China Coronavirus

[five points]

You're gaslighting.

https://www.pnas.org/content/117/19/10484

We draw scenarios of different containment measures and their impact. Results suggest that the sequence of restrictions posed to mobility and human-to-human interactions have reduced transmission by 45% (42 to 49%). Averted hospitalizations are measured by running scenarios obtained by selectively relaxing the imposed restrictions and total about 200,000 individuals (as of March 25, 2020). Although a number of assumptions need to be reexamined, like age structure in social mixing patterns and in the distribution of mobility, hospitalization, and fatality, we conclude that verifiable evidence exists to support the planning of emergency measures.

https://www.nber.org/papers/w26906

We find, using simulations with these estimates, that the lockdown of the city of Wuhan on January 23, 2020 contributed significantly to reducing the total infection cases outside of Wuhan, even with the social distancing measures later imposed by other cities. We find that the COVID-19 cases would be 64.81% higher in the 347 Chinese cities outside Hubei province, and 52.64% higher in the 16 non-Wuhan cities inside Hubei, in the counterfactual world in which the city of Wuhan were not locked down from January 23, 2020. We also find that there were substantial undocumented infection cases in the early days of the 2019-nCoV outbreak in Wuhan and other cities of Hubei province, but over time, the gap between the officially reported cases and our estimated "actual" cases narrows significantly. We also find evidence that enhanced social distancing policies in the 63 Chinese cities outside Hubei province are effective in reducing the impact of population inflows from the epicenter cities in Hubei province on the spread of 2019-nCoV virus in the destination cities elsewhere.

https://www.pnas.org/content/117/19/10484

The problem with irrational contrarians and gaslighters is that they will use literally everything as confirmation bias for their own stupid views.

You fall straight into that category.

You don't look at the evidence and form an opinion from that.

You form an opinion and then look for evidence to confim that opinion, and if you the evidence contradicts your opinion, you dismiss it.

You claim that COVID-19 will go away of its own accord in the near future. You say it's no longer a problem. I asked you for evidence to back up your claim.

You provided none.

I also asked you to explain why you say Neil Ferguson "should be in prison".

You haven't backed that up either.

If I am gaslighting, then so is The Lancet.

It has become clear that a hard lockdown does not protect old and frail people living in care homes—a population the lockdown was designed to protect. Neither does it decrease mortality from COVID-19, which is evident when comparing the UK's experience with that of other European countries

.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)31035-7/fulltext#%20

I cited the precedent of the Spanish flu aa an example of a pandemic that went away of its own accord.

As for my opinion on Ferguson, it was and remains presented as such and not as objective fact. The mayhem and destruction unleashed by his fraudulent interpretation of his own incompetent computer model is in my opinion beyond criminal. You of course are free to disagree if you wish.

I will not be responding to your intemperate ad hominem.

[bennydorano]

Jesus, the litany of mistakes & travesties this crowd are running up is getting ridiculous. Fitting if the Cult of Dom brings it all down.

[pbat]

Now there is a second trip, surely he has to go now.

Come on man. Link??

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/dominic-cummings-ignored-coronavirus-lockdown-22075857?utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=sharebar

[quit yo jibbajabba]

Jesus the press (Mirror?) have played a blinder with this. Loving it. Let them squirm all day see if they gonna brave it out then wham hit them with a a second outing

[sid waddell]

I wouldn't be one bit surprised if Cummings breaking the lockdown with impunity and the leaking of the story is an attempt by the Tories to ditch restrictions by the backdoor.

Let's face it, the Tories never wanted restrictions, they were shamed into it by public opinion, they wanted to let the virus run through the population like wildfire.

When people see Cummings getting away with breaking the rules and being outright defended for doing so by the Tories, ordinary people will say to themselves, "well, if the Tories are breaking the rules, why should I follow them?"

Which is likely the point of the whole thing - and the Tories don't then have to go against the scientists to end restrictions - they can just blame such, and the likely resulting rise in cases and deaths, on ordinary people.

"Wasn't our fault, guv, it was the people wot done it".

I can't believe the Tories are that cynical or intelligent.

I am surprised Cummings hasn't resigned yet. Normally when something like this happens in the UK the politician or individual resigns pretty quickly. Very rare to see someone adopt the Irish approach to deny, deny, deny and insist he's done nothing wrong.

They showed a cabinet minister at a press conference trying to defend him on sky news earlier. It was car crash stuff and something you'd normally expect to see from our Irish politicians trying to defend the indefensible. I can't see how he keeps his job.

Boris hasn't been seen much since he recovered from Covid-19 so you'd wonder who exactly is in charge now and this could be part of the problem

This is not a normal government, even by Tory standards. It's far more comparable to the Trump regime than it is to Theresa May's government. And in terms of cyncism, it should never be underestimated. It's a full blown far right culture war regime.

Cummings is their Bannon, he's a Russian style political technologist. They'll move heaven and earth to protect him, they'll dig in like Trump dug in over Kavanaugh.

They have a mass media bullshit machine to queer the pitch for them. That shouldn't be underestimated either.

[sid waddell]

You're gaslighting.

https://www.pnas.org/content/117/19/10484

We draw scenarios of different containment measures and their impact. Results suggest that the sequence of restrictions posed to mobility and human-to-human interactions have reduced transmission by 45% (42 to 49%). Averted hospitalizations are measured by running scenarios obtained by selectively relaxing the imposed restrictions and total about 200,000 individuals (as of March 25, 2020). Although a number of assumptions need to be reexamined, like age structure in social mixing patterns and in the distribution of mobility, hospitalization, and fatality, we conclude that verifiable evidence exists to support the planning of emergency measures.

https://www.nber.org/papers/w26906

We find, using simulations with these estimates, that the lockdown of the city of Wuhan on January 23, 2020 contributed significantly to reducing the total infection cases outside of Wuhan, even with the social distancing measures later imposed by other cities. We find that the COVID-19 cases would be 64.81% higher in the 347 Chinese cities outside Hubei province, and 52.64% higher in the 16 non-Wuhan cities inside Hubei, in the counterfactual world in which the city of Wuhan were not locked down from January 23, 2020. We also find that there were substantial undocumented infection cases in the early days of the 2019-nCoV outbreak in Wuhan and other cities of Hubei province, but over time, the gap between the officially reported cases and our estimated "actual" cases narrows significantly. We also find evidence that enhanced social distancing policies in the 63 Chinese cities outside Hubei province are effective in reducing the impact of population inflows from the epicenter cities in Hubei province on the spread of 2019-nCoV virus in the destination cities elsewhere.

https://www.pnas.org/content/117/19/10484

The problem with irrational contrarians and gaslighters is that they will use literally everything as confirmation bias for their own stupid views.

You fall straight into that category.

You don't look at the evidence and form an opinion from that.

You form an opinion and then look for evidence to confim that opinion, and if you the evidence contradicts your opinion, you dismiss it.

You claim that COVID-19 will go away of its own accord in the near future. You say it's no longer a problem. I asked you for evidence to back up your claim.

You provided none.

I also asked you to explain why you say Neil Ferguson "should be in prison".

You haven't backed that up either.

If I am gaslighting, then so is The Lancet.

It has become clear that a hard lockdown does not protect old and frail people living in care homes—a population the lockdown was designed to protect. Neither does it decrease mortality from COVID-19, which is evident when comparing the UK's experience with that of other European countries

.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)31035-7/fulltext#%20

I cited the precedent of the Spanish flu aa an example of a pandemic that went away of its own accord.

As for my opinion on Ferguson, it was and remains presented as such and not as objective fact. The mayhem and destruction unleashed by his fraudulent interpretation of his own incompetent computer model is in my opinion beyond criminal. You of course are free to disagree if you wish.

I will not be responding to your intemperate ad hominem.

The Spanish Flu is not a precedent for how this virus behaves, it was a flu virus, not a coronavirus. And the Spanish Flu killed around 50-80 million people. Why are citing something that killed multiple times the amount that died in World War II as "precedent" for Covid if you think Covid is "not a problem"?

You're complaining about ad hominems after claiming that somebody should be in prison? Pull the other one.

Neil Ferguson unleashed no mayhem. He is a mathematical modeller. His advice forced the British government to change tack from their utterly calamitous "herd immunity" strategy which you obviously supported, given that you so oppose lockdown. The genie was out of the bottle by then, and a calamity was unavoidable, but it could have been several times greater if not for Ferguson.

And you think he should be in prison? For offering advice which helped to save lives? What kind of a person are you at all?

The reason people in care homes have died is because the UK Government didn't give a shit about the people in care homes. It's nothing to do with lockdown. People in care homes can generally only be cared for through bodily contact and close proximity to patients, which is exactly how this virus spreads. The UK Government forced infected people into care homes and failed on PPE. That's why there has been a holocaust of people in care homes. The Irish Government failed on care homes too.

You said the UK avoided an Italy scenario. They most certainly did not.

[Maiden1]

You're gaslighting.

https://www.pnas.org/content/117/19/10484

We draw scenarios of different containment measures and their impact. Results suggest that the sequence of restrictions posed to mobility and human-to-human interactions have reduced transmission by 45% (42 to 49%). Averted hospitalizations are measured by running scenarios obtained by selectively relaxing the imposed restrictions and total about 200,000 individuals (as of March 25, 2020). Although a number of assumptions need to be reexamined, like age structure in social mixing patterns and in the distribution of mobility, hospitalization, and fatality, we conclude that verifiable evidence exists to support the planning of emergency measures.

https://www.nber.org/papers/w26906

We find, using simulations with these estimates, that the lockdown of the city of Wuhan on January 23, 2020 contributed significantly to reducing the total infection cases outside of Wuhan, even with the social distancing measures later imposed by other cities. We find that the COVID-19 cases would be 64.81% higher in the 347 Chinese cities outside Hubei province, and 52.64% higher in the 16 non-Wuhan cities inside Hubei, in the counterfactual world in which the city of Wuhan were not locked down from January 23, 2020. We also find that there were substantial undocumented infection cases in the early days of the 2019-nCoV outbreak in Wuhan and other cities of Hubei province, but over time, the gap between the officially reported cases and our estimated "actual" cases narrows significantly. We also find evidence that enhanced social distancing policies in the 63 Chinese cities outside Hubei province are effective in reducing the impact of population inflows from the epicenter cities in Hubei province on the spread of 2019-nCoV virus in the destination cities elsewhere.

https://www.pnas.org/content/117/19/10484

The problem with irrational contrarians and gaslighters is that they will use literally everything as confirmation bias for their own stupid views.

You fall straight into that category.

You don't look at the evidence and form an opinion from that.

You form an opinion and then look for evidence to confim that opinion, and if you the evidence contradicts your opinion, you dismiss it.

You claim that COVID-19 will go away of its own accord in the near future. You say it's no longer a problem. I asked you for evidence to back up your claim.

You provided none.

I also asked you to explain why you say Neil Ferguson "should be in prison".

You haven't backed that up either.

If I am gaslighting, then so is The Lancet.

It has become clear that a hard lockdown does not protect old and frail people living in care homes—a population the lockdown was designed to protect. Neither does it decrease mortality from COVID-19, which is evident when comparing the UK's experience with that of other European countries

.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)31035-7/fulltext#%20

I cited the precedent of the Spanish flu aa an example of a pandemic that went away of its own accord.

As for my opinion on Ferguson, it was and remains presented as such and not as objective fact. The mayhem and destruction unleashed by his fraudulent interpretation of his own incompetent computer model is in my opinion beyond criminal. You of course are free to disagree if you wish.

I will not be responding to your intemperate ad hominem.

The Spanish Flu is not a precedent for how this virus behaves, it was a flu virus, not a coronavirus. And the Spanish Flu killed around 50-80 million people. Why are citing something that killed multiple times the amount that died in World War II as "precedent" for Covid if you think Covid is "not a problem"?

You're complaining about ad hominems after claiming that somebody should be in prison? Pull the other one.

Neil Ferguson unleashed no mayhem. He is a mathematical modeller. His advice forced the British government to change tack from their utterly calamitous "herd immunity" strategy which you obviously supported, given that you so oppose lockdown. The genie was out of the bottle by then, and a calamity was unavoidable, but it could have been several times greater if not for Ferguson.

And you think he should be in prison? For offering advice which helped to save lives? What kind of a person are you at all?

The reason people in care homes have died is because the UK Government didn't give a shit about the people in care homes. It's nothing to do with lockdown. People in care homes can generally only be cared for through bodily contact and close proximity to patients, which is exactly how this virus spreads. The UK Government forced infected people into care homes and failed on PPE. That's why there has been a holocaust of people in care homes. The Irish Government failed on care homes too.

You said the UK avoided an Italy scenario. They most certainly did not.

Ferguson presumably didn't follow his own advice when he was ######## his bit on the side despite predicting up to 500000 deaths if we all don't self isolate.

[sid waddell]

Ferguson presumably didn't follow his own advice when he was ######## his bit on the side despite predicting up to 500000 deaths if we all don't self isolate.

He broke his own advice. But how does that invalidate his work, may I ask?

[screenexile]

The press get a bad rap and deservedly so at times but they set a phenomenal trap for the Govt which was fallen for hook line and sinker.

A work of art!!

[five points]

You said the UK avoided an Italy scenario.

Did I?

[five points]

The Spanish Flu is not a precedent for how this virus behaves, it was a flu virus, not a coronavirus. And the Spanish Flu killed around 50-80 million people. Why are citing something that killed multiple times the amount that died in World War II as "precedent" for Covid if you think Covid is "not a problem"?

2002–2004 SARS  is another precedent.

You're complaining about ad hominems after claiming that somebody should be in prison? Pull the other one.

No, I told you I won't be responding to them. No matter how hard you try.

[RadioGAAGAA]

Seriously what is the hold up with opening things.

The longer the spread is diminishing, the far smaller any potential uptick after reopening - which allows time to get it contained.

Exponential growth has a cousin... exponential decay.

But we aren't seeing exponential "decay". We're seeing slow, gradual "decay".

If 1 person spreads it to 0.6 people and that spread happens over 2 weeks, then

in 4 weeks you have 0.6^2

In 6 weeks you have 0.6^3

etc


We are seeing slow gradual decay as the rate of spread (analogous to R0) is constantly changing.

[omaghjoe]

Not sure of the exact details of Cummings actions but it raises an important question for all parents with children in the scenario where you both get sick and are unable to care for the children.
It's something my wife and I have discussed and we didnt really come up with a good solution as most of our back up care givers would be high risk and the children could well be asymptomatic carriers that could pass it on to them.

[RadioGAAGAA]

If I am gaslighting, then so is The Lancet.

It has become clear that a hard lockdown does not protect old and frail people living in care homes—a population the lockdown was designed to protect. Neither does it decrease mortality from COVID-19, which is evident when comparing the UK's experience with that of other European countries

.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)31035-7/fulltext#%20

That is an extremely poor article within the Lancet and I'm flabbergasted they published it.

Its little more than a puff piece (by a Swede) supporting the Swedish position.

Indeed, on a further 10 seconds reflection its outright f**king pathetic they allowed that to be published.

A "review" piece (it must be a review piece because it undertakes no study of its own) that presents 4 references.


I've binned papers that I thought unfit to see the light of day - and they would be 10 times better than that shite.

[Maiden1]

Ferguson presumably didn't follow his own advice when he was ######## his bit on the side despite predicting up to 500000 deaths if we all don't self isolate.

He broke his own advice. But how does that invalidate his work, may I ask?

Either he couldn't keep away and was prepared to die in order to see his mistress given his 500000 death number or he didn't think the risk was as great as he was leading the public to believe.