Marcel Levi dismisses coaster calculators as virus deniers because they know that the low IFR of 0.15% is quite correct. They also know that the IFR in NL is higher than in other countries, which is just like with the flu. In the context of this polarization, I may call him 'Gutmensch'. He wants the best for us and I believe that too, sincerely. The problem is that people think they can derive rights from it. Beer mat calculators also have everyone's best interests at heart, you know! So I felt addressed.
Levi mentions the "relative advantage". Has he ever looked at the "Absolute Risk Reduction" of the vaccines he propagates? There is a lot of discussion about it. The NNTV of common vaccines is in the low dozens. With the corona vaccines, this runs into the hundreds.
Then he talks about "corona calculations". However, a big problem is not even in the math, it is in the counting. Let those doctors first learn to "count corona". He mentions 18,000 corona deaths, how were they counted? With positive PCR tests. Were they really sick to death of Covid-19? Did they die from it? With an average age above life expectancy...?
With 18,000 corona deaths, he adds up two flu seasons. That average of 9,000 per flu season is lower than the flu mortality in 2017-2018. That can't be called a killer virus...
And why should only adults be infected, as Levi argues? (Or maybe that's just to indicate a number – I'm putting salt on every snail now.)
He also mentions 92% of people who have been infected as a percentage that cannot be correct – it even shows that the IFR of 0.15% is incorrect. Why not? 92% also seems on the high side to me, but can a doctor just say that that is a ridiculous number? Sanquin is talking about 93%, the same order of magnitude. That may include part of vaccination, but that 92% is not that absurd. It goes without saying that the IFR in the Netherlands is higher than worldwide, because the flu is no different.
Then Levi undermines a research result because of a research group of a few dozen people that is too small. If you maintain that criterion, little remains of various other results in vaccine studies; Subgroups from which conclusions were drawn were just as small.
I share his conclusion: there is still a lot to be gained for the world in precision with a better understanding of numbers.
Doctors are also not really able to do sums and certainly not with their own patients, as it turned out. The alphas in politics and the doctors in the OMT are not necessarily the best calculators. Maybe it's a good thing. Leave that calculation to people who at least know how to count.
