For all the epidemiologists who were furious at banks' initial horribly confounded correlation analyses of COVID outcomes across countries, I would've thought one of them would recognize the equal absurdity of this plot.

Nope. They're all retweeting this as corroboration. https://twitter.com/MaxCRoser/status/1347465566525689859

Here are some problems:

(1) Y-axis: GDP growth is determined by many things, and most of the countries you see here have relative GDP growth comparable to previous years. Did COVID actually change antyhing?

(2) GDP growth isn't the economic outcome many of us were worried about. GDP isn't a good reflection of the public health benefits provided by the economy - unemployment, poverty rates, and the millions facing acute hunger from job losses due to lockdowns were chief concerns.

(3) I don't know who in their right mind actually trusts the Chinese reporting of their epidemic. This country has lied about millions of Uighurs in a concentration camp and were seizing private property for quarantine facilities in Guangdong, HK while reporting 10 cases/wk there

The epidemiological and economic outcomes of COVID are complicated. This massively viral piece may feel good for people on the left who support extreme interventions, but to me it speaks to a lack of intellectual and political diversity of their feeds and daily lives.

I'm guessing that the author does not have many friends who are in the working class and lost their jobs from COVID interventions, otherwise using GDP on the Y-axis would be disconnected from their personal experiences of economic harm of interventions.

The economic harm that translates to real human suffering exists, and it's better quantified by looking at the acute hunger caused OUTSIDE of the countries that locked down. We reeled Africa & Asia into a globalized economy and then abandoned everything in a pandemic.

Mr. what's-his-face who made the tweet is not responsible for that economic harm, but it would be very nice if he didn't gloss over its reality.

Let's face the truth: COVID is less severe than most thought, the costs of our intervention more severe than many figured.

Just remember: the 140 million *extra* people facing acute hunger this year are not facing acute hunger because of the virus.

They're facing acute hunger because of high income countries' reactions to the virus.

That's all.