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Which professional pre-peak predictions were surprisingly accurate?

Retric 6y ago
Those underpinning the ‘flatten the curve’ projections and causing everything to shutdown for one. With exponential growth before a shutdown and flat growth during it. There where plenty of different models based on different government responses, and they generally hold up well.
- jakeogh 6y ago
  Like this one? https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/sph/ide/gida-fellowships/Imperial-College-COVID19-NPI-modelling-16-03-2020.pdf https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/s... https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1239975682643357696.html https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1239975682643357696.html Is 1.1M is "holding up well"?
  - Retric 6y ago
    Yep, I suggest you read it. Suppression. Here the aim is to reduce the reproduction number (the average number of secondary cases each case generates), R, to below 1 and hence to reduce case numbers to low levels or (as for SARS or Ebola) eliminate human-to-human transmission. The main challenge of this approach is that NPIs (and drugs, if available) need to be maintained – at least intermittently - for as long as the virus is circulating in the human population, or until a vaccine becomes available. In the 3 case of COVID-19, it will be at least a 12-18 months before a vaccine is available . Furthermore, there is no guarantee that initial vaccines will have high efficacy. That’s the current UK strategy and they don’t have exponential growth.
    - jakeogh 6y ago
      Why wont you talk about the predicted numbers? It would be more useful than cheap shots. The paragraph you quoted is unrelated to the prediction. p16: "In the most effective mitigation strategy examined, which leads to a single, relatively short epidemic (case isolation, household quarantine and social distancing of the elderly), the surge limits for both general ward and ICU beds would be exceeded by at least 8-fold under the more optimistic scenario for critical care requirements that we examined. In addition, even if all patients were able to be treated, we predict there would still be in the order of 250,000 deaths in GB, and 1.1-1.2 million in the US." We achieved better results than the best case estimate for the US in that paper, and not by a little.
      - Retric 6y ago
        The prediction is not based on suppression but mitigation, thus we are outside the model. But for now suppression is holding steady in the US and UK. With current rates projected out for 18 months being lower than the predicted mitigation strategy. That said, there seems to be significant pressure to reopen, so we are likely to experience the mitigation strategy starting in a few months.
        jakeogh 6y ago
        Why wont you talk about the predicted numbers? Which professional pre-peak US prediction did you find suprisingly accurate? Clearly it's not this one.
        Retric 6y ago
        Suppression can limit spread to an arbitrarily small number depending on when it’s implemented. They correctly stated it’s capable of stopping exponential growth and that each mitigation or suppression strategy’s effectiveness depends on when it’s implemented. So, if we started a week earlier the daily death toll would be ~1/10th as large. That prediction exactly matches observed outcomes. Do you expect them to predict our public policy and it’s date of implication?
        jakeogh 6y ago
        There are no studies that I am aware of that predicted the exceptional outcome the US has had as far as total deaths. If there are, please link to them. The study that you think is suprisingly accurate, has a minimum number of 1.1M dead if we implemented "case isolation, household quarantine and social distancing of the elderly" in the US, which is a reasonable approximation of what we did.

Those underpinning the ‘flatten the curve’ projections and causing everything to shutdown for one. With exponential growth before a shutdown and flat growth during it. There where plenty of different models based on different government responses, and they generally hold up well.

jakeogh 6y ago
Like this one? https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/sph/ide/gida-fellowships/Imperial-College-COVID19-NPI-modelling-16-03-2020.pdf https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/s... https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1239975682643357696.html https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1239975682643357696.html Is 1.1M is "holding up well"?
- Retric 6y ago
  Yep, I suggest you read it. Suppression. Here the aim is to reduce the reproduction number (the average number of secondary cases each case generates), R, to below 1 and hence to reduce case numbers to low levels or (as for SARS or Ebola) eliminate human-to-human transmission. The main challenge of this approach is that NPIs (and drugs, if available) need to be maintained – at least intermittently - for as long as the virus is circulating in the human population, or until a vaccine becomes available. In the 3 case of COVID-19, it will be at least a 12-18 months before a vaccine is available . Furthermore, there is no guarantee that initial vaccines will have high efficacy. That’s the current UK strategy and they don’t have exponential growth.
  - jakeogh 6y ago
    Why wont you talk about the predicted numbers? It would be more useful than cheap shots. The paragraph you quoted is unrelated to the prediction. p16: "In the most effective mitigation strategy examined, which leads to a single, relatively short epidemic (case isolation, household quarantine and social distancing of the elderly), the surge limits for both general ward and ICU beds would be exceeded by at least 8-fold under the more optimistic scenario for critical care requirements that we examined. In addition, even if all patients were able to be treated, we predict there would still be in the order of 250,000 deaths in GB, and 1.1-1.2 million in the US." We achieved better results than the best case estimate for the US in that paper, and not by a little.
    - Retric 6y ago
      The prediction is not based on suppression but mitigation, thus we are outside the model. But for now suppression is holding steady in the US and UK. With current rates projected out for 18 months being lower than the predicted mitigation strategy. That said, there seems to be significant pressure to reopen, so we are likely to experience the mitigation strategy starting in a few months.
      - jakeogh 6y ago
        Why wont you talk about the predicted numbers? Which professional pre-peak US prediction did you find suprisingly accurate? Clearly it's not this one.
        Retric 6y ago
        Suppression can limit spread to an arbitrarily small number depending on when it’s implemented. They correctly stated it’s capable of stopping exponential growth and that each mitigation or suppression strategy’s effectiveness depends on when it’s implemented. So, if we started a week earlier the daily death toll would be ~1/10th as large. That prediction exactly matches observed outcomes. Do you expect them to predict our public policy and it’s date of implication?
        jakeogh 6y ago
        There are no studies that I am aware of that predicted the exceptional outcome the US has had as far as total deaths. If there are, please link to them. The study that you think is suprisingly accurate, has a minimum number of 1.1M dead if we implemented "case isolation, household quarantine and social distancing of the elderly" in the US, which is a reasonable approximation of what we did.