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Pro-Lockdown Researcher Accuses Critic of “Libel”

by Noah Carl
17 April 2022 7:49 AM

A new pro-lockdown study has been doing the rounds on social media. In a Twitter thread, one of the authors claims that it “confirms the tragic consequences of delaying the UK’s first lockdown”. He argues that, if lockdown had started just one week earlier, there would have been up to “35k fewer deaths”.

Although the thread went viral (as many pro-lockdown threads do), the study was not without its critics. One of these was Philippe Lemoine, whose work I’ve discussed several times here on the Daily Sceptic.

In a Twitter thread of his own, Lemoine retorted that the study “doesn’t confirm jackshit” and merely exemplifies the “ridiculous methods that pass as counterfactual analysis in the field of epidemiology”. He went on to say that drawing strong conclusions about the “tragic consequences” of delaying lockdown is “intellectually dishonest”.

Profanity aside, the criticisms Lemoine proceeds to outline are well taken. As he points out, the latest pro-lockdown study is based – yet again – on the assumption that epidemics keep growing exponentially unless the government decides to do something. This assumption is not merely questionable, but false.

We know from examples like South Dakota – whose libertarian governor Kristi Noem did basically nothing – that infections start falling long before the herd immunity threshold is reached, even if there’s no lockdown. (There are at least eight other places where infections fell from a peak in the absence of both business closures and stay-at-home orders.)

Armed with the assumption that the only thing capable of arresting epidemic growth is lockdown, the authors conclude that Britain’s first lockdown had a large effect – one that would have been even larger if it had been imposed a week earlier.

Of course, there’s ample evidence to suggest this isn’t true: infections peaked around the same time in no-lockdown Sweden; reconstructions of Britain’s epidemic curve show cases peaking before the first lockdown; and Chris Whitty himself told MPs that “R went below one well before, or to some extent before, March 23”.

So, another pro-lockdown modelling study based on assumptions that we know are wrong. (Note: I’m not saying the lockdown had absolutely no effect; just that you can’t claim it had a large effect.) However, the story doesn’t end there.

The author of the original Twitter thread didn’t take kindly to Lemoine’s criticisms. After demanding to know “who specifically” Lemoine was accusing of intellectual dishonesty, he asked him to remove the “libellous” tweet and “desist from further public defamation”.

While Lemoine (a Frenchman) could have perhaps been politer, resorting to accusations of “libel” when faced with criticism isn’t a ‘good look’ for a scientist. It suggests you’re more concerned with social status than with finding out the truth. Why not just ignore the Twitter digs, and answer the man’s criticisms?

While this little dispute hardly matters, it doesn’t show ‘The Science’ of lockdown in a very favourable light.

Tags: LockdownPhilippe LemoineThe Science

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72 Comments
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Kent2305
Kent2305
9 months ago

I often used to pass Milliband senior on the street when I lived in Manhattan. I wondered why he had left the UK and politics. Now, after 14 years of Tory governments either asleep or unable to get legislation passed the civil service or NGOs, I realize the attraction of being in globalist job, dedicated to increasing immigration to the West.

8
0
transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
9 months ago

I preferred the real, original International Rescue who built their capabilities entirely through private enterprise and without public money. FAB!

11
0
EppingBlogger
EppingBlogger
9 months ago

Now remind me, were not all the Tory leadership (sic) contenders part of government. Did they pay no attention.

Which of their colleagues do they say let them down, and us? Collective responsibility means all of them.

Last edited 9 months ago by Hardliner
8
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Marcus Aurelius knew
Marcus Aurelius knew
9 months ago

Wait –

No, it must be a coincidence. Miliband is quite a common surname.

Last edited 9 months ago by Hardliner
8
0
ChrisSpeke
ChrisSpeke
9 months ago

What blessings did Ralph Milliband bequeath upon the British with his sons David and Ed. They represent the Bat , or bloodsucker in David , and the Rat , or vermin in Ed .

9
-1
Marcus Aurelius knew
Marcus Aurelius knew
9 months ago
Reply to  ChrisSpeke

Together, the Milibrains of Britain…

What a society we have built, where people fail upwards.

Last edited 9 months ago by Marcus Aurelius knew
8
0
soundofreason
soundofreason
9 months ago

Slightly off-topic: Grangemouth workers rally to save oil refinery jobs says the BBC.
Perhaps they didn’t read the Labour (or Conservative) manifesto?

I trust David’s weird brother Ed will go up to Grangemouth to explain why they’re f****d?

Net zero by 2050! Yay!

Let the anger build further.

12
0
huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
9 months ago

https://davyudal.substack.com/p/bill-gates-and-who-call-for-military

The next Scamdemic must be getting close.

Lord Bill of the Gates of Hell calling for military roundups of those refusing the next death jab when the Bird ‘Flu is given the get go.

7
-1
Mogwai
Mogwai
9 months ago
Reply to  huxleypiggles

Is this round your neck of the woods, hux? I suspect the ”black and white scarfs” they’re referring to aren’t the type worn by NUFC supporters, but the other ones we’re all too familiar with by now. I hope they catch the filthy scumbags, and if it was early evening some passersby must have seen them somewhere, but respect to this man for bravely reporting this. They’ll be likely to strike again unless they’re caught;

”Officers are appealing for information following reports of a serious sexual assault near Wrigley Head in Failsworth, Oldham, yesterday evening (Friday 2 August 2024).
At around 5.55pm, a man was approached by three men and was assaulted and subjected to a serious sexual assault. He is currently being assisted by specialist officers and his wellbeing and care is at the heart of their ongoing work.

Officers believe this to be a targeted attack and there is no risk to the wider public.
We are now looking to speak to three men in relation to this incident and they are described as black men in their 30s, with black and white scarfs round their necks and of an athletic build. One man was wearing jeans and another wearing trousers with pockets on.”

https://www.gmp.police.uk/news/greater-manchester/news/news/2024/august/officers-appeal-for-information-following-a-serious-sexual-assault-in-oldham/

3
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huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
9 months ago
Reply to  Mogwai

Thanks Mogs. Very close to us. Failsworth is a mid point more or less between Oldham and Manchester. Like many places it has become rather grim over the last twenty years and its no stranger to knife crime and murders.

2
0
huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
9 months ago
Reply to  Mogwai

I have just been reading the Comments section at TCW. Quite a few reports that the Calais Yatch Club arrivals are masquerading as the Muslim Defence League and are being bussed around the country to riot. They are uniformly dressed in black with balaclavas. Local mosques are used to store and dish out their arms – knives, hammers etc.

As I have been posting for about three years.

4
0
Freddy Boy
Freddy Boy
9 months ago
Reply to  Mogwai

Good job the courts are open all night then , that’ll fix it !

3
0
HicManemus
HicManemus
9 months ago
Reply to  huxleypiggles

The response by Dr Hotez is chilling. “We need to get Homeland Security involved because this is a security problem. 200,000 Americans died because of anti-vaccine aggression, so this is now a lethal force.” Meanwhile, he is happily lining his own pockets while developing vaccines funded by the US health authorities.

0
0
huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
9 months ago

Off-T

Frank Haviland – no holding back.

https://thenewconservative.co.uk/the-frank-report-lxxxi/

“With tensions running high in Southport, you’d have thought Prime Minister Starmer would be eager to reassure the public. And yet, our dear leader, two-tier Keir, didn’t want to talk about any of that in his address to the nation. I mean it’s not as if it was something important like Black Lives Matter, Hamas-supporting Jew haters, or Persephone, Margaux and Lucinda from Just Stop Oil having something racy to discuss in the Oxbridge bars that evening. This was just little girls getting slaughtered in broad daylight, and the votes Labour can hope to extract for opposition to that are close to zero.”

“Seventh Century medievalism is now a permanent feature of the landscape in Britain, aided and abetted by the police.”

Last edited 9 months ago by huxleypiggles
8
0
huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
9 months ago

https://x.com/DVATW/status/1819803537657770287

Video of muzzies openly brandishing machetes and those “large, curved kitchen knives”(sic) presumably as used by the alleged Southport slaughterer.

4
0
Freddy Boy
Freddy Boy
9 months ago
Reply to  huxleypiggles

Don’t worry it’s knuckle dragging morons we have to be fearful of according the The Daily Wail yesterday , Do you think this so called uniformed MDL are independent or HMG organised ?

2
0
Neiltoo
Neiltoo
9 months ago
Reply to  huxleypiggles

Do you genuinely believe that that is a recent video and that it’s in any way threatening?

0
0
Freddy Boy
Freddy Boy
9 months ago

Another Free loading nose in the trough C U Next Tuesday waste of space nonentity !!

3
0
RTSC
RTSC
9 months ago

So why was a supposedly Conservative Government shovelling British taxpayers’ money at a foreign “charity” run by a Socialist?

That’s where the problem starts. They shouldn’t have been receiving ANY British taxpayers’ money.

8
0
CircusSpot
CircusSpot
9 months ago

I do hope this is the end of Sneer and I wonder if the kindly Bliar was egging him on behind the scenes or even wrote the speech.

4
0
Jack the dog
Jack the dog
9 months ago

What a loathsome family.

1
0

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