One other thing to say about my Covid-19 and decision theory post is that I have assumed in my toy models that if Covid-19 turns out to be a mass killer, the lockdown would have been successful at preventing those mass deaths. But of course this is itself very dubious. There’s not much good evidence that a lockdown really does much to stop a serious killer disease, and even if it temporarily stops it in its tracks, there’s not much evidence that in the longer term any difference will be made. Once we take this into account the expected utility of the lockdown will again greatly fall.
Overall, given that the mass deaths are on the unlikely side, and given that it’s also unlikely that a lockdown will do much to help anyway, it’s hard to see how a lockdown is the rational course of action.
44 thoughts on “More on Covid-19 and decision theory: the assumption that the lockdown will help”
Hector, Am I alone in thinking that while all this theory is interesting, we are getting away from where C19 is going now. The doom and gloom is intensifying –
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/sunday-shows-round-up-uk-likely-to-be-worst-hit-in-europe-says-science-adviser
I think most who come to rest here think instinctively that the lockdown is an overreaction, and your thoughts reinforce that view.
BUT where are we now – and where do we think we are going?
The lockdown is useful, and may be essential, to damp down the panic.
“If Covid-19 turns out to be a mass killer”
The over-reaction to it will almost certainly kill more, although it will take much longer for the numbers to become apparent:
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1268059/cancer-deaths-coronavirus-nhs
I think the only case for the lockdown is that the ‘public’ have been whipped up to such a panic it’s the only action dramatic enough to placate them.
I do wonder if the public are going to buy it when the damage this has caused really starts to bite, but time will tell.
The IC model which was apparently very influential in changing the government’s policy may have a lot to answer for. But the government is vastly more at fault – “advisers advise; ministers decide”.
The government seems to have adopted the current lock-down primarily on the basis of a single unverified, unpublished model. Ministers apparently saw no need to get a second, third or fourth opinion. Nor to consider alternatives (as others have suggested here) like the protection of vulnerable people while the rest of society continued as close to normal as possible, in part to support those people most at risk. That’s the most obvious possibility but it’s not hard to come up with other alternatives. Did no one ask about those alternatives? Perhaps the IC model wasn’t flexible enough to cover more than a very limited range of strategies.
One might think it’s incredible that such a significant decision – the most important since WWII? – could have been taken on such blinkered advice and flimsy evidence. But then one remembers the Iraq War and the “dodgy dossier” and the lack of any significant sceptical voices…
It’s generally advisable (he said, offering advice – please do check it) in almost every circumstance to get more than one opinion before following an extreme course of action. For example, just before the lock-down my wife had a medical appointment. The doctor recommended surgery. My wife demurred and arranged a second opinion. The second opinion was that the operation was entirely unnecessary. The first doctor, on being informed of this, accepted the correction, nodded ruefully but didn’t feel any need to apologise or to “consider her position”. Unfortunately, in the case of CV, no wiser second opinion was apparently sought.
Would a better strategy have been to identify the vulnerable people and isolate them while encouraging everyone else to carry on as normal? Some people who were not thought to be vulnerable might turn out to be, that is a risk. But it seems that the only way to defeat the virus is for enough people to get it and recover from it so that it can no longer spread.
South Korea has been lauded as the country that has dealt with the problem the most effectively. What will happen when someone brings the virus into SK in the future? They surely can’t quarantine everyone who enters the country indefinitely. But if they don’t, the population will all be vulnerable because non of them have had it.
Looking at it from afar, it seems that, rather than damping down panic, it is intensifying it.
There’s not much good evidence that a lockdown really does much to stop a serious killer disease…
In what sense, not much good evidence?
We’ve had a serious killer disease and a lockdown didn’t stop it?
We’ve not had a serious killer disease since the ability to achieve lockdowns?
I would agree with that from fairly close up
Yes, the average person seems not to understand that many more die of Flu in a bad year (or even an average year).
If every year the MSM had a Flu/pneumonia death toll item on every news bulletin – the public would either think the current hysteria a bit over the top OR we would have panic and at least Social Distancing every year.
Very early on (I think the first 3 man press-conference) it was said that the average Flu season killed 8,000 people – I thought at the time if that was to make the bar that C-19 had to clear quite low. The previous 5 year average had been 17,000
An interesting comparison in a few weeks/months time will be between Sweden (if the government is able to maintain their weak lock-down position in the face of internal and international pressure to fall into line) and those countries which had “severe” lock-downs, UK included but particularly Norway and Denmark.
Currently, deaths per million of population are running at 89 in Sweden and 145, 23 and 47 in the UK, Norway and Denmark respectively. So Sweden is currently doing better than the UK but not as well as its Scandinavian neighbours.
If Sweden succeeds in establishing “herd immunity” while the locked-down countries fail to do so, one would expect the disparity to decrease as easing the lock-down in Norway and Denmark (and the UK) would lead to more people dying than in “immunized” Sweden.
Hi Stony – well according to Prof Wittkowski
S. Korea and China were both beyond the Peak before lockdown was applied. He reckons that they cut off total herd immunity too soon and that was why both had more cases after they relaxed the measures. He covers it in this video – quite a way through from memory.
https://youtu.be/lGC5sGdz4kg
Latest summary from CEBM
https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/covid-19-death-data-in-england-update-12th-april/
I believe Ferguson in his interview (with the Economist?) said that the Government’s apparent sudden volte-face on recieving his report was mere coincicdnece, and that information had been flowing in to the government of a couple of weeks, and his was simply the last one to have been submitted before the change of direction had been finally decided.
Thus there was – according to him – a wealth of info provided.
Personal view is that a lockdown buys time to decide – as long as not too much time is taken.
“One might think it’s incredible that such a significant decision – the most important since WWII? – could have been taken on such blinkered advice and flimsy evidence”
Considering that, prior to CV, the ruinous Climate Change Act was voted through by all bar a handful of MP’s, it doesn’t bode well, does it?
Yes – it will be quite interesting. The current deaths per million you quote, are not quite like the European average of 888 per million in the 2014/15 Flu epidemic are they? I don’t recall a lockdown or any one even noticing.
Europe will be past the peak in a couple of weeks. But India & Africa are both in the early stages and, in general, ill-equipped to cope. Modi has panicked the entire nation: firstly by shutting them in with only 4 hours warning and no shops left open, then back-tracking slightly, whereupon millions fled the cities for their rural homes, thus ensuring the spread of disease. Those who do not starve to death will die from no medical care – there isn’t much in the countryside.
Africa is similarly ill-prepared in towns and cities – how do you “self isolate” when living 6 to one room in a township?
This gets things the wrong way around. The onus is on lockdown proponents to show that a lockdown works? Where is that evidence?
Anyway, Sweden is showing that a lockdown is unnecessary. No lockdown, no mass deaths.
Well hang on, the context (defined by you above) is the government making a calculation for a lockdown against the possibility of COVID-19 being a serious killer disease. I was genuinely curious as to what the basis of the lack of evidence is re lockdowns being effective or not. If there’s no evidence one way or the other, it cannot be usefully considered.
I don’t disagree that the lockdown (at least as was blanket bombed upon us) is unnecessary.
One might think that in India and Africa the lockdown is only to help the middle classes, but that would be a cynical view.
According to worldometers only one European nation has so far reached the mortality level of the 2014/15 flu epidemic. San Marino has a mortality rate of 1032/million. However, the total number of deaths involved is 35 so the statistics are misleading. For example, if there were 10 deaths in a care home with 100 inhabitants (quite possible in a bad flu year) the mortality rate would be a startling 100,000 deaths/million population.
The most relevant comparisons are with larger countries, eg Italy and Spain with mortality rates now at 329 and 363 per million population respectively. They both still have some way to go before they reach the average European level of 2014/15.
Interesting new post over Doc Kendrick’s place –
https://drmalcolmkendrick.org/2020/04/12/the-lockdown-is-not-a-way-of-beating-this-virus/?unapproved=158432&moderation-hash=0fccec9a52d56b393b873fa28953a58e#comment-158432
They have already screwed the economy. US has more people out of work than at height of Depression–by a factor of millions more. If this LD nonsense goes on much longer there will be a VERY serious situation indeed.
And when the mass deaths don’t happen and people realise they have been ruined by hysteria –all those praising Johnson will be baying for his blood. His only defence will be that all the politicalpork agreed and the left wanted to do worse–rationing etc.
Most likely the lockdowns there are even more ill-informed over reaction than here. They don’t have a big pool of elderly-imfirm or that much in the way of health services to be overwhelmed.
More people are realising the LD was a bad idea. But they seem to think we have some large amount of leisure to sit around debating while the world economy burns. And remember what follows in the wake of economic crashes–usually wars and extremism of the worst kinds.
@Hector
Lockdown to last 18 months – ‘Experts” in USA, USA & Aus
They’ve been saying for a week now inc Fauci in USA
USA “Experts” saying shutdown may last 18 months or longer until vaccine created, or up to 1 million might die
https://youtu.be/VdK77bhAwO0?t=540
This is nuts, 1 million is ~0.25% of USA population, the cost of 2 month let alone 18 month shutdown does not merit it
A cost: Commercial burglaries are up 75 percent in New York City since COVID-19 lockdown
…and Models are. . . . . Sh1t – Remember this when the “experts” models tell you that your farts are causing global warming
Apparently farts are spreading Covid-19 now!
@Hector
Site Title Image is >5Mb (5,366,474 bytes)
hectordrummond.com/hec_wpress/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Days-of-Wine-and-Cheese-header.bmp
It takes a long time, >5 seconds, for the image to slowly load line by line
Would be great if you changed it to .png .jpg or .gif
Cheers
Damn it, that bmp shouldn’t have been the header. Have changed to jpg. Thanks very much for noticing that.
I find if I mention the flu the reaction from most people is quite dramatic, ‘This is NOT the FLU!!!!!’ ‘You CANT compare this to the FLU!!!!’
I’ve fallen out with two friends over this.
NZ’s PM stated that she decided on the lockdown because a friend of her’s said it was ‘really bad’.
Two examples I know of, 2001 FMD in UK and 2017 M Bovis in NZ. Both in cows. The methods used where lockdown, contact tracing and cull of everything within areas of contact.
Neither was effective.
Covid-19 is a much more infectious diseases, in a population that impossible to lockdown fully. If anything the lockdown guarantees transmission in the groups that are locked down. Nor does it address the issue of how you end it.
Actually that did work with FMD in the UK in 2001. But that wasn’t so much as a lockdown as a nuclear holocaust, 4.5 million animals slaughtered, many within 24 hours, all within 48 hours, so can hardly be used to justify a human lockdown.
This is a speculation on my part, but I strongly suspect the underlying cause of this massive panic is Trump Derangement Syndrome.
Before March, the media was not really that interested in this disease except in passing, but with the impeachment fading and Trump looking to line up against Biden when Biden is clearly heading to senile, the media needed to new weapon.
Covid-19
By then ramping up the breathless panic, the focus of the US media becomes entirely this in order to wrong step Trump. The rest of the worlds media largely takes it’s lead from this,
I don’t believe this was a group of media insiders plotting, just the natural evolution of a mind virus.
Anyone thinking the same here?
Is it legitimate to directly compare a death rate over a whole flu season (several months) with that over about a month of CV19? Seems a bit premature to me – surely you need to normalise for the amount of time you’re counting the deaths over?
The think the total was around 11m? My understanding is it didn’t actually ‘work’ once they had sifted through the ashes, the FMD died out irrespective of the slaughter. The cost was horrific, and quietly swept up the carpet.
From what I can gather it seems that it’s now been established that FMD was starting to die out anyway with the more sensible strategy of slaughtering only infected animals, when Anderson and Ferguson came in with their ‘contiguous culling’ policy, ie. slaughter all animals in the general area of the infection.
Excellent summary here, sent by a reader of this blog (although there’s still questions I have regarding many other details):
https://www.research.ed.ac.uk/portal/files/14288330/Use_and_abuse_of_mathematical_models_an_illustration_from_the_2001_foot_and_mouth_disease_epidemic_in_the_United_Kingdom.pdf
Does anyone have any research on the connection between unemployment and mortality> Does it have a higher mortality than Covid-19? That would be an interesting comparison.
Instant load now. Thanks.
Aus: Government restrictions ‘will last for at least six months’: we must wait for vaccine
Finance Minister Mathias Cormann says the government has not “accepted the approach of letting the virus spread to create so called herd immunity” because such a method will come with “an unacceptable level of loss of life”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhM-5vN69F8
Aus: Chief Medical Officer Brendan Murphy says “it’s far too early” for social distancing restrictions to be eased despite the downward trend of COVID-19 cases in Australia.
Thirty-three cases of coronavirus were confirmed overnight, bringing the national total to 6,322 cases
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2l9nedEtvB0
Believe the ‘experts’ Where have I heard that before? This is a joke
I hope politicians will be dragged from their homes and lynched in less than 3 months
– 1.6 million people around the world die from TB every year it’s highly contagious don’t see social distancing or the collapse of country’s economy for that
– Situation update worldwide, as of 13April 2020
1,807,308 cases of COVID-19, 113,513 deaths
UK All Cause Annual Deaths: ~615,000
Global All Cause Annual Deaths: ~58 Million (58,000,000)
+1 same with Boris and Brexit (must extend)
Largest example is media, except Fox & Sky Aus, rubbishing Hydroxychloroquine and now “Trump/Boris racism causing more black/brown to die”
– Gruppenführer Hancock unveils snoop & snitch App
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1k7Yod9nZE
– Peter Hitchens in The Mail on Sunday spot on. I’ve been critical of Hancock’s nasty behaviour for weeks now
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-8211307/PETER-HITCHENS-Matt-Hancock-trying-run-UK-like-1950s-prep-school.html
This is awful. I recently heard from an Australian friend who said things were looking for hopeful for an easing of restrictions.
I’m in Victoria and quite hopeful restrictions will ease to some degree. Most businesses are still operating to some degree, but had expected the pressure to build given the hospitals are empty and its mostly a big nothing.
Key phrase: “an unacceptable level of loss of life”
For his and other politicians’ image. Not for best interest of Country
MPs should be ignoring hysterical media and robustly explaining why closing economy is much worse for country than a short spike in deaths
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