Westminstenders: Events...

[RedToothBrush]

Events have taken over. EU / UK negotiation have been put on ice due to covid-19.

The US has banned all travel from Europe - apart from to the uk and Ireland - in a manner which is highly political to drive wedges.

The effects of leaving the European Medicines Agency may be much more serious than anyone could have anticipated.

There's a oil price war going on between Saudi Arabia and Russia which has further driven market fears led by covid-19.

There the crisis in Turkey with Syrian refugees which is also distracting the EU.

We are facing lockdown and economic turmoil over the next weeks and months.

Johnson is having his leadership moment with deaths projected to possibly exceed UK WW2 deaths.

We are desperately trying to recruit negotiators as it's suddenly become apparent we don't have enough to carry out all the trade deals we want.

The civil service will be stretched to its limited by covid-19. Yet we also have Brexit to consider.

Where next? How bad are things going to get?

squid 💐

Modelling error - or just realised that the public were working out the figures for themselves and it wouldn’t fly?

Unfortunately, govt won't want to admit they based their whole strategy on a report with flawed calculations

They need to stop "advising" people and start closing things down, before it is too late

Also, I gather Sweden has been copying the UK
So we need to tell them - before it is too late - that the UK experts buggered up their calculations

BCF, re Macron and allowing people limited outdoor activities.

I've watched the two speeches very closely and there's a lot of nudging going on, but it's much more cleverly done than the hapless U.K. government approach.

Lots of stick and carrot, lots of ramping up the pressure and the sense of urgency. We're at war (he said this repeatedly, presumably to prepare people for military presence on city streets in due course) but if we behave like good citizens we can have a few small peacetime pleasures like walking the dog or going for jog. But the clear subtext was that if we abuse these rights they will be taken away.

That's nearly always the case in scientific modelling at least, when someone gets a different answer to everyone else in the field:

modelling error, or incorrect input

Professionals should be checking and checking again to understand where the discrepancy came from

Unfortunately, occasionally arrogance and ego get in the way
Or the boss likes the first answer and doesn't want any checks to spoil it

Modelling error

From what I can gather, they used the wrong figures for the proportions of infected versus naive people in Wuhan.

But whatever the error, the model output was so obviously flawed that as someone who models stuff for a living I have been gobsmacked by the whole affair. If your model tells you something that looks not credible/not consistent with the evidence you go and have a long hard look at your assumptions and the sensitivity of your model to them.

It's not really purely scientific modelling though: this is a lot close to economic modelling because of the implicit behavioural assumptions.

www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/16/im-losing-faith-in-the-leadership-a-doctors-story-coronavirus
'I'm losing faith in the leadership': a NHS doctor's story
On the frontline of the UK coronavirus outbreak, a doctor is ‘terrified’ about the lack of protection – and a plan

Now we’ve been told not to bother with any of that. They’ve told us “just treat it as though it’s seasonal flu”. Now we are expected to wear just a normal surgical mask, a pair of ordinary short gloves, and a plastic apron that doesn’t cover all of you like a surgical gown does. I would see other patients around the hospital in the same scrubs, and the scrubs could have coronavirus on them.

But this advice contradicts WHO and European guidance. This guidance says to use full PPE if you are exposed to patients with coronavirus.

I am terrified. I’m seriously considering whether I can keep working as a doctor. I may be OK – I’m young and healthy – but I can’t bear the thought of infecting other patients with a disease that could kill them. And that is the risk, without proper PPE. It’s terrifying; it’s indescribable. This is not seasonal flu. This is a new virus with greater mortality and we know much less about it.

I cannot believe or understand why Public Health England has downgraded our PPE advice. Why are they contradicting international advice? The evidence that ordinary surgical masks are protective is from dealing with seasonal flu, not this new virus. Doctors are dying in Italy and China. Young people are dying, too.

I cannot understand what the rationale and motives are. Have they given up? Are they just deciding to build up herd immunity by watching us die? The government has given up, hasn’t it?

We don't have stock of PPE. We can't get it because we aren't in the EU. We have sovereignty to ignore EU guidelines at the expense of workers rights.

It's not really purely scientific modelling though: this is a lot close to economic modelling because of the implicit behavioural assumptions.

^This.

From the time they announced it on Thursday, I knew it was so clearly an unscientific sack of shit when they (a) wouldn't release their methodology and (b) said they were restricting testing and (c) made a big song and dance about the slogan "following the science"

If you feel you can’t trust Boris, maybe try Darth Vader?

m.youtube.com/watch?v=dRwTr5BMzwM

As I say. Got no PPE...

Jennifer Williams @jenwilliamsmen
Got no answer from anywhere in govt today re GPs finding themselves with PPE equipment that’s three years past its expiry. Also fears that lack of community testing is already leading hospitals to be overwhelmed
www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/gps-using-out-date-masks-17935754.amp
GPs 'using out of date masks' as health and social insiders raise concerns over lack of coronavirus testing - despite drive-through plans

I get that press offices are overwhelmed right now, so would be good to see some of these specifics raised at the press conferences. Agree with people saying health eds should be invited too - this needs command of detail.

Here's the most recent advice for local authorities: regardless of setting, all the guidance talks blithely of an influenza pandemic PPE stockpile: www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-residential-care-supported-living-and-home-care-guidance/covid-19-guidance-on-residential-care-provision

So where is it?

I posted "That's nearly always the case in scientific modelling at least "
because that's my area of expertise:
highly complex maths & physics, but no "soft sciences" - no politics thank goodness

However, this does look like they took the wrong figures, so more like carelessness ( no reason to think the Imperial team are into rightwing politics)

This Buzzfeed story should be checked and - if true - made headline news in every media outlet

Stunning error
What if the modellers hadn't discovered their mistake ? - the govt would have gone ahead with the original plan:

and the Uk would have had hundreds of thousands unnecessary deaths

A catastrophe for the country
All because the govt believed a British modelling team over all the experts around the world

Talk about gullible !
Talk about nationalist arrogance !

Epidemiology and in particular public health are a real mix of hard and soft science. Often there are no right answers. I really liked the video of the WHO pandemic guy who said that in public health emergencies what matters is speed not getting everything right. Unfortunately the U.K. has neither been quick nor right.

Worst government ever. What will it take to bring down Johnson? He can't be enjoying this any more than we are.

It occurred to me that Jeremy Hunt looked more haunted on the news last week because he knows exactly how little slack there is in the system after years of running the NHS down.

It's not just the NHS that would be overwhelmed

We don't know if any Western country can take sufficient measures in time to mitigate

Germany has an excellent health system, plenty of capacity normally,
far more ICU beds, other hospital bed, doctors, ventilators, masks etc per 10,000 population than almost anywhere

They do extensive testing, monitoring and contact tracing of cases
They have implemented extensive social distancing
Closed schools and banned every kind of gathering of more than a few people

AND
Frau Merkel is probably pacing around mainlining Gavascol because it may still not be enough

Horrified pmk.

I'm nearly 70 with diabetes and mild COPD. I'm self-isolating until August at least.

a school board in the US is allowing collection of three cold meals a day for the pupils in need

This is being done by pretty much all school districts. My own high school and elementary school districts are distributing two non-perishable meal packets to all students qualifying for free and reduced price school means from vans on each school campus daily.

Chicago Public Schools are set to distribute non-perishable meal packets to any child under 18 who shows up looking for a packet. It bothers me a lot that this sort of solution to the problem of feeding vulnerable children can't even be imagined by many on the CV19 threads.

^www.cnn.com/2020/03/14/health/coronavirus-asymptomatic-spread/index.html?utm_source=pocket-newtab^
Why self-isolation once symptoms start is most likely a case of shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted.

Talk of mitigation in the UK is just blarney at this point.

'Infected people without symptoms might be driving the spread of coronavirus more than we realized'
is the article, on CNN

Modelling error?

That is mind blowing if that’s what happened.

2 - 4 months shut down will trigger a depression. The risk is expected to last at least a year...

Paid employment in vaccine trials could be a lucrative income in times of economic hardship.

Western countries are all in the same boat now, even with differing measures, and I think that CNN headline below is a large reason for why we are where we are.

I do not get how Macron can promise to plug a seemingly bottomless well with his decree.

There is no alternative. It may well end up with rationing cards and money pretty much a meaningless artifact for a while.