We often hear about fake news.
Here is what you are being told about Covid19, which is fake news, versus actual data.
A variety of sources (listed on https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-death-rate/) provide early estimates of the death rate. As you will see they range from 3% to 14% of cases.
The mean of these early estimates is about 5.2%.
Plotting this "per day" against actual data from www.worldometers.info we see the following (red=deaths, blue=cases supposedly confirmed, and green=5.2% of cases):
Overall a pretty good estimate given A) the actual data and B) how little was known at the time these estimates were created (probably very accurate if pure Covid-19 deaths were plotted, but that's another post).
Note too that no one in these articles has any idea how many cases there actually are so no one is screaming "Fire!" at this point.
However, what was not known at the time the 5.2% was given was how many people actually had the disease.
Then on March 16, 2020 we see this report: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/sph/ide/gida-fellowships/Imperial-College-COVID19-NPI-modelling-16-03-2020.pdf
The report contains the following graph and is the source of the 2.2 million "deaths" the Covid-19 would bring:
From the NYT on March 16, 2020: "Whitehouse Takes New Line after Dire Death Toll" (see https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/16/us/coronavirus-fatality-rate-white-house.html) much of which is provided in "2.2 MILLION PEOPLE IN THE U.S. COULD DIE IF CORONAVIRUS GOES UNCHECKED": https://theintercept.com/2020/03/17/coronavirus-air-pollution/) it's clear that someone at the Whitehouse had this model and used it. Dr. Birx indicates the internal Whitehouse knowledge was "consistent" with the "Imperial College" model.
However, they reproduce the exact same graphic.
So now we have "Fire!" from the New York Times. (From Sheri Fink no less, a MD and PhD from Stanford. However, this seems less about investigative reporting that merely republishing a bad model. Unfortunately this time it seems the model is somewhat different than reality.)
If we divide the number of deaths by cases assuming as studies have shown (see: https://abc7news.com/stanford-coronavirus-study-number-people-infected-by-santa-clara-county-total-covid-19/6110894/) that we know of about one case for every sixty or so actual cases we see this:
(The spikes here are probably noise in the data. But again, we don't have any consistent means to know anything about Covid-19 deaths or what's being reported related to them.)
The mean of of the above data is about .1..2% deaths across the likely full spectrum of infections; very similar to a bad influenza year (in fact, perhaps we have seen this before and it's what makes a bad influenza year).
Again, we don't know for sure though the trend in discovering the validity of our estimates still trends toward lower death rates (which too may change).
After a few weeks (March 29th, 2020) we here the following from CNN (see: https://reason.com/2020/03/30/as-trump-imagines-2-2-million-deaths-from-covid-19-in-the-u-s-a-top-federal-disease-expert-cautions-against-believing-worst-case-scenarios/):
"Looking at what we're seeing now," Dr. Fauci said, "we're going to have millions of cases" in the United States, and it is reasonable to expect "between 100,000 and 200,000" deaths. But he cautioned that "I just don't think that we really need to make a projection, when it's such a moving target, that you can so easily be wrong and mislead people." Deborah Birx, coordinator of the White House's COVID-19 task force, yesterday cited similar but somewhat less alarming estimates, saying "between 80,000 and 160,000, maybe even potentially 200,000 people," could be killed by COVID-19 in the United States."
Yet again, at this point, no one knows how many total actual cases there are.
So in two weeks the "death toll" goes from 2,200,000 million dead to perhaps 10% of that at 200,000.
But what matters again is how many people get the disease.
If 300,000 get it and 200,000 die its a a 33% death rate.
If 300,000,000 get and 200,000 die its a .033% death rate (again, essentially influenza).
Instead of waiting until we know what's happening we are merely screaming "Fire!" in a crowded theater.
Do you yell "Fire!" if you're not sure it's smoke?
Perhaps if there are ten people in the IMAX just to be sure you can say, "hey, I smell smoke" and everyone will get out safely.
But as soon as people's livelihoods can be destroyed by your decision you need to be much more circumspect.
So even asking about the "panicdemic" on Facebook without understanding what's happening merely fans the flames.
The various data points don't line up and haven't since the start which is why the blog posts are here.
Sadly, few will actually understand...
But no matter, they don't have to because the stampede they cause which harms people isn't their problem either.
Here is what you are being told about Covid19, which is fake news, versus actual data.
A variety of sources (listed on https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-death-rate/) provide early estimates of the death rate. As you will see they range from 3% to 14% of cases.
The mean of these early estimates is about 5.2%.
Plotting this "per day" against actual data from www.worldometers.info we see the following (red=deaths, blue=cases supposedly confirmed, and green=5.2% of cases):
Overall a pretty good estimate given A) the actual data and B) how little was known at the time these estimates were created (probably very accurate if pure Covid-19 deaths were plotted, but that's another post).
Note too that no one in these articles has any idea how many cases there actually are so no one is screaming "Fire!" at this point.
However, what was not known at the time the 5.2% was given was how many people actually had the disease.
Then on March 16, 2020 we see this report: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/sph/ide/gida-fellowships/Imperial-College-COVID19-NPI-modelling-16-03-2020.pdf
The report contains the following graph and is the source of the 2.2 million "deaths" the Covid-19 would bring:
From the NYT on March 16, 2020: "Whitehouse Takes New Line after Dire Death Toll" (see https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/16/us/coronavirus-fatality-rate-white-house.html) much of which is provided in "2.2 MILLION PEOPLE IN THE U.S. COULD DIE IF CORONAVIRUS GOES UNCHECKED": https://theintercept.com/2020/03/17/coronavirus-air-pollution/) it's clear that someone at the Whitehouse had this model and used it. Dr. Birx indicates the internal Whitehouse knowledge was "consistent" with the "Imperial College" model.
However, they reproduce the exact same graphic.
So now we have "Fire!" from the New York Times. (From Sheri Fink no less, a MD and PhD from Stanford. However, this seems less about investigative reporting that merely republishing a bad model. Unfortunately this time it seems the model is somewhat different than reality.)
If we divide the number of deaths by cases assuming as studies have shown (see: https://abc7news.com/stanford-coronavirus-study-number-people-infected-by-santa-clara-county-total-covid-19/6110894/) that we know of about one case for every sixty or so actual cases we see this:
(The spikes here are probably noise in the data. But again, we don't have any consistent means to know anything about Covid-19 deaths or what's being reported related to them.)
The mean of of the above data is about .1..2% deaths across the likely full spectrum of infections; very similar to a bad influenza year (in fact, perhaps we have seen this before and it's what makes a bad influenza year).
Again, we don't know for sure though the trend in discovering the validity of our estimates still trends toward lower death rates (which too may change).
After a few weeks (March 29th, 2020) we here the following from CNN (see: https://reason.com/2020/03/30/as-trump-imagines-2-2-million-deaths-from-covid-19-in-the-u-s-a-top-federal-disease-expert-cautions-against-believing-worst-case-scenarios/):
"Looking at what we're seeing now," Dr. Fauci said, "we're going to have millions of cases" in the United States, and it is reasonable to expect "between 100,000 and 200,000" deaths. But he cautioned that "I just don't think that we really need to make a projection, when it's such a moving target, that you can so easily be wrong and mislead people." Deborah Birx, coordinator of the White House's COVID-19 task force, yesterday cited similar but somewhat less alarming estimates, saying "between 80,000 and 160,000, maybe even potentially 200,000 people," could be killed by COVID-19 in the United States."
Yet again, at this point, no one knows how many total actual cases there are.
So in two weeks the "death toll" goes from 2,200,000 million dead to perhaps 10% of that at 200,000.
But what matters again is how many people get the disease.
If 300,000 get it and 200,000 die its a a 33% death rate.
If 300,000,000 get and 200,000 die its a .033% death rate (again, essentially influenza).
Instead of waiting until we know what's happening we are merely screaming "Fire!" in a crowded theater.
Do you yell "Fire!" if you're not sure it's smoke?
Perhaps if there are ten people in the IMAX just to be sure you can say, "hey, I smell smoke" and everyone will get out safely.
But as soon as people's livelihoods can be destroyed by your decision you need to be much more circumspect.
So even asking about the "panicdemic" on Facebook without understanding what's happening merely fans the flames.
The various data points don't line up and haven't since the start which is why the blog posts are here.
Sadly, few will actually understand...
But no matter, they don't have to because the stampede they cause which harms people isn't their problem either.
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