Epidemiologist Behind Highly-Cited Coronavirus Model Drastically Downgrades Projection

[mystery-ak]

March 26th, 2020
Epidemiologist Behind Highly-Cited Coronavirus Model Drastically Downgrades Projection
By  Amanda Prestigiacomo DailyWire.com

Epidemiologist Neil Ferguson, who created the highly-cited Imperial College London coronavirus model, which has been cited by organizations like The New York Times and has been instrumental in governmental policy decision-making, offered a massive revision to his model on Wednesday.

Ferguson’s model projected 2.2 million dead people in the United States and 500,000 in the U.K. from COVID-19 if no action were taken to slow the virus and blunt its curve.

However, after just one day of ordered lockdowns in the U.K., Ferguson is presenting drastically downgraded estimates, revealing that far more people likely have the virus than his team figured. Now, the epidemiologist predicts, hospitals will be just fine taking on COVID-19 patients and estimates 20,000 or far fewer people will die from the virus itself or from its agitation of other ailments, as reported by New Scientist Wednesday.

Ferguson thus dropped his prediction from 500,000 dead to 20,000.

more
https://www.dailywire.com/news/epidemiologist-behind-highly-cited-coronavirus-model-admits-he-was-wrong-drastically-revises-model

[Neverdul]

https://twitter.com/neil_ferguson/status/1243294815200124928


neil_ferguson
@neil_ferguson
1/4 - I think it would be helpful if I cleared up some confusion that has emerged in recent days. Some have interpreted my evidence to a UK parliamentary committee as indicating we have substantially revised our assessments of the potential mortality impact of COVID-19.
5:52 PM · Mar 26, 2020·Twitter for iPhone
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neil_ferguson
@neil_ferguson
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2h
Replying to
@neil_ferguson
2/4 -This is not the case. Indeed, if anything, our latest estimates suggest that the virus is slightly more transmissible than we previously thought. Our lethality estimates remain unchanged.
neil_ferguson
@neil_ferguson
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2h
3/4 - My evidence to Parliament referred to the deaths we assess might occur in the UK in the presence of the very intensive social distancing and other public health interventions now in place.
neil_ferguson
@neil_ferguson
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2h
4/4 - Without those controls, our assessment remains that the UK would see the scale of deaths reported in our study (namely, up to approximately 500 thousand).