Quote:
Originally Posted by DJ's left nut
But what they're saying is that it the R0 literally dropped to 1 overnight.
Because those models have been trending like crap from 24 hours of being released. They've NEVER been close. If they're claiming that the fact that they were off by 2-300% within 72 hours of releasing the model because of improved social distancing, then they're saying that the 90% was already happening and the R0 was down below 1 even prior to the study being released (because these are all lagging indicators).
And even if we're NOW at at R0 below 1 (I don't believe we are because again, history says it simply never happens in practice like it does on a spreadsheet), there are still lagging indicators all over that data and it STILL wouldn't explain how wildly disparate the changes were, even on a state to state basis.
Nor does it get into the fact that, again, the models lacked internal consistency. When the imperial college put forward its best case scenario and assumed complete social isolation, it didn't bring the peak forward.
You can't be off by that much, that fast and claim it was a result of a social behavior that wasn't even being demanded on a nationwide (or generally statewide) basis at the time your model was released. It simply doesn't work. Maybe had the models tracked for a week or even 2 and then went off the rails, I'd buy that.
But they were wrong immediately. And no, there's no way to say that a wholesale behavioral change that hadn't even been adopted yet caused that. Especially when they kept 'updating' the model mid-stream and still didn't think to address that claimed multiplier? Wouldn't that have been the first and most obvious target?
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1) The Imperial Model was built upon 75% social distancing, not 90%.
2) If you believe that we'll never get to an R0 below 1 then you also must believe that there is no way that this disease will even have peaks and valleys, because as long as the R0 is above 1 case growth will continue until herd immunity is reached. It's the nature of exponential growth.
If you believe that can't happen, then you also must not believe that South Korea, or Hong Kong were ever able to get their caseloads under control, but they were.
3) We don't yet know when the peak in cases will be (or perhaps was), because we aren't testing everyone simultaneously. These things take time. We also know that large scale isolation measures were adopted in large portions of the country starting several weeks ago. The areas that waited will likely have peaks that are delayed and/or less severe. The areas that instituted them sooner will likely have peaks that occur sooner with less severity.
4) No one knows for sure what the R0 of the virus is, but it's probably not 10 or 15. The makers of the model didn't know the extent of community spread. As they've learned more, they've input more data. It seems to have made the models more accurate, but that itself is also not yet known for certain.