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This thread from @peston has, predictably, lit up the anti-lockdown crowd. Everything we were told was a lie! Even the ONS, the O-N-S, are just bumbling idiots making stuff up! 1/ https://twitter.com/Peston/status/1336246651799937024
Well, as my lockdown hero Simon Anthony from @crypticcracking might say: "now hang on....haaaang onnnn..." 2/
Thing is, there are numerous indicators out there that shine light on how things are going. Some, like those including testing, rely heavily on modelling assumptions: rates of accuracy, sampling and so on. 3/
Their retrospective review, in the light of changing assumptions and improved knowledge, is understandable.
Other indicators, perhaps less so. 4/
Other indicators, perhaps less so. 4/
I'm minded, especially when my more critically-thinking friends talk about being realistic about the risks, to look at one of them in particular: hospital admissions. 5/
In my view, someone what less vulnerable to misinterpretation (and retrospective revision). Clinicians have made a difficult decision, and some actual poor sod is now in a bed, rather than being a statistical assumption within a model. 6/
In September and October these were increasing, for a few weeks, at around 40% a week, compound. You can find the receipts in @ganeshran's excellent and diligent timeline, drawn from the official tracking data. This graph sums it up well: 7/
I appreciate that the rate of growth becomes linear, rather than exponential, from the 2nd half of October, but behaviour modifies as crisis is perceived, arguably, and it's still linear. Upwards. 8/
You might have several responses to this, ranging at the lower end from "that can't be right - this is just normal flu stuff - within range - it'll all settle down" to "This is out of control. Acting now, albeit with cackhanded and crude restrictions, we might avert disaster". 9/
If your response is at the lower end of that, please show your workings. But whatever you argue with, you can't argue that people were being admitted to hospital in predictable, increasing numbers. And nobody makes that choice easily. 10/
Please give that some consideration before you join the "we can't trust anything now" chorus. 11/11