Are the Guardian that desperate for ad revenue or just digging downwards ?
They've lost their minds. The entire coverage since March has been a non-stop attempt to dig up or fabricate 'evidence' that the government is handling this disastrously, and probably deliberately killing people for profit. This must be true, in their minds, 'cos, you know, Tories and Boris and Brexit.
UK death rate per million people = 287 Trump's USA death rate per million people = 157
Given much lower population density for most of the US compared to the UK, you would expect them to have slower spread and fewer deaths.
So you’re at work and the CEO’s personal advisor rocks up at your meeting just to ‘understand’ what you’re discussing. Do you carry on as normal or do you clench?
When the purpose of the meeting is to work out what and how to present to the Board, having someone there who knows how the CEO thinks and might get a feel for the presentation would be invaluable.
I am not sure the prime minister’s chief advisor can be a passive observer at any meeting. Would the scientists be as free to question current policy? Without any agenda, his presence will warp the discussion.
Schrödinger’s cat meets Whitehall.
Quite right. Such is his reputation - deliberate fostered by both Cummings himself and Number 10 - that his presence certainly risked intimidating the other committee members. Who wouldn't think, 'Why is this guy here? Do I need to be careful what I say?' I know the spin is that he was only on some kind of work experience, but is anyone going to risk believing that even if it were true?
It's been admitted that he attends SAGE meetings and that he contributes. Arguing that he is not "on" the committee is little more than semantics.
The Mail online is running a story tonight that in a report a year ago the government were advised to stockpile PPE. People are angry about front-line carers and medical staff catching the virus and dying due to lack of PPE and it does transpire that all that was avoidable but the government chose not to act on the advice it was given a year ago it's going to take a bit more than semantic jiggery-pokery to get out of that one.
"Now you're talking semantics! What if I told you insane was working fifty hours a week in some office for fifty years... at the end of which they tell you to piss off? Ending up in some retirement village... hoping to die before suffering the indignity of trying to make it to the toilet on time. Wouldn't you consider that to be insane?"
So you’re at work and the CEO’s personal advisor rocks up at your meeting just to ‘understand’ what you’re discussing. Do you carry on as normal or do you clench?
Wow Jon - spot on. Boris should resign tomorrow.
The independent, passive observer just wanting to learn line is a bit silly.
Are the Guardian that desperate for ad revenue or just digging downwards ?
They've lost their minds. The entire coverage since March has been a non-stop attempt to dig up or fabricate 'evidence' that the government is handling this disastrously, and probably deliberately killing people for profit. This must be true, in their minds, 'cos, you know, Tories and Boris and Brexit.
Which Guardian articles have suggested the government is "probably deliberately killing people for profit"?
They haven't quite got that bit yet, but they are trying hard. Look for example at this utterly demented article:
What is dememented about that article? It's factual and even makes room for SCM's response.
What is demented is the entire basis of it. What on earth is it for? I can tell you - the only possible interpretation of why the Guardian ran it is that they want to smear Rees-Mogg and the government and imply they are 'profiting' from the crisis. The actual story is that SCM think that the share price crash is overdone, as do some other fund managers but by no means all. They might be right, they might be wrong, but would it be better if the headline was 'Rees-Mogg firm thinks share prices will crash completely'? Would that make JRM a good guy rather than the bad guy they are implying?
The Guardian should be closed down for this. Wildly irresponsible journalism, worse than any phone tapping tabloid
Good idea - close down any paper that criticises the government while you're at it. Very democratic.
The guardian campaigned for the news of the world to be closed down for something way way less significant than this. And the guardian lied, terribly yet successfully, as they did that
Enough now. This is a deranged newspaper trying to bring down a government which is attempting to get us through a global calamity. There are legitimate critiques to be made of the way HMG has operated - and those critiques should be heard - but the Guardian is heading into full-on Lord Haw Haw mode. It looks terrible
This is all 'eye of the beholder' stuff.
Since you became a fully signed up member of the Boris sycophants club you seem to have lost the critical reasoning faculties to see that this government are making a huge and unnecessary fuck-up of the coronavirus response.
I wonder whether the most important factor is not age but underlying health conditions, [particularly people with more than one condition]. It could be that age seems important only because most older people do indeed have underlying health conditions, and therefore it would be interesting to see research on whether the minority of people over 65 who don't have any underlying health conditions are much less likely to have a signifcant problem with the virus, (compared to say 50 or 55 year olds with several underlying health conditions).
Are the Guardian that desperate for ad revenue or just digging downwards ?
They've lost their minds. The entire coverage since March has been a non-stop attempt to dig up or fabricate 'evidence' that the government is handling this disastrously, and probably deliberately killing people for profit. This must be true, in their minds, 'cos, you know, Tories and Boris and Brexit.
UK death rate per million people = 287 Trump's USA death rate per million people = 157
Given much lower population density for most of the US compared to the UK, you would expect them to have slower spread and fewer deaths.
Scant consolation for the 19,506 dead in this country.
So you’re at work and the CEO’s personal advisor rocks up at your meeting just to ‘understand’ what you’re discussing. Do you carry on as normal or do you clench?
When the purpose of the meeting is to work out what and how to present to the Board, having someone there who knows how the CEO thinks and might get a feel for the presentation would be invaluable.
Oh dear. This not an executive trying to pitch an idea to the board for approval, needing to know how it will go down. This is about supposedly the best objective scientific advice.
The idea that this needs to be trimmed or adapted for the CEO is scary. The sort of thing you might expect for someone like Trump.
FWIW I don’t believe the picture is as bad as you paint. But the idea that PMs advisor is a passive presence is absurd.
The Guardian should be closed down for this. Wildly irresponsible journalism, worse than any phone tapping tabloid
Good idea - close down any paper that criticises the government while you're at it. Very democratic.
The guardian campaigned for the news of the world to be closed down for something way way less significant than this. And the guardian lied, terribly yet successfully, as they did that
Enough now. This is a deranged newspaper trying to bring down a government which is attempting to get us through a global calamity. There are legitimate critiques to be made of the way HMG has operated - and those critiques should be heard - but the Guardian is heading into full-on Lord Haw Haw mode. It looks terrible
This is all 'eye of the beholder' stuff.
Since you became a fully signed up member of the Boris sycophants club you seem to have lost the critical reasoning faculties to see that this government are making a huge and unnecessary fuck-up of the coronavirus response.
So you’re at work and the CEO’s personal advisor rocks up at your meeting just to ‘understand’ what you’re discussing. Do you carry on as normal or do you clench?
I think what normally happens in these situations is that the CEO is suspended while the shareholders are briefed that the CEO's flunky attended a meeting. After an Emergency General Meeting to discuss this shocking development, the CEO is dismissed with cause.
So you’re at work and the CEO’s personal advisor rocks up at your meeting just to ‘understand’ what you’re discussing. Do you carry on as normal or do you clench?
Wow Jon - spot on. Boris should resign tomorrow.
If Cummings presence and role at SAGE is such a non-event why are you all getting so twitched about it being exposed?
Are the Guardian that desperate for ad revenue or just digging downwards ?
They've lost their minds. The entire coverage since March has been a non-stop attempt to dig up or fabricate 'evidence' that the government is handling this disastrously, and probably deliberately killing people for profit. This must be true, in their minds, 'cos, you know, Tories and Boris and Brexit.
UK death rate per million people = 287 Trump's USA death rate per million people = 157
Given much lower population density for most of the US compared to the UK, you would expect them to have slower spread and fewer deaths.
Scant consolation for the 19,506 dead in this country.
On the contrary, I think they'll all feel a nice warm glow.
Although that may just be the crematorium's incinerator.
It's been admitted that he attends SAGE meetings and that he contributes. Arguing that he is not "on" the committee is little more than semantics.
The Mail online is running a story tonight that in a report a year ago the government were advised to stockpile PPE. People are angry about front-line carers and medical staff catching the virus and dying due to lack of PPE and it does transpire that all that was avoidable but the government chose not to act on the advice it was given a year ago it's going to take a bit more than semantic jiggery-pokery to get out of that one.
"Now you're talking semantics! What if I told you insane was working fifty hours a week in some office for fifty years... at the end of which they tell you to piss off? Ending up in some retirement village... hoping to die before suffering the indignity of trying to make it to the toilet on time. Wouldn't you consider that to be insane?"
You might want to have another go at that Sunil I really don't understand what you are trying to say.
Are the Guardian that desperate for ad revenue or just digging downwards ?
They've lost their minds. The entire coverage since March has been a non-stop attempt to dig up or fabricate 'evidence' that the government is handling this disastrously, and probably deliberately killing people for profit. This must be true, in their minds, 'cos, you know, Tories and Boris and Brexit.
UK death rate per million people = 287 Trump's USA death rate per million people = 157
Given much lower population density for most of the US compared to the UK, you would expect them to have slower spread and fewer deaths.
Grrrr! Low population density but only because there are vast areas of the US that are to all intents and purposes empty.
It's the urbanisation rate that counts and US urbanisation is almost the same as the UK's (82.3% v 83.4%).
Punitive fines for publishing falsehoods should be right up the Guardian's alley. Haven't they been campaigning for that for years? Time to take them up on their offer.
So you’re at work and the CEO’s personal advisor rocks up at your meeting just to ‘understand’ what you’re discussing. Do you carry on as normal or do you clench?
I think what normally happens in these situations is that the CEO is suspended while the shareholders are briefed that the CEO's flunky attended a meeting. After an Emergency General Meeting to discuss this shocking development, the CEO is dismissed with cause.
Oh wait.
No it doesn't.
If the meeting was of independent objective auditors and the CEO was trying to influence it, it well might end up like that.
Remember this SAGE meeting is supposed to provide the gold standard objective scientific advice. There is no higher authority.
As I say I don’t believe there is skullduggery afoot here, but the passive line is bullshit.
So you’re at work and the CEO’s personal advisor rocks up at your meeting just to ‘understand’ what you’re discussing. Do you carry on as normal or do you clench?
When the purpose of the meeting is to work out what and how to present to the Board, having someone there who knows how the CEO thinks and might get a feel for the presentation would be invaluable.
Oh dear. This not an executive trying to pitch an idea to the board for approval, needing to know how it will go down. This is about supposedly the best objective scientific advice.
The idea that this needs to be trimmed or adapted for the CEO is scary. The sort of thing you might expect for someone like Trump.
FWIW I don’t believe the picture is as bad as you paint. But the idea that PMs advisor is a passive presence is absurd.
So you don't think having someone who thinks like the CEO is a useful asset to your meeting. We will agree to disagree on that one!
Scientists who aren't necessarily used to preparing reports for politicians would definitely find it useful for someone with a politics background to be at their meeting. I've done that before, when preparing a presentation for a specialist audience that wasn't my own speciality.
It's been admitted that he attends SAGE meetings and that he contributes. Arguing that he is not "on" the committee is little more than semantics.
The Mail online is running a story tonight that in a report a year ago the government were advised to stockpile PPE. People are angry about front-line carers and medical staff catching the virus and dying due to lack of PPE and it does transpire that all that was avoidable but the government chose not to act on the advice it was given a year ago it's going to take a bit more than semantic jiggery-pokery to get out of that one.
"Now you're talking semantics! What if I told you insane was working fifty hours a week in some office for fifty years... at the end of which they tell you to piss off? Ending up in some retirement village... hoping to die before suffering the indignity of trying to make it to the toilet on time. Wouldn't you consider that to be insane?"
You might want to have another go at that Sunil I really don't understand what you are trying to say.
Maybe the reason Germany is doing so much better is down to this fact: it has a population of 83 million, but the biggest city — Berlin — has a population of just 3.5 million. (Next are Hamburg with 1.8 million, and Munich with 1.5 million). In other words, smaller cities than the UK, and a lower population density. [Yes, the metro areas will be bigger than this].
Are the Guardian that desperate for ad revenue or just digging downwards ?
They've lost their minds. The entire coverage since March has been a non-stop attempt to dig up or fabricate 'evidence' that the government is handling this disastrously, and probably deliberately killing people for profit. This must be true, in their minds, 'cos, you know, Tories and Boris and Brexit.
UK death rate per million people = 287 Trump's USA death rate per million people = 157
Given much lower population density for most of the US compared to the UK, you would expect them to have slower spread and fewer deaths.
Grrrr! Low population density but only because there are vast areas of the US that are to all intents and purposes empty.
It's the urbanisation rate that counts and US urbanisation is almost the same as the UK's (82.3% v 83.4%).
But journies between urban centres are longer and surely more seldom and spread would therefore be expected to be slower.
So you’re at work and the CEO’s personal advisor rocks up at your meeting just to ‘understand’ what you’re discussing. Do you carry on as normal or do you clench?
When the purpose of the meeting is to work out what and how to present to the Board, having someone there who knows how the CEO thinks and might get a feel for the presentation would be invaluable.
Oh dear. This not an executive trying to pitch an idea to the board for approval, needing to know how it will go down. This is about supposedly the best objective scientific advice.
The idea that this needs to be trimmed or adapted for the CEO is scary. The sort of thing you might expect for someone like Trump.
FWIW I don’t believe the picture is as bad as you paint. But the idea that PMs advisor is a passive presence is absurd.
So you don't think having someone who thinks like the CEO is a useful asset to your meeting. We will agree to disagree on that one!
Scientists who aren't necessarily used to preparing reports for politicians would definitely find it useful for someone with a politics background to be at their meeting. I've done that before, when preparing a presentation for a specialist audience that wasn't my own speciality.
The Guardian should be closed down for this. Wildly irresponsible journalism, worse than any phone tapping tabloid
Good idea - close down any paper that criticises the government while you're at it. Very democratic.
The guardian campaigned for the news of the world to be closed down for something way way less significant than this. And the guardian lied, terribly yet successfully, as they did that
Enough now. This is a deranged newspaper trying to bring down a government which is attempting to get us through a global calamity. There are legitimate critiques to be made of the way HMG has operated - and those critiques should be heard - but the Guardian is heading into full-on Lord Haw Haw mode. It looks terrible
This is all 'eye of the beholder' stuff.
Since you became a fully signed up member of the Boris sycophants club you seem to have lost the critical reasoning faculties to see that this government are making a huge and unnecessary fuck-up of the coronavirus response.
I see a large open indebted western liberal democracy doing about as well as its peers, ie Italy, France, Holland and Spain. Germany has done better - so far - but it is the only exception, the likelihood is that on cases and deaths, per capita, the UK will end up in the very same ball park as nearly all its European peers, perhaps with a slightly less onerous lockdown
The fact is the UK liberal centre-left, you included, has been driven mad by its first ever big defeat: Brexit. Everything is still seen through the Brexit prism, normally sane people lose their shit when confronted with the personae of Boris and Dom, precisely because Boris and Dom delivered Brexit.
That’s all it is. Cf Mr Meeks on here. A sensible and interesting chap until you mention Brexit, then he’s Joe Exotic The Tiger King
Calling for a paper which criticises the government to be closed down is a stupid and dangerous path to follow, is all I'm saying.
This part of the government's response struck me as odd.
'Occasionally they ask questions or offer to help when scientists mention problems in Whitehall.'
What problems? Why would Dom know the answer? Is the government trying to recruit the scientists into joining Dom's war against the civil service? This is all getting a bit John Scarlett/Alistair Campbell here.
Are the Guardian that desperate for ad revenue or just digging downwards ?
They've lost their minds. The entire coverage since March has been a non-stop attempt to dig up or fabricate 'evidence' that the government is handling this disastrously, and probably deliberately killing people for profit. This must be true, in their minds, 'cos, you know, Tories and Boris and Brexit.
UK death rate per million people = 287 Trump's USA death rate per million people = 157
Given much lower population density for most of the US compared to the UK, you would expect them to have slower spread and fewer deaths.
Grrrr! Low population density but only because there are vast areas of the US that are to all intents and purposes empty.
It's the urbanisation rate that counts and US urbanisation is almost the same as the UK's (82.3% v 83.4%).
But journies between urban centres are longer and surely more seldom and spread would therefore be expected to be slower.
Punitive fines for publishing falsehoods should be right up the Guardian's alley. Haven't they been campaigning for that for years? Time to take them up on their offer.
I am sure Cummings could sue if he thought he had a case.
So you’re at work and the CEO’s personal advisor rocks up at your meeting just to ‘understand’ what you’re discussing. Do you carry on as normal or do you clench?
When the purpose of the meeting is to work out what and how to present to the Board, having someone there who knows how the CEO thinks and might get a feel for the presentation would be invaluable.
Oh dear. This not an executive trying to pitch an idea to the board for approval, needing to know how it will go down. This is about supposedly the best objective scientific advice.
The idea that this needs to be trimmed or adapted for the CEO is scary. The sort of thing you might expect for someone like Trump.
FWIW I don’t believe the picture is as bad as you paint. But the idea that PMs advisor is a passive presence is absurd.
So you don't think having someone who thinks like the CEO is a useful asset to your meeting. We will agree to disagree on that one!
Scientists who aren't necessarily used to preparing reports for politicians would definitely find it useful for someone with a politics background to be at their meeting. I've done that before, when preparing a presentation for a specialist audience that wasn't my own speciality.
Surely that’s the CMO and CSO‘s job?
They all have their own role to play.
Most of the criticism doesn't seem to be that advisors to the PM attend meetings, it's that Dominic Cummings does. They just don't like the guy, mostly because Brexit and civil service reform.
So you’re at work and the CEO’s personal advisor rocks up at your meeting just to ‘understand’ what you’re discussing. Do you carry on as normal or do you clench?
There would be temptation to clench. But if you know your stuff, you'd manage.
Judging by the reaction from Tory PBers on here this evening The Guardian front page has clearly hit a raw nerve.
Suspect there's more than a little supressed unease at Cummings involvement in SAGE.
It risks knocking the government off the scientific, utterly objective pedestal they've placed themselves upon. Idiotic error really - someone with Cummings's role, reputation and history should have been kept well away from all that.
Modelling COVID-19 exit strategies for policy makers in the United Kingdom https://gbohner.github.io/coexist/ ... The UK has just announced a test-and-trace strategy to end the lockdown.
How many tests, and of which type, are sufficient to end the lockdown safely?
Large scale testing strategies have universally relied on RT-PCR tests, which are exquisitely sensitive. When performed perfectly, these tests are capable of detecting tens of viral RNA molecules in a given patient sample.
The UK has had enormous difficulty scaling this test. Modifications of RT-PCR which make the test easier to scale now exist - including pooling samples, skipping the RNA extraction step, and collecting samples with spit rather than swabs. To our knowledge, tests with these modifications are not being deployed in the UK.
The easiest tests to scale are likely ‘antigen’ tests. These tests detect the presence of viral protein rather than RNA, and can be performed at the point of care using lateral-flow-assays, the same technology that is used in home pregnancy tests. The tests can therefore be deployed at scale without the construction and organizational overhead of large centralized testing facilities.
There is concern that antigen tests and modifications of RT-PCR will be less sensitive than the tried-and-true RT-PCR test. Is this concern justified?
It is important to first note that competing tests must be compared with RT-PCR as deployed in practice; due to handling errors and RNA degradation, RT-PCR tests have been observed to have a relatively high false negative rate in the clinic. Assuming that there is a tradeoff between sensitivity and scalability, which kind of tests will get us out of lockdown safely?
We find that the number of daily tests carried out is much more important than their sensitivity, for the success of a case-isolation based strategy.
I wonder whether the most important factor is not age but underlying health conditions, [particularly people with more than one condition]. It could be that age seems important only because most older people do indeed have underlying health conditions, and therefore it would be interesting to see research on whether the minority of people over 65 who don't have any underlying health conditions are much less likely to have a signifcant problem with the virus, (compared to say 50 or 55 year olds with several underlying health conditions).
Over 80s have a death rate of 14.8%, higher than for any pre existing health condition including the 13.2% for those with cardiovascular disease.
So age does seem to be the key factor once you get past 80
Judging by the reaction from Tory PBers on here this evening The Guardian front page has clearly hit a raw nerve.
Suspect there's more than a little supressed unease at Cummings involvement in SAGE.
It risks knocking the government off the scientific, utterly objective pedestal they've placed themselves upon. Idiotic error really - someone with Cummings's role, reputation and history should have been kept well away from all that.
Is there anything you think he shouldn't be kept away from/should be doing?
Modelling COVID-19 exit strategies for policy makers in the United Kingdom https://gbohner.github.io/coexist/ ... The UK has just announced a test-and-trace strategy to end the lockdown.
How many tests, and of which type, are sufficient to end the lockdown safely?
Large scale testing strategies have universally relied on RT-PCR tests, which are exquisitely sensitive. When performed perfectly, these tests are capable of detecting tens of viral RNA molecules in a given patient sample.
The UK has had enormous difficulty scaling this test. Modifications of RT-PCR which make the test easier to scale now exist - including pooling samples, skipping the RNA extraction step, and collecting samples with spit rather than swabs. To our knowledge, tests with these modifications are not being deployed in the UK.
The easiest tests to scale are likely ‘antigen’ tests. These tests detect the presence of viral protein rather than RNA, and can be performed at the point of care using lateral-flow-assays, the same technology that is used in home pregnancy tests. The tests can therefore be deployed at scale without the construction and organizational overhead of large centralized testing facilities.
There is concern that antigen tests and modifications of RT-PCR will be less sensitive than the tried-and-true RT-PCR test. Is this concern justified?
It is important to first note that competing tests must be compared with RT-PCR as deployed in practice; due to handling errors and RNA degradation, RT-PCR tests have been observed to have a relatively high false negative rate in the clinic. Assuming that there is a tradeoff between sensitivity and scalability, which kind of tests will get us out of lockdown safely?
We find that the number of daily tests carried out is much more important than their sensitivity, for the success of a case-isolation based strategy.
I might have missed it but I can't see where it allows for a percentage of the population not following the strategy. The polling figures suggest that complying with 'unlocking', for example, is going to be very variable depending on age and other factors.
Why is the vast amount of empty hospital beds (four times more than normal according to the hsj) not being more widely reported? Or the increasing deaths from non-covid causes (due to people not being treated/seeking help for other conditions)? An undertaker told me this week they were very busy - but only a slim percentage were from covid. This lockdown is probably killing more people than the virus.
Judging by the reaction from Tory PBers on here this evening The Guardian front page has clearly hit a raw nerve.
Suspect there's more than a little supressed unease at Cummings involvement in SAGE.
It risks knocking the government off the scientific, utterly objective pedestal they've placed themselves upon. Idiotic error really - someone with Cummings's role, reputation and history should have been kept well away from all that.
Is there anything you think he shouldn't be kept away from/should be doing?
Meetings whose purpose is to provide the government with the “best scientific advice” arguably do not benefit from his presence.
Judging by the reaction from Tory PBers on here this evening The Guardian front page has clearly hit a raw nerve.
Suspect there's more than a little supressed unease at Cummings involvement in SAGE.
It risks knocking the government off the scientific, utterly objective pedestal they've placed themselves upon. Idiotic error really - someone with Cummings's role, reputation and history should have been kept well away from all that.
Is there anything you think he shouldn't be kept away from/should be doing?
He's not really a 'harmless' individual, but if the government must indulge him then keep him confined to the playground of political skulduggery. We don't want him fooling around with the grown ups and jeopardizing scientific trust and independence during a global health crisis of historic magnitude.
Modelling COVID-19 exit strategies for policy makers in the United Kingdom https://gbohner.github.io/coexist/ ... The UK has just announced a test-and-trace strategy to end the lockdown.
How many tests, and of which type, are sufficient to end the lockdown safely?
Large scale testing strategies have universally relied on RT-PCR tests, which are exquisitely sensitive. When performed perfectly, these tests are capable of detecting tens of viral RNA molecules in a given patient sample.
The UK has had enormous difficulty scaling this test. Modifications of RT-PCR which make the test easier to scale now exist - including pooling samples, skipping the RNA extraction step, and collecting samples with spit rather than swabs. To our knowledge, tests with these modifications are not being deployed in the UK.
The easiest tests to scale are likely ‘antigen’ tests. These tests detect the presence of viral protein rather than RNA, and can be performed at the point of care using lateral-flow-assays, the same technology that is used in home pregnancy tests. The tests can therefore be deployed at scale without the construction and organizational overhead of large centralized testing facilities.
There is concern that antigen tests and modifications of RT-PCR will be less sensitive than the tried-and-true RT-PCR test. Is this concern justified?
It is important to first note that competing tests must be compared with RT-PCR as deployed in practice; due to handling errors and RNA degradation, RT-PCR tests have been observed to have a relatively high false negative rate in the clinic. Assuming that there is a tradeoff between sensitivity and scalability, which kind of tests will get us out of lockdown safely?
We find that the number of daily tests carried out is much more important than their sensitivity, for the success of a case-isolation based strategy.
I might have missed it but I can't see where it allows for a percentage of the population not following the strategy. The polling figures suggest that complying with 'unlocking', for example, is going to be very variable depending on age and other factors.
You missed this: “our model does not account for the compliance rate of a given government policy”. The point of the paper, as I understand it, is to show what is possible with less than perfect tests, and to suggest that this is worth exploring in greater detail.
Why is the vast amount of empty hospital beds (four times more than normal according to the hsj) not being more widely reported? Or the increasing deaths from non-covid causes (due to people not being treated/seeking help for other conditions)? An undertaker told me this week they were very busy - but only a slim percentage were from covid...
How do they know ? A large number of deaths from a Covid outside of hospital are not being recorded as such. How large is very uncertain.
Modelling COVID-19 exit strategies for policy makers in the United Kingdom https://gbohner.github.io/coexist/ ... The UK has just announced a test-and-trace strategy to end the lockdown.
How many tests, and of which type, are sufficient to end the lockdown safely?
Large scale testing strategies have universally relied on RT-PCR tests, which are exquisitely sensitive. When performed perfectly, these tests are capable of detecting tens of viral RNA molecules in a given patient sample.
The UK has had enormous difficulty scaling this test. Modifications of RT-PCR which make the test easier to scale now exist - including pooling samples, skipping the RNA extraction step, and collecting samples with spit rather than swabs. To our knowledge, tests with these modifications are not being deployed in the UK.
The easiest tests to scale are likely ‘antigen’ tests. These tests detect the presence of viral protein rather than RNA, and can be performed at the point of care using lateral-flow-assays, the same technology that is used in home pregnancy tests. The tests can therefore be deployed at scale without the construction and organizational overhead of large centralized testing facilities.
There is concern that antigen tests and modifications of RT-PCR will be less sensitive than the tried-and-true RT-PCR test. Is this concern justified?
It is important to first note that competing tests must be compared with RT-PCR as deployed in practice; due to handling errors and RNA degradation, RT-PCR tests have been observed to have a relatively high false negative rate in the clinic. Assuming that there is a tradeoff between sensitivity and scalability, which kind of tests will get us out of lockdown safely?
We find that the number of daily tests carried out is much more important than their sensitivity, for the success of a case-isolation based strategy.
I might have missed it but I can't see where it allows for a percentage of the population not following the strategy. The polling figures suggest that complying with 'unlocking', for example, is going to be very variable depending on age and other factors.
You missed this: “our model does not account for the compliance rate of a given government policy”. The point of the paper, as I understand it, is to show what is possible with less than perfect tests, and to suggest that this is worth exploring in greater detail.
Aha, got it. So this would need to be further modelled to find that out.
Why is the vast amount of empty hospital beds (four times more than normal according to the hsj) not being more widely reported? Or the increasing deaths from non-covid causes (due to people not being treated/seeking help for other conditions)? An undertaker told me this week they were very busy - but only a slim percentage were from covid. This lockdown is probably killing more people than the virus.
Let's hope journalists start reporting on this sort of thing.
Why is the vast amount of empty hospital beds (four times more than normal according to the hsj) not being more widely reported? Or the increasing deaths from non-covid causes (due to people not being treated/seeking help for other conditions)? An undertaker told me this week they were very busy - but only a slim percentage were from covid. This lockdown is probably killing more people than the virus.
Why is the vast amount of empty hospital beds (four times more than normal according to the hsj) not being more widely reported? Or the increasing deaths from non-covid causes (due to people not being treated/seeking help for other conditions)? An undertaker told me this week they were very busy - but only a slim percentage were from covid...
How do they know ? A large number of deaths from a Covid outside of hospital are not being recorded as such. How large is very uncertain.
Are they? They’re not being included in the daily figures, but that’s not the same thing. Isn’t that why the ONS figures on Tuesday’s are giving higher numbers? Because they do include deaths where CV-19 is believed to have been a factor (what i’m not sure if they include all of the “deaths with CV19” as opposed to “deaths caused by CV19” )
It doesn't depend on how you voted on Brexit. Pretending to be surprised that people who voted for the government are more likely to support the government shows that Robinson is a dishonest journalist who thinks that mentioning Brexit is still good clock bait. Or he's a moron who hasn't spent even 30 seconds thinking about the subject he is paid to report on.
Why is the vast amount of empty hospital beds (four times more than normal according to the hsj) not being more widely reported? Or the increasing deaths from non-covid causes (due to people not being treated/seeking help for other conditions)? An undertaker told me this week they were very busy - but only a slim percentage were from covid. This lockdown is probably killing more people than the virus.
Main story on Sky News this morning. Obviously we don't have the counterfactual for COVID-19 without lockdown, but we do have a rough idea of what normally happens in the health service. Plenty of people go to A&E who probably shouldn't, but the doctors at Warrington Hospital seem to think that people aren't going to hospital when they should.
Judging by the reaction from Tory PBers on here this evening The Guardian front page has clearly hit a raw nerve.
Suspect there's more than a little supressed unease at Cummings involvement in SAGE.
It risks knocking the government off the scientific, utterly objective pedestal they've placed themselves upon. Idiotic error really - someone with Cummings's role, reputation and history should have been kept well away from all that.
Is there anything you think he shouldn't be kept away from/should be doing?
He's not really a 'harmless' individual, but if the government must indulge him then keep him confined to the playground of political skulduggery. We don't want him fooling around with the grown ups and jeopardizing scientific trust and independence during a global health crisis of historic magnitude.
So i’m still not clear if your complaint in this story is about the individual or the principle? For somebody who despises Cummings and doesn’t believe he should have any role in Govt it’s hardly surprising that you should object to his name cropping up in this. But you are, as I say, viewing it through a prism of preheld prejudice against him. We have had a steady stream of these stories over the last 6 months. Basically finding out something, anything, that Cummings is doing/involved with and declaring that it is an outrage that he is doing it. And the starting point is usually that Cummings is only in Government because he is being “indulged” and not because he is employed to actually fulfil a substantive role. A starting position which the Government is obviously not likely to engage with.
The question that the critics need to ask (if they actually want criticism to be taken seriously, rather than just feed the beliefs and prejudices of their readers) is whether there would be the same articles being written if the name “Cummings”, as opposed to some other individual in an equivalent Government role, could not be associated with them?
Why is the vast amount of empty hospital beds (four times more than normal according to the hsj) not being more widely reported? Or the increasing deaths from non-covid causes (due to people not being treated/seeking help for other conditions)? An undertaker told me this week they were very busy - but only a slim percentage were from covid. This lockdown is probably killing more people than the virus.
Main story on Sky News this morning. Obviously we don't have the counterfactual for COVID-19 without lockdown, but we do have a rough idea of what normally happens in the health service. Plenty of people go to A&E who probably shouldn't, but the doctors at Warrington Hospital seem to think that people aren't going to hospital when they should.
Same thing is happening in Germany, big reduction in casualty admissions, and totally logical to assume that some of those people not turning up will die without treatment.
The assumption is people are afraid to go to hospital because they don't want to catch Covid, rather than because of lock down measures. I get the impression that people living alone have more people checking up on them than usual.
If the hospitals were overflowing because of no lock down I can imagine even fewer non-Covid patients showing up.
Cancelling things like most non-elevtive surgery is another story, and some of those procedures are starting to be restarted here.
Why is the vast amount of empty hospital beds (four times more than normal according to the hsj) not being more widely reported? Or the increasing deaths from non-covid causes (due to people not being treated/seeking help for other conditions)? An undertaker told me this week they were very busy - but only a slim percentage were from covid. This lockdown is probably killing more people than the virus.
Main story on Sky News this morning. Obviously we don't have the counterfactual for COVID-19 without lockdown, but we do have a rough idea of what normally happens in the health service. Plenty of people go to A&E who probably shouldn't, but the doctors at Warrington Hospital seem to think that people aren't going to hospital when they should.
Same thing is happening in Germany, big reduction in casualty admissions, and totally logical to assume that some of those people not turning up will die without treatment.
The assumption is people are afraid to go to hospital because they don't want to catch Covid, rather than because of lock down measures. I get the impression that people living alone have more people checking up on them than usual.
If the hospitals were overflowing because of no lock down I can imagine even fewer non-Covid patients showing up.
Cancelling things like most non-elevtive surgery is another story, and some of those procedures are starting to be restarted here.
Oops meant elective obviously, edit function and brain not working this morning
It wasn’t a “non denial denial”. Such an argument means any disputing of a published story containing a mixture of facts, exaggerations, innuendo and speculation could be thus characterised.
The Guardian story was an attempt to exaggerate an undisputed fact (Cummings sometimes attends/observes SAGE meetings and sometimes asks questions of those there) into something deep and sinister and drawing unfounded speculative conclusions that this attendance has changed the basis for the scientific advice to imply that when the Govt say they are “following the scientific advice”, they are actually following their own path under the bogus cover of science. Speculative conclusions for which they have no basis, but which they know will grab headlines and be lapped up by those who share their world view.
If the issue of substance was his being there at all then the Guardian wouldn’t have felt the need to pad it up to the extent that they did.
It wasn’t a “non denial denial”. Such an argument means any disputing of a published story containing a mixture of facts, exaggerations, innuendo and speculation could be thus characterised.
The Guardian story was an attempt to exaggerate an undisputed fact (Cummings sometimes attends/observes SAGE meetings and sometimes asks questions of those there) into something deep and sinister and drawing unfounded speculative conclusions that this attendance has changed the basis for the scientific advice to imply that when the Govt say they are “following the scientific advice”, they are actually following their own path under the bogus cover of science. Speculative conclusions for which they have no basis, but which they know will grab headlines and be lapped up by those who share their world view.
If the issue of substance was his being there at all then the Guardian wouldn’t have felt the need to pad it up to the extent that they did.
What about Lewis" point that there is a Trumpian going after the media? Public support for the media has not collapsed, so that's a lie for a start, if you believe the polling someone posted here the other day
Kim is/was only about 35 years old. I wonder what happened.
COVID 19 on top of other conditions plus obesity, I would think.
I read somewhere of him importing huge amounts of foreign cheese and other delicacies i think french ceese was one and then stuffing his face with it. It could well be true.
Given that the NHS seems to be coping unexpectedly well, is it possible that the unnormalised death rate is not a reliable indicator for international comparison of policy response and individual country “performance”?
Kim is/was only about 35 years old. I wonder what happened.
COVID 19 on top of other conditions plus obesity, I would think.
I read somewhere of him importing huge amounts of foreign cheese and other delicacies i think french ceese was one and then stuffing his face with it. It could well be true.
Kim is/was only about 35 years old. I wonder what happened.
COVID 19 on top of other conditions plus obesity, I would think.
I read somewhere of him importing huge amounts of foreign cheese and other delicacies i think french ceese was one and then stuffing his face with it. It could well be true.
French brie....
Google search reckons he has a bmi of 45. Seriously obese.
It wasn’t a “non denial denial”. Such an argument means any disputing of a published story containing a mixture of facts, exaggerations, innuendo and speculation could be thus characterised.
The Guardian story was an attempt to exaggerate an undisputed fact (Cummings sometimes attends/observes SAGE meetings and sometimes asks questions of those there) into something deep and sinister and drawing unfounded speculative conclusions that this attendance has changed the basis for the scientific advice to imply that when the Govt say they are “following the scientific advice”, they are actually following their own path under the bogus cover of science. Speculative conclusions for which they have no basis, but which they know will grab headlines and be lapped up by those who share their world view.
If the issue of substance was his being there at all then the Guardian wouldn’t have felt the need to pad it up to the extent that they did.
What about Lewis" point that there is a Trumpian going after the media? Public support for the media has not collapsed, so that's a lie for a start, if you believe the polling someone posted here the other day
Public support for the media is and always had been poor..and its getting worse. I think there was a poll about it a few days ago. Thats why people dont buy paperz anymore. The only newspaper worth its salt is the Times. The BBC nonsense about the NHS head trying to get Burberry head office tel no.was appalling... the Grauniad story is nonsense....
Comments
RobD said "The headline implies he is giving advice. I don't think that is the case"
I'm not being funny but how do you know whether he was or he wasn't?
Others (cough, Piers Morgan and Carol C, cough...) seem to willfully misunderstand what is told to them.
Since you became a fully signed up member of the Boris sycophants club you seem to have lost the critical reasoning faculties to see that this government are making a huge and unnecessary fuck-up of the coronavirus response.
The idea that this needs to be trimmed or adapted for the CEO is scary. The sort of thing you might expect for someone like Trump.
FWIW I don’t believe the picture is as bad as you paint. But the idea that PMs advisor is a passive presence is absurd.
Oh wait.
No it doesn't.
Although that may just be the crematorium's incinerator.
It's the urbanisation rate that counts and US urbanisation is almost the same as the UK's (82.3% v 83.4%).
Remember this SAGE meeting is supposed to provide the gold standard objective scientific advice. There is no higher authority.
As I say I don’t believe there is skullduggery afoot here, but the passive line is bullshit.
Scientists who aren't necessarily used to preparing reports for politicians would definitely find it useful for someone with a politics background to be at their meeting. I've done that before, when preparing a presentation for a specialist audience that wasn't my own speciality.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztVt5nIyIBs
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_in_Germany_by_population
Hmmm why would that be
'Occasionally they ask questions or offer to help when scientists mention problems in Whitehall.'
What problems? Why would Dom know the answer? Is the government trying to recruit the scientists into joining Dom's war against the civil service? This is all getting a bit John Scarlett/Alistair Campbell here.
Most of the criticism doesn't seem to be that advisors to the PM attend meetings, it's that Dominic Cummings does. They just don't like the guy, mostly because Brexit and civil service reform.
Suspect there's more than a little supressed unease at Cummings involvement in SAGE.
It's the Guardian printing yet more unsubstantiated fake news that hits the raw nerve.
But on that note, time to abed. Laters.
Or would you prefer all the journalists ignored the whole thing ?
Should I be worried/call the police?
Modelling COVID-19 exit strategies for policy makers in the United Kingdom
https://gbohner.github.io/coexist/
... The UK has just announced a test-and-trace strategy to end the lockdown.
How many tests, and of which type, are sufficient to end the lockdown safely?
Large scale testing strategies have universally relied on RT-PCR tests, which are exquisitely sensitive. When performed perfectly, these tests are capable of detecting tens of viral RNA molecules in a given patient sample.
The UK has had enormous difficulty scaling this test. Modifications of RT-PCR which make the test easier to scale now exist - including pooling samples, skipping the RNA extraction step, and collecting samples with spit rather than swabs. To our knowledge, tests with these modifications are not being deployed in the UK.
The easiest tests to scale are likely ‘antigen’ tests. These tests detect the presence of viral protein rather than RNA, and can be performed at the point of care using lateral-flow-assays, the same technology that is used in home pregnancy tests. The tests can therefore be deployed at scale without the construction and organizational overhead of large centralized testing facilities.
There is concern that antigen tests and modifications of RT-PCR will be less sensitive than the tried-and-true RT-PCR test. Is this concern justified?
It is important to first note that competing tests must be compared with RT-PCR as deployed in practice; due to handling errors and RNA degradation, RT-PCR tests have been observed to have a relatively high false negative rate in the clinic. Assuming that there is a tradeoff between sensitivity and scalability, which kind of tests will get us out of lockdown safely?
We find that the number of daily tests carried out is much more important than their sensitivity, for the success of a case-isolation based strategy.
So age does seem to be the key factor once you get past 80
https://www.disabled-world.com/health/influenza/coronavirus/coronavirus-mortality.php
You might differ on that, of course.
The point of the paper, as I understand it, is to show what is possible with less than perfect tests, and to suggest that this is worth exploring in greater detail.
A large number of deaths from a Covid outside of hospital are not being recorded as such. How large is very uncertain.
https://twitter.com/adamhousley/status/1253837002325155842
Big day tomorrow, if he's a no show then it might be true.
Just what we all need right now.
True!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-52417599
BA66 from Philidelphia
BA216 from D.C.
BA212 from Boston
BA294 from Chicago
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-52405243
The question that the critics need to ask (if they actually want criticism to be taken seriously, rather than just feed the beliefs and prejudices of their readers) is whether there would be the same articles being written if the name “Cummings”, as opposed to some other individual in an equivalent Government role, could not be associated with them?
The assumption is people are afraid to go to hospital because they don't want to catch Covid, rather than because of lock down measures. I get the impression that people living alone have more people checking up on them than usual.
If the hospitals were overflowing because of no lock down I can imagine even fewer non-Covid patients showing up.
Cancelling things like most non-elevtive surgery is another story, and some of those procedures are starting to be restarted here.
Brazil falling over.
The Guardian story was an attempt to exaggerate an undisputed fact (Cummings sometimes attends/observes SAGE meetings and sometimes asks questions of those there) into something deep and sinister and drawing unfounded speculative conclusions that this attendance has changed the basis for the scientific advice to imply that when the Govt say they are “following the scientific advice”, they are actually following their own path under the bogus cover of science. Speculative conclusions for which they have no basis, but which they know will grab headlines and be lapped up by those who share their world view.
If the issue of substance was his being there at all then the Guardian wouldn’t have felt the need to pad it up to the extent that they did.
Given that the NHS seems to be coping unexpectedly well, is it possible that the unnormalised death rate is not a reliable indicator for international comparison of policy response and individual country “performance”?
The BBC nonsense about the NHS head trying to get Burberry head office tel no.was appalling... the Grauniad story is nonsense....