As many of you know, I’ve spent a good amount of time studying the COVID-19 pandemic, making charts, excels, data analyses etc and keeping people up to date with developments throughout the last year and half. And even as I tried to make my analyses as grounded as possible, some of my personal beliefs and inside knowledge have led to me making mistakes.
Here are five mistakes I made in analyzing this pandemic, and what I’ve learned from it.
- Moderna will fail to produce a viable vaccine
- Why I believed this:
- Moderna as a company hadn’t brought a single vaccine to market. They were using an untried method using mRNA, again only a theoretical possibility. They claimed to be able to do so within a year, 10 times shorter than the typically efficient and safe method of making a vaccine.
- What I was wrong about:
- Moderna had a sound plan on which areas they could cut and skip to ensure safety and effectiveness of the vaccine. mRNA vaccines had been studied for decades and the science was ready to be tried.
- What I learned:
- Current methods aren’t set in stone just because they’ve worked well before. There is room for improvement to the vaccine process and we need to be open to revising it.
- The Wuhan Lab was definitely not the source of the virus
- Why I believed this:
- The science behind zoonotic diseases is very detailed, and we’ve been expecting this as a source of a pandemic for a long time. Wet markets, lack of proper hygiene in general and China’s habit of downplaying flaws in their nation all pointed to an attempted cover-up of the nation not being nearly as advanced for all people as they claim to be.
- What I was wrong about:
- We are still missing the information on which animal was the trigger for skipping to humans in the zoonotic chain. While it has happened in the past that IDing the source took years, we’ve advanced much in this area and it is likely that we would have found at least traces that definitively point us in a direction. While the lab as a source had a small chance of being true compared to this reason, that scale is shifting all the time.
- What I learned:
- China is a totalitarian state, especially where information is concerned. I always believed they were capable of this cover-up, but I considered it unlikely because there were so many other possible causes and sources that were far more likely (Occam’s Razor). I’ve learned, however, to not definitely dismiss a possibility just because there are far more likely reasons. It’s hubris to do so.
- The CDC is a reliable source of information regarding the impact of pandemics.
- Why I believed this:
- The CDC has long played a non-partisan role in helping the nation combat diseases, both medical and cultural. They are a non-affiliated data analysis group, much like the CBO, who pride themselves on their independence and call out fact statistics all the time. While governments in US history have been known to hide medical facts from the public, the CDC has a fairly clear record of setting the information straight and simply being muzzled by the government when they felt like doing so.
- What I was wrong about:
- The CDC abdicated to the Trump White House when they agreed to pass all data through the WH first. This tainted all their data. Additionally, the CDC did not set a standard for states to define specific criteria for counting impacts of COVID-19, in terms of fatalities and general debilitation, and thus gave rise to stupid conspiracies about counting gunshot victims or the like, and ignoring the medical impact of COVID-19 aside from fatalities.
- What I’ve learned:
- Fairly early on I switched to using multiple sources to create my datasheets, for comparison and averaging. I’ve also learned to check local sources in case the data is suspect or goes through suspect chains of custody. Lastly, though this information is hard to find, I’ve learned to look at impacts of a pandemic beyond fatality rate, including the long term debilitating effect it has on survivors, which IMO will be an even bigger one than the millions who have died.
- The European Union vaccination rollout will occur well enough
- Why I believed it:
- The EU is a very bureaucratic body, and they take their processes very seriously. Once established, it is very difficult to change them, and so the processes here are quite stable. Most of the powerful nations were also heavily affected, and so had a stake in ensuring that the rollout of vaccines happened swiftly and efficiently.
- What I was wrong about:
- Establishing a process takes far too long in the EU. The inflexibility and bickering and lack of risk-management tactics aside from prevention have brought the EU processes to a trickle, and most nations independently have not fared much better. While the vaccine rollout is now fully engaged, the months of dickering about cost many people their lives and livelihoods.
- What I have learned:
- The EU needs to adopt new risk-management tactics if it wants to keep up in the world. It also needs to accept that some things will not be centrally handled, and that individual nations, provinces and even cities may have to use their best judgement loose from central constriction.
- 200 Million vaccines in 100 days is too ambitious, given the anti-vax culture of the USA
- Why I believed it:
- 74 million Americans voted for a sociopathic cult leader who believed that COVID-19 was not a serious problem, and encouraged people to ignore medical advice, take dangerous drugs as experimental remedies, and rally together screaming indoors without masks or distance during an airborne pandemic. This person and his party also spread doubts about vaccines after losing the election. If 74 million voted that way, there’s a good chance another 74 million were dumb enough to beleive the same things but didn’t vote (given the US low voter turnout). As such, I believed that there was a significant chance that 150 million Americans would refuse to take the vaccine once it was available.
- What I was wrong about:
- There are very vocal people on the very extreme edge of our voting communities, but it appears not to have spread much outside of it, and even many of the vocal opponents of the US vaccine strategy have secretly or understatedly taken the vaccine shots when available. More people are open to the idea of stopping this disease from spreading, or at least form contracting it themselves, as I had initially thought based on political patterns.
- What I have learned:
- Once again I am taught the lesson that there are many people in the USA who simply want to live their lives, and do not care about political posturing or the debates of our times. They trust their neighbor, doctor, pastor, whomever, and they just want to get back to normal. I’m very happy to be wrong here, and hope I continue to be proven wrong.
What about you? What have you learned and what will you admit to having been wrong about?