4th Study Shows COVID-19 Cases Massively Underestimated

A stitch in time saves nine, kindly repeat three times. kairosfocus

Mathematical denialism is really the worst sort

Well that is an interesting accusation against someone who had fellowships for math PhD programs and spent a year in a PhD math program and have about 45 credits in math at the graduate level. I also have had in addition several graduate level courses in statistics. As I replied to you earlier. I once knew by heart the proof of the theorem, The Law of Large Numbers So I suspect the accusation of math denialism is inappropriate. I am not denying that propensity scores are useful. I didn't see how they were calculated or what variables were included and excluded. There are about 30 variables reported and some represent large differences between the groups. All I saw was they were taken into account. Were all or just some? I did see that there were several differences between the groups on important factors, a big one being lymphopenia which is an indication of the strength of the immune system. Also I did not see any indication of when the drugs were administered and for what reason. On arrival or as a last resort? Did it differ between hospital since I assume these were from all over the country. The recommendations for HCQ are for prior to a need for hospitalization. So on that basis the study is irrelevant. Maybe it is relevant for those who are hospitalized in an advance stage of the disease. But the number of factors that the three populations differed on make it worthless except as political fodder. jerry

‘This treatment works because it would be great if it did’ is argumentum ad consequentiam. Jim Thibodeau

There is no possible way to correct for people who are already in extremis vs the ones who are less so and the ones who died were from the much more sick group.

Mathematical denialism is really the worst sort. If you want to make any progress with this argument, what you have to do is look at the details of the study, and look to see how much overlap there is in the propenstity scores in the two groups. But in order to do that, you first have to acknowledge the existence of propensity scores.

You also fail to address the issue that HCQ may be irrelevant with this group of patients who are far along in the disease.

I believe a high percentage of the no HCQ group also received the anti-biotic. Were they factored out? I did not see it.

No, I think that wasn't done because the analysis was about HCQ. My guess (and that's all it is) is that they weren't interested, because the anti-biotic isn't an anit-viral. But I agree that it's curious that this wasn't mentioned.

You act like you want this treatment not to be appropriate?

No, it would be great if it was appropriate, and worked. But the evidence so far isn't convincing, and I'd like it if people realised this. Even the VA study isn't great (no randomisation etc.), and shouldn't be seen as definitive, but neither should it be dismissed. Bob O'H

Context is important, Ed. And I never said anything about keeping one's legs together. If the mother wasn't in any danger then having the abortion would be wrong. Only if you have a high probability at losing both should there be a decision to save one. ET

READ THE MANUSCRIPT.

I did and so did a few doctors who pointed out the issues with the survey. There is no possible way to correct for people who are already in extremis vs the ones who are less so and the ones who died were from the much more sick group. It is like the drug was given as a last resort. You also fail to address the issue that HCQ may be irrelevant with this group of patients who are far along in the disease. I believe a high percentage of the no HCQ group also received the anti-biotic. Were they factored out? I did not see it. You act like you want this treatment not to be appropriate? That is the interesting question. There is no other treatment on the table at the moment and thousands are dead and more are dying each day. Why ignore other information. You act like all you want is to win rhetorical battles based on minutiae. jerry

Jerry @ 73 -

controlled for disease severity, and got the same result. I’m afraid you’re going to have to try harder.

No they didn’t.

Yes they did. READ THE MANUSCRIPT.

There is no way they could. It was a retrospective survey. So why did you say that?

Errm because they did. There are standard methods to do this correction, using propensity scores. I don't blame you for not knowing about them, they are a specialist topic. Bob O'H

Et

Ed, Clearly you have no idea what details are. Why was the probability of a viable baby so low?

Why does it matter? Babies that are born under these conditions, although rare, are usually healthy.

What was the diagnosis?

Again, why does it matter? The risk to my daughter's life was very low (less than 2%). If, as we are repeatedly told here, a fetus from the point of conception has the same right to life as you or I, wouldn't it be unethical and immoral for my daughter to think more about herself than the fetus, especially given the low level of risk to herself. And, as you are so fond of saying, she could always have kept her legs together. Sex has consequences. Ed George

Ed, Clearly you have no idea what details are. Why was the probability of a viable baby so low? What was the diagnosis? ET

controlled for disease severity, and got the same result. I’m afraid you’re going to have to try harder.

No they didn't. There is no way they could. It was a retrospective survey. So why did you say that? My guess is that you do not read with comprehension or it seems do not read what is suggested. The drug was given to the most severe, some with other life threatening diseases that the non HCQ group did not have. Almost as the last resort. The drug is not best used in these circumstances. If you are following the discussions here, it is best used when symptoms first appear usually about 5 days after exposure. Not three weeks later when they are in poor condition in a hospital setting. The three groups in the survey were nowhere near identical. They did not control for this because there is no way they could. The drugs were given to the worse patients. It was a retrospective survey, not a study. It met none of the characteristics you claim you want to see. So why are you now extolling an extremely flawed report when you are nearly always demanding rigor in terms of how a study should be conducted. jerry

ET It all depends on the details. Not enough information to make a decision. But losing both would be the wrong way to go about it. OK. In my daughter's case the risk of maternal death was <2% and the probability of a viable baby was <1%. Was she unethical and immoral for choosing to have it terminated? Ed George

Ed George:

If a woman is pregnant and the fetus has a very small, but not zero, chance of viability, and continuing the pregnancy places the woman at a potential serious risk to her health, is it unethical and immoral for her to have it terminated?

It all depends on the details. Not enough information to make a decision. But losing both would be the wrong way to go about it. ET

TF, EG & JVL, I think that the role of evolutionary materialistic scientism in the commanding heights of our civilisation is a matter of significant concern, given its evident incoherence and inability to bridge the IS-OUGHT gap. Historically, it has repeatedly become a chaotic element in the political sphere, ever since the aftermath of the Athenian plague 430 - 426 BC. It should be no surprise that it is again significant and often damaging. that is a legitimate concern and one that affects this and many other issues once ethical, epistemological and logical concerns are involved. Where, inescapably, reason is governed by first principles and duties, to truth, to right reason, to prudence [as opposed to skepticism], to sound conscience, to neighbour, to fairness and justice, etc. In turn, those have import for the roots of reality, credibility of worldviews, cultural visions and policy agendas. Much of the polarisation we see traces to the unfolding of consequences of evolutionary materialistic scientism, especially as its incoherence and amorality come to the fore. KF kairosfocus

JVL, yes, the HCQ issue is the dominant global news just now, and it brings out issues connected to the theme of this blog. I think you can glean enough to see that discussions and suggestions here are being used in policy analysis and suggestions, in the real world, especially key reference materials such as the Science survey on the course of the disease. KF kairosfocus

@66 Kairosfocus:

We need to duly note that the major media are utterly untrustworthy and irresponsible then studiously ignore them.

True. Truthfreedom

@66 Kairosfocus: Ok. Truthfreedom

Jerry, sadly, correct. 4th generation civil war, infosphere operations by agit prop. We need to duly note that the major media are utterly untrustworthy and irresponsible then studiously ignore them. They have been advised, corrected, cautioned and even successfully sued and it has made little difference. KF kairosfocus

JVL, in a 4th gen civil war the information battlespace is just that. And it has the utterly ruthless and sociopathic. That's sad, and it is part of the breakdown that is costing us dear. KF kairosfocus

@Kairosfocus:

BTW, the incoherence and inherent amorality of evolutionary materialistic scientism are significant, have cost lives by the dozens of millions, and are routinely suppressed.

True. Truthfreedom

TF and ET (and EG et al), do you see how feeding overheated rhetoric leads to side tracks that go nowhere? Let us all keep the rhetorical voltage within reasonable limits. KF kairosfocus

Jerry @ 60 - yes, but if you read the paper, you'll see that the authors controlled for disease severity, and got the same result. I'm afraid you're going to have to try harder. Bob O'H

Why won’t you answer Ed George‘s question? Are you afraid to answer it honestly? A yes or no answer would be a lot easier than typing all those deflecting responses. Just in case you’ve forgotten what it was:

Were not you the person that types: 'not interested' when you choose so? :) Are you, a moral subjectivist suggesting that 'honesty' is objectively good? If you are doing that, you are showing that your philosophy is self-refuting. Are you suggesting that 'being afraid' is something 'objectively' bad? You materialists are precious. :) What about applying your own standards to yourself, JVL? Ed George posed a fake scenario. Why do I say it is fake? Ed George says he is a liar (and proud) of it. Therefore, nothing he says can be trusted. There was never an honest question, because his attempt was just (another) lie. Truthfreedom

I just thought people would want to hear about a new, US report done with VA data.

This was discussed yesterday fairly extensively. The people given the drug combinations were the most sick and already very far aLong in the disease. Almost like this is the last chance for them. So they had a higher death rate. Just as one should suspect. The recommended use for HCQ and zinc is early on in order to prevent the virus from replicating or even possibly entering the cell. So VA survey is the exact opposite of how it should be used. It is like hoping for a miracle as the person is dying. That is sort of like what ventilators are. for. A high percentage that go on them die if they are elderly. So the VA report was bogus relevant to HCQ. The fact that the press ran with it and a large percentage of the population fell for it says more than anything. jerry

Kairosfocus: As for overheated rhetoric, while I cannot patrol everywhere, I have repeatedly called for toning down. Unfortunately, what you see reflects an intensity bordering on hate in a penumbra of attack sites. The personalities there actually amount to defamation, and defamation sustained for years; I had to close comments on my personal blogs because of it and see echoes elsewhere where it is obvious people are trying to cost me my livelihood in places utterly unrelated to ID debates. Relatives at several degrees remove have been stalked, online and on the ground. That’s the reality that I and others live with. I am very sorry you have had such deplorable treatment. Rest assured I would never, ever condone or participate in such awful behaviour. I prefer to think of a forum such as this akin to a pub; we can all sit, maybe have a pint and share our views. We might get a bit rowdy but at the end of the day we part amicably. You may not know, but there have been bannings including mass bannings when things have gone beyond . Currently, there has been a large scale un-banning and toleration. This is good! I'm glad to hear that. And I'm sorry that some do not know how to behave, on all sides. However, this is not an invitation to a side tracking. Understood. I've said my piece so I'll end it there. Discussing materialism and unguided evolution we'll leave for a dedicated thread. By the way (and I'm sure I'm not the only one who is sometimes unsure) there are so many COVID-19 threads that it's hard to know where to post different comments or news items. I don't have a solution but if there were, say, a dedicated thread for posting things gleaned from various news sources I would try hard to use it properly. Just a thought. I think most people look at the 'recent comments' list and respond that way. I subscribe to the comments RSS so can bookmark and return to older threads easily. JVL

JVL, See the Raoult response, there is something radically wrong with the structure of the intervention. I note, the use of the trick of casting moral principles into apparent conflict is ancient, there is a reason why I pointed to the case of the woman caught in the act of adultery and literally thrown down before Jesus as he was teaching. The entire premise of such exercises is wrong. As for overheated rhetoric, while I cannot patrol everywhere, I have repeatedly called for toning down. Unfortunately, what you see reflects an intensity bordering on hate in a penumbra of attack sites. The personalities there actually amount to defamation, and defamation sustained for years; I had to close comments on my personal blogs because of it and see echoes elsewhere where it is obvious people are trying to cost me my livelihood in places utterly unrelated to ID debates. Relatives at several degrees remove have been stalked, online and on the ground. That's the reality that I and others live with. There is a reason I point to squandered social capital. You may not know, but there have been bannings including mass bannings when things have gone beyond . Currently, there has been a large scale un-banning and toleration. However, this is not an invitation to a side tracking. And BTW, the incoherence and inherent amorality of evolutionary materialistic scientism are significant, have cost lives by the dozens of millions, and are routinely suppressed. That is part of why I keep pointing to something ever so many are unwilling to respond to appropriately, the warning in Plato:

Ath [in The Laws, Bk X 2,360 ya]. . . .[The avant garde philosophers and poets, c. 360 BC] say that fire and water, and earth and air [i.e the classical "material" elements of the cosmos], all exist by nature and chance, and none of them by art . . . [such that] all that is in the heaven, as well as animals and all plants, and all the seasons come from these elements, not by the action of mind, as they say, or of any God, or from art, but as I was saying, by nature and chance only [ --> that is, evolutionary materialism is ancient and would trace all things to blind chance and mechanical necessity] . . . . [Thus, they hold] that the principles of justice have no existence at all in nature, but that mankind are always disputing about them and altering them; and that the alterations which are made by art and by law have no basis in nature, but are of authority for the moment and at the time at which they are made.-

[ --> Relativism, too, is not new; complete with its radical amorality rooted in a worldview that has no foundational IS that can ground OUGHT, leading to an effectively arbitrary foundation only for morality, ethics and law: accident of personal preference, the ebbs and flows of power politics, accidents of history and and the shifting sands of manipulated community opinion driven by "winds and waves of doctrine and the cunning craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming . . . " cf a video on Plato's parable of the cave; from the perspective of pondering who set up the manipulative shadow-shows, why.]

These, my friends, are the sayings of wise men, poets and prose writers, which find a way into the minds of youth. They are told by them that the highest right is might,

[ --> Evolutionary materialism -- having no IS that can properly ground OUGHT -- leads to the promotion of amorality on which the only basis for "OUGHT" is seen to be might (and manipulation: might in "spin") . . . ]

and in this way the young fall into impieties, under the idea that the Gods are not such as the law bids them imagine; and hence arise factions [ --> Evolutionary materialism-motivated amorality "naturally" leads to continual contentions and power struggles influenced by that amorality at the hands of ruthless power hungry nihilistic agendas], these philosophers inviting them to lead a true life according to nature, that is,to live in real dominion over others [ --> such amoral and/or nihilistic factions, if they gain power, "naturally" tend towards ruthless abuse and arbitrariness . . . they have not learned the habits nor accepted the principles of mutual respect, justice, fairness and keeping the civil peace of justice, so they will want to deceive, manipulate and crush -- as the consistent history of radical revolutions over the past 250 years so plainly shows again and again], and not in legal subjection to them [--> nihilistic will to power not the spirit of justice and lawfulness].

KF kairosfocus

Ortho, It is a good start for onward discussion. Let me clip and go in steps of thought: >>It’s sort of true that once you get very far behind the epidemic testing isn’t all that helpful.>> -- De novo fast moving disease, without viable tests at the beginning, implying one starts behind the curve. It is likely, it was lurking in "normal" flu statistics until a pattern was spotted, associated with a cluster. -- Testing, primarily, is a diagnostic tool, and PCR driven tests allow match to a standard, allowing a fairly quick response . . . but behind the curve and if exponential growth is likely . . . recall, there was a debate over human to human contact spreading then about aerosol spreading . . . this points to a strain on resources. -- China's apparent decision to use a week to grab and hoard globally must also be recognised. >>But getting back on top of it after a lockdown will require isolating the infected before they can spread it further,>> -- That comes from contact tracing and symptom detection in key part. Also, isolation for two cascaded incubation periods plus a buffer implies likelihood that fresh clusters will show up then, That is 2 x 5 to 14 days plus a buffer, i.e. 4 - 6 weeks, followed by prolonged social distancing and hygiene measures. -- Otherwise, the chain should break, apart from the asymptomatic carrier pattern and maybe long latency incubation. Thus the small wave echoes, hopefully isolated. >>and this requires testing basically everyone with respiratory symptoms and all of the close-contacts of cases.>> -- Which is not a census-scale testing programme, though with a strong outbreak, that will drain resources. War pivots on logistics. -- BTW, that points to testing of frontline health care providers. >> That pre-supposes you attempt to suppress or eliminate the disease after lockdown,>> -- The point of lockdown . . . I write from my "gaol cell" in the midst of a 24/7 lockdown riding on a less stringent exercise . . . is to break chain propagation. -- post lockdown, I see cluster isolation to stop onward outbreaks. My own suggestion was, gradual relaxation of controls through a half-day period [with an offset between Government and Private sector hours] in which observation and controls on social distancing would drive onward re-tightening or next phase re-opening. The last thing to reopen would be travel. -- Mind you, here is unique given a post disaster situation. -- I am also betting on a shift in social norms [esp if the irresponsible in sufficient numbers retrigger tightening] and associated learning. -- I see a step change in digitalisation also, and am pressing for priority on a sea and land fibre optic cable project interrupted by the pandemic. With rainy season coming, road works need to be expedited. -- Another factor is emergence of credible treatments, the context in which my decision theory and phil background red flagged the gold standard fallacy. BAU vs ALT is a robust strategic choice and change framework, and it points to ways to exploit the BAU baseline, usually a slight modification of the usual way things get done. -- There is usually resistance to radical change, which requires power rebalance through participative empowerment. >> presumably some countries will ltake other approaches.>> -- Sweden, going for herd immunity driven by responsible behaviour. That depends on high social cohesiveness; the US has largely squandered the social capital of trust, especially in coastal urban centres. Hinterland communities would be different. That points to localisation. >> I dont’ know if the US has a plan for easing restrictions yet, so it’s a bit hard to know what’s going on with testing.>> -- There is talk, there is ALWAYS a high level simulation game going on in secret, playing out scenarios. In addition to computer modelling. KF kairosfocus

Kairosfocus: JVL, piling on. I just thought people would want to hear about a new, US report done with VA data. Surely that's significant. I didn't even comment on the report, I'll let the readers make up their own minds. That real world dilemma is utterly different from rhetoric designed to enable the utterly indefensible, holocaust. For shame! I wasn't defending or decrying abortion laws; I was trying to get Truthfreedom who incessantly asks inflammatory questions and often makes offensive and rude comments to answer a question posed to him (?). Truthfreedom, BobRyan and some others frequently lambast and denigrate those they disagree with; I'm not even close to their levels of rhetoric. As I've mentioned before: if there's a double standard at Uncommon Descent regarding participants behaviour so be it. If that's the case then make sure that is made clear for any new participants who want to jump in the pool. And if it's not the case then I respectfully ask that ALL participants are held to the same code of conduct, especially regarding the characterisations of others. JVL

KF, It's sort of true that once you get very far behind the epidemic testing isn't all that helpful. But getting back on top of it after a lockdown will require isolating the infected before they can spread it further, and this requires testing basically everyone with respiratory symptoms and all of the close-contacts of cases. That pre-supposes you attempt to suppress or eliminate the disease after lockdown, presumably some countries will ltake other approaches. I dont' know if the US has a plan for easing restrictions yet, so it's a bit hard to know what's going on with testing. orthomyxo

JVL (& EG), attempted moral dilemmas of that sort depend for any persuasive force, on the very primary duties they would undermine. They are fatally self contradictory like the dilemmas that malicious critics posed to Jesus, e.g. the woman caught in the act of adultery and publicly thrown down at his feet while he was teaching. The underlying attitude is its own refutation.. The sound approach is to start with basic principles, starting with, the quasi-infinite worth of the human person. In your artfully contrived example, you are trying to extend an utterly atypical case to enable the real typical case, taking the lives of our living posterity in the womb at will, constituting the worst -- and ongoing -- holocaust in history. Now, yes, one can face moral dilemmas where duties clash and one with decisional responsibility faces a calculus of infinities: loss of life is inevitable on either option. In such a real world context -- typically, an economically loaded choice of evils -- one finds some excuse [not justification] in seeking the least worst outcome. Such a case is ongoing, as any policy option once CV19 broke out will lead to loss of life, e.g. extend vs relax lockdowns, where deep recession implies massive loss of life including potentially by famine. That real world dilemma is utterly different from rhetoric designed to enable the utterly indefensible, holocaust. For shame! KF kairosfocus

JVL, piling on. Kindly note Dr Raoult's response. Here: https://www.mediterranee-infection.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Response-to-Magagnoli.pdf KF kairosfocus

From https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/04/more-reason-for-caution-with-malaria-drugs-as-covid-19-treatment/

A team of researchers used VHA data to track the outcomes of confirmed COVID-19 patients at veterans hospitals who were treated with just hydroxychloroquine, hydroxychloroquine plus an antibiotic, or neither of the drugs. They found that 27.8 percent of the 97 patients treated with just hydroxychloroquine died, compared to 11.4 percent of the 158 patients who weren’t treated with hydroxychloroquine at all, and 22.1 percent of the 113 patients who were treated with hydroxychloroquine and an antibiotic. Rates of ventilation were similar across the three groups.

JVL

Truthfreedom: Why won't you answer Ed George's question? Are you afraid to answer it honestly? A yes or no answer would be a lot easier than typing all those deflecting responses. Just in case you've forgotten what it was:

If a woman is pregnant and the fetus has a very small, but not zero, chance of viability, and continuing the pregnancy places the woman at a potential serious risk to her health, is it unethical and immoral for her to have it terminated?

JVL

JT & Ortho: The value of testing for CV19 has been over-hyped, rather as testing for HIV in some parts was. I once had to legally deal with an attempt to slip such testing in as a job criterion. I pointed out from news articles the confidentiality-stigmatisation challenge and a basic fact: five minutes after the test, my status, in principle, could change were I sufficiently reckless and disregarding of my life vows. CV19 testing is not all the way to being like that, but the reality is, infinite testing is infeasible, there is an implicit trade-off implying a marginal point where under prevailing circumstances of shortage and time-effort to develop, validate, make and distribute same then devote facilities, effort and time to test, accurately record and validate, process and report, testing beyond a given point is not reasonable. That is, we must ask, what is it that we are implicitly giving up when we insist on an increment in what we propose to do. Obviously, the marginal point moves with time and circumstances. Suspected cases are a first priority, to confirm. Though, it seems some clinicians may be adept at diagnosis on observation and interview. (There may be too much of a gold standard culture regarding lab testing.) In that context, contact tracing leads to further testing and to linked epidemiology. We know that detected cases and time consumed by mass testing means that a CV19 census at a snapshot in time is infeasible. So, testing to characterise population dynamics needs to be sampling based, projected to the population through demographic profiling. In this context antibody testing may be relevant to identifying asymptomatic cases. It seems that sort of testing lagged the PCR based direct testing for the virus. Of course, in a highly polarised political and media culture, this sort of reasoning on economics issues will predictably lead to mischaracterisation and projection of base motivation. We would be well advised to refrain from adding fuel to the dumpster fire. KF kairosfocus

@49 Ed George

Of course I don’t care about your opinion.

Then why are you insisting? You are a strange, illogical person. And a known and proud liar.

Do you honestly believe that anyone does?

Look. Grandpa is angry :) I do not know. Probably someone does care. :) Have you done a poll or something? Do you read minds? I have noticed that darwinists tend to do that. Which of course is non-sensical. People that say they are neuronal illusions. Please learn logic. For your own sake. Truthfreedom

@ Ed George

And then there is the US. A narcissistic president who is incapable of admitting any mistakes, and if mistakes were made, they were someone else’s.

Wait. A subjectivist claiming that narcissism is objectively wrong. No, a subjectivist can not do that. Therefore, it is an opinion. 7.2 billion people on Earth, each one with their own opinion. What a conundrum. Truthfreedom

TF

Please clarify: if you do not care about my opinion, why do you care?

Of course I don’t care about your opinion. Do you honestly believe that anyone does? But I like reading your comments for the same reason that people used to be fascinated by the freak shows at the circus. It’s a guilt pleasure of mine. You are just like Pavlov’s dogs. All I have to do to get you mindlessly salivating all over a thread is to ring a bell (ie, post a comment). Ed George

Orthomyxo, I suspect that JD is correct. The down side of ramping up testing is that the number of confirmed cases goes up. You can see this in Canada’s numbers as they get access to more tests. At present, Canada has tested 15% more of the population than the US has. It is also interesting to compare the leadership styles between the two countries. Canada has a liberal federal government that is only slightly right of Bernie. And several of the provinces currently have populist conservative governments. But they have largely left partisanship at the door and don’t play the blame game. The Ontario Premier is an ultra conservative but has accepted full accountability for anything that has gone wrong and given full credit to those who have done good things. And then there is the US. A narcissistic president who is incapable of admitting any mistakes, and if mistakes were made, they were someone else’s. There was a recent poll that asked if people thought that Trump’s presidency made other countries respect the US more or less. Maybe they should ask this of people in the other countries. Ed George

@Ed George

I always find it interesting (ie, hypocritical) when someone like TF lamely ridicules someone’s world view as being irrational but then can’t rationally justify his own.

More Lol! A subjectivist insinuating that hypocrisy is objectively wrong. Haha. Precious. You are self-refuting yourself again. You really need a logic course. No wonder you fall prey of fairy-tales. :) Truthfreedom

@Ed George

This is not a loaded question, or a hypothetical. It is a decision my daughter had to make yesterday.

Again: you are a known and proud liar. Again: which part of I do not believe your 'abortion tale' do not you understand? Are you sure you can comunicate with other human beings? 'I do not believe you' = 'I do not believe you'. Ad infinitum. Please clarify: if you do not care about my opinion, why do you care? How strange. :) You are an endorphin booster. You write 3 sentences and contradict yourself 3 times. Truthfreedom

JT

Lotta tap dancing, but no answer.

Fred Astaire would be proud. I always find it interesting (ie, hypocritical) when someone like TF lamely ridicules someone’s world view as being irrational but then can’t rationally justify his own. Ed George

@Ortho Trump only ever cares about one thing, how he looks, and he doesn’t want the numbers to go up. Jim Thibodeau

JT @ 32, The lack of extra testing is a bit odd to me. The safest way to get back to something like normality is to have a lot of testing around cases to track and isolate only the ill. It's not at all clear to me that the US is in a place to implement that (though maybe that's not the plan they have, or they ar holding reagents in hand to ramp up after lockdown end ?). orthomyxo

Lotta tap dancing, but no answer. Jim Thibodeau

TF

I’ll repeat it again: I do not believe your ‘abortion tale’.

I guess that is a convenient way to avoid answering a question.

You are a known and proud liar.

We are all entitled to hold false opinions. So I will rephrase my question. If a woman is pregnant and the fetus has a very small, but not zero, chance of viability, and continuing the pregnancy places the woman at a potential serious risk to her health, is it unethical and immoral for her to have it terminated? This is not a loaded question, or a hypothetical. It is a decision my daughter had to make yesterday. Ed George

@33 Ed George

TF, I understand if your stance on abortion can’t hold up to scrutiny. That is always the case for those who believe that abortion, regardless of the reason, is unethical and immoral.

I'll repeat it again: I do not believe your 'abortion tale'. You are a known and proud liar. And again: you do not understand logic. It is patently, brutally, ridiculously obvious. Lots of darwinians are awfully bad at logic. You swallow senseless garbage without thinking, because you can not properly use logic. You, a subjectivist, are making an objective claim. But that refutes your position, therefore it is only your opinion. And a subjectivist using the word 'always'... I've really burst out laughing. Thanks for the endorphin boost. Look my friend, 7.2 billion people on Earth, and each of them with their own opinion. Go figure how much I care about 'subjectivity' :) Truthfreedom

That's all easy one, FF. It doesn't. orthomyxo

How come Santa Clara county, CA which is much less densely populated than NYC, and with no real mass transit to speak of, has an infection rate of around 21% compared to 14% in NYC? Doesn't make sense. NYC officials are lying about something. Some unscrupulous people will benefit from a prolonged lockdown. FourFaces

FF

Where did you get the 25% infection rate number from?

Just a reasonable extrapolation from the antibody tests that suggest that the NY infection rate is around 14%. And that is with isolation practices in place. A slow decline and a couple small waves will easily bring this to 25%.

The death rate decreases automatically at the the number of infected people goes up due to herd immunity.

But not until the number of people immune gets much higher that 25%. Ed George

Herd immunity and IFR are not related, herd immunity is just the level where outbreaks are only local and burn out due to lack of hosts. For this virus, and with no mitigation, we'd need about 66% immune to get there (but more than that would get infected, as herd immunity doesn't stop the virus, just slow it to less then 1 new infection per case) orthomyxo

TF, I understand if your stance on abortion can’t hold up to scrutiny. That is always the case for those who believe that abortion, regardless of the reason, is unethical and immoral. If your daughter was in the same position as mine (ie, very low probability of carrying it to term along with a potential serious risk to herself), would it be unethical and immoral to want to have it terminated? Ed George

@Orthomyxo We’ve been stuck at 135,000 to 150,000 daily tests for the last three weeks. It’s very clear that the administration doesn’t want people to be tested. Incredibly stupid and destructive. Jim Thibodeau

Ed George Where did you get the 25% infection rate number from? The infection rate is estimated to be about 4 or 5% at this time. The death rate decreases automatically at the the number of infected people goes up due to herd immunity. FourFaces

@Ed I don’t think your friend has a good answer for you. That’s why he’s dodging. Jim Thibodeau

I don't think that's true, much of the coverage has been about how bad the testing has been, which implies undetected cases and inflated IFR. As I show above, an IFR 0.5% could easily translate to a million deaths in the US in an uncontrolled epidemic. orthomyxo

@25 Ed George Again: 1. You are a known and proud liar. 2. I do not believe any of your stories. Thefore I do not believe this 'abortion tale' of yours. 3. You say you never care about what I write but now you seem very interested. How strange. :) 4. You think morals are what 'most people agree on'. Therefore, according to your religion, you should make a poll to know if your have behaved 'immorally' or not. I will copy again what I wrote @15:

Talk about the unborn being expendable is unethical and immoral, however and should not be allowed to pass unchallenged.

Truthfreedom

FF

It’s criminal. The actual COVID-19 death rate is probably less than .5%.

But even at that, assuming a 25% infection rate, that is close to a half million dead in the US. Ed George

Orthomyxo, I know that the confirmed death rate is not really relevant but the 4 to 7% COVID-19 confirmed death rate is what the lying globalist mainstream media have been using to whip up panic. It's criminal. The actual COVID-19 death rate is probably less than .5%. FourFaces

TF

How strange that you are ‘very thankful’ since you said you do not support abortion.

If it wasn’t terminated, my daughter would have been put at serious potential health risk. To me, the best choice was obvious. Again, do you think this makes me Or my daughter immoral? In this case I certainly believe that the fetus was expendable. In your mind, I assume this obviously makes me unethical and immoral. Is this correct? Ed George

FourFaces, That sounds like a plausable number of confirmed cases, but it's not very relevant to the IFR since so many people who get the flu are not tested. Indeed, you can't even get a consistent IFR because the most of the people in ~24,000 deaths wouldn't have been tested either. orthomyxo

@22 Ed George

I don’t know. My daughter had a chemically induced termination yesterday and I am very thankful that she did. Does that make me immoral.?

How strange that you are 'very thankful' since you said you do not support abortion. Sounds extremely weird, but you are a known and proud liar, therefore I am not surprised. And you care about my opinion because? Are not you the person that says you always forget what I write? Do you need a moral guide, Ed? Truthfreedom

The CDC seems to be hiding their confirmed flu case data for some reason. I remember looking at the weekly figures on March 21 and they had reported 242,330 confirmed flu cases for the season with approximately 24,000 deaths. I wrote it down. This gives you a confirmed death rate at the time of about 10%. Now, I can no longer find the total numbers on their site. FourFaces

TF

Talk about the unborn being expendable is unethical and immoral, however and should not be allowed to pass unchallenged.

I don’t know. My daughter had a chemically induced termination yesterday and I am very thankful that she did. Does that make me immoral.? Ed George

A recommendation to open the country

New antibody tests for SARS-CoV-2 are providing better estimates of the mortality rate of COVID-19. Prior to serology testing, the prevalence of novel-coronavirus infection was calculated to be only 0.26% in the US with a mortality rate of 5.60%. Serology tests, however, now show the infection prevalence to be far higher with a calculated mortality rate of about 0.18%. With age-selective quarantining in combination with widespread testing, telemedicine consultations and early treatment with hydroxychloroquine, azithromycin and zinc, the mortality rate could be reduced to 0.03%. By instituting these measures, the projected number of deaths moving forward could be fewer than the number of deaths in the flu season of 2017-2018.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vT4I4Ls6RAsDqSaKBVIdLPIKFNs7tbWWzZ3eP1NrNltiiZqmUHK-rPDLxeN2qvt0es1S-v6jP29S_T1/pub Guaranteed to get one side of the political spectrum even more deranged. They will try to ensure this or anything close to it never sees the light of day. Will they all end up in TDS or in Total Deranged Syndrome. jerry

21% in New York City could be a legitimate number. That’s way outside of the false positive rates on typical lab tests, whereas the earlier 2 to 4% numbers were not. Some standard lab tests can throw false positives higher than that. Jim Thibodeau

Oh, that's not a death rate by flu. that's a survelience stat that the CDC uses to track flu. Because so few tests are done for flu, it would not be possible to track it from tests/death certificates alone. Instead, they keep track of the poportion of deaths occurring from pneumonia (including fungal and bacterial) and those with flu in the death certificate, if you see an uptick you looking at an epidemic of flu (with many deaths being recorded as pneumonia). The very high number at the moment is more evidence for the impact of covid-19, where lots of deaths are being coded as pneumonia (less than 5% of the most recent weeks data are flu, and it's not clear if any of those are accompanied by a test). I don't know enough about teh CDC stats gathering to know if that's also evidence for undercounting covid-19 deaths (they might be both pneumonia and covid-19), but it's clear from that graph how much worse than a seasonal flu season this is. orthomyxo

I can't find the CDC numbers for the current season for some reason but I found the confirmed flu death rate for last week and it's high (11.9%) compared to the normal epidemic threshold of 7.0%. "According to the CDC, Based on National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) mortality surveillance data available on April 16, 2020, 11.9% of the deaths occurring during the week ending April 11, 2020 (week 15) were due to P&I. This percentage is above the epidemic threshold of 7.0% for week 15." https://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/#S2 FourFaces

I would like to see the study with the confirmed IFR for the flu, but so few are tested for that virus it's not a useful stat. Any claim that death tolls in NYC are inflated needs to explain the huge spike in mortality in the city this month https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/21/world/coronavirus-missing-deaths.html orthomyxo

Seversky

Talk about the elderly or the chronically ill being expendable is unethical and immoral, however and should not be allowed to pass unchallenged.

We do agree. Can we agree too to the following?

Talk about the unborn being expendable is unethical and immoral, however and should not be allowed to pass unchallenged.

Truthfreedom

Orthomyxo @12 IMO, the estimated IFR for COVID-19 is no higher than the seasonal flu. The CDC and other parties went out of their way to inflate the number of COVID deaths. The huge discrepancy between the California and NY estimated IFR is a clue that something fishy is going on. Moreover, the confirmed fatality rate for flu is 10% so far for this season compared to about 4 or 5% for COVID-19. FourFaces

Barry, I don't know if you are paying attention, but there are already an order of magnitude more deaths in the US the you were almost certain would represent an upper bound a month ago. Meanwhile,I said the true IFR might be 0.66% on this comment at the start of April https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/pass-me-a-corona-ii/#comment-697228. Today we have this study suggesting 0.5%, hardly a huge correction. orthomyxo

Four faces, The IFR I mentioned above is the infection fatality rate (probability of dying if infected) and a crude one reported in the news story is 0.5%. likely a bit low because of undercount of deaths and the long time from infection to death for some cases. That's 5x the oft quoted (high) estimate for a flu. Also, thanks to vaccines, existing immunity and low reproductive rate only a small proportion of high risk people get the flu in any season. In an uncontrolled covid 19 epidemic you might well have 80% of people infected (66% gets you to herd immunity, but people infected when they threshold is passed still transmit the disease, just to fewer than one person on average). So at this IFR you would expect more than million deaths in the US without interventions (and not considering flow on effects to hospital care) orthomyxo

I knew I could count on Orthomyxo to respond to his cue.

I’m not sure when I’ve called for hysteria or panic (or in fact any action at all), all I’ve tried to do is make the scale of this threat clear.

The answer to your comment lies in your comment. You have been trying to convince everyone the scale of the threat is several orders of magnitude greater than it is, which is equivalent to inciting hysteria and panic. At least you did not respond with "data is not data because I say so" like you did last time. Barry Arrington

In other words, there was no need for a lockdown and the destruction of the economy and millions of livelihoods. They could have simply isolated the at-risk population and treated them with prophylactic drugs. The globalists lost Russia gate, the impeachment hoax and the increasingly irrelevant climate change scam. But they seem to have won the plandemic. It's evil. FourFaces

I don't see them calling for panic and hysteria but COVID-19 does need to be taken a lot more seriously than just another 'flu strain. What also needs to be taken a lot more seriously also is the economic damage being caused by the mitigation measures. We need to find ways of re-opening the economy in ways which do not put other lives at risk unnecessarily. Talk about the elderly or the chronically ill being expendable is unethical and immoral, however and should not be allowed to pass unchallenged. Seversky

"I’m not sure when I’ve called for hysteria or panic (or in fact any action at all), all I’ve tried to do is make the scale of this threat clear." Orthomyxo, Why do you feel this is your responsibility and why do you think your opinion about it is superior to anyone else's? Andrew asauber

You can't assess a study, or even a bunch of them, without seeing the methodological details. I will say, the two major problems with sero surveys are false positives (when a disease is rare false positives can be more common than true positives even for a test with very high accuracy) and sample bias. A study in the worst effected place is less likely to suffer from the false positive problem, so that might be less of an issue here. Sample recruitment remains an issue, and until we know the details of that we can't assess the quality of this study. This result seems quite at odds with the California ones though. 2.7 million infections would give an. IFR of around 0.5% for the state (biased downwards due to underreporting and lag from infection to death) considerably higher than the implied IFR in the Californian studies . We'll have to wait until we get details of these studies to know which, if any, is right, but there dors seem like they can't all be. I'm not sure when I've called for hysteria or panic (or in fact any action at all), all I've tried to do is make the scale of this threat clear. Given you one thought it was almost certain fewer than 5000 Americans would die from this, I thibk that's not a bad thing. orthomyxo

Aaron. I did. The data is starting to become overwhelming. We've been sold a bill of goods. Barry Arrington

@BA Did you see my link in the “who send this” post AaronS1978

Ed George:

Maybe I have missed something . . .

Apparently you have. Jim Thibodeau and Orthomyxo have pushed back hard at the previous three studies with similar findings. Barry Arrington

We don't even need to inquire about how good or bad or conclusive or inconclusive or robust or not robust the science is. The narrative defeats everything. Andrew asauber

Maybe I have missed something but has anyone seriously suggested that the number of reported cases is not underestimating the true number of infections? I thought the contested issue was whether or not the number of deaths attributed to COVID was an accurate reflection of reality. Ed George

I expect Orthomyxo to say something like "To me that really amounts to no data," which is how he has previously dismissed data that challenge his confirmation bias. Barry Arrington