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The Maddening Mystery of Imperial’s Invulnerable Reputation Despite its Dire Record of Failed Model Predictions

by Will Jones
7 May 2021 11:38 PM

Phillip W. Magness in AIER has crunched the numbers and shown how poor Imperial College’s modelling has been at predicting the outcomes of the COVID-19 pandemic under different policy responses in every country in the world (well, 189 of them). Yet for some unexplained reason Neil Ferguson and the rest of the Imperial team remain respected authorities on epidemic modelling and management. Magness writes:

COVID-19 has produced no shortage of doomsaying prophets whose prognostications completely failed at future delivery, and yet in the eyes of the scientific community their credibility remains peculiarly intact.

No greater example exists than the epidemiology modelling team at Imperial College-London (ICL), led by the physicist Neil Ferguson. As I’ve documented at length, the ICL modelers played a direct and primary role in selling the concept of lockdowns to the world. The governments of the United States and United Kingdom explicitly credited Ferguson’s forecasts on March 16th, 2020 with the decision to embrace the once-unthinkable response of ordering their populations to shelter in place.

Ferguson openly boasted of his team’s role in these decisions in a December 2020 interview, and continues to implausibly claim credit for saving millions of lives despite the deficit of empirical evidence that his policies delivered on their promises. Quite the opposite – the worst outcomes in terms of Covid deaths per capita are almost entirely in countries that leaned heavily on lockdowns and related nonpharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) in their unsuccessful bid to turn the pandemic’s tide.

Assessed looking backward from the one-year mark, ICL’s modelling exercises performed disastrously. They not only failed to accurately forecast the course of the pandemic in the US and UK – they also failed to anticipate COVID-19’s course in almost every country in the world, irrespective of the policy responses taken.

Time and time again, the Ferguson team’s models dramatically overstated the death toll of the disease, posting the worst performance record of any major epidemiology model.

Magness has put together a table of all the countries with the predictions ICL made for them and their actual outcomes. The results should be fatal for the reputation of anyone whose job it is to make accurate predictions of the future course of events. But not ICL it seems, whose credibility appears to be invulnerable despite repeated and consistent failure. Magness wonders why.

Why is Ferguson, who has a long history of absurdly exaggerated modeling predictions, still viewed as a leading authority on pandemic forecasting? And why is the ICL team still advising governments around the world on how to deal with COVID-19 through its flawed modeling approach? In March 2020 ICL sold its credibility for future delivery. That future has arrived, and the results are not pretty.

Worth reading in full.

Tags: AIERImperial CollegeModellingNeil Ferguson

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28 Comments
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Hugh
Hugh
2 years ago

At what date did it become clear that children were being hospitalised in New Zealand as a result of reduced immunity linked to “saint” Jacinda’s vicious lockdowns? Any major media organisations covering general news, such as the Times muppets, who failed to pursue this story and demand an end to such restrictions that may have been putting children’s health at risk (though surely it was always clear that this shambles was harming children?) should certainly be considered at least partly responsible for the deaths of these children through their neglecting to prominently cover this issue. Bring back the Birkenhead drill!

Last edited 2 years ago by Hugh
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JohnK
JohnK
2 years ago

Dr. Stephen Griffin, an infectious disease specialist ….. Perhaps he should be sacked, if he believes in junk like that. “Immune debt” looks like a new phrase – perhaps a candidate for a dictionary? “Immune deficit” looks quite similar, or in effect, another synonym.

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Hugh
Hugh
2 years ago
Reply to  JohnK

Masking is a filthy habit and terrible for the environment (and mental well-being, and teeth, and…). Would I be going too far to suggest that Stephen should be in prison – or the nut house?

I remember how angry I was on hearing from one of the lads at our anti-lockdown prayer group about how upset one of his children was about being asked to mask at school. People like Stephen harm children too.

Last edited 2 years ago by Hugh
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WyrdWoman
WyrdWoman
2 years ago
Reply to  JohnK

Griffin – member of Independent SAGE and the All Party Parliamentary Group on Coronavirus. Probably got ‘The Narrative’ tattooed through to his bone marrow.
https://medicinehealth.leeds.ac.uk/medicine/staff/384/dr-stephen-griffin

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Dr G
Dr G
2 years ago
Reply to  JohnK

Over the last 3 years, I have concluded that an average farmer or tradie (independent of thought, in touch with reality, unadulterated by “groupthink”) has a significantly greater understanding of Covid “science” than probably 90% of doctors. A medical degree only guarantees an inability to think, coupled with an adherence to commands from the medical elite. A specialist degree generally galvanizes this thought process.

34
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jsampson45
jsampson45
2 years ago
Reply to  Dr G

Are you a real doctor?

0
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Free Lemming
Free Lemming
2 years ago

Mrs Lemming works in a GP surgery and she’s seeing a ridiculous number of frightened parents demanding antibiotics for their child who has a sore throat. So, a weakened immune system, brought about by lack of natural exposure to germs and viruses, is being treated by weakening the immune system further by mass prescription of antibiotics. Just a thought.

95
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Sforzesca
Sforzesca
2 years ago
Reply to  Free Lemming

Absolutely correct.
The sad thing is that this has been known for a long long time.
Sir Macfarlane Burnet, immunologist/virologist and Nobel prize winner , “Natural History of Infectious Disease”. 1951.
Basically, if the equilibrium between mankind/virus and bacteria is upset (ie quarantine of the healthy, social distancing, mass vaccinations with a dodgy none sterilising jab) don’t be surprised at the horrendous consequences.
He should be compulsory reading for all medics and wannabe “Health Experts”.

That said, he’d no doubt be condemned as an anti-vaxxer these days.

Last edited 2 years ago by Sforzesca
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Freddy Boy
Freddy Boy
2 years ago

I did hear that Jabbing youngsters has something to do with this ??

41
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NickR
NickR
2 years ago

Our local 1,400 pupil High School announced today that 284 kids (20%) were off sick, a record. How much is illness, how much hysteria & how much parents just accepting that going to school or not isn’t a big deal I leave to others to consider.

49
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Uncle Monty
Uncle Monty
2 years ago

I sent this to my teaching union after they asked me to support their industrial action:

I think that we have to accept that because our union was so vociferous in its support for the (entirely foreseeable) ruinous lockdown, we need to own the economic tsunami that it has wrought. I did write to beg you all to change course but safety first was the mantra of the day. Sadly we are only now beginning to appreciate how harmful lockdown was to the health, welfare and education of millions. Anybody who supported lockdown ought to graciously accept the economic haircut rather than expecting the government to borrow more money from the future earnings of our children to fund a pay rise for public servants who were too cowardly to go to work for months on end when there was a bit of bad flu circulating.

106
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TJN
TJN
2 years ago
Reply to  Uncle Monty

Excellent points.

Trouble is, those sorts of people don’t want to accept responsibility for their own actions, in the same way that they instinctively turn to government to solve all their difficulties.

35
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WyrdWoman
WyrdWoman
2 years ago

I’m wondering if its multi-jabbed parents shedding spike all over the kids that’s having an effect and causing something like a secondary immune deficiency rather than this lockdown ‘debt’ malarkey. Admittedly the evidence is as yet far from clear but it does seem to be coalescing in favour (particularly Dr Banoun’s recent paper as highlighted by Dr McCullough). If so it would seem a more coherent explanation as to why background illnesses like strep A and scarlet fever are making a comeback – although the implications are terrifying. (Some very young family members have been ‘unwell’ practically permanently for about a year now, poor things, with both respiratory and gut issues. Both parents quad jabbed.) Quick review: https://rumble.com/v1ybhtw-shedding-concerns-it-looks-like-the-mrna-is-transferring-from-the-vaccinate.html
Banoun’s paper here: https://petermcculloughmd.substack.com/p/health-of-pure-bloods-threatened

33
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True Spirit of America Party
True Spirit of America Party
2 years ago
Reply to  WyrdWoman

Second-hand VAIDS?

15
0
WyrdWoman
WyrdWoman
2 years ago
Reply to  True Spirit of America Party

Yep. Or PAIDS (Parent Acquired….)

7
0
True Spirit of America Party
True Spirit of America Party
2 years ago

Indeed, immunity debt is all too real. We saw the first signs of that last year in New Zealand with RSV, even before the jabs (as they were very late to the party) and when there was barely any COVID at all. That makes it possible to tease out the effect of immunity debt.

This is both a direct effect, as well as also indirect from new mothers passing in their relative lack of antibodies (from their own relatively lack of exposure) to their babies via breastmilk, particularly for things like RSV.

And now the chickens have really come home to roost worldwide.

Of course, to make matters worse now…everyone has VAIDS! VAIDS VAIDS VAIDS!

Last edited 2 years ago by True Spirit of America Party
20
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amanuensis
amanuensis
2 years ago

It is possible that it is due to ‘immune debt’. But it is only one potential mechanism and it isn’t ‘science’ to simply declare that you know what it is and that’s the end of the matter.

We really need to see active processes trying to determine the causal factors of this outbreak.

32
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True Spirit of America Party
True Spirit of America Party
2 years ago
Reply to  amanuensis

And let’s not forget…everyone has VAIDS! VAIDS VAIDS VAIDS!

7
0
TJN
TJN
2 years ago
Reply to  amanuensis

Have you any ideas for other mechanisms? (Genuine question.)

0
0
Mr10Percent
Mr10Percent
2 years ago

Oh Really?

I aint any doctor but a 2 minute search shows that there is a long-held understanding that exposure to a live influenza virus increases the susceptibility to streptococcus (pneumonia and GroupA) in young people and immuo-compromised individuals.

So what are we doing right now? yup, blasting Nasal vaccines (Flumist for a name) up every individual too stupid to remember what a waste of natural immunity the last 2 years were.

So we have natural influenza and man-made influenza (live virus in Flumist) in rampant circulation and were all supposed surprised and wonder what is going on? Strep A. Add that to the increase in occurrence of HIV, Shingles, Monkey Pox and a whole heap of ailments I cant even write.

40
0
RTSC
RTSC
2 years ago

It would be interesting to know if the children who have sadly died from Strep A had been jabbed for Covid …… and their natural immune systems weakened still further by these dangerous products.

20
0
jsampson45
jsampson45
2 years ago

If lockdowns were successful in preventing Covid then Strep A and everything else would have killed more children than Covid did, because Covid would have killed no children. So this headline could be taken as a testimony to the success of lockdowns.

1
-3

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