Posted on 05/13/2020 6:47:09 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Neil Ferguson, a mathematical epidemiologist at Imperial College London, panicked policy makers around the world when he released his computer model projecting that the coronavirus pandemic would result in 500,000 deaths in the U.K. and 2.2 million in the U.S.
It is hard to understand why his pronouncement was accepted so uncritically when he has a history of being wrong. Very wrong.
According to The Spectator, in 2005, Ferguson said that up to 200 million people could be killed from bird flu. The actual number was several hundred.
In 2009, he gave an estimate of 65,000 deaths from the Swine Flu in the U.K. U.K. deaths actually numbered fewer than 500.
Ferguson's dangerously inflated computer models have led to policies that are wrecking the American economy.
The specter Ferguson predicted created understandable fear that a flood of COVID-19 patients would quickly overwhelm the medical system. In order to prevent an influx into the hospitals, we were told that it was critical to "flatten the curve" — in other words, to slow the spread of disease and space out the cases needing hospitalization over a longer period of time.
President Trump announced guidelines he called "Fifteen Days to Slow the Spread." Notice that it said to slow the spread, not thwart infections. This was extended an additional 30 days to the end of April. Because Americans have taken social distancing and stay-at-home recommendations to heart, flattening the curve has been very successful.
Thankfully, the projected deaths Ferguson forecast were incredibly inflated, and it is now possible that the death rate may be no greater than that experienced in some years with the annual flu. In 2018, CDC reported that 80,000 Americas had died of flu the previous winter.
All deaths are tragic, but no government policy is capable of preventing death.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
You want a lockdown to feel “completely” ( note the quotes ) safe?
Consider the cost....
Many hospital beds remain unused, doctors and nurses have been laid off, and hospitals are in financial trouble because they are not allowed to provide non-COVID “elective” care. As the shutdown and isolation continue, they will cost lives lost to depression, alcohol, drugs, suicide, and people who are not being treated for medical needs.
The medical system is no longer in danger of collapse, but thousands of small business that are the backbone of the middle class in America are. There are already many casualties, and countless more small businesses will go under permanently if they are not allowed to open quickly.
Why did the Dramatic Duo, Fauci/Brix, take the totally WRONG numbers of Ferguson, when he is a known failure in his models? This smells like part of the plot to get rid of Trump by these two partisans. They should be arrested for the deaths they have caused.
Look for 'testing' to be THE most important issue for democrats...
RE; Why did the Dramatic Duo, Fauci/Brix, take the totally WRONG numbers of Ferguson, when he is a known failure in his models?
Actually, Fauci/Birx relied more on the also flawed University of Washington IHME computer model.
Code Review of Ferguson’s Model
https://lockdownsceptics.org/code-review-of-fergusons-model/
Interesting reading.
Has President Trump addressed this? Everything, including these ridiculous opening phases are based off of these crappy models! I’m sure he’ll spend today praising Fauci for a terrific performance during his Senate hearing yesterday.
Trump just seems lost on this covid thing. Weird!
OK
Part of this is the classic confusion/illusion of precision for accuracy. If you present a forecast that predicts to 2 decimal places, it will be preferred to one that predicts to 1 decimal place. The greater precision in the presentation of results suggests to a lot of people greater accuracy, when in fact the opposite may be at work.
I’m not as critical as a lot of folks here. Think of how challenging it is to model human behavior, travel, contact and other factors when everything you are working with is dynamic. People change their behaviors as information starts to seep out about the epidemic. In the initial stages people may have increased their travel (”I better get back home before travel is shut down...”) It’s no easy phenomenon to model, and until good data arrives it will have very large confidence intervals. Models are heuristics, they are helpful if they are better than mere guessing, but they are often well off the mark and their limitations should be noted explictly. Unfortunately, as has been demonstrated, the media covering this matter are quite ignorant.
And that is the entire point: destroy the small, independent businesses (who are a threat to government hegemony), while simultaneously adding millions to the rolls of government dependency.
Sorry, but these crap models are partly responsible for our economy being destroyed! You are aware this modeler (Ferguson) had to resign due to his models being complete crap...right?
No one was obligated to uncritically accept the model and make policy based on it.
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