Apocalypse Not #7 Policy Based Evidence Making

The projected fatality numbers from the Wuhan Flu are sinking like a stone which is no surprise to anyone who has been paying attention to the story line. From the start I have maintained the COVID-19 projections and mitigation steps were total BS based on my conviction when the federal government has closed the proverbial  barn door the horses are long gone. It is not “anti-science” to be skeptical of government claims to expertise in medical, social and political matters, it is “pro-historical.”

But there is no reason to take the word of a retired Marine on this topic. Dr Keith Rose explains, in an enjoyable 50-minute podcast, the medical perspective on the over-reaction to COVID-19. He is spot on and using contemporary data to explain why we should be getting back to work.

It is now so obvious that the Wuhan flu modeling is wrong that the legacy press now accuses republican politicians of using the bogus numbers to intentionally scare the public into reelecting them.

We have shuttered our economy, sentenced an unknown (but large) number of citizens to penury in an attempt to slow a virus we know very little about. To this day we have no idea how far it has spread or how deadly it really is. When we listen to “experts” explain why the mitigation steps are necessary keep in mind those experts do not know or understand the characteristics of the COVID-19 virus any better than you do. They are guessing at both its virility and morbidity based on obviously inaccurate computer modeling based on flawed data obtained from an untrustworthy international competitor.

Serious journalists are now challenging the coronavirus narrative. From the linked article:

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.

We will not know how easily this bug is transmitted or how deadly it is without extensive testing of the general population for COVID-19 antibodies. That provides an accurate denominator to use with the body count for determining lethality. When we have an idea on infection rate we still may over-state the Wuhan lethality as the legitimacy of the nominator  (body count)  is now questionable.

Remarkably, our meritocratic elites insist on doubling down on their flawed models and assumptions. We have seen Dr Anthony Fauci, continiously equivocate over the use of hydroxychloroquine in treating the Wuhan despite the fact that it obviously works. The legacy media, on cue, has been blasting away at the off label use of the anti malarial with articles like this one in today’s USA Today; What do you have to lose talking hydroxychloroquine? Potently your life.

What the press has refused to do is ask how many medical professionals in New York City are taking hydroxychloroquine as a prophylactic. (anecdotally the number is high, but who knows)? That the drug works is now so obvious the  governor of Michigan has switched from outlawing its use  to demanding millions of doses.

An even worse example of ignoring the obvious is Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, the White House adviser for health policy under former President Barack Obama. He just said the following in a April 7th interview:

Realistically, COVID-19 will be here for the next 18 months or more. We will not be able to return to normalcy until we find a vaccine or effective medications. I know that’s dreadful news to hear. How are people supposed to find work if this goes on in some form for a year and a half? Is all that economic pain worth trying to stop COVID-19? The truth is we have no choice.

If we prematurely end that physical distancing and the other measures keeping it at bay, deaths could skyrocket into the hundreds of thousands if not a million.

Do any of you honestly believe that lifting our half ass quarantine will lead to a million deaths? That is obvious lunacy, a real time demonstration of cognitive dissonance among our meritocratic elite. The reality is the models used by our expert class were wrong, any attempt to attribute the flatting  curve to the effectiveness of social distancing or cower in place orders is disingenuous.

The reaction to the Wuhan flu virus clearly demonstrates the futility of using computer modeling to make dynamic decisions in an environment characterized by limited, conflicting,  intelligence coupled with the demand for immediate action. A combat experienced infantry battalion commander would have the ability to make better decisions that react faster to the threat then an epidemiologist. One has trained to make life and death decisions quickly with a bias for action,  the other has trained in microscopic sleuth hunting and generating and manipulating data for use in academic research papers.

Maybe one of the lessons learned here will be to bring experienced high pressure decision makers into the process. Given the as incalculable damage to the economy and the lives of millions of our fellow citizens by flawed decision making one would hope for several volumes of lessons learned from federal, state and local officials.

There should foreevermore be healthy skepticism about our academic and scientific elites, the legacy media, seedy federal politicians who used this crisis to push their agendas, and state and local officials exercising excessive ’emergency’ powers. Special attention needs to be paid to elite institutions that drove us over this cliff; they are compromised by Chinese money and need to divest from it. Their research labs and programs are infested with Chinese spies; and there is no reason to continue to ignore this belligerent behavior from China.

You may not find the  Harvard Department of Health Management and Policy accepting a 350 million dollar naming endowment from China alarming, but I do. It is now the T.H. Chan School of Public Health and if you think the flow of money into institutions that formulate public policy is benign you are not paying attention to what is happening with the COVID-19 pandemic.

When the dust settles there better be some scalp collecting along with a transparent investigation into how and why the experts were (again) completely wrong about COVID-19. We have to develop better strategies that protect the vulnerable without shutting down our economy.