Geert Molenberghs’ contribution to the Discussion of ‘Some statistical aspects of the Covid-19 response’ by Wood et al.

We have been active on various government advisory and other policy boards -predominantly in Belgium but also at European level -as well as in pandemic scientific research (Molenberghs et al. 2020, Molenberghs 2022).It is not our experience that risks were exaggerated to obtain compliance; rather there were periods where it was hard to convince policymakers that taking measures was necessary, for example, when a new peak was emerging, because measures early taken can be less stringent and shorter in duration.It surely is important to distinguish between individual and collective risks, with measures taken in (age) strata with less risk also in favor of more vulnerable and older population members.Early implementation of measures is simultaneously in the best interest of public health, economy, and well-being (Brackx, Molenberghs, and De Smedt 2023, Loedy et al. 2023), rather than favouring one of the other.For this reason, policy boards were multi-disciplinary, in spite of the common but incorrect perception that they consisted solely of health and quantitative experts.Accompanying economic support programs are required, which happened in Belgium.Many mathematical models used did take random person-to-person variability into account, as well as other features of the infection, including pre-symptomatic transmission, evolving properties due to variants, and vaccination effects (Abrams et al. 2021).Scientists continually communicated that the models are useful for scenario analysis as one component for policy decisions, which differs from prediction due to the possibility to intervene and hence change the course of the pandemic.Belgium carefully reported COVID-19 mortality (regardless of venue, test and clinically confirmed) and for 2020 amounted to 19,837 (against the background of roughly 110,000 yearly deaths); excess mortality for 2020 was estimated to be 17,177, with much lower figures for 2021 and 2022, and a further return to normality in subsequent years (Molenberghs et al. 2022,