Posted on 04/09/2020 11:37:33 AM PDT by NoLibZone
As daily life across America is upended by the coronavirus crisis -- with mass business closures plunging the economy into freefall -- one former New York Times reporter is sounding the alarm about what he believes are flawed models dictating the aggressive strategy.
Alex Berenson has been analyzing the data on the crisis on a daily basis for weeks and has come to the conclusion that the strategy of shutting down entire sectors of the economy is based on modeling that doesn’t line up with the realities of the virus.
THE CORONAVIRUS OUTBREAK STATE BY STATE
"The response we have taken has caused enormous societal devastation, I don't think that's too strong a word," he told Fox News in an interview Thursday.
Berenson is a former reporter who worked for the Times from 1999 to 2010 primarily covering the pharmaceutical industry. He recently came to prominence again with a book, “Tell Your Children The Truth About Marijuana, Mental Illness, and Violence,” which challenged prevailing narratives on marijuana.
Recently he’s been focusing on discrepancies within the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) model. That model has come under renewed scrutiny as it has revised its metrics multiple times. It once predicted more than 90,000 deaths by August but recently issued a new estimate that has the figure closer to 60,000. Government officials say it's a model that's moving with what the country is doing.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Occam’s Razor: Media advertising bookings are collapsing and the smarmy journ-o-lists are starting to realize that THEY may hit the unemployment lines if this continues.
How’s 2.2 million to 90K for modeling, then?
A BIG plus in this mess is that we’ll make meds and needed equipment in this country again.
I recognize that. Their models have always included yuge confidence intervals too.
My point is that the NYT dipwad is complaining about minutiae after being quite late to the party.
The discrepancy you point out is the one for the UW to publicly explain [and there could be good reasons].
ONLY good thing!!
Oh no. I’m in the basement right now, and I had some trail mix for breakfast.
Oh wait, I’m in my home office working so I guess I’m still OK
Maybe e was a real reporter??
Berenson is a former reporter who worked for the Times from 1999 to 2010 primarily covering the pharmaceutical industry. He recently came to prominence again with a book, “Tell Your Children The Truth About Marijuana, Mental Illness, and Violence,” which challenged prevailing narratives on marijuana.
Berenson is not a known partisan. His Twitter feed and other works contain few references to specific politicians, and there’s no indication that he’s in this to bash or defend Trump or either political party. But he noted that, like with his conclusions on marijuana, there has been a distinct lack of interest from the left.
“I went to Yale and I worked for the New York Times, the people on the left hold themselves out as being science-driven, as being smarter, they think they’re smarter but they won’t look at facts that won’t meet their narratives,” he said.
He voiced frustration that these arguments have been ignored by a lot of mainstream outlets.
“That is frustrating for me ... but everyone needs to hear this counterargument, whether or not it’s right, you need to hear it because the damage we are doing to ourselves right now is so enormous.”
My opinion - and it is only opinion - is that the citizens will cause us to get back to normal. As the weather gets better - the temperature rises, more sunny days - more and more people will say EF this noise and start travelling out. More and more people will start loudly demanding the stores, bars, theaters be reopened and the powers that be will slowly concede. Remember - just my opinion. Be gentle with your retorts. 8-)
Bkmk
I’ve read 2-3 of his novels and a very long synopsis of his Marijuana book of which I agree with his conclusions.
I’m still firmly stuck in the Stealers Wheel chair on this whole issue.
(Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right) I still don’t know where I come down.
Not the IHME model.
The Imperial College had an upper range of 2.2m for the US if no mitigation measures were taken.
No one thought that was realistic because of course we reacted, but it was a stab at how bad it could have been.
Those models could reflect the ‘real’ situation, if they would only use the data after the fact.
IOW, they’re as useless as the ‘climate change’ models.
So, in order to gain any ‘credibility’, they should create models after the whole thing is over. ;)
That's exactly the point I was going to go back and review. It'd be interesting to see the contemporary IHME model output.
I’d also be interested to know if these models are epidemiological “first principles” based or just regression claptrap or some meld of the two.
Cogent insight ... but these threads are not about such.
They don't have the progression of their projections on the website that I can find but I think their first estimate was around 90k.
This insanity has gone on for long enough. Trump needs to open the country NOW.
Yes, some people are going to get sick. That’s life. Most of them are people with underlying conditions that make them more susceptible. This is their problem, not society’s.
The Federal government has no authority in the Constitution to become involved in public health. The CDC, the FDA, Medicaid, Medicare... all of these are unconstitutional instruments of tyranny, justified by a tortured reading of the Commerce Clause that purportedly allows Washington to do anything and everything as long as its acts touch in some manner the human condition.
Trump needs to fire Fauci, eliminate the CDC and FDA with an EO, immediately distribute what remains of the Federal government’s unconstitutional stockpile of medical equipment, and announce that he will veto any further legislation that includes coronavirus “aid.” Let the states solve their own problems using their constitutionally derived powers.
Why would Dr. shut-it-down Fauxcy of the NIH not have access to a decent model from within that organization?
The NIH was relying on some Brit academic as opposed to a validated US model?
What the heck have they been doing for the last 10 years?
Trump will be blamed for overeating and shutting every thing down. The Schiff investigation will begin next week.
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