4 ms·

I'm posting this because of the narrative on this site that all experts agree with the UK's plan. To the extent that there is a consensus, it's a consensus agai

by knzhou 7y ago

I'm posting this because of the narrative on this site that all experts agree with the UK's plan. To the extent that there is a consensus, it's a consensus against it.

watwut 7y ago
I havent seen that narrative.
- knzhou 7y ago
  I was trying to make this argument yesterday and got piles of comments responding exactly this way: "oh, that's only 300 signatures from UK scientists in opposition", "oh, but some of the people who agree with you don't have enough credentials".
  - watwut 7y ago
    I am glad I missed that.
- pknight 7y ago
  The BBC ran a piece designed to explain why the Govt policy was kosher and the logic behind it, it said there were no scientists in disagreement. Then it corrected the article to say no epidemiologists rather were in disagreement, which is ostensibly false as well. Now it says that at the time of publication no UK epidemiologists had spoken out in mainstream media. They basically admit they didn't do any due diligence when they wrote the piece (they were in a rush to give the Govt cover). https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-51874084 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-51874084 and here was the first published version: https://web.archive.org/web/20200313155320/https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-51874084 https://web.archive.org/web/20200313155320/https://www.bbc.c...
  - watwut 7y ago
    Thank you.
chimprich 7y ago
I'm not sure there is a consensus against it. I've seen a few articles like this (which is worrying) but articles in favour of the status quo tend to not get so much prominence. I really hope the government knows what it's doing. They have promised to publish their models, so hopefully that will give some more confidence.
- mytailorisrich 7y ago
  The government has somewhat changed the message and they are now saying that their priority is to save lives, which does sound like contradicting their previous message of rapid herd immunity.
  - grey-area 7y ago
    They’ve never had a message of rapid herd immunity, unless by rapid you mean spread out over 6-8 months. The whole point is to avoid either a slow burn (where it comes back at the worst time in winter) or a fast burn (where health services are overwhelmed). Maybe their models are wrong, maybe other approaches will work better, but I like they are having an honest grown up discussion about it instead of insisting eradication is possible, or that there are no tradeoffs to be made and total global lockdown of society for 6 months is the answer (which apart from being of questionable efficacy would certainly cause another Great Depression and more deaths from poverty).
    - mytailorisrich 7y ago
      6-8 months is rapid! That's 40+ million cases during that period and impossible to manage for the health services. This is actually a fast burn. Everyone agrees on that. Whether eradication is possible or not, the FACT is that 6-8 months is extremely fast and can only lead to a collapse of the health services.
      - grey-area 7y ago
        I agree it is far more rapid than we’d like, but the options are not clear cut, there is no good choice with a guaranteed outcome, as this article indicates, experts disagree significantly on how to approach this, and due to a lack of data we will not know till after the fact.
mellosouls 7y ago
As a counter to that, unless proven otherwise, you can assume a significant bias in any article on government policy coming from The Guardian, as in the OP here. That obviously doesn't mean it's incorrect, but try to be aware of all biases, there are plenty on all sides.
- disgruntledphd2 7y ago
  Note that the article is in the opinion section of the Guardian. Incidentally, their live blog has been really good on the corona-virus stuff.
- TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
  Apparently the government's own (secret) figures suggest around 500,000 deaths, and around 8 million people in need of hospitalisation - in a country which currently has around 4,000 ICU beds, and almost no spare capacity in hospitals. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/15/uk-coronavirus-crisis-to-last-until-spring-2021-and-could-see-79m-hospitalised https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/15/uk-coronavirus... Even if the peak is spread out over nine months, that still means setting up, equipping, and staffing around a million extra beds over the next few weeks. At a time when existing medical staff are incapacitated. This is not going to happen. The only way it might be possible is with civil conscription - literally taking people off the street and putting them through basic nursing boot camp. Even then there would be huge issues with supplies of equipment and consumables. So the reality is that most people who need to be hospitalised in the UK (and probably the US) won't be - at least not effectively. Italy has shown what this means: without adequate care the CFR rises from 1% to 7% or so. Which in turn means that without aggressive containment measures to slow the spread, the actual death toll will be in the millions, heavily concentrated among the over 65s. There are around 10 million over 65s in the UK. If these numbers are right, around 10% of them will die.
  - mellosouls 7y ago
    I'm not trying to downplay the crisis - I'm under no illusions that that is not where we are, but a quick look at that article seems to show stuff already revealed in the news conference the other day, and some misstatements. Just an observation on your Guardian link, not the numbers you've derived.

by knzhou 7y ago

I'm posting this because of the narrative on this site that all experts agree with the UK's plan. To the extent that there is a consensus, it's a consensus against it.

watwut 7y ago

I havent seen that narrative.

knzhou 7y ago
I was trying to make this argument yesterday and got piles of comments responding exactly this way: "oh, that's only 300 signatures from UK scientists in opposition", "oh, but some of the people who agree with you don't have enough credentials".
- watwut 7y ago
  I am glad I missed that.
pknight 7y ago
The BBC ran a piece designed to explain why the Govt policy was kosher and the logic behind it, it said there were no scientists in disagreement. Then it corrected the article to say no epidemiologists rather were in disagreement, which is ostensibly false as well. Now it says that at the time of publication no UK epidemiologists had spoken out in mainstream media. They basically admit they didn't do any due diligence when they wrote the piece (they were in a rush to give the Govt cover). https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-51874084 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-51874084 and here was the first published version: https://web.archive.org/web/20200313155320/https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-51874084 https://web.archive.org/web/20200313155320/https://www.bbc.c...
- watwut 7y ago
  Thank you.

chimprich 7y ago

I'm not sure there is a consensus against it. I've seen a few articles like this (which is worrying) but articles in favour of the status quo tend to not get so much prominence. I really hope the government knows what it's doing. They have promised to publish their models, so hopefully that will give some more confidence.

mytailorisrich 7y ago
The government has somewhat changed the message and they are now saying that their priority is to save lives, which does sound like contradicting their previous message of rapid herd immunity.
- grey-area 7y ago
  They’ve never had a message of rapid herd immunity, unless by rapid you mean spread out over 6-8 months. The whole point is to avoid either a slow burn (where it comes back at the worst time in winter) or a fast burn (where health services are overwhelmed). Maybe their models are wrong, maybe other approaches will work better, but I like they are having an honest grown up discussion about it instead of insisting eradication is possible, or that there are no tradeoffs to be made and total global lockdown of society for 6 months is the answer (which apart from being of questionable efficacy would certainly cause another Great Depression and more deaths from poverty).
  - mytailorisrich 7y ago
    6-8 months is rapid! That's 40+ million cases during that period and impossible to manage for the health services. This is actually a fast burn. Everyone agrees on that. Whether eradication is possible or not, the FACT is that 6-8 months is extremely fast and can only lead to a collapse of the health services.
    - grey-area 7y ago
      I agree it is far more rapid than we’d like, but the options are not clear cut, there is no good choice with a guaranteed outcome, as this article indicates, experts disagree significantly on how to approach this, and due to a lack of data we will not know till after the fact.

mellosouls 7y ago

As a counter to that, unless proven otherwise, you can assume a significant bias in any article on government policy coming from The Guardian, as in the OP here. That obviously doesn't mean it's incorrect, but try to be aware of all biases, there are plenty on all sides.

disgruntledphd2 7y ago
Note that the article is in the opinion section of the Guardian. Incidentally, their live blog has been really good on the corona-virus stuff.
TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
Apparently the government's own (secret) figures suggest around 500,000 deaths, and around 8 million people in need of hospitalisation - in a country which currently has around 4,000 ICU beds, and almost no spare capacity in hospitals. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/15/uk-coronavirus-crisis-to-last-until-spring-2021-and-could-see-79m-hospitalised https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/15/uk-coronavirus... Even if the peak is spread out over nine months, that still means setting up, equipping, and staffing around a million extra beds over the next few weeks. At a time when existing medical staff are incapacitated. This is not going to happen. The only way it might be possible is with civil conscription - literally taking people off the street and putting them through basic nursing boot camp. Even then there would be huge issues with supplies of equipment and consumables. So the reality is that most people who need to be hospitalised in the UK (and probably the US) won't be - at least not effectively. Italy has shown what this means: without adequate care the CFR rises from 1% to 7% or so. Which in turn means that without aggressive containment measures to slow the spread, the actual death toll will be in the millions, heavily concentrated among the over 65s. There are around 10 million over 65s in the UK. If these numbers are right, around 10% of them will die.
- mellosouls 7y ago
  I'm not trying to downplay the crisis - I'm under no illusions that that is not where we are, but a quick look at that article seems to show stuff already revealed in the news conference the other day, and some misstatements. Just an observation on your Guardian link, not the numbers you've derived.