Perspectives On The Pandemic | Professor Knut Wittkowski

[agnostic]

Very interesting interview with Professor Knut Wittkowski who was for twenty years head of the Rockefeller University's Department of Biostatistics, Epidemiology, and Research Design.

 

[charlie]

/pandemic
/shutdown

 

[charlie]

"We will see more death because of this social distancing." - Professor Knut Wittkowski

 

[LeeLemonoil]

he definitely has been chewing over the issue. He seems a bit crazy, but that doesn’t mean anything

Stand Up for Your Rights, says Professor Knut M. Wittkowski


I wonder about the children and herd-immunity.
Youth all over the world are those who reject the social distancing orders the most. Because they don’t understand and are carefree, they say.
Yes. Maybe. But maybe that’s what youth and kids always did, for Millenia. Being carefree and don’t heeding what the adults warn, even playing any going near the proximity of sick people, especially old kin that they loved. Wouldn’t humans have died already if children weren’t „designed“ or evolutively selected to survive most infections? And if so, wouldn’t human populations as a whole evolved to herd immunity spearheaded by children? I’m beginning to find it highly likely.

 

[Giraffe]

In the video linked in the first post Dr. Wittkowski says that social distancing in order to contain an infectious respiratory disease is not the way to go. Better is to protect the most vulnerable and let the virus circulate among the low-risk people until the incidence is high enough to initiate “herd immunity” (which takes a month or two months). To close schools is a major mistake; no way to reach herd immunity without the kids. Containment measures flatten the curve, but prolong the epidemic, and there is the risk of a rebound (second wave).

If you get pneumonia, see a doctor soon. In case of a secondary bacterial infection, antibiotics are best taken early.

He says, there is nothing to be scared about. This is a flu epidemic like every other flu. Maybe a bit more severe, but nothing that is fundamentally different from the flus that we've seen in other years. Spending more time indoors only keeps the virus healthy.

Here is a paper written by Wittkowsky (a study on a preprint server):

The first three months of the COVID-19 epidemic: Epidemiological evidence for two separate strains of SARS-CoV-2 viruses spreading and implications for prevention strategies Two epidemics of COVID-19

The theoretical discussion about the "window of opportunity for intervention" is interesting.

Sadly he doesn't discuss the lack of data regarding the number of tests. Without that information all these "time-course by country" graphs have little value. In Germany, for example, the number of tests per week recently has tripled from one week to the next and there were still capacities for more tests.

.....

I thinks that with constantly increasing numbers of tests we are only going to see a decrease of newly infected when

• the number of tests can't be increased any more or
• the epidemic is approaching its end (thus they are unable to find enough infected people no matter how many they test).

Until that happens we are supposedly "still in the beginning of the epidemic".

 

[tankasnowgod]

In the video linked in the first post Dr. Wittkowski says that social distancing in order to contain an infectious respiratory disease is not the way to go. Better is to protect the most vulnerable and let the virus circulate among the low-risk people until the incidence is high enough to initiate “herd immunity” (which takes a month or two months). To close schools is a major mistake; no way to reach herd immunity without the kids. Containment measures flatten the curve, but prolong the epidemic, and there is the risk of a rebound (second wave).

If you get pneumonia, see a doctor soon. In case of a secondary bacterial infection, antibiotics are best taken early.

He says, there is nothing to be scared about. This is a flu epidemic like every other flu. Maybe a bit more severe, but nothing that is fundamentally different from the flus that we've seen in other years. Spending more time indoors only keeps the virus healthy.

The good news for all these countries currently trying to "Flatten the Curve" is that there is a very good chance the virus has already spread through the country, and was nearing the end anyway. Tracey Beanz wrote an article positing this for the US, using the CDC's own data-

Could CDC Data Prove COVID-19 Infections in November 2019? - UncoverDC

Here's an article from A.J. Kay suggesting the same thing (medium deleted it, hence the archive link)-

The Curve Is Already Flat

Which makes a lot of sense. If the disease was truly as infectious as first reported, it likely would have been all around the world (maybe a few times) with all the international travel, none of which is even still totally shut down, and ran for months, going business as usual.

Here is a paper written by Wittkowsky (a study on a preprint server):

The first three months of the COVID-19 epidemic: Epidemiological evidence for two separate strains of SARS-CoV-2 viruses spreading and implications for prevention strategies Two epidemics of COVID-19

The theoretical discussion about the "window of opportunity for intervention" is interesting.

Sadly he doesn't discuss the lack of data regarding the number of tests. Without that information all these "time-course by country" graphs have little value. In Germany, for example, the number of tests per week recently has tripled from one week to the next and there were still capacities for more tests.

.....

I thinks that with constantly increasing numbers of tests we are only going to see a decrease of newly infected when

• the number of tests can't be increased any more or
• the epidemic is approaching its end (thus they are unable to find enough infected people no matter how many they test).

Until that happens we are supposedly "still in the beginning of the epidemic".

I think there is a very good argument that we are near the end, as the above articles pointed out. I'm not sure they can expand testing much more either..... unless they are just making up the results and only doing sham testing.

 

[skycop00]

He really is someone that should be advising leaders. At least ONE of the advisers in any case. No agenda, no money on the line... PURE SCIENCE! Loved his interview with Del. I still would not take any vaccine ... =)

 

[Giraffe]

The lockdown in Germany was already successful before it had even begun!

The timeline of the containment measures in Germany :

• March 9 mass events forbidden
• March 16 schools closed
• March 23 severe contact restrictions (aka "social distancing")

Below the newest data of Robert Koch Institute (German CDC). You see that the peak was already over, when the schools were closed. R<1 (= epidemic reaching its end) when lockdown was introduced.

Schätzung der aktuellen Entwicklung der SARS-CoV-2 Epidemie in Deutschland – Nowcasting

 

[Giraffe]

A review published in The Lancet found that school closures had only very little effect in preventing deaths, but harm the child's welfare and are a huge economic burden.

School closure and management practices during coronavirus outbreaks including COVID-19: a rapid systematic review

" Recent modelling studies of COVID-19 predict that school closures alone would prevent only 2–4% of deaths, much less than other social distancing interventions."

"However, reviews have also noted the adverse effects of school closure, including economic harms to working parents, health-care workers, and other key workers being forced from work to childcare, and to society due to loss of parental productivity, transmission from children to vulnerable grandparents, loss of education, harms to child welfare particularly among the most vulnerable pupils, and nutritional problems especially to children for whom free school meals are an important source of nutrition. Social isolation itself brings a range of psychological harms. A rapid review found evidence that, during unplanned school closures, children's activities and contacts decreased but did not cease, with some evidence that this was particularly so among older children and those whose parents disagreed with closures.

A 2010 economic modelling analysis of school closures as mitigating interventions during influenza outbreaks suggested that 4-week or 13-week closures reduced the clinical attack rate minimally but markedly increased the economic cost to the nation, in particular through forced absenteeism by working parents, in the UK, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands."