Good News? from Imperial College

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Zobel
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In reply to Bag • 4:34p, 3/26/20
AG
Nearly all of it.

Original document did account for asymptomatic cases.

And the OP link is fake news because it didn't change the estimate. From the original paper, here is the original range with social distancing - right column. So they're "on pace". He said the R0 is higher, so the range is really the 2.6 box, 12,000-48,000. That article is fake news.

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ClickClackAg31
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5:53p, 3/26/20
AG
And guess what numbers were reported, repeated, and waved around by the media and the alarmists on this forum...the worst case, largest projection number....500,000. It wasn't if we do things right and take the right steps, could be 20,000. That wasn't talked about. Just the 500k number. Shoot one poster just yesterday said there will be 500k dead in texas in the next month or something crazy like that.

Point isn't that social distancing and sheltering in place are bad or not the wise move to help prevent overloading the hospital system. Point is that the absolute worst case numbers were the ones being repeated and everyone on here saying that doesn't smell right, was yelled at "this isn't the FLU!!!!!!".

What we are learning from this virus is that its mortality rate isn't the problem. We're learning that everyone getting it at the exact same time is the problem.

You force a 6 month flu season into one month, we'd have the same hospital overload risks.
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Alta
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In reply to Zobel • 6:00p, 3/26/20
AG
One thing I've learned through this whole ordeal (probably should have been more aware of before) - reporters are not very good at actually reporting what somebody said or the contents of an article.
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dermdoc
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In reply to Alta • 6:03p, 3/26/20
AG
Alta said:
One thing I've learned through this whole ordeal (probably should have been more aware of before) - reporters are not very good at actually reporting what somebody said or the contents of an article.


Exactly. And whether you are a doc, reporter, weatherman, whatever you never get called out for being a doom sayer. But if you are not a doom sayer and are right nine times in a row, you screw up that tenth time and you are dead.
No material on this site is intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. See full Medical Disclaimer.
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Zobel
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In reply to ClickClackAg31 • 6:08p, 3/26/20
AG
The media reporting was irresponsible. Even in the study he said the worst case is unlikely to happen because people were likely to react and start slowing the spread on their own even without government action. But there was also irresponsible media on the other extreme. It's best to actually read the studies directly, at least the abstract or summary.
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deadbq03
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In reply to ClickClackAg31 • 6:19p, 3/26/20
AG
ClickClackAg31 said:
And guess what numbers were reported, repeated, and waved around by the media and the alarmists on this forum...the worst case, largest projection number....500,000. It wasn't if we do things right and take the right steps, could be 20,000. That wasn't talked about. Just the 500k number. Shoot one poster just yesterday said there will be 500k dead in texas in the next month or something crazy like that.

Point isn't that social distancing and sheltering in place are bad or not the wise move to help prevent overloading the hospital system. Point is that the absolute worst case numbers were the ones being repeated and everyone on here saying that doesn't smell right, was yelled at "this isn't the FLU!!!!!!".

What we are learning from this virus is that its mortality rate isn't the problem. We're learning that everyone getting it at the exact same time is the problem.

You force a 6 month flu season into one month, we'd have the same hospital overload risks.
I hope what we're learning is that it's much better to spend money up front on a robust public health system so we can have proper testing and a targeted quarantine, instead of a mass quarantine. Countries like Germany, South Korea, etc will hopefully become the model for handling this moving forward.
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TXAggie2011
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6:29p, 3/26/20
AG
By the way, The Daily Wire has since changed the article's headline and content:

Quote:
Correction: The original title of this article incorrectly suggested that Neil Ferguson stated his initial model was wrong. The article has been revised to make clear that he provided a downgraded projection given the new data and current mitigation steps.
Good on them, but since we're talking about media accuracy, people also people need to recognize The Daily Wire is a website for political commentary and should not be their source for no-spin reporting. (And that goes for both political wings, lest I be accused of taking a side---folks shouldn't be passing Mother Jones as straight up reporting, either.)
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Johnny2Fan
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6:35p, 3/26/20
Political and media driven. All for panic. And it worked.
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Thomas Ford 91
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9:13p, 3/26/20
AG
The US is somewhere between Scenario 1 (do nothing) and Scenario 2 (do something). The critical missing factor That keeps us from reaching Scenario 2 is the case isolation. We have no case isolation whatsoever.

So, no change. Still screwed.
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Mordred
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11:31p, 3/26/20
AG
Here's Neil Ferguson, the author of the study, rebutting the fake news that he revised his numbers down:



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Chuck Gay
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12:45a, 3/27/20
AG
Ferguson seems to just have a theory. It doesn't seem like a predictive model that is tweaked every day with more and more testing results and other new data. It makes a lot of assumptions that we don't know if are true and says if all of these things are accurate then I think this might happen.
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Zobel
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In reply to Chuck Gay • 7:23a, 3/27/20
AG
Except he literally says the opposite above. "Indeed, if anything, our latest estimates suggest that the virus is slightly more transmissible than we previously thought. Our lethality estimates remain unchanged."

Why don't you send him an email and ask?
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JCA1
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7:34a, 3/27/20
AG
I guess what I don't get (and maybe I just missed it) is that the social distancing is primarily designed to "bend the curve." We're buying time to not overwhelm our health care system. But at some point, the virus will make it through our society at large unless we have a vaccine breakthrough. From 500,000 to 20,000 seems a huge dropout for a disease that will still ultimately infect a large segment of the population and currently has limited treating options. Is his variance simply a function of his prediction of hospital overload?
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Zobel
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In reply to JCA1 • 7:47a, 3/27/20
AG
The 500k figure was for do nothing, and in the original study they noted it was an unlikely outcome anyway because people would begin to react spontaneously. That estimate is still the same.

The 20k figure is within the range of original estimates for deaths (5600-4800) assuming a 12-18 month sustained lockdown or "on/off" lockdowns until a vaccine can be produced.

In his testimony to parliament, which is on the first page, he said more or less they did not study a plan which relied on having test kits widely available because it wasn't clear at the time when that would happen. But that's the way forward because clearly they can't sustain this for very long (the paper notes that last bit as well).

And, he also said their National Health Service came back with a revised estimate for hospital ICU capacity, which is what the whole testimony was really about - he doesn't think they're going to exceed ICU capacity with the shutdown in place.
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cone
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In reply to Zobel • 8:21a, 3/27/20
AG
okay

assume a world mobilized to mass testing, mass mask usage, mass surveillance (temp checks, contact tracing, etc.) in urban areas, no large events (church and bigger) for 12-18 months, vulnerable non-productive populations absolutely minimizing human contact, mass production of the lowest hanging fruit therapeutics, additional therapeutics coming online, more HC infrastructure being brought online ad hoc, and a general sense of paranoia that will set in hard at first and gradually wean off based on homeland horror shows like NYC and NOLA and Detroit

what's the death count there?

these models seems to a) imagine humans are impervious to fear, loathing, and new information and b) do not recognize mobilization as a thing outside of staying the f home
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Zobel
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8:38a, 3/27/20
AG
It seems to me, based on his testimony and sort of reading between the lines of the study, that they answered some very specific questions with the report.

- what happens if we do nothing
- what happens if we go partial shutdown
- what happens if we go full shutdown til we get a vaccine

I don't think it is reasonable to expect any paper, with limited scope and focus, to consider all sides. Its a 6 page document. One of the pandemic response docs we're using for the US right now is like 75 pages, and there's four or five of those guiding policy.

But the model the did had some broad assumptions about compliance - 25% ignore, 25% do partial, and so on.
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