Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) calls on CDC “Anti-science” It seems that he can point out one more thing today to support his claim.
When judging a virus, you will consider two things-infectiousness and severity.
Although the Wuhan coronavirus is highly contagious, its impact is not as severe as Ebola, which has a much higher fatality rate.
But how spread is the new Delta variant that the Biden family is setting off?
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention claim July 26 In the slideshow It is as contagious as chickenpox-one of the most contagious viruses ever.
This graphic comes from @CDCgov Shows the infectivity of the COVID Delta variant, which is comparable to chickenpox pic.twitter.com/svKwL404G0
— Hayley Wielgus (@HayleyWielgus) July 31, 2021
Then, of course, the media spread everywhere. Please note the help of Dr. Zeke Emanuel in promoting this claim.
“Very worrisome”: CDC documents claim that the Delta variant is as contagious as chickenpox @ZekeEmanuel @珍妮博士 https://t.co/lOIQaLWPhY
— Andrea Mitchell (@mitchellreports) July 30, 2021
Naturally, this will make people overreact to the news.
but As NPR reported, This is not true.
The CDC says that Delta variants are as contagious as chickenpox.This is not accurate https://t.co/1qo1q53cib
-NPR Health News (@NPRHealth) August 11, 2021
Tom Wenseleers, an evolutionary biologist and biostatistician at the University of Leuven in Belgium, explained the difference between the Delta variant and the infectivity of chickenpox. R0 or “R naught” is the average number of people a patient will be infected when the entire population is susceptible to the virus. For chickenpox, the number is about 9 or 10 people. He said that for the Delta variant, it is even less-between 6 and 7. It is still highly contagious and is higher than the original strain between 2 and 3, but is different from chickenpox.
So how did they get it wrong, saying that it is “also contagious”?
On the one hand, the leaked documents underestimated the R0 of chickenpox and overestimated the R0 of the delta variant. A federal official told NPR: “The R0 value for delta is preliminary and calculated based on data obtained from a fairly small sample size.” The value for chickenpox (and the other R0 on the slide) is from the New York Times 》, but it’s not entirely accurate.
Oops. Once again, comment and policy based on the wrong things will justify more fear. So how are they responsible for spreading this wrong thing?
Are they trying to make themselves appear to have very strong evidence of their reversal on the mask? Are they trying to get people’s attention?
Or, for example, do these slides represent a minority/heretical view within the CDC, some people disagree with the agency’s view of Delta?
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) August 11, 2021
The Internet is not real life, and neither is the headline news of the New York Times, but I have met many people who are not online in real life who think Delta is as contagious as chickenpox* even among vaccinated people. * The CDC files and reports are terrible on it. https://t.co/PKDhhAT6He
— Kevin 👐 Glass (@KevinWGlass) August 11, 2021
