Sorry? I thought the debate was about the evidence and not his expertise?  The UK data on cases, intensive care usage and deaths suggests beyond reasonable doubt that his suggestion that we should have delayed putting resti icons in place is flawed.  He wouldn't be the first expert during this pandemic to hold contrarian views, nor the first whose views don't stand up to the light of reality.

Why are we now ‘conducting’ 40,000 fewer tests than last Friday?

There is a sense of horror about our death figures emanating from across Europe, if not the world. I know anecdotally of people receiving concerned messages from acquaintances abroad. 

Here in the UK itself it almost feels there’s a degree of ambivalence. It’s bizarre. 

Revision to excess deaths figures from the ONS now suggests that COVID-19 has killed more than 52,000 people in the UK.

Agree 100%. I really can't explain it. 

You might have thought that, rather like with London, Lombardy's rates of infection might have dropped massively and that the infection rates would now be similar across Italy...

... not so. Of the 1,075 new cases today, exactly 500 of them were in Lombardy. Add on Piedmont, Veneto and Emilia-Romagna which essentially make up the industrialised north, they accounted for nearly 73% of all new cases. "R" appears to be the same both in the badly affected north and the hardly affected south, which shows how important it is to not let the number of cases get so high anywhere in the first place.

https://github.com/pcm-dpc/COVID-19/blob/master/schede-riepilogative/regioni/dpc-covid19-ita-scheda-regioni-20200505.pdf

The other day Hancock said the supply of test kits is greater than the demand which is falling.WHy don't they change the testing criteria to include, say, other people who still need to work, or the vulnerable who can still go out like fit over 70's. The more the merrier. All data is useful.

It's because we are a supine bunch who would rather believe that HMG is 'doing a good job in difficult circumstances' rather than presiding over the greatest health catastrophe since 1918.

As was pointed to you earlier your basis is flawed as you have willingly ignored the birth rates. 

Plus Raab is suddenly saying you can't make the comparisons that they were happy to do before when we seemed be doing somewhat better than Spain and Italy. It is true you are not directly comparing like with like for a number of different factors but a death is a death, although I realise they can also be recorded differently. But you can dress it up how you like - are figures are appalling.

Just a reminder of populations, Italy is the closest to us in terms of population density and actual population. Germany has similar density but higher population. France and Spain in particular have considerably lower densities.

• Russia (143.45 million)*


• Germany (81.4 million)*


• France (66.4 million)


• United Kingdom (65.08 million)


• Italy (60.93 million)*


• Spain (46.42 million)*

I've read enough of your posts over the years to know that the only expert opinion you respect is the one that agrees with your own views.

We don't know who is going to be right. I'm keeping an open mind.

Your thoughts on this?

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-05-05/mutant-coronavirus-has-emerged-more-contagious-than-original?fbclid=IwAR0WM1DxKC61M1QRbNTwmhlWMuggxZpxeTwno9B2t9qzkapXttX9tJA22yM.

Neil Ferguson has resigned after breaking social distancing rules

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/05/05/exclusive-government-scientist-neil-ferguson-resigns-breaking/

Agreed.

Germans could be sipping their steins in the spring sunshine in less than two weeks as the country's #coronavirus lockdown measures are eased https://t.co/45EuKqpZLn

— SkyNews (@SkyNews) May 5, 2020

The irony is that there seemed to be much horror when the death toll in Italy unfolded both by the general population and the media.

I totally agree with your thoughts. This is a national tragedy. 

The rush to ease lockdown and get the economy running means a lot (not all) have lost sight of the fact so many loved ones have been lost and family’s are no doubt devastated. 

We are a bizzare country. We went into full on mourning mode for Diana and yet there doesn’t seem to be a National mourning for all the dead over the last few weeks 

So, the Govt is 'following the science' of scientists who don't even follow their own science.
What a shameful shambles.

— *****Morgan (@piersmorgan) May 5, 2020

Oh dear. If confirmed, this is going to cause some anger. I feel some myself - I have elderly members of my own family circle who have been living in complete isolation for weeks, unable to see their own grandchildren, and deprived of all human contact, because of rules put in place based on his recommendations. And then he behaves like this. I note he "acted in the belief he was immune" and was self isolated for "almost two weeks". Wriggle wriggle.

All that said, his personal failings don't affect whether he was right, although whether the papers will be able to make this distinction is doubtful to put it mildly. I suspect the right wing media will crucify him.

Professor Streeck's study shows the mortality rate to be 0.36, although he thinks it could be lower - between 0.24 - 0.26%. He is of course not talking about New York but about Germany. Nobody knows why the virus seems to be more dangerous in some places than others and there are probably many factors involved in this.

Can you imagine if this was a climate scientist and xioni and Gandalf simply dismissed their ideas? Or are experts only right when they agree with us?

I’ve been out of the loop today,  but has this been posted?

I think it was Brian who expected a debacle with the app?

The UK's coronavirus tracing app is next to useless: it only works on iPhones when the app is running *in the foreground* and requires contact with an Android phone to register any contact https://t.co/8BzfhKwXkZ pic.twitter.com/zDCNrwsDiL

— James Vincent (@jjvincent) May 5, 2020

i also suspect that within the DNA of HMG it is impossible for them to admit that some other European countries may have in fact handled the whole CV19 and response, better than the UK...SURELY NOT!

That may be true, but isn't he self-isolating waiting for test results on the same, which is likely has been caused by himself or family doing something of a similar ilk?

UK data

• Number of tests - 84,806


• People tested - 69,839


• Positive - 4,406


• Confirmed rate for positive tests have fallen to 6.31%

Helpful.

Not.