Chief Scientific Adviser Sir Patrick Vallance has come to the defence of SAGE and its modelling after some torrid headlines this week following a Twitter exchange between lead modeller Professor Graham Medley and Spectator editor Fraser Nelson in which Professor Medley revealed that SAGE had not been asked to model less disastrous scenarios.
Writing in the Times, Dr. Vallance appeared directly to contradict some of the statements made by Prof. Medley, leaving observers baffled as to which of the two is correct as it is unclear how both can be. Dr. Vallance claimed that modelling of other, less severe scenarios, had been done and presented to Government, while Prof. Medley said it had not, at least by his team at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM). Dr. Vallance writes:
The modellers always have to make assumptions and do so across a wide range of possibilities, some optimistic and some pessimistic. They do not, contrary to what you might have heard, only model the worst outcomes. They will make assumptions about vaccine effectiveness, they will model different levels of viral transmission, mixing patterns and different levels of disease severity. The range of assumptions modelled can be very broad; for disease severity for Omicron one model explored a range from 10% of Delta severity through to 100%. For immunity a range of assumptions on vaccine efficacy, speed of vaccine rollout and vaccine coverage in different parts of the population were explored.
This claim is backed up by the minutes of the most recent SAGE meeting, published yesterday, although it doesn’t square with what Prof. Medley told Fraser Nelson. Prof. Medley, who chairs the SAGE modelling committee, said that lower virulence scenarios don’t “add any further information” and implied his committee – SPI-M – had not been asked to provide them.
Fraser asked Prof. Medley: “I guess the question is why LSHTM did not (like JP Morgan) include a scenario of lower virulence – given that this is a very-plausible option that changes outlook massively.”
What would be the point of that? Not a snarky question – genuine to know what you think decision makers would learn from that scenario… If somebody draws a line on a graph it doesn’t add any further information. Decision-makers are generally only interested in situations where decisions have to be made… That scenario doesn’t inform anything. Decision-makers don’t have to decide if nothing happens… We generally model what we are asked to model. There is a dialogue in which policy teams discuss with the modellers what they need to inform their policy.
Fraser later observed that Prof. Medley appeared to be saying his brief was very limited and did not include less severe assumptions and outcomes.
He seemed to suggest that he has been given a very limited brief, and asked to churn out worse-case scenarios without being asked to comment on how plausible they are… Note how careful he is to stay vague on whether any of the various scenarios in the SAGE document are likely or even plausible. What happened to the original system of presenting a ‘reasonable worse-case scenario’ together with a central scenario? And what’s the point of modelling if it doesn’t say how likely any these scenarios are?
From what Professor Medley says, it’s unclear that the most-likely scenario is even being presented to ministers this time around. So how are they supposed to make good decisions? I highly doubt that Sajid Javid is only asking to churn out models that make the case for lockdown. That instruction, if it is being issued, will have come from somewhere else.
Dr. Vallance, on the other hand, says:
Often the job of scientific advice is to allow ministers to understand both a central case and the uncertainty surrounding it, what drives that uncertainty and when the uncertainty might be reduced. Speaking scientific truth to power is a difficult but necessary part of the democratic process if ministers are to be able to make an informed decision. This is what SAGE does.
If Dr. Vallance is accurately describing the advice given to ministers by SAGE, why did LSHTM not model those scenarios and estimate their likelihood? Why did the chairman of the SAGE modelling committee state that such scenarios had not been requested because they do not add anything useful to the discussion? The only explanation I can think of is that the broader range of scenarios referred to in the minutes of the SAGE meeting dated December 20th was not reflected in the SAGE memo circulated to ministers for that afternoon’s Cabinet meeting. That is, SAGE modelled less gloomy scenarios but didn’t bother to include them in the advice it gave to the Cabinet.
Dr. Vallance claims SAGE is a neutral adviser, being neither pessimistic nor optimistic and not pushing for any “dogmatic” answer or directive.
It is not the job of SAGE to take a particular policy stance or to either spread gloom or give Panglossian optimism. Ministers and the cabinet need to hear the information whether uncomfortable or encouraging. They of course need to factor it in to all the other information that provides inputs to policy decisions. SAGE does not provide dogmatic answers or directives, it provides information, advice, scenarios and helps determine possible consequences of actions. Part of the advice may contain a “reasonable worst case scenario” – data that are often seized upon.
But they are just that – a reasonable worst case scenario and one of many possible outcomes and trajectories presented to ministers for planning purposes and decision making.
But Dr. Vallance is failing to acknowledge the reason that prompted the need for his defence of SAGE modelling in the first place, which is that the chairman of his main modelling committee had stated that they had not been asked to provide alternative scenarios to ministers because it “doesn’t add any further information”. Dr. Vallance implies that others are at fault for having arbitrarily “seized upon” the reasonable worst case scenario presented to ministers, ignoring that the present controversy arose because the Government’s lead modeller said no other scenarios were modelled because they were pointless.
Dr. Vallance is also being, at best, naïve about the key role SAGE’s projections and advice have played in pushing the Government into making extreme interventions. His comments here about it being “not the job of SAGE to take a particular policy stance or to either spread gloom or give Panglossian optimism” are contradicted by his enthusiastic endorsement of boosters earlier in the same article – “Vaccine boosters are crucial” – and by what he told the BBC in October about his risk-averse approach to the pandemic.
My mantra for a long time during this (pandemic) has been… you’ve got to go sooner than you want to in terms of taking interventions. You’ve got to go harder than you want to, and you’ve got to go more geographically broad than you want to. And that is the Sage advice. And that’s what I’ve been saying. And I will say it going forward, and the prime minister knows that’s what I think. And he knows that’s what I would do in that situation.
That sounds very much like he’s offering policy recommendations to me, and recommendations of precisely the kind he’s denying SAGE makes in his Times article.
Dr. Vallance concludes with a defence of the role of science and the scientific method in the pandemic.
Science has served us extraordinarily well during this pandemic and has given us many insights as well as new diagnostics, vaccines and therapeutics. Science is self-correcting, and advances by overturning previous dogma and challenging accepted truths. Encouraging a range of opinions, views and interpretation of data is all part of the process. No scientist would ever claim, in this fast-changing and unpredictable pandemic, to have a monopoly of wisdom on what happens next.
Yet two of America’s top scientists, Francis Collins and Anthony Fauci, have been exposed as plotting to smear the eminent authors of the Great Barrington Declaration. Dr. Collins wrote to Dr. Fauci that the declaration was the work of “three fringe epidemiologists” and “seems to be getting a lot of attention”. He added that “there needs to be a quick and devastating published takedown of its premises. I don’t see anything like that online yet – is it underway?” Shortly afterwards an online ‘fact check‘ appeared, courtesy of a team that included U.K. Government-linked MP Neil O’Brien.
So much for challenging accepted truths and encouraging a range of opinions.
It’s good to see the gloomy lockdown zealots on the back foot for a change and having to defend themselves. I just wish they could stick with the facts rather than spinning make-believe and changing the ‘facts’ to fit the narrative rather than vice-versa.
Stop Press: Dr. Jenny Harries, Chief Executive of the UKHSA, has also taken to the airwaves in defence of the advisers’ doomy forecasts, telling the BBC that while there’s “a glimmer of Christmas hope in the findings that we published yesterday”, it “definitely isn’t yet at the point where we could downgrade that serious threat”, referring to her earlier claim that Omicron was “probably the most significant threat we’ve had since the start of the pandemic”. For evidence she pointed to the “quite staggering” speed of spread compared to previous variants – despite her own agency publishing data this week showing that the household secondary attack rate (the proportion of household contacts an infected person infects) of Omicron is lower than the direct secondary attack rate (an almost equivalent measure) of the Alpha variant this time last year.
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They lie, Will.
I don’t know why Iain Davies papers are never referred to on this site, has he fallen out with Mr Young? Anyway in Off-Guardian yesterday his latest is another excellent summary of the ‘jab’ situation from onset to now.
https://off-guardian.org/2021/12/23/covid-jabs-ineffective-oppressive-and-dangerous/
Cheers for the link, peyrole. A bit on the long side, but excellent nonetheless. The bit I found especially interesting is the section entitled ‘Blaming the Unjabbed’, in which he completely debunks the myth about the unjabbed being selfish idiots clogging up NHS beds. Should be required reading for Sajid Javid and MSM jounos alike!
But his AstraZeneca shares have done very well.
While I am not usually given to bad language on line, could I just say, “Fuck off, Paddy”.
I know that it is not big or clever but, by heaven, I feel better for having said it.
It really doesn’t make any difference how they set up their modelling. It will always be wrong anyway. It amazes me that even today there are apparently still people who labour under the bizarre delusion that any such modelling is anything other than utter rubbish.
Bullshit!
Have a look at Vallance’s various bank accounts to see what he’s really all about.
“Mr Vallance appeared directly to contradict some of the statements made by Prof Medley, leaving observers baffled as to which of the two is correct as it is unclear how both can be. Mr Vallance claimed that modelling of other, less severe scenarios, had been done and presented to Government, while Prof Medley said it had not”
Baffled? Well, let me spell it out for the dunces and those not paying attention at the back of the class. Medley was caught off guard and/or is not as media-savvy and political as Vallance, so he told the truth. Vallance is now engaged in damage-limitation and lying his tits off (which he does very well as he has had plenty of practice).
Err Fauci is a top scientist? Really ?
Wasn’t Vallance the first guy Fauci emailed when it leaked from that Wuhan lab because they funded the gain of function research via the eco-health alliance “org”?
Sir Jeremy Farrar.
He is the British lizard king…….we need to nail him up. Supposedly he has retired though.
Vallance was on the conference call on 1st Feb 2020 and Vallance and Whitty were on the subsequent email exchange. Most of the emails were redacted when released but one sentence that wasn’t redacted was ‘We need to talk about the backbone too, not just the insert’ This suggests very strongly that they all knew that the virus was from gain of function research.
has anyone from the MSM ever asked them about that call?
If there is one lesson to be learned from the very start of this it is that modelling has proven to be wholly futile, a complete waste of time and money, and disastrous in the extreme for the people if this planet.
Modelling should be consigned to the dustbin of history which is the only place it belongs. Along with all members of SAGE and independent Sage. None have a valid place in this world whatsoever.
If SAGE is neutral and impartial……….then why have we seen the likes of Susan Michie giving briefings to the BBC completely independently?
Either the government wanted her to stir-up the fear factor, or else she is acting off her own bat, and in breach of the normal conventions that government advisors with integrity observe.
As for Vallance and Whitty – as unelected officials, they seem to enjoy more authority than the Health secretary.
We may never know who is pulling whose strings. I think there’s a law now where if you are present at a serious crime like a group who kill someone, and it’s not clear who struck the fatal blow and who just did some egging on, you’re all guilty of murder anyway. That law should apply in this case.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_purpose
coincidental name there…
Well spotted!
Mask wearing in Selfridges Manchester now about 50% despite the pleading messages and signage.
Ignore the lies.
ASDA Harpurhey (north Manchester) 75% free-breathers this afternoon. Packed as well.
Asdoh! Harpurhey – more like firebreathers. Good on them.
“leaving observers baffled as to which of the two is correct as it is unclear how both can be”
Whoever is baffled needs to practice their doublethink skills. My vaccine doesn’t protect me but your vaccine protects me, but not you, etc…
Song by the Dune Rats:
BULLSHIT……………………………………………………………………
“Fails to Convince”
Well, gosh, that’s a very polite way of saying “Utter Horseshit”
I’ve named my compost heap the MSM as it swallows an enormous amount of horseshit in order to push up roses.
I’m inspired by your example to attach a sign to the cistern of my loo: ‘Government Think Tank’
… roses?
Other Christmas chocolate selections are available
The fact of the matter is that the SAGE modellers have made a number of predictions that have turned out to be wrong, and Vallance knows it. He cannot go on defending the indefensible forever. These people are either incompetent or downright dishonest in pursuit of political goals. Either way, they should be fired immediately.
A truly fascinating insight into the mentality of people like Vallance who distort reality in order to pursue their agenda.
Of course – his ‘defence’ is bollocks. The aim of modelling is to erect likely scenarios from given variables, and the scenarios are expressed clearly in terms of probabilities. You don’t pick and choose which part of the probability spectrum you wish to promote – the likelihood is inherent.
Then, of course, any model should be tested against a reality feed-back-loop, and the assumed variable values (and completeness) examined against that criterion.
It really isn’t a difficult concept for a real scientist … which makes Vallance of the £600,000 big pharma shares a …???
Vallance, what you’re doing is called ‘policy-based evidence’.
It’s meant to be the other way around: evidence-based policy.
The genie is out of the bottle. The educated classes are starting to take whiff of your ‘scientific’ fraud.
intellectually vacuous, you now try to put out the fires.
We’ll keep them burning for you.
Self deception is the marker of a fool not a scientist.
Will Vallance be retiring in China?
Modelling on assumptions is not science. That’s just guessing game and anyone with any kind of logic can spew out possible scenarios.
Proper modelling will result in the models being amended (or discarded completely) in the light of real-world data once that’s available. That doesn’t happen there – they carry on with the same apocalyptic bollocks no matter what.
Assumption about vaccine effectiveness. Fucking hell you’re pumping the world full of this shit and you don’t know if it works. I guess his Pharma shares have gone through the roof so he doesn’t give a shit. Sorry but these people are off the scale.
Another slimey grifter who will be dealt with in brutal fashion during the first wave of reprisals against the globalist regime.
As reported in the DT yesterday the latest Imperial models break cardinal sins and the core assumptions – like for eg omicron had the same “lethality” as delta, ignoring still the B and T cell responses because that’s too hard tells you Vallance is speaking bollox but he knows most people can’t be bothered to check the facts themselves.
Yeadon has called him out as a liar ….he is yet to respond.
I wonder why?
Dr. Vladimir Zelenko said anyone that willfully vilified and obstructed access to hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin in the prevention and treatment of Covid-19 is guilty of first degree capital murder, genocide, and crimes against humanity. They are trying to jab as many people as possible so that their great reset aka depopulation plan work. I believe in God & Jesus. If I get sick I will take my Ivermectin that I stashed just in case and leave rest to God. If you want to get Ivermectin you can visit https://ivmpharmacy.com
“We generally model what we are asked to model”
Fixing the science to fit the policy. Where have I seen that before?
Bureaucrat defends bureaucracy
The spectre of the gallows looms for him and his cronies.
Perhaps we’d believe Vallance’s lies if they made him a duke or a marquess.