[OutsiderFan]

This modeling "only" arrives at 84,000 total deaths in U.S.

I've looked at the numbers projected for the various states and all seem small to me, but this comes from the University of Washington, which has done a lot of good work on this pandemic.

http://covid19.healthdata.org/projections

I read through the methods, and this isn't even a model. It's a curve fitting exercise*.  They are simply fitting a normal (bell-shaped) curve to the death counts.  There are past examples (like HIV) where fitting this kind of curve gave wildly misleading results.  I would put zero stock in these predictions.

*curve fitting is fine for describing the distribution of past events, but it's useless for prediction.

Never heard the term "curve fitting" before, but it makes sense.  

Has anyone seen any model for the U.S. and U.S. states that they would put any stock in at all?  Anything with projections that have closely lived up to reality? Caveat being we have no real idea what reality is other than deaths and hospital admissions.  The reports some countries haven't even counted deaths of people outside hospitals certainly doesn't help.

[OutsiderFan]

This modeling "only" arrives at 84,000 total deaths in U.S.

I've looked at the numbers projected for the various states and all seem small to me, but this comes from the University of Washington, which has done a lot of good work on this pandemic.

http://covid19.healthdata.org/projections

I read through the methods, and this isn't even a model. It's a curve fitting exercise*.  They are simply fitting a normal (bell-shaped) curve to the death counts.  There are past examples (like HIV) where fitting this kind of curve gave wildly misleading results.  I would put zero stock in these predictions.

*curve fitting is fine for describing the distribution of past events, but it's useless for prediction.

Never heard the term "curve fitting" before, but it makes sense.  

Has anyone seen any model for the U.S. and U.S. states that they would put any stock in at all?  Anything with projections that have closely lived up to reality? Caveat being we have no real idea what reality is other than deaths and hospital admissions.  The reports some countries haven't even counted deaths of people outside hospitals certainly doesn't help.