Germany

[AVB]

If you believe the press and a lot of posters on here then we are the only country not abiding by the rules and every other country are being good citizens. Especially Germany. 
 

https://www.euronews.com/2020/05/10/more-than-130-detained-after-protests-against-coronavirus-restrictions-in-germany

Clearly not. 

[peck]

Protesting and throwing bottles, are we following the rules by not doing that? 

[panoma1]

If the UK governments aren’t specific/prescriptive and are too “limp” on what is, and is not allowed, I can see more and more people pushing the boundaries and civil disobedience becoming a growing possibility!

[Raja Clavata]

Just now, panoma1 said:

If the UK governments aren’t specific/prescriptive and are too “limp” on what is, and is not allowed, I can see more and more people pushing the boundaries and civil disobedience becoming a growing possibility!

Agreed. If the guidelines are wishy washy then people certainly will push the boundaries as that's natural and I, like many others, have done that pretty much throughout my life.

Civil unrest would be a possibility if elements of the public services react, or are seen to over-react, in way that causes pockets of outrage.

[Mungler]

I think the government wanted wishy washy - it gets to watch and see what happens when people start going outside and mixing again and If there’s a second spike then It gets to blame the rule breakers. 

[Raja Clavata]

Indeed, never confuse cynicism with experience. We're no closer to that pint though, although the mini pub just along do provide take-outs 🙂

Regarding the second spike, I think this is an area where the government, and Boris particularly, have been misleading - a second spike will come, no ifs buts or maybes, it's all about managing the steepness of the spike...

I'm about to catch up on the latest news and reading the 50/60 page document.

[Mice!]

27 minutes ago, Raja Clavata said:

Regarding the second spike, I think this is an area where the government, and Boris particularly, have been misleading - a second spike will come, no ifs buts or maybes, it's all about managing the steepness of the spike...

Well that's where all the day tripping Guinea pigs will come in.

At least the extra hospitals are ready.

[old man]

5 hours ago, panoma1 said:

If the UK governments aren’t specific/prescriptive and are too “limp” on what is, and is not allowed, I can see more and more people pushing the boundaries and civil disobedience becoming a growing possibility!

Chatting in passing to a PC, she said it's despair time already, so little common sense and no willingness to use it.

Seemingly the disobedience is happening already in an underhand way?

[WalkedUp]

I know of many people ignoring the lockdown already. I’ve had to turn a number of visitors to my house away (just popped by to chat)! The only thing that people seem to remember is the 2m rule, nothing about essential journeys etc. Maddening. 

[Mungler]

Speaking of Germany, this out today - Head of Forensic Pathology in Hamburg on autopsy findings: "not a single person without previous illness has died of the virus in Hamburg. All had cancer, chronic lung disease, were heavy smokers or heavily obese, or had diabetes or cardiovascular disease. This virus affects our lives in a completely exaggerated way....And the astronomical economic damage now arising is not commensurate with the danger posed by the virus. I am convinced that corona mortality will not even make itself felt as a peak in annual mortality"

[Raja Clavata]

It would be interested to know if a useful model exists that predicts deaths as a function of economic downturn.

Also, taking all the emotion and personal tragedy out of this - thinking big picture - I do wonder what an "appropriate" number of deaths would be for an economic collapse like the one we are currently experiencing is...

[Mungler]

This is interesting; there is a greater ground swell towards the fundamental and underlying scientific modelling being way way out.

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1259806720655843328.html

Indeed, what cost shutting the economy for 3 months...

[treetree]

2 hours ago, old man said:

Seemingly the disobedience is happening already in an underhand way?

Disobedience! That is the kind of language straight out of 1984; the fact it is willingly being used by the public to demand the continued lockdown of the population is really beyond depressing.

[Lord v]

1 hour ago, Raja Clavata said:

It would be interested to know if a useful model exists that predicts deaths as a function of economic downturn.

Also, taking all the emotion and personal tragedy out of this - thinking big picture - I do wonder what an "appropriate" number of deaths would be for an economic collapse like the one we are currently experiencing is...

I hear there is some bloke called Ferguson who's got one he did for a O Level geography project 30 years ago.... 

 

🤣

[Raja Clavata]

And this:

https://lockdownsceptics.org/code-review-of-fergusons-model/

Lol at some of the comments justifying the presence of bugs in the code as an effective method of adding to the stochastic nature of the model and outcome of the results, you really couldn't make it up...

From what I understand the Ferguson model was created bottom up (and that's why it went tits up).

Just now, Lord v said:

I hear there is some bloke called Ferguson who's got one he did for a O Level geography project 30 years ago.... 

 

🤣

LOL, his model might actually be fit for that purpose 😉 

[treetree]

Just now, Raja Clavata said:

And this:

https://lockdownsceptics.org/code-review-of-fergusons-model/

Lol at some of the comments justifying the presence of bugs in the code as an effective method of adding to the stochastic nature of the model and outcome of the results, you really couldn't make it up...

From what I understand the Ferguson model was created bottom up (and that's why it went tits up).

I was just going to mention that; his coding has been ripped apart by anyone who knows anything about coding. Full of bugs  and reuses outputs as inputs, further magnifying the error.

And for stochastic read guesswork

[Raja Clavata]

Just now, treetree said:

Disobedience! That is the kind of language straight out of 1984; the fact it is willingly being used by the public to demand the continued lockdown of the population is really beyond depressing.

Precisely how it's viewed by some. Kinda turns the table round on the notion that the younger generation are the ones who consider themselves "precious". The whole dig at "snowflake" generation is doing a sharp 180 in some quarters.

[Raja Clavata]

Just now, treetree said:

I was just going to mention that; his coding has been ripped apart by anyone who knows anything about coding. Full of bugs  and reuses outputs as inputs, further magnifying the error.

And for stochastic read guesswork

Yep, it truly beggars belief. Wondered if it was me being old school as I was taught the model is the abstraction of the implementation, model then implement. The implementation is the code.

I went away and checked this with a recent PhD graduate and a Professor of Immunology and Immunotherapy (to cut a long story short, the graduate is the son of my CTO and the Professor was my CTOs best man). 

Turns out I'm not old school (on this subject anyway).

[Mice!]

11 minutes ago, treetree said:

I was just going to mention that; his coding has been ripped apart by anyone who knows anything about coding. Full of bugs  and reuses outputs as inputs, further magnifying the error.

And for stochastic read guesswork

What I don't understand is how can these experts get it so very wrong then? Surely there is more than one person looking at numbers and possibilities,  if we aren't sure about something in work we have someone double check the math????????

[Gordon R]

https://www.businessinsider.com/neil-ferguson-transformed-uk-covid-response-oxford-challenge-imperial-model-2020-4?r=US&IR=T

It sounds like more than one person is looking at this, but only one person seems to have the influence.

[treetree]

6 minutes ago, Mice! said:

What I don't understand is how can these experts get it so very wrong then? Surely there is more than one person looking at numbers and possibilities,  if we aren't sure about something in work we have someone double check the math????????

And where Ferguson is concerned, not badly wrong once, but badly wrong on EVERYTHING he has done from BSE/CJD, foot and mouth, SARS, birdflu.

He is going to be thrown under the bus by the politicians when this all unravels. I really would not want to be him when the harsh economic realities begin to bite

[Raja Clavata]

Just now, treetree said:

And where Ferguson is concerned, not badly wrong once, but badly wrong on EVERYTHING he has done from BSE/CJD, foot and mouth, SARS, birdflu.

He is going to be thrown under the bus by the politicians when this all unravels. I really would not want to be him when the harsh economic realities begin to bite

I think he already has been, and it's done the job as far as I can tell. The current death rate is more than 50% higher than the model predicted and nobody seems to be holding the government to account on this, unless I've missed it?

I'm not defending Ferguson, the guy has messed up big time but behind all this he is no doubt a brilliant scientist - he should just have left the modelling to someone who knows at least the basics. This episode will unfortunately find it's way into text books as a landmark example of how not to do things.

The other most recent example I can think of is the whole Boeing MCAS debacle. 

[Mice!]

10 minutes ago, treetree said:

And where Ferguson is concerned, not badly wrong once, but badly wrong on EVERYTHING he has done from BSE/CJD, foot and mouth, SARS, birdflu.

He is going to be thrown under the bus by the politicians when this all unravels. I really would not want to be him when the harsh economic realities begin to bite

So how can someone keep getting these things wrong and still be the go to guy? I could understand if he was simply the spokesman and it was a full team of people getting facts wrong.

[Lord v]

2 minutes ago, Raja Clavata said:

I think he already has been, and it's done the job as far as I can tell. The current death rate is more than 50% higher than the model predicted and nobody seems to be holding the government to account on this, unless I've missed it?

I'm not defending Ferguson, the guy has messed up big time but behind all this he is no doubt a brilliant scientist - he should just have left the modelling to someone who knows at least the basics. This episode will unfortunately find it's way into text books as a landmark example of how not to do things.

The other most recent example I can think of is the whole Boeing MCAS debacle. 

They are being very coy with the numbers actually predicted from the model based on the interventions we have had. 20k was presented as a 'very good outcome' which would suggest a range (as you would expect).

Now if it was me I would be reporting the upper end of that range and hope you beat it. You then look good. 

However I am now suspicious that Whitey actually slipped up (politically anyway) on this and reported the lower end of that range. His statement is still true, but perhaps not the most politically expedient.

 

[Lord v]

27 minutes ago, Gordon R said:

https://www.businessinsider.com/neil-ferguson-transformed-uk-covid-response-oxford-challenge-imperial-model-2020-4?r=US&IR=T

It sounds like more than one person is looking at this, but only one person seems to have the influence.

What stood out to me is the 'willing to roll up his sleeves and still code and run models'. While this is presented as a good thing I am not sure it is.

I used to work leading team of people doing a similar modelling tasks (and not 'world class' teams either). If I had to get involved then either something has gone very wrong and we were in real trouble or the models are going weird and it needed someone with an idea of the answer would be to spot the erroneous inputs and figure it out . 

99.8% of the time I could just let my colleagues get on with it with advice, guidance etc. Continually jumping in to work like that is a massive red flag that all was not well.

Edited May 11, 2020 by Lord v