Category: Covid-19

Let “People Express Concerns in a Therapeutic Environment Before You and I Decide the Policy”

(p. A4) Britain’s top civil servant warned in October 2020 that Prime Minister Boris Johnson was a “nationally distrusted” figure who should not announce new social-distancing rules in the depths of the coronavirus pandemic.

The health secretary at the time, Matt Hancock, disparaged an eminent medical researcher who had publicly criticized Britain’s handling of Covid as a “complete loudmouth.” Mr. Hancock also mocked “Eat Out to Help Out,” a program to lure people back to restaurants sponsored by Rishi Sunak, referring to it as “eat out to help the virus get about.”

Those and many other unfiltered remarks are in more than 100,000 WhatsApp messages exchanged among Mr. Hancock, other ministers and aides as they tried to control the coronavirus outbreak in 2020 and 2021. They were handed to The Daily Telegraph, a British newspaper, by Isabel Oakeshott, a journalist who obtained them while helping Mr. Hancock write a book, “Pandemic Diaries,” about those desperate days.

. . .

“What I found shocking was the callous nature of the messages — the banter, the humor, and how casual they were about making decisions that affected people and their lives,” said Prof. Devi Sridhar, head of the global public health program at the University of Edinburgh.

. . .

Amid the pervasive sense of dread in the texts, there were also moments of gallows humor. Mr. Hancock once asked Michael Gove, a fellow minister, to explain the goals of a coming government meeting on the pandemic.

“Letting people express concerns in a therapeutic environment before you and I decide the policy,” Mr. Gove wrote.

“You are glorious,” Mr. Hancock replied.

For the full story, see:

Mark Landler. “Juicy Nuggets, but No Surprises About U.K. Covid Policy.” The New York Times (Monday, March 8, 2023): A4.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the story has the date March 7, 2023, and has the title “Ex-Minister’s Texts Lift the Veil on U.K. Covid Policy. It Isn’t Pretty.”)

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Cochrane Study Finds No Benefits of Mandatory Masking

During the pandemic, I wrote an op-ed piece advocating the voluntary (not mandatory) use of masks. I still believe that, based on the mechanics of disease spread, and the mechanics of physically blocking virus particles, that masks can have a modest effect in reducing the viral load we spread to others. I also still believe in free speech and believe that it was wrong to censor those who were skeptical of masks.

(p. A19) The most rigorous and comprehensive analysis of scientific studies conducted on the efficacy of masks for reducing the spread of respiratory illnesses — including Covid-19 — was published late last month. Its conclusions, said Tom Jefferson, the Oxford epidemiologist who is its lead author, were unambiguous.

“There is just no evidence that they” — masks — “make any difference,” he told the journalist Maryanne Demasi. “Full stop.”

But, wait, hold on. What about N-95 masks, as opposed to lower-quality surgical or cloth masks?

“Makes no difference — none of it,” said Jefferson.

What about the studies that initially persuaded policymakers to impose mask mandates?

“They were convinced by nonrandomized studies, flawed observational studies.”

. . .

These observations don’t come from just anywhere. Jefferson and 11 colleagues conducted the study for Cochrane, a British nonprofit that is widely considered the gold standard for its reviews of health care data. The conclusions were based on 78 randomized controlled trials, six of them during the Covid pandemic, with a total of 610,872 participants in multiple countries. And they track what has been widely observed in the United States: States with mask mandates fared no better against Covid than those without.

No study — or study of studies — is ever perfect. Science is never absolutely settled. What’s more, the analysis does not prove that proper masks, properly worn, had no benefit at an individual level. People may have good personal reasons to wear masks, and they may have the discipline to wear them consistently. Their choices are their own.

. . .

The C.D.C.’s increasingly mindless adherence to its masking guidance is none of those things. It isn’t merely undermining the trust it requires to operate as an effective public institution. It is turning itself into an unwitting accomplice to the genuine enemies of reason and science — conspiracy theorists and quack-cure peddlers — by so badly representing the values and practices that science is supposed to exemplify.

It also betrays the technocratic mind-set that has the unpleasant habit of assuming that nothing is ever wrong with the bureaucracy’s well-laid plans — provided nobody gets in its way, nobody has a dissenting point of view, everyone does exactly what it asks, and for as long as officialdom demands. This is the mentality that once believed that China provided a highly successful model for pandemic response.

For the full commentary, see:

Bret Stephens. “‘Do Something’ Is Not Science.” The New York Times (Wednesday, February 22, 2023): A19.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date Feb. 21, 2023, and has the title “The Mask Mandates Did Nothing. Will Any Lessons Be Learned?”)

Lives Lost to Covid-19 Due to Slow Regulatory Recommendations

(p. B1) In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Nebraska Medical Center was at the forefront of an international clinical trial of the drug remdesivir, . . .

. . .

By April 2020, the early trial showed that remdesivir shortened the time it took for all patients hospitalized for COVID-19 to recover by five days overall, compared with those who received a placebo.

. . .

A study published last week in the British medical journal The Lancet Respiratory Medicine confirmed findings of the initial NIH trial.

Dr. Andre Kalil, who led the Omaha-based arm of the trial, said it’s always important to see studies replicated by other (p. B2) researchers.

But Kalil, in an invited commentary on the Lancet study, noted that a number of public health and medical bodies delayed acting on the early beneficial results and recommending the drug in guidelines for clinicians.

The National Institutes of Health and the Infectious Diseases Society of America guidelines for nearly two years recommended remdesivir only for hospitalized patients who received supplemental oxygen. Only after that time did the groups recommend it for patients who were hospitalized but did not need supplemental oxygen.

The World Health Organization didn’t recommend remdesivir for patients hospitalized with COVID-19 until late 2022.

“Regrettably, the delays in recommendation of remdesivir for patients — even after the initial remdesivir shortage was resolved — adversely shaped antimicrobial policy in hospitals around the world, preventing patients from receiving timely remdesivir,” wrote Kalil, a University of Nebraska Medical Center professor and an infectious diseases physician with Nebraska Medicine, the health system that includes the Nebraska Medical Center.

In an interview, Kalil said he believes more lives could have been saved if the guideline panels had been more timely in making their recommendations. All three now recommend remdesivir for hospitalized patients.

For the full story, see:

Julie Anderson. “Delays on Remdesivir May Have Cost Lives.” Omaha World-Herald (Sunday, March 5, 2023): B1-B2.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the story has the same date as the print version, and has the title “Could earlier adoption of remdesivir have saved lives during the COVID pandemic?”)

Energy Department Says Covid Came from Wuhan Lab

(p. A1) WASHINGTON — New intelligence has prompted the Energy Department to conclude that an accidental laboratory leak in China most likely caused the coronavirus pandemic, though U.S. spy agencies remain divided over the origins of the virus, American officials said on Sunday.

The conclusion was a change from the department’s earlier position that it was undecided on how the virus emerged.

. . .

Officials would not disclose what the intelligence was. But many of the Energy Department’s insights come from its network of national laboratories, some of which conduct biological research, rather than more traditional forms of intelligence like spy networks or communications intercepts.

Intelligence officials believe the scrutiny of the pandemic’s beginnings could be important to improving global response to future health crises, though they caution that finding an answer about the source of the virus may be difficult or even impossible given Chinese opposition to further research. Scientists say there is a responsibility to explain how a pandemic (p. A7) that has killed almost seven million people started, and learning more about its origins could help researchers understand what poses the biggest threats of future outbreaks.

The new intelligence and the shift in the department’s view was first reported by The Wall Street Journal on Sunday [Feb. 26, 2023].

For the full story, see:

Julian E. Barnes. “Energy Dept. Suspects Virus Was From Lab.” The New York Times (Monday, February 27, 2023): A1 & A7.

(Note: ellipses, and bracketed year, added.)

(Note: the online version of the story has the date Feb. 26, 2023, and has the title “Lab Leak Most Likely Caused Pandemic, Energy Dept. Says.”)

Over 100,000 “Non-Covid Excess Deaths” Per Year in 2020 and 2021

(p. A15) Covid-19 is deadly, but so were the draconian steps taken to mitigate it. During the first two years of the pandemic, “excess deaths”—the death toll above the historical trend—markedly exceeded the number of deaths attributed to Covid. In a paper we just published in Inquiry, based on data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, we found that “non-Covid excess deaths” totaled nearly 100,000 a year in 2020 and 2021.

Even these numbers likely overestimate deaths from Covid and underestimate those from other causes. Covid testing has become ubiquitous in hospitals, and the official count of “Covid deaths” includes people who tested positive but died of other causes.

For the full commentary, see:

Rob Arnott and Casey B. Mulligan. “How Deadly Were the Covid Lockdowns?” The Wall Street Journal (Thursday, Jan. 12, 2023): A15.

(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date January 11, 2023, and has the same title as the print version.)

The Mulligan and Arnott commentary is based on their academic article:

Mulligan, Casey B., and Robert D. Arnott. “The Young Were Not Spared: What Death Certificates Reveal About Non-Covid Excess Deaths.” INQUIRY: The Journal of Health Care Organization, Provision, and Financing 59 (Jan.-Dec. 2022): 00469580221139016.

New York City and State Government Workers “Stole More Than $1.5 Million” of Federal Covid Loan Subsidies

(p. A19) A New York City correction official, eight Police Department employees and eight other current and former city and state workers schemed to defraud Covid relief programs that were intended to provide money to struggling business owners, the authorities said on Wednesday.

The defendants submitted phony applications for disaster relief loans on behalf of hair and nail salons and day care programs that did not exist, federal prosecutors in Manhattan said. The prosecutors said many defendants spent the proceeds of their loans on personal expenses, like casino gambling, stocks, furniture and luxury clothing.

They collectively stole more than $1.5 million from the federal Small Business Administration and financial institutions that issued guaranteed loans, and the intent was to steal hundreds of thousands of dollars more, the prosecutors said.

. . .

The charges unsealed on Wednesday [Nov. 30, 2022] are part of wave of fraud prosecutions around the country related to the trillions of dollars that the government has pumped into programs to bolster the economy and provide assistance to people who had lost their jobs. The New York Times reported in August that the government had charged 1,500 people with defrauding programs that provide pandemic aid, with more than 450 convictions resulting from the cases. The Small Business Administration’s inspector general’s office has agents going through two million potentially fraudulent loan applications.

For the full story, see:

Benjamin Weiser, Chelsia Rose Marcius and Jan Ransom. “17 Public Workers Are Charged With Stealing Covid Funds.” The New York Times (Thursday, December 1, 2022): A19.

(Note: ellipsis, and bracketed date, added.]

(Note: the online version of the story has the date Nov. 30, 2022, and has the title “17 Public Employees Charged in Schemes to Steal Covid Relief Funds.”)

Taiwanese Engineers Who Built Dictator Xi’s Computer Chips, Are Voting With Their Feet for Taiwan’s Democracy and Freedom

(p. B1) TAIPEI, Taiwan — The job offer from a Chinese semiconductor company was appealing. A higher salary. Work trips to explore new technologies.

No matter that it would be less prestigious for Kevin Li than his job in Taiwan at one of the world’s leading chip makers. Mr. Li eagerly moved to northeast China in 2018, taking part in a wave of corporate migration as the Chinese government moved aggressively to build up its semiconductor industry.

He went back to Taiwan after two years, as Covid-19 swept through China and global tensions intensified. Other highly skilled Taiwanese engineers are going home, too.

For many, the strict pandemic measures have been tiresome. Geopolitics has made the job even more fraught, with China increasingly vocal about staking its claim on Taiwan, a self-ruled democracy.

. . .

(p. B4) For now, Mr. Li is staying in Taiwan, working for an American chip company operating there and siding with the invigorated patriotic sentiment and the ethos of individual liberty.

“The advantage of working in Taiwan is that you don’t have to worry about officials shutting down the whole company because of one thought,” he said. “The atmosphere is very important. At least I can watch all kinds of programs criticizing the governments on both sides of the Taiwan Strait without worrying about being arrested.”

For the full story, see:

Jane Perlez, Amy Chang Chien and John Liu. “Taiwanese Who Built Up Chip Sector in China Are Fed Up and Going Home.” The New York Times (Tuesday, November 22, 2022): B1 & B4.

(Note: the online version of the story has the date Nov. 16, 2022, and has the title “Engineers From Taiwan Bolstered China’s Chip Industry. Now They’re Leaving.” The online version says that the title of the print version is “They Built Up China’s Chip Sector. Now, They’re Going Home to Taiwan” but the title of my national edition copy is “Taiwanese Who Built Up Chip Sector in China Are Fed Up and Going Home.”)

“It’s Not Clear What We Are and Aren’t Allowed to Say”

(p. B1) When Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law a bill that would punish California doctors for spreading false information about Covid-19 vaccines and treatments, he pledged that it would apply only in the most “egregious instances” of misleading patients.

It may never have the chance.

Even before the law, the nation’s first of its kind, takes effect on Jan. 1 [2023], it faces two legal challenges seeking to declare it an unconstitutional infringement of free speech. The plaintiffs include doctors who have spoken out against government and expert recommendations during the pandemic, as well as legal organizations from both sides of the political spectrum.

“Our system opts toward a presumption that speech is protected,” said Hannah Kieschnick, a lawyer for the Northern California branch of the American Civil Liberties Union, which submitted a friend-of-the-court brief in favor of one of the challenges, filed last month in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.

That lawsuit and another, filed this month in the Eastern District of California, have become an extension of the broader cultural battle over the Covid-19 pandemic, which continues to divide Americans along stark partisan lines.

. . .

(p. B5) The plaintiffs in California have sought injunctions to block the law even before it goes into effect, arguing that it was intended to silence dissenting views.

One of them, Dr. Tracy Hoeg, a physician and epidemiologist who works in Grass Valley, near Sacramento, has written peer-reviewed studies since the pandemic began that questioned some aspects of government policies adopted to halt the spread of Covid-19.

Those studies, on the efficacy of masks for schoolchildren and the side effects of vaccines on young men, exposed her to vehement criticism on social media, she said, partly because they fell outside the scientific consensus of the moment.

She noted that the medical understanding of the coronavirus continues to evolve, and that doctors should be open to following new evidence about treatment and prevention.

“It’s going to cause this very broad self-censorship and self-silencing from physicians with their patients because it’s not clear what we are and aren’t allowed to say,” said Dr. Hoeg, one of five doctors who filed a challenge in the Eastern District. “We have no way of knowing if some new information or some new studies that come out are accepted by the California Medical Board as consensus yet.”

. . .

Dr. Jeff Barke, a physician who has treated Covid patients at his office in Newport Beach in Southern California, said the law was an attempt by the state to impose a rigid orthodoxy on the profession that would rule out experimental or untested treatments.

Those include treatments with ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine that he said he had found to be effective at treating the coronavirus, despite studies suggesting otherwise. “Who determines what false information is?” he said.

. . .

“What comes next?” he said. “How I talk to patients about cancer? How I talk to patients about obesity or diabetes or asthma or any other illnesses? When they have a standard of care that they think is appropriate and they don’t want me going against their narrative, then they’ll say Barke’s spreading misinformation.”

For the full story, see:

Steven Lee Myers. “Law to Stem Medical Misinformation Is Facing a Free Speech Challenge.” The New York Times (Thursday, December 1, 2022): B1 & B5.

(Note: ellipses, and bracketed year, added.)

(Note: the online version of the story has the date Nov. 30, 2022, and has the title “Is Spreading Medical Misinformation a Doctor’s Free Speech Right?”)

Feds Gave Bigger Covid Subsidies to Hospitals Charging Higher Prices

(p. A1) When Covid-19 struck, the U.S. government gave hospitals tens of billions of dollars to help them cope with the strains of the pandemic.

Many of the hospitals didn’t need it.

The aid enriched some well-off systems, while failing to meet the needs of many that were struggling, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of federal financial-disclosure reports.

The mismatch stemmed in part from the way the federal government determined how much a hospital should get. A main factor used to allocate relief was a hospital’s revenue, rather than Covid caseload or financial distress. The idea was that revenue was a good indicator of a hospital’s size.

Among the recipients were large, wealthy hospital owners—including some nonprofits—that reported profits from patient care during the periods they got aid. Some were well off enough to put money into investment funds, while others spent on new facilities and ex-(p. A10)panded campuses.

Hundreds of other hospitals that got federal funding, however, reported losses. Some were forced to lay off nurses and make other cuts, saying they didn’t get enough aid to overcome their strains. Some served areas that had among the highest Covid death rates.

The revenue-based award system, especially prevalent in the early days of the pandemic, tended to favor hospitals with higher prices.

For the full story, see:

Melanie Evans, Liz Essley Whyte and Tom McGinty. “Covid Aid Went to Hospitals That Didn’t Need the Money.” The Wall Street Journal (Monday, Dec. 5, 2022): A1 & A10.

(Note: the online version of the story has the date December 4, 2022, and has the title “Billions in Covid Aid Went to Hospitals That Didn’t Need It.”)

Healthcare Spending Is Still Growing, but More Slowly

(p. A6) WASHINGTON—Growth in U.S. healthcare spending slowed to 2.7% last year after a 2020 surge in federal outlays on the pandemic, according to a new government report.

The analysis from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services says national healthcare spending grew in 2021 to $4.3 trillion.

Overall health spending had risen by 10.3% in 2020, and the more moderate increase last year was largely driven by a drop off in federal spending related to Covid-19.

. . .

The healthcare share of the gross domestic product was 18.3% in 2021, down from 19.7% in 2020.

For the full story, see:

Stephanie Armour. “Healthcare Spending Growth Slows Down.” The Wall Street Journal (Saturday, Dec. 15, 2022): A6.

(Note: ellipsis added.)

(Note: the online version of the story has the date Dec. 14, 2022, and has the title “U.S. Healthcare-Spending Growth Slowed in 2021, Report Finds.”)

Lancet Editorial Praised Chinese Communists’ Covid Policy of “Restricting Public Freedoms”

(p. A17) China’s zero-Covid policies have recently come under criticism from public-health leaders—including those at the World Health Organization—who once held them up as a model for the West.

“China’s success rests largely with a strong administrative system that it can mobilise in times of threat, combined with the ready agreement of the Chinese people to obey stringent public health procedures,” the Lancet editorialized on March 7, 2020. Western countries, it added, “must abandon their fears of the negative short-term public and economic consequences that may follow from restricting public freedoms as part of more assertive infection control measures.”

That hasn’t worn well. The negative social and economic consequences of lockdowns in the West—from learning losses and destroyed small businesses to alcoholism and drug abuse—weren’t “short-term.” Nor were China’s draconian zero-Covid policies, which three years later are only slowly being eased.

For the full commentary, see:

Allysia Finley. “LIFE SCIENCE; Western Scientists Cheered On China’s Covid Repression.” The Wall Street Journal (Monday, Dec. 12, 2022): A17.

(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date December 11, 2022, and has the same title as the print version.)