[ April 18, 2024 ]
Another mea culpa. When will the media stop inciting to panic and fear? When will our civil and constitutional rights be restored?
Related: Dr. Fauci in New England Journal of Medicine: Coronavirus less severe than the flu
Stanford medical professors: COVID-19 death toll estimates may be ‘orders of magnitude’ too high
They believe the projections are ‘deeply flawed’
Story continues below advertisementThe Blaze, March 26, 2020:
A pair of public health experts from Stanford, Drs. Eran Bendavid and Jay Bhattacharya, warn Americans in a Wall Street Journal editorial that the current estimates about the coronavirus’ fatality rate may be too high by “orders of magnitude.”
According to Bendavid and Bhattacharya, both of whom are medical doctors, while they are supportive of social distancing guidelines and efforts to contain the disease, they fear that orders to shut down the entire economy may be based on shoddy research data.
Death toll projects may be ‘orders of magnitude too high’
“If it’s true that the novel coronavirus would kill millions without shelter-in-place orders and quarantines, then the extraordinary measures being carried out in cities and states around the country are surely justified,” they wrote. “But,” and what a big one it is, they add, “there’s little evidence to confirm that premise — and projections of the death toll could plausibly be orders of magnitude too high.”
The two submit that because the United States and other countries largely focus their testing on symptomatic patients, the number of people who are infected with COVID-19 is likely much larger than the number of confirmed cases being reported by public health agencies throughout the country, which means the virus’ mortality rate is likely significantly lower.
“Fear of Covid-19 is based on its high estimated case fatality rate — 2% to 4% of people with confirmed Covid-19 have died, according to the World Health Organization and others,” wrote Bendavid and Bhattacharya. “So if 100 million Americans ultimately get the disease, 2 million to 4 million could die. We believe that estimate is deeply flawed. The true fatality rate is the portion of those infected who die, not the deaths from identified positive cases.”
How did they predict this?The two professors argue that the best evidence of the coronavirus death rate being significantly lower than what is being reported may lie in the Italian town of Vò. On March 6, the town’s 3,300 residents were tested. Of these, 90 tests came back positive, indicating a prevalence of 2.7% of the population having the virus.
If one were to apply this to the entire province where the town is located, which has a population of 955,000, it would mean there were actually 26,000 infections at the time, and not just the 198 that were officially confirmed. This would be 130 times greater than the number of reported cases. Since Italy’s case fatality rate of 8% is estimated using the confirmed cases, Bendavid and Bhattacharya write, “the real fatality rate [of the virus] could in fact be closer to 0.06%.”
A ’cause for optimism’?The two Stanford Health Policy experts even said the virus’ mortality rate might be on par with that of the seasonal flu:
Existing evidence suggests that the virus is highly transmissible and that the number of infections doubles roughly every three days. An epidemic seed on Jan. 1 implies that by March 9 about six million people in the U.S. would have been infected. As of March 23, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there were 499 Covid-19 deaths in the U.S. If our surmise of six million cases is accurate, that’s a mortality rate of 0.01%, assuming a two week lag between infection and death. This is one-tenth of the flu mortality rate of 0.1%. Such a low death rate would be cause for optimism.
A universal lockdown ‘may not be worth the costs’
Bendavid and Bhattacharya say that if they are right about the lower lethality of the epidemic, public policy experts should focus their measures on protecting the elderly and expanding medical capacity.
“Hospital resources will need to be reallocated to care for the critically ill patients. Triage will need to improve. And policy makers will need to focus on reducing risks for older adults and people with underlying medical conditions.”
The pair conclude that if their estimates are right, then the universal quarantine measures “may not be worth the costs it imposes on the economy, community, and individual mental and physical health.”
“We should undertake immediate steps to evaluate the empirical basis of the current lockdowns,” they added.
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16 Comments
4 years ago
These profs are right, many of the numbers out there are exaggerated. For example, the idea that 60% to 70% in the USA will get infected is wrong. That would only occur if nothing whatever was done to control the problem. Dr. Birx emphasized that yesterday. The USA is doing a lot.
However, that might happen in in Iran, because they never did quarantines, never locked down anything, and they have poor health care. So in Iran, 60% to 70% may actually get Covid-19.
4 years ago
Reply to
DemocracyRules
Los Angeles is in lock down. Crap, California is on lock down. So is Illinois, which means Chicago and a couple of cornfields. It’s up to 4 or 5 states now. there is no hand sanitizer in the stores or on amazon. Peeps are using that stuff. The spread is going to halt.
4 years ago
Reply to
DemocracyRules
They also have no realistic hygiene, wipe their backsides with their hands, and in the hospitals hand washing is not done as often as needed. Germs spread rather fast there. Ergo, the virus will spread a lot faster there, and there will of course be more dead as people will bring it home to their elderly and those wilt underlying. To be expected, said this on several threads, and several social media sites. Coming true now.
4 years ago
My grandfather got his MD from Stanford, My dad got his MBA from Stanford and my brother got his BA from Stanford But the school is a shadow of its former self.
4 years ago
Reply to
Richard
You can say that about almost every university and college. Oh yes, I agree.
4 years ago
Dr. Fauci’s Mysterious Math –
The Quantifying Today Reflects Where We Were A Week Ago –
Today Cannot Be Quantified Until Next Week…
Posted on March 17, 2020 by sundance
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2020/03/17/dr-faucis-mysterious-math-the-quantifying-today-reflects-where-we-were-a-week-ago-today-cannot-be-quantified-until-next-week/
Dr. Saphier breaks down ‘very encouraging’ COVID-19 numbers:
‘We are slowing’
By Joshua Nelson | Fox News 3/27/20
https://www.foxnews.com/media/dr-saphier-breaks-down-very-encouraging-covid-19-case-numbers
4 years ago
You make a computer model. You feed in extreme numbers. You get extreme results. You don’t bother looking at observable data but stick with your flawed computer model. Nobody is supposed to challenge you because you have a useless computer model.
As Biden put it, he believes in facts over truth.
4 years ago
why would any thinking american believe anyone who is a government employee or who has their work funded by the government? we have been lied to for decades, and i am today calling bull shiite on all of it. this wuhan hysteria is a certifiable democrat-concocted hoax. if you don’t believe that, you are a moron
4 years ago
Reply to
tituspullo
One benefit of people working from home is the social distancing it provides. You don’t have 3,000 employees concentrated in a two-block area where two hijacked airliners can wipe them out of existence, a la 9/11.
4 years ago
Though the numbers change about as rapidly as the stock exchange index, figures made public yesterday indicate that the mortality rate for the US is 1.5% while that for the entire world stands at 4.5%.
To compute this, simply divide the number of known cases into the number of deaths and then convert your quotient decimal fraction to a percentage. Useful for comparison, if nothing else.
4 years ago
If we start getting a massive number of confirmed cases and deaths I will be wondering if Bill Gates has funded spreading the virus in the “solar spraying.” We are sprayed daily to limit sunshine. The deep state types understand that sunshine is needed to provide Vitamin D, which helps build immunity. And sunshine is needed for plant photosynthesis. Can’t have plants yielding food, can we? Americans are very complacent people. They have been trained to believe there is something wrong with calling your Congress critter to tell them to do their job and cut the crap.
4 years ago
Of one thing you can be certain is should these good doctors be correct and I personally believe they are, then when it is apparent the lockdowns were unnecessary the Commiecratas and Dog Fart Media will be howling that Trump overreacted, is incompetent, and is totally responsible for the economic damage we are suffering.
4 years ago
Ask them what they think in a couple of weeks when the epidemic has REALLY hit.
