BlueSkiesResearch.org.uk: Snap

A week ago, I blogged the graph on the left. Last night, one of the epidemiological modelling teams advising the Govt published the graph on the right. Billed as "new research", it has formed the basis of the new Govt guidelines on social distancing to deal with the coronavirus pandemic. Apart from the choice of colours, probably the most significant difference appears to be that I explicitly considered the possibility that we might increase our healthcare capacity over time (the green line rising in the left plot), whereas the modellers in Imperial College did not (the red line along near the x-axis).

The contrast between these two sets of projections of the epidemic, and the fatuous “flatten the curve” plots that I discussed here is stark. While my calculation was relatively trivial, it’s good enough to indicate that hoping to “flatten the curve” sufficiently to cope with the full progression of an epidemic is foolish at best.

Its very curious to me that the IC research has been billed as "new science" that justifies a new approach from the Govt. All the underlying data has been known for weeks, months even. The Editor of the Lancet is one of those who has been particularly vocal in pointing this out,

Laura Kuenssberg says (BBC) that, "The science has changed." This is not true. The science has been the same since January. What has changed is that govt advisors have at last understood what really took place in China and what is now taking place in Italy. It was there to see.

— richard horton (@richardhorton1) March 17, 2020

also here

It said it took a study from Imperial to understand the likely burden of COVID-19 on the NHS. But read the first paper we published on COVID-19 on Jan 24. 32% admitted to ITU with 15% mortality. We have wasted 7 weeks. This crisis was entirely preventable. https://t.co/eahwRnaBFZ

— richard horton (@richardhorton1) March 17, 2020

and a horde of twitterati have been saying the same.

This is incredible. After six weeks the UK Only Realised "In The Last Few Days" its #HerdImmunity Coronavirus Strategy Would "Likely Result in Hundreds of Thousands of Deaths"

People worked it out on social media in hours. https://t.co/rUXjawONtY
— Peter Jukes (@peterjukes) March 16, 2020

It would be interesting to know what has really changed. Is it just that the Govt realised that its genocidal policy of "taking it on the chin" wouldn’t be acceptable once people realised the consequential death toll?

One remaining problem with the IC research is their use of the standard mortality rate of about 1% overall that makes no attempt to account for the obviously deleterious effect of running out of hospital beds. If 15% require intensive care, and it’s not available, it is ludicrous to believe that only the same 1% will die.

Sloppy of journalists to not query this more forensically.