Government
‘Follow The Data’, They Said, And Then They Hid It
‘Follow The Data’, They Said, And Then They Hid It
Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Brownstone Institute,
Never before has the public had…
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Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Brownstone Institute,
Never before has the public had access to so much data on a virus and its effects. For two years, data festooned the daily papers. Dozens of websites assembled it. We were all invited to follow the data, follow the science, and observe as scientists became our new overlords, instructing us how to feel, think, and behave in order to “flatten the curve,” “drive down cases,” “preserve capacity,” “stay safe,” and otherwise deploy all the powers of human will to respond to and manipulate disease outcomes.
We could watch it all in real time. How beautiful were the waves, the curves, the bar charts, the sheer power of the technology. We can look at all the variations and the trajectories, assemble them by country, click here and click there to compare, see new cases, total cases, unvaccinated and vaccinations, infections and hospitalizations, deaths in total or death per capita, and we could even make a game out of it: which country is doing better at the great task, which group is better at complying, which region has the best outcomes.
It was all quite dazzling, the power of the personal computer combined with data collection techniques, universal testing, instant transmission, and the democratization of science. We were all invited to participate from our laptops to bone up on statistics, download and look, assemble and draw, manipulate and observe, and be in awe of the masters of the numbers and their capacity for responding to every trend as it was captured and chronicled in real time.
Then one day, writing at the New York Times, reporter Apoorva Mandavilli revealed the following:
For more than a year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has collected data on hospitalizations for Covid-19 in the United States and broken it down by age, race and vaccination status. But it has not made most of the information public …. Two full years into the pandemic, the agency leading the country’s response to the public health emergency has published only a tiny fraction of the data it has collected, several people familiar with the data said.
Kristen Nordlund, a spokeswoman for the C.D.C., said the agency has been slow to release the different streams of data “because basically, at the end of the day, it’s not yet ready for prime time.” She said the agency’s “priority when gathering any data is to ensure that it’s accurate and actionable.”
Another reason is fear that the information might be misinterpreted, Ms. Nordlund said.
At the appearance of this story, my data science friends who have been digging through the databases for nearly two years all let a collective: argh! They knew something was very wrong and had been complaining about it for more than a year. These are sophisticated people at Rational Ground who keep their own charts and host data programs of their own. They have been curious all along about the exaggerations, the poor communication regarding the gradients of risk, the lags and holes in the demographic data on hospitalization and death, to say nothing of the strange way in which the CDC has been manipulating presentations on everything from masking to vaccination status and much more.
It’s been a strange experience for them, especially since other countries in the world have been absolutely scrupulous about collecting and distributing data, even when the results do not comport with policy priorities. There can be little doubt, for example, that the missing data bears on the issue of vaccine effectiveness and very likely demonstrates that the claim that this was a “pandemic of the unvaccinated” is completely unsustainable, even from the time when it was first made.
In the New York Times story, many top epidemiologists were quoted expressing everything from frustration to outrage.
“We have been begging for that sort of granularity of data for two years,” said Jessica Malaty Rivera, an epidemiologist and part of the team that ran Covid Tracking Project, an independent effort that compiled data on the pandemic till March 2021. A detailed analysis, she said, “builds public trust, and it paints a much clearer picture of what’s actually going on.”
Well, if public trust is the goal, it’s not going so well. In addition to the failings revealed here, there are many other questions concerning cases and whether and to what extent the PCR testing can really tell us what we need to know, to what degree did the misclassification problem affect death attribution, and so much more. It seems that with each month that has gone by, what seemed to be these beautiful pictures of reality have faded into a murky data quagmire in which we don’t know what is real and what is not. And ever more, the CDC itself has urged us to ignore what we do see (VAERS data, for example).
Dr. Robert Malone makes an interesting point. If a scientist at a university or a lab is found to have deliberately buried relevant data because they contradict a preset conclusion, the results are professional ruin. The CDC, however, has legal privileges that allows it to get away with actions that would otherwise be considered fraud in academia.
There are many analogies between economics and epidemiology, as many have noticed over the last two years. The attempt to plan the economy in the past has suffered from many of the same failures as the attempt to plan a pandemic. There are collection problems, unintended consequences, knowledge problems, issues of mission creep, uncertainties over causal inference, a presumption that all agents obey the plan when in fact they do not, and a wild pretense that planners have the necessary knowledge, skill, and coordination required to presume to replace the decentralized and dispersed knowledge base that makes society work.
Murray Rothbard called statistics the Achilles heel of economic planning. Without the data, economists and bureaucrats couldn’t even begin to believe they could achieve their far-flung dreams, much less put them into practice. For this reason, he favored leaving all economic data collection to the private sector so that it is actually useful for enterprise rather than abused by government. In addition, there is simply no way that data alone can provide a genuine full picture of reality. There will always be holes. It will always be late. There will always be mistakes. There will always be uncertainties over causality. Moreover, all data represents a snapshot in time and can prove extremely misleading with changes over time. And these can be fatal for decision making.
We are seeing this play itself out in epidemiological planning too. The endless streams of data over two years have created what Sunetra Gupta calls “the illusion of control” when in fact the world of pathogens and its interaction with the human experience is infinitely complex. That illusion also creates dangerous habits on the part of planners, which we’ve seen.
There was never a reason to close schools, lock people in their homes, block travel, shut businesses, mask kids, mandate vaccines, and so on. It’s almost as if they wanted human beings to behave in ways that better fit their own modeling techniques rather than allow their knowledge base to defer to the complexity of the human experience.
And now we know that we’ve been denied information that the CDC has kept in hiding for the better part of a year, undoubtedly to serve the purpose of forcing the appearance of reality to more closely conform to a political narrative. We only have a fraction of what has been accumulated. What we thought we knew was only a glimpse of what was actually known on the inside.
There is no shortage of scandals associated with pandemic policy over two years. For those who are interested in finding out precisely what caused the lights to be dimmed or even turned out on modern civilization, we can add another scandal to the list.
Government
Low Iron Levels In Blood Could Trigger Long COVID: Study
Low Iron Levels In Blood Could Trigger Long COVID: Study
Authored by Amie Dahnke via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
People with inadequate…
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Authored by Amie Dahnke via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
People with inadequate iron levels in their blood due to a COVID-19 infection could be at greater risk of long COVID.
A new study indicates that problems with iron levels in the bloodstream likely trigger chronic inflammation and other conditions associated with the post-COVID phenomenon. The findings, published on March 1 in Nature Immunology, could offer new ways to treat or prevent the condition.
Long COVID Patients Have Low Iron Levels
Researchers at the University of Cambridge pinpointed low iron as a potential link to long-COVID symptoms thanks to a study they initiated shortly after the start of the pandemic. They recruited people who tested positive for the virus to provide blood samples for analysis over a year, which allowed the researchers to look for post-infection changes in the blood. The researchers looked at 214 samples and found that 45 percent of patients reported symptoms of long COVID that lasted between three and 10 months.
In analyzing the blood samples, the research team noticed that people experiencing long COVID had low iron levels, contributing to anemia and low red blood cell production, just two weeks after they were diagnosed with COVID-19. This was true for patients regardless of age, sex, or the initial severity of their infection.
According to one of the study co-authors, the removal of iron from the bloodstream is a natural process and defense mechanism of the body.
But it can jeopardize a person’s recovery.
“When the body has an infection, it responds by removing iron from the bloodstream. This protects us from potentially lethal bacteria that capture the iron in the bloodstream and grow rapidly. It’s an evolutionary response that redistributes iron in the body, and the blood plasma becomes an iron desert,” University of Oxford professor Hal Drakesmith said in a press release. “However, if this goes on for a long time, there is less iron for red blood cells, so oxygen is transported less efficiently affecting metabolism and energy production, and for white blood cells, which need iron to work properly. The protective mechanism ends up becoming a problem.”
The research team believes that consistently low iron levels could explain why individuals with long COVID continue to experience fatigue and difficulty exercising. As such, the researchers suggested iron supplementation to help regulate and prevent the often debilitating symptoms associated with long COVID.
“It isn’t necessarily the case that individuals don’t have enough iron in their body, it’s just that it’s trapped in the wrong place,” Aimee Hanson, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Cambridge who worked on the study, said in the press release. “What we need is a way to remobilize the iron and pull it back into the bloodstream, where it becomes more useful to the red blood cells.”
The research team pointed out that iron supplementation isn’t always straightforward. Achieving the right level of iron varies from person to person. Too much iron can cause stomach issues, ranging from constipation, nausea, and abdominal pain to gastritis and gastric lesions.
1 in 5 Still Affected by Long COVID
COVID-19 has affected nearly 40 percent of Americans, with one in five of those still suffering from symptoms of long COVID, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Long COVID is marked by health issues that continue at least four weeks after an individual was initially diagnosed with COVID-19. Symptoms can last for days, weeks, months, or years and may include fatigue, cough or chest pain, headache, brain fog, depression or anxiety, digestive issues, and joint or muscle pain.
Government
Walmart joins Costco in sharing key pricing news
The massive retailers have both shared information that some retailers keep very close to the vest.
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As we head toward a presidential election, the presumed candidates for both parties will look for issues that rally undecided voters.
The economy will be a key issue, with Democrats pointing to job creation and lowering prices while Republicans will cite the layoffs at Big Tech companies, high housing prices, and of course, sticky inflation.
The covid pandemic created a perfect storm for inflation and higher prices. It became harder to get many items because people getting sick slowed down, or even stopped, production at some factories.
Related: Popular mall retailer shuts down abruptly after bankruptcy filing
It was also a period where demand increased while shipping, trucking and delivery systems were all strained or thrown out of whack. The combination led to product shortages and higher prices.
You might have gone to the grocery store and not been able to buy your favorite paper towel brand or find toilet paper at all. That happened partly because of the supply chain and partly due to increased demand, but at the end of the day, it led to higher prices, which some consumers blamed on President Joe Biden's administration.
Biden, of course, was blamed for the price increases, but as inflation has dropped and grocery prices have fallen, few companies have been up front about it. That's probably not a political choice in most cases. Instead, some companies have chosen to lower prices more slowly than they raised them.
However, two major retailers, Walmart (WMT) and Costco, have been very honest about inflation. Walmart Chief Executive Doug McMillon's most recent comments validate what Biden's administration has been saying about the state of the economy. And they contrast with the economic picture being painted by Republicans who support their presumptive nominee, Donald Trump.
Image source: Joe Raedle/Getty Images
Walmart sees lower prices
McMillon does not talk about lower prices to make a political statement. He's communicating with customers and potential customers through the analysts who cover the company's quarterly-earnings calls.
During Walmart's fiscal-fourth-quarter-earnings call, McMillon was clear that prices are going down.
"I'm excited about the omnichannel net promoter score trends the team is driving. Across countries, we continue to see a customer that's resilient but looking for value. As always, we're working hard to deliver that for them, including through our rollbacks on food pricing in Walmart U.S. Those were up significantly in Q4 versus last year, following a big increase in Q3," he said.
He was specific about where the chain has seen prices go down.
"Our general merchandise prices are lower than a year ago and even two years ago in some categories, which means our customers are finding value in areas like apparel and hard lines," he said. "In food, prices are lower than a year ago in places like eggs, apples, and deli snacks, but higher in other places like asparagus and blackberries."
McMillon said that in other areas prices were still up but have been falling.
"Dry grocery and consumables categories like paper goods and cleaning supplies are up mid-single digits versus last year and high teens versus two years ago. Private-brand penetration is up in many of the countries where we operate, including the United States," he said.
Costco sees almost no inflation impact
McMillon avoided the word inflation in his comments. Costco (COST) Chief Financial Officer Richard Galanti, who steps down on March 15, has been very transparent on the topic.
The CFO commented on inflation during his company's fiscal-first-quarter-earnings call.
"Most recently, in the last fourth-quarter discussion, we had estimated that year-over-year inflation was in the 1% to 2% range. Our estimate for the quarter just ended, that inflation was in the 0% to 1% range," he said.
Galanti made clear that inflation (and even deflation) varied by category.
"A bigger deflation in some big and bulky items like furniture sets due to lower freight costs year over year, as well as on things like domestics, bulky lower-priced items, again, where the freight cost is significant. Some deflationary items were as much as 20% to 30% and, again, mostly freight-related," he added.
bankruptcy pandemic trumpGovernment
Walmart has really good news for shoppers (and Joe Biden)
The giant retailer joins Costco in making a statement that has political overtones, even if that’s not the intent.
Share this:
As we head toward a presidential election, the presumed candidates for both parties will look for issues that rally undecided voters.
The economy will be a key issue, with Democrats pointing to job creation and lowering prices while Republicans will cite the layoffs at Big Tech companies, high housing prices, and of course, sticky inflation.
The covid pandemic created a perfect storm for inflation and higher prices. It became harder to get many items because people getting sick slowed down, or even stopped, production at some factories.
Related: Popular mall retailer shuts down abruptly after bankruptcy filing
It was also a period where demand increased while shipping, trucking and delivery systems were all strained or thrown out of whack. The combination led to product shortages and higher prices.
You might have gone to the grocery store and not been able to buy your favorite paper towel brand or find toilet paper at all. That happened partly because of the supply chain and partly due to increased demand, but at the end of the day, it led to higher prices, which some consumers blamed on President Joe Biden's administration.
Biden, of course, was blamed for the price increases, but as inflation has dropped and grocery prices have fallen, few companies have been up front about it. That's probably not a political choice in most cases. Instead, some companies have chosen to lower prices more slowly than they raised them.
However, two major retailers, Walmart (WMT) and Costco, have been very honest about inflation. Walmart Chief Executive Doug McMillon's most recent comments validate what Biden's administration has been saying about the state of the economy. And they contrast with the economic picture being painted by Republicans who support their presumptive nominee, Donald Trump.
Image source: Joe Raedle/Getty Images
Walmart sees lower prices
McMillon does not talk about lower prices to make a political statement. He's communicating with customers and potential customers through the analysts who cover the company's quarterly-earnings calls.
During Walmart's fiscal-fourth-quarter-earnings call, McMillon was clear that prices are going down.
"I'm excited about the omnichannel net promoter score trends the team is driving. Across countries, we continue to see a customer that's resilient but looking for value. As always, we're working hard to deliver that for them, including through our rollbacks on food pricing in Walmart U.S. Those were up significantly in Q4 versus last year, following a big increase in Q3," he said.
He was specific about where the chain has seen prices go down.
"Our general merchandise prices are lower than a year ago and even two years ago in some categories, which means our customers are finding value in areas like apparel and hard lines," he said. "In food, prices are lower than a year ago in places like eggs, apples, and deli snacks, but higher in other places like asparagus and blackberries."
McMillon said that in other areas prices were still up but have been falling.
"Dry grocery and consumables categories like paper goods and cleaning supplies are up mid-single digits versus last year and high teens versus two years ago. Private-brand penetration is up in many of the countries where we operate, including the United States," he said.
Costco sees almost no inflation impact
McMillon avoided the word inflation in his comments. Costco (COST) Chief Financial Officer Richard Galanti, who steps down on March 15, has been very transparent on the topic.
The CFO commented on inflation during his company's fiscal-first-quarter-earnings call.
"Most recently, in the last fourth-quarter discussion, we had estimated that year-over-year inflation was in the 1% to 2% range. Our estimate for the quarter just ended, that inflation was in the 0% to 1% range," he said.
Galanti made clear that inflation (and even deflation) varied by category.
"A bigger deflation in some big and bulky items like furniture sets due to lower freight costs year over year, as well as on things like domestics, bulky lower-priced items, again, where the freight cost is significant. Some deflationary items were as much as 20% to 30% and, again, mostly freight-related," he added.
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