Comment by glenstein | Hacker News Reader

Comment by glenstein | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

The first thing I could find from Google was an apparently reliable looking fact checking site[0] that pretty explicitly disagrees with this, at least as it pertains to lockdowns in general:

>A study looking at interventions in 11 European countries found that lockdowns and social distancing in the first wave helped lower the reproductive number (R) to below 1 by early May 2020[2]. R measures how many people one infected person will pass the virus on to. When R is above 1, the number of infections can rise exponentially. When R is below 1, the number of infections drops.

>In this study, the scientists developed a model to predict how many people would have died in these 11 countries, if no lockdown measures had been introduced. Comparing the actual number of deaths counted with the number of deaths predicted by their model, in the absence of any interventions, they found that around 3.1 million deaths were averted across these 11 countries from the beginning of the epidemic up until 4 May 2020. Scientific evidence shows that COVID-19 restrictions reduced virus transmission and, by extension, saved lives

0: https://healthfeedback.org/claimreview/evidence-shows-that-l...

Health feedback is garbage. It is the "fact-checking" site that facebook uses, and has a regular pattern of presenting the political opinions of its writers as facts. For example, they flagged a WSJ op-ed by Marty Makary where he expressed a prediction, as misinformation:

https://archive.is/1JnsW

Regardless of what you think of Makary's original opinion, there's no universe in which a prediction of the future from a medical expert should be labeled misinformation. If that's the bar, then ~all of the statistical models used to make scary predictions about Covid are also "misinformation", as are 95% of the things Anthony Fauci says on cable news.

"Politicians are holding children hostage in the basement of a pizza place" => clearly incorrect factual statement.

"I think that Covid infections will be far below their current numbers by summer" => opinion about the future.

(Regarding the particular claim advanced by health feedback here: it's a "fact check" based on a single paper, written by Neil Ferugson's group, that attempts to validate the predictions made by...Neil Ferguson's group. There have now been many others that say the opposite [1]. At the very least, you'd hope that a reputable "fact-checking" site would discuss these to present a balanced picture of the debate. Health feedback doesn't bother.)

[1] https://www.aier.org/article/lockdowns-do-not-control-the-co...

AIER denies climate change, thinks herd immunity is a good response to COVID, and has been dismissed by public health experts. In the context of a conversation about citing credible sources to become more informed about covid, citing them is about as self-discrediting as it gets.

So I'm really not even sure where to start. Perhaps I should start with the fact that, under the best possible interpretation, you're treating the conceptual nuance of prediction vs. statement of fact as if it completely discredits the ability if Health Feedback to accurately parse COVID research. That is totally out of proportion to what would actually be proved by that argument.

It's also, I believe a distinction that is basically without merit as a commentary on what does or doesn't count as misinformation. Predictions most definitely do contain misinformation, serve to spread misinformation, can be based on bad reasoning that it is appropriate to criticize well ahead of the events they are predicting. In this case, the WSJ prediction turned out to be false and it was perfectly appropriate to call it out for the misinformation it was, and seeking cover by litigating whether the misinformation was retrospective or forward looking without defending the accuracy or underlying reasoning is asinine.

>Regarding the particular claim advanced by health feedback here: it's a "fact check" based on a single paper, written by Neil Ferugson's group, that attempts to validate the predictions made by...Neil Ferguson's group.

And this is so unhinged I almost don't even know what to say. There's nothing untoward about doing research that weighs on other research you have done; it's in collaboration with other partners and peer reviewed. If something was actually wrong with the study you could come out and say so instead of making captain of the JV debate team insinuations about hypothetical possibility of impropriety.

> AIER denies climate change, thinks herd immunity is a good response to COVID, and has been dismissed by public health experts.

None of this is true. Frankly, I'm not even sure what the middle part means...herd immunity is not a "strategy"; it's just a fact. It's like claiming that "gravity" is a "strategy" for landing an airplane.

> So I'm really not even sure where to start

It's always good to start with something that isn't a fabrication and an ad hominem.

All positions from AIER are mentioned on their Wikipedia entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Institute_for_Economi... Try to change that if you think it's wrong.

Their "Herd Immunity Strategy": Keep the elder parts of the population locked up and let children and younger parts get it without vaccination: https://gbdeclaration.org/

"In October 2020, AIER sponsored the “Great Barrington Declaration,” a controversial statement advocating for a herd immunity strategy in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The World Health Organization and other health experts have suggested a herd immunity strategy would be “unethical,” dangerous, and deadly."

More info: https://www.desmog.com/american-institute-economic-research/

> In October 2020, AIER sponsored the “Great Barrington Declaration,” a controversial statement advocating for a herd immunity strategy in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The World Health Organization and other health experts have suggested a herd immunity strategy would be “unethical,” dangerous, and deadly.

Again, herd immunity is not a "strategy". It is a fact. Global vaccination is also a "herd immunity strategy", in that it tries to achieve herd immunity in the population.

But now that I've cleared that up, you should also know that's not what the GBD says. Maybe you should actually read it, instead of repeating what other people say about it?

This willingness to rely on hearsay explains a lot why you're eager to dismiss a page full of links to studies (which is honestly the only reason I used the AIER page), instead of, you know, considering that there might be a debate here.

Obviously, it's much easier to pretend that you're right when you impugn any source that disagrees with your opinion, for disagreeing with your opinion.

I read it. They redefined herd immunity: "We know that all populations will eventually reach herd immunity – i.e. the point at which the rate of new infections is stable – and that this can be assisted by (but is not dependent upon) a vaccine."

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00728-2

if you are right, fix the Wikipedia entry ;)

Did you check who co-signed it? Mr Banana Rama, Dr Johnny Bananas, Dr Johnny Fartpants, Dr Person Fakename, Harold Shipman, Professor Notaf Uckingclue, and Prof Cominic Dummings.

Also the study your sit you are in good company ...

How about that your evidence article uses some blog posts (not peer reviewed papers) as evidence ... Surjit Bhalla, Indian economist, author and columnist, ...

And does not address any articles published in that year that showed effects. Here's one: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2405-7

You can find way more than the "sources" your article cites. AIER is partisan and does not give you "the evidence."

I agree that a lockdowns did make sense to "flatten the curve" and it certainly did help reduce reproduction.

But the model probably relies heavily on extrapolation. It is like an election forecast. That can have merit, but doesn't really lead to a definitive result.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com