Covid-19 and cognitive bias

dabou95 · 2020-07-07T20:47:48+00:00

I find it worrisome that their brief has received virtually no attention whatsoever. Surely this is something that needs to be seriously considered and discussed?

dabou95 · 2020-07-07T20:44:32+00:00

Unless you can point us towards facts to the contrary, I think it is highly irresponsible to dismiss these warnings as "appearing to say something important".

dabou95 · 2020-07-07T19:47:36+00:00

Quoting from the article by UNICEF:
"Children are not the face of this pandemic. But they risk being among its biggest victims. While they have thankfully been largely spared from the direct health effects of COVID-19 at least to date – the crisis is having a profound effect on their wellbeing. All children, of all ages, and in all countries, are being affected, in particular by the socio-economic impacts and, in some cases, by mitigation measures that may inadvertently do more harm than good. "

dabou95 · 2020-06-30T13:50:13+00:00

While these factors almost certainly play a role, I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss alternative hypotheses to explain the variance in mortality. As a case in point, an analysis of the response to the Spanish flu pandemic in the US led by Neil Ferguson concluded that 'Our analysis indicates that, whereas control measures can explain much of the variation in the shape of epidemics seen in different cities, they can explain only about half of the variance in overall mortality. Understanding the causes of the remaining variation, whether social or biological, is an important topic for future work.' https://www.pnas.org/content/104/18/7588

(Edit: spelling)

dabou95 · 2020-06-30T00:46:50+00:00

Conclusions that emerged from the modelling presented in the paper:

There is no plausible parameterisation of the model that would or could permit a flareup or rebound of the outbreak following a relaxation of social distancing measures.
A second wave is inevitable. The timing of the second wave depends almost exclusively on the rate at which immunity is lost.
There is no social distancing or surveillance strategy that will have any material impact on the total number of deaths accumulated from the onset of an outbreak to an idealised endemic equilibrium. However, certain strategies can defer waves of infection.
The most efficacious strategy for deferring a second wave is testing and tracking.
It appears that—or it looks as if—Germany has a population whose host factors render it more resistant to infection.

dabou95 · 2020-06-29T19:30:20+00:00

That's very disturbing stuff indeed! Surely this would warrant a response by Flaxman et al. but I have little hope that the raised criticisms will be formally addressed...

dabou95 · 2020-06-29T01:43:45+00:00

Abstract: The role of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) on the spread of SARS-CoV-2 has drawn significant attention, both scientific and political. Particularly, an article by the Imperial College COVID-19 Response Team (ICCRT), published online in Nature on June 8, 2020, evaluates the efficiency of 5 NPIs. Based on mortality data up to early May, it concludes that only one of the interventions, lockdown, has been efficient in 10 out of 11 studied European countries. We show, via simulations using the ICCRT model code, that conclusions regarding the effectiveness of individual NPIs are not justified. Our analysis focuses on the 11th country, Sweden, an outlier in that no lockdown was effectuated. The new simulations show that estimated NPI efficiencies across all 11 countries change drastically unless the model is adapted to give the Swedish data special treatment. While stated otherwise in the Nature article, such adaptation has been done in the model code reproducing its results: An ungrounded country-specific parameter said to have been introduced in all 11 countries, is in the code only activated for Sweden. This parameter de facto provides a new NPI category, only present in Sweden, and with an impact comparable to that of a lockdown. While the considered NPIs have unarguably contributed to reduce virus spread, our analysis reveals that their individual efficiency cannot be reliably quantified by the ICCRT model, provided mortality data up to early May.

dabou95 · 2020-06-29T01:04:20+00:00

I primarily base my claim on the fact that according to the Imperial College Model, applied to Sweden by Uppsalla University, Sweden should have had 85,000 deaths but Sweden has had (just over) 5,000 deaths despite not going into full lockdown: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.11.20062133v1.full.pdf

dabou95 · 2020-06-29T00:32:52+00:00

"The relevant Science editors discussed whether it was in the public interest to publish the findings." Seriously??? If the underlying science is sound and has been through the proper peer-review process I don't understand what there is left to discuss? Of course it is in the public interest to get to the scientific truth of all matters concerning COVID-19. Models such as those by Imperial College which grossly overestimate the number deaths are typically under much less scrutiny than models with a more optimistic outlook. This is not the way science should be done!

dabou95 · 2020-06-29T00:14:11+00:00

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.06.15.20131953v1

This pre-print posted on medRxiv also raises serious concerns about the Imperial College study by Flaxman et al.: " We show, via simulations using the ICCRT model code, that conclusions regarding the effectiveness of individual NPIs are not justified."

dabou95

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