We see the news headlines faithfully parroting the top lines of these "reports" by opaquely funded thinktanks, but have you ever actually read one? Most would not pass muster in an A-level economics mock. No evidence, no rigour, unsupported assumptions… https://iea.org.uk/publications/viral-myths-why-we-risk-learning-the-wrong-lessons-from-the-pandemic/

The first line of this one: "The coronavirus pandemic has given rise to the phenomenon of 'coronfirmation bias'."

Nice portmanteau, @K_Niemietz. Bound to catch on.

Further analysis to follow

First question: is Niemietz qualified to be writing on this topic? He appears to have a doctorate in political economy from King’s College London, though the only confirmation we have of that is on the IEA profile page. >>

Summary, paragraph 1: Why is “vindication” in inverted commas? The context amply signals the uncertainty over the correctness of the belief.
Summary, par 2: unnecessary (and rather revealing) inverted commas around “austerity” >>

S6 “No obvious measure of ‘Covid performance’ allows us to rank countries by performance” - yeah, that death rate per million is a total red herring - “but we can still rank countries by performance”. (On a side note, Niemietz really loves his inverted commas.) >>

S10 “three things stand out”. No, you have picked three things out.
S15 more random quotation marks. “Disputes … are not going to be settle [sic] by a virus”

Introduction, par 3: Niemietz gives sources for – well, some of the figures on Covid hospitalisations and deaths. >>

But we all know those anyway.
I4 “Substantial parts of the economy are likely ever to wake up again”: Speculation.
I5 “We could fill pages describing the devastating effects of the pandemic …” but I won’t actually bother to fill a single sentence, because who needs examples? >>

I6 “One in 10 people in Britain have been vaccinated”; no. One in 10 have received one of their two allotted injections. No source given.
I10 Cites a paper by … another IEA employee.
I15 “Coronavirus has given rise to ‘coronfirmation bias’.” >>

Or arguably, coronavirus happened, and then human beings, of their own volition, brought their usual confirmation bias to bear.
I16 Cites a tweet by another IEA employee (for someone so critical of confirmation bias and bubbles, Niemietz doesn’t seem to read very widely). >>

No citations for two claims.
I17 No citations for one claim.

False Covid-19 narratives
F1 “Three interpretations have gained clout”: says who? Why only three? And how do you measure this “clout”?
F5 “It is safe to say that …”: says who? Unsupported speculation. >>

F6 “Conventional wisdom no 1 is, unsurprisingly, popular on the Left”: says who? Unsupported assumption.
F17 “Guardian journalist and writer George Monbiot also linked the Covid-19 crisis to *his favourite* theme, the *supposed* retreat of the state”: subjective judgement. >>

(NB: no effort is expended refuting any of these claims)
F36 Claims the “Clap for carers” initiative was the ultimate expression of a mindless British rallying round the NHS, when the movement started in mainland Europe. >>

F38 “The three emerging conventional wisdoms have two things in common” … in Niemietz’s opinion. Speculation.
F39 “We might still hear [these] statements in a decade’s time”: Speculation.
F42-44 “We would expect”: an attempt to link 3 sets of conditions with 3 outcomes, >>

without any attempt to establish which conditions might have a greater effect. For each sentence to be true, it would need to end with the all-important clause “if all other conditions were equal”. >>

F46: “What does this tell us? Not very much.” Really loving the fact I’ve devoted my day to analysing this report.

Have now seen enough to confirm my suspicion that IEA reports are nothing more than heavily biased opinion pieces with the occasional footnote. Stopping here >>

unless there is huge demand for more.

Next from Niemietz and the IEA: "How no one can really be sure that it was Brexit that fucked the UK economy" /End for now