During the pandemic, the British government has relied heavily on epidemiological models when deciding what course of action to take (e.g., whether to tighten or loosen restrictions). The advice it has received in this regard comes from the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling (SPI-M), a body comprising 82 scientists from institutions across the U.K.
Most influential (and infamous) have been the epidemiological models developed by Neil Ferguson’s team at Imperial College London. Indeed, the Government initially appeared to be following a focussed protection strategy; it was only after the publication of an alarming report by the Imperial College team that lockdown became the official policy. (Ferguson and colleagues’ report has since been described as the “catalyst for policy reversal”.)
As late as March 5th, Chris Whitty told MPs on the Health and Social Care Committee: “We will get 50% of all the cases over a three-week period and 95% of the cases over a nine-week period.” He explained: “What we’re very keen to do is not intervene until the point we absolutely have to, so as to minimise economic and social disruption.” And he added that “one of the best things we can do” is to “isolate older people from the virus”.
Dominic Cummings has since confirmed that the Government did abandon its original plan at the last minute. He claims, “No10 was made aware by various people that the official plan wd lead to catastrophe.”
However, the epidemiological models that served as the basis for lockdown – both here and elsewhere – have come under substantial criticism. They made highly untenable assumptions, such as that seasonality and voluntary behaviour change do not affect transmission. This, in turn, led to disastrous forecasting errors. For example, Neil Ferguson’s team predicted there would be 85,000 deaths in Sweden; to date, there have been fewer than 15,000 (and that figure’s probably an overestimate).
In a new paper published in History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences, George Heriot and Euzebiusz Jamrozik argue that we should have relied more on historical comparisons, and less on epidemiological models.
They point out that “twenty-first century human communities may bear greater resemblance to communities in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries than to an abstracted representation within an epidemiological model”.
The authors note that the transmissibility and lethality of COVID-19 are “are well within the range described by respiratory viral pandemics of the last few centuries”, whereas the Spanish Flu of 1918 is “the clear outlier”. They suggest that the 1889 flu pandemic (sometimes termed the “Russian Flu”) offers a particularly close historical analogue to COVID-19.
According to the authors, “The historical record may provide a richer and more useful understanding of the range of medium- and long-term consequences… than even the most complex mathematical model.” And they go on to say: “Every established respiratory pandemic of the last 130 years has caused seasonal waves of infection and has culminated in viral endemicity.”
Heriot and Jamrozik’s article provides a much-needed antidote to the Government’s modelling malady and is worth reading in full.
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Look him up on Linkedin…
https://www.linkedin.com/in/nigeltopping
“…Building a global community of climate champions to halve emissions by 2030.”
Another grifter overdue an appointment with Nemesis.
More proof that the “climate crisis” is an ideological component of the rising total-control state – a state where the Party’s onerous rules and regulations don’t apply to senior Party officials. I seem to remember reading about a similar system operating in Soviet Russia.
They are totally impervious to accusations of hypocrisy – for them that’s part of the thrill of being in charge.
Yes – which accounts for the astounding fact that these climate liars actually don’t care if we notice their hypocrisy.
They see themselves as the Kommissariat, above and beyond such petty concepts as accountability and any requirement to practice what they preach… On the bright side, this kind of attitude awakens more and more people to the fact that the whole thing is a massive money-transfer scheme.
Nothing is too good for the representatives of the workers, Comrade.
Even if there were a frequent flier tax, who would be paying his taxes? Our children, via government borrowing. After all, the UK government has a vital role to play in mangrove conservation. It’s nice to see the Tories finally waking up on this one but I wouldn’t trust them to do anything different.
…and recommended that everyone in Africa should do the same rather than seek hydrocarbon fueled industrial development. [That bit is not actually true, I hope].
That’s Climate Justice, no doubt.
Blimey, who’s this? Either he’s got a glass eye or he’s part cyborg;
”This is Klaus Schwab’s replacement at the WEF.
Peter Brabeck-Letmathe has been appointed interim chairman at the World Economic Forum, after Klaus Schwab stepped down as chairman and from his position on the board.”
https://x.com/OliLondonTV/status/1914706946814603491
Part???
The final sentence in the original Telegraph report just seems to leave us hanging. ” It is understood that the committee did not pay the cost of his travel.” I sense that the real story would have been to find out who is bankrolling his excursions, and for what purpose. Why didn’t a journalist on a supposedly serious paper like the DT think to ask this?
Situation normal… another grifter on a no-doubt massive salary, creaming it on the back of this bollox.
The argument trotted out in favour of all these conferences is pants, they are not converting anyone, they are preaching to the already converted, and to those making a comfortable living out of it.
I wonder what will happen to these people when the paradgm shift is complete. They will probably try to weasel out of it by saying that never really believed it. Just look at these specimens.
Virtue is more to be feared than vice, because it’s excesses are not subject to the regulation of conscience – Adam Smith.
This guy will be immune to any concept of hypocrisy, due to his uber righteous cause. We mere mortals should be grateful for his heroic efforts.
Many of the folk I know and meet are deeply concerned with the effects of the so called ‘CO2 greenhouse effect’, ‘global warming’ or its more recent title ‘climate change’. I do not share their conviction that climate change, if it is occurring at the rates reported, is as a direct result of man made CO2 emissions.
I remember learning in school history lessons that people used to hold fairs on the frozen river Thames in Tudor times, that the Romans grew grapes in York and even against Hadrian’s Wall between England and the wild tribes of today’s Scotland. Where Britain now stands has been both tropical and under ice sheets. Climate changes I do not deny. A warming climate may produce higher historically recorded levels of CO2 as a result of increased vegetation.
I reckon that a majority of those most deeply concerned with the effect of man-made CO2 climate change are the same people who are generally concerned with the environment, wildlife, pollution, the squandering of natural resources, reduction of habitat and so on. This is my finding when I talk to such folk.
Those who are old enough to have formed opinions on such matters before the ‘man-made greenhouse climate global change warming’ paradigm seriously took-off were previously, in the vast majority, all strongly anti nuclear-power yet are now, in the main, reluctantly accepting or even advocating it.
These CO2 warriors and worriers even support the plethora of ‘Carbon Taxes’ and ‘Carbon Trading’ that have been piggybacked in with the CO2 paradigm, (designed to keep the UN, governments, authorities and corporates on side with a package of benefit for them too).
Accept or not my assertion CO2 warming is a fake, public support for nuclear energy has reached a record high as policy leaders voice the ‘need’ for new nuclear power plants.
Taking the Mick
You’ve got to love that quote from the Conservative Energy spokesman, Andrew Bowie.
“Mr Miliband driven net zero zealotry…Kemi Badenoch and I have been clear that Net Zero by 2050 would involve significant cost to the country and to the consumer and it is simply not sustainable.”
A couple of reminders:
1. Although Labour introduced the Climate Change Act, it was THE CONSERVATIVES who increased the CO2 reduction target from 80% to 100% (net zero).
2. The Conservatives are still committed to net zero. Hence Mr Bowie’s weasel words about it “involving significant cost” and being “unsustainable” without actually promising to scrap it.