Recent data suggests that the virus is far more widespread than initially believed which means its far less lethal. That should impact our Public Policy response. Dont misunderstand, the virus has proven deadly. As of this moment, more than 65,000 have died in the united states, due to the pandemic. But the fatality rate is determined by dividing the number who died by the total infected. The larger that denominator, the lower the rate. You might remember dr. Jeremy foust, an instructor at Harvard Medical School who was my guest here seven weeks ago. Dr. Foust suggested that the diamond princess cruise ship. 13 of the infected passengers and crew died. A fatality rate of 1. 8 . One half of the w. H. O. Estimate. But dr. Foust points out there were four times the number of people over 70 on board the ship. So the ageadjusted fatality rate would be around 0. 4 . As he wrote a few weeks ago for slate, this all suggests that covid19 is a relatively benign disease for most young people and potentially devastating one for the young and chronically ill, albeit not as risky as reported. That view was echoed from the doctor from stanford writing for sta sta stanten news saying the fatality rate to be 6. 25 , together with colleagues at stanford, the doctor then published a study on covid19 in santa clara california. They estimated 2. 9 and 1. 4 of the count infected can suggests a fatality rate of 0. 12 and 0. 2 . Much closer than the w. H. O. The university of Public Health found similar results with antibode testing. They estimate the actual luck of covid19 cases in l. A. County to be 28 to 58 times higher than the number of confirmed cases. These results, they suggest a higher risk of infection and lower risk of death than briefly thought. I should point out that time has not yet allowed for Peer Reviewed analysis of this information. And there are have been criticisms of the methodology used to gather some of the data. But then on monday, Governor Andrew Cuomo said an expanded number of random antibody tests reveal that more people in the empire state have more than initially believed. The results are telling a similar story, one that might enable policymakers to work smaerts, n smarter, not harder. What might that look like . I get to look now to another guest on the program, dr. David katz, long affiliated with yale here a few weeks ago. In the New York Times, quote, more and more data are telling us that covid19 is two completely different diseases in different populations. It is severe and potentially lethal to the old. The chronically ill and those with preexisting conditions. It is, however, rarely lifethreatening, often mild and asymptomatic among those under 50 or 60 in generally good health. Dr. Katz believes in what he calls a verdict wall intradiction, quote that means shuttering the vulnerable, while allowing those who can return to the world most safely to do so there be restoring the economy, supply chains and services while cultivating herd immunity that leads to the allclear. And thats how we get our lives back without waiting on the long and uncertain time line of vaccine development. We cant work any harder. Maybe its time to work smaerts. Joining me now to discuss is the aforementioned doctor. About epidemiologist who specializes in analyzing data. Hes a professor in disease prevention at stanfords University School of medicine. Google scholar ranked him among the worlds most 100 most cited scientists. Doctor, help me out here, i tried to sin thynthesize a lot da data. What is the takeaway that most should know . I dont think the doctor is hearing me . Do we not have him . I dont think so. No. How about dr. Atlas . Tell me, guys, where are we going . Okay, were going to dr. At lus. While come back to dr dr. Ioannidis. Writing for the hill, the data is in, stop the panic and end the total isolation. Hes a senior fellow at stanfords institute, former chief of neural radiology at the medical center. Why has your essay struck such a chord . There are 15,000 comments appended to it. Yeah, thanks for having me. I think the answer is, were in a different position now. We have the evidence, the date did is in on who is the target of this threat. And weve accomplished the goal of the policy which was to flatten the curve. By the curves, we meet flattening the curves on deaths per day and hospitalizations per day. Now, we know who the target is, we know who to protect, the vulnerable, people with underlying diseases. And we also know we can prevent overcrowding by doing that. But the big picture here were creating a Catastrophic Health care situation because of this idea of stopping covid19 at all costs is not causing people not to seek medical care for serious and often Emergency Care like cancer, chemotherapy, acute heart attack and stroke. Organ transplants. 85 of Organ Transplants are not getting done. And people are still panicking, theyre not even bringing their children in for routine vaccinations. Were creating a catastrophe, even beyond the massive economic tradeoffs that weve made. And then id like to echo the other point that you brought up which is in addition, total population isolation is actually preventing the development of herd immunity where the actual network of infection can be blocked protecting the vulnerable. Thats the most immediately available way to do that. Well need a targeted policy. Dr. Atlas, can we do both at once . Can we both protect the most vulnerable, whether thats a subset of 10 whileal allowing the 90 or 80 to reengage in some society . Well, absolutely. I mean, the point is, in fact, the most vulnerable, for instance, nursing home residents. We know how to protect them. And we have them already in a sort of a regulated environment. So, we can restrict access to them. We can make sure that people are even tested. Those who work in Nursing Homes. The public understands how to do this new concept of selfisolation, protecting their Vulnerable People and their families. But theres absolutely no evidence to do things like keep people in their homes, to keep people to keep k through 12 schools closed. The children have virtually no risk of serious illness, let alone death. And theres no reason to stop businesses from functioning. We know how to do smart population, you know, isolation by virtue of learning this behavior. Theres absolutely no reason to create a catastrophe. And a singleminded focus on all you know, stopping covid19 at all costs. That was never the goal. Weve accomplished the goal. Isnt your outlook dependent upon widespread testing that doesnt yet exist . Absolutely not. Theres a misconception, sort of a mythology now, on about obsession, really with widespread testing. There are three people who need testing. Number one, anyone who interacts or walks into a nursing home. Number two, Health Care Workers who deal with patients and all patients and the primary responders to this sort of thing because we cant have them infecting other people, especially with those with diseases in hospitals. And the third group we must have testing are patients who have any kind of respiratory systems or fever that are inhouse because we need to be able to isolate them and protect the people around them and know what to do with them. But theres absolutely no reason to require massive widespread testing when we know that 50 of people are asymptomatic. The vast majority of people are not going to get a serious disease and were destructive with the policy. The policy was never that no Single Person should get covid19. Thats not the policy. That was never the goal of the policy. Your essay which i referenced at the hill which lit a fuse, more than 15,000 comments. Its been their number one item for days, as carried with it a fair amount of criticism. Ill put one on the screen and ask you to respond. Someone identifying themselves as poor citizen says, we now know that covid19 is a lot more deadly and contagious than the flu for which we do have vaccines. The fact that in three months, it has killed more americans than died in vietnam is a clear indication it can kill a great many, if we, quote unquote, open up the economy. And allow the virus to again infect at higher rates. All indications are at least until the vaccine is developed as many as four times the 58,000 plus americans will die per year. Your response is what . My response is with all due respect, thats really an incorrect interpretation of things. I mean, its true that many, many people have died. Theres no question. It seems deadliest than the flu. But the point is, again, we know the evidence on who to protect. Theres absolutely no evidence to think that people who are not going to get sick should be somehow sequestered indoors. No matter what the challenges are of the target, which really isnt that challenging, we cant keep dismissing the catastrophe, were killing people by preventing medical care from people. We even induce an irrational fear in the public. That fear should never have a part of guiding Public Policy and were creating catastrophe economically worldwide. Dr. Atlas, thank you for being here. Okay. Thanks for having me. Let me try again with can ioannidis. Hes an epidemiologist who specializes in analyzing data. Hes a professor at stanford University School of medicine. Google scholar says hes among the 100 most cited scientists in the world. Dr. Ioannidis, i tried to synthesize data on the outset. Some of which is was yours i know you recently updated your data and shared that with a medical journal. What is it that has changed . And what is it that you want the audience to know about your reeveryone . Thank you for the opportunity to discuss that. As you know the study on prevalence is one many of studies to discuss the how freak the frequency of covid19 is in the general population. Weve received an enormous amount, constructive comments from many colleagues, both myself and our team are very grateful nofor that. We have updated the paper with far more data, far more negative controls to minimize the uncertainty of the tests used. And analysis and thinking that might affect the results. And also an improved, enhanced method to try to reduce and calculate the uncertainty around the estimates that we get. There is also still very robust the confusion that is that based on what we see, this infection is very common. Its far more common compared to what we saw, based on the documented cases. Most likely, most of these people have no symptoms, they do not even recognize it or they have very mild symptoms. And this means that we have a huge iceberg below the tip of the iceberg that weve been documenting until now. I think this is probably good news. It means that for the average person being infected, the risk of having severe disease and the risk of dying is much lower than we thought. So, it is a common and mild infection. At the same time, it can be a devastating infection. Theres no doubt about this. But by now, we have learned where exactly it hits. And where it can be devastating. It can be devastating when it hits Nursing Homes. It can be devastating when it hits hospitals, infects personnel, physicians, staff. And then we have localized patients getting infected. We see that paradox. In many people, for example in children and in young adults, it is less severe than the common flu. In middle aged people, its about the same. In Nursing Homes and hospitals that get infected naturally it can be a disaster. So, we can use that knowledge to try to navigate into that spectrum. Try to the settings and individuals who are highest risk, same time, probably have some optimism about the prospects of reopening our society before we get many adverse consequences by prolonged longtime measures. Dr. Ioannidis, earlier this week, in the washington post, four individuals, four of them with harvard affiliations were critical of this analysis. Heres what they said, two recent studies from california using antibody tests designed to use immune markers for previous infections seem to suggest that the virus is much less deadly than many previously thought. But beware of these findings, they have not been vetted and should be recognized as such. What would it take to vet your findings . I think that any single study is a single study. That includes our own. Any single study needs to be seen in the context of other pieces of evidence and other investigations that are carried out. I have done multiple studies, not just you know, the l. A. County, we have data from miami. We have data from new york. We have data from the netherlands. From italy, from germany. From switzerland. They all give the same message, more or less. Of course, theres differences across locations. And the extent that susceptible populations have been heavily hit. New york is not going to be the same as santa clara. Theres no doubt about that. We welcome all constructive criticism. And peer review should be done. This is exactly why we make that work available in open public view for everyone to comment. And were grateful for all of the comments that we receive. I think that the work still holds true. And other studies have shown this is still the same but no study okay. Sum up. What is it that folks most should know . And were looking at our Television Screens which are showing us 65,000 plus have died in the united states. Now, youre here and youre saying, hey, its much more widespread. And, therefore, far less fatal. Okay, what should policymakers, therefore, do . I think that this knowledge gives us some leeway to take some steps towards revisiting our current policy of lockdown. Theres no way that we will just move away from lockdown immediately. And this will be in error. My suggestion would be to have a sciencebased, datadriven approach. Try to balance what we know in terms of how common the infection is. Get some accurate estimates of how active the epidemic wave is at a given moment. And this may vary from one place to another. And also balance our bed reserves and capacity. Because we really want to have bed reserves in case we make a step towards reopening and its not correct. We want to have reserves available. If we do that thank you. I think we are considering relieving some of the draconian measures and very close eyes on what happens as we do that. Im not sure thats all of the changes, but some will. I think theres plenty of room for optimism. Dr. Ioannidis, thank you, we apologize for the technical issues, but thank you so much. Thank you again for the kind invitation. Have a great day. Okay. What are your thoughts . Tweet me smerconish. Go to my facebook page. Let me hear from you about the entire data. Ill share responses throughout the course of the programming. Cant get this guy slide. Interesting handle. Why dont you try telling the 64,000 plus loved ones and relatives how a lower mortality rate is something to highlight. I hear the criticism. And acknowledge the 65,000 figure. Said right at the outset, it doesnt mean that the virus isnt lethal but the date is nonetheless interesting and should be used by policymakers so say my guests and i agree with them. Its important to note that the initial projections by the w. H. O. Were seemingly widely incorrect. If all of us are at equal amount of risk then shouldt it impact the way some of we reintegrate into society . Its far more widespread than we believe and far less lethal but of course, our hearts break for the 65,000 who perished as a result. No one denies that. Up ahead, the accusations of biden staffer tara reade have been finally addressed by the candidate. Joe biden said he would not open the are kierchs chives to a sea. Should j. B. J. B. Allow access to archives at the university of delaware for anything related to tara reade . And to me when mike pence was criticized for not wearing a mask and then wore one on thursday. Its part of the schism of wearing the mask. 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