4 years ago: I am not alone anymore. The Coronavirus Shutdown Could be the Worst Fiasco Ever.

4 years ago on March 17th 2020, John Ioannidis, the most cited living medical scientist came out with his extraordinarily brave article in Stanford’s STAT online magazine: “A fiasco in the making? As the coronavirus pandemic takes hold, we are making decisions without reliable data”

I published the following on Medium that same day:

---

Tonight — John Ioannidis, professor in disease prevention at Stanford has written the most important thing you will read on this issue.

https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/17/a-fiasco-in-the-making-as-the-coronavirus-pandemic-takes-hold-we-are-making-decisions-without-reliable-data/

The article hits almost every point myself and a few others here have been saying. Some excerpts titled with the same questions I’ve been asking:

Is this a mistake?

“The current coronavirus disease, Covid-19, has been called a once-in-a-century pandemic. But it may also be a once-in-a-century evidence fiasco.”

More good than harm?

“Draconian countermeasures have been adopted in many countries…. How long, though, should measures like these be continued if the pandemic churns across the globe unabated? How can policymakers tell if they are doing more good than harm?”

Unreliable numbers. Awful range of terrible biases.

“This evidence fiasco creates tremendous uncertainty about the risk of dying from Covid-19. Reported case fatality rates, like the official 3.4% rate from the World Health Organization, cause horror — and are meaningless. Patients who have been tested for SARS-CoV-2 are disproportionately those with severe symptoms and bad outcomes. As most health systems have limited testing capacity, selection bias may even worsen in the near future.”

The mistake of fatality rates

“That huge range markedly affects how severe the pandemic is and what should be done. A population-wide case fatality rate of 0.05% is lower than seasonal influenza. If that is the true rate, locking down the world with potentially tremendous social and financial consequences may be totally irrational. It’s like an elephant being attacked by a house cat. Frustrated and trying to avoid the cat, the elephant accidentally jumps off a cliff and dies.”

True impact of COVID-19 could be no worse than the flu

“Could the Covid-19 case fatality rate be that low? No, some say, pointing to the high rate in elderly people. However, even some so-called mild or common-cold-type coronaviruses that have been known for decades can have case fatality rates as high as 8% when they infect elderly people in nursing homes. In fact, such “mild” coronaviruses infect tens of millions of people every year, and account for 3% to 11% of those hospitalized in the U.S. with lower respiratory infections each winter.”

Self-fulfilling prophecy of burdening the system.

“Flattening the curve to avoid overwhelming the health system is conceptually sound — in theory… Yet if the health system does become overwhelmed, the majority of the extra deaths may not be due to coronavirus but to other common diseases and conditions such as heart attacks, strokes, trauma, bleeding, and the like that are not adequately treated. If the level of the epidemic does overwhelm the health system and extreme measures have only modest effectiveness, then flattening the curve may make things worse”

Life needs to go on.

“One can only hope that, much like in 1918, life will continue. Conversely, with lockdowns of months, if not years, life largely stops, short-term and long-term consequences are entirely unknown, and billions, not just millions, of lives may be eventually at stake.”

“If we decide to jump off the cliff, we need some data to inform us about the rationale of such an action and the chances of landing somewhere safe.”

I will go on speaking on this subject… and now this guy is pretty much my hero :)