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Another day, another COVID scare story. If the Wuhan plague isn’t going to kill us all, it’s probably going to unleash hordes of giant, mutant bats, or cause Limp Bizkit to reform. Whatever it takes to keep us scared silly and obediently in line, the media will shriek it from the rooftops.
Which isn’t to say that everything the media and bureaucrats say about the Chinese virus is untrue, it’s just that they never quantify the actual risk of the worst effects. This is the common fallacy of the Appeal to the Extreme: citing the absolute worst case and presenting it as if it were the norm. For instance, when the media report “ten gajillion new cases today”, what they don’t say is that the majority of those will be so unaffected that they wouldn’t have even known they were infected unless they were tested.
Similarly, when the media screech about “long term effects”, they deliberately neglect to inform us that those only affect a small percentage of the very small percentage of absolute worst cases.
That goes in spades for their latest scaremongering effort.
Coronavirus survivors may be at risk of lasting cognitive damage, according to a study that found that in the worst cases the infection can cause mental decline equivalent to an 8.5-point fall in IQ or the brain ageing 10 years.
Wow, sounds pretty scary. But… what percentage of coronavirus survivors? The story doesn’t say, it just keeps up the scare-mongering.
The “brain fog” reported by many people weeks and months after their recovering from the virus may be a symptom of more serious cognitive deficits, scientists have said.
Research involving 84,285 people who had recovered from confirmed or suspected COVID-19 found that damage to the brain had happened to varying extents, depending upon the severity of the infection. However, more work is needed to identify how long this lasts.
The worst-affected patients, those who were treated in intensive care or needed ventilation, suffered changes equivalent to an 8.5-point drop in IQ or the brain ageing 10 years.
Adam Hampshire, of the faculty of medicine, department of brain sciences at Imperial College London, who was lead author of the study, said the “shocking” results applied to more than only those patients who had been in hospita[…]People who had recovered at home had an average deficit equivalent to ageing five years or dropping four IQ points.
Ah, so the “worst-affected”? Again, what percentage is that?
And, hang on, is a four-point drop really that significant? After all, individuals can vary by as much as 20 points on tests taken at different times.
Shut up and stop asking awkward questions, you… you… denier. Here, have some more scary stories…
Participants in the study were asked to do nine tasks to assess their cognitive function, and the results were analysed by a team of experts.
So, wait, what… were they actually tested before and after? Or are they just being measured against an average for their age? In which case, aren’t these results well within the standard deviation for IQ?
And we still haven’t been given any idea how prevalent this effect is.
Finally, buried deep in the article is this:
Of the 84,285 people who took part, 60 said they had been put on a ventilator and 147 were cared for in hospital without a ventilator.
So, if this alarming decline most applies to the “worst-affected” – presumably, those put on ventilators, that means 60 out of 84,285 people. 0.07%.
Are you scared now?
The authors did note that time spent in intensive care or on a ventilator for any disease would have an impact on cognitive function.
Um, what? So this quite possibly isn’t specific to COVID at all?
Is anyone else getting the feeling that we’re being taken for a ride?
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