population, the curve is identical to that for COVID-19.
Figure 1
300
tones Onset
Death
200
wv Classic GOMPERTZ Curve
ig for influenza epidemics
oO
100
oO
a nm o ra} = = o Oo o c c
6 ® © @ # 2 & § § 8 8
ch rel ~ N + o cu oS 3} o S
~ _- — 6
Epidemic curve of pandemic influenza in Prussia, Germany. from 1918~19. Reported daily
“Time variations in the transmissibility of pandemic influenza in Prussia, Germany, from 1LOL8—10" -
Theoretical Biolagy and fdedical Modelling volume 4, Articie number: 20 (2007)
At last Tuesday’s meeting, Tom Lopez asserted that because we were seeing fewer infections
and “cases”, the mask ordinance must be working. This is a classic statistical blunder that people
make — correlation does not equal causation (this is known as the Post Hoc fallacy — past hoc,
ergo propter hoc). As is abundantly clear from the above, it is easy to illustrate that mask
wearing, and mask ordinances were not responsible for the absolutely expected decline in
COVID-19 cases and deaths.
Modeling Excess Deaths
It is important to model excess deaths, because the measure of cases or infections depends on
how much testing has been done, and the quality of the test. Typically tests for infections are
“noisy” — in other words, there are a large number of false positives. As a result, death is the best
measurement to use. This is relevant with respect to the impact of mask wearing. The chart
below ~ representing all-cause deaths from EuroMomo countries (so around 360 million citizens,
comparable in size to the USA) — shows two critical notions. First, note that you can see a low
trough of deaths in both the 45-64 and 65+ age groups preceding the onset of COVID-19. What
this means is that there is effectively a “backlog” of deaths waiting to occur — people who would,
in normal years, have passed away. Therefore, the second thing that this chart illustrates is that
when COVID-19 arrived, all of those deaths were essentially front-loading the system, While
this sounds callous, it is a simple reality that no amount of hand-wringing will change.
