Of course human behaviour is never simple, but my understanding was repeated small gatherings are worse than 1 big one. If they had all gone from cheltenham to lockdown it would be very different from spending the next week in pubs/bars/restaurants/trains/busses.
Cheltenham draws people from hundreds of miles around.
Drac,
With regards masks in Kenya I'll defer to your point about surgical masks, I don't really know enough about specific mask qualities. I'm aware that there's many different sorts and varying qualities and I used the term surgical mask incorrectly. I am aware that a well made, 4 layer high thread count, mask will out perform a lot at masks on the market, though obviously not up to the standard of masks you'd use in an ICU ward. I believe in tests they were found to be around 65% effectve if used properly, a lot better than some masks but way off the 98% you indicate, but still pretty good if you're only going to the shops.
Good news about your Gran, unfortunately my mother is in a care home and 3 people have tested positive there, she didn't get tested as she wasn't in as bad a state as some other patients but she's still showing symptoms. Its only a matter of time I fear.
Sorry to hear that Inkster.
Scary times for you Inkster. Thinking of you and yours.
Cheltenham draws people from hundreds of miles around.
I mentioned two big pubic events that drew people not just from hundreds of miles away, but also from other countries. If containment is the aim, these were not wise events to let go ahead.
I thought it would be far worse for 100,000 people to all go to the pub every night for a week, than to go to a football match for 2 hours.
I also mentioned the pub going.
Do we have more advanced models that take into account the differences in human behaviour across a population when calculating final infection levels.
My guess would be the more multi variate the model the greater the uncertainty becomes to the point the information becomes a bit pointless. Like the stuff the other day saying school closures have little effect.
Sorry to see that Inkster
Singletrackmind,
Thanks for the heads up. On second thoughts the masks are probably made of old T shirts infected with cholera and washed in dirty ditch water. They are Africans after all.
The fact that they look amazing thus encouraging people to wear them as a fashion item is just another example of Africans stupidity. And with only a 65% rated effectiveness there's hardly any point in wearing them, in fact you're probably doing more harm than good by wearing one. They won't let you into a shop without wearing one and using the hand sanitiser they provide at the door, they won't even let you touch the produce till you've used it, the callous bastards. The hand sanitizer is free as well for God's sake, don't these people know there's a profit to be made on this stuff? No wonder they're so poor.
They have however been tested at Africa's most vigorous testing facility, a mud hut presided over by a 3rd party auditor who is a highly qualified witch doctor. They've even had the temerity to develop their own tests, can you believe it! Made up of chickens feet and donkey piss I believe.
I mean, just look at their infection rates and the accompanying curve, they're just not keeping up with us here in the developed world. A really poor effort on their part.
God, how good would being in a beer garden of a good pub be right now, chatting everything over with mates and strangers alike. Laughing in good company. I’ll get this round…
I thought it would be far worse for 100,000 people to all go to the pub every night for a week, than to go to a football match for 2 hours.
But there’s usually pre/post match drinks with a football match as well 🙂
Too true, I've not had an (alcoholic) drink since November, but I'll break that if you're buying. I quite fancy a lager, tbh. Cold.
The models of influenza capture mixing patterns and age succeptibility differences across the population. Whilst they are helpful for policy decisions, the basic SEIR models will go a long way to describe the processes at the simple level to assess deviations from the null hypothesis. I’ve used those models and some time series analysis to validate them.
Where those complex models fail is when you don’t know the transmissibility or characteristics of the infection. If it’s flu, you are good. If it isn’t....
My guess would be the more multi variate the model the greater the uncertainty becomes to the point the information becomes a bit pointless. Like the stuff the other day saying school closures have little effect.
Could just be a coefficient that has been derived empirically to model the variance in human interaction.
E.g final infection rate = k(1-1/R0)
Maybe model ‘k’ on swine flu or any other novel infections that have occurred in recent times?
That would make it 2. 5 million in Scotland – around 50% of the population.
Thinking about this.
If you look at deaths in scotland you can work back from there
495 currently at an average mortality rate of 0.5%, says that about 2ish weeks ago you were looking at about 99k infected.
Double rate currenly is about 4 days, so double 3.5 time in that for your max stat, that's put it currently at about 1 million maximum have been infected at the minute. which would put you on course for about 5k deaths in a couple of weeks.
I don't think we are going there in scotland.
If you look here the numbers in ICU in particular are starting to look flatten there.
So I'm cautiously optimistic, currently infected isn't as high and that the social distancing is having an effect.
Fag packet type stuff, but we'll find out soon enough, fingers crossed.
Thanks all for your thoughts.
Thing is she's in very late stage dementia and has been for 5 years, doesn't recognise anyone, even her self to be honest. It's one of those where the connection has gone so not as traumatic for us as for many other families with loved ones suffering.
It's the care workers I'm worried for, some of them have moved in to the care home for the duration.
Heroes? Effing soldiers more like.
Could just be a coefficient that has been derived empirically to model the variance in human interaction.
True I spose!
Rydster,
Complacency and poor risk management indeed. Badly advised? Probably. But what ever happened to basic common sense. You don't need an expert to tell you not to jump out of a plane without a parachute.
Geek comment: models are great but they have parameters. How these parameters appear determine how well you can estimate them. You all know y=mx+c, but you could just as easily pick y=(a/b)x+ab. One of those will be easier to fit than the other.
Same in the epidemiological models. And in the exponential phase you are estimating a log slope as a ratio think a/b not m. So one of those (a or b) might be well off and give you the wrong answer. Hence doubling time is probably the best predictor if that log-curve is linear.
So Patel is going to do the Corona report today. Interesting to see what she brings to the role...
TiRed,
Great input from you on this thread, much appreciated. Thing is, all those equations look like spells to me!
Out of curiosity, seeing as you're all about quantifying risk, have you ever read that Black Swan guy, Nicholas Nassim Taleb? He's big on the spells too, some of his equations look like abstract paintings but having read some of his books I tuned into his Twitter thread to see what he had to say when the Pandemic started, as there were no political or media voices making any sense to me. Stopped me trying to out guess the virus and made me adhere to the precautionary principle.
Excellent they’ve wheeled out Priti Patel to read out aloud. She’ll put an end to antiviral vaccines.
Where is Priti Patel from? Just wonderin' about her accent as she seems unable to pronounce any word ending in "-ing" without dropping the "g". Is this a regional thing I've not encountered yet?
Where is Priti Patel from? Just wonderin’ about her accent as she seems unable to pronounce any word ending in “-ing” without dropping the “g”. Is this a regional thing I’ve not encountered yet?
Beth Rigby from Sky also does this. Gets right on my wick. You'd think that someone who waffles on, for a living, could address this?
I don't mind regional accents at all. Just not familiar with this variation.
The slides the government show for hospital admissions - is this total number in hospital that day or new admissions each day?
Is this a regional thing I’ve not encountered yet?
Sadiq Khan does the same.
I am familiar with the Black Swan, yes. Most risk assessment make assumptions about distributions. Then they add assumption to assumption to... that gives you an idea.
Now if you assume bell shaped curves, that works ok, and mathematically is relatively simple. BUT surprisingly, life in the extremes of the tails is NOT bell-shaped, so rare events may or may not be quite as rare as you think. See 100yr floods. The challenge is guessing what distributions look like, and how to validate those assumptions.
[TL:DR] models are good but data is always more variable. Identifying that early is a Good Thing.
Where is Priti Patel from? Just wonderin’ about her accent as she seems unable to pronounce any word ending in “-ing” without dropping the “g”. Is this a regional thing I’ve not encountered yet?
Radio 2.
I think we are going to hit the biggest problem with social distancing now, the novelty has worn off people are getting bored, the weather is not helping.
Heard a few bikes about today aswell.
Plus some are stuiply clutching to 3-4 weeks expectation. Wuhan needed 12 weeks lockdown to think we need anything else is a bit naive.
Prepare for the worst hope for the best.
She's an MP for Essex, innit.
Radio 2.
🙂
Might be true for all I now. I never listen to it
Damn wasted a joke.
Radio 2
Just home officin'?
You can play "pin the tail of the epidemic on the curve" game. There are two models going on there, is a near term time-series (wiggly) model and a long term (epidemic) prediction, when they converge, then the final figures will be more accurate. I have these for EVERY country in the global dataset. This is just the UK. Uses today's data I just downloaded from ECDC. Hope that makes it a bit more real.
Patel refusing to apologise for the lack of PPE equipment available to front line workers.
There are two models going on there, is a near term time-series (wiggly) model and a long term (epidemic) prediction
What is the "tuning parameter" that would make the epidemiological model fit the data better?
Long-term prediction is going to be sensitive to parameters estimated from the global epidemic model, and then "selected" specifically for the UK data (posterior), so I ask the epidemiological model to provide a 7-day prediction as well as final size. There is no tuning per-se, it is a quality control as to whether the epidemiological model can give a near-cast. At the moment, in the UK it cannot,so I rely on the time-series model instead. For Italy and the US, they have converged perfectly. Spain is also there. BTW I don't fit incidence, I fit cumulative cases and deaths, then calculate the daily rates - that gives the classic curves. Current error is 11% for the time series and 15% for the epidemiological models. There are 50 countries in today's dataset
Quick, deploy the non-apology!
"I’m sorry if people feel that there have been failings."
After being asked twice if she would apologise to NHS staff and their families over the lack of “necessary PPE” that has been linked to NHS workers becoming infected and dying, she said:
"I’ve been very clear in what I have said and I’m sorry that people feel that way"
So - probably getting the wrong end of the stick, but to rephrase - what are the parameters that control the shape of the epidemiological model, and what would have to be adjusted to make it have a bigger peak?
Quick, deploy the non-apology!
“I’m sorry if people are upset because staff/family have died because we didn’t preload the NHS and care system with extra PPE in preparation for the epidemic that seemed unavoidable months ago. But you could just be more like me, shrug it off, assume staff will just do their job without adequate protection, because they care even if I seemingly do not.’
NHS staff as pawns in a game of chicken with a poorly understood virus. Are we allowed to be ****ing angry? Or should we just nod?
I made my own beer garden. Hope those of you with the outside room did to. Too few people in it though, will be glad to be out of isolation as soon as possible… beers were cheaper, and beer gardens don’t normally have armchairs… but still not as good as the real thing… you need people for that.
DrJ the model has three parameters, growth rate, carrying capacity (end size) and initial starting condition. Each of these have a global mean and distributions to describe country-to-country variability. The height of the peak is informed by the global curve and the posterior is estimated for each country with an assumption about country-to-country variability. Peak time is informed by starting condition as rate is largely fixed in the model.
Of note, but if I just model the U.K. data then you cannot estimate anything from the U.K. data! You have to have passed the peak as inflections provide the most parameter information. A global model means any country ahead informs on those behind.