Coronavirus, what happens when you get the statistics wrong?

The truth is out. We've got the data of the pandemic wrong! Now what?

The Wuhan Coronavirus was born under suspicious circumstances. China obfuscated, tried to hide the truth for as long as possible. First reprimanded the doctors who rang the alarm bells, then put the P4 laboratory in Wuhan under military supervision, ordered all samples destroyed and a shut down of independent publications. Finally, the country reacted strongly, putting the city, then the whole Hebei province under a two month long lock-down, while declaring that there was nothing to fear and the W.H.O parroting the Chinese position, prevaricated for months before declaring that a pandemic was on-going.

But thanks to the one major characteristics of this Coronavirus, its very high number of asymptomatic cases (people being sick but showing no symptoms), the virus did spread around the world, first to Korea and Italy, then to all other countries with very few exceptions. Asia reacted quickly by closing down stores early, requesting that people wear masks and comprehensive detection and tracking policies. The results were immediate and the number of cases slowed almost immediately to a crawl. Europe and especially the US did not. The number of sick people exploded and a couple of weeks later the death's curve followed suit.

Early on, based on a very limited number of test, a low R0 (spread of the virus), and an extremely high death rates of close to 3% were calculated, and models showing millions of deaths down the line were built, especially by the London Imperial College in the UK. Most countries panicked and followed the Chinese example of a complete lock-down... and all without exceptions got it wrong! The reason for the mistake was simple and basic; they got their statistics wrong. The extremely high number of asymptomatic cases created an illusion of a high death rate whereas we now know that this was not the case.

In the end, the Wuhan Coronavirus is a dangerous virus. For people with weak immune systems, mostly the old, obese and diabetics, the risk is clearly high and whenever someone gets sick, the road from emergency to respirator to death can be a quick one. But for everybody else... nothing. Not even mild flu symptoms! The one exception which in itself is a scandal is the very high number of doctors and nurses who have succumbed for the simple reasons of high viral loads and poor protection.

But bad statistics were not limited to poor projections, most countries went one step further by declaring that whenever the virus was detected, the causes of death should be attributed to the virus. Consequently, the number of old age people dying from the virus exploded, while the real number of death in most countries stayed flat. Now that the numbers are out, especially in France, we finally know that the total number of death did not show any uptick. 2020 is turning out to be another ordinary year, and in most case a rather low flu season in Europe. 

But do not expect any countries to cancel their lock-down order any time soon, and even less to apologize, declaring that they got their numbers and consequently policies wrong! That's unfortunately not how things work.

Responsible people will hide their incompetence behind dubious numbers then politicians will focus their attention of the terrible economic consequences of their failed virus mitigation policies. Few will show that countries who did not implement a complete lockdown of their economies like Sweden did not see the predicted explosion, proving that these policies were an over-reaction.

But the legacy of this failure will be with us for years to come. In the end the virus, beyond a few very limited hot spots will not have killed that many people compared to any other ordinary year, but if, as it seems more or more likely, it becomes the pin which burst the financial bubble, it will then have proved far more dangerous than expected, by showing the weakness of our system and the real risks of the contagion of fear.

It may also have a positive consequence demonstrating that our over centralization and over reliance on the state have become toxic and destructive. But don't count on it. The isolated voices of reason will quickly be drawn in a tsunami of spin and propaganda proving that all the wrong decisions were taken for the right reasons; The destruction of millions of jobs and countless thousands of small businesses, the unfortunate byproduct of the need for precautions. The trampling of individual freedom, an absolute necessity for the better good of all.

It would be great if people kept clapping their hands and banging their pans once a day to remember this terrible episode of failed policies of social engineering. But most probably, they won't. They will be far too busy putting back their lives together and coping with the disastrous economic consequences of a virus most caught without even noticing.   

As for the real economy, let's see what happens once the dollars, Euros and Yens stop dropping from the sky. But will they? Or conversely will we see the takeover of the whole economy by the states? We've seen how this worked, rather poorly, in the past. Don't expect miracles, this time won't be different!