The Lemon Fool

So we have a pronouncement - 100,000 tests per day by the end of the month. A nice round number. Was this "target" plucked out of thin air? Was there any quantitative analysis done on the production of the test kits, and their application? If so, are the numbers so precise that we get a nice round number like 100,000? Or is it simply hoping for the best, and currently kicking the ball into the long grass.
Would it be too much to expect that some sensible computation be carried out, based on the known problems that have occurred in achieving the current very modest test numbers, and taking into account remaining uncertainties - then indicating what is the likely range (i.e. worst to best case) of daily tests by the end of the month. I then have no objections for political embellishments like "this government is doing everything possible to ensure that we can exceed these numbers".
I hope this is not being over-political - I'm sure such pronouncements could come from any party.

I'm fully expecting a statement on 29th April "The scientists tell us that temperature monitoring, with a probe gun like they do in China, is one of the best "tests" for CV. We just did 90,000 of them this morning. There you go, job done."

Scott.

scotia wrote:So we have a pronouncement - 100,000 tests per day by the end of the month. A nice round number. Was this "target" plucked out of thin air? Was there any quantitative analysis done on the production of the test kits, and their application?

Impressively pedantic, but I think you'll find it's just shorthand for "at least 100,000 tests", 100,000 being an estimate to an order of magnitude and a whole lot less silly than "at least 98,372" tests per day.

Thought this sort of thing was taken as read by most people...


GS

GoSeigen wrote:

scotia wrote:So we have a pronouncement - 100,000 tests per day by the end of the month. A nice round number. Was this "target" plucked out of thin air? Was there any quantitative analysis done on the production of the test kits, and their application?

Impressively pedantic, but I think you'll find it's just shorthand for "at least 100,000 tests", 100,000 being an estimate to an order of magnitude and a whole lot less silly than "at least 98,372" tests per day.

Thought this sort of thing was taken as read by most people...

GS

An order of magnitude is conventionally taken to the base of 10 . So I assume that you believe that the general public should (and would) have assumed that somewhere between 30,000 and 300,000 was the appropriate figure? My disbelief grows.
My disbelief grows even further when our First Minister was describing the Scottish response, and let slip that the first pillar of the English target is actually only 25,000. The next four pillars which make up the mythical figure of 100,000 are increasingly vague.
But 100,000 is an impressively big number - and the end of the month is a long way off - and some may even believe that some rigorous scientific computation has gone into its estimation. I do not.

scotia wrote:

GoSeigen wrote:

scotia wrote:So we have a pronouncement - 100,000 tests per day by the end of the month. A nice round number. Was this "target" plucked out of thin air? Was there any quantitative analysis done on the production of the test kits, and their application?

Impressively pedantic, but I think you'll find it's just shorthand for "at least 100,000 tests", 100,000 being an estimate to an order of magnitude and a whole lot less silly than "at least 98,372" tests per day.

Thought this sort of thing was taken as read by most people...

GS

An order of magnitude is conventionally taken to the base of 10 . So I assume that you believe that the general public should (and would) have assumed that somewhere between 30,000 and 300,000 was the appropriate figure? My disbelief grows.
My disbelief grows even further when our First Minister was describing the Scottish response, and let slip that the first pillar of the English target is actually only 25,000. The next four pillars which make up the mythical figure of 100,000 are increasingly vague.
But 100,000 is an impressively big number - and the end of the month is a long way off - and some may even believe that some rigorous scientific computation has gone into its estimation. I do not.

Reaching 100,000 from the current 10,000 only involves doubling the testing rate three times (well a teeny bit more). Given it's a trivial thing to do I see no reason why it cannot be achieved. It's like saying "I stuff 10 envelopes per day, by the end of the month I am to stuff 100 per day". Not exactly a challenge, is it?

[Yes, I am saying that for the UK testing for this virus is like stuffing an envelope.]

GS

GoSeigen wrote:
Reaching 100,000 from the current 10,000 only involves doubling the testing rate three times (well a teeny bit more). Given it's a trivial thing to do I see no reason why it cannot be achieved. It's like saying "I stuff 10 envelopes per day, by the end of the month I am to stuff 100 per day". Not exactly a challenge, is it?

[Yes, I am saying that for the UK testing for this virus is like stuffing an envelope.]

GS

If it were so easy, why is the Pillar 1 target for England (in NHS and public health laboratories) only 25,000 - with the remainder 75,000 being attributed to a number of increasingly vague sources, some of which relate to a yet unproven antibody test. And yet we have emblazoned across the media, from a cabinet minister - a target of 100,000 tests per day! So what's the probability of achieving anything like this number? Where are the calculations - what's the best computed number, with a realistic spread? Strange that its 100,000 with no spread. Let me be clear, I'm not complaining about a bit of rounding. I would even accept your previous suggestion that it was an order of magnitude number - i.e. something between 30,000 and 300,000. Do you think it likely that the cabinet minister would issue a correction to that effect? I suspect it would astonish the General Public.

scotia wrote:

GoSeigen wrote:
Reaching 100,000 from the current 10,000 only involves doubling the testing rate three times (well a teeny bit more). Given it's a trivial thing to do I see no reason why it cannot be achieved. It's like saying "I stuff 10 envelopes per day, by the end of the month I am to stuff 100 per day". Not exactly a challenge, is it?

[Yes, I am saying that for the UK testing for this virus is like stuffing an envelope.]

GS

If it were so easy, why is the Pillar 1 target for England (in NHS and public health laboratories) only 25,000 - with the remainder 75,000 being attributed to a number of increasingly vague sources, some of which relate to a yet unproven antibody test. And yet we have emblazoned across the media, from a cabinet minister - a target of 100,000 tests per day! So what's the probability of achieving anything like this number? Where are the calculations - what's the best computed number, with a realistic spread? Strange that its 100,000 with no spread. Let me be clear, I'm not complaining about a bit of rounding. I would even accept your previous suggestion that it was an order of magnitude number - i.e. something between 30,000 and 300,000. Do you think it likely that the cabinet minister would issue a correction to that effect? I suspect it would astonish the General Public.

Let's wait and see. [I agree the target could easily move within the month, that comes with the territory of rapidly growing exponential quantities!]

EDIT: Incidentally were you bothered by what you perceived as the precision of the predicted number, or by its size? The goalposts seem to have moved!


GS

Let's wait and see. [I agree the target could easily move within the month, that comes with the territory of rapidly growing exponential quantities!]

well, I waited.

Yesterday (April 16th) we heard from Matt Hancock that 18,000 tests had been carried out in the previous 24 hours. 38,000 tests were actually "available" but not enough people came forward to take them! For f***s sake.

Now I see the the Daily mirror headline "Coronavirus LIVE updates: Vaccine task force announced as death toll tops 14,000!!!!"


Cones hotline anybody?

S

Well - I have certainly got to apologise. I started this thread by claiming that 100,000 tests was simply a number plucked out of thin air. But it appears 122,000 actually occurred, and I certainly am not going to complain about the slightly dodgy precision which resulted in an extra 22,000 tests. And it was achieved by Pillar 1 and 2 proposals - when I thought that the numbers would be boosted by Pillar 3 - an antibody test.
So lets hope for onward and upward in the testing program until we get sufficient testing carried out to detect and contain outbreaks of the virus.

Well the target was set at what seemed to be an unrealistic level in order to stretch everyone and it seems to have worked. For all the cynicism about the handling of the pandemic I think the Government has done a pretty good job by and large. The weakness has been and still seems to be those in care homes and the supply of PPE, the latter being a worldwide problem and the former? Well it must be true that a number would have died anyway so what we are really looking for is the number of excess deaths in care homes but because of the nature of them, spread everywhere up and down the country it was always going to be a major logistical problem, not that that makes it any better. With hindsight they are a bit like a cruise ship and in my limited experience under ventilated and very enclosed such that they must be ideal for the spread of the virus.

Dod

The release of the test results could be informative. I presume the intention is to do so on a regular basis.

Obviously test results won't tell us the percentage os infections in the general population as the people tested aren't a representative sample but it could provide an early indication if infection rates change.

scotia wrote:Well - I have certainly got to apologise. I started this thread by claiming that 100,000 tests was simply a number plucked out of thin air. But it appears 122,000 actually occurred, and I certainly am not going to complain about the slightly dodgy precision which resulted in an extra 22,000 tests.

Exactly what my old school reports used to say. "Bungee's excellent end of term results show what he could have achieved all along if only the little bastard could have been bothered to put his mind to it."

Okay, maybe I'm paraphrasing just a teensy bit.

B

scotia wrote:Well - I have certainly got to apologise. I started this thread by claiming that 100,000 tests was simply a number plucked out of thin air. But it appears 122,000 actually occurred, and I certainly am not going to complain about the slightly dodgy precision which resulted in an extra 22,000 tests. And it was achieved by Pillar 1 and 2 proposals - when I thought that the numbers would be boosted by Pillar 3 - an antibody test.
So lets hope for onward and upward in the testing program until we get sufficient testing carried out to detect and contain outbreaks of the virus.

Er, it was achieved by fiddling the numbers. Of the 122,000 tests "achieved", over 40,000 were counted merely by being sent out in the post. These may or may not ever be used.

And they'll probably be counted again when they get processed in the labs (my speculation).

Scott.

swill453 wrote:

scotia wrote:Well - I have certainly got to apologise. I started this thread by claiming that 100,000 tests was simply a number plucked out of thin air. But it appears 122,000 actually occurred, and I certainly am not going to complain about the slightly dodgy precision which resulted in an extra 22,000 tests. And it was achieved by Pillar 1 and 2 proposals - when I thought that the numbers would be boosted by Pillar 3 - an antibody test.
So lets hope for onward and upward in the testing program until we get sufficient testing carried out to detect and contain outbreaks of the virus.

Er, it was achieved by fiddling the numbers. Of the 122,000 tests "achieved", over 40,000 were counted merely by being sent out in the post. These may or may not ever be used.

And they'll probably be counted again when they get processed in the labs (my speculation).

Scott.

Begs the question, is that 40k actually sent out? Or just 40k been ordered and being processed subject to availability and manpower capacity?

If there hadn't been a silly target, we might find the reported numbers more credible. Even from one-glove Hancock!

scotia wrote:Well - I have certainly got to apologise. I started this thread by claiming that 100,000 tests was simply a number plucked out of thin air. But it appears 122,000 actually occurred, and I certainly am not going to complain about the slightly dodgy precision which resulted in an extra 22,000 tests. And it was achieved by Pillar 1 and 2 proposals - when I thought that the numbers would be boosted by Pillar 3 - an antibody test.
So lets hope for onward and upward in the testing program until we get sufficient testing carried out to detect and contain outbreaks of the virus.

Sir you have nothing to apologise for. Hancock has not succeeded in his claim to do 100,000 test per day. And yes I've checked what he said. Those tests have not been carried out today. If Boris has any sense he'll quietly remove this semantic euphemistic man from office at the earliest opportunity. Noting as others already have that he childishly counted a pair of gloves as two items of PPE. Sheesh we're paying this man out of our taxes I realise he may be under a serious amount of pressure but "tweaking" numbers at a time like this is just daft. And what's more I wonder how some of those front line staff in hospitals and care homes actually feel about his accounting abilities? Over twenty seven thousand people have lost their lives. Each a great loss to family and friends who survive them. And this man continues to play with numbers as if it were nothing more than a game of sudoku.

AiYn'U

AsleepInYorkshire wrote:Noting as others already have that he childishly counted a pair of gloves as two items of PPE.

How would you count a box of 100 identical gloves?

Some might say one box, some 50 pairs yet they are identical, others 100.

There is no left or right.

AsleepInYorkshire wrote:... Each a great loss to family and friends who survive them. And this man continues to play with numbers as if it were nothing more than a game of sudoku.

I think he is on record as having lost people too. I think claiming he "continues to play with numbers as if it were nothing more than a game of sudoku." is a little harsh. Politicians can never be everyone's cup of tea, and please everyone, and of course they, like everyone, will make mistakes. It doesn't do you any credit to trivailise and personalise an argument in my opinion.

dealtn wrote:I think he is on record as having lost people too. I think claiming he "continues to play with numbers as if it were nothing more than a game of sudoku." is a little harsh. Politicians can never be everyone's cup of tea, and please everyone, and of course they, like everyone, will make mistakes. It doesn't do you any credit to trivailise and personalise an argument in my opinion.

Where does the fault lie?

The politician making targets.

The media berating the politician for missing the target.

The public for berating the politician.

The 100,000 target was an ambitious target considering how many we were doing. Maybe he'd have been better saying 77,000. It doesn't have quite as nice a ring to it. Politicians like big round numbers.

The press were just waiting for the Government to miss the target. I can see banner headlines 'Government fails the country','Hancocks Failure'.

I think the public in this country are more sensible than politicians and the media think. If Hancock had said that he set an ambitious target and they had only managed to do 77,000 tests by the given date which in itself was a great improvement and in a few days we will achieve the 100,000 I think it would by and large be accepted. We don't mind a valiant failure.

Now he's been caught fiddling the figures just to save face. Shame on him.

Yes it's possible to hold 2 opinions simultaneously:
- getting up to the high tens of thousands of tests per day is an admirable achievement
- they've pulled a shameful trick to make it seem like they've achieved their arbitrary self-imposed target

Scott.

sg31 wrote:Where does the fault lie?

Muddled thinking.

A target on number of tests? Erm, why? What purpose to those tests serve? All we have is armwaving about successful countries doing lots of testing. What was needed was a programme, perhaps borrowed from (say) Korea, which testing would have served!

But instead of the tests being the servant to a well-considered programme, the test target became the master. Instant mother-of-all Goodhart effects, not least the idiocy of inaccessible drive-through centres in place of the obvious solution of small-scale local testing programmes in existing facilities.