Corona Virus main thread

[Aggy 755]

46 minutes ago, Yellow Fever said:

 

Sadly most of those who criticise the models (the 600 to 6000 was a mid December model for instance) it seems wouldn't know where to start and worse seem oblivious to the reasons and science for the modelling.. to guide policy at the time and as to what may effect the outcome with best guesses and estimates of a very complex picture.

 

 

A mid-December model which failed to take into account any of the quite large amount of evidence coming out of South Africa and elsewhere that it looked less severe than Delta.

I appreciate 6,000 was an upper worst case amount. But it was based on a lot of unlikely “maybes” all happening.

By mid December, based on the information and tentative initial assessments by medical experts, it was significantly more likely that omicron would be less severe than it was that we would have 6,000 deaths a day. Yet only one of those scenarios made it in to the modelling. Why not both? 

[ricardo 7,395]

2 minutes ago, Aggy said:

 Yet only one of those scenarios made it in to the modelling. Why not both? 

We all know why.

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

1 hour ago, ricardo said:

Neither do I but I don't think it had any beneficial effect either. Other than giving the wearer a false sense of security.

Isn't mask wearing to protect others from yourself?

Edited January 10, 2022 by keelansgrandad

[Virtual reality 712]

8 hours ago, keelansgrandad said:

Isn't mask wearing to protect others from yourself?

If you have the virus you exhale 100,000 particles per minute. I can’t see how a flimsy cloth mask is stopping much of that 

[Well b back 3,215]

42 minutes ago, Virtual reality said:

If you have the virus you exhale 100,000 particles per minute. I can’t see how a flimsy cloth mask is stopping much of that 

Feel free to come onto a COVID ward without one.

[Van wink 2,994]

1 hour ago, Virtual reality said:

If you have the virus you exhale 100,000 particles per minute. I can’t see how a flimsy cloth mask is stopping much of that 

Not intended to stop it, we are not dealing with absolutes, amazing that some still struggle with the concept of reducing community risk, which if can be done with a simple intervention is hardly a big ask.

Edited January 11, 2022 by Van wink

[Virtual reality 712]

1 hour ago, Well b back said:

Feel free to come onto a COVID ward without one.

Stupid and ignorant comment. My father in law found himself on a covid ward at the end of his life. No one other than his wife was allowed to visit and that was only one visit with end of life permission. I hardly doubt they would allow a random member of the public on one at all, let alone without a mask….. 

[Virtual reality 712]

1 hour ago, Van wink said:

Not intended to stop it, we are not dealing with absolutes, amazing that some still struggle with the concept of reducing community risk, which if can be done with a simple intervention is hardly a big ask.

If you actually read it properly is said at those levels of transmission I can’t see how a mask stops MUCH of it. Didn’t say it doesn’t stop some of it did I….

[Van wink 2,994]

33 minutes ago, Virtual reality said:

If you actually read it properly is said at those levels of transmission I can’t see how a mask stops MUCH of it. Didn’t say it doesn’t stop some of it did I….

OOOOHHHHH!!!!!!

 

[Badger 2,406]

12 hours ago, Yellow Fever said:

Sadly most of those who criticise the models (the 600 to 6000 was a mid December model for instance) it seems wouldn't know where to start and worse seem oblivious to the reasons and science for the modelling.. to guide policy at the time and as to what may effect the outcome with best guesses and estimates of a very complex picture.

👍 Yes, modelling future events is in effect making a prediction of the future with a huge number of variables and these include Donald Rumsfeld's famous "unknown unknowns." It is notoriously difficult but informs policy planning. There was a similar ridicule of the post Brexit economic predictions being miles out, but many miss the point that the predictions were used to mitigate the consequences: interest rates were cut and tens of billions of quantitative easing were steps taken to prevent the worst case scenario. Policy planners can't win - the more successful the mitigations, the further out "the worst case scenario" extrapolations are.

[Badger 2,406]

13 hours ago, ricardo said:

Neither do I but I don't think it had any beneficial effect either. Other than giving the wearer a false sense of security.

There is quite a lot of evidence that mask wearing is effective at reducing transmission*.

* Multi-layer masks.

Edited January 11, 2022 by Badger
Added last section - Asterix

[Yellow Fever 3,793]

12 hours ago, ricardo said:

This one?

Lets see how that turns out. At the moment we should be having 310 deaths a day by Jan 7th.

 

I'm very pleased my curt frustrated comments last night caused some responses. So it should.

The whole point of the 'models' is to try and predict, to give guidance on the effect of various polices. However thy are trying to predict extremely fast sensitive functions without the benefit of hindsight with enormous unknowns and variable human factors. Even different regions of England have different trajectories! Even the release of a model's results can cause a change in human behavior - often usefully so (a success!). Even if they happened to predict exactly (what you seem to expect) I don't think you'll find many of the modelers who believe it was more by luck than judgement.

What I do know is that I would prefer any-day of the week these considered models as an aid to policy rather than those who repeatedly have claimed, often with crackpot theories (Fat Emperor and similar), over several years, that it's 'over' only for another wave of complacency, deaths and economic pain to sweep the country. It's they that have the explaining to do not the models.

By the way perhaps you should run the model above (or some of the open source ones) today with known parameters given hindsight. Things like severity, social contacts, vaccine take up and effectiveness. How do you think the newer Omicron sub-variants, the weather, political stances, school and university breaks  etc. or any other thing will effect things?

No wonder many of these modelers find it easier to earn £££ modelling the stock markets. Easier.

 

[Badger 2,406]

20 hours ago, The Real Buh said:

Apology accepted

I apologise for correcting your misinterpretation! 😘

[Mark .Y. 352]

12 hours ago, Well b back said:

I was listening to Chris Smith today, who I think is very sensible in the way he speaks.

He says the only official figures that you can trust at the moment are hospitalisations and deaths. Case numbers will no longer be recorded by the general public to the same extent. However interestingly he does also say the figures currently would not include a asymptomatic ( most are not recorded with a PCR ) and something I never realised you are only recorded once if you catch it again ( or again and again ) so reinfections are not recorded in the figures.

To be honest Wbb, I don't think the death numbers are remotely reliable any longer. Omicron is so prevalent that there must be a huge amount of people who are dieing "with it but not from it". 

I know that is the way we have always recorded the death figures and of course we shouldn't start changing now, but it seems to me that currently it is very detached from the actual effects of the virus. 

I suspect the excess deaths number is what we will need for more reliable figures.  

[Badger 2,406]

13 hours ago, Aggy said:

My ‘gripe’ is people who appear to think we don’t need to scrutinise what SAGE says but do need to scrutinise everyone who that poster disagrees with.

I agree with most of the post, but didn't copy it all. 

Certainly agree that we need to scrutinise all information. ATM, things look quite optimistic re the severity of omicron and I hope that the end of the crisis is in sight. The modelling quotation does sound a little strange, although I have a natural suspicion of quotations taken in isolation and am not sure that it fairly reflects the modelling process as a whole - but obviously I don't know this for certain.

[Badger 2,406]

14 minutes ago, Mark .Y. said:

I know that is the way we have always recorded the death figures and of course we shouldn't start changing now

Was it? I thought that we originally went by what was on the death certificate, which is how causes of death are usually aggregated. 

[Badger 2,406]

3 hours ago, Virtual reality said:

I can’t see how a flimsy cloth mask is stopping much of that 

Single layer cloth masks are much less effective, as is wearing a mask not covering your nose.

[Aggy 755]

44 minutes ago, Yellow Fever said:

 

I'm very pleased my curt frustrated comments last night caused some responses. So it should.

The whole point of the 'models' is to try and predict, to give guidance on the effect of various polices. However thy are trying to predict extremely fast sensitive functions without the benefit of hindsight with enormous unknowns and variable human factors. Even different regions of England have different trajectories! Even the release of a model's results can cause a change in human behavior - often usefully so (a success!). Even if they happened to predict exactly (what you seem to expect) I don't think you'll find many of the modelers who believe it was more by luck than judgement.

What I do know is that I would prefer any-day of the week these considered models as an aid to policy rather than those who repeatedly have claimed, often with crackpot theories (Fat Emperor and similar), over several years, that it's 'over' only for another wave of complacency, deaths and economic pain to sweep the country. It's they that have the explaining to do not the models.

By the way perhaps you should run the model above (or some of the open source ones) today with known parameters given hindsight. Things like severity, social contacts, vaccine take up and effectiveness. How do you think the newer Omicron sub-variants, the weather, political stances, school and university breaks  etc. or any other thing will effect things?

No wonder many of these modelers find it easier to earn £££ modelling the stock markets. Easier.

 

Any chance of answering a question instead of the usual waffling around it to avoid doing so? 
 

If they can predict with “enormous unknowns” which suggest 6,000 deaths a day, why couldn’t they also predict with much more likely scenarios such as omicron being less severe (given at the time of the modelling that seemed much more likely than the assumptions needed to get to 6,000 deaths a day)?

[Van wink 2,994]

Zoe dropping back a bit👍

[Mark .Y. 352]

4 hours ago, Badger said:

Was it? I thought that we originally went by what was on the death certificate, which is how causes of death are usually aggregated. 

My understanding was that if a positive test had been recorded in the previous 28 days it was recorded as a Covid death. Also if Covid was mentioned on the death certificate, it may not have been the underlying cause of the death but was recorded as a Covid death.

I do stand to be corrected though, that is only from memory.

[Yellow Fever 3,793]

5 hours ago, Badger said:

👍 Yes, modelling future events is in effect making a prediction of the future with a huge number of variables and these include Donald Rumsfeld's famous "unknown unknowns." It is notoriously difficult but informs policy planning. There was a similar ridicule of the post Brexit economic predictions being miles out, but many miss the point that the predictions were used to mitigate the consequences: interest rates were cut and tens of billions of quantitative easing were steps taken to prevent the worst case scenario. Policy planners can't win - the more successful the mitigations, the further out "the worst case scenario" extrapolations are.

Thanks Badger. I think you see the issue well. All the models can be made to fit the past - indeed that's their starting point as they get better. I'm just fed up with the cheap politically inspired shots at them (and never acknowledging the caveats or what they are trying to show). The models well before Christmas indicated we needed to tighten restrictions - plan B as was, rush boosters, work from home and urge people for more social distancing (which as acknowledged most did). It worked and oddly those models now look pessimistic - so far so good.! Human factors.

But 

Indeed we can already see some odd human effects - Boosters now stalling (complacency setting in again) where before Christmas we managed to 'persuade' large numbers  - especially the vulnerable - to get boosted in a hurry. How do you model that? What effect will Novak's position have? Poorly I expect.

As a corollary - even with super computers, decades of modeling and experience and huge amounts of global data we still can't accurately predict the weather a month ahead - and that's with no human factors.

As to the optimistic vs pessimistic view - well that is what you do in safety critical systems not skimp. Next time you're in a plane better hope the captain has allowed sufficient reserve fuel for bad weather and holding patterns / diversion else you might drop out of sky. No say some - lets wing it.

[Yellow Fever 3,793]

4 hours ago, Aggy said:

Any chance of answering a question instead of the usual waffling around it to avoid doing so? 
 

If they can predict with “enormous unknowns” which suggest 6,000 deaths a day, why couldn’t they also predict with much more likely scenarios such as omicron being less severe (given at the time of the modelling that seemed much more likely than the assumptions needed to get to 6,000 deaths a day)?

They did but you didn't read/report it.

[Yellow Fever 3,793]

18 hours ago, Well b back said:

I was listening to Chris Smith today, who I think is very sensible in the way he speaks.

He says the only official figures that you can trust at the moment are hospitalisations and deaths. Case numbers will no longer be recorded by the general public to the same extent. However interestingly he does also say the figures currently would not include a asymptomatic ( most are not recorded with a PCR ) and something I never realised you are only recorded once if you catch it again ( or again and again ) so reinfections are not recorded in the figures.

If I read/heard correctly a few days ago there were 250,000 PCR tests delayed in the system (care homes, prisons etc now almost too old to process). Confirmed PCR tests are really quite a dodgy number. 

[Yellow Fever 3,793]

2 hours ago, Van wink said:

Zoe dropping back a bit👍

Yes - Been stable for a few days which is encouraging but its the demographic breakdown of cases that's important.

[Badger 2,406]

56 minutes ago, Mark .Y. said:

I do stand to be corrected though, that is only from memory.

Don't stand corrected because I am not certain, it is my recollection! 😀

From memory, the numbers certified as dead due to covid were higher than after 28 day measure, so it was alleged that the govt. switched measures for this reason + it also left open the frequently quoted response that they died with covid, not of covid. It is certainly the case that the number of deaths recorded by death certificate are higher (170,000+) but some have alleged that hospitals and doctors have fiddled this figure by putting covid on the death certificate unnecessarily.

I find it easier to believe that the govt manipulated the statistics than all doctors and hospitals, but I'm sure that someone will disagree with me. In the end, I suspect that the excess deaths measure will be the most revealing, but I'm sure that the anti-vaxxers etc will have a line on this as well.

[Badger 2,406]

36 minutes ago, Yellow Fever said:

As to the optimistic vs pessimistic view - well that is what you do in safety critical systems not skimp. Next time you're in a plane better hope the captain has allowed sufficient reserve fuel for bad weather and holding patterns / diversion else you might drop out of sky. No say some - lets wing it.

Would anybody ever fly Boris Airways? 😀

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

5 minutes ago, Badger said:

Would anybody ever fly Boris Airways? 😀

Well it is BA.

 

[Badger 2,406]

1 minute ago, keelansgrandad said:

Well it is BA

Bullsh1t Airways - powered by hot air! 

[Van wink 2,994]

31 minutes ago, Yellow Fever said:

Yes - Been stable for a few days which is encouraging but its the demographic breakdown of cases that's important.

It is important yes,  nevertheless an encouraging indicator and I suspect (  but dont claim to know ) a middle to older aged demographic reports?

ICU occupancy hugely encouraging.

Edited January 11, 2022 by Van wink

[Van wink 2,994]

5 minutes ago, Badger said:

Bullsh1t Airways - powered by hot air! 

with a following wind