Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion

[LDC]

Really worried about this, ex Washington Post science writer(now has M.E) is saying its young post covid patients are presenting with PVF, huge reddit on it, the medics really need to get on top of this. It can devasating and anti-anxiety/cbt/anti-depressants! is not the way fwd.

It's disingenuous and probably unhelpful to post loads of stuff about ME/CFS and how CV is likely to give people ME/CFS without mentioning the fact that ME/CFS is a highly controversial syndrome in terms of its causes and treatments.

Here the NHS page for it Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS/ME)

Maybe take it to another specific thread if you want to talk about it rather than making this thread about ME/CFS?

 

[The39thStep]

I havent a clue about these models but before anyone starts with 'well its in the Spectator so what do you expect?' is there anyone who can address this article?

Six questions that Neil Ferguson should be asked

It was a tale of two interviews on the Today programme this morning. First up on the show was Neil Ferguson, professor of mathematical biology at Imperial College London, who has been instrumental in forming the UK government’s response to the coronavirus crisis, and whose virus modelling led to...

www.spectator.co.uk

 

[teuchter]

don't post such awful tosh.

often enough people outside the corridors of power, operating without the expertise or knowledge of those in the corridors of power, come to better conclusions than the government.

Azrael's attacks are specifically on the medical and scientific advisers rather than the government. Pay attention.

 

[Pickman's model]

I havent a clue about these models but before anyone starts with 'well its in the Spectator so what do you expect?' is there anyone who can address this article?

Six questions that Neil Ferguson should be asked

It was a tale of two interviews on the Today programme this morning. First up on the show was Neil Ferguson, professor of mathematical biology at Imperial College London, who has been instrumental in forming the UK government’s response to the coronavirus crisis, and whose virus modelling led to...

www.spectator.co.uk

i see the sarah smith of paragraph 2 becomes the mr s of paragraph 4. and paragraph 5.

seems to me that the questions ignore the possibility of the warnings of bird flu etc prompting earlier action both here and in other countries.

 

[Pickman's model]

Azrael's attacks are specifically on the medical and scientific advisers rather than the government. Pay attention.

i was responding to your post, not to azrael. pay attention yourself.

 

[treelover]

It's disingenuous and probably unhelpful to post loads of stuff about ME/CFS and how CV is likely to give people ME/CFS without mentioning the fact that ME/CFS is a highly controversial syndrome in terms of its causes and treatments.

Here the NHS page for it Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS/ME)

Maybe take it to another specific thread if you want to talk about it rather than making this thread about ME/CFS?

ah, i think you have commented on this before, had it have you?, I have for a long time, anyway leave out the bit about M.E, post covid young people(who have never been seriously ill before) are manifesting some horrendous symptoms, PVF, and are being treated badly by the NHS(i have mixed feelings when i clap for NHS) and are describing it in some detail on that Reddit and don't need gaslighting, the M,E charities can offer useful advice about PVF at least.

 

[teuchter]

Allowing a deadly virus to spread through the population when you have the means to prevent it is unequivocally wrong. Are you claiming it isn't? If not, we don't even disagree.

We disagree. It depends on the cost (I don't mean only financial) of the containment, and it depends how deadly it is. These two things were some of the things unknown at the outset. They are in fact still unknown, although we now know a bit more.

 

[Azrael]

Azrael's attacks are specifically on the medical and scientific advisers rather than the government. Pay attention.

Wrong: I've consistently said that ministers are responsible for the decisions they make, and when the death toll was made clear, had a duty to seek outside advice.

I've certainly said that scientific and medical advisors should be held accountable for bad advice, such as the deputy-CMO's bizarre claim that WHO advice on suppressing the outbreak via contact tracing didn't apply to Britain. Unless you're claiming that her assertion's justified, we don't even disagree on this.

 

[Supine]

I havent a clue about these models but before anyone starts with 'well its in the Spectator so what do you expect?' is there anyone who can address this article?

Six questions that Neil Ferguson should be asked

It was a tale of two interviews on the Today programme this morning. First up on the show was Neil Ferguson, professor of mathematical biology at Imperial College London, who has been instrumental in forming the UK government’s response to the coronavirus crisis, and whose virus modelling led to...

www.spectator.co.uk

It's a bit shit tbh

 

[teuchter]

i was responding to your post, not to azrael. pay attention yourself.

You were making a banal statement of the obvious: that those in the corridors of power don't necessarily have the best knowledge or expertise, and you were also misrepresenting my criticism of Azreal's position by interpreting it in relation to the actions of politicians rather than advisers, a misrepresentation arising from your lack of attention.

 

[Azrael]

We disagree. It depends on the cost (I don't mean only financial) of the containment, and it depends how deadly it is. These two things were some of the things unknown at the outset. They are in fact still unknown, although we now know a bit more.

Yet Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea, Singapore, Vietnam, and other countries did know, acted swiftly, and crushed their outbreaks (Singapore is of course having to do it again thanks to failures over congested dorms for migrant workers). There's nothing inherently "deadly" about a surveillance system, travel bans and quarantine of incoming travellers. This is conjuring a dilemma up where none exists.

 

[Pickman's model]

You were making a banal statement of the obvious: that those in the corridors of power don't necessarily have the best knowledge or expertise, and you were also misrepresenting my criticism of Azreal's position by interpreting it in relation to the actions of politicians rather than advisers, a misrepresentation arising from your lack of attention.

whoa there. advisors do not make policy decisions. they brief the people involved in taking the decisions: politicians, and in this case tory politicians. so when you say 'the people involved in taking decisions' or some similar formulation it can only mean the actions of politicians.

 

[2hats]

I havent a clue about these models but before anyone starts with 'well its in the Spectator so what do you expect?' is there anyone who can address this article?

Six questions that Neil Ferguson should be asked

It was a tale of two interviews on the Today programme this morning. First up on the show was Neil Ferguson, professor of mathematical biology at Imperial College London, who has been instrumental in forming the UK government’s response to the coronavirus crisis, and whose virus modelling led to...

www.spectator.co.uk

A quick glance at it tells me more about the author(s) lack of understanding of the scientific method than it does anything else.

 

[elbows]

It's a bit shit tbh

Yeah, do they not know what worst-case scenario means? 177 deaths from BSE falls within the 50-50,000 range. People who cant handle ranges and are only comfortable with single numbers that they then demand come true, probably shouldnt be involved with the heavy lifting of critiquing modellers.

 

[2hats]

Yeah, do they not know what worst-case scenario means? 177 deaths from BSE falls within the 50-50,000 range. People who cant handle ranges and are only comfortable with single numbers that they then demand come true, probably shouldnt be involved with the heavy lifting of critiquing modellers.

Or indeed any aspect of science.

 

[teuchter]

Wrong: I've consistently said that ministers are responsible for the decisions they make, and when the death toll was made clear, had a duty to seek outside advice.

I've certainly said that scientific and medical advisors should be held accountable for bad advice, such as the deputy-CMO's bizarre claim that WHO advice on suppressing the outbreak via contact tracing didn't apply to Britain. Unless you're claiming that her assertion's justified, we don't even disagree on this.

There's a consistent theme of criticism of the scientific/medical advisers. Below are just a few examples where you say the medical profession's leaders have flouted the Nuremberg code, enlisted the population in grotesque experiments, said that Whitty is dogmatically attached to unscientific nonsense, described advisors as "the problem not the solution" and more. But all this hyperbolic criticism is aimed at them without full knowledge of what they have actually said in all those sessions which influence government policy. Maybe once all those SAGE minutes come out, we can identify that some of them have been giving shockingly negligent advice, or that they have been pushing some kind of sinister ideological agenda. For now though, I think it's unfair, unless you have some kind of special inside info.

This is true 2hats , but given that the regulating bodies of the medical profession have, to date, done nothing to censure its leaders for flouting the Nuremberg Code and enlisting the entire population in a grotesque medical experiment without their consent, any processed concern about "ethics" for a tiny group of consenting volunteers must be the ultimate example of form over substance!

I of course hope it's unnecessary, but don't want to hear any empty concern from any regulator willing to wave through "herd immunity". If our supposed guardians of medical ethics gave a damn about safeguarding patients, they'd have been screaming blue murder a month ago.

As for Whitty, he appears dogmatically opposed to suppressing the virus, and was, according to the Times, talking about the unscientific nonsense of "herd immunity" back in January (on the basis of the old flu pandemic plan). It boggles the mind how one of our leading epidemiologists has come to believe this lethal nonsense.

Whitty isn't, much as he may think he is, running the government. Hancock is now talking about contact tracing and testing and isolating Covid patients, and Johnston's reported to be impressed by Australia's successes. As is Sturgeon in Scotland, who's now under overwhelming political pressure to atone for allowing the Scottish government to be led astray by a dentist and a gynaecologist (seriously).

Either Whitty gets behind suppressing the virus, or there's going to be moves to replace him with someone who is.

Anthony Costello explains the situation well here. Far from being pliant spokespeople shilling unscientific policy invented by "run it hot" gamblers, the medical establishment are the ones in the driving seat, dragging their feet and undermining Hancock's efforts to implement a suppression regime. They invented fake "herd immunity" and they sold it to SPADs and ministers.

There's been far too much focus on ministers, based on the assumption that they've overruled advisors, and not nearly enough on the power and influence of those advisors. Look how Scotland shifted after her CMO was forced to resign over her roadtrips. The advisors aren't the solution, they're the problem, and they need to go.

And we in turn read WHO advice and a century's worth of disease control 101. Like to think it's Urban wot swung it though!

Scuttlebutt's that Hancock's at war with Whitty over a suppression strategy, and has been from the start (he's the one who first denied that "herd immunity" was government policy after days of Whitty and Vallance flogging it to any hack they could collar). Notable that he hauled Vallance along today, separating the homicidal policy's Mad Men.

Whatever else Whitty is, he's no politician, and day by day, is being forced to watch while suppression via testing, tracing and isolating becomes a fait accompli. If it succeeds in driving down Covid infections, it'll become plain beyond doubt that tens of thousands died needlessly on his advice.

Embrace that nihilism, Whitty. You're gonna need it.

Pretty much sums it up. The only pandemic plan they had was for influenza, so they stubbornly tried to fit the disease to the plan, and treated Covid-19 like the flu, instead of like what it was, a deadly SARS virus that had to be suppressed as rapidly and aggressively as resources allow.

I understand why they did it. They must now be held to account for doing it.

And, apparently, the WHO, the global epidemiological and public health communities, and the Asian countries that first fought and contained the pandemic.

I'll disregard this tone policing, but in the infinitesimall unlikely case that Whitty and Vallance were right that SARS-CoV-2 can't be suppressed and must be allowed to move through the population to generate "herd immunity", will offer both an apology.

Think I'll ever have to offer it?

Here's a video Patrick Vallance from 13 March. From four minutes in, he clearly lays out that the British government will make no attempt to stop the virus moving through the population, that "herd immunity" is the goal, and that 60% infection is needed to achieve it. The presenter is visibly horrified at the potential death toll.

It was a monstrous plan from the start, born of defeatism that ignored clinical data from Asia, and its architects must be held to account for what they've done.

And bizarrely, thanks to Hancock's enthusiasm for the South Korean approach, we're relying on this bumptious Toryboy to overcome Whitty and his soul-sucking defeatism. What a world.

And to illustrate the point starkly, at the same briefing we have John Newton claiming that testing capacity doesn't make a difference to the necessity of lockdown and Hancock saying it's the route out.

Dear God, just how have our medical and scientific establishments become so dogmatically opposed not only to contact tracing, but the very concept of containing a communicable disease? They're having to be dragged kicking and screaming towards even a semblance of the South Korean approach.

They applied an influenza plan to a coronavirus because it was all they had and got tens of thousands needlessly killed. They're in a world of shit and they know it. (Apart from Whitty, who appears to believe he can transmute SARS-CoV-2 into the flu by sheer force of will, and crush opposition with relentless waves of aggressive fatalism.)

I'd have done what the establishments in most European countries did: adapt the plan on the fly, impose swift lockdown, and use the time bought to throw resources into developing a suppression system.

(Well, within the parameters advisors are operating in: given a free hand, my policy would've been swift travel bans and quarantine to try and keep the virus out as much as possible.)

Just our luck to get stuck with advisors who retreated into the thickets of denial and insisted that, if you just wished hard enough, this would turn into the flu and all would be well. One of the all time worst examples of fitting the terrain to the map.

In more positive news, Scotland at least cleared out their "testing's for losers" CMO, and both they and Wales have helped drag England towards a suppression strategy. Speaking to those in the Westminster quarantine zone, everyone's sick of Whitty and his unrelenting negativity. He's not getting anything close to a free hand.

We are, achingly slowly, inching towards something resembling an effective suppression system, but dear Lord progress is hard fought.

Very.

Someone was gonna do it. Can't leave the population twisting in the wind with no clear exit strategy and not expect blowback. Exactly why Whitehall needed to transparently announce and build the alternative suppression system from the moment the lockdown was imposed.

If Whitty attempts the unhinged "leave people languishing indefinitely in a semi-locked down dystopia 'cause South Korea can't be right and this virus must be the flu" plan suggested by his hopeless briefings, we ain't seen nothing yet.

 

[teuchter]

whoa there. advisors do not make policy decisions. they brief the people involved in taking the decisions: politicians, and in this case tory politicians. so when you say 'the people involved in taking decisions' or some similar formulation it can only mean the actions of politicians.

Of course the advisors are involved in what decisions get made. Otherwise, why are we even talking about them? If they are not involved in the decision making process then they are off the hook.

 

[Lurdan]

Posted at Buzzfeed :

This Is The Government’s Draft Plan To Ease Coronavirus Lockdown Measures In The Workplace - Buzzfeed

Exclusive: BuzzFeed News has obtained all seven of the guidance documents drawn up by ministers that will form the basis for the government’s proposals to get people back to work in the coming weeks.

Alex Wickham who wrote this story has posted copies of some of the documents to a twitter thread - available here as a web page.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Of course the advisors are involved in what decisions get made. Otherwise, why are we even talking about them? If they are not involved in the decision making process then they are off the hook.

Advisors are responsible for their advice. Politicians are responsible for the decisions, though.

That said, any advisor who feels strongly enough that the wrong decisions are being made has the option to resign their position and go public about what they know.

In this case, of course, we still have no idea what advice was being given, or accepted or rejected, or why - which is partly the point, why the fuck are the minutes from these meetings not public? This is not a matter of national security, but a matter of public health policy, and the minutes of equivalent meetings in other countries are publicly available to all.

 

[Pickman's model]

Of course the advisors are involved in what decisions get made. Otherwise, why are we even talking about them? If they are not involved in the decision making process then they are off the hook.

reread my post

advisors advise
politicians decide
which part of this is unclear to you?

 

[Mattym]

We’re supposed to hot desk, but fuck that. Had to resort to this:
View attachment 210672

Could you imagine if they took that book?

 

[Artaxerxes]

They’ve produced some guidance on office working following lockdown. Part of this recommends against ‘hot desking’ for obvious reasons.

Quite amused by this because my old employer (big engineering consultancy firm) was pushing for this in all offices, whereby employers had a kind of locker/small cube somewhere where they were supposed to keep all their crap, finding an empty desk each morning and having to set everything up. It had some horrible term, ‘agile working’ I think, I guess the idea was to minimise number of desks required. There’s a reason they were known as the ‘sweatshop’ of engineering consultancy, with offices more like a call centre than a design office. Ignores that people like to stick pictures of their ugly kids on their desk, or like me fill the big bottom drawer of the desk with food and clothing to change into on arrival. Hope it puts a spanner in their inhuman ways.

Mine does the same thing, not sure why as we all sit at same desks anyway.

 

[Doodler]

I havent a clue about these models but before anyone starts with 'well its in the Spectator so what do you expect?' is there anyone who can address this article?

Six questions that Neil Ferguson should be asked

It was a tale of two interviews on the Today programme this morning. First up on the show was Neil Ferguson, professor of mathematical biology at Imperial College London, who has been instrumental in forming the UK government’s response to the coronavirus crisis, and whose virus modelling led to...

www.spectator.co.uk

The obvious critical approach would be to compare the Ferguson/Imperial College Infection Fatality Rate (IFR) estimate with actual data. The Spectator's questions 1 to 4 look like attempts to distract from this. A generous description of their approach would be whataboutery, alternatively a smear job.

The Imperial College report (of which Ferguson was co-author) estimated IFR at 1% - see this summary on the Imperial College website dated 11 Feb.

For a summary of IFRs from other places, including New York, Geneva and the Netherlands, see this Bloomberg article from 24 April. The IFRs quoted range from 0.12% to 1.08%. The former is from a study in which John Ioannidis was involved (the same Ioannidis mentioned approvingly in the Spectator piece), the latter is an estimate for New York based on its recent excess deaths compared to an earlier period. The Bloomberg article concludes:

So the range of IFRs derived from these surveys so far is 0.12% to 1.08%, and the latter result should probably be given much more credence than the former both because of the false-positives issue described above and the seeming flaws in the calculations used to arrive at 0.12%.

Given that British people tend to be somewhere between Europeans and Americans for obesity and other risk factors, a 1% IFR does not seem fantastical.

Q5 revolves around John Ioannidis who seems to have consistently argued for more optimistic outcomes (a recent Wired article describes him as a 'Covid contrarian') and Q6 is about methodology of which I know nothing about.

 

[Azrael]

teuchter No special knowledge is necessary, it was based on public statements, given context by investigative reporting from journalists of diverse backgrounds. You presumably saw the video I posted of Patrick Vallance explicitly outlining a policy that would lead to "herd immunity", and acknowledging its likely death toll?

There exist but two possibilities: either the advisors honestly advocated letting the disease spread; or they advocated suppressing it, were overruled, and then advocated a policy they knew to be wrong instead of resigning and raising the alarm. Both are damning. Neither absolves ministers for their decisions.

 

[Azrael]

Advisors are responsible for their advice. Politicians are responsible for the decisions, though.

That said, any advisor who feels strongly enough that the wrong decisions are being made has the option to resign their position and go public about what they know.

In this case, of course, we still have no idea what advice was being given, or accepted or rejected, or why - which is partly the point, why the fuck are the minutes from these meetings not public? This is not a matter of national security, but a matter of public health policy, and the minutes of equivalent meetings in other countries are publicly available to all.

I've consistently held open the possibility that advisors did recommend suppression, were overruled, but went along with a policy they knew to be a deadly error. It looks more remote by the day -- all the evidence, from their public statements (particularly Whitty's select committee appearance, where he speculated that 20% of Wuhan's population were infected), to their reliance on the flu plan, to weeks of investigative reporting points in the other direction -- but yes, it's possible. As it'd be if anything even worse to promote a policy you knew to be wrong, it wouldn't absolve anyone. As you say, we shouldn't be left to guess.

 

[teuchter]

teuchter No special knowledge is necessary, it was based on public statements, given context by investigative reporting from journalists of diverse backgrounds. You presumably saw the video I posted of Patrick Vallance explicitly outlining a policy that would lead to "herd immunity", and acknowledging its likely death toll?

Yes, I saw it and you misrepresented what he said.

 

[Azrael]

Yes, I saw it and you misrepresented what he said.

How have I "misrepresented" him?

 

[The39thStep]

The obvious critical approach would be to compare the Ferguson/Imperial College Infection Fatality Rate (IFR) estimate with actual data. The Spectator's questions 1 to 4 look like attempts to distract from this. A generous description of their approach would be whataboutery, alternatively a smear job.

The Imperial College report (of which Ferguson was co-author) estimated IFR at 1% - see this summary on the Imperial College website dated 11 Feb.

For a summary of IFRs from other places, including New York, Geneva and the Netherlands, see this Bloomberg article from 24 April. The IFRs quoted range from 0.12% to 1.08%. The former is from a study in which John Ioannidis was involved (the same Ioannidis mentioned approvingly in the Spectator piece), the latter is an estimate for New York based on its recent excess deaths compared to an earlier period. The Bloomberg article concludes:



Given that British people tend to be somewhere between Europeans and Americans for obesity and other risk factors, a 1% IFR does not seem fantastical.

Q5 revolves around John Ioannidis who seems to have consistently argued for more optimistic outcomes (a recent Wired article describes him as a 'Covid contrarian') and Q6 is about methodology of which I know nothing about.

Thanks thats useful.

 

[Smangus]

reread my post

advisors advise
politicians decide
which part of this is unclear to you?

Starting to sound dangerously like Boris there...

 

[teuchter]

How have I "misrepresented" him?

For example you claim "he clearly lays out that the British government will make no attempt to stop the virus moving through the population".

In fact he says that we should "allow enough of those of us who are going to get mild illness....[to get it and gain immunity] to help with the whole population response"

That is not the same thing.

You also claim that he is laying out herd immunity as a goal. Well, it is clear that at that point, it was hoped that it would be a viable strategy, but he doesn't state it as a fixed goal, and he talks a fair bit about what was unknown at the time, for example the number of people who get it asymptomatically. He makes it fairly clear that the approach will depend on things like that. And at the end, he is quite clear that he is prepared to change his advice/opinion as more information becomes known.