Tag: Modelling

Philippe Lemoine’s articles on the pandemic are required reading. We asked him about the case against lockdowns, why epidemiological models have fared so poorly, and what Emmanuel Macron should have done last year.

In a recent article, we considered the implications of the U.K.’s spring rise in infections, given that before now the assumption has been that coronaviruses are seasonal at northern temperate latitudes. Do we have to dismiss that hypothesis in light of the ‘Third Wave’? Here we argue that, contrary to Government claims, the British summer is indeed finally impacting viral transmission, with sharp falls in positives reported across the U.K. In England, reported cases have more-or-less halved in a week, from 50,955 to 25,434. This sharp fall runs counter to all three of the most recent SAGE models driving Government policy, which predict rising infections leading to peaks in hospital admissions in high summer – and by implication falsifies the assumptions upon which these models are based. Parsimony predicts the summer troughs and winter peaks evident for SARS-CoV-2 In spring and summer 2020 and winter 2020-1, SARS-CoV-2 infections parsimoniously followed the pattern of seasonal respiratory viruses, falling away in the summer months and rising again in the autumn, with peaks in deaths occurring between mid-November 2020 and mid-April 2021 in different northern temperate countries. Although falling infection levels were sometimes prolonged into early summer or began to rise again in late summer, there were no peaks in fatalities in summer or early autumn 2020.  Most notably, while cases in Sweden ...

As reported positive cases plummet following 'Freedom Day', the damage limitation among the doomsters begins. But they can't conceal the fact that their models have failed.

Dr Mike Tildesly, a SAGE modeller, has confessed to UnHerd's Freddie Sayers that he and his fellow court astrologers were too pessimistic about the impact of unlocking on June 21st and we should unlock in full on July 19th

There was a good letter in the Telegraph today co-signed by Lockdown Sceptics contributor David Campbell and his colleague Kevin Dowd blaming Imperial College's alarmist modelling last March for the pickle we're in.

The models from SAGE and others all forecast a huge summer surge as we reopen, but the predictions are already wrong. With the peak expected in the next month, we'll soon know how wrong they are.

During the pandemic, governments have relied heavily on epidemiological models. These models were often based on untenable assumptions. A new paper argues that we should have relied more on historical comparisons.

A summer wave, a winter wave, the threat of new restrictions – Chris Whitty and Neil Ferguson were not holding back yesterday. But for all the doom and gloom, the signs are the summer ripple is already peaking.

Lockdown Sceptics' in-house doctor says Chris Whitty's slide show at yesterday's Downing St briefing was a blatant exercise in biased data selection.

The modellers of doom are at it again, with Neil Ferguson predicting a big summer wave based on the Indian variant being 60% more infectious. But if that is so, why is it not taking over everywhere?