re: #339 Love-Child of Cassandra and Sisyphus

The hospital projections here: covid19.healthdata.org

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Still, I think modelers may have presumed Americans will follow lockdown orders more than is actually happening. I was at the grocery store this afternoon, and it seemed like the busiest it has been since state-wide lockdown started (on 19 Mar.) People will get antsy, and by next weekend I wonder how many people will just ignore shelter-at-home advice?

There’s a thread here by U of Washington Prof. Carl Bergstrom saying precisely this:

3. A few days later, my biggest concern remains around the framing of the model. This is a model of successful suppression of the epidemic. Moreover if I understand correctly, it assumes strong measures by all states with efficacy (if not severity) comparable to Wuhan.

4. The assumption underlying this model is that social distancing will be implemented and *will work*.

That makes this a best-case scenario model, in contrast with e.g. the first Imperial College model wherein suppression fails and 1.1 to 2.2 million Americans die.

5. My grave concern is that this distinction has is not being made in the news reports about the model, and that it is lost on or ignored by politicians eager to for a more optimistic forecast than Imperial College provided.

6. The shaded regions are being interpreted almost everywhere as spanning the best and worst case scenarios.

I believe they are instead something like uncertainty ranges on the best-case scenario of successful suppression.