Modellers wrong again: prediction

Vincent J. Curtis

11 Jan 22

RE: COVID hospitalizations forecasted to rise rapidly. Story by Joanna Frketich.  Tha Hamilton Spectator 11 Jan 22.

I’ve made a small living calling b.s. on Ontario’s COVID forecasters, starting with the 20,000 per day by Christmas, 2020, made on November 12 by Dr. A. Brown.  They were off by a factor of three, peaking at 6500 per day.  The latest forecast is that Hamilton’s hospitalizations will “rise rapidly.”

Sorry, Ontario is now well past the peak.  The peak occurred at Christmas with over 18,000 cases in one day, but daily case numbers dropped rapidly afterwards, and the January 11^th case numbers are below 10,000.  Granted, hospitalizations lag cases by about a week, but we’re past that time and hospitalizations have leveled off at the 2400 range.  Couple this with the fact that the Omicron variant is less severe than delta or alpha, and it means that Ontario has seen the worst of this wave already.

Contrary to forecasters, Hamilton’s hospitalizations are not going to get worse over the next two weeks, and if they did, you’d have to wonder at hospital management, now two years into the pandemic.

Enough with the panic-porn.  People don’t need to be scared any more with the COVID menace.  Want to see the consequence of locking down to protect the health care system?  See the other story on page 1, “Dying young.”  The average age of people dying on the street is 36.  The average age of death from COVID is around 80.

To hell with frightening people.

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