Scarsin’s folly. Media blew credibility

Vincent J. Curtis

13 June 22

Back on March 24, 2022, in the posting “Unpacking cow manure” I ran a section on “Scarsin’s Folly” writing the following:

 

“It’s been widely reported that Scarsin Forecasting has forecasted 26,600 new cases of COVID in the Hamilton area this spring.  Let’s do a little math!

Assuming spring to be 91 days long, to reach their figure there would have to be 292 new COVID cases per day for 91 days.  With a population of 550,000, Hamilton holds roughly 3.75 percent of Ontario’s population of 14.8 million.  If all of Ontario were suffering new cases at the rate that Scarsin predicts for Hamilton, Ontario would be seeing 7787 new cases per day, something not seen since the peak of the most recent wave of the pandemic.  Since pandemics do ebb and flow, to have an average rate of near pandemic peak levels, it means that some awful peak is coming if Scarsin’s forecasted number is correct.

Hamilton does not live in isolation, and that awful peak would have to be coming to Ontario as a whole also.

For the last four weeks, Ontario’s daily average case number has bounced around 2,000 per day.  At this rate, on average, Hamilton would experience 75 new cases per day, and in 91 days a total of 6825 cases, a quarter of Scarsin’s forecast.  Scarsin, advocating for continued mask mandates, argues that their 26,600 can be reduced to 8867 if masks are retained.  This is still much more than the Ontario average applied to Hamilton.

We have a right to ask if Scarsin isn’t generating elaborate looking panic porn that justifies the evident desires of those who pay them.”

Ontario has since closed into COVID-19 page for lack of business, even before spring ends.  We can now say the Scarsin forecast was wildly overestimated, and neither Hamilton nor Ontario experienced the wave of infection and death that was forecasted.  A real scientist warned explicitly and repeatedly that all this was panic porn, nothing but wild exaggerations, and that proved to be correct.  But was this published in a newspaper?  No!   Why?  That would be “misinformation.”  Misinformation that turned out to be correct.

The tragedy is that the media blew their credibility re-enforcing a message – that turned out to be false.  Why do it?  Because of the narrative.  It’s the narrative that matters, not the discovery of truth, which debate often uncovers.

Anyhow, when Scarsin Forecasting comes looking for another contract, pay them the wages of an astrologer or a fortune-teller.  When reading newspapers, people look for the narrative they’re being sold, not truth.

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