Neil Ferguson should be held accountable

[Mumlove5]

... for causing mass hysteria and panic with his grossly overestimated pessimistic model. The man that caused the 2020 global economic collapse over a death rate similar to that of a severe seasonal flu.

I don’t read the DM much but this article struck a cord.
www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-8163587/PETER-HITCHENS-Great-Panic-foolish-freedom-broken-economy-crippled.html

“ Crucially, those who began by claiming that we faced half a million deaths from the coronavirus in this country have now greatly lowered their estimate. Professor Neil Ferguson was one of those largely responsible for the original panic. He or others from Imperial college have twice revised his terrifying prophecy, first to fewer than 20,000 and then on Friday to 5,700.

He says intensive care units will probably cope. And he conceded a point made by critics of the panic policy – that two-thirds of people who die from coronavirus in the next nine months would most likely have died this year from other causes.

He tried to claim that the shutdown of the country had led to this violent backtrack, claiming that it was ‘social distancing strategies’ which had brought about his amazing climbdown. How could he possibly know either that this had happened, or that it would happen, or that there was any connection between the two?

It is very hard to see by what means he could know any of these things. Could he have softened his stance because of the publication early last week of a rival view, from distinguished scientists at Oxford University, led by Sunetra Gupta, Professor of theoretical epidemiology? It suggests that fewer than one in a thousand of those infected with Covid-19 become ill enough to need hospital treatment.

The vast majority develop very mild symptoms or none at all. Millions may already have had it.

This report is being unfairly sneered at by Government toadies, but we shall see. It seems unlikely that Oxford University would have bungled their work.

And it is obvious that a few days of raggedly enforced house arrest could not have made so much real difference. Even those who believe in these shutdowns think they take two weeks to have any effect.”

www.statnews.com/2020/03/17/a-fiasco-in-the-making-as-the-coronavirus-pandemic-takes-hold-we-are-making-decisions-without-reliable-data/

en.globes.co.il/en/article-lockdown-lunacy-1001322696

For me, the fact that China went into lockdown suggests that a) it was a lot more serious than the official figures report b) it is not overreacting for us to do the same.

@Walkingtohealth

The 21 year old did not die of cv.

I think any scientist must be mad to trust anything that China tells them, which is why he is now backtracking as he has realised that perhaps their data couldn't be completely relied upon.

www.rt.com/uk/484319-coronavirus-swine-flu-hysteria-redux/

One such expert is Professor Neil Ferguson of Imperial College London, who has been testifying before the British parliament on how many people he thinks will ultimately fall prey to Covid-19. Professor Ferguson was giving evidence as part of a parliamentary select committee on science and technology. His initial projection was that Covid-19 would claim the lives of 500,000 people in the UK — but he has revised that projection. Ferguson now believes that at most 20,000 people will die — and it could be much lower.

The eminent epidemiologist’s U-turn has not been widely reported to the public, but reportage from inside the hearing says that Professor Ferguson is now calling a figure 25 times smaller than his original prediction the absolute maximum. One wonders what has happened to change his mind — it seems that the lower than expected mortality rates are causing experts to re-evaluate their more apocalyptic predictions. Professor Ferguson actually has Covid-19 himself —perhaps it is not as bad as he thought.

Moreover, Professor Ferguson told the British parliament that he believes the UK’s national health system (NHS) has enough intensive care beds and equipment to handle the pandemic. And although the peak not having hit just yet, he believes that the UK will come through the worst relatively smoothly. Much ado about nothing, then?

....

But a decade on, the lessons of history appear to have been forgotten. The coronavirus origin story, which is like something from a Hollywood movie, and the fact that it is somewhat more dangerous than swine flu, along with social media information saturation have combined to make a perfect storm of overreaction that will plunge the world into a second Great Depression.

The only reliable measure of extra deaths, in the UK or elsewhere, will be months from now,
when we can measure this year's total deaths from natural causes and compare it to last years

However, some rough figures about the short term impact:

Italy's population is about 60 million,
with normally about 640,000 deaths per year,
which is about 1,750 per day.

Coronavirus was killing 600-700 per day
so increasing the normal daily death rate over the whole country by 35-40%

In the Lombardy region, the daily death rate rose by over 80%,

• and some local mayors have stated that many Coronavirus deaths are being missed, because some of those who died at home were never tested.

Of course this won't last for ever and it seems to have levelled off in Italy now
there will be a vaccine;
there will eventually be sufficient people who have caught it and are immune
viruses normally mutate to become less dangerous

However, for the months that it does, the health system in some countries

• who did too little, too late - has been overwhelmed and normal life shattered

The UK government's own model says that washing your hands reduces deaths by half. So if that is true who should social distancing not have a large impact as well?

Also OP, it would be better to leave all this until the full extent of the spread is known, which won't be a for a few weeks. And longer if all this condemnation leads people to reject the social isolation requirements.

Doctors and epidemiologists warn that if you do nothing, then X will happen

You do something and X does NOT happen

Does NOT mean that X was unnecessary

Anyone else smell a hack here..?

Well, if this is accurate it's good news that hopefully the lockdown will not need to last for months. However, it should be blatantly obvious from the empirical evidence in Italy and Spain that some kind of lockdown was essential. Both countries have more ICU beds than the UK and both have had hospitals which have not been able to cope and some patients who may otherwise have survived have not been given ventilation because no ventilators were available.

Let's hope that a short lockdown will be effective in giving the NHS time to prepare so that people won't die unneccesarily.

OP the 500,000 deaths were if the UK government did nothing. You are totally misrepresenting this. So if everyone carried on as normal and pretended nothing had happened.

Have you noticed how much life has changed? I would hope it would have a bloody big impact on the amount of people who die.

Also OP, it would be better to leave all this until the full extent of the spread is known, which won't be a for a few weeks

Perhaps you should write in and complain to Radio 4 then, as they were interviewing him about this this morning.

judithcurry.com/2020/03/25/covid-19-updated-data-implies-that-uk-modelling-hugely-overestimates-the-expected-death-rates-from-infection/

You really don't know what you are talking about, OP.

"basically has no idea about what is going to happen" no one does. Welcome to the grown-up world. We extrapolate probable futures based on the facts at hand and try to plan for most of them. As more facts come in we change the plans to suit. That doesn't mean the plans were a mistake.

Op, why aren't you listening to what posters are telling you?

Prof Neil Ferguson in the Guardian today:

"Ferguson, whose modelling informed the government’s decision to impose a lockdown, said the data was showing signs that social distancing measures were beginning to work although it has not yet had an effect on the number of daily reported deaths.

He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “In the UK, we can see some early signs of slowing in some indicators. Less so in deaths because deaths are lagged by long time from when the measures come into force.

“But we look at the numbers of new hospital admissions today, for instance, that does seem to be slowing down a little bit now. It’s not yet plateaued as the numbers are increasing each day but the rate of that increase has slowed.

“We see similar patterns in a number of European countries.”

If this is right it is very very good news, and motivating for everyone in relation to lockdown.

It will be clarified over the next 6 weeks inevitably... except that groups of people rebelling against the lockdown gratuitously is a problem - if in the future there is reinfection on a large scale because large numbers are not isolating now then govmt action would be required again.

Anyone else smell a hack here..?

Could be . . .

You do understand op that the original figure was based on if we did nothing? If we carried on cramming onto public transport, congregating in pubs, sitting close to each other in offices and schools. Now we are doing something so obviously the numbers have changed, there'd be no point doing it otherwise. This is going to be like the millennium bug all over again...

alloutoffucks

“OP the 500,000 deaths were if the UK government did nothing. You are totally misrepresenting this. So if everyone carried on as normal and pretended nothing had happened.”

I understand that! Neil F also estimated 2.2 million people would have died in the US. Dr Fauci said that this is like a severe seasonal Flu. Fauci estimate 100k(with some measures) will die which is terribly sad. However, 80k people died from seasonal flu a couple years ago in the US and no one flinched. It’s just the world is now watching.

I’m not saying the lockdown shouldn’t have completely happened. But I do think “lesser measures” might have worked as well without us going into a depression. I don’t think people realize the grave reality this will lead to.

People are now saying Neil F grossly overestimated the deaths with his original model if we did nothing... which caused mass hysteria and panic. It should be reviewed and questioned.

He says "As I watched the Prime Minister order mass house arrest on Monday night, I felt revulsion, anger and grief – as anyone brought up when this was a free and well-governed country would. I also felt terribly alone."

I shall expect to see another book soon then with that as the opening line. It's quite a good one. Though it may go downhill from there.

He goes on to say that people opposing him have "strengthened me in my conviction that mine is the better case" but if he were working from facts other people's opinions would make no difference so that's a bit of a giveaway.

Some people are saying that, some people are not. I'd rather put my trust in a highly experienced team of epidemiologists, some of the very best in the world, over Peter hitchens in the daily mail.

Other posters on Mumsnet But science and evidence

OP: LaLaLa I'm Not Listening