Data that only counts the number of cases fails to justify a return to masks, shuttered classrooms and other useless trammels.

You’d think that going into the third year of the Covid-19 pandemic, we’d finally get the “data” that justifies the lockdowns, school shutdowns, small business bankruptcies and other wrong-headed policies that have crippled the economy, crushed the education and health of millions of children and more.

But no, can’t do that. For two years now, the media, fed by the lordly and autocratic fanatics like Anthony Fauci, would have arrived at data that realistically described the dangers of the virus, especially now that the less-serious Omicron variation has squeezed out the earlier, more dangerous variations.

That they haven’t is an indictment of their professionalism, competence and honestly. Citing just the number of cases–as I have frequently observed–fails to accurately describe the threat. Yet, the likes of Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker anothers cite the increase Omicron cases as justification for a return to the constraints, confinements and curtailments that erode our democracy. Administrators in Fairfax County, Virginia, defied a state-wide order by requiring every student to mask-up, despite science that challenges mask effectiveness.

At least some reports relied on the more useful number of hospitalizations. Yet even that data fails to fully characterize or accurately the seriousness. The result is lathered up headlines such as: “Long ER waits. Canceled surgeries. Closed urgent care centers. The latest COVID-19 surge has made it difficult to get basic medical care in Illinois.”

Some scientists, however, are digging deeper. Such as, “A new study suggests that almost half of those hospitalized with COVID-19 have mild or asymptomatic cases.” As reported in Atlantic magazine:

From the start, COVID hospitalizations have served as a vital metric for tracking the risks posed by the disease….

Case counts, on the other hand, depend on which and how many people happen to get tested. Presumably, hospitalization numbers provide a more stable and reliable gauge of the pandemic’s true toll, in terms of severe disease. But a new, nationwide study of hospitalization records, released as a preprint today (and not yet formally peer reviewed), suggests that the meaning of this gauge can easily be misinterpreted—and that it has been shifting over time….

If you want to make sense of the number of COVID hospitalizations at any given time, you need to know how sick each patient actually is. Until now, that’s been almost impossible to suss out…

But the study also demonstrates that hospitalization rates for COVID, as cited by journalists and policy makers, can be misleading, if not considered carefully….

[T]this study suggests that COVID hospitalization tallies can’t be taken as a simple measure of the prevalence of severe or even moderate disease, because they might inflate the true numbers by a factor of two. [Emphases added.]

The study notes that the hospitalization numbers fail to account for the seriousness of each case. Too often the data fail to differentiate the number of patients who are hospitalized because of Covid and those patients who have another illness with Covid. For example, patients who are hospitalized for a heart attack who are discovered to have non-symptomatic Covid.

Yet, Illinois Public Health Director Dr. Ngozi Ezike said last week that the key metric describing the seriousness no longer is the number of cases but hospitalization. Despite the above study.

So, will proof of vaccination for restaurants, gyms and other businesses still be required in Chicago and suburban Cook County? Will the Chicago Teachers Union let up with its dictatorial demands? Will the sun rise in the West?

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