Perspectives on the Pandemic with Dr. John Ioannidis

This is an important video.

The interviewer is generally competent. This always helps. The man being interviewed is an epidemiologist who specializes in statistical analysis of data. He is just the kind of person who we want to be interviewed these days. He is also a person who has gone into print about the failure rate of most academic articles in the field. He says that over half of them have serious flaws. So, he is a skeptic. But he is also on the faculty of Stanford University, so he is a well-informed skeptic.
He is also a specialist. Like all specialists, he is like a man with a hammer: everything looks like a nail. From beginning to end, and all the way through, he keeps coming back to the same theme, we have to test. We don't know what is going on if we don't have accurate tests.
There is a problem with his analysis. He never defines who "we" are. Who, exactly, should run the tests? Who should pay for them? Should there be compulsion involved? He hasn't answered these questions.
The other question he doesn't answer is this: What should we do after we get the results? Again, who are "we"?
The statement that grabbed me [23:30 to 26] is this: he said we have three weeks -- maximum -- to get accurate data and impose isolation. "We need to make decisions." The interview was made on March 23.
The long-term effects of lockdowns of everyone are negative. It must not go on for 18 months.
Here's my assessment: there is no possible way that we are going to see comprehensive testing in the next three weeks. No way. Zero. It should have been done two months ago. We were promised by the president that it would begin two weeks ago. Nothing is being done.
Let's begin with a nonscientific statistical analysis. Do you know anybody who has had a coronavirus test? Have you had the test? No? Is it because you're not interested? Is it because they are not available? Is it both? It's probably both. You want to do it on your own, and you couldn't do it if you did want to do it on your own. There is no compulsion for you to get the test, and there is no ability for people in your community to respond to any such compulsion.
My daughter got the test. It took three days to get the results. She didn't get it in the parking lot of a local Walmart or CVS. She got it at Vanderbilt University. She had a severe cough, so she had a reason to get the test. She turned out to be negative. That was good news. Meanwhile, the city of Nashville is locked down. Should it be?
The video is calming. But it is calming only on either or both of these scenarios: (1) Full testing will be implemented across the United States in less than three weeks, and the federal government will then take appropriate, effective action. (2) The coronavirus will die out of its own accord in summer, irrespective of what governments do.
We had better hope number two comes true. That's because there is no chance that the first scenario will come true.
Sadly, this video has had fewer than 10,000 views. Of those, I have no idea how many finished the entire video. Probably fewer than half.