 |
| Source |
It is not even unreasonable to suggest UK government lockdown policies have probably made the impact of the virus worse than it would have been with a lighter touch. Carry on as usual, protect the vulnerable and a heavy information campaign for example.
To my mind the only people to come out of this with any credit are those involved with researching, testing, manufacturing and delivering the vaccine. It is not necessary to delve into the validity of the vaccine approach to see that - we need to take away something positive. Yet even this should be questioned if and when we see another seasonal rise in infections. A public mea culpa is obviously necessary to kick that off. It won't happen.
7 comments:
"There are caveats in country by country coronavirus comparisons. With that in mind, UK coronavirus deaths per million data still suggest that government policy has not worked."
This may well be true, or it may be picking data to suit expectations. We don't know yet... you could just as easily argue that the number of deaths, infections, hits to the economy etc. , could have been much worse without the government policies used.
I'm looking forward to the results of the census becoming available. We'll have a much better idea of the population density and urbanisation of the UK, house occupancy, and the age and ethnicity of the population. All of which could be significant in the spread of infection.
There are more caveats, such as the more you test the more you find, and who is doing the most testing ? and of course did someone die with or from the virus, how carefully is that examined ?
Some very telling figures. There are other variables involved, of course, the most significant being the age structures of the different populations.
I'm waiting for two things. First, a consensus around the stats we should be using, so the Government can be judged against other countries with the greatest possible confidence. Second, the Government to acknowledge they misclassified many deaths as occurring from, rather than with, covid. Soon, it's got to be in their interests to do so.
Epidemiology is subject to statistics and we should all be careful with those, there is such a thing as confounding factors, In statistics, a confounder is a variable that influences both the dependent variable and independent variable, causing a spurious association. Confounding is a causal concept, and as such, cannot be described in terms of correlations or associations.
So many deaths reported with photos of people that could be described as overweight for example, or people living in care homes, or large family groups etc etc
I've yet to see the conflicting stats on who died from ordinary flu, or - say - pneumonia at a time when all these afflictions are so common here, but maybe not accounted for because people were just not spreading it around!
I think that would be a spreadsheet too far for even the boffins in Whitehall or even Bletchley!
DJ - yes population density is bound to be considered. It could be a factor but politically it could be used as a way to claim that lockdowns would have worked better if only.. It could justify even more draconian lockdowns in the future.
MrMC - testing is an issue which has bothered me all the way through. As if mass testing was intended to boost the numbers, or at least this was a desired side-effect. Stats are always a problem because at some point a statistical model has to be chosen and once political factors come into play the choice is usually made retrospectively and politically.
Sam - one problem with the variables is that they will be selected or ignored politically. Not a problem to underestimate in my view, because they may leave out such things as NHS infection control standards and the weaknesses of a rigid top-down approach.
Scrobs - there is an oddity where one virus can infect a population and an endemic virus such as flu just disappears. Nobody really seems to know why.
Numbers don't lie, but people do
Post a Comment