Posted on 04/17/2020 10:59:28 PM PDT by gogeo
A widely followed model for projecting Covid-19 deaths in the U.S. is producing results that have been bouncing up and down like an unpredictable fever, and now epidemiologists are criticizing it as flawed and misleading for both the public and policy makers. In particular, they warn against relying on it as the basis for government decision-making, including on “re-opening America.”
“It’s not a model that most of us in the infectious disease epidemiology field think is well suited” to projecting Covid-19 deaths, epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health told reporters this week, referring to projections by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington.
(Excerpt) Read more at statnews.com ...
And what model does the person from Harvard suggest be used instead?
The same fake model science they use for global warming.
The IHME model is what Trump is using to justify opening the country. The reason the model bounces up and down should be easy enough to understand. It is always easier to look back in the past when all the data is known, then to be in the present with new data coming in daily. Lets see what would happen to any model, and treat is as if each day or time period is a addition to the data, then as if it was already there. I would expect that any model would suffer. Good enough right now is better than perfect six months from now.
Yep, the DOOMSDAY model.
Indeed.
Complain and throw stones not without a superior action suggestion.
excerpt: The chief reason the IHME projections worry some experts, Etzioni said, is that “the fact that they overshot”
Lipsitch: 2% of 70% of the HUMAN population equals approx 109 million deaths:
22 Apr: WaPo: Coronavirus outbreak edges closer to pandemic status
By Carolyn Y. Johnson, Lena H. Sun, William Wan and Joel Achenbach; Min Joo Kim in Seoul, Amanda Coletta in Washington and Chico Harlan and Stefano Pitrelli in Rome contributed to this report.
Harvard epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch estimates that 40 to 70 percent of the human population could potentially be infected by the virus if it becomes pandemic. Not all of those people would get sick, he noted. The estimated death rate attributed to covid-19 — roughly 2 in 100 confirmed infections — may also drop over time as researchers get a better understanding of how widely the virus has spread...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/coronavirus-outbreak-edges-closer-to-pandemic/2020/02/21/03afafc0-5429-11ea-9e47-59804be1dcfb_story.html
2% of 60% of the world’s ADULT population is still crazy numbers:
Tweet: Marc Lipsitch, Harvard
Because I am now less certain of where the R0 will end up (and how it may vary geographically) I am going to revise downward the range of outcomes I consider plausible to 20%-60% of adults infected. This involves subjectivity about what range of R0 may turn out to be true.
3 Mar 2020
follow-up Tweet:
To preempt the critique that the earlier figures were alarmist: I update my beliefs when the available data change, as any rational person would do. The available data are pointing to a different (and better) outcome than before. So I’m updating.
3 Mar 2020
Tweets 25 Feb:
The pace of new information is overwhelming, and some of the claims in this thread have shifted from speculative to factual or very nearly so. Other points need to be modified in light of new data ETC...
Summary: Should have said 40-70% of adults in a situation without effective controls.
Postscript: My original quote was in the @wsj which I thought had huge circulation. Around the same time I said the same to the @TheAtlantic. The WSJ article made some ripples, but the Atlantic one went completely viral. Not what I expected.
https://twitter.com/mlipsitch/status/1234879949946814464?lang=en
Lipsitch with Harvard’s Noah Feldman (Trump impeachment notoriety). asked about 40 to 70 of world population prediction, as told to WaPo (and others); Lipsitch says it was roughly correct, but he should have said “adult” population. said he is making amends:
AUDIO: 25:49 - Stitcher: Deep Background with Noah Feldman: The Coronavirus Isn’t Going Away
Marc Lipsitch, an epidemiologist at Harvard University, predicts that between 40 to 70 percent of adults in the world will become infected with the coronavirus.
https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/pushkin-industries/deep-background-with-noah-feldman/e/67663436
WaPo, others have never corrected the up to 70% claim, so don’t know where Lipsitch was making amends. certainly not in the following done after the Feldman interview. note how Axelrod gets in the “adult” bit which isn’t in the headline/opening:
2 Mar: CBS: Coronavirus may infect up to 70% of world’s population, expert warns
by Jim Axelrod
CBS News spoke to one of the country’s top experts on viruses, Marc Lipsitch from Harvard University, who cautions that 40-70% of the world’s population will become infected — and from that number, 1% of people who get symptoms from COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, could die...
Jim Axelrod: So, the number that I think is grabbing a lot of people is this estimate: 40-70% of the world’s adult population could be infected.
Marc Lipsitch: Yes.
Axelrod: Accurate?
Lipsitch: That is a projection, so we will find out if it’s accurate as things go on. It is the best estimate that I’ve been able to make based on a combination of the mathematical models that we use to track and predict epidemics...
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/coronavirus-infection-outbreak-worldwide-virus-expert-warning-today-2020-03-02/
a bit rich Sharon Begley/Stat News (formerly Newsweek/Daily Beast/Reuters) asking Lipsitch for a comment about IHME! you have to laugh.
GP aren’t the only ones asking:
9 Apr: Gateway Pundit: We Want Names! President Trump Says “Two Very Smart People” Came into His Office and Urged Him to Lock Down Economy or 2.2 Million Americans Would Die (VIDEO)
By Jim Hoft
Whoever did this needs to be revealed.
These “two smart people” are responsible for pushing faulty propaganda on the president that resulted in millions and millions of ruined lives...
thegatewaypundit.com/2020/04/want-names-president-trump-says-two-smart-people-came-office-urged-lock-economy-2-2-million-americans-die-video/
meant to add how extraordinary it is the FakeNewsMSM ask the same question over and over and over and over at the press conferences, yet no-one ever asks who the two “smart” people were!!!
+1
The left will debunk any treatment of covid-19, their only interest is as many deaths as can be had. No treatment is their only outcome, because orange-man bad.
should have noted Noah Feldman podcast with Lipsitch is dated 28 Feb 2020.
I knew this two months ago, I am glad to see this finally being reported.
All models are wrong. But some models are useful - George Box, legendary modeler.
Useful for what? That is the question.
Models are used so you don't waste time going down the wrong path. Having said that the model is not THE path you should take either.
I believe the point of the article is that models because of their lack of precision are not a good basis for public policy. So I guess that means none.
The point of the article is that it's not good enough.
Something I came across.
Nice article.
Captain Obvious surfaces again
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