#COVID19 | Page 144 | Vital Football

#COVID19

Our figures are also wildly inaccurate and late. I bet yesterday's total was double that.
Thankfully that shouldn't be the case.

It's true that the recorded figures are hospital only and don't include deaths in the community.

But recent ONS (I think, but could be NHS, I can't remember) analysis reckons 93% of deaths are happening in hospital
 
Thankfully that shouldn't be the case.

It's true that the recorded figures are hospital only and don't include deaths in the community.

But recent ONS (I think, but could be NHS, I can't remember) analysis reckons 93% of deaths are happening in hospital

Office of National Statistics.
 
EFL meeting to discuss Brum’s financial dealings. No mention about ground sales and Derby, Shef W and Villa. Millwall furlough all staff including players. Bundersleague back in training with firm plans to restart games behind closed doors.
 
You've been around climate change for a long time, care to explain why the odd economist have been far more powerfully effective advocates of change than virtually the whole scientific community?

I've met a number of brilliant men (and women) who were wonderful at talking to themselves but in terms of bringing power with them...
Science and power are far from the same thing, Science is only as good as the best data it has access to, data is at best mixed and in need of analyzing in order to separate the good data from the poor data, then once the data scrutiny has been done the process of hypothesizing, testing, re testing, reporting and peer review begins... any attempt to shortcut scientific methodologies (by using power to intervene) is prone to have serious negative effects on results and applied outcomes, by cherry picking half tested half baked ideas we risk disaster.

often what happens is idiots with no understanding of what science is (the type who prefer religious mumbo jumbo) demand answers from "Science" as though it were an ancient all knowing oracle rather than a slow careful process of testing and re testing to confirm a hypothesis. It is a method of disproving falsety rather than an oracle of truth. There are no absolute truths that can be proved by Science. That is not what it is for!
 
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You've been around climate change for a long time, care to explain why the odd economist have been far more powerfully effective advocates of change than virtually the whole scientific community?

I've met a number of brilliant men (and women) who were wonderful at talking to themselves but in terms of bringing power with them...
That doesn't mean the science is limp or untrustworthy. That just means that the trait for being good at science is coupled with the trait for staring at your own shoes in a social situation. But that's a massive sweeping statement and there are many fine science communicators.

Anyway, that's an aside. Why do you think it is the job of scientists to take political stances (i.e. being a powerfully effective advocate). That's a pretty slippery slope. Cold impartiality is likely to be better on balance. IT's like we've been talking about on here. The scientists predict how many may die directly and indirectly from the virus. They (and economists) might also model financial losses and the direct and indirect deaths from financial collapse. Whether a lockdown is warranted when balancing the one against the other is a political judgement. Unfortunately the politicians that get elected tend to be those with the qualities you are admiring in this post (orators, populists?), rather than for their judgement alone.

The powerful advocates are only worth listening to if they have some grasp of the science. Otherwise they are empty vessels.
 
The really frightening thing for the future is how spectacularly the experts have failed.

In the west we have been fighting a culture war between instinct/emotion and expertise for the last 5 years at least.

Brexit was the English epitomy of that. Gove's 'tired of experts was a gaffe at the time but has become the phrase that characterised an era.

AfD is the equivalent in Germany, Trump of course in the USA.

But in the USA, instinct is going to kill tens of thousands

Unfortunately, in this country those deaths will be caused by faulty science and flawed experts. People will see that and the anti-intellectualism of the last few years will gain legitimacy
Again, I really question your use of "the experts have failed".
Some, maybe, have failed but it is unfair to tar all "the experts" with the same brush.

Your point that the errors of a few (or at least misplaced predictions) will be used to boost the case for anti-intellectualism is indeed spot on though, as CP said.
Again it is horribly reminiscent of the brexit clusterfuck where the line about "economists said [some prediction] once and THAT turned out to be wrong" very quickly morphed into "all experts are always wrong".
 
Thankfully that shouldn't be the case.

It's true that the recorded figures are hospital only and don't include deaths in the community.

But recent ONS (I think, but could be NHS, I can't remember) analysis reckons 93% of deaths are happening in hospital

Prof Sheila Bird, of the Medical Research Council’s biostatistics unit at Cambridge University cast serious doubts on that figure.

However her main point was that NHS England figures – which currently make up the bulk of UK deaths – in fact reflect the day on which the death was reported, not the actual date of death, which is usually days, sometimes weeks, before it appears in the figures...
 
Prof Sheila Bird, of the Medical Research Council’s biostatistics unit at Cambridge University cast serious doubts on that figure.

However her main point was that NHS England figures – which currently make up the bulk of UK deaths – in fact reflect the day on which the death was reported, not the actual date of death, which is usually days, sometimes weeks, before it appears in the figures...
Yup. The death data are at least a couple of days old.
If it is three days, the number should be about double unless there has been a dramatic abatement due to the lockdown measures.
 
Ooh, Angela McLean today.
Not sure why they've got her on. She's Chief Scientific Advisor the the MoD....

:toot:
Calling all conspiracy theorists.
Calling all conspiracy theorists.
:tank::tank::tank:
 
That doesn't mean the science is limp or untrustworthy. That just means that the trait for being good at science is coupled with the trait for staring at your own shoes in a social situation. But that's a massive sweeping statement and there are many fine science communicators.

Anyway, that's an aside. Why do you think it is the job of scientists to take political stances (i.e. being a powerfully effective advocate). That's a pretty slippery slope. Cold impartiality is likely to be better on balance. IT's like we've been talking about on here. The scientists predict how many may die directly and indirectly from the virus. They (and economists) might also model financial losses and the direct and indirect deaths from financial collapse. Whether a lockdown is warranted when balancing the one against the other is a political judgement. Unfortunately the politicians that get elected tend to be those with the qualities you are admiring in this post (orators, populists?), rather than for their judgement alone.

The powerful advocates are only worth listening to if they have some grasp of the science. Otherwise they are empty vessels.

That wasn't a general comment on science, it was specific to the response in this country. Lots climate science is brilliant, I just have been frustrated at how ineffective scientists have actually been at communicating and persuading power of it's importance and urgency. The most effective advocates we've had are an economist and a schoolgirl.

They've failed in the UK and USA also for this current crisis. Perhaps they were always fated too given the administrations involved, but that doesn't mean they've been effective.

Knowledge is largely useless if it's disregarded and even more so with the likes of Trump or I'm sick of experts Raab at the wheel they need to find a new way to communicate.

The neutrality argument is a cop out when we are facing such profoundly challenging times.
 
Again, I really question your use of "the experts have failed".
Some, maybe, have failed but it is unfair to tar all "the experts" with the same brush.

Your point that the errors of a few (or at least misplaced predictions) will be used to boost the case for anti-intellectualism is indeed spot on though, as CP said.
Again it is horribly reminiscent of the brexit clusterfuck where the line about "economists said [some prediction] once and THAT turned out to be wrong" very quickly morphed into "all experts are always wrong".
Fair point.

Perhaps revise my statement to "the experts that the English public have seen visibly have failed".
 
That wasn't a general comment on science, it was specific to the response in this country. Lots climate science is brilliant, I just have been frustrated at how ineffective scientists have actually been at communicating and persuading power of it's importance and urgency. The most effective advocates we've had are an economist and a schoolgirl.

They've failed in the UK and USA also for this current crisis. Perhaps they were always fated too given the administrations involved, but that doesn't mean they've been effective.

Knowledge is largely useless if it's disregarded and even more so with the likes of Trump or I'm sick of experts Raab at the wheel they need to find a new way to communicate.

The neutrality argument is a cop out when we are facing such profoundly challenging times.
To be fair, in the current crisis the PM (or stand-in) has always been flanked by two top scientists/medics answering any questions put by the press.
 
Science and power are far from the same thing, Science is only as good as the best data it has access to, data is at best mixed and in need of analyzing in order to separate the good data from the poor data, then once the data scrutiny has been done the process of hypothesizing, testing, re testing, reporting and peer review begins... any attempt to shortcut scientific methodologies (by using power to intervene) is prone to have serious negative effects on results and applied outcomes, by cherry picking half tested half baked ideas we risk disaster.

often what happens is idiots with no understanding of what science is (the type who prefer religious mumbo jumbo) demand answers from "Science" as though it were an ancient all knowing oracle rather than a slow careful process of testing and re testing to confirm a hypothesis. It is a method of disproving falsety rather than an oracle of truth. There are no absolute truths that can be proved by Science. That is not what it is for!

That wasn't the thrust of my argument. I'm not arguing for power to intervene, I'm asking science to tell truth to power in such a way that folk listen. Maybe the task is impossible but their attempts are largely mediocre and fear driven.
 
That wasn't a general comment on science, it was specific to the response in this country. Lots climate science is brilliant, I just have been frustrated at how ineffective scientists have actually been at communicating and persuading power of it's importance and urgency. The most effective advocates we've had are an economist and a schoolgirl.

They've failed in the UK and USA also for this current crisis. Perhaps they were always fated too given the administrations involved, but that doesn't mean they've been effective.

Knowledge is largely useless if it's disregarded and even more so with the likes of Trump or I'm sick of experts Raab at the wheel they need to find a new way to communicate.

The neutrality argument is a cop out when we are facing such profoundly challenging times.
But the economist that keeps your dreams interesting is probably still only as famous as Bjorn Lomborg.
 
That wasn't the thrust of my argument. I'm not arguing for power to intervene, I'm asking science to tell truth to power in such a way that folk listen. Maybe the task is impossible but their attempts are largely mediocre and fear driven.
I also don't get the "fear driven" motif.
I didn't address it before. Are you meaning fear of speaking truth to power? Because if it were fear of the pandemic then they would have raised the status from Low to Deadly much sooner.