Worst Case Pandemic Prognostion Model Slashs Predction w/ 96% fewer deaths

JasperL said:

It's as I said - the UK team and Lewis have a difference of opinion about which sample provides the most useful estimates of CFR for COVID 19 for the UK and US - what our countries can expect. In effect, they're deciding which proxies for the population in question to use to predict the mortality and hospitalization rates in the UK and US. Neither one is obviously correct, or obviously incorrect. They are both guessing. The only way to show which team is correct is to use actual results from the UK and/or US, and those data simply are not available at this time or Lewis would have cited and used those data.

You seem to think that because Lewis comes to a different conclusion, you can simply cite his work, and say, SEE THE UK TEAM WAS WRONG!!! That's not how it works, Jack. No one is impressed by that.

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The UK team was wrong. Meanwhile:

“This is a remarkable turn from Neil Ferguson, who led the @imperialcollege authors who warned of 500,000 UK deaths - and who has now himself tested positive for #COVID,” former New York Times reporter Alex Berenson wrote on Twitter.

[h=3]Imperial College scientist who predicted 500K coronavirus ...[/h]

www.washingtonexaminer.com › news › imperial-college-scientist-wh...

9 hours ago - ... in the United Kingdom has revised the estimate to roughly 20000 people or fewer. ... “This is a remarkable turn from Neil Ferguson, who led the ... beds and UK deaths 'unlikely to exceed 20,000 and could be much lower,'" ...

Mr Person said:

One single person says something, so clearly it's a hoax? How moronic. And how expected. Hannity commanded you guys to say it, so you're saying it. That's all that's going on here.

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Ben Shapiro is talking about it too! It is the model you people were going off of to create your doom and gloom narrative.

JasperL said:

He almost definitely considered the new lockdown measures, and we know that because the only decent article about his testimony says he also accounts for test and trace efforts that will not be possible in earnest in the UK for "several weeks."

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I mean, it doesn't take much brain power to understand 'oh, very drastic measure are being taken to slow down the transmission rate of the virus, and those methods are ones that work'.

Atomic Kid said:

Ferguson's original model was a "worse case" scenario. One absent of any voluntary social distancing or governmental intervention and mitigation policies being implemented. He has likely reduced that number due to the voluntary social distancing efforts being made in the UK. Probably without having figured in governmental lockdowns yet since those just occurred a few days ago. His revision doesn't mean that US and Britain shouldn't have taken the measures they did. Those measures I assume have improved his outlook to being more optimistic. But there is still a long way to go yet.

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My gripe is not that his worst case scenario didn't exist (nobody does anything, voluntary or otherwise) but that the study was promoted as IF people were doing little or nothing. Moreover, it was impossible to measure against then already existing or contemplated policies to what the study was projecting only as binary choices.

For many weeks people had been increasingly following the mitigation strategies, but not necessarily to the degree the study postulated. People were staying home and self-isolating, people were quarantining, people were skipping work when feeling ill. In other words, people were already social distancing because that was increasingly the social message from many quarters.

So this wasn't, in spite of the tables in the study, a matter of turning on a switch to "lockdown". A lockdown can mean many things, because it is on a "dimmer" of intensity. And the difference and distance between what actually was, and what was sufficient, remained unclear (and still is to an extent). All the more so as 18 months of lockdown was then, as now, totally unrealistic.

Unfortunately Ferguson has not adequately dealt with the confusion, but for a couple to tweets (understandable as he is in the second week of his own illness). But 9 days ago his COVID team members were touting in the UK 250,000 dead and an eight-fold swamping of medical facilities under the best of circumstances, while imply 18 months of draconian measures were necessary.

WTF?

Well whatever. If the new forecast is for home quarantine, self-isolation of suspect cases, and closure of public schools - along with testing of associates of the infected then that is both reasonable and effective (even South Korea didn't close its restaurants).

If the new forecast includes shutting down most business, closing all public events, and turning into a rationed wartime economy for 18 months, it is not worth it.

I'd still like the "prophets" to tell us clearly which it should be for various degrees (not just kinds) of restrictions.

Jack Hays said:

The UK team was wrong.

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Explain how in your own words. Or do you think a random cite posted by Judith Curry is a mic drop moment? If you believe it, you're wrong.

Meanwhile:

“This is a remarkable turn from Neil Ferguson, who led the @imperialcollege authors who warned of 500,000 UK deaths - and who has now himself tested positive for #COVID,” former New York Times reporter Alex Berenson wrote on Twitter.

[h=3]Imperial College scientist who predicted 500K coronavirus ...[/h]

www.washingtonexaminer.com › news › imperial-college-scientist-wh...

9 hours ago - ... in the United Kingdom has revised the estimate to roughly 20000 people or fewer. ... “This is a remarkable turn from Neil Ferguson, who led the ... beds and UK deaths 'unlikely to exceed 20,000 and could be much lower,'" ...

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I'm unclear what point I'm supposed to get from a bunch of right wingers either dishonestly summarizing the original study, or repeating ignorant claims about what it predicted. As I said, the only people throwing out the 2.2 million/500k claim were right wing liars or idiots/ignoramuses. You quoted several making my point, which is appreciated - Thank You! - but I am not sure that was your actual point.

If not what was it? Thanks.

JasperL said:

Explain how in your own words. Or do you think a random cite posted by Judith Curry is a mic drop moment? If you believe it, you're wrong.



I'm unclear what point I'm supposed to get from a bunch of right wingers either dishonestly summarizing the original study, or repeating ignorant claims about what it predicted. As I said, the only people throwing out the 2.2 million/500k claim were right wing liars or idiots/ignoramuses. You quoted several making my point, which is appreciated - Thank You! - but I am not sure that was your actual point.

If not what was it? Thanks.

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I suggested you read Lewis. You declined.

Mongidig said:

Ben Shapiro is talking about it too! It is the model you people were going off of to create your doom and gloom narrative.

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Their doom-and-gloom narrative doesn't seem to pan out and their ridiculous "excuse" now is: "But it could have happened."

Meanwhile, the world is on fire and economies are crashing because of the doom-and-gloom prophecised by the "experts".

maxparrish said:

My gripe is not that his worst case scenario didn't exist (nobody does anything, voluntary or otherwise) but that the study was promoted as IF people were doing little or nothing.

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That's because... people in the US and UK were not doing enough at the time.

Trump didn't change his tune until after the 3/12 report came out.

Boris didn't take strong action until several days after the report came out.

The report very likely convinced both US and UK governments to act.

Moreover, it was impossible to measure against then already existing or contemplated policies to what the study was projecting only as binary choices.

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:roll:

Why am I not surprised that you didn't even skim the report?

The report compared multiple variations of two scenarios: mitigation and suppression. It only modeled the "(unlikely) absence of any control measures or spontaneous changes in individual behaviour" as a benchmark to compare the myriad options, like so:

Unfortunately Ferguson has not adequately dealt with the confusion, but for a couple to tweets (understandable as he is in the second week of his own illness). But 9 days ago his COVID team members were touting in the UK 250,000 dead and an eight-fold swamping of medical facilities under the best of circumstances, while imply 18 months of draconian measures were necessary.

WTF?

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:roll:

The only "confusion" is deliberate misinformation spread by the people who don't want to admit that COVID-19 is serious, and is going to be a long slog.

The paper was very clear on why mitigation and/or suppression methods might be necessary for so long. Again, another indication you didn't bother to read it.

To avoid a rebound in transmission, these policies will need to be maintained until large stocks of
vaccine are available to immunise the population – which could be 18 months or more.

Well whatever. If the new forecast is for home quarantine, self-isolation of suspect cases, and closure of public schools - along with testing of associates of the infected then that is both reasonable and effective (even South Korea didn't close its restaurants).

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The "new forecast" is basically the same as the old one -- just a little bit worse, as the virus has a slightly higher R0 value than they estimated 10 days ago. From the March 16th report:

The measures used to achieve suppression might also evolve over time. As case numbers fall, it
becomes more feasible to adopt intensive testing, contact tracing and quarantine measures akin to
the strategies being employed in South Korea today. Technology – such as mobile phone apps that
track an individual’s interactions with other people in society – might allow such a policy to be more
effective and scalable if the associated privacy concerns can be overcome. However, if intensive NPI
packages aimed at suppression are not maintained, our analysis suggests that transmission will rapidly
rebound, potentially producing an epidemic comparable in scale to what would have been seen had
no interventions been adopted.

I'd still like the "prophets" to tell us clearly which it should be for various degrees (not just kinds) of restrictions.

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The scientists are being as clear as possible. You'd know that if you bothered to read what they are writing.

Visbek said:

sigh

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Ya, I read his lame explanation, which I partially attributed to the fact that he is ill with the virus and clearly not in top form.

None the less, his effort to remove the confusion in a few tweets turns up wanting. Among the questions I would interrogate him as follows:

As you noted in your joint study "do nothing" was not the then current state of affairs. Therefore it has never been a binary choice between 'nothing' and 'everything' in either scope or degree of action. Therefore:

1) Did you inform the government or the public the ACTUAL outcome difference between what formal policies were already in place, and the existing voluntary actions being undertaken by citizens and businesses, versus what you now term as "strong controls"?

2) As elements of all your mitigation options were in fact, but not in degree, already being undertaken how do you measure "weak", "moderate", or "strong" degrees? For example what is the quantitative difference in outcome between the prior informally and now formally request people to self-isolate? Was it in fact, significant? Or don't you know?

3) How do you reconcile that your COVID group just nine days ago, according to press reports, claimed that not less than 250,000 would die EVEN under the best of mitigation efforts, and that the medical system (or ICUs) would be swamped 8 fold?

4) How do you explain that you "forgot" or "didn't know" or "didn't want to consider" that test kits would be widely available in three weeks, but now know they will be? Why wasn't the effects of broad testing option considered and calculated - it was far less hypothetical than your straw man scenario of 'doing nothing'.

5) What role did the assumption of 18 months of "strong controls" mean vs less amounts of time, a proposition that the study also noted as unrealistic.

6) Are you now claiming that only a few months of "strong controls" were needed?

The bottom line, Dr. Ferguson, is that this study was hyped as a near doomsday scenario. It did not compare the forecast with efforts then underway VS. efforts you now tout as pivotal. We have no idea if 50 or 100 thousand would have died, rather than 20,000, even under the more moderate regime then imposed.

In short, was the failure to consider the effects of the then current efforts, and failure to mention a South Korean option, intentional?

The Ferguson story, so far, doesn't add up.

maxparrish said:

There has been a wide range of predicted deaths in the US - from 2,200,000 in US to 4,000. The forecast for 2,200,000 was Neil Ferguson, using a model forecasting the rates using different mitigation strategies, or none at all.

Ferguson, using the same model, forecast British coronavirus deaths at 510,000. Now, with the latest information on the virus and data his model forecasts LESS THAN 20,000 for the UK. Moreover, more than half those who die will be individuals who would have died anyway from old age and other medical causes before the end of the year

Although the Britain has only just begun a lockdown two days ago, Ferguson predicts that the new virus deaths will peak in two or three weeks, and then decline.

Another alarmist meme bites the dust.

Back to work by Easter!

Click to expand...

No, no! Leftist on these boards are touting up to 1 million deaths! Nobody would say something that stupid without solid facts to back it up.

maxparrish said:

My gripe is not that his worst case scenario didn't exist (nobody does anything, voluntary or otherwise) but that the study was promoted as IF people were doing little or nothing. Moreover, it was impossible to measure against then already existing or contemplated policies to what the study was projecting only as binary choices.

For many weeks people had been increasingly following the mitigation strategies, but not necessarily to the degree the study postulated. People were staying home and self-isolating, people were quarantining, people were skipping work when feeling ill. In other words, people were already social distancing because that was increasingly the social message from many quarters.

So this wasn't, in spite of the tables in the study, a matter of turning on a switch to "lockdown". A lockdown can mean many things, because it is on a "dimmer" of intensity. And the difference and distance between what actually was, and what was sufficient, remained unclear (and still is to an extent). All the more so as 18 months of lockdown was then, as now, totally unrealistic.

Unfortunately Ferguson has not adequately dealt with the confusion, but for a couple to tweets (understandable as he is in the second week of his own illness). But 9 days ago his COVID team members were touting in the UK 250,000 dead and an eight-fold swamping of medical facilities under the best of circumstances, while imply 18 months of draconian measures were necessary.

WTF?

Well whatever. If the new forecast is for home quarantine, self-isolation of suspect cases, and closure of public schools - along with testing of associates of the infected then that is both reasonable and effective (even South Korea didn't close its restaurants).

If the new forecast includes shutting down most business, closing all public events, and turning into a rationed wartime economy for 18 months, it is not worth it.

I'd still like the "prophets" to tell us clearly which it should be for various degrees (not just kinds) of restrictions.

Click to expand...

Well if you recall no one was doing anything voluntary or otherwise at that point. Our President was downplaying the threat saying the we have 15 cases and we expect that to go down to zero. We have it under control. Look at us now. We just blew past China in the number of confirmed cases. Whatever it takes to protect the American public is worth it. I think the President is greatly underestimating the resiliency of this country's people and it's economy. Seems to me his primary concern is how it may impact his prospects for re-election. He is placing the stock market ahead of the health and safety of the American people. As usual it's all about him.

maxparrish said:

There has been a wide range of predicted deaths in the US - from 2,200,000 in US to 4,000. The forecast for 2,200,000 was Neil Ferguson, using a model forecasting the rates using different mitigation strategies, or none at all.

Ferguson, using the same model, forecast British coronavirus deaths at 510,000. Now, with the latest information on the virus and data his model forecasts LESS THAN 20,000 for the UK. Moreover, more than half those who die will be individuals who would have died anyway from old age and other medical causes before the end of the year

Although the Britain has only just begun a lockdown two days ago, Ferguson predicts that the new virus deaths will peak in two or three weeks, and then decline.

Another alarmist meme bites the dust.

Back to work by Easter!

Click to expand...

Screw that. I want my stimulus check first.

Jack Hays said:

I suggested you read Lewis. You declined.

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I did read it actually. Did you know he assumes a 30% false negative testing rate, and uses that to adjust all his CFR estimates downward by 30%? He doesn't know if the cruise ship population was tested more than once - could have been he said (hint - many were tested more than once, and they identified a ton of non-symptomatic cases with testing). And he notes that no deaths or serious illnesses among those testing negative. Is that a good assumption that false negatives inflated the CFR by 30%? Who knows? What it shows is his own estimate is full of guesses since he takes the actual testing results, the actual number testing positive, actual deaths, and just decides - hey, let's lower the measured CFR for this highly monitored and studied group of people, many of them tested multiple times, by 30%!

But that's beside the point really. You cannot know which estimate is "wrong." It's impossible for anyone to know at this point in time. I'm sure if you ask Lewis or the UK team, they'll say (if they are intellectually honest, and I have no reason to believe otherwise) - we don't know what the ultimate CFR/IFR will be - and I'm sure they're updating their own models with new data as they become available. Lewis in fact uses facts unavailable to the original researchers about the final disposition of the cruise ship population to make his estimates.

But the bottom line is at this point all ANYONE has are best guesses, and the UK team took one approach (estimates from China, and from those repatriated from China - and using the Diamond Cruise ship passenger data as a check on their main calculation) and Lewis took another.

That's what we know. If you want to assert the UK team was "wrong" you're just proving to us your ignorance. But by all means - you do you. It's entertaining!

JasperL said:

I did read it actually. Did you know he assumes a 30% false negative testing rate, and uses that to adjust all his CFR estimates downward by 30%? He doesn't know if the cruise ship population was tested more than once - could have been he said (hint - many were tested more than once, and they identified a ton of non-symptomatic cases with testing). And he notes that no deaths or serious illnesses among those testing negative. Is that a good assumption that false negatives inflated the CFR by 30%? Who knows? What it shows is his own estimate is full of guesses since he takes the actual testing results, the actual number testing positive, actual deaths, and just decides - hey, let's lower the measured CFR for this highly monitored and studied group of people, many of them tested multiple times, by 30%!

But that's beside the point really. You cannot know which estimate is "wrong." It's impossible for anyone to know at this point in time. I'm sure if you ask Lewis or the UK team, they'll say - we don't know what the ultimate CFR/IFR will be - and I'm sure they're updating their own models with new data as it becomes available. Lewis in fact uses facts unavailable to the original researchers about the final disposition of the cruise ship population to make his estimates.

But the bottom line is at this point all ANYONE has are best guesses, and the UK team took one approach (estimates from China, and from those repatriated from China - and using the Diamond Cruise ship passenger data as a check on their main calculation) and Lewis took another.

That's what we know. If you want to assert the UK team was "wrong" you're just proving to us your ignorance. But by all means - you do you. It's entertaining!

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On the one hand we have a team who felt compelled to publicly clarify their model. On the other hand a researcher who had already figured out they were off target.

Jack Hays said:

On the one hand we have a team who felt compelled to publicly clarify their model.

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What they didn't do was abandon their model in any way. You don't have to listen to me - here's the lead author:

https://twitter.com/neil_ferguson/status/1243294815200124928

On the other hand a researcher who had already figured out they were off target.

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LOL. On the other hand a researcher who took the actual data from the Diamond Cruise ship and chopped 30% off the measured CFR!

From Lewis:

We accordingly adjust all the tCFR ratios estimated from Diamond Princess case data down by 30% on account of false-negative test results.

Click to expand...

Visbek said:

The scientists are being as clear as possible. You'd know that if you bothered to read what they are writing.

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What's stunning in this thread is I'm pretty sure not a single one of our conservative friends has even clicked on this study they're trashing. The study was crystal clear - with mitigation/suppression efforts, the death toll in the UK would be FAR lower than 500k. With all the recommended measures in place, the death toll was predicted between 5k and 46k as I recall. The UK put them in, and Ferguson testified to death totals with and additional measure - test and trace (that the UK cannot do at this point, and won't be able to do for weeks) - and came up with a number (20k) far lower than 500k, which is completely consistent with the overall conclusions of the study everyone is trashing.

There is some determined effort on the part of the right wing to discredit any expert on pandemics, and here the target is Ferguson's team. I wish I could figure out the motive here, but I cannot.

maxparrish said:

Ya, I read his lame explanation...

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But apparently you still didn't read the paper.

Among the questions I would interrogate him as follows

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Here we go

Therefore it has never been a binary choice between 'nothing' and 'everything' in either scope or degree of action.

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:roll:

The paper did not make any such "binary choice." It looked at 6 mitigation and 3 suppression strategies. The paper explicitly stated that "do nothing" was unlikely. It was only used as a benchmark.

Read the paper.

1) Did you inform the government or the public the ACTUAL outcome difference between what formal policies were already in place, and the existing voluntary actions being undertaken by citizens and businesses, versus what you now term as "strong controls"?

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:roll:

Since you missed it, policies are changing constantly. They modeled multiple scenarios to give an idea of likely outcomes from different scenarios.

Read the paper.

2) As elements of all your mitigation options were in fact, but not in degree, already being undertaken how do you measure "weak", "moderate", or "strong" degrees?

Click to expand...

Read the paper.

3) How do you reconcile that your COVID group just nine days ago, according to press reports, claimed that not less than 250,000 would die EVEN under the best of mitigation efforts, and that the medical system (or ICUs) would be swamped 8 fold?

Click to expand...

Read the paper.

4) How do you explain that you "forgot" or "didn't know" or "didn't want to consider" that test kits would be widely available in three weeks, but now know they will be?

Click to expand...

They made no such claims. Again, they explicitly stated that the UK could adopt a South Korea-type approach. Read the paper.

Why wasn't the effects of broad testing option considered and calculated - it was far less hypothetical than your straw man scenario of 'doing nothing'.

Click to expand...

They did consider it. Read the paper.

5) What role did the assumption of 18 months of "strong controls" mean vs less amounts of time, a proposition that the study also noted as unrealistic.

Click to expand...

They talked about 18 months because that's how long it might take to develop a vaccine. They also considered scenarios such as four separate rounds of suppression. Read the paper.

6) Are you now claiming that only a few months of "strong controls" were needed?

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No. They did not say it on the 16th, and he did not say it this week. Read the paper. Read the Tweets.

The bottom line, Dr. Ferguson, is that this study was hyped as a near doomsday scenario.

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Ferguson isn't the editor for the Daily Express or Fox News. He also got sick 2 days after the first report came out.

We have no idea if 50 or 100 thousand would have died, rather than 20,000, even under the more moderate regime then imposed.

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Dude, seriously. Just... stop.

You didn't read the paper. You obviously don't understand or even know its methods, conclusions and functions. You utterly fail to understand that the people telling you that this constitutes a massive change are LYING TO YOU, and distorting what the paper was saying and Ferguson's testimony.

That's why he is saying... in his Tweets... that there was no substantial revision, and that in fact the latest data shows higher mortality as COVID-19 has a higher R0 than they believed when they wrote the 3/16 report.

JasperL said:

What's stunning in this thread is I'm pretty sure not a single one of our conservative friends has even clicked on this study they're trashing.

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I'm not stunned that they are distorting actual scientists. That's old hat.

The motive is clear: Discredit government, and discredit science that clashes with their ideology.

What stuns me is how shameless they are about it. Even after pointing out that they aren't even skimming the documents, they just plow right ahead. SMH.

Even most basic properties of this virus are unknown.

Because we know nothing about a virus that is spreading quickly around the globe we shouldn't make to much noise and rather shut up?

Because we have only some crude data, we should not care making models and szenarios, and especially once made not work them over any second we get a tiniest bit of new data?

Well, everybody is entitled to his own opinion.

By the way:
risk = probability of event X damage in case of event

After all, it is not a big achievement even for the layman or the public, to value lots of caution here.

The virus will be charted in hyperspeed during the next weeks and months. Until then we should be on our guard at the utmost.

Italy, Spain are warnings, and in Spain it is just beginning. In Italy outbreak in the south is feared. The north where this fiasko takes place is wealthier than the south.

Here in Germany it is not even begun. Estimations from a local hospital are, that if there is derailment, it could be in approximately three weeks.

We have strong health care infrastructure, big amount of tests made (yet only fragment of what would make sense)... and we are a small, rather homogenic country.

Discipline/caution/compliance/level of information here seems to me surprisingly high. But we will see very soon, if it is enough to counter the first shock. Or if ICU will be mangled like in Italy. Nobody knows this because of lack of data. We have 5000 ICU beds free in whole Germany at this point of time.

If the lockdown had not been made, we would have some million infected in a few months. Modeling of our experts show, that we could have had hundreds of thousands of deaths in a few months. We can still have 50.000 deaths. Nobody knows this.

JasperL said:

Link for that large team's latest forecast?

FWIW, your premise is BS. Ferguson and his large team never forecast that deaths in the UK would be 500k. That was the "do nothing" approach, which no country on earth has done, and the UK never adopted that strategy, and was used as a benchmark against which to judge various other strategies.

Here's that study:

https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/im...-College-COVID19-NPI-modelling-16-03-2020.pdf

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To be even more specific:

In the absence of a COVID-19 vaccine, we assess the potential role of a number of public health measures – so-called non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) – aimed at reducing contact rates in the population and thereby reducing transmission of the virus. In the results presented here, we apply a previously published microsimulation model to two countries: the UK (Great Britain specifically) and the US. We conclude that the effectiveness of any one intervention in isolation is likely to be limited, requiring multiple interventions to be combined to have a substantial impact on transmission.

Two fundamental strategies are possible: (a) mitigation, which focuses on slowing but not necessarily stopping epidemic spread – reducing peak healthcare demand while protecting those most at risk of severe disease from infection, and (b) suppression, which aims to reverse epidemic growth, reducing case numbers to low levels and maintaining that situation indefinitely. Each policy has major challenges. We find that that optimal mitigation policies (combining home isolation of suspect cases, home quarantine of those living in the same household as suspect cases, and social distancing of the elderly and others at most risk of severe disease) might reduce peak healthcare demand by 2/3 and deaths by half. However, the resulting mitigated epidemic would still likely result in hundreds of thousands of deaths and health systems (most notably intensive care units) being overwhelmed many times over. For countries able to achieve it, this leaves suppression as the preferred policy option.

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3leftsdoo said:

Er-oh.

With the stock market surging, people not dying & Biden in massive decline, the Democrats will not be happy...

Back to Ukranian Nazis & Trump rapes puppies I guess.

:shrug:

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When the virus ends just be ready for another episode of "Games the Democrats Play". It never stops.

maxparrish said:

There has been a wide range of predicted deaths in the US - from 2,200,000 in US to 4,000. The forecast for 2,200,000 was Neil Ferguson, using a model forecasting the rates using different mitigation strategies, or none at all.

Ferguson, using the same model, forecast British coronavirus deaths at 510,000. Now, with the latest information on the virus and data his model forecasts LESS THAN 20,000 for the UK. Moreover, more than half those who die will be individuals who would have died anyway from old age and other medical causes before the end of the year

Although the Britain has only just begun a lockdown two days ago, Ferguson predicts that the new virus deaths will peak in two or three weeks, and then decline.

Another alarmist meme bites the dust.

Back to work by Easter!

Click to expand...

You're misleading people. The 500,000 UK figure was based on the government doing nothing; the 20,000 figure is based on the country implementing social distancing and lockdown measures.

Visbek said:

That's because... people in the US and UK were not doing enough at the time.

Trump didn't change his tune until after the 3/12 report came out. Boris didn't take strong action until several days after the report came out.
The report very likely convinced both US and UK governments to act.

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But no one said anything about the US and UK not doing enough at the time. What I did say was: "the study was promoted as IF people were doing little or nothing (and) it was impossible to measure" the reality against "what the study was projecting only as binary choices."

In other words, the paper was dated 3/16 and was promoted and sold as either a "do nothing" OR take full adoption of one or more of several choices - I guess as a "lockdown". It avoided comparing the use of volunteerism or spontaneous choices made in the real world by people were doing so already (e.g. school closures and social distancing, game cancelations, etc.) vs. an undefined meaning of government locking down. Why? To avoid implying that voluntary social action might, itself, be significantly effective? Would a realistic comparison to then current strategy blunt contrast of a apocalyptical max disaster of "doing nothing" as a benchmark?

Lessons in the selling of a crisis, methinks.

Why am I not surprised that you didn't even skim the report?

The report compared multiple variations of two scenarios: mitigation and suppression. It only modeled the "(unlikely) absence of any control measures or spontaneous changes in individual behaviour" as a benchmark to compare the myriad options, like so:

The only "confusion" is deliberate misinformation spread by the people who don't want to admit that COVID-19 is serious, and is going to be a long slog.

The paper was very clear on why mitigation and/or suppression methods might be necessary for so long. ...

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The paper was "very clear" except when it wasn't. As many strategies were being employed already prior to the paper's published date (people were staying home and self-isolating, people were quarantining, people were skipping work when feeling ill - doing the spontaneous behavior that did not require authoritarian force. People were already social distancing because that was increasingly the social message from many quarters) EXACTLY what a "lockdown" means, other than asking the public to follow guidelines, and why it suddenly makes 20,000 the magic number is still unclear.

Ferguson has already admitted that there is confusion, and says that he should clear it up. So far he has not done so. We will wait...

The "new forecast" is basically the same as the old one -- just a little bit worse, as the virus has a slightly higher R0 value than they estimated 10 days ago. From the March 16th report:

The scientists are being as clear as possible. You'd know that if you bothered to read what they are writing.

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When they don't tell us how "locking down" is now different than relying on prior voluntary compliance with guidelines, and spontaneous actions, they are as clear as mud. And when they use the press to muddy the water with fear (or the press uses them to sensationalize) at the same time Boris is issuing those guidelines (or is it a lockdown) then it only promotes confusion.

Either Ferguson is putting lipstick on a pig or he is bailing. Tough to say which.

Aristaeus said:

You're misleading people. The 500,000 UK figure was based on the government doing nothing; the 20,000 figure is based on the country implementing social distancing and lockdown measures.

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Nope. Either this report, or these scientists, and/or the press has been misleading people since this thing came out. Comparing a reality that does not exist (do nothing) with five predetermined binary acts that are "locked down" in some unspecified manner isn't a policy choice...its an either/or trap.

Visbek said:

But apparently you still didn't read the paper.
Here we go

The paper did not make any such "binary choice." It looked at 6 mitigation and 3 suppression strategies. The paper explicitly stated that "do nothing" was unlikely. It was only used as a benchmark.

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As Ferguson himself tweets, the paper was a calculation of deaths between doing nothing and five specific "intense public controls", as if none of the public was following some of those controls on their own. So yes. those are binary choices of "kind" not "degree".

I short, he made no attempt to measure the five mitigation/suppression options by how strongly were actually enforced, how they would be enforced, or what the alternative of voluntary or spontaneous public behavior changes (which he confessed were likely) might have delivered anyway.

Since you missed it, policies are changing constantly. They modeled multiple scenarios to give an idea of likely outcomes from different scenarios.

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So then he would answer "No, I did not inform the government or the public the ACTUAL outcome differences possible between what formal policies were already in place, and the existing voluntary actions being undertaken by citizens and businesses, versus what I now term as "strong controls"?

They made no such claims. Again, they explicitly stated that the UK could adopt a South Korea-type approach.

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Therefore, he would answer "I didn't want to consider that test kits would be widely available in three weeks, or forecast how that might dramatically reduce the need for strong government suppressive controls"

They talked about 18 months because that's how long it might take to develop a vaccine. They also considered scenarios such as four separate rounds of suppression.

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Hence he would have answered: We weren't sure if 18 months of "strong controls" was required vs less amounts of time".

No. They did not say it on the 16th, and he did not say it this week.

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In other words, we don't know what he is now saying in his testimony to the parliamentary committee? Which is why I'd like to know if his timeline has changed.

Ferguson isn't the editor for the Daily Express or Fox News. He also got sick 2 days after the first report came out.

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My complaint has been the reports use and misuse via public messaging - of which his group has been an enabler.

Dude, seriously. Just... stop.

You didn't read the paper. You obviously don't understand or even know its methods, conclusions and functions. You utterly fail to understand that the people telling you that this constitutes a massive change are LYING TO YOU, and distorting what the paper was saying and Ferguson's testimony.

That's why he is saying... in his Tweets... that there was no substantial revision, and that in fact the latest data shows higher mortality as COVID-19 has a higher R0 than they believed when they wrote the 3/16 report.

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The question is NOT if his paper had loopholes, exceptions, or ambiguities. The dispute is over the messaging, how that paper was constructed and used to deliver a draconian message and unrealistic binary choices to promote a specific action. Moreover, so far I don't see those "strong controls" actually implemented as other than a request to the public.