Grokster Ed has been doing yeoman’s work in applying the Charles Murray / IHME model that is being used to set governmental policy (yesterday’s, for example, is here). A number of people are noticing that, just like the climate models (including the favs of the UN’s IPCC), they are running “hot” in that they are predicting much higher numbers than what are being reported in a lot of areas. For NH, Ed has completely taken the numbers apart and NOTHING is matching up and the number are CERTAINLY not matching up to the panic mode of the NH Demcrats that have shoved Gov. Sununu to implement pretty much every one of their policies sans a complete lockdown (and that gun manufacturers, shops, and ranges are still open). Sure it takes a couple of days from they “demand” something and then it gets done. Steve does an eloquent job summarizing it (emphasis mine, reformatted):
Flattening the curve? There is no curve. Not for the virus. We do have one for forced unemployment. I don’t have the numbers, but thousands of people have been forced out of work. Tens of thousands more have had hours cut, reducing weekly pay. Some small and mediums sized businesses may well fail or struggle to recover. For what?
The politics of fear. The War on Wuhan, which is actually the Left’s War on Trump.
When the dust settles and the air clears, I think you’ll find that from beginning to end, while Wuhan Flu appeared unusually contagious, this was all about politics and not safety. Democrats were demanding lockdowns in New Hampshire belong before Gov. Sununu issued any orders to do so. The orders he did issue were not as encompassing as the left would have liked. And no, they were not looking to stop some disease.
…We’re “killing people” economically for no reason. And, the economy will recover if we let it and it looks like the Democrat’s prayers will not be answered. Killing the economy has not damaged Donald Trump.
And it may not just be about Trump, either. When there is a panic, when there are issues of safety, people no longer rush toward “self-reliance” and “self-responsibility”. Instead, they seem to rush to “somebody oughta do something about this” and have been conditioned to turn FIRST to Government. Which of course, warms the cockles of the Left’s heart of hearts. Killing the economy means an almost automatic dependency on Government. Remember the maxim: success to the Right means less people on welfare; the Left judges it by how many they are “helping” at any one time. As Bernie Sanders puts it, Government IS Charity (even if most of us then have no choice in the matter.
So if you believe that the models are driving the decisions and some of those decisions are driving the “kill the economic decisions” by the Government (like this “vast display of Vermont Stupidity“). The Corner note from the WaPo:
Some of President Trump’s top advisers have expressed doubts about the estimate, according to three White House officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. There have been fierce debates inside the White House about its accuracy. At a task force meeting this week, according to two officials with direct knowledge of it, Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told others there are too many variables at play in the pandemic to make the models reliable: “I’ve looked at all the models. I’ve spent a lot of time on the models. They don’t tell you anything. You can’t really rely upon models.”
Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the vice president’s office have similarly voiced doubts about the projections’ accuracy, the three officials said.
Hot Air is reporting a lot of discomfort in how the White House is divining its numbers – out of the air?
Consider the case of the Imperial College model of the coronavirus outbreak versus the Oxford model. The Imperial College model assumes that a relatively small percentage of the population is infected; if that’s true then we can expect a long gory slog until a vaccine is available as the contagion spreads gradually and consumes more victims. The Oxford model assumes that the virus has spread further and more quickly than any of us realize; it’s deadly only in rare cases, and we’re already well on our way towards herd immunity. The epidemic won’t last nearly as long as everyone fears.
Which model is right? Who the hell knows? They’re models! We won’t have a good idea until random antibody testing can be done.
White House officials have refused to explain how they generated the figure — a death toll bigger than the United States suffered in the Vietnam War or the 9/11 terrorist attacks. They have not provided the underlying data so others can assess its reliability or provided long-term strategies to lower that death count…
…Other experts noted that the White House didn’t even explain the time period the death estimate supposedly captures — just the coming few months, or the year-plus it will take to deploy a vaccine.
…A White House representative said the task force has not publicly released the models it drew from out of respect for the confidentiality of the modelers, many of whom approached the White House unsolicited and simply want to continue their work without publicity.
Yeah, er no. Again, We the People happen to have a Government (and not the other way around). To have such secrecy about the underlying reasoning of why our lives are being turned upside down is getting to be no longer acceptable. This particular aspect is not a Proper Role of Government when it comes to Free People. If their actions will cause a total breakdown of our economy, we have reasons to start vehemently yelling “Up Yours!”. Hot Air’s post is long but I’d suggest you go read it – and be prepared to have your reaction vary from eyebrows raised to reaching for a lighter for your torches.
BTW, the IHME model is here; at the top you can use the pulldown menu to select NH. Although I’m betting Ed will do more picking apart, in reality we’re nowhere close to the projection of needed resources by this model.
Red State also gets into the act by covering the tweets by Sean Davis of The Federalist who has been dissecting this model as well – and who calls it garbage:
Sean Davis, co-founder of The Federalist, took a serious look at the IHME (Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation) Coronavirus model and called it “garbage.” Davis makes his case through a series of tweets (below).
Davis found that the actual numbers of hospitalizations on April 1 were a fraction of the numbers projected by the IHME model. The problem with the model, he discovered, is that it uses New York and New Jersey data and applies it to the rest of the states.
While it is clear that the Democrats, especially NH Dems, want every state to be governed exactly the same with the same exact laws (creating a defacto centralized government by sidestepping our philosophy of vertical AND horizontal Federalism, just like how they are trying to neuter the Electoral College with the Popular Vote state-based legislation), NH isn’t NY and isn’t NJ.
So why should modeling for them be used to discern government policy for us? Any answers, Governor Sununu? That we should become a virtual version of those two highly Democrat States that have far different outlooks, sizes, and policies?
The actual numbers range from a low of 9% in Tennessee of the projection to a high of 50% in Virginia. Here are some examples:
- The model projected that over 121,000 people would be hospitalized in the country yesterday. The actual number was 31,142. (25.7%)
- Texas: Projection – 1,716; Actual – 196 (11.4%)
- Georgia: Projection – 2,777; Actual – 952 (34.3%)
- Virginia: Projection – 607; Actual – 305 (50%)
- Tennessee: Projection – 2,214; Actual number – 200 (9%)
- New York: Projection – 50,962; Actual number – 18,368 (36%)
Davis writes that if we’re going to shut down the entire nation’s economy to “flatten the curve” based on the projections of a single model, it shouldn’t be too much to ask that the model approximate reality when it comes to hospitalizations.
And as Ed has pointed out, actual NH numbers aren’t even coming close to projection – 574 TODAY (NH is reporting that 80 have been hospitalized thus far but NOT how many are in the hospital currently giving us an inflated and useless snapshot number for policy setting) . Yet, policy is being set in fantasy land.
The State of NH is holding out on us with respect to ALL the numbers.
Go to the link and read Davis’s slice and dice.
And let me leave you with this – it is now well known and well accepted that China is ALSO holding out on the rest of the world on its current numbers. Some of estimated that there may be as many as 40,000 deaths in Wuhan alone (and again, context: a city of 11 million people – go ahead, derive the percentage).
And now, it seems, China is now starting to have its second wave of the Kung Flu:
According to a new breaking news report from Politico, China is once again implementing mass quarantines to combat the coronavirus outbreak after their initial quarantine failed.
“Henan province in central China has taken the drastic measure of putting a mid-sized county in total lockdown as authorities try to fend off a second coronavirus wave in the midst of a push to revive the economy,” Politico reported. “Curfew-like measures came into effect on Tuesday in Jia county, near the city of Pingdingshan, with the area’s roughly 600,000 residents told to stay home, according to a notice on the country’s official microblog account.”
This breaking news comes at the same time as a new report from Washington Post Beijing bureau chief Anna Fifield stated that the real death toll from the coronavirus in Wuhan, China may be over 40,000, more than 16 times the amount of deaths currently reported by China.
