Striking down Governor Evers’s mask mandate in the name of process means fatalities almost assuredly must be higher than otherwise. From AP today:
A conservative law firm asked a judge on Monday to immediately put an end to Wisconsin’s mask mandate, arguing that Democratic Gov. Tony Evers doesn’t have the authority to issue such an order that comes as COVID-19 cases surge statewide.
Attorneys for the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty filed the request in Polk County Circuit Court for an immediate injunction to declare the order invalid and void. It was part of an amendment to a lawsuit they had filed there in August against Evers’ first mask mandate.
A court hearing was scheduled for Oct. 5 to consider the motion.
Youyang Gu’s projections are for an increase of Wisconsin fatalities of 5.8/day to 13/day (7 day rolling averages) as of 9/28. The 95% confidence interval is (3, 31).
Source: Youyang Gu Covid-19 projection, accessed 9/28.
Youyang Gu’s projection is based on mobility estimates and current restrictions. For context, 13/day works out 395.2/month.
What is the impact of striking down the mask requirement? Here’s an estimate from Lyu and Wehby (2020).
Mandating face mask use in public is associated with a decline in the daily COVID-19 growth rate by 0.9, 1.1, 1.4, 1.7, and 2.0 percentage points in 1–5, 6–10, 11–15, 16–20, and 21 or
more days after state face mask orders were signed, respectively.
Graphically:
Source: Lyu and Wehby (2020).
Unless the increased number of cases due to eliminating the mandate has absolutely zero fatalities associated with it, then the Wisconsin Institute for Law and LIberty can be accorded some responsibility for the resulting deaths. I’m certain, however, they will be happy to trade (other people’s) lives for (their) principles.
As someone with family members in Wisconsin, this bad news gets personal.
I’m not playing down the fact this is troublesome, but hopefully this will be similar to business activity being lessened even with little guidance from state leaders or enforcement of social distancing in restaurants. Self-interest and self-preservation will make the effects less severe. I don’t see a big difference for those in higher educated groups or who interact with higher educated groups. Although one could argue the fraternity and sorority parties putting people like Menzie at higher risk blows that theory all to hell. It always kind of gets back to the weakest link in the chain~~~or maybe in this case weakest link in the social circle.
Problem is, second order effects don’t respect social divisions. We may hang out mostly with masked heroes, but if all masked heroes have a few interactions with unmasked villains we will have a substantial risk of infection despite our group heroism.
CoRev found some rightwing stupid lower court judge who did rule against sensible policy. CoRev was incredibly elated. I guess CoRev wants more deaths not less. BTW – a lower court ruling could be appealed so maybe sensible heads will prevail, which of course will set CoRev off on one of his patented tantrums.
I’m living in your head of the worst analyst in the world. Find the reference.
sammy
September 28, 2020 at 9:55 am
U.S. District Judge William Stickman IV, who was appointed by President Trump, sided with plaintiffs that included hair salons, drive-in movie theaters, a farmer’s market vendor, a horse trainer and several Republican officeholders in their lawsuit against Wolf, a Democrat, and his health secretary.
I need to apologize to Sammy for confusing him with you. Yea Sammy is a little slow but he is a lot smarter than you could ever be and not nearly as dishonest. Forgive me Sammy/
I had to turn my head away, this was more socially awkward than a confession on Father Dowling Mysteries.
Check out this self serving BS:
https://www.will-law.org/
“BAD LAWS ARE THE WORST FORM OF TYRANNY.”
EDMUND BURKE
An old military adage calls for the cavalry to “ride to the sound of the guns.” As a tactic, it has both its strengths and weaknesses. As a sentiment, it is a call for courageous engagement. At the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, we hope to answer that call. Through education, litigation, and participation in public discourse, we seek to advance the public interest in the rule of law, individual liberty, constitutional government, and a robust civil society. We strive to do so, moreover, in partnership with like-minded individuals and organizations – often our clients – who are committed to classical liberalism and constitutional government.
We recognize that these ideals are neither Democratic nor Republican, but American. Our focus is primarily, if not exclusively, on Wisconsin – a state that has become one of the focal points of our ongoing debate about the proper role of the government within society and of the courts within government. As a non-profit and non-partisan organization, we litigate in the areas of property rights, the freedom to earn a living, voting rights, regulation, taxation, school choice, and religious freedom. As an educational organization, we strive to advance the debate concerning law and public policy in these and other areas
An old military adage calls for the cavalry to “ride to the sound of the guns.”
Well, today’s army doesn’t have much use for horses. The Training & Doctrine Command (TRADOC) guidance for the Army’s 1st Cavalry Division is for armor battalions to shoot-and-scoot and for Apache attack helicopter squadrons to lie low behind trees and hills and use the Longbow radar to see over those hills and trees.
Sun Tzu agrees with TRADOC, by and large.
I hear that some of the political hacks in the White House have statistical evidence that declining reported death rates correlated with higher poll numbers for Trump. This would explain the parade of intellectual garbage we are seeing on this issue. Of course the October surprise might alas be more deaths over the next few weeks given the utter incompetence of Team Trump and his sycophants.
Worst analyst of the world, “Of course the October surprise might alas be more deaths over the next few weeks given the utter incompetence of Team Trump and his sycophants.”That’s not the October surprise I expect. I expect some one to do a comparison of the impacts on deaths of the liberal dog whistle issues.
There are a lot of studies out there that can be used. Your favorite dog whistle issue, use of HCQ, alone has 118 HCQ studies 71 peer reviewed with indications of ~40% average lower death rates than those countries outlawing its use. Then we have studies being done on the excess deaths due to lock downs. Or studies showing the states’ economic performance due to policy differences. There are many areas ripe for harvest after we hear the debate issues.
Pick your poison. The field is ripe.
We know your poison is hydroxychloroquine.
We also know you have read each of those many studies and are busy misrepresenting what all them say. Keep up the dishonesty there CoRev.
“There are a lot of studies out there that can be used. Your favorite dog whistle issue, use of HCQ, alone has 118 HCQ studies 71 peer reviewed with indications of ~40% average lower death rates than those countries outlawing its use.”
This is dumb even on CoRev’s bottom of the barrel standards. Let’s see the only reason why a nation might have a lower death rate than another has to do with laws that allow for the use of a treatment that has been shown over and over not to affect whether one dies from COVID-19. Seriously CoRev – John Lott would not even cite such a stupid correlation.
CoRev writes, “There are a lot of studies out there that can be used. Your favorite dog whistle issue, use of HCQ, alone has 118 HCQ studies 71 peer reviewed with indications of ~40% average lower death rates than those countries outlawing its use.”
This is laughable. HCQ use is NOT outlawed. Any physician in the US can prescribe it today for prevention or treatment of COVID-19. There is no FDA regulation prohibiting such ‘off-label’ use. It is highly doubtful that there are 71 peer reviewed studies demonstrating that HCQ has any clinical efficacy in a randomized controlled trial. there have been a number of observational studies that show by a margin of 2-1 that HCQ has no effect either in prophylaxis or treatment (and yes, I’ve read probably 90% of the pre-print publications that have come out for this drug). Most of the major clinical trials of HCQ have been either stopped or suspended because it is not ethical to give a drug to a patient where there is documented evidence that it will provide no benefit (and yes, you can go to the NIH Clinical Trials Database and count all these up if you wish).
COVID-19 presents a serious health issue for many in the US. Foisting inaccurate information on a public pining for a vaccine or reliable therapy does nothing to advance the public health and likely causes harm. You can always go to my newsletter page and read about the real progress and on occasion lack thereof: https://agoldhammer.com/covid_19/ In fact go thee and get one of the cookie recipes; you will feel better.
“COVID-19 presents a serious health issue for many in the US. Foisting inaccurate information on a public pining for a vaccine or reliable therapy does nothing to advance the public health and likely causes harm.”
But you need to understand – this is exactly what Kelly Anne Conway hired CoRev to do. If he does not, she will fire and then this troll will have no rent or food money.
alan, i thank you for the newsletter. informative. your commentary in the newsletter on the hcq studies should put that issue to rest. too bad the folks who should read your work are unwilling to do so. as a melodic recommendation, perhaps jungleland?
Menzie, the study appeared today on https://c19study.com/
It is marked inconclusive as I suspected and their explanation:
“Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis study Source Study Page
Abella et al., JAMA Internal Medicine, doi:doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2020.6319 (Peer Reviewed)
Efficacy and Safety of Hydroxych loroquine vs Placebo for Pre-exposure SARS-CoV-2 Prophylaxis Among Health Care Workers
Very small early-terminated underpowered PrEP RCT with 64/61 HC Q/control patients and only 8 infections, HC Q infection rate 6.3% versus control 6.6%, RR 0.95 [0.25 – 3.64].
There was no hospitalization or death, no significant difference in QTc, no severe adverse events, no cardiac events (e.g., syncope and arrhythmias) observed. Medication adherence was 81%. Therapeutic levels of HC Q may not have been reached by the time of the infection in the first week.
2 infections were reported to be after discontinuation of the medication, but the authors do not specify which arm these were in. Hypothetically, if these were both in the HC Q arm, the resulting RR for treatment would be much lower. ”
Since I reported several days ago their study count is up to 123 HCQ studies, 74 peer reviewed.
for those unwilling to look at the link, it provides these summaries:
” Early treatment ↓64%
Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis ↓49%
All studies ↓34%
Late treatment ↓26%
Post-Exposure Prophylaxis ↓24%
Early treatment is most effective
123 HCQ studies
74 peer reviewed”
I ask. How many deaths do you want on your conscience?
Alan Goldhammer You have to understand what CoRev means by “peer reviewed.” He doesn’t mean it in the normal academic sense; he means that a few likeminded people traded papers over some beers at some local dive bar and patted each other on the back and noted what a fine job each and everyone of them did. If your peers are crackpots, then it’s easy to post crackpot junk as “peer reviewed.” In truth the peer review process takes a long time, and even longer yet before it gets published in a blue chip journal. The virus hasn’t been around long enough to really generate anything close to 71 peer reviewed papers. Remember, CoRev referred to one paper as “peer reviewed” despite the big warning in red that the paper was not peer reviewed.
CoRev has been ‘peer reviewing’ a lot of papers by crackpots. But wait if Dr. Crockpot writes a paper and another know nothing gives it a favorable review, should this really count as being peer reviewed?
Yeah, I know that CoRev doesn’t understand what peer review means. Meanwhile, a decent research group in China just posted a paper showing HCQ increased psychiatric-like behaviors and disrupted the expression of related genes in the mouse brain: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.09.27.316158v1.full.pdf CoRev might want to add this one to his list of ‘peer-reviewed’ papers. Perhaps HCQ causes Trump adoration syndrome among his followers.
“trump adoration syndrome”. I’m saving/stealing that one for future use.
‘This is laughable. HCQ use is NOT outlawed. Any physician in the US can prescribe it today for prevention or treatment of COVID-19. There is no FDA regulation prohibiting such ‘off-label’ use.’
Wait CoRev is running statistical analysis based on his own flawed view of the legal environment per nation might be? ALEC-Laffer hello?
https://econbrowser.com/archives/2020/08/alec-laffer-state-competitiveness-index-13th-edition-is-out
Something else CoRev could never comprehend!
Alan, here’s the list: https://c19study.com/ No value judgements, just links to the identified studies’ abstracts and simple comparison tallying deaths.
“It is highly doubtful that there are 71 peer reviewed studies demonstrating that HCQ has any clinical efficacy in a randomized controlled trial. ”
Never said that!
“there have been a number of observational studies that show by a margin of 2-1 that HCQ has no effect either in prophylaxis or treatment”…
This is highly unlikely on a world-wide basis.
” Most of the major clinical trials of HCQ have been either stopped or suspended because it is not ethical to give a drug to a patient where there is documented evidence that it will provide no benefit.”
You do know that there are other countries and medical practices outside the West developed countries?
” (and yes, you can go to the NIH Clinical Trials Database and count all these up if you wish).”
Link please.
Also, “This is laughable. HCQ use is NOT outlawed.” It still is in some states, but many have since opened up restrictions.
“Of the 44 states that had strict regulations in place since March, New York, Idaho, Kentucky, Minnesota, Mississippi, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota and Texas have all seen significant changes and even complete reversals in HCQ policy in recent weeks and months….”
and
“In a few months, we may discover situations where this combination of drugs could have saved a significant number of lives, but we had all these deaths because it was not used,” Hall told The Texan.”
https://yated.com/states-bow-to-pressure-to-reverse-course-on-hcq/
Other countries do use it and apparently successfully. If you are wrong how many deaths do you want on your conscious?
“It is highly doubtful that there are 71 peer reviewed studies demonstrating that HCQ has any clinical efficacy in a randomized controlled trial. ”
Never said that!
You certainly implied that. But it is good to know that you will back peddle like the weasel you are when challenged by the facts.
“Other countries do use it and apparently successfully.” For malaria. FYI in case you did not know. COVID-19 is different
“If you are wrong how many deaths do you want on your conscious?”
This disgusting charge again from someone who has no conscious? You are advocating people ignore social distancing and wearing masks which has clearly increased the death count. But do you care? Of course not as your sole agenda is to promote Trump.
I would ask you to be honest about your agenda but you have zero integrity.
The world’s worst analyst gets everything wrong again. Please read to read and stop projecting. Go to the link and tell us how many studies are positive Vs negative for HCQ use for treating Corona virus. I know it must be scary to know your pet issue is changing for the better at the wrong time.
BTW we now have the provisional CDC daily case and death trends aligning downward. I hope you enjoy a restaurant today.
If you are wrong how many deaths do you want on your conscious?
“Go to the link and tell us how many studies are positive Vs negative for HCQ use for treating Corona virus.”
Are any of these peer reviewed? Oh wait – you do not know. I read one of your “positives” which came from Ghana. I guess the researcher there won a Nobel Prize. CoRev has been reduced to the play school game of counting which kid in the sand box has the most marbles.
Except CoRev does not know the rest of the kiddies are laughing at him.
“No value judgements”
Judgment stupid – learn to spell. No peer review. No checking on the credentials of the researcher. But if your list shows a “positive” dumbass CoRev thinks this is THE definitive analysis. Nobel Prize time!
CoRev: Today, fm Reuters on study published in JAMA Internal Medicine:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-hydroxychloroquine/trump-touted-hydroxychloroquine-shows-no-benefit-in-covid-19-prevention-study-idUSKBN26L2XM
Our host has just provided a link that starts off with:
“(Reuters) – A malaria drug taken by U.S. President Donald Trump to prevent COVID-19 did not show any benefit versus placebo in reducing coronavirus infection among healthcare workers, according to clinical trial results published on Wednesday. The study largely confirms results from a clinical trial in June that showed hydroxychloroquine was ineffective in preventing infection among people exposed to the new coronavirus.”
Now if you are on your game you will dismiss such “clinical trials” as not being as informative to the MAGA cause as the crackpot non peer reviews Nobel Prize winning studies you tout.
Then again you do not get what our host meant by “clinical trials”.
CoRev “It is highly doubtful that there are 71 peer reviewed studies demonstrating that HCQ has any clinical efficacy in a randomized controlled trial. ”
Never said that!
What is the referent in your pronoun “that”? You certainly said that there were 71 peer review studies.
Menzie, 8 mild cases, 4 each in the target and control groups, out of 125 participants in a study that was terminated early due to a lack of enrollment? Not much of a study. This should fall into the inconclusive category. Even the study authors imply that: “The study authors said it was possible that a trial conducted in a community with higher prevalence of the disease could allow detection of a greater benefit from the drug.”
2slugs, your grasp of the obvious still amazes. My comment: “Your favorite dog whistle issue, use of HCQ, alone has 118 HCQ studies 71 peer reviewed with indications of ~40% average lower death rates than those countries outlawing its use.” Note the difference in the wording.
Or you could have just done a quick review of the reference. Even the world’s worst analyst at least took a look then made what appears to be a racist assumption about Ghana.
CoRev The issue is whether or not you believe that there are in fact 71 peer reviewed studies supporting your position. Apparently you do. Given that all too often your sources misuse and misunderstand what it means for a study to be peer reviewed, you can understand why some of us are skeptical. Calling something a peer reviewed study doesn’t make it peer reviewed. Passing a paper around the office doesn’t make it peer reviewed. No one here believes you actually understand the peer review process. It’s a world you’ve never lived it, so I doubt that you have any idea what it means. Just because a paper get a quick sanity check by a few colleagues does not make it peer reviewed.
2slugs, what is wrong with your brain? Quit trying to argue over something I never said. Why the strawman argument?
To answer your strawman question:
NO THERE ARE NOW 74 PEER REVIEWED STUDIES OUT OF THE NOW 123 STUDIES. HAD YOU JUST DONE THE MODICUM OF DUE DILIGENCE YOU WOULD HAVE REALIZED NOT ALL THE STUDIES ARE POSITIVE. APPROXIMATELY 74 ARE POSITIVE OUT OF THE 112 STUDIES SINCE FEBRUARY 2020 AND APPROXIMATELY 30 ARE NEGATIVE.
Confusing the count there are many more than 123 studies listed and several more categories than just Positive and Negative. Of course had you just gone to the site that would have been obvious. Even Menzie’s referenced study is listed and categorized as inconclusive and not NEGATIVE as implied by Reuters.
CoRev You are misunderstanding me. I am not arguing about the percentages that are positive versus negative. I am asking how you know that those studies were in fact peer reviewed. Do you know anything about the owner of that website? Hint: You might want to do a little due diligence because the owner is actually a dishonest crackpot with a long history of putting up fake rightwing stuff. Just to take one example, the University of Minnesota is upset that the owner flatly misrepresented the findings of one of their studies. The owner coded it as a “positive” finding when the University of Minnesota said it was a “negative” finding.
Dr. David Boulware, a co-author of this clinical trial and
an infectious disease physician at the University of
Minnesota, told NewsGuard in an August 2020 email:
“While people can create their own pseudo-statistical
analyses from our published data, that does not mean
such analyses are correct. The normal scientific
process would be to submit such an analysis for peer
review for publication in a journal with your name
attesting to the work. Anonymous and/or non-peer
reviewed work should be viewed skeptically.”
Boulware also said that the websites’ analysis included
a fabricated quote about his own comments on the
study. C19Study.com and C19HCQ.com cited a since-
deleted tweet from a Twitter account named “T Lewis
MD,” which said, “I personally spoke to Boulware about
this study. He points out its many flaws. He also points
out that day 1-3 use had statistical significance and he’s
gearing his other studies accordingly. He intends to
investigate this significance further.”
https://www.newsguardtech.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/COVIDAnalysis.pdf
And that’s just one site. Try googling the domain name and you’ll see all kinds of crapola about the shady history behind this fake website. You’ve been played by Comrade Vladimir. You’re not alone. Bruce Hall also got played when he linked to a similar site that posted fake reports a few months ago. There’s a lesson here. Old fogies with failing memories and poor analytical skills should stay away from the internet.
2slugs, wow, doubling down on his original strawman argument he adds a 2nd. Had you just done due diligence and looked at the site you would have found the Boulware study under question WITH NOTES.
“Post Exposure Prophylaxis study Source Study Page
Boulware et al., NEJM, June 3 2020, doi:10.1056/NEJMoa2016638 (Peer Reviewed)
A Randomized Trial of Hydroxych loroquine as Postexposure Prophylaxis for Covid-19
COVID-19 cases are reduced by [49%, 29%, 16%] respectively when taken within ~[70, 94, 118] hours of exposure (including shipping delay). The treatment delay-response relationship is significant at p=0.002. PEP delayed treatment RCT.
Currently this is the only study where we have evaluated the result as positive while the authors indicate it is negative. We provide a detailed explanation of why the results presented here are positive [1]. Note that author comments also differ from the published conclusion.
For confirmation on the positive results of this study see: [2, 3, 4, 5, 6]….
1] c19study.com/boulware.html
[2] drive.google.com/file/d/1NZOJ57fM0RTaHD1t_9w2iua7lUJhOgWT/view
[3] arxiv.org/abs/2007.09477
[4] medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.08.19.20178376v1
[5] researchgate.net/publication/344369617_Hydroxychloroquine_as_Post-Exposure_Prophylaxis_for_Covid-1..
[6] blog.philbirnbaum.com/2020/08/the-nejm-hydroxychloroquine-study-fails.html”
The notes are worth reading, because this study and the authors conclusions raised quite some concern ABOUT THE CONCLUSION NOT BEING SUPPORTED AND POSSIBLY INCORRECT.
Remember RTCs are the gold standard, but a poorly designed and poorly done analysis adds no scientific value.
BTW, if that’s the best site you can find. The only one duped is you.
Just how many deaths do you want on your conscience? If the HCQ use/not use comparative values are confirmed, then it will be significant. Possible deaths saved is: ~82,000 for the average of HCQ studies to ~131,00 for the high end estimate. Let’s not even think about the cost and social impacts related to total cases, and the economic impacts of just this one policy.
It’s one side that’s been playing the blame game. Be careful of a potential rebound.
CoRev Go investigate the website. It won’t require much effort. It’s a corrupt website notorious for faking study conclusions. The “positive” finding reported by your website does not reflect what the study authors concluded. What part of “While people can create their own pseudo-statistical analyses from our published data, that does not mean such analyses are correct do you not understand? The point is that if the owner of the website disagrees with the conclusions of the study, that’s fine. But as the author says, the owner should step forward and make his case. It’s unethical to misrepresent an author’s conclusion just because you might disagree with it. But then again, misrepresentation is what you’re all about. The fact is that you got caught BS’ing with a notoriously corrupt website ought to elicit an apology from you if you had a shred of ethical decency. You’ve wasted our time and killed innocent electrons just because your personal pride refuses to concede that you’re on the wrong side of the science.
2slugs, all that anger over a simple aggregations site? Your biggest complaint is over 1 study out of 120+, and even the study author has waffled on its meaning. The site moderator well explains their reasoning, What’s yours?
If it makes you more comfortable reduce my “positive” count by 1.
The only reason for your attitude appears to be the personal pain if you are wrong as the numbers indicate. Did you notice several of the countries with the highest Covid death rate are also countries who disdained HCQ? Could it also be true for the US states? Dunno, asking for a friend.
CoRev It’s not just a simple aggregation site. It’s a site with a long history of misrepresenting studies. As I said, do a little research about that site and its sister site. It also misrepresented what were supposed to be peer reviewed studies. If you knew anything at all about the peer review process then you would know that it’s highly, highly, highly unlikely that there have been anything like 71 peer reviewed studies. That alone should have alerted you that something was fishy. Remember, you’re the one who posted a study as “peer reviewed” when the bright red notice at the top of the page said that it was not peer reviewed. The bottom line is that you got spoofed.
i find it fascinating that after all of this time, corev is still falling for the hcq con. i bet you donald is not taking hcq in the white house today. i bet he will defer to one of the medications that have been shown to be effective.
2slog, switching to peer review as an issue from misrepresenting studies. It’s as bad as assigning some significance to BAD RCT(s) over non-RCTs, observational and meta studies. The later meta study starts with this: “Combination of the fourunderpowered prophylaxis RCTs to date showing statistically significant results, RR 0.78 [0.61-0.99]….” You know where to go to find it.
I ignore your ranting about the site, because of the weakness of your example and my own search which resulted in similar weak like-minded rants. My search argument: c19study.com misrepresents study results I found zero evidence of what you claim with the obvious exception of the site your previously referenced. Strangely, I use one of the independent search machines, WHICH DOESN’T TUNE TO PAST SEARCHES, and found ZERO support for your rant.
Do you know how science works. Do you know that questioning the results from a study is the norm? Have you read the comments from Boulware, which haven’t clarified? In my search I was looking for a specific author complaining about c19study.com. Nope even after I went 5 pages. I did , however, find many positive references and a couple of reference studies describing how to lie using RCT and clinical studies.
Again, I can only assume that your your “…attitude appears to be the personal pain if you are wrong as the numbers indicate. Did you notice several of the countries with the highest Covid death rate are also countries who disdained HCQ? Could it also be true for the US states?”
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/29/coronavirus-doctors-now-have-more-treatments-to-save-lives.html
when people analyze the results, they see that hcq was just another con. oxford has been looking for things that work, hcq is not on the list. dexamethasone was on the list. and it could have been there sooner had we not wasted time and resources on a drug pushed by the president from guidance by musk and ellison.
What you “expect” is of no importance. In fact, elevating your priors is what’s wrong with most everything you write here. Your priors are your personal blinders.
We have already seen how CoRev and Bruce Hall thinks that old people dying from this virus is AOK as long as they can wear their stupid MAGA hats. But wait – children can be put at risk too?
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/wh-pressured-cdc-to-downplay-risk-to-children-in-reopening-schools
Top White House officials pressured the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this summer to minimize the risk of sending children back to school, according to a New York Times report.
Interviews with White House officials past and present, as well as the Times’ review of internal documents revealed that White House officials actively sought data to publicly portray a weakening pandemic that posed little danger to children in an attempt to workaround CDC scientists.
The Times’ report shows how White House spent weeks trying to press public health professionals to promote messaging that fit President Donald Trump’s election-year agenda to swiftly reopen schools even though data on the issue has not reinforced its safety.
Olivia Troye, a former top aide to Vice President Mike Pence who was involved in the task force, said she was repeatedly asked by Pence’s chief of staff, Marc Short, to get the agency to develop reports that showed declining COVID-19 cases among younger populations.
Troye told CNN’s Chris Cuomo in an interview Monday, that the situation was a “nightmare.”
“Unfortunately, this was an effort, you know, at times where I would get blindsided, where there would be junior staffers being tasked to find different data for charts to show that the virus wasn’t as bad for certain populations, ages or demographics,” Troye said.
She told the Times that she believed pressure from the White House was driven by Trump’s political agenda to have schools running when voters cast ballots.
“You’re exchanging votes for lives, and I have a serious problem with that,” Troye told the Times in an interview. The former official has become increasingly vocal speaking out against Trump since leaving the White House in August.
According to Troye, Short told other members of the vice president’s staff to dig for data that might bolster the White House’s reopening message for schools.
In one example, Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus response coordinator, pressured the CDC to incorporate claims made by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration warning that shuttered schools would have a long-term effect on children’s mental health.
ADVERTISING
White House spokesman Brian Morgenstern contended in a statement to the Times that top health officials were in agreement about the reopening of schools and how its risks were weighed.
“President Trump relies on the advice of all of his top health officials who agree that it is in the public health interest to safely reopen schools, and that the relative risks posed by the virus to young people are outweighed by the risks of keeping children out of school indefinitely,” Morgenstern said.
Trump has repeatedly pushed for schools to be opened quickly. He falsely told Fox News in July that children were practically immune to the disease. He has also sought to undermine the wisdom of health officials in his administration, complaining about the CDC’s stringent recommendations.
Recent data from the American Academy of Pediatrics shows however that hospitalizations and COVID-19 deaths have increased at a more rapid rate in children and teenagers than among the general population.
The administration worked hard at whittling away the CDC’s cautious guidance on schools reopening to realize Trump’s vision, an effort that was reflected in a final document on the opening schools published under the doctored White House-approved title: “The Importance of Reopening America’s Schools This Fall.” The document contained information suggesting that the coronavirus was less deadly to children than the seasonal flu, a claim that had elicited clear objections from CDC officials.
The world’s worst analyst references an article from the fake new purveyor: “according to a New York Times report.” Remember him crowing over the $750 Trump paid in income taxes? Did he know that in that same article they also reported Trump paid $24M in AMT.
What’s the equivalent of “ad hominem” when the hominem is a newspaper? C’mon, you’re pulling out that weak fake news nonsense?
The American Academy of Pediatrics, for heaven sake. The CDC. I’m feeling bad for you and you don’t even deserve anyone feeling bad for you.
Looking at data for a time, trying to make sense of the data before formal analysis, can be productive. While I have no formal sense of how easily coronavirus infections might spread in Wisconsin should social distancing rules and related cautions be disregarded, I began by chance to look at Israel a few months ago because Branko Milanovic mentioned the seeming success Israel had in controlling the coronavirus. There was pressure on the Israeli government to normalize, and the pressure was acceded to. Quickly thereafter, I watched as the data showed a spread of infections. Public health resources were suddenly not sufficient to locate and isolate increasing infection sources and as Paul Krugman would point out a couple of weeks ago a disaster was in the making.
So, I set down some Israeli data and possibly the data might be instructive in Wisconsin.
Looking at data for a time, trying to make sense of the data before formal analysis, can be productive. While I have no formal sense of how easily coronavirus infections might spread in Wisconsin should social distancing rules and related cautions be disregarded, I began by chance to look at Israel a few months ago because Branko Milanovic mentioned the seeming success Israel had in controlling the coronavirus. There was pressure on the Israeli government to normalize, and the pressure was acceded to. Quickly thereafter, I watched as the data showed a spread of infections. Public health resources were suddenly not sufficient to locate and isolate increasing infection sources and as Paul Krugman would point out a couple of weeks ago a disaster was in the making.
So, I have set down some Israeli data and possibly the data might be a little instructive in Wisconsin.
September 30, 2020
Coronavirus
Israel
Cases ( 243,895)
Deaths ( 1,552)
Deaths per million ( 169)
July 4, 2020
Coronavirus
Israel
Cases ( 29,170)
Deaths ( 330)
Deaths per million ( 36)
We might learn from the Israeli experience:
Having apparently approached a containment of the coronavirus in June, the Israeli government incautiously opened schools and businesses, and the result has been a persistent community infection spread contributing to what are now 243,895 cases in the small country as compared to 85,403 in all through all of mainland China.
Israel has unfortunately doubled and gone far beyond double the number of coronavirus cases in mainland China. The data are not a singular matter but reflect public health structure weaknesses. The need then is to look beyond the openings and examine what public health structure weaknesses have allowed for such an infection spread after what had appeared to be containment.
October 1, 2020
Coronavirus
Israel
Cases ( 252,533)
Deaths ( 1,600)
Deaths per million ( 174)
Israel has now had 252,533 coronavirus cases in the small country as compared to 85,414 in all through all of mainland China. Israel has unfortunately just about three-times the number of coronavirus cases in mainland China. Paul Krugman noticed the Israeli “disaster” on September 14 when there were 160,000 coronavirus cases. The difficulty in limiting a new spread of infections in so highly developed a country has become startling to me.