(COVID/ETC CONTENT HERE) China Locks Down 11 Million in Wuhan,

[ramairthree]

Interesting and hopefully true:

"Epidemiologist Neil Ferguson, who created the highly-cited Imperial College London coronavirus model, which has been cited by organizations like The New York Times and has been instrumental in governmental policy decision-making, offered a massive revision to his model on Wednesday.

Ferguson’s model projected 2.2 million dead people in the United States and 500,000 in the U.K. from COVID-19 if no action were taken to slow the virus and blunt its curve.

However, after just one day of ordered lockdowns in the U.K., Ferguson has changed his tune, revealing that far more people likely have the virus than his team figured. Now, the epidemiologist predicts, hospitals will be just fine taking on COVID-19 patients and estimates 20,000 or far fewer people will die from the virus itself or from its agitation of other ailments.

Ferguson thus dropped his prediction from 500,000 dead to 20,000."


https://www.dailywire.com/news/epide...revises-model?

This is the model the news and people were touting which gave individual states numbers worse than the entire country should see.

[Vic79]

Are you still considered an expert if you’re off by that much? The experts are worse than the goddamn weatherman.

[WillBrink]

Are you still considered an expert if you’re off by that much? The experts are worse than the goddamn weatherman.

Like the man said, "there's lies, damn lies, and statistics"

[Life's a Hillary]

Are you still considered an expert if you’re off by that much? The experts are worse than the goddamn weatherman.

Considering it’s an ever evolving problem with massive complexities I wouldn’t expect people to be dead on. Warg already mentioned the famous quote that all models are wrong but some are useful, in this case publishing a model that is so grim might be enough to get people to social distance and cut the spread. His model might have been more accurate under the circumstances when it was first developed but it didn’t take into account variables like its reception or the general reception of this virus to the public at large. With so many unknowns we are in a place where we lack historic data that is comparable to this scenario and thus you have to make lots of assumptions. I’d rather have someone predict a worse outcome and then it be wrong than the opposite.

[chuckman]

Are you still considered an expert if you’re off by that much? The experts are worse than the goddamn weatherman.

Can you do better?

Most people I know saw that site as worst-case scenarios, but it was very much based on good data; but it was raw data. You sound like someone who wants to know if the eye of a hurricane is going to hit Richmond, Virginia when the low develops off Africa. As the hurricane gets closer, the data sets narrow, specificity and validity go up, and the smart people change the forecast based on the latest data. The smart people who make decisions also look at a variety of forecasting tools, not just one.

But, to answer your question, yeah, he's still an expert.

[Warg]

Are you still considered an expert if you’re off by that much? The experts are worse than the goddamn weatherman.

The guys doing this stuff know they're going to be off by a wide margin and will qualify this in every model they run and publish. What's fascinating is that in the original Ferguson paper the authors cite a worst case of 2.2 M US deaths and 550,000 deaths in Great Britain (GB). However, the authors also present a low estimate (with social controls and a lower disease reproduction factor) of 5,600 deaths in GB with a similar proportional reduction in the US. Of course no one in the media reported that and likely few actually read and/or understood the manuscript.

[Vic79]

I prefer not to be feed shit and then told its chocolate pudding. It’s not a matter of being dead on the dude wasn’t even on the same planet. I mean there’s really only a slight difference between 500,000 and 20,000, right?
If He didn’t take into account all the necessary variables and that would be a pretty half assed job. These are supposed to be the experts, correct? If there are so many unknowns figure it out before you put out your report that makes half the damn population crapped her underpants.

Chicken little much?

[Vic79]

Well as of right now I’m a hell lot closer than he was so maybe I need to add expert to my title

[Diamondback]

Can you do better?

Most people I know saw that site as worst-case scenarios, but it was very much based on good data; but it was raw data. You sound like someone who wants to know if the eye of a hurricane is going to hit Richmond, Virginia when the low develops off Africa. As the hurricane gets closer, the data sets narrow, specificity and validity go up, and the smart people change the forecast based on the latest data. The smart people who make decisions also look at a variety of forecasting tools, not just one.

But, to answer your question, yeah, he's still an expert.

OTOH, Paul Ehrlich has been swing-and-a-whiffing time after time on calamity ("population bomb," "global cooling," "global warming," among others) longer than I and some other members here have been ALIVE and he still gets fellated as some kind of Ubergenius Expert Uber Alles by the Ivory Tower crowd...

[Whiskey_Bravo]

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

Not sure if it has been posted but I find this tracking site much easier to read. Allows you to see the day before, by country, and then by state as well.