I have posted on this previously ….
There seems to be a growing group of people inside and outside the government who want to know why the Trump White House ‘model’ for virus death are more than TEN times higher that others….
The White House has based it’s numbers on a Imperial College for its worst-case scenario (millions) that would not take in social distancing and stay home policies that ARE in affect in more and more states…Their number is for a period of YEARS...
The numbers for what is going on now for 12 months are ten times lower ….And among the some experts the guesses are from 36,000 to 162,000 …..The White numbers are 100,000 to 120,000….
The media had used the higher numbers Trump’s mentioned extensively , which has caused several people to question the means in which Trump & Co. presented their projections to the country…
Projections are just THAT…
(And having Trump in the mix makes things MUCH worst)
Educated guesses….. and there STILL seems to be a wide gulf between several numbers and the media fronting several different of them to a worried public at the same time …
The coordinator of Trump’s coronavirus task force, Deborah Birx, then projected a slide with a high-arcing mountain showing the worst-case scenario: 1.5 million to 2.2 million deaths if Americans and the government did absolutely nothing to stop the virus. And a smaller — but still imposing — hill with 100,000 to 240,000 deaths if measures such as social distancing are taken.
Birx said the projection was based on five or six modelers, including from Imperial College in Britain and Harvard, Columbia and Northeastern universities. “It was their models that created the ability to see what these mitigations could do, how steeply they could depress the curve,” Birx said.
But two models appeared to have been particularly influential: the one by Imperial College and one from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at University of Washington (IHME).
At a news briefing Sunday, Birx explained the process this way: Her task force initially reviewed the work of 12 models. “Then we went back to the drawing board over the last week or two, and worked from the ground up, utilizing actual reporting of cases,” Birx said. “It’s the way we built the HIV model, the TB model, the malaria model. And when we finished, the other group that was working in parallel — which we didn’t know about,” referring to the IHME group.
The IHME model initially that estimated deaths through this summer would total 38,000 to 162,000 — a lower projection than many others and beneath the White House’s own estimate. But because of its lower figure and Birx’s comments, experts believe it to be a main source for the White House’s best-case scenario of 100,000 to 240,000 deaths.
Meanwhile, the White House appeared to rely on Imperial College for its worst-case scenario. That study estimated as many as 2.2 million U.S. deaths if no action was taken, 1.1 million deaths if moderate mitigation strategies were adopted, and an unspecified number if drastic measures were taken.
But as the common statistician’s refrain goes: A model is only as good as the assumptions it is built on….
…
Any numbers we see today — confirmed cases, hospitalizations and deaths — lag two to three weeks behind how the virus is spreading. So decisions made by authorities based on that present-day data are, almost by definition, reactive and potentially come too late.
To get ahead of a virus like this one, authorities must use projections of the future to act in the present…
…
Shaman, the Columbia University epidemiologist whose models have been reviewed by the White House.
But Shaman doesn’t think the White House’s death projection is too low, nor does he think it’s too late to act decisively.
“I think we can come in under 100,000 deaths. I do,” he said….
I don’t think the actual numbers are that important .
The main point is that ,whatever the actual numbers are ,by taking action now we can reduce them.
That’s what is important .
On thing is for sure,without the actions currently being taken. All agree .The number would be much higher.
The state’s that clamped down will
be the ones that will come out sooner…
And help the overall efforts to get this under control….