How disinformation spreads

Articles like this give me serious concerns.

I'm scared that people like this have a voice and that their platform is big enough for me to simply stumble across them while browsing new sites.

The first total act of lunacy is this quote here:

What makes all of this talk about massive economic shutdowns so disturbing is that there is no evidence -- none -- that lockdowns slow the spread of the virus. When even the World Health Organization [...] concedes that lockdown orders don't stop the spread of the virus, one might think that the case is closed.

Absolutely, the WHO has conceded that lock downs don't STOP the spread of the virus. This is because lock downs are not absolute. As long as SOME people are interacting with ANY new people on a daily basis the potential for spread exists.

This is NOT the same as saying that lockdowns aren't effective. WHO hasn't really conceded anything, except what the science says. So of course the case is NOT closed. While lockdowns, of the sort we have experienced, have not stopped virus they HAVE successfully slowed the spread and even brought infection rates down. VERY FAR DOWN. IN VERY MANY PLACES. OVER. AND. OVER. AGAIN. What do you think these 1st and second waves everyone is talking about are? We've CLEARLY seen that when restrictions are imposed, cases drop. And then they rise again when lifted.

To claim an absence of evidence that lock downs slow the spread of COVID-19 should be a crime of the highest order. It is disinformation which, if successfully spread risks lives.

Furthermore, claims that lock downs don't work expose a fundamental problem in the understanding of how the disease spreads. So let me break this down; it spreads from PERSON TO PERSON. If you remove the second "TO PERSON" the virus disappears. The virus WILL disappear. This is incontrovertible. It is unassailable fact. 

By DIRECT correlation, any efforts made which REDUCE our exposure to other people similarly reduces the spread of the virus. Or, in simpler terms "lock downs work". At least, as long as you understand the metrics you're measuring.

The next stinging bout of sheer, in-human stupidity rolls out in this line:

In fact, the association runs in the other direction: States with the most stringent lockdowns, such as New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts, have had the highest death rates.

OMFG!!!! Those high death rates are the ones reported BEFORE the lock downs. Here is the DAMN DATA. It took me 2 seconds to Google it. If you adjust the charts to show the death rate, you'll see a huge spike, and then a massive drop. 

And I'm looking at the data for the DEATH RATE... not just the case number. I'm looking at LITERALLY the exact statistic the article is saying is NOT impacted, or somehow inversely impacted by lock down measures, when the data CLEARLY shows this to be nothing if not completely false. 

What I suspect happened is that the author simply learned that some areas had higher death rates and then noticed that these places also had stricter lock downs. They didn't actually follow through and see whether or not the lock downs were in response to the death rate, or whether or not the measures improved things. They needed a data point to back up their claims, cherry picked one which did, and then ignored the rest of the context which would have blown the statement out of the water.

Also, if you're going to talk about there being different death rates in different areas and you're against preventative measures, then you've already gone half way to losing the argument. Otherwise, the only way to justify varying death rates at all would be if the virus were geographically aware and somehow CHOOSING to kill more people in some areas than in others.

And THAT is bonkers. No. The death rate fluctuates because external factors affect it. The biggest external factors affecting increasing death rates are the age of the population and whether or not hospitals are at capacity. The biggest factors decreasing death rates are whether or not people are reducing their contacts with other people. There are other factors, but these are the major ones. And the primary way to achieve that decrease is... LOCK DOWNS!

Now, all of this could be (somewhat) excused if there was an ounce of reasoning to back up the author's counter position. To which they offer this gem:

There is a much more cost-effective strategy employed by many states: protect seniors, people who are severely overweight, and medically vulnerable populations. These groups account for well over 90 percent of the deaths and severe COVID-19 medical problems.

There is just one problem with this. It has been tried. And it DOES NOT work. I implore you... show me a SINGLE case where infections have been comparable to the national average and the vulnerable have been successfully protected. 

No part of this claim is backed by the data. I live in Ontario. During the height of our first wave we had many outbreaks in long term care homes. As with the US, the elderly and those otherwise compromised made up 90% of our fatalities. We imposed a lock down. Care Home outbreaks and deaths dropped. We eased restrictions. They are on the rise again.

In short, unless transmission rates in the broader community are VERY low, it is almost impossible to protect any particular segment of the population. Especially when you include groups like the "severely overweight" and "medically vulnerable". These aren't people in care homes and hospitals. These are random individuals. I mean, we've already proven we can't protect those in care homes who already rarely if ever leave a single building. How do you propose we protect immune-compromised members of society when we can't even protect the bedridden? The very suggestion is negligent at the least.

As for the economic impact... well, even there, while the math is murkier, most of the data we have is at odds with this as well. But, it basically boils down to this; planned proactive lock downs generally afford businesses days to weeks to prepare ahead of time and are more likely to include stimulus. Also, proactively locking down and seeing results is likely to be better reflected in consumer confidence after compared to reacting to something like hospitals reaching capacity and rampant growth rate. On this one, I'm sure we'll have more data as time goes on. But, while it may seem a bit counter-intuitive, I think it is quite likely that strict, proactive lock downs better for the economy than panicked reactionary ones.