Dr. Deborah Birx earns applause from vast majority of news organizations
https://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/mar/25/dr-deborah-birx-earns-applause-from-vast-majority-/
while she didn’t specifically mention it, she talked as if we relied on those models.
A fantastic comment from TroicalJerry at Breitbart:
I’m 74 and I’ve seen more doom and gloom than episodes of Gunsmoke.
Asian Flu. Nuclear holocaust. June bugs. Tanzania laughter. Race wars. Cuban missile crisis. Running out of oil. WW3. SDI. Hole in the ozone layer. Killer bees. Global warming. Global cooling. Y2K. SARS. MRSA. Ebola. Zika. West Nile. Mayan Calendar. NWO. Infrared grills. Satellites falling on my house. Asteroid impacts.
Every one of those crises has one thing in common. They weren’t crises. Neither is this. Living in the Caribbean, I’ve got more to fear from the drinking water than this thing.
What did that panic get all of you? A boatload of toilet paper and a nonexistent paycheck!
(hands clapping) Bravo. Way to screw up in spades. This is what happens when you listen to crackpot liberals and the Chicken Little Brigade.
I think the models are likely good.
Their parameters are largely unknown.
Initial conditions are not a big factor in the outcomes.
Where does Brix get the data to estimate “new” parameters?
This goes right along with this:
High consequence infectious diseases (HCID) (As of 19 March 2020, COVID-19 is no longer considered to be a high consequence infectious diseases (HCID)
Status of COVID-19
As of 19 March 2020, COVID-19 is no longer considered to be a high consequence infectious diseases (HCID) in the UK.
The 4 nations public health HCID group made an interim recommendation in January 2020 to classify COVID-19 as an HCID. This was based on consideration of the UK HCID criteria about the virus and the disease with information available during the early stages of the outbreak. Now that more is known about COVID-19, the public health bodies in the UK have reviewed the most up to date information about COVID-19 against the UK HCID criteria. They have determined that several features have now changed; in particular, more information is available about mortality rates (low overall), and there is now greater clinical awareness and a specific and sensitive laboratory test, the availability of which continues to increase.
The Advisory Committee on Dangerous Pathogens (ACDP) is also of the opinion that COVID-19 should no longer be classified as an HCID
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/high-consequence-infectious-diseases-hcid#status-of-covid-19
Cuomo wonders if coronavirus quarantine may have backfired in some cases
I didnt put this on frontpage, btw.
Epidemiologist Behind Highly-Cited Coronavirus Model Drastically Downgrades Projection
Ambassador Colonel (Ret.) Doctor Deborah Birx will get the Medal of Freedom, wearing her Army retiree uniform in the White House after all this is past.
Wish we could get her to post on here.
She’s going to be one of the heroes of this faux crisis. As opposed to Dr. Doom.
so called computer models are always suspect (witness the tainted code and false assumptions found in many models “predicting” anthropomorphic global warming/cooling/etc.), because the academic men who design and program these models are most often suspect and full of lust for power, gov’t grant money and academic influence.
never trust them over true, experimental science as based scientific method as described by Carl Popper. let them always show us their raw data, and let us replicate it, before we risk our blood and treasure on their word about it.
as the great scientist Dick Feynman said in his wonderful lecture on “What is Science” to science teachers:
“We have many studies in teaching, for example, in which people make observations, make lists, do statistics, and so on, but these do not thereby become established science, established knowledge. They are merely an imitative form of science analogous to the South Sea Islanders’ airfields–radio towers, etc., made out of wood. The islanders expect a great airplane to arrive. They even build wooden airplanes of the same shape as they see in the foreigners’ airfields around them, but strangely enough, their wood planes do not fly. The result of this pseudoscientific imitation is to produce experts, which many of you are. [But] you teachers, who are really teaching children at the bottom of the heap, can maybe doubt the experts. As a matter of fact, I can also define science another way: Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.”
What’s a model. A prediction. An estimate. A guess.
What happens tomorrow to great extents depends on what the people of our country do today. It’s difficult to predict human behavior on a national scale at a particular point in time. A Society is always changing, and many unexpected events can change human behavior on large scales.
One of the best comments I have seen.
Davey Culhane:
“”Models” are based on assumptions - assumptions that vary considerably in validity.
You can run a lot of “numbers” in an effort to feign credibility, but, as they say “garbage in - garbage out”. Drama oriented “news” outlets can select extreme samples of predictions to get attention. But, the extremely alarming predictions are typically extreme. The fact that we have no idea how many people have been infected by the corona virus and recovered without any involvement of the medical system means that the mortality rate calculated from known (due to severity) cases will be inflated, probably by a lot. It is currently looking clearly below !%.
I think it is becoming apparent that we will be relaxing the severe restrictions in less affected counties, and allow healthy people to resume normal lives, while maintaining good hygiene and cautions.”
That author of the British estimate owes many countries a —LOT— of money.
So, the worst case scenario is NOT the likely scenario after all?
Surprise, surprise.
This is exactly what President Trump and other level-headed people have been trying to point out all along - only to be called “flu-bros”. The worst case scenario is by definition unlikely to unfold.
The worst case scenario and the best case scenario are two extremes in a wide range of possibilities and therefore they are the two LEAST likely scenarios. What is most likely is somewhere in between. Obviously.
Data curves for other countries are chalk full of unknowns, assumptions, uncertainties. Each country is different in so many ways. The data is far too incomplete to rely on. The assumed causal relationships are far too unproven. The US outcone is simply NOT predictable.
One piece of data - mortality rate - is fraught with error and omission. The denominator is grossly understated by the lack of testing, and the numerator is conflated with deaths that had multiple causes. We simply have no idea how many infections there are, and to publish a bullshit mortality rate that is exaggerated by orders of magnitude does nothing but sow panic amongst the ignorant - but that’s the whole idea isn’t it?
Trump’s enemies immediately saw this viral outbreak and the public’s fear of it as something to exploit - an opportunity to damage the President’s pre-election economy. The ABCNNBCBS media monopoly, the DNC, Democrat governors, legislators and presidential candidates - all joined the chorus - and stirred up a panic and began shutting down businesses.
And all you statistically-challenged know-it-alls, even here on FR, have played right into their hands, spreading panic and doomsday scenarios, and arrogantly claiming scientific knowledge that you don’t have.
Rational thinkers include the worst case scenario in a range of possibilities, but when planning a course of action we weigh the likely cost of an action against the likely benefit. To do otherwise would be irrational.
You people were wrong to push worst case scenarios as if it were inevitable, and your arrogance, your naked appeals to authority and your spurious claims of scientific prescience have caused needless harm to the economy, and have aided and abetted the Left’s get-Trump agenda.
I hope you chicken littles are satisfied.
She must be a heretic since science is never wrong about anything.
She seems to be the “go to” expert for sanity on this subject. She is one bright bulb on a rather dim intellectual Christmas tree.
She’s still hot ...