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It’s not even clear that he is wrong, but the article seems to be implying this assumption. Buzzfeed “news”.

by verroq 6y ago

roywiggins 6y ago
"Based on data from the quarantined Diamond Princess cruise ship, he predicted that roughly 10,000 Americans could die." And that's 10,000 assuming his preferred no-lockdown strategy and no vaccine. This prediction has not panned out.
- nkurz 6y ago
  You are correct that the Buzzfeed article includes that quote, but I'm extremely doubtful that Ioannidis ever made this prediction. I'm guessing that they are misinterpreting his "Fiasco in the making" article: https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/17/a-fiasco-in-the-making-as-the-coronavirus-pandemic-takes-hold-we-are-making-decisions-without-reliable-data/ https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/17/a-fiasco-in-the-making-a.... In that, he says: Projecting the Diamond Princess mortality rate onto the age structure of the U.S. population, the death rate among people infected with Covid-19 would be 0.125%. But since this estimate is based on extremely thin data — there were just seven deaths among the 700 infected passengers and crew — the real death rate could stretch from five times lower (0.025%) to five times higher (0.625%). It is also possible that some of the passengers who were infected might die later, and that tourists may have different frequencies of chronic diseases — a risk factor for worse outcomes with SARS-CoV-2 infection — than the general population. Adding these extra sources of uncertainty, reasonable estimates for the case fatality ratio in the general U.S. population vary from 0.05% to 1%. This strikes me as the sort of thing a careful statistician might say. He then goes on to say that if the rate is at the lower end of this, a shutdown would be unwarranted: A population-wide case fatality rate of 0.05% is lower than seasonal influenza. If that is the true rate, locking down the world with potentially tremendous social and financial consequences may be totally irrational. One can definitely disagree with his reasoning, but based on this article I can't see how Buzzfeed would be justified in claiming that he "predicted that roughly 10,000 Americans could die", unless you are interpreting "could" very literally as a lower bound. I'd definitely update my opinion of Ioannidis negatively if you can find evidence that he confidently predicted that such a small number of deaths the most likely outcome. Conversely, I'd hope you might update toward seeing the article as a "hit piece" if you can't find any such evidence.
  - coldtea 6y ago
    What he did was that he used weasel phrasing to ease down fears and advocate policy ("if that's the true rate" -- despite he and everybody already knew well that the true rates in Italy, Spain etc at the time were far higher). There was absolutely no reason (much less a "careful statistician's reason) to write ("A population-wide case fatality rate of 0.05% is lower than seasonal influenza.") except to imply that's a plausible scenario. Especially since he closes with that nugget... And even ignoring that a "careful statistician" (who knows biology) would also not discard long term health effects and just focus on deaths, as if once you've not died from covid it's all a-ok...
  - jsnell 6y ago
    From your own link: > If we assume that case fatality rate among individuals infected by SARS-CoV-2 is 0.3% in the general population — a mid-range guess from my Diamond Princess analysis — and that 1% of the U.S. population gets infected (about 3.3 million people), this would translate to about 10,000 deaths That was the only point estimate he made in that piece, so it seems quite fair to hold him to it. It wasn't being presented as a lower bound, but as a reasonable middle ground.
    - nkurz 6y ago
      > That was the only point estimate he made in that piece Although I'd argue that neither is an "estimate", he also says this: In the most pessimistic scenario, which I do not espouse, if the new coronavirus infects 60% of the global population and 1% of the infected people die, that will translate into more than 40 million deaths globally, matching the 1918 influenza pandemic. Is the difference for you that in the first case he only says "if" and in the second he also appends "which I do not espouse"? All I can conclude is we must use language differently. I would never interpret a statistician as making an estimate if they give a single worked example from a range of numbers, much less consider this a prediction. I would consider it a reasonable and serious criticism to point out that his range was wrong, though! Was it? Or do the current numbers fall somewhere within his range? My guess (although I don't know the current US numbers well enough to verify) his range is biased very low, but the upper end is still possibly correct.

It’s not even clear that he is wrong, but the article seems to be implying this assumption. Buzzfeed “news”.

by verroq 6y ago

It’s not even clear that he is wrong, but the article seems to be implying this assumption. Buzzfeed “news”.

"Based on data from the quarantined Diamond Princess cruise ship, he predicted that roughly 10,000 Americans could die." And that's 10,000 assuming his preferred no-lockdown strategy and no vaccine. This prediction has not panned out.

nkurz 6y ago
You are correct that the Buzzfeed article includes that quote, but I'm extremely doubtful that Ioannidis ever made this prediction. I'm guessing that they are misinterpreting his "Fiasco in the making" article: https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/17/a-fiasco-in-the-making-as-the-coronavirus-pandemic-takes-hold-we-are-making-decisions-without-reliable-data/ https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/17/a-fiasco-in-the-making-a.... In that, he says: Projecting the Diamond Princess mortality rate onto the age structure of the U.S. population, the death rate among people infected with Covid-19 would be 0.125%. But since this estimate is based on extremely thin data — there were just seven deaths among the 700 infected passengers and crew — the real death rate could stretch from five times lower (0.025%) to five times higher (0.625%). It is also possible that some of the passengers who were infected might die later, and that tourists may have different frequencies of chronic diseases — a risk factor for worse outcomes with SARS-CoV-2 infection — than the general population. Adding these extra sources of uncertainty, reasonable estimates for the case fatality ratio in the general U.S. population vary from 0.05% to 1%. This strikes me as the sort of thing a careful statistician might say. He then goes on to say that if the rate is at the lower end of this, a shutdown would be unwarranted: A population-wide case fatality rate of 0.05% is lower than seasonal influenza. If that is the true rate, locking down the world with potentially tremendous social and financial consequences may be totally irrational. One can definitely disagree with his reasoning, but based on this article I can't see how Buzzfeed would be justified in claiming that he "predicted that roughly 10,000 Americans could die", unless you are interpreting "could" very literally as a lower bound. I'd definitely update my opinion of Ioannidis negatively if you can find evidence that he confidently predicted that such a small number of deaths the most likely outcome. Conversely, I'd hope you might update toward seeing the article as a "hit piece" if you can't find any such evidence.
- coldtea 6y ago
  What he did was that he used weasel phrasing to ease down fears and advocate policy ("if that's the true rate" -- despite he and everybody already knew well that the true rates in Italy, Spain etc at the time were far higher). There was absolutely no reason (much less a "careful statistician's reason) to write ("A population-wide case fatality rate of 0.05% is lower than seasonal influenza.") except to imply that's a plausible scenario. Especially since he closes with that nugget... And even ignoring that a "careful statistician" (who knows biology) would also not discard long term health effects and just focus on deaths, as if once you've not died from covid it's all a-ok...
- jsnell 6y ago
  From your own link: > If we assume that case fatality rate among individuals infected by SARS-CoV-2 is 0.3% in the general population — a mid-range guess from my Diamond Princess analysis — and that 1% of the U.S. population gets infected (about 3.3 million people), this would translate to about 10,000 deaths That was the only point estimate he made in that piece, so it seems quite fair to hold him to it. It wasn't being presented as a lower bound, but as a reasonable middle ground.
  - nkurz 6y ago
    > That was the only point estimate he made in that piece Although I'd argue that neither is an "estimate", he also says this: In the most pessimistic scenario, which I do not espouse, if the new coronavirus infects 60% of the global population and 1% of the infected people die, that will translate into more than 40 million deaths globally, matching the 1918 influenza pandemic. Is the difference for you that in the first case he only says "if" and in the second he also appends "which I do not espouse"? All I can conclude is we must use language differently. I would never interpret a statistician as making an estimate if they give a single worked example from a range of numbers, much less consider this a prediction. I would consider it a reasonable and serious criticism to point out that his range was wrong, though! Was it? Or do the current numbers fall somewhere within his range? My guess (although I don't know the current US numbers well enough to verify) his range is biased very low, but the upper end is still possibly correct.