OMT members "say all kinds of things to each other"

Phrases that can regularly be heard from the mouths of various OMT members:

• "We say to each other ..."
• "That's what we said to each other: ..."
• "We all agreed that..."

OMT members clearly respect each other as authorities and will assume that the other will have formed his opinion based on recent literature. If they don't, they undermine the authority of the select group of which they themselves are a part, and that benefits no one – least of all themselves. In this way, the club as a whole whirls away from the apparent factuality. That is why, against all science and WHO advice, they still advise for lockdowns: their main sources are their colleagues and they think so too.

Now it is a well-known fallacy in argumentation theory if an authority is put forward as the primary source. Mentioning an authority can sometimes be an element as a supporting (juxtaposed) argument. Moreover, the argument is only useful to bring in if the opponent also accepts the authority presented as such.

In vaccine terms: both Maurice de Hond and Marion Koopmans are unusable as credible sources because the other party will disqualify these people anyway. Fencing with these names is not only pointless, but also shows tunnel vision and not fully understanding how argumentation should be structured. Besides, anyone can make mistakes, even Maurice de Hond and Marion Koopmans. And reasoning the other way: when Janet Ossebaard says that the sun rose this morning, it is not untrue because she says so.

An "appeal to authority" is always an indication, never a proof.

Skeptical with a bias

It has become apparent to me that, particularly in the sceptical world, a distinction is made between 'argument from authority" and "argument from false authority“. The skeptics often manipulate this difference by stating that "false authority" is the case when someone

1. does not have the right qualifications and/or
2. expresses a position that is not in line with the consensus.

That is clearly incorrect. Logical rules determine whether an argument is valid or not. Who has used the argument before is of secondary importance, although it may be an indication of the expected quality of the argumentation.

Significant is a poster that the Skepsis Foundation distributed as a help to recognize incorrect claims. The first points they mention are not at all about claims, refuting substantiation nor following the argumentation. The intro text still talks about "a statement that is true or not". Then they seamlessly switch to "side". It takes a while, but they are at the top of the list of fact-checking tips purely and simply concerned with the person making a claim. You could classify it as the "ad hominem" fallacy.

It is striking that it is precisely skeptics who elevate certain sources beyond all doubt. Nowadays it seems more like skeptics guard the established order instead of scientifically checking it.

Underpinning against lockdowns

Twitter user Brumby gives a nice list of 30 studies, with a telling quote from each study. There is of course overlap but because of the quotes I put them here for the non-twitterers.
Again, there is something to criticize about every study (too small, no clear endpoint, no placebo group, etc. etc.). I think that in times of crisis you should not be deaf and blind to countless serious signals from all directions that all point in the same direction. This is the twitter thread with all 30 links. Voor wie niet graag twitterdraadjes ontrafelt heb ik de eerste 10 hieronder overgenomen.

1. Assessing Mandatory Stay‐at‐Home and Business Closure Effects on the Spread of COVID‐19 – Bendavid – – European Journal of Clinical Investigation – Wiley Online Library
   there is no evidence that more restrictive nonpharmaceutical interventions (“lockdowns”) contributed substantially to bending the curve of new cases in England, France, Germany, Iran, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, or the United States in early 2020”
2. Effects of non-pharmaceutical interventions on COVID-19: A Tale of Three Models | medRxiv
   “Inferences on effects of NPIs are non-robust and highly sensitive to model specification. Claimed benefits of lockdown appear grossly exaggerated.”
3. A country level analysis measuring the impact of government actions, country preparedness and socioeconomic factors on COVID-19 mortality and related health outcomes – EClinicalMedicine (thelancet.com)
   “government actions such as border closures, full lockdowns, and a high rate of COVID-19 testing were not associated with statistically significant reductions in the number of critical cases or overall mortality”
4. Was Germany’s Corona Lockdown Necessary? (sagepub.com)
   “Official data from Germany’s RKI agency suggest strongly that the spread of the coronavirus in Germany receded autonomously, before any interventions become effective”
5. 2005.02090.pdf (arxiv.org)
   “the decline in infections in England… began before full lockdown… [S]uch a scenario would be consistent with… Sweden, which began its decline in fatal infections shortly after the UK, but did so on the basis of measures well short of full lockdown”
6. https://www.datascienceassn.org/sites/default/files/Illusory%20Effects%20of%20Non-pharmaceutical%20Interventions%20on%20COVID19%20in%20Europe.pdf
   “the UK lockdown was both superfluous (it did not prevent an otherwise explosive behavior of the spread of the coronavirus) and ineffective (it did not slow down the death growth rate visibly).”
7. The end of exponential growth: The decline in the spread of coronavirus | The Times of Israel
   “Given that the evidence reveals that the Corona disease declines even without a complete lockdown, it is recommendable to reverse the current policy and remove the lockdown”
8. Impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions against COVID-19 in Europe: A quasi-experimental study | medRxiv
   “stay at home orders, closure of all non-essential businesses and requiring the wearing of facemasks or coverings in public was not associated with any independent additional impact”
9. Full lockdown policies in Western Europe countries have no evident impacts on the COVID-19 epidemic | medRxiv
   “these strategies might not have saved any life in western Europe. We also show that neighboring countries applying less restrictive social distancing measures … experience a very similar time evolution of the epidemic.”
   “since the full lockdown strategies are shown to have no impact on the epidemic’s slowdown, one should consider their potentially high inherent death toll as a net loss of human lives”
10. Trajectory of COVID-19 epidemic in Europe | medRxiv
    “the model does not support [the] estimate that lockdown reduced the case reproduction number R by 81% or that more than three million deaths were averted by non-pharmaceutical interventions.”

En zo zijn er dus nog twintig. Mocht je nieuwsgierig zijn en niet op Twitter willen/kunnen, laat het me even weten.

Eerdere links met tientallen rapporten vind je hier: resources collected by Ivor Cummins:

De “Crucial Covid Updates” videos van Ivor Cummins heb ik al eerder gedeeld, die vatten alles mooi samen. This was the most recent.