I'm going through this paper by Johns Hopkins economists, that assesses the efficacy of lockdown in the US and Europe - and concludes it was essentially useless.
The study is a meta-analysis, combining other previous between-country comparisons. To produce the combined estimate, they take 18,000 studies, exclude all but a handful and then pool their findings.
Looking at the weighting, it actually seems to be based almost entirely on one study. So rather than being a meta-analysis it is really a recapitulation of that study, by Chisadza et al
The other odd thing is that study itself comes to a very different conclusion about the efficacy of lockdown.
The JH study does mention they have a difference of opinion. But, it does seem odd - if indeed this study is the sole basis for their study - that they differ so widely.
It also struck me as strange to exclude the other data from other regions that is in the chisadza paper. If your meta analysis includes other papers, then obviously you have to take the relevant bit of each. But if the meta analysis is just a reanalysis, why lose info?
(unless I've misunderstood in particular what the weighting means which - again - I may well have. This thread is me thinking aloud, hoping for answers!)
I spoke to the author of the paper on whose research this entire meta-analysis was based. She said: "They already had their hypothesis. They think that lockdown had no effect on mortality, and that’s what they set out to show in their paper."
A couple of studies from high impact journals that somehow didn’t make the cut, when the authors decided of 18,000 papers effectively just one met their exacting standards:
From Nature Human Behaviour
"The social distancing and movement-restriction measures discussed above can therefore be seen as the ‘nuclear option’ of NPIs: highly effective but causing substantial collateral damage"
Limiting gatherings to fewer than 10 people, closing high-exposure businesses, and closing schools and universities were each more effective than stay-at-home orders, which were of modest effect in slowing transmission.
October 25, 2020, from Vallance diary: "PM meeting - begins to argue for letting it rip. Saying yes there will be more casualties but so be it - 'they have had a good innings'"
It's important to note, says Vallance, "the next day he might have asked for no deaths at all"
Indeed, a bit later, PM in a different mood.
"Says, 'We need local lockdowns fast' 'Foot to the throttle' 'accelerate' He is SO inconsistent"
If only as a real time bit of history from inside the room, I think more people should read Dominic Cummings' witness statement - there is a lot in there (115 pages), that is ill served by just looking at the drama and beef.
We start with some epigraphs. More documents at covid inquiry should have epigraphs
(I promise this will not be a mocking thread - there is really serious stuff in the document - but the epigraphs are great)
The consensus opinion among planners was there would be a single wave of infection, that could perhaps be spread. Suppressing it would mean the wave would just happen later, perhaps in winter
Because I think it's important to share what happens when you make a total tit of yourself and (nearly, thank god) fall for a scam, here is the embarrassing story of what happened when I clicked on this:
Context. Like everyone, I think I'm not a total credulous fool. Extra context. I have had plenty of messages like this, not clicked on them, and thought, "silly scam". But, this time, I had literally just been thinking, "I was expecting a parcel". I clicked like an idiot.
82 years ago, while flying over the North Sea, a Dane called Thomas Sneum stepped onto the wing of his biplane, put a nozzle into the tank, and started to refuel it midair.
The tale of how he came to be here, and what he carried, is one of the great stories of WW2 derring do🧵
The mid-air refuelling was probably the 4th time he should have died that day (there was one more time to come). Really, though, he should have been caught by the Nazis long ago.
When Germany invaded, Sneum was a pilot in the Danish Air Force. He ran to his Hawker Nimrod, but was told not to fly. Denmark had surrendered. He tried to fly anyway, he found it had been disabled. He was furious. He wanted to take on the Nazis - even if it was in a biplane
Paying for interviews is a tricky topic - sometimes people give their time and go to effort. But…
When it comes up I always think of the Facebook Republican Army.
In the late noughties, when Facebook was scary to old people rather than the place they post nostalgia memes…🧵
The FRA popped up. They were every middle class parents nightmare. It was run by mid 20s plumbers from an estate, who scoured Facebook to find the parties of nice teens to crash, and then do unspeakable things. Unspeakable:
Here, in just one night in their reign of terror, they caused “Mayhem at the Manor”