“If we had not known about a new virus out there, and had not checked individuals with PCR tests, the number of total deaths due to ‘influenza-like illness’ would not seem unusual this year. At most, we might have casually noted that flu this season seems to be a bit worse than average.”
This is from a sobering essay by Stanford University epidemiologist John Ioannidis, co-director of its Meta-Research Innovation Center.
The crackdowns on public life by state and local political leaders are being made in a data vacuum, Ioannidis warns.
“The current coronavirus disease, Covid-19, has been called a once-in-a-century pandemic,” he says. “But it may also be a once-in-a-century evidence fiasco,” with policymakers relying on “meaningless” statistics based on unreliable samples: "Three months after the outbreak emerged, no countries have reliable data on the prevalence of the virus in a representative random sample of the general population".
Patients who have been tested for SARS-CoV-2 [COVID-19] are disproportionately those with severe symptoms and bad outcomes. Selection bias may even worsen in the near future.
The one situation where an entire, closed population was tested was the Diamond Princess cruise ship and its quarantine passengers. The case fatality rate there was 1.0%, but this was a largely elderly population, in which the death rate from Covid-19 is much higher.
The willful ignorance of left-leaning journalists when it comes to reporting scientific research is making the response worse.
Consider the complicating factors when trying to project that one cruise ship’s mortality rate “onto the age structure of the U.S. population”: It’s based on seven deaths, in a population (tourists) that “may have different frequencies of chronic diseases” than the general population.
The “reasonable estimates” for the general population range from 0.05 percent to 1 percent (the elderly tourist cruise line death rate), Ioannidis writes: "A population-wide case fatality rate of 0.05% is lower than seasonal influenza. If that is the true rate, locking down the world with potentially tremendous social and financial consequences may be totally irrational. It’s like an elephant being attacked by a house cat".
https://tinyurl.com/LIBS-LIE-AND-OUR-ECONOMY-DIES
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