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Something I predicted two months ago and also now published.
Yes but you'll hardly ever be wrong in the world of drugs if you predict that something won't work or won't deliver what was hoped for. We all know that the percentage of things that really work of all those tested is minuscule. Actually probably most people don't know that but it doesn't make you Nostradamus just because you do 😉
Thanks for links, Kimbers.
I enjoyed the link to the Karl Friston interview posted above. Mainly because he wrote the book on some of the models that I use in a different context. He’s got a lot of experience fitting models to sparse and noisy data so I’m sure he’s right that you can get good fits to the data with a population where 80% are immune. Doesn’t mean that’s the case of course, but it’s an interesting hypothesis.
No it's not interesting it's the worst sort of anti-scientific bollocks typical of an old stale male who blunders into a field where they don't know anything and starts making stuff up. Real Dunning-Kruger stuff.
You couldn't even fit London data with an assumption of 80% immune, let alone areas such as Lombardy, Guayas, New York. It's just a stupid attempt to grab attention with "look at me, I'm edgy".
His "model" was a car-crash that predicted it would all be over by about now.
I do remember when the UK epidemic kicked in, in London mostly, that it wouldn’t be fair to impose a London-only lockdown.
We’re all in this together, team.
TBH for a bunch of crazed Brexiters you’d have thought they’d have locked down at the first sign of Covid, being an island and everything.
Hasn’t been much use that Taking Control of our Borders malarkey.
Interestingly I was looking at how well Albania handled it after hearing a caller mention it on LBC I think their around the 31 deaths in total. Interesting ban on cars etc to stop movement, bonuses to health staff.
I’m sure someone will be along to tell me how we’re different to them 🙂
(Sneaky addendum the’re now at 33)
I also think they don’t have the balls to do a proper regional lockdown as it would actually have to be policed but it does actually make sense.
Yes but you’ll hardly ever be wrong in the world of drugs if you predict that something won’t work or won’t deliver what was hoped for.
True. Except I also predicted that adding azithromycin will have an effect. There are good pharmacological reasons for this.
Saying an untested drug won’t work is easy. Providing a rationale for not spending £30M on a trial that everyone wants to do requires more evidence.
I model for a living. But I’m pretty skeptical of models for inference of biology. Multiple interpretations of the same functional form lead to difference interpretation. It seems scientists are happy to pick their favourite interpretation.
Rule 1. Do not fall in love with your model.
Rule 2. Other interpretations are available.
Rule 3. In data we trust.
I’m sure someone will be along to tell me how we’re different to them 🙂
I’ll take a swing at it 🤔
Former communist state created an environment where the population was better able to follow the rules whereas we have a high proportion of self entitled dicks that think rules and problems are for other people.
How’s that? 😀
I use SAS. Don’t care for R. It’s agricultural. But I have however discovered shape files and managed to produce maps down to the lower tier local authority level. It’s pretty cool stuff. Just need to merge the mapping with my analyses and add Scotland, Wales and NI.
I don't know anything about SAS but R and Python use gdal libraries which are basically using all the functions of a GIS package such as ESRI's ArcGIS.
They are very powerful when combined with Plotly, Leaflet etc.
Looking forward to seeing your output at some point.
Interresting take on R potentially increasing whilst cases drop, if most of the transmission is happening in specific settings such as hospitals and care homes transmission rates there could be significantly higher skewing the figure. Im not sure its the actually the case and have every expectation we will see another peak or even more probably and extended rounded hill as people flout lock down. We're squandering easing of lock down on jollies to the coast and re-openning of car show rooms and beauty salons whilst kids lose even more of their education.
I presume the lock down will be eased further by June 17th, otherwise we will have the bizarre situation of grown men grappling each other live on tv, while grandparents are still unable to hug their grandchildren.
@klunk - if you mean football, there's no grappling. It's just a display of confused wanna-be alpha male homoeroticism..its all hair gel, tattoos and lots of falling over in a camp way when your hair gets ruffled nowadays.
😉
I’ll take a swing at it
And you missed. Their government, like most countries, introduced measures to control the spread, especially geographically, that ours simply did not. Ours actively waited for the epidemic to reach most areas of the UK before introducing any measures at all, rather than attempt track/trace/isolate while the virus was only in a few areas. Oh, and, once some measures were finally introduced, the person making the decisions travelled from the most infected area to one of the least infected ones, despite thinking his family was infected, and even used the hospital there and had a lovely but far from essential birthday out. Why blame the public, not the donkeys?
I presume the lock down will be eased further by June 17th, otherwise we will have the bizarre situation of grown men grappling each other live on tv, while grandparents are still unable to hug their grandchildren.
I thought you meant UFC which has continued with its events, albeit behind closed doors, throughout the Pandemic, apart from one cancelled event at the height of the spread in America IIRC
It helps when the head honcho is a Trump supporting money obsessive
This weapons grade bellend, Dana White, is currently in a very amusing online spat with John Oliver
I presume the lock down will be eased further by June 17th
They changed it to every 28days, so the next review is 25th June
You can’t rule out Trump Johnson or one of his crew continuing to make things up as they go along, and announce more changes before then, without having anything ready to support those changes.
I really feel sorry for the Civil Servants who have to clear up the mess every time Johnson, Patel, Hancock make up something as they walk into the press conference.
It does seem that government policy is now whatever Boris or one of his clueless minions just blurts out.
It's clear from what the senior NHS Trust people are saying this morning that they certainly aren't being consulted about anything
Coronavirus: NHS trust bosses not consulted over new face mask rules
One of them on the radio this morning actually used the phrase 'making up policy on the hoof' with regard to Mattty Handjob
It seems like they really are, quite literally, making it up as they go along without any consultation with anybody at all
It doesn't really matter any more.
A significant number of people aren't listening. 'Let's meet up for a bike ride' 'Let's meet up for a protest' 'Let's go to the seaside like everyone else'
Keeping schools shut is a waste of time. All the kids around here are meeting up and mooching around in gangs
What do experts know anyway.. It's always just stuff that you don't want to hear.
I see what you did there boomerlives, you managed to equate protesting against systemic racial injustice with going for a bike ride or going to be beach.
Just slipped it in there......
I’ve just received an invite to a karaoke party! WTF??
It's an invitation, not an invite.
Madame had the Roche test and it was negative. She’s left wondering what she had if it wasn’t Covid
Possibly 229E, NL63, OC43 or HKU1 coronaviruses.
Why is the infection and death rate in the UK still so high?
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That graphic is slightly wrong: Spain has basically ****ed their numbers. But the UK is still up there close to the combined total of all other countries. Cos we ****ed it up at the outset and haven't made much progress since then.
I don’t think the comment surrounding that BBC graphic is fair… yes the response by the NHS could have been better, and earlier, but that our infection levels (and deaths) are still so high has more to do with late measures taken in the community (late and weak lock down) and care homes (not protected or supported)… the NHS wasn’t our weak point, and extra cooperation as regards emergency staffing with neighbour countries not really an issue.
Not extending the transition period is a whole other issue though, and is because those with their hands on the reigns off power want us to become more like the USA than the rest of Europe, and a no deal or minimal trade deal with the EU in January facilitates that pivot towards lower standards, lower regulation, weaker workers rights, and a sharp shift away from shared responsibility for funding and provision of health care.
It’s clear from what the senior NHS Trust people are saying this morning that they certainly aren’t being consulted about anything
As far as I know there wasn’t any prior consultation the day before on the decision to make face coverings on public transport mandatory either.
This is what happens when the person in charge is a great organiser.
Somebody who can get a couple of strippers, a person of small stature to walk around with a tray of coke and their head plus a dozen cases of claret for Bullingdon club boys night out.
Qualities that while admirable to some are not applicable for running a country and managing a health crisis.
Let's face it, he's just a puppet for the real people in power. I'd really like to know what shady deals are being carried out in the shadows right now.
I think it goes beyond selling the family silver.
Apologies to Scotland and Wales as they don’t report data at this granularity. But here is my best estimates of transmission hotspots based on this week’s data. It’s based on a statistical analysis of 316 authorities against deviation from exponential decline. I’m working on the other countries.
I mentioned this earlier in the thread, I live in the south west which has had quite low numbers so far but now looks to be a hot spot. We must have low immunity because of the low infection rate to date so could likely see a flare up.
Low absolute numbers. The plot does not look at absolute, only deviation from exponential decline, which is really the marker of transmission. Somerset is a hot spot. My home of Teignbridge is low.
Hmm - also showing my area (Rother, East Sussex) as a hotspot, whereas last week we were near lowest in the country.
Maybe our drop is less than elsewhere as we had 3 cases in 100,000 the week before.
Just caught up on the news from today, two things stand out:
The protests are going to cause a rise in infections, the question is how much by.
The govt saying that now is the time for localised lockdowns with everyone else treading carefully is basically them saying "London's fine now so we can go back to work and get on with saving the economy, you lot in the sticks can deal with it on your own now."
Add that to the reported rise in the R number to over 1 in certain places and it's really not looking good for us. At this rate most of Europe will be heading back towards normal towards the end of July while we'll be staring a second wave directly in the face with poor preparation.
Please tell me I'm wrong as I could really do with seeing my family soon.
reluctantjumper
SubscriberThe protests are going to cause a rise in infections, the question is how much by.
Absolute drop in the bucket frankly.
The govt saying that now is the time for localised lockdowns with everyone else treading carefully is basically them saying “London’s fine now so we can go back to work and get on with saving the economy, you lot in the sticks can deal with it on your own now.”
How did you come to that conclusion? The predicted R is just below 1 (.7-.9) over a lot of the county including the Capital.
What would you say if it was .3 in the provinces and 1 in London? A regional lockdown perhaps?
Browsing my Facebook feed last night I saw a post from a former neighbour, essentially saying that the protests remove any credibility about a COVID flare-up being the government’s fault. I can see her point, but I still downgrade her posts because of previous ones about how people should go easy on Johnson because he was having a hard time, or that now is the time to work together, not call for inquiries.
@willard I'm expecting that excuse to come out of the govt sooner rather than later.
”We’ve taken the right steps to battle the coronavirus pandemic and were guided by the advice of experts (from Strictly?) every step of the way.” At least he's given up on 'guidance from science' which I suppose he'd have to do if even obsequious mouth-pieces refuse to front up for the media show. The 'experts' would be Cummings, Isaac Levison, Nudge Unit and the 'science' would be economics. Any predictions for the next slogans? 'World-beating officers', 'bleached chicken tonight', 'Eat Eton Mess', 'defend the kingDom', 'sleep on streets', 'pay cuts now', 'flog the NHS', 'Corbyn caused this', 'GtF'.
It looks like the return from holiday quarantine measures are effectively solitary confinement
https://twitter.com/TomRHickman/status/1269197956168720389?s=20
I'm lost trying to work out what the end goal with all this is
I’m lost trying to work out what the end goal with all this is
Likewise. I’m not even sure - for example with the removal of the weekend broadcasts- the mechanisms for the public to understand this is any way serious actually exist any more.
It feels as though it’s no longer very serious tbh, here’s no clear definition of that and the world outside my front door seems very similar to pre COVID19. My only hope is there’s many more people like us still staying at home and still wearing face mask which make up the silent majority.
Some Republican puppet on Marr claiming to have have "evidence" (that he's obviously not allowed to describe) that China are actively blocking global attempts to develop a vaccine and/or therapeutics. Just after denouncing racist actions by Americans.
I’m lost trying to work out what the end goal with all this is
Get the public to accept a continuing high level of infection, and take the blame for it… the “herd immunity” approach never went away… they’re nudging people into mingling as much as possible now, while their policies support a more careful socially distanced return to the workplace and social lives. When it’s just us left with the virus killing people, they can point to the safety first policies, and pretend the nudging that goes against those policies either didn’t happen, or was not intentional. Ask again why Cummings can’t apologise or step aside…
The govt saying that now is the time for localised lockdowns with everyone else treading carefully is basically them saying “London’s fine now so we can go back to work and get on with saving the economy, you lot in the sticks can deal with it on your own now.”
How did you come to that conclusion? The predicted R is just below 1 (.7-.9) over a lot of the county including the Capital.
Parts of Wales are having a surge in admissions for Covid19 and their R numbers are perilously close to 1 with the downward trend stopping. Add in the slight delay in figures and it's not beyond reason to say the R number could be at or heading over 1 by now. This is why the Welsh Assembly is not releasing the lockdown measures as quickly as Westminster is and would like them to do.
What would you say if it was .3 in the provinces and 1 in London? A regional lockdown perhaps?
Local lockdowns not currently possible.
There is no law allowing local authorities to impose a lockdown so we would be completely reliant on the local population obeying what their area is asking them to do. Seeing as we are struggling to get some people to obey the fact that England, Scotland and Wales have different rules how are we to expect them to know the different rules for each county? How do you police it? Stop every vehicle at the county border? It's unworkable but as London's R number is low they don't really care. If London spikes and goes above 1 then you can guarantee that they'll try and do a full country-wide lockdown again.
And what's to stop people fleeing from one county to another if they don't want to enter restrictions? Think back to the beginning where lots of people from London were racing to get to their holiday homes in Devon, Cornwall, Pembrokeshire etc. They'll just do the same again, especially after the Cummings episode.
Westminster is naturally biased towards what they see and hear happening in London, this has been exacerbated in this crisis and they are doing nothing to change it. Boris was found to say that he didn't have to worry about what happens in Wales as the powers are devolved, it created a bit of a stink here in Wales. He then tested positive so it was buried and forgotten about.
Thanks to the govt signalling this is nearly over (no weekend updates, pushing to open up as normal with schools, pretending the track-and-trace system is the magic bullet to keep it under control) a lot of people think this is true. Thankfully the majority are still being cautious and limiting their movements but it's not far off the tipping point judging by the busy roads, parks getting full with little social distancing and other rules being broken. I'm not running around saying we have to go back to full lockdown again until the R numbers are down below 0.3/4 but we need to be really careful about how we manage the exit, something that is not happening.
you managed to equate protesting against systemic racial injustice with going for a bike ride or going to be beach.
The 'why' of gathering is less significant than the 'whether it's a good idea' in this case. Thousands of people shoulder to shoulder shouting is a big risk of catching and passing a killer disease.
I don't think it's any safer by being righter
I’m lost trying to work out what the end goal with all this is
Likewise. I’m not even sure – for example with the removal of the weekend broadcasts- the mechanisms for the public to understand this is any way serious actually exist any more.
Well they’ve managed to all catch it and not die, got people used to 300-1000 deaths a day without questioning why they wasted precious time haven’t got tracking or the fabled app ready And now passed the baton to the silly beach crowding loving public.
TBH its job done for them.
They’ve got you over the initial peak now it’s up to you.
The ending was always going to be messy on this.
I think it’s the rapidness of it that’s the big surprise.
But here is my best estimates of transmission hotspots based on this week’s data. It’s based on a statistical analysis of 316 authorities against deviation from exponential decline. I’m working on the other countries.
I'm really confused by the ordering of your colours... is it just me or are the classes in a really weird order...?
A couple of pieces of analysis of Covid that you might find useful. ( I had highlighted some areas in yellow for family )
The first is the number of deaths as reported by the NHS...
https://www.scribd.com/document/464683912/NHS-Hospital-Deaths
The second is the number of new cases by week as reported by the gov website...
https://www.scribd.com/document/464683317/Rates-by-Lower-Area
It looks like his legend is in the wrong order.
Could someone explain z number to me?
Z score is normally just how many standard deviations away from the mean. So it gives an indication of how convincingly different a value is from a background population. Here it's probably best for TiRed to explain exactly what his values are, but until then, you're probably safe to interpret it as something along the lines of "how far away a region is from conforming to an assumption of homogeneous behaviour (exponential decline), taking into account variability in the data".
So small numbers are likely to give bigger deviations, ie if you had 1 case, now 2, you’ve doubled, whereas 99 to 100 barely registers?
Yes indeed, in raw case numbers you'd get a lot more relative variability. As I say, I'm not sure exactly what TiRed has done, but taking variability into account is certainly a significant part of it. So in theory, stuff like that is taken into consideration, but it does seem possible to me that in these sorts of data, there's more than just noise added on to a baseline signal, so when numbers are pretty low then things like a localised outbreak (e.g. a care home and related people) could be responsible for values that don't necessarily reflect what's going on more broadly in an area.
BBC news aite reporting that world wide deaths have reached 400,000. It is crazy to think that one tenth of that number is solely from this country.
But more than a quarter is from the US.
So it could be worse.
That comparison with US makes our numbers feel no better tbh.
But more than a quarter is from the US.
So it could be worse.
Population of the US: 328 million
Population of the UK: 68 million
Deaths in the US (approx) 100,000
Deaths in the UK (approx) 40,000
Who's doing better, would you say?
I honestly thought that the US would be an utter shitshow compared to the UK, given its shambolic response, but it transpires we are world leaders in that department.
Weighted by population, we are doing much worse than the USA… ‘till recently we were basically Italy but offset by a few weeks (weeks we wasted) but are now doing far worse… (thanks Cummings&Co)…
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-covid-deaths-per-million-7-day-average
the protests remove any credibility about a COVID flare-up being the government’s fault
The government has totally lost the populace - no credibility if its own officers can't follow the fundamental principles, still mixed and confusing messages, expert advisors and leaders of NHS organisations openly distancing themselvs from its actions, ...
People are going to do what they fancy and some will be doing it even as an act of protest in itself.
People are going to do what they fancy and some will be doing it even as an act of protest in itself.
In much the same way as many people voted for Brexit as a protest against Cameron and the Government. I know, I'll protest this shitshow by voting for something that will make my life and the lives of everyone around me immeasurably worse!
And now it's "I know, I'll attend an anti-racism march / go to the beach / drive to visit my relatives which will dramatically increase the number of deaths from a killer virus".
/slow clap...
Out for a walk with my kids and it's clear a lot of people aren't bothering with any distancing now. 2 games of 11 a side football going on, a group of a dozen or more people (looks like several families) on bikes stopped for a picnic. Other smaller groups but no spacing, touching and hugging. This is South London. My wife is due to deliver baby in 10 days and I'm bracing for #2ndwave
A pretty accurate account of the story so far and calls for an enquiry:
Calling for a public inquiry is like calling a cab to get out of the way of a lightning bolt. They move in geological time scales, and have an even more paralysing effect on government as witnesses get their stories straight and try to cover their arses.
By all means have one when all this is done and dusted, but they have no practical benefit at moments when you are responding to a developing threat day by day.
Sadly, we elected a government by a huge majority last year, there is little or no way to change its direction, so the only options left to us are taking measures to protect ourselves and our families rather than participating in the government's lockdown/no lockdown experiment.
Out for a walk with my kids and it’s clear a lot of people aren’t bothering with any distancing now
Yip. Just been out for a walk and by the looks of it lockdown is well and truly over and everything's back to normal. Loads of big groups everywhere, including a gang of about 15 mountain bikers outside the pub and a big group of about 25-30 people having a barby in the park.
The North West has the highest R rate in the country, Mrs Binners parents and my dad are both shielding still, as they're in the high-risk category and these bunch of twunts are in the process of rendering the last ten weeks completely pointless. And that's before you get on to the 15,000 virtue-signalling bell ends in Manchester City Centre yesterday
But then what do we expect when the message sent out from the top about the 'interpretation' of the rules is "just do what the **** you like! We are."
Second spike incoming! And it's going to be a biggee
Second spike incoming! And it’s going to be a biggee
I doubt it. The people in Manchester City Center were outside and apart from the people they had gone with didn't spend much time in the close proximity of others. The highest risk is if they took public transport without masks to get there.
Every objective study I've seen recently points to the need for three condictions for a high risk of airborne transmission. Inside, more than 10 minutes in close proximity, no masks.
or are the classes in a really weird order…?
Well spotted. I manually reordered the colours as they went reverse of hot to cold. Order needs a resort to appear in the right order. I will fix old or prediction.
And now it’s “I know, I’ll attend an anti-racism march / go to the beach / drive to visit my relatives which will dramatically increase the number of deaths from a killer virus”.
/slow clap…
I'd go more with "they obviously don't really believe it themselves - Barnard castle, opening schools, tube trains, letting wealthy businessmen fly in and out as often as they like, to & from wherever they like while my holiday's gone tits-up. If all that's OK, what's a barby in the park ?"
I work in the health service and I'm not looking forward to the coming weeks but those ****ers trained the dozy half of the population not to listen to the "elite" establishment in the first place - even when project fear was pretty bloody obviously in their best interests. I know where the blame lies
Same here, just back from a ride and every open car park is heaving. The ones that aren't open have cars parked all over the entrance making it really hard for anything to get past. An ambulance or Fire Engine would have no chance!
What makes me even angrier than seeing scenes of people acting like it's all back to normal is when I go to work my temporary job delivering groceries for people and all day I deliver to people who haven't been out of the house for months, some are lucky enough to have a decent garden but lots are in flats and tiny terraced houses with only a view of the road to keep them from going crazy. I know of one old lady who lives overlooking a small park, she is very frail and has had to stay indoors since day 1. She has missed the birth of her grandaugher and two funerals for friends, all while staring out of the window seeing people have BBQ's and picnics in the park, not socially distancing and getting on with life. She's desperate for company so I make a point of not rushing away and having a 10 minute chat, the other driver do too.
All the 'In it together' and community spirit is disappearing.
Weighted by population, we are doing much worse than the USA
It's not over yet. Not by a long way
I don't know its a bit weird. I've just returned from our appointment at the Tip, my second drive in 3 months. Masked man stood miles away and shouted instructions after checking the number plate. All three cars entered at the same time as me were instructed to bays about 10m apart. The two supervisors where masked and with gloves and never approached more than 5m to ask if I knew what I was doing. Usually busy Retail car park was about half full.
On the flip side, I observed massive queues at the McD and KFC drive throughs, witnessed 2 x vehicles jump red lights, it feels as busy as a normal Sunday, and witnessed four men outside a Kebab shop in close proximity laughing smoking and spitting on the pavement, then heard on the Radio we've "only" 77 deaths today, and saw that our local Bacon roll cafe does deliveries now.
My own behavioural changes were to don garden gloves before existing the car at the tip, to leave those in the boot which I sprayed down with dettol spray before using Hand Sanitiser to clean my hands before re-entering our car and despite that washing my hands again as I got in doors after opening the back door with my elbow.
*shrugs* I don't know what to think of it all TBH.
My own behavioural changes were to don garden gloves before existing the car at the tip, to leave those in the boot which I sprayed down with dettol spray before using Hand Sanitiser to clean my hands before re-entering our car and despite that washing my hands again as I got in doors after opening the back door with my elbow.
Why?
All you touched was your rubbish, and your car?.
Our local recycling centre is business as usual, was there on Friday, everyone keeps 2m apart, only difference is staff were wearing masks. Queue wasn't any longer than usual, half a dozen cars.
Why
I’m asthmatic, my wife has lupus and my 7yo has hypoglycaemia. Apart from that, I don’t wish to spread it to anyone else should I have touched the skip/ railings that someone else has. I see it as being responsible. YMMV.
The people in Manchester City Center were outside and apart from the people they had gone with didn’t spend much time in the close proximity of others
You need to nip over to the binocular thread if you saw all that first hand with enough clarity to make such an authoritive statement all the way from France.