HRW and John Hopkins University (JHU) have teamed up to pile on the condemnation of the handling of the COVID-19 in Venezuela, with HRW Director describing current data as “absurd”. Argument is that in a country with a deteriorated health system 1k cases and 10 deaths are too few

How did they reach this conclusion? They link to a report based on phone interviews conducted between 27/02 and 1/03 with 1014 health workers in 128 clinics through NGO “Médicos Unidos de Venezuela” (MUV – interesting presence in here). Not a bad sample.

https://sfo2.digitaloceanspaces.com/estaticos/var/www/html/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/ENCUESTA-MUV-COVID-19.pdf

However, in the article, HRW refers to a different set of data: interviews undertaken between November and December 2019, to health workers in 14 Caracas public hospitals, and hospitals in 5 other states. How many hospitals and workers exactly? Relevance? Unclear..

A bit of BA level trickery pointing to a source and actually using a different data innit? The article pivots back to the MUV report. It basically develops on the grievances and conditions that health workers were experiencing on 1/03 preparing for COVID. https://www.hrw.org/es/news/2020/05/26/venezuela-necesita-ayuda-humanitaria-urgente-para-combatir-la-covid-19

The problem here is that, the 1st diagnosed cases in Venezuela only happened on the 13/03. The whole argument of HRW/JHU is based on opinions of health workers regarding the of level preparation 12 days before the pandemic reached the country.

Venezuela ain’t China, so for sure it didn’t build an hospital, but conditions stayed exactly the same? We don’t know. Since the article is even more vague about follow-up after COVID reached Venezuela (interviews “to some health workers, community actors and sanctions experts”).

Baseline = health care in Venezuela is bad and unprepared for COVID-19 on 1 March, ergo case number MUST be much higher. But why? And by how much?

It’s clear by now that HRW and JHU assumptions depart from a ceteris paribus principle. Venezuela’s response to COVID remained the same as it was on 1/03 according to the opinions of health workers interviewed by MUV. And that is the basis to “answer” the “why” question.

If this sounds bad, the “by how much” isn’t much better. JHU Prof. Kathleen Page puts the conservative estimate at 30k. ~30x more than the cases reported by the government.

I will concede that Prof. Page might have been forced to do some shopkeeper math since these numbers came up during a zoom press conference. But on what mathematical or statistical models are these estimates based?

No answer to that on the HRW piece nor at JHU Research center (no COVID report on Venezuela). It would be interesting to know the answer to these questions. Particularly when the HRW rehashes the rapid vs. PCR test false controversy. https://www.jhsph.edu/research/centers-and-institutes/center-for-public-health-and-human-rights/

If there are so many cases at loose in the community, wouldn’t the +700k rapid tests pick-up a far larger number of positives? Or are we too believe that they are all in the quarantine period simultaneously? https://twitter.com/PedroRNunes/status/1264278577756979201

Could these estimates be based on observations by health workers then? Much more info is necessary to characterize them (type of worker; type of hospital; private or public; access to lab; rapid test, pcr test or observation used in diagnosis; etc.).

Also important to know if the efficiency of the PASI system was taken into account in this projection (I suspect not). By today’s data, 80% of all COVID cases were diagnosed and isolated at the border centers. https://twitter.com/PedroRNunes/status/1264299026842898432

Most importantly, Human Rights Watch with John Hopkins University's Center for Public Health and Human Rights are another actor playing the dangerous game of sowing distrust about health issues between Venezuelans and health authorities in the middle of a global pandemic.

Right-wing Argentinian media takes it one step further: "at least 30k dead".

This thread by @jorgeluisrecio lays out how another JHU Professor, Steve Hanke, was manipulating data regarding COVID infections in Venezuela back in April. It's almost as if it this is some sort of institutional policy. https://twitter.com/jorgeluisrecio/status/1251381744483405824