Tob

There has been a load of new data in UK and world since Ferguson's estimate that 400k would die. Pretty much nobody has said actually just open the economy, open pubs , will "only" be another 20,000 deaths. The UK has had 30k deaths even though been stuck indoors for almost 2 months.

Hitchins hasn't clearly said - open up, only X will die & it is worth it. All he has done is say they are wrong, he is a idiot, they are rubbish etc.

Just be clear - if he wants pubs to open, schools to open, sports to start in tge next few weeks. Just be clear & honest. Tell us the down side of his plan.
Pretty much no foreign leaders are tempted with the Hitchins plan.


With the 2 months of new data , is there any evidence that if UK opened up (apart from 5 m vulnerable people) there would be fewer than 50,000 deaths. If so publish it & see if UK public like that trade off. I suspect many in UK would be tempted.

There are a series of ranges based on a number of criteria, but you can take a range of 9k to 39k.
The 20k was a number mentioned by Patrick Valance as a “good outcome”.

I bring it up because most will have not looked at the report, only remembering the scary 500k if no mitigation was put in place.
Something that was never going to be the case.

The most interesting thing for me is that no one appears to ever ask what the discussion in COBRA looked like after someone asked how do we then get out of these measures.

I’d like to think that the question was asked.

Subsequent events make me think that it wasn’t.

lurka 10 May 20 11:55 

The death peak was 1172 on April 21. It didn't peak or start to decline on April 8. It happened 2 weeks later, which completely blows his argument out of the water.

So even when we add the care home deaths, the 10th April is showing 1152, 20 less than on April 21st. The bar chart shows there WAS then a decline before the total figure started to rise again.

However, lurka, please answer me this, according to that bar chart, there were NO deaths outside of hospital on April 19th and relatively few on April 20th, before a significant increase on April 21st, does this mean that in reality there were more deaths on April 19th and 20th, but they've been added onto the 21st's total?
A similar three day pattern emerges the following week, none or few deaths outside hospital 26 & 27th April before a sizable increase the following day.

That bar chart clearly isn't reflecting the actual dates of death, unless you want to believe there were no deaths outside of hospitals on April 5th, 8th, 11th, 12th, 13th, 19th and 27th?

However, what does not seem in doubt, is this peak hospital total on April 8th.

Very good article that and its hard to disagree with much of what he says. His closing quote is hard to disagree with.
And before you attack the last bit he states that any ''lockdown'' should focus on elderly which is where we have gone badly wrong.

I think this is another foul-up on the part of the baby boomers. I am a real baby boomer — I was born in 1947, I am almost 73 years old — but I think we’ve really screwed up. We’ve caused pollution, we’ve allowed the world’s population to increase threefold in my lifetime, we’ve caused the problems of global warming and now we’ve left your generation with a real mess in order to save a relatively small number of very old people.

So the worldometer is wrong and therefore should not be taken at face value?

I see, so treat some with caution but not the ones that suit a given agenda. Levitts article was correct using the data available. Enough said.

Whether I believe it or not is irrelevant you cant base graphs etc on certain countries as gospel,
then decide others who do the same are not accurate (like Levitts) and therefore bast ignored.
Any country can doctor figures if they so desire.

you can but ''enough said'' comes over as ''listen to me I know best''

the above respone is a much better one so thank you for that

doris has presumably seen the evidence said last night 500,000 was a reasonable number of deaths if nothing was done

Ferguson's headline figure of 510k is massively misrepresented.

It was an estimate of deaths if nothing was done what so ever.
No case isolation, no voluntary home quarantine, no social distancing, no closure of schools and universities.

Is that a realistic scenario?

UK society would have continued as if nothing had happened, you would read about thousands of new cases, hundreds of deaths.
Yet society would continue, stiff upper lip, business as usual.

We have evidence that society wouldn't have carried on in this manner, actions were already being taken before the government intervened.
Sporting events were being cancelled despite the governments advice that there was no requirement for this to happen.

As such, you need to look at the other estimates contained within the report.

In scenario 1, an estimate of deaths was provided in a range of 85-98k.
This scenario was dependant on the introduction of three key measures i.e. case isolation, voluntary home quarantine, and social distancing

In scenario 2, an estimate of deaths was provided in a range of 12-53k.
This scenario was dependant on the introduction of three key measures i.e. closure of schools and universities, case isolation, and social distancing

In scenario 3, an estimate of deaths was provided in a range of 9-39k.
This scenario was dependant on the introduction of three key measures i.e. closure of schools and universities, case isolation, voluntary home quarantine, and social distancing

Viewing the report through this lens provides a significantly more balanced approach than you arrive at if you consider the 510k figure as being the inevitable result once the virus had arrived in the UK.

Now, does this mean that I  am a raging fan of the report produced by Ferguson and his team?
No, it does not.

It does, however, demonstrate that I am prepared to go behind the headlines and spend some time to actually read the report that created the headline.

Oh dear, in pursuit of a cheap laugh, you've just highlighted your failure to absorb and understand information.

No one disputes that there was an outbreak of COVID-19, no one disputes that there were real cases of the disease and that this resulted in deaths.
What is disputed, however is the numbers of cases and deaths, with a consensus that China significantly under reported the numbers.

Levitt presented an argument that, uncontrolled, COVID-19 infections do not rise in an exponential manner.
To support his argument, Levitt relied on the numbers of cases being reported by the Chinese.

The very same numbers that the world is highly suspicious of.

Can you see the problem here ?
A set of numbers that is widely believed to have been unreported is hardly a strong basis for demonstrating whether or not it grew exponentially.

Can you see that, can you
No

No, you probably can't, can you.

Anyway, on to the Ferguson led model.

The passage that you quoted is the opening statement within a section that discusses disease progression and healthcare demand.

And yes, analysis of Chinese data, widely believed to have been underreported, is used in conjunction with additional data to arrive at an assumed proportion of patients contracting the virus who will require to self isolate.

This assumption forms one of numerous variables in the model, the very stuff that models are made of.

Will the use of the underreported Chinese data in arriving at this particular variable resulted in a significantly erroneous estimate of the proportion of patients contracting the virus who will require to self isolate ?

I have no idea and I am unable to determine if it resulted in an over or under estimate.

Did I make any claims as to the statistical validity of this estimated variable?
No.

Did I make any claims as to the overall validity of the model produced by Ferguson and his team?
Again no.

What I did state, however, is that it is my opinion that Ferguson's headline figure of 510k is massively misrepresented.
I then went on to explain why I hold this opinion.

So there you go.

Plenty for you to get your teeth in to and respond with more of your rapier like wit.
I can hardly wait.