Informath >> Proposal for dealing with Covid-19

Following is a proposal about how to deal with the Wuhan coronavirus.

In Japan, Covid-19 has caused roughly 10 deaths per million of population; for comparison, in the UK, it is roughly 500 deaths per million. That has happened even though Japan has 28% of its population over 65 (the highest percentage of all countries); in the UK, it is 19%. Japan is also highly urbanized, substantially more than the UK. Additionally, Japan has received multitudinous visitors from China; e.g. in January, there were 925,000. Hence, Japan has both extremely high risk factors and an extremely low death rate.

As well, Japan has achieved its low death rate with little testing and without a real lockdown. What has Japan been doing to achieve its low death rate? The answer is not known.

One hypothesis is the following. The Covid-19 virus is known to have different types, due to mutations. The hypothesis is that one type of the virus has low lethality and gives immunity against other types—i.e. the type acts somewhat like a vaccine. According to the hypothesis, that type spread early within Japan.

I asked an eminent epidemiologist, Johan Giesecke, about the hypothesis. He has not had involvement with the researchers who proposed the hypothesis. He said that the hypothesis seems reasonable.

I have also emailed many other epidemiologists, asking if they have ideas on why the death rate in Japan is extremely low. Those who replied said that they have no ideas; moreover, only one seemed to have much interest. (The one was Johan Giesecke; that is why I then asked him about the hypothesis.)

Japan seems to be the most successful country in the world at combating Covid-19, given its high risk factors. Thus, investigating what Japan has been doing would be almost common sense. Indeed, for almost any activity, studying how success has been achieved is normal. Yet epidemiologists generally seem to have little interest in studying Japan. Why?

No epidemiological model is even close to consistent with Japan's low death rate. Hence Japan gives strong evidence that that the models are seriously inadequate—and thus that the epidemiologists who built the models have failed. Epidemiological modellers are ignoring Japan because they do not want to face evidence that they are failures.

I have seen similar behavior from scientists in other fields, and I could give several examples. The general paradigm is that many scientists are more concerned with maintaining and enhancing their egos/identities than they are with the science.

A example of that comes from the epidemiological group at Oxford headed by Sunetra Gupta. The group claimed that, by mid-March, nearly 40% of the population of the UK had had the virus. The claim is obviously unrealistic; so, why would they make such a claim? The claim was based upon a model that they have been relying on for many years. If their model were regarded as being seriously inadequate, it would be evidence that the group had failed. Evidence of them failing, however, will not be accepted by them—their egos will not allow that. Hence, they stand by their models.

The way to understand what is happening with the research is to focus not on the science but on the scientists. And to remember that the scientists are human.

Japan presumably has a key to deal with the pandemic. For illustration, if the hypothesis about a low-lethality virus type is valid, then the low-lethality type could be used to protect the populations of other countries—including the UK. But if a simple key were to be found, it would indicate that the epidemiologists had missed a crucial aspect of the pandemic; so they would appear as failures. Ergo, the epidemiologists try to avoid finding a simple key. Such avoidance is not necessarily done with conscious deliberation, but it is done.

To conclude, my suggestion is that there be an intensive investigation into why Japan has such a low Covid-19 death rate—and whether the UK can emulate Japan. Furthermore, such an investigation should perhaps begin by considering the hypothesis about a low-lethality virus type.