Oh, and don’t forget the media.
And politicians.
I know I asked the QOTW earlier today but I wanted to add this paper for your reading education.
Don’t panic I’ll offer some quotes.
“If you have a COVID-19 patient in your household, your risk of developing the infection is about 10%….If you were casually exposed to the virus in the workplace (e.g., you were not locked up in conference room for six hours with someone who was infected [like a hospital]), your chance of infection is about 0.5%”
And the key take on that,
According to Dr. Auwaerter, these transmission rates are very similar to the seasonal flu.
Newer analysis suggests that this viral rate is declining. According to Nobel Laureate and biophysicist Michael Levitt, the infection rate is declining –
“Every coronavirus patient in China infected on average 2.2 people a day — spelling exponential growth that can only lead to disaster. But then it started dropping, and the number of new daily infections is now close to zero.” He compared it to interest rates again: “even if the interest rate keeps dropping, you still make money. The sum you invested does not lessen, it just grows more slowly. When discussing diseases, it frightens people a lot because they keep hearing about new cases every day. But the fact that the infection rate is slowing down means the end of the pandemic is near.”
So is the lock down really necessary?
I feel the author hits the nail on the head with his recommendations (Read the article) especially this,
Local governments and politicians are inflicting massive harm and disruption with little evidence to support their draconian edicts. Every local government is in a mimetic race to one-up each other in authoritarian city ordinances to show us who has more “abundance of caution”. Politicians are competing, not on more evidence or more COVID-19 cures but more caution. As unemployment rises and families feel unbearably burdened already, they feel pressure to “fix” the situation they created with even more radical and “creative” policy solutions. This only creates more problems and an even larger snowball effect. The first place to start is to stop killing the patient and focus on what works.
Stay healthy my friends.
Update.
The original article link goes to a page no longer there. Curious as they say. It can still be reached through a cached page but there is a link that is working.
Here is the message found at Instapundit.
THE PURPOSE OF STATISTICS IS INSIGHT, NOT NUMBERS: Evidence over hysteria — COVID-19.
I haven’t checked every number but they look plausible in the main, and match what people like Anthony Fauci are saying about things like case-fatality ratio.
Update (From Ed): After numerous flame wars on Twitter, Medium is now showing at the above URL an otherwise white page that reads “ERROR 410 This post is under investigation or was found in violation of the Medium Rules.”
However, the article can now be found at the (now Twitter-banned) Zero Hedge.
(Updated and bumped.)
“Every coronavirus patient in China infected on average 2.2 people a day — spelling exponential growth that can only lead to disaster. But then it started dropping, and the number of new daily infections is now close to zero.”
ummm….right. Because they locked that region down.
Remember as Trump said HE was not locking anything down. The Federal government is issuing guidelines to the states, and the governors of those states can either use or not use those guidelines. The Federal government has no power to enforce “lockdowns”. They haven’t even halted domestic air travel.
Texas for example is under “stay home if you can” REQUEST. New York and California are on lockdown. Governors decide on a state by state basis what to do….and let’s face it governors of a certain political bent are going to pick more authoritarian measures than others.
But as I said, we all have to ask ourselves if we think this inconvenience is all worth the the lives saved. I’m not saying that it is or isn’t. Just saying that that’s the question.
Let’s just all be glad Bloomberg isn’t in charge of anything today outside of a newspaper that chose to run an article warning people that the medication that looks promising in the treatment of this thing can kill you if you take a lethal dose.
“…is all worth the the lives saved.”
How is that any different than ‘who will think of the children!’
If we are going to allow the question to be driven by a metric that can’t be measured then why do we bother at all? If it saves just one life gives those in power all the power they need to save every life but yours.
My point exactly. Who will think of the children….when their mothers decide they’d rather not have the inconvenience of carrying them to term.
Who will think of the old people….when some younger healthier person decides it’s not worth the inconvenience of staying home to protect them. As Bloomberg said- hey, they’re old. They had a nice life.
I’m just trying to maintain some sort of consistency of thought.
Ideally we leave everyone alone and they’ll just do the right thing without government getting involved.
I find both situations equally inconvenient. Inconvenient enough to let people die? Ask me in another week.
This could certainly solve our Social Security problem.
Ma, ma, ma, my corona……………
Linked Article got memory-holed….
410
This post is under investigation or was found in violation of the Medium Rules.
Cached version still available. I think I can get a different host.
Updated.