My letter submission — on how we performed handling Covid and how to handle the next pandemic — was fact-checked by the SCMP.. Like it was a peer-reviewed scientific paper, not just a letter from Grumpy McGrumph!
I note that the US had a bipartisan “Covid Commission” to do a post mortem and “what we can learn” but Jay Bhattarachaya reckons it was a “whitewash”. I fear any similar investigation here is going to be similar, more so, even, as in “we did a pretty good job” and plan more of the same in the next pandemic.
I note that the US had a bipartisan “Covid Commission” to do a post mortem and “what we can learn” but Jay Bhattarachaya reckons it was a “whitewash”. I fear any similar investigation here is going to be similar, more so, even, as in “we did a pretty good job” and plan more of the same in the next pandemic.
So I’m kind of whistling in the wind here, I fear…
ADDED: Fact-checking email corro with the SCMP below the fold.
(Note Tse Chueen’s use of pronouns!)
Dear Mr Forsythe,
Thank you for your letter, which we'd like to run. May I first check:
1) Outdoors “social distancing” rules were capricious and ineffective.
I assume this statement is based on studies? Could you provide some sources please?
2) On masks, we have learned, from the most thorough meta analysis of randomised controlled trials (RCT) on public masking that they have no net benefit at the population level (the Cochrane Report).
The authors of this Cochraine review appears to be less certain:
There is uncertainty about the effects of face masks. The low to moderate certainty of evidence means our confidence in the effect estimate is limited, and that the true effect may be different from the observed estimate of the effect. The pooled results of RCTs did not show a clear reduction in respiratory viral infection with the use of medical/surgical masks. There were no clear differences between the use of medical/surgical masks compared with N95/P2 respirators in healthcare workers when used in routine care to reduce respiratory viral infection. This is pointed out in this fact-checking article:
3) A good place to start would be to review the Great Barrington Declaration of 2020, which restated long-recommended pandemic policies, namely of “focused protection”.
I can't verify that focused protection is a "long-recommended pandemic policy". Could you clarify please?
Thank you. I'd be grateful if you could get back soon.
Best wishes
CHAN Tse Chueen (she/her)
SCMP Letters
—————-
24 May 2023 [After a reminder from Tse Chueen]
Hi Tse Chueen,
Sorry for late, I don’t look at emails every day….
Thanks for the fact check. My responses:
1. Outdoors “social distancing” rules were capricious and ineffective. [You ask: Can I show a study?]
“Capricious” is my own word. It’s meant to invoke my own emotions about the issue; it’s not a scientific term.
It was clear from the beginning of the pandemic that this was a virus that was transmitted indoors, not outdoors.
I wrote that we knew this as early as 9 September 2020. The study I refer to there was co-funded by our own Hong Kong government.
/Clip:
A study of 7,300 Covid patients in China, part-funded by our own government, found only one that was contracted outdoors. The study concludes:
The transmission of respiratory infections such as SARS-CoV-2 from the infected to the susceptible is an indoor phenomenon. [Link]
Given that we knew — early on! — that the virus was an indoor phenomenon, in a study co-funded by our own government, any mandate to control us outdoors is, by definition, “capricious and ineffective”. I noted with mine own eyes, here in Discovery Bay, how we sealed off outdoors training equipment, bbq areas and beaches, when the Science told us that it was better to get out and exercise. We closed pools and beaches and exercise areas and bbq’s! That made zero sense. It was indeed capricious (“inconsistent”, “arbitrary”).
(ADDED: also this re outdoor pools, etc, from the CDC. And on the infeffectiveness of social distancing rules, from a Cambridge Uni study)
2. On masks, we have learned, from the most thorough meta analysis of randomised controlled trials (RCT) on public masking that they have no net benefit at the population level (the Cochrane Report) .[You say: The authors appear “less certain”]
Masking is a fraught issue and people have their views on it almost independent of the data. I don’t want to get into a tussle over it.
Tom Jefferson, the lead author of the Report, was rather more direct about the results: “There is just no evidence that they [masks] make any difference. Full stop.” Here. Also: “Do mask mandates work?”.
Given the extent of the Cochrane study — of 78 randomised trials with over 610,000 participants — their summary, which you quote yourself, is enough for me:
"The pooled results of RCTs did not show a clear reduction in respiratory viral infection with the use of medical/surgical masks.”
(By the way, this led to a "battle of the hypotheses": The Cochrane report tested the hypothesis: “do masks work?” and they found no clear evidence that they do. The critics (pro-masks), then said: “you haven’t tested the hypothesis that masks don’t work”. That’s a rather higher hurdle, as you can’t really prove a negative).
A version of Carl Sagan’s wise words is relevant here. He said
...“extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”
I amend this to: “Extraordinary mandates require extraordinary evidence.” By any measure the government mandate for everyone to wear a mask in public, at all times, both indoors and outdoors, is an extraordinary mandate. Yet the evidence that it will reduce virus spread is not at all extraordinary. It is, at best, “less certain”. Would you grant me that?
By the way, I’ve done a deep-dive post on the whole Cochrane “Physical interventions” study, since there were many in the media who could simply not accept that masks were perhaps not as effective as they’d been led to believe. I quote many of the debunkers at that post as well as the debunks of the debunks. I particularly recommend Vinay Prasad, (a professor of Epidemiology and Biostatistics), links at the post.
3. A good place to start would be to review the Great Barrington Declaration of 2020, which restatedlong-recommended pandemic policies, namely of “focused protection” [You ask: can I show where it is “long-recommended”]
Regarding the “long-recommended” policy, the easiest reference I can give you is the lead co-author of the Barrington Declaration, professor Jay Bhattacharya, a Stanford Medical School epidemiologist and professor of Health Policy. In a recent video — worth a full watch — he says at this point (21:25):
“[Focused Protection] wasn’t actually a fringe idea, in fact it was the standard policy for how to manage respiratory virus pandemics that we’d followed for a century…”.
I have seen elsewhere reference to this being part of national pandemic strategies — eg, that’s why in the UK, they initially wanted to follow this Focused Protection strategy, but in the end were forced to bend to public demands for full lockdowns because that’s what was being done everywhere else. Except Sweden, of course, where they had case and death results broadly similar to others, but with better economic outcomes and now lower excess deaths (but that’s a whole nother issue….).
In my letter I just want to make a simple point: that if we’re to do a review of how we have handled the Covid pandemic then it needs a wide scope: both outside Hong Kong, and outside our own designated experts. In particular, we need to be brave enough to acknowledge that we may have got some things wrong, perhaps very wrong. Only then will we have some hope of not repeating the worst of what we did.
Sincerely,
Peter Forsythe (hee/hum)
9308 0799 (WhatsApp)
