[petegz28]

Originally Posted by MahomesMagic

Forecasting for COVID-19 has failed
John P.A. Ioannidis (1), Sally Cripps (2), Martin A. Tanner (3)

ABSTRACT
Epidemic forecasting has a dubious track-record, and its failures became more prominent
with COVID-19. Poor data input, wrong modeling assumptions, high sensitivity of estimates,
lack of incorporation of epidemiological features, poor past evidence on effects of available
interventions, lack of transparency, errors, lack of determinacy, looking at only one or a few
dimensions of the problem at hand, lack of expertise in crucial disciplines, groupthink and
bandwagon effects and selective reporting are some of the causes of these failures.

The four garden variety coronaviruses may be causing such
outbreaks every year.
20,21 One of them, OC43 seems to have been introduced in humans as
recently as 1890, probably causing a “bad influenza year” with over a million deaths.
22 Based on
what we know now, SARS-CoV-2 may be closer to OC43 than SARS-CoV-1. This does not
mean it is not serious: its initial human introduction can be highly lethal, unless we protect those
at risk.



https://forecasters.org/wp-content/u...25062020-1.pdf

That's not very reassuring.