COVID-19 SCIENCE

Misinformation regarding the Covid-19 pandemic is a two way street

By Dr Juergen Ude | May 27th 2021

Governments are fighting in partnership with various social media sites to prevent misinformation. In principle this is understandable. If the public is fed with misinformation it will not cooperate with Health Authorities trying to save the thousands and thousands of lives they believe they can save. The problem is that misinformation comes from governments and the media also, some very blatant

For example how often have been told the virus kills young and old alike and yet this is not supported by the data. Most people that died also had 3 comorbidities. What did they really die from?

No one on this website condones blatant misinformation. We have no time for conspiracy theories, and blatantly false information.

Unfortunately governments, do-gooding media, and health advisers are providing far more misinformation than they themselves may realize because of their own incompetence, reliance on academic advisers instead real-world competent experts. After studying data for every country for over a year our conclusion is that every piece of information provided by governments, health advisers has been wrong by some degree, usually a lot. Virtually every model prediction has been wrong, virtually all the science has been wrong, which our open letter already downloaded thousands of times tries to explain. The Open Letter can be downloaded here.

https://www.covidmedicalnetwork.com/openletter.pdf

One has to recall how confident all our political leaders were about vaccinations. Last year vaccinations were seen as the solution to returning back to normal. Clearly the information at that time was wrong. Now we are told we will still need face masks and lockdowns. Politicians, who have no qualification in the area are now telling us they knew all along. That sounds like face saving.

Conclusion jumping has been embarrassing. We just have to look at the countries lauded by experts, including the World Health Organization, for their handling of the virus to see how embarrassing the misinformation was. The Singapore experience is a great example.

The above chart show the cases for Singapore last year. The blue lines show where WHO complimented Singapore for its success. The black line is March the 5th around which time the world was ‘mesmerized‘ by Singapore’s success. How can one rely on information by the experts and governments with such conclusion jumping, which is a sign of real-world inexperience.

The mind changes and judgement errors have been equally embarrassing. One minute, borders are open, the next they are closed. The Australian government who is notorious for trumpet blowing and is the only country which implemented its first lockdown after the peak, only this year said we will lead the world out of covid with vaccinations and it now looks like we will not be fully vaccinated by end of this year, if we are lucky. By that time there may be new variants. Only recently the TGA refused to acknowledge that we had a problem with blood clots, to be proven wrong. China must be laughing knowing that it, with over 1.4 billion people has returned almost back to normal after several months last year and we are still struggling a year later.

How can we say official government information is reliable when there have been so many mind changes and errors, indicating no one knows what they are talking about.

So why do we have so much misinformation, from Governments and Health Advisers

There are many reasons, but the main ones suggested are"

1. Relying on academic advisors

Academic thinking is unable to cope with the human complications in life and multiple objectives. The academic mind needs to simplify things with models and assumptions. All models are wrong and hence information based on models is misinformation. Practically all assumptions are violated in the real world and hence academic based information is most likely misinformation of reality.

2. Not understanding the difference between soft and hard science

Three decades ago universities understood the difference between soft and hard science. Students in soft science studies, such as management and marketing were told that what they learned was meant to sensitize them to the real world and no more.

Today we treat soft science the same as hard science. It does not matter how clever the theories are, it does not matter if the scientific process is followed, the conclusions remain unreliable. Pandemic science is soft science. Because Health Advisers and Governments do not understand the limitations of soft science. they often provide information that is bound to be wrong.

3. Mental models build with propaganda

This is a psychological problem. Human beings all have mental models to simplify living. For Covid these are shaped by the media and politicians and peers. The mental model is that the virus is deadly killing young and old alike and only vaccines are the solution. It makes life easy. This mental model has been fed by propaganda. Once a mental model has been built it is virtually impossible to replace it with facts. Since Health Advisers and Politicians have influenced their own mental models their minds cannot think beyond these resulting in false information being presented.

4. Trusting only mainstream information

It has always been a tiny number of people who have made a difference, not mainstream, who one can argue, admittedly harshly, are not able to think out of the box and do not have independent thought. By not listening to professionals with proven experience, outside the protected academic environment it can only be expected that wrong information is disseminated.

5. Whiff of evil

This possibility should not be taken lightly. We are not talking about Satan flying through the sky marking territory. We are talking about the bad side of humanity. Anyone with experience in industry will know that many (not all) senior managers will go to all length to protect their position without scruples regarding ethics and often make unconscionable decisions and provide false information to justify their decisions. The problems we face in industry exists equally amongst some politicians and academics seeking to advance their careers. The world is not made up of angels. Information coming out of these individuals tends to be untrustworthy, if the motivation is satisfying self-interest.