Actually, the actual curve is not really that steep. The original curve had a margin for error depicted both above and below the actual curve that is a heavy line.
It is the top most band that is the most argued about. It is formed by a variable margin of error that diminishes with time. That makes it look steep.
I can’t cite the actual margin of error but at the greatest value, it exceeds 100%. That represents acknowledged ignorance and inability to accurately predict.
The models that are so roundly rejected by various band wagons carrying happily waving unbelievers produced the curve based on extrapolation of available data from China, Italy and Seattle.
And remember, we are using a very limited amount of data.
The other thing is that the data is presented as affecting the entire country at one time. In reality, this will move from place to place over time.
For example, it will probably plateau in NYC around now—but not in Boston for two more weeks. And its going to spread from East to West. It WILL reinfect the West Coast as the East Coast version (the Italian/Iranian strain L) is much more viral that the S strain that originally went into Washington and Oregon.
But anyone using thirty data points, with all of the limiting factors, to predict ANYTHING doesn’t understand how predictive theory works.
The Models were always flawed. I have been ridiculing people putting up charts and tracking data since January. Did you realize for the first month the Deaths/Cases in china was the same percent? That shit doesn’t happen in nature.
Limits on tests, limits on tests being run, Limits of hospitalizations...all of these things impact the ability to make a projection.
The ONLY number of all of this stuff that is scary—which is the recent R-naught of 5.7. That is incredibly high. Like, small-pox high. Measles is around 12, and the annual flu is marginally higher than 1. 5.7 is something to be concerned about.
But models and curves? Its stupid math at best.
bert wrote: “Actually, the actual curve is not really that steep. The original curve had a margin for error depicted both above and below the actual curve that is a heavy line.”
Does the flatness/steepness of the curve possibly indicate that the virus might have been in the US in the very early fall is I suspect?
BTW, the 2018 ‘Spanish Flu’ began with a wave of infections that were almost indistinguishable from the common influenza. Very similar mortality rates. Then, things changed and the ‘Spanish Flu’ became highly lethal. Hopefully, that isn’t what is in store now.
The ‘Spanish Flu’ was commonly reported, at least in the early stages, to be ‘just the flu’, “nothing to worry about”.