Inaccurate Virus Models Are Panicking Officials Into Ill-Advised Lockdowns

The Federalist ^ | March 25, 2020 | Madeline Osburn

[Kaslin]

How a handful of Democratic activists created alarming, but bogus data sets to scare local and state officials into making rash, economy-killing mandates.

---

As U.S. state and local officials halt the economy and quarantine their communities over the Wuhan virus crisis, one would hope our leaders were making such major decisions based on well-sourced data and statistical analysis. That is not the case.

A scan of statements made by media, state governors, local leaders, county judges, and more show many relying on the same source, an online mapping tool called COVID Act Now. The website says it is “built to enable political leaders to quickly make decisions in their Coronavirus response informed by best available data and modeling.”

An interactive map provides users a catastrophic forecast for each state, should they wait to implement COVID Act Now’s suggested strict measures to “flatten the curve.” But a closer look at how many of COVID Act Now’s predictions have already fallen short, and how they became a ubiquitous resource across the country overnight, suggests something more sinister.

When Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins announced a shelter-in-place order on Dallas County Sunday, he displayed COVID Act Now graphs with predictive outcomes after three months if certain drastic measures are taken. The NBC Dallas affiliate also embedded the COVID Act Now models in their story on the mandate.

The headline of an NBC Oregon affiliate featured COVID Act Now data, and a headline blaring, “Coronavirus model sees Oregon hospitals overwhelmed by mid-April.” Both The Oregonian and The East Oregonian also published stories featuring the widely shared data predicting a “point of no return.”

[HollyB]

I agree. Also, I don’t look at deaths. But, at hospitalizations. Those people are on vents fighting for their lives. It’s one thing to have a cough. It’s a whole other thing to be very ill.

[SandwicheGuy]

No, you posted BS. You say it is interesting... Yeah, to a proctologist, which very few are.

i'm so tired of listening to all this stuff about the coronavirus and how it's killing everybody when basically people die for many reasons but now let's call it coronavirus... it's all BS. That's what your chart indicates, we are all gonna' die. Sure. Whatever.

[MV=PY]

Wow.

I hope you get to feeling better soon.

[anton]

Mmmm, more accurate than total cases but not as accurate as hospital inpatient admissions. Because Hospice, nursing homes and EMT’s chart cause of death based on admission or anecdotal diagnosis. When a person is admitted to a SNF for heart failure with a 20%EF and dies there with the flu, its not a Covid 19 death. But, every Covid 19 bed admission in a general hospital is diagnosed first.

[familyop]

In re. your comment #22, the number of New York deaths might be higher than 1,200 on the 6th. Looks like reporting is lagging there now, maybe because they're uncommonly busy.

For the whole U.S., the numbers are starting to skyrocket.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019%E2%80%9320_coronavirus_pandemic#Epidemiology

[familyop]

"I wonder how long the virus persists on a mask. If they could be left unused for a period of time then reused, that could help, especially for the layman."

For days.

For homemade masks only:

After replacing each mask on the face, touch only the strings or bands to take the old mask off, and put it in a bag. Seal the bag as well as possible.

When home, drop the masks (and your clothing) directly from the bag into a tub of hot water and plenty of laundry detergent outside. Put a lid on the tub. Leave the shoes outside if possible, or someplace outside of your indoor living spaces. Go directly to the shower.

Make sure that the masks are very thoroughly, repeatedly rinsed with warm water after washing in order to avoid allergic reactions to the laundry detergent. Dry the masks thoroughly (preferably in a dryer or by hanging in the sun).

The material for the homemade masks should be boiled before sewing the masks, by the way, to make sure that the completed masks will fit snugly to the face all around after washing later on.

[familyop]

Madeline, the evil plot to overpopulate the world with unwashed masses is one vast conspiracy perpetrated by everyone else against you. It’s all a conspiracy, you know—everything!

[familyop]

If you doubt that laundry detergent will kill enough of the virus in the masks, you can do this. Get a large pot with a lid. Bring water in it to a slight boil (~212 F, if not at some unearthly high altitude). Turn the heat off under the pot and immediately drop the masks into the pot directly from the bag without touching the masks. Put the lid on and leave for about a minute.

I just put them in the laundry for someone else every day while helping that person decontaminate after work. Read up on laundry detergent and germs, if you like.

If you don’t have gloves, by the way, consider putting some hand cream on hand wrists after washing hands before going out (little prophylaxis there).

[Zhang Fei]

[For days.

For homemade masks only:

After replacing each mask on the face, touch only the strings or bands to take the old mask off, and put it in a bag. Seal the bag as well as possible.

When home, drop the masks (and your clothing) directly from the bag into a tub of hot water and plenty of laundry detergent outside. Put a lid on the tub. Leave the shoes outside if possible, or someplace outside of your indoor living spaces. Go directly to the shower.

Make sure that the masks are very thoroughly, repeatedly rinsed with warm water after washing in order to avoid allergic reactions to the laundry detergent. Dry the masks thoroughly (preferably in a dryer or by hanging in the sun).

The material for the homemade masks should be boiled before sewing the masks, by the way, to make sure that the completed masks will fit snugly to the face all around after washing later on.]

---

Thanks. Much appreciated.

[MV=PY]

"Mmmm, more accurate than total cases but not as accurate as hospital inpatient admissions. Because Hospice, nursing homes and EMT’s chart cause of death based on admission or anecdotal diagnosis. When a person is admitted to a SNF for heart failure with a 20%EF and dies there with the flu, its not a Covid 19 death. But, every Covid 19 bed admission in a general hospital is diagnosed first. "

That's a good point. I hadn't considered it

When you get down to it, all raw data has its built-in errors, even if just from the nature of data acquisition. It makes a lot of academic "studies" flawed, as statisticians try to tease real information out of the numbers and measure error mathematically.

Still, if it's the best data we have, we should look for information in it.