Oh good grief, I give up
If you get it completely wrong when there are others telling you you're completely wrong and telling you why you're completely wrong, which is what has happened with Ferguson and other modellers over omicron, at what point should people just stop listening to you? Various other epidemiologists at the time pointed out flaws in the modelling presented by Sage last month, including completely ignoring T-cell priming from vaccination/previous infections and assuming that omicron is just as deadly, which is why it was so at odds with the emerging picture from South Africa. They cherry-picked from the South Africa data, taking on board the bits about increased infectiousness but ignoring the bits about less severe disease.If you get it wrong one way you end up with a load of people whinging about how the scientists got it wrong. Get it wrong the other way and you end up with a lot of dead people.
Have Ferguson's models ever been published? I'd like to look at one.If you get it completely wrong when there are others telling you you're completely wrong and telling you why you're completely wrong, which is what has happened with Ferguson and other modellers over omicron, at what point should people just stop listening to you? Various other epidemiologists at the time pointed out flaws in the modelling presented by Sage last month, including completely ignoring T-cell priming from vaccination/previous infections and assuming that omicron is just as deadly, which is why it was so at odds with the emerging picture from South Africa. They cherry-picked from the South Africa data, taking on board the bits about increased infectiousness but ignoring the bits about less severe disease.
The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine predicted 25,000 more deaths by spring as its optimistic scenario unless we went beyond Plan B. Its pessimistic scenario was 75,000. So even at its most optimistic, it was predicting that omicron would kill more people in the UK than the delta variant has killed since May (around 20,000). Its most pessimistic scenario saw the worst wave of the pandemic yet. This stuff is used to justify the imposition of restrictions. It matters when it is badly wrong.
You really need to work on your reading comprehension, it might even help with that problem of posting shit that got posted just one post before.Thank fuck for that.
You really need to work on your reading comprehension, it might even help with that problem of posting shit that got posted just one post before.
Its just a computer model based upon the severity of Delta. I don't think a modeller can decide that a virus is more or less severe in advance of knowing the reality? It'd give a huge number of outcomes most of which would be wrong.If you get it completely wrong when there are others telling you you're completely wrong and telling you why you're completely wrong, which is what has happened with Ferguson and other modellers over omicron, at what point should people just stop listening to you? Various other epidemiologists at the time pointed out flaws in the modelling presented by Sage last month, including completely ignoring T-cell priming from vaccination/previous infections and assuming that omicron is just as deadly, which is why it was so at odds with the emerging picture from South Africa. They cherry-picked from the South Africa data, taking on board the bits about increased infectiousness but ignoring the bits about less severe disease.
The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine predicted 25,000 more deaths by spring as its optimistic scenario unless we went beyond Plan B. Its pessimistic scenario was 75,000. So even at its most optimistic, it was predicting that omicron would kill more people in the UK than the delta variant has killed since May (around 20,000). Its most pessimistic scenario saw the worst wave of the pandemic yet. This stuff is used to justify the imposition of restrictions. It matters when it is badly wrong.
Forget the stats, look beyond them, everything is fine...
Omicron stats are huge, but look beyond them
A difficult month lies ahead, but the evidence points to this wave being different from ones before.www.bbc.co.uk
I will dwell on this point by the end of the week at the latest, once I've seen what happens next with Londons hospital data.I wonder why that might be?
A couple of interesting quotes here, with all the usual caveats, firstly from Hopson of NHS Providers saying that care home omicron outbreaks are not translating into hospital admissions, secondly from Neil Ferguson saying he's “cautiously optimistic” that cases are starting to plateau in London.
Do you have any links to examples of what he was saying some weeks ago?This is the most striking difference, I think. The number on ventilation beds has barely changed. It's up slightly in London (approx 240 from 200), but only slightly, and not at all elsewhere.
If even Neil Ferguson is saying this is different, we must be onto something. Wonder what he's saying now about the apocalyptic forecasts he was giving two weeks ago? Why did he get it so wrong? (Again)
Ventilation beds data shows hugely impressive impact of vaccines (and Omicron reduced severity) so far in this wave, its my main source of optimism so far, and I hope it continues to hold true.Yes omnicron has a lot of in-hospital transmission potential. But there is much more testing going on and better ways of separating people with COVID than in the horrendous early days. Plus improved treatments if people get it.
Plus IF it is intrinsically milder impact will be less.
Plus if there was a big problem with hospital squired omnicron wouldn’t that be showing up by now in London? In terms of use of ventilation etc
If you get it completely wrong when there are others telling you you're completely wrong and telling you why you're completely wrong, which is what has happened with Ferguson and other modellers over omicron, at what point should people just stop listening to you? Various other epidemiologists at the time pointed out flaws in the modelling presented by Sage last month, including completely ignoring T-cell priming from vaccination/previous infections and assuming that omicron is just as deadly, which is why it was so at odds with the emerging picture from South Africa. They cherry-picked from the South Africa data, taking on board the bits about increased infectiousness but ignoring the bits about less severe disease.
The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine predicted 25,000 more deaths by spring as its optimistic scenario unless we went beyond Plan B. Its pessimistic scenario was 75,000. So even at its most optimistic, it was predicting that omicron would kill more people in the UK than the delta variant has killed since May (around 20,000). Its most pessimistic scenario saw the worst wave of the pandemic yet. This stuff is used to justify the imposition of restrictions. It matters when it is badly wrong.
Imperial College modelling, of which plenty is available for past waves but not this current one (or at least I havent found any for current wave yet). I'll be very happy to get into loads of detail about this, but now is not a good time beyond what I've already said on this thread today. Could you remind me again in a few weeks? Maybe we need another dedicated thread for this topic. There has been at least one review of how well the initial modelling did, a necessary exercise because those with agendas have spewed vast amounts of misleading shit about this ever since.Have Ferguson's models ever been published? I'd like to look at one.
I think the exemplar for this was the Y2K bug, where there were doom and gloom predictions of a lot of stuff failing, some over blown but a lot not. In the end nothing happened. So the fuckwits kick off in the papers saying what a load of scaremongering it all was; when in fact the reason nothing happened was that a lot of people spent a lot of time ensuring nothing happened and fixing code to correct the issue.I've said it before and I'll say it again, I love self-defeating prophecies, they make a big difference to how bad the pandemic waves end up. They inevitably lead to bogus criticisms but plenty of people see through those false criticisms.
With your head so far up your arse enlightenment is unlikelyNowt wrong with my reading comprehension, more your posting style, because I've no fucking idea what you are dribbling on about now.
There wont be a straightforward figure because of interplay between factors - for example if we hadnt had vaccines, we'd have ended up with far more restrictions in the UK in the Delta and Omicron waves.Hopefully someone will be able to come up with how many lives were saved through restrictions and vaccination...
We use two approaches to evaluate counterfactuals which transpose the transmission profile from one country onto another, in each country’s first wave from 13th March (when stringent interventions began) until 1st July 2020. UK mortality would have approximately doubled had Swedish policy been adopted, while Swedish mortality would have more than halved had Sweden adopted UK or Danish strategies. Danish policies were most effective, although differences between the UK and Denmark were significant for one counterfactual approach only. Our analysis shows that small changes in the timing or effectiveness of interventions have disproportionately large effects on total mortality within a rapidly growing epidemic.
With your head so far up your arse enlightenment is unlikely
Hopefully someone will be able to come up with how many lives were saved through restrictions and vaccination...
I lost track of the official estimates once PHE turned into UKHSA, but I have now found some PHE figures from September:Restrictions is a bit harder to ascertain , there was no control group. But I recall hearing a figure like 30,000 as an estimate for lives saved by vaccination in the UK. This was back towards the end of last summer. Apologies for lack of citation.
The latest estimates indicate that the vaccination programme has directly averted over 230,800 hospitalisations. Analysis on the direct and indirect impact of the vaccination programme on infections and mortality, suggests the vaccination programme has prevented between 23.7 and 24.1 million infections and between 119,500 and 126,800 deaths.
UKHSA previously reported on the number of hospitalisations directly averted by vaccination. In total, around 261,500 hospitalisations have been prevented in those aged 45 years and over up to 19 September 2021.
UKHSA and University of Cambridge MRC Biostatistics Unit previously reported on the direct and indirect impact of the vaccination programme on infections and mortality. Estimates suggest that 127,500 deaths and 24,144,000 infections have been prevented as a result of the COVID- 19 vaccination programme, up to 24 September.
Neither of these models will be updated going forward. This is due to these models being unable to account for the interventions that would have been implemented in the absence of vaccination. Consequently, over time the state of the actual pandemic and the no-vaccination pandemic scenario have become increasingly less comparable. For further context surrounding this figure and for previous estimates, please see previous vaccine surveillance reports.
I feel if this had happened 20years ago, without biotech and the internet being what it is today we would have been in a much worse state.It regularly crosses my mind about what might have been if no vaccines had been forthcoming... very, very grim.