Panda’s Covid-19 claims ‘less than scientific’, unhelpful

Update: Click here to read Panda’s right of reply.

An epidemiologist has warned that the public statements by data analytics and lobby organisation Panda (Pandemics Data and Analytics) could be unhelpful in the fight against the pandemic.

Panda has over the past year made several statements on Covid-19 vaccines, herd immunity, and the functionality of lockdowns, and have been quoted in several publications as experts.

Also Read: SA’s lockdown unconstitutional, a human rights violation-b4el presentation

Now the organisation has doubled down on controversial claims that contradict scientific consensus, about how the virus spreads and kills, and what governments should be doing about it. Most recently has been their December endorsement of a study report which claimed, among other things, vaccines were inherently dangerous.

The December 2020 report by discredited Canadian scientist Dennis G Rancourt claims that lockdown measures do not prevent deaths, transmission of Covid-19 does not happen via contact, and that vaccines are ‘inherently’ dangerous.

Alternative science raises cause for concern

Epidemiologist and senior lecturer emeritus at Stellenbosch University Jo Barnes said the science community is concerned about some of the assertions being made by Panda, describing their claims about the deadliness of lockdowns as being without scientific foundation. She said much of their analyses was also based on an approach that was less than scientific.

Summarily, Barnes described Rancourt’s report as a waste of time, criticising its author for relying heavily on circular reasoning, by quoting himself as the authority for many of his most contentious statements.

“Quite a number of the rest of the articles are ‘old’ (from the pre-pandemic era) or from early on in the pandemic. The article relies heavily on opinions but do not reflect the recent work by many scientists from across the world on transmission, mask-wearing, etc. It is similar to saying that a 5 year old roadworthy certificate for your vehicle is still valid. I have not had the time to study this piece and really don’t want to go deep into it, since he is so openly biased and unwilling to consider the evidence fairly,” Barnes said.

She also referred readers to a Psychology Today article debunking Rancourts claims.

Panda treating virus data like financial figures

Barnes called for PANDA to start needs to publish its data analyses in a respected peer reviewed journal with all the inherent statistical assumptions used for their calculations in order to expose them to scientific scrutiny.

She said: “I am concerned about the way in which this group treats analyses of the pandemic situation and I get the impression that they approach the data as if it is will behave like financial figures. I fear that there may a large degree of “confirmation bias” present in their interpretations: only looking for the pieces of information that agree with their position and ignoring the pieces that don’t.”

She pointed out that PANDA’s claim that hard lockdowns were exponentially more deadly than the dangers posed by the pandemic spreading had no real basis for comparison. There is no real-life comparison since there is no comparable control group.

“Secondly, lockdown was instituted in the whole country, not only in some places. The pandemic curve changes all the time and using data from different times and during different stages of the outbreak would not constitute a valid control.”

Barnes also disputed Panda CEO Nick Hudson’s claims that simply allowing younger people to become infected while ‘protecting’ the older and vulnerable members of society was one plausible way to achieve herd immunity.

“We are getting better at saving lives from this infection all the time, so the death rate is progressively falling, but we are still trying to bring the infection rate down to a similarly low level, but only proper, widespread vaccination can do that. So comparisons across time intervals will yield flawed answers,” said Barnes.

Since Panda appeared to be approaching the science of the Covid-19 pandemic from the perspective of the impact of the economic fallout and appear  only concerned with that aspect, this appeared to have coloured their interpretation to the degree that they refuse to consider any other viewpoints, which Barnes said was a worrisome aspect in its own right.

Panda refuses to budge

Hudson, however, said the organisation still stood by their decision to publicly endorse the article,  although the actuary appeared to want to distance himself from the alternative science of Rancourt.

“We put it on our website because we believe it is wrong that scientists’ reasonably argued views are prevented from being aired simply because somebody doesn’t like them. The views are Denis’, not necessarily PANDA,” he said.

Earlier he told The Citizen, it was wrong for publications to deplatform the report and all Rancourt was saying was that ‘all vaccines have side effects’.

Panda has been the target of criticism, suggesting Hudson and his organisation were purveyors of misinformation.  They were mentioned in a report detailing organisations accused of contributing to the muddied waters of scientific discourse around the efficacy of vaccines, lockdown regulations, and other government response to Covid-19.

The report tears into Panda’s public statements about the pandemic, from its claim that an extended lockdown would kill 30 times more people than Covid-19 would, to their bringing into question the efficacy of vaccines.

Last year Discovery Health estimated that the lockdown could have saved as many as 16 000 lives, but Hudson on Friday said the organisation stood by its statement that herd immunity could be achieved by allowing the virus to spread among the young and healthier members of the population, and only protecting those who were vulnerable.

“All strategies can only end with herd immunity. So it’s not a strategy, it’s an inevitable end-point and the question you have to ask yourself is how do you get that end point with the least mortality. Our view is that the best approach would be to protect the vulnerable and allow those who are healthier to get the virus.”

Also Read: Actuary tells Mkhize lockdown has achieved nothing but make the country poorer. 

The scathing article by independent UK publication The Byline Times also linked PANDA to organisations and public figures notorious for spreading fake news globally about the pandemic, including former US president Donald Trump’s Covid-19 adviser, Dr Scott Atlas.

Hudson was, however, adamant the article’s claims were completely false, while questioning the credibility of the publication and the article, which he described as a ‘complete hit piece’ which contained numerous falsehoods and unsubstantiated allegations.

Hudson said since their initial research, the organisation found that lockdowns were even more devastating than they first thought.

“We would actually go further than we did originally. Lockdowns don’t save any lives, they actually shift the disease burden onto the vulnerable and they leave you with a higher death rate than you would have had without it. We have written extensively about it on social media. We would be willing to be interviewed about the entirety of our findings. We stand by everything we have said,” said Hudson.

According to their research, South Africa has the “worst age based mortality rate in the world’ despite over 350 days in lock down.

“For any given age category of people, we have got the highest mortality rate in the world. So if you look at what proportion of 60-year-olds for instance died in South Africa compared to other countries ( we would have the highest figure).”

Even Sweden no longer backing the Swedish model

The example of Sweden, often used by Panda as an example of why lockdowns don’t work had also since lapsed in credibility, since subsequent developments in Sweden showed that foregoing a lockdown put the country in a worse position compared to their neighbours.

Also Read: Sweden passes 10,000 virus deaths

Once an outlier, appearing to be containing the spread of the disease with minimal restrictions, the country’s Covid-19 cases currently exceed 588 000 and 12 115 deaths have been recorded so far.

• Simnikiweh@citizen.co.za

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