Dealing With Covid19: A Conversation with Stanford University Professor, John Ioannidis, America's Most Distinguished Epidemiologist

 By SAURABH JHA, MD

The COVID-19 pandemic has been a testing time for the already testy academic discourse. Decisions have had to be made with partial information. Information has come in drizzles, showers and downpours. The velocity with which new information has arrived has outstripped our ability to make sense of it. On top of that, the science has been politicized in a polarized country with a polarizing president at its helm.

As the country awoke to an unprecedented economic lockdown in the middle of March, John Ioannidis, professor of epidemiology at Stanford University and one of the most cited physician scientists who practically invented “metaresearch”, questioned the lockdown and wondered if we might cause more harm than good in trying to control coronavirus. What would normally pass for skepticism in the midst of uncertainty of a novel virus became tinder in the social media outrage fire.

Ioannidis was likened to the discredited anti-vax doctor, Andrew Wakefield. His colleagues in epidemiology could barely contain their disgust, which ranged from visceral disappointment – the sort one feels when their gifted child has lost their way in college, to deep anger. He was accused of misunderstanding risk, misunderstanding statistics, and cherry picking data to prove his point.

The pushback was partly a testament to the stature of Ioannidis, whose skepticism could have weakened the resoluteness with which people complied with the lockdown. Some academics defended him, or rather defended the need for a contrarian voice like his. The conservative media lauded him.

In this pandemic, where we have learnt as much about ourselves as we have about the virus, understanding the pushback to Ioannidis is critical to understanding how academic discourse shapes public’s perception of public policy.

Saurabh Jha (SJ): On March 17th, at the start of the lockdown, you wrote in STAT News cautioning us against overreacting to COVID-19. You likened our response to an elephant accidentally jumping off a cliff because it was attacked by a house cat. The lockdown had just begun. What motivated you to write that editorial?

John P.A. Ioannidis (JPA): March seems a long time ago. I should explain my thinking in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. Like many, I saw a train approaching. Like many, I couldn’t sense the train’s precise size and speed. Many said we should be bracing for a calamity and in many ways I agreed. But I was concerned that we might inflict undue damage, what I’d call “iatrogenic harm”, controlling the pandemic.

To answer your question specifically, I wrote the piece because I felt that the touted fatality rate of COVID-19 of 3.4 % was inflated, but we had so limited data and so much uncertainty that infection fatality rate values as different as 0.05% and 1% were clearly still possible. I was pleading for better data on COVID-19 to make our response more precise and proportionate.

Read More

(With Thanks to Yusef for this link).

Related:
DigWithin:
Has COVID-19 Testing Made the Problem Worse?

(With Thanks to Anastasia for this link).

Malcolm Kendrick:
COVID – why terminology really, really matters

(With Thanks to Peripatetic Commenter for this link).

Covid Lies to Keep You Terrorized

Absent strong public health measures, we would expect it to kill something like 0.5% to 1.0% of a nation’s population, and whether or not that’s a large number is a matter of personal opinion.

So declared Ron Unz, publisher of the Unz Review. 

That claim is far from the truth as the case of Sweden demonstrates. There, in the absence of "strong public health measures" there have been 5,846 reported Covid deaths, or about 0.06% of the population. That must be close to the final toll, as Covid deaths in Sweden peaked in March and are now at or close to zero.

Why would a scientifically literate person such as Ron Unz make such a false claim? Mere confusion, perhaps*.

One way in which Covid death rates have been greatly exaggerated has been to confuse, deliberately or otherwise, two measures of the death rate; namely, the "Case Fatality Rate" and the  "Infection Fatality Rate." 

The Covid19 Case Fatality Rate (CFR) is a measure of deaths among confirmed Covid19 cases, the latter being mainly cases of serious illness, which thus came to the attention of the medical profession and were identified as due to Covid19 by a more or less reliable diagnostic methods.

The Covid19 Infection Fatality Rate (IFR) is a measure of deaths among all those infected with Covid19, whether they were seriously ill or not, or whether they were ill at all. The IFR can only be determined if there is population-wide testing for past or present Covid19 infection, for example by means of a reliable serological test for Covid19 antibodies. 

Evidence currently available suggests that the the IFR is only about one tenth of the CFR. Therefore, to mistake the CFR for the IFR will result in an exaggeration of the actual IFR by a factor of around ten. 

But even a ten-fold error does not explain Ron Unz's claim that "absent strong public health measures" Covid19 will "kill something like 0.5% to 1.0% of a nation’s population." To explain that, assuming it is not a straight lie, one must assume that Ron Unz confuses the Infection Fatality Rate with the Population Fatality Rate (PFR). Such confusion assumes a Covid death rate among the population as a whole equal to the Covid death rate among those made sick by a confirmed Covid19 infection, which is nonsense.

But perhaps Ron Unz's claim is a straight lie, which would be consistent with the fact that, when I pointed out the error on his Unz Review post, my comment was deleted.

______
* Cf. Ronald B. Brown, 2000, Public Health Lessons Learned from Biases in Coronavirus Mortality Overestimation.

Related:
Zero Hedge: "It's Like Using A Hammer To Kill A Fly" - Architect Of Sweden's COVID-19 Anti-Lockdown Strategy Finally Vindicated

Covid19: A Mechanism to Drive New World Order Tyranny?

By Brandon Smith

AltMarket.com, August 26, 2020: All over the Western world ever since 9/11 there have been incremental steps towards what many liberty advocates would call a “police state”; a system in which governments are no longer restricted by the boundaries of civil liberties and are given the power to do just about anything they want in the name of public safety. The use of “the law” as a tool for injecting tyranny into a culture is the first tactic of all totalitarians.

The idea is that by simply writing government criminality into the law books, that criminality somehow becomes justified by virtue of legal recognition. It's all very circular. Whenever government abuse of the people is initiated, it's always initiated in the name of what's “best for society as a whole”. To save society, the individuals that make up a society must be sublimated or destroyed. This mentality is the complete opposite of what the Founding Fathers in America fought and died for, but as Thomas Jefferson once said:

“Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‘within the limits of the law’ because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.”

In countries like Australia, which claim to value Western democratic principles of liberty and rule by the people, the perception is that civil rights are codified into the legal framework just as they are in the US. However, there are some glaring differences and issues; specifically, Australian citizens (like many European citizens) have absolutely no means to compel their government or the elites that influence their government to limit themselves. It is these nations, in which the populations have been mostly disarmed and pacified, that any agenda for tyranny will first be established. But we will get to that in a moment...

The Council on Foreign Relations: British Imperialism Transplanted to America

It would surely be a surprise to most Americans were they to learn that: (a) virtually all branches of the American media follow policy lines laid down by the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR); (b) that the CFR was established at the instigation of British imperialists and members of Cecil Rhodes secret society for global governance with funding from JP Morgan and other New York bankers; and (c) that the CFR is regarded by those familiar with its work and influence as the nearest thing America has to a ruling establishment.

Intellectual Observer, May 1, 2019: Largely unbeknownst to the general public, executives and top journalists of almost all major US news outlets have long been members of the influential Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). Established in 1921 as a private, bipartisan organization to “awaken America to its worldwide responsibilities”, the CFR and its close to 5000 elite members for decades have shaped US foreign policy and public discourse about it. As a well-known Council member famously explained, they transformed the American republic into a global empire, albeit a “bene­volent” one. Based on official membership rosters, the following illustration depicts for the first time the extensive media network of the CFR and its two major international affiliate organizations: the Bilderberg Group(mainly covering the US and Europe) and the Trilateral Commission (covering North America, Europe and East Asia), both established by Council leaders to foster elite cooperation at the global level. In a column entitled “Ruling Class Journalists”, former Washington Post senior editor and ombudsman Richard Harwood described the Council and its members approvingly as “the nearest thing we have to a ruling establishment in the United States”. Read more

Related:
Tom Jefferson 1976: Pictures in Our Heads – Council on Foreign Relations Founding Father Walter Lippmann

In his book “The ANGLO-AMERICAN ESTABLISHMENT” Quigley writes, “One Wintry Afternoon in February 1891, three men were engaged in earnest conversation in London. From that conversation were to flow consequences of the greatest importance to the British Empire and to the world as a whole. For these men were organizing a secret society that was, for more than fifty years, to be one of the most important forces in the formulation and execution of British imperial and foreign policy. The three men who were thus engaged were already well known in England. The leader was Cecil Rhodes, fabulously wealthy empire builder and the most important person in South Africa. The second was William T. Stead, the famous, and probably also the most sensational, journalist of the day. The third was Reginald Baliol Brett, later known as Lord Esher, friend and confidant of Queen Victoria, and later to be the most influential advisor of King Edward VII and King George V. The details of this important conversation will be examined later. At present we need only point out that the three drew up a plan of organization for their secret society and a list of original members. The plan for organization provided for an inner circle, to be known as “The Society of the Elect,” and an outer circle, to be known as “The Association of Helpers.” Within The Society of the Elect, the real power was to be exercised by the leader, and a “Junta of Three.” The leader was to be Rhodes, and the Junta was to be Stead, Brett, and Alfred Milner. In accordance with this decision, Milner was added to the society by Stead shortly after the meeting we have described.” [1] Of the Secret Societies goals and methods of operation Quigley writes, “The goals which Rhodes and Milner sought and the methods by which they hoped to achieve them were so similar by 1902 that the two are almost indistinguishable. Both sought to unite the world, and above all the English-speaking world, in a federal structure around Britain. Both felt that this goal could best be achieved by a secret band of men united to one another by devotion to the common cause and by personal loyalty to one another. Both felt that this band should pursue its goal by secret political and economic influence behind the scenes and by the control of journalistic, educational, and propaganda agencies…” [2] Between 1910-1915 the Secret Society evolved into an international group of co-conspirators called Round Table Groups set up in seven nations: Britain, South Africa, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, India, and the United States. In 1920 the Secret Society evolved into the Institutes for International Affairs and the Council on Foreign Relations. Many of the founding fathers belonged America’s first intelligence agency the INQUIRY. Read more

CanSpeccy: Posts From the Past: The New World Order (6)
FRN: Introduction To The Origins Of The Deep State In North America (Part 1).
The Canadian Patriot:The Origins of the Deep State in North America Part 1: The Round Table Movement
The Canadian Patriot: The Origins of the Deep State in North America Part 2: Milner’s Perversion Takes Over Canada
Bilderberg.org: Why isn't the CFR in the history books?

James Perloff: THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, PART I: THE SECRETS BURIED AT LEXINGTON GREEN
James Perloff: THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, PART II: WHO WROTE THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE?

The Beautiful People Who Run the World

Angelina Jolie, CFR: Image source

By CanSpeccy

The Council on Foreign Relations is almost certainly the World's most influential agency for the promotion of global governance, so this self-promotional video is worth a view.

The Council on Foreign Relations is an outgrowth of Cecil Rhodes' Secret Society, which aimed to extend the British Empire to the entire globe. Carroll Quigley, Bill Clinton's admired history tutor at Georgetown University and the official historian of the the Secret Society (or the Rhodes-Milner Group as it came to be known), explained the origins of the CFR in his sweeping history of the modern era, Tragedy and Hope:

At the end of the war of 1914, it became clear that the organization of this system had to be greatly extended. . . . Lionel Curtis . . . established, in England and each dominion, a front organization to the existing local Round Table Group…This front organization, called the Royal Institute of International Affairs, had as its nucleus in each area the existing submerged Round Table Group…in New York it was known as the Council on Foreign Relations, and was a front for J. P. Morgan and Company in association with the very small American Round Table Group. The American organizers were dominated by the large number of Morgan 'experts'… The Round Table for years (until 1961) was edited from the back door of Chatham House grounds in Ormond Yard, and its telephone came through the Chatham House switchboard (Tragedy and Hope: 951-952).