

**Malting Barley
**

Malt is 60-65% undegraded starch and is used to produce beer, distilled alcohol, malt syrup, malted milk, flavourings and breakfast foods. The varieties suited to this are often lower yielding, but can be sold at premium prices over the feed varieties of barley.

Malting is the process of encouraging the grains to sprout in a controlled way and then stop. There are three key stages:

Steeping – is the first stage of the malting process and typically takes up to three days. The moisture content of the barley is raised from 2% to 45%. The grain then starts to germinate which produces heat and carbon dioxide (respiration). By the end of this first stage all the grains should have started to germinate.

Germination – is the second stage of the process. Germination continues for another five days. The germinating grains are cooled, carbon dioxide is removed, and they are continually moved to keep the roots from growing into a matt.

Kilning – is the third phase of malting and it is when the grain is dried down to between 3 and 6% moisture which stops the germination process. This is achieved by blowing large amounts of hot air through the grain. By varying the air flow and temperature, malts of different colours and flavours are produced as well as peated or not. At the end of this stage the malt is cool and all the tiny roots have been removed.

The final malt is categorized according to its profile before being despatched or used in the distillery which makes own malt.

The varieties of malting barley used today, in order of popularity, are Belgravia, Concerto, Propino, Quench and Shuffle, with newer varieties including Moonshine, Odyssey, Chronicle and Overture.

depending of the variety of the choice and malting process, distillery can influence the flavour profile of the New Make.

(New-make spirit is the high-proof alcoholic liquid that comes off the still during spirit production. The term is traditionally associated with Scotch whisky production. The spirit is usually transferred to barrel, where it is aged for the minimum of three years so it can legally be called whisky.)

WATER – is a raw material which many distilleries brag with, but the wide opinion is that it doesn’t have a significant impact on the flavour if any.

YEAST – is a single celled fungus of many different species and strains. It’s influence on the flavour of whisky is often debated but as the whisky is, as a fact, a distilled beer, yeast has at least some influence in whisky flavours as it has in beer.

Many small distilleries are experimenting with different strains and are observing their impact on flavour.

And now we come to Peat!!!

Though many distilleries don’t use peat, it’s impact on flavour is so strong and significant that it made Scotch whiskies so special and famous!

Dear Coilers, welcome back to Dram!, series about whisky.

I’ve been thinking about the overall concept of this series and have decided to try to make it a combination of education and fun.

Dram! will make you a connoisseur out of a plain human. Dare to take a journey with me and enjoy in every sip of “the water of life”!

One can enjoy whiskies with or without any knowledge about them, but when you know, the enjoyment is more complete.

Complexity of whisky flavours can vary. It depends on many (8) major parts of the process of making it, 6 of which are parts of fermentation and distilling and 2 of which are parts of maturing.

Each of the parts give certain qualities to the final product and here in Dram! you will be able to learn about them.

The Flavour Wheel can be of help here!

It was created in 1978 by Pentlands Scotch Whisky Research. Charles Maclean developed it further in 1992.

The Flavour Wheel shows development of flavours during fermentation and distillation (1-6) and during maturation (7-8)

1. CEREAL – aroma whick comes from malted barley. As you might already learn, Scottish Single Malt is made out of malted barley, water and yeast.

2. FRUITY – those are highly desirable aromas which come from esters.

3. FLORAL – are aldehydic aromas which remind of grass, hay, leaf, fragnant... also desirable in whiskies.

4. PEATY – are phenolic aromas which came from burning of peat during malt drying process. Peat smoke gives medicinal, tar and iodine flavours and those of wood smoke. Among the best known and desirable flavours among all in Single Malt world.

5. FEINTY – from bready and buiscuity to honey and tobacco.

6. SULPHURY – unpleasant aromas which have to be removed as much as possible. Copper from distilling pots does the work here.

7. WOODY – aromas which come during the maturation process. Mostly from the American White Oak, from ex Bourbon casks.

8. WINEY – aromas which come from the previous content which was held in the casks used to finish the maturation.

During your whisky journey you will keep returning to The Flavour Wheel to consult it for the flavours you’ve noticed in your dram.

You will learn to recognise flavours and connect them to the part of the process of making whisky which will help you develop your taste and grow the experience.

These days, during the strong marketing influence in whisky making business, many companies make their own flavour charts/wheels which depends on the flavour profile of the whiskies they make. You will learn that every whisky is different. Even better, the same whisky changes through the time due to many reasons.

SUGGESTION: If you want to start your Single Malt journey, start with some basics first. You will have enough time to reach the high complexity level. Develop your olfactory system first and your upgrade will be more natural.

I'd recommend you Glenfiddich 12 year old or Glenlivet 12 year old. Very nice, available and affordable bottles, most probably 2 world’s best sellers.

In Dram! articles and vlogs to follow, you’ll fall in love with Scotch! No doubt about it.

Thanks for reading,

Srdan

❗️ALWAYS DRINK RESPONSIBLY❗️

Dear Coilers, another week – another Brew!

This week you’ll learn about the beer style which was already mentioned in the Brew! series but wasn’t tested.

Coil’s taproom for the subscribers pours a beer from the style produced by the (arguably) the world’s oldest brewery, so let’s dive into the world of beer...

Weissbiers are German wheat beers. They are related to American Wheat Ales and Belgian Witbier. It is very large category of beers and if you ever find yourself in a taproom in Germany there is no chance you can miss it.

Weissbiers are Ale style beers, top fermented, and are brewed using special yeasts which give unique flavours to them.

HEFE WEISSBIER / HEFEWEIZEN – are classic German wheat ales with very high ratio of wheat in the grain mix. The name Hefeweizen (hefe = yeast) indicates that the beer is not filtered which gives cloudy final product with extra flavours from yeast.

The yeast used is Torulaspora delbruecki which adds banana and clove flavours. From other flavours you can expect those in range from bready and malty all the way to fresh and fruity. Hops are here mostly for bitterness.

WEIHENSTEPHAN BREWERY

The world has changed through the ages and today is a product of this change. It’s nice to know that in the eventful history of Weihenstephan, with all its developments, achievements and setbacks, one thing has remained constant: beer. Thus the Weihenstephan Monastery Brewery – after nearly a thousand years – still stands upon the Weihenstephan Hill, proud of its quality and its tradition and conscious of its position as the oldest existing brewery in the world.

Even if it's hard to believe, there was a time when there was no beer brewing in Weihenstephan.

Of course this was way back even before the birth of Charlemagne before the Crusades and where is Munich today there were at that time only a few cows on the pasture.

Almost a thousand years ago (1040 AD) the Bavarian State Brewery Weihenstephan was the monastery brewery of the Benedictine monks. Then, the Royal Bavarian State Brewery, it is now operating as a state directed enterprise under the control of the Bavarian Government. As the oldest still existing brewery in the world it stands upon the Weihenstephan hill, surrounded by the comparatively very young Weihenstephan science center of the Technical University of Munich. And so, a unique tradition and brewing culture developed over the centuries.

Today, they use the most modern technology, but they never forget their own history and their own high standards. This allows them to brew a variety of beers of the highest possible quality.

Dear Coilers, humans are not created to be locked in a cage. freedom of going wherever we want is precious. We become aware of it when the freedom is taken from us. Traveling is the best representation of that freedom.

In the 1st part of the Istanbul through the lens you could read a short story about the city, in this part only photos will talk, they say that a picture is worth a thousand words...

Dear Coilers, in the days of quarantine and overall insecurity, one dreams about the places to go to. when traveling is almost not an option, travel bug bites the strongest.

I have been selecting some storage media and have made myself convert some RAW photos to jpeg to be able to take you to visit one of the most fascinating places on Earth, Istanbul, Turkey.

(No, not the scene from the Assassin's Creed)

Istanbul, Turkey’s most populated and most significant city in cultural and economic terms, is one of the oldest cities in the world. Archaeological findings that have surfaced recently indicate that the first settlement in the city dates back to at least 8500 years. Historical artefacts that were discovered during the construction of the Marmaray tunnel and Yenikapı underground station turned the building works into the most extensive archaeological excavation project in the history of Istanbul. The findings were of the Harbour of Theodosius, the largest harbour of the early Byzantine period. Graves and remains of buildings dating back to the Neolithic period were also found under the harbour at 6.3 metres below sea level.

The history of the city, a settlement since the Stone Age, began to take shape at the time that Greek colonies named the city Byzantium. Between 67 and 79BC Emperor Vespasianus captured Byzantium and made the city a part of the Roman Empire. It became the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire after a proclamation by Constantine the Great in 330BC, from when it came to be known as Constantinople or ‘New Rome’ and went onto become an extremely powerful city. During the reign of Theodosius II, from 408 to 450BC new city walls, a great part of which still stand, were erected around the city. During Emperor Justinian’s reign that lasted from 575 to 565AD the iconic church, Hagia Sophia, was built in Constantinople.

The city, reputed as being ‘difficult to conquer’ due to the city walls extending 20km, was conquered by Sultan Mehmet II – renamed Mehmet the Conqueror following his success. Constantinople began to be referred to as Istanbul alongside its one hundred other names. The city, which served as the Ottoman Empire’s capital for 450 years, was introduced to Islam and gained a new silhouette with the new buildings and monuments that were erected.

As host to many different cultures and civilisations as well as to people of various races, religions, cultures and languages throughout the ages, Istanbul has always preserved its cosmopolitan feel. Istanbul is as much a world capital now as it was in the past.

Dear Coilers, this time we go back to Belgium, homeland of very special beers, some of which I’ve already mentioned in Brew! series of articles.

In this one we will cover a style of beer which can be eaten as a meal as much as drunk as a drink. Coil’s taproom for the subscribers will present you a beer from the style.

It comes from a large family of brews which includes DUBBEL, TRIPEL and QUADRUPEL and it is special for its high alcohol content...

BELGIAN TRIPEL - would make people think, because of the name, as just a boosted Doubel but it is everything but that. Tripel is lighter in colour (golden) as there is no caramelized sugar used to give it darker one and Pilsner malt in it doesn’t help it either. Westmalle Monastery made it popular as well as Dubbel but the Tripel name comes from the amount of malt used in brew which is three times a normal amount.

It is a beer high in alcohol with all the desirable flavours of fruit, spices, citrus, banana... nice sweetness and mouthfeel. So well rounded that high alcohol is not noticed and the finished product is very drinkable.

With long held traditions rooted deep in the Middle Ages, European monastic brewers have greatly influenced modern brewing culture and continue to craft some of the most defining and memorable ales. The Belgian Tripel is the youngest of the ale trilogy (dubbel, tripel and quadruple) that form the very heart of Belgian art of brewing.

Tripel was born less than 85 years ago by secular brewer Hendrik Verlinden of Drie Linden brewery.

In the early 1930s, Verlinden began working on a recipe for a strong golden ale that might hold its own against the growing popularity of pale beers in Europe.

In 1932 he released it under the name Witkap Pater (it has since been changed to Witkap Tripel). Though not of the Order, he marketed the ale under the Trappist name, perhaps basing his “right” on some consulting he had done for the brewing with monks at Westmalle Abbey.

A couple of years after this, Westmalle came out with its own Tripel. Their recipe has remained unchanged since 1956 and is considered the standard of the style.

Triples have grown in popularity over the past several years due to the rebuilding of Belgium brewing and the growing curiosity of this and other region’s brewing arts. Several of the Trappist monasteries, many other abbeys, independent brewers, and even American craft breweries have started to experiment with Tripels and other Belgian styles.

Coil’s taproom is pouring a Tripel with 10% of alc vol.

Dear Coilers, let me start it this way...

Have you ever had flu?

Have you ever been tested for flu?

Do you know anyone who was tested for flu or do you know anyone who knows anyone who was tested for flu?

Ok, now tell me how do they get data for seasonal flu infections?

How do they get data for deaths from seasonal flu?

Ok, now let’s go to Coronavirus.

People are tested for Corona and all deaths of people who were tested positive are officially Corona caused deaths, no matter were they in terminal cancer status, or heart attack patients or... literally, if you get hit by a car and were COVID positive, you go to COVID death statistics (2/6 Croatian COVID deaths are of that kind).

Even worse, COVID death rate is calculated by dividing all dead who were tested positive by cases tested positive.

Assuming that not a single person who wasn’t tested positive doesn’t have COVID.(?!)

Is it smelly? Can you feel the smell? What do you think would be seasonal flu death rate if dead would be devided with positive tested only? 10%, 20% more?... I hope you get the nonsense of the present COVID data?!

Critical thinking is the foundation of democracy and freedom! – Thomas Jefferson

One of the countries which tries to test as many people as possible is Iceland... death rate about 0,2%

As they are testing the broad populace and not only people showing symptoms, they found that half of the positively tested never actually showed any kind of symptoms. In other countries, mostly those with ongoing symptoms are being tested and those without symptoms are NOT tested.

Even China, after big testing campaign has heavily lovered the death rate from the first estimations.

Did you have logic classes in school? If you did you understand my analogy...

One more question... Has your government ever disappointed you and do you believe your government?

Why blindly believe them now?! Question illogical things! In the end you are a Homo sapiens. Or... are you?

As this is Pt.2 of the previous post, let’s go back to the...

Dr. Joel Kettner – a professor of Community Health Sciences and Surgery at Manitoba University, former Chief Public Health Officer for Manitoba province and Medical Director of the International Centre for Infectious Diseases.

”I have never seen anything like this, anything anywhere near like this. I’m not talking about the pandemic, because I’ve seen 30 of them, one every year. It is called influenza. And other respiratory illness viruses, we don’t always know what they are. But I’ve never seen this reaction, and I’m trying to understand why.”

“I worry about the message to the public, about the fear of coming into contact with people, being in the same space as people, shaking their hands, having meetings with people. I worry about many, many consequences related to that.“

“In the province of Hubei, where there has been the most cases and deaths by far, the actual number of cases reported is 1 per 1000 people and the actual rate of deaths reported is 1 per 20,000. So maybe that would help to put things into perspective.”

Dr. Yoram Lass – an Israeli physician, politician and former Director General of the Health Ministry. Also worked as Associate Dean of the Tel Aviv University Medical School and during the 1980s presented the science-based television show Tatzpit.

“Italy is known for its enormous morbidity in respiratory problems, more than three times any other European country. In the US about 40,000 people die in a regular flu season and so far 40-50 people have died of the coronavirus, most of them in a nursing home in Kirkland, Washington.”

“In every country, more people die from regular flu compared with those who die from the coronavirus.”

“…there is a very good example that we all forget: the swine flu in 2009. That was a virus that reached the world from Mexico and until today there is no vaccination against it. But what? At that time there was no Facebook or there maybe was but it was still in its infancy. The coronavirus, in contrast, is a virus with public relations.

Whoever thinks that governments end viruses is wrong.”

(Interview in Globes, March 22nd 2020)

Dr. Pietro Vernazza – a Swiss physician specialising Infectious Diseases at the Cantonal Hospital St. Gallen and Professor of Health Policy.

“We have reliable figures from Italy and a work by epidemiologists, which has been published in the renowned science journal ‹Science›, which examined the spread in China. This makes it clear that around 85 percent of all infections have occurred without anyone noticing the infection. 90 percent of the deceased patients are verifiably over 70 years old, 50 percent over 80 years.”

“In Italy, one in ten people diagnosed die, according to the findings of the Science publication, that is statistically one of every 1,000 people infected. Each individual case is tragic, but often – similar to the flu season – it affects people who are at the end of their lives.”

“If we close the schools, we will prevent the children from quickly becoming immune.”

”We should better integrate the scientific facts into the political decisions.”

(Interview in St. Galler Tagblatt, 22nd March 2020)

Frank Ulrich Montgomery – German radiologist, former President of the German Medical Association and Deputy Chairman of the World Medical Association.

“I’m not a fan of lockdown. Anyone who imposes something like this must also say when and how to pick it up again. Since we have to assume that the virus will be with us for a long time, I wonder when we will return to normal? You can’t keep schools and daycare centers closed until the end of the year. Because it will take at least that long until we have a vaccine. Italy has imposed a lockdown and has the opposite effect. They quickly reached their capacity limits, but did not slow down the virus spread within the lockdown.”

(Interview in General Anzeiger, 18th March 2020)

Prof. Hendrik Streeck – a German HIV researcher, epidemiologist and clinical trialist. He is professor of virology, and the director of the Institute of Virology and HIV Research, at Bonn University.

“The new pathogen is not that dangerous, it is even less dangerous than Sars-1. The special thing is that Sars-CoV-2 replicates in the upper throat area and is therefore much more infectious because the virus jumps from throat to throat, so to speak. But that is also an advantage: Because Sars-1 replicates in the deep lungs, it is not so infectious, but it definitely gets on the lungs, which makes it more dangerous.”

“You also have to take into account that the Sars-CoV-2 deaths in Germany were exclusively old people. In Heinsberg, for example, a 78-year-old man with previous illnesses died of heart failure, and that without Sars-2 lung involvement. Since he was infected, he naturally appears in the Covid 19 statistics. But the question is whether he would not have died anyway, even without Sars-2.”

(Interview in Frankfurter Allgemeine, 16th March 2020)

Dr. Yanis Roussel (et. al.)– a team of researchers from the Institut Hospitalo-universitaire Méditerranée Infection, Marseille and the Institut de Recherche pour le Développement, Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Marseille, conducting a peer-reviewed study on Coronavirus mortality for the government of France under the ‘Investments for the Future’ programme.

“The problem of SARS-CoV-2 is probably overestimated, as 2.6 million people die of respiratory infections each year compared with less than 4000 deaths for SARS-CoV-2 at the time of writing.”

“This study compared the mortality rate of SARS-CoV-2 in OECD countries (1.3%) with the mortality rate of common coronaviruses identified in AP-HM patients (0.8%) from 1 January 2013 to 2 March 2020. Chi-squared test was performed, and the P-value was 0.11 (not significant).”

“…it should be noted that systematic studies of other coronaviruses (but not yet for SARS-CoV-2) have found that the percentage of asymptomatic carriers is equal to or even higher than the percentage of symptomatic patients. The same data for SARS-CoV-2 may soon be available, which will further reduce the relative risk associated with this specific pathology.”

(“SARS-CoV-2: fear versus data”, International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents, 19th March 2020)

Michael T. Osterholm – a regents professor and director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.

”Consider the effect of shutting down offices, schools, transportation systems, restaurants, hotels, stores, theaters, concert halls, sporting events and other venues indefinitely and leaving all of their workers unemployed and on the public dole. The likely result would be not just a depression but a complete economic breakdown, with countless permanently lost jobs, long before a vaccine is ready or natural immunity takes hold.”

”The best alternative will probably entail letting those at low risk for serious disease continue to work, keep business and manufacturing operating, and “run” society, while at the same time advising higher-risk individuals to protect themselves through physical distancing and ramping up our health-care capacity as aggressively as possible. With this battle plan, we could gradually build up immunity without destroying the financial structure on which our lives are based.”

(“Facing covid-19 reality: A national lockdown is no cure”, Washington Post 21st March 2020)