@wintertravel1980
I am sure that Indie Sage members are “real” scientists but so is Carl Heneghan (who refused to believe in the second wave up until it hit and hit hard).
The problem with some scientists on both ends of the spectrum is that they become so attached and emotionally invested in their models and forecasts that they refuse to see facts and analyse real time data.
I still follow Christina Pagel on twitter since she is (i) clearly smart, (ii) one of the more reasonable members of Indie Sage and (iii) I like hearing diverse views. However it never stops to amaze me how often she misses very obvious data points because they do not seem to fit into her own version of the world. For instance, on July 19 she suggested that we tighten restrictions and go back to Stage 2 of the government roadmap. By that time, we could already see that we were passed the Euro peak and cases began to fall.
I do feel we are turning another corner this week (in fact, the greenshoots of hope were already visible last week) so again it is ironic that people started to call for restrictions now rather than 2 weeks ago, when cases unexpectedly jumped by 13-15% week on week. Back then I thought it was due to the “Bond effect” but in retrospect it could have been a one time shift driven by colder weather and increased socialisation indoors.
Let us see what happens to the numbers this week. There will be some half-term effect leading to decrease in testing but it will still be clear if cases are falling or rising.
My perception is that SAGE and Indie Sage are quite close in their opinions a lot of the time.
At the Conservative Party Conference, there was mention that the official scientific advisors had advised against Freedom Day as well.
Also, they were in broad agreement, it transpired, over the idea of a September circuitbreaker last year. And over the need to act in January this year.
Indie Sage at times have publicly expressed opinions about which SAGE still had to keep quiet, for reasons of political diplomacy. The individual members don't entirely agree, but as has been said, their is an overlap of membership.
Prof Heneghan seems to be a bit more extreme in the covid-minimising direction.
It is good however that Russell Viner is now speaking out in favour of 12-15s getting vaccinated.
Regarding predictions for case numbers in the medium to long term, that's very speculative. The impact does really depend on how much serious illness and death is caused and how quickly that (hopefully) diminishes; so many other factors are in play, like the cumulative effect of repeated vaccinations/ infections and the possible emergence of other variants.