Diamond Princess “Outbreak” Summary:
✅ Indeterminate number of deaths (7?),
✅ occurring off the boat, ex post facto,
✅ at a rate = to what we’d expect statistically - regardless of cause - given the number & demographics of passengers,
and
✅ maximized for panic/optics
Hypothesis:
There was no *viral outbreak* on the Diamond Princess.
We saw countries leverage the few powers federal health agencies have:
☑️ Quarantine/Isolation
☑️ Testing
☑️ Investigation & Reporting
Kabuki Theatre of the highest order (and no, that isn’t a cultural slur in reference to Japan).
The U.S. fully participated - and then some - by sending disembarked passengers to the hospital and “treating” some with Remdesivir.
**Thank you for listening to this Remdesivir commercial. No information in whether anyone was placed on a ventilator is available, nor can we confirm that anyone died as a result of sars-cov-2 infection. Yay CDC.** 🤥
80 Americans hospitalized
Not one died from/with the virus.
Too bad we didn’t covid+ NYC nursing home & public housing residents on a cruise instead of to the hospital, eh?
Odds of survival would have been higher.
*send covid+
All of this to say…
Even the low IFR estimates derived from the Diamond Princess are too high, and
there is no solid evidence that an outbreak of illness caused by sudden spread of a novel pathogen occurred.
cc: @DrJBhattacharya @jengleruk @MartinKulldorff
To the point about expected number of deaths among a couple thousand people on a cruise boat ⬇️
Disturbing account re Diamond Princess quarantine:
"Food was delivered 3x a day by crew members in masks & gloves. [Carl & Jeri Goldman] entertained themselves by reading & watching movies. From their room, they could see ambulances carry away sick passengers."
"[They] wife were able to leave their rooms and visit the ship's deck only three times during those 12 days under quarantine, Goldman recalls. The couple's suite had a balcony, but not all passengers had one.
'We were one of the lucky ones,' he says." npr.org/sections/healt…
Questions about the ethics & health benefits of locking people in their staterooms aside, it's fair to say the public was given the impression that DP passengers who had died in Feb/March had died on the boat.
In fact, none did.
Excellent analysis on the Diamond Princess "outbreak" from @TTBikeFit, w/comps to NYC's spring 2020 mortality event
I contend NEITHER was the result of sudden super-spread of viral illness - & give us every reason to question claims of a Global Pandemic pandata.org/what-the-diamo…
@TTBikeFit Cont with some Pt info
Kitchen staff on quarantined DP ship didn't look too concerned.
Before Dancing Nurses came Dancing Line Cooks & Dishwashers.
Who knew?
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