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Evidence over hysteria — COVID-19 [Updated][More Update]
Powerline Blog this morning included a link and summary of Evidence over hysteria — COVID-19, an article by Aaron Ginn.
The article is long but worthy of a complete read. Ginn sets out his evidence in a compelling manner. I won’t detail that here, but Ginn is raising some questions (and providing answers) that I have highlighted in some of my daily posts — how good is the published data? are we getting the right message from the data? have we gone overboard in our reaction?
Here are excerpts from some of his conclusions:
Local governments and politicians are inflicting massive harm and disruption with little evidence to support their draconian edicts. Every local government is in a mimetic race to one-up each other in authoritarian city ordinances to show us who has more “abundance of caution”. Politicians are competing, not on more evidence or more COVID-19 cures but more caution. As unemployment rises and families feel unbearably burdened already, they feel pressure to “fix” the situation they created with even more radical and “creative” policy solutions. This only creates more problems and an even larger snowball effect. The first place to start is to stop killing the patient and focus on what works.
The most effective means to reduce spread is basic hygiene.
The best examples of defeating COVID-19 requires lots of data. We are very behind in measuring our population and the impact of the virus but this has turned a corner the last few days. The swift change in direction should be applauded. Private companies are quickly developing and deploying tests, much faster than CDC could ever imagine. The inclusion of private businesses in developing solutions is creative and admirable. Data will calm nerves and allow us to utilize more evidence in our strategy. Once we have proper measurement implemented (the ability to test hundreds every day in a given metro), let’s add even more data into that funnel — reopen public life.
Closing schools is counterproductive.
With such little evidence of prolific community spread and our guiding healthcare institutions reporting the same results, shuttering the local economy is a distraction and arbitrary with limited accretive gain outside of greatly annoying millions and bankrupting hundreds of businesses. The data is overwhelming at this point that community-based spread and airborne transmission is not a threat.
The data shows that the overwhelming majority of the working population will not be personally impacted, both individually or their children. This is an unnecessary burden that is distracting resources and energy away from those who need it the most. By preventing Americans from being productive and specializing at what they do best (their vocation), we are pulling resources towards unproductive tasks and damaging the economy. We will need money for this fight.
These days are precarious as Governors float the idea of martial law for not following “social distancing”, as well as they liked while they violate those same rules on national TV. Remember this tone is for a virus that has impacted 0.004% of our population. Imagine if this was a truly existential threat to our Republic.
The COVID-19 hysteria is pushing aside our protections as individual citizens and permanently harming our free, tolerant, open civil society. Data is data. Facts are facts. We should be focused on resolving COVID-19 with continued testing, measuring, and be vigilant about protecting those with underlying conditions and the elderly from exposure. We are blessed in one way, there is an election in November. Never forget what happened and vote.
We have nothing to fear but fearful people driving fearful outcomes.
[Update: The article at the link has been removed by the website with the note “This post is under investigation or was found in violation of the Medium Rules.” Medium Rules can be reviewed at https://policy.medium.com/medium-rules-30e5502c4eb4. Apparently there were some readers that complained about the article. Not being privy to the complaints I have no idea why the article would be pulled. My own reading of the article revealed some startling claims that were sourced, but these days who knows why speech might be silenced. It was an opinion piece after all.]
[More Update: The link in the post now goes to ZeroHedge.]
Published in General
Amen. We’ve long recognized emergencies can be used to justify anything in the name of safety or national security (like the creation of the TSA or Dept. of Homeland Security). One thing about our freedoms is we also have the freedom to do stupid things, even at risk of our lives or others (like that rocket dude who lost his chute a while back).
So yes, I want to be free to go out in public at risk of my own life. Some of you might say, “But you don’t have the right to put others at risk if you’re a carrier!” While the statement is true, there’s also an underlying fallacy. The other people going out who might catch my disease are also voluntarily putting themselves at risk. The counter argument to this might be, “Shouldn’t the other people have a reasonable expectation of not catching the disease?” The answer is, “Yes, but . . .” I have a reasonable expectation of not being shot when I go to the grocery store. I have a reasonable expectation of the car coming at me at 55 MPH not crossing the center line.
The key to all this (besides a cure) is testing. If I’m sick, I don’t go out. Yes, many illnesses have an incubation period. This is why I believe the spike we’re seeing in the numbers who contract COVID are from people who already had it. Put another way, testing makes it look like the virus is spreading rapidly when it probably has already started its spread. If I were King of the Forest, I would have:
I was running some numbers on this. The estimates that we will have an infection rate of 30% like we had in the 1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic, are more than 5,000(!) times greater than the infection rate reported from China. Even if we measure Italy’s infection rate, the worst rate for a major country in the world, a 30%infection rate would be about 338 times greater. I don’t know how anybody can tell us that this is going to multiply by 338 times the outlier country with a straight face.
Another one is the estimate of 3 to 4 million deaths in the U.S. Again, if we take the death rate per total population in Italy so far, which is far and away higher than anywhere else, 3.5 million American deaths would translate to a rate 136 times higher than Italy’s so far. I don’t think so.
Did anyone post this cautious optimism from National Review Online?
https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/03/coronavirus-pandemic-doctors-take-serious-disease-shutdown-approach-may-be-imperfect/?fbclid=IwAR2KKBBAQmeqRMjzBz6vg0AEXn9GIvvy5HD1hqbzzJTOFPrjcMFjc_wF_8M#slide-1
In my opinion, shutting down the schools is less damaging to the economy than shutting down the restaurants and the hospitality industry. I’m not saying that restaurants should be open, but I am worried about all the people who make a living in that part of the economy. The employees of restaurants, hotels and food caterers to conferences and other events are already living on very little income and I think it will be very hard for restaurants and caterers to resume business after this.
Schools don’t make money, but restaurants and the hospitailty industry (both with links to the travel industry). In bad economic times, restaurants are hardest hit because the first thing people do is stop eating out.
This is one reason that I don’t think that our government, or the CDC, or the FDA, or any of the powers that be really believe that COVID-19 is likely to be serious. If they did, they would be getting our doctors and nurses ready for what they thought was about to happen.
Early in my career, I ran ventilators in the ICU. I haven’t done so in, gosh, almost 20 years, I guess. But I could be trained up pretty quick.
How many docs were trained on ventilators, and maybe used to run them, before the hospitalist wave ran us all out of the ICU’s? Probably a lot. Why aren’t we getting emails about weekend classes? One might think that might be important right about now…
Reminds me of a funny story. I got an emergency page from the hospital switchboard (this was nearly 20 years ago – we still had pagers). I call in, the secretary says that something went wrong at a factory in town, and hundreds of people had inhaled fumes from a magnesium fire, and every doctor in town was being called in to treat the patients who were lining every hallway in the building.
As I’m driving in, I think to myself, “Magnesium inhalation? How the heck do you treat THAT?” So I figure I’ll park in the back, and run through the hospital library before I got to the ER, so I could avoid looking like an idiot in front of every doctor in town.
I open the door to the library and what do I find? Every doctor in town, frantically paging through books.
My point is, nothing like that is happening, and I would expect it to by now.
Why not?
It’s probably because all of the people who might think about starting that sort of thing are too busy doing the more obvious stuff like trying to find more ventilators, or just plain find more trained people to do anything at all.
There’s probably someone out there right now, trying to find anyone at all to work this, but who doesn’t have a list of local people with medical training. They’re going to depend on people with medical backgrounds showing up on their own – they can’t hire private detectives to go find those folks.
Kids are at low risk, approaching zero. In my opinion, it is far more important to isolate the high risk population, most of whom are retired and the economic impact is small. It is important to test and control contact with care givers as that seems to be the factor in the Kirkland WA case and in Italy. Kids not in school are going to hang around with other kids.
The critical number is death rate., The numbers of infected will rise as testing finally catches up but the CFR is the critical number. I think this will turn out like a bad flu season and we should know very soon.
My sis is a highly experienced nurse in a reputable university hospital.
It was quiet locally (but not in the state) til a week ago. Friday first case. Saturday, every school in the county closed because a school worker with lots of student contact tested positive.
By Monday or Tuesday all elective surgeries/procedures cancelled. They are scrambling in rapid training to get the staff they have trained for what they expect to happen.
Hopefully it’s nothing, because if this is something, they are up the S-creek with no paddles.
We’ve got to learn more within another week. Or there will be more chaos. 🙏
There are now 260 restaurants in Tucson that have gone to take out or delivery. I picked up an order at a very nice Mexican restaurant near us last night and asked the girls at the counter why they did not use their own wait staff for delivery. It would be a source of income for those who did it.
If this isn’t a pandemic, then someone please answer all of the W questions.
Because this global crazy is incomprehensible if it’s not a true medical concern
The Ginn article has been totally refuted by real epidemiologists and has been taken down by Medium where it was first posted.
Some of the errors pointed out in Ginn’s article:
Ginn is obviously concerned about the effects of this epidemic and the steps being taken to limit it on the economy. Everyone is worried about the economy. I for one don’t think this is going to permanently hurt the economy or hurt the President in the long run. The only thing that would hurt Trump would be a feckless and weak response to this crisis, and that isn’t likely.
God forbid that people start getting turned away from hospitals for lack of beds. If that happens all predictions about this being not so bad are going to die an ugly death. People are going want to know why more was not done, and they will turn their eyes to the people who low balled this epidemic.
Amid the uncertainty some things are becoming clear.
1) The mortality rate is beginning to approach bad flu levels rather than the horrific 4-5% early projections. With new treatments coming on line and with a larger denominator with more testing to include the asymptomatic that rate will continue to drop.
2) The likely number of critical cases and the duration of hospital stays is also looking to be considerably less than what we saw in early returns. It appears that not only is Italy a very aged population but that their health care system has been doing a really lousy job of treating the elderly population.
3) It is clearly time to begin a modified return to normal with large gatherings being the last to come back. For markets, collective sanity and overall well-being we need to see that plan now. Health care professionals should be on anti-virals already. Elementary and middle schools should re-open first. Some colleges should stay closed.
@roderic, the detailed critique of Ginn’s analysis is in the form of a quote. Are you quoting yourself or someone else? If someone else, is there a reference you could provide?
I don’t think there is any doubt but that Trump needs to be and show competence in the federal response. Harm to the economy is a function of time and right now the actions that are affecting the economy are open-ended.
I have said from the beginning that protecting the healthcare system has to be job #1. The death rate from a broken health system will skyrocket from all unaddressed trauma and disease.
I build hotels. We own 15, and are currently under construction with 4 new projects. One was supposed to open in NJ in two weeks.
Suddenly all construction has stopped dead, by order of the government. And nobody is traveling by order of the government.
We just closed and locked 6 properties, for lack of business. Even if it’s only for a month, this is devastating beyond words.
I don’t know what to believe about the virus, but my contempt for politicians, and media people, trying to outdo each other in their moral preening and sanctimony is immense. Over-reaction isn’t simply a danger, it’s their whole game. So that part of the article certainly rings true to me.
You know, businesses that use and store chemicals at their facilities are required by OSHA to have Safety Data Sheets:
https://www.osha.gov/Publications/OSHA3514.html
They might have been called Material Safety Data Sheets back then. OSHA made the change to align with worldwide standards. Anyway, these sheets contain first aid information which could have helped faster than the trip to the library.
I’ve got a question about those number recovered figures that perhaps someone familiar with hospital processes could answer for me.
Someone gets tested with relatively minor symptoms, is diagnosed positive for Wuhan virus, and is sent home with whatever instructions are appropriate. What follow-up process exists to confirm that that person has actually recovered from the virus? Realistically, is there a closed loop here, with some affirmative confirmation of recovery? How reliable is that likely to be?
Do we really have any clear idea of how many diagnosed but non-hospitalized have recovered?
I agreed with your broader points, but I still want to say I am so sorry. That must have been horrible.
My math says it is an order of magnitude worse than the flu.
The Korean process seems to be (based on the numbers contained in their press releases) –
A person presents with symptoms or has been contact traced to a known infected.
In either case, they get tested. This generates the data in the Total column (which is the first column in their release) – the daily tests generates the data in the Tested column.
Subject to the results of the test:
If confirmed – they are put in Isolated status (quarantine for sure, treated as necessary – I assume) This generates the data in the Confirmed column and in the Isolated column.
Resolution occurs when a patient is either Discharged or Deceased, generating the data in those columns.
If not confirmed – assumed to be “go about your business” and generates the data in the Confirmed Negative Column.
In any event, the data between the columns adds up to the various totals.
I have not seen CDC data organized this way.
Absolutely. That’s the stuff nightmares are made of. I can’t imagine.
I’m so sorry.
Thank you. Here in the US, we have 26,000+ diagnosed cases. Are they all hospitalized? (I assume not, but I honestly don’t know.) If not, resolution can’t be simply discharged or deceased as it is in SK. I wonder what diligence is placed on checking the “recovered” box for people not hospitalized (again, assuming not all of them are).
A lot of good comments.
I think it should be abundantly clear by now that these “stay at home” lockdowns are doing far,far more harm than good. Potentially catastrophic, society changing harm.
The post yesterday by Dotorimuk describing the South Korean response and lack of total lockdown should have been a good heads up to everyone. Initially South Korea was hit very hard as the number of cases grew exponentially for few days, but now due to thorough testing without the help of a harsh lockdown, growth in cases in down to 1.7% per day, a very manageable number.
As Rodin has repeatedly asserted preventing our medical facilities should be our number one goal, which I agree with. Fortunately with the tragic exception of New York, our medical facilities have yet to be overrun. Keeping the rate of new infections low is crucial to preventing our medical facilities from starting to fail. So is treatment. With treatment curing patients and by reducing the number of new patients coming into the hospitals, beds, staff and ventilators should remain available to those who need them.
Here in LA, self quarantine started in earnest ( as did the run on grocery stores) a week ago Thursday. That was 10 days ago now. Since the likely period of infection is between 5 to 14 days at least by a week from now the number of infected here may start to decline even allowing for the bump up in cases due to the lack of proper testing. ( there were 59 new cases in LA County yesterday bringing the total to 351 in a county of 15 million) So at that point Gavin Newsmen’s draconian lockdown should in a more reasonable world should be called off, and not allowed to run for another horrific gravely damaging seven weeks causing untold harm and death.
I think President Trump should start to lead on this issue. He cannot let these lockdown destroy America before our eyes. Despite his harsh unhinged reputation, I think a criticism of his performance as President this far is that he tries too much to work with the existing bureaucrats who have almost always stabbed him and American in the back, just like the CDC and the FDA have. I know he is just trying to work with people to get the best response, but working with insane Democrats like Gavin Newsom is a recipe for disaster.
There are probably outliers with longer incubation periods as well. My local health department picked three weeks as the mandatory shutdown period; there are reports of cases at 27 or 28 days so assuming that the shutdown is warranted, three weeks seems appropriate.
I know in my state of NY the government is asking inactive health care workers to register on a reserve list. So yesterday I did just that and as my nursing license is still active, I volunteered to staff our local hospitals if needed. My most recent experience is in ICU care of mostly elderly, ventilated patients. The outward appearance of the machines may have changed but nursing principles remain the same and I think people like me could be quickly brought up to speed in treatment protocols.
I suppose it depends on how the emergence of symptoms skews. The only graph I’ve seen puts the large majority of cases as symptom-positive at three or four days after exposure. If that’s the case, a week or ten days, followed by sensible social caution, is probably sufficient.
Discharged seems to be released from quarantine – whether or not the quarantine involved in patient medical treatment.
I’ve set a tab for this site:
https://healthweather.us/
Understand that what you’re looking at is the data coming from “smart thermometers” made by Kinsa. These thermometers report their reading for centralized data collection and reporting. The data tells you nothing about COVID infections versus flu infections versus bacterial infections and it only reports from Kinsa thermometers (a limited subset in use). However, it does show you trends and, looking at the chart (not the map), it appears the incidence of reported fevers (the best indicator of infection) is trending downward to the “expected” range having peaked in the atypical range on March 16. This would seem to suggest that distancing and hygiene measures are helping to reduce the rate of infection from all sources as we should hope.
The map (updated daily) seems to indicate that Florida may still be in trouble with the greatest atypical reporting, but Michigan and the Northwest and other hot spots have improved daily as I’ve been watching.
Be skeptical, but hopeful.
Just having people around who know anything at all about nursing or medical care in general would probably be a big help, when things get really ugly.
Heck, someone who knows what a patient looks like (and sounds like!) when they’re in real distress would take a lot of load off the current staff.
Hourly workers may not get pay in schools. I agree and thought it quite reactionary to what might happen based on sparse data, and the first thing I thought of was that was the least vulnerable group. But, it has been brought up that schools are incubators of illnesses, which at this time is later in the flu season, or children will infect adults at home. All arguable justifications, but still just doesn’t sit that well. Individual schools have closed due to so many ill children in past years, so not unusual.
Quite possibly there was scoffing at the schools and colleges shutting down with warnings of not returning this year. The cynic in me says businesses had to be closed to make sure schools (mainly public employees)are protected from criticism. Not many people were upset at the economics of school closings, except some students that want money back. My daughter’s hair salon is closed now for 3 weeks. She doesn’t just lose income for her home, but also the support of her shop, a double expense whammy. No unemployment for the sole proprieter.
It’s like a closed information loop reinforcing the danger and protections are correct.
There is one graph that I have seen circulating with the big peak and flattened curve. Haven’t seen another graph prediction. One graph out of all the statisticians etc. in the country. It’s the go to one and treated like gospel.
I have to qualify I do think it is a serious virus, but it isn’t a universal risk, not even in Italy.