In this long-awaited follow-up to his interview in late March, Dr. John Ioannidis discusses the results of three preliminary studies, (including his latest, which shows a drastically reduced infection fatality rate); the worrisome effects of the lockdown; the Swedish approach; the Italian data; the ups and downs of testing; the feasibility of “contact tracing”, and…
Month: July 2020
The Spotlight reports “Fast Science and the Philosophy of Science”
We are living through one of the strangest and most anxiety-provoking times that most of us can remember—in lockdown, separated from friends, lovers, colleagues, work, extended family, and in some cases immediate family, to slow the spread of this new virus, SARS-CoV-2. The threat of this virus, and the effectiveness and harms of the social…
Medical Xpress reports “Coronavirus: why it’s dangerous to blindly ‘follow the science’ when there’s no consensus yet”
In the face of the virus emergency, research standards have been relaxed to encourage faster publication and mistakes become inevitable. This is risky. Ultimately, if expert advice on the pandemic turns out to be wrong, it will have dire consequences for how reliable scientific evidence is treated in other policy areas, such as climate change. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-06-coronavirus-dangerous-blindly-science-consensus.html
The Federalist reports “CDC: After 10-Week Decline In COVID-19 Deaths, It May Soon No Longer Be An Epidemic”
The United States now has so few deaths due to COVID-19 that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Friday it is approaching the threshold for dipping below the level of an epidemic. https://thefederalist.com/2020/07/06/cdc-after-10-week-decline-in-covid-19-deaths-it-may-soon-no-longer-be-an-epidemic/
Washington Times reports “Scientists long ago exhausted their COVID-19 capital”
Salt, meet grain. Scientists — and that’s “scientists” buttressed between quotation marks — have long ago revealed themselves as factually challenged, devastatingly single-minded, even politically motivated on this whole coronavirus matter. https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/jul/7/scientists-long-ago-exhausted-their-covid-19-capit/
CEBM reports “Global Covid-19 Case Fatality Rates”
Emerging evidence suggests many more people are infected. than tested. In Vo Italy, at the time the first symptomatic case was diagnosed, about 3%, had already been infected – most were completely asymptomatic. We could make a simple estimation of the IFR as 0.28%, based on halving the lowest boundary of the CFR prediction interval. However, the considerable…
The Hill op-ed reports “The data is in — stop the panic and end the total isolation”
The tragedy of the COVID-19 pandemic appears to be entering the containment phase. Tens of thousands of Americans have died, and Americans are now desperate for sensible policymakers who have the courage to ignore the panic and rely on facts. Leaders must examine accumulated data to see what has actually happened, rather than keep emphasizing hypothetical projections;…
Reason reports “The CDC’s New ‘Best Estimate’ Implies a COVID-19 Infection Fatality Rate Below 0.3%”
That rate is much lower than the numbers used in the horrifying projections that shaped the government response to the epidemic. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the current “best estimate” for the fatality rate among Americans with COVID-19 symptoms is 0.4 percent. The CDC also estimates that 35 percent of…
US House of Reps 2000 report on “Conflicts of Interest in Vaccine Policy Making”
The Committee’s investigation has determined that conflict of interest rules employed by the FDA and the CDC have been weak, enforcement has been lax, and committee members with substantial ties to pharmaceutical companies have been given waivers to participate in committee proceedings. https://vaccinesafetycommission.org/pdfs/Conflicts-Govt-Reform.pdf