A Scientific Explanation of Why Shutdowns Are Useless

[Valin]

Power Line

John Hinderaker

May 14, 2020

For the third time, *Peter Robinson interviews Dr. Jay Bhattacharya of Stanford Medical School for Uncommon Knowledge. Dr. Bhattacharya is cogent and articulate, and this conversation, a little under an hour long, is well worth your time. Among other things, he reports on a study he has just completed of COVID-19 in employees of major league baseball.

Dr. Bhattacharya brings bad news: 1) Only a small percentage of Americans, less than one percent in his study, maybe two or three percent nationwide, have had COVID-19. Herd immunity requires something like 70 percent or 80 percent to have antibodies. So the disease has a very long way to go before it has run its course. 2) There is no vaccine for COVID-19 on the horizon, and there may never be one. 3) The shutdowns that have paralyzed the developed world have, to some degree, slowed the spread of the disease, at tremendous cost. But that only delays the inevitable. There will never be a time when it is “safe” to stop the lockdowns. The disease isn’t going away. 4) Dr. Bhattacharya is also eloquent in describing the disastrous human toll, in lives and misery, that the shutdowns have inflicted around the globe.

**On the other hand, Dr. Bhattacharya has good news, too. The fatality rate from COVID-19 is low–worldwide, somewhere between 0.1 percent and 0.5 percent, probably closer to the low end of that range. The typical seasonal flu is said to have a fatality rate of around 0.1 percent. So COVID-19 is probably somewhat worse than the average flu virus.

(Snip)

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* IMO A National Treasure

** And for this we are destroying the world economy?

[Valin]

May 8, 2020 Dr. Jay Bhattacharaya from Stanford Medicine makes his third appearance on Uncommon Knowledge in eight weeks, this time to discuss a new COVID-19 survey of Major League Baseball employees he co-authored. The survey tested more than 5,600 employees across all 26 Major League Baseball clubs across the country. The results are yet another data set showing how COVID-19 spreads across geographical and economic lines. Dr. Bhattacharya also discusses the very real health risks associated with a prolonged lockdown and answers some of the questions raised by his last survey of Santa Clara County.

[Valin]

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