A new Canadian scientific paper asserts isolating a vulnerable population together, such as the elderly in care homes, has bad results according to standard epidemiology.Governments purported to apply standard epidemiological models to create infectious disease policies during the COVID period by 'protecting' vulnerable elderly individuals by isolating them from the general population in care homes.In a new paper published in the peer-reviewed journal PLoS One, scientists at CORRELATION demonstrate isolating vulnerable people from the healthier majority of the population actually produces the worst possible outcomes for them, according to these same standard epidemiological models of spread and transmission. The article, entitled Predictions from standard epidemiological models of consequences of segregating and isolating vulnerable people into care facilities, was authored by Joseph Hickey, PhD and Denis G. Rancourt, PhD, of the non-profit CORRELATION Research in the Public Interest based in Ottawa, Canada.The paper shows the standard epidemic models, which have existed in the scientific literature for decades prior to the WHO’s COVID-19 pandemic declaration of March 11 2020, unambiguously predict a significant increase in the infectious disease attack rate for the vulnerable population when it is isolated and segregated from the general population. “[T]he vulnerable population is harmed by isolation from the robust population and benefits from mixing with or dilution within the robust population, in terms of risk of infection during the course of the epidemic or pandemic,” the article states.“Whereas governments used theoretical epidemic models to justify most public health policies during the COVID era, within a tunnel vision of reducing risk of infection with a particular virus, they appear not to have considered what those same models predict about infection rates under conditions of care home segregation; and they appear to have disregarded the exponential increase of infection fatality rate with age.”The paper further asserts “Care home segregation policies may have been responsible for many deaths attributed to COVID-19 in Western countries.” Confining vulnerable people together makes it more likely that if one person contracts a contagious disease, so too will the others stuck together with them.“Increasing the share of a vulnerable person’s interactions that are with other vulnerable people, by confining them together in the same facility, increases the likelihood of infection of the vulnerable person during the course of the epidemic or pandemic, because infected vulnerable people remain infectious for a long time, relative to robust people,” the paper explains.“The only exception to this general rule occurs if the contact frequency for vulnerable individuals is so small that no epidemic would occur in the vulnerable group if it were completely segregated from the robust majority of society.”The authors show that, in the present state of knowledge, isolation and segregation of the elderly is of no benefit in preventing deaths in epidemic or pandemic circumstances.“We conclude segregation and isolation of the vulnerable into care homes as a strategy to reduce the risk of infection during the course of an epidemic or pandemic is contrary to the most relevant immediate considerations from epidemiological models, in realistic conditions in which vulnerable people are highly susceptible and take longer to recover.“The model parameter space, within possible parameter values, is one where it is virtually never epidemiologically advantageous to segregate and isolate frail people.”CORRELATION is a registered not-for-profit organization conducting independent scientific research on topics of public interest, and is entirely funded by individual public donations.
A new Canadian scientific paper asserts isolating a vulnerable population together, such as the elderly in care homes, has bad results according to standard epidemiology.Governments purported to apply standard epidemiological models to create infectious disease policies during the COVID period by 'protecting' vulnerable elderly individuals by isolating them from the general population in care homes.In a new paper published in the peer-reviewed journal PLoS One, scientists at CORRELATION demonstrate isolating vulnerable people from the healthier majority of the population actually produces the worst possible outcomes for them, according to these same standard epidemiological models of spread and transmission. The article, entitled Predictions from standard epidemiological models of consequences of segregating and isolating vulnerable people into care facilities, was authored by Joseph Hickey, PhD and Denis G. Rancourt, PhD, of the non-profit CORRELATION Research in the Public Interest based in Ottawa, Canada.The paper shows the standard epidemic models, which have existed in the scientific literature for decades prior to the WHO’s COVID-19 pandemic declaration of March 11 2020, unambiguously predict a significant increase in the infectious disease attack rate for the vulnerable population when it is isolated and segregated from the general population. “[T]he vulnerable population is harmed by isolation from the robust population and benefits from mixing with or dilution within the robust population, in terms of risk of infection during the course of the epidemic or pandemic,” the article states.“Whereas governments used theoretical epidemic models to justify most public health policies during the COVID era, within a tunnel vision of reducing risk of infection with a particular virus, they appear not to have considered what those same models predict about infection rates under conditions of care home segregation; and they appear to have disregarded the exponential increase of infection fatality rate with age.”The paper further asserts “Care home segregation policies may have been responsible for many deaths attributed to COVID-19 in Western countries.” Confining vulnerable people together makes it more likely that if one person contracts a contagious disease, so too will the others stuck together with them.“Increasing the share of a vulnerable person’s interactions that are with other vulnerable people, by confining them together in the same facility, increases the likelihood of infection of the vulnerable person during the course of the epidemic or pandemic, because infected vulnerable people remain infectious for a long time, relative to robust people,” the paper explains.“The only exception to this general rule occurs if the contact frequency for vulnerable individuals is so small that no epidemic would occur in the vulnerable group if it were completely segregated from the robust majority of society.”The authors show that, in the present state of knowledge, isolation and segregation of the elderly is of no benefit in preventing deaths in epidemic or pandemic circumstances.“We conclude segregation and isolation of the vulnerable into care homes as a strategy to reduce the risk of infection during the course of an epidemic or pandemic is contrary to the most relevant immediate considerations from epidemiological models, in realistic conditions in which vulnerable people are highly susceptible and take longer to recover.“The model parameter space, within possible parameter values, is one where it is virtually never epidemiologically advantageous to segregate and isolate frail people.”CORRELATION is a registered not-for-profit organization conducting independent scientific research on topics of public interest, and is entirely funded by individual public donations.
