In the past 24 hours, there have been approximately 1,800 reported COVID deaths in the United States.
USA COVID-19 stats as of 08:30 AM on May 15, 2020
? Cases ?: 1,458,243 (+117.0)
☠️ Deaths ☠️: 86,942 (+5.0)
Updated GU,PR since 08:00 AM on May 15, 2020— USCovidDeathBot (@USCovidDeathBot) May 15, 2020
Today is May 15th.
The Council of Economic Advisors used an canned Excel tool to project that there would be virtually no deaths today just 10 days ago.
To better visualize observed data, we also continually update a curve-fitting exercise to summarize COVID-19's observed trajectory. Particularly with irregular data, curve fitting can improve data visualization. As shown, IHME's mortality curves have matched the data fairly well. pic.twitter.com/NtJcOdA98R
— CEA (@WhiteHouseCEA) May 5, 2020
Many people and sites, including Balloon-Juice did an immediate spit take of WTF-ery.
For there to have been no deaths in the past twenty four hours would strongly imply that there were no infections after the last couple of days of April. We know that COVID kills comparatively slowly. There is usually a significant gap between infection and testing, and then testing and hospitalization and finally between hospitalization and death.
So besides dunking on the CEA, what can we learn from this?
There are an incredible number of models out there. Some are trying to project infection rates. Others are attempting to predict hospitalization capacity. More are coming online to identify the safest way to re-open up limited physical interaction. Some of these models are going to be good. Some are going to be great at one specific task and useless for everything else, and others are going to be cubic fit dumpster fires.
How do you tell the difference?