An Interview with a Rockefeller University Professor of Epidemiology and Biostatistics: The Coronavirus Epidemic Is Essentially Over

Knut M. Wittkowski is a professor of epidemiology and biostatistics and research design at Rockefeller University in New York for over 20 years. He is a proven expert in modeling epidemics. He made a first determination in the 1980s, when he denied the danger of an HIV epidemic in the heterosexual population - and was right.

In the current debate about SARS-CORONA VIRUS-2, Professor Wittkowski is now declaring, based on data from the registration authorities and on experience with dealing with respiratory diseases, that the epidemic has already passed its peak.

The following interview was translated from German to English using Google Translate. It is easier to do it as English and German have similar syntactical structure.

If you wish to listen and see the original interview IN ENGLISH, instead of reading it, it can be found here:

Vitalstoff.Blog publisher Uwe Alschner in conversation with Professor Wittkowski.

Vitalstoff.Blog: Professor Wittkowski originally comes from Germany and had a professorship, and worked in the 1980s as a distinguished scientist in Tübingen at the Eberhard Karls University. Professor Wittkowsi, how long have you been working in the United States and what is your background? Would you please say a few words to yourself personally.

Prof. Dr. Knut M. Wittkowski: As you said, I did my doctorate at the University in Tübingen and received my habilitation. There I worked with Klaus Dietz, one of the leading epidemiologists of the time, who also coined the term, the "number of reproductions". During my time in Tübingen, I took special care of the topic of the HIV epidemic and tried then to convince politicians and experts that the epidemic would not spread widely within the heterosexual population. I had to take a lot of criticism for it. But now, 20 years later, we know it was exactly like that. Sometimes scientific knowledge takes a long, long time to be universally recognized.

Vitalstoff.Blog (Henceforth, shortened to VB): And then you finally moved to New York, where you worked as a professor who did exactly the kind of modeling that we are talking about today about how dramatic infections and epidemics could become. Is that correct?

Prof. Wittkowski: I was head of the department for biostatistics, epidemiology and research design and did a lot of modeling. I've been here in New York for 25 years.

VB: So you can assume that you know what it's about when we talk about the corona virus!

VB: Thank you very much! You were an American colleague interviewed a colleague on your assessment of the current crisis.

VB: Oh, yes. It was a medical crisis, but it is a public crisis that is developing before our eyes. Very similar to what Professor Ioannidis said, who spoke of a possible evidence fiasco of the century. But that's another matter. My question to you is this: you published an article about the SARS-CoV 2 virus and found that the epidemic was already over. Could you explain that to us in more detail?

Wittkowski: Ok. Epidemics follow certain natural laws. And for We know epidemics with respiratory diseases that they come, that they peak and that they go as soon as herd immunity has been reached. So once enough people have immunity. Then the outbreak comes to a standstill because someone who is infected no longer finds anyone who can be infected. And then the epidemic is over. Just as in the past thousand, ten thousand, or a hundred thousand years all epidemics have ended.

VB: If you say it's over. You are ... You are in New York City right now, I think. They know the media coverage and what is presented to the public in press conferences by dignitaries of all kinds and ranks: the plight and misery of many people in collapsing hospitals. What do you think …

Wittkowski: Well, no hospital has collapsed in Germany. Germany has no shortage of beds or official equipment and the like. And when I say the epidemic is over, I say it will no new cases reported from China. In South Korea there are still 100-200 a day, which is very, very low in a country whose population is as large as the German. So there is no evidence of health problems in South Korea. The number of cases in Iran has been falling for over a week. In Europe, they are declining, depending on the country: for ten days, for two days, for five days. So the number of new cases in Europe has been falling for three days. In the United States, the number of new cases appears to have peaked and now appears to be decreasing. Because it is the same natural laws all over the world that determine the spread of epidemics around the world! And that's what I mean by "over". If the number of new cases decreases, it means that the number of new infections has decreased dramatically for a week. In this situation, it is typically estimated that the number of new infections will decrease by 30%. And it will continue if there are enough people in the population who are already immune.

VB: So if I understand you correctly, you are saying that this is more or less just another epidemic like everything in the field of respiratory diseases come and go regularly. Sometimes they are more difficult than in others Times. But politicians, and also virologists, who say: This is different. Unlike anything we've seen before. Is there any evidence of this? Or: What causes you to conclude that it is just another epidemic as we will see again and again and have seen in the past?

Wittkowski: Okay, we've seen some very serious cases of respiratory problems. Problems as currently the Prime Minister in Britain, Boris Johnson has and others. This seems to be something that is special for this current virus. It seems to be able to cause severe shortness of breath in some people. But otherwise there is no evidence that this virus differs from any other respiratory virus. It is flu during the flu season. In the United States, the death toll has now reached 10,000, which is very low compared to the typical number of flu deaths that we have every year. That is somewhere between 35 and 70,000 deaths So we're not even at the bottom of the normal number of flu deaths during the flu season. This is not a crisis!

VB: This is not a crisis, you say. And you say that the measures adopted are likely to worsen an epidemic of this kind. Is that so?

VB: What should you have done? So the WHO announced a global pandemic at the end of January. What should you have done? Or what would be yours Advice if you had called one of the heads of government and asked for your opinion?

Wittkowski: I would have done what you do in any respiratory or flu epidemic: isolating the elderly and those at increased risk at home to protect them from infection. Otherwise, let the epidemic run its course in the population until it's over. And that's in about 4 weeks. Grandchildren cannot see their grandparents for four weeks, who only come back from isolation after four weeks. But then it's over.

VB: In Germany there is considerable support for the protective measures, at least until now, and in my opinion this is mainly due to the fact that people were afraid of a very special threat. But here, too, the debate begins on how to get out of a standstill. And a debate is starting on how public authorities have dealt with the problem. And here in Germany it is of course the Robert Koch Institute, the inflential German Public Health Institute that is at the center of criticism. The Koch Institute changed the reporting criteria in the middle of the process ...

Wittkowski: Yes, you made the same mistake as the Chinese. This makes it very difficult for epidemiologists to evaluate the data. You don't change the procedure in the middle of an epidemic!

VB: The Robert Koch Institute has also issued an order or has installed a procedure that should not be used for medical examinations. There is still a debate about whether people die "with the virus" or "from the virus". Having no way of examining this through a forensic exam seems very strange, especially given the fact that, according to official information, this virus is not very dangerous for most people, but only for those who have a weak immune system.

Wittkowski: As an epidemiologist, I see no reason to hide data. And this is one way of hiding data.

VB: You say that it's a way of hiding data! In the video with the American colleagues, you talk about the problem of deconvolution of data, which is no longer possible because the reports no longer differentiate between the day of diagnosis and the day of reporting. Can you explain to our audience why this is important and what the consequences are?

Wittkowski: Well, the most important information is when a person was diagnosed. Because this is the event that helps us understand the epidemic. Sometimes this is reported the same day, sometimes the next day, sometimes with a delay of a few days when someone finds a box of reports somewhere, in an old people's home or something like that. Reports that should have been reported for a long time, but which has been forgotten. We recently had such a case in France. This creates "noise" in the data. That makes it difficult to use data wisely.

VB: So maybe that would be a normal explanation for some outliers, which was reported in the press that France had a very high number of tests on a given day ...

Wittkowski: That was two or three days ago. They had a very high number. But as epidemiologists, we know that epidemics don't happen that way. Nature does not jump! So if the number of reports suddenly increases, we know that this is a change in the reporting system of some kind. But it's not something that can tell us something about the spread of the disease. After a few days, it always cleared up because the data could be reconstructed, and we could go back to regular work. This decryption is no longer possible. In the current case, it doesn't matter anymore, because the data is now so stable that even the irregularities in the reporting no longer cause problems. We know that the number of cases has been falling in Europe for several days. The number of deaths has not yet reached its peak because the series of deaths follows the number of diagnoses with a few days' delay. So that's not surprising. What we see consistently across virtually all countries is, as I said, the epidemic is essentially over.

VB: You have currently called it up. Again, to clarify: Professor Wittkowski is someone who is very well aware of what is currently at stake and what obligations scientists have. Taking the latest data into account is a matter of course and they say, I repeat, the epidemic is over! In Germany we now have a debate about the Severity of economic impact. The measures have ...

Wittkowski: Measures that are actually relatively mild in Germany! It is a total disaster in the United States! In the United States, seven million people registered as unemployed in one fell swoop. And that has different consequences in the United States than in Germany. Here in America there is no social security network like you are used to in Germany!

VB: You are absolutely right! Nevertheless: Here we have a debate about how and when to get out of the situation. What would your advice be for such an exit? Do you just remove all restrictions, or how do you deal with them?

Wittkowski: I advise correcting what went wrong in the beginning: open the schools! There was never any reason for schools to be closed. The children often do not even notice that they are infected, and if they do, the disease is very mild. The children's wards in the hospitals are not overcrowded! Hospitals are used by older people, not children.

What stops any respiratory disease is herd immunity. A sufficient number ..., about 80 percent of the population must have come into contact with the virus, consciously or unconsciously. Then the population is immune. The quickest way to get herd immunity is to infect the children who infect each other. At the same time, you protect older people from infection and those with previous illnesses. So if you want to keep the number of people who get sick small - and essentially older people get sick, who may endanger their lives, but at least they burden the hospitals - then they have to let the children get infected! This prevents the elderly from falling victim to the virus, the goals of the virus.

VB: So you mean: You should let children get sick, let immunity develop so that they can no longer infect others and become a threat?

Wittkowski: A long time ago, people were much more in tune with nature. At that time there were measles or chickenpox parties. If a child had the disease, all parents brought their children to the infected child, or the child who had the symptoms, to ensure that everyone was infected. So everyone gets over it as quickly as possible, and with the least harm to society. That was the way it used to be! And it was right! Now we are doing the opposite: we are preventing an epidemic from spreading. We try to know better than nature what is good for us. It is often politicians or so-called experts who pretend they know better than nature, and scientists are not heard. Then it is a dangerous situation! It is not "the scientists" who have called for the closure of schools, shops and businesses. Even in New York, Mayor de Blasio said until March 16 that they didn't want us to close the schools because it doesn't make sense. On March 17th, he closed the schools. Shortly before, the American president said that the economy had never been closed due to flu. A day later he shut down the economy. It is these U-turns from politicians that only listen to some experts and who are not aware of science at all, what is ruining the economy and the population!

VB: Allow me one last question about statistics. Or the accuracy of current estimates. A theoretical question: if a virus is present which is easily transmitted, and which affects many little, often not even small children and healthy adults. Is it realistic to assume infection rates, herd immunity from one location. For Germany, the Heinsberg is what is considered to be the point of spread, because during the carnival a couple who had been infected went to a party and infected others. Is it likely that this virus would have waited until mid-February to go abroad and go to Germany? Given that it's a virus that spreads quickly and goes unnoticed by many, many people.

Wittkowski: With every type of epidemic, growth is exponential, which means that it grows very, very slowly at the beginning and is difficult to detect. The exponential curve only begins to rise at a later point in time. But at the same time, the number of people who can be infected because people become immune begins to decrease. And so the initial exponential increase turns into something much slower, peaks and then comes to an end.

VB: Thank you very much! Is there anything else you would like to tell the German audience?

Wittkowski: Yes, one thing is important to me: at the moment politicians are saying: "Well, there is a lot of evidence that the shutdown that" prohibits work "works. interestingly, the first prohibition is exactly 100 years ago. And it didn't work. And this time the shutdown doesn't work either! Figures from China and South Korea show that the lockdowns started after the case numbers peaked. This means that the number of new infections is already at this point that had decreased significantly. Therefore the lock-down had no effect. There are other examples.

One example is Sweden: If you compare the epidemic between Sweden - where no lock-down was imposed - and the neighboring Scandinavian countries - which had a lock-down - you see no difference at all. This also suggests that no matter what the countries around Sweden have done, it has had no impact on the course of the epidemic.

So, the epidemic goes back by decreasing the number of new infections, then the number of new cases, and then the number of deaths. That is the natural course of an epidemic. There is no evidence that any Intervention would have an effect.

VB: Is that the case for Japan? I just read in the Guardian that Japan has just declared the state of emergency. Many people could conclude from this: “I said so. You should have taken it more seriously right from the start! ”What could be the reason?

Wittkowski: At the moment the number of cases in Japan is very low, extremely low. Yes, there were some ... there were some variations. Nor can I judge whether this is called a state of emergency or not. The question is: what do you do with it? We know that respiratory diseases cannot be effectively contained. Simply because the infectious period is before you have symptoms. People infect each other in chance encounters. To ride in the same subway, to go shopping in the same shop, all of which is incomprehensible. You cannot trace this back prospectively ... We have little choice but to let the epidemic run its course. Whatever the people of Japan are doing now, the country is in the northern hemisphere and it is now April. We are at the end of the flu season!

So, I'm not sure that this epidemic is in Japan will actually spread across the country. And maybe we should all heed some advice from Goethe's Faust and go for an Easter walk! Go outside and spend more time outdoors than indoors because respiratory viruses are not transmitted outdoors. They are only transmitted inside rooms, because if someone sneezes anywhere in the park or anywhere else, the wind carries it away and nothing happens. So when people stay at home instead of being outside, that's one of the circumstances that are counterproductive!

VB: As Professor Karin Moelling from the University of Zurich, retired, said that UV light also kills all viruses, as can be seen in laboratories, where burns overnight to decontaminate all objects with UV light from pathogens.

Wittkowski: I say: a flu wave in summer is extremely rare! It is not without reason that we call the period from November to March the flu season. This is the cycle in which the flu moves, and we are now beyond that. For that reason alone, I would not be too concerned about the situation in Japan, India and Russia. Could an outbreak occur anyway? Perhaps. But all experience tells us that it doesn't happen. There may be some cases in clusters, in cluster points, like in Heinsberg. It can always happen, no question. But I doubt it will be a nationwide epidemic. And the reasons are seasonal and how people behave when the weather improves.

VB: That is a very encouraging final thought! Thank you, Professor Knut Wittkowski, for this insight into your expertise and for the analysis of epidemics and the current SARS-CoV2 crisis and how we are dealing with it. Thank you very much!

Anyone wondering why COVID-19 spread like wildfire in Wusan then the world but spared China’s other urban and population centers. China does not report reliable statistics but it would have been impossible to hide NYC/North Jersey outbreaks. Somehow, someway most of the Chinese population has achieved “herd immunity” without suffering widespread outbreaks. This could have been the result of exposure to multiple subtypes of coronavirus which resulted in cross immunity to COVID-19. But why not in Wusan from where the virus spread to the world? It is too terrible to think but if you were weaponizing a virus, you would have to ensure immunity in most of your own population before deploying.

I keep reading about this herd immunity but we will never get that all hiding at home.
+++++
You have pointed out the fatal flaw in this supposed expert’s argument. In a nutshell he said:

It’s a crisis.
It’s over.

Well he is half right. We have a population of about 330,000,000. We have identified 525,000 people who are infected. We know some people have very minor symptoms and never get counted. So the 525,000 understates the size of “the herd”.

So go up by a factor of 100 to 52,500,000 and you still don’t have herd immunity. That takes about 60% of 330,000,000 or a little under 200,000,000 cases.

The herd, safe treatments and vaccines will eventually save us but to claim it’s over is just silly and very unprofessional.

Then some of us will die.

I’m a 51 year old (52 in May) fat ####. I’m in the co-morbidity department for sure.

My life is NOT WORTH the entire country of America collapsing financially and other ways.

No one’s is.

Those in the danger group can choose to stay home or maybe by then the drug that is helping everyone will be very available to everyone.

People die.

Sometimes lots.

If we took death counts into consideration during WWII history would be quite different.

Time to dance

“I keep reading about this herd immunity but we will never get that all hiding at home.”

that is 100% correct!

and no, the C-19 epidemic isn’t over, but just getting started because of all of this “cowering in place” ...

Herd immunity is absolutely necessary for the C-19 contagion to burn itself out, but you won’t get that by having lockdowns because in fact lockdowns prevent herd immunity from occurring, and it doesn’t matter if the lockdown is a month or six months because the same exact thing will happen regardless of the length of lockdown when the un-lockdown occurs, namely a whole slew of new C-19 cases are going to occur, and that is completely unavoidable ... There’s no rocket science here, and public policy makers know all of the above, and their claim has always been that the lockdown was *ONLY* to avoid the unknown possibility of the medical system being overwhelmed by too many cases all at once.

President Trump’s dilemma (”the hardest decision I’ll ever have to make in my life”) is to how to prepare the public
for this inevitable new wave of illness and new wave of deaths.

However, if there’s a cheap, safe, effective and universally available cure in the early stages of C-19 infection as is now known to be the case with HCQ/antibiotic/zinc, then there is indeed a whole new ballgame, namely it doesn’t matter how many will get sick when the un-lockdown occurs, because very few will die due to the treatment, and we can therefore safely and quickly build herd immunity, and C-19 will burn itself out as it can no longer be spread once a certain threshold of immune people is reached ...

So, i believe that what is really going to drive the “reopening” date is having enough HCQ/antibiotic/zinc supplies across the nation to treat the hundreds of thousands of new (symptomatic) cases AS SOON AS THEY OCCUR when the nation reopens for business, because then lots of people getting sick from this disease won’t be that big of a deal if they can be effectively treated in the EARLY STAGES of the illness ... but if we do NOT have those curative supplies in place in sufficient quantities across our nation, then all hell would break lose politically if large numbers of people die as a result of the un-lockdown ...

[BTW, the Dems and fake stream enemedia know all of the above, which is why they’ve been desperately trying to discredit this treatment ... they are desperately hoping that President Trump will be put into a lose-lose situation by reopening the economy and having additions scores die that they can claim is his fault ... however, with an actual cure, none of that will happen and the economy can safely be reopened ... fortunately, the above treatment has practically become the standard of treatment in ERs and ICUs around the nation, and practically no one as far as i can tell believe the fairy tales manufactured by the fake stream media about the HCQ/antibiotic/zinc treatment]

You nailed it with the treatment.

We don’t cringe in terror anymore at bacterial throat infections even if they are rampant because we won’t die from them. We’ll be treated.

Sucks to get but beats death.

If it becomes “you’ve got the Coronavirus. Stay home 2 weeks and take this” then life gets back to semi normal pretty quickly.

That’s a simplification I guess.

but i’m a simple guy :)

My life is NOT WORTH the entire country of America collapsing financially and other ways.

Well that’s the ridiculous thing about present political/government approach to coronavirus. Its not even a black/white choice of “old people die, or the economy is destroyed.” We can keep dp0622 around AND have a fully-functioning economy.

It seems the correct choice for government is - old/immune-compromised people need strict precautions, avoid contact with groups. Wear masks in public. Keep hospitals and especially rehab/Senior living places on high alert. Test widely, particularly among these groups. As long as you are not immobile and can care for yourself - do that and you will very likely be fine even if economy is fully re-opened.

Yeah that’s true.

I’ve been really lucky with the extra weight.

No diabetes, edema, high blood pressure, etc.

God has been good to me but I have started using this horrible quarantine to get in better shape.

I need to lose IDEALLY...70 pounds.

i think the reason guys I know who are my size that have so many co morbid conditions is because they were always overweight and mostly sedentary.

I am still living off of the boxing years in my 20s and hitting the bag in my 30s.

But at soon to be 52, it’s time to get rid of it!!

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