No longer following the science

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 Yanis Nayu 30 May 2020
In reply to Offwidth:

I guess that’s the problem - the science isn’t absolute, it doesn’t give the answers all by itself and in the real world there are competing priorities to consider and weigh up before making a decisions. It’s a bullshit slogan. “Informed by science” makes more sense. 

 dan gibson 30 May 2020
In reply to Offwidth:

Johnson seems dead set on sticking to his timetable, unfortunately it’s the virus that sets the timetable in reality.

Cue a rise in cases.

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 kaiser 30 May 2020
In reply to Offwidth:

There are about 30 SAGE-ers so a couple of them stepping out of line isn't too surprising,

I think I'd be more worried if they all agreed with each other all the time.  Nothing worse than group-think

1
 BnB 30 May 2020
In reply to Offwidth:

The article itself is well balanced and doesn’t assert the narrow implication in your title that the government is at fault.

As the scientist in question says: ‘It was for ministers to decide what to do, he said. That impact on health had to be set against the wider impact of the lockdown on society and the economy. “That’s clearly a political decision. It’s not a scientific decision,” he said.’

There is nothing in the scientist’s wider observations that I disagree with, but it is reasonable to infer that the comments are more a matter of blame-shifting than they are about policy.

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 Baron Weasel 30 May 2020
In reply to Offwidth:

They ARE following the science!

Unfortunately, it's the science of eugenics  

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OP Offwidth 30 May 2020
In reply to BnB:

Ministers point out that there are 30 but a lot of those will be modelling and behavioural scientists. One is Dom and one is his pet post doc. 4 of them have now raised concerns about the epidemiology... seems like big issue to me.

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baron 30 May 2020
In reply to Offwidth:

> Ministers point out that there are 30 but a lot of those will be modelling and behavioural scientists. One is Dom and one is his pet post doc. 4 of them have now raised concerns about the epidemiology... seems like big issue to me.

The Guardian reports more than 50 scientists sit on SAGE.

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 Andy Hardy 30 May 2020
In reply to Baron Weasel:

Not sure eugenics is an actual science, but I get your point

 AllanMac 30 May 2020
In reply to Offwidth:

Interesting that there's the 'science' that bolsters political ideology, and then there's medical science that seeks to save human lives.

 DancingOnRock 30 May 2020
In reply to AllanMac:

Science isn’t exact is it? 
 

50 people with 50 different opinions. 
 

Personally, I’d be inclined to listen to the behavioural psychologists. 

8
OP Offwidth 30 May 2020
In reply to baron:

I'm guessing it's independent scientists capable of expressing a different view in public. Senior government advisors and here of public bodies would need to resign if they disagreed in public.

David S is on the list and on R4 this am and said he wasn't involved with decisions. He one of my fave Profs... an expert on risk.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/scientific-advisory-group-for-em...

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OP Offwidth 30 May 2020
In reply to DancingOnRock:

If you said thee is no single science I could agree. It's simply not 50 different opinions. Behavioural psychologists are not the best experts on SAGE to ask about epidemiology. They might be useful in explaining why what Dom did was so dangerous for the UK.

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 AllanMac 31 May 2020
In reply to DancingOnRock:

The raison d'être of scientific research is to be as exact as the available evidence will allow.

It is the interpretation of science that may not be - depending on who wants to manipulate those findings, and to what end. That's the point at which opinion renders the science to be imprecise.

 DancingOnRock 31 May 2020
In reply to Offwidth:

The behavioural scientists were quite surprised at the level of compliance of the general public. The lockdown levels were based on the population all behaving like Dominic Cummings. Hence why we are seeing a rapid raising of the level with some scientists believing this is the wrong thing to do and other beliving it will do no harm. 
 

My own belief is that IF there are only 100,000 people currently with the virus, the vast majority of them will be self-isolating, and the vast majority of the general public are keeping 2m apart and washing heir hands, the likelihood of it spreading is low and R will stay low. 
 

The peak happened as predicted 3 weeks after lockdown and fairly rapidly reduced. Before lockdown no one I know was practicing social distancing. 

Remember, this has never been done before. We are all part of a massive experiment. None of the scientists know what will happen and it’s all opinion based on what they think they’re seeing. 
 

Post edited at 10:10
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 DancingOnRock 31 May 2020
In reply to AllanMac:

Exactly. 

 Ian Milward 31 May 2020
In reply to Offwidth:

Not sure if anyone on here has foreseen this already but if there is a second wave of infections we'll be referring to the peaks FFS

 DancingOnRock 31 May 2020
In reply to Ian Milward:

It all depends if they can get this app working and what policies they put in place to incentivise people to stay at home with only mild infection. There is stigma already attached to anyone who coughs or sneezes in public but can’t see that lasting much longer through hayfever season. 
 

If people can get tested within 24hours then the track and test part for contacts of the infected person will be quick and the isolate period could be 1-2 days. 

Post edited at 10:30
OP Offwidth 31 May 2020
In reply to DancingOnRock:

You keep believing such tosh. Pretty much everything you say after the first sentence is provably wrong or unproven and likely wrong.

The population were not all expected to behave like Dom. Hence your hence has no logic. The reports from epidemiologists is that the majority are really worried. I've not seen a single independent expert in the area indicating the latest relaxations are a good move and 4 experts from SAGE have felt it important enough to risk undermining public confidence in the government public health message. Yes they admit it's a balance of risk but other countries got strong support from most of their epidemiologists, not hedging in a position where not undermining public confidence is important. The government set out clear rules for easing and then ignored them.

Your belief in the people is touching. If they were that sensible deaths would be much much lower. Why would most people self isolate if they have no idea they have it? Polls indicate behaviour is otherwise and levels of infections and R show that self isolating isn't working as well as you postulate.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2237475-covid-19-news-one-in-seven-peo...

Information on R is a couple of weeks old and our government exceptionalism means we are easing with by far the highest infection level and value of  R ( 0.7 to 1.0) of any country in Europe. If you go out into parks large numbers of people (especially teenagers) haven't been social distancing for some time.

Pretty much all the government predictions on numbers ended up being wrong, mainly as they were relying too much on unproven modelling. Most western countries trusted WHO and locked down harder and faster and fared much better.

It has been done before. Pandemics are not new. Cygnus happened and was largely ignored and the results buried. The most important WHO information from China on infection, mortality etc is all holding up. We were hit 2 weeks after the most affected countries in Europe and not only failed to use that extra notice, we ended up worse off. Wintertree has been linking good predictions from well before lockdown.

This is not all the government's fault. SAGE got lockdown timing wrong, not because 'the science' was wrong but because the most important science for that (the informed caution of epidemiologists and those who have dealt with past virus outbreaks) was too diluted.

Post edited at 11:09
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 DancingOnRock 31 May 2020
In reply to Offwidth:

>The population were not all expected to behave like Dom. Hence your hence has no logic. The reports from epidemiologists is that the majority are really worried.

They may well be. But I’m not wrong. There are more than epidemiologists on the SAGE panel. 
 

I’m only wrong because you are cherry picking which scientists to agree with. The behaviour modellers were very surprised at the levels of compliance to the lockdown. 

Post edited at 11:08
OP Offwidth 31 May 2020
In reply to DancingOnRock:

I agree the behavioural scientists on SAGE were a little surprised but that didn't mean they expected everyone to be like Dom ...they just expected more Doms. Their error in this  indicates, if anything, that they were maybe not quite as good at their job as they should have been. It's a very difficult subject though.... moving from known behaviours to mass prediction. Unchecked virus behaviour is much more predictable.

Yes I'm absolutely cherry picking the large number of epidemiologists and virus medical experts who turned out to be right, like those from the wintertree links.  They said from the start that they were concerned that the UK were not following WHO advice and were relying too much on models and some said explicitly that models built on a flu basis were a bad idea. Even early predictions didn't match the real data.  I've lost track how many times wintertree and I complained here, when the CMO and CSA said we were 4 weeks behind Italy but the data consistently said 2. There will be a reckoning for this in the inevitable inquiry. This is not the fault of the modellers, they were doing their best, it's the fault of the high emphasis on modelling in SAGE. We will be a future exemplar of how not to put together such a committee in studies of pandemic response.

Post edited at 11:35
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 DancingOnRock 31 May 2020
In reply to Offwidth:

You’re now going back over old tired ground. 
 

The point is: People in general are behaving well, the app should be ready by June, easing of lockdown isn’t the major issue that everyone is worried about because in general people will continue to behave well. Especially if we start to see a rise in infections. 
 

Peaks and troughs will naturally happen. We are now down to ‘normal’ levels of weekly deaths. I do know (anecdotally from friends working within the NHS) that many people are now dying ‘with COVID’ rather than ‘of COVID’. So the figures we have of 200-300 deaths a day are not really representative of what is going on. 

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 Billhook 31 May 2020
In reply to Offwidth

None of these so called experts  had ever had any experience of a Covid-19 flu outbreak before.  Indeed a number of these experts had no experience of handling mass epidemics either, unless you count one outbreak of Foot and Mouth in cattle - and his response was cull another 6,000,000 cattle to make an invisible barrier over which foot and mouth wouldn't spread. 

Science and what is proven to be right last  year is often is proven to be wrong by another outbreak of science next year.  You know the stuff.  this is bad for you then next year its good for you and so on and so on.  Science isn't infallible or perfect  and neither are experts.  These are often people who have absolutely no practical ability at all.

So it comes as no surprise to me that you can find any amount of opposite opinion when it comes to getting scientists or other 'experts'  to disagree with what another one said.

And because the main object of politicians is to get voted in again and keep their own party in power, it should come as no surprise that politicians will take what ever advice they can from which ever scientist gives the best advice to enable a balance between 'cure' and being voted in again.

OP Offwidth 31 May 2020
In reply to Billhook:

I think you make some good points but misuse them to be far too cynical about the scientists. The level of disagreement is usually nothing like what you indicate, certainly not on the science of pandemics. SAGE just had too few of the experts they really needed. The UK approach (and that of Sweden) was criticized by most who had expertise in handling outbreaks from the start.

There are many famous examples of the scientific establishment rejecting good new ideas, showing scientific politics and human behaviour do influence scientific progress, especially where scientific paradigms shift. However, I think the UK SAGE problem is likely more about a different sort of political conservatism at the highest levels. Science is fundamentally about constantly checking ideas against experimental data. Our CSA and CMO failed in that basic task with their comparisons to Italy, possibly because as in being employed government scientific leaders they are as much establishment politicians as scientists. When experts are denigrated by our political leaders scientific leaders will by nature be cautious in criticizing government. However, I still think SAGE was set up incorrectly despite genuine good intentions. In such circumstances having Cummings on SAGE was another clear fault-line.

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In reply to DancingOnRock:

> Science isn’t exact is it? 

> 50 people with 50 different opinions. 

> Personally, I’d be inclined to listen to the behavioural psychologists. 

Here's the opinion of a prominent behaviourial psychologist who advises SAGE. The government has "trashed" their scientific advice.

https://skwawkbox.org/2020/05/30/video-sage-members-break-ranks-to-expose-d... 

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baron 31 May 2020
In reply to cumbria mammoth:

Skwawkbox, run by who?
Doesn’t mean it’s content isn’t true but might indicate a bias that’s not obvious to the casual browser.

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In reply to baron:

Independently run by a Labour party member.

Bias certainly, and I think that is very obvious (in contrast to the often hidden biases of the major news titles).

You can be more assured about the truthfulness of the content than you can with the major news sources as it is regulated to be compliant with the Leveson inquiry whereas the major news titles are not.

You can find this story elsewhere if you want to check.

(Edit to point out that all news sources contain bias.)

Post edited at 14:07
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baron 31 May 2020
In reply to cumbria 

> (Edit to point out that all news sources contain bias.)

They certainly do.

 DancingOnRock 31 May 2020
In reply to cumbria mammoth:

Indeed.

Whether Johnson agrees or disagrees is neither here nor there. We do have some kind of test, track and trace in place. And I think he made a comment the other day to the effect that he ‘has been forbidden to announce any more dates without the scientist’s approval’.

It doesn’t change the science does it? 

OP Offwidth 01 Jun 2020
In reply to DancingOnRock:

Arguably the UK's leading Health management commentator's view.

Managing a crisis...

News and Comment from Roy Lilley

When Switzerland was looking like everyone's idea of a picture postcard, some big brain boxes met there, to discuss a Corona-Virus outbreak.There are lots of  CV's, the common cold is a derivative, as is the flu.  The concern was a novel virus.  Something no one has seen.  They urged governments to get ready. The rest, as they say, is 'whatever'...

The world remained stubbornly unprepared.  The Far East, who dealt with a SARs outbreak, were readier than most.  As for the rest, the numbers speak for themselves.

LastFriday, the deaths looked like this; Spain 2, Italy 87, Germany 24, France 52, Turkey 28, Belgium 42, Sweden 84, Portugal 14, Ireland 6, Poland 13, Romania 13, Hungary 8, and the Netherlands 28. It's quite a range and might be accounted for by the fact that not every outbreak occurred at the same time.  Some nation's counting systems are, shall we say... less sophisticated.  Not all healthcare systems are the same. There is a mix of the state, federal, public-private partnerships, insurance. Let's not forget; density of populations, differences in reporting deaths and the issue of death certificates.  There's no international spreadsheet for this.

Last Friday, the number of deaths here, were 324.  I know the question that's on your lips and the answers is... dunno... We are doing something really wrong, the others are doing something really right?  Or, there is no basis of comparison . We won't know because HMG's press pantomime no longer uses the international comparisons slide.  Like they are the only one with the internet and know how to work Google.

Are we not as good, as other countries, at the clinical management of Covid patients?  Dunno?  I shouldn't think so.  Doc's aren't stupid, they have WhatsApp groups, telephone and talk to each other.  They collaborate and learn from each other, globally.

Are our hosptials ill-equipped?  We seem to have a surfeit of ventilators.  Dialysis machines were in short supply but I didn't hear it reached critical.  Our hospitals over-run?  Apparently not.  The Nightingale Hospitals are looking like a medial-equipment showroom.

However you want to explain it, there is a big difference between our 324 and the countries, who collectively had an average of about 30 deaths, on the same day.

Science can only guess at where we are.  Clinicians can tell us who and how many souls they've released, gently into the after life.  Beyond that, there isn't much certainty.  We have to rely on experience, common-sense and stuff we know for sure.

For sure, we know we came late to the Covid-party.  BoJo was clowning around in hosptials, shaking hands and making a fist of washing his hands on the six-o'clock news.  He announced we would 'send the virus packing, in twelve weeks...' like it was an unwelcome chugger in the high street.

It looks inept, riddled with contradictions, science undermined and used to camouflage the misdeeds of BoJo's mate.... when all he had to do was to say, he tried to do the right thing, messed up and he is sorry.

Now our security hangs by the thread of a policy that is nowhere near stitched in.  Right now, track and tracing is about as scientific as an easter-egg hunt, at Christmas.  It needs more time.  It absolutely must work.

Three eminent scientists cutting loose from SAGE, all saying, we aren't ready to unlock, is not a coincidence.  It's a concerted act by scientists who's colleagues, in the public eye, can only talk in code, like Patrick Vallance with his, last Thursday, lecture on caution. Leaders must be prepared to discuss what they don't know.  By pretending to know they risk all our futures. Crisis management is approached in five steps;  Prevention... anticipation... clear objectives... a dedicated team... communication...... we're too late for prevention, we've missed the bus, I can't anticipate the end of this journey, the science-team are at odds with the conductor and communication and messaging is muddled and confusing.

Prof VanTam at the Saturday-5pm, said there were about 8,000 new Covid infections a day.  He didn't know where they were coming from.  Looks like he needs some infection detectives. If that's his best take, I know where I'm going to ... the safest place, behind my front-door.

What should have been a doable exercise in crisis management, is turning into managing a crisis.

Post edited at 11:13
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 neilh 01 Jun 2020
In reply to Offwidth:

You miss a weakness in the scientific advice which is the economics part of the equation.

The damage to the economy is I would suggest far outstripping the public health crises.The govt has also to fit this into the picture, something SAGE/ science  does not have to do.

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 Rob Exile Ward 01 Jun 2020
In reply to neilh:

I get the distinct impression we are currently getting the worst of both worlds, we spending money like water but the number of new infections and excess deaths tells its own story.

 neilh 01 Jun 2020
In reply to Rob Exile Ward:

Jury is still out for me. It is messy ,but speaking to those in other countrys hardly inspries confidence with anybody in their own country's abilities.

OP Offwidth 01 Jun 2020
In reply to neilh:

You keep telling yourself that Neil. I even hope it turns out that I'm wrong and you are right. However, I expect the virus will take off again soon and a new lockdown (or series of local localised ones) will be needed with even more economic damage than if we just waited another couple of weeks. Irrespective, the government said they were following the science.... that's where this thread started. They only needed to be honest and say they were informed by the science  but had to take into account other factors.

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 neilh 01 Jun 2020
In reply to Offwidth:

I suspect that on some issues you will be right/sometimes wrong  and on others I will be right/sometimes wrong, Usually the way.Still interesting discussing it.

baron 01 Jun 2020
In reply to Offwidth:

> You keep telling yourself that Neil. I even hope it turns out that I'm wrong and you are right. However, I expect the virus will take off again soon and a new lockdown (or series of local localised ones) will be needed with even more economic damage than if we just waited another couple of weeks. Irrespective, the government said they were following the science.... that's where this thread started. They only needed to be honest and say they were informed by the science  but had to take into account other factors.

The government scientists have said all along that the only completely safe way is for everyone to stay at home.

Surely anyone could see that there was no way that the country could exist that way and therefore from the beginning it was obvious that the government has had to balance scientific evidence against social and economic factors. Did anyone believe otherwise?

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OP Offwidth 01 Jun 2020
In reply to baron:

So why not say it? Sweden do. The most logical reason is that the government have realised long ago they have messed up and are setting up others to take the blame.

Post edited at 14:00
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baron 01 Jun 2020
In reply to Offwidth:

> So why not say it? Sweden do. The most logical reason is that the government have realised long ago they have messed up and are setting up others to take the blame.

I think that it’s one of those things that’s so obvious that why would it need to be said?

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OP Offwidth 01 Jun 2020
In reply to baron:

Maybe because in several interviews ministers were asked that and they answered we are following the science. The latest  being Raab on Marr's show yesterday.

1
baron 01 Jun 2020
In reply to Offwidth:

> Maybe because in several interviews ministers were asked that and they answered we are following the science. The latest  being Raab on Marr's show yesterday.

So was he outright lying?

Or lying by omission?

And why?

Are people really going to be upset if they suddenly discover that there are other factors at play besides epidemiology?

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 Red Rover 01 Jun 2020
In reply to Offwidth:

>There are lots of  CV's, the common cold is a derivative, as is the flu.  T

This is untrue though. Influenza viruses aren't related to coronaviruses at all. I don't know what they mean by 'derivative' either. Some common cold viruses aren't 'derivatives' of a coronavirus they are coronaviruses. And all influenza viruses have nothing to do with coronaviruses, it's a common misconception that they must be related as their symptoms are similar. 

 jkarran 01 Jun 2020
In reply to baron:

> Surely anyone could see that there was no way that the country could exist that way and therefore from the beginning it was obvious that the government has had to balance scientific evidence against social and economic factors. Did anyone believe otherwise?

Yes and that's the same everywhere, reduce the prevelence then restrict the spread as inobtrusively as possible so they can go back to near normal economic conditions.

Problem is we started restricting growth too late so we have a big problem. 

We were soft and muddled on restricting growth so we still have a big problem. 

Now we're allowing the problem to grow because populism. 

None of this restores the confidence and widespread freedom to associate safely economic recovery hinges on. This is bungled at every step. The question now preocupying government is who gets blamed.

Jk

1
baron 01 Jun 2020
In reply to jkarran:

The vast majority of the population could go out today and resume their normal lives.

The effects of Covid on most but not all of them will be negligible.

The government could have locked down only the most vulnerable and allowed most of society to carry on.

They didn’t do that instead choosing a much more encompassing lockdown and they are now struggling to find a way out of it.

Take schools for example -

most children could return to school today and the effect on them would be negligible.

The effect on most of their families would be negligible.

The effect on many of their teachers would be negligible.

But instead we have a huge debate about whether or not it’s ‘safe’.

We’ll never get back to anything resembling normal unless people stop looking backwards on the government’s mistakes and concentrate on what needs to be done now.

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 Red Rover 01 Jun 2020
In reply to baron:

Citation needed (times 8)

We've had 30 k to 60 k deaths from Covid-19 with only 7 percent infected. We need to be really careful! https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-52837593

Post edited at 14:44
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OP Offwidth 01 Jun 2020
In reply to Red Rover:

I know... I will forgive him as he is a management expert.

1
 wintertree 01 Jun 2020
In reply to baron:

> The effects of Covid on most but not all of them will be negligible.

Well, most of them won’t die.  

The experiences of some of my colleagues or their partners is quite a few have an awful period of suffering and are largely incapacitated with massive consequences for work and childcare.  

1
baron 01 Jun 2020
In reply to Red Rover:

> Citation needed (times 8)

> We've had 30 k to 60 k deaths from Covid-19 with only 7 percent infected. We need to be really careful! https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-52837593

I agree that we need to be careful but the figures would suggest that most of society is enduring a deal of hardship to protect a small percentage of the population when it might be better to apply the lockdown only to the most vulnerable.

5
 Red Rover 01 Jun 2020
In reply to wintertree:

Precisely. We can be too black and white in how we think about this (dead or not dead). We need to think about total morbidity from the virus not just total mortality (which is already shockingly high for something which has only infected  only 7 % of the population).

We have no idea of the long-term effects of this virus. Given that it seems to cause a surprisingly wide range of symptoms it seems like it can affect many different organs although I'll be out of my depth if I go much further with this. Just seems like it could have some after-effects that we won't know about for a while. Even if the virus is unlikely to kill me I don't want to play RNA roulette. I know we do this all the time with the trillions of viruses already in us but this one is an obviously pathogenic game of roulette. 

1
baron 01 Jun 2020
In reply to wintertree:

> > The effects of Covid on most but not all of them will be negligible.

> Well, most of them won’t die.  

> The experiences of some of my colleagues or their partners is quite a few have an awful period of suffering and are largely incapacitated with massive consequences for work and childcare.  

I did say most.

Some will die, no matter what their age, and some will suffer long term consequences but according to the science most will not.

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OP Offwidth 01 Jun 2020
In reply to baron:

I guess at least you have been honest about what your views are with that list. It's dangerous nonsense of course. There will probably be no normal lives until we have a vaccine. Every country has needed a public health message on social distancing and all countries hit hard needed lockdowns. With no coordinated response C19 had the capacity to kill 1% of humanity directly and probably more indirectly (given the wreckage of health systems that would be left behind in overwhelmed countries). That's optimistically assuming no mass panic or social breakdown due to the fear of watching it ravage the world.

Post edited at 15:02
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 john arran 01 Jun 2020
In reply to baron:

> I did say most.

> Some will die, no matter what their age, and some will suffer long term consequences but according to the science most will not.

Well given that it's only a minority of people who will either die or suffer serious and maybe long-term health problems, it's hard to find fault with your plan.

</sarcasm>

1
baron 01 Jun 2020
In reply to Offwidth:

How is it dangerous nonsense?
I’ve literally just be listening to some person from Kings College describing how the available evidence is pointing to most children not being severely affected by Covid and that there is a reduced risk of children passing on the virus.

Maybe he doesn’t know what he’s talking about but he certainly knows far more than I do.

 wintertree 01 Jun 2020
In reply to baron:

> Some will die, no matter what their age, and some will suffer long term consequences but according to the science most will not.

Science can tell us about long term consequences?  As far as I know science hasn’t yet invented a time machine.  You seem to be doing little more than parroting a few phrases without thinking about what you’re saying.  You also ignored my comment that lots will suffer a really quite debilitating infection in the short term.

Post edited at 15:09
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baron 01 Jun 2020
In reply to john arran:

> Well given that it's only a minority of people who will either die or suffer serious and maybe long-term health problems, it's hard to find fault with your plan.

>

It’s not my plan it’s more a statement of facts based on the science available at the time.

I’m not advocating a free for all but a balance between perceived and actual risk and the effects on people’s physical, social, economic and psychological well-being.

baron 01 Jun 2020
In reply to wintertree:

> > Some will die, no matter what their age, and some will suffer long term consequences but according to the science most will not.

> Science can tell us about long term consequences?  As far as I know science hasn’t yet invented a time machine.  You seem to be doing little more than parroting a few phrases without think about what you’re saying.  You also ignored my comment that lots will suffer a really quite debilitating infection in the short term.

Why do you need to resort to insults.

I might hold a different view than you but why does that mean I’m just parroting a few phrases and not thinking what I’m saying.

I haven’t heard about lots of people suffering debilitating infections - whatever lots means - but I have heard the government scientists repeatedly say that most people will have only mild or no symptoms.
I did see a news report about two people who were so severely affected that they couldn’t function normally weeks after becoming ill with Covid.

I thought it was interesting until the report finished by saying that neither of the patients had been tested for Covid which to me cast some doubt on the link between their symptoms and Covid.

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 wintertree 01 Jun 2020
In reply to baron:

> Why do you need to resort to insults.

I am not resulting to insults.   I am trying to understand where you are coming from with some of the content in your post...

> I might hold a different view than you but why does that mean I’m just parroting a few phrases and not thinking what I’m saying.

Then what is your basis for saying "some will suffer long term consequences but according to the science most will not" - honestly, I would love to see the science you are referring to - please do share it with us.  If you don't actually have a basis in science for this, perhaps you shouldn't be saying it.  Medical science doesn't currently understand many of the immediate effects of the virus very well.

> I haven’t heard about lots of people suffering debilitating infections - whatever lots means 

You haven't heard of around one hundreds thousand people being admitted to hospital in the last 8 weeks?  Perhaps I am unusual in having multiple colleagues suffer through awful infections at home when in other circumstances they may well have been admitted to hospital.  I could be an outlier here. 

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 john arran 01 Jun 2020
In reply to baron:

> I did see a news report about two people who were so severely affected that they couldn’t function normally weeks after becoming ill with Covid.

> I thought it was interesting until the report finished by saying that neither of the patients had been tested for Covid which to me cast some doubt on the link between their symptoms and Covid.

Your first reaction may well have been to doubt those people had covid-19. Mine would be to gasp in exasperation as to why the fcuk there wasn't/isn't a testing programme in place to make bloody sure such people were/are tested.

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baron 01 Jun 2020
In reply to wintertree:

Perhaps I should stop listening to the government scientists who I listen to every day and who seem to think that for the vast majority of people the infection will have mild or no symptoms. Notice that is the vast majority, not all, and even a small minority of our population is a large number of people hence the awful death toll. While we cannot predict the future it’s difficult to see how mild or no symptoms could result in long term damage.

If you want to resort to anecdotal evidence in the form of your colleagues experience then I don’t know anyone who has knowingly had the virus let alone been ill with it. 

2
 wintertree 01 Jun 2020
In reply to baron:

> Perhaps I should stop listening to the government scientists who I listen to every day and who seem to think that for the vast majority of people the infection will have mild or no symptoms. [...] While we cannot predict the future it’s difficult to see how mild or no symptoms could result in long term damage.

So in other words you made it up when you said "some will suffer long term consequences but according to the science most will not" - you took a comment from scientists about A (strength of symptoms now) and then made up a link to B (long term damage).  

As far as I am aware no credible scientist has said what you said.   

Various viruses that cause very mild infections at the time can live on hidden away in a subset of the body's tissues to emerge decades later causing worse symptoms.  Without a time machine we just don't know.  It may be unlikely but "the science" does not yet know - we don't even fully understand what the virus does in the short term.  There is also an immune over-response involved for some which is quite the wild card in terms of future consequences. 

2
 Red Rover 01 Jun 2020
In reply to baron:

Just bear in mind that 'mild' means that you don't need to go to hospital because you won't die. Doesn't mean you won't have a really bad time. And no, we can't assume that mild cases won't have long term health effects. I caught a 'mild' case of swine-flu in 09 and I was in bed for a week, halucinating most nights. The night it struck me my mum found me collapsed in the hall in a pool of sweat and had to drag to bed (I don't remember any of that). It took me months to recover to the point where I could walk up a hill in the Peak and that was a mild case! 

So don't just make the leap that 80 % mild= 80 % no problem. And when you said that mild cases won't have long term health effects, you just made that up! We simply don't know right now. 

Post edited at 15:47
1
 Dave Garnett 01 Jun 2020
In reply to wintertree:

> It may be unlikely but "the science" does not yet know - we don't even fully understand what the virus does in the short term.  There is also an immune over-response involved for some which is quite the wild card in terms of future consequences. 

Maybe things have changed, but when I was in the lab nobody talked about what 'the science' said, except, perhaps ironically and humorously. 

What we used to say were things like 'What do the data suggest?', 'Does your model fit with the data you are getting?', 'Will your experiment really answer the question you are asking?, 'Is this reproducible?' and, all too often, 'Where are your f*cking controls?'  

Post edited at 16:09
 wintertree 01 Jun 2020
In reply to Dave Garnett:

> What we used to say were things like 'What do the data suggest?', 'Does your model fit with the data you are getting?', 'Will your experiment really answer the question you are asking?, 'Is this reproducible?' and, all too often, 'Where are your f*cking controls’

What kind of voodoo outfit were you?  If it helps please imagine a condescending tone implied by my use of speechmarks on “the science”...  It is a key point that this comes down to what the data suggests, and as I said before with this many unknowns and without a time machine, it suggests very little about long term consequences as there isn’t much data to suggest anything.

I fear now too many people are talking about what “the model” says without asking questions like “are there more implicit and explicit degrees of freedom in your model than data points to which you are fitting it?”...

Post edited at 16:16
 Dave Garnett 01 Jun 2020
In reply to wintertree:

My favourite thing to be able to say in concluding a presentation was 'both necessary and sufficient'.

And I'm not getting at you at all.  It's the rather pathetic way the politicians are lining up to blame 'the science' that bothers me.  What the 'the science' says will be very specific and conditional on all the bits they weren't listening to immediately before the soundbite they need.  

   

Post edited at 16:24
 Yanis Nayu 01 Jun 2020
In reply to Dave Garnett:

In addition “the science” will be incomplete, open to interpretation and sometimes plain wrong. 

In reply to DancingOnRock:

> Remember, this has never been done before. We are all part of a massive experiment. None of the scientists know what will happen and it’s all opinion based on what they think they’re seeing. 

Lockdowns have been used to control epidemic disease for thousands of years.  What is happening now is depressingly close to what happened in the 1918/19 flu pandemic and because of more limited inter city travel and different policies in different US cities there's actually comparative data of which policies worked best.  TLDR: lock down faster and stay locked down longer means less deaths.

There is a lack of data, mostly due to inadequate testing but the way you deal with lack of data is to be more cautious and if you are in the middle of an experiment you change one variable at a time so you can see the effect.   The policy was working quite well, we were a few weeks away from having low infection rates and a test/track/isolate service that was fully functional.  For some reason they've decided to take a massive gamble when it isn't necessary.

1
In reply to baron:

> The government scientists have said all along that the only completely safe way is for everyone to stay at home.

Enough of this nonsense.  China went through this and is open again.   F*ck the UK government's scientists look at the rest of the world and specifically the WHO and countries which have handled it successfully.

There is zero mystery about what they have done.  All we need to do is copy them, until this nonsense exploded in the right wing press we were on that path.  The graph of deaths and infections were moving down predictably and would have got into the region where other countries managed to open up successfully with a little bit of patience.   If we wanted to get out of lockdown faster we should have been stricter on isolation of patients and people like medical staff who are highly likely to get infected (like the Chinese did) in order to reduce R and get to very low infection rates more quickly.

The press have an agenda with their agitation to lift lockdown.  They are losing money due to advertisers cutting back and people not buying paper newspapers and their wealthy owners are worried about preserving their wealth if government prints too much money or has a wealth tax to fund lock down.

Post edited at 18:27
1
In reply to baron:

> The effects of Covid on most but not all of them will be negligible.

Unless they died.

Or a family member or personal friend died.

Or they survived but with life changing long term health consequences.

2
baron 01 Jun 2020
In reply to wintertree:

You are correct.

I made it up when I wrote that  the science said that there would be no long term effects.

 wintertree 01 Jun 2020
In reply to tom_in_edinburgh:

> For some reason they've decided to take a massive gamble when it isn't necessary.

Today’s death count appears to be the highest since May 12th.  I don’t know what the context is but taken with the sharply rising hospital admissions for London in last Thursday’s surveillance report I think we’ll be seeing the first regional lockdown soon.  Perhaps they  are waiting for the rioting weather to pass.

Edit: That’s the count on worldometer but it doesn’t agree with their UK government link’s daily death toll, perhaps there’s been a historical revision to the death count?  

Post edited at 19:19
1
 mondite 01 Jun 2020
In reply to wintertree:

> I think we’ll be seeing the first regional lockdown soon.  

I hope they will be locking down Durham at the same time to prevent the region emptying and Durham filling.

> Perhaps they  are waiting for the rioting weather to pass.

checks forecast. Not looking particularly good for that.

 Red Rover 01 Jun 2020
In reply to wintertree:

Where are you getting today's figures from? The DoHSC haven't published today's yet (it's supposed to be 2pm but it's usually around 6 to 7 pm).

 wintertree 01 Jun 2020
In reply to Red Rover:

The government dashboard here gives today's total deaths as 39,045

 https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/#category=nations&map=rateYesterday's number as still given here is 38,489

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/coronavirus-covid-19-information-for-the-public

This gives an increase of 556.  However the first link gives 111 as the number of new deaths.  So, something amiss. Hopefully the second link will get updated at some point and will explain the discrepancy.  Amazing how the 2 pm release of updated figures is happening ever later and later.  

 Red Rover 01 Jun 2020
In reply to wintertree:

They have added on some deaths which were missed over the last month. We haven't had 556 today it's just backdating to catch up (although the true figure would seem to be around 60 k).

 jkarran 01 Jun 2020
In reply to baron:

We can't protect the vulnerable if the virus is rife:

We don't really know who they are so lots, probably several thousand will be dying daily at peak. We'd probably be looking at 200k+ dead before Christmas. 

Society won't function like that so through fear and through care for others we'll stop working effectively, supply chains will collapse, without government support (tied to their restrictions) unemployment and debt defaults soar destabilising us. The economic mess could well be far worse than now. 

Those we do know are likely vulnerable don't live in bubbles, at the most superficial level they need food, medicine and primary care. Many need much much more care and carers have life in the outside world. If the virus is everywhere it inevitably gets to those who won't survive it. 

The NHS won't bear it so we either treat covid outside the NHS hospitals with unknown results or we accept a surge in otherwise preventable death and an unbearable load on a finite precious resource in its staff.

It's suicide for a democratically elected government.

Jk

Post edited at 21:25
 Rob Exile Ward 01 Jun 2020
In reply to jkarran:

'We don't really know who they are.' You're going to have to help me here because my understanding is that we really do. The risk factors for dying (as opposed to being infected) are pretty well defined - age, then diabetes, then obesity, then respiratory problems, then other auto-immune issues like MS and arthritis.

There is enough international data to model this quite precisely. Lockdown is beginning to fall apart, for some good reasons - people are beginning to work out that it doesn't seem to be working, e.g. we're not doing much better than Sweden - and some less good - people are also beginning to work out that they are unlikely to catch the disease and if they do, it won't incapacitate or kill them. Whatever, the genie is out of the bottle and won't be put back. And, incidentally, people aren't so stupid as to not see inconsistencies - why does every one of the 4 countries of the UK have different policies? What's so special about a 'household' or '5 miles travel' on any of the other arbitrary limits? And, if you are going to ease lockdown, and therefore accept an increased risk of infection, why on earth encourage shielded groups to  come out at the same time without making some special provision?

Track and trace may have some effect at the margins - I have my doubts, especially if we don't pay people for self isolating. We now need to really focus on those at risk groups - care homes, over 80s, diabetics etc etc and really bring resources to bear - open hotels, provide daily/weekly supervision, put care plans together for every at risk individual - to keep the numbers down. Maybe even to less than 100,000. 

1
 kipper12 01 Jun 2020
In reply to baron:

Of course there other factors in play, it would be odd for there not to be.  That’s what the politicos get paid for doing.  The scientists give advice, and the government brings other factors into play.  The same is true of lots of stuff, look at the differing drink driving limits or advice on healthy eating.  All are science based,  but have a political topping

 Toerag 01 Jun 2020
In reply to Rob Exile Ward:

> 'We don't really know who they are.' You're going to have to help me here because my understanding is that we really do. The risk factors for dying (as opposed to being infected) are pretty well defined - age, then diabetes, then obesity, then respiratory problems, then other auto-immune issues like MS and arthritis.

You'd have to shield much of the working adult population if those are the people you need to protect - Britain is the fat, unhealthy man of Europe. From the NHS website:- "The majority of adults in England in 2017 were overweight or obese (64%).  Obesity prevalence increased steeply between 1993 and around 2000, with a slower rate of increase after that. In 2017, the proportion of adults who were obese was 29%, higher than in recent years."

> There is enough international data to model this quite precisely. Lockdown is beginning to fall apart, for some good reasons - people are beginning to work out that it doesn't seem to be working

Nah, people are seeing other countries unlocking and thinking that the UK can, forgetting that other countries got their cases down much better than the UK did.  People are saying that places are open for travel now when they're actually 2 weeks away from opening.

 bruxist 01 Jun 2020
In reply to Red Rover:

Where did you get "over the last month" from? The 'annex: statistical notes' slide during the daily presser was very specific: the 445 extra deaths Matt Hancock didn't mention are from the last week, "from the period 24 April - 31 May". They would by previous practise have been included in today's total; instead they're now in a footnote on a slide.

OP Offwidth 02 Jun 2020
In reply to wintertree:

They changed the reporting protocol as of yesterday. Look better now doesn't it.

1
 Red Rover 02 Jun 2020
In reply to bruxist:

I got it from skim-reading too quickly sorry!

 neilh 02 Jun 2020
In reply to Rob Exile Ward:

I reckon that is about the best post I have seen on this subject. It also draws on what other countrys are starting to look at.

 Cobra_Head 02 Jun 2020
In reply to Rob Exile Ward:

> and some less good - people are also beginning to work out that they are unlikely to catch the disease and if they do, it won't incapacitate or kill them.

This will of course change when these people are directly affected, their mother, sister or grandfather dies, that's when they'll take it seriously. Hopefully this won't happen, but because it's happening to "others" then they're safe.

Like smoking, it give people cancer, but that's other people isn't it? Not me.

The very fact our government are working to dates rather than data, is a indicator of how rubbish we are at handling this, the virus isn't running to a timetable, simply on opportunity.

You say look at other countries, then why has Greece done such a good job? And using Sweden isn't the best comparator either, although they didn't have strict lockdown many did it anyway, along with social distancing,the people of Sweden managed to be clever enough to see what worked elsewhere and didn't need rules to follow, they just did it.

1
 Toerag 02 Jun 2020
In reply to Red Rover:

If covid 19 has a similar effect to SARS and MERS then the longterm health implications are quite serious:-

https://elemental.medium.com/the-long-term-health-impacts-of-being-infected...

OP Offwidth 04 Jun 2020
In reply to Toerag:

Back briefly to Ed's foolish 'we are not flowing Italy' threads, Newsnight pointed out yesterday that the UK had more daily deaths than the EU 27 put together (in it's population of 400 million ). It also had a long look at how C19 hit the largest charitable care home provider in the UK... very moving.

Post edited at 08:54
1
 wintertree 04 Jun 2020
In reply to Offwidth:

We just passed Spain in reported per capita deaths and only have Belgium to go.  Belgium is capturing more of its excess deaths in the reported figures I think so the gap isn’t as wide as it looks.

For all it was championed by some posters on here, rather unsurprisingly there’s some back pedalling from Sweden over their choices - https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/world-europe-52903717

Our daily death rate is starting to plateau at a non zero number and we’re opening restrictions.

It seems the government have failed its people worse than all but one place on the whole planet.  You wouldn’t know it from much of the news or political debate.  

2
 neilh 04 Jun 2020
In reply to Offwidth:

Which charitable care home provider was that? Was it the Catholic or Methodist church ones.I have alot of respect for those.

 Dave Garnett 04 Jun 2020
In reply to neilh:

MHA.  Worth watching the film on iPlayer and contrasting it with the government line about the 'ring of steel' and how there are some care homes that haven't (yet) seen a case.

The bottom line is that asymptomatic carers are unwittingly spreading the virus because they aren't being tested and tests are still not available in many areas now.  As for test, track and trace, it doesn't matter how often Hancock and Johnson keep repeating that it's up and running, in many parts of the country it simply isn't.

OP Offwidth 04 Jun 2020
In reply to wintertree:

I think it's becoming one of the big UK scandals that our official daily death stats are so far from the ONS stats linked to C19 and the big gap from those to excess deaths: as testing has been so poor that C19 has been missed as a cause of death for thousands.   

For ONS numbers on death certificates during C19 we are not so far off Belgium per capita and by excess death rates we are higher; currently  possibly the highest in the world of any big country... as we were only just second to Spain (891 vs 921 per million),  in the May 29th FT report, after Spain adjusted numbers.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriage...

https://www.ft.com/content/6b4c784e-c259-4ca4-9a82-648ffde71bf0

Post edited at 11:01
1
 jkarran 04 Jun 2020
In reply to Rob Exile Ward:

> 'We don't really know who they are.' You're going to have to help me here because my understanding is that we really do. The risk factors for dying (as opposed to being infected) are pretty well defined - age, then diabetes, then obesity, then respiratory problems, then other auto-immune issues like MS and arthritis.

Yeah we know those are risk factors but they're really really common, we're not a healthy population, we'd need to shield a big fraction of us. Take obesity alone that's nearly 30% of us. Also if we tried how long do you think public solidarity would hold with 'fat people' staying home while others pay their wages. It's not for weeks it'll be needed it's quite possibly years. Then there are all the fit and well people who inexplicably die. Sure they're a small fraction but a small fraction of a big population is a lot of people to die, I don't want to be one of them.

Mostly though I simply do not believe we can shield even those we currently believe to be most vulnerable in the longer term if the virus is rife. First I think it becomes politically toxic fast to see people we've long been trained to view as a burden at home being cared for while the rest of us die at random in work, second I don't believe we can create tight enough firewalls between 'us' and 'them' for it to work practically even if we wanted to in the long term and third, I just don't think we get anything like economic normality back if we're living with a rampant epidemic which kills at random. We'll be isolated from neighbours with more responsible approaches and as individuals we'll take matters into our own hands to keep our families safe, the result of that we've seen hints of already with panic buying and vigilantism plus of course the economic hardship and crass inequality which comes with a less structured approach where individuals of varied means are forced to choose between servicing debt and protecting their families. Covid, brexit and a re-run of 2008 simultaneously takes us somewhere we won't come back from. The first two are unavoidable, the third is currently only staved off by government borrowing to pay wages, that stops when most are told to return to normal, a normal which doesn't exist if we're all getting sick.

> There is enough international data to model this quite precisely. Lockdown is beginning to fall apart, for some good reasons - people are beginning to work out that it doesn't seem to be working, e.g. we're not doing much better than Sweden - and some less good - people are also beginning to work out that they are unlikely to catch the disease and if they do, it won't incapacitate or kill them. Whatever, the genie is out of the bottle and won't be put back. And, incidentally, people aren't so stupid as to not see inconsistencies - why does every one of the 4 countries of the UK have different policies? What's so special about a 'household' or '5 miles travel' on any of the other arbitrary limits?

> And, if you are going to ease lockdown, and therefore accept an increased risk of infection, why on earth encourage shielded groups to  come out at the same time without making some special provision?

I know, appalling. It looks like cynical politicking to buttress their collapsing popularity in the polls by 'freeing' a group they figure will be predominantly true blue voters. It's a human sacrifice to stabilise the government's position within the party.

> Track and trace may have some effect at the margins - I have my doubts, especially if we don't pay people for self isolating. We now need to really focus on those at risk groups - care homes, over 80s, diabetics etc etc and really bring resources to bear - open hotels, provide daily/weekly supervision, put care plans together for every at risk individual - to keep the numbers down. Maybe even to less than 100,000. 

Test and trace It could have been a very powerful tool to protect something like normality if it had been sold and implemented properly but at every step they've squandered rather than built the trust that's needed if it's to work. The lies have a price. And we still, half a f*cking year into this lack a responsive, trusted and fast growing test regime accessible to all!

jk

Post edited at 11:27

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