SAGE Emergency Meeting Minutes:

[PrincessNutNuts]

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachmentdata/file/986709/S12377SPI-M-OConsensussStatement.pdf

21. SPI-M-O is therefore confident that B.1.617.2 has a significant growth advantage over the UK’s currently dominant strain, B.1.1.7. The difference in growth rates between B.1.617.2 and B.1.1.7 is consistent with the former having a transmission advantage of more than 50%;this is based on observed growth that has already happened and it is unclear whether this same growth advantage would apply to sustained wider community transmission regionally or nationally. Resolving this question of the applicability of this growth advantage to the wider population will be difficult while the number of cases are small and relatively focussed.

22. Considering this, it is a realistic possibility that this scale of B.1.617.2 growth could lead to a very large increase in transmission. At this point in the vaccine roll out, there are still too few adults vaccinated to prevent a significant resurgence that ultimately could put unsustainable pressure on the NHS, without non-pharmaceutical interventions.

@Horehound

Omg this is amazing. Has the op and her chums even looked at what SAGE are predicting. It's not even possible lol

LOL I don't think Toby Young's comment "Yeah right" counts as critical analysis from a reliable source.

The analysis (or back of a fag packet calculation, as he calls it) of the model that has concluded that SAGE's predictions are impossible was done by second year maths student, who clearly has no understanding of epidemiology. He has decided that if 2% of the population was infected in January (according to ONS), he can divide the number of hospitalisations predicted by the model in July by the number of hospitalisations there were in January to work out how many people would have to be infected for that to happen. If only modelling were so simple and just a case of arithmetic, we could get primary school children to do it.

He has then assumed that everyone in the UK over the age of 20 will have had at least one vaccination by July. Except that won't be true, and they would need to be vaccinated much earlier than that for immunity to have developed. He also doesn't understand what efficacy means, he thinks 90% efficacy means 90% of people who have been vaccinated will be protected against severe illness and "hospitality" sic. It doesn't. Efficacy is about a reduction in risk of disease compared to someone who is unvaccinated. So he has then decided that means he should multiply the number of people who would have to be infected by (1/(1-0.9)) because he believes only 10% of the population will not be entirely immune in July

He also doesn't seem to understand the concept of confidence intervals and has decided that the upper limit of the confidence interval is what has been predicted rather than the scientists are 95% confident that the correct number is somewhere in the range between the upper and lower limits of the confidence interval.

Singapore have reintroduced restrictions and closed schools, Taiwan is introducing it’s strongest restrictions yet. Both on the back of what would be described as a handful of new cases here.

The Indian variant is in plenty of countries now, I’m not sure any of them are reducing restrictions though.

@RafaIsTheKingOfClay

Singapore have reintroduced restrictions and closed schools, Taiwan is introducing it’s strongest restrictions yet. Both on the back of what would be described as a handful of new cases here.

The Indian variant is in plenty of countries now, I’m not sure any of them are reducing restrictions though.

It’s not really comparable. Singapore and Taiwan’s populations haven't been living under lockdown for the past 5 months, and in many parts of the country far far longer.

Because Taiwan and Singapore act swiftly and efficiently when only a handful of cases are found. Unlike here where the wingers shout overkill and find it too difficult to accept restrictions when cases are low.

Well yes, because they dealt with it properly in the first place. But that’s not really the point I’m disputing. The point is that where other countries had cases under control with previous variant but the Indian strain isn’t under control using those same measure, they are tightening them.

In our case, knowing that our current levels of restrictions don’t control spread of the Indian strain we are loosening them. If pointing out that we should be doing something is panicking, then actually doing something on the basis of 38 or 180 new cases a day might also be panicking.

We could have not had restrictions for months too, we chose to follow a path that meant we couldn’t and still seem to be following it.

@RafaIsTheKingOfClay

Well yes, because they dealt with it properly in the first place. But that’s not really the point I’m disputing. The point is that where other countries had cases under control with previous variant but the Indian strain isn’t under control using those same measure, they are tightening them.

In our case, knowing that our current levels of restrictions don’t control spread of the Indian strain we are loosening them. If pointing out that we should be doing something is panicking, then actually doing something on the basis of 38 or 180 new cases a day might also be panicking.

We could have not had restrictions for months too, we chose to follow a path that meant we couldn’t and still seem to be following it.

I didn’t say anything about panicking?

I’m just saying that countries who have controlled this well (and we haven’t) and kept cases low while not inflicting extensive draconian restrictions on their populations are not comparable.

In Australia, or NZ, for even one case of community spread they’ll have a short sharp lockdown.

Here, sadly, we have had horrible restrictions (which I supported) for well over half of the past year, and some people never really came out. We don’t have the luxury of saying every time cases rise or there’s a variant we will lockdown, or we would never be out of restrictions and the need to open up for the well being of the country is compelling. Our criterion has to be will the NHS get overwhelmed. That is not the case is somewhere that’s done far better than us such as Taiwan.

@SlipperyDippery why are people still comparing the uk to nZ and Australia, its like apple and pears

[quote worriedatthemoment]@SlipperyDippery why are people still comparing the uk to nZ and Australia, its like apple and pears [/quote]
I agree - sorry if it wasn’t very clear, I was trying to make the point that they’re in a totally different situation