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Cuchulainn
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Re: Models for Covid-19

November 27th, 2020, 12:03 pm

Annotations on BBC2 TV programme “Lockdown 1.0 – Follow the Science”

1.      Nothing (data, precedent) to go on in January except work by the modellers. Too much reliance on the models. Modelling was the driver of the “Science”.
2.      Not a single institute (bar a single scientist from Bristol) with knowledge of human corona virus.
3.      No access to “fresh” data from China; scientists used Wikipedia.
4.      NHS data was always a week too late to be useful for the mathematical models.
5.      The quality of the UK data << quality of Ebola data from Democratic Republic of Congo.
6.      “Follow the Science is a meaningless term.”
7.      And the care homes? (20,000 deaths from a population of 400,000). Answer? “We didn’t look”.
It was only in April that care homes were seen as a serious problem. Previously, it didn’t appear on the radar.
8.      Learn from the Lodi (Lombardy, Italy) pandemic? No! “We are different and we have the NHS”. And this mindset persisted up to 11 March 2020. UK made exactly the same mistakes as the Italians.
9.      Scientists wanted Lockdown 10 March 2020. Actual lockdown 23 March.
10.  Care homes not supported in the mathematical models. Look like no support for age as an independent variable? If yes, then the SIR model is not suitable.
11.  SIR model does not support time delays.
12.  16 March 2020 modellers predicted 250, 000 deaths. Panic stations at Number 10?
13.  Modelling estimates had very wide upper and lower bounds of uncertainty.
14.  Gabriel Scally “this was eminently curable”.
15.  No screening of flights from Wuhan.

nolite interficere nuntius
 
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Cuchulainn
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Re: Models for Covid-19

December 6th, 2020, 1:41 pm

The rise of vaccine  sceptics

France, world’s most vaccine-sceptic country, warily eyes Covid-19 shots

https://www.france24.com/en/europe/2020 ... d-19-shots
 
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Cuchulainn
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Re: Models for Covid-19

December 8th, 2020, 1:24 pm

Coronavirus vaccine: Pfizer given protection from legal action by UK government

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/heal ... 65124.html
 
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Cuchulainn
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Re: Models for Covid-19

December 17th, 2020, 6:01 pm

Who is cooking the COV-19 data? Benford's law to the rescue.
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/An ... ion_detail
 
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Cuchulainn
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Re: Models for Covid-19

March 17th, 2021, 5:09 pm

Today on BBC they actually showed the (udocumented) ODE model (an ODE system with 7 unknowns). Here is a snippet; Can it model Corona? sound too good to be true. And almost linear. My guess is that it cannot model a lot? It looks awful linear, almost. 1st year electrical engineering syllabus??

Image

Paul? Alan? Farid? Kats
First anniversary of the Covid-19 saga.
 
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Paul
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Re: Models for Covid-19

March 17th, 2021, 6:01 pm

I think we need to introduce vaccination into the model. An extra parameter, [$]\lambda[$], to represent efficiency, with [$]\lambda_{\mbox{EU}}\ll\lambda_{\mbox{ROW}}[$].
 
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Cuchulainn
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Re: Models for Covid-19

March 17th, 2021, 6:53 pm

Give them an inch and they'll take a mile.
Scientists love their models, so they do. Creeping featuritis.
 
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katastrofa
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Re: Models for Covid-19

March 17th, 2021, 7:22 pm

Hmm, I'll probably soon include the efficacy of vaccines in forecasts of pastries consumption in Norway... (-:
 
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Cuchulainn
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Re: Models for Covid-19

March 17th, 2021, 7:31 pm

Hmm, I'll probably soon include the efficacy of vaccines in forecasts of pastries consumption in Norway... (-:
Do you need beta testers? Do you have a budget for this overhead.
 
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katastrofa
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Re: Models for Covid-19

March 18th, 2021, 12:27 am

They pay me in unsold vafler - the more I err, the more I earn ;-)
 
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Cuchulainn
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Re: Models for Covid-19

May 9th, 2021, 10:32 pm

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why ... eplicated-

How is it possible to replicate undocumented code?
Seems Uppsala model was not peer-reviewed..

No one, however, would have predicted this news item from last week: “Covid-19 deaths in Sweden were the highest in Europe per capita in a rolling seven-day average between 12 and 19 May.” It confirmed that Sweden’s state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell’s “mitigation” strategy of allowing shops, restaurants, gyms, schools and workplaces to remain open was a deadly folly. It does not even seem to have produced herd immunity. Just 7.3% of Stockholm’s inhabitants had developed Covid-19 antibodies by the end of April.

Britain saw a wave of support for a government that frittered it away with its repeated displays of tardiness and ineptitude. If Britain shows the dangers of a weak state and incapable politicians, Sweden shows what happens when you place too much trust in a handful of administrators, without first protecting yourself with a robustly argumentative culture that allows you to question whether they are right.

"Pride comes before a fall."

Anders Tegnell: The rise and fall of an emperor with no clothes in Sweden

https://foreignpolicynews.org/2021/01/0 ... in-sweden/

Told you so
 
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Cuchulainn
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Re: Models for Covid-19

May 9th, 2021, 10:38 pm

[In the middle of the pandemic, Swedish media received a government bailout to the tune of 700 million SEK or approximately 70 million Euro. This was at a time when front-line workers were denied oral protection as Anders Tegnell did not think it was necessary, and most elderly care homes were devoid of oxygen supplies. As the chief architect of Sweden`s COVID-19 response, he has largely avoided national and international scrutiny for his costly mistakes. The question firmly on many people`s minds is how did Tegnell ascend the throne in pandemic Sweden?

You can fool some of the people none of the time..Scientists can be great bluffers.

Tegnell the Swedish State Epidemiologist lacks a doctorate in epidemiology. He does not conduct his own research on the subject nor has he been the lead author of an expert-reviewed scientific article since 2009 (before that in 2004) according to Google Scholar. His formal education in epidemiology consists of a one-year long-distance learning course at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine which he completed over four years.
 
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Cuchulainn
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Re: Models for Covid-19

May 23rd, 2021, 8:24 pm

herd immunity, wha?

Coronavirus: Patel denies No 10 pursued herd immunity policy

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-57217740

The prime minister's ex-aide Dominic Cummings has said in tweets that the UK's original plan was to let the virus spread through the population - achieving so-called "herd immunity".
Mr Cummings said No 10 later realised it would be a "catastrophe".
 
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katastrofa
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Re: Models for Covid-19

May 24th, 2021, 3:29 pm

herd immunity, wha?

Coronavirus: Patel denies No 10 pursued herd immunity policy

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-57217740

The prime minister's ex-aide Dominic Cummings has said in tweets that the UK's original plan was to let the virus spread through the population - achieving so-called "herd immunity".
Mr Cummings said No 10 later realised it would be a "catastrophe".
I constantly struggle to understand how all the politicians, popes, pop-stars, Karens, ... can realise so much about specialist subjects and always ahead of the actual specialists.
 
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Paul
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Re: Models for Covid-19

May 24th, 2021, 4:38 pm

There are many reasons. One of which is that it is their job! And that job is made harder, and more interesting, by specialists not agreeing. If it was easy, etc. 

The only specialists you can rely on are economists. Because they are always wrong.