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The UK's has been a gambler's strategy, for mine, seat-of-the-pants I'm-feeling-lucky stuff. This "win" does not compensate the losses nor justify the strategy.

by harry8 6y ago

The UK's has been a gambler's strategy, for mine, seat-of-the-pants I'm-feeling-lucky stuff. This "win" does not compensate the losses nor justify the strategy. The win here is "the decision outcome has not been smashed by a possible downside." There were rather a lot of people suggesting that doing an unproven vaccine strategy of getting the maximum number of people their first vaccine and a longer period between first and second that had not yet been trialed, at all as a thing that was risky. People said it in advance. Who were the credible experts who recommended it? What support did they give that it wasn't a pretty big risk? If there was some and I missed it I'll put my hand up and say I was wrong. As I recall there was some serious doubt about whether anyone would get benfit from vaccination at all. Again if it was /known/ that it was likely to work that's not a bad decision - but I haven't seen that analysis. Have you? Please do link it if you have. I'm also not clear about what the upside for running that risk was. Are there better results for people contracting covid after only one jab? Do we have data? Or was that a flyer that it might turn out to be? Any links you have with an analysis of that is welcome. The "herd immunity" strategy was also described as risky by most experts that I saw. I think the word I used when looking at it, in advance of the numbers coming in was "insane," while being well aware there was at least a nonzero chance it could work better than the conservative approach. To say it has not come off is an understatement. If it did come off somehow due to dumb luck it would have been equally terrible decision making. It's too big a risk to take, the downside is immense. It is reasonable to criticise a risk-loving gambling strategy for a nation's health whether it comes off or not. I criticisised it before and after and I criticisise it when it comes off and when it doesn't. By contrast a considered and careful strategy is to be commended even if it turned out to be incorrect based on subsequently available facts. This is literally gambling on uncertain outcomes with people's lives and health. You want to do that as sensibly as you can. You want the analysis. You want it public. You're paying the downside. Getting lucky to get results out of bad decisions does NOT make a decision a good one. But hey, take the thing as a whole. Has it been good, covid management in the UK or not? It's worthwhile analysing what when wrong and why and how that compared with other, differing strategies. Taiwan's looked pretty good initially and continues to. South Korea and Japan looked to have pretty good strategies and continue to. New Zealand and Australia had very different strategies to the UK. It's entirely reasonable to criticise a gambling addict's decision making when they bet the rent check and the bet wins. I hope that makes the point clearer for you, please disagree if you like but it should be clear that hindsight has nothing whatever to do with the criticisim.

chrisseaton 6y ago
> By contrast a considered and careful strategy is to be commended even if it turned out to be incorrect based on subsequently available facts. But the EU also gambled - they gambled that more time thinking would pay off, and it didn't. I think this is where you're going wrong with your argument: spending more time for care and consideration is also a gamble. How do you know how much care and consideration is the right amount? Is more care and consideration always better? Would it be better to still be considering whether to buy any vaccine at this stage? Would you commend that? No, obviously not. So at some point more care and consideration is bad, and you can't just say 'more care and consideration please' forever. At some point you need to apply judgement to stop considering and act. That's a judgement. That's a gamble. It's a gamble to stop considering your situation and it's a gamble to keep considering your situation. Both the UK and the EU took a gamble. The EU gambled that more consideration was better and they were wrong. So everyone's a gambler, if you want to look at it like that. But one gambler had better judgement than the other.
- harry8 6y ago
  Everyone is making decision under uncertainty, all the time. If my impression of risk-loving decision making is wrong and there really was careful analysis of risks I'd love to hear it. It would restore a /lot/ of faith. What was the assessed risk that that an increased period between first and second jabs would greatly reduce the coverage? What was the advantage of the increased period? (ie is it likely that one jab will keep more people alive and/or do less damage to more covid survivors). Is the risk of going with a longer period between first and second worth it? With the benefit of hindsight there appears not to be a downside. To be totally clear: this is very, very, very welcome news. Now it's a proper asymmetry and it seems like this strategy is all upside from here. The alternative was to give people the two vaccine jabs the exact amount of time apart as had been tested and was known until this data came in. Then switch to this strategy. That is the conservative decision as you pretty much know what you're going to get. Is the longer period between first and second to get more people a first jab faster going to pay off? Again to be 100% clear let's hope so. Really let's hope it's a huge, huge win. This analysis of UK vaccination policy and the maximum coverage of first jabs that the new 3-month data helps to further (but not completely) inform has nothing to do with the EU or New Zealand or Taiwan or Brazil. Assessing the UK's gamblers' strategy of taking flyers is a reasonable thing to do in comparison to other EU nations, or NZ or Brazil... There are other aspects to the UK's various strategies that don't have much to do with the Oxford vaccine showing sustained protection of 76% ... If the UK has made some good calls in there based on risk asymmetry and balances of probabilities to go with the plethora of terrible ones they probably should trumpet them very loudly just restore people's faith that it's possible and that we can do better than 'gut-feel' or taking a flyer or "if she comes home we'll be loaded!" Which is how it's looking.

by harry8 6y ago

chrisseaton 6y ago

> By contrast a considered and careful strategy is to be commended even if it turned out to be incorrect based on subsequently available facts. But the EU also gambled - they gambled that more time thinking would pay off, and it didn't. I think this is where you're going wrong with your argument: spending more time for care and consideration is also a gamble. How do you know how much care and consideration is the right amount? Is more care and consideration always better? Would it be better to still be considering whether to buy any vaccine at this stage? Would you commend that? No, obviously not. So at some point more care and consideration is bad, and you can't just say 'more care and consideration please' forever. At some point you need to apply judgement to stop considering and act. That's a judgement. That's a gamble. It's a gamble to stop considering your situation and it's a gamble to keep considering your situation. Both the UK and the EU took a gamble. The EU gambled that more consideration was better and they were wrong. So everyone's a gambler, if you want to look at it like that. But one gambler had better judgement than the other.

harry8 6y ago
Everyone is making decision under uncertainty, all the time. If my impression of risk-loving decision making is wrong and there really was careful analysis of risks I'd love to hear it. It would restore a /lot/ of faith. What was the assessed risk that that an increased period between first and second jabs would greatly reduce the coverage? What was the advantage of the increased period? (ie is it likely that one jab will keep more people alive and/or do less damage to more covid survivors). Is the risk of going with a longer period between first and second worth it? With the benefit of hindsight there appears not to be a downside. To be totally clear: this is very, very, very welcome news. Now it's a proper asymmetry and it seems like this strategy is all upside from here. The alternative was to give people the two vaccine jabs the exact amount of time apart as had been tested and was known until this data came in. Then switch to this strategy. That is the conservative decision as you pretty much know what you're going to get. Is the longer period between first and second to get more people a first jab faster going to pay off? Again to be 100% clear let's hope so. Really let's hope it's a huge, huge win. This analysis of UK vaccination policy and the maximum coverage of first jabs that the new 3-month data helps to further (but not completely) inform has nothing to do with the EU or New Zealand or Taiwan or Brazil. Assessing the UK's gamblers' strategy of taking flyers is a reasonable thing to do in comparison to other EU nations, or NZ or Brazil... There are other aspects to the UK's various strategies that don't have much to do with the Oxford vaccine showing sustained protection of 76% ... If the UK has made some good calls in there based on risk asymmetry and balances of probabilities to go with the plethora of terrible ones they probably should trumpet them very loudly just restore people's faith that it's possible and that we can do better than 'gut-feel' or taking a flyer or "if she comes home we'll be loaded!" Which is how it's looking.