The model was literally created over a weekend, in part, at least, by kids.
Niel Ferguson actually has a HISTORY of sky high death estimates.
His projections led to millions of British livestock killed due to hoof and mouth disease projections. And it turned out inspectors were spreading it through unsterilized shoes.
He predicted up to fifty thousand dead from mad cow disease.
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2002/jan/09/research.highereducation
He predicted up to 200 million dead from bird flu. Note that’s worse than the Wuhan virus and they still didn’t lock everything down.
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/sep/30/birdflu.jamessturcke