Rather disconcerting numbers

Against a backdrop of a serious increase in reported infections in Bacolod, with the mayor complaining about a lack of medical staff, and the city put under more strict MECQ quarantine rules,
and the Philippines yesterday reporting the 6th highest number of daily deaths in the world,
I came across a paper that causes me some real concern.
It was written by IHME, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, a research center at the University of Washington, and the source of the much quoted model/prediction that says total Covid-19 deaths in the USA might reach over 400,000 by year end.
They have written an update about their model and published it here:
http://www.healthdata.org/sites/default/files/files/Projects/COVID/briefing_Global_091120.pdf

For those who can't be bothered to read the article (there's several more to be found on their models for different parts of the world, the one I linked to is the global piece):
1. They predict around 25 million new cases per day worldwide by the end of the year in their worst case scenario (if governments keep "easing" the rules). This contrasts sharply with the current number of new infections per day. In that same scenario the number of deaths is predicted to increase to 4 million in total until the end of the year, which would imply 3 million deaths between now and then.
2. Deaths in the Philippine would rise from the current 4,000 or so to 100,000 by year end in this same scenario of easing rules. New infections in the Philippines would peak at more than 1 million per day by end of November.

Even in their "reference scenario", which doesn't assume the relaxation of rules will continue, new cases and cumulative deaths are still expected to explode from current levels.

At first glance I thought these predictions are way too gloomy, they must have missed something crucial, but I can't put my finger on it. They appear to have incorporated all available information about improved treatment of patients, about seasonality, effect of government measures, behaviour of people in response to such measures, and whatever else one might think of.

Obviously, the proof of the pudding will be in the eating, but I can't help feeling a fair bit more uncertain after reading up about the IHME's modeling of the Covid Future.

 

If this prediction comes true then the World economy really will be a basket case - and some poor countries, such as the Philippines, are going to go down the drain.

Let's all hope it is incorrect. Oh, and buy gold.

 

Moving to the province by end of year, stocking pantry and hunker down...

 

One more thing might be good to mention, the IMHE model tries to predict all infections with Covid-19, not just the ones caught by testing, but it remains a quite sobering prediction. By year end about 25% of the population in the Philippines would have been infected in their reference scenario. This is similar to the prediction for the southern USA and NY state, and more than double the predicted percentages for most of Europe and the rest of the USA.
These predictions would put Covid-19 firmly in the top 3 of causes of death for the entire year 2020 worldwide.

 

Yes, but this is not a choice in modern society.

One could argue that there are casualties in war and a few old people is a small price to pay in the war against the pandemic.

One could argue that we would have been much better off if we simply let anybody over 65 fend for themselves without medical care. We would have avoided the enormous medical costs, the costs to shut down our economy and we would save again by not having to pay the ones who died their retirement.

But this is not a choice in today's society.

Sadly the spectrum of options and the resulting outcomes was not communicated well to society so there are many quacks creating misinformation to fill in the void.

 

Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) is run by Bill Gates. You can decide for yourself if you think he is a credible source.

 

IHME’s projections have remained wholly inconsistent throughout the pandemic, particularly for “vastly overstating projections of regular and ICU hospital beds needed,” as Breitbart News detailed.

In early April, the IHME model indicated that only 13,010 regular hospital beds were available across the state of New York — a significant error, as Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) announced 90,000 available hospital beds, roughly 77,000 more than the model stated.

That same month, IHME dramatically dropped peak hospitalization projections for the United States by 34 percent over the span of just three days, revising its forecast from 86,479 total hospital beds needed to 56,831. IHME attributed the dramatic reduction to its own inaccurate prediction after observing “actual hospitalization data” from April 10-12.

 

The IMHE receives a sizable part of its funding from The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, among many other donations. Bill Gates doesn't "run" the IMHE, the Gates Foundation isn't even represented in the board of directors of IMHE.