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<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\u201cIt\u2019s Now Up to Governors to Slow the Spread<\/a>,\u201d says a\u00a0Wall Street Journal<\/em>\u00a0article \u2014 written by board members of pharmaceutical companies Pfizer and Illumina, Johnson and Johnson and Cigna. It encourages states and governors to band together and implement restrictions \u201cfocus[ed] on known sources of spread, such as bars and nightclubs.\u201d<\/p>\n Drs. Gottlieb and McClellan\u2019s plea sounds reasonable. After all, \u2018the science\u2019 tells us that Covid spreads in confined spaces. Basing policy advice on \u2018the science\u2019 would be the sensible thing to do. These spaces \u2014 the restaurants, bars and cafes we enjoy \u2014 must be closed for our protection.<\/p>\n But there\u2019s just one small problem: \u2018the science\u2019 isn\u2019t really there. In fact, the only evidence we have is circumstantial: all we have are data simulations (in other words, predictions), case studies followed up with contact tracing, and\u2026 that\u2019s it. Given that Covid has become a worldwide attention magnet for 8 months one would expect a lot more\u00a0substantial\u00a0<\/em>evidence than is available.<\/p>\n There was, after all, an overwhelming flood of 4,000 new papers weekly at the start of the pandemic.\u00a0Wired<\/em>\u00a0writer\u00a0Roxanne Khamsi notes<\/a>\u00a0that if the WHO and CDC had cited studies they were using to guide policy, then policy updates would have seemed less arbitrary and capricious. \u201cHiding the scientific basis for pandemic policies makes it harder for the public to evaluate what\u2019s being done. That means there\u2019s no good way to audit measures that may be poorly crafted or even dangerous.\u201d Khamsi continues,<\/p>\n \u201c[Six] feet apart [guidance] originated in part from a 3-foot rule determined by decades-old studies of card-game players, and that the recommended spacing had been doubled on the basis of research into the spread of the original SARS virus through airplane cabins[\u2026] each child in school should be allotted 44 square feet of space [could be] traced back to a consultant who\u2019d found it in an education magazine, which in turn had bungled what was already a faulty calculation.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Certainly if you are recommending that an entire industry be slowly strangled to death in the name of public health, you need some science behind you.<\/p>\n Media coverage continues to use \u2018science\u2019 to remind us that restaurants, gyms and hotels are a\u00a0high-Covid risk<\/a>\u00a0and are\u00a0potential superspreader events<\/a>. Last month articles loved to cite a\u00a0Stanford computer model<\/a>\u00a0which uses cell phone data to simulate Covid spread in 10 major US cities and \u201cmap the hourly movements of 98 million people from neighborhoods\u2026 to points of interest (POIs) such as restaurants and religious establishments.\u201d<\/p>\n While tracking mobile phones Big-Brother style gives an indication of density, the study is heavily limited by data used in 1-hour blocks. Someone can spend 5 minutes in a grocery store to buy milk, and 50 minutes later someone else can also spend 5 minutes in the store to buy bread. Under the model, they are both characterized as in the store for an hour; and suddenly the people in the store during that hour \u2014 and the risk to everyone \u2014 has gone up by two.<\/p>\n As Jeffrey Tucker wrote, even the CDC has been misappropriated in support of\u00a0a war on restaurants and bars<\/a>. This\u00a0study<\/a>\u00a0restricted analysis of their sample of positive cases \u201cto case patients with close contact to anyone with confirmed COVID-19.\u201d Unless Covid was caught in domestic settings, these case patients would perceive themselves as encountering it in a social setting \u2014 such as a bar or restaurant \u2014 thereby making them more likely to report having visited a bar\/coffee shop.<\/p>\n After all, you are more likely to hear (and\u00a0remember<\/em>) that a friend has Covid than to have a store clerk or bus conductor advise you that they are Covid positive. And you\u2019re more likely to forget a grocery store run than meeting a friend for coffee. What\u2019s more, this study forgot to ask people whether they dined inside or outside, making the results meaningless, especially given that the survey was about summertime dining.<\/p>\n \u201cCOVID-19 Outbreak Associated with Air Conditioning in Restaurant, Guangzhou, China, 2020<\/a>\u201d is a limited case study which posits that substandard ventilation and seating in the path of the air conditioner caused Covid to spread to 9 other people, 5 of whom were seated at adjacent tables. Of course, unless everyone was\u00a0accurately<\/em>\u00a0tested beforehand and arrived at the restaurant in a personal bubble there\u2019s no way to verify that they caught it in the restaurant, and not on the metro, or between their car and the restaurant\u2019s front door. While the authors note inadequate social distancing, that\u2019s simply part of life in Guangzhou, where population density is 5,100 people per square mile.<\/p>\n Another study comparing Covid transmission during a\u00a0bus ride to a worship event<\/a>\u00a0in Eastern China between two buses found that \u201cthose who rode a bus with air recirculation\u00a0and<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0with a patient with COVID-19 had an increased risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection compared with those who rode a different bus.\u201d Like the Guangzhou restaurant, these authors acknowledge airborne transmission\u00a0may<\/em>\u00a0only partially explain transmission. All this study shows is that Covid doesn\u2019t suddenly materialize among people who don\u2019t have it, and if you spend hours in a confined space with someone you\u00a0could<\/em>\u00a0get it. Again, it\u2019s China, and 64 people per bus sounds rather cramped.<\/p>\n There was also that\u00a0superspreading event at a bar<\/a>\u00a0in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Patient 1 had travelled in Thailand and around Vietnam, before attending a St. Patrick\u2019s Day party where he passed it on to 18 others. According to the researchers, the cases were\u00a0phylogenetically close<\/a>, but different from other cases in Ho Chi Minh at the time. However, the US$25 tests would be out of most Vietnamese people\u2019s price range, where the average salary is\u00a0$148 per month<\/a>, so describing the cases found in the bar as \u201cdifferent from other cases\u201d in the city is a big assumption.<\/p>\n These flimsy studies relying on contact tracing (and there\u2019s no way to know other customers didn\u2019t catch Covid elsewhere before hand), computer simulations and use of\u00a0case numbers as a basis<\/a>\u00a0to legitimize everything from masking and capacity limits on establishments, to contact tracing, and calls for better ventilation and dehumidification.<\/p>\n Our governors say they are following the science, and therefore these stringency and shutdown measures are required to prevent severe outcomes. None of these studies document severe outcomes \u2014 they don\u2019t tell us whether the other customers in the restaurants, bar or buses suffered symptoms, were hospitalised, required intensive care or ended up passing away.<\/p>\n Until we start questioning \u201cthe science\u201d or demand that our policymakers stop hiding behind the boastful yet ambiguous label of \u201cscience\u201d and adequately identify precisely what evidence they are following, we will be sucked into an endless spiral of cyclical shutdowns. Unless they tell us what science they are following, we cannot go back to check \u2014 like a schoolteacher checks students\u2019 spelling \u2014 and verify that it is correct, and we cannot hold our elected representatives responsible for the social, economic, education and health fallout of their policies.<\/p>\n For all we know, the science may be deeply flawed. Worse, it may not even exist.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.aier.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/pasted-image-0-48.png\")
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