Posted on 03/26/2020 2:55:12 PM PDT by Impala64ssa
British scientist Neil Ferguson ignited the world’s drastic response to the novel Wuhan coronavirus when he published the bombshell report predicting 2.2 million Americans and more than half a million Brits would be killed. After both the U.S. and U.K. governments effectively shut down their citizens and economies, Ferguson is walking back his doomsday scenarios.
Ferguson’s report from Imperial College, which White House and other officials took seriously, said that if the U.S. and U.K. did not shut down for 18 months, and isolation measures were not taken, “we would expect a peak in mortality (daily deaths) to occur after approximately 3 months.” His “models” showed overflowing hospitals and ICU beds.
“For an uncontrolled epidemic, we predict critical care bed capacity would be exceeded as early as the second week in April, with an eventual peak in ICU or critical care bed demand that is over 30 times greater than the maximum supply in both countries,” the report reads.
Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus response coordinator, reportedly said the administration was particularly focused on the Imperial College report’s conclusion that entire households should stay in isolation for 14 days if any member suffered from COVID-19 symptoms.
But after tens of thousands of restaurants, bars, and businesses closed, Ferguson is now retracting his modeling, saying he feels “reasonably confident” our health care system can cope when the predicted peak of the epidemic arrives in a few weeks. Testifying before the U.K.’s parliamentary select committee on science and technology on Wednesday, Ferguson said he now predicts U.K. deaths from the disease will not exceed 20,000, and could be much lower.
Alex Berenson
✔@AlexBerenson
· 10h
1/ This is a remarkable turn from Neil Ferguson, who led the @imperialcollege authors who warned of 500,000 UK deaths - and who has now himself tested positive for #COVID; https://www.newscientist.com/article/2238578-uk-has-enough-intensive-care-units-for-coronavirus-expert-predicts/ …
UK has enough intensive care units for coronavirus, expert predicts | New Scientist
Neil Ferguson, whose modelling has informed the UK's coronavirus strategy, says that the need for intensive care beds will come close to, but not exceed, national capacity
newscientist.com
Alex Berenson
✔@AlexBerenson
2/ He now says both that the U.K. should have enough ICU beds and that the coronavirus will probably kill under 20,000 people in the U.K. - more than 1/2 of whom would have died by the end of the year in any case bc they were so old and sick.
2,226
7:14 AM - Mar 26, 2020
Twitter Ads info and privacy
950 people are talking about this
Jordan Schachtel
✔@JordanSchachtel
Big thread. The man who panicked the world is now running from his doomsday projections. Shut up and quarantine crowd MIA. No need to apologize to those of us who told you not to blindly trust 1 projection. Scrutinize a little more next time before you surrender your freedoms. https://twitter.com/alexberenson/status/1243133211011690499 …
Alex Berenson
✔@AlexBerenson
1/ This is a remarkable turn from Neil Ferguson, who led the @imperialcollege authors who warned of 500,000 UK deaths - and who has now himself tested positive for COVID19
Lee Smith@LeeSmithDC
3.3 M jobless claims in US as scientist walks back hysterical model warning between 2-4 M dead. https://twitter.com/AlexBerenson/status/1243133211011690499 …
Alex Berenson
✔@AlexBerenson
1/ This is a remarkable turn from Neil Ferguson, who led the @imperialcollege authors who warned of 500,000 UK deaths - and who has now himself tested positive for #COVID; https://www.newscientist.com/article/2238578-uk-has-enough-intensive-care-units-for-coronavirus-expert-predicts/ …
Ferguson, who has since tested positive for the Wuhan virus himself, has not issued any official retraction or apologies for his incorrect predictions. The New Scientist reports Ferguson did acknowledge it was impractical to keep the country in an isolated lockdown for 12 to 18 months, especially because of the impact on the economy. “We’ll be paying for this year for decades to come,” he said.
The Imperial College report was also the basis for the modeling used by the website COVID Act Now, which local and state officials in the U.S. then used to issue “shelter-in-place” mandates. COVID Act Now, which was founded by a handful of Democratic activists in Silicon Valley, is an online mapping tool that generates models predicting coronavirus hospitalizations, which have also already proved to be
Neil Ferguson works at UK-based Imperial College under “J-IDEA” sponsored by https://www.alj.com/en/about/story/ which may have its own agenda. The “J” stands for Abdul Latif Jameel.
Ferguson is the Director of J-IDEA. ://www.alj.com/en/news/rapid-response-research-centre-to-predict-and-prevent-global-health-crises/
YMMV
Just remember this entire. Thing this virus crap. M
Strange as it is - it’s only been going on about 10 or 11 days
and is only going to continue for a few more
and then the history books are going to start getting written about it
and the entire dynamic of this presidential race has changed
and the ability for liberal idiots in this country to see that this president is a great leader is cemented
Still waiting for MSM to report this.
Waiting, waiting, waiting.....
It is.
Most of these predictions are made by a SEIR epidemiology model. It's a differential equation that has many about 4 or 5 parameters that are difficult to measure. Because it's exponential small overestimates in the basic parameters can have huge consequences.
The worst offender is the COVID Act Now site which displays dire graphs but provides no information as to how they were obtained. Rumor has it they used information from the guy at Imperial College.
One good site is the University of Pennsylvania CHIME model. It's purpose is to try to help hospitals plan their predicted census and ICU census based on the doubling rate of cases they are seeing in real time.
You can play with it yourself. The problem with the model though is that it is using a fixed R0 of 2.6(referred to as R-naught which is loosely considered the birth number of new infections). While that is considered the current value for this virus it is still an estimate. No one really knows what the value of the number really is.
The model as presented at the site does not allow you to change the value of R0. So if you play with it, you will find that the exponential underpinnings of the model and its use of a fixed value of R0 mean that the hospital census quickly gets high. This inspite of changing the other parameters to try to effect a reduction.
Thanks!
Stig, I got what you said. I worked on the Club of Rome programs when I was in college as a class project, and they had a similar problem
Which is why I have never trusted computer models.
Later
But it did help us see how many on FR would rather live in slavery than risk their lives for FReedom - seems like some of them might have been out there in the '50s and '60s chanting "Better Red than Dead" as we massed resources during the Cold War...
“Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.” ― William Pitt the Younger
“Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” Ben Franklin
This virus may not be as bad as Ferguson says we it would be thoroughly moronic not to take it seriously. It is deadly enough to change your habits and take precautions to prevent infection.
South Korea didn’t lock everyone down, and they’re doing fine. Hand-washing, smart testing, and commonsense isolation of the vulnerable. Nothing new.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.