NH’s Coronavirus Policy is Based on a Flawed/Discredited Model That Its Author Has Abandoned

This from Associated Press yesterday:

Coronavirus cases are expected to peak in New Hampshire sometime between the end of April and early May, the state’s health commissioner told the Executive Council on Wednesday.

This “expectation” appears to be based on COVID Act Now, which Steve has posted about, which is based on the Imperial College model:

4) Their models come 100% from Imperial College UK projection that is coming under *heavy* scrutiny from scientific community. IC UK produced the famed doomsday scenario that guaranteed 2MM dead Americans. The man behind the projections is refusing to make his code public.

— Jordan Schachtel @ dossier.today (@JordanSchachtel) March 24, 2020

Here is the COVID ACT NOW projection for New Hampshire hospitalizations:

If you go to their website, you will find that the model projects ZERO hospitalizations on March 7th from Coronavirus. This implicitly assumes that Coronavirus was NOT present in New Hampshire until late February or early March. I think it is inarguable that this a flawed assumption.

Coronavirus was present in China no later than December … probably in November or earlier. It was spreading worldwide for months before we began to focus on it. It likely was present in New Hampshire at least by January, but we thought it was the usual flu.

Let’s quickly look at the other assumptions behind this model:

Guesswork, no adjustments for population destiny, every State assumed to have same demographics. In a phrase: junk science.

As noted above, COVID Act Now is based on the Imperial College model. The author of the Imperial College Model has essentially abandoned that model. Read the whole thread, but he is now predicting that Coronoavirus will peak and subside in a coupe of weeks in the UK:

4/ Ferguson now predicts that the epidemic in the U.K. will peak and subside within “two to three weeks” – last week’s paper said 18+ months of quarantine would be necessary. https://t.co/1Hln7w90bt

— Alex Berenson (@AlexBerenson) March 26, 2020

New Hampshire should NOT be making public policy based on nonsensical pandemic projections, which have been abandoned by the very people who produced them. It’s time to reopen the New Hampshire economy.

That does not mean that we do not take reasonable precautions against Coronavirus. It means we focus on those really at risk and stop carrying on as if we are mere weeks from the apocalypse.