JAMA: Evidence Government Solutions To Prevent Transmission of COVID Cause Transmission of COVID

Here is the opening of the abstract in the new JAMA paper "Household Transmission of SARS-CoV-2: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis" by Madewell et al.

"Importance Crowded indoor environments, such as households, are high-risk settings for the transmission of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)."

I ask you to now recall the preferred government "solution" to preventing transmission of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2).

With that belly laugh out of the way, and recalling that this new evidence, like that showing masks don't work, will change no minds whatsoever, let's examine the results.

Results A total of 54 relevant studies with 77?758 participants reporting household secondary transmission were identified. Estimated household secondary attack rate was 16.6% (95% CI, 14.0%-19.3%), higher than secondary attack rates for [the previous] SARS-CoV (7.5%; 95% CI, 4.8%-10.7%) and MERS-CoV (4.7%; 95% CI, 0.9%-10.7%). Household secondary attack rates were increased from symptomatic index cases (18.0%; 95% CI, 14.2%-22.1%) than from asymptomatic index cases (0.7%; 95% CI, 0%-4.9%), to adult contacts (28.3%; 95% CI, 20.2%-37.1%) than to child contacts (16.8%; 95% CI, 12.3%-21.7%), to spouses (37.8%; 95% CI, 25.8%-50.5%) than to other family contacts (17.8%; 95% CI, 11.7%-24.8%), and in households with 1 contact (41.5%; 95% CI, 31.7%-51.7%) than in households with 3 or more contacts (22.8%; 95% CI, 13.6%-33.5%).

In case you missed it in the blizzard of numbers, symptomatic transmission is estimated at 18%, and asymptomatic at 0.7%. Plus or minus.

Asymptomatic transmission, as has long been argued (in vain) is not important. This 0.7% is also the estimate for people mingling together for long periods on top of each other, sometimes literally. It will necessarily be less in places like restaurants, barbershops, and other areas of causal contact. Which is to say, those "non-essential" businesses not run by oligarchs.

Again, asymptomatic transmission is not a "thing".

What we have learned is what all experts knew before 2020, but pretended to forget after: that the best way to handle disease outbreaks is quarantine the sick and let the healthy be at liberty.

Details

You can read the paper, or glance through the supplementary information (click on the link in the paper), which is pages and pages long. The gist is that this is a standard meta-analysis, with all the standard plus and minuses of the genre. The confidence intervals are parametric and not predictive, meaning they are too small. This is the usual criticism of all classical statistical analyses.

They separate out China from non-China, they index studies by trustworthiness, giving some studies more weight than others, and so on. This is well because Northeast Asians have responded to the infection differently (and better) than other races. I don't mean politically, but biologically. Medicine, when they're quiet about it, still tracks results by race, knowing its importance.

I'll let them tell you of the importance of lockdowns (they don't call them that):

Households are favorable environments for transmission. They are what are known as 3Cs environments, as they are closed spaces, where family members may crowd and be in close contact with conversation.94 There may be reduced use of personal protective equipment relative to other settings.

Golly.

Here's their conclusion, in its entirety.

The findings of this study suggest that households are and will continue to be important venues for transmission, even where community transmission is reduced. Prevention strategies, such as increased mask-wearing at home, improved ventilation, voluntary isolation at external facilities, and targeted antiviral prophylaxis, should be further explored.

Mask wearing at home is silly, since it will be like mask wearing in public. People imagine masks to be protective because they're unable to conceive the forty-two times they adjusted their ill-fitting, highly permeable placebo couldn't protect them. Masks in the house would be even more lax than in public, where patrols of shrieking harpies enforce the rules.

Voluntary isolation---the old word is quarantine---of those who are symptomatic is not insane, and to be encouraged.

Quarantines are eminently more sensible than lockdowns, which only cause pain, and cause death.

Government won't stop using them, though, for two excellent reasons: (1) they will never admit to error, especially one so monumental and deadly, and (2) they are enjoying their newfound powers, granted to them by your fear.

To support this site and its wholly independent host using credit card or PayPal (in any amount) click here