Columbia University epidemiologist Jeffrey Shaman said his own work on coronavirus, which was used by the White House to reach its figures, could not be used to predict as far ahead as the total death toll
Posted on 04/03/2020 7:26:56 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Donald Trump's top advisors have expressed doubts about the accuracy of the White House's apocalyptic forecast that 240,000 Americans will die from the coronavirus pandemic, sources have said.
As the US death reached 6,056 Thursday and the nation's healthcare system buckles under the crisis, administration officials said the stark forecasts could have been a tactic to warn the president he needs to act now.
The White House made the shock prediction Tuesday that there will be between 100,000 and 240,000 deaths in the US if the nation continues on its trajectory and current social distancing guidelines are maintained.
Trump said the estimates were based on data 'that has been, I think, brilliantly put together.'
The figures place the US on track for a historic disaster, with more Americans dying from the pandemic than the Vietnam War.
However, some of the president's top advisors are baffled by the figures which have led to fierce debates within the Trump administration, according to three anonymous White House officials.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the US's top medical expert on the pandemic and a member of President Trump's coronavirus task force, cast doubt on the figures during a task force meeting this week, they told The Washington Post.
'I've looked at all the models. I've spent a lot of time on the models. They don't tell you anything,' Fauci said.
'You can't really rely upon models.'
The White House has kept quiet over the numbers, even as far as refusing to explain how they were calculated or providing the underlying data behind the shock statistics.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Now it’s Trump’s fault that the figures are too high...
Of course. /s
Some of us out here in Freeperland doubt the projections, too.
MORE CONTEXT HERE:
Marc Lipsitch, an epidemiologist and the director of Harvard University’s Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics, who also contributed his model to the White house, said the numbers have been rushed.
‘They contacted us, I think, on a Tuesday a week ago, and asked for answers and feedback by Thursday, basically 24 hours,’ he said.
‘My initial response was we can’t do it that fast. But we ended up providing them some numbers responding to very specific scenarios.’
It’s grossly skewed by NY and NJ.
Imperial College and the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at University of Washington (IHME) models predict the closest figures to those dished out by the White House.
IHME estimated US deaths will lie between 38,000 and 162,000 if every state issues a lockdown and stays on lockdown until the summer.
Christopher Murray, the head of the IHME group, told the Post that the two models are not comparable.
‘The reason we created our model is to help hospitals plan. How many beds you’ll need, how many ventilators, when the peak is likely coming,’ Murray said.
The purpose of Imperial’s model ‘is to make people realize government intervention is crucial and what would happen without that,’ he said.
This is really being promoted in the media, strangely coincidental to the announcement of Pelosi’s shameless investigation. Blame the White House if their own predictions are wrong?
Smart move.
Those idiots at that institute said million but revised to 80,000 at last check.
Trump says 250,000.
If it comes in at 20 or 30,000 he’ll be a hero.
My own guess is 49 to 50 thousand.
We got 7,000 deaths already with April supposed to be the bad month and some states are just getting their first victims.
Of course I have NO scientific evidence or logical reasoning for my numbers.
But neither do the pros so what the heck? :)
I doubt they really have a very good idea at all. Might be a whole lot more or a whole lot less. Somewhere between 6,000 and one million is my guess.
This is the latest anti-Trump Talking Point. The President did not come up with the numbers and projections. It was the self-proclaimed experts and their models that came up with the numbers and they told President Trump and VP Pence that those numbers were their expert opinion.
Now that those numbers are very obviously way out of line, their projections a complete bust, they are trying to shift the blame to our President.
We virtually shut down and hammered our entire economy based on faulty computer models. Destroying who knows how many small businesses and the permanent loss of uncounted jobs.
The lockdown until summer is a longshot. I think people will rebel when they see their businesses going under.
RE: This article is just another attempt to make the President look ridiculous.
Actually, if you look at this article, This article is just another attempt to make DR. BIRX’s model look ridiculous.
I think it is becoming evident that the number of deaths will not be near that. You would need about 5 million cases, based on current death/case ratio.
I think deaths will not go higher than 50,000.
240,000 deaths out of 330,000,000 people is 0.07%. Not apocalypitc. And let’s remember that at the time Trump made the estimate, all of the media was bashing him for not taking things seriously, and that we would have 3,000,000 deaths. So now let’s bash Trump for over-estimating Cornavirus deaths???
The number of new daily hospitalizations in both NYC and in the US has flattened out this week. Look for daily deaths to peak next weekend.
Let’s face it no matter what happens the Rats will find something to blame the President. They want another impeachment before election or hold it over his head .
Warn about the worst and people will be relieved when it doesn’t happen. It will make it easier to open things up again next month
blah blah blah let’s get back to work pronto
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