Koronavirus Kabuki

Some have argued that a global metropolis should “live with the virus”, yet that is divorced from the reality of a densely populated city with high mobility and a serious ageing issue. Hong Kong cannot afford to “lie flat” or the runaway virus will surely spiral out of control, ruining people’s lives and grinding the city to a halt. [So says Liu Guangyuan in today’s SCMP]

Liu Guangyuan is Beijing’s man in Hong Kong, so of course, when he says “jump” our apparatchiks ask "how high”?

He says the above, and all the rest of the Hong Kong government also say: that it’s a “fight”, a “battle” and that “it’s clear that taking avoidance measures like masking and social distancing reduces the virus”. That if we don’t the “runaway virus will spiral out of control”.

Example:

As daily Covid-19 infections continue to decline, one may think the city’s ongoing fifth wave will simply fade away. But if previous battles are any reference, victory may only follow from the vigorous enforcement of social-distancing and health-control regulations

But is it true? Not by the experience in other countries. My excel chart of Stringency Index (from Oxford Uni, via OWIF, and cases/million):

You can just eyeball this to note that there’s no obvious -- jumps out at you -- correlation between how much you lockdown and how many cases you have. If you’re not happy with eyeballing, then I’ve done the Correlation coefficients, for a dozen or so countries, which show, on average, no statistically significant relation between lockdown stringency and case rates. It’s not just me (though it was first me, back in 2020), but all Johns Hopkins University and recently The Lancet all of which conclude the same: there’s no statistically beneficial effect of NPIs such as lockdowns, masking, etc.

Yet people don’t like the science, so they ignore the science. Or quibble with methodologies. And tell us we have to be “brave”, we have to “keep fighting”, we’re “in a battle”, and so on. Whereas it was always the case that that wasn’t so, and is even more the case now with super-contagious Omicron.

A few more charts of Cases per million, since Omicron, with Stringency Indices, added by me. at the time there was either an increased or decreased stringency. Look closely and you see: no obvious correlation:

The correlation is positive, when it should be negative

For both UK and Italy, there is no statistically significant
correlation between the Stringency and the Case numbers

Same story with France and the US. The waves happened, no 
matter the Stringency of NPIs

So, what’s my point? That all this stuff that’s going on in Hong Kong and the few remaining other places keeping various mandates and lockdowns in place, are all, no a one of them, “following the science”. We ought to protect the vulnerable and the elderly and let everyone else get on with like. That’s been the best strategy since the beginning -- a version of the Barrington Declaration, and it remains the best policy. Many nations are defaulting too it. Just not us. So my point is we’re taking part in Health Theatre, that’s no use in dealing with Omicron or future variants. Maybe it makes some bureaucrats feel better, for they’re seen to be “doing something”. But that thing they’re doing -- that they also make the rest us us do -- is pretty much useless. If overcoming the pandemic is the point.