Coronavirus

[Andy Kev.]

Lurker,

I think you are reflecting the general level of dumbing down of the media that has gone on over the years. The BBC in particular now seems to take the line that it is talking down to not particularly bright, frightened children as opposed to giving informative briefings to sensible adults. I presume that they think that understanding the nuances of what the scientists are saying is way beyond us.

Or maybe they are just dissatisfied with the lack of sensationalism that science offers.*

*There is one exception to this actually: those in search of scientific sensation should just go to youtube and do a search on pulsars. Quasars come a good second. Unfortunately this sort of thing does not generate a stick with which to beat politicians or induce tears so that's perhaps why the BBC is not interested.

 

[Jake]

The reason I make the above suggestion is that all the official advice is stemming from expert knowledge in virology and epidemiology. From what I can see from the nature of much reaction to it, is that many of those who are unhappy with it clearly have little knowledge of either. They're taking it on as if they had come out padded up for a game of cricket only to find themselves in the middle of a rugby match.

This would make some modicum of sense if there was consensus among epidemiologists and virologists, but there is not, and the official UK approach is deeply contentious in those circles.

In those circumstances, this seems to me just to be your well trained authority bias coming through again.

 

[Andy Kev.]

Demonstrate my "well trained authority bias". It's a bit odd to find myself accused of that as my instinct is to question authority although I do not reject it when it is justified. You clearly want me to have an authority bias because you have shown beyond reasonable doubt that you have a highly political take on the virus matter (I am resolutely apolitical on it because to me it is not a matter of politics) and politics is not particularly interested in objectivity.

It would be also interesting to see to what extent epidemiologists and virologists diverge in opinion on the matter. In making that statement what I suspect is your political bias is again showing through because it is hardly likely that virologists will have any serious divergence of opinion: the virus either has certain structures/proteins/genome/modus operandii or it doesn't. As far as I am aware there is an exceedingly high degree of unity of opinion about these things in relation to the virus. Perhaps MusicMan could comment.

I also doubt that there is much divergence of view amongst epidemiologists as to the how the virus is behaving in an epidemiological sense and as to the various models of how it will mutate and adapt in the medium to long term.

What I suspect you are getting at (and from what you've posted I also suspect that you don't really understand) is that there is divergence of opinion in the implications for the nature and course of a public health response (which naturally becomes a political football) to what the epidemiologists are briefing. That would make sense which is more than your post does once subject to close examination.

 

[RogerS]

Watching breakfast tv this morning a GP said it all as far as I'm concerned when asked how to deal with questionable information being spread around on social media and the internet.

Not exact words but basically Choose very carefully who you listen to and that should be the real experts, everyone out there is an "expert" at the minute, people should stick to what they know"

Makes a lot of sense to me!

Hear, hear !

 

[MikeG.]

Well, I died in hospital a couple of days ago, apparently.

A friend has just rung up to commiserate with my wife, and was somewhat surprised when I answered the phone. Chinese whispers around small village communities...........

 

[Trainee neophyte]

Watching breakfast tv this morning a GP said it all as far as I'm concerned when asked how to deal with questionable information being spread around on social media and the internet.

Not exact words but basically Choose very carefully who you listen to and that should be the real experts, everyone out there is an "expert" at the minute, people should stick to what they know"

Makes a lot of sense to me!

Hear, hear !

It does presuppose that government and "experts" have your best interests in mind when they make their decisions. It may be that you are considered expendable "acceptable collateral damage" in their calculations - perhaps best for the entire population, but best for you as an individual? I say question everything, especially the "experts".

 

[Jake]

You clearly want me to have an authority bias because you have shown beyond reasonable doubt that you have a highly political take on the virus matter.

You have based this on my posts about one of the leading scientists the official policy was based on admitting his modelling was defective.

 

[Woody2Shoes]

You clearly want me to have an authority bias because you have shown beyond reasonable doubt that you have a highly political take on the virus matter.

You have based this on my posts about one of the leading scientists the official policy was based on admitting his modelling was defective.

There's no shame in admitting that a model has defects - all models do. What would be reprehensible would be failing to admit shortcomings of a model, when they were identified, and failing to try and remedy them in a revised model.

All scientists/medics are operating without full information in this case - models are all that we have and ideally, they are improving as we have more data and more learning - it's a numbers game after all.

 

[Jake]

What I suspect you are getting at (and from what you've posted I also suspect that you don't really understand) is that there is divergence of opinion in the implications for the nature and course of a public health response (which naturally becomes a political football) to what the epidemiologists are briefing.

So first you say we should trust the (contentious) official public health policies because they are based on the science, then you say underlying science is relatively non-contentious and it is just public health policy which might be contentious.

I am not a scientist but enough of a logical thinker to see a flaw there.

 

[Jake]

There's no shame in admitting that a model has defects - all models do.

I agree - with the caveat that this was a pretty fundamental oversight of not updating a key assumption from the flu model. What really failed was the auditing during the policy formation stage which used the modelling as the evidence base.

What would be reprehensible would be failing to admit shortcomings of a model, when they were identified, and failing to try and remedy them in a revised model.

Yes that would be even worse, as would a range of other worse things that didn't happen.

All scientists/medics are operating without full information in this case - models are all that we have and ideally, they are improving as we have more data and more learning - it's a numbers game after all.

Yes agreed, and that is the nature of science and dealing with something novel. Continuing to use flu data on hospitalisation demands for 3 months when there was COVID data available should have been exposed sooner by proper scrutiny though.

It did get exposed eventually, precisely because there were so many eminent critics of the public health approach asking to see and scrutinise the underlying modelling. If they had simply sat back and respected authority and official policy the error might not have been caught at all (or at least until much later). The critique of the official govt mitigation strategy led to Johnson agreeing to publish the modelling, which triggered the internal scrutiny in preparation for that, which clearly (but inferentially) led to them alighting on the incorrect carried over assumption.

It's a bit like how science works really, through people critiquing each other's work and not accepting "official" lines.

 

[Andy Kev.]

What I suspect you are getting at (and from what you've posted I also suspect that you don't really understand) is that there is divergence of opinion in the implications for the nature and course of a public health response (which naturally becomes a political football) to what the epidemiologists are briefing.

So first you say we should trust the (contentious) official public health policies because they are based on the science, then you say underlying science is relatively non-contentious and it is just public health policy which might be contentious.

I am not a scientist but enough of a logical thinker to see a flaw there.

No I was pointing out that as far as I am aware there is little divergence of view amongst virologists and epidemiologists, which is something which you were asserting and which I doubt you will be able to demonstrate.

Public health policy in a sane society is based on the advice provided by the scientists. However, what emerges is subject to all kinds of non-scientific constraints, limitations and societal considerations. A number of models are likely to emerge as alternatives. Economics will be one factor, for instance, that plays a huge role in this but on which the science has nothing to say. That is how you can get a choice of approaches, there probably being no single correct one. For instance, the Swedes have opted for only the lightest set of restrictions, having apparently set their hopes on the herd immunity approach.

Once all this is over and the definitive data are available, reviews will be conducted and the best model will be chosen as the future contingency plan for epi- and pandemics.

IMO there is no room within that for pathetic party politics, something which I think your posts so far indicate is driving your approach to this.

 

[Jake]

Now ask yourself what is the probability of Trump, in his capacity as a scientifically uneducated layman, plucking the name of a drug out of the air and saying that it may be a cure. Do you think it might be more probable that he was given this information by one of his scientific advisors?

It's all based on a study by Didier Raoult (or rather a team under him), a somewhat controversial figure and a widely criticised study (not randomly controlled, some oddities in the testing procedures and anomalies in the data). Fauci described it as "anecdotal" which as you will understand is a properly barbed insult to use of a scientific study/paper.

The idea it was the magic bullet caught fire in the alt-right circles, because they are desperate to support Trump's head in sand approach to the epidemic, so prefer to grasp at straws of immediate cures rather than accepting there are going to be some very hard yards. It became one step from colloidal silver. (There was another more rigorous Chinese study which showed no benefit, that got ignored in favour of Raoult's study).

No doubt more studies will rightly be done, but I don't imagine for a minute that Trump got this idea from the likes of Fauci who has tried pretty hard to squish Trump's hapless messaging on this (as is a large part of Fauci's job at the moment).

 

[Jake]

IMO there is no room within that for pathetic party politics, something which I think your posts so far indicate is driving your approach to this.

You are completely wrong on this, but I think it reflects your own motivations.

 

[RogerS]

..
IMO there is no room within that for pathetic party politics, something which I think your posts so far indicate is driving your approach to this.

I'm not aware that Jake or anyone has specifically brought party politics into it. What we have done is commented on how woefully incompetent the Govt has been over this. This is Govt with a small 'g' ...it could be any party. They had a lot of warning. They continue to botch things up viz the EU and ventilator saga. The fact that there isn't nearly enough PPE equipment for healthcare workers. That healthcare workers are now, finally, going to be tested.

The record speaks for itself. March 11 target - 10,000 tests per day - not yet achieved. Germany - 500,000 tests a week.

 

[Jake]

No I was pointing out that as far as I am aware there is little divergence of view amongst virologists and epidemiologists, which is something which you were asserting and which I doubt you will be able to demonstrate.

It depends what you mean by that.

Public health policy in a sane society is based on the advice provided by the scientists.

It is certainly a fundamental plank of the evidence base for sane policy making.

However, what emerges is subject to all kinds of non-scientific constraints, limitations and societal considerations. A number of models are likely to emerge as alternatives.

Yes well that is obviously true as well. I have just typed this.

Economics will be one factor, for instance, that plays a huge role in this but on which the science has nothing to say. That is how you can get a choice of approaches, there probably being no single correct one.

Also obviously correct - there will be different circumstances in different countries, and ranges of approaches which are reasonable to adopt within any given country in circumstances where policy makers are dealing with a novel and evolving disease and novel and untested countermeasures.

For instance, the Swedes have opted for only the lightest set of restrictions, having apparently set their hopes on the herd immunity approach.

As did the Dutch until they also abandoned it shortly after we did, when the mistake in the Imperial College modelling came to light.

The Swedish approach is controversial. I suspect you will object to a link to the Guardian but the links in this story will give you examples of virologists and epidemiologists and public health experts and medical journals amongst others demonstrating a massive divergence of view from the official policy and its science base.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... d-immunity

 

[Just4Fun]

I have absolutely no intention whatsoever of being patronising here and please don't take it that way but it seems to me that if you have no scientific knowledge, two sensible courses of action are available:

I don't claim to be a scientist - I studied mathematics at university, not any physical science. That is why I would like to get my hands on the actual numbers so I can analyse them myself rather than look at pretty graphs produced by someone else. However, SWMBO is a Dr of science and I regularly proof-read papers she writes, so I have some understanding of how a scientist approaches things, even if she does work in a very different field. Between the 2 of us I think we understand enough to sensibly look at the raw data and draw our own conclusions.

 

[Jake]

I don't have the skill set to do anything more than notice experts linking to it, but this is reputedly the best global data resource.

https://github.com/CSSEGISandData/COVID-19

 

[ScaredyCat]

I thought “people in this country have had enough of experts”, as Gove would put it.

When you teach people to ignore the experts because it suits your cause at the time, they're going to ignore experts full stop.

.

 

[Andy Kev.]

I have absolutely no intention whatsoever of being patronising here and please don't take it that way but it seems to me that if you have no scientific knowledge, two sensible courses of action are available:

I don't claim to be a scientist - I studied mathematics at university, not any physical science. That is why I would like to get my hands on the actual numbers so I can analyse them myself rather than look at pretty graphs produced by someone else. However, SWMBO is a Dr of science and I regularly proof-read papers she writes, so I have some understanding of how a scientist approaches things, even if she does work in a very different field. Between the 2 of us I think we understand enough to sensibly look at the raw data and draw our own conclusions.

My remark was a general one directed at no specific individual. Ultimately it's a matter of self knowledge as to how able one is to judge. I imagine that you and your wife can indeed act as per your last sentence.

What I personally will be avoiding is any sort of judgement until all the facts are in the open which I reckon will take some time.

Consider a different issue which offers some parallels in how we perceive it: I think that the decision to let Huawei in on 5G provision was disastrous from a point of view of national security. I still find it amazing that we have done it and can see no excuse for it. However, I can't ultimately decide whether the decision was acceptable or not because I have not and am never likely to read the assessments provided to the government by GCHQ and the Security Service.

That said my current bottom line on that issue is that although I wouldn't have touched Huawei with a 90 foot bargepole, the government clearly thinks that it was safe enough to do so and presumably can justify that.

By way of contrast we are more likely to be able to judge whether or not the govt. acted wisely on Corona but as far as I can see we are not in a position to do that yet.

 

[Andy Kev.]

I thought “people in this country have had enough of experts”, as Gove would put it.

When you teach people to ignore the experts because it suits your cause at the time, they're going to ignore experts full stop.

The following is from an interview with Michael Gove (of whom I am definitely not a fan):

You’ve recently qualified your assertion that people have ‘had enough of experts’. Can you explain why?

When I was being interviewed on Sky by Faisal Islam, he put it to me that there were a number of economists and organizations of economic prestige that questioned the arguments for leaving the European Union and said that it would be a mistake if we did. I countered it by saying people have had enough of experts from organizations with acronyms that have got things so wrong in the past. And Faisal Islam, as a skilled interrogator, cut me off half way, so while I completed my sentence he took the first half and said ‘people have had enough experts?’ and used that as a fencing posture in the interview itself.

One of the things I have sought to do is to explain why I said what I said. Now the words I used have been taken out of context, but that’s just part of politics. So while I feel a need to remind people of what I actually said I don’t get too het up by the fact that my words, like those of many politicians or many actors in public debate, sometimes get a little bit skewed. That’s just life.

Note that he was talking about economic experts whose predictions about the UK leaving the EU have so far proved resoundingly wrong. The point is that even economists will not claim that economics is any kind of science and also accept that its predictions are notoriously unreliable if they attempt to go any more than about three years into the future. The Treasury was making 11 year predictions at the time.

Now compare and contrast the credibility of those experts with epidemiologists and virologists and the point you are making is what precisely?