I was right. Sci chauvinism is profound in the #cobra advisory position re #covid19. Too many assumptions ignoring Asian data, too many expert opinions based on flu; case to point: banning mass gathering will have limited impact. Hello? South Korea???? imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial…
The paper is riddled with jibes over suppression of testing in U.K., also “It is important to note at the outset that given SARS-CoV-2 is a newly emergent virus, much remains to be understood about its transmission.”
Also ICUs to be overwhelmed more than 8x in the U.K. at least. Testing known to be imperfect (the elephant in the room). Source of deplorable ‘herd immunity’ concept revealed. 1st rule of effective modelling is to stress test your assumptions.
Far too many personal communication quotes too- inadmissible in sci literature these days.
Attack rates in children based on past influenza pandemics. I’m sorry, how many times: #ITSNOTFLU #COVID19 - this is madness!!!
Incubation time of 5.1 days assumed- try a normal distribution, at least??
Assumes reinfection to same Coronavirus unlikely based on one cohort study- contrary to basic virology principles that no two viruses behave the same. Once again: far far too many assumptions to risk the lives of tens of thousand upon and the long term QUALY of millions.
Finally, a lot has been said about lockdown fatigue. Try stop starting lockdown measures over the space of months. This will DRIVE confusion, poor compliance. Ask anyone with modest experience in intervention - KISS principle rules. Aka the user experience.
With any luck the pressure will mount to unbearable levels and lockdown will start tomorrow morning. Enough is enough. Modellers can tell us what might happen, real data tell us what is happening. Test, isolate, contact trace, lockdown.
And as @mikegalsworthy pointed out, wrong disease used to model hospitalisation rates.
