The Gospel according to the media

Vincent J. Curtis

8 Apr 21

RE: Ford pandemic spin wearing thin.  Hamilton Spectator editorial of 8 Apr 21.

Jesus spoke in parables; the media speak in narratives.  The editorial observed that the media narrative for the third wave stay-at-home order was that Ford should have acted six days sooner.  The media was echoing unnamed experts who were saying that a hard lockdown was essential even to “put a dent” into the third wave.

And there was the usual blah-blah about humbug projections.  (Statisticians aren’t allowed to practice medicine; why are doctors taken seriously when they play statistician, or actuary?)

What has escaped the attention of the media is that empirical analysis of lockdowns show that they don’t work.  That analysis was released in January.  Statisticians last year said that the virus was too contagious for lockdown measures to work.  In the first two lockdowns, no one can point to an effect the lockdown had on the case curve, which looks typical instead of misshapen.  And now we’re faced with something more contagious than the original, meaning lockdowns will be ineffective in control, again.

The media’s unnamed croakers admit as much: they say a harder lockdown is needed just to put a dent in the cases curve.

The parable of the women and the lamps is applicable here.  The wise women brought an extra store of oil.  In the year since the pandemic began, we heard nothing about adding ICU and ventilator capacity to the health care system.  Saving the system was last year’s objective; but the system, it seems, did nothing to save itself the next time round, which is now here.

Forget about lockdowns.  Fire the incompetents who brought us to this pass, and focus on getting the vaccines out.

P.S.  The celebration yesterday of 3M’s new N95 production line was an inter alia admission that cloth masks were just a pacifier, an alternative to sucking one’s thumb while real protection was being got ready.

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