DATA - we want it all, we want it now!

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Understanding disease spread - the underlying math

A fundamental issue when it comes to understanding pandemics - and epidemiology in general - is the crucial role of mathematics combined with the lack of math skills among the majority of "specialists" involved in disease control, general medicine, policy and even medical research. This follows through to the general public, who are bombarded with various opinions and analyses from these specialists and an uncoordinated response from the government. Ironically, a random computer scientist would be able to grasp the theoretical basis of the equations below than your family doctor. The basic reproduction ratio, R 0 = 1 + rΤ; where r is the intrinsic growth rate, and T the mean generation interval. r can be estimated by Poisson regression of the epidemic curve. The "final size" or the proportion of the population that will eventually get infected can be estimated by solving the following for  χ. ln(1 - χ ) + R 0 χ = 0 By the way, Prof Neil Furguson and associa...
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Vaccine adverse events and the TGA's role in monitoring them - is it failing the Australian public?

TGA   Database of Adverse Event Notifications (DAEN)  is where all suspected side effect reports following vaccination are collated in collaboration with state level databases like  SAEFVIC  in Victoria. It is commonly reported in the media by politicians, epidemiologists, CHOs etc that all adverse events post vaccination are monitored by the TGA. However, the reality is that the TGA depends on health practitioners and the general public to report them. I quote from the TGA  website :  " The TGA encourages health professionals and consumers to report suspected side effects following immunisation with COVID-19 vaccines. Every report is valuable and contributes to our safety monitoring." The TGA claims to collect data of adverse events presenting after the administration of any medication irrespective of causality being established. This is good practice and a requirement in any data set that is to be used for statistical inference purposes - to asc...
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Was SARS-Cov-2 engineered in a laboratory?

There was much discussion and controversy surrounding the origin of the virus in the early days, which is yet to be fully settled. One of the early papers that discussed this was the nature medicine article in March 2020 by Kristian Andersen. While the authors refute the lab engineered theory in the article, Dr. Andersen's very early communications with Dr. Faucy in January of the same year have now come to light. This analysis by Jim Jordan is interesting When it comes to how and why Dr. Andersen changed his views. In this article  in the NY times, he gives his side of the story. TBC
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