By David Burns
Carl Bergstrom is widely considered one of
the top American academics regarding Covid 19. He's an adviser to major sports
leagues. He writes columns for the NYTimes. His fame has exploded this year.
He's also completely incapable of
understanding the basics of risk.
Take this tweet for example (first
screenshot). In response to critics who question the need for both social
distancing and masks (neither of which are needed anyway for anyone but the
absolute highest risk groups), Bergstrom mocks "if parachutes work, why do
we need a reserve chute?"
Oh good one, Carl. You got us. Except for
your complete lack of understanding of risk. If your parachute fails and you
don't have a backup, your chance of death is 100%. If you don't social distance
and don't have a mask, your chance of death is infinitesimal. Got that? It's so
low you can't even fathom the number.
Carl wants you to think going to the store without a mask on will
lead to immediate death to you and everyone around you.
But Stanford scientists have at least tried:
"Methods: We calculate the probability
of a confirmed infection, hospitalization, and death resulting from a
county-level person-contact using available data on current case incidence,
secondary attack rates, infectious periods, asymptomatic infections, and ratios
of confirmed infections to hospitalizations and fatalities. Results: Among US
counties with populations greater than 500,000 people, during the week ending
June 13,2020, the median estimate of the county level probability of a
confirmed infection is 1 infection in 40,500 person contacts (Range: 10,100 to
586,000). For a 50 to 64 year-old individual, the median estimate of the county
level probability of a hospitalization is 1 in 709,000 person contacts (Range:
177,000 to 10,200,000) and the median estimate of the county level probability
of a fatality is 1 in 6,670,000 person contacts (Range 1,680,000 to
97,600.000)"
Oh I'm sure you heard critics like Carl tell
you there are "problems" with this study.... Where are their numbers?
Carl wants you to think it's 100% chance of death - see his parachute analogy
above.
Here's example #2 of Carl's inability to be
truthful about the risks of Covid 19. A recent study by the CDC shows infection
prevalence among Americans is about 10 times higher than initially expected.
What is Carl’s response to this news?
There are two glaring lies in this tweet, so let’s unpack
them both. Lie #1 is that most epidemiologists believed the death rate could be
this low (notice how he spreads the range all the way up to 1.0% to cover
himself).
But lets focus on the real whopper, that there are 125k
deaths to date. Anyone who says that to
you is lying and they know it. There
have been 125k (and growing) Covid-related deaths to date. It’s very important to understand the
distinction. If every single one of the
Covid-related deaths was actually due to coronavirus, then Carl would be right
to say the CDC work implies a 0.5% fatality rate. But we know that isn’t the
case. How do we know this? Is it a great conspiracy? No! They told us! The public health officials
have been telling us for months that they count everyone who is probable,
everyone who tests positive no matter the cause of death.
If you doubt these public health officials and believe that
every single death is caused by coronavirus, in direct opposition
to their own on the record statements, then please explain why the All Deaths
CDC graph from 2009-2020 looks like this (the trailing line at the end is due
to delay in reporting, but the peak has passed and the peak is the interesting
aspect of this graph):
But fine, we’ll use 0.5%. We know that skews radically
upward for the older population. What does that mean the probable iCFR is for
those of us under 60? What are our
chances of getting Covid and dying by just going about our daily lives? Was it a good idea to dramatically increase
the risk of so many other dangers, completely shut down our economy, and make
all normal live cease?
Carl Bergstrom thinks so. I think he should quarantine
himself and his twitter account and let the adults go back to their lives.
David Burns is a cyber security engineer living in Virginia Beach. He can be reached at dvdburns@gmail.com.
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