I understand Ferguson is trying to claim that the model predictions are still accurate, but I find that claim pretty flimsy. He admits himself that there is more spread of the virus than they thought. Well, that completely distorts everything they would have been predicting, making the virus much less deadly. This was a key difference in Oxford epidemiologist Sunetra Gupta's competing model that predicted much less risk.
Any prediction should also have the MASSIVE caveat, mentioned front and center in EVERY discussion, that very little accurate testing has even been done at this point. The people getting prioritized for testing early on were either high-risk, or already presenting symptoms. That skews the mortality rate MASSIVELY. We HAVE to know how much this virus is spreading in the general population to truly know how lethal it is. I think we will ultimately find that Covid-19 is no more dangerous than any of the outbreaks we have been suffering on a predictable 2-year cycle for decades now. This will be remembered as The Great Overreaction.
I understand Ferguson is trying to claim that the model predictions are still accurate, but I find that claim pretty flimsy. He admits himself that there is more spread of the virus than they thought. Well, that completely distorts everything they would have been predicting, making the virus much less deadly. This was a key difference in Oxford epidemiologist Sunetra Gupta's competing model that predicted much less risk.
Any prediction should also have the MASSIVE caveat, mentioned front and center in EVERY discussion, that very little accurate testing has even been done at this point. The people getting prioritized for testing early on were either high-risk, or already presenting symptoms. That skews the mortality rate MASSIVELY. We HAVE to know how much this virus is spreading in the general population to truly know how lethal it is. I think we will ultimately find that Covid-19 is no more dangerous than any of the outbreaks we have been suffering on a predictable 2-year cycle for decades now. This will be remembered as The Great Overreaction.