The US mate.
That’s all well and good, but what about the Greater Outer Mongolian variant , the Swaziland variant or the Kinvarra mutation?
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Once the chain of transmission is broken by herd immunity, it will be very hard for Covid to spread, including any new variants. The UK has seen the same dramatic drop off in cases since mid January, and with their higher rate of vaccination uptake (25% versus 17% in the US) should have herd immunity earlier than the US, possibly as early as March. The EU is lagging at 5%, so unless there’s a dramatic increase in vaccination EU countries are looking at June/July.
I was thinking about it there while looking at some data from around the world.
The scientific evidence so far on COVID lockdowns suggests that they don’t work – and may actually increase the death rate
We are being told that lockdowns halt the spread of the infection, but where’s the proof? The places with the worst death rates all followed that path – and the ones who didn’t have generally fared better.
‘Paradoxically, human beings, when compelled to act, learn to justify a chosen course with an assurance unwarranted by the evidence for the course chosen. ’ Bernard Lown.
I have studied the history of medicine, and medical interventions, for many years. The most extreme disasters have always followed a fairly distinct pattern. A series of steps, if you like.
Step one = we have a serious disease that is killing lots of people.
Step two = it creates great fear, and the medical profession has nothing much in place to deal with it.
Step three = a charismatic leader emerges to decree that he (almost always a ‘he’ up to now) knows how to treat it/control it, etc. This is ‘the idea’.
Step four = The ‘idea’ is enthusiastically taken up around the world and becomes mainstream thinking.
Step five = the ‘idea’ becomes standard practice.
Step six – the ‘idea’ is taught to medics and becomes accepted truth, a fact.
Step six = anyone who goes against the ‘idea’ is ruthlessly attacked.
There is always, of course, the possibility that the ‘idea’ is the best thing to do. This happens from time to time. However, there seems to be little or no correlation between the enthusiasm, and speed, with which ideas are taken up, and the likelihood they are correct.
The problem, as I came to recognise, lies between step two and step four. By which I mean that a charismatic figure convinces everyone that they have the answer, before there is any evidence to support it. The person may not be charismatic, simply someone who has the ability to grab attention and push the ‘idea’ forward. Such as the Chinese Premier.
Another thing that leads to disaster, which is perhaps of even greater importance, is that the ‘idea’ must sound like the most obvious common sense. It should trigger a response along the lines of ‘ Yes, of course, that sounds perfectly reasonable’ . Once that’s been achieved, the ‘idea’ drops neatly into people’s minds, settles down, and grows roots, creating not a ripple of cognitive dissonance.
At which point it cements itself in, and becomes difficult, even painful, to remove.
To quote the film Inception: ‘ What is the most resilient parasite? Bacteria? A virus? An intestinal worm? An idea. Resilient… highly contagious. Once an idea has taken hold of the brain it’s almost impossible to eradicate. An idea that is fully formed – fully understood – that sticks; right in there somewhere.’
We love ideas, they make us who we are. We defend them, sometimes with our very lives.
“Why do people insist on defending their ideas and opinions with such ferocity, as if defending honour itself? What could be easier to change than an idea?” J.G. Farrell.
So, yes, I have no illusions about the strength of ideas. They are so powerful, and so dangerous that you must be very careful where you aim them. Because ideas also have a God-like power, which is that they are immortal.
Which takes us to lockdowns. The most expensive, invasive, and potentially destructive medical intervention ever attempted by humanity. Was there any evidence from anywhere, in history, that lockdowns would work? No, there was none. But we have the six steps on full display here.
Step one = we have a serious disease that is killing lots of people – check .
Step two = it creates great fear, and the medical profession has nothing in place to deal with it – check.
Step three = a charismatic leader emerges to decree that he (almost always a ‘he’ up to now) knows how to treat it/control it etc. This is the ‘idea’ – check.
Step four = The ‘idea’ is enthusiastically taken up around the world and becomes ‘mainstream thinking’ – check.
Step five = the ‘idea’ becomes standard practice – check.
Step six – the ‘idea’ is taught to medics and becomes accepted truth, a fact – check.
Step six = anyone who goes against the ‘idea’ is ruthlessly attacked – check.
Does it work – have lockdowns worked? You can pick and choose countries to support the case that it does and dismiss any evidence you don’t much like. Unfortunately, once you introduce a medical intervention that affects everyone, everywhere, you have lost the possibility of carrying out a controlled experiment of any sort.
Despite the lack of any randomised evidence, most people are absolutely convinced that lockdowns work to control the spread of COVID-19. They point to various countries, e.g. New Zealand, Norway, Australia and Taiwan, to prove their case. They always have a ready explanation as to why countries that underwent lockdown still have high death rates and vice-versa.
The ‘idea’ has become the truth. Its proponents now demand that those who doubt the efficacy of lockdowns prove that they don’t work. However, I don’t believe it’s up to those who don’t believe that lockdowns work, to prove that case.
The starting point, for any scientific hypothesis, is for the proponents to disprove the null hypothesis. Demanding that those who believe something may not work, to prove that it doesn’t, is to turn the scientific method upside down. You can never prove a negative.
The null hypothesis, by the way, is that there is no difference between two things. Randomised Controlled Trials (RCTs) in medicine are designed to prove, statistically, that there is an actual difference between doing A or B. This is how science is done, how research is done.
We must look carefully at the death rates
Unfortunately, it is not possible to do a controlled trial with COVID-19. The possibility of doing any randomised study was lost very early on. Which means that we are forced to rely, instead, on observational studies. We can look at country X, that did Y, and see how it compares with country Z that did not do Y.
Or we can look at two countries that did Y, to see how they compare. Or two countries that did not do Y. With COVID, of course, no two countries did exactly the same thing. Not even the four ‘countries’ within the UK. So any observations become more difficult to rely on due to this ‘confounding variable’.
In some UK countries, six people could meet up, in others it was eight, or two households, or only one household etc. In some, restaurants were open, in others they were shut – at varying times. From a scientific perspective, it’s a mess.
Anyway, to simplify things, let’s look at the 10 countries around the world with the highest death rate from COVID. That is, deaths per million population (I have left out countries with population of less than one million, such as Monaco, or Liechtenstein, or Andorra because a few deaths here or there can distort the death rate considerably)
What did they do differently, what did they do the same? Looking only at first lockdown dates:
Belgium first locked down on March 18th, 2020.
Slovenia first locked down on March 20th, 2020.
Czechia first locked down on March 16th, 2020.
The UK first locked down March 23rd, 2020.
Bosnia-Herzegovina first locked down March 16th, 2020.
Italy first locked down March 9th, 2020.
North Macedonia first locked down March 18th, 2020.
The USA is highly federal and different states took different approaches – seven states did not issue lockdown orders: Arkansas, Iowa, Nebraska, North and South Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming. In those seven states the death rate from COVID averaged at 1,280 per million vs. 1,254 as the US average.
In comparison, New Jersey first locked down March 21st, 2020, and its current death rate is 2,310 per million. New York locked down on March 12th – its current death rate is 2,130 per million. These states have the highest COVID related deaths in the US.
Bulgaria first locked down on March 13th, 2020.
Hungary first locked down on March 28th, 2020.
All countries locked down, Italy first, Hungary last. As you can see, the date of first lockdown is unrelated to the death rate. The other stand out facts are that these are all ‘European’ countries. All with majority Caucasian populations. They are all in the Northern hemisphere.
If I were thinking of running a clinical trial where the hypothesis was that a lockdown was the best way to prevent deaths from COVID, then I would start by looking at observational data such as this.
I would find that the ten countries in the world with the highest death rates all locked down at similar times, with similar restrictions.
I would look at the US where the death rate in states that locked down, and those that did not, were almost the same rate (or vastly higher in the cases of New Jersey and New York), and I would conclude that the observational studies had – thus far – failed to disprove the null hypothesis. In fact, the evidence up to this point could suggest that lockdowns may actually increase the death rate.
In short, I would look for another idea.
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Ah lovely. We’re flying it.
The M7 is too busy guys. If I wasn’t on an non-essential journey myself I’d be tweeting serious indignation here
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I took the stats from a page on Instagram.
I don’t know what they would have been like before.
I’m very concerned about the mental health impact of all this, as well as other issues.
Bumped.
OMG!!
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Meehawl making a holy show of himself here
Positivity down under 5% for the first time since God was a boy.
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Is the positivity rate not a cod? It’s irrelevant really.
No it’s highly relevant. The lower the positivity rate the higher the likelihood that the tests are beginning to catch all of the actual cases.
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Everybody I know here and in the real world is concerned about that, some people have other concerns which mean that you can’t please everybody,
I think that data was reactionary and in the case of the suicidal thoughts it was unbelievable IMO, we can find stats for anything
But that’s dependant on someone feeling symptoms, which there are tonnes who get no symptoms. Also trusting people actually getting tested who have symptoms… And then the amount of people exaggerating symptoms getting tested. It seems a very arbitrary figure to me.
Not opening Construction in March is complete madness.
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Did you study statistics?
In ROI?
no chance whatsoever
You are usually right so I hope that’s the case again here.