Ferguson's computer model was utterly, completely, and totally way off. What does this say about all the other computer model predictions that are used daily to frighten us into compliance ?
Right. I haven't read that particular paper, but I keep noticing that so called 'specialists' draw conclusions based on huge assumptions that really should be challenged. But somehow they don't seem to be at all aware that these assumptions could be false or untrue, or indeed perceived from another viewpoint altogether.
It's like we're supposed to trust people that are sitting on a flimsy house of cards.
It says "garbage in" "garbage out". Recall that Ferguson did not use a variable to approximate natural immunity. As someone who did lots of modelling in my days as an economist-- most models are garbage and are "massaged" with "add factors' to get exactly the outcome the created (or who pays them--Mr. Gates) wants.
After reading your subject, of course the first thing that appeared in my head was our new Mistress of Truth launching into song: “We don’t talk about Sweden, no no no…”
We don't need their stinkin data. Just look at how people went about their lives as normal. No lockdowns, no masks; no forced faccinations. I was pleasantly surprised that its president warned us in 2020 of the IMF's attempts to bribe him to lock down. He opened my eyes. Belarus and Sweden were two bellwether countries for people to educate themselves, if only they wanted to!
He said he will have more to tell when this scam is over. And he has not told his story as yet....Of course, he is afraid of being whacked.
One of the criticisms I've received from the twitterati when I've raised this point in the past, is that we are not comparing like with like, that every country differs in terms of its population density, urbanisation, customs, etc. How can we control for these factors?
With such a deadly virus and such an effective cure, the evidence should be clear. If neither can overcome "confounding factors" then their descriptions are exaggerated. Just by looking at the excess mortality chart you would draw a better conclusion that physical geography is the dominant factor. If you can't change the dominant factor then your only course of action is to do nothing. And oh, how much better the overall outcomes would have been!
Great chart. Would love to see more countries or US states. I see a couple points in time where excess deaths appear to accelerate - i wonder to what could those possibly correlate?
The two main points where I saw deaths accelerate appeared to correlate with mid autumn. Most or all of the countries in the chart are in the north or far north, and autumn is the time when people have to head indoors, and say goodbye to the sun for a while
If you point to Sweden’s lower (than, say, the UK’s) excess mortality rates, the pro lockdown response will always be: ‘well, look at Norway and Denmark’!
Can you point to any sensible material that focuses on Norway & Denmark, their low excess mortality, and the strengths & weaknesses of comparisons of theirs with Sweden’s excess mortality? I’d like to read it.
It was discussed in reasonable sources, but searches will be dominated by the MSM propaganda and knee-jerk Sweden-shaming. I think one concept that is necessary for context (everywhere) is all-cause mortality over the previous several years.
There are several possible explanations, mainly urban concentration, ethnicity, bad existing health, diet, and crowded housing. You get similar variations within , say, Scotland, when comparing Glasgow, (which got hammered) and the Highlands (which did not).
This, and to phrase it a different way, when did you last buy a Danish car, or a Norwegian flatpack kitchen?
Apples and pairs, Sweden is the Scandinavian industrial superpower it's like comparing New Jersey and Nebraska in that regard.
Still it remains in this divisive world, not clear enough. Also muddied in that Denmark and Norway had the second most lenient of lockdowns and policies. Kids were back in Danish schools in late April 2020
Just looking at the plot there does seem to be a loose inverse correlation with sunniness maybe — warmer places higher. Lockdowns hurting people who normally go outside for vitamin D? And diet. But yeah naturally geting over a mainly nonfatal disease might be a thing.
Actually, this is a great point. I'd always thought in terms of vit D levels not lost vit D levels. This might explain why Portugal did so well in the first wave. Did they get their sunshine doses before lockdown?
Not my idea originally — heard similar on a Dark Horse podcast on vit D… In that case referencing bad outcomes in South America (I want to say Quito, but have to go back and find it again), where the temperature was hotter and therefore drives people inside to air conditioning, away from the sun. Lockdowns would also do this. And when you rely on sun rather than diet for your vitamin D this seems like a recipe for worse outcomes. Not the only variable of course
Exposure to sunlight can help humans produce vitamin D; however, how that relates to Covid may be more complicated. UV-B is best for vid D production, UV-A is best for nitric oxide production, and IR is best for melatonin production.
While sunlight gives us UV-A, UV-B, and IR, the levels of each can vary greatly at different times of the day and year depending on latitude. For helping protect against severe Covid, it may actually be melatonin that is most effective. If that's the case, measuring vit D in the blood could be an indirect measure of how much sun exposure a patient has (assuming the patient wasn't taking vitamin D supplements or eating a vitamin D3 rich diet). See https://youtu.be/9eEyWlbToI4
The first pandemic book I read in Feb 2021 was The Price of Panic: How the Tyranny of Experts Turned a Pandemic into a Catastrophe - Jay Andrews, Douglas Axe & Wm Briggs. I'm not a scientist, but I'm very skeptical of the WHO changing the definition of "pandemic" a decade ago. Covid impacted me Jan 2022 as a normal 7-10 day cold, but Trudeau's/govt's tyrannical response - isolation, segregated from restaurants and my gym, and forbidden to fly or escape dreaded Cdn winters - has altered my joy of life immensely. It's heart-sickening that voices like yours were silenced, and that so much of humanity has been utterly duped by Covid fraud.
I've never been afraid of Covid, but I'm genuinely frightened I'll never be able to travel/fly again. MP Michael Barrett asked Trudeau why Cda was lagging other countries in dropping vaccine mandates, and Trudeau replied by demanding Barrett express support for abortion rights!?!🤡
@Joel Smalley, depending on the perspective, "all deaths are equal" is either correct or not. Assuming you meant Covid vs. non-Covid deaths are equal, I agree. However, if one considers the premature death of a young person (whether child or even middle-age adult), that death seems more tragic than the death of someone who has reached his or her community's life expectancy. I believe the metric to capture this point is "years of life lost". If you could run an analysis that compared YLL/100K or YLL/M for various countries, the results might be very illuminating.
Another potentially worthwhile analysis would be to begin "Comparison of Excess Mortality Across Europe and Scandinavia" up to 5 years before Covid appeared. The reason is that in various communities there are better years for mortality and worse years. A few years of mortality that is below expectations likely means that there is plenty of "dry tinder" that is highly susceptible to an epidemic hitting the community. I believe Sweden was in just such a place in the few years leading up to 2020. While one could consider such an analysis as cherry-picking data, the point would be to explain why Sweden seemed to do somewhat worse than its Nordic peers.
Totally agree. Your interpretation is correct. I originally wrote this two years ago. I knew very little back then really. But still more than most "experts".
I did also do a "dry tinder" analysis later in the year. I'll dig it out at some point.
Might you not be overstating the case, or overcertain of your conclusion? Not knowing very much about it, but it seems to me your last sentences might be better written as 'No, Neil, you look to have been completely wrong. Wrong in July 2020, and even more certainly wrong now.'?
No, he was wrong. He forecasted ten times as much death everywhere and made fanciful claims about the effects of NPIs. He's been proven wrong hundreds of times now.
Ferguson's computer model was utterly, completely, and totally way off. What does this say about all the other computer model predictions that are used daily to frighten us into compliance ?
Like the “model”!in the latest paper saying unvaxxed endanger the vaxxed. Change just one assumption in that model and their whole conclusion flips.
Right. I haven't read that particular paper, but I keep noticing that so called 'specialists' draw conclusions based on huge assumptions that really should be challenged. But somehow they don't seem to be at all aware that these assumptions could be false or untrue, or indeed perceived from another viewpoint altogether.
It's like we're supposed to trust people that are sitting on a flimsy house of cards.
Its always been that way with economic/health modelling. Garbage in, garbage out.
Yup a .2 to a .9 and it all changes-- as it should
Especially when the .9 is the correct number.
It's the same with G̶l̶o̶b̶a̶l̶ ̶W̶a̶r̶m̶i̶n̶g̶ Climate Change.
Garbage In Garbage Out
It says "garbage in" "garbage out". Recall that Ferguson did not use a variable to approximate natural immunity. As someone who did lots of modelling in my days as an economist-- most models are garbage and are "massaged" with "add factors' to get exactly the outcome the created (or who pays them--Mr. Gates) wants.
That they're getting the job done? ;)
Spot on. I was with you on this from the start.
I think that if you always predicted the opposite to Ferguson you'd always be right.
After reading your subject, of course the first thing that appeared in my head was our new Mistress of Truth launching into song: “We don’t talk about Sweden, no no no…”
Wish there was a double like emoji for this one!
TBH next course of action ought to be:
1. cook up lyrics quickly
2. somehow get them to @USMiniTru
3. He(?) uses them in overvoicing the infamous Mary Poppins video with a deep male voice.
4. Watch fireworks.
I see that one smacking at least 3 birds with one stone…
Or I had WAY too much caffeine this morning
How come people diss BELARUSE, which even outlawed the mentioning of the word "covid"?
I remember there were about 25 jurisdictions which never locked down; there could have been more.
I covered Belarus as much as I could in the early days, even wrote to them several times to get data but it was not forthcoming.
We don't need their stinkin data. Just look at how people went about their lives as normal. No lockdowns, no masks; no forced faccinations. I was pleasantly surprised that its president warned us in 2020 of the IMF's attempts to bribe him to lock down. He opened my eyes. Belarus and Sweden were two bellwether countries for people to educate themselves, if only they wanted to!
He said he will have more to tell when this scam is over. And he has not told his story as yet....Of course, he is afraid of being whacked.
One of the criticisms I've received from the twitterati when I've raised this point in the past, is that we are not comparing like with like, that every country differs in terms of its population density, urbanisation, customs, etc. How can we control for these factors?
With such a deadly virus and such an effective cure, the evidence should be clear. If neither can overcome "confounding factors" then their descriptions are exaggerated. Just by looking at the excess mortality chart you would draw a better conclusion that physical geography is the dominant factor. If you can't change the dominant factor then your only course of action is to do nothing. And oh, how much better the overall outcomes would have been!
Great comment!
Agreed. And why would anyone need to be 'convinced' to take such a safe and effective remedy against such a deadly disease ?
Thank you, Joel. That Unherd interview with Giesecke should have been pivotal.
When you tell the model that masks and distancing works, the model tells YOU that masks and distancing work!
Garbage in, garbage out.
Great chart. Would love to see more countries or US states. I see a couple points in time where excess deaths appear to accelerate - i wonder to what could those possibly correlate?
The two main points where I saw deaths accelerate appeared to correlate with mid autumn. Most or all of the countries in the chart are in the north or far north, and autumn is the time when people have to head indoors, and say goodbye to the sun for a while
Has there been a time when Neil was right?
That time when he decided to stop working and go bang his mistress?
If you point to Sweden’s lower (than, say, the UK’s) excess mortality rates, the pro lockdown response will always be: ‘well, look at Norway and Denmark’!
Can you point to any sensible material that focuses on Norway & Denmark, their low excess mortality, and the strengths & weaknesses of comparisons of theirs with Sweden’s excess mortality? I’d like to read it.
It was discussed in reasonable sources, but searches will be dominated by the MSM propaganda and knee-jerk Sweden-shaming. I think one concept that is necessary for context (everywhere) is all-cause mortality over the previous several years.
Lockdown Sceptics had a couple pieces last year:
https://dailysceptic.org/2021/04/19/we-have-to-compare-sweden-to-its-neighbours-isnt-a-convincing-argument/
https://dailysceptic.org/2021/05/24/taking-the-average-of-2019-and-2020-sweden-had-lower-mortality-than-both-denmark-and-finland/
There are several possible explanations, mainly urban concentration, ethnicity, bad existing health, diet, and crowded housing. You get similar variations within , say, Scotland, when comparing Glasgow, (which got hammered) and the Highlands (which did not).
Yup. Physical geography and demographics. Nothing we can do about that.
This, and to phrase it a different way, when did you last buy a Danish car, or a Norwegian flatpack kitchen?
Apples and pairs, Sweden is the Scandinavian industrial superpower it's like comparing New Jersey and Nebraska in that regard.
Still it remains in this divisive world, not clear enough. Also muddied in that Denmark and Norway had the second most lenient of lockdowns and policies. Kids were back in Danish schools in late April 2020
Some will say ethnic mix was important too.
Just looking at the plot there does seem to be a loose inverse correlation with sunniness maybe — warmer places higher. Lockdowns hurting people who normally go outside for vitamin D? And diet. But yeah naturally geting over a mainly nonfatal disease might be a thing.
Absolutely. See my other comments. I'm glad so many others see it too.
Actually, this is a great point. I'd always thought in terms of vit D levels not lost vit D levels. This might explain why Portugal did so well in the first wave. Did they get their sunshine doses before lockdown?
Not my idea originally — heard similar on a Dark Horse podcast on vit D… In that case referencing bad outcomes in South America (I want to say Quito, but have to go back and find it again), where the temperature was hotter and therefore drives people inside to air conditioning, away from the sun. Lockdowns would also do this. And when you rely on sun rather than diet for your vitamin D this seems like a recipe for worse outcomes. Not the only variable of course
Exposure to sunlight can help humans produce vitamin D; however, how that relates to Covid may be more complicated. UV-B is best for vid D production, UV-A is best for nitric oxide production, and IR is best for melatonin production.
While sunlight gives us UV-A, UV-B, and IR, the levels of each can vary greatly at different times of the day and year depending on latitude. For helping protect against severe Covid, it may actually be melatonin that is most effective. If that's the case, measuring vit D in the blood could be an indirect measure of how much sun exposure a patient has (assuming the patient wasn't taking vitamin D supplements or eating a vitamin D3 rich diet). See https://youtu.be/9eEyWlbToI4
Looks geographical to me...
The first pandemic book I read in Feb 2021 was The Price of Panic: How the Tyranny of Experts Turned a Pandemic into a Catastrophe - Jay Andrews, Douglas Axe & Wm Briggs. I'm not a scientist, but I'm very skeptical of the WHO changing the definition of "pandemic" a decade ago. Covid impacted me Jan 2022 as a normal 7-10 day cold, but Trudeau's/govt's tyrannical response - isolation, segregated from restaurants and my gym, and forbidden to fly or escape dreaded Cdn winters - has altered my joy of life immensely. It's heart-sickening that voices like yours were silenced, and that so much of humanity has been utterly duped by Covid fraud.
I've never been afraid of Covid, but I'm genuinely frightened I'll never be able to travel/fly again. MP Michael Barrett asked Trudeau why Cda was lagging other countries in dropping vaccine mandates, and Trudeau replied by demanding Barrett express support for abortion rights!?!🤡
@Joel Smalley, depending on the perspective, "all deaths are equal" is either correct or not. Assuming you meant Covid vs. non-Covid deaths are equal, I agree. However, if one considers the premature death of a young person (whether child or even middle-age adult), that death seems more tragic than the death of someone who has reached his or her community's life expectancy. I believe the metric to capture this point is "years of life lost". If you could run an analysis that compared YLL/100K or YLL/M for various countries, the results might be very illuminating.
Another potentially worthwhile analysis would be to begin "Comparison of Excess Mortality Across Europe and Scandinavia" up to 5 years before Covid appeared. The reason is that in various communities there are better years for mortality and worse years. A few years of mortality that is below expectations likely means that there is plenty of "dry tinder" that is highly susceptible to an epidemic hitting the community. I believe Sweden was in just such a place in the few years leading up to 2020. While one could consider such an analysis as cherry-picking data, the point would be to explain why Sweden seemed to do somewhat worse than its Nordic peers.
Totally agree. Your interpretation is correct. I originally wrote this two years ago. I knew very little back then really. But still more than most "experts".
I did also do a "dry tinder" analysis later in the year. I'll dig it out at some point.
FergusWRONG is now his name.
Boguson? Borguson?
Why not FerguSOB
Might you not be overstating the case, or overcertain of your conclusion? Not knowing very much about it, but it seems to me your last sentences might be better written as 'No, Neil, you look to have been completely wrong. Wrong in July 2020, and even more certainly wrong now.'?
No, he was wrong. He forecasted ten times as much death everywhere and made fanciful claims about the effects of NPIs. He's been proven wrong hundreds of times now.
I’ll be interested to see how they do in terms of this hepatitis in children.