Government Incentives Example -- Why Did We Have COVID Interventions That Were Known Not to Work?
Kevin Roche, who has done a good job of separating fact from crazy through all of the COVID years, writes:
Lockdowns, school closures, forced masking, plastic barriers, etc. during the epidemic were euphemistically referred to as non-pharmaceutical interventions. They might better have been referred to as non-effective interventions. Five years later, the mainstream media is finally taking notice of this lack of effectiveness and stories like this one in the Boston Globe are appearing. (“New Research Shows COVID Stay-at-Home Orders Did More Harm Than Good”) Anyone who wasn’t inclined to panic knew this at the time of the epidemic. I knew it, I published ads about the harms and the lack of benefits, wrote columns. Anyone like me who took this position was pilloried as a grandma killing, heartless idiot. Now five years later everyone is saying these steps were irrational, taken out of fear and panic, and all the negative impacts were not considered.
I am going to use this thought as an opportunity to further my previous discussions of organizational incentives and how they help explain government behavior. The following is built on my essay on the topic on August 3, 2021.
Incentives of Government Agencies
Most of the studies and planning among public health researchers and officials in the decades before 2020 came to the conclusion that public masking and lockdowns were both ineffective and largely counter-productive (the 6-foot social distancing rule was so weak it had not even really been studied -- it was a totally made up thing). The CDC's own website had (still has) an infographic that the general run of masks were ineffective and stopping disease inhalation. Meta studies generally concluded lockdowns were counterproductive.
But within weeks of the start of the pandemic in 2020, government agencies like the CDC threw out all this history and all their prior plans and decided to mandate masks and lockdowns. Masks were mandated for people outdoors, even when we knew from the start that transmission risks outdoors were nil. In late 2021, officials were still mandating masks for children, who have lower death rates from COVID than the flu and despite a lot of clear research about the importance of facial expressions in childhood development and socialization. Millions of kids had to stay home from school, some for years, with disastrous affects on their learning (and probably socialization). So why?
One needs to remember that the officials of government agencies like the CDC are not active scientists, they are government bureaucrats. They may have had a degree in science at one time and still receive some scientific journals, but so do I. Dr. Fauci has seen about the same number of patients over the last 40 years as Dr. Biden. These are government officials that think like government officials and have the incentives of government officials.
I will take the CDC as an example but the following could apply to any related agency. Remember that the CDC has been around for decades, consuming billions of dollars of years of tax money. And as far as the average American is concerned, the CDC has never done much (at least visibly) as we never have had any sort of public health emergency when the CDC had to roll into action.
If you think this unfair, consider that the CDC itself had previously recognized this problem. For years they had been trying to expand their mandate to things like gun control and racism, trying to argue that these constitute public health emergencies and thus require the CDC's active participation. The CDC had for years been actively looking for a publicly-visible role (as opposed to research coordination and planning and preparation and such) that would increase their recognition, prestige, and budget.
So that is the backdrop. And boom - finally! - there is a public health emergency where they can roll into action. They see this new and potentially scary respiratory virus, they check their plans on the shelf, and those plans basically say ... there is nothing much to be done, at least in the near term. Ugh! How are they going to justify their existence? Tellingly, by the way, these agencies and folks like Fauci did follow a lot of the prior science in the opening weeks of the pandemic -- for example they discouraged mask wearing. Later Fauci justified his flip flop by claiming he meant the statement as a way to protect mask supply for health care workers, but I actually think that was a lie. His initial statements on masks were correct, but government agencies decided they did not like the signal of impotence this was sending.
There was actually plenty these agencies should have been doing, but none of those things looked like immediate things to make the public feel safer. Agencies should have been:
- Trying to catalog COVID behavior and characteristics
- Developing tests
- Identifying and testing treatment protocols
- Slashing regulations vis a vis tests and other treatments and protective gear so they could be approved faster
- Developing a vaccine
If we score these things, #1 was sort of done though with a lot of exaggerated and inaccurate messaging. #2 the CDC and FDA totally screwed up. #3 barely happened, with promising treatments politicized and ignored. #4 totally did not happen, no one even tried. #5 delivered a vaccine but with over-hyped results and foreshortened testing that has since had the devastating impact of reducing confidence in other, better vaccines.
Instead, the CDC and other agencies decided they had to do something that seemed like it was immediately affecting safety, so it reversed both years of research and several weeks of their own messaging and came down hard for masks and lockdowns. And, given the nature of government incentives, they had to stick with it right up to today, because an admission today that these NPI aren't needed risks having all their activity in 2020 questioned.
Incentives for Government Officials
Pretty much all of the above also applies to the incentives of government officials. Our elected officials of both parties, but particularly the Democrats, have been working for decades to have the average American think of them as super-dad. Got a problem? Don't spend too much time trying to solve it yourself because it's the government's job to do so. Against this background, the option to do nothing, at least nothing with immediate and dramatic apparent potency, did not exist. "They had to do "something."
It might have been possible for some officials to resist this temptation of action for action's sake, except for a second incentive. Once one prominent official requires masks and lockdowns, the media began creating pressure on all other government officials. New York has locked down, why haven't you? Does New York care more than you? We had a cascade, where each official who adopted these NPI added to the pressure on all the others to do so. Further, as this NPI became the standard government intervention, the media began to blame deaths in states with fewer interventions on that state's leaders. Florida had far fewer COVID deaths, particularly given their age demographics, than New York but in the media the NY leaders were angels and the Florida ones were butchers. For a brief time terrible rushed "studies" were created to prove that these interventions were working, generally by the dishonest tactic of cherry-picking a state with NPI mandates that was not in its seasonal disease peak and comparing it to another state without NPI mandates that was in the heart of its seasonal peak.
The other positive feedback loop was that at the same time, the public health leaders issuing these needless mandates were lionized as heroes. Fauci was smothered in positive press and numerous non-profits and universities lined up to hand him both scientific and ethics awards.
And then the whole thing got polarized around party affiliation and any last vestige of scientific thinking got thrown to the curb. Take Chloroquine as a possible treatment protocol. Personally, I never saw much evidence in its favor but early in 2020 we did not know yet one way or another and there were some reasons to think it might be promising. And then Donald Trump mentioned it. After that we had the spectacle of the Michigan Governor banning this treatment absolutely without evidence solely because Trump had touted it on pretty limited evidence. What a freaking mess. In addition to giving us all a really beautiful view of the hypocrisy of politicians, it also added another great lie to the standard list. To "The check is in the mail" and "I will respect you in the morning" is now added "We are following the science."
Postscript: Incentives for the Public
I won't dwell on this too long, but one thing COVID has made clear to me is that a LOT of people are looking for the world to provide them with drama and meaning. The degree to which many folks (mostly all well-off white professionals and their families) seem to have enthusiastically embraced COVID restrictions and been reluctant to give them up has just been an amazing eye-opener for me.
No kidding! The number of people I know who still believe lockdowns were a good idea and closing schools made sense amazes me. The excuse for schools still seems to be “but we didn’t know about the age gradient and we made the best decision we could with the knowledge we had.” Except of course we did know and we ignored the knowledge we did have.
OTOH, something was working early in the epidemic. When the covid rate went above a threshold, it started to come down long before herd immunity could work. Was it people staying home? Was it people staying far away from each other? Was it masks?
Whatever it was, it stopped working after six or seven months.
We see a similar pattern in other epidemics. NPIs have a beneficial effect early and the Establishment apologizes for criticizing them. They then stop working and the Establishment apologizes for recommending them.
There is also something that I do not see mentioned much: there was a H1N1 outbreak in 2009 then qualified as pandemic when some of the bureaucrats attempted to create the same sort of scare panic. I remember sitting in useless meetings where compliance or risk people attempted to explain what we should do, notably offer surgical masks to the staff.
I believe it did not work then because we were in 2009 and the crisis we were trying to get out of was serious enough for people to focus on the real issues.
However, some of the frustrated bureaucrats must have learnt from their "failure" then and were better prepared in 2020 while everybody else had forgotten the H1N1 pandemic of 2009.
See You On The Other Side (Ep. 2442) - 03/14/2025 - #1 Trending Video
https://commoncts.blogspot.com/2025/03/see-you-on-other-side-ep-2442-03142025.html
ps. could you pls add CC to your blogroll? thanks!
We put the control freaks and hysterics in charge and they were the ones whipping up hysteria and since the media and the organs of the State hated Trump they whipped it into a frenzy in no time. They will do it again if ever given the chance. These are the people that really do believe in witchfinding and other hysterical things and mere death is too easy for those who oppose them.
Joseph E Hertzlinger: When the covid rate went above a threshold, it started to come down long before herd immunity could work. Was it people staying home? Was it people staying far away from each other? Was it masks? ... Whatever it was, it stopped working after six or seven months.
As usual, the pandemic came in waves. People are reactive. When the contagion surged, people reduced their exposure. As the contagion waned, people relaxed their exposure. Ideally, government can get the population ahead of the curve, but in reality, people can be obstinate and contrary.
Coyote: #5 delivered a vaccine but with over-hyped results and foreshortened testing
The COVID vaccine completed Phase 3 trials before being provided to the public. The virus mutated so that the vaccine lost some effectiveness, but it still significantly reduced hospitalization and death. The mistake was not returning to normalcy once the population was largely vaccinated.
The proof of the government over-reaction were the mandates. When they said that you MUST have this 'vaccine', even if you have already had COVID, you knew that something was wrong. That advice contradicted all the known evidence of immunology and the various epidemics of respiratory transmitted flu-like diseases in the past.
The US fed gov should be head hunting Anders Tegnel from Sweden but gov only head hunts football coaches.
@Joseph - it mostly seems to have been seasonality.
One of the things I recall reading back in 2020-21 is that it's well understood that respiratory viruses *are* seasonal but it's not well understood *why* they're seasonal. Is it human behavior (time spent indoors vs. outdoors)? Is it related to the impact of temperature/humidity on people's respiratory systems and/or viruses? Different hypotheses, no firm answers.
Also, once we had enough information to look at multiple waves across multiple parts of the U.S., patterns emerged. Similar times to reach the peak of a COVID wave and then rollover. Similar seasonal patterns for places with similar climate, which then persisted year-over-year.
The official NPI's in the U.S. *might* have had a modest impact on how high a peak went, and even that was debatable.
But eventually it became clear that the patterns looked close to the same regardless of stay at home orders and schools being open or closed. Even metrics capturing voluntary behavior like traffic mobility didn't seem to matter much. There were, iirc, some matched pairings of neighboring states - I think maybe Iowa and Illinois? - where it was apparent that COVID trajectory was similar despite quite different official responses.
(Quick note on methodology: these patterns were especially apparent looking at reasonably comparable data sets like "# of people hospitalized with COVID". By contrast, the case numbers were close to useless for any decent analysis, because amount of testing (ascertainment) wasn't constant. Verified "cases" were always only a fraction of actual COVID, and - crucially - that ratio of actual / cases changed over time. So what did many people in the media and public health do, of course: they stuck with citing case numbers in contexts where it was silly to do so.)
Best scientific evidence is that ivermectin and Chloroquine were worthless.
however it was the manner in which those two drugs were attacked that created the belief they were a cure.
Clororquine attracted attention because lupus patients had much lower infection rates.
Invermectom attracted a following because several regions of the world with high ivermectin usage had much shorter waves. Instead of searching for other factors that caused the lower infection rates, the drugs were simply attacked.
I am of the opinion based on basic math analysis that the vaccine did very little to reduce covid deaths.
Several data points worth mentioning
A) 80+% of the 65+ age group was vaxed
B) 80+% of the deaths were in the 65+age group.
C) the normal decline in pandemic death rates is 20%-30% from the 1st wave, to the second wave to the third wave.
D) comparing deaths in each month to the same month of year pre vax and post vax and the decline in the death rates followed reasonably close to the historical pattern.
E ) if the vaxed worked, the death rates would have been 30-60% less than they were.
F) the death rate of the 65+ age group in Nov Dec 2020 when no one was vaxed was approx 50 per week per 100k. The "reported" death rate of the unvaxed 65+ age group in Nov Dec 2021 was approx 200-220 per 100k. absolutely no possible way the death rate jumped 4x for a less deadly variant.
Simply mathematical analysis should have raised questions.
Dave T: There were, iirc, some matched pairings of neighboring states - I think maybe Iowa and Illinois? - where it was apparent that COVID trajectory was similar despite quite different official responses.
Red states had worse outcomes than Blue states, even though Blue states tend to have higher population densities.
Joe K: however it was the manner in which those two drugs were attacked that created the belief they were a cure.
Heh. That's an interesting, uh, syllogism.
Joe K: I am of the opinion based on basic math analysis that the vaccine did very little to reduce covid deaths.
The data shows that people who were vaccinated had much lower rates of hospitalizations and deaths.
Joe K: I am of the opinion based on basic math analysis that the vaccine did very little to reduce covid deaths.
Zach's response - 'The data shows that people who were vaccinated had much lower rates of hospitalizations and deaths."
Zach - if you had any basic math skills or if you did any level of due diligence then you would be capable recognizing that the data has serious issues. With part of the problem was the use of bad denominators in the computation.
Post introduction of the vax, death rates remained too high. Death rate for the unvaxed needed to be 4x-6x higher than they were pre vax introduction.
Note that the death rate in oct / nov 2020 for the 65+ age group was about 50 per week per 100k. The chart you have show 180-200 per week per 100k.
Tell us why you think death rates jumped 4x a year later for a less deadly variant.
Joe K: however it was the manner in which those two drugs were attacked that created the belief they were a cure.
Zaxh's responses - "Heh. That's an interesting, uh, syllogism."
Zach you seem to intentionaly ignore or are completely ill informed on how dishonest the health authorities including the CDC were with masking, vax effectiveness, and other mitigation protocols. When the health authorities were that extremely dishonest, it became difficult to belief them when they werent lying.
Joe K: With part of the problem was the use of bad denominators in the computation.
Huh? The death rate is deaths divided by a given population size. Indeed, you use death rate in this comment:
Joe K: Death rate for the unvaxed needed to be 4x-6x higher than they were pre vax introduction.
Above, you seemed to make claims about "historical" pandemics, but you didn't provide citations to actual data, suggesting a 20%-30% decline for each wave of outbreaks. If you look at the death rate from COVID in the United States over the course of the pandemic, the largest outbreak peaked in January 2021, which was before many people had been vaccinated. By the time of the second peak, in January 2022, only about 70% of people 65 and older had received a single dose of the vaccine, fewer having received the recommended second dose. That left many older people vulnerable to hospitalization and death. But also notice there was a preceding outbreak in September 2021, which shows the pattern of outbreaks can be irregular, undermining your claim.
Regardless, none of that impacts the data concerning the death rate of those who were vaccinated versus those who were not.
Joe K: you seem to intentionally ignore or are completely ill informed on how dishonest the health authorities including the CDC were with masking, vax effectiveness, and other mitigation protocols.
'Syllogism':
CDC was (arguendo) wrong about A.
Therefore, CDC was wrong about B.
Zach
I work in the business world where you have to cross check the math -
Same rule applies in science
Multiply the death rates for the unvaxed x the unvaxed population ( note that 80+% of the deaths occurred in the 65+age group with 80+% of that age group was vaxed)
Multiply the death rates for the vaxed x the vaxed population (again note that 80+% of the deaths occurred in the 65+age group with 80+% of that age group was vaxed)
Add those two together.
That total is far too low to account for all the deaths.
Also note the death rate of the unvaxed post Jan 2021 jumped 4x from the time period prior to the introduction of the vax. That is simply implausible.
Bottom line - The math doesnt work
One of the biggest problems medical studies have is the inability to recognize bad data
Joe K: you seem to intentionally ignore or are completely ill informed on how dishonest the health authorities including the CDC were with masking, vax effectiveness, and other mitigation protocols.
'Syllogism':
CDC was (arguendo) wrong about A.
Therefore, CDC was wrong about B.
0
You last response confirms my point
You remain either intentionally ignorant of the dishonesty of the health authorities.
As of July 2024, the CDC still had at least 8 academic fraud level pro masking studies linked to on their websites
Joe K: Also note the death rate of the unvaxed post Jan 2021 jumped 4x from the time period prior to the introduction of the vax.
You keep making claims without foundation. We posted the death rate from COVID, which is not consistent with your claims. Also, you have not acknowledged that pandemics may have irregular patterns.
Joe K: You remain either intentionally ignorant of the dishonesty of the health authorities.
You make claims that you seem to think are true simply because you say they are.
Zach - do your due diligence using the raw data.
There is a reason the link you provided did not go back to march 2020
Joe K: There is a reason the link you provided did not go back to march 2020
The vaccine wasn't released until the end of 2020.
Zachriel
55 minutes ago
Joe K: There is a reason the link you provided did not go back to march 2020
The vaccine wasn't released until the end of 2020.
Correct - That is why the comparison of the death rates for the unvaxed pre & post vax introduction is so perfect for comparison.
The per capita death rate in Nov / dec 20020 for the 65+ age group when virtually no one was vaxed was approx 50 per week per 100k. Where as it was 180-220 per week per 100k for the 65+ age group.
Again - you havent done any form of due diligence.
oops typo should read
The per capita death rate in Nov / dec 20020 for the 65+ age group when virtually no one was vaxed was approx 50 per week per 100k. Where as it was 180-220 per week per 100k for the 65+ age group during nov dec 2021 (using comparable months)
Zachriel - whatever generalities, Iowa in 2020 had essentially the same age-adjusted COVID mortality rate as Illinois. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/covid19_mortality_final/COVID19.htm
There are lots of factors that went into where numbers ended up, including population health (obesity and other co-morbidities), (eventually) vaccination rates among the most at-risk population, and presumably just some idiosyncratic factors.
(To that last point: I've always been curious, for example, just how much mortality rates may have sometimes varied between neighboring countries and states in prior pandemics - such as the 1918 influenza pandemic - for reasons that nobody quite understands and that may have been essentially just dumb luck.)
Joe K: The per capita death rate in Nov / dec 20020 for the 65+ age group when virtually no one was vaxed was approx 50 per week per 100k. Where as it was 180-220 per week per 100k for the 65+ age group during nov dec 2021 (using comparable months)
Crude Mortality Rate by Age Group in the United States
Zach - covid death rates by is the correct metric.
Those that understand the data already know that
Joe K: covid death rates by is the correct metric. Those that understand the data already know that
You made a claim. We provided statistics from the Federal Reserve which seems to contradict your claim, and actually appears to indicate exactly the opposite of what you claimed. You respond, "Is not!" You even go so far as to say, "IS NOT!" But that doesn't appear to answer the point. You might want to expand on your answer.
type
covid deaths by age group is the correct metric
Joe K: covid deaths by age group is the correct metric
The linked chart is called "Crude Mortality Rate by Age Group in the United States". The blue line is mortality rate for those 65+, the same cohort that your claim comprises. That's not the only trouble with your position, but does suffice.
A - That is the second time you provided a link with truncated periods
B - The waves shown in that the last link you provided are within the historical trends for almost every pandemic.
https://ourworldindata.org/covid-deaths
this a more complete chart that undercuts the vax reduced deaths.
Notice the deaths nov dec 2020 vs the deaths nov dec2021 jan feb 2022
you need to look at all in context , not the cherrypicked data
Joe K: this a more complete chart that undercuts the vax reduced deaths.
* Thank you. Finally you are pointing to data rather than just waving your hands in the general direction.
* You had claimed the death rate was higher during the outbreak in December 2020 than the outbreak in December 2021, but the chart you just provided contradicts your claim! For the United States, the former wave reached 10 per million per day, while the latter wave reached only 8 per million per day. And these larger waves each followed smaller waves.
* The process of contagion is chaotic. That's why it comes in waves. Nor can you simply wave your hands to assert what the expected pattern should be.
* Nor does any of this impact the direct observation that the mortality rate for those who were vaccinated was much less than the mortality rate for those who unvaccinated. All you had to do was go to a hospital during the period and open your eyes.
Zach's comment "* You had claimed the death rate was higher during the outbreak in December 2020 than the outbreak in December 2021, but the chart you just provided contradicts your claim! For the United States, the former wave reached 10 per million per day, while the latter wave reached only 8 per million per day. And these larger waves each followed smaller waves."
Zach - go back and read my comment, then compare what I said with what you wrote, then compare with the actual data.
you cited 10m & 8m during several months - I was discussing deaths, which reach a total of 1.1 over the entire 3 years. Cross check your work - do some due diligence so that you understand the topic.
Joe K: Cross check your work - do some due diligence so that you understand the topic.
Even after being provided evidence (for both 65+ and the general population) that flatly contradicts your claim about mortality rates, you keep saying the evidence is out there somewhere. Over there somewhere. Let us know when you are willing to support your claims.