“We can’t have the cure be worse than the problem,” Trump told reporters at a briefing Monday, echoing a midnight Sunday tweet. “We have to open our country because that causes problems that, in my opinion, could be far bigger problems.”
— President Donald Trump, quoted on RealClearPolitics.com, March 24, 2020
A friend of mine — who, like President Trump, is concerned that the “cure” being prescribed during the COVID-19 pandemic might be worse than the problem itself — sent me a link to a March 24 Wall Street Journal article by Dr. Eran Bendavid and Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, two Stanford University professors of medicine.
The title of the WSJ article is, “Is the Coronavirus as Deadly as They Say?” (We aren’t providing a link to the article because it’s behind a ‘subscribers only’ paywall.)
Who, exactly, are “They”? And how deadly do “They” say it is? The article begins like this:
If it’s true that the novel coronavirus would kill millions without shelter-in-place orders and quarantines, then the extraordinary measures being carried out in cities and states around the country are surely justified. But there’s little evidence to confirm that premise — and projections of the death toll could plausibly be orders of magnitude too high.
An interesting introduction. If it’s true that the novel coronavirus would kill millions without our current policies and orders in place, then… we’re on the right track. Our learned professors are here referencing alleged estimates that COVID-19 might — in a very dark version of America’s future — kill millions, unless we practice social distancing.
On March 20, California Governor Gavin Newsom wrote a letter to President Donald Trump, asking for help in handling the virus outbreak, and in that letter, the governor put forward a rather startling (and outrageous?) prediction: That more than half of California’s 39.5 million residents would become infected within the next two months, with the potential that more than 5 million would require hospitalization. I’ve seen estimates indicating that about 2 percent of hospitalized COVID cases never recover, which would put Governor Newsom’s eventual death toll at 100,000 Californians.
That’s if the fatality rate estimates are close to accurate… and if Governor Newsom were providing a realistic projection of total serious infections in California. At this point, neither assumption can be said to be “true”, because we’re still far from understanding the progress of a pandemic like COVID-19 in a vast, heterogeneous nation like the USA.
But Dr. Bendavid and Dr. Bhattacharya apparently want us to evaluate current US health policies against a backdrop where “millions” are being killed. As far as I can tell, few experts are seriously claiming that “millions” of Americans are likely to die during this health crisis. It appears that in a vast, heterogeneous place like Planet Earth, (population 7.8 billion) there have been 27,341 deaths. globally, over the past 4 months. (As of March 27.) In some places, such as China and South Korea, it appears the infection rate is declining rather than a rather than accelerating.
How we could possibly see 100,000 fatalities in California — within the next two months — is not immediately clear.
So… right from the start, the good doctors seem to have got themselves off on the wrong foot, with an unrealistic premise. The WSJ article then proceeds to use “very weak” evidence to try and convinced us that, no, we will not see “millions” die. (But… we never thought we would, in the first place…)
As data for their statistical calculations, the professors use: passengers on a few selected airplanes, one tiny village in Italy, a small sampling performed somewhere in Iceland (?), and a certain number of NBA basketball players.
On or around Jan. 31, countries sent planes to evacuate citizens from Wuhan, China. When those planes landed, the passengers were tested for Covid-19 and quarantined. After 14 days, the percentage who tested positive was 0.9%…
Next, the northeastern Italian town of Vò, near the provincial capital of Padua. On March 6, all 3,300 people of Vò were tested, and 90 were positive, a prevalence of 2.7%…
In Iceland, deCode Genetics is working with the government to perform widespread testing. In a sample of nearly 2,000 entirely asymptomatic people, researchers estimated disease prevalence of just over 1%…
The best (albeit very weak) evidence in the U.S. comes from the National Basketball Association. Between March 11 and 19, a substantial number of NBA players and teams received testing. By March 19, 10 out of 450 rostered players were positive. Since not everyone was tested, that represents a lower bound on the prevalence of 2.2%…
I did a Google search to find out what the doctors meant by “a substantial number of NBA players”… and the best confirmation data I could find was in the Salt Lake Tribune.
“About one-third of the league’s teams have publicly acknowledged undergoing testing for coronavirus.”
Each NBA roster is allowed 15 players. There are 30 teams, and one-third tested their players. So 150 players were tested? And 10 were diagnosed as positive? According to my pocket calculator, that’s 6.6% — not 2.2%.
Are “Very Weak” Statistics as Deadly as They Say?
Consider some simpler data that readers might be willing to accept as “real numbers”. The first case of COVID-19 in the US was reported on January 20.
On February 23, the CDC reported zero COVID-19 deaths in the US. A real number?
As of March 27, John Hopkins University was reporting 1,500 US fatalities from COVID-19. That’s 1,500 deaths within the span of one month. Another real number?
The rate of coronavirus fatalities is certain to change over the next few months… but if the March rate were to continue for 12 months, we would see 18,000 fatalities in the US. That is not a real number, but rather a simplistic projection, based on very little data… but better data, perhaps, than what Dr. Bendavid and Dr. Bhattacharya appear to be teasing us with.
The WSJ article includes this statement, near its conclusion:
The daily reports from Italy and across the US show real struggles and overwhelmed health systems. But a 20,000- or 40,000-death epidemic is a far less severe problem than one that kills two million. Given the enormous consequences of decisions around COVID-19 response, getting clear data to guide decisions now is critical.
Agreed. Two million is a larger number than 20,000. But 20,000 is still a substantial number, as I hope the professors will agree.
Knowing as little as we do about the situation — lacking the clear data that everyone agrees will be critical, whenever it finally arrives — I have to endorse with the approach we’ve taken here in Colorado. Stay Home. Let the economy cool off. File for unemployment. Eat beans and rice for a few weeks. Take the dog on an extra walk.
If we live through this difficult experience, we will be able to build the economy back up. If we’re dead, we won’t.