What has Chinese Disease taught us about trusting "models"?

[Legion]

IT'S ALL GUESSWORK​

In February, models were forecasting more than two million COVID-19 deaths in America and 45 million deaths worldwide.

Two months later, we know that these predictions were wrong by at least a factor of three, possibly much more.

One group of people warned early on that the models were wrong: climate skeptics. Does the epidemic tell us that we need to have another debate about the accuracy of climate predictions?




https://www.libertynation.com/what-can-coronavirus-teach-us-about-climate-models/

 

[Legion]

The near doubling of coronavirus death predictions in a closely followed model this week underscores a frustrating reality for officials weighing how and when to reopen society: Many basic facts about the new coronavirus remain unknown.

Epidemiologists have created many computer models to predict surge capacity in the health-care system and guide policy-making. These seek to predict how many people might be infected, how many will die, and when and how transmission might slow or speed up.

But the models are only as good as the underlying data and knowledge about the disease.

Models are based on assumptions and estimates.

Scientific understanding of this newly emerged virus is still evolving.

That uncertainty plays out in the range of predictions from different modeling groups.

As of the end of April, academic models projected anywhere from about 70,000 to nearly 170,000 Covid-19 deaths in the U.S. by mid-May, according to data compiled by the Reich Lab at UMass-Amherst.

Last Monday, projections by University of Washington researchers nearly doubled to about 135,000 dead by August, based on the early easing of social-distancing measures and mathematical changes to the model from the university’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation.

The model faces increasing criticism from epidemiologists.

“They are only as good as the underlying data. And the underlying data is flawed in a number of ways,” Jennifer Nuzzo, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, said at a media briefing.



https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-tricky-math-behind-coronavirus-death-predictions-11588719034?mod=djemHL_t

 

[Legion]

Now that we are getting better data from antibody tests, the models are becoming more in alignment with what the skeptics said two to three months earlier.

They knew that if you feed highly uncertain data into the models, you will not get a meaningful result.

In other words, garbage in equals garbage out.

 

[Legion]

Professor Neil Ferguson - whose dire coronavirus predictions prompted worldwide lockdown measures still in place - broke his own advice on the need for strict social distancing to hook up with his married lover.

On at least two occasions, Antonia Staats, 38, traveled across London from her home in the south of the capital to spend time with Professor Lockdown.

The 51-year-old had only just finished a two-week spell self-isolating after testing positive for coronavirus.

Ferguson told the Telegraph: "I accept I made an error of judgment and took the wrong course of action. I have therefore stepped back from my involvement in Sage [the government's Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies].

"I acted in the belief that I was immune, having tested positive for coronavirus, and completely isolated myself for almost two weeks after developing symptoms," he said, adding "I deeply regret any undermining of the clear messages around the continued need for social distancing to control this devastating epidemic. The Government guidance is unequivocal, and is there to protect all of us."

Ferguson, who resigned from his Government advisory position in disgrace, predicted that up to 500,000 Britons and 2.2 million in the US would die without measures.

Somehow, Sweden - which enacted virtually no measures to mitigate the virus. has a lower per-capita mortality rate than the UK, Italy, Spain, France, Belgium and the Netherlands - all of which enacted lockdown measures.

And while his computer models were flat-wrong, Ferguson - who leads the team at Imperial College London, has frequently appeared on media to support the lockdown and "very intensive social distancing" measures.

Of note, Ferguson and Staats hooked up on March 30 - the same day he gave a public warning that the one-week-old lockdown measures would need to remain in place until June.

Staats - a left-wing campaigner, visited again on April 8, despite telling friends that she thought her husband might have come down with coronavirus.










https://www.zerohedge.com/health/scientist-whose-doomsday-models-prompted-worldwide-lockdown-broke-quarantine-bang-married

 

[Billy the Great Khan]

Decisions made weren't based on models, they were based on obtaining a set of results, and 'data' was found to justify it. That's how all political decisions are made.

 

[Legion]

Decisions made weren't based on models, they were based on obtaining a set of results, and 'data' was found to justify it. That's how all political decisions are made.

Indeed.

https://covidactnow.org/

Look who is behind their doomsday "tools": CoVidActNow was founded by Max Henderson, Rep Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins, Igor Kofman, and Zack Rosen. https://covidactnow.org/about


Look who "endorsed and validated" their apocalyptic scenarios: https://covidactnow.org/endorsements


Look where they got their scary-looking data: https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/mar/26/uk-epidemiologist-radically-lowers-his-predicted-c/ https://www.dailywire.com/news/epid...admits-he-was-wrong-drastically-revises-model https://www.wsj.com/articles/should-we-wait-until-easter-11585239104 https://www.livescience.com/half-the-uk-infected-coronavirus-covid19.html


They make this stunning admission: Public leaders & health officials: The only thing that matters right now is the speed of your response. This model is intended to help make fast decisions, not predict the future.

 

[gfm7175]

IT'S ALL GUESSWORK​

In February, models were forecasting more than two million COVID-19 deaths in America and 45 million deaths worldwide.

Two months later, we know that these predictions were wrong by at least a factor of three, possibly much more.

One group of people warned early on that the models were wrong: climate skeptics. Does the epidemic tell us that we need to have another debate about the accuracy of climate predictions?




https://www.libertynation.com/what-can-coronavirus-teach-us-about-climate-models/

Correct. A model is only as good as the numbers that are inputted into it.

 

[Legion]

Correct. A model is only as good as the numbers that are inputted into it.

Indeed.

IF YOU LOST YOUR JOB OR LOST MONEY IN THE MARKET BECAUSE OF THE PANIC, THIS IS THE MAN TO BLAME​

Here we are. Three months (at least, depending upon where you are) into what amounts to house arrest.

Stores are told what products they can and cannot sell.

A father has been handcuffed and arrested for playing with his daughter in a deserted park.

People are being fined for walking on vacant beaches.

Businesses have been shuttered.

The economy has been trashed. Our concept of civil liberties and the permissible use of the state’s police power have been irrevocably moved in the direction of totalitarianism.

There is literally no end in sight.

So it is fair to ask how we got here.

In a word: models.

The Wuhan virus frenzy really began in earnest when Neil Ferguson published the results of a simulation he’d run on the public health impact of the virus.

In it he predicted that over 2 million Americans would die from the virus.

The impact of this paper can’t be overstated.

Governments were stampeded away from pursuing what amounted to a “ride it out” strategy (which, in my view, was the only strategy even vaguely related to either science or common sense) into throwing the emergency brake on economic activity.

Once one model was accepted, other proliferated.

Perhaps the most notable one has been that from the Institution for Health Metrics and Evaluation.

This one, like the non-factual Imperial College model, has produced Doomsday results that led to panicked governors believing they had to ‘do something’ by shutting down most economic activity.

These models have one unifying feature.

They were all wildly and spectacularly implausible and are all being proven wildly and spectacularly wrong on a daily basis.



They are also all being promoted by a DEMOCRAT-run website (https://covidactnow.org/) that bombards state, county and local governments with scary "data" on a daily basis to prolong the panic for political purposes.




https://www.redstate.com/streiff/2020/04/09/815099/