Coronavirus - the new strain XX

[Dave H.]

I think that there's a certain type of anti-Tory who wants the government to fail. And so interpreting the data pessimistically is, for them, a sort of wishful thinking. Sometime I wonder whether this is part of what happens in iSAGE.

Conversely, it sometimes seems to me that there is a certain type of, if not pro-Tory then at least vaguely Tory-curious, whose default position regarding government pronouncements on the pandemic is one of tentative credulity.

As someone who would automatically disbelieve any minister of the current government if they claimed the sky was up, this often strikes me as somewhat theatrical and disingenuous faux-naivety. It isn’t, or at least it isn’t always, but that’s how it can seem.

 

[hc25036]

I knew I would rattle your cage with that post.

No I don't read The Mail, but I do read The Sun. And I read people's posts here. I try to form my own opinions, but it's not easy.

Forming opinions is good, but forming and reforming your opinion based on this article, or that tweet or some short paper that you find is where madness lies. Today’s population wants daily updates, weekly reviews and ‘facts’. Pandemic epidemiology and virology are crazy complicated and do not lend themselves to rapid updates that are more than best guesses until enough data has been crunched by people who really know what they are doing.

FWIW, I’m considering coming out of my bunker, but not yet ditching the mask and have no plan to go anywhere near Heathrow even though my daughter is 2 hours away by 737 and has got married and grown 7/9ths of our first grandson since we last saw her.

 

[gavreid]

Remember back to the early days of the pandemic when they wheeled out "experts" onto the TV to explain that the virus would get milder as it mutated, so this was something that could be managed? All over by the end of this year ISTR.

20 000 deaths! Whitty I think

 

[Tony L]

Yes absolutely, but the sound bites are the point. If it were just about the long form videos how would they “hijack the news cycle”, “employ shadow governance” and “destabilise the current paradigm”? It’s the broader goals and strategy that are the problem.

I suspect a lot of that is just you casting them as ‘an enemy’ for some reason. I see no sinister motivation at all. Just a group of scientists and medical professionals interpreting data and acting as an independent counterpoint to a clearly corrupt government. Nothing more to see here IMO.

 

[Seanm]

Forming opinions is good, but forming and reforming your opinion based on this article, or that tweet or some short paper that you find is where madness lies. Today’s population wants daily updates, weekly reviews and ‘facts’. Pandemic epidemiology and virology are crazy complicated and do not lend themselves to rapid updates that are more than best guesses until enough data has been crunched by people who really know what they are doing.

FWIW, I’m considering coming out of my bunker, but not yet ditching the mask and have no plan to go anywhere near Heathrow even though my daughter is 2 hours away by 737 and has got married and grown 7/9ths of our first grandson since we last saw her.

I can’t help bridling a bit at the notion that people are demanding this kind of thing when the more pressing problem seems to be the supply side. People are concerned, interested, keen to learn, and scientific experts and science journalists who ought to know better are deliberately, strategically, taking up all the bandwidth with very low grade material.

 

[Seanm]

I suspect a lot of that is just you casting them as ‘an enemy’ for some reason. I see no sinister motivation at all. Just a group of scientists and medical professionals interpreting data and acting as an independent counterpoint to a clearly corrupt government. Nothing more to see here IMO.

I don’t think they’re sinister I think they’re naive, misguided. As I suggested above I think they’ve got themselves mixed up in a media machine that they don’t understand and which is using them at least as much as they’re using it.

 

[Tony L]

I don’t think they’re sinister I think they’re naive, misguided. As I suggested above I think they’ve got themselves mixed up in a media machine that they don’t understand and which is using them at least as much as they’re using it.

That may be true, they are scientists and medical professionals, not politicians, lawyers etc. This is a reason I feel they are rather unwise using Twitter, engaging with people with political agendas etc. They should just let the video meetings and data stand.

 

[gavreid]

I don't think you'll find many with more media training and experience than Alice Roberts, Professor of the Public Engagement in Science at the University of Birmingham.

 

[gavreid]

That may be true, they are scientists and medical professionals, not politicians, lawyers etc. This is a reason I feel they are rather unwise using Twitter, engaging with people with political agendas etc. They should just let the video meetings and data stand.

You see how these right wing attacks have put you on the back foot - that's the intention.

 

[Seanm]

You see how these right wing attacks have put you on the back foot - that's the intention.

My “attacks” are just very obviously not right wing and prioritising the politics of this group - which are very confused and certainly not straightforwardly left wing - over their incompetent, self-defeating comms work is a large part of the problem. But enough.

 

[hc25036]

I can’t help bridling a bit at the notion that people are demanding this kind of thing when the more pressing problem seems to be the supply side. People are concerned, interested, keen to learn, and scientific experts and science journalists who ought to know better are deliberately, strategically, taking up all the bandwidth with very low grade material.

I’ve read my post 20 times and can’t see the word ‘demanding’, so your bridling is unwarranted.

 

[Seanm]

I’ve read my post 20 times and can’t see the word ‘demanding’, so your bridling is unwarranted.

Today’s population wants daily updates, weekly reviews and ‘facts’. Pandemic epidemiology and virology are crazy complicated and do not lend themselves to rapid updates.

It’s not the term itself that triggered me but the idea that this is primarily a demand problem rather than a supply problem. I mean, people want lots of things, including good accounts of epidemiology that acknowledge that it’s crazy complicated. There’s no reason scientists and science journalists shouldn’t be responding to this demand rather than the demand for constant updates, unequivocal facts and simplistic solutions.

 

[Tony L]

I don't think you'll find many with more media training and experience than Alice Roberts, Professor of the Public Engagement in Science at the University of Birmingham.

Agreed, she is a superb presenter, communicator and advocate for science. The ideal chair for the group IMO. She is very good on Twitter too, as is Dr Rachel Clarke, but it is quite a skill and one some in the science community don’t necessarily have.

You see how these right wing attacks have put you on the back foot - that's the intention.

Agreed, but that is just the way of things these days. I run my own site, but I’d not dream of engaging with Twitter, just so, so much hate and idiocy there. I have an account (pinkfishmedia), but I have not made a single post! I very much doubt I ever will.

 

[IanW]

The bit about the ONS data contradicting the PHE data:

https://twitter.com/independentsage/status/1421091918403018754?s=21

https://twitter.com/reicherstephen/status/1421083084867395592?s=21

I do wonder about these people. Is this misinformation or disinformation?

The data analysis section is generally very good and the only bit that I generally watch (more recently have watched a but further into the presentation).

If people in ISage are interpreting the data very differently then it can only be a very loose alliance of people. After all what is the point of getting a data analysis expert to analyse this data throughout the pandemic and then ignore what they say?

 

[matt j]

This thread has long since turned purely into a point scoring thread and little about Covid or what is actually going on in real life. It's now a complete waste of time.

 

[Seanm]

This thread has long since turned purely into a point scoring thread and little about Covid or what is actually going on in real life. It's now a complete waste of time.

Fair enough: I do think how the science is communicated and discussed is really important but it’s also not everything so I’ll leave off. Not consciously point-scoring.

 

[matt j]

Fair enough: I do think how the science is communicated and discussed is really important but it’s also not everything so I’ll leave off. Not consciously point-scoring.

I didn't specifically mean anyone in particular, I just meant in general.

It's become more about flashing credentials and arguing over minutia than anything else

 

[Bob McC]

I knew I would rattle your cage with that post.

No I don't read The Mail, but I do read The Sun. And I read people's posts here. I try to form my own opinions, but it's not easy.

Reading the Sun as a source!

 

[hc25036]

Too many hard left folk on here who want the government to fail and can't see past the end of their own nose. Oh and an owner who bans people or blocks them from commenting on threads if he doesn’t agree with them.

Prize for most combative first post!

 

[hc25036]

I didn't specifically mean anyone in particular, I just meant in general.

It's become more about flashing credentials and arguing over minutia than anything else

Makes me feel appreciated for trying to explain some difficult concepts and pitfalls over the past year and a bit…. Any credential-flashing (oooh matron!) was only when necessary to explain why I knew what I knew.