prophets of doom

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prophets of doom

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Post by erol »

Some Comparisons (all numbers from John Hopkins as of now)

South Korea - pop 51,269,185

Was close to the source of the outbreak geographically and temporally.
Was prepared.
Swiftly Instituted a sustained containment policy of test, track and trace which remains in place to this day.
Traded peoples freedom to privacy about their movements against peoples continued freedom to move.
Suffered early on a nightmare super spreader event (Shincheonji Church of Jesus)
Never instituted blanket bans on flights from hot spot countries.
Never instituted nationwide lock downs of business sectors. Things like restaurants , bars, night clubs, hair salons have remained open the entire time.
Never blamed the WHO

Total confirmed - 11,018 (0.0215%)
Deaths - 260 (.0005%)

UK - pop 67,886,011

Total confirmed - 234,441 (0.345%)
Deaths - 33,693 (0.0496)


US - pop 331,002,651

Total confirmed - 1,417,889 (0.428%)
Deaths - 85,906 - (0.0256%)


Sweden - pop 10,099,265

Total confirmed - 28,582 (0.283%)
Deaths - 3529 - (0.0349%)

--------------------------------

Lock down is what was done in desperation when a country was not prepared, did not act early and did not follow and stick to a good plan from day one. Just look at these numbers for a moment. SK has less confirmed positives as a % of total population than the other countries have DEATHS. The UK has twice as many recorded DEATHS as SK has confirmed positives. 260 deaths to date in a country of 50+ million, that is a 2 hour flight away from Wuhan and is culturally and economically connected to China to a significant degree.

The idea that the 'problem' places like the UK is currently suffering is 'Prophets of doom' is to me a monumentally and fundamentally flawed analysis. The UK is is in the disastrous position it is in today because it ignored 'prophets of doom' when it should actually have heeded their warnings and prepared for the worst, as SK did. If it had done that then today the number of deaths in the UK could be 300 instead of 33 thousand AND the economy would not be in any where near the state it is in right now. This to me seems patently and undeniably obvious from the what the numbers tell us, rather than working from what our political bias tells us.

If there is one lesson we should have already learnt from this global crisis it is that heeding the warnings of 'prophets of doom' has meant less deaths and less economic damage that has resulted from this pandemic.

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Re: prophets of doom

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Post by EnjoyingTheSun »

I’m struggling a little bit here, are you saying a lockdown wasn’t a good idea because advertising the successes of South Korea and Sweden isn’t suggesting it is?

It is quite nice seeing South Korea getting some positive press from the Leftwaffe but I think it is a byproduct of their usual UK and US bad everywhere else good.

Let’s have a look at South Korea. They have tested how many? I think you’ll find it’s not exactly a stellar total.

As you pointed out they have played fast and loose with their citizens privacy which I’m sure had the UK or US suggested carrying out the same policy would have had your favourite newspaper and mine up in arms about Boris’ Big Brother.

But I know South Korea and Koreans quite well and what is impossible to duplicate is how obedient they are. If their boss told one of them to stand on his head for 12 hours you can guarantee that if he doesn’t manage it won’t be through lack of trying. So government advice to stay in will be vigorously adhered to whereas in the UK a government directive to stay inside will be often be ignored. That is a huge factor. If you tell them to stay indoors, don't go to Sainsburys while it is open just for the NHS they will unquestionably do it.

I will say that their figures do seem suspiciously low and I do think that there are a lot of bragging rights in having your country’s government acknowledged to have handled it best. Personally I think this has been floating around since at least September which makes these figures particularly interesting.

South Korea - Historical Death Rate Data

Year Death Rate Growth Rate
2020 6.305 3.170%
2019 6.111 3.260%
2018 5.918 1.600%
2017 5.825 1.620%
2016 5.732 1.630%
2015 5.640 1.680%
2014 5.547 1.710%

You like your 5 year averages?
Unfortunately I couldn’t find a monthly breakdown but there does seem to be a spike in 2019-2020 no?
So you believe that we should follow Neil Ferguson’s modelling without quibble in the future as he is such an admittedly well qualified scientist?

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Re: prophets of doom

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This is another interesting article

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-heal ... SKBN20Z27P

The two bits I find particularly interesting are copied below.

'Both countries saw their first cases of the disease called COVID-19 in late January. South Korea has since reported 67 deaths out of nearly 8,000 confirmed cases, after testing more than 222,000 people. In contrast, Italy has had 1,016 deaths and identified more than 15,000 cases after carrying out more than 73,000 tests on an unspecified number of people.'

'A total of 117 institutions in South Korea have equipment to conduct the tests, according to the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC). The numbers fluctuate daily, but an average of 12,000 is possible, and maximum capacity is 20,000 tests a day. The government pays for tests of people with symptoms, if referred by a doctor.'

So South Korea has 67 deaths out of 8000 cases, just under 1 in 120 whereas Italy has 1016 deaths out of 15,000 cases, just under 1 in 15.
Big differences which I'm not totally sure can be fully explained by poor air quality in Italy, their aging population and the inefficiency of their health service which collapsed a few years back under a flu epidemic.

But even if we run with the above figures which show South Korea is treating their cases better, what I can't understand is the proportion of positive tests.

SK had 8000 cases in 222,000 tests, 1 in 27, whereas Italy had 15000 cases out of 73,000 test, 1 in 5.
You could say that SK is testing everyone but 222,000 tests or 20,000 max a day doesn't sound like blanket testing to me or that Italy is only testing those with symptoms but I would also point out the sentence that 'the government pays for tests of people with symptoms, if referred by a doctor' so I would imagine that a fairly large proportion of those 222,000 were showing symptoms.

The SK figures seem a little suspicious to me

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South Korea was prepared for the coming 'doom' to a degree that few other countries in the world were. That is why its number of deaths per head of population to date is not 20 % lower than the UK. Not 50 % Not 100%. Actually 100 times lower. Two orders of magnitudes lower. All achieved without having to resort to blunt and extreme measures like the lock downs seen in the UK, that were deemed required by the Government and supported by vast majority of the population if polls are to be believed because the UK was NOT prepared for the coming doom. Yes there are countless other factors at the margins, like 'obedience' to guidance of populations but none of those can account for the 100 times differences seen in the numbers. The single simple 'zoomed out' explanation for why SK is where it is and the UK is not, is that SK was prepared for the 'doom' from before it started and reacted to is as 'doom' as soon as it started. The UK (and indeed most other countries, Sweden included) were not prepared for the coming 'doom' in anything like the same degree. When it started they were too slow to see the 'doom'.

Now I know the struggle this simple analysis and imo truth will cause for you. I know you will use all your considerable intelligence and wit to try and find any and every means possible to deny this simple 'truth'. I do not think any of that will make it any less obvious however, certainly not to me and possibly not to many others that are not already in and of your pre chosen 'side'.

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Re: prophets of doom

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Post by EnjoyingTheSun »

erol wrote:
Fri 15 May 2020 6:20 pm

none of those can account for the 100 times differences seen in the numbers.
Wellllllll there is always way to account for extraordinary differences seen in numbers!

How many have they tested out of 50 million, roughly, being so far ahead of the game it must be at least twenty million by now?

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Re: prophets of doom

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Post by erol »

EnjoyingTheSun wrote:
Fri 15 May 2020 6:32 pm
erol wrote:
Fri 15 May 2020 6:20 pm

none of those can account for the 100 times differences seen in the numbers.
Wellllllll there is always way to account for extraordinary differences seen in numbers!

How many have they tested out of 50 million, roughly, being so far ahead of the game it must be at least twenty million by now?
It is not just about how many test you have done. It is also about who you test, how quickly you get results back and how quickly you can then trace contacts of positives in the period they were infected and so on. It is the whole system, test , track and trace. Implemented immediately because you were prepared for and expecting 'doom'. The first positive case in SK was the result of using 'heat cameras' at the airports, something the UK decided at that time 'were not effective means of detecting infection'. The UK officially abandoned it's track and trace efforts early on in the outbreak there BECAUSE it was not prepared for 'doom'. Now it is talking about recruiting track and tracers so it can at some point start it up again as a means to aid getting out of lock down. SK has been implementing track and trace from day one and is still doing it today BECAUSE it was prepared for doom. That is how they have manged to keep deaths down to 100 times less than the UK has manged so far.

If you want numbers

https://www.statista.com/statistics/110 ... al-number/

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The US is testing now in large numbers but vast numbers of those test are giving results in 3-4 days which means they are next to useless in terms of quarantine and bad in track and trace as by that time the most infectious period of positives has already past. They are also testing the same people multiple times, like the 'staff' that come on to work in rich peoples 'gated communities' who are getting tested daily and not testing those most likely to be spreading infection, like the poor that have no choice about 'self isolation' and live in crowded homes. Raw numbers of tested done is not a good metric. Its who you test, how quickly you get results, how quickly you isolate positives and then track and trace those they came in to contact with whilst infectious anmd styarting all over again, test etc etc

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Post by EnjoyingTheSun »

Wow so they tested 726.747 people just on the 15th of May? That is impressive. :)
Three quarters of a million a day, still a long way to test their 51 million people.

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Post by EnjoyingTheSun »

erol wrote:
Fri 15 May 2020 7:05 pm
The US is testing now in large numbers but vast numbers of those test are giving results in 3-4 days which means they are next to useless in terms of quarantine and bad in track and trace as by that time the most infectious period of positives has already past. They are also testing the same people multiple times, like the 'staff' that come on to work in rich peoples 'gated communities' who are getting tested daily and not testing those most likely to be spreading infection, like the poor that have no choice about 'self isolation' and live in crowded homes. Raw numbers of tested done is not a good metric. Its who you test, how quickly you get results, how quickly you isolate positives and then track and trace those they came in to contact with whilst infectious anmd styarting all over again, test etc etc
U.S. bad.

So ok TRNC reacted very quickly and bought in the lockdown everyone wanted so all good?
Just got to get your tourist house arrest scheme underway and they will be in great shape.

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wanderer wrote:
Fri 15 May 2020 8:28 pm
Nearly all countries closed
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/trav ... kdown.html

No mention of us!

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Kieth I noticed that and no mention of the other side of the fence
It just shows how many borders are closed except UK at present

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Post by erol »

Just to return to the topic.

The premise is really not that 'sophisticated'. The premise is that those countries that were prepared and or that acted swiftly because they heeded the 'prophets of doom' are right now doing much better than countries that were not prepared and or did not act swiftly because they did not need the 'prophets of doom'. Better in terms of numbers of shorten lifespans and better in terms of economic repercussions. Better on scales of orders of magnitude and multiple orders of magnitude. It is a pretty simple premise imo, backed up by simple examples, that rather challenges the premise that the problems places like the UK is facing right now are down to Governments and people in general listening too much to 'prophets of doom'.

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Post by EnjoyingTheSun »

Erol,

You should definitely stand for leader of The Labour Party once the left have done Starmer’s legs. Corbyn was very popular and you share many of his winning qualities.

You never clearly commit to a policy in so many words so leaving yourself plenty of room for manoeuvre to always be on the ‘right side of history.’
God help a government you don’t agree with or America for not committing to a policy ASAP because then their inaction or lack of speed will cost lives or cause misery. Better to do something immediately eh?
You seemed in favour of a lockdown to me and were certainly in favour of mass testing. Lots of action because better to be seen doing something just in case.

Now you seem to be moving away from the lockdown and mass testing isn’t the answer because with hindsight this way (South Korea) now seems best and that is after all what you always said well at least no one can find where you didn’t outright say it wouldn’t work.
That’s the great thing with hindsight or Monday morning quarter backing, you can never be wrong.

Generally governments in rapidly moving crisis such as this have to make on the spot decisions, hundreds of them. Some will be right some will be wrong. They act on advice but that is often mixed all we can hope is the get a lot more right than wrong.

I’m sure they would like to take their time and wait on more data before making a more informed decision but then the likes of yourself will castigate them for inaction. Do something now, anything if you are panicked into a wrong decision we can slaughter you then but if you don’t do something immediately we can slaughter you now.
If they choose to do something different as South Korea has done then you will leap on that. Most of the world is locking down but why won’t Britain and/or America do the same? Why do they always think they are right and the rest of the world wrong?
Also you may have nailed your colours to the South Korean mast a bit early, this a long game mate.

Does Boris Johnson/Donald Trump believe that he knows more than the scientists?
I doubt they ever think that but they might think every time we listen to the likes of Neil Ferguson he is always wrong and always exaggerates the dangers by a factor of a 1000. I’m no scientist but I do have powers of observation and this guy is invariably wrong.
But it’s a great life on the sidelines. Hold back and just say money is no object.
Maybe make a suggestion/s that is so obviously unworkable that you will never actually be asked to take on the reins and can remain in the comfortable position on the sidelines as a protest movement.

I would have hoped that this crisis and your sterling work during it might have opened your eyes to the lack of a money tree. You wanted to help as many people as possible but were worried that your funds might be wasted on those who weren’t in need. You realised that you didn’t have enough money to help everyone so had to be targeted. Unfortunately time was a factor but with a limited budget you realised that any mistake was costly. You are now more aware of that but continue down the line of spend all the money on this now and if it doesn’t work invent more money to spend on something anything different but again do it ASAP.

I in my non expert virologist way could see a lockdown was a pretty drastic act and would have consequences. When I pointed out people were more likely to starve because of the lockdown than die of the virus, most jumped on my back.

I am not always right by a long chalk but I will give a clear opinion but when I ask others to do the same I am accused of trying to pin them down so I can say I was right and they were wrong. Not really I just want to know what they are actually saying here. When I ask heads or tails forgive me if I say yes isn’t an answer.

The majority on this forum were in favour of a lockdown, the more vigorous the better. Lots of posts of someone visiting a neighbour or walking the dog against government orders. Who do I phone, lock them up, they are going to kill us all!

Well we got the lockdown and the authorities have copied what the rest of the world in their Cypriot that’s near enough way. I mean does anyone honestly think those little masks we are wearing are going to save you if this thing as as serious as some would have it? The supermarkets thermometers all work properly? As a rule of thumb if you buy two of anything with any kind of moveable parts out here one will work one won’t. Everyone is unpacking their groceries in laboratory conditions? Removing their masks and gloves properly?

But we could all feel virtuous and comply. It’s a bit inconvenient not going to our favourite restaurant or bar but we have our pensions and savings and the shelves are full so we can stay in watch our TV and look out our window at some poor sod trying to sneak out and clean someone’s house to put food on their table and ask who we report it to.
On the downside the economy is complete screwed so do own that.

The effects of this are going to be felt for years. Even those who think they are insulated at the moment are going to feel the fall out. Taxes are going to go up. Your pension pot is going down. The interest on your savings isn’t going to be as much, the prices in the shops are going to keep going up. Enjoy your kids and grandkids coming out to visit? Forget this year and be prepared not to see them next year or the year after.
And how many died in TRNC, 4? We can lose that many in a car crash.
Two of them were holiday makers. Let’s be honest generally the tourists who come here are no spring chickens, Bellapais at midday looks like Cocoon. Do tourists never die on holiday here?

Still in a couple of years we will be on the mend and Coronavirus will be a memory. The problem is there will always be a virus and there will always be a Neil Ferguson telling us it could kill 500 million. How can we ignore the next virus? And don’t forget the doomsday prophets got in the media a lot this time as we all went along with it so they have a taste for it. The doomsday scenarios aren’t going to be more measured next time.

As for the final score when all this is done, we may never know. Some will advance the most ludicrous conspiracy theories about governments but won’t entertain the fact that they might be a bit creative with the figures. The same people who think the government are underestimating the death toll don’t seem to consider that they might overestimate it to justify burning our economy. Every life is precious and you can’t put a value on a human life etc etc but £2 billion for 4 lives might be on the high side?

Apparently CNN have little Greta on as a covid-19 expert! This kid has zero qualifications to speak on her chosen specialist subject but is now branching out. If anyone has her email I understand Match of The Day want her as a pundit for the new season when it starts. I’m sure Greta can bluff what we can do to improve the offside law.

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Re: prophets of doom

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EnjoyingTheSun wrote:
Sat 16 May 2020 9:00 am
Erol,

You should definitely stand for leader of The Labour Party once the left have done Starmer’s legs. Corbyn was very popular and you share many of his winning qualities.

You never clearly commit to a policy in so many words so leaving yourself plenty of room for manoeuvre to always be on the ‘right side of history.’
God help a government you don’t agree with or America for not committing to a policy ASAP because then their inaction or lack of speed will cost lives or cause misery. Better to do something immediately eh?
You seemed in favour of a lockdown to me and were certainly in favour of mass testing. Lots of action because better to be seen doing something just in case.

Now you seem to be moving away from the lockdown and mass testing isn’t the answer because with hindsight this way (South Korea) now seems best and that is after all what you always said well at least no one can find where you didn’t outright say it wouldn’t work. The
That’s the great thing with hindsight or Monday morning quarter backing, you can never be wrong.

Generally governments in rapidly moving crisis such as this have to make on the spot decisions, hundreds of them. Some will be right some will be wrong. They act on advice but that is often mixed all we can hope is the get a lot more right than wrong.

I’m sure they would like to take their time and wait on more data before making a more informed decision but then the likes of yourself will castigate them for inaction. Do something now, anything if you are panicked into a wrong decision we can slaughter you then but if you don’t do something immediately we can slaughter you now.
If they choose to do something different as South Korea has done then you will leap on that. Most of the world is locking down but why won’t Britain and/or America do the same? Why do they always think they are right and the rest of the world wrong?
Also you may have nailed your colours to the South Korean mast a bit early, this a long game mate.

Does Boris Johnson/Donald Trump believe that he knows more than the scientists?
I doubt they ever think that but they might think every time we listen to the likes of Neil Ferguson he is always wrong and always exaggerates the dangers by a factor of a 1000. I’m no scientist but I do have powers of observation and this guy is invariably wrong.
But it’s a great life on the sidelines. Hold back and just say money is no object.
Maybe make a suggestion/s that is so obviously unworkable that you will never actually be asked to take on the reins and can remain in the comfortable position on the sidelines as a protest movement.

I would have hoped that this crisis and your sterling work during it might have opened your eyes to the lack of a money tree. You wanted to help as many people as possible but were worried that your funds might be wasted on those who weren’t in need. You realised that you didn’t have enough money to help everyone so had to be targeted. Unfortunately time was a factor but with a limited budget you realised that any mistake was costly. You are now more aware of that but continue down the line of spend all the money on this now and if it doesn’t work invent more money to spend on something anything different but again do it ASAP.

I in my non expert virologist way could see a lockdown was a pretty drastic act and would have consequences. When I pointed out people were more likely to starve because of the lockdown than die of the virus, most jumped on my back.

I am not always right by a long chalk but I will give a clear opinion but when I ask others to do the same I am accused of trying to pin them down so I can say I was right and they were wrong. Not really I just want to know what they are actually saying here. When I ask heads or tails forgive me if I say yes isn’t an answer.

The majority on this forum were in favour of a lockdown, the more vigorous the better. Lots of posts of someone visiting a neighbour or walking the dog against government orders. Who do I phone, lock them up, they are going to kill us all!

Well we got the lockdown and the authorities have copied what the rest of the world in their Cypriot that’s near enough way. I mean does anyone honestly think those little masks we are wearing are going to save you if this thing as as serious as some would have it? The supermarkets thermometers all work properly? As a rule of thumb if you buy two of anything with any kind of moveable parts out here one will work one won’t. Everyone is unpacking their groceries in laboratory conditions? Removing their masks and gloves properly?

But we could all feel virtuous and comply. It’s a bit inconvenient not going to our favourite restaurant or bar but we have our pensions and savings and the shelves are full so we can stay in watch our TV and look out our window at some poor sod trying to sneak out and clean someone’s house to put food on their table and ask who we report it to.
On the downside the economy is complete screwed so do own that.

The effects of this are going to be felt for years. Even those who think they are insulated at the moment are going to feel the fall out. Taxes are going to go up. Your pension pot is going down. The interest on your savings isn’t going to be as much, the prices in the shops are going to keep going up. Enjoy your kids and grandkids coming out to visit? Forget this year and be prepared not to see them next year or the year after.
And how many died in TRNC, 4? We can lose that many in a car crash.
Two of them were holiday makers. Let’s be honest generally the tourists who come here are no spring chickens, Bellapais at midday looks like Cocoon. Do tourists never die on holiday here?

Still in a couple of years we will be on the mend and Coronavirus will be a memory. The problem is there will always be a virus and there will always be a Neil Ferguson telling us it could kill 500 million. How can we ignore the next virus? And don’t forget the doomsday prophets got in the media a lot this time as we all went along with it so they have a taste for it. The doomsday scenarios aren’t going to be more measured next time.

As for the final score when all this is done, we may never know. Some will advance the most ludicrous conspiracy theories about governments but won’t entertain the fact that they might be a bit creative with the figures. The same people who think the government are underestimating the death toll don’t seem to consider that they might overestimate it to justify burning our economy. Every life is precious and you can’t put a value on a human life etc etc but £2 billion for 4 lives might be on the high side?

Apparently CNN have little Greta on as a covid-19 expert! This kid has zero qualifications to speak on her chosen specialist subject but is now branching out. If anyone has her email I understand Match of The Day want her as a pundit for the new season when it starts. I’m sure Greta can bluff what we can do to improve the offside law.
You can’t be “enjoying the sun” much!

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He should get out more!

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Post by erol »

EnjoyingTheSun wrote:
Sat 16 May 2020 9:00 am
You seemed in favour of a lockdown to me and were certainly in favour of mass testing. Lots of action because better to be seen doing something just in case.

Now you seem to be moving away from the lockdown and mass testing isn’t the answer because with hindsight this way (South Korea) now seems best and that is after all what you always said well at least no one can find where you didn’t outright say it wouldn’t work.
That’s the great thing with hindsight or Monday morning quarter backing, you can never be wrong.
The above are all about your failings ETS not mine. You are the one that divides the world up in to simple binaries and then has to place everyone in each of those camps. You have divided the world up in to your camp 'anti lock down' and then by extension everyone not in that camp is therefore pro lock down. That the universe does not work this way is irrelevant to you.

Firstly

I have NEVER argued that lock down was definitively the 'right' thing to be doing. I have consistently argued that no one, myself included can know such a thing definitely. That was my position when such measures were first proposed and remains my position still. Totally consistent.

What I have also done, in the face of those who claim to know with certainty that lock down is worse than the benefits and who use 'arguments' like 'this outbreak is not worse than regular periodic flu outbreaks seen every 5 or 190 years, it is all just media hype', is to point out facts. Like the fact that in England and wales since this event has started we have twice seen total deaths in a week that have exceeded any previous weekly spikes in total deaths since at least 1968 flu outbreak and probably since 1917/8 outbreak. This is NOT an argument in favour of lock down. It is an argument that the facts we already have show the event is bigger that all previous flu outbreaks that are seen every 5 or 10 years. That this event that is still ongoing is already of a 'once every 50 years' or 'once every 100 years' event.

If you think all this is just bull "ooops" then just go and find the posts where I was arguing that lock down is the right thing to do, rather than refuting false arguments from those trying to prove is was not the right thing to do. You will not find them because they do not exist. You think they do exist because of the way you divide the entire world in two binary opposite camps and then believe that this is a reflection of some underlying reality. It is not. It is a function of the limits of such an approach.

Secondly

This thread was specifically about challenging a high level macro generic argument about the 'problem' of listening to 'prophets of doom'. A generic issues you constantly bang on about. Long before covid-19 and not doubt long after it too. The point of this thread was to show how in the specific case of this current outbreak, this general theory of yours is flat out misinformed. As shown by the facts we do have. Those countries that were prepared , because they listened to 'prophets of doom' , those countries that acted swiftly and consistently, because they listened to 'prophets of doom' have all fared better than those countries that did not prepare, did not act swiftly and consistently because they did what you claim should always be done - not listen to prophets of doom. Not listening to prophets of doom has led to more early deaths and more economic damage. The evidence on this is already clear and compelling. This will not lead to you revising your view that is always bad to listen to prophets of doom. Yet that does not change the reality that in this case listening to prophets of doom, before the outbreak and once it stared was the better thing to do vs not doing so.
EnjoyingTheSun wrote:
Sat 16 May 2020 9:00 am
Generally governments in rapidly moving crisis such as this have to make on the spot decisions, hundreds of them. Some will be right some will be wrong. They act on advice but that is often mixed all we can hope is the get a lot more right than wrong.
This thread is about if it is wise to listen to prophets of doom or not. SK was able to make better decisions , quicker , with better outcomes BECAUSE it had listened to prophets of doom who had been saying since the SARS outbreak and earlier, that we need to be ready for something catastrophic that has not yet happened. If the UK had of listened to such before this crisis, then when it struck it would have been able to make better on the spot decisions , hundreds of then, with better outcomes. I know you want to make out there was nothing the UK government could have done differently, either before of once the outbreak started globally or in the UK. The evidence just does not support such a want. What they could have done before it struck was listen more to the prophets of doom than they did. What they could have once it broke out in China was listen more to the prophets of doom than they did. What they could have once it broke out in UK was listen more to the prophets of doom than they did. What they could have done is the very thing you argue is a 'stupid' thing to do generically and that we know made orders of magnitude differences in outcomes, deaths AND economic damage, in those countries that had and did do the thing that you claim is generically a bad thing to ever do. That is why I started a thread about this.
EnjoyingTheSun wrote:
Sat 16 May 2020 9:00 am
I’m sure they would like to take their time and wait on more data before making a more informed decision but then the likes of yourself will castigate them for inaction. Do something now, anything if you are panicked into a wrong decision we can slaughter you then but if you don’t do something immediately we can slaughter you now.
If they choose to do something different as South Korea has done then you will leap on that. Most of the world is locking down but why won’t Britain and/or America do the same? Why do they always think they are right and the rest of the world wrong?
Also you may have nailed your colours to the South Korean mast a bit early, this a long game mate.
Your arguments are entirely straw man ones. I have been suggesting that looking to what SK is doing from as soon as the numbers we do have were clearly indicating they were doing better than other countries in controlling this virus. The 'hard' numbers , like know positive cases. Plotted not against time but plotting new positive in last 7 days vs total positives to date. When I first present such numbers and analysis your response was to start banging on about how inaccurate numbers on deaths assigned to covid-19 were, even though the cart I presented did not use such numbers at all. This site / chart remains the best simplest way to get a grip on how well a country is doing in terms of controlling spread of the virus.

https://bchurchill.github.io/covidtrend ... ed+Kingdom

So I can tell you the exact date I started to say we should be looking to countries like SK to inform our responses. Move the date slider on the bottom of that chart to the 11th March 2020. That is the point at which I started arguing we should be looking to what SK is doing because is the point the hard numbers indicated they were achieving things the UK was not. If you run it till today then you will see a worrying increase in infections in the last fer days on this chart ion SK but it is still orders of magnitude better than the position the UK is at currently. UK is at the 'doubling every 43 days' currently. SK even with its recent slide back is doubling every 270 days.
EnjoyingTheSun wrote:
Sat 16 May 2020 9:00 am
Does Boris Johnson/Donald Trump believe that he knows more than the scientists?
I doubt they ever think that but they might think every time we listen to the likes of Neil Ferguson he is always wrong and always exaggerates the dangers by a factor of a 1000. I’m no scientist but I do have powers of observation and this guy is invariably wrong.
But it’s a great life on the sidelines. Hold back and just say money is no object.
Maybe make a suggestion/s that is so obviously unworkable that you will never actually be asked to take on the reins and can remain in the comfortable position on the sidelines as a protest movement.
Again you just project your failings on to me and everyone else. I am NOT playing the 'my expert is better than yours' game. I have not done so once. I have only ever argued against those playing such games and presenting experts that are in contradiction to the simple undeniable numbers like 'total deaths all causes'. Any expert that concludes 'this event is not different in scale than periodic flu outbreaks seen every 5 or 10 years' is in contradiction with the hard fact numbers we already have. That is not 'my expert is better than yours. That is simple undeniable facts are better than any experts guesses that cause them to come up with claims in contradiction to those plain simple facts.
EnjoyingTheSun wrote:
Sat 16 May 2020 9:00 am
I would have hoped that this crisis and your sterling work during it might have opened your eyes to the lack of a money tree. You wanted to help as many people as possible but were worried that your funds might be wasted on those who weren’t in need. You realised that you didn’t have enough money to help everyone so had to be targeted. Unfortunately time was a factor but with a limited budget you realised that any mistake was costly. You are now more aware of that but continue down the line of spend all the money on this now and if it doesn’t work invent more money to spend on something anything different but again do it ASAP.
There is no magic money tree there is just how we chose to distribute the pie. This has always been the issue and always will be the issue. Central banks printing new money is not a 'magic money tree' solution. It is merely one mechanism whereby we could easily change how the pie is shared. If you double the money supply by printing new money AND then take that new money to target those most in need, all you are doing is redistributing the pie from those whose need is less to those whose need is more. There are other mechanisms like taxation to achieve the same end but they less effective, more clumsy , more costly. Any argument about 'magic money trees' that is not talking about choices as to how we distribute the pie, are just fundamental misunderstanding driven by dogmatic political entrenchment. You want to talk about how we should share the pie between those with little or no need and those with real need, then fine I will make my arguments. If all you want to do is prove the 'left' proposals are always 'fantasy' because they depend on 'magic money trees', then I have little interest.

One thing my recent efforts have shown me, one thing that I got wrong when it was 'theory' and not practice, was the idea that a 'cynic' would be the best person to try and 'police' potential abuse of such a help system. I have learnt when crashing against the harsh reality of practice vs theory, that such cynics are not really very interested in much other than cynicism. That they are good at point out bleeding obvious problems , like those most able to access help end up getting it at the expense of those who most need it but not so good at getting down and dirty trying to find workable ways to reduce such issues. I have also learnt that no one has greater incentive to try and solve such problems that will always exists than those who are getting down and dirty to try and help.

FWIW the 'project' I have been involved in is constantly evolving. By the day and by the hour. Right now my focus on continuing to get funds in to COSH is much lower down my priority scale than is trying to take what we have learnt and making that available to the widest recpetive audience as possible. If cosh runs out of money nest week but we have helped the local bele's and central government become more efficient and co ordinated in their efforts to mitigate the worse impacts of lock down on those most in need, then this will achieve more than anything COSH could do on it's own. That is were I am focusing most of my 'effort' right now.
EnjoyingTheSun wrote:
Sat 16 May 2020 9:00 am
I in my non expert virologist way could see a lockdown was a pretty drastic act and would have consequences. When I pointed out people were more likely to starve because of the lockdown than die of the virus, most jumped on my back.
yes I jumped on your back. I jumped on it because you had no way of knowing that was true. No one had no way of knowing if that was going to be the case or not. It was your certainty born of dogma and regardless of actual facts that were available that I was arguing against. I am still arguing against it. That is NOT an argument that says such measure are definitely right, or that lock down might end up costing more lives shortening of lives from starvation than benefits gained. It might but you can not know that . No one can know that. What we do know so far is in the UK excess deaths from all causes have reached weekly peaks not seen before since at least 50 years and probably 100 years. And not ONE of those excess deaths so far has come from starvation. It is also a fact that we know how to prevent shortening of life from starvation. We do not yet know how to prevent shortening of life from covid-19 other than to try an ensure someone does not get it.
EnjoyingTheSun wrote:
Sat 16 May 2020 9:00 am
I am not always right by a long chalk but I will give a clear opinion but when I ask others to do the same I am accused of trying to pin them down so I can say I was right and they were wrong. Not really I just want to know what they are actually saying here. When I ask heads or tails forgive me if I say yes isn’t an answer.
What you do is give clear opinions about what you think AND about what I think. Like for example you think lock down was a bad decision AND you think I think it was a good one. Yet I do NOT think this. I have never said I think this. I have said and argued that I do not know if it will turn out net positive or not and nor does anyone else or can any one else - you included.

My position has been entirely consistent and simple. That you perceive it as other wise is a function of the limited and binary way you see a world that is neither simple nor binary.

Some of my simple clear consistent positions through out include

Numbers like 'how many people have died from all causes' is a fundamentally different kind of number to 'how many people have died of covid-19'. In the same way ' the temperature toady was 38' is a fundamentally different kind of number than 'the temperature this day next year will be 36'. I have consistently argued start with the hard simple unarguable fact numbers we do have and work out from there. Measure everything that is a guess against the numbers that are not guesses. The hardest numbers we have are 'total deaths from all causes'. The next hardest are 'number of confirmed positives'. Pretty much everything else after this, how many deaths are from covid-19 or not, what R is, what fatality rates are, how lethal covid-19 is vs other viruses, how many deaths there have been or will be from lock down, if and when there will be a vaccine, if there even is any immunity from covid-19 after infection and how much and for how long, are all guesses and most of them can not be known yet. SO I have consistently argued do not give this fundamentally different types of numbers the same weight.

I do not know if lock down measures in specific countries will turn out to be net positive or not, in short medium or long term and neither can anyone else know this with certainty right now. Those that claim they KNOW lock down measures were too sever and will turn out to be net negative are imo not people working on data and evidence but just people expressing their dogma, just as people who claim to know definitively the other way are the same. Sure try and guess in specific cases but do so recognising they are just that guesses.
EnjoyingTheSun wrote:
Sat 16 May 2020 9:00 am
The majority on this forum were in favour of a lockdown, the more vigorous the better. Lots of posts of someone visiting a neighbour or walking the dog against government orders. Who do I phone, lock them up, they are going to kill us all!
So you know as fact that 'the more vigorous the better' do you ? How do you know this ? I would say it is well within the realms of possiblity that majority recognised such decisions were best guesses of the authorities and were broadly in favour of the lock down and the DEGREE of it but would not have supported more vigorous measures. I do not know if this is the case but I do know you do not know either. That your dogma tells you something must be the case does NOT mean it must be the case.
EnjoyingTheSun wrote:
Sat 16 May 2020 9:00 am
I mean does anyone honestly think those little masks we are wearing are going to save you if this thing as as serious as some would have it? The supermarkets thermometers all work properly? As a rule of thumb if you buy two of anything with any kind of moveable parts out here one will work one won’t. Everyone is unpacking their groceries in laboratory conditions? Removing their masks and gloves properly?
Again with your binary world view. Mask either stop infection spreading 100% in which case they are a good measure, or they do not in which case they are a bad measure. Or either everyone uses mask in which case they are a good measure or some do not in which case they are entirely pointless for anyone to use. The world does not work that way, it is just your brain that places such binary limits. If masks stop infection at all to any degree they are potentially an sensible measure. Just as regular hand washing, that will not stop infection spread 100 % is. Same with temperature checks. It does not matter how many devices work accurately or how consistently they are used. If they lead to the detection of even ONE person who is infected and that is not know, they have value and purpose. This is exactly what happened in the case of temperature scans at airports and SK. They could not catch every infected person arriving at the airport but they did catch one such person who was then tested and quarantined and spread was stopped as a result. The UK decided , such measures and ineffective because they will can not catch every case and thus people who were infected walked through UK airports and went on to infect others that could have been stopped if heat cameras had of been used as soon as the outbreak started. Does not matter if you miss 10 people for every one you catch. Catching one in 10 or 100 has point and value.
EnjoyingTheSun wrote:
Sat 16 May 2020 9:00 am
But we could all feel virtuous and comply.
Claims of 'virtue signalling' are not argument. They are an excuse to avoid having to make an argument.
EnjoyingTheSun wrote:
Sat 16 May 2020 9:00 am
The effects of this are going to be felt for years. Even those who think they are insulated at the moment are going to feel the fall out. Taxes are going to go up. Your pension pot is going down. The interest on your savings isn’t going to be as much, the prices in the shops are going to keep going up. Enjoy your kids and grandkids coming out to visit? Forget this year and be prepared not to see them next year or the year after.
And how many died in TRNC, 4? We can lose that many in a car crash.
Two of them were holiday makers. Let’s be honest generally the tourists who come here are no spring chickens, Bellapais at midday looks like Cocoon. Do tourists never die on holiday here?
In the UK the yearly average of deaths from road fatalities in a week is in the order of 35 a week. The number of deaths from all causes recorded in week 16 and 17 over the expect number without covid for that week is 10-11 thousand. Those are just facts. Not opinions. facts. If covid-19 starts spreading here to the same degree it has in the UK to date, then the number of excess deaths seen as a result will be higher than road fatalities by orders of magnitude. It not be possible or as cheap and easy for a loved one to come and visit you here is a negative thing. As is such a person not being able to do so because they died prematurely. yes such is a false argument in many ways but it is exactly the kind of systematic false argument you use, all whilst treating know fact numbers as if they are somehow 'opinions..
EnjoyingTheSun wrote:
Sat 16 May 2020 9:00 am
Still in a couple of years we will be on the mend and Coronavirus will be a memory. The problem is there will always be a virus and there will always be a Neil Ferguson telling us it could kill 500 million. How can we ignore the next virus? And don’t forget the doomsday prophets got in the media a lot this time as we all went along with it so they have a taste for it. The doomsday scenarios aren’t going to be more measured next time.
Saying more people are definitely going top die from the economic repercussions of lock down measures than from the virus is NOT a 'dooms day prophecy' then ? All I see you saying is MY doomsday prophecies are right and other peoples are wrong and not based on evidence but just based on you are more 'sensible' than any one who disagrees with you. If we do not prepare for the next global pandemic, as countries like SK did BEFORE this one stuck, it would be the stupidest thing possible - that is what you advocate.
EnjoyingTheSun wrote:
Sat 16 May 2020 9:00 am
Some will advance the most ludicrous conspiracy theories about governments but won’t entertain the fact that they might be a bit creative with the figures.
Who exactly are these 'some' then. I thought you were an advocate of plainly saying what you mean without ambiguity. Can we have an actual 'name' ? An actual example ? The idea that the 100 TIMES less infections and deaths seen in SK vs UK can be accounted for by the SK government being 'more creative' with its figures than the UK government is just an example of the kind of false logic you systematically use to try and explain numbers that do not fit your pre chosen side.
EnjoyingTheSun wrote:
Sat 16 May 2020 9:00 am
The same people who think the government are underestimating the death toll don’t seem to consider that they might overestimate it to justify burning our economy. Every life is precious and you can’t put a value on a human life etc etc but £2 billion for 4 lives might be on the high side?
Who are these 'same people' ? Any names ? Any example ? Who has ever said we should spend £2 billion for 4 lives ? It is just rhetoric, which is what you use when the numbers do not show what you would like them to show. How much do you think it costs to ensure someone who has lost their job does not have to die of starvation as a result ? Per person per week ? I will throw the number £5 out there though in reality I would say that is on the very high side. 2 Billion would then be enough to ensure that around 7.5 million people would not die of starvation for a year should ppeople be facing such a prospect. A bit more than 4 then !

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Re: prophets of doom

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Just scanned this, as you now say that you were championing the South Korea model maybe you could please point out where?

I can find your test everything that moves post but not the South Korea has got it perfect post
erol wrote:
Fri 03 Apr 2020 8:30 am
I would like to see more testing as soon as that is possible. To me there seems to be a strong correlation between how many tests a country has done per 100,000 of population and how much they have managed to stop the number of new cases raising exponentially. This is not a criticism of authorities here , just an expression of an opinion as to what could help. The idea of testing everyone here seems more possible and realistic to me than in many other countries just based on our small size. Mass testing of everyone, starting in hotspot areas and working outwards from there is what I would like to see.

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Re: prophets of doom

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Post by Hilltop »

Most of the above and, a large part of Erol's contributions (On everything) definitely fall under the banner of TLDR (To me at least).

Lighten up folks, learn to precis your thoughts and direct your arguments! This is a chat group not the Royal Society!

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Re: prophets of doom

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Hilltop wrote:
Sat 16 May 2020 6:34 pm
Most of the above and, a large part of Erol's contributions (On everything) definitely fall under the banner of TLDR (To me at least).

Lighten up folks, learn to precis your thoughts and direct your arguments! This is a chat group not the Royal Society!
Precis for this thread is simple. Countries that heeded 'prophets of doom' before this out break and or as soon as it started are to date in much better positions , have achieved much better outcomes, in terms of extending lifespans and minimising economic damage vs those that did not.

This reality undermines the general principle that 'listening to prophets of doom' is always a bad move and the specific argument that right now the UK is in a mess because it is heeding prophets of doom to much.

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EnjoyingTheSun wrote:
Sat 16 May 2020 6:26 pm
Just scanned this, as you now say that you were championing the South Korea model maybe you could please point out where?

I can find your test everything that moves post but not the South Korea has got it perfect post
https://kibkomnorthcyprusforum.com/sear ... mit=Search

basically from as soon as I discovered and reported the charting tool that makes the raw hopkins numbers so clear and easy to use to judge how a given country is doing in terms of controlling spread, I have been saying we should be looking at what places like SK are doing. Starting from around 6 weeks ago. So saying it BECAUSE of the numbers - no other reason. Nothing to do with being a 'lefty'. Nothing to do with being a 'lock down as hard as possible for as long as necessary' (never my position). Just because the simple plain numbers that count something that IS binary (positive test - yes) made such an observation obvious. One of the benefits of not spending all my time looking for 'experts' that supported a pre chosen position, chosen before there was any info to go on and trying to discredit other peoples experts that were in the other camp. Just the numbers, the simple one, the ones that are not vague like 'cause of death' is vague. Just the numbers and thinking for myself about the numbers. Nothing else.

https://bchurchill.github.io/covidtrend ... ed+Kingdom

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We’d been locked down a week before you even mentioned maybe we should look at what South Korea is doing in a vague way. The numbers are still all over the place and were even more so in March. Most of the advice from the doom merchants was lockdown, lockdown why haven’t we locked down yet? These countries have locked down why haven’t we? Like you I knew very little on virology but I guess I could cut and paste track and trace articles with the best of them. What I did know is 99% of the time these predictions are rubbish and asked we do realise the consequences of a lockdown and are we sure it’s the best way?
As I have shown Ferguson has a history of making predictions which would have panicked us into the course of action every couple of years. Sure better to be safe then sorry but when you are spending hundreds of billions of dollars and a large percentage of your GDP on the predictions of people who are never accountable I can understand why governments might like to hang on.
Ferguson is like a racing tipster who after giving you 30 bad tips asks you why you didn’t back his tipped winning horse in this race.
You are more like a punter who will try and put money on the horse when it is approaching the winning post ten furlongs clear after talking up every horse in the race.

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Re: prophets of doom

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First you claim you can not find where I had mentioned SK before. I show you.

Starting from 30th march when I first came across the chart that took the Hopkins raw numbers on positive test and displayed them in a simple way that it was easy for non experts to see how well countries were doing re control of spread and compare countries as well. I have been using this chart ever since to measure every claim I have seen since about how well or bad a given country is doing. I still use it. I recognised it was the single most useful tool for extracting understanding in simple way from the simple numbers for a lay person like me and it remains such. I posted the video explaining it and the chart on the 30th March when I first discovered it and came to the conclusion from when I first used it that.
We need (and needed) to consider being 'more South Korea'. That is advise that pretty much any countries leadership needs to take on board, Johnson included.
Was that too 'vague' for you. Your response after I posted the chart and the clear conclusion I drew from it was to start ranting on about corbyn https://kibkomnorthcyprusforum.com/view ... 29#p249829

Having realised the importance of this chart as a tool I then created an entire thread just about this chart / tool https://kibkomnorthcyprusforum.com/view ... =8&t=50877

Having presented the tool/ chart again, I state my conclusions derived from it (May 1st)
It is not the case that some countries are doing a bit better, like Singapore, and others doing a bit worse, in managing this crisis. It is the case that excluding China, for reasons of the data it gives can not be trusted or for reasons that measures it is taking can not be replicated in proper democracies, or both, there is to date only ONE COUNTRY, a modern democratic high population, high density state, that to date has succeeded in 'getting off the exponential curve' as shown in the chart linked above and that is South Korea. So far that is it. Just one country alone. South Korea.
Was that too 'vague' for you ?
Emulating South Korea is first order priority.
Too vague for you ?
Why are we [UK] still looking at, talking about and implementing measures that South Korea did NOT follow ?
One such measuring being lock down by the way. Too vague for you ?

You then start ranting on about Covid-19 death rates, even though the chart was not looking at death rates at all. It was charting positives from testing. You then expressed your view that "I have my doubts that the UK deaths for 2020 will even hit 650 thousand.". Well currently just in week 14-18 the UK has recorded well over 50K excess deaths vs 5 year average, with a yearly average total of around 600K so we already on for your prediction to be woefully low. Still lets wait and see on that one.

I then state in that thread again my belief that we should be looking at SK and what they are doping because the simple understandable data shows they are doing so much better than places like the UK, even back then , even though they were 'ahead' of us re first case.
We (the UK and here) ARE taking extraordinary measures , at huge costs not just fiscal, to try and achieve an outcome of breaking from the exponential quicker than just letting the virus run it course. Given that we are doing so and given that the best analysis I have seen to date by far of the limited data we DO have to date in terms of working out if a country is achieving that or not clearly indicates how SK (china expected) is the only country to have made significant progress in that regard, is it not sensible to focus our 'debate' , individual and national, in places like here and in the media and elsewhere, towards looking as SK, what they have done, what they have not done ?
On the 3rd April , again using the chart I point out the correlation between countries with high rates of testing and those with low rates (at that time) and how that correlates with how much they have manged to reduce new positives from doubling every 2 days. SK is one of the example countries.

You reply with "I think you can pretty much ignore the death figures as there is such a variation on how they count them."

I AGAIN point out the the chart I am using does not look at death figures at all. You again say "What I would find very interesting is total deaths compared with this time last year. " - which is what the ONS figures show, but since they started to show the wrong numbers for you, you now do not talk any more about what the weeks we know about numbers show. Now you talk about what the numbers will show in a years time.

SO this is what you claim is 'vague looks' at SK. Well the evidence shows otherwise imo. I repeatedly and specifically mentioned that SK is the country everyone should be looking at. The numbers are NOT all over the place. After 'is someone dead or not' , the nexty most simple number is 'how many people have tested positive'. You simply claim that the 'numbers are all over the place' to any number that does not fit your pre chosen side.

So having 'accused me' of not mentioning SK at all, then fallen back to claims my references were 'vague' (not true), you then go on
EnjoyingTheSun wrote:
Sat 16 May 2020 8:34 pm
Most of the advice from the doom merchants was lockdown, lockdown why haven’t we locked down yet?
As ever you reply to me about what OTHER people were doing and ignore what I was doing. I was not going 'lock down , lock down'. I was going 'look to SK'. And in any case the UK was only forced to consider such measure because before this outbreak it had NOT listened to those who were saying , we should prepare for an outbreak of a novel virus (like places like SK did). If we had of listen before the outbreak there quite possibly would have been no need to have to lock down in the way we did. You just refuse to accept this simple truth because it does not fit your belief that all warnings of future catastrophic events will be wrong and should be ignored.
EnjoyingTheSun wrote:
Sat 16 May 2020 8:34 pm
Like you I knew very little on virology but I guess I could cut and paste track and trace articles with the best of them.
But I did NOT go around posting articles from experts. That is you just projecting again. Because you were involved in a propaganda war 'of 'my expert is better than your expert' you just assume I must have been doing the same. Yet check the evidence. I was not doing that. ALl I have done is use the numbers. The simple ones. The ones that measure simple things, like if someone is dead or not. Id someone has tested positive. I did not cut and paste of ewxperts. I used the numbers and thought for myself. I judged OTHERS propaganda experts posts against the NUMBERS.
EnjoyingTheSun wrote:
Sat 16 May 2020 8:34 pm
What I did know is 99% of the time these predictions are rubbish and asked we do realise the consequences of a lockdown and are we sure it’s the best way?
Projection again. I did not make predictions. That is what you were doing and continue to do, yourself or via your cut and paste experts of choice. I used the KNOWN numbers. The simple ones. The clear cut ones that we did already have. ONS total deaths from all causes. John Hopkins counts of positives. These are NOT predictions. They are counts of what has already happened to date. My entire point is that these are what all other guesses and predictions should be measured against. A point I have been making consistently over and over for 6 weeks or so now and that you just continue to ignore. You continue to present these numbers when they do not fit what you want (but did not when they did fit) as yet more guesses and predictions from the 'take your pick' spectrum of such. But they are NOT such at all.
EnjoyingTheSun wrote:
Sat 16 May 2020 8:34 pm
As I have shown Ferguson has a history of making predictions which would ....
Here you just do it again. This is a tactic you always use to prove the result you want to reach. Find an expert that made a prediction of the future (what the temperature will on 16 May 2021) and then when they are wrong as such predictions will always be you declare - see the prediction was wrong therefore what I say must be right. Yet you do this whilst ignoring the number 'the temperature today was 37', the number that is NOT a prediction but just a record of fact.

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Re: prophets of doom

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Hilltop wrote:
Sat 16 May 2020 6:34 pm
Most of the above and, a large part of Erol's contributions (On everything) definitely fall under the banner of TLDR (To me at least).
I have never really understood why people go out of there way to post publicly 'TLDR' ? Just do it , why post you are doing it ? I guess it comes from a mistaken assumption that I care one jot if others do or do not read what I post. I do not. I post not for others benefit but for my own. It is for me a useful process that allows me to clarify and solidify what I think and why I think it. So TLDR if you want to entirely up to you but I suggest you can save even more time by bothering to go out of your way to tell me and everyone else that you TLDR.

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Re: prophets of doom

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erol wrote:
Sat 16 May 2020 9:42 pm
.... I post not for others benefit but for my own. It is for me a useful process that allows me to clarify and solidify what I think and why I think it....
Oops!! :lol:

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jofra wrote:
Sat 16 May 2020 9:58 pm
erol wrote:
Sat 16 May 2020 9:42 pm
.... I post not for others benefit but for my own. It is for me a useful process that allows me to clarify and solidify what I think and why I think it....
Oops!! :lol:
?

You think there is some contradiction or hypocrisy in 'solidify' in the above perhaps ? If so you have not understood what I mean, just misinterpreted it. Or were you trying to convey something else with your opps lol post perhaps ?

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No :lol: ; rather that in the first portion (of my quote) you have (IMHO) set yourself up/left yourself wide open for a "come-back", one totally unrelated to content matter and/or personal cogitations and the bases (pl) thereof.... :wink:

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Erol I wont be quoting from your post because that then doubles the length of your lengthy post and on it goes. If you want to mark me down as avoiding one of your 9000 points then I'll live with it.

So you didn't champion mass testing and the post of yours I put up was taken out of context? What you meant was targeted testing? "I want that one that's what I meant the one that's in the lead"

You are like the Bible Code, if you write enough words you can word search a correct prediction for every event in history. In your long and winding posts you never commit to everything you just throw up lots and lots of theories and then 3 months time you can selectively quote the bit that suits the narrative best. Like I say you could be the next Jeremy Corbyn. Unfortunately in the real world in a crisis like this you have to commit to a course and not sit around for 6 months analyzing it. If they take 2 days the press and others are throwing up the people are dying line.


Let's be honest at the end of March, a week into the lockdown btw, we had already committed, you were fumbling around trying to figure out what numbers were feasible along with everyone else. No one knew what was accurate and what wasn't, for the most part I still don't think we do. Different countries tried different options or variations of.

Britain wasn't reacting that quickly and the media were putting the pressure on. Ferguson and his pals were making their usual predictions, a fact you continue to ignore. The thread is headed prophets of doom which I thought might cover my assertation of the constant crying wolf by a selection of our more publicity hungry/greedy scientists but obviously not we will examine commas and fly "ooops" from pepper in your usual way. But it is the point, when do we commit to these warnings? Every time? None of the time?

So anyhow we were bounced into locking down at least too early if they should at all IMO. True I never suggested targeted testing/tracking and other options because I knew about as much about what was possible as you and 99% of the others on viruses, roughly nothing.
But herd immunity did seem ultimately the only feasible long term solution while we produced a vaccine whereas lockdown seemed to be moving a problem. It had merit if the NHS was overwhelmed but we jumped the gun.
I clearly said this probably was an over reaction and would cost us the economy, you would have given us a post measuring the length of Paradise Lost which wouldn't have stated an opinion either way. Well we should look at this or that and on the other hand not forgetting.......

South Korea seems to be winning the battle. In football terms they are 4-0 up but we are only 25 minutes in there is a long way to go but the fact that they haven't locked down is a big help for the future. You might have committed too early Erol but I'm sure with some judicious cutting and pasting that you have left yourself a back door out of the SK camp.

But comparing SK with the UK is like apples and oranges, SKs are a very obedient disciplined population whereas UK people have been fed a diet of what their rights are although not what self responsibility is for 30 years. The SK people self isolated themselves before the government even thought of suggesting it. The UK couldn't even organise an hour for NHS workers to shop on their own.
The tracking? These are things that would never happen in the very liberal UK now.

Also they will admit themselves they were very lucky they had only just finished a drill/exercise on a coronavirus outbreak so they had all their ducks in a row so to speak.
That said I am still dubious of their numbers, the positives rate seems too low without an explanation that makes sense. If you could come up with one in less than 300 pages that would be helpful.

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Re: prophets of doom

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Hilltop wrote:
Sat 16 May 2020 6:34 pm
Most of the above and, a large part of Erol's contributions (On everything) definitely fall under the banner of TLDR (To me at least).

Lighten up folks, learn to precis your thoughts and direct your arguments! This is a chat group not the Royal Society!
It's impossible. He will drag you into the weeds with you.
I personally favour a short comment but Erol will take that comment analyse it word by word and then write 300 words on each word.
You then try to reply while staying on your point at which he will say you avoided that question about why you used a semi colon instead of a colon. Trying to pin him to a definitive statement or opinion is like trying to nail a jelly to a wall.
Personally I'd hire him to write the small print in the conditions that nullifies your life insurance in a heart beat if I was in that game.

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EnjoyingTheSun wrote:
Sun 17 May 2020 9:39 am
Erol I wont be quoting from your post because that then doubles the length of your lengthy post and on it goes. If you want to mark me down as avoiding one of your 9000 points then I'll live with it.
It is not possible to have discussion like these in these ways without all parties picking and choosing what they addresses and what they do not. One of us has a track record of accusing the other of doing that, of 'swerving' and the like, with high frequency and one of us with low to near zero frequency.
EnjoyingTheSun wrote:
Sun 17 May 2020 9:39 am
So you didn't champion mass testing and the post of yours I put up was taken out of context? What you meant was targeted testing? "I want that one that's what I meant the one that's in the lead"
I have consistently championed people starting with the fact numbers we have (what the temperature was yesterday) and not starting with the guess numbers (what the temperature might be in 6 months time) to think for themselves. When I did that it was clear to me that more testing was better than less testing. That when testing capacity is limited, testing the right people is better than testing the wrong people. That testing as a means to identify, quarantine and then track and trace and start all over again with testing was a means of controlling spread. Countries that did these things early and well and consistently. got better outcomes than those that did not. As measured bu the fact numbers we had.
EnjoyingTheSun wrote:
Sun 17 May 2020 9:39 am
You are like the Bible Code, if you write enough words you can word search a correct prediction for every event in history. In your long and winding posts you never commit to everything you just throw up lots and lots of theories and then 3 months time you can selectively quote the bit that suits the narrative best. Like I say you could be the next Jeremy Corbyn. Unfortunately in the real world in a crisis like this you have to commit to a course and not sit around for 6 months analyzing it. If they take 2 days the press and others are throwing up the people are dying line.
I have been totally and absolutely consistent that we should recognise the difference been fact numbers recording unarguable things that have happened (someone has died, someone has tested positive) and 'guess' numbers that either estimate what has already happened but that are disputable (someone died OF covid, not just with it) or guess numbers about things that can not be know yet , like R numbers, mortality rates for covid-19 specifically, % of populations that has had it or will have had it by x point in time or what the cost of lock dopwn will be in terms of shortening of lives.
EnjoyingTheSun wrote:
Sun 17 May 2020 9:39 am
Let's be honest at the end of March, a week into the lockdown btw, we had already committed, you were fumbling around trying to figure out what numbers were feasible along with everyone else. No one knew what was accurate and what wasn't, for the most part I still don't think we do. Different countries tried different options or variations of.
I knew and know absolutely that things like 'total deaths from all causes' as recorded by the ONS stats were recording something that could not be argued with - someone is either dead or not. I knew and know that the people and systems that collect and publish these numbers have been in place for decades. Just I as know that the numbers published by the same people that measure infinitely disputable things like 'person died of covd-19) are collected using people and systems that have only been put in place in the last 6 weeks all whilst in the middle of a pandemic. I have consistently made this point over and over again.

For those who's objective is to simply seek out and amplify propaganda that supports the 'side' they pre chose , ambiguity over numbers and the material difference in different kinds of numbers is required and necessary. They need such things to confused and jumbled in order to meet their objective.

For those seeking the best possible understanding they can get this difference between different kinds of numbers is vital. A point have been making over and over and over for 6 weeks now.

I will entertain any discussion that is within the frame work of starting first with what we know, from the simplest hardest least ambiguous numbers that record what has already happened and works out from there. I have little interest in discussing speculative ambiguous predictive 'my expert is better than your expert' numbers that more often than not can NOT be know by anyone yet that ignore the know simple unambiguous numbers entirely, or seek top present the guess one of greater or equal weight.
EnjoyingTheSun wrote:
Sun 17 May 2020 9:39 am
Britain wasn't reacting that quickly and the media were putting the pressure on. Ferguson and his pals were making their usual predictions, a fact you continue to ignore. The thread is headed prophets of doom which I thought might cover my assertation of the constant crying wolf by a selection of our more publicity hungry/greedy scientists but obviously not we will examine commas and fly "ooops" from pepper in your usual way. But it is the point, when do we commit to these warnings? Every time? None of the time?
The reason the UK made decisions based on speculative guess numbers like Ferguson's was BECAUSE it had not heeded the doom mongers BEFORE we were already in the middle of a pandemic. Yes that is something learnt with hindsight but it does not make the truth of it any less true. That is the single overriding point I sought to make with this thread titled as it was. If we had listend to doom mongers BEFORE the outbreak, instead of just ignoring them on the basis they are always wrong, which I understand to be your 'macro' position long before this outbreak, then we would not have had to panic reacted to them at all. We would have already had a plan in place. We would have already understood with a situation like this , the exponential way things like this MIGHT spread mean that delay in acting does not lead to liner negative outcome, it leads to exponential negative outcomes. We would have understood that when something like this starts we will not know and can not know how bad it will turn out to be so it is sensible in the earliest stages to treat it as if it could be the worst such outbreak in the last 50 years, 100 years, ever because even if that is a 1 in million chance, the early time and the exponential damage done by wasting that time will lead to catastrophic consequence if you take the view that its unlikely to be a once in 100 year event so best to wait and see. SK had such a plan and mentality in place. It had listened to the doom mongers BEFORE this outbreak happened. It was prepared and and had a plan in place that would ensure it could and would act swiftly in the most vital early stages, in case the virus turned out to be bad. That is why it's outcomes to date are 100 times less than the UK's, in terms of shorten lives AND in terms of damage to the economy. We should learn and recognise this reality.

I understand that you want to limit talk of 'listening to doom mongers' to the specific examples of UK in the middle of the pandemic itself panic knee jerk reacting to one specific prediction of doom, whilst also claiming it as a generic truth that its bad to listen to doom mongers and whilst ignoring the reality that the UK's outcome to date are 100 times worse than countries that listened to doom monger BEFORE the outbreak. I understand why you want to do this, place such limits on your chosen example and use the general claimed principle in defence of your pre chosen position that lock down will definitely shorten more lives than it it will lengthen, whilst ignoring it in the wider context. I just have little interests in doing that along with you.
EnjoyingTheSun wrote:
Sun 17 May 2020 9:39 am
So anyhow we were bounced into locking down at least too early if they should at all IMO. True I never suggested targeted testing/tracking and other options because I knew about as much about what was possible as you and 99% of the others on viruses, roughly nothing.
If we are seeking to learn lessons from this, from what is already know and backed up by the simple hard numbers we already have, then it should be clear that having a plan in place before such outbreaks and acting swiftly at the start of such outbreaks, before we can know how bad they may turn out to be, leads to better outcomes. Orders of magnitude better outcomes on the data we have so far.
EnjoyingTheSun wrote:
Sun 17 May 2020 9:39 am
But herd immunity did seem ultimately the only feasible long term solution while we produced a vaccine whereas lockdown seemed to be moving a problem. It had merit if the NHS was overwhelmed but we jumped the gun. I clearly said this probably was an over reaction and would cost us the economy, you would have given us a post measuring the length of Paradise Lost which wouldn't have stated an opinion either way. Well we should look at this or that and on the other hand not forgetting.......
What we know to date is South Korea, with a population of 50 odd million people, has recorded 11,050 positive tests (against total test of 3/4 million ish) and is assigning 262 deaths to covid-19 to date with no lock down. There is no reason to believe that if there is a second winter wave or a 3rd or 4th that it will not be able to maintain such good outcomes. Nor is there any reason to believe that people who catch covid-19 will have less chance of dying from it because in the time between wave 1 and wave 2 , treatment has got better and more effective. Sweden with a population of 11 million has to date recorded 29,677 positive tests and assigned 3.674 deaths to covid-19. Maybe it has built up some herd immunity that mean the numbers in any subsequent waves will be less, considerably less for new infections and for those deemed to have died from covid-19. Even if it records no deaths in a 2nd wave because of herd immunity and SK records another 260 or even 500, SK will still be far far ahead of Sweden in terms of outcomes, for shortened life and no different from them in terms of damage to the economy. Yet you still think 'herd immunity' is the only the only feasible long term solution while we produced a vaccine ? Such a view does not bear scrutiny if you only use the known numbers of things that have already happened about things that are unambiguous (number of positives) and total deaths to date from all causes.

In the case of the UK yes one reason to lock down is to avoid health systems getting overloaded. It is not the only possible reason to use such a blunt tool as a reaction to not having been prepared and not having acted swiftly enough in the most crucial early stages of such an out break where very days's delay leads to exponentially bad outcomes not linear ones. Lock down can be used as a tool to try and regain lost control. This is what happened in SK. They lost control despite their preparation and swift action because of the 'church' super spreader incident. What hey did was suspend track and trace and locked down the affected area and ONLY that area until they were able to get back control and remove the lock down and move back to the test, track and trace means of control. Potentially a UK wide temporary lock down could be used to buy time to put in place test, track and trace systems and get numbers down so that lock down can be removed. region by region as the better way of handling this going forward. It could be used basically to try and make up for the lack of preparation before the outbreak and the delay in action once it started as a route to getting to what should have been done and that we now know is effective. I see little sign of it being used to this end myself and much that it was a knee jerk reaction by a desperate government that was not prepared and did not act quickly enough in the most crucial early stages of the outbreak.

Even leaving aside overloading health systems, leaving aside attempts to regain control lost by lack of preparation and swift action when it was most vital, there are STILL potential benefits from lock down' that have to be put in to the 'pros and cons' judgement. Someone who contracted covid-19 in the UK in the middle of march had more chance of it being fatal to them than the same person catching it today simply because we have got better at treating it. That is not an argument that therefore the UK's knee jerk lock down reaction caused because they were not prepared and because they did not act swiftly when it mattered most is definitely net positive. It is just saying if you are going to make judgements on net positive or not, that is one factor that needs to be added in to the equation, not just ignored entirely.
EnjoyingTheSun wrote:
Sun 17 May 2020 9:39 am
South Korea seems to be winning the battle. In football terms they are 4-0 up but we are only 25 minutes in there is a long way to go but the fact that they haven't locked down is a big help for the future. You might have committed too early Erol but I'm sure with some judicious cutting and pasting that you have left yourself a back door out of the SK camp.
SK are 4 nil up at 24 minutes in. Do we think 'maybe we should revise out strategy' going forward or just stick with what we have been doing for the first 25 mins and ignore what SK have been doing. We ARE 25 minutes in. Things we do or do not do now can affect the outcomes. Nothing we do once the match is over will change the result of the match.
EnjoyingTheSun wrote:
Sun 17 May 2020 9:39 am
But comparing SK with the UK is like apples and oranges, SKs are a very obedient disciplined population whereas UK people have been fed a diet of what their rights are although not what self responsibility is for 30 years. The SK people self isolated themselves before the government even thought of suggesting it. The UK couldn't even organise an hour for NHS workers to shop on their own. The tracking? These are things that would never happen in the very liberal UK now.
This imo is taking something that is real , cultural differences, and assigning it weight out of all reasonable proportion. There also seem glaring contradictions in your characterisations above as well.

The fact is peoples right TO move HAVE already been severely restricted. To date largely with the acceptance and consent of overwhelming majority of the UK public in the many opinion polls on the matter are to be believed. The idea that if you explain to the UK public that by temporarily suspending their right to privacy re where you have been in the last couple of weeks it means there will be no need to suspend your right TO move and we can control the virus spread , have better outcomes re numbers of peoples who's lives are shorten by this virus and not have to shut down whole sectors of the economy across the whole UK , they would not give majority consent for such is for the birds imo.
EnjoyingTheSun wrote:
Sun 17 May 2020 9:39 am
That said I am still dubious of their numbers, the positives rate seems too low without an explanation that makes sense. If you could come up with one in less than 300 pages that would be helpful.
It is easy to just doubt any number that does not fit with what you pre chose was the case.

SK numbers are easy to explain. If as soon as the outbreak starts you are quickly identifying people who are infected, quarantining them until they are no longer infectious, tracking and tracing those who they have been in contact with whilst they were infection and testing them and rinsing and repeating you can control and contain the virus. This is what SK did and is doing and will keep doing as long as necessary , because it was prepared and moved swiftly and the results of doing such are seen in the numbers. This what so many other places did not do, because they were not prepared and seem to have no plans to try and do if possible going forward and you can see the results of that in the numbers.
Last edited by erol on Sun 17 May 2020 3:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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EnjoyingTheSun wrote:
Sun 17 May 2020 9:44 am
Hilltop wrote:
Sat 16 May 2020 6:34 pm
Most of the above and, a large part of Erol's contributions (On everything) definitely fall under the banner of TLDR (To me at least).

Lighten up folks, learn to precis your thoughts and direct your arguments! This is a chat group not the Royal Society!
It's impossible. He will drag you into the weeds with you.
I personally favour a short comment but Erol will take that comment analyse it word by word and then write 300 words on each word.
You then try to reply while staying on your point at which he will say you avoided that question about why you used a semi colon instead of a colon. Trying to pin him to a definitive statement or opinion is like trying to nail a jelly to a wall.
Personally I'd hire him to write the small print in the conditions that nullifies your life insurance in a heart beat if I was in that game.
Look in the mirror first before looking at others. Short enough for you ?

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Yeah your 100% right Erol or with that many words and some careful editing you certainly will be!
UK and US bad everywhere else good

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EnjoyingTheSun wrote:
Sun 17 May 2020 4:30 pm
Yeah your 100% right Erol or with that many words and some careful editing you certainly will be!
UK and US bad everywhere else good
Look at the numbers. The simple hard fact numbers. Almost everywhere bad and a few exceptions good. That is what they show. US and UK some of the worst to date and UK worse than US per head of pop. If you do not like the numbers just ignore them if you like. I will not. I say let's learn from what we know as fact so far. It is obvious the more prepared a country was, the quicker it acted in the most crucial early stages from first known case, the better its outcomes today in terms of lifespans and economic consequence. I know these facts do not suit the narrative you chose before there were any numbers to go on but they remain facts to date.

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100% right Erol, America, UK and Israel bad rest of world good.

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EnjoyingTheSun wrote:
Mon 18 May 2020 6:23 am
100% right Erol, America, UK and Israel bad rest of world good.
This is just sheer nonsense. It is the numbers that show which countries have done well in response to this outbreak and which have not. Israel is in the group that has done well. UK and US are not. That is what the numbers show. Just because you can not think outside of black and white binary divisions, left or right, pro america / Israel, anti america / Israel and the like, that does not mean that is how the universe works or that I can only think or see the world in those terms.

https://bchurchill.github.io/covidtrend ... ed+Kingdom

The UK and US positions on that graph show that the number of new cases in those countries right now are doubling every 45 days or so. Much better than the every 2 days that all countries showed initially but orders of magnitude worse than Israel that is currently at the point on the chart that would relate to a doubling every 565 days.

We should not worry so much about listening to prophets of doom imo. We should worry more about listening to people who think that every issue in the world is solved by dividing the world in to binary opposed groups where everyone is either 100% in one group or 100% in the other and nothing in between can or does exist. imo.

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Your 100% right Erol we should all listen totally to Neil Ferguson as one of these days he might get within 10% of a prediction and while we have the money tree better to spend £500 billion than think he is full of peer reviewed BS

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EnjoyingTheSun wrote:
Mon 18 May 2020 2:17 pm
Your 100% right Erol we should all listen totally to Neil Ferguson as one of these days he might get within 10% of a prediction and while we have the money tree better to spend £500 billion than think he is full of peer reviewed BS
If we had been better prepared and acted swifter we would not have had to listen to him at all and the cost , money tree sourced or otherwise, would be around 100 times less than it is now, in money and shortened lives. But yeah you keep banging on about him and ignoring this if you like.

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Must be wonderful to know what scientific advisors are right with hindsight.
Hopefully South Korea’s numbers are all on the level or there isn’t a massive spike I’d hate for you to have to change horses and convince us that if we solve the easy anagram in one of your posts from last year that you always said Mauritius was the way to go.

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EnjoyingTheSun wrote:
Mon 18 May 2020 3:09 pm
Must be wonderful to know what scientific advisors are right with hindsight.
Hopefully South Korea’s numbers are all on the level or there isn’t a massive spike I’d hate for you to have to change horses and convince us that if we solve the easy anagram in one of your posts from last year that you always said Mauritius was the way to go.
There is a difference in knowing that there will be continued novel virus outbreaks at some point in the future of varying degrees of severity and preparing for that so when one starts you can act swiftly in the earliest stages before you can know how bad it might end up being.

And predicting a month in, in the middle of an ongoing crisis that has already past the point where swift action can have the most benefit what the exact death toll of that specific novel virus will be under different scenarios.

So yeah make out all predictions are the same if you like, to try and support your general theory that we should never listen to doom mongers (other than those that say lock down will lead to mass starvation of course) if you like. The reality remains if we had of prepared better for something that we knew would happen sooner or later to some degree of severity or other and acted swifter when it first started even though at that stage we could not know its severity with any precision, then there would have been no need for the second doom monger prediction leading to knee jerk reactions from the government.

I do not doubt SK numbers. One of the key differences between their response and so many other places, from the very earliest stage, has been the level of transparency there about what is occurring where and when and to what degree. I go where the fact numbers we do have lead. Right now they show that SK has achieved outcomes 2 orders of magnitude better than the UK has. If at some later date the numbers show they achieved the same as the UK I will accept them, because I follow the numbers. What I do not do is chose my side and then when the fact numbers do not show what I want them to show, just say 'yet', with yet being a constantly movable goal post as determined by the need of the pre chosen side.

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I gave up on looking at numbers, statistics from other countries weeks ago. I also stopped taking any notice of comparisons between countries for the simple reason I have no confidence that every country was reporting in the same way. Plus there were other factors that could be included with density of population being just one of many. Comparing countries was beginning to feel a bit like a Eurovision Song Contest to see who scored the highest.

My concentration has been on the U.K. information, actions and ongoing work being done both on the medical and economic fronts. Yes mistakes have been made, but overall I cannot really see how any government in the same situation could have done significantly better. Hindsight is wonderful but the U.K. government had to go with the information available at the time. Personally I am more than happy with the scientific and medical advice being given.

As the next two years march on, we will have a clearer picture of what went right/wrong and maybe my current thoughts will change but would need to see strong evidence. Currently the water is far to muddy to see anything clearly.
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There is no doubt that the UK has made mistakes. I particularly can’t see the joined up thinking of enforcing a pretty vigorous lockdown and keeping your airports open to let 100,000 fresh people in.
But then out of the jumble of figures that were coming in and variety of methods of counting and the variety of advice I didn’t have the hindsight to know exactly what figures or what advice was right but hindsight is always 20/20

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DEATH BETTER THAN POLITICS
For the first time since the coronavirus pandemic began, health officials will come together (virtually) next week at the World Health Assembly to decide how the world should tackle the crisis.

But one of the places that's been most successful at protecting its people from the disease will not be invited to this meeting of the decision-making body of the World Health Organization (WHO).

Taiwan has been applauded internationally for quickly and effectively stemming the spread of the virus, and says it should have a platform to share its experiences with the world.

But China - which says Taiwan is part of its territory - has blocked Taiwan's attendance since 2016.

In recent weeks, the US, EU, Japan and several other nations have backed Taiwan's bid to attend the meeting on 18 May as an observer.

China - facing international criticism for both being the source of the pandemic and missteps in the early days of the spread - has hit back with zeal.

The Taiwan dispute is long-running, but Shelley Rigger, professor of political science at Davidson College and long-time Taiwan researcher, says there may now be "diminished patience" from some countries with an objection from China which "feels very abstract and ideological in a moment of, you know, global catastrophe".

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Keithcaley
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Re: prophets of doom

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...one of the places that's been most successful at protecting its people from the disease will not be invited to this meeting of the decision-making body of the World Health Organization (WHO).
Of course there is another place that will not be represented - the TRNC!

I wrote to the BBC, pointing out that whilst they had mentioned Taiwan, they had neglected to include TRNC as being excluded for 'Political Reasons',

You can email your comments to the BBC here or send a comment via the link on their website here.

They do mention that they have less staff available than normal, so don't hold your breath! :)

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Re: prophets of doom

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PoshinDevon wrote:
Mon 18 May 2020 5:55 pm
I gave up on looking at numbers, statistics from other countries weeks ago. I also stopped taking any notice of comparisons between countries for the simple reason I have no confidence that every country was reporting in the same way. Plus there were other factors that could be included with density of population being just one of many.
Which is why I stick to numbers that were recording the past (what temp was yesterday) and not future and that were measuring something definitive - did a test record a positive result or not and not something that is variable and an opinion (cause of death). You think different countries count if a test gives a positive result or not differently ? Count how many people died from any cause in a time period differently ?
PoshinDevon wrote:
Mon 18 May 2020 5:55 pm
but overall I cannot really see how any government in the same situation could have done significantly better.
So you do not think that had the UK government, back when the number of positive cases detected there was still under 100, implemented an effective quarantine, track and trace policy for every positive discovered, that would have made no real difference ? You think if the PM had in the crucial early stages not boasted to the press as to how he was still shaking hands with all an sundry including in hospitals that were treating covid-19 patients this would have made no difference ?

So first you decide not to look at numbers and comparisons with other countries. Then you decide that no government could have made a difference to how quickly and far the virus spread ? Seems weird to me.

UK - population 68 million. Total tests done to date approx 1 million. Positives found 247,709
SK - population 51 million. Total test done to date approx 3/4 million. Positives found 11,078

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Erol,

I have already given my reasons for not comparing countries figures regarding the reporting of the impact of Covid 19. I simply do not believe that each and every country is reporting true figures in exactly the same way. So it’s like comparing apples with potatoes. In fact the difference between countries in gathering and presenting the information has been highlighted a number of times by the medical and scientific experts over the last few weeks.

One thing I may have not made clear is that I was not comparing other countries governments or administrations actions with those of the U.K. What I was trying to say that I do not believe any UK government party would have done things significantly differently.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing and in a couple of years we may get a clearer picture of who “got it right” and who “ got it wrong”.

I have already said that the U.K. has undoubtably made mistakes. As you know the U.K. rightly or wrongly had no effective track and trace mechanism in place so trying to argue that we should have started it 8 weeks ago is irrelevant. The systems and testing facilities were not there. As for the PM boasting about shaking hands with everyone in hospital, sorry I must have missed that. Overall given the start point of approximately 8 weeks ago I do think that the U.K. government on the advice of the scientific and medical experts plus the measures implemented by the chancellor have done a good job.

So for me comparing stats between countries is a pretty pointless exercise at the moment.
Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass,it's about learning to dance in the rain

Peterborough Utd -The Posh

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erol wrote:
Tue 19 May 2020 6:32 am

UK - population 68 million. Total tests done to date approx 1 million. Positives found 247,709
SK - population 51 million. Total test done to date approx 3/4 million. Positives found 11,078
So the numbers tell me that SK have tested 25% less people than the UK even though they started testing before us. Both countries have tested less than 1.5% of the population even if all those tests were different people.
Assuming both countries are concentrating on only testing people who are showing symptoms or key workers eg pretty much the same demographic then 1in 4 of those that the UK tested gave a positive reading whereas For SK it was 1 in 68 which makes me suspicious.

Conclusions;

1) The virus is naturally racist against non orientals
2) The virus has been developed to infect non orientals
3) Eating your dog may give immunity :)
4) There is something that doesn’t quite add up with these numbers unless SK has developed herd immunity and the number of deaths developing it was low or under reported or ours have been exaggerated of course.

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Re: prophets of doom

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PoshinDevon wrote:
Tue 19 May 2020 7:57 am
Erol,

I have already given my reasons for not comparing countries figures regarding the reporting of the impact of Covid 19. I simply do not believe that each and every country is reporting true figures in exactly the same way. So it’s like comparing apples with potatoes. In fact the difference between countries in gathering and presenting the information has been highlighted a number of times by the medical and scientific experts over the last few weeks.
I can not agree with this. How different countries count if someone died of covid-19 or not - sure massive difference making comparisons useless. How they count if someone is dead or not from any cause is the same in every country in the world. Sure some may LIE but that is a different issue. I never look at China's numbers because there is doubt about lying. I do not believe SK or Sweden or most countries lie about how many people have died from any cause in a given time period. Why is this fundamental difference seemingly so hard to get some people to accept ? It is just a reality is it not ? Plain and obvious is it not ?
PoshinDevon wrote:
Tue 19 May 2020 7:57 am
What I was trying to say that I do not believe any UK government party would have done things significantly differently.
I do not disagree with this one iota. I am not here trying to bash the Tory party because they happened to have been in power when this kicked off. I am trying to seek clarity and understanding in the mass of conflicting numbers and experts and media hype and sensationalism and partisan bias of pre chosen positions. I am not trying to bash the Tory party specifically but I think some are seeking to specifically defend them and I have no interest in such games right now as we are in the middle of all this. I just want to get the best understanding and insight I can from what we already know as fact. If that leads to conclusions that are good or bad for the Tory party is irrelevant to me right now. I do not think any country in Europe did well. The number of countries that did well are a tiny minority of countries. Of those that did well there is NO correlation between if they had a leftist' or 'rightist' government, or if they used lock down or not, for that matter. There IS a correlation between those that did well and how prepared they were before it started and how quickly they reacted once it started. We can know this with a massive degree of certainty right now. For me accepting this truth is just to accept reality.
PoshinDevon wrote:
Tue 19 May 2020 7:57 am
Hindsight is a wonderful thing and in a couple of years we may get a clearer picture of who “got it right” and who “ got it wrong”.
Decisions are being made today and tomorrow and next week and these decisions have huge impacts on people's lives. Waiting for hindsight is not a luxury we have. In order to make the best decisions now, today, tomorrow and next week is it not sensible to look to places that have to date already done better than we are doing, based on the fact numbers that ARE comparable, like how many excess deaths different places have already seen and based on how much of their economies they have closed or not to inform the decision we have to make ?
PoshinDevon wrote:
Tue 19 May 2020 7:57 am
Overall given the start point of approximately 8 weeks ago I do think that the U.K. government on the advice of the scientific and medical experts plus the measures implemented by the chancellor have done a good job.
Based on what ? How can you decide if anyone has done a good job if you are not measuring outcomes ? Do I judge if the builder I used top put a new roof is doing a good job based on how expert his advise sounds or how good his 'budget' looks or do I decide based on how much water comes through the roof when it rains ?
PoshinDevon wrote:
Tue 19 May 2020 7:57 am
So for me comparing stats between countries is a pretty pointless exercise at the moment.
With all due respect for me this is just stupid. We have to try and decide the best route for the UK but we should not look at places other than the UK that we know have had better outcomes by massive degrees to see if there is anything we can learn from them, because they might count if someone test positive or not differently to us or if someone is dead or not differently to us ?

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Re: prophets of doom

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EnjoyingTheSun wrote:
Tue 19 May 2020 10:30 am
erol wrote:
Tue 19 May 2020 6:32 am

UK - population 68 million. Total tests done to date approx 1 million. Positives found 247,709
SK - population 51 million. Total test done to date approx 3/4 million. Positives found 11,078
So the numbers tell me that SK have tested 25% less people than the UK even though they started testing before us. Both countries have tested less than 1.5% of the population even if all those tests were different people.
Assuming both countries are concentrating on only testing people who are showing symptoms or key workers eg pretty much the same demographic then 1in 4 of those that the UK tested gave a positive reading whereas For SK it was 1 in 68 which makes me suspicious.

Conclusions;

1) The virus is naturally racist against non orientals
2) The virus has been developed to infect non orientals
3) Eating your dog may give immunity :)
4) There is something that doesn’t quite add up with these numbers unless SK has developed herd immunity and the number of deaths developing it was low or under reported or ours have been exaggerated of course.
Just yet more non sense as far as I am concerned.

It does not matter in terms of controlling the spread of this virus how many people you test if the results come after that person has past the peak of their infectiousness and you make no effort to work out who they then came in to contact with so they can be tested and if positive track who they etc etc etc.If you do nothing when tests comes back positive then of course testing is next to useless no matter how many you do.

It does matter if you test people and get the result back before they have passed their peak of infectiousness and you then effectively quarantine them AND track trace those they came in contact with. That is HOW you can control the spread. We KNOW that it is possible to do this because it has been done and continues to be done in places like SK.

How possible it is to do it is directly related to how quickly you react. From when the virus first starts to spread 10% delay results in 90% worse outcomes because initial spread is exponential.

All of this is plain common sense, that you just ignore totally ETS in order to come up with the conclusions that you wanted in the first place. That is not 'analysis' it is just confirmation bias.

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Re: prophets of doom

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So basically when you find that special 1 in 68 that have symptoms and somehow tested positive and test the others they were in contact with in your targeted way you find only 1 in 68 of those got infected too?
I’m ordering my sweet and sour Dalmatian as I write this.

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Re: prophets of doom

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Or of course you could decide to go down the herd immunity route knowing it is the only sensible route to take and be a bit creative with your accounting so as not to panic the population. Not having a totally free press helps in this which we can have a go at in the future when South Korea goes back into the UK, America, Israel bad box.

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