SAGE only gives govt the bad scenarios…..

[CamQ]

It turns out that the Government uses the pessimistic SAGE models to make decisions without evaluating their probability or context.
The chair of the SAGE modelling committee explained to Fraser Nelson that they have only given the government models of the worst scenarios, not what happens if omicron is a mild disease - and so the government seems only to make decisions based on the worst models, without looking at their probability. This is also on Fraser Nelson’s Twitter.

www.spectator.co.uk/article/my-twitter-conversation-with-the-chairman-of-the-sage-covid-modelling-committee

If this approach continues for every variant we really won’t ever be out of this nightmare.

The government must widen their advice and look at the bigger long term picture.

So why are nearly all other countries following similar plans?! Surely you don’t know better than the majority of world leaders?

Which other countries? Plenty aren't. There are other unpopular measures which are not considered reasonable by our government that have been implemented in place of lockdown. People in Europe are locking down in some countries and not in others. I am not saying whether they are wrong or right, and which is more reasonable.

If you don't care that you've been misled because it suits your purpose, knock yourself out. It doesn't mean others are alright with this.
Woah Nelly, stop with the assumption all the time! Maybe it’s because you do just keep repeating yourself that you’re not understanding what others are saying - none of this is actual news, it is the way it has worked all along, I do not agree there had been any misleading by SAGE or in general on what the modelling is, if anyone has been paying attention to source material or what the experts and advisors actually say, rather than what journalists and citizen Tweeters misunderstand and spread for political or other reasons. My “purpose” has been to attempt to calm needless panic. There’s enough actual problems for us to worry about.

Anyway this doesn’t seem a productive use of Sunday now. Have a good one all.

I agree, Hariette, that hopefully the worst case scenario is also the least likely scenario, if the models are any good at all. But I think it's being talked about in a fairly understated way and the effects of even the middle scenarios are being let more or less to our imaginations.

I suspect that Fraser Nelson and similar are suffering psychologically because they know this is happening because the government they support failed to properly promote the booster programme in autumn and failed to resource the NHS to allow it to recover enough to cope this winter even without a new variant. The nhs was on its knees even before omicron.
And yet a potential new lockdown is the fault of scientists, not politicians?

That’s not directed at people on this thread btw. I don’t want to say all is 100% perfect among the scientists/SAGE. But there are a lot of people with good reason to pretend that it’s the scientists who have put us on a path to lockdown, rather than the political failure.

My “purpose” has been to attempt to calm needless panic. There’s enough actual problems for us to worry about.

You don't appear to understand why people have an issue with the approach being discussed here. For them it is an "actual problem" that lockdowns appear to be considered an inevitable strategy based on a limited, narrow assessment of the facts.

If you read that spimo consensus report you'll see it describes various possible scenarios and their likelihoods, and explains what they don't know yet about omicron and when they think they will know it. I can't see the problem.

Eg: To prevent a wave of hospitalisations similar to those seen in Spring 2020 and January 2021, without the need to slow growth with interventions, the severity of omicron would need to be between 10% and 30% that of delta. The relative severity of omicron compared to delta remains unknown... There currently remains no strong evidence that omicron infections are either more or less severe than delta infections. It will take several weeks (four to six, subject to any disruption to data streams over the festive period) for this evidence to accrue.

@HarrietteNightingale I don’t necessarily mean in the same time frame as different countries are on different trajectories with the virus. Europe is behind us potentially.
I mean in lockdown and similar mitigators.
We are not the only country to have reacted to the virus in this way.
As PP said this isn’t a ‘gotcha’ moment for Sage

@TheKeatingFive

When H1N1 was a threat, in 2009, the modellers made worst-case scenario predictions

But they didnt present them publicly as the the only likely scenarios, is the difference

Hmm. You should go and look at the front pages from the time.

It surprised me when i did a couple of weeks ago.

Yeah SAGE are doing the quite narrow work that SAGE do. Prof Medley himself has said on Twitter that lockdown also causes significant harm and they've not been asked to perform a balancing exercise. Whole picture isn't their job.

Which is fair enough. The models should be one part of the whole picture assessment the government needs to do.

@HarrietteNightingale

Yeah SAGE are doing the quite narrow work that SAGE do. Prof Medley himself has said on Twitter that lockdown also causes significant harm and they've not been asked to perform a balancing exercise. Whole picture isn't their job.

Which is fair enough. The models should be one part of the whole picture assessment the government needs to do.

Tbh i think there is a good chance we will have a pretty shitty outcome even if things are no where near the worst estimate and the wave only takes a few weeks.

A major part of the issue is staff shortages. Including in none medical roles. Not just hospital beds.

The premier league fixture table highlights this well.

I wouldn't worry, the governments own party are the opposite of sage, I think they need to give doomsday prophecies just to get the government to listen. Plan b should have been brought in months earlier and we need vaccination/lft passports more widely as in Germany just to manage the existing outbreak - not to close things down

I do not agree there had been any misleading by SAGE or in general on what the modelling is, if anyone has been paying attention to source material

I agree with this, but at the same time: we can’t ignore the fact that this is getting routinely presented, across the media and in government, as “SAGE predicts xyz”. That’s a big communication problem.

Even on this thread, people saying “but we knew this all along!” are also saying things like “these are the predictions for if we don’t act” - no.

Whoever leaked SAGE papers to the media recently, and didn’t accompany them with this context, and then didn’t provide any sort of pushback when all the papers inevitably ran with “SAGE predicts NHS being overwhelmed if we don’t lock down!”, is beyond irresponsible. (Far from convinced it was someone on SAGE myself although who knows.)

But we know from the past two years that if anything, the current government is not going to put in restrictions until and unless absolutely necessary. You can't exactly say they have been overly cautious so far.

It is generally the best approach in life to take precautions based on worst case scenarios because not taking preventative action could have a much worse outcome. If anything the government failed to plan and has always acted a little too late.

It is generally the best approach in life to take precautions based on worst case scenarios because not taking preventative action could have a much worse outcome.

That needs to be balanced against the many and varied costs of lockdown, with a view to the probability of the potential outcome in each case.

Fuck me I can't believe we are still getting people barking about how SAGE are dangerous - you're like the fucking mayor in Jaws.

Listen to people who know more than you. Plenty of them out there.

1. Strong action against Omicron is being taken in many countries - they are using their SAGE equivalents, who presumably must be giving similar predictions.

1. With an unknown virus the government (who I hate) have no choice but to look at worst case scenarios. If they didn't and these came about they would be in deep shit - as well as those who get seriously ill.

1. Part of the problem is that during a pandemic we needed a leader whom we could trust - instead we have this shyster, who many feel disinclined to believe because of his track record.

@PieMistee

It's The Spectator, who I mistrust even more than the government. Which is pretty impressive!

The Twitter exchange is there in black and white.

@HarrietteNightingale

Yeah SAGE are doing the quite narrow work that SAGE do. Prof Medley himself has said on Twitter that lockdown also causes significant harm and they've not been asked to perform a balancing exercise. Whole picture isn't their job.

Which is fair enough. The models should be one part of the whole picture assessment the government needs to do.

Yes, exactly. I'd also agree with RTB that things are likely to get pretty bad over the next few weeks anyway, so it's simply a choice of which bad we go for.

@Bovrilly

OP what are you suggesting - that the govt are deliberately only using worst case modelling because they like lockdowns and want to justify unnecessary restrictions?

Of course. We all know that governments around the world, and most of all our own Conservative government are well known for restricting and penalising society to make things more safe and more fair for those who are vulnerable - e.g. the elderly or disabled.

The elderly and disabled and otherwise vulnerable are ALWAYS at the forefront of any and all political decisions and acts. 😉

Do I think things will be as bad as SAGE say?

Absolutely not.

Do I think they are still going to be pretty damn bad and utterly miserable?

Hell yes.

But pretty damn bad and utterly miserable isn’t a good reason to close schools, businesses, prevent people from living a private life.

For many of us, lockdown was also pretty damn bad and utterly miserable.

@puppeteer

But pretty damn bad and utterly miserable isn’t a good reason to close schools, businesses, prevent people from living a private life.

For many of us, lockdown was also pretty damn bad and utterly miserable.

It depends on how bad.

I do think its potentially bad enough to do that briefly actually.

They are trying to prevent chaos basically - the consequences of millions and millions of people all being ill and unable to work at the same time. These are consequences for health provision, food and fuel chains, travel networks, emergency services, the basic infrastructure of society.

The PM has very little support for restrictions amongst his MPs. He will only bring in further restrictions when he has no other choice (too late, as we have seen before). The one good thing about having these careless morons in charge is that we can be sure that if another lockdown comes, it's to prevent something much, much worse than lockdown, however hard you found it last winter. They do not shut down businesses merely to save the lives of a few thousand vulnerable people.

No, we cannot lockdown again. The damage done from lockdowns is huge and there is no evidence to suggest they work. All they do is postpone the inevitable. To lockdown again, based on worse case scenarios by SAGE, is absolutely crazy.

you know SAGE is almost right everytime and it clear to see that there gonna be right again...