Table 2.
Forecasting what will happen after reopening.
| PREDICTION FOR REOPENING | WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED |
|---|---|
| “Results indicate that lifting restrictions too soon can result in a second wave of infections and deaths. Georgia is planning to open some businesses on April 27th. The tool shows that COVID-19 is not yet contained in Georgia and even lifting restrictions gradually over the next month can result in over 23,000 deaths.” Massachusetts General Hospital News, April 24, 2020 (https://www.massgeneral.org/news/coronavirus/COVID-19-simulator) |
Number of deaths over one month: 896 instead of the predicted 23,000 |
| “administration is privately projecting a steady rise in the number of coronavirus cases and deaths over the next several weeks. The daily death toll will reach about 3,000 on June 1, according to an internal document obtained by The New York Times, a 70 percent increase from the current number of about 1,750. The projections, based on government modeling pulled together by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, forecast about 200,000 new cases each day by the end of the month, up from about 25,000 cases a day currently.” New York Times, May 4, 2020 ( https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/04/us/coronavirus-live-updates.html) |
Number of daily deaths on June 1: 731 instead of the predicted 3,000, i.e. a 60% decrease instead of 70% increase Number of daily new cases on May 31: 20,724 instead of the predicted 125,000, i.e. a 15% decrease instead of 700% increase |
| “According to the Penn Wharton Budget Model (PWBM), reopening states will result in an additional 233,000 deaths from the virus — even if states don’t reopen at all and with social distancing rules in place. This means that if the states were to reopen, 350,000 people in total would die from coronavirus by the end of June, the study found.” Yahoo, May 3, 2020 ( https://www.yahoo.com/now/reopening-states-will-cause-233000-more-people-to-die-from-coronavirus-according-to-wharton-model-120049573.html) |
Based on JHU dashboard death count, number of additional deaths as of June 30 was 5,700 instead of 233,000, i.e. total deaths was 122,700 instead of 350,000. It is unclear also whether any of the 5,700 deaths were due to reopening rather than error in the original model calibration of the number of deaths without reopening. |
| “Dr. Ashish Jha, the director of the Harvard Global Health Institute, told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer that the current data shows that somewhere between 800 to 1000 Americans are dying from the virus daily, and even if that does not increase, the US is poised to cross 200,000 deaths sometime in September. “I think that is catastrophic. I think that is not something we have to be fated to live with,” Jha told CNN. “We can change the course. We can change course today.” “We’re really the only major country in the world that opened back up without really getting our cases as down low as we really needed to,” Jha told CNN.” Business Insider, June 10, 2020 (https://www.businessinsider.com/harvard-expert-predicts-coronavirus-deaths-in-us-by-september-2020-6) |
Within less than 4 weeks of this quote, the number of daily deaths was much less than the 800–1000 quote (516 daily average for the week ending July 4). Then it increased again to over 1000 daily average in the first three weeks in August and then it decreased again to 710 daily average by the last week of September. Predictions are precarious with such volatile behavior of the epidemic wave. |