I'm noticing a worrying trend among people I talk to and interact with on social media. Because of all the bad direction given from scientests in the medical field some are starting to question science itself. I see it as being similar to what happened with many Roman Catholics after all the sex abuse scandals, some didn't just turn their backs on the Roman church, they turned their backs on God.
Not everyone of course, some still believe everything the high priests of science say, just as some Roman Catholics continue to believe in the authority of the clergy within the Roman church.
Just yesterday (Friday June 19th) this was a remark made by one Karen Ruddy in the comment section for the Facebook live feed of Doug Ford's latest briefing: "I am sorry but after the riots and protests started I didn't believe any of the so called experts".
https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?v=2695130540602158¬if_id=1592586782556445¬if_t=live_video
What Karen is referring to obviously is the direction that was given about it being absolutley essential that people not gather in large groups. Directives on social distancing have caused enormous pain and hardship, but the experts said it was absolultely required. So much so that By-Law officers have been handing out fines in the hundreds of dollars to people who dared to invite friends over for a backyard BBQ or other similar type activities.
There's a church in my town that held its first drive in worship service last Sunday. I saw a video of the event posted to Facebook and some parishoners got out of their cars. I didn't see any mixing and mingling, just people stretching their legs and some feeling of The Spirit.
I spoke to a senior member of this church and indicated I'd be attending this coming Sunday service. She told me that the pastor will be giving strict instruction for everyone to remain in their vehicles. Although she did question why that should be needed when crowds numbering in the hundreds and even thousands can congregate in close proximity to protest.
It's a good quesiton.
Personally I don't fault science, I lay blame on the medical experts speaking in the name of science. For me it's no different from tainted clergy who claimed they were speaking for God. It has been going on since the very beginning and some have tossed in the towel, rolling their eyes when some medical expert starts talking.
Right at the start Anthony Fauci among many other experts told us that the novel coronavirus was at least 10 times more deadly than the seasonal flu. It wasn't expressed as "we believe", or "based on the evidence so far we're operating on the assumption", or even "our working hypothesis is....".
No, Fauci and the other high priests of medical science absolutely KNEW. Now however that notion of covid being 10x more deadly (at least) is being called into question by some very reputable scientists. Even the CDC has been reported as pegging the actual infection mortality rate at 0.4%, double what they list as the infection mortality rate of influenza which they peg at 0.2%
This isn't come from some alt-new site either, the reporting is from NBC:
This has been going on far too long. When the world first started paying attention to this virus Canada's top medical officer Dr. Tam confidently told Canadians that there was no need for people coming into the country from Wuhan or Italy to isolate. Exercising an abundance of caution was not warranted because of the "opinion" of scientific experts with the WHO. Only it wasn't presented as opinion, but scientific fact. God has spoken, and God is science.
Masks aren't effective then they are. People absolutley must avoid gathering in large groups, but then it's okay if it's a demonstration for something important. Asymptomaitc people don't spread the virus, or maybe they're the main drivers of outbreaks, or maybe some asymptomatic people are infectious and others aren't.
It is past time to start taking the scientific gurus to task for the mayhem they have created. Isolation measures resulting in millions of unemployed, suicides, deaths because of cancelled surgeries, abuse of spouses and children. A large number of Canadians have suffered tremendously because of decisions made based on bad medical scientific advice. While it's strictly an opinion I am certain that more people have been damaged by lockdown measurs than the eight thousand three hundred odd deaths due to covid, exponentially more.
Mortality Rate
Totally useless, and just a political football being kicked around by those in favour of lockdown and those opposed. Regardless of whether the percentage is 0.1 or 1 or even 10, Covid is not a disease that affects everyone the same.
Kids are getting it in Quebec after going back to school, but still not one Canadian child has died of the disease. But when a breakout happens in a nursing home, look out. An 85 year old with cancer, diabetes and cardiovascular disease likley has less than a 50/50 chance of surviving Covid, while a healthy 12 year old has next to zero chance of dying based on all the published data.
I will make one very important distinction though, mortality rate can be measured two ways. The most common one I see being used by arm chair epidemiolgists is the case mortality rate. These wanna be experts on infectious disease look at Canada's 100 odd thousand identified cases and the 8,300+ deaths and conclude that the overall mortality rate is over 8%. WRONG, that's the case mortality rate.
The more important figure, and the one we don't know, is the infection mortality rate. Because so many people contract the novel coronavirus but don't get sick, by and large they're not getting tested. Why submit yourself to an invasive and painful nasal swab when you're perfectly healthy?
There have been random studies done in New York, California, Great Britain and now Indiana that suggest the actual number of infections is at least 10x greater than what has been indentified. There are now antibody tests that can be done to detect those who were infected previously but never got sick.
Why an advanced western nation like Canada hasn't undertaken such a study is beyond my comprehension. There may very well already be one or even two million Canadians who have been infected by the novel coronavirus, but we don't know it becasue we haven't done random testing. Why not? This is standard operating procedure for infectious disease and is used to guide evidence based decision making. Ontario alone could do it, simply test 25 or 50 thousand random people who are reasonably reflective of the province's population with parameters like sex, age, ethnicity and health profile.
Risk factors:
This is far and away the most important element in any discussion of Covid-19 for me. The question that has yet to be completely answered is this: Why do some people get seriously and sometimes fatally ill from Covid, while for others it's completely benign. I say "completely answered" on purpose, because we're not totally in the dark here, and more and more information is coming out, almost every day.
Underlying Conditions that can make Covid more serious.
These are the ones of which I am aware. Cancer, Cardiovascular and Kidney diseases, Diabetes, Asthma, Liver Disease, Obesity....and basically any condition that affects the heart or lungs and/or comprimises the immune system. Combine these underlying conditions with advanced age and it's even more serious.
Vitamin D deficiency:
Everything I have read so far says that more study is needed, but that there is a statiscally significant correlation between Vitamin D deficiency and Covid being more serious and deadly. It is being linked to the Cytokine Storm where a person's immune system goes into hyperdrive, attacking not just the virus but healthy cells and tissue as well:
Gentic markers like HLA
This is a relatively new one that I came across. A statistically significant differentiation between those with a presence of Human Leukocyte Antigen and those who lack it, with the latter having better covid outcomes. Apparently people in Northern Italy were more prone to have this genetic marker than those in the southern parts of the country, and it was Northern Italy which was the much harder hit of the two regions.
Blood Type:
This is the most recent potential risk fact that I've come across. Its now being reported that people with blood types of A have a statiscally significant greater risk of Covid being serious, while those with O types have better outcomes. As with pretty much all risk factors the experts are saying more study is needed.
Conclusion:
Ultimately policy decisions on how to deal with the coronavirus pandemic need to be EVIDENCE BASED, not on opinions stated as fact. It boggles my mind that Canada has only recently begun talking about collecting Covid data with racial statisistics included. I find this absolutely and utterly incomprehensible.
Everyone is pointing to lockdown and isolation measures as the definitive reason why some countries and regions are having better outcomes than others, but it doesn't stand up to scrutiny. I have little doubt that social distancing and all the rest has had some affect on the rate of transmission, but it's impossible to say how much.
Why is a country like Belgium that brought in strict measures being hit harder than a country like Sweden that kept schools, bars and restaraunts open? Lockdown proponents likes to compare Sweden with Norway where deaths have been extremely low. But maybe the reason has a lot to do with things like the overall health of the population, blood type dispersal and genetics.
Look at the United States, the land of deep fryed supersized everything. I've seen studies suggesting fully one third of Americans are clinically obese. Is it any wonder perhaps that some states are being so hard hit? Maybe the solution isn't to keep people away from each other so much as it is to keep people away from the dessert cart.
Let's spend our limited and fastly dwindling resources on understanding this disease, and base decisions on what we know. Advise those for whom data demonstrates a statistically increased risk of Covid being serious to be hyper vigilant and cautious, and constantly update the population as new and better information becomes available. And in the meanwhile open things back up and rescue the millions of people who are seeing their lives destroyed.
For many it's already too late, lockdown measures killed them, not Covid. Scientists aren't infallible, no more than Roman Catholic priests.
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1 comment:
I've argued for continuing random tests for over a month. It would supply knowledge on the number of background asymptos. Apparently epidemiology is stuck in old-fashioned quality control ideas, where only special cases that pop up get investigated and corrected. Quality Assurance relies on continual statistical surveys to see where the process (infections) stands.
To equate this blind spot among medical types, to whom modern methods and any form of real mathematics is non-understandable, to science in general is where I cannot agree with you. Not the same thing.
Still, after my early morning rise today here in NS to prepare for the "legal" resumption of our old geezer Saturday morning political discussion coffee meetings, it seems some form of reality has sunk into our chief medical health officer who has cloistered himself only with staff, never reaching out to able mathematicians and scientists at three major local universities, I see some form of relief. 10 days with no new cases following two weeks of only one or two per day, means gatherings of up to ten non-family people with no social distancing measures is now allowed. We can shake hands but probably won't. It sure took the long and hard way to come to this conclusion that random testing could have shown a month or more ago.
And despite your constant haranguing on the same old points, the lockdown meant about zero cases of regular flu or colds. If you then can extend your mind to realizing that the lockdown reduced the spread of CV-19 as well, then what we have experienced has been far less severe than if we had just sat on our hands and whistled Dixie.
Sure, plenty of vitamin D and not having Type A blood may well have helped in preventing serious reactions in some people or some countries. Dig out the observations that told us that on March 10, why don't you? Post facto opinions are no more than the hindsight we have now gathered going through this thing. And Ontario, GTA in particular, hasn't exactly been a champ in preventing spread, now has it? Quebec stats, Montreal in the main, approach Belgium's. Population density seems to be a factor. Now who could have guessed that in advance? I'm being facetious.
BM
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