Birx is, once again, tap dancing around answering the question. She never answers directly.
Birx is all “If’s and But’s”... Still CYA and fear mongering.
I am so sick of these so-called bureaucratic brilliant doctors and researchers it’s all legal and they have no specific answer for anything and when they do give an answer 3 days later they tell us all golly gee I guess it wasn’t like that we’re have to change the model give me a break at these a holes off the stage
Models are used to make decisions, not necessarily to predict exact outcomes.Models are intended to take uncertain variables and combine them in ways that differentiate decision-based alternatives under uncertain conditions.
The reason that models are less predictive is that low/base/high probability assumptions are used, not necessarily the entire continuous range of values. The best alternatives will stand out from the rest, even if the actual values are off from reality, because the same assumptions are used to assess all the alternatives.
This is what is meant by "directionally correct," meaning the alternative is correct even if the actual values are off.
A model alternative that suggests 2 million deaths will be worse than an alternative that suggests 100,000 deaths, even if the actual worst-case deaths might be 1 million deaths and the best case is 50,000 deaths.
That's why we don't focus on what "the model says," we focus on the preferred alternatives and the conditions that make them so.
-PJ