Author: John Tierney
The views of the Authors are not necessarily the views of Enigmose.
How would our leaders get through this pandemic without “the science”?
It’s never been obvious just what “the science” is, or why anyone would speak of science as a single truth, but the role it plays is quite clear. It’s the modern equivalent of the Oracle of Delphi, that mysterious font of guidance that Greek leaders consulted during wars and other crises. However foolish or sensible the advice may be, the oracle gives leaders an excuse to duck responsibility for decisions—and their consequences.
Why, for instance, was the upstate New York economy shut down for more than two months, despite the small number of cases of Covid-19 in rural counties? Why, as some offices and barber shops and other upstate businesses were finally about to reopen at the end of May, did Governor Andrew Cuomo infuriate local officials by suddenly announcing that this decision could not be made by them—or even by himself?
“We’ll give the experts all the data,” he explained. “And if they say we should move forward, we move forward.” Everyone’s fate now rests with the new oracles.
By “the experts,” Cuomo meant the consultants brought in to oversee the state’s reopening
“This is about facts and science and data,” he said. “It’s math and there’s a liberation in that.”
It may be liberating for politicians to blame economic devastation on someone else, but it’s ridiculous to pretend that epidemiologists and statisticians have magical formulae for determining the costs and benefits of the shutdown.
The “metrics” now ruling New York’s policy sound reassuringly precise, like the requirement that a region must have 30 percent of its hospital beds free in order to enter the next phase of the reopening—as upstate counties were finally allowed to do on May 29, once the oracles had reviewed the data. New York City did not qualify then because only 28 percent of its hospital beds were free.
How do the experts know that 28 percent is too little and 30 percent is enough? They don’t. They’ve made a guess.
So when these experts ponder trade-offs, they err on the side of their profession. It would be much easier for restaurants and other businesses to operate if customers had to stay just three feet apart, in line with the World Health Organization’s recommendation of one-meter social distancing. But public-health authorities would rather play it safe by doubling the distance. They don’t know how many lives this will save, and they certainly don’t know how many businesses will be bankrupted by it. That’s not their job.
However scientific they try to be, they’re swayed by some of the same irrational biases and perverse incentives that afflict politicians and journalists. In creating their models and presenting their data, they’re rewarded for skewing negative, because scary predictions will bring them more attention, more funding, and more power. Their worst-case scenario may be utterly implausible, but it’s newsworthy, and it guarantees that no one will blame them for not anticipating every possible death from the virus.
The side effects of the lockdowns across America may already be deadlier than the pandemic itself, as Scott Atlas of the Hoover Institution and other researchers have concluded. They estimate that the consequences of unemployment, missed doctors’ visits, and other factors during the two-month lockdowns will lead to so many extra deaths that Americans will lose a cumulative 1.5 million years of life, nearly twice the total lost so far to Covid-19. Those deaths don’t show up in the media’s daily Covid-19 tally, so they don’t figure into the “science and data” guiding Cuomo and other politicians.
Cuomo prefers to rely on his chosen consultants, and he doesn’t seem troubled by their limitations—or by their track record.
In March, Cuomo looked at the numbers and warned that New York State would soon need 110,000 hospital beds for Covid patients at the pandemic’s peak—more than twice the available capacity. In reality, the number of beds occupied at the peak, in April, turned out to be below 20,000, less than half of capacity. But state officials were so afraid of running short that they ordered hospitals to free up beds by transferring Covid patients to nursing homes. To avert a projected disaster, they created a real one by allowing the virus to spread rapidly in nursing homes, killing thousands of people. Full Story @ City Journal
How We Got Into this Mess
We’ve tried communism, now give us back our liberties.
In one of a growing number of Californian protests against the state’s three-month-old coronavirus lockdown, one woman hoisted a sign saying: “We’ve tried communism, now give us back our liberties.” She may have to wait awhile. Individual liberty doesn’t have a high priority these days in Sacramento and some other capitals of populous blue states. But as new data has emerged, it has become evident that the early fears of the coronavirus, particularly as a threat to healthy people under 65, were grossly exaggerated.
We have been assured that lockdowns have reduced the COVID-19 death toll, now at over 100,000 nationwide, but that implies a knowledge of what might have been, something we don’t have.
What we do know is that many states, especially highly populated ones like California and New York, put heavy constraints on individual freedom, destroying productive activities and causing havoc. Read More
Hydroxychloroquine Study Corrected After More Than 100 Scientists Question Findings
Study by the WHO to temporarily suspend hydroxychloroquine on COVID-19 patients questioned by More Than 100 Scientists raising questions about integrity of the data
The study led the World Health Organization to temporarily suspend the trial of hydroxychloroquine on COVID-19 patients, and to the UK regulatory body, MHRA, requesting the temporary pause of recruitment into all hydroxychloroquine trials in the UK. France also changed its national recommendation of the drug in COVID-19 treatments and halted all trials. However, more than a hundred scientists and medical professionals raised questions about integrity of data Read More
The Coronavirus ‘Dark Winter’ PSYOP: Question Everything and Do Not Comply With Any Government Order
The only real defense that is valid during this exercise in mass tyranny is total refusal to comply
We are in the midst of the largest psychological operation (PSYOP) in the history of mankind. By questioning everything concerning this manufactured “virus pandemic,” the resulting attitude cannot leave anything other than extreme doubt, and doubt is what can bring the masses out of the dark and into the light. The newest term being targeted toward the masses is the coming of the “Dark Winter,” which is nothing more than propaganda based lies meant to prepare the sheep for a planned continuation and escalation of this fake pandemic in order to bring about world domination. Read More