July 29, 2021
Briefly
- Queueing theory is a branch of applied probability and so is StatsChat relevant. Tava Olsen, a professor in the UoA business school, was interviewed on RadioNZ about the MIQ booking system and wrote for The Spinoff. (disclaimer: I recommended her to RadioNZ)
- Matt Nippert writes in the Herald about Pharmac and — unusually for a story about Pharmac — looks at the tradeoffs involved in what they choose to fund.
- Via Axios: JAMA, the medical journal, requested revisions to the research paper with data supporting approval of aducanumab for Alzheimer’s disease. That’s pretty standard. Apparently the company said “Nope” and will look for a different journal. This isn’t unheard of — sometimes, reviewers are just wrong and you try another journal — but it is another unusual occurrence.
- Mediawatch reported that economic forecasts are often wrong. That’s not really surprising: economics says that (a) recessions are unpredictable and (b) if economists benefit from their forecasts being mentioned in the news they will tend to produce newsworthy forecasts. I suggested that the forecasts should come with uncertainty intervals, so we have some ability to tell if they’re bad at forecasting or it’s just that the economy is uncertain.
Thomas Lumley (@tslumley) is Professor of Biostatistics at the University of Auckland. His research interests include semiparametric models, survey sampling, statistical computing, foundations of statistics, and whatever methodological problems his medical collaborators come up with. He also blogs at Biased and Inefficient See all posts by Thomas Lumley »
It was disappointing the Spinoff story on MIQ booking didnt cover any solutions from booking theory but just a general discourse who should or shouldnt get priority and the constraints on numbers. Oh and a bit about kidney transplants where it would seem to be a committee of experts deciding, a bit like Britains Got Talent or something.
3 years ago
I think that’s targetting the Spinoff audience. Prof Olsen definitely knows this field. The RadioNZ interview had a bit more detail, but not a lot.
3 years ago
Yes. My thoughts exactly, dumbed down
for a millennial audience.
I wondered if the actual MIQ booking system we have now follows rock concert ticketing, where batches of tickets go on sale at various times, both to maintain audience interest over time and or exclusivity and catch the widest audience. Of course with an Adele type star its all gone in half an hour.
I understand its a research area as well.
3 years ago
I don’t really know how the booking process works except from the media but …
What I think is happening is this – a person books a spot, offers it for sale, when someone wants to buy it they cancel the spot they booked, the spot goes back into the pool and then they pick it up for the person who actually wants it (having an advantage by knowing the spot is going to be available and when).
So, there should be some upfront cost to stop people sitting on places they don’t actually want. Refundable or not. And cancelled spots should go back into the pool at random times over the next 6-12 hours and not straight away.
3 years ago
The real problem is that we have more demand then spots e.g. people joining “the queue” are arriving more quickly than they can be serviced. The only solution is to increase service i.e. reduce time in MIQ or increase MIQ capacity; or slow people joining the queue.
Changing the conditions of MIQ is going to defeat it’s purpose – the virus slips through because the stay is to short or the system becomes to unwieldy or lacking necessary expertise.
Australia has taken the approach of slowing people joining “the queue” by restricting who can get into the queue.
3 years ago
That’s one of the problems, but fixing that has tradeoffs and it looks as though the government has the settings it wants for MIQ capacity. My point (and Prof Olsen’s) is that *given* the fixed capacity there are better ways of doing the booking.
(You need a passport number to book, so it’s not that scalpers book spots then sell them; they actually sell spots and then book them).
3 years ago
What are the better ways of doing the booking?
When there is more demand then capacity then some people are going to miss out. Changing the booking system only swaps who misses out.
And I can’t agree to any system that displaces NZ citizens. The government first duty of care is to its citizens.
3 years ago