The Evidence Is Coming In: Virus Experts May Have Been Badly Wrong

The Revolutionary Act ^ | 04/16/2020

[Liberty7732]

It’s looking more like the experts got the handling of COVID-19 wrong. Maybe really wrong.

In analyzing the data from countries who took dramatically different measures in response to COVID-19, from the most severe restrictions to very few restrictions (countries that keep and share good data, not China or Iran) it appears they are all showing essentially the same spread, spikes, flattening and decline. This includes Sweden and others that did not shutdown.

The same phenomenon is playing out among individual states in the U.S. Some went into Stalinist lockdowns (Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer) while others never locked down at all and only encouraged social distancing (South Dakota Gov. Krist Noem.) Florida technically did a lockdown, very “late” as Gov. Ron DeSantis is constantly lectured, but even then DeSantis exempted so much it was really not much different than the voluntary social distancing. And Florida’s numbers, which were supposed to be the next hotspot after New York, are tracking ballpark with those that took the most draconian measures.

So again, as with nations, the states are at different timeframes on the graphs, but all looking very similar in a timeframe to timeframe comparison — similar to each other and, this is critical, similar to previous coronavirus outbreaks. That’s a head-scratcher.

Another data set is adding to the suspicions.

Denmark, Scotland and Germany have done thorough antibody testing in specific locals and found infection rates between 12 and 27 times higher than they thought and models had projected. And a majority of the people were either asymptomatic or had very mild symptoms. This means that the death rate might be wildly lower than is currently suggested, as low as 0.2 percent — which would be very near to the normal flu. It could be close to 1 percent, but that is seeming less likely now, and still way below the 3.4 percent the World Health Organization put out that was used in the Imperial College projections of death totals.

“Many magnitudes more people have been infected with it than we realized,” Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, professor of medicine at Stanford university, said on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show. “That means the death rate is lower than we thought, by orders of magnitude.”

It’s important to remember that because it is so contagious, the overall numbers may be higher, but then they may not be because of how quickly the peak is reached and the downside starts — much faster than anticipated even with the full lockdowns. Again, that is according to the models.

None of this was jiving with what the experts had said.

And then journalist John Solomon interviewed Dr. Knut Wittkowski, a biomedical researcher, statistician and modeler at Rockefeller University in New York, on his Just The News podcast. And a lot of bewilderment came into clarity. The numbers began making sense if, IF, Wittkowski is right.

First off, he is obviously an expert, but he also is a major outlier among the expert class. However, he mentions in the interview that more and more of his colleagues are agreeing with him and his bottom line, to wit: We not only did not need to shut down economies, we should not have. We may have made it worse by creating a second wave — which coronaviruses in the past did not have.

Wittkkowski said the first big mistake was closing the schools. If they had been left open, it would have gone through the children, who are least affected by the virus, and their parents, who also have low impacts from it. That’s a big way towards herd immunity of 60-70 percent. And the people who are vulnerable to it should stay away from children for the duration, which is a few months.

He said the threat continues to be for the elderly and those with underlying health conditions — something we’ve known almost from the beginning. In that way, he said it is just like all of the previous respiratory viruses such as MERS and SARS. They all differ some in both contagiousness and fatality rate, but the similarities are strong.

Here’s the key: Wittkowski said the shut down probably did not slow the spread because herd immunity would have started kicking in now, or soon, as has been the case in the previous coronavirus outbreaks. However, by truncating the opportunity for herd immunity, we have set ourselves up for the feared “second wave” — something that did not happen in previous coronaviruses because we did not prevent herd immunity with the shutdown.

If Wittkowski is right, at least to some degree, these shutdowns may well have destroyed the strongest economy in history and ultimately made the virus impact worse. That would be a failing of the expert class in truly epic fashion.

Now I do not blame politicians from either party without more information. They relied on experts and did what they were told they should do. DeSantis and some other governors pushed back, but the pressure was great. However, I do blame the experts and the media’s near idolatry of the expert class. Just do what they say!

In reality, we will know by probably mid fall if the expert class made a colossal mistake. And if so, a lot of heads should roll, because mistakes of this magnitude cannot be tolerated.

[exDemMom]

This article is so full of misinformation that I don't even know where to begin. It would take hours to go through point by point and post correct information.

I will address just a couple of points that jumped out at me:

Denmark, Scotland and Germany have done thorough antibody testing in specific locals and found infection rates between 12 and 27 times higher than they thought and models had projected.

Antibody tests are still going through regulatory approval. That means that their manufacturers have to show a certain level of both specificity (is the antibody test picking up Covid-19 and not other related virus antibodies) and sensitivity (how much antibody can it pick up). The thing is, this is cold season and a lot of people tend to get colds in the winter. Since coronaviruses are responsible for many colds, how do we know that those researchers are not just detecting the number of people who have had common colds this winter?

Antibody test.
This picture is a typical antibody test that I performed in graduate school. On this test, I separated each of the proteins that the antibody grabbed. I had to put arrows to specify which proteins I was actually looking for, versus the ones the antibodies grabbed that I have no idea what they are. In an antibody test of the type used in disease diagnostics, the proteins are not separated out. So all of those black lines would be condensed into a single spot. How can you tell that the spot is specifically Covid-19 or something else, like a common cold virus?

Now, as for the infection rate. Modeling for a 12-27 fold higher rate of infection would mean that its R nought would be from 30 to 67.5--which is just not biologically plausible. As far as I know, measles is the most contagious disease known, and its R nought is between 12 and 18 (Covid-19 is somewhere from 2 to 7; I use 2.5 for my calculations). Measles is so contagious because it spreads through aerosols that remain in the air up to 2 hours; Covid-19 spreads through droplets, meaning that you have to be directly in the path of a cough or sneeze, or touch a surface contaminated with fresh droplets and touch your face to catch it.

Anyway, it is very time consuming to go through each non-fact in this article. The fact that these two items are so wrong is a pretty good indication of the validity of the entire article.

[DiogenesLamp]

According to this chart, Sweden is having 132 deaths per million in population. The USA is only having 101 deaths per million population.

And we are supposed to believe Sweden is doing better than us?

[DiogenesLamp]

you can’t rely on any numbers because each state seems to count in a different way....take NYC for example....they’re counting without even a test....

During the 1916 flu, they didn't do tests either. They counted bodies, and figured they died from the flu. I think that was a pretty fair guess.

[DiogenesLamp]

Boston’s Pine Street Inn - essentially a homeless shelter for street bums - test 146 residents and all 146 residents tested positive. All were asymptomatic. This implies that at the 95% confidence level, survival rates are close to 98%. The chances of tossing 146 heads in 146 tries with coin that comes up heads 98% of the time is only 5.2%.

Saw a video of a Doctor discussing this term "asymptomatic" the other day. He points out that everyone is asymptomatic" until they develop symptoms, and that can be anywhere from 12 days up to 28 days.

Have these bums been without symptoms for 28 days?

[NobleFree]

0.5% mortality is still 5 tomes greater than the flu.

[NobleFree]

During the 1916 flu, they didn't do tests either. They counted bodies, and figured they died from the flu. I think that was a pretty fair guess.

My wife relays her grandmother's story of lying in a window seat recovering from the flu in 1916 and watching bodies being carried from the houses along the street. (Gave her nightmares for the rest of her life.)

[clearcarbon]

"The Evidence Is Coming In: Virus Experts May Have Been Badly Wrong"

It's been an accelerated version of the global warming fraud.

[NobleFree]

“Out of the people from Pine Street Inn who were isolated after positive test results, O’Connell says, one ended up in the hospital and some developed mild cold symptoms.” - https://www.wbur.org/commonhealth/2020/04/15/boston-homeless-population-coronavirus-asymptomatic-universal-testing

[DiogenesLamp]

That would have been a horrifying thing to have gone through. I’ve been noticing that many of us newer generations have simply not seen the horrors which the past generations have seen.

[DiogenesLamp]

“Out of the people from Pine Street Inn who were isolated after positive test results, O’Connell says, one ended up in the hospital and some developed mild cold symptoms.” - https://www.wbur.org/commonhealth/2020/04/15/boston-homeless-population-coronavirus-asymptomatic-universal-testing

Here is one of the most significant statements in the article.

"The testing happened a week and a half ago at Pine Street Inn."

I've read that symptoms present at earliest a week after infection, but typically between 14 and 28 days.

If the bums are still going strong after a couple more weeks, then I think the previous assertion is decently supported. Right now I think it's too early to say for sure.

[Wuli]

Either number is based on very imperfect, very as yet numbers, which mean not so much until an epidemic has run it’s course.

My guess is that since we have done more to shelter folks from joining herd immunity with mild cases this year, when a second wave arrives this fall it will be bigger here than it will be in places like Sweden, and by Spring of 2021 Sweden’s cumulative death rate will not be worse than the U.S.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

I was going off a Fox25 news report. Still, encouraging.