South Central Reporter

CHICAGO – A columnist for the Illinois Review said prediction models for the COVID-19 pandemic have proved to be exaggerated, and that restarting the economy before it is crippled is imperative as President Donald Trump faces a “battle royale” in trying to reopen businesses.

“The ‘exponential’ (most rapid) phase of the COVID infection has come and gone, but damage to the economy and well-being of the nation is just beginning,” Nancy Thorner said in the op-ed piece she co-authored with Ed Ingold.

Thorner said initial predictions about the number of ventilators to deal with the pandemic in New York City turned out to be wrong.

“We were told that New York City alone would need 40,000 ventilators, more than existed in the known universe at the time,” she said. “Many believed the statistics they heard, but that's what the models were predicting, and facts were sparse. ‘We need more ICU beds, too.’ Within days the Army Corps of Engineers had built 2,000 more hospital rooms in the Javits Center, New York, and 2,500 in McCormick Place, Chicago. Two weeks later, California is shipping unused ventilators to Chicago and New York has fewer than 4,000 in use with the number going down daily.”

Thorner argued the predicting has been an imperfect science.

“Much of the problem with models is there are not the facts to support the conclusions,” she said. “In lieu of (hard) data, we must rely on assumptions and guesswork. Unknown is what that (infection) rate is, the timeline it takes, how many infectious are asymptomatic."

Existing data is biased and inconclusive, she said. 

“We still need wide-spread tests for diagnostic purposes, but even more we need scientific testing to make better predictions,” Thorner said.

Thorner said early testing done in Chicago revealed that 30-50% of individuals have developed antibodies, indicating they contracted and survived COVID-19 infection and have immunity.

“These values are at the lower end of ‘herd immunity’ and may be a significant factor in the observed drop in new infections,” she said. “The data also suggests that many more people were infected than previously thought, which increases the denominator and decreases the mortality rates. If fewer people remain susceptible than thought, the need for continuing the lockdown is diminished.”

Thorner said pandemic policy is being set by "unelected technocrats" who, while they mean well, tend to take a one-sided view of the welfare of the nation.

"Trump must use his own common sense to do what is right for this nation to recover from its current troubling and severe economic slump,” she said.