By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley
[Update: Good news: Boris Johnson is now out of intensive care. His prospects for recovery are, therefore, very greatly improved.]
Consider how fair-minded is our kind host. There are two very different policy positions on the handling of the Chinese-virus question: the passivist (let the population acquire “herd immunity” and hope that the virus is not much worse than the annual flu) and the activist (salus populi suprema lex: take whatever steps are needed, even if the economic cost is heavy, to ensure that healthcare systems are not overrun).
My good friend Willis Eschenbach is a protagonist of the passivist position, on the ground that the virus is not much more infectious and not much more fatal than the flu. I am a protagonist of the activist position whenever a new and fatal pathogen emerges, on the ground that until one knows more about the true case rate one must be guided by the growth rate in new cases, which, in the early stages of any uncontrolled pandemic with a population that has no immunity, is necessarily exponential.
It stands greatly to the credit of our kind host that both of these points of view are fairly reflected here, and the quality of the data and arguments being offered on both sides, not only in head postings (for instance Rud Istvan’s excellent medical postings) but also in the discussion between commenters is high. It is not unjustifiable to say that more, and more profound, information about the Chinese virus is being posted here, in a more fair-minded way, than anywhere else. This is how free speech ought to work.
Today’s post will be about how to resolve the dichotomy between the activist and passivist positions. First, the data. Precisely because the early stages of a pandemic necessarily show exponential growth, policymakers in responsible governments are guided, first and foremost, by the mean daily rate of growth in confirmed cases – i.e., cases the great majority of which are identified and reported because they are serious.
During the three weeks up to March 14, the date on which Mr Trump declared a national emergency, the global daily compound growth rate in total confirmed cases was almost 20%. Exponential growth that high, if it had been allowed to continue, could potentially have killed millions to hundreds of millions worldwide. That, above all, was the reason why governments decided, albeit with extreme reluctance and (in the UK and the US for instance, much later than they should have done) to interfere with transmission.
The problem with being late is that the lockdowns had to be much more severe than they would have been if the interventions had been more timely.
However, as our daily graphs here are demonstrating, the lockdowns are working. Of course, some countries – notably Sweden – have not introduced strict lockdowns, and yet the daily case growth rate is falling there too. That is one of the chief reasons why the passivists argue that if we too had not introduced lockdowns the numbers would have fallen just as fast and just as far.
Another reason, well reflected in a recent posting by Willis Eschenbach, is that official sources originally predicted ten times the deaths they are now predicting and that, if they had gotten the predictions right in the first place, no lockdowns would have been needed.
The excellent Dr Fauci, for instance, had predicted 200,000 deaths in the U.S., but Mr Eschenbach, on the basis of a model, considers the number may prove to be only 20,000.
Naturally, any model worth its salt will necessary look at the case growth rate at the time when the run begins. The daily case growth rate of 20% that had obtained before March 24, applied also to deaths (a lagging indicator), would have turned the cumulative 20,000 deaths up until then into 310,000 deaths by April 8 and 17 million deaths by the end of April.
As it is, by 8 April worldwide deaths were less than 90,000. And why? Because the mean daily case growth rate has been falling. Over the 15 days from March 24 to April 8, the daily mean growth rate in deaths was just 10.5%. If this lower growth rate were to be continue till the end of April, there would be 800,000 deaths by then and not 17 million. So of course current runs will be showing far lower estimates of the eventual death toll than earlier runs.
It is elementary calculations like these, based not on predictive models (which are useless in the early stages of a new pandemic) but on the observed exponential growth rates, that led governments to decide that the passivists, for the time being, would not be heeded.
The case growth rate continues to fall. Because lockdowns work, some of that decline is attributable to them. Here is today’s updated graph, showing that, for the world excluding China, whose data are unreliable, the daily mean case growth rate has fallen to less than 8%:
Fig. 1. Mean compound daily growth rates in confirmed cases of COVID-19 infection for the world excluding China (red) and for several individual nations averaged over the successive seven-day periods ending on all dates from March 14 to April 8, 2020.
But what about deaths? Taking the world as a whole, excluding China, the daily compound growth rate in deaths has fallen to about 10.5%, while in the U.S. and U.K. it is about 16-17%. Note that the graph begins on March 23, not on March 14, and that, as with the case graph, the rates shown are weekly-smoothed rates, to iron out the often large daily fluctuations in counts.
Fig. 2. Mean compound daily growth rates in reported COVID-19 deaths for the world excluding China (red) and for several individual nations averaged over the successive seven-day periods ending on all dates from March 23 to April 8, 2020.
Now that we have the data before us, how can the spy’s dilemma assist us in resolving the conflict between the activists and the passivists? That is an important question at present, because the passivists are justifiably impatient to end the lockdowns, for the economic damage they cause is considerable, while the activists, with no less justification, would rather be sure the case growth rate will not return to 20% if the lockdowns are lifted.
This dichotomy between two legitimate and strongly-argued positions is the spy’s dilemma. Imagine an agent in the field. He will nearly always be investigating a subject in which he has no specialist knowledge, and he will also have incomplete and potentially inadequate or even inaccurate data. How, then, can he advise his superiors sensibly?
I once gave a lecture on the spy’s dilemma to 200 trainee James Bonds at the Intelligence School of the Army of Colombia in Bogota. Using global warming as an example, I said that, as a non-specialist in climatology I had had to try to decide between two competing scientific points of view: the passivists, who thought there was nothing much to worry about, and the activists, who thought the planet itself might be at risk of destruction unless capitalism were closed down.
How was I, as a layman, to decide between the graph of the past 1000 years’ temperatures produced by the formidable atmospheric physicist Hubert Lamb, and reproduced in IPCC’s First Assessment Report, and the hokey-stick graph produced in the frankly Communist academic environment of today by Mann, Bradley and Hughes?
I began by saying that data generated by totalitarian are generally more suspect than data produced by those with no Party Line to defend. Therefore, I said, one would instinctively prefer Hubert Lamb’s graph to the hokey-stick graph. However, though evaluation of the likely reliability of source data is always desirable, it is not on its own always definitive.
I explained how Socrates, Plato and Aristotle would have resolved the two competing positions by the use of elenchus, still the most powerful technique for reaching the objective truth ever devised.
Fig. 3. Hokey-cokey: Hubert Lamb’s reconstruction of the past 1000 years’ temperature (top panel, from IPCC, 1990), which shows the medieval warm period as warmer than the present and the little ice age as colder, was replaced in IPCC (2001) by Michael Mann’s infamous hokey-stick graph (bottom panel), followed by many me-too graphs that purport to abolish the medieval warm period and the little ice age.
The climate activists say that global warming goes chiefly into the oceans, causing sea level to rise. Therefore, alongside their statement that the hokey-stick graph is true we can place the new statement, with which we expect them to agree, that sea-level rise or fall is an indication of temperature rise or fall. We can then draw conclusions from that additional statement.
The simplest way to decide which of the two competing 1000-year temperature graphs is correct is to compare them both with an independent graph of the past 1000 years’ sea-level change. Only one of the two competing temperature graphs closely follows the sea-level graph. The other, very conspicuously, does not. Therefore, I said, even a non-specialist with an open and enquiring mind could reach a rational – and correct – discernment of the objective even when faced with two directly-competing expert positions, and even in a field in which he holds no qualifications: for that is what an intelligence agent in the field must do every day. For that lecture, I was awarded the Intelligence Medal of the Army of Colombia:
How, then, should be apply the Spy’s Dilemma to the lockdown question? See how similar it is to the climate question. There are two competing scientific positions, both of them having some sound arguments in their favor. The data are manifestly incomplete, inadequate and often downright inaccurate.
For instance, the British government, comprising an unduly high fraction of innumerates, has not yet understood the importance of keeping a very careful track of how many of its confirmed cases have recovered. The reason why this matters is that, during the early stages of a pandemic, the least inaccurate way of deriving the true case fatality rate is to study the closed cases – those who have had the infection and have either recovered or died. Globally outside China, the confirmed-case fatality rate thus derived is currently about 25%. That seems very much too high, leading to the suspicion that Britain is by no means the only country whose experts have not understood the importance of keeping an accurate count of those who have recovered.
The official figures have stated for several days that only 135 of the 60,000 confirmed cases have recovered. If that were truly the case, it would be an indictment of the National Health Service. So you can expect the head of the Joint Intelligence Committee, who attends all Cabinet Office Briefings on emergencies such as this, to demand that ministers get their act together and require the health service to provide a proper daily count of those who have recovered. It is known, for instance, that of the first 2249 intensive-care cases almost 400 have recovered. Inferentially, a far larger faction of the less serious confirmed cases will have recovered by now.
In tomorrow’s daily update, I shall describe some further methods of intelligence analysis that would assist governments in deciding when and how and to what extent to bring lockdowns to an end. For now, I shall point out that the pandemic will not have reached its peak until the daily compound confirmed-case growth rate becomes negative. At present, it remains strongly positive, though trending in the right direction.
Therefore, it would not be appropriate to assume that half of all cases – let alone half of all deaths – have yet occurred. We all want the lockdowns to end, but at present it is better to wait a little longer. So keep safe.
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I have a small separate dichotomy I would like to resolve.
I have been watching the Total Mortality figures, on the grounds that these will show me reality. They will be delayed, of course, but it is hard to misdiagnose death. This approach will leave me unable to contribute to any predictive conversation, but ought to give me an accurate view of what is actually happening.
European Mortality Rates come out on a Thursday, for the preceding week. Up to last week there was no major increase anywhere except in Italy and Spain. This week the UKs PHE issued their figures showing a definite uptick in deaths in England, though no change in N Ireland, Wales or Scotland. This increase in England was similar to the short peak we had in late 2019, and far below the flu deaths experienced over the preceding few years.
Later in the day the EuroMoMo stats, which are the collected European data for the same period, came out. These paint an odd picture.The points to note with these were:
1 – across Europe we are now seeing peaks corresponding to a bad flu year
2 – these peaks seem to come from just a few countries. Most are unaffected.
3 – of the 24 countries/areas tracked, 17 show no increased deaths
4 – of the 7 countries showing increases, Belgium, France and Switzerland show peaks equivalent to a flu year. The Netherlands shows a peak similar to a bad flu year.
5 – the increased mortality data seems to be mainly driven by Spain, Italy and England – these show peaks well in excess of a flu year.
We have heard about the problems in Italy and Spain, But in England we have the local authority reporting a small increase in deaths – well below a normal flu epidemic – while the European monitor, working off the same data, indicates that England is suffering the largest death rate in recent years by a huge margin.
What is going on? I note that the EuroMoMo data contains caveats that the data is estimated using algorithms and care should be taken in interpretation, but the discrepancy between national reporting and Euro-wide data is very large. Perhaps I am wrong, and death can indeed be misdiagnosed?
You get my literary gold star award for your last sentence. Pure Mark Twain. Thanks.
The Dutch peak rate has surpassed the worst flu year (2018) already. And the graph below is not showing last week yet, which was even worse.
https://www.rivm.nl/monitoring-sterftecijfers-nederland
cause of death can and is, as matter a political policy, being misdiagnosed.
Rarely, but sometimes death can be misdiagnosed. In China, they regularly harvest live organs from “dead” prisoners for example.
However, cause of death can be misallocated.
history
https://www.history.com/news/spanish-flu-pandemic-response-cities
“By mid-September, the Spanish flu was spreading like wildfire through army and naval installations in Philadelphia, but Wilmer Krusen, Philadelphia’s public health director, assured the public that the stricken soldiers were only suffering from the old-fashioned seasonal flu and it would be contained before infecting the civilian population.”
As civilian infection rates climbed day by day, Krusen refused to cancel the upcoming Liberty Loan parade scheduled for September 28. Barry writes that infectious disease experts warned Krusen that the parade, which was expected to attract several hundred thousand Philadelphians, would be “a ready-made inflammable mass for a conflagration.”
Krusen insisted that the parade must go on, since it would raise millions of dollars in war bonds, and he played down the danger of spreading the disease. On September 28, a patriotic procession of soldiers, Boy Scouts, marching bands and local dignitaries stretched two miles through downtown Philadelphia with sidewalks packed with spectators.
Just 72 hours after the parade, all 31 of Philadelphia’s hospitals were full and 2,600 people were dead by the end of the week.
Other anecdotes from that pandemic show alternative outcomes. From the wiki page:
The fact that most of those who recovered from first-wave infections had become immune showed that it must have been the same strain of flu. This was most dramatically illustrated in Copenhagen, which escaped with a combined mortality rate of just 0.29% (0.02% in the first wave and 0.27% in the second wave) because of exposure to the less-lethal first wave. For the rest of the population, the second wave was far more deadly; the most vulnerable people were [. . .] adults who were young and fit.
We can be pretty certain COVID-19 will return, and the lockdowns will have ensured a large population of uninfected (by this only selectively dangerous strain) remains. Let’s hope the returning virus isn’t more generally dangerous, especially as we’ll have a lot less money for health care now that we’ve trashed our economies.
written in 2007
the case of st louis
https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/rapid-response-was-crucial-containing-1918-flu-pandemic
MoB
required reading
R Hatchett et al. Public health interventions and epidemic intensity during the 1918 influenza pandemic. PNAS DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0610941104 (2007)
M Bootsma and N Ferguson. The effect of public health measures on the 1918 influenza pandemic in US cities. PNAS DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0611071104 (2007)
Will she reply-
Open Letter
Dear Chancellor,
As Emeritus of the Johannes-Gutenberg-University in Mainz and longtime director of the Institute for Medical Microbiology, I feel obliged to critically question the far-reaching restrictions on public life that we are currently taking on ourselves in order to reduce the spread of the COVID-19 virus.
It is expressly not my intention to play down the dangers of the virus or to spread a political message. However, I feel it is my duty to make a scientific contribution to putting the current data and facts into perspective – and, in addition, to ask questions that are in danger of being lost in the heated debate.
The reason for my concern lies above all in the truly unforeseeable socio-economic consequences of the drastic containment measures which are currently being applied in large parts of Europe and which are also already being practiced on a large scale in Germany.
My wish is to discuss critically – and with the necessary foresight – the advantages and disadvantages of restricting public life and the resulting long-term effects.
To this end, I am confronted with five questions which have not been answered sufficiently so far, but which are indispensable for a balanced analysis.
I would like to ask you to comment quickly and, at the same time, appeal to the Federal Government to develop strategies that effectively protect risk groups without restricting public life across the board and sow the seeds for an even more intensive polarization of society than is already taking place.
With the utmost respect,
Prof. em. Dr. med. Sucharit Bhakdi
1. Statistics
In infectiology – founded by Robert Koch himself – a traditional distinction is made between infection and disease. An illness requires a clinical manifestation. [1] Therefore, only patients with symptoms such as fever or cough should be included in the statistics as new cases.
In other words, a new infection – as measured by the COVID-19 test – does not necessarily mean that we are dealing with a newly ill patient who needs a hospital bed. However, it is currently assumed that five percent of all infected people become seriously ill and require ventilation. Projections based on this estimate suggest that the healthcare system could be overburdened.
My question: Did the projections make a distinction between symptom-free infected people and actual, sick patients – i.e. people who develop symptoms?
2. Dangerousness
A number of coronaviruses have been circulating for a long time – largely unnoticed by the media. [2] If it should turn out that the COVID-19 virus should not be ascribed a significantly higher risk potential than the already circulating corona viruses, all countermeasures would obviously become unnecessary.
The internationally recognized International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents will soon publish a paper that addresses exactly this question. Preliminary results of the study can already be seen today and lead to the conclusion that the new virus is NOT different from traditional corona viruses in terms of dangerousness. The authors express this in the title of their paper „SARS-CoV-2: Fear versus Data“. [3]
My question: How does the current workload of intensive care units with patients with diagnosed COVID-19 compare to other coronavirus infections, and to what extent will this data be taken into account in further decision-making by the federal government? In addition: Has the above study been taken into account in the planning so far? Here too, of course, „diagnosed“ means that the virus plays a decisive role in the patient’s state of illness, and not that previous illnesses play a greater role.
3. Dissemination
According to a report in the Süddeutsche Zeitung, not even the much-cited Robert Koch Institute knows exactly how much is tested for COVID-19. It is a fact, however, that a rapid increase in the number of cases has recently been observed in Germany as the volume of tests increases. [4]
It is therefore reasonable to suspect that the virus has already spread unnoticed in the healthy population. This would have two consequences: firstly, it would mean that the official death rate – on 26 March 2020, for example, there were 206 deaths from around 37,300 infections, or 0.55 percent [5] – is too high; and secondly, it would mean that it would hardly be possible to prevent the virus from spreading in the healthy population.
My question: Has there already been a random sample of the healthy general population to validate the real spread of the virus, or is this planned in the near future?
4. Mortality
The fear of a rise in the death rate in Germany (currently 0.55 percent) is currently the subject of particularly intense media attention. Many people are worried that it could shoot up like in Italy (10 percent) and Spain (7 percent) if action is not taken in time.
At the same time, the mistake is being made worldwide to report virus-related deaths as soon as it is established that the virus was present at the time of death – regardless of other factors. This violates a basic principle of infectiology: only when it is certain that an agent has played a significant role in the disease or death may a diagnosis be made. The Association of the Scientific Medical Societies of Germany expressly writes in its guidelines: „In addition to the cause of death, a causal chain must be stated, with the corresponding underlying disease in third place on the death certificate. Occasionally, four-linked causal chains must also be stated.“ [6]
At present there is no official information on whether, at least in retrospect, more critical analyses of medical records have been undertaken to determine how many deaths were actually caused by the virus.
My question: Has Germany simply followed this trend of a COVID-19 general suspicion? And: is it intended to continue this categorisation uncritically as in other countries? How, then, is a distinction to be made between genuine corona-related deaths and accidental virus presence at the time of death?
5. Comparability
The appalling situation in Italy is repeatedly used as a reference scenario. However, the true role of the virus in that country is completely unclear for many reasons – not only because points 3 and 4 above also apply here, but also because exceptional external factors exist which make these regions particularly vulnerable.
One of these factors is the increased air pollution in the north of Italy. According to WHO estimates, this situation, even without the virus, led to over 8,000 additional deaths per year in 2006 in the 13 largest cities in Italy alone. [7] The situation has not changed significantly since then. [8] Finally, it has also been shown that air pollution greatly increases the risk of viral lung diseases in very young and elderly people. [9]
Moreover, 27.4 percent of the particularly vulnerable population in this country live with young people, and in Spain as many as 33.5 percent. In Germany, the figure is only seven percent [10]. In addition, according to Prof. Dr. Reinhard Busse, head of the Department of Management in Health Care at the TU Berlin, Germany is significantly better equipped than Italy in terms of intensive care units – by a factor of about 2.5 [11].
My question: What efforts are being made to make the population aware of these elementary differences and to make people understand that scenarios like those in Italy or Spain are not realistic here?
References:
[1] Fachwörterbuch Infektionsschutz und Infektionsepidemiologie. Fachwörter – Definitionen – Interpretationen. Robert Koch-Institut, Berlin 2015. (abgerufen am 26.3.2020)
[2] Killerby et al., Human Coronavirus Circulation in the United States 2014–2017. J Clin Virol. 2018, 101, 52-56
[3] Roussel et al. SARS-CoV-2: Fear Versus Data. Int. J. Antimicrob. Agents 2020, 105947
[4] Charisius, H. Covid-19: Wie gut testet Deutschland? Süddeutsche Zeitung. (abgerufen am 27.3.2020)
[5] Johns Hopkins University, Coronavirus Resource Center. 2020. (abgerufen am 26.3.2020)
[6] S1-Leitlinie 054-001, Regeln zur Durchführung der ärztlichen Leichenschau. AWMF Online (abgerufen am 26.3.2020)
[7] Martuzzi et al. Health Impact of PM10 and Ozone in 13 Italian Cities. World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe. WHOLIS number E88700 2006
[8] European Environment Agency, Air Pollution Country Fact Sheets 2019, (abgerufen am 26.3.2020)
[9] Croft et al. The Association between Respiratory Infection and Air Pollution in the Setting of Air Quality Policy and Economic Change. Ann. Am. Thorac. Soc. 2019, 16, 321–330.
[10] United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division. Living Arrangements of Older Persons: A Report on an Expanded International Dataset (ST/ESA/SER.A/407). 2017
[11] Deutsches Ärzteblatt, Überlastung deutscher Krankenhäuser durch COVID-19 laut Experten unwahrscheinlich, (abgerufen am 26.3.2020)
In tomorrow’s daily update, I shall describe some further methods of intelligence analysis that would assist governments in deciding when and how and to what extent to bring lockdowns to an end.
I hope you include the basic one of comparing predictions with outcomes.
For example, you predicted that USS Comfort, the hospital ship sent by President Trump to NYC, would be filled to capacity (1000 beds) within days. Six days on from your prediction the ship has 53 patients on board.
The end of lockdowns is no longer a matter of medical science. It will be a political face-saving process by which governments attempt to extricate themselves from their unnecessary, economically disastrous policies without giving the game away to their abused populations. The proper end time is now, but we shall have to suffer weeks more as the justification pretence is invented. They need to flatten the enragement curve.
“Because lockdowns work, some of that decline is attributable to them.”
Are we sure about that?
We have only sequestered the high risk population? –> still alive and no immunity.
These lockdowns have neither the benefit of producing immunity at scale nor of culling the high risk populations worldwide. The Population of people still at the high risk are still alive and are static number that the virus needs worked through; virus needs work through the entire human population.
I suppose it could be argued that lockdowns drops the biological burden of viral concentration of the air you breath, but does that lower limit of viral air concentration trigger an immune response within a human body for it to begin the process of anti-body creation.
*************
And Dr. Fauci is NOT excellent – he is in fact a moron in many respects and cost people their lives:(frankly I stopped reading the article at this point as has no more credibility due to this statement).
His whole idea, “we should not be shaking hands anymore”, is an oxymoronic statement and completely anti-scientific and more of a phobia. To procreate we need to do more then shake hands. The first step in producing those types intimate bonds whether they be platonic or romantic is a shake hands. We are social creatures; we need to develop social bonds; the very existence of humanity depends upon us transmitting germs — especially new pathogens. Furthermore by his logical — no hugging; no kissing; no intercourse or sex of any kind; no sleeping in the bed also has to follow as the surface area contact only goes up from hand shaking. The lowest concentration of germs transmitted is with hand shaking; thinking of a surface area to surface area contact phenomenon.
per Dr. Fauci, “We do not have clinical studies of HCQ” — a) that is flat wrong; b) we do have both case study reviews and 65 since the drug was approved and nearly 85 years of history; c) we know of it anti-viral properties. d) most doctors in the trenches are taking prophylactically (this is under-reported).
Dr. Fauci — is a creature of the swamp and largeness of the pharmaceutical industry. His ONLY interest is in creating a drug that is profitable. He has no interest in saving lives NOW as indicated by his continual refusal of even acknowledging the case studies being conduct the world over of HCQ-zpak-zinc. He is causing harm.
Of course like AGW, the virus is now a scam money generator. Next up on the death certificates…Globull warming did it.
Minnesota Doctor Blasts ‘Ridiculous’ CDC Coronavirus Death Count Guidelines
April 9th, 2020
https://www.cryptogon.com/?p=57983
Pay VERY close attention from 3:02:
“Right now Medicare has determined that if you have a COVID-19 admission to the hospital you’ll get paid $13,000. If that COVID-19 patient goes on a ventilator, you get $39,000; three times as much. Nobody can tell me, after 35 years in the world of medicine, that sometimes those kinds of things impact on what we do.”
Al Gore’s latest investments:
GuruFocus.com
February 17, 2020, 5:44 pm
Generation Investment Management, the firm founded by David Blood and former U.S. Vice President Al Gore (Trades, Portfolio), disclosed last week that its four new holdings for the fourth quarter of 2019 were Baxter International Inc. (NYSE:BAX), Illumina Inc. (NASDAQ:ILMN), Penumbra Inc. (NYSE:PEN) and CBRE Group Inc. (NYSE:CBRE).
That’s very scary.
Sweden did “lockdown.” But did so in advisory fashion. Very Libertarian: Let each individual isolate or not given the data.
I, being 76 and wanting to be 77, would have self-isolated even without the government having told me to do so.
My daughters, being 43 and 56 (both in medically-oriented professions), have not, having evaluated their risk.
[ ENTER “Rendered even more jaded and cynical by the local lockdown (/ confinement)” mode … ]
My figures say that around the world 97% of “innumerate politicians” should be considered as the “standard / default / consensus” value, not as “unduly high”.
Rhinoviruses/coronaviruses, responsible for the common cold, have worse effects on the elderly and medically vulnerable than influenza.
That is well documented, and that is what is happening right now, aided and abetted by panic, in part induced by a surfeit of hysterical news coverage and by the lockdown removing significant percentages of key staff with childcare duties.
There are 160 rhinoviruses which infect humans which is why the common cold currently has no cure. So, unless the situation is correctly explained to the general public by responsible experts with no political or any other side, this panic is now likely probably every winter and certainly every other winter.
Time for contingency plans to be properly funded and for governments to show some leadership, get a grip, as, for example, in Sweden.
Healthcare has to be paid for and it cannot be paid for if the workforce is locked down for reasons that look increasingly illogical and ill thought through.
Well, my lord, I beg to differ. I would rename the strategies as:
1. Fatalist, where you let life go on and rely upon developing herd immunity quickly. Treat it as a bad ‘flu year.
2. Alarmist, where you shut down society and tell everyone to stay home. This is otherwise, for governments, a do nothing policy aimed at saving the health care system. But there is no other plan and the lock-down is endless. The cure is worse than the disease
3. Activist, where governments attack the propagation of the virus with an order to wear facemasks when out of home for any reason. Even home-made masks work in this case. A mask is poor self-protection, we are told; that is not the intent, it protects others. Mass and rapid deployment of testing people at congregation points; work, bridges, transport centers etc. Drug trials of promising avenues – such as quinine in this case. The cure becomes an inconvenience but it is not ruinous. See South Korea and the Czech Republic.
The best strategy is number three. Attack the virus’ propagation. Test for infection on a mass scale. Without knowing the extent of the infection, you cannot judge the effectiveness of your strategies. Isolate the infected and inform, not society. Use readily available drug therapies which show promise.
And fianlly, stop depending upon those computer models with poor and inadequate data input and built-in assumptions. The Canadian government yesterday announced an estimate there will be between 4,000 and 300,000 deaths in Canada. That is a not an estimate, that is a wild guess; they obviously have no idea. This is all reminiscent of the Global Warming models.
Professor Malachy Okeke held senior research and teaching positions in Norway, and was Senior Scientist, Molecular Inflammation Research Group, UiT The Arctic University of Norway, before joining American University of Nigeria, in 2018.
Professor Okeke states that the issue of resistance to malaria conferring some protection to COVID-19 is a legitimate but premature hypothesis. I believe she fails to consider that it is probably the medication (chloroquine) still taken by the majority of Nigerians that may have given them this protection. 7 deaths in a population of over 220 million as of 10th April 2020.
She believes there is a correlation between malaria resistance and COVID-19, it is probably the correlation between the medication to treat Malaria and Covid-19 that is the cause of this resistance.
We are now observing this covid-19 resistance in Lupus suffers.
Quote We will keep shouting, and screaming until our policymakers hear us and take decisive action. I am afraid that if nothing is done to counteract this misinformation of immunity, the consequences to our people in terms of infection, morbidity, and fatality will be of apocalyptic proportion!
The issue of resistance to malaria conferring some protection to COVID-19 is a legitimate but premature hypothesis. Reason being that an insignificant portion of individuals in malaria-endemic regions have been tested. Nigeria has tested about 4000 people representing about 0.002% of the 200 million population. You need to at least test 1% of the population, that is, two million Nigerians to start making any correlation and then test those correlations.
Why will we spend time investigating an unestablished correlation between malaria resistance and COVID-19 fatality when there is an established correlation between risk factors like diabetes, hypertension, asthma and COVID-19 severity? When time is of the essence and the difference between life and death, it is far better to spend resources including scientific investigation, public health intervention efforts on established correlations. Quote.
https://web.archive.org/web/20200410115608/https://www.premiumtimesng.com/features-and-interviews/387067-feature-are-africans-immune-to-coronavirus-dr-malachy-ifeanyi-okeke.html
What’s about sickle cell anaemia, helping against malaria ?
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20450-how-sickle-cell-carriers-fend-off-malaria/
Certainly not an advantge.. ?
The geopolitical virus infecting WUWT, possibly irredeemably, mutates as needed by the inmates.
The original Koontz “Eyes of Darkness” edition mentioned a virus named Gorki-400, rather fitting for the time, 1981. Later, post-Soviet, editions use Wuhan-400.
Commander Crozier of the USS Theodore Rooselvelt was fired for noting the US is not at war, while his boss Modly, since resigned, claimed there was a war with “China”. So NATO’s Stoltenberg is still fighting the last war while Modly was heading for his next. Meanwhile the crew is still unprotected with masks made of tee-shirts!
Severe symptoms of geopolitical viral infection, I would say.
It seems even Monckton’s motorcycle gear is no barrier.
Crozier was fired for going outside the chain of command to exert pressure on military command via the media.
Exactly right. Anyone who has ever been involved with the military knows that going outside of the chain of command the way he did is a quick way to get fired/dishonorably discharged if not out right court marshalled. Doesn’t matter if you are a lowly private or the commander of one of our top ships, do it and you will be ending your career and possibly even spending time behind bars depending on what kind of information (as in classification level) you released to the press.
Crozier was insubordinate, implying that his superior officers were derelict in their duties, and then he compounded this mistake by making it public. Modly was right to criticize him and I would have used the same words Modly used to decribe Crozier (naive and dumb).
Crozier should *not* be reinstated in his old job. That would be the wrong signal to send to the troops. The U.S. military is not a popularity contest.
Trump says he is going to look at the case because Crozier has a good record, and that’s fine, let him stay in the military but don’t put him back in a job he was rightfully removed from. That’s the wrong signal to send. Next thing you know rogue military leaders will be looking to influence the news media to do their bidding. Like happened this time.
You can’t fire a guy like Crozier fast enough. A good pilot doesn’t necessarily make a good military commander. That’s what happened in this case.
It really irritates me that the Leftwing News Media and even Fox are carrying this guy’s water. Injecting politics where it doesn’t belong. Getting a commanding officer like Modly fired for telling the truth. Modly’s commanding officer should be suspect for cowtowing to the media. Is he going to check with the media before he issues his next command? How does he make his decisions by what is good for the nation, or what is good for his public image? In this case, it was his public image that motivated him. If he were my subodinate, I would fire him, and the press could go fish.
Modly letter explaining the removal:
https://www.navy.mil/submit/display.asp?story_id=112537&utm_source=phplist5294&utm_medium=email&utm_content=HTML&utm_campaign=U.S.%20Navy%20Top%20Stories&fbclid=IwAR1KN9mDzoBrad9-3nDdbVw9HelzC5U2uhucaQ3YbaVRvc50-TXAAHzcNnE#.XodSYf2YZt0.facebook
As a former enlisted military the CO of the TR was correctly removed for discussing Operational Readiness which is classified information. The TR was at sea and on an operational mission.
https://thefederalist.com/2020/04/07/yes-capt-crozier-should-have-been-relieved-of-his-command/
Modly’s gone.
The Swamp has tried to draw the US into a geopolitical war-footing.
Ordering the crew to take operational risks without a war-footing is covered by the UCMJ, 110, 114.
Yes, I am aware he’s gone but those above reasons. He’s gone for making a personal attack against the relieved CO of the TR. That was also conduct unbecoming of his office.
Lord Monckton
Thank you.
I think this post has generated one of the most useful (signal to noise) comment streams of the many Coronavirus posts.
To all WUWT participants…please do your very best to keep the posts/comments quality high. Skip the name calling, skip the “I know…”, skip the “If only…”. Look and see what is in front of all of us. The actual situation/reality does not change based on our opinions or projections or desires. We all must deal with the cold hard fact that no matter what we think we see, no matter how different it is from others, we are all presented with exactly the same reality. If we continually ask ourselves WHY (and then how) we see the exact same reality differently, then we begin to coalesce to better discussions, which lead to better decisions which lead to better outcomes.
Thank you to all for your thoughtful posts and comments.
Ethan Brand
Is “China Virus” name calling, moderator?
Not really ‘name calling’. Just a slur, particularly as he, on occasion, refers to it as Covid19. I’m particularly irritated by ‘China and occupied Tibet’. I’m not a supporter of the current regime in China. I see no need to exercise your political bias/prejudice when discussing statistics about a virus. Over the years the good viscount throws in his opinion on extraneous things. He can’t help himself.
I read his posts, some are amusing.
“I’m particularly irritated by ‘China and occupied Tibet’.
Not me. The world should be reminded that China stole Tibet, at every opportunity.
Why? Because China has the same designs on other nations, too. It’s a warning of things to come. Beware the Chinese. They will steal your life away, and then they will bully everyone else to go along with the theft, just like they have done with Tibet.
Taiwan’s listening. Vietnam is listening. Russia is listening. Those on that Belt and Road should be listening. Lots of folks are listening to the fate of the innocent people of Tibet. Tibetan Pacifists that the Chinese communists slaughtered. I bet that took a lot of bravery.
I sure do hope there is a little bit of Karma waiting for the perpetrators. I’ll do my part by criticizing them for their theft and murder.
Free Tibet! Spread the story of the theft of Tibet far and wide, is what I say.
Whether what you say is true or untrue is irrelevant. The post is, supposedly, a scientific, statistical study. To be taken seriously it has to only deal with data. Otherwise, when you inject a political bias it puts your results and conclusions under question. Are you purely objective or are you pushing some other agenda or a mixture of both would then become something you would think about.
I’ve never read ‘UK and occupied Northern Ireland’ or ‘occupied – Australia, Canada, USA etc..
He is doing himself a disservice saying irrelevant things.
Is “Lyme Disease” ( Lyme, CT ), Lou Gehrig’s disease, Creutzfeldt-Jacob Disease, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus , German Measles, Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, etc also name calling?
But then again naming a virus/disease anything is in fact “naming calling” if we were to call it the “watyamycallitvirus” is still calling it a name?
per https://health.ri.gov/diseases/infectious/
https://www.cdc.gov/diseasesconditions/az/c.html
Ethan said, “I think this post has generated one of the most useful (signal to noise) comment streams of the many Coronavirus posts.”
I agree completely! I am a huge fan of Lord Monckton’s posts and activities. His education, mastery of language, debate, numbers and graphs always leave me in awe. Even in this case when decades of practical experience lead me to a completely conflicting conclusion, I am very grateful for the debate generated.
“The excellent Dr. Fauci” ? You jest. The guy’s a smug, deep-state, bureaucrat who has a long history of failure in dealing with other medical emergencies. This one is no exception.
It is revolting how they idolize and deify such people.
I was as shock at the statement as well. The Dr. Fauci is horrible.
From a guest commentary by Prof. Dr. med. Dr. h.c. Paul Robert Vogt in the Swiss newspaper Mittelländische about the comparison of SARS-CoV-2 and influenza:
“The pure statistically view on this pandemic is immoral. You have to ask people at the front lines.
None of my colleagues – of course myself included – and none of the health caretaker staff has memories that in the last 30 or 40 years we have faced a situation in that
1. whole hospitals were filled with patients who had all the same diagnose
2. whole intensive care stations where filled with patients who had all the same diagnose
3. 25-30% of the health care staff acquire the same disease as the patients they are taking care of
4. there were not enough ventilators
5. there was need for patient selection not out of medical reasons but just because out of their sheer numbers and lack of equipment
6. all severe affected patients shared the same – a uniform – number of symptoms
7. the cause of death of patients who died in intensive care was all the same
8. the supply of drugs and medical equipment is running low”
https://www.mittellaendische.ch/2020/04/07/covid-19-eine-zwischenbilanz-oder-eine-analyse-der-moral-der-medizinischen-fakten-sowie-der-aktuellen-und-zuk%C3%BCnftigen-politischen-entscheidungen/
We are talking about Switzerland here. Second most well funded health care system in the World. This shit is dangerous.
Other money quote:
“You dont’ have to like Donald Trump – but until the US would have the same death rate as Switzerland at the moment they would need 30,000 deaths.”
“The pure statistically view on this pandemic is immoral. ” Precisely!
That immorality runs deep – it is lethal.
But what exactly happened in Switzerland? Did Bern wait too long?
Might be a number of reasons:
– Switzerland was hesitant going into a lockdown, closing schools, borders etc.
– no early advice which hygiene routine would be effective
– a lot of traveling due to skiing season.
The skiing season might also have been one of the reasons why North Italy was hit that hard. Hot spots in Germany are also linked to skiing tourists coming back from Austria.
No we are looking at all the statistics, history, and evolutionary biology with the realization that not everyone can be saved. Nothing is “unprecedented” with this virus other then the governmental response.
This path is also lethal beyond the infected and dying. If continues much longer the first large scale riots will prove that. Wait til we run out of food or people believe there is no more food. The suicides, child abuses, certain cancer patients not getting treated, etc. And until there is sufficient herd immunity and the human body knows how to develop anti-bodies quicker then we know how to create vaccine it will continue very few people actually be saved by the medical folk. The Human Body has had several millions of evolutionary history it is what it does.
As medical folks maybe, as we military folks do, need to steel your hearts and minds, training for these events this will help because the will not be the last. And frankly, this ain’t bad that compared to ones that in the past and it has nothing to do with our technologies.
Imagine if this virus had the same contagion level but only 10%-30% of killing power of Ebola. Then these actions would be more justified. However, an airborne pathogen is not containable by definition.
One of the reason the CCP removed the lockdowns in Wuhan was there was a small riot on one of the bridges leading out of the city.
Dass die Schweiz mit ihrem 85-Milliarden-schweren Gesundheitswesen, in welchem eine durchschnittliche 4-köpfige Mittelstandsfamilie die Krankenkassen-Prämien nicht mehr bezahlen kann, nach 14 Tagen auem Gegenwind an der Wand steht, über zu wenig Masken, zu wenig Desinfektionsmittel und zu wenig medizinischem Material verfügt, ist eine Schande.
Sounds American – a huge 85 billion CHF health sector where a 4-person family cannot afford premiums. And no notice of various studies taken. No border closure. After 14 days a complete breakdown. What has happened to Switzerland?
The article is really excellent. 8 warnings since 2003 ignored.
Top quote of the day
From your link:
‘The average age of the deceased patients is said to be 83….’
‘…..the daily arithmetic does not help us, because we do not know how many people have had contact with the virus without consequences and how many people have actually gotten sick.’
The good doctor also makes the point that Switzerland was not properly prepared for an epidemic, the worst effects of which could have been avoided had it been properly prepared.
The link between rhinoviruses, coronaviruses and serious respiratory illness in the old and frail has been the subject of medical papers since at least 2002
‘These data suggest that rhinoviruses and coronaviruses may be associated with serious respiratory illnesses in frail older adults.’
‘Rhinovirus and Coronavirus Infection-Associated Hospitalizations among Older Adults’ The Journal of Infectious Diseases 01 May 2002
The lockdown is not even a palliative let alone a cure, as Sweden has clearly shown, shaming others, but it does provide some political cover from the mania of the ‘Do something even if it’s only shouting Happy Christmas’ brigade.
Sweden is at 86 death/M
Switzerland is at 115 deaths/M
USA at 54 deaths/M
Austria 35 deaths/M
Germany 31 deaths/M
South Korea 4 deaths/M
Easy to see that early lockdowns work and that the “Swedish model” will crumble soon as all their numbers scream exponential growth.
One mitigating factor is simply fear of infection. People adjust their behavior based on fear or risk.
Pre lockdown the firm I work for banned in person meetings and replaced with conference calls. They also stopped the once a week free breakfast which was served in a room with multiple people lining up. Face to face meetings were replaced with phone calls. Business travel to infected areas was stopped.
NYC was an anomaly due to subways, crowded bars and restaurants, crowded office space and buildings.
I think simply closing schools, having senior only shopping first 2 hours of the day, placing hand sanitizer stations everywhere, banning mass gatherings like concerts and sporting events will go long way to mitigation.
The 15 minute in doctors office test will go long way to catching cases early. This will catch outbreaks early and isolate them early. I could see with positive test immediately calling place the person works, close contacts for them to quarantine. The calls would be made immediately by cdc or state as soon as positive test found.
So they didn’t mean to lock down the country- looks like a row back to me.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/04/09/boris-worried-lockdown-has-gone-far-can-end/
Data?
In epidemiology would not the % of the population that has acquired immunity (from infection) be the second most important data point (behind the fatality #)?
We are 5 months into this pandemic, yet we have virtually no idea what that most important data point is. It’s the denominator in most of the critical “rate” calculations. The all important Infection Fatality Rate requires this number. The counterfeit, and nearly useless, Case Fatality Rate, tells us practically nothing since the criteria for qualifying for a test (and becoming a “bit” in the “Confirmed Cases” denominator) is not uniform.
Is there some major obstacle in the acquisition of the infection %? Well, no. The genetic sequence of the virus has been available since January, and Serum Antibody tests that could have provided a very good estimate of the % of the population with immunity have been available since January (with 90% accuracy). Early Serum Antibody Tests would not be accurate enough to achieve FDA approval as an accurate test for individuals, but they would have provided for some very good estimates of this KEY datum.
Trillions of $’s and tens of thousands of lives and even basic freedoms are put in greater jeopardy for lack of knowledge of the population immunity rate.
With the high R0 of this virus, many regions could be within a few “doublings” of achieving herd immunity. That would greatly affect policies devised to optimize the management of this epidemic.
Yet, Fauci and his associates have never made getting this key bit of data a priority. That is epidemiological mal practice in my mind…and criminally negligent.
We should soon have some good population wide sampling of acquired Antibody rates. Germany is near completion with their survey and preliminary data indicate that 15% of the population has acquired immunity. That is ~ 2 “doublings” away from herd immunity and the same study indicates a 4 – 5 day doubling time in Europe. That could mean less than 2 weeks to a very major infection control point.
“We are 5 months into this pandemic, yet we have virtually no idea what that most important data point is. It’s the denominator in most of the critical “rate” calculations. The all important Infection Fatality Rate requires this number. The counterfeit, and nearly useless, Case Fatality Rate, tells us practically nothing since the criteria for qualifying for a test (and becoming a “bit” in the “Confirmed Cases” denominator) is not uniform.”
German study: 14%
China study 6%
California and Italy and Korea in progress.
Not even close to herd immunity, but CFR is likely to drop. <1%
“German study: 14%”
Probably falsely generated. Not specific enough antibody test and no accounting for household transmissions. Therefore too high estimate of herd immunity and too low lethality.
CFR best estimate is around 2% for both South Korea and Germany right now. Could be a coincidence or going to be the real number. The death rate for Germany (not available for South Korea) is quite steadily fluctuating around 5% though.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/germany/
Hopefully the 5% are not true but a statistical artifact of not reported recovered cases.
wrong about Korea.
What is wrong? CFR is roughly 2% for South Korea at the moment. worldometer lacks the number of closed cases.
Oh, Austria is also going close to the 5%.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/austria/
With a doubling time of 4 to 5 days in Europe (same German survey) 15% population immunity is not far away. Double 15 twice and community spread starts to fade.
Singapore used the antibody test for also tracking infection and mitigating. They had a patient with covid that had interacted with number of people. All those people tested negative for covid. But then they tested same group for the antibody. One of the people had the antibody. So then they were able to quarantine people associated with that other person.
Same in Canada. Governments have no idea what they are doing as they have nouseful data to inform them. They rely upon their experts and computer models, hence between 4,000 and 300,000 may die (or may not) over the next 18 months. Useless.
Any policy, especially one as draconian as a lock down, must only be done after a cost/benefit analysis. In a crisis perhaps we can start the lock down but insist upon a thorough debate and cost/benefit analysis soon after.
Instead we have governments doubling down and refusing to even discuss the possibility that the counter-measures may be worse than the disease. We are not going to reconsider our policies regardless of the consequences. It’s simply very, very bad government and highly irresponsibly for the American media to shout down anybody who asks questions the no matter the cost mantra.
stopped
The rate of death is much, much lower than assumed right now. A Stanford-based study suggests that California had an early infection (Fall of 2019) and therefore it’s low rate of death is showing herd immunity. (The unusual number of influenza deaths early this year may have included Cov19 numbers.)
And an MIT study suggests that just one sewage system in Massachusetts estimates over 100,000 people infected. That’s in a state which, as a whole, has 500 deaths. One sewage system, 100,000 infections, whole state 500 deaths.
The models were wrong, wrong, wrong. Remember: these models claimed to take into account nation-wide immediate confinement for months, something we have NOT done. Yet they keep having to lower the death estimates in the US — 2.1 million… 200,000-100,000… 150,000-90,000. I don’t think we will reach even that level.
Of course, the world will claim that our confinements saved lives. Bullshit. The confinement was only to “flatten the curve”… to keep the hospitals from being overrun. All the deaths that would happen quickly would happen slower. That was the basis of the models: Not less death but slower death.
Now we will have deaths from cancers that went untreated/unrecognized, heart disease without interventions, depression from unemployment/ruination of lives.
This is the problem of the seen and unseen. The seen is “flattening the curve”. The unseen is the death, hardship, and despair we have wrought from… MODELS.
references (follow the links before you criticize the source):
https://legalinsurrection.com/2020/04/wuhan-virus-watch-stanford-medicine-investigating-possible-california-herd-immunity-to-covid-19/
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/birx-says-government-is-classifying-all-deaths-of-patients-with-coronavirus-as-covid-19-deaths-regardless-of-cause
(re: overestimating covid19 caused deaths.)
Update: we are now down to 61,000 estimated deaths in the IMHE model. That is a 97% decrease in predicted mortality. This crisis is 97% smaller than the prediction that sent us into lockdown. This is all MODELS; a reflection of what is happening with the climate models.
“This crisis is 97% smaller than the prediction that sent us into lockdown”
Yes, and one of these days we will know the reason why. Social distancing? Experimental medications given to patients during this period? You seem to assume that the numbers just came down by themselves, naturally. That may not be the case.