At 10:07 18/09/2020, Dr L Brownstein wrote:
Come on, guys. Dido doesn't understand
the modeling. In fact, she is a serial failure. She seems to have been
incompetent in every important job she has undertaken. But, no doubt,
being married to a Tory MP helps her escape from the consequences of her
failures. How did she get her title?
Many of those comments/questions may well be valid, but I am only
interested in the practicalities of what is possible, not the
politics.
As I said/implied, the only thing she really needed to "understand
about the modelling" is that it is essentially impossible to
'model'/predict the effect of 'experiments' (relaxing/tightening measures
designed to reduce transmission) of which there was zero historical
experience and not really any (quantitative) theoretical basis for
modelling. Hence, until the experiments have been done, and hence
empirical data become available, it could be little more than a 'blind
guess'.
Did anyone actually attempt to 'model' the effects of, say, the
relaxation of individual measures? If so, they must have done so on
the basis of essentially guessed parameters, and I would imagine (hope)
that there conclusions would be so covered in caveats as to be
essentially useless to decision-makers. How on earth, for example,
could one expect anyone to know (without supporting data) how to model
the effect (on 'cases', deaths demand for tests or whatever) of
increasing or decreasing the numbers of people/households which were
allowed to meet?
It seems to me to be a bit silly that we are so often seeing fingers
pointed at individuals in government, and amongst those who advise them,
given that it seems incredibly unlikely that any major decisions will
have been taken by one person, in isolation. More generally, for
what it's worth, my personal view is that it's a pity that we have
persisted with a single-party government during this crisis. If
both main parties had been more-or-less equally involved, then we
presumably will have seen far less time being wasted by people trying to
make party-political points and mileage out of the situation.
Kind Regards,
John
On 18/09/2020 08:28, BYRNE, DAVE
S. wrote:
John Whittington is right re
individual cases but cross case comparison - the comparative method - can
help without ever providing exact predictions. So retrospectively it will
be possible using tools like Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) to
explore what has happened where in relation to policy developments and
timings. That of course will be after the fair.
David Byrne
From: email list for Radical Statistics
<[log in to unmask]> on behalf of John Whittington
<[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, September 17, 2020 9:24 PM
To:
[log in to unmask]
<[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: "The modellers didn't predict this
outbreak": Dido Harding
At 17:41 17/09/2020, John Bibby wrote:
>Is this true? ... What predictions WERE made? .... What caused
this
>- what was wrong? ........ What other questions are we
missing?
Is it really a matter of 'wrong', rather than simply that it is not
really a mathematical ('modellable') issue?
With all the necessary/usual assumptions and caveats, modellers can
attempt to predict what effect particular changes in transmission
(i.e. 'R') (nationally or regionally) will have on disease incidence
and prevalence - but, to my mind, that's about it.
Beyond that, the modellers have exactly the same problem as
government - not knowing how behavior of people will respond to
attempts to relax or tighten (nationally of regionally) particular
measures intended to reduce transmission, and how the attempted
changes, and changed behaviour, will actually affect the (national or
regional) 'R' value.
As far as I can see, the only way to ascertain the effect of
particular changes is 'empirical' (aka 'suck it and see') - and even
that is probably next-to-impossible when all sorts of different
things are being relaxed and/or tightened (and in different places)
more-or-less simultaneously.
Kind Regards,
John
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