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Panda actuaries' fake news about coronavirus

Panda (Pandemic ~ Data Analysis) actuaries Peter Castleden's and Nick Hudson's and other members', an economist and doctor, opinion the "unintended consequences of the lockdown will [allegedly] kill 29 times more people than the virus" has received wide coverage from South Africa's credulous media (also here, etc), who quote anyone with a title about the coronavirus/Covid-19 even if they're not public health experts.

It's fake news the socio-economic consequences - unemployment and poverty - of the lockdown (which they ignore is being gradually eased and best practice followed around the world) shall cause more deaths than Covid-19. "Poverty" is not listed under direct and other causes of death in official statistics.

While it's true poor social conditions can reduce life expectancy, its connection to the causal factors of mortality - hunger, inadequate, medical care, substance abuse, etc - is indirect. Other factors must be taken into account including "changes in [poverty-free life expectancy] PFLE depend on changes in age-patterns of poverty prevalence and mortality" (also see).

Hudson et al took the economic consequences of the lockdown, which is a snapshot of hopefully a few months duration in the country's economic lifespan, extrapolated it to the target group's - the socially vulnerable - overall life expectancy of decades and arrived at a huge multiple.

They assume the lockdown shall continue indefinitely, the economy shall not restart as government is gradually allowing, and those laid off now shall not find work again (they ignore firings and retrenchments must follow SA's strict labour laws). They expediently overlook the middle class, as always, shall weather the storm, albeit some of them slightly poorer (not counting SA society's consumption-driven expenditure and high levels of indebtedness, which is their own fault).

They ignore, and were silent before now, that South Africa's economy was already in serious trouble before coronavirus, and its social impact. They ignore over 50% of the population are already in poverty and still manage to survive, before and after apartheid. Indeed, they are enablers of the ANC government's mismanagement, and country's huge inequality

They ignore SA is a welfare state with 17 million people - a third of the population - receiving social grants and pensions and that anti-poverty measures has reduced overall poverty. Grants have been extended during the lockdown, and perhaps shall be into the near future (thankfully, the US is not an example to follow). These shall mitigate the effects of the pandemic-induced economic recession.

On their methodology, they compare South Africa to New York. They must know the coronavirus and how it's transmitted in each country, city and community is unique. New York is unique even among US cities and states!

They can't be ignorant that the virus and data about it is evolving daily, never mind the long-term social impact. Epidemiologists and public health experts know this.

Therefore, with this outbreak, which is unlike others, they cannot use historical data , even if a few months or weeks old, and the ex post method of actuaries and statisticians to predict what shall happen in the future. With this pandemic, the world still has a long way to go. They must wait until it's over, or at least the worst of it is over like Taiwan and South Korea, before making predictions. In short, their predictions like other self-taught epidemiologists' are premature.

Around the world the burden of the disease is on the working class (and here) (not counting healthcare workers), especially black and brown minorities who produce the goods and services the middle class and wealthy can order for delivery and pickup. As Adam Serwer wrote in The Atlantic:

"The disproportionate burden that black and Latino Americans are bearing [of coronavirus cases] is in part a direct result of their over-representation in professions where they risk exposure, and of a racial gap in wealth and income that has left them more vulnerable to being laid off. [It's] a very old and recognisable story - political and financial elites displaying a callous disregard for the workers of any race who make their lives of comfort possible. But in America [South Africa and elsewhere], where labour and race are so often intertwined, [philosopher Charles Mill's] racial contract has enabled the wealthy to dismiss workers as both undeserving and expendable."

Hudson et al don't understand poverty. Their economically inclusive and middle class-centred actuarial models are are just that - theories far removed from SA's socio-economic reality and even further from the daily changing facts of the pandemic.

In South Africa the strident calls to end the lockdown are coming from the entitled and privileged upper middle class who have the luxury of single-person cars and offices and not rubbing against co-workers on the factory or shop floors or must directly deal with customers.

Their attitude about reopening the economy is similar to Trump's. Ed Pilkington writing in The Guardian, "For the army of epidemiologists, health crisis experts, biostatisticians and other scientists who have hands-on experience of combatting global disease, Trump’s insistence on pressing ahead with reopening America while the virus is still ascendant is tantamount to waving the white flag." Quoting Jeremy Konyndyk, a key figure in the US response to Ebola in 2014, “You don’t stop fighting a war in the middle, just because it’s gotten expensive or burdensome. You can’t ask a virus for a truce”.

I don't believe so-called experts like them are ignorant of these facts. Therefore, and especially considering their silence about the moribund economy and its social impact before the virus, leads me to the conclusion they have a disingenuous and dangerous agenda of "business before lives" that's not in the national interest or of saving lives. If the restrictions are prematurely eased and infections and deaths get out of control (the peak is expected in September), they're not the ones who shall have to bear the responsibility of bad decisions, just as Trump denies blame for his and his administration's failures.

Update: For health, economic and social perspectives of the pandemic in South Africa see News24's series of articles here. Link added.

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