Infectious Disease Experts Don’t Know How Bad The Coronavirus Is Going To Get, Either

Infectious Disease Experts Don’t Know How Bad The Coronavirus Is Going To Get, Either

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/infectious-disease-experts-dont-know-how-bad-the-coronavirus-is-going-to-get-either/

Excerpt: The top-line numbers are sobering. The most recent survey, taken on March 16 and 17, found that, as a group, the experts think that as March 15, only 12 percent of infections in the U.S. had been reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They think there’s a 73 percent chance of a second wave of hospitalizations this fall. And they expect approximately 200,000 deaths in the U.S. by the end of the year. But averages can only tell you so much. When forecasting the future, it also matters what a person (or model) thinks the range of possibilities could be — how uncertain the forecast is, in other words. In this survey, the experts gave three answers to most questions, representing the most likely future scenario, and the best-case and worst-case scenarios.