Chris Whitty/Patrick Vallance

[BonnieDundee]

In the light of the inaccurate graphs used to justify putting England into lockdown last week, do you still trust these 2?

YANBU of course I trust them. It was justified and they are trying to do the best for.the country

YABU No. How can you trust professionals who manipulate statistics to suit their own agenda

'Always had a good feeling about him. Read the BMJ interview and I like that he makes it clear he's independent of politics. I'm glad he's at the helm; he knows what he's doing especially compared to your average MN contributor.'

Exactly. I bet they couldn't give a rat's ass if they are popular or not. They are professional and present statistics and projections. You'd just hope it would convince flouters that their actions actually do make difference, but nope it's all a conspiracy innit .

It's happening everywhere, climbing admissions and deaths yet some on here think unless their projected numbers are exactly right they are making it all up 🙄.

It's happening everywhere, climbing admissions and deaths yet some on here think unless their projected numbers are exactly right they are making it all up

Lol,cmon.

It’s like me standing up and saying, I have a million pounds in my bank account today and if I keep saving at this rate. By the time I’m x age I shall be a billionaire.

And someone saying, well you don’t, you have 182 pounds in your bank account today.

And me responding and saying well it’s just a scenario innit

Well it's not like that at all. They use scientific models not just your weird million pound analogy.

Cases are going up, hospital admissions, icu patients, deaths all going up. They haven't just made it all up y'know.

They maybe give worst case scenarios to appeal to thick people who think it's all made up.

They maybe give worst case scenarios to appeal to thick people who think it's all made up.

It wasnt a worst case scenario. If i understand it correctly, it was completely out of date statistics that at the date they presented them, they knew would never happen

I'm amazed at all the people on this thread who don't seem concerned that the UK Stats Authority felt they needed to step in. They don't actually do that lightly.

Yes I trust them
If you listen to Whitty speak about graphs he’s reasonable on this

No voting button

I think it’s very concerning that they used the graph, saying I didn’t want to isn’t much good.

If someone else is pulling the strings and you don’t like it, resign already. They’re neither of them poor.

It takes a shocking amount of ego to put a country into lockdown full stop but with figures you don’t even believe? Kinhell.

@110APiccadilly

I'm amazed at all the people on this thread who don't seem concerned that the UK Stats Authority felt they needed to step in. They don't actually do that lightly.

Was that in MSM? I saw it online but I don’t know if most people are aware.

I don't trust them, they are just a way for Boris to evade responsibility.

Experts shouldn't be given a public profile and be rolled out at press conferences. Ministers make the decisions, let them explain them.

I don't know whether the advice they are giving Boris is right or wrong but he is responsible for his decisions regardless.

@AcornAutumn it was reported on the BBC but I don't know whether it was ever headline news. (Should have been, but that's another thing.)
www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-54831334

@Winebottle

I don't trust them, they are just a way for Boris to evade responsibility.

Experts shouldn't be given a public profile and be rolled out at press conferences. Ministers make the decisions, let them explain them.

I don't know whether the advice they are giving Boris is right or wrong but he is responsible for his decisions regardless.

To be honest, from the media reports, it’s starting to look like Boris doesn’t trust them either now.

The graph included several scenarios, which they did explain. There was a huge range between the worst and best case scenarios, so it was obvious the figures were a projection not a certainty - the only certainty was that hospitalisations and deaths were increasing and if we do nothing they will exceed the first wave peak and hospitals will be overwhelmed. This is the real reason the government re-imposed lockdown.

The error in the models was that they entered a figure of 1,000 deaths on 1 Nov when it was actually 200. However with exponential growth we could have reached the figure used a short time later anyway. Action needs to be taken well in advance of the situation deteriorating to that extent because of the time lag between infection and hospitalisation.

In a situation like this, new data are being received all the time, and this has to be taken into account, models changed, slides changed repeatedly. It’s no surprise that some of the information presented turns out not to be completely accurate.

I trust them, especially Whitty. They may not get everything right all the time, but I think they are genuinely trying to find the best path through this crisis.

Whitty repeatedly said back in the Spring that this would be a marathon, not a sprint and he said back then that we might need repeated rolling lockdowns. It seems to me that lots of people didn’t want to hear that and so have conveniently forgotten. But it turns out he was right.

Lurk “ The error in the models was that they entered a figure of 1,000 deaths on 1 Nov when it was actually 200”

There’s an error and a half. 🙄

Oh yes, it’s a big error....but not so big when you look at exponential growth.

By which I mean, you can get from 200 to 1,000 deaths per day in a few days.

I don't trust them as they're not independent scientists, they're political appointees.

Civil servants are independent of government and not appointed by the government.