zico wrote:I'm sure there were lots of articles in the Spectator and Telegraph about how imposing lockdown would somehow make everything worse, and the only cure was to head for the 20% herd immunity threshold without delay.
I doubt it.
Thanks to Rhyd6,eyeball08,Wondergirly,bofh,johnstevens77, for Donating to support the site
zico wrote:I'm sure there were lots of articles in the Spectator and Telegraph about how imposing lockdown would somehow make everything worse, and the only cure was to head for the 20% herd immunity threshold without delay.
zico wrote:vagrantbrain wrote:
Not quite, some examples in the paper below of estimates in the US where cases and deaths went in the complete opposite direction to what was being forecast.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7447267/
Most extreme is the FEMA prediction for New York after reopening last summer: 70% increase in deaths and a 700% increase in cases - reality was a 60% decrease in deaths and a 15% reduction in cases.
I remember reading plenty of articles last year where various people were predicting cases rising to the hundreds of thousands per day in the UK during the first lockdown while cases on the covid dashboard were actually trending down.
I read your link - that's not a paper, that's a rant. I mean, just read this bit from your link. Starvation and malaria rife in the US because of lockdown? That's Piers Corbyn/David Icke territory. (Although to be fair, maybe we are being ruled by giant alien lizards, I mean let's keep an open mind!)The general population was locked and placed in horror-alert to save health systems from collapsing..... The prospects of starvation and of lack of control of other infectious diseases (such as tuberculosis, malaria, and childhood communicable diseases where vaccination is hindered by COVID-19 measures) are dire
So no examples in the UK? As for your UK anecdotal, no intelligent expert or analyst ever said that imposing lockdown would make cases increase. I'm sure there were lots of articles in the Spectator and Telegraph about how imposing lockdown would somehow make everything worse, and the only cure was to head for the 20% herd immunity threshold without delay.
The nearest thing to a discredited UK prediction I remember was last Autumn when the wrong slides were used in a Downing Street presentation, and the predicted infection rate was rubbished, although the predicted hospitalisation rate proved to be accurate.
vagrantbrain wrote:
Sorry, next time i'll write a peer-reviewed and fully referenced thesis before posting my experiences.
And my point has nothing to do with imposing lockdowns or not - it was about evidence of cases beginning to fall while the experts were still predicting they had much further to rise.
dealtn wrote:zico wrote:I'm sure there were lots of articles in the Spectator and Telegraph about how imposing lockdown would somehow make everything worse, and the only cure was to head for the 20% herd immunity threshold without delay.
I doubt it.
But it is interesting that it gives an estimate for herd immunity of between 10 and 20 per cent, because that echoes real-life experience.
It is a figure which gave rise to the now-famous paper by Professor Neil Ferguson of Imperial College, which claimed that a herd immunity policy (which the government denies ever following) would result in the deaths of 250,000 people in Britain.
The Prime Minister said on Tuesday that lockdown, far more than vaccines, explains the fall in hospitalisations, deaths and infections. But how sure are we that only lockdown caused these falls — in the first, second and third wave? Or were other interventions, plus people’s spontaneous reactions to rising cases, enough to get R below one?
In a peer-reviewed paper now published in Biometrics, I find that, in all three cases, Covid-19 levels were probably falling before lockdown. A separate paper, with colleague Ernst Wit, comes to the same conclusion for the first two lockdowns, by the alternative approach of re-doing Imperial College’s major modelling study of the epidemic in 2020. In light of this, the Imperial College claim that new infections were surging right up until lockdown one — causing about 20,000 avoidable deaths — seems rather questionable.
zico wrote:vagrantbrain wrote:
Sorry, next time i'll write a peer-reviewed and fully referenced thesis before posting my experiences.
And my point has nothing to do with imposing lockdowns or not - it was about evidence of cases beginning to fall while the experts were still predicting they had much further to rise.
"Experts always get it wrong" is just such a trite throwaway line, but hard to justify with actual evidence. It's politicians who've got this disastrously wrong (not just in the UK of course) while experts have been busy saving the politicians' skins by developing world-beating vaccines, making expert predictions, and (trickiest of all) attempting valiantly to educate politicians that Low Numbers Now + Exponential Growth = Trouble Ahead.
zico wrote:dealtn wrote:zico wrote:I'm sure there were lots of articles in the Spectator and Telegraph about how imposing lockdown would somehow make everything worse, and the only cure was to head for the 20% herd immunity threshold without delay.
I doubt it.
The magic of Google. 4th May 2020 Spectator article - headling "Herd immunity may only need 10-20% of people to be infected"!
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/her ... ction-rateBut it is interesting that it gives an estimate for herd immunity of between 10 and 20 per cent, because that echoes real-life experience.It is a figure which gave rise to the now-famous paper by Professor Neil Ferguson of Imperial College, which claimed that a herd immunity policy (which the government denies ever following) would result in the deaths of 250,000 people in Britain.
So herd immunity would have been achieved with 10-20% infected, or herd immunity would have resulted in 250,000 deaths - which prediction did best?
On lockdowns, here's a recent Spectator article from 14th April 2021 about how some other wonderful magical thing always happens at the same time that lockdowns start, and it's the magical thing that reduces numbers, not the lockdowns.The Prime Minister said on Tuesday that lockdown, far more than vaccines, explains the fall in hospitalisations, deaths and infections. But how sure are we that only lockdown caused these falls — in the first, second and third wave? Or were other interventions, plus people’s spontaneous reactions to rising cases, enough to get R below one?
In a peer-reviewed paper now published in Biometrics, I find that, in all three cases, Covid-19 levels were probably falling before lockdown. A separate paper, with colleague Ernst Wit, comes to the same conclusion for the first two lockdowns, by the alternative approach of re-doing Imperial College’s major modelling study of the epidemic in 2020. In light of this, the Imperial College claim that new infections were surging right up until lockdown one — causing about 20,000 avoidable deaths — seems rather questionable.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/cov ... e-evidence
dealtn wrote:
So contrary to your claim of "loads" that ... "Make everything worse" you provide 1 link that has in its headline the word "may" and refers to a 3rd party, and isn't even about lockdown.
Your second link, which is about lockdown, doesn't make the claim about everything being worse either.
zico wrote:dealtn wrote:
So contrary to your claim of "loads" that ... "Make everything worse" you provide 1 link that has in its headline the word "may" and refers to a 3rd party, and isn't even about lockdown.
Your second link, which is about lockdown, doesn't make the claim about everything being worse either.
Are you saying because I said "loads of articles" you need me to give you every single Covid-minimising article from the Spectator over the last 18 months?
In under 30 seconds, I found 2 Spectator articles. If you're interested, I suggest you look back through Spectator articles and compare the number of "Covid is really serious - let's be cautious" articles to "Covid is no biggie - let's get on with life" articles.
zico wrote:Something very strange is happening with Scotland trend for infections compared to UK infections.
Scotland's infections have halved in the last month, while the UK infections have doubled over the same time period.
Can anyone explain this big discrepancy?
Itsallaguess wrote:Schools closed earlier In Scotland as well, which, along with the earlier exit from the Euros, seems to give both the clearest explanation for the lag in dropping cases in England, and also hopefully a good indication for where we might also end up in the coming weeks and months.
All eyes, of course, are likely to be focussed on the next couple of weeks for England, where any fallout from the changes made on the 19th might start to be seen in the cases figures...
Cheers,
Itsallaguess
swill453 wrote:Is it possible that the downturns, both in Scotland and England, are because we're not testing school kids by the thousand out of term?
So they may still be catching and spreading it, but because it's asymptomatic and they're not being tested as a matter of course, they're missing from the stats.
Scott.
swill453 wrote:Is it possible that the downturns, both in Scotland and England, are because we're not testing school kids by the thousand out of term?
So they may still be catching and spreading it, but because it's asymptomatic and they're not being tested as a matter of course, they're missing from the stats.
Scott.
jfgw wrote:Edit:
Scotland cases peaked earlier and hospital admissions peaked about a week later which suggests that the downturn for Scotland is real.
funduffer wrote:It is a confusing picture.
For the first time, the Zoe study is at odds with government case data (although not with ONS and REACT, although these don't have as up-to-date data). Zoe shows cases rising/flattening off, whereas government data shows cases sharply dropping. Here is Tim Spector's latest video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7p7ok5aIX6s
What might be the reason for this? A couple of thoughts:
1. Testing has reduced due to large reduction in lateral flow tests, as schools break up. Kids will not now be regularly tested unless they become symptomatic.
2. Covid symptoms are different in the vaccinated compared to the classic covid symptoms you need to get a test. The Zoe survey will pick up these cases, but anyone who has them will either think its not covid, or will be refused a test because they have the 'wrong' symptoms.
As to the future, I take heart from Scotland that their Euros exit and earlier school holidays are probably important in their recent fall in cases and hospitalisations. Maybe England will follow this same path. On the other hand, opening up in England may well reverse this apparent drop in cases.
The next few weeks will be interesting.
Return to “Coronavirus Discussions”
Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 42 guests