When I posted the graphs based on the ONS data for week 10, lots of people (mainly on Twitter, not here) said, ‘You have to wait a couple of weeks, then you’ll see something that will make you wet yourself in fear’. Well, we’ve now got the graphs for three weeks later than that first […]
Euromomo has updated deaths stats out. They give the impression that they go up to the end of week 13 (March 27), although in fact for a lot of countries the stats only go for half the week, and the rest of the week is a prediction (more on this below). It looks like we […]
Another of my readers, Laurence Hodge, has done a graph for me. This one charts deaths from 2018 to the end of week 12 of 2020 (this is the blue line), with the the five-year average plotted as red dots for comparison (click to enlarge). Figures from the ONS. Share this article on social media:
Lots of journalists are chasing me for a ‘chat’ at the moment. I learned from my time in academia that this is not an efficient use of time, so I thought I’d put up a list of soundbites instead that they can use if they want. Just to make clear, scepticism about Covid-19 is only […]
I hope to write a post on Neil Ferguson tonight. In the meantime, here’s an open thread for discussion of Covid-19, computer modelling, the #CovidStasi, foot and mouth, and anything else you fancy. I know that quite a few of my readers don’t like social media (and I don’t blame them, I’m vainly trying to […]
So our indefatigable graph-makers David Clark (who does this sort of thing for a living) and Robert Watson (retired Professor) have been hard at work making some updated graphs based on the latest ONS figures, released 31 March. The figures go up March 20 (the end of what their system calls week 12). When I […]
I’ve been looking for the weekly or monthly Italian death stats (all deaths, not Covid-19 deaths). Looks like they are not publicly available, which is rather remarkable. Even the Italian National Statistics Institute doesn’t publish them, although I expect they have them. EUROMOMO However, this site has been mentioned by a few people on the […]
Here’s a remarkable story that no-one in the media or social media has picked up on (although you can bet that everyone in the field knows). So we have two epidemiological teams, one at Imperial, and one at Oxford, with differing ideas about Covid-19. The Imperial team, led by Prof. Neil Ferguson, is the team […]
So there’s been a lot of talk about Neil Ferguson’s history of alarmism, including his work on BSE, foot and mouth and swine flu. What I’d like to do here is to crowd-source some information. If anyone has any has any more knowledge or recollections or links about how he has performed in the past, […]
[Update: For Breitbart readers I need to make it clear that 2020 respiratory deaths are actually below the five-year average. Yes, below, not above, as Dellers assumed in his article. I didn’t spell this out enough in the text. HD] Two brilliant readers of this blog have taken the time to graph up the relevant […]
This copper’s justification for this ridiculous bit of heavy-handed policing by Derbyshire Police is pure police state reasoning: By AndyRozza’s logic, any time the NHS gets full then we’re into police state mode, where no-one, except the police and essential workers, is allowed outside. We’re only free to leave the house if there are available […]
I had a look through the England and Wales weekly death stats for this year so far and previous years. The 2020 figures provided nothing to be worried about. They’re here if you want to look yourself. I couldn’t find them in line graph form (the Office for National Statistics don’t do that, which is […]
We’re constantly told that we’re going to be Italy in a few weeks (although that few weeks seems to be rather a moveable feast). But are Italy’s higher figures are in large part due to the way Italy records deaths? Prof Ricciardi added that Italy’s death rate may also appear high because of how doctors record […]
HUGE NEWS: The very same man who brought about the shutdown with his extreme claims about massive death tolls has now massively backtracked: Up to two thirds of people who die from coronavirus in the next nine months are likely to have died this year from other causes, a government advisor has said. Professor […]
These complaints are extremely stupid: Many people were nose-to-nose with people on the Tube, trains and buses as well as platforms despite being told to be two metres apart to avoid catching coronavirus, which has claimed 335 lives so far. Transport union TSSA today called for police to be deployed at all main London underground and […]
You can’t go to the local pub any more. You can’t go around to your brother’s place to play XBox any more. You can’t even go to PC World to buy a webcam so you can desperately try to keep your business from going bankrupt. Your life has been shut down. Freedom is easily taken […]
This is the incredibly irresponsible headline in today’s Daily Mail (click to expand): There are two appalling things about this headline. The first is the use of the word’ jump’, making it seem like things are getting worse. There was actually a drop in new infections yesterday, but you wouldn’t know that from the […]
The media hysterics who run our lives in action: I don’t just blame the media who are, for obvious, attention-seeking reasons, loving this. I also blame the University system for giving us a generation of uncritical scientists. And millions of Humanities graduates who are sceptical of all the wrong things. And social media. Everyone seems […]
Is the UK still allowing flights from China? I can’t find anything on the web which says not, and Skyscanner still lists flights to UK from China, and Heathrow arrivals still shows flights arriving from Beijing and Shanghai (click to enlarge): This would be extraordinary if true. You can’t go to your local pub, but […]
Frightening headline in the Daily Mail: Frightening, that is, because of how stupid it is. The spike being referred to consists of… 7 deaths. Just 7. Not 70 000. Not even 7000. Just 7. The death toll rose from 33 to 40. On average, about 1700 people die in the UK every day. And we’re […]