Dr. Todd Kenyon looks at the data from the situation onboard the Diamond Princess early in the pandemic:
Diamond Princess is a cruise ship owned and operated by Princess Cruises. She began operation in March 2004 and primarily cruises in Alaska during the summer and Asia in the winter along with Australia cruises. Diamond Princess and Sapphire Princess were both were built in Nagasaki, Japan by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.
Photo by Bernard Spragg, NZ via Wikimedia Commons.
The Diamond Princess cruise ship departed Japan on January 20, 2020. Five days later a passenger disembarked, later became ill and tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 infection. On board this ship were 3,711 persons, of which 2,666 were passengers (median age of 69) and 1,045 were crew (median age of 36). Nearly half (48%) of the passengers were said to have underlying disease(s). Passengers and crew began testing positive with some becoming ill, but the passengers were not quarantined in their cabins until Feb 5. Until that time they had been engaging in a variety of typical social activities including shows, buffets and dances. Once quarantined (confined to cabins), most passengers shared cabins with 1 to 3 other passengers. Cabins used unfiltered ventilation and the crew continued their duties and mixed with passengers. Evacuation began in mid February and was completed by March 1.
A total of 712 individuals (19%) tested positive via PCR, and as many as 14 passengers were said to have died, though there are differing opinions as to how many of these deaths should be attributed to Covid. Except for one person in their late 60s, all deaths occurred in those over 70. Not one crew member died. Half of the deaths occurred several weeks after leaving the ship, so it is unclear if they actually died from infections caught onboard. Three ill passengers were given an experimental treatment of Remdesivir once hospitalised on shore; apparently all survived.
The Diamond Princess was termed a “virus mill” by one expert while another remarked that cruise ships are perfect environments for the propagation and spread of viruses. The quarantine procedures inflicted much duress on an already frail passenger base and may have done more harm than good. There was panic and confusion both among passengers and crew, and densely packed passengers sharing unfiltered ventilation were only allowed out of cabins every few days for an hour. Meanwhile the crew continued to prepare meals and mix with passengers, but otherwise were kept confined below the waterline in their cramped multi-resident quarters. Some passengers ignored the quarantine entirely. The so-called “Red Dawn” email discussions among government researchers in early 2020 described the DP as a “quarantine nightmare”. The DP was also termed by this group as representative of a large elderly care home (passengers). Based on all these observations, the DP event should provide a nearly worst case scenario for the first wave of Covid. The question is, how did New York City (NYC) fare versus this “worst case”, and what can we learn from the comparison?
We can start by looking at the infection rate on the DP: 25% of those over 60 and 9% of those under 60 were reportedly infected. On the DP, the case fatality rate (CFR) for those over 60 was 2.6%. This assumes that all 14 deaths of passengers were caused by a Covid-19 infection contracted while on the DP. On the other hand, the CFR for those under 60 years of age was 0.0%, since none in this age bracket died.
Diamond Princess mortality (scaled) compared to New York City all cause mortality. DP week 1 = first week quarantine imposed while NYC week 1 = first week of lockdown orders (week 12, 2020). DP fatalities are scaled based on relative populations of individuals over 65. It is unclear whether the DP fatalities at the tail end of the curve are attributable to C19 infection contracted months prior on the DP. NYC data: www.mortality.watch
People will not learn, nor will they want to listen to criticism of how this whole “pandemic” was handled. My take early on, and still, is that the politicians were being screamed at to “do something”. The people in charge of public health, the vast majority are women, had no experience in risk management, and therefore decided that “no one should get sick” was the only response. This combination of “no risk tolerance” public health officials, and “no risk tolerance, but I am just following the science” politician put us in the absolute worst position, for multiple years. All this stupidity amplified by the media and their damned death counts, which inflicted further fear on an unhinged populace.
Thank God I was retired during this disaster and was able to basically ignore all of the crap the government inflicted on us all. May the people who caused this rot in whatever hell they might believe in. Yes, I am referring to China, the media that pushed this crap, and the politicians and global elitists that hopped on the control train.
Comment by Dwayne — May 24, 2023 @ 13:36
I admit that I took the initial concerns about the Wuhan Coronavirus more seriously than I should have … partly because my interest in history leads me to fear the outbreak of a significant, possibly civilization-threatening disease, having seen how plagues have devastated urban populations in the past.
I don’t disagree with any of your points here, although I found the determination on the part of the media and the elected politicians a bit surprising … they could easily have thrown the public health officials under the bus much earlier than this and (theoretically) have reaped electoral rewards for doing so. That they chose not to indicates that their incentives are somewhat different today than they would have been a decade ago.
Comment by Nicholas — May 24, 2023 @ 20:37
I was, and I still am, disturbed by how much of this was spun from a political “right vs left” angle. Most of my family and friends that lean left were very much followers and supported all of the government gobbledy gook without thought. I looked to places like Sweden, and watched the wrong “experts” trying to understand why the world had thrown everything they learned about viruses away and adopted near useless unproven solutions. We had decades of studies on the efficacy, or rather lack thereof, of masks with respect to influenza. But no one was allowed to even discuss the similarities between the Wuhan Flu and influenza. The whole sars-cov-2 thing tried to create a virus that was so much worse than plain old influenza, and this is why we needed all of these idiotic restrictions on our freedom. All the while the only country that acted normal, Sweden, was piloried, attacked, and savaged by the media and other so called experts. My god, so much junk science was thrown at us, and allowed to be passed off as real, while real experts were ignored, deplatformed, or straight up stripped of their professional credentials and cancelled.
And the idea of “two weeks to flatten the curve” was straight up crap that people latched onto. No one in their right mind could think that everyone staying home, and only select people could go and work, would do anything useful. And yet people were so afraid of dying from this black plague that everyone obeyed, and the police enforced it, and people suffered terrible mental anguish. I makes me mad just remembering how the majority just rolled over and accepted this just to feel safe.
Anyway, I’ve ranted enough. This will stay with us for years. I hope people learned enough, but I fear that there isn’t anywhere near enough coverage of the failure of the solutions, the damage that was done, or the economic disaster that was put upon us by the adoption of so many ineffective actions. People have memory holed the fallout, and do not want to hear how all the things that they supported failed. Human nature, they don’t want to admit they were wrong, or that they supported something that was so harmful that the effects are still being felt today.
Comment by Dwayne — May 25, 2023 @ 01:58
Same here. There are still members of my family with whom I can’t discuss this or anything related to it. The wearing of masks, in particular, has remained for some a kind of visible signal of virtue — they’ve become modern-day flagellants.
The social damage is only exceeded by the economic damage: it’s going to take several more years to recover — and that assumes that the politicians don’t continue to try sabotaging any economic improvement the way they have done all over the west in recent years.
Comment by Nicholas — May 25, 2023 @ 09:46