October 29, 2020

expert reaction to latest COVID-19: nowcast and forecast, by the University of Cambridge MRC Biostatistics Unit

The MRC Biostatistics Unit at the University of Cambridge have released their latest nowcast and forecast of COVID-19.

Prof James Naismith FRS FRSE FMedSci, Director of the Rosalind Franklin Institute, and University of Oxford, said:

“Nowcasting is an important study from a well-regarded expert group. The headline numbers are rather different than the REACT survey, an equally well regarded expert group. These studies use different data and methods to estimate the daily number of new infections and the doubling time in England.

“However, both this group and the REACT group are very careful to estimate the uncertainty in their numbers. For something moving as quickly as Covid19, there is always going to be uncertainty. This is the scientific process, the 95 % confidence intervals from each study for new cases per day are REACT (86, 000 to 105, 000)  Nowcast (38,400–81,600).

“We can be rapid or we can be precise. These studies and the ONS data tomorrow will be extremely useful in understanding where we are.

“It would be really helpful if the media could also report the uncertainty in the estimates as well as headline numbers. The scientists who do this work are extremely careful to spell these out and it is crucial for the public to know about these uncertainties and understand what they mean.

“Our elected representatives have to make decisions with this imperfect data. If the virus is growing rapidly, then waiting until we are sure will result in significant additional deaths and illness resulting from the virus that could have been saved. It will require other scientists (psychology, economics, community health, social scientists) to estimate the damage done by further restrictions.

“As a scientist I note the trend in other counties, the virus is spreading rapidly. I would therefore expect, but do not know, that the virus will behave similarly in the UK. The REACT survey supports this view. The data from the Nowcasting however indicate that although the virus is growing it is doing so more slowly, giving some hope that we might peak soon. However, I would emphasise that taking these studies together or individually, we can be almost certain that we will see an increase in the number of deaths per day from covid19 over the next few weeks and each death will represent a tragedy for the families and friends left behind.”

https://www.mrc-bsu.cam.ac.uk/nowcasting-and-forecasting-29th-october-2020/

All our previous output on this subject can be seen at this weblink:

www.sciencemediacentre.org/tag/covid-19

Declared interests

None received.