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/

@Mumlove5

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.

There have been two massive “real life” events involving significant population-wide infection that show your figures are too optimistic; Bergamo (6,000 dead out of 1.1m pop and 35% with antibodies) and NYC (19,100 dead out of 8.4m pop and 20-25% with antibodies).

Like any stats, they can be dissected for flaws, but notwithstanding this, to me they outweigh far smaller studies done earlier that indicate lower figures. Indeed, they outweigh earlier analysis that showed much higher figures too (WHO had 3.4% IFR not so long ago) - I’m not interested in maximising figures!

The UK has the advantage of its epidemic being a couple of weeks behind those on the continent

So Boris can - and probably will - wait a few weeks to see what happens when they relax measures

I live in Germany and schools are returning, more shops are opening
Some German states will soon be reopening restaurants
There won't be Oktoberfest, carnivals etc this year and holiday flights are very unlikely too

We have been told there may be a 2nd and 3rd wave, but that noone knows;
The economy has been hammered, so we have to try sometime and summer looks the best time
Merkel has been honest about the risks and keeps warning us all not to return to "normal" yet

Germany may have an "acceptable" increase in deaths, or no increase
.... or may go from one of the lowest death rates to the highest
We just don't know.

Comprehensive summary of COVID studies and esimated infection rates

Also compares "true COVID IFR" to "true flu IFR"

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-04-24/is-coronavirus-worse-than-the-flu-blood-studies-say-yes-by-far

But just as with the coronavirus,
testing has shown that many people infected with influenza viruses develop no flu symptoms.
....
University of Oxford infectious disease epidemiologist Christophe Fraser estimated that the actual infection fatality rate (... IFR) of seasonal influenza is 0.04%
....
the range of [COVID] 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%.

The most exhaustive and up-to-date pre-serology-survey estimate of Covid-19’s IFR that I’m aware of, from a peer-reviewed article in Lancet Infectious Diseases by a group of researchers at Imperial College London, is 0.66%

If the IFR of the seasonal flu is 0.04%, these blood surveys show Covid-19 to be anywhere from three times deadlier to 27 times deadlier

• and given the incompleteness of current death counts, the true range seems likely to be higher than that.

You took the antibiotics and now the infection is gone. That proves you didn't need the antibiotics

Indeed, i can’t quite work out if people are having a laugh when they say “look, his predictions were way out!” as otherwise they show a lack of critical thinking that would shame a 3 year old!

Some of his projections do seem to have been wrong - Sweden for instance because he failed to take account of significant voluntary social distancing - but the evidence to date suggests his 250,000 deaths if we carried on as we were, weren’t far out if you look at places like Bergamo.

We could have done it on a voluntary basis given how few young people are affected and the importance of civil liberties.

The rules allow the mixing of two households in certain cases - for example where children of divorced/separated parents are allowed to move between two houses, and to allow people to care for vulnerable adults.

Obviously wanting to have to sex with someone you don't live with is not an acceptable reason to mix households but NF presumably took the view that the level of risk was extremely small in this case, especially as he has already had covid 19 and thinks he is now immune.

I imagine he is right about the level of risk but clearly his judgement on whether it was sensible to go ahead is another matter entirely.

"Some of his projections do seem to have been wrong - Sweden for instance because he failed to take account of significant voluntary social distancing "

Modelling projections should always give the scenarios and assumptions

The 40,000 deaths for Sweden was if they did nothing at all,
but they did a lot - voluntarily - as we can see from their economic hit

Also, all the Scandinavian countries have much lower death rates than the rest of Europe, for reasons that have not been established yet

• and the UK may not be able to apply some of those reasons if they are e.g. ethnic, single-person households...

There is something of the night about that man.

If by that you mean that rats come out at night, then yes, I agree with you.

@BigChocFrenzy

If the government change policy every time one of their advisers or MPs has a bonk against the rules
.... they'll be twirling in perpetual circles
🤣comedy comment of the thread

It won't affect the decision that Boris has already made, which is almost certainly to wait a few weeks and watch what happens to countries on the continent who relax social measures

I hope your confidence j. That is justified! It's what he SHOULD do, I'm just not so sure he will - unfortunately

Some of his previous modelling has also been incorrect. It puzzles me why some posters defend a model that they know nothing about that other experts have questioned

Exactly this. He’s been wildly out in other predictions in the past and yet people just accept this as gospel?

BigChoc “ He will say anything to get headlines”

Think back to before Covid 19

Remind you of anyone? 😂

But @Xenia most people ignored the social distancing rules when they were voluntary. We don’t seem as compliant as Sweden, and their economy has been impacted too. Do you not think there would have been more deaths if we had been left to carry on as normal?

"It puzzles me why some posters defend a model that they know nothing about "

I've recently retired after nearly 40 years in highly complex math modelling, R&D
The results of a model depend on the assumptions made and on the scenarios modelled

I certainly don't say models can't be wrong

• on other threads I've repeatedly said how I hope responsible teams, not those supporting vested business interests - could model and cross-check independently

However, the criticisms that I keep reading on MN are not from fellow modellers,
but mostly from people who are suffering financially,
and / or who always wanted the economy prioritised, whatever the cost in lives

@BigChocFrenzy
"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“

I rest my case. This is proof of how hypocritical people are. Dr John Ioannidis is a highly credible scientist. He questioned the highly inaccurate Imperial Model from the beginning. He mainly said we need more reliable data and we’re going into this blindly.

This virus is mild for the majority. We know who is high risk, therefore we need to adjust the initial (ludicrous) decision that put millions of people on house arrest. We now have more scientific data.

This isn’t lives vs the economy! This is lives vs lives! The catastrophe these lockdowns have caused is unfathomable. Now we are having direct deaths from the lockdown and destroyed livelihoods.

Not to mention how much our mental health has diminished. Canceling weddings, events, concerts, festivals. Closing museums, restaurants, pubs and so on. School closures where children’s education is vile . It’s their future.

This isn’t living! This is merely existing, being surrounded hysteria.

These lockdowns were a massive overreaction caused by irrational fear and unpreparedness. We have lived with virus and flu outbreaks before and survived. The natural curve of virus’s is that they peak and go down, around 6-8 weeks... Lockdown or no lockdown, probably with a similar outcome.

“There was an 81 per cent increase in the number of people using food banks int he last two weeks of March this year compared with2019, the boss of the Trussell Trust has said.
Emma Revie said more concerning even than that was the122 per cent increase in the number of children receiving food parcels.
It has been driven by insufficient income either from work or benefits to cover essentials such as food.By the time people are using food banks, the income is typically £50 a week after rent.
But she says the speed was particularly concerning - within the third week of March it was significant, she says.”

Are all the countries that have gone into lockdown wrong?

It gives the tabloids something to get their evil claws into.

I'd be very worried if lockdown were just because of one man
But it isn't - Whitty, Valance and others on SAGE support it from their own epidemiological knowledge

Boris, Raab and even ruthless buggers like Dominic Cummings wanted lockdown,
because they couldn't accept the risk of hundreds of thousands of deaths
(and the Tory party being destroyed forever)

It would be a balance of risk, not certainty, because in science there rarely is that 100% certainty

Nearly the whole world is in lockdown because of the advice of their own experts,
NOT because of the model by a British scientist

Neither Ferguson nor the UK are that important in the rest of the world

• not many ordinary people outside the UK have ever heard of him

"Dr John Ioannidis is a highly credible scientist"

As posted upthtread:
Ionnadis is a notorious professional contrarian, despised by most in his field,
a publicity hound on the hard right US channels

He carries out shoddy research after criticising research from others

Valance now saying we will avoid a second wave

@ineedaholidaynow

It was a domino effect. Copy and paste by governments. Initially they went into lockdown because of the unknown and panic, which in my opinion are not enough reasons for such draconian measures.

The mainstream media has a lot to answer for. Governments had to cater to a frightened public and appear compassionate... always political.

The NHS was never breached and that’s not because of the lockdown. Oxford models show that the infection transmission rate dropped significantly before the lockdown.

The peak of deaths was on April 8th which means the peak of infection was 3 weeks prior.

www.cebm.net/covid-19/what-does-rcgp-surveillance-tell-us-about-covid-19-in-the-community/

RCGP Surveillance Data

Influenza-like illness (ILI) rates in England and Wales peak at variable times between November and March.

The RCGP surveillance data reports trends for ILI, upper respiratory tract infections (URTIs) and lower respiratory tract infections (LRTI), along with weekly data on COVID-19 case investigations. These data on over 4 million patients are from a nationally representative network of general practices.

The questions these data can answer are:

What is the trend for influenza-like illness in the 2019-2020 flu season?
Are the distancing measures having an effect?
How do cases of COVID-19 compare?
The figure shows that rates of URTI and LRTI have fallen significantly since 15th March when social distancing measures were introduced. Some of this fall would naturally happen at this time of year with the onset of spring.

The data highlight that these initial distancing measures, together with the seasonal effect, reduced transmission of URTIs by 9 per 10,000 (44%) in the week (from 20.4 to 11.4 per 10,000 consultations). The following week (22nd March), when the lockdown was introduced, rates of URTIs further decreased by 3.3 per 10,000 consultations (29%).

Interactive Figure (hover on the points for current estimates).

COVID cases were first detected in week 10 (8th March). The initial rates of 0.65 per 10,000 now stand at 11.00 per 10,000 by the 27th of April which is little change from last week’s rate of 10.74. There is a delay in reporting in the swab results that leads to fluctuations in the rates, and there is also some problem in interpreting the rates due to increased testing that has occurred over the period (ie., as more testing occurs more diseases is detected – see detection bias).

There have been two massive “real life” events involving significant population-wide infection that show your figures are too optimistic; Bergamo (6,000 dead out of 1.1m pop and 35% with antibodies) and NYC (19,100 dead out of 8.4m pop and 20-25% with antibodies

6,000 out of 1.1 million
We have 60 million in the UK - so multiply that up - and you have a lot of deaths.