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One thing everybody wants to know is how and when the Covid-19 pandemic will end. I'm going to try to lay out my understanding of how that can work. Understand that I am not an epidemiologist or healthcare professional. I'm just like everyone else who is trying to understand what's happening. This post is basically just my way of thinking out loud about the epidemic. For rather … [Read more...] about How the epidemic ends

In my last post -- from way too long ago, I really need to start posting more often -- I defended the idea of epidemic modeling in general against a few know-nothing attacks. Along the way, I described the popular IHME model and how it was constructed. A few days later, an article by Sharon Begley at the online news magazine STAT reported on several criticisms of the IHME … [Read more...] about How to Criticize an Epidemic Model

I've seen people complaining about the epidemic models used to plan the Covid-19 response here in the United States, much of it along the lines of "Early predictions of dire overcrowding of hospitals and 100,000 to 250,000 dead have been revised downward to 61,000 dead, which is no worse than a bad flu season, yet we shut the country down." Sometimes this is a sincere concern, … [Read more...] about A Brief and Unnecessary Defense of Epidemic Models