Reverse Engineering: Summing up - Part 1

UKHSA's 100 models are not science.

As promised, we have not run away. We have now completed our undertaking to review the 100 models forming the backbone of the UKHSA’s latest offering: the mapping review called “Effectiveness of non-pharmaceutical interventions to reduce transmission of COVID-19 in the UK”. 

UKHSA did not extract nor appraise the evidence as they maintained they did not have the resources. If that is true and if “resources” means cash or expertise (or both), this is a serious situation, as you shall read. So, as we feel sorry for the poor old UKHSA, we have done the appraisal for them.

Earlier versions of the review were very poor but not as poor quality as the studies included in them. 

We focused on the 100 models identified in the mapping document as they form two-thirds of the unreviewed evidence base, and contemporary folklore would have us believe civil liberties in the UK were restricted on the basis of these models. 

For each paper reporting a model, we asked four questions, and here is what we fo…