Didnt they say they were sharing numbers with abroad and with places like SA they felt they didn't have enough data on virulency of Omicron. Therefore they factored it in at a standard rate rather than best case with it actually being milder because they needed to plan in case it wasn't. Because by the time they could have the exact numbers it would of been too late if its wasn't.
Seams like a pretty reasonable assumption to me.
But we have two self appointed guru's here, you do both realise how arrogantly stupid you come across when you say you know better with no qualifications? Right?
Who says I've no qualifications in numerical modelling?
Anyway. Sharing numbers and actually using numbers are two very different things.
Yes, agreed that there are differences between SA and UK in age profiles etc - but not bothering to model both (and many more in between and either side) is simply not good enough. [not that I'm really sure is the case - but they certainly didn't pay much heed to the results.]
and its been clear
here for at least 2 weeks now that Omicron is significantly weaker than Delta - and that it has no significant impact on hospital case loads. Its probably been clear in
SA for 3+ weeks.
Yet where are SAGE? A day late and a dollar short. As usual. It near seems like they've been looking for 3 sigma levels of certainty on this from the get-go; far too slow to ramp up and far too slow to ramp down. Too much academia and not enough industry within the body.
Also if they didn't think masks protected folks - they need shown the door immediately - a breathtaking level of "Not Invented Here" given most of Asia knew of the benefits of masks over the past couple of decades - minimum. If they did - then they should have been honest and said "look everyone, face masks work - but we need to keep the good ones for critical care workers who
really really need them. In the meantime, use a cloth mask, at worst it'll dramatically reduce chances of you spreading it". Not the mixed messaging crap we got which I interpreted at the time as them protecting the politicians.
In a few weeks they'll probably wake up to the realisation we'd be better served by encouraging the spread of Omicron in the general population as it'd mean better immunity levels across the population (including the anti-vax crowd) - in case another more dangerous variant did come along (which I would expect to not outcompete Omicron anyway as Omicron is not so deep into the lungs = milder & easier to spread).
If you want to see if my predictions were of any use, you can read back through my posts on this thread to see how I did when I was complaining very loudly at the start.
edit: typo
www.euronews.com
www.poynter.org
www.worldometers.info
edition.cnn.com
