I was also critical back in the spring, but due to the fact that the math they were using didn’t align with the reality on the street. They tried really hard to force a normalized distribution, while COVID has had a fat tail in many places. They’re tried to atone for that so I don’t share your current critique. I agree with DSeid that there are simply too many variables at play to really do a good job of predicting where we’ll be 4 months from now. I should also note that the IHME model assumes we’ll lose the mandates as long as deaths per day stays below 8 per million per day, which is a really high bar.
While I think it’s nearly impossible to accurately model that far out due to the unknowns (and worse, the unknown unknowns), that’s not going to stop me from tossing a prediction onto the pile:
Well for 1st August I guessed 160k, turned out to be 158k. I think I also guessed that 1st Sept might get as high as 180k with a caveat that infection rates had risen signficantly and I offered and upper limit of 220k, that turned out to be 188k. I also guessed that deaths could spike dramtically with the uptick of infections - that looks like it hasn’t happened, however I’ve also noted that the increase of deaths seems to be following very much lower and was pretty suspicious, and I still am. We probably will not have a reliable estimate well into next year, and only then if the adminstration is replaced. October 1st between 210k and 220k November 1st 235k.
Sure, but I’m not talking about the ‘mandates easing’ projection, which projects 620K deaths by 1/1/21.
Anyhow, sure, there are a lot of variables, a lot of unknowns, but we still know a lot more than we did in April. We know that the extent of the spread is very dependent on what people do or don’t do to spread it. And we’ve got a pretty good idea of how people are reacting. We know that masking, social distancing, and increased hand-washing are widespread but not universal. We can reasonably expect that these factors will impede the spread of the flu as well as that of Covid-19. I’ll go ahead and say we’re going to have a lighter-than-usual flu season this year, even though a lot more people than usual won’t get their flu shots.
Regarding hospitals being overwhelmed, how do you get there? For it to happen in Wave 3 as much as it did in Wave 1, it would have to be a Wave 1-sized wave. So what’s the way we get there again? If Wave 2 wasn’t anywhere close to Wave 1, despite hitting large-pop areas that refused to prepare, it’s hard to see Wave 3 being big. Maybe the hospitals in Boise and Fargo get overwhelmed, maybe even Tulsa and Louisville. But it’s hard to see how that leads to Wave 1 fatalities. You need a surge in large-pop areas to get to those numbers.
I could be wrong and the whole thing could blow up. But put me down for a prediction of between 85K and 130K deaths between here and 12/31.
Most experts are predicting more will get their flu shots this year not less. My worry there is not the demand but the delivery. Work based flu clinics will mostly be gone. Many others will be creating ways to get lots out while keeping social distancing and such. It may be tricky.
As to how you get to systems being overwhelmed? It is not uncommon for a flu season alone to stretch health system capacity to its limits. You have even a moderate flu peak coincident with a sizable amount of capacity dealing with a fairly modest covid-19 surge and … overwhelmed, potentially by lots. Places that have had the least Covid-19 to date may be at the most risk for that confluence. Or might be able to keep both low …
Yeah, the delivery is why I figure fewer people than usual will get flu shots: a lot of people will be separated from the where and how that they’d normally get their flu shots. In past years, I’ve gotten mine at the office, but I’ve been in the building exactly once since mid-March, and I’m sure I’m just one of millions like that. But the flip side is that we’re around other people a lot less than usual. Schools in many parts of the country are entirely online this fall, and most of the rest are in some sort of hybrid schedule where they’re exposed to fewer other kids on fewer days.
So the usual avenues of transmission are substantially reduced. And that’s before considering masks and handwashing and social distancing.
Good Lord, really? I can’t get my mind around how absofuckinglutely crazy that is. I mean, flu season is an annual event, and if it’s not unusual for a flu season to all but overwhelm our health care system, then seriously, WTF?! I had no idea, but that’s freakin’ horrible. Makes me think we should go right past single-payer, and go directly to having a state-run medical system.
Yeah. This was just three years ago. True a bad year but still most fail to appreciate how bad influenza can be from a public health impact. Even a season half as bad leaves systems ill-equipped (inclusive of literally) for a modest covid-19 hit at the same time.
God forbid that this is a year that flu zigs on us and the vaccine is a poor match.
Again though … could be a fizzle. This punk just doesn’t feel lucky.
2020 being 2020 the other more remote worry could be a poorly matched flu vaccine this season. Which is down a bit on the list of worries at the moment, but…2020.
As mentioned in the zigs on us mention just above your post … it shouldn’t be such a far down there worry. Mind you even a mismatched vaccine does good. But this would be a particularly bad year for that to happen.
Re the flu:
It’s just heading into Spring here down under, so the flu season has been in full swing and is now getting close to the end. Flu-like symptoms in Australia are a fraction of what the five-year average has been, as documented by Flu Tracker. From a peak of ~3% of respondents for the five-year average, it’s looking like the peak this year has been just over .5%. Reports page here.
It’s hard to think of any reason why this would be so, other than increased precautions against COVID-19 are also effective against the flu. I suspect more people in Australia got a flu shot back in Autumn (May) than usual - it was the first year for me, anyway. Still, widespread mask use, distancing, and shutting down of many social activities would be very effective against the spread of influenza.
Well it’s only another week until the end of 2020. We are current at 337,000 deaths so it looks like it will be close to 360,000 at the end of the year. Luckily there have been significant improvements in treatment over the last several months–otherwise the number of deaths would have been much higher.
So, we now have a rough answer - ~350,000 (a bit less according Johns Hopkins, a bit more according to the Worldometer). I don’t recall making a formal prediction, but I remember thinking right around the time the numbers started taking off in NYC that we’d be lucky to stay under 100,000 and closer to 200,000 was possible if we got a second Fall wave. I wasn’t pessimistic enough .
So anyone who guessed in the high extreme of millions or the low of a few tens of thousands care to weigh in on how their perceptions have changed? Assuming perceptions have changed, I guess. One thing that is certain is that novel occurrences like a modern pandemic are pretty damn hard to model accurately. Something I should have remembered from my ecology courses long ago.
Deaths are not tallied instantly–they take a few days for the paperwork to process.
There are Covid deaths attributed to something else other than Covid. For example if an elderly person dies alone at home, they may not do a Covid test.
My first guess was 85K. I expected COVID to run its course by the middle of summer like most flu seasons (yes, I know, COVID isn’t the flu). That was my biggest error.
I did have a lot of confidence that by fall/winter we’d have competent contact tracing, quarrentine protocols, etc. I didn’t think we’d have it cured, but I thought we’d learn to manage it. I thought the crisis was that we weren’t prepared, but once We Got Our Shit Together it would be okay.
I went the opposite way as some of you, and fortunately was wrong. I predicted 4 million dead, and that was based on a complete collapse of the medical system. I feared a situation where nobody could get any sort of medical treatment.
Do I need to point out that echoreply’s scenario could still play out? It has already mutated to become more contagious. That means more people will need hospitals, possibly to the point of crashing the medical system. Another mutation could make it more fatal.
a: I hedged my estimate based on some type of existing antiviral treatment being more effective than they actually turned out to be.
b: I did not expect the numbers to be manipulated
In disputing the numbers, Bock explained that a couple who died of gunshot wounds late last month have been included in the state’s numbers. The state told Bock those deaths are included in the count because the two tested positive for COVID-19 within 30 days before their death.
c: decisions were made by the political leadership of all stripes for political gain, science be damned. That the science evolved did not help. But that couldn’t be helped for something entirely new.
.