[LINK] The government's coronavirus modelling

[jwhit at internode.on.net]

I haven't read the papers and may not. Have you considered asking that
question to Andrew Probyn so he can ask about it in those briefings?
Or Phil Coorey even? Or other journos, maybe Kathryn Murphy.  

Minister, where is the modelling you've actually been paying for from
..xxxx ?
Jan

----- Original Message -----
From: "Bernard Robertson-Dunn" 
To:"Link List" 
Cc:
Sent:Tue, 7 Apr 2020 18:10:08 +1000
Subject:[LINK] The government's coronavirus modelling

 What really annoys me is when the government tries to do a snow job
on
 us all

 Scotty from marketing today put on his salesman's hat and tried to
 convince the country that his presentation on coronavirus modelling
was
 all they had.

 This was the slide deck he used:

 https://s3.amazonaws.com/files.scribblelive.com/2020/4/7/2928378_340853142bc011a4-b1b9-4fd2-9358-d26f2130b1a5.pdf

 A few little details.

 There is nothing in those slides that applies to Australia.

 He references the University of Melbourne (Doherty Institute)
pandemic
 modelling team but not Quantium Health.

 According to this:

 https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/mar/28/government-increases-spend-on-covid-19-data-analytics-as-it-declines-to-release-modelling

 "The health department upped its spend on a contract with Quantium
 Health from $1.1m to $3.1m"

 Quantium Health is a Joint Venture between Discovery Ltd, and
Quantium Group

 Discovery Ltd is a South African Financial services company

 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discovery

 and the Quantium group does data analytics.

 https://quantium.com/

 Their web site says: "Translating raw data into actionable insight"

 It looks to me as though they have done a lot of economic modelling
but
 a) don't want to own up to it and b) have done no pandemic modelling
 beyond what others have done and released weeks ago.

 If you want to see what modelling has been going on around the world
 look at this:

 https://coronavirustechhandbook.com/forecasting

 especially Imperial College work.

 https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/sph/ide/gida-fellowships/Imperial-College-COVID19-NPI-modelling-16-03-2020.pdf

 Scotty said in his presentation that more realistic models and plans
 will be developed and that the "Focus of future modelling is based on
 real world Australian data"

 The government must have a lot of data already otherwise Quantium
Health
 would have nothing to show for its millions. What modelling has the
 government already done on that data but has not released?

 I can't believe they have been making decisions on the modelling they
 released today. They may cunning but they are not stupid.

 IMHO, the big questions are "What is he hiding and why?"

 -- 

 Regards
 brd

 Bernard Robertson-Dunn
 Canberra Australia
 email: brd at iimetro.com.au

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