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#1
Dec 19 2021 03:16am
The following is a conservation between a journalist and Graham Medley, the head of the modeling department of SAGE, the scientific advisory board that reports to the British government and has significant sway over their covid decisions.
In their latest report, SAGE presents various dystopian scenarios for the impact of the imminent Omicron wave and recommends immediate, hard restrictions because their models purportedly show that the country would otherwise see "up to 2 million infections and 6000 deaths per day".

The journalist points out that all the scenarios from the SAGE report assume Omicron to have the same virulence as Delta although mounting evidence from South Africa makes it increasingly likely that Omicron is actually significantly milder than Delta; and that no further restrictions would be needed in this scenario. He asks the chief modeler why this scenario was not included in their report although it is very plausible. The modeler is perplexed by this question and argues something along the lines of "we only consider scenarios in which decisions (for restrictions) have to be made".








Source: https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/my-twitter-conversation-with-the-chairman-of-the-sage-covid-modelling-committee




Just jaw-dropping tunnel vision and detachment from the reality of the millions of people whose livelihood their recommendations would threaten and whose life time would be further wasted. :rofl: :wallbash: :fume: :wallbash:
Am I the only one thinking that this kind of biased, one-sided, myopic modeling makes a mockery out of the "listen to the science" slogan and should NOT inform political decisions?

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Dec 19 2021 03:24am
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#2
Dec 19 2021 03:28am
The data on the severity of omicron infection is still unclear. The percent of South Africa that is predicted to have previously contacted covid or is vaccinated is much higher than the US or much of the Western world. The data demonstrates the variant infect people with covid antibodies, but the data on how sick people who have no innate covid immunity isn't the yet.
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#3
Dec 19 2021 03:36am
Quote (Sioux @ 19 Dec 2021 10:28)
The data on the severity of omicron infection is still unclear. The percent of South Africa that is predicted to have previously contacted covid or is vaccinated is much higher than the US or much of the Western world. The data demonstrates the variant infect people with covid antibodies, but the data on how sick people who have no innate covid immunity isn't the yet.


If the data is still unclear, why doesn't the report acknowledge this fact and present the true range of plausible outcomes, instead focusing exclusively on worse- and worst-case scenarios, some of which can be assumed to be magnitudes less likely than the "milder virulence, no lockdown needed"-scenario that was omitted?


Regarding the level of collective immunity: the UK has a really high vaccination rate among the elderly plus comparatively high levels of naturally acquired immunity from previous infections. While these are known to not stop infection with Omicron, pretty much every virologist is certain that this kind of previous exposure to the virus confers significant amounts of protection against severe disease/death.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Dec 19 2021 03:36am
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#4
Dec 19 2021 03:39am
am i the only one thinking that for someone claiming to be vaccinated and generally not a covid qaren, you sure are ultra-focused on making the pro-science side look bad or alarmist, exclusively acting "concerned" with policy makers erring on the side of caution, constantly pandering to our anti-vaxx crowd and blurring the line between legitimate criticism and stagy qonspiracy?
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#5
Dec 19 2021 03:43am
Lol ok. I read the Twitter thread, Graham is just a horrible communicator which makes sense as he's a statistician.

He's trying to say his task is to model the effects of different policy decisions with a more transmissible strain. He's not testing every possible input, just changing a single input to show what the effect of the various policy options would be in that scenario.

But go on and think it's nefarious. The government literally asked him for what would happen if we did x y or z if omicron's R=whatever. You get exactly what you ask for modeled when you ask your stats people.

Oh and he also has a point that reduced severity is easy to comprehend in the model because it scales linearly. This makes it even sillier tbh since it's really just a model to see spread through a population under certain restrictions then you can tune the hospitalizations linearly by severity.

This post was edited by Sioux on Dec 19 2021 03:48am
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#6
Dec 19 2021 03:43am
Waiting for tistuff's input as he is a reasonable person.
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#7
Dec 19 2021 03:57am
Quote (fender @ 19 Dec 2021 10:39)
am i the only one thinking that for someone claiming to be vaccinated and generally not a covid qaren, you sure are ultra-focused on making the pro-science side look bad or alarmist, exclusively acting "concerned" with policy makers erring on the side of caution, constantly pandering to our anti-vaxx crowd and blurring the line between legitimate criticism and stagy qonspiracy?


In this instance, the public health modelers have demonstrably been alarmist and one-sided, their approach is actively violating scientific ethics. I don't see how calling this out contradicts a pro-science stance. By contrast, accepting transgressions of scientific ethics in favor one's preferred policy decisions is an anti-science stance.



During the pandemic, I am indeed frequently calling out predictions which keep erring on the side of utmost caution while previous experience throughout he pandemic has repeatedly proven their level of caution to be unjustified. For example when scientists keep forecasting a need for lockdowns to avoid total disaster based on a momentary R_t of 1.1 while R_t has already been falling for weeks. (That's what actually happened here in Germany during last spring when modellers were prognosticating that only a hard, federal lockdown law could prevent 7-day incidences of 2000, followed by the curve already being broken and peaking at around 150 before this law was even implemented and taking effect.)


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#8
Dec 19 2021 04:09am
Quote (Sioux @ 19 Dec 2021 10:43)
Lol ok. I read the Twitter thread, Graham is just a horrible communicator which makes sense as he's a statistician.

He's trying to say his task is to model the effects of different policy decisions with a more transmissible strain. He's not testing every possible input, just changing a single input to show what the effect of the various policy options would be in that scenario.

But go on and think it's nefarious. The government literally asked him for what would happen if we did x y or z if omicron's R=whatever. You get exactly what you ask for modeled when you ask your stats people.

Oh and he also has a point that reduced severity is easy to comprehend in the model because it scales linearly. This makes it even sillier tbh since it's really just a model to see spread through a population under certain restrictions then you can tune the hospitalizations linearly by severity.


That's not his task. SAGE's job is to inform government action to the best of their knowledge and ability. Particularly in a high-stakes situation like this one, where tens of thousands of deaths, hundreds of billions of debt and gigantic societal damage are potentially on the line, we can and should expect top scientists to present all relevant scenarios to decision-makers out of their own accord. A person who doesn't realize their responsibility to all of society in such a situation has no place on an advisory board like SAGE. A worker-bee mentality ("I'm doing exactly what I'm told to and nothing else") without any initiative is fine on lower levels of the science/corporate/public hierarchy, but not at the top where the big decisions are being made.
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#9
Dec 19 2021 04:12am
Quote (Black XistenZ @ Dec 19 2021 02:09am)
That's not his task. SAGE's job is to inform government action to the best of their knowledge and ability. Particularly in a high-stakes situation like this one, where tens of thousands of deaths, hundreds of billions of debt and gigantic societal damage are potentially on the line, we can and should expect top scientists to present all relevant scenarios to decision-makers out of their own accord. A person who doesn't realize their responsibility to all of society in such a situation has no place on an advisory board like SAGE. A worker-bee mentality ("I'm doing exactly what I'm told to and nothing else") without any initiative is fine on lower levels of the science/corporate/public hierarchy, but not at the top where the big decisions are being made.



Getting mad because you don't understand how scientific modelling works and you have an axe to grind won't get you anywhere. Why not try to understand why model designed this way when it's already been pointed out to you that including various levels of severity isnt super necessary because its a linear measure. Just do the math in your head bro come on.

There's also no reasonable way to assess disease severity at this point either. South Africa has a median age of 27 compared to US 37 or UK 40.

This post was edited by Sioux on Dec 19 2021 04:15am
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#10
Dec 19 2021 04:40am
Quote (Black XistenZ @ Dec 19 2021 01:16am)
The following is a conservation between a journalist and Graham Medley, the head of the modeling department of SAGE, the scientific advisory board that reports to the British government and has significant sway over their covid decisions.
In their latest report, SAGE presents various dystopian scenarios for the impact of the imminent Omicron wave and recommends immediate, hard restrictions because their models purportedly show that the country would otherwise see "up to 2 million infections and 6000 deaths per day".

The journalist points out that all the scenarios from the SAGE report assume Omicron to have the same virulence as Delta although mounting evidence from South Africa makes it increasingly likely that Omicron is actually significantly milder than Delta; and that no further restrictions would be needed in this scenario. He asks the chief modeler why this scenario was not included in their report although it is very plausible. The modeler is perplexed by this question and argues something along the lines of "we only consider scenarios in which decisions (for restrictions) have to be made".

https://i.imgur.com/HiiRUZ7.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/ccjW1Wj.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/m1h6Dag.jpg


Source: https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/my-twitter-conversation-with-the-chairman-of-the-sage-covid-modelling-committee




Just jaw-dropping tunnel vision and detachment from the reality of the millions of people whose livelihood their recommendations would threaten and whose life time would be further wasted. :rofl: :wallbash: :fume: :wallbash:
Am I the only one thinking that this kind of biased, one-sided, myopic modeling makes a mockery out of the "listen to the science" slogan and should NOT inform political decisions?


they are just as kooky as ever? arnt they...........

This post was edited by TiStuff on Dec 19 2021 04:41am
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