Coronavirus - potential Black Swan?

[Grayphil]

 

I may be wrong, but did anyone mention this profligate waste of money:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8841107/Test-trace-consultants-paid-7-360-DAY-Fury-private-sector-company-handed-cash.html

I get that the senior managing consultants are expensive and that juniors will do all the grunt work, but what do firms like Boston Consulting know that some other public official couldn't do?

I think we are back to this famous historic quote much used on HPC about estate agents:

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!" - Upton Sinclair

 

Probably also applies Hancock, Whitty and Vallance too.

I did see that yesterday.. Sadly nothing surprises with this whole clusterf@ck

But agreed about whitty Vallance etc. 

Hancock I'm not sure he actually knows he is the fall guy yet. 

[DiggerUK]

Those of us who recognise that our freeborn liberties and rights have been suspended with Covid rules, are rightly alarmed at the provisions in The Covert Human Intelligence Bill.

 

Amnesty International condemn the move, but the Labour Party is going to work with the government on this one.

As a left winger in the Labour Party I cant even speak out against the parties position because all political party meetings are now banned.

Have any of the lockdown supporters here even read The Coronavirus Act 2020. Some provisions are absurd and nothing to do with health concerns..._

[MancTom]

 

Dalgleish is a UKIP former candidate. So no political axe to grind...

 

He even mentions we have herd immunity for flu and measles - but isn't that only possible because we have a vaccine? Neither rely on infecting everyone and if that worked why did we need to invent a vaccine?

He also mentions we don't have a HIV vaccine and uses that to imply we won't have one for covid and hence we should go for herd immunity (but in the above cases we only achieved that WITH vaccines). But HIV mutates a lot making it tough to have a vaccine. Coronaviruses are relatively stable as far as I understand. So you cannot compare?

One thing I can agree with him is that Matt Hancock is an idiot (along with nearly all the cabinet members).

Edited October 15, 2020 by MancTom

[MancTom]

 

 

 

 

Edited October 15, 2020 by MancTom

[timuna]

Remember : Hands Face Space. Think of others! follow the rules.

 

[Social Justice League]

Sadiq Khan has just said on Sky news that he expects London to go into a Tier 2 lockdown today.

Oh dear.  Say goodbye to the uk economy until 2050.

[satsuma]

 

Sadiq Khan has just said on Sky news that he expects London to go into a Tier 2 lockdown today.

Oh dear.  Say goodbye to the uk economy until 2050.

Quick run out and take out a 800k mortgage to protect yourself,  people are dump as a brick

[captainb]

 

Sadiq Khan has just said on Sky news that he expects London to go into a Tier 2 lockdown today.

Oh dear.  Say goodbye to the uk economy until 2050.

He also said nobody wants to see restrictions.

After gagging for them for weeks. I dont think there has been a time when he hasnt wanted restrictions. 

[swankyman]

 

Sadiq Khan has just said on Sky news that he expects London to go into a Tier 2 lockdown today.

Oh dear.  Say goodbye to the uk economy until 2050.

And all because if this:oh my god it's the end. Everyone's about to die

[slawek]

 

Their were many many more people that came out to blast Matt Hancock yesterday. He had been shown to be incapable of changing his point of view based on changing  evidence. 

An example would be today the who revising down the ifr for under 70s to 0.05 why aren't we changing policies door that? 

@slawek BTW.. How do you feel about your calculations now the WHO has released this?

Are you still stuck at 0.5%

Have you read it?  They agree with me. 

They have 1.16% IFR for England. They use lower deaths total 39k published by PHE. If you use more accurate ONS data (49k deaths as of 09/07) you get IFR 1.46% for England.   

 

https://www.who.int/bulletin/online_first/BLT.20.265892.pdf

[Flopsy]

 

 

I'd also like to add to list:

• Lazy Bastarditus (LB)
• Benefit Scroungitus (BS)
• Fund My Research Grantioma (FMRG)

 

 

Not seeing the first two in our group for Neurological Disease or the online ones a heart condition I have. Lots of enquiries from frighened and sick people with jobs, careers and a lot to lose if their ill-health continues.

The last one is fairly obvious as they won't be truly  interested in finding out what causes it or how to cure / prevent it and see it as a gravy train. Sadly, they are already circling.

Edited October 15, 2020 by Flopsy

[swankyman]

 

Can anybody explain why Nottingham isn't in the lockdown top tier with Merseyside? 

I think it's because the cases were mainly in the Nottingham uni and Trent uni student accommodation.

[Pebbles]

 

A balanced article from the Guardian's economic editor makes some very valid points about how the absence of a clear UK strategy is causing damage to both health and the economy. 

Some here may not approve of Sweden's strategy but by sticking to it they are in a far better position than us. Again I think what New Zealand have done is crackers but they've stuck to it. 

I think we both agree here though the strategy is poor we need to have a strategy and stick to it not these half arsed lockdowns where you can do virtually everything except meet people in an organised manner. Although i am of the other opinion that sweden is the outlier and china vietnam and New Zealand are the better responses. Either we go swedens way and minimal changes (protecting the NHS by letting people die on the street with covid to keep them out of hospitals) or we go new zealands, Chinas and the WHO ("do not let this fire burn") direction and go for eradication or near eradication.

[Peter Hun]

 

Yes, but finalised tomorrow (15 October)

The following will be authorised to commit criminal acts, in the interests of the economic well being of the United Kingdom:

 

A1 Any police force. B1 The National Crime Agency. C1 The Serious Fraud Office. The intelligence services D1 Any of the intelligence services. The armed forces E1 Any of Her Majesty’s forces.

Revenue and Customs F1 Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. Government departments G1 The Department of Health and Social Care. H1 The Home Office. I1 The Ministry of Justice.

Other bodies J1 The Competition and Markets Authority. K1 The Environment Agency. L1 The Financial Conduct Authority. M1 The Food Standards Agency. N1 The Gambling Commission.”

This means, for instance, Boris Johnson decided to kill 500,000 people to acquire herd immunity, he can do.

Does everyone here understand that the reason the government has been so hesitant in its lock down strategies is that the ministers can be jailed if they deliberately kill anyone.

Now the shackles are off, once we are out of the EU and the Human Rights act politicians can do whatever they like, to whoever they like as long as it makes money.

[Riedquat]

 

Japan, just didn't bother. And got over it. No dramas. 

It seems to suggest to me a higher level of in built immunity in Asian populations. 

Big cultural differences in Japan that probably played their part, are the Japanese more likely to meekly go and do as they're told? It might be more effective with dealing with this sort of issue, and some of the contrary idiots annoy the hell out of me but overall I prefer less subservience.

[slawek]

 

And all because if this:oh my god it's the end. Everyone's about to die

You still don't understand an exponential growth.  We are 3-4 doubling from the previous top. Each doubling takes around 10 days now. If nothing changes in 1-1.5 month will match the previous top. 

It is better to use a logarithmic scale since exponential trends are straight lines on it and it is easier to extrapolate.

[swankyman]

 

You still don't understand an exponential growth.  We are 3-4 doubling from the previous top. Each doubling takes around 10 days now. If nothing changes in 1-1.5 month will match the previous top. 

It is better to use a logarithmic scale since exponential trends are straight lines on it and it is easier to extrapolate.

I used to work with exponentials all day long a few years back.

Loads of effects can look like exponential at the start. You have to look at the under lying mechanisms to make predictions. Tomorrow it may just level off and boom it's all over.

I post these graphs to show the bigger picture. To get a sense of scale.

[slawek]

 

I used to work with exponentials all day long a few years back.

Loads of effects can look like exponential at the start. You have to look at the under lying mechanisms to make predictions. Tomorrow it may just level off and boom it's all over.

I post these graphs to show the bigger picture. To get a sense of scale.

It is well documented that virus outbreaks are exponential processes. Without any intervention they stop due to reaching a herd immunity, not enough people left to sustain the exponential growth.

We know that

1) we are far from the herd immunity (6-7% have been infected so far based antibody tests) 

2) The existing measures haven't had any impact on the trend and the proposed futures measures are not significantly tougher. 

From both we can reasonably expect that the exponential trend will continue.  

[Riedquat]

 

It is well documented that virus outbreaks are exponential processes. Without any intervention they stop due to reaching a herd immunity, not enough people left to sustain the exponential growth.

Not quite.

Even without any deliberate intervention behaviours change, particularly in humans, but it can happen in other species too (sick animals don't move around as much, and if it's thinning out the population it's harder to find new ones to infect anyway).

Even before you get to herd immunity infection rates slow down as there are fewer uninfected people to infect.

Over short-ish timescales you'll have exponential growth with a constant exponent, but it's misleading to extrapolate too far. And even exponential growth doesn't have to mean fast growth - as was mentioned on the radio last week compound interest even with current rates is exponential growth, but you're not going to get rich that way.

 

[Pebbles]

 

Big cultural differences in Japan that probably played their part, are the Japanese more likely to meekly go and do as they're told? It might be more effective with dealing with this sort of issue, and some of the contrary idiots annoy the hell out of me but overall I prefer less subservience.

Come on, these subservients are ruining our economy and prolonging the virus for longer! Look at those countries where the population work closer with the government, Chnia Vietnam, Korea and Japan and look at their success. These subservients are giving these countries the upper hand.

[Arpeggio]

 

Those of us who recognise that our freeborn liberties and rights have been suspended with Covid rules, are rightly alarmed at the provisions in The Covert Human Intelligence Bill.

 

Amnesty International condemn the move, but the Labour Party is going to work with the government on this one.

As a left winger in the Labour Party I cant even speak out against the parties position because all political party meetings are now banned.

Have any of the lockdown supporters here even read The Coronavirus Act 2020. Some provisions are absurd and nothing to do with health concerns..._

Reading the bit in there called "Powers relating to potentially infectious persons" seems to be saying they can basically remove you from your home by force and put you into a facility.

"Postponement of elections, referendums, recall petitions and canvass" is interesting. It's OK to go to pubs, help to eat out, go to school, go into shops etc. but voting is too dangerous.

[slawek]

 

Not quite.

Even without any deliberate intervention behaviours change, particularly in humans, but it can happen in other species too (sick animals don't move around as much, and if it's thinning out the population it's harder to find new ones to infect anyway).

Even before you get to herd immunity infection rates slow down as there are fewer uninfected people to infect.

Over short-ish timescales you'll have exponential growth with a constant exponent, but it's misleading to extrapolate too far. And even exponential growth doesn't have to mean fast growth - as was mentioned on the radio last week compound interest even with current rates is exponential growth, but you're not going to get rich that way.

 

It is true that it is an approximation but quite close. Nothing is precisely exponential.

It is also true that it is not a sharp stop and infected people slow the outbreak before a herd immunity is reached. However this effect is only material in the last phase of the outbreak, one or two doublings before reaching the heard immunity.   We are not  at this stage yet. We can extrapolate up to around 10k deaths per day without worrying about this.  

[swankyman]

 

It is well documented that virus outbreaks are exponential processes. Without any intervention they stop due to reaching a herd immunity, not enough people left to sustain the exponential growth.

We know that

1) we are far from the herd immunity (6-7% have been infected so far based antibody tests) 

2) The existing measures haven't had any impact on the trend and the proposed futures measures are not significantly tougher. 

From both we can reasonably expect that the exponential trend will continue.  

[slawek]

 

You can't really tell if those are exponential trends. The best way is to use a log scale and check they are more less straight lines.

   

[Social Justice League]

Hancock on Sky news now talking about how "deadly" the virus is.