Are furlough payments treated as wages or transfer payments in the national accounts?

Has anyone on current SAGE any professional competence in formal decision analysis of any sort, as established by qualification or publication. Just wondering. (BTW can’t find names of members on gov.uk.) Does anyone else think 'scientific advice' is an oxymoron?

Can't help wondering what the Alans would be saying

Named long list of SAGEs: don't recognise anyone with publication-established competence in decision analysis, MCDA or economic evaluation. Please identify any.

Wanted to make a comment on a BBC news item but find only item open for comments in News and Sport is 'Which Premier League squads need work in the transfer window?'. Difficulty of moderating 1000s of comments is predictable explanation but not a good one for a public service?

Observing 'unlocking' around me I sense individuals are intuitively rejecting a UK one-size-fits-all R and operating on a personalised, weighted R that incorporates their assessments of the probability AND SEVERITY of infection in those around them.

is low plasma vitamin C an underlying health condition?

It won't be a legal requirement to wear a face mask because evidence for benefit is not strong enough (Whitty/Vallance). So be careful. Saying things you believe to be untrue is lying. Urging things you believe may be either true or untrue is the formal definition of bullshit.

Could the daily briefing include a graph of viewing figures for the daily briefing? Oops, that won’t help as i’m no longer watching the increasing series of home defeats through own goals. So where can they be found?

anyone seen a false negative rate for the 14 days quarantine test?

what about another R - the rate of transmission (by any medium) that i don’t know of anyone who has got ill, let alone been hospitalised or died; this R seems way above 1 and probably underpins the widespread self unlocking i observe

waiting for my science colleagues to say very clearly that ‘science’ can make no contribution at all to setting a cutoff on a continuous variable, such as time or distance - but not holding my breath (maskless)

When will our scientists insist that as scientists they have no role to play in setting a cutoff on a continuous measure, such as distance or time?

what % of people don't answer unknown or private numbers - presumably the tracers are using these

York Harness Raceway Results Race 3 Trot 1.25 Mile 1st Emma Star - W Laidler 2nd Elka Du Puy - P Mather 3rd Cimmino - M Quinn 4th Totem Turgot - J Nicholson Time: 2.41.5 Dist: Nose & 4.5L

Using R0, even regionally, is doing brain surgery with hedge clippers. We need best estimates of R0 Asymp, R0 Sick, R0 Hosp, and R0 Dead. Life should be seriously interfered with only if (R0 Hosp + R0 Dead) approaches 1. I believe it has always been under 0.1 and is decreasing.

it seems the choice is between 'fringe' and 'captured'

whatever happened to seasonal adjustment?

Q: How many of the 16 members of the Joint Committee on Vaccines and Immunisation have any QUALIFICATIONS in relation to PRIORITISATION? A: Only 1 out of 16: Dutch economist Maarten Postma! (12 are doctors, 1 a research scientist, 1 a mathematical modeller and 1 a lay person)

Rearing its ugly head again so dusted down Dowie, Jack. 2021. “The Best Principle Is the Best Principle.” SocArXiv. March 20. doi:10.31235/osf.io/q4keh.