To describe as stunning the collapse of a key model the government has used to alarm the nation about the catastrophic threat of the coronavirus would not do this development justice.
In a space of just six days starting April 2, two revisions (on April 5 and 8) have utterly discredited the model produced by the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. I wrote about the IHME’s modeling at National Review on Monday, the day after the first revision — which was dramatic, but pales in comparison to Wednesday’s reassessment. This was not immediately apparent because the latest revision (April 8) did not include a side-by-side comparison, as did the April 5 revision. Perusal of the new data, however, is staggering, as is what it says about government predictions we were hearing just days ago about the likelihood of 100,000 deaths, with as many as 240,000 a real possibility.
As I noted in my last post on this subject, by April 5, the projection of likely deaths had plunged 12 percent in just three days, 93,531 to 81,766. Understand, this projection is drawn from a range; on April 2, IHME was telling us cumulative COVID-19 deaths could reach as high as approximately 178,000. The upper range was also reduced on April 5 to about 136,000.
On April 8, the projected cumulative deaths were slashed to 60,145 (with the upper range again cut, to about 126,000). That is, in less than a week, the model proved to be off by more than 33 percent.
My use of the term “off” is intentional. There is no shortage of government spin, regurgitated by media commentators, assuring us that the drastic reductions in the projections over just a few days powerfully illustrate how well social distancing and the substantial shuttering of the economy is working. Nonsense. As Alex Berenson points out on Twitter, with an accompanying screenshot data updated by IHME on April 1, the original April 2 model explicitly “assum[ed] full social distancing through May 2020.”
The model on which the government is relying is simply unreliable. It is not that social distancing has changed the equation; it is that the equation’s fundamental assumptions are so dead wrong, they cannot remain reasonably stable for just 72 hours.
As I detailed in the last post, the revised April 5 model was grossly wrong even in predicting conditions that would obtain on April 5 itself. It had predicted that on that day, New York, the epicenter of the crisis, would need about 24,000 hospital beds, including 6,000 ICU beds. In fact, the model was off by a third — New York had 16,479 hospitalized COVID patients, 4,376 that were in ICU.
On April 8, IHME reduced the total number of hospital beds it had predicted would be needed nationally by a remarkable 166,890 — down to 95,202 from the 262,092 it had predicted less than a week earlier (i.e., it was nearly two-thirds off). The ICU projection over that same week was cut in half: to 19,816 on April 8, down from 39,727 on April 2. The projected need for ventilators also fell by nearly half, to 16,845 from 31,782.
And mind you, when we observe that the government is relying on the models, we mean reliance for the purpose of making policy, including the policy of completely closing down American businesses and attempting to confine people to their homes because, it is said, no lesser measures will do. That seems worth stressing in light of this morning’s announcement that unemployment claims spiked another 6.6 million (now well over 16 million in just the past couple of weeks), to say nothing of the fact that, while the nation reels, the Senate has now chosen to go on recess, having failed, thanks to Democratic obstinacy, to enact legislation to give more relief to our fast-shrinking small-business sector.
Because of the way the media report on skepticism about models and a desire to get reliable facts (which used to be the media’s job), I pause to stress that I am not belittling the threat of the virus, particularly to people who are especially vulnerable — the elderly and those with underlying health problems, especially respiratory problems. The question is one of balance. American lives are being shattered by the restrictions that have been put in place. The decision to do that was based on models. Those models have no credibility. They now tell us that about 61,000 may die of coronavirus this year — although, if the last few days are any indication, that number could be revised downward soon, perhaps substantially.
To compare, the CDC estimates that 61,000 people died from the flu in the extraordinarily bad 2017–2018 period. It has become fashionable to ridicule flu comparisons, but they are surely relevant, even if it is true that coronavirus is more readily transmissible and has a higher fatality rate. For this year, the CDC projects that flu deaths will range between 24,000 and 63,000, and that hospitalizations could surge as high as 730,000 (out of the 18 to 26 million people who are treated for flu, out of as many as 55 million Americans who experience flu-related illnesses). We don’t shut the country down for that.
@kitt:
I got sick of King George’s constant ridicule of those who believe there is something greater than self a long time ago. He’s’ just a hater and, in reality, he’s just a useless human being that needs to justify his own mental illness.
@retire05: He doesn’t know the difference; religious people have FAITH they are right. Atheists HOPE they are right.
@kitt:
It is hardly bigotry that I find the World population at about three billion too many. It isn’t bigotry because I agree that there are too many of EVERY type of EVERY color, EVERY sexual orientation, EVERY religion, EVERY gender, EVERY nationality, EVERY political persuasion, EVERY, EVERY, EVERY. Where does “bigotry” enter into that?
And how am I “promoting mindless sex”? Every possible sexual orientation enjoys recreational sex, but it ALWAYS carries a risk of something. I’m risk- adverse, and haven’t bothered with sex since 1980 for the OBVIOUS reason. Some people OBVIOUSLY think it’s worth the risk, but I don’t. LOVE means everything to me, sex – nothing. So you see, I’d make an excellent Catholic priest…
@Deplorable Me:
Tell me, DM, if you think that there’s a difference between people of faith and “religious” people?
You see, I think that there IS.
I am a person of deep FAITH, but I find the “religions” of man to be overwhelmingly poisoned with the flaws of human weakness. I don’t find myself ever needing to listen to someone else telling me how to think, and I don’t feel the need to worship among a GROUP of possibly like-minded souls. What? They need herd mentality to lend support to the beliefs they otherwise doubt?
I find there to be a great difference between “faith” and “religion”.
As for athiests, they are ALL fools. I’ve studied Hitchens-and-friends, and while I appreciate their complaints against organized religion, I find their arguments against GOD are hollow. Never mind that theirs is not what I subscribe to.
So don’t be fooled by Retire05’s insulting dismissal. You are right that:
It’s just that by your use of the terms, if I understand you correctly, I HAVE faith, it’s just not DENOMINATIONAL.
Simple people thought that the World was flat. Don’t make that mistake.
@George Wells: I suspect that the
any different that saying the jews ? You seem to single out Catholic for your ignorant comments, that is bigoted or by definition one who regards or treats the members of a group with hatred and intolerance. Trying to hang on to an intelligent back and forth without your ignorance spilling out seems impossible, Retire05 may call you King George I consider you just a bit lower than a simpleton court jester.
Divide the current world population into the square footage of Texas results in each person of the world having over 1000 (1089 to be closer to exact) square feet to himself or herself, visualize the “problem.”
I really, really, really do not care about your sex life or lack of it, is no ones business but your very own, just quit waving it around keep it in your private bedroom.
@kitt:
The Catholic Church is one country mile smarter than the Southern Baptists. The Catholics had the sense to shutter their mass-gathering in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, but not the Southern Baptists. I RECOGNIZE that truth. Does that make me a bigot? how?
By your definition of bigotry, all that is needed is for there to be a reason for that difference of feeling, but that’s exactly what bigotry is NOT about.
@kitt:
No, nor does he ever insult the Muslims (that would put his life at risk, and he said he is “risk-adverse”)
Oh, make no mistake, Kitt, that little story has changed. In King George’s past life here at FA, which wasn’t all that long ago, he had no qualms describing, in vivid detail, his sex life that now he claims he ended four decades ago. Either he was lying then, or he’s lying now.
King George is a Harvey Milk kinda gay. He loves shoving his mental illness in other people’s faces.
@retire05: No help for a village idiot/bigot it seems now Christians in general is his bigotry. His lashing out against those of faith, maybe the devil made him do it 😉
If he thinks he isnt a bigot he is lying to himself.
April 17, 2020 – Antibody study suggests coronavirus is far more widespread than previously thought
Unfortunately, the federal government isn’t conducting any large scale studies. Trump says testing is up to individual states and hospitals. Have they not noticed the threat is national, and exists in a context that is global? Maybe not. They’ve cut funding to the World Health Organization, which is the central focus for international pandemic data collection.
Addressing any serious national treat is most definitely the purview and responsibility of the federal government. This involves taking on a full range of necessary responses, not just talking about problems, laying blame, and handing responsibility for the most important components of the response off to individual governors.
The Trump administration’s present position is to leave reopening decisions up to individual state governors. Some state governors, in turn, are defaulting to local decisions made by local officials. How many have done their own testing to determine COVID-19 prevalence in their own states or localities?
Without such data, rolling back social distancing restrictions in each place is a localized experiment, the results of which won’t be known for weeks after the experiment is undertaken. Instead of lab rats, the experimental subjects are the general population. As with lab rats, becoming a subject of the experiment is not voluntary. Keep your fingers crossed for luck.
@Greg: Far more widespread means much much less deadly. Democrat Governors NY and NJ didnt protect their elderly in homes shame on them. NJ stacking them in a garden shed. The first cases were in an old folks home they did nothing to protect their elderly talk about pushing granny off a cliff.
@Greg:
So, do you want Trump to violate the rights of the state or not? I doubt if you know; all you DO know is whatever he does, you’ll whine about it without anything better offered.