On April 22nd two doctors who run a private healthcare facility in California held a press conference and spent about an hour outlining why they think continuing the lockdown has become deleterious. Note that they both agreed the public policy track originally taken was the correct thing to do and that had they been in that position, they would have done the same.
They then proceeded to outline the downside to the lockdown, including: increased incidence of spousal abuse, child abuse, depression, increased alcohol and drug abuse, and suicide. They made the assertion that they believe Coronavirus is much more prevalent in the population than we think, and if true, it means the fatality rate would be lower than original models. They also encouraged widespread testing before re-opening the economy, but to reopen the economy nonetheless.
The video went viral. Over 5 million views in 5 days and climbing steadily. It hit a nerve. I was going to mention the video in this issue of AxisOfEasy, in a postscript above, but I took it out after I posted it on my Facebook timeline and it came under a lot of hostility (albeit from a vocal minority of commenters, none of which actually viewed the video itself and none of whom have first hand knowledge of what they were dismissing as “bad science”).
This morning I woke up to the news that the Politburo (Google division), has removed the video for violation of its code of conduct.
This is basically a thought crime. The doctors in question did not advocate civil disobedience or breaking quarantine, they did not say Coronavirus was caused by 5G or cooked up in a lab in Wuhan. They didn’t tell people to drink bleach and they didn’t say Bill Gates is out to implant us all with microchips.
They criticized a public policy, they also shed light on some troubling aspects of it (they also recounted how doctors are being pressured to add COVID-19 to cause of death certificates), and they recommended an alternate path (one that included “testing everybody”, btw).
I knew this would happen, so the first thing I did when I watched it (in its entirety), is I downloaded a copy. We’re making it available via AxisOfEasy here.
I won’t hear any criticism of this from anybody who hasn’t watched the video and heard what they’ve had to say. Then I’m all ears.
If you can’t spare and hour of your time to hear them out, then you don’t have any claim to an opinion on it one way or the other.
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Thanks for posting this and making available for download.
The only problem with their reasoning is the assertion that they can extrapolate their infection rate data to the larger population. That’s a big problem. The sample population that they use is the population of people who have been tested. This is not a random sample. Because most of the people getting tested have a reason to suspect that they are infected, the sample would most likely be skewed toward people who are infected. To extrapolate an infection rate to the larger population you need to randomly select individuals from the larger population and test them. I don’t believe that their Kern county sample was representative of the Kern county population, let alone the population of California.
They may be great doctors, but they don’t understand how to correctly analyze statistics.
Completely agree Jakob, using a biased sample to extrapolate to the general population stuck out immediately.
They partially responded to this by their comparison of countries with lockdown vs those with no lockdown and their emphasis on the necessity of much more testing. Takeaway here is that there are reasons to at least challenge the assumptions of the current lockdowns.
Fair enough – its not a random sample, but there are many people who wanted to get tested simply out of paranoia – they had no symptoms but were worried they are a silent carrier & would infect others.
There are those people who got the symptoms – had a hunch they were infected but didnt go for a test. I am one of those people.
Sure – its not a perfect sample but these guys are going to be proven right
– its refreshing to see people with actual intelligence talk instead of politicians & reporters.
Amazing vid – loved it.
I found the extrapolation of data to be quite suspect too. I was wondering if the numbers from the flu are calculated in the same manner or not. If we have 51K deaths from the flu, is that because we had 30,000,000 flu tests, symptomatic patients to the doctor, or x number of people coming in times population. I did look at one paper in the website link I provided (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25738736) that indicates calculated illness is hospitalization rate times a factor. Here is an excerpt:
” Five sites of the Influenza Hospitalization Surveillance Network (FluSurv-NET) collected data on the frequency and sensitivity of influenza testing during two seasons to estimate under-detection. Population-based rates of influenza-associated hospitalization and Intensive Care Unit admission from 2010-2013 were extrapolated to the U.S. population from FluSurv-NET and corrected for under-detection. Influenza deaths were calculated using a ratio of deaths to hospitalizations. “
I really appreciate the opportunity to see and hear this information. The doctors gave a clear, and knowlegable analyisis of the situation to date. In fact probably the the most informed, and rational that I have heard so far. What I did find astounding, is some of the witless questions asked by the press. It was very clear that most of them absorbed very little of what was being said. Time and again the doctors needed to repeat data, and information already given. It clearly explains the bulk of the BS I have heard, and read in the press since this epidemic started.
Thanks for standing up against censorship. I am concerned about flawed data, since until everyone is being tested and retested perhaps 5 times, then we will have large sample data enough to make credible statistical projections regarding the inflexion point from exponential to logarithmic growth on the logistical curve. Everything else is pure conjecture either way. “We do not see things as they are, we see them as we are.” ~Anais Nin
It is completely absurd to criticize the doctors’ sampling at this point. Without getting into the nuances, the criticism would be true IF we did not have greater data. BUT there is TONS of data. In the US alone, almost 6M people have been tested and 1M have tested positive. Worldwide there are 3.3M confirmed cases. Sweden gives as a peek into how the virus behaves when only limited constraints are placed on the its spread.
Though we may not have all the answers, there is SO MUCH info that tells us a lot about this virus BECAUSE of a LARGE sample of data from which statistically significant conclusions can already be drawn. At this point, it is nonsense to suggest otherwise. That would simply be continuing to pander to the ongoing fear-mongering that is simply not warranted.
Sure, more testing testing will refine the analysis but I highly doubt that the added level of precision would have a significant impact on what actions to take moving forward.
P.S. Oh, and there are almost 1M recovered cases too. That too is VERY telling.
There are plenty of areas world wide that act as case studies that show that social distancing (which has really turned into social isolation, in many places enforced by steep fines) has had little impact on the actual spread of the virus.
Hi smayer97, perhaps you could provide some further information where in the world social distancing has had little impact on the spread of Covid-19. New Zealand has had strict lock downs, closed borders and social distancing. With a population of 4.9 million has had only 1474 cases and 19 deaths.
Australia also closed borders and businesses and imposed a strict lock down, has a population of 25 million and only 6,738 cases and 88 deaths. America’s population is 13.2 times that of Australia so if America adhered to similar rules it should have only 89,000 cases and 1,162 deaths at this point in time. The first Covid-19 cases were determined in each country about the same time.
Hi smayer97, perhaps you could provide some further information where in the world social distancing has had little impact on the spread of Covid-19. New Zealand has had strict lock downs, closed borders and social distancing. With a population of 4.9 million has had only 1474 cases and 19 deaths.
Australia also closed borders and businesses and imposed a strict lock down, has a population of 25 million and only 6,738 cases and 88 deaths. America’s population is 13.2 times that of Australia so if America adhered to similar rules it should have only 89,000 cases and 1,162 deaths at this point in time. The first Covid-19 cases were determined in each country about the same time.
PPS Based on world wide data, I can tell you that we HAVE PASSED the inflection point, both on the occurrence level and the number of deaths. You can actually see this data at https://www.tradingview.com/covid19/
(The only thing missing from the graphs is the number of unresolved cases…this can easily be plotted on a new graph by simply subtracting the recovered and death counts from the confirmed cases, which I have done on my personal charts.)
It doesn’t take everyone being tested and retested 5 times for data to be credible. When you see news reporting surveys they’ll use about a 1000 sample points because that’s generally assumed to be credible (based on math+assumptions). But you can’t do it with 1000 BIASED samples.
The 23ABC News Bakersfield 64 mins version is permanently available on their site here:
https://www.turnto23.com/news/coronavirus/video-interview-with-dr-dan-erickson-and-dr-artin-massihi-taken-down-from-youtube
BUT the original FULL video was actually 68 mins long. The last 4 minutes of video were edited out. This segment occurred after most of the reporters left…there is about 1+ min of unrecorded audio then the audio comes back on. You then hear discussion with one reporter that stuck around, where the doctors raise the question again, if we are not opening up based on the science, what else is going on, then went on to talk about signs of the rise in civil unrest and needing to avoid that with good information.
You can still find a copy of the original from users re-posting it on YouTube (tricky to find). Here are a few places still up (for now):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZV0PFzcI9RE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sHSp6Sp2xc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmJTW1lTfTM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVf1Ofv_5yA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25m0fm2LSIg
P.S. Facebook has also deplatformed them.
Why are the doctors comparing Covid-19 with the flu at this stage? If as they say the USA has between 50 to 60 million cases of flu a year and only 43,545 died in 2017 with no social distancing, no isolation, no lock down; in less than two months 58,964 have died from Covid-19 even with social distancing, isolation, lock downs. It’s apparent that Covid -19 is more infectious and more deadly.
And why mention Italy’s severe influenza season in 2017? In that season 3,880,000 people contracted influenza, however only 30 died. https://www.thelocal.it/20180119/italy-worst-flu-season-in-14-years
The comparison between Sweden and Norway isn’t particularly accurate. The infection rates and death rates aren’t comparable. Sweden has twice the population of Norway, as of 28 April it had 19,621 cases compared to Norway’s 7,660 cases and 2,355 deaths compared to Norway’s 206 deaths. Sweden has social distancing in cafes and restaurants, has limited gatherings to 50 people and stopped sporting events. Older residents are quarantined. Whether they obtain herd immunity is in dispute with the WHO and other epidemiologists. If herd immunity works why bother vaccinating at all, for say measles, mumps or polio?
I find these doctors facts very dodgy indeed!
I listened to the entirety of both videos. Let’s take a look at their numbers.
NYC data: https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data.page
As of this writing, cases: 159865, confirmed deaths: 12287. That’s a case fatality rate (CFR) of 7.7%. Assume the infected fatality rate (IFR) is 10x higher, that gives us an IFR of 0.77%.
Now, let’s look at the flu. Looking at numbers from https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html and picking the 2014-2015 season more-or-less at random, we have estimated deaths: 51000, estimated symptomatic illnesses (not medical visits!): 30000000. That gives an IFR of 0.17%.
This makes covid-19 approximately 4.5x deadlier than the flu. Perhaps a less-than-an-order-of-magnitude difference should be negligible in terms of public policy. That’s a matter of debate. But to suggest “it’s the same as the flu” is disingenuous at best.
Now, let’s adjust the numbers. The same NYC data has additional “probable” deaths (there is reason to believe many covid deaths are not included in the counts, see https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/21/world/coronavirus-missing-deaths.html). Let’s include those for New York. Cases, still 159865. Deaths now become 12287+5302=17582. This bumps the CFR to 11%, and the IFR to 1.1%.
So now, we _are_ talking about a disease which is a full order of magnitude deadlier than the flu. That makes these doctors’ whole, oft-repeated number of “many infections, few deaths” total bullshit. 1% is a whole lot of corpses.
I am intentionally omitting discussing the comorbidity story. It’s an important factor. So is the fact that covid-19 lasts longer than the flu, and has left many people who recover with lasting and possibly permanent damage. So let’s focus on the basic prevalence statistics here, and these two dudes’ numbers simply do not add up. They encouraged viewers to check their numbers, and I did.
Lately I’m confused about what gets counted as a COVID-19 death, there’s the clip circulating from Dr. Ngozi Ezike (Illinois) saying that anybody testing positive at the time of death gets counted as a Covid death
full quote is:
Is that standard across states and locales? Wouldn’t that inflate the death count? Here’s a WebMD article
https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20200417/how-accurate-are-coronavirus-death-counts
citing that in multiple states fatalities are counted as covid if there is just a suspicion, but without a confirmed diagnosis.
The two doctors also said in their video that there is pressure to add covid to the c.o.d in multiple locales.
New York City is the only place I’ve been tracking the numbers on that lists “probable deaths” separately from “confirmed”, so there I stick to the confirmed only. But again, are the confirmed really confirmed given the co-morbidity factors?
Italy’s numbers look particularly affected by this, one study finding 99% of the fatalities had co-morbidity factors. In that study only three people had no previous pathology (which penciled out to 0.8%, of the fatalities).
(https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-18/99-of-those-who-died-from-virus-had-other-illness-italy-says)
It’s just seems really hard to get decent, uniform data. Here in Toronto over 50% of the fatalities are in long term care facilities (old age homes), it would be worth knowing what that ratio is everywhere else.
Anyway, you may be right along with some of the other commenters in this thread looking at the math. The biggest bone of contention being how they extrapolated from a biased sample. But also consider: it is possible that COVID-19 left China in November or December, not January. Given the asymptomatic transmission, maybe they aren’t that far off in that extrapolation. 96% of prisoners who tested positive across four prisons had no symptoms:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-prisons-testing-in-idUSKCN2270RX
that is pretty huge and could mean COVID-19 became a lot more widespread and earlier than we think.
The larger point being, this is the right way to deal with things when somebody puts out their take on things. Dive into the numbers and what’s out there and try to make sense of it in a civil manner.
Deplatforming these guys (somebody else pointed out their facebook page was taken down) just smacks of “witchunt”, which is why I went totally ballistic over it. There may be something in what they said that is on point and relevant but we’d never know if we just shut down all dissenting opinion.
I fully agree that there are so many other factors to consider! So much commentary smacks of the “damned lies and statistics” school of data massage. Getting to the bottom of it is critical, and we should be looking at all angles.
And of course taking down a reasonably-argued video is unacceptable.
Especially when you consider how flawed some of the advice and projections coming from official channels has been.
The CDC as late as March was advising the public against using masks – they said they were not effective. Only later did they say they should be prioritized toward healthcare workers, but the fact remains that was their advice. How many people were harmed as a result of that advice? Have Google, Facebook and Twitter shut them down?
The original Ferguson model projected a worst case scenario figure of 2.2 million fatalities in the US – which we know now will be so far off the mark as to be unhinged. Where are the pitchforks and torches coming after the creators of that model?
Makes me crazy. (as everybody can see)
It is even worse. The CDC instructs doctors to add COVID-19 even in the absence of positive testing if there is even a circumstantial possibility of exposure to COVID-19. It does make reported number of cases and deaths suspect.
See page 6 of the CDC instructions here:
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvss/vsrg/vsrg03-508.pdf
Perspectives on the Pandemic | The Bakersfield Doctors | Episode 6
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3f0VRtY9oTs