24 May 2020

Yet Another Non Sequitur in the Coronavirus Debates

Coronavirus 24 Comments

Steve Landsburg links to a Jeff Tucker article explaining that Woodstock occurred during a flu pandemic. Jeff writes:

The flu spread from Hong Kong to the United States, arriving December 1968 and peaking a year later. It ultimately killed 100,000 people in the U.S., mostly over the age of 65, and one million worldwide.

Lifespan in the US in those days was 70 whereas it is 78 today. Population was 200 million as compared with 328 million today. It was also a healthier population with low obesity. If it would be possible to extrapolate the death data based on population and demographics, we might be looking at a quarter million deaths today from this virus. So in terms of lethality, it was as deadly and scary as COVID-19 if not more so, though we shall have to wait to see. 

Now Steve uses the opportunity to explain the different responses as being rational (as is his wont).

But I just want to make a much simpler point: The rhetorical force of Jeff’s article is (my paraphrase): “Hey, we had arguably an even worse contagious outbreak back in 1968-69, and we didn’t shut the economy down back then. So why are we doing it now, for something that’s not killing as many people?!”

Do you see why that’s a weird argument, that (a) sounds awesome to people who already agree with Jeff on this but (b) sounds patently absurd to people who already disagree with him?

Jeff is showing that when the US didn’t lock down, more (adjusted) people died than is happening now, with the lockdowns. And that is somehow supposed to show the lockdowns are a bad idea.

If you don’t see why that’s a strange argument, try this one: “Surgeons didn’t wash their hands in the 1700s, and way more people died during operations back then compared to today. So why are we falling for CNN’s hype about ‘unsafe hospitals’ nowadays?”

Or if that’s too contrived, how about this?

“Antiwar activists are whining about casualties in Afghanistan and Iraq. But during the years 1968-69, about 29,000 Americans died in foreign war. We didn’t suddenly end the wars and bring the troops back home then, even though the death toll was much worse than nowadays.”

Before I end, let me say, as usual: I AM VERY MUCH AGAINST THE POLITICAL LOCKDOWNS. BUSINESSES AND INDIVIDUALS SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO DO WHAT THEY WANT, SETTING POLICIES AND MAKING THEIR OWN ASSESSMENTS OF RISK.

24 Responses to “Yet Another Non Sequitur in the Coronavirus Debates”

  1. Transformer says:

    What in Tucker’s article would suggest that he thinks that the fact that they may have been more adjusted deaths from the 1969 pandemic than the current one is an argument against the effectiveness of lock-downs ?

    My take is that he is just using the relative (adjusted) fatality numbers as a way of categorizing the two pandemics as somewhat comparable in terms of virulence and then asking the question as why the current pandemic has led to a massive curtailment of civil liberties in a way that the earlier pandemic did not. This seems a perfectly valid question that both he and Steve have attempted to answer in their different ways.

    Its as if I had written an article looking at the reason for the differing government responses to the 1921 and 2008 and had started out by presenting some data to suggest that the two recessions were somewhat similar in depth but that if anything the 1921 event was a bit deeper as the unemployment rate was slightly higher. My article then suggested that the massive stimulus in 2008 may have been a retrograde step compared to the more free market response in 1921. Would Bob have responded by saying ‘Transformer has committed a non-sequitur. He shows that the unemployment rate was worse in 1921 than 2008, How can be claiming that the huge interventions in 2008 were a bad idea ?’

    • skylien says:

      I agree, though I would frame it like this: In terms of relative valuations of the dangers of a virus like the flu at that time versus the huge opportunity cost of shutting the economy down, to (maybe) save (some/many) lifes from the virus the priority was clearly given the economy. So why would that valuation change now, is what Tucker asks.

      If lockdowns even work or not is already given the benefit of the doubt in this line of thinking that they do work. If they would not then obviously don’t lock down… If doctors washing hands wouldn’t affect the lifes of their patients, why wash… (Also, I know what Bob meant with it but there is no noteworthy opportunity cost to washing your hands either)

    • Bob Murphy says:

      Transformer and skylien, you don’t think Jeff intended his article as evidence that the current lockdown is a bad idea?

      • skylien says:

        Well I guess I have to take everything back, you are right. Tuckers article only confirms what either side thinks. People who are for a government mandated lockdown, would just say, ‘yep they should have locked down as well, so?’.

        The only way to argue this is by talking about what private people would have done left alone by the government. Like my company already had plans in place how to deal with COVID19 before our government lockdown. And it actually wouldn’t have been that much different than what the government mandated. The issue is that the government brushes with too broad strokes and doesn’t leave any wiggle room, and so overshoots with what it mandates at many areas but maybe even undershoots at some other areas where private people would have done more to mitigate an infection, or even mandating the exact opposite of infection mitigation (like sending sick Covid19 patients into nursing homes! Unbelievable….).

      • Transformer says:

        His article is obviously anti-lock-down in intent.

        But you accuse him of committing a non-sequitur. You say:

        ‘Jeff is showing that when the US didn’t lock down, more (adjusted) people died than is happening now, with the lockdowns. And that is somehow supposed to show the lockdowns are a bad idea.’

        But I do not think that the precise numbers of deaths in 1969 compared to now is at all relevant to his main argument which is along the lines of ‘given two roughly comparable pandemics why was the response then so different to the response now’.

        I see nothing in his article whatsoever to suggest that he thinks the comparative death rate in themselves are any sort of argument for or against lock-downs.

  2. Harold says:

    The problem is that he says the pandemics are broadly similar when this is simply not the case. 68/69 was one of the mildest flu pandemics. Deaths were about the same as 1975/6, a non pandemic year. His adjustment for relative health of the population makes no sense. (Please check his “adjustment” and see if you agree with his 250,000 figure). He is counting deaths after the pandemic for 68/69 and during the pandemic for 2020. There has been social restriction this time which must have altered the spread of disease.

    The entire argument is nonsense. He has no justification for claiming the pandemics are comparable just because at one point in time the numbers of dead happen to be similar.

    IF you were to accept that the pandemics were essentially similar THEN there would be a case for saying that the current reaction is too much. If you were to accept that the worse case for this pandemic is the same as a mild flu pandemic, then yes, of course we would be over-reacting. There is a lot we don’t know, but we do know that there is at least a good chance that the worse case would be an order of magnitude worse than 68/69.

    Maybe we are still overreacting, but Tucker’s argument is rubbish and does not deserve the massive coverage it has received.

    • Transformer says:

      Tucker is adjusting for size , age and health of the population.

      The 100,000 number comes from the CDC. Population has increased since then (he says) from 200M to 328M so applying the 1969 deaths per million to today’s population takes us to 164,000 so he has to justify an extra 86.000 deaths due to changes in age and health of population.

      Just taking the age part: The percentage of the population above 65 has gone up from about 10% to about 17% in the past 50 years. So that’s 20M in 1970 compared to over 55M now. So assuming (conservatively) that 50% of deaths from HK flu were in people over 65 and applying the same mortality to the 2020 over 65 population then we easily get the additional 85,000 needed to justify Tucker’s claim even without looking at overall population health. Of course there will be factors going the other way such as availability of better health treatment these days – but overall I do not think it would be hard to justify his 250,000 claim even if one used a more sophisticated methodology than mine.

      The big problem with Tucker’s article is that we simply don’t know how much the lock-downs have reduced the CV19 death count. It may well be that CV19 is way more virulent than HK flu but the lockdowns have succeeded in bringing deaths down to a comparable number. This point weakens Tucker’s case but it still does not make his argument a non-sequitur as Bob claims.

      • Harold says:

        “I do not think it would be hard to justify his 250,000 claim …”

        You are answering the wrong question. It is not how many people would H3N2 kill today, it is how lethal and scary was H3N2 in 1968.

        The population size adjustment is fine. These things are usually expressed as deaths per 100,000 population anyway. But the age/health thing is wrong.

        It is like saying that colleges should be just as scared as care homes, because Covid will kill the same proportion of their populations, after correcting for age.

        The 68/69 pandemic was a mild pandemic. See here:
        https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2374803/

        “The 1957–1958 and 1968–1969 influenza pandemic seasons, by contrast [to 1918/19], displayed substantial overlap in both degree of mortality and timing compared with nonpandemic seasons.”

        It is hard to pick it out from the background at the time. Non pandemic years of 52/52 an 75/76 had mean monthly deaths per 100,000 of 4.1 and 3.6 respectively. 68/69 had 4.2.

        “This point weakens Tucker’s case but it still does not make his argument a non-sequitur as Bob claims.”

        To avoid being a non sequitur it requires a general acceptance that a lockdown then would have been over-reaction, and it was handled about right. I think this is Bob’s point, and it is correct, because the claim is not made explicitly. It is not stated by Tucker but is probably more generally accepted than for his other examples. For a pandemic that would kill a maximum of 164,000 people with no lock-down, then such a lockdown as we have today would probably be considered an over-reaction.

        There is not such a general acceptance that troop deaths in Vietnam were acceptable compared to the alternatives. There were lots of people arguing back then that troops should be brought home, and that was before we could see how pointless it was going to be. So I think Bob’s analogy is a bit weak here. Similarly with hand washing surgeons. There is no acceptance that things were done as they should have been back then.

        If we were presented with a pandemic that was as lethal as 68/69, I think we would introduce some social distancing measures, just not as extreme as we have now.

        • Transformer says:

          ‘You are answering the wrong question’

          I was merely trying to ascertain if Tucker’s claim ‘If it would be possible to extrapolate the death data based on population and demographics, we might be looking at a quarter million deaths today from this virus’ was valid or not.

          I do agree though that this is not a helpful way of looking at things if we are trying to evaluate the response to a given pandemic with a given population makeup. Other things equal the older and unhealthier a population is the more likely it is that tougher measure will be justified to mitigate it.

          On the non-sequitur thing: If Tucker had been saying ‘We had a pandemic in 1969 where more people died (in adjusted terms) and we didn’t need a lockdown then, so it follows that we don’t need one now’ then that would have been a non-sequitur. But he is not saying that. He is rather saying ‘given two roughly comparable pandemics why was the response then so different to the response now’. He is probably wrong to say the two pandemics were similar in virulence but that still doesn’t mean he has committed a non-sequitur.

          • Harold says:

            I read his article again. There are numerous misleading statements, such as that Neil Ferguson is a physicist. He did get a physics degree, but he is an epidemiologists by profession now. he describes his models as ridiculous without any justification, other than his bias.

            However, i think the key phrase is his final line.

            “The contrast between 1968 and 2020 couldn’t be more striking. They were smart. We are idiots. Or at least our governments are. ”

            I think he *is* saying “‘We had a pandemic in 1969 where more people died (in adjusted terms) and we didn’t need a lockdown then, so it follows that we don’t need one now’ “

            • Transformer says:

              So if I was to argue ‘Adjusted for population size and demographics US deaths in the Korean and Vietnamese was were about the same and arguably higher in the Korean war. The fact they there was a huge anti-war movement against the Vietnam war but not against the Korean one is down to the fact that by the time of the Vietnam war we had all become idiots’

              Would that be a non-sequitur or just a bad argument ?

              • Harold says:

                I am not sure. A non sequitur is a conclusion that does not follow from the premises. Most fallacies are just specific cases of non sequitur.

                So we need to identify what his conclusion is. Is it that we are idiots for locking down, when the smart thing would be to leave it more open? We have made things worse by locking down.

                His argument as a sylogism seems to be.
                Premise 1. Current pandemic is less deadly than 1968 pandemic. (stated)
                Premise 2. They did not lock down in 1968. (stated)
                Premise 3. Things were not too bad in 68. (implied)
                Premise 4. We did lock down in 2020. (stated)
                Premise 5. Because the pandemics are “the same” and about the same number of people are dying, the lockdowns have no effect of mortality. (implied)

                Conclusion. We have made things worse by locking down because we get the costs with no benefit. Which makes us idiots.

                If all the premises were all true (which they are not), I think it is valid. So put like this it is just a really bad argument.

                I am sure it could be put with different premises, which would make it a non sequitur.

                If we miss out the implied premises, we get a non sequitur.
                Premise 1) Both pandemics are “the same” in deadliness.
                Premise 2) They did not lock down in 68.
                Premise 3.) We did lock down this time.

                Conclusion: we are idiots. This is a non sequitur.

                Given the length at which he describes the positives in 68 )nobody arrested, could go out, markets carried on OK) and the negatives for today I think it is reasonable to say he implies the other premises.

                Maybe you can put it better than this?

              • Transformer says:

                That’s an excellent summary Harold. I certainly could not put it better than that !

                So I can now see how Bob came to the non-sequitur conclusion but still feel that a more charitable (and to me at least, more obvious) reading is one where Tucker has simply failed to provide appropriate valid arguments to justify his ‘we are idiots to have a lock-down’ conclusion.

              • Transformer says:

                I worded that badly. I should rather have said “At least one of the arguments that Tucker provides to justify his ‘we are idiots to have a lock-down’ conclusion’ is not valid.”

              • Harold says:

                Yes, I think we agree on this!

    • skylien says:

      “He is counting deaths after the pandemic for 68/69 and during the pandemic for 2020.”

      Tucker: “…though we shall have to wait to see. ” I guess you know what that means.

      • Harold says:

        ” Tucker: “…though we shall have to wait to see. ” I guess you know what that means.”

        I am wrong, but I don’t care because this article will have had my desired effect by the time I am found out?

        • skylien says:

          Really? You strawman Tucker and then you come back with this.. ?

          And what kind of desired effect are you talking about? Tucker has an evil plan to have as many people killed by Covid19 as possible because whatever.. ?

          That is the spirit for friendly fruitful discussions…

          • Harold says:

            “Tucker has an evil plan to have as many people killed by Covid19 as possible…”

            No, more likely Tucker is obsessed with individual freedom and cannot see anything else. This results in him misinterpreting data to justify his case.

            I did wonder what you meant by your comment, so I had a go at how to interpreted it above. Clearly you meant something different, almost the opposite of how I interpreted it, so this is an interesting learning experience. Did I get this wrong?

            He says 68/69 was as deadly and scary as Covid 19, maybe more so, but we will have to wait and see.

            To me that “wait and see” appears to be referring to whether Covid 19 is actually *more* deadly and scary, since that is the “maybe” clause. He says 68/69 *was* as deadly and scary and it *may be* more deadly. The maybe is uncertain.

            That is begging the question. Since this pandemic is still on-going, we do not know what the figures will end up being. Assuming it may be less deadly that 68/69 is simply asserting the answer to the question is it more deadly? So my claim that he is comparing deaths after the pandemic with deaths during the pandemic stands as a valid criticism, since he does not acknowledge that this pandemic might be much worse. I am not straw-manning him.

            I suppose you could interpret it as referring to the whole statement, maybe Covid-19 will be much more scary and deadly than 68/69.

            Under this interpretation he is acknowledging we simply don’t know, but we will have to wait and see.

            Yet his whole article is saying the opposite of this. This interpretation effectively negates his whole argument, which is based on 68/69 being at least as scary and deadly as Covid-19. So not straw manning here either.

            How did you interpret it?

            • skylien says:

              “So my claim that he is comparing deaths after the pandemic with deaths during the pandemic stands as a valid criticism, since he does not acknowledge that this pandemic might be much worse. I am not straw-manning him.”

              I am baffled. How can you interpret it like that? 68/98 is clearly over, today is not. Why would you restrict the possible outcomes in a way that allows you to attack him like you did? This is purely your projection. He didn’t say that anywhere. That is exactly Textbook strawman. There is no reason to do this. Obviously there is a possibility that Covid19 could turn out 10 times worse than the Hong Kong Flu. And to assume Tucker per definition doesn’t allow for this is imo disingenuous. He makes absolutely clear that the judge is still out there.

              “No, more likely Tucker is obsessed with individual freedom and cannot see anything else. This results in him misinterpreting data to justify his case.”

              This just shows again how uncharitable you are in interpreting opposing opinions.

              “I suppose you could interpret it as referring to the whole statement, maybe Covid-19 will be much more scary and deadly than 68/69.
              Under this interpretation he is acknowledging we simply don’t know, but we will have to wait and see.

              Yet his whole article is saying the opposite of this. This interpretation effectively negates his whole argument, which is based on 68/69 being at least as scary and deadly as Covid-19. So not straw manning here either.”

              No, obviously this interpretation isn’t a strawman since this wasn’t how you interpreted it. No it does not, at least for now… Tucker merely says, from this point now both situation’s numbers seem to be in the same ballpark (I think he is right here, you are free to make your case that this is wrong), but finally we have to wait and see. That is a fair opinion. That it doesn’t have the argumentative power to convert people on the other side has Bob already covered. But that is not what you said.

              Also what people should keep in mind here is, that today we didn’t have a crystal ball to look into to see what would happen if we do not lock down, and then decided to lock down, no we made that decision on the fly. And in 68/69 they didn’t decide to do that, but they had to decide on the fly as well! Neither could they nor can we wait until it is over and do a Marty McFly. And people can decide differently at different times even though it looks the same in the beginning, sometimes for the better and sometimes for worse.

              Finally my opinion. If Covid19 would have struck in 68/69 they would have done exactly the same thing they did with the Hong Kong Flu, not locked down. And if the Honk Kong Flu would have struck today we would have shut down just as we did today with Covid.

              • Harold says:

                His whole article based on a nonsense argument. HK flu killed 100,000 people, whcich we nmay comapare to 160,000 people today. This we know, because it is historical fact. (Although I have also seen reputale sources cite 34,000, or 33,800 deaths, but that is another story).

                His entire argument is based on Covid-19 being no more deadly, probably less deadly, based on what evidence?

                There is no evidence because we are still living through it. Nobody can possibly know exacty how deadly this disease will turn out to be. we now know for a fact that the number of deaths will be at least about the same as 68/69, as a best possible case from where we are now.

                Basically, Tucker is talking out of his ass. You and I know it, but for some reason you want to defend the indefensible.

              • guest says:

                “There is no evidence because we are still living through it. Nobody can possibly know exacty how deadly this disease will turn out to be.”

                I think it’s ultimately irrelevant what the numbers are in the future, because the point of the argument is to expose political motives for the lockdown, and we prove that by looking at the number of deaths up until the lockdowns took place.

                You’re welcome, Tucker.

              • skylien says:

                Sure, defending someone from being strawmanned, is defending the indefensible…

  3. Tel says:

    “Antiwar activists are whining about casualties in Afghanistan and Iraq. But during the years 1968-69, about 29,000 Americans died in foreign war. We didn’t suddenly end the wars and bring the troops back home then, even though the death toll was much worse than nowadays.”

    But the Vietnam War WAS ended prematurely because of political pressure and massive protests back home. If the US population had wanted to fully support the war effort, then the American troops easily had the capacity to stay much longer … whether that war was “winnable” in the context of the nominal objective of keeping North and South separate, no one knows for sure.

    In contrast the more recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have dragged on and on reaching two decades and while the American public doesn’t exactly support the wars, they don’t protest much either. To give the Pentagon fair due … they have figured out how to keep their own casualties significantly lower … even if they haven’t figured out how to win anything. They also have better ways to keep the body bags off the TV set, with more tightly controlled journalism and better distractions these days. Given that the objective has shifted to “nation building” there isn’t any clear metric to decide what’s been achieved anyhow.

    Point I’m getting at is you can draw a strong correlation between high casualty rates and political backlash causing the war to be ended.

Leave a Reply