Messages

1

General discussion / Re: China Coronavirus

« on: Today at 02:16:11 PM »

"We're in the bizarre position of wanting COVID to stay, at least for a little while." is like saying "I wish polio hadn't been eradicated because we could have made money out of it."

You're impugning the motives of scientists now.

From Hannah Arendt in "The Origins of Totalitarianism":

“One of the greatest advantages of the totalitarian elites of the twenties and thirties was to turn any statement of fact into a question of motive.”

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General discussion / Re: The Many Faces of US Politics...

« on: May 24, 2020, 10:58:05 PM »

Today he’s basically accusing Joe Scarborough of murdering an intern twenty years ago.

Hope the GOP is proud.

Let's just call this for what it is. He's deliberately inciting his cultists to go and murder Scarborough. Trump has been connected to the mafia for decades so he uses mafia tactics against people he doesn't like. Physical threats, intimidation the constant spectre of violence and the flaunting of lawlessness are the core of Trump's tactics. The classic hallmarks of fascism.

And given the piss weak treatment he gets in most of the US media, it works.

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General discussion / Re: China Coronavirus

« on: May 24, 2020, 12:47:16 PM »

https://twitter.com/peterjukes/status/1264522634907340801

Peter Jukes
@peterjukes

Terrifying point by former Durham Police chief, Mike Barton, on BBC.  Given Cummings’ travels from the hotspot of London in early April when Durham and surrounds had low COVID-19 rates, he cannot rule out being a carrier of the disease which then killed more in the North East

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General discussion / Re: China Coronavirus

« on: May 24, 2020, 11:54:15 AM »

It depends on how the story develops and how the public reacts.

In a Yougov poll yesterday 52% said he should resign, 28% said he shouldn't and 20% didn't  know.

The Tories may well engineer a Hotel California style ceremonial "checking out" for Cummings. But he will not leave.

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General discussion / Re: The Many Faces of US Politics...

« on: May 24, 2020, 01:58:36 AM »

This study was by Columbia University. Trump has now called Columbia University a “liberal, disgraceful institution” because some of its scholars came to a conclusion he doesn’t like.

Aspiring dictators always turn uncomfortable truths into questions of motive on the part of those who voice them.

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General discussion / Re: China Coronavirus

« on: May 24, 2020, 01:43:49 AM »

Sure shite like that from O'Neill is as predictable as night following day. O'Neill is a literal fraud. There's no way he believes the shite he spouts, you'd have to be certifiable to do so. But he gets plenty of money from his "writing" and his frequent television appearances no doubt. And that's why he does what he does. He's a scam merchant, a performance con artist who preys on the gullible. One of the most shameless and most vile grifters I've ever seen.

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General discussion / Re: China Coronavirus

« on: May 24, 2020, 12:20:09 AM »

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.

You haven't explained how him breaking lockdown to visit his lover invalidates his work.

It showed a human fallibility and a selfishness on his part.

But that has no effect on the validity of his work.

It would appear you're not familiar with what conclusions his work came to.

His model is just that, a model and like all models it is based on assumptions. Paddy Power probably could build a model to predict the winner of the 2023 AI but it will make lots if assumptions and lots of best guesses. Based on the different approaches of different countries the 500k prediction seems way off to me.

His personal conduct is relevant in this case as it directly contradicts his advice.

Ferguson warned of the possible calamity that could unfold were no lockdown measures taken. Given that the UK has the highest death toll in Europe even with lockdown measures, his warning was prescient, even if it was only what any reasonable person could see.

An individual instance of selfish behaviour on his part is in no way relevant to the validity of his work.

It's an individual instance of selfish behaviour. And he paid the price for it.

Will Cummings pay the price for his multiple instances of selfish and dangerous behaviour?

He will in me hoop.

8

General discussion / Re: China Coronavirus

« on: May 24, 2020, 12:10:54 AM »

I presume given you're howling for Ferguson to be imprisoned you'll be doing the same for Cummings.

Expressing an opinion is not howling. I'm delighted mine has put a bee in your bonnet.

Callling for somebody to be put in prison for no reason is howling, alright. That's what Gemma O'Doherty and Donald Trump's mob do.

Measuring your opinions by how much they annoy other people is very childish indeed, and reflects very poorly on the worth of those opinions.

9

General discussion / Re: China Coronavirus

« on: May 23, 2020, 11:44:24 PM »

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.

You haven't explained how him breaking lockdown to visit his lover invalidates his work.

It showed a human fallibility and a selfishness on his part.

But that has no effect on the validity of his work.

It would appear you're not familiar with what conclusions his work came to. 

10

General discussion / Re: China Coronavirus

« on: May 23, 2020, 11:38:59 PM »

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.

SARS is not a precedent. SARS was suppressed completely, because its symptoms showed almost immmediately and were very serious with a very high mortality rate. There were only between 8k and 9k cases worldwide.

The chances of suppressing Covid without a vaccine, without millions of people dying from it, are pretty much non-existent.

There have been well over 5 million cases of Covid recorded worldwide and we all know it's a lot more widespread than that in reality.

Covid-19 transmits asymptomatically and many carriers never show any symptoms. It's a particularly sneaky bastard of a virus and really has no precedent at all.

I presume given you're howling for Ferguson to be imprisoned you'll be doing the same for Cummings.

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General discussion / Re: China Coronavirus

« on: May 23, 2020, 09:09:03 PM »

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?

12

General discussion / Re: China Coronavirus

« on: May 23, 2020, 08:59:58 PM »

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.

13

General discussion / Re: China Coronavirus

« on: May 23, 2020, 08:47:01 PM »

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.

14

General discussion / Re: Lockdown

« on: May 23, 2020, 08:26:16 PM »

I think the government are taking the right approach by easing the lockdown, but doing it in stages. We seem to be getting a handle on it an the no of new cases each day seems to be falling on a consistent levels from what they were originally.

For me a full removal of restrictions could lead to another surge in cases and undo all the work done to date. Better to be too severe on the public dealing with this than not severe enough

I agree with this. Gradual baby steps are very much the right way to go, both in public health terms and in psychological terms because it reinforces how tenuous and potentially reversible any return to quasi-normality is. It reinforces the point that we are dealing with a monster of a mass killer for which we currently have no treatment.

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General discussion / Re: China Coronavirus

« on: May 23, 2020, 05:45:53 PM »

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".