If you look at the models, they have something like an order of magnitude uncertainty. And the reason for that is precisely what you are stating, they rely on f

If you look at the models, they have something like an order of magnitude uncertainty. And the reason for that is precisely what you are stating, they rely on future behavior, which we just don't know yet. However, the utility of the models is to give us a sense of how the different parameters interact. There are parts of the model were we can have a lot of trust, for example that people with severe conditions will need hospitalization, or that people will react quite similar as they reacted yesterday. So for the short term, the models give us quite good guidance, and for the long term, they help to map out scenarios. So if you actually look at the report in question, you will see that they are actually trying to estimate the impact of various non medical interventions, like encouraging social distancing, by comparing different countries. It is just that newspapers as usual just run with the most immediately digestible number, independent wether that number is important or useful. The study in question: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/mrc-gida/2020-03-30-COVID19-Report-13.pdf https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/m... Some overview video from Dr. Campbell on youtube: (in general, I think his youtube channel is quite good) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1aoULlMpn0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1aoULlMpn0