Ok, so:
My translation attempt:
In the winter of 2019/2020 the influenza epidemic was short and mild (week 5 upto and including 7, 2020). The excess mortality in this period was 404, much lower than the average excess mortality for the last 5 flu epidemics (6,443).

Inserting the orange comma would appear to be necessary for the interpretation that the value is 404, but looking at the same excess_mortality.csv as before gives figures (not just for flu) of 9556 and 9935.2 for those three weeks - the difference there suggest the 404 indicates the change - i.e. a 6% decrease, not a 94% decrease, in flu-related deaths, (although it's not clear if the original text is comparing the same time period).

*shrug* Not sure of the relevance to the topic?

Well, I am native from The Netherlands. and yes, instead of adding comma, you can also just change the words, So that that sentence will get the meaning you want. You can do everything you please.

The relevance of adding that extra information was that there were almost no casualties of the flu in the Netherlands. Which never happened in the history at this low scale. And elderly people at the end of their lives will die of some kind of infection anyway, whether that is covid-19 or pneumonia, or the flu. And the relevance of the total yearly average mortality numbers were to put the number of casualties, due to covid-19, into perspective.

Nl.

-Yearly on average ~150,000 people die in the Netherlands
-in a whole year (Feb2020-feb2021) 15,649 died from Covid-19

The table I posted, are the official mortality numbers of Covid-19 in The Netherlands, According to the RIVM. This data is free to download from their website. But, I also mentioned that due to several circumstances, these numbers are probably inflated, because there are reported cases that died WITH covid-19, and not only Because of Covid-19.

The csv file, are all the covid-19 casualties of 1 whole year in The Netherlands (27febr2020-26febr2021), exported from the RIVM. Which corresponds with the grey area in the table. As you can see, the death rate not at all disturbing. It only really starts to increase at the age of ~80, which is normal.

The main point what I was trying to make, is that these numbers do not justify this kind of reaction. But perhaps I am too pragmatic.

(comma and dots are reversed in the numbers, because of dutch language. So "." are for thousand separator. And "," are delimiters for everything less then 1.)

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Personally, I feel "excess deaths" is overrated in value as a statistic.

During the Pandemic here, road deaths went down; family violence went up; crime went down, so guys 'killing to order' got caught, discouraging gang feuds; suicide went up; Influenza deaths went down; Nursing home deaths went up (counted as covid deaths); Random violence (e.g. outside pubs/parties/nightclubs) went down; People who should have gone to hospitals didn't because they were afraid of contracting covid, and deaths occurred there. Many services degraded, notably prevention of heart attack, stroke, & cancer. Those numbers will show down the line. I've been waiting until last week for my '6 month checkup' due in May 2020.

So excess deaths is an overvalued statistic imho.

Yeah that is true. A lot of rates have shifted. There are also positive effects of the measures. Though most of the measures that have been taken by governments give me the creeps, and cause more damage then even the worst outcomes of the Covid-19 infection. I am of the older generation, so supposedly I should be worried. But based on the statistics, even though they are inflated, I am not. And I also don't want the younger generation to give up their lives like this. Or that business owners lose their lively hood. And when I hear the news from Israel, where in some areas chairs at the beach are only for those who are vaccinated, I get sick to the stomach. And I don't even understand, with their history, how they can accept that. But I guess that every x amount of generations forget the lessons learned, and will have to relearn them.

Business owners are losing livelihoods, especially smaller ones. Some fare better than others for no good reason. Performing arts, venues for gigs/exhibitions, 'wet' pubs (without a restaurant-type kitchen), hotels & 'B&B' (= Bed & Breakfast' a family business type cheap overnight accommodation) and airlines all fared badly here. Many will still go down, because there's all sorts of difficulties coming after lockdown ends.

I think Governments, especially those (like Ireland) who have neglected their health services for decades, are worried about their hospitals being overrun. For every Covid case needing an ICU bed, many more just need breathing assistance, but could die without an oxygen supply. If the hospitals have to stop taking in folks, deaths spiral, and people remember it at elections.

Oh while I'm at it, one unexpected benefit was that the Criminal fraternity were more stationery targets. There was a CAB police department set up here - CAB = Criminal Assets Bureau. It was a work-around for witness intimidation. They do their homework, get a superintendent to sign off on it, and then raid the criminals and take stuff - houses, cars, laptops, mobile phones, bank accounts, everything worth money that the Superintendent has declared are the proceeds of crime. The burden of proof is on the criminals to show that the goods were bought with legitimate money, which takes us nicely into things criminals would rather keep quiet. Well, the CAB cleaned out the big gangs here.

Really? So in Ireland you are guilty until proven innocent? Sounds like a place to stay away from.

If they haven't had a trial yet, what lawful authority makes them a criminal?

Sounds like you need a good citizen rebellion. Your police chief gets to decide if you are guilty, before you have even faced your accusers in a court?

Do they also get to beat you with a rubber hose until you confess?

If the law in Ireland is anything like what we have in the UK, then it only applies to people who have already been convicted of involvement in organised crime or drug-dealing in a court of law.

The point is that these are lucrative businesses but it is almost impossible to prove that a criminal's money or possessions come from them and not from other sources. Yet it is clearly unacceptable that these people should be able to luxuriate in possessions that were paid for in this way. Crime has to be shown not to pay. So the law assumes that if you are a convicted drug dealer or gang boss, then that is how you made your money and it is up to you to prove otherwise.

Something interesting has just blown up. It's been known for a while that some people react quite strongly to covid vaccines, with pain at the injection site and flu-like symptoms afterwards, while others have no reaction at all. I had none. Now there is evidence that the reactors are those who have had a previous covid infection. It may also be the case that these people don't actually need the booster shot. Their first shot was effectively their booster.
It would be interesting to know more about this.

It is common for every medication. Even aspirin can be harmful.

I thought that was old news. It's true. There's some people who want their 2nd shot anyhow, as if they were symptomless initially, they may not have protection. Also, there's the issue with freedom of travel - a red tape issue. If you only get one shot of two, will someone say you are fully vaccinated? That will probably be an issue in international travel.

In other news, Ireland is getting it's house back in order covid wise. Despite having basically 100% of infections from the most infectious known variant, we have gone from a 14 day incidence/100,000 of 1558.2/100,000 down to 161.3/100,000. All figures show reductions: 7 & 14 day incidence; Positivity % in tests (around 100,000 per week); Hospital cases; ICU cases; daily new cases; daily deaths.

The daily deaths show the sharpest decline, as the few we vaccinated were the over 80s, and the the most vulnerable groups and therefore most likely to show in hospital & ICU. So those getting infected are those more likely to get over it. Mind you, if you're checking Irish statistics, some places aren't reporting deaths on Sundays. So we see very low deaths Monday, followed by high deaths on a Tuesday.

No. It's different. They are not accused of anything. When people have expensive assets that they don't have the declared income to buy, they are either

1. Beneficiaries of a huge unsecured loan.
2. Thieves.
3. Cheating on Income tax.

So they are challenged to declare where their assets came from. To date, every criminal so treated has huge assets, and has chosen to remain silent and accept the losses rather than explain himself. The police probably have prima facie evidence, but not enough to convict any individual. There is a trial, where in the absence of proof to the contrary, the assets are declared as the proceeds of crime, and forfeited. There is no 'guilty' verdict. The property is forfeit, and the criminal stays free.

The Irish constitution is very biased towards 'innocence until proven guilty.' During colonisation, we had enough 'guilty on sight' verdicts to be careful when drafting our own laws.

Then it is different from UK law. Our Proceeds of Crime Act only applies to convicted gangsters.

Most of these guys have some convictions. But Al Capone couldn't be caught for crime, because he just ordered it; whoever squealed on him was dead meat, so nobody talked. Guys who order crime rather than commit it are much more difficult to catch. Our biggest criminal at large is in the UAE, Dubai, or somewhere organising everything. That encrypted criminal messaging app hack was huge for law enforcement here. The CAB got enough to clean out loads of them. Then they follow them, because they suddenly need cash.

just saw at news that astrazeneca vaccine probably causes blood clots.
denmark stopped vaccinating program with that variant of vaccine.

Now we have surge in Poland. Form 4,000 up to 20,000 today. Problem is that approach taken by most countries it is complete mistake - road to nowhere. As I told some person here next target of pandemia are children, teenagers. Most countries do nothing to prepare itself to this new situation. Children are by no means better protected. This year should appear strain very contagious among children. Illnesses, side effects will be completely different. Not only pneumonia, but other organs will be attacked. Of course let don't wait to governments wake up from vaccination dream - wake up into nightmare. Statistics will be the same as for adults if not worse. Here people compare this virus to flu virus. This is completely wrong. People just forgot this pandemia started from very small numbers of infected people. This will be exactly the same scenario. New strain very dangerous for children will appear in relatively small number of children and it will spread like fire. Parents should be quite aware of this. We are just on the way to lose another battle. The question is how many people must die for politicians to start act responsible?