Neil Ferguson - is this Too good to be true?

[LilacTree1]

Resigns after breaking the lockdown?

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/05/05/exclusive-government-scientist-neil-ferguson-resigns-breaking/

I wonder what those people who are dismissing the lockdown would suggest what the death rate is from this disease?

And how that death rate can be affected by available resources?

@Weetam68 it's not living in fear to know and accept that a second wave will happen, but still go on about your usual business.

He added that 'Winter is coming'

That really tickled me. GOT throwback

@chomalungma

There have been several antibody studies from the US, Iceland, Germany etc revealing that the IFR is between 0.1 - 0.5%. In my view, I won’t be surprised if the IFR will be around 0.2% in the end.

mobile.twitter.com/freddiesayers/status/1257620247034630146

At UnHerd, we’ve spoken to experts at both ends of the range of estimates, from Neil Ferguson (who believes the IFR to be just under 1%, perhaps 0.8-0.9%) to Johan Giesecke who maintains that it is nearer 0.1%, or one in a thousand.

"Dr. Ioannidis, famous for his highly cited and debated publication"

Ionnidis is a well-known publicity hand and contrarian, much beloved therefore of the hard right in the USA

He will say anything to get headlines

He criticises research of everyone else, while doing shoddy studies himself that e.g. break the normal rules of sampling

0.2% is 1 in 500

So out of 60,000,000 people - that's potentially 120,000 people.

If we have an overwhelmed NHS, then that could rise.

I guess the level of infection varies within communities - denser communities - more severe - so places like London, or poorer communities with closer packed people, people more exposed to others are at risk.

And the level varies depending on who is infected - all those risk factors

All I can say is that I would not want to be the person or the team responsible for such decisions.

No the accusation os Ms Gupta was not Ferguson it was one of his colleagues.
Whatever the rights and wrongs of the is case ( he believed he was safe following his positive test and two weeks isolation) He did break the guidelines,
I am absolutely appalled and the typical MN Title here
too good to be true
Who an earth do you think you are?
Please can we have less personal slagging off and more objective comment.
One of the crticisms men make of women is this sort of behaviour

It’s sad and very disturbing that science is now undebatable. The UK government has treated the Imperial College Model as if it were the Ten Commandments.

This

Do people think Boris decided to destroy the British economy for shits and giggles ?

That Raab, Hancock & the whole Cabinet went along for the fun of it ?

Or that they were all hypnotised by one scientist ?
Whitty, Valance and the other SAGE advisers were advising lockdown from their own knowledge of pandemics and epidemiology

Sweden's economy has been hammered too, because they have a lot of social distancing

• but it's voluntary because they trusted the advice of their government

Boris tried this before lockdown, but too few of the British public obeyed.
Hence mandatory UK lockdown

Nearly all the governments in the world - left, right and centre, dictatorships and democracies alike - didn't all go crazy and decide to hammer their economy for nothing

They all listened to their own advisers and decided they couldn't risk doing nothing.

Nearly all the governments in the world - left, right and centre, dictatorships and democracies alike - didn't all go crazy and decide to hammer their economy for nothing

This.

Chomalungma

Maybe his dire warnings haven't come to pass because we have done the things suggested to stop these things coming to pass?

😁 that very simply put point seems to have escaped many people.

Boris tried this before lockdown, but too few of the British public obeyed

It was very half hearted. Shut down the pubs - but not made mandatory.

But schools were beginning to empty. People were hearing the news, listening to talk of herd immunity and not buying it.

"It’s sad and very disturbing that science is now undebatable."

We can debate whether we prioritise the economy and how many lives we are prepared to sacrifice in the next couple of months for it,
because that is a moral issue

I ignore internet randoms "debating" science, because they haven't the knowledge to debate sensibly

"Maybe his dire warnings haven't come to pass because we have done the things suggested to stop these things coming to pass?"

You took the antibiotics and now the infection is gone

That proves you didn't need the antibiotics

What are the alternatives to lockdown that people think would have worked in this country?

I suppose one of the issues with modelling is that you can't do a controlled trial.

i.e. Have 2 UKs and lockdown one but not the other

In the OP title "Too good to be true"

sums up the childish level of "debate"

fwiw, I want to restart schools and most of the economy in stages from 1 June,
when usually fewer people are sick and the NHS has high capacity

However, I don't try to mislead people about the risks we have to accept

"I suppose one of the issues with modelling is that you can't do a controlled trial."

We can look at the very similar group of Scandinavian countries, which all had very low death rates compared to the rest of Europe

Sweden has extensive social distancing, but its neighbours have lockdown too

e.g. Norway, next door to Sweden and v similar ethnically:

Norway pop. 5.4 million
Total COVID deaths (with lockdown) only 215
That's only 40 deaths / million pop.

Even normalised by population, Sweden has several times the deaths of its neighbours

How would the UK economy have fared with 10 x the deaths of Italy, France, Spain ?
Our curves in lockdown are very similar to theirs, suggesting we behave like them, not Sweden

www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/05/06/professor-ferguson-coronavirus-update-uk-lockdown-end-government/

PMQs today