UK imperial model was a fraud

[jimnyc]

And no one bothered to analyze this crap until now?

--

Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx Used Imperial College Model — NOW CONFIRMED AS A COMPLETE FRAUD — To Persuade President Trump to Lock Down Entire US Economy!

** Dr. Tony Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birx used the Imperial College Model to persuade President Trump to lock down the ENTIRE US ECONOMY.
** The fraudulent model predicted 2.2 million American deaths from the coronavirus pandemic
** The authors of the Imperial College Model shared their findings with the White House Coronavirus task force in early March
** Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx then met with President Trump privately and urged him to shut down the US economy and destroy the record Trump economy based on this model
** A new critique of the Imperial College Model finds the study is “completely unusable for scientific purposes” — The study is a complete sham
** Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx pushed a garbage model on the White House and the American public and destroyed the US economy

As reported weeks ago — in mid April Dr. Fauci admitted that it was he and Dr. Birx who persuaded President Trump to lock down the US economy knowing the massive destruction this would cause in jobs, lives and commerce.

President admitted that during a press conference in April that “two very smart people” came into his office and urged him to lock down the economy or 2.2 million Americans would die from the China virus.

...

Sheri Fink at The New York Times back on March 16, 2020, described the scenario that led to the US economic lockdown.

In her report Fink describes how Imperial College researchers including Neil Ferguson shared their projections with Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx and the White House coronavirus task force. They even sent a copy of their report to the task force before its release.


Sweeping new federal recommendations announced on Monday for Americans to sharply limit their activities appeared to draw on a dire scientific report warning that, without action by the government and individuals to slow the spread of coronavirus and suppress new cases, 2.2 million people in the United States could die.

To curb the epidemic, there would need to be drastic restrictions on work, school and social gatherings for periods of time until a vaccine was available, which could take 18 months, according to the report, compiled by British researchers. They cautioned that such steps carried enormous costs that could also affect people’s health, but concluded they were “the only viable strategy at the current time.”

That is because different steps, intended to drive down transmission by isolating patients, quarantining those in contact with them and keeping the most vulnerable apart from others for three months, could only cut the predicted death toll by half, the new report said…

…Asked at a news conference with President Trump about what had led to the change in thinking by a White House task force, Dr. Deborah Birx, one of the task force leaders, said new information had come from a model developed in Britain.

Dr. Birx’s description of the findings was consistent with those in the report, released on Monday by an epidemic modeling group at Imperial College London. The lead author of the study, Neil Ferguson, an epidemiology professor, said in an interview that his group had shared their projections with the White House task force about a week ago and that an early copy of the report was sent over the weekend.

The group has also shared its fatality estimates with the C.D.C., Dr. Ferguson said, including that eight to nine percent of people in the most vulnerable age group, 80 and older, could die if infected.

After Dr. Birx and Dr. Fauci sat with the president the US went into lockdown and since that time over 30 MILLION Americans have lost their jobs and thousands of companies have gone bankrupt.

In late March, Neil Ferguson, who was behind the Imperial College coronavirus study, backtracked and said 20,000 Brits may die from the coronavirus instead of his original estimates of 500,000.

Neil Ferguson resigned from his government post as researcher this week after he was caught breaking his own lockdown rules by meeting with his married mistress at his home.

And now Sue Denim, a software engineer for 30 years, studied the Dr. Ferguson’s model and concluded it is complete garbage and cannot be scientifically replicated.

In her concluding remarks Denim says the Imperial College model “should be retracted immediately.”

Conclusions. All papers based on this code should be retracted immediately. Imperial’s modelling efforts should be reset with a new team that isn’t under Professor Ferguson, and which has a commitment to replicable results with published code from day one.

On a personal level, I’d go further and suggest that all academic epidemiology be defunded. This sort of work is best done by the insurance sector. Insurers employ modellers and data scientists, but also employ managers whose job is to decide whether a model is accurate enough for real world usage and professional software engineers to ensure model software is properly tested, understandable and so on. Academic efforts don’t have these people, and the results speak for themselves.

https://i.imgur.com/KH2CKHZ.png

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/05/huge-news-dr-fauci-dr-birx-used-imperial-college-model-now-confirmed-complete-fraud-persuade-president-trump-lock-entire-us-economy/


That was 4 days ago, leading to today.


COVID-19 Doctors Push Back on CDC’s Controversial and Questionable Rules that Inflate Real Coronavirus Numbers

In April the CDC forced states to recount their coronavirus deaths to include confirmed cases and probable cases.
Several states are in the process of reassessing their numbers based on this controversial new rule.

They likely did this because the initial predictions they used included the Imperial College Study out of England that predicted 2 million deaths in the US due to the virus. Of course, the numbers were much less than that. The UK study is now confirmed as a complete fraud.

Rest - https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/05/covid-19-doctors-push-back-cdcs-controversial-questionable-rules-inflate-real-coronavirus-numbers/

[FakeNewsSux]

What is it with British "researchers" and 'hockey stick' projections? Thank God we have the Bill Gates funded IHME that put out reasonably absurd projections.

[Drummond]

And no one bothered to analyze this crap until now?

--

Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx Used Imperial College Model — NOW CONFIRMED AS A COMPLETE FRAUD — To Persuade President Trump to Lock Down Entire US Economy!

** Dr. Tony Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birx used the Imperial College Model to persuade President Trump to lock down the ENTIRE US ECONOMY.
** The fraudulent model predicted 2.2 million American deaths from the coronavirus pandemic
** The authors of the Imperial College Model shared their findings with the White House Coronavirus task force in early March
** Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx then met with President Trump privately and urged him to shut down the US economy and destroy the record Trump economy based on this model
** A new critique of the Imperial College Model finds the study is “completely unusable for scientific purposes” — The study is a complete sham
** Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx pushed a garbage model on the White House and the American public and destroyed the US economy

As reported weeks ago — in mid April Dr. Fauci admitted that it was he and Dr. Birx who persuaded President Trump to lock down the US economy knowing the massive destruction this would cause in jobs, lives and commerce.

President admitted that during a press conference in April that “two very smart people” came into his office and urged him to lock down the economy or 2.2 million Americans would die from the China virus.

...

Sheri Fink at The New York Times back on March 16, 2020, described the scenario that led to the US economic lockdown.

In her report Fink describes how Imperial College researchers including Neil Ferguson shared their projections with Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx and the White House coronavirus task force. They even sent a copy of their report to the task force before its release.



After Dr. Birx and Dr. Fauci sat with the president the US went into lockdown and since that time over 30 MILLION Americans have lost their jobs and thousands of companies have gone bankrupt.

In late March, Neil Ferguson, who was behind the Imperial College coronavirus study, backtracked and said 20,000 Brits may die from the coronavirus instead of his original estimates of 500,000.

Neil Ferguson resigned from his government post as researcher this week after he was caught breaking his own lockdown rules by meeting with his married mistress at his home.

And now Sue Denim, a software engineer for 30 years, studied the Dr. Ferguson’s model and concluded it is complete garbage and cannot be scientifically replicated.

In her concluding remarks Denim says the Imperial College model “should be retracted immediately.”

Conclusions. All papers based on this code should be retracted immediately. Imperial’s modelling efforts should be reset with a new team that isn’t under Professor Ferguson, and which has a commitment to replicable results with published code from day one.

On a personal level, I’d go further and suggest that all academic epidemiology be defunded. This sort of work is best done by the insurance sector. Insurers employ modellers and data scientists, but also employ managers whose job is to decide whether a model is accurate enough for real world usage and professional software engineers to ensure model software is properly tested, understandable and so on. Academic efforts don’t have these people, and the results speak for themselves.

https://i.imgur.com/KH2CKHZ.png

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/05/huge-news-dr-fauci-dr-birx-used-imperial-college-model-now-confirmed-complete-fraud-persuade-president-trump-lock-entire-us-economy/


That was 4 days ago, leading to today.


COVID-19 Doctors Push Back on CDC’s Controversial and Questionable Rules that Inflate Real Coronavirus Numbers

In April the CDC forced states to recount their coronavirus deaths to include confirmed cases and probable cases.
Several states are in the process of reassessing their numbers based on this controversial new rule.

They likely did this because the initial predictions they used included the Imperial College Study out of England that predicted 2 million deaths in the US due to the virus. Of course, the numbers were much less than that. The UK study is now confirmed as a complete fraud.

Rest - https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/05/covid-19-doctors-push-back-cdcs-controversial-questionable-rules-inflate-real-coronavirus-numbers/

A couple of quick points:

1. Yes, Neil Ferguson has been discredited .. in so far as - and, as you mention - he broke his own lockdown rules, and so, lost the confidence the UK Government had in him previously.

2. Note the estimates you quoted of between 20,000 and 500,000 British fatalities. You overlook a couple of factors in quoting this. One, the lower estimate of 20,000 was based on a hoped-for lower limit of fatalities, and this was presented (by Dominic Raab, if I remember correctly) as a figure we would be 'lucky' to have, if we had no more of them than this.

It addressed a 'hoped-for' upper limit of deaths if lockdown measures worked well. But in fact, the truth is that we've far exceeded it .. well over 30,000 deaths, now, and still climbing.

The upper limit figure of 500,000 was a figure expected to be reached if no lockdown had ever been implemented. Note that Boris Johnson quoted that figure LAST NIGHT in his televised address, so evidently, he still has faith in it.

Whether or not Ferguson peddled 'junk science', his lower limit was unduly optimistic. I think this needs to be noted.

[Drummond]

What is it with British "researchers" and 'hockey stick' projections? Thank God we have the Bill Gates funded IHME that put out reasonably absurd projections.

Never heard of a 'hockey stick' projection !! However, if the context is from the saying 'jolly hockey sticks' .... then, presumably, such projections must be jolly ones ?

Now who could object to jolly projections ? H'mm ... ?? :rolleyes:

[jimnyc]

Bottom line - the code used and how they used it was garbage and fraudulent. And people were sucked into it hook, line & sinker.

[Drummond]

Bottom line - the code used and how they used it was garbage and fraudulent. And people were sucked into it hook, line & sinker.

I'm struck by the fact that those working to discredit Ferguson's work are people whose more usual expertise is far removed from the science of virology.

Andrew Bostom, for example ... a strong advocate of the anti-malaria drug Chloroquine, but other than that, more typically writes on Islam ! For example:

https://www.andrewbostom.org/2020/03/omar-suleiman-interfaith-dialogue-icon-is-a-sharia-supremacist-and-islamic-jew-hater-video/

This isn't what you'd usually expect from a virology expert (unless you'd see Islam as a virulent virus ... which, admittedly, might be reasonable !!).

Sue Denim .. a software engineer. How well versed are software engineers on the pathology of new viruses ?

It has to be said that this, below, comes from a LEFTIE newspaper (Kath often quotes from it) - namely, the Guardian. But this is what they claim, in a pro-Ferguson piece ... for whatever it's worth ....

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/may/06/neil-ferguson-scientists-media-government-adviser-social-distancing


The newspaper frenzy over Prof Neil Ferguson’s love life is just the latest example of a scientist who has been targeted for confronting parts of Britain’s political-media complex with evidence that it finds too difficult to accept.

There is no doubt that Ferguson, who sat on the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) before his resignation, was wrong to ignore the government’s social distancing rules. He has admitted as much, even if he did believe that he was at low risk of spreading the Sars-Cov-2 virus because he had already recovered from Covid-19.

But today’s lurid front-page headlines follow a campaign to discredit him by those ideologically opposed to government interventions, and who have used such tactics against scientists in other fields, particularly climate change.

It is a further sign that some media commentators and politicians favour a version of Britain in which politicians and newspaper editors dictate the public’s understanding of biology and physics.

Ferguson has been under attack ever since his research team’s modelling suggested in mid-March that hundreds of thousands of deaths in the UK from Covid-19 were possible if stronger efforts were not made to curb the growing epidemic.

Within a week, the prime minister announced the current lockdown measures. The move was perceived as a U-turn because the government’s chief scientific adviser had days earlier suggested that allowing widespread infection might be an option to achieve “herd immunity” across the country.

Ferguson’s contribution was initially praised, but it was not long before his reputation was under assault from parts of the media traditionally sceptical of a so-called “nanny state”.

On 28 March, the Daily Telegraph published an article alleging that “the scientist whose calculations about the potentially devastating impact of the coronavirus directly led to the countrywide lockdown has been criticised in the past for flawed research”.

The story relied on the views of a handful of critics of how Ferguson’s models were used by the then Labour government to tackle the 2001 outbreak of foot and mouth disease. The article failed to mention that Ferguson received an OBE in recognition for his important role in the crisis, or that he was afterwards elected a fellow of the prestigious Academy of Medical Sciences.


The Guardian concludes:


Many other scientists in the UK working on issues that have implications for government policy know what it is like to be vilified, both publicly and privately, for their findings. They are regularly attacked by many of the British media commentators who are currently joining the pile-on to Ferguson.

It is time to put a stop to these media lynch mobs that risk driving Britain back into the Dark Ages. We must continue to base our decisions on the advice of experts such as Ferguson, and reject the irrational arguments of those who want political dogma to trump evidence.

Offered for whatever it's worth (.. agreed, since the source is Leftie, I'd be inclined to view it with suspicion at minimum).

[jimnyc]

The code used and how used has NOTHING to do with viruses. That's the point. But they used this code, and how they used it, was nonsense. And now they won't even share the rest as they know damn well.

[Drummond]

The code used and how used has NOTHING to do with viruses. That's the point. But they used this code, and how they used it, was nonsense. And now they won't even share the rest as they know damn well.

OK ... this could be a fair point. If I'm wrong, then I am. Noted.