Posted on 04/23/2020 3:01:32 PM PDT by sickoflibs
Nothing you are going to read is going to be a big shock to you if you’ve been paying any attention at all over the past two months. We’ve seen outrageous restrictions imposed upon personal mobility and activity and businesses shuttered, many of them forever, based on an ill-thought-out scheme of remedies that may work in an experimental setting but have never been tested or validated on a large scale.
The problems are threefold. First, we don’t understand the pathogen. Since it first emerged, we have had the initial assurances from our experts that it was no big deal morph into it being some kind of Black Plague on steroids, to it is bad but not terrible. Second, driven by the modelers and the experts, political leaders have been stampeded into taking the most draconian measures imaginable under the circumstances because they don’t want to be blamed for a single death and they lack the guts to call bullsh** on what are obviously bullsh** projections. Third, because there is no logical off-ramp to the hysteria, the modelers, the experts, and the politicians have to dig in and extend the illegal measures they have adopted as long as possible in the hope that the virus recedes naturally as the heat and humidity of summer approach.
Now, as we get more information, it becomes increasingly obvious that virtually nothing we have done to ourselves matters. The author of the post is Dr. Wilfred Reilly of Kentucky State University. His academic specialty is subjecting political claims to empirical testing.
The question the model set out to ask was whether lockdown states experience fewer Covid-19 cases and deaths than social-distancing states, adjusted for all of the above variables. The answer? No. The impact of state-response strategy on both my cases and deaths measures was utterly insignificant. The ‘p-value’ for the variable representing strategy was 0.94 when it was regressed against the deaths metric, which means there is a 94 per cent chance that any relationship between the different measures and Covid-19 deaths was the result of pure random chance.
The only variable to be statistically significant in terms of cases and deaths was population (p=0.006 and 0.021 respectively). Across the US states, each increase in the population of 100,000 correlated with 1,779 additional Covid-19 cases, even with multiple other factors adjusted for. Large, densely populated areas are more likely to struggle with Covid-19, no matter what response strategy they adopt – although erring on the side of caution might make sense for global megacities such as New York and Chicago.
(You can request the dataset for the regression model here, something the clown from Imperial College that set off this nonsense will not do.)
If you have followed my posts on the subject, this is not an unusual finding because fatalities, from all causes, in the United States were already below expectations even before the imposition of ‘social distancing’ measures.
If one looks at Europe, Sweden, which has done nothing heroic, is about the same as its Scandinavian neighbors and much, much lower than many countries that have basically put themselves in a lockbox.
Again, there is very little evidence that Sweden has become an unlivable Covid-19 hotbed. As of 17 April, Sweden’s Covid-19 statistics were: 13,216 total cases, 1,400 total deaths, 1,309 cases per million and 139 deaths per million. In terms of cases per million residents, Sweden ranks slightly ahead of its close neighbours, Denmark (1,221) and Norway (1,274). But in Europe as a whole, Sweden ranks 23rd in terms of cases per million and 10th in terms of deaths per million.
The only defense of the ‘social distancing’ and lockdown strategies is the old leftist fallback of ‘heads-I-win-tails-you-lose.” If any of the metrics associated with Wuhan virus go down, it is because the appropriate measures were implemented in a timely fashion. The increase before the extraordinary methods was due to those methods not having been imposed. No thought is given to the equally possible reason that nothing anyone did had any effect and the virus simply ran its course. When we try to go back to normal and get hit by the ‘second wave,’ the cause will be because we abandoned the lockdown too soon, not that viral infections tend to run in waves, like, for instance, the two flu seasons we have each year.
As I’ve said way too many times, what is really at stake here is your liberty, your freedom. None of these measures matter in regards to the Wuhan virus pandemic. Not to be callous, but the very fact that the death rate was going down in the US before the virus struck, and has continued to decline, indicates that the overwhelming majority of those dying from Wuhan virus were going to die of some other infection because of existing morbidities and risk factors.
In an attempt to ‘do something,’ we’ve been successful beyond our wildest imagination, it just isn’t the something we’d hoped to accomplish.
Just don't say 'China'.
Only in science fiction stories can we see what parallel universes look like.
The entire premise of this article is pro CHICOM propaganda BS.
Go look up Sweden. They will tell you they didn’t need to impose social distancing because they already practice the kind of social distancing that drives their society to be suicidal.
CDC/NIH/FDA:
We’re from the government and we’ve come to “help” you.
That people who think socialism can work are helping make decisions?
Part of this argument is pretty ignorant. Clearly the social distancing, mask, gloves, is reducing the transmission of infections. Even the flu is down substantially as a result. Is it worth the cost, history will provide an answer eventually.
Yes. It’s been a month. Things are clearer now.
Lockdown did nothing.
It kills very old and obese, diabetic high blood pressure people.
It spreads where there’s mass transit.
It will spread if these areas if not blocked from people speaking it from there.
The entire eastern seaboard from Boston to DC has be one a hotbed thanks to Bew York City.
Given how many people are cowering in their homes right now, I wonder how this country ever managed to liberate Europe...twice? Clearly we’ve lost a step or ten thousand since then.
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result
“The entire premise of this article is pro CHICOM propaganda BS.”
Can you explain this assertion?
Agreed
Wait you want to know why a country that switches the presidency between one of two parties every 8 years like the freaking tide and complaining about the results incessantly can’t stop doing the same thing over and over?
Outside the snark with the 2 week rev time of 19 it’s really hard to tell which measures are doing anything. You could put everybody in a bubble today but it wouldn’t change the infection rate until the first week of May.
Prove it. The fact is there is no way you could control for all the other variables to prove this.
Don’t know about cowering...while we would be in Tucson at this very day at the Pima County Fair...instead We are home today. What did we do? mowed down one of the pastures. (We have five acres and the tractor mower broke down yikes) And dug a bed for a garden.
Why am I planting a garden? Because if I do... then we will be able to go out and still have a summer season of fairs and the garden will go to seed, (literally)...but if I don’t plant a garden and instead wait around for something to happen...then nothing will happen.
So...cowering...no. Want to stay healthy, yes, we fill some of the check boxes....but we need to work in an industry that will be the last to open.
Prove it.
Been to grocery store lately? Been to my workplace lately?
People are only “social distancing” on the news.
There’s no way “social distancing” reduced the numbers from 2.2 million to 60,000.
This is all politics and will be remembered through history as the biggest steaming pile of bullshit ever foisted on the world, and it’s being enable by people such as yourself.
Because Andrew Cuomo said so, and *sigh* he’s soooooo dreamy
“Prove it.”
Ask someone why the outcome in South Dakota is better than Michigan, even though in Michigan, the distancing rules are so much more draconian. The moment they say “there are other factors to consider”, they’ve made your point.
His voice is like nails on a chalkboard to me. The mere sound of it makes me want to puke, the disingenuous bastard.
“The fact is there is no way you could control for all the other variables to prove this.”
And the paper pushers and the martinets know this. They’re in can’t lose situation, especially when they have the scum media cheerleading for their cause. They won’t come to reality until they start losing their cushy jobs and the economic realities hit them squarely in the face. The way it’s going, that’s not too far off.
Amen
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.