UKC

He wrote:

'Crucially, I will show that because the proportion of the population remaining susceptible to the virus is now too low to sustain a growing outbreak at national scale, the pandemic is effectively over and can easily be handled by a properly functioning NHS.'

Now we see this:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51768274

That seems like a funny kind of 'over' (or rather, not so funny.)

What's the probability of him retracting and apologising? What do you say, PP?

Of course he won't

It will be interesting to see PMP's next post.  I'm going to guess around March once a vaccine is starting to reduce cases.  It will probably  link to a Breitbart or similar article by a "scientist" who claims the vaccine is dangerous and the cases are falling naturally.

I have become oddly obsessed with his twitter feed.  At what point is the penny going to drop?

The PCR false negatives thing was way questionable when CEBM put it out but now, now it just beggars all belief to see someone claiming that’s what’s going on.

If he’s reading this, I think he should discuss his concerns with his GP.

Am I missing something important? I don't know who you are talking about. Should I?

Edit: I googled Yeadon twitter and found Toby Young talking about the amazing research of a Dr Mike Yeadon - if Young is going on about him positively, I presume that chap is the person in the wrong?

That is the chap. See Postman Pat’s recent thread.

In short - COVID is over, everyone but Mike Yeadon and especially SAGE are fools.

Yes you really should, irrespective of his actual achievements he has an extraordinary gift for self promotion  and is certainly gaining traction on social media. He is potentially the 'respectable academic' face of the anti-lockdown movement. Apparently the pandemic is over and everyone who thinks otherwise is an idiot.

Check out PMP's thread 'Covid: What's wrong with this picture' for the full context.

Although arguably if I didn't even recognise his name, he isn't getting much traction for his ideas outside of certain circles. Probably a good thing.

It's odd what you do and don't catch up with - I was listening to a US politics podcast the other day that I've listened to for years, all three presenters are very prominent to quite prominent US journos, but only one of them (now an anchor of CBS) knew what Trump was talking about when he had mentioned "AOC + 3" in the last debate. I was quite surprised because I knew. But their point was that Trump isn't capable of getting his message out beyond his base who know exactly what he is going on about because of the relatively tight echo chamber Trump doesn't seem able or willing to break out from. A good thing I hope!

Cheers. If it was in Down the Pub I don't read those. If it was here, I might have scanned it but obviously decided life's too short (perhaps not the best turn of phrase considering the subject!).

The name rang a bell, turns out he did some good work developing Jak inhibitors I used for a while for my experiments. Why having a hand at drug design qualifies you to challenge established epidemiology beats me, though.

CB

As he said on his twitter feed the other day:

I expect anyone reading my opinions of late should know I’m not nuts & I’m more qualified by far than anyone in SAGE to have drawn the conclusions I have. [...] Do challenge anything I say, but accept I have a deep & extensive scientific research history coupled w senior leadership experience.

He seems to be largely focusing on the high cycle count being used.  

(vomit emoji)

I will not use emojis, but this is one of the rare cases where one would be appropriate!

CB

That is a good guess when it's related to Toby Young.

https://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/off_belay/covid_whats_wrong_with_this_pic...

Life is probably too short to waste on it...

Who the dickens is Yeadon? 

Mike Yeadon, latest weapon in the campaign to convince people who are easily convinced that the libertarian approach to Covid, ie. pretend it doesn't really exist, is the right approach.

Certainly is.

There is something helpful coming out of covid here. Many people on the right, who are convinced that "freedom of speech" "freedom of the individual to succeed" etc, must always trump our efforts to live in a cohesive society where people care for one another even when they don't personally know them, are having some of their ideas put to the test.

We're in a pandemic. For most of us, covid is just like getting flu. But since a small % of people get really sick, and a smaller % still end up dying, it has enormous potential to totally clog up the healthcare system and send everyone home from work, grinding the economy to a halt and making a lot of people very very sad.

Anyone with the mimimum number of brain cells to maintain homeostasis and master a few voluntary functions too can see that an individualist "FREEDOM!" libertarian stance just isn't appropriate here - or so we might think. But we've got MPs in Parliament, we've got Lord Sumption, and even scientists like Yeadon and Gupta clinging on to this false belief that all that matters is "FREEDOM!" no matter what is happening in reality.

Coronavirus is just reality. You can't get around it. We've got to try to keep society running with the kids getting an education, adults going to work, the old and sick being cared for, etc etc. We have no choice. So our pals on the libertarian right have got to try to bend reality around to their political outlook. Hence why people like Toby Young think Yeadon and Gupta are great scientists. 

Well, "lockdown skeptics", aka the libertarian right, aka the same people who denied climate change because it was inconvenient , get a load of the news. You're wrong. You're full of shit. And what's more, you always are. Your shitty "I'm alright Jack" individualism is fine for you when everything's going swimmingly, but when it comes to solving real problems in an interconnected society, we don't need you to speak. Because your philosophy is a load of shit, and doesn't work when you can't carve up reality and only care about the tiny little bit that's directly in front of your stupid, selfish nose.

The ongoing rise of Covid-19 pandemic depends on two things:

1 How dense the population is

2 How dense the population is....

Have you noticed how similar their lines of "reasoning" are? Your post provides a nice example because both Gupta and Sumption are clear specialists in very different areas yet both are making the same much more general case and not relying on their area of expertise to do so, just the level of authority attached to them from what they used to do with their expertise.

It smacks of mind control slugs frankly.  They presumably all get together and chant "one of us" a lot.

There were a few posts on here back in March from new and established posters pushing this libertarian bullshit.  Having seen what's happened since it is a matter of some regret to me that I tried to put across an intelligent, reasoned and evidenced counter-point rather than suggesting they check the back of their necks in a mirror for mind control slugs.

It's intriguing that Yeadon's proposition - 'It's all over' - has been so totally invalidated so irrefutably so quickly.

Ah well you see, to quote his twitter feed from today: "It’s not just “cases” which flow from fundamentally poor PCR testing. No, this error extends to false positive admissions, false positive ITU visits & finally to false positive Covid19 deaths.".

Up to a point I agree with the logic - if there were a lot of false positives, people going through the medical pipeline could be falsely accounted to Covid, but none of this explains the exceptional level of respiratory admissions to northern ITUs for this time of year, and he's put forwards no theory for why the false positives are rising exponentially against a sub-linear rise in testing rates.  

The twitter feed is like a slow motion train wreck; at some point he's going to run out of ways to argue his case and the penny is going to drop.  He's gained 30,000 followers from the lunatic fringe who are hanging off his every word and encouraging him.  

Science has a real problem with public communications and the public understanding of scientific processes.  

I’ve just had a look at his Twitter feed, I hadn’t bothered before. My god, that is a car crash.

He's chosen his hill and will rather die on it than admit he is wrong...it's a fascinating example of self deception. 

Here's a positive spin on it: he's providing valuable data for psychologists looking at the circumstances in which people will genuinely believe complete and utter tripe, even when they've got all the evidence they could possibly need and sufficient mental resources to interpret it. He'll be a case study in the next generation of textbooks and might even have a syndrome named after him.

It is fascinating in a way, almost makes me think of tragic characters like Donald Crowhurst.

That is top class, intelligent, ranting. 

The modesty continues...

https://mobile.twitter.com/MichaelYeadon3/status/1321536190688972803

Because we’ve had a similar training & work history (I didn’t run a great research organisation, but Sir Pat didn’t found, secure the finance for & successfully lead his own biotech to a profitable trade sale to Novartis) I submit you should assume he knows everything I know.

Was it a profitable sale, or were the payments tied to success in the clinical trials?  Did the series A investors break even once the compound bombed out of phase 2 clinical trials in a half billion dollar write off?  Enquiring minds want to know.

And the award for "Post of the Pandemic" goes to ....

<drumroll>

JON STEWART

If there wasn't a pandemic on I'd quite like to meet with him in person to discuss his stance.

I had to do this professionally in a similar circumstance of self deception in an unrelated area.  After 90 minutes of me leading the person through different logical chains of really basic stuff and them following right to the end then just flipping back to "But... <nonsense point>" I hadn't budged an inch, we had a whiteboard with their workings showing clearly their point to be nonsense, and I had a person screaming, shouting and spraying spittle everywhere.  In retrospect I should have closed the meeting out when they started to get agitated, or at least suggest they take some time out, but I (hard as it is to believe) got drawn into arguing with the immovable object of self deception.

Self delusion - it's quite common in business, almost you might say a success factor. We used to enjoy teasing IBM reps who were charged with selling some of the truly cr*p products they produced in the 80s: these were bright guys (exclusively blokes) with Oxbridge firsts and such like, but they had totally internalised the party line and couldn't be budged. 

That was just flogging computers though, it's not as though their self delusion was killing people.

That's somewhat misrepresenting their position. You are correct, that they will seize on any credible-sounding argument against lockdown. But most of the time it doesn't seem to be stemming from an "I'm alright Jack" mentality. More the opposite, and on the cost-benefit trade-off between the dire impacts of covid and dire impacts of covid-responses. That's a discussion which absolutely has to happen, needs to keep happening, and the fact that it does shouldn't result in the level of damnation you seem to want to heap on them. Their philosophy is only 'shit' because of the motives you assume.

There's something to be said for Gupta and I think you are unfairly reading motives into her (and people who think like her) thinking. Likewise, connecting the lockdown sceptics with climate change denial may be accurate. But if you are going to, then so would be connecting enthusiasm for lockdowns with fixed-incomes, public sector employment, and middle-class wealth, and resulting fair claim that support correlates strongly with people with little or no skin in the game or who so far haven't seen their incomes and livelihoods decimated. Would that be fair, or is it muddying the waters? Why can one austerity be criticised while an austerity many many times greater placed beyond criticism?

Looks like someone has put 50p in the meter.

Never mind motives, she is paid or otherwise enticed by a bunch of American criminals to compromise the renown of her institution by spouting lies in public. Not the best look for an academic of any standing.

No idea what is supposed to be said FOR Gupta, but there is one thing to be said TO her, and that is f*ck off, resign from the faculty, hand back your degree, and disappear forever. You are an embarrasment for all proper scientists.

That goes for Yeadon as well, back off under the rock you just crawled out from.

CB

'There's something to be said for Gupta and I think you are unfairly reading motives into her (and people who think like her) thinking. '

I think quite a few academics and others took what might have been considered an interesting and optimistic view that put appropriate weight on the collateral damage of sever and Covid measures.

Unfortunately they were over optimistic and we can now see that they're wrong. And it really isn't difficult: yes, the fatality rate from Covid remains thankfully low, but infected people who need treatment still impose a massive burden on the health service, and we just don't have resources to cope if it lets rip. It's not just beds, though we don't have those to spare, the NHS runs very lean; we won't have the staff either, and the collapse will potentially become a vicious spiral - hospitals get overloaded, staff get sick and exhausted, hospitals get even more overloaded and so on. 

That is a discussion which needs to be had and it needs to be revisited as the situation evolves. If it is had honestly it would be a short conversation. That where the conversation is happening it is, in general, not being conducted in good faith, that is the root of much of the justified frustration on display.

What, that she has an utterly uncanny knack for incorrect postcasting let alone forecasting?

I'm not sure you took us all with you on that logical leap.

Looks to me like muddying the waters. You asked.

Neither is above criticism. The point people arguing for effective control make is that it is long run beneficial to the economy and public health while also saving lives in the short run. Very few argue for the imposition or maintainance of restrictions beyond what is necessary to, likely temporarily, reestablish a safe environment to enjoy near-normal social and economic life. Doing so comes with human and business costs that can be mitigated by adequate (read: enhanced) social security measures.

jk

May be?  You don't have to look far or hard.  AIER directly facilitated Gupta's most recent champagne swilling event and subsequent trip to the White House, and are also clearly involved in the climate denial/downplaying movement.

That would be bullshit.  Everyone has skin in this game because everyone likes access to healthcare.  I know people in the public sector who don't think lockdown is appropriate and people who are in the private sector (myself included as of earlier this year) who recognise that it is a tool we will soon need.

Is that something "She's living proof you don't have to be able to divide two round numbers to hold a Chair at Oxford University?"...

The problem is Gupta brings absolutely no evidenced position to that argument.  She brings bad science from her purported speciality (epidemiology) to support the position that the anti-lockdown approach is correct, but she brings no financial modelling, no healthcare impact analysis, no data of any sort to the argument about which kind of cost is worse.  Person after person signs from the same hymn sheet with nothing but trash grade unevidenced wishful thinking which they try and present as an equally valid view to the mainstream science, trading of their reputations rather than a sound case.

I'm not public sector, but I fall into most of that category. But it's also obvious to me that we cannot have lockdown without proper financial support for those who don't have that security. That's why we were pleased to see Sunak act quickly to do this, and disappointed to see that support being eroded. We may be in a relatively privileged position, but we're not stupid, or oblivious to the plight of others.

Gupta has no experience in the sub field she published in so controversially. She predicted modelling results with maximum levels of covid deaths that contradicted the actual experts and worse still contradicted reality in most of the worst hit areas around the world. She takes funding from those with an anti-lockdown agenda. If the UK had an independent national ethical standards committee for professors she would be in severe trouble.

p.s. another of the LeadingUpper lockdown critics...

Oh crap, I'm not sure that my blood pressure would cope of I did so do me a favour, give me short version...

I think we need to clear up exactly whose philosophy I think is shit. It's Toby Young, Lord Sumption, Desmond Swayne, Peter Hitchens - people who put forward a political viewpoint in the press, in Parliament, people who are really trying to push for policies that will drive our society down the tubes. They are doing this because of their "I'm alright Jack", individualist, libertarian-right politics: any obligation to do anything for the sake of others that doesn't directly benefit these people personally is portrayed as an imposition of an oppressive state taking away our "freedom".

Then we've got the crap scientists who these politicians and journalists are promoting. The motivations of the scientists are less clear. They probably were quite genuine at least initially, and just happened to be optimistic and wrong, but now they've been proven wrong and won't back down. If their motivations are genuine, why won't they back down? Because they're getting paid to keep trotting out crap. They're bad, venal people who are in it for themselves. What provides a better explanation?

No. Firstly who do you think has "enthusiasm for lockdowns"? I don't. I want the hospital admissions to be kept low enough for the NHS to carry on treating cancer patients and all the rest, with the minimum of economic disruption. The "lockdown skeptics" in journalism are selling people hit hard by the restrictions a lie - that somehow if the restrictions were lifted that they'd be OK, they could return to life as normal. It's a little bit like the Brexit lie isn't it? Let's go with this policy that benefits the richest people in society (who don't need the NHS, public transport, or state schools operating, they can collapse for all Toby Young, Lord Sumption, Desmond Swayne, Peter Hitchens care) - it'll screw everyone else but we'll make it sound like there's something in it for you. "Take back control"; "return to life as normal". They're lies, designed to manipulate people who haven't understood the consequences of the policies being promoted.

It would be bollocks. The people who support measures to control the virus just want society to carry on as best as possible, with schools open so we can go to work, hospitals coping with covid, plus flu, plus everything else, and are prepared to adjust their behaviour like not going on holiday, missing out on a lot of their social life. You've misunderstood the situation if you think that by supporting the "lockdown skeptics" - who are just a bunch of vile people at the apex of the elite who don't want their lives disrupted by the inconvenience of having to care about a hospital service (and public services generally) they don't even use but still have to pay for - you're somehow helping the person whose business has been decimated by covid restrictions. 

Lift the restrictions, what happens? The virus gets out of control, you can't get hospital treatment, the teachers go off school because they're all sick or caring for relatives, and then you can't go to work, so you're f*cked. The restrictions were shit alright, but the alternative is worse, so you shouldn't have been conned by the "lockdown skeptics" who just shafted you for their personal gain. 

Nothing's beyond criticism. For example, I think that the hospitality sector has been unfairly penalised while the university sector has been allowed to cause absolute mayhem. The question is whether the criticism is valid, or whether it's lies. The criticism coming from the lockdown skeptics and their scientific lackeys is lies. That's why no one should listen. It's just like Brexit - you're being f*cked in the arse by people with a lot more money and power than you, and they're laughing all the way to the bank. It's not pretty, it's human nature at its very worst.

You're on song this week Jon.

Jk

There is a new campaign "Time for recovery" [1].  Same old, same old.  New shiny well oiled PR front.

The legal entity for this campaign is "Restore The Balance" Ltd, created on 24th September 2020 [2].  This legal entity will be required to comply with data protection regulations over their sign up process and because they are so shameless they are soliciting donations.  Not I think because they need the money, but because it lends a certain credibility to the effort and it encourages desperate people undergoing hard times to literally "buy in" to their campaign.

One of the six officers at the company is "JPD" - more details are publicly available from companies house.  I'll limit to initials here for brevity.  There are 4 separate person profiles for JPD on companies house - all with the same birth month and year however and some with the same address.  Nothing suspicious there - companies house is a bit discordant at linking up records sometimes.

What else does JPD do?

• JPD is an Officer at "WORLD4BREXIT" Ltd [3], a company championing Brexit on Twitter and soliciting donations for the cause [4].  JPD is an Officer at several more limited companies [5] which have little to no web presence beyond Companies House, including "Renewal 2030" which has a Yell entry listing it under "Political Parties" [6]

I think JPD is likely the one in charge; the others appear to be (through a quick bit of googling and companies house checking) digital media people etc.

So, here we have a slick PR effort that - surprise surprise - is leading their news stories with articles from/about Gupta and Yeadon.  Whoever has brought this about is so lazy they haven't even bothered to cover their tracks and have employed the same person they're bankrolling to run some pro-Brexit campaigning.  

Question:  Why is the person behind this so lazy?  Answer: Where the **** is investigative journalism?  Dead.  Perhaps the Eye will take this up; I should give them a call.

[1] https://timeforrecovery.org

[2] https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/12903785...

[3] https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/12149497...

[4] https://twitter.com/world4brexit?lang=en

[5] https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/search?q=Jonatha... - first four profiles

[6] https://www.192.com/atoz/business/london-w1t/political-parties/renewal-2030...

She has a lot on her plate, but probably worth dropping a line to Carole Cadwalladr.

Thanks; I shall do exactly that.

She got a bit of a pasting from Nick Robinson on R4 one morning last week about how her dismissals of both the daily infection and death predictions were proved spectacularly wrong.

She just burbled about false positives and seemed entirely unapologetic.

The think I can't forget about Gupta, she is an award winning writer of fiction.

Where’s Charles Arthur when you need him?

Today, Farage announces his intention to convert the Brexit party into an anti-lockdown party.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-54777346

Well I never.

F*ck me, hasn't he done enough damage already?

You would hope that would sway any waverers on which side to come down on the lockdown debate. 

Unfortunately we all know there's a significant amount of Brexiteers who will come down on the wrong side.

New improved lies, and now with added death.  Winner.

Be fair. The poor bloke has lost his MEP salary and only has the generous pension from his years as a career politican to help pay the bills. You cant blame him for rebranding his company to try and get some more cash in.

Quite. That anyone would deliberately try to replicate the toxic US tribalism that conflates what should be objective scientific policies with blatant political partisanship is almost unbelievable. 

It’s been going on in microcosm on UKC for 9 months with a select few posters pushing the exact same false dichotomy and outright denials of fact as those Farage is building his new platform on.  When challenged with irrefutable evidence the fallback is to insist “my opinion is equally valid to yours”.  A core mantra of toxic stupidity upon which the US tribalism is built.

I don’t for a minute think farage’s actions are unconnected to the AEIR lobby group in the states and their puppet masters.  

This. Absolutely this. What an utter piece of shit he is.

If you want yet more reasons to despair, Totally Under Control shown last night is worth watching.  If you were still hoping that the US death toll might just be down to simple incompetence this will remove any doubt about the deliberate cynicism required to generate a real medical emergency. 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000p36r/totally-under-control-trump-...

I don't understand this at all. In 3 years time (I reckon) we'll have a vaccine, and lots of people should have acquired immunity through surviving CV-19. Lockdowns will therefore not be necessary; at that point what does he do? re-brand his company again? Does he just go round trying to find stuff to protest about, with no intention of ever fixing anything?

Another anti-lockdown Oxford scientist on the BBC news early this afternoon. I'm sick of this both sides of the argument treatment, similar to climate change denial in the past... the science on this has one side and a small number of non specialist critics, already proven wrong.  This guy was saying the SAGE data, on hospitals due to be overwhelmed, is wrong (based on no independent evidence and in the face of some hospitals already being at their limits) and repainting the false dichotomy of earlier lockdown means more economic damage (it means less as it doesn't need to be as long to get numbers back under control). The opinions were barely challenged by the journalist interviewer.

Well, he's "Got Brexit Done". So he has to find another way to keep his ugly face and views in the media, and the gravy boat flooded with cash.

It's a bit much to expect a modern TV journalist to research the extensive data on early vs late lockdowns that goes back over a century, but not challenging a comment on hospitals being overwhelmed to get to the basis for it is inexcusable professional incompetence.  The news shouldn't' about giving equal airtime to opposing viewpoints and giving people a platform to make outrageous statements without challenge....  

The University Officers at Oxford need to have an urgent discussion about Heneghan and Gupta.  Perhaps they don't want to rock the boat when they've got a former member of the Trump administration donating over £0.1 Bn and a similar amount coming from someone with purported links to the Putin regime.

He had tried to revamp his company last year with the same name reform party (the anti lockdown is a slogan)  but it didnt really take off since he couldnt really use the brexit line any longer but just had this vague reform thing. So its just spinning it up again with a new catchline he hopes will appeal.

He does seem fonder of the campaigning side of things rather than representing. Hence why he went on about how the UK did badly on fisheries skipping over the minor detail it wouldnt have been helped by him only bothering to turn up once or twice to the fishery committee meetings.

FTFY.

This has been happening in the UK since at least 2015. Forget about the US - this is already happening, in the UK.

Do you believe that the current government is, in any way, science-led?

I don’t know if you have seen this:

https://bylinetimes.com/2020/11/03/time-for-recovery-lockdown-nigel-farage-...

I hadn't - thanks.  That nicely closes the loop from what I'd put together before Farage's announcement.  

The last week has rather knocked the wind out of their sails over Sweden - although I doubt they'll pay heed.

It amazes me that the level of US and pro-brexit involvement in the endless drip drip of anti-lockdown / let-it-rip campaigning is not getting any airtime, and the usual suspects keep getting soundbites and quotes into the media.