[1]. https://spiral.imperial.ac.uk/bitstream/10044/1/77482/5/Impe...
You do realize this guy, the first guy listed in the paper, originally said the UK would loose 400,000 and the US 2 million no matter what. Now he's saying 20k for the US, but he's still trying to tell us his original estimate wasn't wrong, it was just assuming people did nothing, which is not what his original estimate said at all!
None of his estimates have matched the numbers so far, not even in Italy. Ferguson and his other researchers are spreading bad and dangerous information.
That 'original estimate' is from the paper that 'alexandercrohde linked, and that's pretty much exactly what his original estimate said.
> In the (unlikely) absence of any control measures or spontaneous changes in individual behaviour, we would expect a peak in mortality (daily deaths) to occur after approximately 3 months(Figure 1A). In such scenarios, given an estimated R0 of 2.4, we predict 81% ofthe GB and US populations would be infected over the course of the epidemic. Epidemic timings are approximate given the limitations of surveillance data in both countries: The epidemic is predicted to be broader in the US than in GB and to peak slightly later. This is due to the larger geographic scale of the US, resulting in more distinct localised epidemics across states (Figure 1B)than seen across GB. The higher peak in mortality in GB is due to the smaller size of the country and its older population compared with the US. In total, in an unmitigated epidemic, we would predict approximately 510,000 deaths in GB and 2.2 million in the US, not accounting for the potential negative effects of health systems being overwhelmed on mortality.
"In the (unlikely) absence of any control measures or spontaneous changes in individual behaviour" means "assuming people do nothing."
Can you please provide a link to more info about the 20k number?
EDIT: thanks to 'alexandercrohde, the 20k number is in fact for the UK, not the US, meaning that it is from this same paper too (see rest of thread)
'djsumdog, it's pretty clear who is spreading misinformation here, and it isn't Ferguson. I don't know where you get your information, but Ferguson has not shown any inconsistency. The report gave numbers for the unmitigated scenario and the scenario with mitigations. I don't see how he could be accused of walking back his original prediction when they were all presented at once in a single table.
Whatever numbers can be believed, the US is already over 4000 deaths at 900+/day.
The other poster is probably basing their numbers off this tally, which is more up to date and shows 912 deaths yesterday:
https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/s...
Researchers go and model data, making every caveat imaginable along the way, and then predict outcomes based on possible actions taken, and your response is to label them as spreading "bad" and "dangerous" information. You're literally condemning them for doing the science at all. You're inadvertently screaming at models...
Author's character aside, the math still seems right to me.
But I'm receptive to any published journal articles that explain how 350m people with a 1%~ fatality rate leads to less than 1m deaths.