Rebecca
In a newspaper this week, a journalist called “Malpass” identifies government splitting from epidemiological advisors. According to Malpass, epidemiologists only consider the bug while politicians have to consider more than that, which explains the split for him.
Unfortunately, he misunderstands epidemiology, a word that doesn’t mean the study of epidemics but a public health consideration of diseases, interventions and effects on populations including economic and quality of life. Hence concepts like “QALY” (quality-adjusted life years) to compare health interactions over the years and across the community, not just a single disease or intervention in isolation. Of course, QALY should include psychiatric illness and missed diagnoses that are consequences of interactions like lock downs, as well as the financial effects of acting or not acting.
The problem for New Zealand is that its most outspoken “epidemiologists” – or people behaving as if they are C19 epidemiologists – have tended to be mathematicians, physicists or laboratory workers, some of whom have become associate professors in their own niche and now behave as if calling themselves “doctor” turns them into world-leading epidemiologists.
Thus you have modellers and experts focusing on the bug with no sign of QALY concerns; instead, there’s the inexperienced expectation that you can declare “Level 4” and hey presto, the bug grows as commanded in the petri dish or the steel beam is strong enough to support the structure.
Epidemiologists all used to practice medicine first, so they were well aware that human beings are not like computer models or petri dishes. People have a voice and preferences, as well as something doctors call “compliance”, meaning a willingness or ability to follow advice.
Poor understanding of what should be obvious explains the vitriol poured on the kids who had a party at the weekend. To those delivering thundering condemnation: Hey Karen, were you never 18 years old yourself? What would you have done if somebody ordered you to lock down in isolation for months at a time, over a bug that barely affects your age group while your mates in Dunedin get on with life?
Anybody who has ever worked in healthcare will have encountered this reality in more than just adolescents and will know that you can issue all the decrees you like, but as in all science, “the animal is always right”, meaning that a theory that fails to predict actual behaviour is not useful, no matter how exceedingly clever the model or idea may be.
So, Mr Malpass: what is happening is not that the government is splitting from epidemiologists; it’s just that adult epidemiologists are now allowed back in the room issuing competent epidemiological advice.
As for how this happened: remember how the MSM stifled Plan B epidemiologists while fawning over the physics professors and lab technicians with PhDs? Censoring and stifling alternative views extended the foolishness far longer than necessary, so thanks a whole heap Luke Malpass and the rest of the MSM. Don’t think you can separate yourselves from the upcoming disgrace by acting as if it’s epidemiology at fault rather than the childish version promoted by the Media team of 55 Million.
