Fauci and Ferguson got it wrong?

[itwaseverthus]

This UK GP seems to show that the calculations which led to lockdown were way off by a factor of 10!

drmalcolmkendrick.org/2020/09/04/covid-why-terminology-really-matters/?unapproved=176484&moderation-hash=ff1a297ff4f26e7148c6491b15a8b89e#comment-176484

[notevenat20]

Just to reemphasise the subtleties when thinking about IFR or CFR, if you looked at Oman where 2.4% of the population is over 65 you would get a very different number compared to Italy where it is 23%.

This is not to say the numbers are useless but rather that it really matters exactly how the estimates are done and what you are comparing to.

[Nellodee]

Are you confusing Case Fatality Rate with Infection Fatality Rate, KitKatastrophe?

CFR is how many people die out of the known cases, IFR is how many people die out of all cases. Whilst CFR can be calculated precisely, IFR can only be estimated.

This is from the February WHO report on Wuhan:

As of 20 February, 2114 of the 55,924 laboratory confirmed cases have died (crude fatality ratio [CFR2] 3.8%) (note: at least some of whom were identified using a case definition that included pulmonary disease).

That figure was never supposed to represent the IFR.

[Derbygerbil]

@KitKatastrophe

I don’t think there’s anyone who disputes that the 3.4% is way too high, and it has never been used as part of the UK or USA’s pandemic modelling

[KitKatastrophe]

3.4% was the percentage given by WHO at the beginning of March and widely reported around 3rd to 6th March.

[Derbygerbil]

@larrygrylls

Yes, the actual figures six months in are consistent with the figures from the Fergusson model, whatever flaws it may or may not have had.

Weirdly this gets pointed out again and again and the posters goes quiet... Then it’s brought back again a few weeks later as a “newsflash”, generally with some absurd false equivalences that are meant to give weight to the accusation, but just make the poster look daft.

[notevenat20]

Fergusens models aren't respected and are treated with contempt by a lot of his peers, I don't understand how people still respect opinions of a man so discredited and wrong not once but nearly every time.

Just a gentle reminder that this is libel.

[notevenat20]

depends entirely...oops.

[notevenat20]

Factor of 10 sounds about right. We were told the virus had an infection fatality rate of 3.4%. CEBM most recent estimate puts it between 0.3 and 0.5%

I don’t think this is right.

I am not sure where you heard 3.4% but the CEBM estimate is also regarded as too low. The issue with the IFR is that it defends entirely on the age and health distribution in the population who are catching it. So if at one stage it is largely care homes and then later it is largely young people, the IFR will change dramatically. You might be tempted to say the estimate was “wrong” when you see the change. What you really want is a figure that is broken down by age range at least. Those do exist now.

[larrygrylls]

If the infection fatality rate was 0.1%, then around 60,000,000 of the population would already have been infected, and we would have herd immunity.

It is hard to know where it is as we have no idea of the number of people already infected. I am sceptical it is as low as 6% and think some may retain T cell memory or other antibodies (not tested for).

Say we go for 12,000,000 infected (or, at least, exposed) and 60,000 deaths (based on excess deaths), we get an IFR of 0.5%.

If we, optimistically, assume that 60% confers herd immunity, that implies around 250,000 deaths, around what the modellers suggested.

It is not the plague but nor can it be treated as a cold or ‘the flu’.

[Nellodee]

I've been following this from the beginning and the infection fatality rate has been estimated at 1% right back to the early WHO Wuhan based models.

[notevenat20]

Fergussen models are frequently incorrect, he didn't even ought to be employed.

I know people like to say this but it appears not to be true when you look into it in more detail. To take one example, over mad cow disease he coauthored a paper predicting between a handful of deaths and millions, explaining in the next sentence that there wasn’t enough data to tell. The papers reported that he had predicted millions of deaths.

[KitKatastrophe]

Factor of 10 sounds about right. We were told the virus had an infection fatality rate of 3.4%. CEBM most recent estimate puts it between 0.3 and 0.5%

[Derbygerbil]

By the way, my post above isn’t “defending him”... I’m simply saying that the numbers he arrived at
don’t seem too far from our current understanding of the potential impact of Covid based on actual
figures six months on. This would be the case whether he slept with another husband’s wife during lockdown, firebombed a nursery or boiled kittens alive.

[Namenic]

Was surveillance of asymptomatic people done in previous influenza epidemics? Was the methodology similar to what we had with corona? At a similar point in epidemic ?(there may be some selection pressures - late in the epidemic perhaps viruses which replicate more may tend to be ones which cause less severe symptoms and the host population may on average be less likely to succumb).

Even different influenza epidemics differ from each other in their time-course and lethality.

In the face of uncertainty, Is it better to be cautious like countries in Asia/oceania (Some with higher population density and lower mortality rate than Europe)? Personally I would say yes.

[Derbygerbil]

His model didn't stand up to the slightest bit of scrutiny.

His model has various flaws, some big ones, though much of that wasn’t so obvious in early March. He was also a hypocrite.

However, the numbers churned out by the model are, perhaps by luck, consistent with our current figures, so I find it curious that his 500,000 keeps getting dragged up again and again.

[HeresMe]

We've known Ferguson was talking shit for months.

It's strange people are eager to defend him but villify Cummings. When all fergussen was interested in was a shag

[HesterShaw1]

We've known Ferguson was talking shit for months.

Hos model didn't stand up to the slightest bit of scrutiny.

[scaevola]

The March 'reasonable worst case' scenario is now published online.

Here's the BBC report on the new one for the winter

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-53954492

[scaevola]

Do remember that he was modelling the 'reasonable worst case' scenario.

It's to inform planning.

It is a mark of the success of the response that we did not even come close. Any outcome which matched a reasonable worst case is either an utter failure, or the result of a government thinking that the scenario is acceptabke and choosing to do nothing

[Derbygerbil]

Apparently according to Dr Kendrick: “Stop panicking – it’s over”.

Yes, good call....

www.aa.com.tr/en/europe/spain-over-920-covid-19-patients-hospitalized-in-a-day/1954262#

[Derbygerbil]

And yes, I do accept that Ferguson’s model had major flaws.... However, the figures have stood the test of time.

[Derbygerbil]

Three pieces of evidence that indicate that Ferguson and Fauci, and many others, weren’t wrong... even if Ferguson’s models had flaws.

Exhibit 1 Covid deaths as per most ONS figures to the end of June (where Covid is deemed to be primary cause of death) is c.46,000

www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/deathsinvolvingcovid19englandandwales/deathsoccurringinjune2020

Exhibit 2 Proportion of people with antibodies as per latest national study: 6%.

www.gov.uk/government/publications/react-2-study-of-coronavirus-antibodies-june-2020-results/react-2-real-time-assessment-of-community-transmission-prevalence-of-coronavirus-covid-19-antibodies-in-june-2020

Exhibit 3 Antibodies levels of 60% and above have been found in various hotspots, indicating that whereas some people may have been infected and don’t have antibodies, the majority do.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/world-asia-india-53576653

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2020/07/09/nyregion/nyc-coronavirus-antibodies.amp.html

www.time24story.com/2020/07/covid-19-may-have-infected-93-of-iquitos-in-peru-according-to-a-study.html

Conclusion A reasonable deduction is that circa 10 times more people, perhaps more, would need to be infected before we reach herd immunity nationally.

Extrapolating the deaths accordingly, and we’d have 460,000 deaths... not far off Ferguson’s figure!

[HeresMe]

Fergusens models aren't respected and are treated with contempt by a lot of his peers, I don't understand how people still respect opinions of a man so discredited and wrong not once but nearly every time.

[MedSchoolRat]

Neither case/infection case fatality rates for covid are 0.1% for all-age population.
The true all-age IFR is fairly close to 1%.

www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.03.20089854v4
www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.09.20096503v3
www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.06.20093351v2

Ferguson & Fauci are enormously respected by other epidemiologists. They aren't superhuman, not every idea they have is amazing or best method, but they are both very expert & able.

[raddledoldmisanthropist]

I have read his book The Great Cholesterol Con ChaChaCha2012 and I believe it's based on sound science. I see this recent paper says similar

It's not. He had a 2016 paper ripped to shreds for only choosing studies which supported his idea that cholesterol doesn't cause heart disease and ignoring those which do not.

A lot of his statements about how terminology is often poorly communicated to the public are true; but the idea that the experts in disease control don't know the correct termionology and are basing all their predictions on one model which used a wrong number from a jounal is laughable.

I could pick apart where he also mixes up terminology in the article, explain the information he doesn't say and list every bad faith assumption he makes, but none of that is the point:

In Science we reach conclusions by evidence and peer review. We listen to the consensus of the experts in the field- not one outlier with no expertise in epidemiology. Many early predictions about Covid-19 will change, the people making their best guesses know that. Still the idea that they are all completely wrong and this GP is right is just silly.