HomeMy WebLinkAbout20201022_R Merle COVIDFrom:R (Burt) Merle
To:news@ptleader.com; Stephen Schumacher
Cc:Board of Health
Subject:Re: Follow-up questions for Locke interviews
Date:Thursday, October 22, 2020 2:21:03 PM
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Dear JCBH and Leader,
I request that this letter be published and that JCBH answers these incredibly important questions. Thank you,Rachelle Merle
On Thursday, October 22, 2020, 11:56:30 AM PDT, Stephen Schumacher <solmaker@olympus.net>wrote:
Dear Editor, the Leader,
In the latest Leader's interview with Jefferson Health Officer Dr. Tom Locke, he concludes, "We think the next three months might be the most difficult yet in the pandemic." What is the source for this grave prognostication?
From previous such statements and the timing of this one, I assume one of his sources is the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) model that currently predicts 262,163 new COVID-19 deaths nationwide between October 22 and February 1 if a hard lockdown is not reimposed. (Note this refers to their "Mandates easing" prediction, which actually means lockdown "mandates are not re-imposed" according to the small print.)http://solmaker.com/public/IHME-201022.png
But on August 22 these same modelers were predicting 250,000 deaths
between then and December 1, which IHME recently had to downgrade to 87,565 (probably still too high given current downward-directed trend lines).http://solmaker.com/public/IHME-200822.pdf
Why is Dr. Locke trusting these multiply-debunked IHME modelers, who
have been embarrassingly wrong time after time throughout this crisis?http://solmaker.com/public/DebunkIHME.pdf
What conflicts of interest does IHME have, given they were paid $279
million dollars (!!!) by the Gates Foundation to come up with these low-quality models?https://www.gatesfoundation.org/Media-Center/Press-Releases/2017/01/IHME-Announcement
These aren't mere academic questions, since such fallacious models
continue to be used to push catastrophic lockdowns around the world. On October 21, Ireland was locked down again due to hysteria over false-positive-fueled "cases" despite a completely-flat near-zero death rate (actually indicating herd immunity is being achieved). Who's next?
http://solmaker.com/public/Ireland-201021.png
https://covid19ireland-geohive.hub.arcgis.com/
See https://change.org/EndLockdownWA for more information.
Stephen SchumacherPort Townsend, WA