‘Experts’ haven’t exactly covered themselves in glory during the pandemic. Their pronouncements concerning things like lockdowns, masks and herd immunity seem to be more correlated with swings in Twitter sentiment than with any fundamental changes in scientific evidence.
We’re used to seeing graphs like this one, which show the actual course of the epidemic deviating rather substantially from what was predicted. And where there is some correspondence between data and forecasts, this is usually because the forecasts included so many different ‘scenarios’ that one of them had to be right.
Famously, Neil Ferguson said it was “almost inevitable” that cases would reach 100,000 per day after some restrictions were removed on 19th July. What cases actually did over the next 10 days was fall by nearly 50%.
(If Ferguson tells you it’s “almost inevitable” that he’ll meet you on time, it’s probably best to bring a book, or delay your own arrival by half an hour.)
Okay, so the ‘experts’ aren’t very good at predicting where cases or deaths will be a few weeks hence. But they’re surely better than the rest of us. And since some information is better than no information, we shouldn’t dismiss them entirely – right?
A study published earlier this year did find that experts (defined as “epidemiologists, statisticians, mathematical modelers, virologists, and clinicians”) were more accurate at forecasting the UK’s death toll in 2020 than were random members of the public.
In April of 2020, Gabriel Recchia and colleagues asked 140 experts, as well as 2,000 members of the public, to guess how many people in the UK would die of COVID by 31st December. Each participant was asked to give a ‘75% confidence interval’ for their guess.
The correct answer (which can be debated, of course) fell within the 75% confidence interval for 10% of non-experts and 36% of experts. So the experts did better, but less than half of them were even close.
A more recent study reached slightly different conclusions. Earlier this year, the epiforecast group at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine hosted a forecasting competition in which they invited members of the public to predict weekly case and death numbers in the U.K.
The competition ran from 24th May to 16th August. Both experts and non-experts were eligible to compete, experts being those who declared themselves as such when they signed up (so we’re presumably talking about epidemiologists and people with a background in forecasting).
What did the researchers find? In this case, the self-declared experts performed slightly worse than the non-experts, although neither group did especially well.
Why did the two studies reach different conclusions? I suspect the answer lies in the composition of each study’s non-expert group. In the first study, the non-experts were random members of the public, whereas in the second, they were laymen who chose to take part in a forecasting tournament.
The psychologist Philip Tetlock has gathered a large amount of evidence that, when it comes to quantitative forecasting, experts aren’t any better than well-informed laymen (even if they do have an edge over the man on the street).
I suspect the non-experts who took part in the Covid forecasting tournament were the kind of well-informed laymen that Tetlock identified in his research. After all, you’d have to be pretty geeky to find out about such a tournament in the first place.
Overall, the evidence suggests that no one’s particularly good at forecasting the epidemic. Where the ‘experts’ do have an advantage is in making their predictions appear scientific.
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1) Vaccine damage?
2) VAIDS?
Plus damage to immune system and multiple other aspects of physical health by both prolonged fear and restrictions
German TV presenter rolls eyes, becomes incoherent in mid-sentence and collapses on camera .
Anchor : “Let’s move on to the next item”
Stop taking the boosters guys. Not working…some expert docs calling effects of vaxx “immune erosion”..vaccine induced immune deficiency syndrome.you won’t even be able to mount a response for the common cold, and other mild illnesses. Please reconsider taking the boosters until all the trials are finished and all the safety data is in.
Demographics is destiny. Note the ageing population, and the quite startling excess of females from 25+. I’d go ahead and infer this is due to go-getting – and healthy – males emigrating, leaving behind… well, what gets left behind.
c.f. Scotchland, both demographically and genetically.
The female surplus is likely because of maids, cleaners etc from elsewhere in Asia.
Or it could be males turning into females
Gender fluidity makes this graph un-inclusive, I’m going to raise this in the High Court (Twitter).
Who can tell?
If it will get me a job, I’m prepared to identify as an iguana…
Hmm, fair point, thanks for pointing it out.
I’ll stick with “They old!” then. Given our own parlous fertility rates, that’s our not-too-distant future right there.
I wonder if the people in hospitals – soon to disappear? – might have an over-abundance of ‘freedom protesters’?
If you take away the hospitals, technically there’s no overflow. Problem solved.
That was what the NHS did during the last year or so. It’s good to think that the Chinese are still learning from us….
And I believe that the teachers are experimenting with this technique for solving the education crisis…
Yes, I suspect they are especially vulnerable to the new virus.
This, my friends, is the ‘benefit’ of the CCP!
It comes as the city reported 1,619 new cases on Tuesday, according to official data, plus around 5,400 preliminary positive infections. This is on top of 2,071 new cases on Monday – the highest daily count since the pandemic began.
Two thousand daily cases a day in a population of 8 million is small compared to rates in other countries, especially the UK.
Good job they are not in the midst of a Hong Kong flu pandemic.
Are we really going to believe anything being reported about HK?
The CCP need a compliant population there how they achieve it will not be publicised.
Indeed, this has a strong feel of those early images of Wuhanese dropping dead in the streets.
Does the style guide at the Telegraph specify punishment of death if the words “omicron variant” are not preceded by “highly contagious” in all copy?
His real name is Stephen Yaxley Lennon you know
and his address is …….
I didn’t get that at first, I must be getting old or still recovering from a good night out in the pub.
– Beowulf (real name Olaf Skullsplitter).
Yeah the point is that, just like the TR stuff, the phrasing around covid is centralized, it is imposed from outside newsrooms. There are NUJ edicts, but it’s likely these reflect “Trusted News Initiative” messaging. None of this is news, it’s brainwashing. MK Ultra.
No, just a fine from their World Health Sponsor ( we know who!)
No videos of people dropping dead in the street? I miss the glory days of February 2020. They’ve become very lazy with the propaganda.
Much easier to use drones
Answer. They both lie. The CCP and the Global Health team at the Telegraph.
Have the ‘Global Health Team’ taken over and fully occupied the Telegraph yet , or are there still pockets of resistance?
I wouldn’t know, as I have cancelled my subscription.
Telegraph is confused. They run comments and articles that have a place on this site. But their Gates funded team sticks to the script.
Use Bypass Paywalls with Firefox and you can get most publications around the world.
It used to be said “Never trust what you read in the newspapers”. Add to that anything which has a CCP source or linked to Gates, or both, and you’re in a land of fantasy or brainwashing; or perhaps both of those, too.
There is clearly a major outbreak of respiratory disease – it’s a virus called ‘masking’.
‘Masking’ will certainly worsen any respiratory disease a person might have!
I expect Pfizer will be working on a “Masker Respiratory Syndrome Vaccine ” to deal with it. ( 6 doses a year)
People with breathing difficulties, ie, serious COVID, are certainly not going to wear them. But patients rolled out to have some fresh air (the Hong Kong idea of fresh air at least — normal humidity there is like the situation immediatley before a thunderstorm in Europe) and sunshine well might.
If they are in hospital because they have breathing difficulties, why are they wearing face coverings, which will simply make it worse? Some of them have masks and face shields.
Helps reduce their oxygen intake and makes them worse…..then they can go on a ‘plan’ as soon as the Midazolam arrives!
Hong Kong is having a number done on it by China. SCMP is reporting this wave could last 5 months according to “medical experts”, so the HKers who can are trying to escape into Shenzhen. Presumably they’re not being told it’s just a cold- a brief Google suggests that confirmed cases are reported as being in hospital. HK remembers the original SARS very well and there is probably a high level of genuine concern, into which has been seeded a great deal of panic. If every positive case is being taken into hospital regardless of severity, that could indicate why the hospitals are struggling.
But also- I lived in China for a bit, and you went to the hospital for everything- if you needed antibiotics, if you needed vitamin C, if you were a bit tired… They don’t have GPs, and hospitals are not just for the seriously ill. They all look like the photos above. I never went to a hospital in HK but I wouldn’t be surprised if they look like those photos most of the time as well. British hospitals typically do, in a flu season.
Wouldn’t escaping from HK to Shenzhen be as difficult as escaping from East Germany to West Germany during the Cold War?
HK’s border with mainland China is sealed shut: in fact one of the main justifications HK has for pursuing a zero-covid policy in the first place is to persuade mainland China that it’s safe to reopen that border!
Global Health Security have a consistent message in their propaganda section of the DT.
Which is “Its not over, panic, get another vaccine shot or we’re all going to die”
Its pretty tedious
The DT is now a disgrace to free and honest investigative journalism – a sad loss, ruined by Globalist ownership and interference and cowardly Editors.
Neither the government of HK nor that of China would ever lie or distort the truth
Do we know which ‘vaccine’ has been given to its population? Is it mRNA? (I’m assuming it is – and this may explain why we’re not seeing the same thing play out in China).
This seem impossible to establish for certain.
It is from:
And definitely not from an injected experimental gene therapeutic that induces spike proteins to attach to ACE-2 receptors causing inflammation and cellular destruction.
It’s winter. It’s a seasonal virus. This doesn’t appear to have registered with world ‘leaders’.
Here are the figures from S Korea. Repressive masking mandates. Unvaxxed not allowed in bars or restaurants. Mandatory quarantine for everyone entering the country. Massive Vax uptake. Guess what? None of it works!
https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20220215002653320
At this time of the years, it’s decidedly T-shirt season in southern China. It may have been a bit like late March in the UK a month ago.
Hong Kong is actually tropical by the astronomical definition (it’s at 22.3 degrees North) even if its climate is a bit shy of tropical because of the strength of the Siberian High Pressure in winter.
My thoughts? Rearrange this anagram into a well known dismissive word. SLOBLOCK.
Hong Kong Hospitals? The New Prisons?
Are the force vaccinating the people ?
What is really going on?
Organ harvesting. You wake up dead.
I think you’ve made an error on Hong Kong’s Covid policy: the quarantine facilities are for contacts of the infected rather than the infected themselves.
Anyone who actually tests positive (regardless of symptoms) is automatically hospitalized, which may explain why they’re overflowing.
Another factor is that Hong Kong’s vaccination rate among the elderly (ie the very people most likely to die from Covid) is pitifully low: perhaps due to a combination of lack of desire to travel and trust in the government’s Zero Covid strategy?
Simple answer to this question: Just as everytime so far, the overflowing hospitals have been wished into existence by COVID propagandists attaching exaggerated claims to a normal situation and context-less photos people who aren’t familiar with the situation in Hong Kong can interpret properly.
As someone who has actually lived in Kwun Tong in the past (within walking distance of Ngau Tau Kok subway station), the first thing I note when seeing these photos is that they have an air of being unusually spacey and relaxed for local conditions. During day time, one will have serious problems finding locations with that few people in them there.
My first thought was that the hospitals must be overflowing with freedom loving folk who’ve had their heads bashed by Hong Kong cops.
Sometimes I’ve wondered if the West ought to do a population exchange with China: the West gets the pro-democracy Hong Kongers, while Hong Kong (which I guess due to its British colonial past would be more able than mainland China to absorb immigrants who don’t speak Chinese) gets Western zero-coviders in exchange.
I’m generally unhappy about the idea of more mad mask lovers coming here and expecting us to integrate into their culture but exporting zero-coviders to Hong Kong for some time could be a good idea. They’d be in for a nasty culture shock upon discovering that Chinese people are not geneticallly lactose-intolerant.
More staged photos ‘leaked’ to ‘the West’ to keep the fear going. An incentive for everyone to take the 4th jab.
Another possibility is that many of them could in fact just get up and go home. How many of these people are panicking on account of having a cold – maybe a nasty cold, but a cold – and think they’re dying? I’ve met a lot of such people here – where it’s known as ‘man flu’. Psychosoma. Some are serious, some are saps.
My son lives in HK and is going about his daily life as usual. There are many people out and about and 98% are wearing masks. Even the babies are westing masks although my son has refused a mask for his child.
No Hong Kongers are allowed to leave the island but this has been the case for many months. It seems to me there is propaganda at work again. My cousin in India was telling me last hear that UK was totally locked down as so many people were dying?????
Lies, lies and damn lies.
Isn’t it a shame Hong Kong will not use ivermectin and other repurposed drugs as early treatment?
Gates funded Global Health Security team? Nothing dodgy there then.
Isn’t it the case that anyone testing positive in HK is required to spend 21 days isolating in hospital, asymptomatic or not?
If so – and I believe it is so – then given that HK hospitals are always 90%+ occupied, it’s hardly surprising that the hospitals are overflowing.It didn’t matter much when “cases”were in the hundreds but it does now as the number has shot up.
The Telegraph’s global health security articles are not to be trusted in any shape or form. They’re basically a branch of the Gates Propaganda Department.
Is it also possible to compare within the vaccines? The Astrazeneca product is of a completely different type to Pfizer so it doesn’t seem quite right to lump them together in the statistics.