Clinical sciences are a nebulous thing. You can assert that when you do "X" to a group, it has the effect "Y". But does it? Did "X" really cause the effect? Or did the effect come about for some other reason?. Is your hypothesis even reasonable? If I assert that sprinkling sugar on your head before bedtime will reduce the chances of waking up as a zebra, and I try it on a group of people, it's gonna look pretty good: None will wake up as zebras. But was it because of the sugar?
That's why, with clinical studies, you always want a control group--a group that doesn't do what you are doing to your test group. If no one in the control group has their head sprinkled with sugar and none of them become zebras, either, then it disproves the assertion that it was the sugar that caused that outcome.
But you had models that were predicting the downfall of civilization, based on comically insufficient data, and willing participants (the soviets call them "useful idiots") like Neil Ferguson at Imperial College (UK), who got his 15 minutes by proclaiming a pandemic unlike anything since at least the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918 that killed as many as 50 million people. That shut the UK down right quick, and most other countries followed. After which, Dr. Ferguson issued his mea culpa "oops, maybe I overshot those estimates a bit, maybe I didn't use very good data," and he quickly reduced his estimates of mortality in the UK from 500,000 to fewer than 20,000. In the science world, we characterize that as a "big oops".
But is it worth destroying economies and lives over? The politicians will look you in the face and call you a murderer for even asking that question. How dare you? Well, we dare to make cost/benefit analyses all the time. It's why we don't all drive cars made of 1" thick steel. Sure, those cars would result in fewer fatalities when they crashed, but the manufacturing and fuel costs associated with those thick-walled cars are not worth the number of lives they would probably save.
Or, a little closer to home, think about what we normally do about Influenza (the flu). It comes around every year. And every year it kills about 40,000-80,000 Americans, many of them the elderly and those with pre-existing conditions (sound familiar?). In the past century, how many times have we shut down the economy for the flu? If you answered "none," you win a prize. That's a calculated decision.
So, has it been worth sending the world's economies into the deepest recession (and possibly depression) of modern times for COVID-19? No one can say for absolute certainty at this point, but, as my Magic 8-Ball used to reply: "all signs point to no." Of course, politicians are all in on this and they're not going to admit that. Ever. No matter what. Not. Gonna. Happen. They saved you. That's the party line that they'll utter to their grave. And that kind of "if I say it enough, it will become the truth" MO usually works.
That's why, with clinical studies, you always want a control group--a group that doesn't do what you are doing to your test group. If no one in the control group has their head sprinkled with sugar and none of them become zebras, either, then it disproves the assertion that it was the sugar that caused that outcome.
We're not always lucky enough to have control groups, either for moral reasons (you can't choose to not respond to a fire alarm to estimate the value of the fire department) or because it's impractical or politically inexpedient (the US can't test whether reduced taxes lead to more employment by only reducing taxes on half the country at a time).
So appeared to be the case with the Coronavirus, when, a month or so ago, the world seemingly went all in, all at once, with respect to shutting down their economies and asserting that only by self-isolation and the end of life as we know it can this Coronavrus be stopped. Of course, there was no real evidence that this was necessary, and in fact, the little data of value that was available (e.g. the Princess cruise where everyone on the ship was tested for COVID-19) suggested that Coronavirus was not nearly as dangerous as it was increasingly being made out to be.
But you had models that were predicting the downfall of civilization, based on comically insufficient data, and willing participants (the soviets call them "useful idiots") like Neil Ferguson at Imperial College (UK), who got his 15 minutes by proclaiming a pandemic unlike anything since at least the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918 that killed as many as 50 million people. That shut the UK down right quick, and most other countries followed. After which, Dr. Ferguson issued his mea culpa "oops, maybe I overshot those estimates a bit, maybe I didn't use very good data," and he quickly reduced his estimates of mortality in the UK from 500,000 to fewer than 20,000. In the science world, we characterize that as a "big oops".
On the basis of such rubbish early predictions, the economies of nearly all countries with an economy worth talking about as viable have been shattered and shuttered. The US has so far spent more than 2 TRILLION dollars bailing out everyone from the airlines to your pet sitter, and they're only getting started.
If you've been awake the past few weeks, you know that politicians around the globe, in Washington, and up your block have been pulling muscles while they slap themselves on the back about a job well done, how they've "flattened the curve," and how they have "saved" thousands or millions of people from the evil COVID-19. Well, flattening the curve is a real thing, and assuming that COVID-19 was about to infect everyone all at once, it's possible that was useful. The rest? There's no evidence that all that many (if any) have been "saved". We haven't conquered COVID-19. All we've done--if we've done anything--is slow it down a bit. So, probably, most people who were going to get it are still going to get it. Just not all next Thursday. That's not a bad accomplishment.
But is it worth destroying economies and lives over? The politicians will look you in the face and call you a murderer for even asking that question. How dare you? Well, we dare to make cost/benefit analyses all the time. It's why we don't all drive cars made of 1" thick steel. Sure, those cars would result in fewer fatalities when they crashed, but the manufacturing and fuel costs associated with those thick-walled cars are not worth the number of lives they would probably save.
Or, a little closer to home, think about what we normally do about Influenza (the flu). It comes around every year. And every year it kills about 40,000-80,000 Americans, many of them the elderly and those with pre-existing conditions (sound familiar?). In the past century, how many times have we shut down the economy for the flu? If you answered "none," you win a prize. That's a calculated decision.
So, has it been worth sending the world's economies into the deepest recession (and possibly depression) of modern times for COVID-19? No one can say for absolute certainty at this point, but, as my Magic 8-Ball used to reply: "all signs point to no." Of course, politicians are all in on this and they're not going to admit that. Ever. No matter what. Not. Gonna. Happen. They saved you. That's the party line that they'll utter to their grave. And that kind of "if I say it enough, it will become the truth" MO usually works.
But maybe not this time. Back to control studies. And Sweden. When the rest of the world was hunkering down for the black plague of COVID-19, Sweden said: "Eh, we're gonna roll the dice, gents." So they told their people to not be too stupid, but they didn't shut down the country, they didn't tell their people "dime out your neighbor if they are not wearing a mask or come within 6' of anyone," they basically didn't take their marching orders from some old Soviet propaganda posters. They told their people "there's this new virus, and it may get a bit hairy this year, but let's continue to act like a normally functioning society. And viva ABBA!"
So NOW you've got a control group. And the world is watching. While a lot of us are rooting for them, you can be sure there are a lot of politicians who are thinking "oh...fudge...what if they prove we were wrong?" Predictably, the politicians are already laying track for why Sweden is not like us, and they don't represent a good control study. But they're a good ENOUGH control study. And if they make it, and if their mortality rate isn't appreciably different than anyone else's, then all the politicians and the bargain basement science that they relied on to grind things to a halt will be shown to be responsible for the greatest self-inflicted error of perhaps all time.
The world is watching.
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Keep on topic!