Paper: CV19, The harms of exaggerated info & non-evidence-based measures

the allegory of the cave platos republic

Coronavirus disease 2019: The harms of exaggerated information and non-evidence-based measures

This was actually published on 19 March 2020. From the summary/concluding section of the paper:

Problems with early estimates and responses to the COVID‐19 epidemic

A highly flawed nonpeer‐reviewed preprint claiming similarity with HIV‐1 drew tremendous attention, and it was withdrawn, but conspiracy theories about the new virus became entrenched
Even major peer‐reviewed journals have already published wrong, sensationalist items
Early estimates of the projected proportion of global population that will be infected seem markedly exaggerated
Early estimates of case (infection) fatality rate may be markedly exaggerated
The proportion of undetected infections is unknown but probably varies across countries and may be very large overall
Reported epidemic curves are largely affected by the change in availability of test kits and the willingness to test for the virus over time
Of the multiple measures adopted, a few have strong evidence, and many may have obvious harms
Panic shopping of masks and protective gear and excess hospital admissions may be highly detrimental to health systems without offering any concomitant benefit
Extreme measures such as lockdowns may have major impact on social life and the economy (and those also lives lost), and estimates of this impact are entirely speculative
Comparisons with and extrapolations from the 1918 influenza pandemic are precarious, if not outright misleading and harmful