Posted on 03/15/2021 10:58:46 AM PDT by nickcarraway
Britain is only "at the beginning" of the coronavirus pandemic and measures such as social distancing and masks are "likely" to continue long term one of the country's most senior advisors to the government has said.
When you subscribe we will use the information you provide to send you these newsletters. Sometimes they'll include recommendations for other related newsletters or services we offer. Our Privacy Notice explains more about how we use your data, and your rights. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Azra Ghani, a professor of infectious disease epidemiology at Imperial College London whose modelling work with Professor Neil Ferguson has been instrumental in the Prime Minister’s decisions to lockdown said: “We are early on in this pandemic. It will go on for some years….We may have to take some measures in the long term and it’s likely we could be doing things like social distancing and using face masks indoors into the future depending on how well the vaccine rollout goes. Things could go better but they may not as we have to account for things like mutations.”
Professor Ghani’s work with Imperial College Covid-19 Response Team’s “Unlocking” Roadmap Scenarios for England” is key to shaping the country’s four stage “roadmap” out of lockdown planned to end by June 21st.
However the use of modelling has come under fierce criticism throughout the pandemic with some scientists claiming that the government has over-relied on models which do not account for the harms of lockdown and may not include the most up to date information on key factors that could change the course of the pandemic.
The Imperial model which is being used to help “Unlock” Britain has itself been criticised for failing to account for the effect of the seasons on virus transmission - studies have shown UV light reduces the infectivity of Covid-19 - nor adjusted for the changing nature of the population at risk as a result of the vaccine rollout.
She added that the models did adjust to changing data: “We revise internally every time we think there are new things that need incorporating - alongside making necessary changes to the model code which take longer than revising the numbers that are put in - but requests from the UK government come on a schedule that is driven by them. That has varied from 1-2 times per week to every 2-3 weeks in recent months.
“Chris Witty has reasonably said we need to measure the impact of unlocking and have time to check what is happening as we have calculated the opening. The data takes a while to feed in from all data sources coming through and it is hard to see the signal.”
She added: “We also need to worry about variants in Covid and by reducing transmission as far as possible keeping cases low we will help prevent these.”
She said it was not the job of modellers to measure lockdown harms: “We are acutely aware of the effect of all the interventions that are happening on people and we are not involved in that decision-making. There could be a separate body to get harms evaluated but that is not my remit as a scientist.”
And she acknowledged the limitations of models: “Models should not be used as predictions. We think we have the best understanding of an evolving situation which is moving so rapidly and we are constantly updating everything forward.
"But the projections have huge uncertainties and it is impossible to make predictions because it depends on the behaviours of the population and the actions that everyone takes including the government.”
Professor Ghani and her response team, together with London startup AquAffirm, have recently developed an interactive modelling tool - Covidism.org - to help government’s in other countries inform key decisions out of lockdown. The platform - which is currently being used by the World Health Organisation as well as Africa, Latin America and Asia - is designed to help them monitor the spread of Covid-19 and has been used by scores of other countries.
Professor Ghani said: “The UK has a large coordinated group of modellers. It is very influential and its research strength runs throughout the UK. It has informed global policy and we’ve worked in particular with Africa, Latin America Asia and other countries.”
and China gets away with it , China should be groveling by now
They should be sending our taxpayers a check for $50k each, and 50x that if a loved one was killed by their China virus.
What a bunch of suckers we all are.
Yep. Masks will be needed for up to 400 years. Right-o!
> They should be sending our taxpayers a check for $50k each... <
China: No can do. Most of our money is tied up in bribes to US politicians. And the rest is tried up in bribes to US institutions.
Side note: Sen.Mitch McConnell and his wife Elaine received a gift of at least $5 million from Elaine’s father. And Elaine‘s father has deep ties to the Chinese Communist Party. So there you go.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elaine_Chao#Conflicts_of_interest
I’ve been saying this all along.. once governments taste that unbridled power, they develop a lust for it.
I don’t want to be closer than six feet to any English people anyway.
Yup started by China and the totally false model pushed by a-holes in Britain.
UK, you’re well over a year late but welcome to the party.
One of the largest debts for most nations is health care and they’ve been puzzling on this for a bit.
They hope to cut down on illness/costs by having people masked, distanced and locked down.
We’re now like little pets that they tag, kennel and take in for vaccinations.
Health records and quarantines will be required for travel.
Covid is the crisis and they’re not wasting it.
The bio-weapon released is having the intended outcome. Eliminating generations of old worldwide. Soon only the indoctrinated will live, for their intended purpose. Working slaves to provide for elite rulers.
Brexit got Britain away from Brussels. Who is going to free them from London?
You spelled glowing in the dark wrong.
Not according to the chart at World Meter. Brand new lows in cases and deaths.
When it comes to “facts” about covid -’They are lying, we know they are lying, they know we know they are lying. And they continue to lie anyway.” Alexander Solzhenitsyn - I believe
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.