Regular readers will remember Philippe Lemoine from my interview with him back in August. For those who missed it: Lemoine is a PhD candidate in philosophy at Cornell with a background in computer science. During the pandemic, he’s written several interesting articles, including a particularly good one titled ‘The Case Against Lockdowns’.
Lemoine’s latest article is a zinger. It begins with the puzzle of why the effective reproduction number often fluctuates wildly in the absence of changes in aggregate behaviour. Or put another way: why do infections sometimes start falling, or start rising, for no apparent reason?
I actually noted this puzzle myself in article back in March (which Lemoine kindly cites). Specifically, I noted that case numbers in South Dakota began falling rapidly in mid November, despite almost no government restrictions and little change in people’s overall mobility.
There are at least two existing explanations for this phenomenon. The first is seasonality: the effective reproduction number may partly depend on variables like temperature, humidity and UV light. Yet as Lemoine points out, there are many examples where case numbers changed suddenly that seasonality can’t explain (like South Dakota).
The second is viral evolution: the effective reproduction number may suddenly rise when a new, more-transmissible variant emerges (such as Delta or Omicron). Once again, however, case numbers have undergone dramatic changes in the absence of new variants. And while viral evolution can explain the rises, it has harder time explaining the falls.
Lemoine’s explanation is different: population structure. Traditional epidemiological models, he notes, assume the population is ‘quasi-homogenous’. This means that your chance of infecting someone of the same age who lives next door is the same as your chance of infecting someone of the same age who lives on the other side of the country.
Not very realistic, of course, but models have to make simplifying assumptions. How much does this one matter? It matters a lot, Lemoine argues.
Rather than assuming there’s one big quasi-homogenous population, imagine the population is divided into a large number of ‘subnetworks’. These could be based on location, age-group, behaviour or a combination of factors. For example, one subnetwork might be ‘school children and their parents in central London’.
Suppose that transmission occurs frequently within subnetworks but infrequently between them. So when a child within the school subnetwork catches the virus, it quickly spreads to other children and their parents. But what it doesn’t do is quickly spread to those outside the subnetwork.
Lemoine shows using simulations that, if you assume the population is structured in this way, the reproduction number can rise and fall without any changes in seasonality, viral evolution or aggregate behaviour. One of his simulations is show in the chart below.
Compared to the giant single-peaked graphs produced by Imperial College researchers last year, it’s a much closer fit to empirical data. The idea is that once the virus exhausts all the susceptible people in one subnetwork, it takes time for other subnetworks to be seeded, and for new epidemics to emerge.
One interesting implication is that the overall epidemic ‘wave’ is actually the sum of waves in all the subnetworks where the virus is currently spreading. This means that several quantities we’ve been obsessing over, such as the effective reproduction number, might be “largely meaningless” at the aggregate level.
When infections start falling in a particular country, the Government often takes credit for having ‘gotten the R number below zero’. But if Lemoine is right, the R number may have fallen simply because the virus exhausted susceptible people in the subnetworks were it was recently spreading.
So governments may have been taking credit for fluctuations in the R number that were entirely independent of their policies.
Population structure is by no means inconsistent with other two explanations I mentioned earlier: seasonality and viral evolution. And although it’s hard to test empirically, the theory seems eminently plausible and worthy of consideration. Lemoine’s article is over 17,000 words, but it’s worth reading in full.
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Because it’s not about the virus
Obviously IDS didn’t get the memo.
When has he ever?
It was all over in April 2020. Why the regime has chosen to prolong it until now is what you should be asking.
Should have been back to normal last summer. We could have been. People should ask why we weren’t……and still aren’t.
And that’s how it will stay unless or until the sensible ones revolt. How to do that is the question.
Inflated cases. Stupid ping app and multiple frequent testing of course it will look high. It’s been the seasonal flu the entire time but alas the weak-minded jelly brain masses who will do anything as long as they can enjoy their degeneracy. This fall hopefully they will learn what a real pandemic looks like when they start dying from poisoning.
A senior minister is “slapped down” by a dim-witted clown / genocidalist who has no public mandate. Of course all based on a “maybe.” We might be in for a bumpy Autumn / Winter.
Too fuckin right we are in for a bumpy A / W once the new scariant is let loose; either that or ADE takes hold.
“But why isn’t it over?“
Because it’s over when they say it’s over, and we haven’t forced them to say it’s over yet.
That’s the problem. HOW do we force them.
Because all the stats are a fugazi. Smoke and mirrors for their real goal: domination of us mere serfs
“Why Isn’t It “All Over Bar the Shouting”? Why Aren’t We Back to Normal Yet?”
As A Heretic points out it was all over in April 2020. But to answer the question, the only explanation that now stands up is that the leadership are acting in extremely bad faith OR have gone certifiably insane. I know which explanation I favour.
They love the power. They adore having control and watching the sheeple jump without asking ” how high”? And this will continue until we, the sensible, logical, far seeing ones, tell them in no uncertain terms that It’s all over and they can shove their apocalypse where the sun don’t shine.
That is not going to happen; we are too few and too weak, protest as loudly and as peacefully as we might. Unless the armed services of all of the most powerful nations mutiny more or less coincidentally it’s all up for life as we once knew it.
It should have been over when the vulnerable had been vaccinated. Once you have reduced the threat level to below that of flu, which would be the case if the vaccines were as effective at reducing severity as claimed, then there is no possible justification for retaining any restrictions whatsoever.
The restrictions are not effective anyway – but we live in a world where covoodoo has replaced biology, chemistry and physics.
Even the government’s own statements make little sense.
Consider the PHE statement that vaccines have prevented 22 million infections and saved 60,000 lives.
Let’s make the wild assumption that all that vaccines do is to prevent infection – no effect on reducing symptoms. This allows us then to use these quoted figures to give an upper bound on the IFR (all lives saved are as a result of infection prevention – not reduction of symptoms, under this assumption).
So according to the figures quoted this translates to an upper-bound IFR of 0.27%
Taking the official number of deaths with covid on the death certificate from the government dashboard which currently stands at a bit over 150,000, we can work out using this upper bound IFR the lowest number of infections consistent with this.
We get 55.5 million infections.
So not a lot of people left to infect. Of course, these government figures are somewhat less than believable – but it does nicely illustrate the inconsistent nonsense they keep spaffing at us.
In other words, ‘no confidence’. Is anyone really confident with respect to the junk being dished out by the Governments now?
If the total number of estimated infections begins to exceed the size of the population, will the sheeple wake up then? Will the media even report it? I’d wager we’ll still be at groundhog day.. Idiocracy (2006 documentary) here we come!
That indeed was what Boris said. But who ever believes a word that that xxxxx says? Put bluntly, he loves the power of control. He is a despot. And until someone forces him to retreat this semi so called freedom and state of fear will continue. But who has the guts and the authority to tell him?
You’ve written five exes yet the only words I can think of to describe BIG BLUBBER consist of four or six letters. What can the unmentionable word be?
Not all over because they haven’t yet introduced a third jab.
Boosters every 6 months, forever, to keep your biosecurity passports up to date.
The testing laboratory in Loughborough that was closed earlier this year is to reopen by an American company.
Is that the one recently bought by Gates and soros?
To paraphrase Kenneth Wolstenhome, “Some people are having a party, they think it’s all over, it isn’t yet”
I want to see Johnson and Zahawi prosecuted for coercion. Their illegal forcing of people to have medical procedures against their will .
We must see justice!
In the highly unlikely event that they are prosecuted, what then? A comfortable retirement after a bit of disapproval from the authors of a report?
Perhaps this? Dan
(@Kingbingo_) Tweeted: Do you want to know why the elites have destroyed your lives over the last 15 months?
Well read on, I promise to explain all of it
A thread.
It links nicely to this story: https://t.co/CjLW1kcesa
(1/28) https://twitter.com/Kingbingo_/status/1419293260468690946?s=20
It will only be over when we the people start saying in the words of Maggie NO! NO! NO!
Sadly the majority are still walking around with their eyes shut and their brains dead, wearing masks, antisocial distancing and sanitising their hands every 5 seconds.
This is all about surveillance and control through fear always has been, it’s got nothing to do with a virus.
God help us.
Goodness I was very polite there!
Those with enough social credit will be allowed to eat.
It will only be over when we the people start saying in the words of Maggie NO! NO! NO!
Sadly the majority are still walking around with their eyes shut and their brains dead, wearing masks, antisocial distancing and sanitising their hands every 5 seconds.
This is all about surveillance and control through fear always has been it’s got nothing to do with a virus.
God help us.
Goodness I was very polite there!
Positive tests NOT Covid tests. The tests pick up ANY fragment of infection. When will people STOP testing for a condition that CANNOT be tested for…? Or are we just a bunch of hypochondriacs morbidly looking for symptoms?
Given that I’m unlikely to be able to leave my home anyway as I am one of the ‘unclean’, I can imagine a day, not too far away, when no-one will leave home before having to perform a battery of tests to declare one germ free.
‘What more, then, is the Government waiting for?’
It’s waiting to launch more false flag operations in pursuit of its Great Reset plan.
The whole Cabinet should be tried for treason. The most authoritarian government in British history, bar none.
It is simply that until the sheeple wake up it will never end. That won’t happen while the Gov remain committed to the control they currently wield. And who’s challenging them??
I’m 71 and won’t see true freedom again in my life.
All I can do is ignore it all, which is what I’m doing.
I agree. I am 74 and do not expect to see full unqualified freedom in my lifetime. So I refuse to wear a mask, go where I like, stand by who I like and dare anyone to tackle me. You are right – until the sheeple wake up and realise that they have been criminally lied to, nothing will change. And anyone who hopes that the public enquiry will bring the truth to light is deluded – it will exonerate all the so called experts( mathematcians) and ministers (liars).
This is what you get if you let physicians run the country: they regard every single death and every hospitalization as intolerable, an affront to their professional standing and do not see the bigger picture at all. It’s like having a car mechanic run the Ford Corporation. Physicians treat people not societies…they simply don’t have the mental equipment for the latter. Most of them are also raving leftists with authoritarian tendencies; patients (i.e society) must do as they’re told….it’s for their own good. Real conservative politicians should stop listening to these people and assume control again; grab the wheel and start driving us back to sanity.
The medical establishment has played its part – doctors in staying silent, management pushing their own agendas and power/budget grabs, “scientists” ditto – but the politicians have been pretty keen on the easy power and importance that the “emergency” has given them.
Indeed! Politicians have ceded power because they think they lack the expertise and also because it shields them from responsibility if someone else is at the driving wheel. There is no more excuse for lack of expertise after 17 months….if they still haven’t done their homework on the virus by now they should resign in disgrace.
Well, someone else is not at the driving wheel, IMO. If you’re a leader then you pretend to abdicate responsibility but it won’t wash – you are responsible.
It’s not homework that is lacking, it’s honesty. They know it’s all lies. They are not stupid.
Because its about Money, Control and avoiding blame. Lots of Money for Gates, the big Pharma, Big tech, and filtering downwards through their puppets in SAGE and the cabinet.
Lots of Power control over life and death of millions of people, what a rush for these otherwise unattractive people, better than any s-x they have ever had.
And cover up, responsibility and blame must be avoided at all and any costs, social unrest, increased deaths all acceptable if it means that the orchestrators can get off the hook, and get away with the dosh.
I’m afraid “back to normal” isn’t going to be possible without some fundamental changes.
You may not have noticed but the government has increased the supply of money 7 times over, as have the governments of many other major powers. What you own is now worth 7 times less than it was.
We are well on our way to “owning nothing and being supposedly happy” about it. Like sticking a load of synthetic genes into your arm, this process can’t be undone without serious harm to, and likely killing of, the existing system.
How are they detecting the ‘Delta’ variant? You can’t do it with PCR.
Once enough people have succumbed to the clot shots, testing requirements will be expanded again to include them as well.
That’s a given. £££
What is most certainly NOT over is the damage done by the hysterical shutting down over the last 18 months. In particular the NHS, which we have supposedly “saved”, is spavined by a massive backlog of patients needing life saving treatment, staff shortages due to the ludicrous isolating of healthy people, difficulty in getting to see a GP, and a continuing atmosphere of can’t do won’t do.
You can’t get your cancer treated but don’t worry because you will still be nicked by cops in speed camera vans so we are all safe. The topsy turvy world of skewed values we live in is not going to change soon.
I note that the desperation levels among the jabbers has reached new heights.
SAGE are now stating that a mutation to MERS with a case fatality rate of 35% is now on the cards (though the small print suggests that mutations may leave the virus as dangerous as a common cold – in time).
They are forgetting the original MERS story though. Likely it was another ‘gain of function’ release/trial but like the first SARS and this one if someone hadn’t blabbed, it was blamed on zoonotic transmission – in the case of MERS they really pushed the boat out blaming camels and camel herders. But don’t worry about the 35% fatality rate, this extreme mutation won’t escape the trusty old mRNA jabs that were created before we even knew that SARS-CoV-2 existed (December 2019 in China, January 2020 in the rest of the World) or posed a threat (March 2020 WHO pandemic declaration) – how prescient were they, how philanthropic to take a punt on making a costly speculative vaccine before November 2019, how lucky that it will still work against every future mutation.
Or not, as the ‘breakthrough’ cases are proving.
Because, if it is failing against the slightly more infectious but no more dangerous Delta variant (and others in countries highly vaccinated but where Delta is not yet dominant) why are they confident that it won’t continue to fail against a more deadly MERS type variant?
It’s already all over for the vaccinated. Enjoy what little life is left to you.The effects of the mRNA and graphene oxide poisoning will be irreversible.
As for the unvaxxed, a different end perhaps, but an end all the same, is coming.
We now have only a small window of time to take our revenge on these murdering bastards.
As an unjabbed, I expect to be blamed for the huge rise in flu deaths that is coming in the autumn as ADE kicks in. I think we are going to be subjected to a great deal of very hostile propaganda as the government goes into overdrive in denying that the jabs are in any way responsible.
yea but no but yea its the test points mean prizes come on down…………….