Re: Coronavirus
 

Funny how he’s viewed the thread since I posted this but hasn’t seen fit to comment. He very quickly offered such forthright opinions when he was convinced he was right.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Often happens to those who think that they know better.

Re: Coronavirus
 

I think this is unfair and inaccurate really.

They were right that both the Alpha and Delta waves. Witty was even right back as the initial wave was declining that we would see another peak in December 2020. The Delta wave was worse than many on his forum were saying at the time as I remember it was being downplayed then as well.

It's really this latest wave that has thankfully not proven as bad as initially feared and I suspect we're in the endgame now as each new wave is less and less serious which is how we assumed this would end.

This has not been a fun couple of years. We've had two major waves of this virus and people seem to react to that in different ways, some people are understandably anxious when they see the numbers go up and others are understandably tired of the whole thing and want to move on. If you try to remember that people aren't being vindictive in their reaction it could help.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Feared! Feared or hyped?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...say-scientists

No one is going to listen to them anymore.

The government have lost their moral authority

Sage and independent sage and a whole host of other rent-a-gobs are spent.

Re: Coronavirus
 

I don't think SAGE are spent. The Government will always need scientific advisors even if the Government itself has lost its moral authority.

As I said there is a lot science got right in this pandemic. The initial lockdown was clearly correct and given what happened with Delta that too was the right decision which, in hindsight, the Government took too long to implement. We got the fastest developed vaccine in human history and remember it was our own experts who broke with global consensus to prioritise the first vaccine dose and who were vindicated as the numbers dropped. It was also our experts who wanted to rollout boosters faster than a lot of the world as well, that was initially before Omicron, and what a smart decision that was.

They were wrong about Omicron. I think it's understandable to be so. Like the Government with PPE and the timing of these lockdowns, you're not going to get everything right in a fast-changing environment where decisions need to be made quickly.

All of us, albeit no one here is an expert, would have got some things wrong. I remember I didn't think a vaccine would be developed in time, that herd immunity back in April 2020 was a good idea, that it would have been over a year ago and so on. I know you're not someone burdened with humility but I am sure if you were to revisit some of your predictions on how various waves would turn out there would be mistakes there too. Maybe everyone trying to own each other online about whose right and wrong is throwing stones in glass houses.

Re: Coronavirus
 

From your link

From the 1st of December, we have had over 83,000 hospital admissions and over 9,400 deaths.

Total admissions to date 23/01/2021 - 688,800
Total admissions to date 01/12/2021 - 605,123

Total Deaths within 28 days of positive test by date of death 26/01/2022 - 155,036
Total Deaths within 28 days of positive test by date of death 26/01/2022 - 145,604

https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/healthcare

https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/deaths

Looks like we are (unfortunately) on track for around 25k deaths and 200k hospital admissions, if the current figures continue.

Re: Coronavirus
 

The problem is that by the time Omicron started to bite in the UK there was mounting evidence from South Africa that it simply wasn’t as serious an infection as previous variants. This was pooh-poohed on here by certain posters who seem to have no concept of disagreeing well with those who hold a different view than their own. The mere suggestion that we might learn something from elsewhere in the world was rejected as some sort of Bullingdon club plot and South Africa’s relatively younger population held up as somehow self-evident proof that we could learn nothing from them. I think it ought to have been obvious that whatever the demographic differences things simply couldn’t be so different that we couldn’t risk taking serious note of what was going on,

The data from the last 4 weeks demonstrates that South Africa told us everything we needed to know about Omicron, and just how far we actually needed to trash Christmas and New Year in fear of it. The obvious over-reaction in Whitehall and particularly in the devolved administrations will come back to bite us all on the bum if we have to go through all this again because people will be less willing to believe another cry of “wolf”.

Personally I’d love it if some people on here were a little less quick to use the pandemic as a means of demonstrating their supposed moral superiority. And no, I don’t think that means we can’t disagree; I do think it means we need to stop attributing craven self-interest or ideology to those who view things differently.

Re: Coronavirus
 

“Optimistic” and or “realistic” projections we can get board with.

But as we all know, and as was admitted to Fraser Nelson by a sage scientist, only Worst Case scenarios are put forward, and ( not sage’s fault) grabbed by the MSM and pushed by them.

---------- Post added at 22:17 ---------- Previous post was at 22:15 ----------

Amen.

Re: Coronavirus
 

This was very fast-moving though, we're talking about new data coming out every day, and there was also concern on exactly what the data was telling us.

I think you can forgive scientists and the Government for acting with caution when presented with incomplete data. Even if it was only because of their experiences with not being cautious enough a year earlier. Remember this was spreading at an alarming rate so if something about that South African data turned out not to be applicable here the hospitalisation rate would have been huge and a couple of weeks delay means you don't have the luxury of waiting. You need to make a call.

I would hope the relative success we've had over the last two years would give people faith that we're actually quite capable people in dealing with this. The science got most of it right and getting some things wrong doesn't invalidate that, they'll get more things wrong I am sure.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Yet Her Majesty's most glorious Government produces data that indicates the third dose of the vaccine (some 18 million mRNA doses since the start of December) is having the impact of significantly reducing the risk of both symptomatic infection and hospitalisation.

(Page 25)

https://assets.publishing.service.go...nuary-2022.pdf

The so-called "over-reaction" is far from obvious, even if the worst case scenarios never came to pass through voluntary behavioural changes, school closures limiting transmission, more working from home, etc.

There was no rush back to the pre-pandemic economy in the days of 30,000 infections 100 odd deaths in October. It's fantasy to imagine that six figures of cases and 300 odd deaths a day will bring back the halcyon days of 2019.

Re: Coronavirus
 

All of which is less Jfman and more strawman. Maybe you should change your forum username.

Re: Coronavirus
 

It’s hardly a straw man unless you genuinely believe 20 million boosters had no impact on hospitalisations or deaths (against the scientific studies by the Government you usually so rubustly defend).

Re: Coronavirus
 

It's the press who are fault here, not the scientists. They pick up figures from these studies and run with them with to regard to the uncertainties. That 75,000 figure in the Guardian who are amongst the worst for this is the worst case where previous immunity and booster effectiveness is poor.

The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicines study is very clear on what was known and not known at that time;

Here is the study BTW

It looks like the whole study assumed that the severity of Omicron was the same as for Delta. Without good data at that time, they can only work with the information they do have and therefore used an existing variant as the baseline.

As always, the question needs to be asked is what are the consequences of being wrong? Over reacting and locking down hard when it wasn't needed will affect economies. Under reacting and not locking down when it was needed will kill people

Re: Coronavirus
 

. . . applies to almost all stories thrown about with nothing but mayhem and backstabbing in mind.

Re: Coronavirus
 

I quite like this virus sometimes... :)
https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-e...-b2003747.html