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0 pointslogifail2y ago0 comments

> a legitimate alternative to peer reviewed research

I'm not sure that peer-reviewed research deserves to be put on a pedestal. I've worked in a research lab, I have a couple of [tedious and uninteresting] published papers. It's not a holy grail. We still employ humans to do this stuff, and they come with flaws. We also need funding for this stuff, and with it comes with warped incentives.

> the first article you cite starts with the below disclaimer, which seems to refute your claim

Why would it refute the claim?

If you double a very tiny risk, to all intents and purposes it may still be "very tiny", and irrelevant compared to other more significant risks (such as the increased risk of dying due to not having been able to attend your screening appointment because all non-critical healthcare in your area has been cancelled to "save lives", while achieving the opposite).

We can and should trust doctors at an individual level, but at planet scale we need to listen to statisticians too. That didn't happen during the pandemic.

It's pretty unfortunate if a "cure" ends up killing more people than the disease... and yes, there were people mentioning this concern already in early 2020, but apparently no-one was listening:

"A fierce debate is under way between those who believe that the current lockdowns in place across much of the world are an overreaction, and those who believe it would be barbaric to do anything other than try to avoid as many coronavirus deaths as possible. Those in the first camp [..] point out things like [..] the collateral damage from the lockdowns will end up causing more harm than coronavirus itself; and that the amount of money we are effectively spending on saving each life is completely out of whack with what we would normally consider reasonable."

https://archive.is/Cf6W9

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stevenAthompson2y ago· 2 in thread

Your original statement was:

> "I appreciate Covid is still a threat to some elderly and/or sick people. To the majority of us, it isn't ... and wasn't ... ever "

The fact that it doubled everyone's risk of dying disproves that.

I understand that it's unlikely for a young, healthy person to die in any given year but they should still wear seatbelts, or stop smoking if doing those things doubles their likelihood of death.

>I'm not sure that peer-reviewed research deserves to be put on a pedestal.

I'm unaware of any better alternative. Twitter and blog posts certainly aren't it.

>It's pretty unfortunate if a "cure" ends up killing more people than the disease

It would be pretty bold to make that claim. Do you have any reliable source to indicate that it was? I'm aware that many people speculated to that effect, often loudly. I've never seen any evidence though.

That said, the fact that this is Financial Times article kind of gives it away. It's reasonable (if a bit monstrous) to say that you think your income is more important than other peoples lives, but if that's what you mean you should state it plainly.

> We can and should trust doctors at an individual level, but at planet scale we need to listen to statisticians too.

I'm not sure I would agree with that statement. Statistics are like bikinis. What they display is important, but what they conceal is vital. To me, statements like this feel like another way of saying "There are things more important than human life."

logifailOP2y ago

> The fact that it doubled everyone's risk of dying disproves that.

It really doesn't.

> It would be pretty bold to make that claim. Do you have any reliable source to indicate that it was?

"Pandemics kill people in two ways, said Chris Whitty at the start of the Covid outbreak: directly and indirectly, via disruption.

He was making the case for caution amidst strong public demand for lockdown, stressing the tradeoffs.

While Covid deaths were counted daily, the longer-term effects would take years to come through. The only real way of counting this would be to look at ‘excess deaths’, i.e. how many more people die every month (or year) compared to normal.

That data is now coming through."[0]

EDIT - adding:

"COVID-19 lockdowns were “a global policy failure of gigantic proportions,” according to this peer-reviewed new academic study. The draconian policy failed to significantly reduce deaths while imposing substantial social, cultural, and economic costs.

“This study is the first all-encompassing evaluation of the research on the effectiveness of mandatory restrictions on mortality,” according to one of the study’s co-authors, Dr. Lars Jonung, professor emeritus at the Knut Wicksell Centre for Financial Studies at Sweden’s Lund University, “It demonstrates that lockdowns were a failed promise. They had negligible health effects but disastrous economic, social and political costs to society. Most likely lockdowns represent the biggest policy mistake in modern times.” "

and

"The Herby-Jonung-Hanke meta-analysis found that lockdowns, as reported in studies based on stringency indices in the spring of 2020, reduced mortality by 3.2 per cent when compared to less strict lockdown policies adopted by the likes of Sweden

This means lockdowns prevented 1,700 deaths in England and Wales, 6,000 deaths across Europe, and 4,000 deaths in the United States."

and

"The research concludes that, unless substantial alternative evidence emerges, lockdowns should be ‘rejected out of hand’ to control future pandemics."

[0] https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/sweden-covid-and-excess-... [1] https://iea.org.uk/media/lockdowns-were-a-costly-failure-fin...

stevenAthompson2y ago

I think we may just have different assumptions buried in the heart of our respective worldviews.

To me it is axiomatic that the value of a human life is not something that can be measured in dollars. All lives that can be saved, should be saved unless doing so would cost more lives.

To the "Institute of Economic Affairs" it's probably axiomatic that a humans only value is in their economic worth. The elderly that died therefore had little value in the first place. Their loss would mean little to that worldview.

When I see statements from the article like the ones below I see it as absolute proof that we made the right decisions, or at least something close to the right decisions. When the authors saw it they concluded that these lives were too expensive. A concept I find completely alien.

>Shelter-in-place (stay at home) orders in Europe and the United States reduced COVID mortality by between 1.4 and 4.1 per cent;

>Business closures reduced mortality by 7.5 per cent;

>Gathering limits likely increased COVID mortality by almost six per cent;

>Mask mandates, which most countries avoided in Spring 2020, reduced mortality by 18.7 per cent, particularly mandates in workplaces; and

>School closures resulted in a between 2.5 per cent and 6.2 per cent mortality reduction.

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