5000 deaths a day or just incorrect assumptions in modelling

[Garysmum]

Our favourite team at Imperial college have predicted this wave will lead to 5000 deaths a day if we carry on the status quo without further restrictions. I would imagine that means 5000 deaths a day without lockdown.
Best case scenario shows 3000 deaths a day if we continue as is.

Neil Ferguson also believes that Omicron is as serious as Delta - ie not a milder disease.

Are these numbers way off base - is the modelling based on incorrect or too wide parameters?

Personally when deaths hit over 1000 a day from Covid (apparently the peak was 1800 but I had given up with news by that point) I found it deeply unsettling.

Maybe I'm an idiot, but I would appreciate someone who understands statistics to explain some of this.

Here is the recent South African data. It suggests otherwise.

Hang on, Ferguson has always been wildly inaccurate with his predictions, why on earth he has so much air time I don't know

There is not enough data to draw a reliable conclusion, the models contain a large amount of speculative figures, which can easily compound to produce large final output numbers.

SAGE spokespeople, the Whitty and various other well respected scientists have said that there will not be enough data to analyse until the end of the month. The difficulty with that approach is that by then we will have at a minimum baked in the next 2-3 weeks hospitalisation and death figures due to the lag following infection.

The way people like Ferguson is presenting the data is an almost certainty, but anyone who is that confident of the end result at the moment is an idiot, because there is not enough valid input data to give a reliable output. Of course there are enough models being published that some will be accurate, but there are models ranging from no increases in death rates to rates of over 8k a day, however there are also models showing the death rate of an extinction level impact event, that does not mean we need to worry about the extremes.

Deaths have been high. It's never ok to accept deaths even in a pandemic.

Some are inevitable due to nature of pandemics but some have been gross mishandling by PM.

But the estimations of deaths from July have been grossly overly miscalculated and the data form SA shows promising information re virulence.

They also seem to have peaked and so hopefully we will see a natural leak in a few weeks too.

I don’t know why they do this. All their previous models have looked pretty ridiculous.
But now if we have 1000 deaths a day, which will be pretty awful (although obviously a bit of a touchy one because if the majority of people in hospital at any one time have tested positive for Covid in the last month they will “count” and they shouldn’t necessarily etc etc), it will just look a like a fraction of the number they predicted and therefore less awful…

@Playgrind

Hang on, Ferguson has always been wildly inaccurate with his predictions, why on earth he has so much air time I don't know

He gets airtime because the Daily Mail loves to present his opinion as "look what the government will do to us, new lockdown, the world will end" to sell papers and The Guardian loves to present his opinion as "the government is not locking us down when it should, the world will end" to sell papers.

The estimate that omicron severity is similar to delta is probably roughly accurate as it is based on existing data (symptom reports and hospitalisations). The estimate of deaths per day could be and probably is way off as it is based on projections via a set of unreliable assumptions. It is very hard to estimate all the factors influencing the course of R over time now that the population has significant immunity and also experience of the pandemic (and its consequent influences on behaviour). Was much easier to estimate this accurately for the first wave where existing immunity was 0.

@itsgettingwierd

Deaths have been high. It's never ok to accept deaths even in a pandemic.

Some are inevitable due to nature of pandemics but some have been gross mishandling by PM.

But the estimations of deaths from July have been grossly overly miscalculated and the data form SA shows promising information re virulence.

They also seem to have peaked and so hopefully we will see a natural leak in a few weeks too.

Yes it is ok to accept deaths, we all have to die of something.

The reality is our death rate is not that much different from the rest of Western Europe when you take a look at the different methodologies used, once you factor in our fatter population (being overweight and obese is a significant risk factor for Covid), we are pretty much average for the death rates.

I disagree with much of what Johnson has done in general, let alone during the pandemic, but the reality is that the death rate would not be that different regardless of what we had done.

The modelling produced a range of possible outcomes.

The media chose to focus on the reasonable worst case (an important one for modelling) rather than the mode or median (plus range)

I can't take him seriously. All his models have been wrong and that's before I get to the breaking lockdown rules with the girlfriend thing. Another one making a mockery of us all.

I am incredibly wary of Ferguson's models and own conduct, given that he broke lockdown to visit his lover.

Mathematic models don't precisely reflect how human beings behave.

Ferguson - the guy who was caught visiting his mistress during lockdown and who claimed as he had had covid before it was OK?

That Ferguson........

The thing is that scientists want to be doom and gloom because we will all breathe a sigh of relief if it’s not as bad. They cannot say nothing to see here because if it is they will be slaughtered so they spread the high figures to cover themselves

On the one hand, all the models are potentially wrong, as the future is changeable and no one can know exactly what it holds.

On the other hand, people change their behaviour according to what the models say, so it has been suggested that the suggestions of much higher deaths in the first wave may have been quite accurate, if we hadn't had the lockdown.

If they helped people change their behaviour so that 1000s of lives were saved, they had a value. Even if the predictions therefore didn't come true.

The majority of the scientists would have us in full lockdown mode by now if they had their way ; I feel that is pretty obvious just from what has been said and forewarned by many of the more famous amongst them for weeks now.
They want to protect their colleagues and the NHS
The public are not as keen and don't see how it can be justified or financed and there will flout any rules over meeting up at Christmas.
They are between a rock and a hard place and it can't be easy trying to please everyone and pretty much impossible to be honest.
The problem is many don't see a problem until it affects them , if they suddenly can't receive medical intervention then it would be ' it's my right to see a doctor ' even if they haven't done that much to help themselves previously.
It's so hard.

I think it is not just protecting colleagues, maybe more wanting to protect society from what happens when you don't have a working health service.

I want my kids to have hospital appointments and emergency care etc.

On that "deaths per million could peak at 75" thing:

For the last 7 days Croatia's is 86.05

Poland's is 73.19

Greece's is 49.64

Austria's is 35.82

and Germany's is 30.29

The UK's is currently 11. 84.

www.statista.com/statistics/1104709/coronavirus-deaths-worldwide-per-million-inhabitants/

Yes, I agree the scientists are concerned about the welfare of everyone, but they actually know how their colleagues are doing every day and the stats etc , most people don't until it affects them!

@herecomesthsun

I think it is not just protecting colleagues, maybe more wanting to protect society from what happens when you don't have a working health service.

I want my kids to have hospital appointments and emergency care etc.

I don't understand what people who don't want to protect the NHS's capacity plan to do when they need some of that capacity and it isn't there because it's been kept too busy with covid.

Cos anyone can have a car accident, break a bone, need antibiotics etc can't they?

So what do some people plan to do when they need the NHS and it can't help them because we didn't protect it?

Beg on Crowdfunder for private health care like an American?

All their modelling has been overegged. They don't take into account any change in the situation, like vaccines ameliorating the severity of Covid. I'm a scientist and ashamed at the misuse of statistics.

Why is our omicron special and different to that elsewhere?

Also,

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Neil Ferguson is correct isn't he?

There is no data that omicron is inherently any milder than delta?

Just data about the early stages of an omicron wave in one country, markedly different from ours in several ways, whee other variables are almost certainly in play.

As well as some unknown unknowns.

At it's worst, we were not reaching 2000 deaths a day before the vaccine was in use. Now many people are triple vaxxed, there is evidence to suggest that this variant is milder and there is going to be 5000 deaths a day

I think something has gone wrong with that model somewhere along the line.

Don’t forget, Ferguson was predicting 100k/200k new infections after Freedom Day in July.

The cases appear to be skyrocketing, but everyone is testing more than ever, plus what we thought were colds and would have previously ignored are now testing positive as covid. I’m very optimistic that this is the end of covid. In the next few days, I reckon the government will announce that there is no need to self isolate if asymptomatic or maybe reduce the time to 5 days. Most people are shaking Omicron off after 48 hours so it seems madness to have well people sitting at home twiddling their thumbs.

@Tabbacus

Why is our omicron special and different to that elsewhere?

Who is saying it is?

@2389Champ

Don’t forget, Ferguson was predicting 100k/200k new infections after Freedom Day in July.

The cases appear to be skyrocketing, but everyone is testing more than ever, plus what we thought were colds and would have previously ignored are now testing positive as covid. I’m very optimistic that this is the end of covid. In the next few days, I reckon the government will announce that there is no need to self isolate if asymptomatic or maybe reduce the time to 5 days. Most people are shaking Omicron off after 48 hours so it seems madness to have well people sitting at home twiddling their thumbs.

So was the Health Secretary.

But when the behaviour that caused the surge stopped

So did the doubling.