Community Thread LXI: The President We Deserve

[Slava]

Today I went on a buy everything at once shopping trip, bought two duvet covers and forgot to buy the duvet. If this lock down lasts any longer I might have to classify myself as a slow person.

[Wavy Q]

I'm currently dating 3 women and they're all dumb as **** trying to meet up during all this. **** we live in cornoacentral for America (thats not NY) what yall doin???

[Danny Darko]

minnesota's shelter in place or whatever started today

i've been doing it already for a couple of weeks now that i've been working from home.

nice thing about not having a social life is being at home all the time doesn't bother me

just started? Wow. I've got some high ranking officials in my family... their estimate is like 5 months right now.

[Danny Darko]

I'm currently dating 3 women and they're all dumb as **** trying to meet up during all this. **** we live in cornoacentral for America (thats not NY) what yall doin???

my buddy who is a poon hound and also a germaphobe from way back is so conflicted right now. The urge is strong, he even started to buy into the "this is just the flu" thought until i worded him up.

He said sexting has never been so creative though.

[Slava]

I'm currently dating 3 women and they're all dumb as **** trying to meet up during all this. **** we live in cornoacentral for America (thats not NY) what yall doin???

I met a woman on tinder who i'd been on FaceTime with a couple times before meeting for a walk in the park. She invited me to her place for dinner, now I usually don't say no to a proposal so good but she lives outside the city and I ain't taking public transportation to catch a virus just for some action.

[hermes]

yeah, like most things - stuff starts happening on the coasts and then slowly makes its way to the middle of the country

we have been doing some major social distancing for a couple of weeks but they finally broke down and put the order in

[Kilroy]

My daughter is driving us nucking futs so we went to the beach this morning (pretty dead and easy to stay 50 yards from the nearest pitri dish)...
For whatever reason this dude wearing 3 blue bandanas... All on his head...
Decided he hated me, and the beach wasn't big enough for the 2 of us...
(Trying to social distance with the crazies is super tough)...
Dude walked across the parking lot to get in my face and say "what's up"... With my daughter hugging me as we were watching the surfers...
I said what's up and mad dogged him a bit and he backed off... (he was 6'2 at least but about 100lbs)...
Then he walked over to his freaking BMW and changed his shirt... Then he started bothering some people at a cafe and shouting about the smog....
So as I was leaving, I walked up to him and said: "Use your inside voice!"
I'm pretty sure he's still trying to figure that one out.

We're almost at the Lord of the Flies level in our house right now... Not quite at the Stanford Experiment, but closing fast... There aren't enough video games or movies in the world to keep this up much longer.

[Landsberger]

Statistical projections have been so far off they need to be investigated IMHO. The projections by some "reputable" institutions and ones parroted by governmental organizations have been statistically so inaccurate it's inconceivable that they were not purposefully so.
The leading researcher who's study predicted 400,000 deaths in the UK WITH mitigating circumstances now has revised his estimates to less than 20,000 and "probably lower than that". Neil Ferguson is an epidemiologist and a professor of mathematical biology. His first report of this study was picked up as the central study by the WHO and the CDC. Remember that the WHO, in January, said that COVID-19 was difficult to transmit based on information from China(who was very aware at the time that it wasn't).

We see these mathematical projections and predictive modeling all of the time these days. It's becomes the basis for massive political and governmental actions whether it's Climate Change or "Pandemics" or food shortages or drought and so on. When they turn out to not be reliable (being nice here) no one ever questions the methods, funding sources or other connections to the people making these predictions which are accepted as fact by the powers that be. When you have a supposed "mathematical" projection that says 400,000 dead and 5 days later you now say less than 20,000 that's not a statistical error.... that's 5 orders of magnitude different. His "alternate" predictive model is using marginally different precautionary measures as the initial one. When asked by members of Parliament why his numbers were so far apart he deflected the questions for the most part.

My guess is that the 20,000 number will be wrong as well. (2 Stanford public health researchers also believe that the projections are orders of magnitude high).

This is not to diminish the danger in COVID-19.... it's a highly communicable virus that is dangerous to a certain segment of the population. I've modeled data and statistically evaluated everything from Mayoral races in Wisconsin to the ballistic probabilities of military weaponry in my career. When I see this type of flat our misinformation being taken as fact I begin to wonder what's really going on.

Another related story has got me steamed as well. A prominent Billionaire "bundler" of donations to political campaigns (Bill Ackerman) who makes his money running Hedge Funds (which invest in and leverage primarily government subsidized public companies) openly bashed the government for not shutting down the country 10 days ago on CNBC. He was given real estate in the Times, WSJ, WAPO and any other news paper that he could contact saying the same things. Guess what?... he was hedged for a market crash with multiple thousands of derivatives that magnify a drop of $1 in value to a potential return of $10,000. He cashed them in 8 days later, after the markets puked up a 28% aggregate loss. His fund made $2.6 Billion. Guess what else? Millions are out of work and millions more may be. I don't this he should be investigated for saying this... I think the media should be for allowing it to happen... then pushing it to everywhere for a week. BTW.... his philanthropic side donates to NGO's that also provide pool reporters to most of that said media.

The hype about this has never made sense to me. H1N1 infected nearly 70 Million world wide in 09-10. It was reported to be killing 6.4% of the confirmed cases during the epidemic... however 2 years later, when the final tally was done, it was finally said to kill just .2% of the people infected (both confirmed cases and estimated cases). The common Flu season here in the US has had just over 220,000 confirmed cases(out of 1M tested) with a death rate of those confirmed cases of 10%(approx. 22,000 dead). When you add in the estimated cases of an additional 36,000,000 you get a death rate of .1% Right now the COVID-19 confirmed cases and deaths are the headlines. The rate of confirmed cases resulting in death are changing every day but are in a range of 4-6% depending on the level of development of the area infected. Here's the difference in the 2.... so far, COVID-19 is more communicable.... so unreported cases (or estimated cases statistically) will be much higher than that of H1N1 and the final death rate when we look back in a couple years may be about like the H1N1 or even like the flu. Keep in mind that when you hear that COVID-19 is killing 4.5% of the people who have it and the common Flu is killing .1% that it's not the same statistically. The Flu statistics INCLUDE estimated cases AND confirmed. The numbers being reported for COVID-19 are just the % of people dying compared to the confirmed cases.

Sorry for the rant.... too much time listening to people in my profession calling into question these hyped up numbers based on junk statistics. Hopefully the community here isn't being deeply effected by this.

[Slava]

Neil Ferguson's first estimates were based on the UK governments herd immunity plan, his latest one accounts for the social distancing they since embraced as the strategy. Fair to say the man saved lives by changing the mood of the government to not go by it's initial plans.

[Danny Darko]

I'm currently dating 3 women and they're all dumb as **** trying to meet up during all this. **** we live in cornoacentral for America (thats not NY) what yall doin???

I met a woman on tinder who i'd been on FaceTime with a couple times before meeting for a walk in the park. She invited me to her place for dinner, now I usually don't say no to a proposal so good but she lives outside the city and I ain't taking public transportation to catch a virus just for some action.

Now is the time to invent the full body condom. get that bank!

[Landsberger]

Neil Ferguson's first estimates were based on the UK governments herd immunity plan, his latest one accounts for the social distancing they since embraced as the strategy. Fair to say the man saved lives by changing the mood of the government to not go by it's initial plans.

I'd offer that social distancing is, at best, has a minimal effect on the spread. If everyone truly stayed "distanced" it may be effective but everyone doesn't. They stay in their house for a few days at most then go to the store for food, the gas station for gas, go to the dog park and on and on.

I think we'll have to wait and see if there is any true benefit from it.

As for Ferguson.... His statistical progressions based on the two have two adjusted variables. Distance. 3' to 6'. and 30 seconds per encounter down from 60. That's it. So he'd have to know that an additional 3' of distance is worth 5 orders of magnitude. It's what I'd call junk science. I'd also point out that he knows it is as well. Anyone who does any of this stuff does. If the goal was to scare people it was successful. I think that was the goal. I'm not sure you save lives by shutting off economies cold. There is very reliable data that shows that economic despair (which is happening) creates a lot of loss of life in many forms.

As I said, my guess is that a year from now we'll find out that the true death rate is around .2% while the powers the be will completely ignore the consequential damage in both loss of life and in terms of economic destruction. Just another crisis they can "solve".

[hermes]

Statistical projections have been so far off they need to be investigated IMHO. The projections by some "reputable" institutions and ones parroted by governmental organizations have been statistically so inaccurate it's inconceivable that they were not purposefully so.
The leading researcher who's study predicted 400,000 deaths in the UK WITH mitigating circumstances now has revised his estimates to less than 20,000 and "probably lower than that". Neil Ferguson is an epidemiologist and a professor of mathematical biology. His first accounting of this study was picked up as the central study by the WHO and the CDC. Remember that the WHO, in January, said that COVID-19 was difficult to transmit based on information from China(who was very aware at the time that it wasn't).

We see these mathematical projections and predictive modeling all of the time these days. It's becomes the basis for massive political and governmental actions whether it's Climate Change or "Pandemics" or food shortages or drought and so on. When they turn out to not be reliable (being nice here) no one ever questions the methods, funding sources or other connections to the people making these predictions which are accepted as fact by the powers that be. When you have a supposed "mathematical" projection that says 400,000 dead in late February and in late March you now say less than 20,000 that's not a statistical error.... that's 5 orders of magnitude wrong. His "new" predictive model is using the same level of precautionary measures as the initial one. When asked by members of Parliament why his numbers were so far apart he deflected the questions for the most part.

My guess is that the 20,000 number will be wrong as well. (2 Stanford public health researchers also believe that the projections are orders of magnitude high).

This is not to diminish the danger in COVID-19.... it's a highly communicable virus that is dangerous to a certain segment of the population. I've modeled data and statistically evaluated everything from Mayoral races in Wisconsin to the ballistic probabilities of military weaponry in my career. When I see this type of flat our misinformation being taken as fact I begin to wonder what's really going on.

Another related story has got me steamed as well. A prominent Billionaire "bundler" of donations to political campaigns (Bill Ackerman) who makes his money running Hedge Funds (which invest in and leverage primarily government subsidized public companies) openly bashed the government for not shutting down the country 10 days ago on CNBC. He was given real estate in the Times, WSJ, WAPO and any other news paper that he could contact saying the same things. Guess what?... he was hedged for a market crash with multiple thousands of derivatives that magnify a drop of $1 in value to a potential return of $10,000. He cashed them in 8 days later, after the markets puked up a 28% aggregate loss. His fund made $2.6 Billion. Guess what else? Millions are out of work and millions more may be. I don't this he should be investigated for saying this... I think the media should be for allowing it to happen... then pushing it to everywhere for a week. BTW.... his philanthropic side donates to NGO's that also provide pool reporters to most of that said media.

The hype about this has never made sense to me. H1N1 infected nearly 70 Million world wide in 09-10. It was reported to be killing 6.4% of the confirmed cases during the epidemic... however 2 years later, when the final tally was done, it was finally said to kill just .2% of the people infected (both confirmed cases and estimated cases). The common Flu season here in the US has had just over 220,000 confirmed cases(out of 1M tested) with a death rate of those confirmed cases of 10%(approx. 22,000 dead). When you add in the estimated cases of an additional 36,000,000 you get a death rate of .1% Right now the COVID-19 confirmed cases and deaths are the headlines. The rate of confirmed cases resulting in death are changing every day but are in a range of 4-6% depending on the level of development of the area infected. Here's the difference in the 2.... so far, COVID-19 is more communicable.... so unreported cases (or estimated cases statistically) will be much higher than that of H1N1 and the final death rate when we look back in a couple years may be about like the H1N1 or even like the flu. Keep in mind that when you hear that COVID-19 is killing 4.5% of the people who have it and the common Flu is killing .1% that it's not the same statistically. The Flu statistics INCLUDE estimated cases AND confirmed. The numbers being reported for COVID-19 are just the % of people dying compared to the confirmed cases.

Sorry for the rant.... too much time listening to people in my profession calling into question these hyped up numbers based on junk statistics. Hopefully the community here isn't being deeply effected by this.

i do some forecasting as part of my job too (although not anything near as complex as this) and i think we can give these estimates a break, i don't imagine anything malevolent is happening. predicting the future is hard

there is just so much we don't know. these people coming up with infection and death rates probably feel like they are trying to solve a maze while blindfolded and their hands tied behind their back. the change from 400k to 20k just tells me that they have more information now than they did before. both numbers could end up being just as far off as the other. and its such a rapidly evolving situation they could probably report a different number every day

i'm being asked how much tax revenue is going to be lost because of this. i don't have any idea, this is a completely unprecedented situation - who knows how people/businesses are going to react to this. at the end of the day the people in charge just want some number to hang on to as they make decisions. we try to make it as accurate as we can based on the information available but in times like this we might as well just draw a number out of a hat

in my experience if you actually do manage to forecast something correctly (or even get close) you either got lucky or it's something so stable you can't help but get it right.

[Wavy Q]

I just spent like 5 grand on workout equipment because I'm losing my mind not being able to go to the gym... gonna try and write it off as a business expense

[Landsberger]

Statistical projections have been so far off they need to be investigated IMHO. The projections by some "reputable" institutions and ones parroted by governmental organizations have been statistically so inaccurate it's inconceivable that they were not purposefully so.
The leading researcher who's study predicted 400,000 deaths in the UK WITH mitigating circumstances now has revised his estimates to less than 20,000 and "probably lower than that". Neil Ferguson is an epidemiologist and a professor of mathematical biology. His first accounting of this study was picked up as the central study by the WHO and the CDC. Remember that the WHO, in January, said that COVID-19 was difficult to transmit based on information from China(who was very aware at the time that it wasn't).

We see these mathematical projections and predictive modeling all of the time these days. It's becomes the basis for massive political and governmental actions whether it's Climate Change or "Pandemics" or food shortages or drought and so on. When they turn out to not be reliable (being nice here) no one ever questions the methods, funding sources or other connections to the people making these predictions which are accepted as fact by the powers that be. When you have a supposed "mathematical" projection that says 400,000 dead in late February and in late March you now say less than 20,000 that's not a statistical error.... that's 5 orders of magnitude wrong. His "new" predictive model is using the same level of precautionary measures as the initial one. When asked by members of Parliament why his numbers were so far apart he deflected the questions for the most part.

My guess is that the 20,000 number will be wrong as well. (2 Stanford public health researchers also believe that the projections are orders of magnitude high).

This is not to diminish the danger in COVID-19.... it's a highly communicable virus that is dangerous to a certain segment of the population. I've modeled data and statistically evaluated everything from Mayoral races in Wisconsin to the ballistic probabilities of military weaponry in my career. When I see this type of flat our misinformation being taken as fact I begin to wonder what's really going on.

Another related story has got me steamed as well. A prominent Billionaire "bundler" of donations to political campaigns (Bill Ackerman) who makes his money running Hedge Funds (which invest in and leverage primarily government subsidized public companies) openly bashed the government for not shutting down the country 10 days ago on CNBC. He was given real estate in the Times, WSJ, WAPO and any other news paper that he could contact saying the same things. Guess what?... he was hedged for a market crash with multiple thousands of derivatives that magnify a drop of $1 in value to a potential return of $10,000. He cashed them in 8 days later, after the markets puked up a 28% aggregate loss. His fund made $2.6 Billion. Guess what else? Millions are out of work and millions more may be. I don't this he should be investigated for saying this... I think the media should be for allowing it to happen... then pushing it to everywhere for a week. BTW.... his philanthropic side donates to NGO's that also provide pool reporters to most of that said media.

The hype about this has never made sense to me. H1N1 infected nearly 70 Million world wide in 09-10. It was reported to be killing 6.4% of the confirmed cases during the epidemic... however 2 years later, when the final tally was done, it was finally said to kill just .2% of the people infected (both confirmed cases and estimated cases). The common Flu season here in the US has had just over 220,000 confirmed cases(out of 1M tested) with a death rate of those confirmed cases of 10%(approx. 22,000 dead). When you add in the estimated cases of an additional 36,000,000 you get a death rate of .1% Right now the COVID-19 confirmed cases and deaths are the headlines. The rate of confirmed cases resulting in death are changing every day but are in a range of 4-6% depending on the level of development of the area infected. Here's the difference in the 2.... so far, COVID-19 is more communicable.... so unreported cases (or estimated cases statistically) will be much higher than that of H1N1 and the final death rate when we look back in a couple years may be about like the H1N1 or even like the flu. Keep in mind that when you hear that COVID-19 is killing 4.5% of the people who have it and the common Flu is killing .1% that it's not the same statistically. The Flu statistics INCLUDE estimated cases AND confirmed. The numbers being reported for COVID-19 are just the % of people dying compared to the confirmed cases.

Sorry for the rant.... too much time listening to people in my profession calling into question these hyped up numbers based on junk statistics. Hopefully the community here isn't being deeply effected by this.

i do some forecasting as part of my job too (although not anything near as complex as this) and i think we can give these estimates a break, i don't imagine anything malevolent is happening. predicting the future is hard

there is just so much we don't know. these people coming up with infection and death rates probably feel like they are trying to solve a maze while blindfolded and their hands tied behind their back. the change from 400k to 20k just tells me that they have more information now than they did before. both numbers could end up being just as far off as the other. and its such a rapidly evolving situation they could probably report a different number every day

i'm being asked how much tax revenue is going to be lost because of this. i don't have any idea, this is a completely unprecedented situation - who knows how people/businesses are going to react to this. at the end of the day the people in charge just want some number to hang on to as they make decisions. we try to make it as accurate as we can based on the information available but in times like this we might as well just draw a number out of a hat

in my experience if you actually do manage to forecast something correctly (or even get close) you either got lucky or it's something so stable you can't help but get it right.

No... nobody with his credentials makes a 5 order of magnitude mistake. Especially one that gets adopted by the WHO and CDC. He was on several TV broadcasts touting the initial forecast(which was one of 9 models he did). He had to be summoned to "explain" it. If you are truly into forecasting and statistical analysis then analyze the probability that an analysis can be off by 5 orders of magnitude. That "standard deviation" is absurdly beyond what is statistically acceptable to release to the public. My argument is less about the reaction to what has happened, while I do think it could be worse than the virus, it's more about the truth in our science and especially the science used by our governments. This is junk science that may have been used for the "greater good" but junk science none the less.

As for a pandemic being unprecedented... we just had a larger one in 2009-10. H1N1. By the time it was 'contained' it had infected over 66M people worldwide. This may exceed that as it appears to be more communicable but to say this is unprecedented just isn't correct.

Now for your task... that is unprecedented as the reaction to this has been unprecedented as will the collateral damage that will also result in loss of life. I've been in and out of the quant side of investing for most of my career. Currently the data suggests that parts of the economy are being wrecked (dining, entertainment, small business, retail and so on). However certain parts are seeing a significant expansion (Grocery, internal supply chain, medical supply, paper products etc.). Do they balance?... my guess is no but it will depend on the length of the disruption. Interesting thing I read today is that the nations liquid petroleum storage facilities are reaching capacity as demand has dwindled. This hasn't happened in decades. The cost of fuel will be low thus acting like a tax break for business... but at the same time the production side of things is in free fall.

I'm not arguing that we should go about life as we did 4 weeks ago but the extent to which we've gone will truly change the lives of so many more than the virus and for longer. This country will be 30 Trillion in debt with another 125 Trillion in unfunded liabilities. That's just in the federal public sector. States and private pensions are another 40ish Trillion in the hole. In the financial markets there is about 1.4 Quadrillion in financial derivatives out there which cannot ever be reconciled. A simple answer for your problem is that it won't matter what tax revenue is coming in... there isn't enough private sector M1 to support the taxes necessary to ever begin to pay that off without the magic math of MMT.

[Slava]

Neil Ferguson's first estimates were based on the UK governments herd immunity plan, his latest one accounts for the social distancing they since embraced as the strategy. Fair to say the man saved lives by changing the mood of the government to not go by it's initial plans.

I'd offer that social distancing is, at best, has a minimal effect on the spread. If everyone truly stayed "distanced" it may be effective but everyone doesn't. They stay in their house for a few days at most then go to the store for food, the gas station for gas, go to the dog park and on and on.

I think we'll have to wait and see if there is any true benefit from it.

As for Ferguson.... His statistical progressions based on the two have two adjusted variables. Distance. 3' to 6'. and 30 seconds per encounter down from 60. That's it. So he'd have to know that an additional 3' of distance is worth 5 orders of magnitude. It's what I'd call junk science. I'd also point out that he knows it is as well. Anyone who does any of this stuff does. If the goal was to scare people it was successful. I think that was the goal. I'm not sure you save lives by shutting off economies cold. There is very reliable data that shows that economic despair (which is happening) creates a lot of loss of life in many forms.

As I said, my guess is that a year from now we'll find out that the true death rate is around .2% while the powers the be will completely ignore the consequential damage in both loss of life and in terms of economic destruction. Just another crisis they can "solve".

Unless you've seen Ferguson's models, the only pseudo scientist here is you. I quite honestly don't even know where you are pulling your 3' /6' and 30/60 second assumptions from, as far I know Ferguson did not make those assumptions at least publicly. Social distancing, frequent testing and contact tracing has been the only thing that has worked well in this epidemic.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't believe you are an epidemiologist either and domain knowledge matters a TON when it comes to forecasting and prediction. If you want to yell at a cloud, pick a different topic than this one.

[Landsberger]

Neil Ferguson's first estimates were based on the UK governments herd immunity plan, his latest one accounts for the social distancing they since embraced as the strategy. Fair to say the man saved lives by changing the mood of the government to not go by it's initial plans.

I'd offer that social distancing is, at best, has a minimal effect on the spread. If everyone truly stayed "distanced" it may be effective but everyone doesn't. They stay in their house for a few days at most then go to the store for food, the gas station for gas, go to the dog park and on and on.

I think we'll have to wait and see if there is any true benefit from it.

As for Ferguson.... His statistical progressions based on the two have two adjusted variables. Distance. 3' to 6'. and 30 seconds per encounter down from 60. That's it. So he'd have to know that an additional 3' of distance is worth 5 orders of magnitude. It's what I'd call junk science. I'd also point out that he knows it is as well. Anyone who does any of this stuff does. If the goal was to scare people it was successful. I think that was the goal. I'm not sure you save lives by shutting off economies cold. There is very reliable data that shows that economic despair (which is happening) creates a lot of loss of life in many forms.

As I said, my guess is that a year from now we'll find out that the true death rate is around .2% while the powers the be will completely ignore the consequential damage in both loss of life and in terms of economic destruction. Just another crisis they can "solve".

Unless you've seen Ferguson's models, the only pseudo scientist here is you. I quite honestly don't even know where you are pulling your 3' /6' and 30/60 second assumptions from, as far I know Ferguson did not make those assumptions at least publicly. Social distancing, frequent testing and contact tracing has been the only thing that has worked well in this epidemic.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't believe you are an epidemiologist either and domain knowledge matters a TON when it comes to forecasting and prediction. If you want to yell at a cloud, pick a different topic than this one.

I listened to his testimony to Parliament on the BBC(it was also broadcast on Bloomberg Europe). He was asked specifically by 3 or 4 other "experts" (all I had was an audio feed) what differed in his models. He answered what I wrote. I've also read similar data point changes from the group at Stanford who is reviewing his model (what he'll share of it).

He testimony differed significantly from his story release to the FT. He had several models yet only one was used in his initial "release". The most shocking one. It was intended to do just that.

As for being a medical expert.... nope. Not in the least. Modeling data? Yeah... going on 30 years of that from every aspect of science as well. Variables are variables and modeling is modeling. There isn't different math when modeling pandemics. Data, variables and statistical methodology with multiple independent models... then analyzing and modeling that data. Of these the one we know the least about with any certainty is the data. He's admitted that as well.

Psychology is the key to markets and a disease's spreading. Panic, overconfidence and communication are all keys to modeling those progressions. There is a large crossover in the data sources used for disease modeling and financial modeling in terms of "crowd response". This stuff isn't invented by each researcher independently.

We just put out a number officially of 200,000 dead in the US (couple hours ago) but it was qualified with it could be wrong by a lot up or down depending on a lot of variables. Not defending or condemning this administration in the least but that's the responsible way of doing this IMHO. The release of the information was basically useless but done anyway.

I'm not arguing anything about the medical outcomes, presumed mitigating factors or the science of epidemiology. Scientifically this cannot be known for a year or two after this runs its course. It's being assumed at this point based on incomplete data for a number of reasons.

Science becomes Junk Science when authorities use it to effect an outcome. Medically it may be a desired outcome (time will tell on that) but the unintended consequences are what's also real.... they weren't modeled or released. They aren't getting the front page and the aftermath will last a lot longer than the virus. Responsible leadership should have this information modeled to the same extent before using it as a way to stop the spread of a virus.

Social distancing is presumed to be working yet progression (based on previous viral outbreaks) has not really been budged off its track of a week ago. Only if you look at his original prediction and take it as fact can you see a different in the trajectory... yet it was never on his released prediction's trajectory nor have been any previous outbreaks of even more communicable(based on current knowledge) diseases.

Overconfidence is why governments push this type of study. It's what they do with expert opinions. The intent is often good but all of the consequences of their action is often not. That's why I'm pointing this out. This one expert released one of several models (the most dramatic one) in a vacuum it seems. You said he and the UK/WHO/CDC undoubtedly saved lives. The WHO took China at face value in November and stated publicly that an outbreak was highly unlikely because the virus was very difficult to contract. The CDC followed. By your logic did they undoubtedly killed people?

UPDATE: They have linked his paper on the university system: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/sph/ide/gida-fellowships/Imperial-College-COVID19-NPI-modelling-16-03-2020.pdf

After reading this briefly I'm even more confused/shocked in the press release and the WHO/CDC's adoption of the headline number.

I'll take back my comments about "his mistake" statistically now. There is no underlying data but the one that got the press is one of the .1% outliers you typically do in a modeling sequence. The mistake was how it was used and reported.

[Danny Darko]

Neil Ferguson's first estimates were based on the UK governments herd immunity plan, his latest one accounts for the social distancing they since embraced as the strategy. Fair to say the man saved lives by changing the mood of the government to not go by it's initial plans.

I'd offer that social distancing is, at best, has a minimal effect on the spread. If everyone truly stayed "distanced" it may be effective but everyone doesn't. They stay in their house for a few days at most then go to the store for food, the gas station for gas, go to the dog park and on and on.

I think we'll have to wait and see if there is any true benefit from it.

As for Ferguson.... His statistical progressions based on the two have two adjusted variables. Distance. 3' to 6'. and 30 seconds per encounter down from 60. That's it. So he'd have to know that an additional 3' of distance is worth 5 orders of magnitude. It's what I'd call junk science. I'd also point out that he knows it is as well. Anyone who does any of this stuff does. If the goal was to scare people it was successful. I think that was the goal. I'm not sure you save lives by shutting off economies cold. There is very reliable data that shows that economic despair (which is happening) creates a lot of loss of life in many forms.

As I said, my guess is that a year from now we'll find out that the true death rate is around .2% while the powers the be will completely ignore the consequential damage in both loss of life and in terms of economic destruction. Just another crisis they can "solve".

Unless you've seen Ferguson's models, the only pseudo scientist here is you. I quite honestly don't even know where you are pulling your 3' /6' and 30/60 second assumptions from, as far I know Ferguson did not make those assumptions at least publicly. Social distancing, frequent testing and contact tracing has been the only thing that has worked well in this epidemic.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't believe you are an epidemiologist either and domain knowledge matters a TON when it comes to forecasting and prediction. If you want to yell at a cloud, pick a different topic than this one.

I've seen them, still prefer the victoria's secret models.

[Danny Darko]

Landsberger, what is your field of work? (sorry if i've missed it).

[Landsberger]

Landsberger, what is your field of work? (sorry if i've missed it).

My initial degree is in statistics back in the early 90's. I have an associates in programming. I started doing data modeling while still in college for the Biology department.

My first real job was for a Boston based quantitative investment firm. I was part of a team that built data bases of financial information, crowd response and geo-political responses to different international situations. The hope was to trade before the "other guys".

After 8 years of that I moved to a DC based big data firm what did what ever we were hired to do. Again, building data bases for clients ranging from political parties to defense contractors.

after 12 years of that I moved out here to AZ and took a position at a start up doing Blockchain. This was less about data base building and more about routing it.

Now I'm back working as a consultant for a Financial institution again. Mostly working on High Frequency Trading data pathing.

I've had email signature blocks that say "Quantitative analyst", "Statistician" and "Data Modeler" while the work has been not nearly as varied

I'm a pretty boring guy it seems now that I've writing that down.

[Danny Darko]

I think that stuff is interesting particularly when markets are unstable like now. So do you invest heavily based on what you have learned? haha and do you have a guess when the housing market is going go really start reflecting the recession?