{"id":51212,"date":"2020-02-17T15:55:54","date_gmt":"2020-02-17T20:55:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=51212"},"modified":"2020-02-17T15:55:58","modified_gmt":"2020-02-17T20:55:58","slug":"disease-modelers-gaze-into-their-computers-to-see-the-future-of-covid-19-and-it-isnt-good","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=51212","title":{"rendered":"Disease modelers gaze into their computers to see the future of Covid-19, and it isn\u2019t good"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/2020\/02\/14\/disease-modelers-see-future-of-covid-19\/\">Disease modelers gaze into their computers to see the future of Covid-19, and it isn\u2019t good<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/STAT_China_Wuhan_COVID-19_coronavirus_49530315718_f467f93628_3k-645x645.jpg\" alt=\"COVID-19\"\/><figcaption>SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19.COURTESY NIAID-RML<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">At least 550,000 cases. Maybe 4.4 million. Or something in between.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Like weather forecasters, researchers who use mathematical equations to project how bad a disease outbreak might become are used to uncertainties and incomplete data, and&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/2020\/02\/11\/disease-caused-by-the-novel-coronavirus-has-name-covid-19\/\">Covid-19<\/a>, the disease caused by the new-to-humans coronavirus that began circulating in Wuhan, China, late last year, has those everywhere you look. That can make the mathematical models of outbreaks, with their wide range of forecasts, seem like guesswork gussied up with differential equations; the eightfold difference in projected Covid-19 cases in Wuhan,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.medrxiv.org\/content\/10.1101\/2020.02.10.20021725v1.full.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">calculated<\/a>by a team from the U.S. and Canada, isn\u2019t unusual for the early weeks of an outbreak of a never-before-seen illness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But infectious-disease models have been approximating reality better and better in recent years, thanks to a better understanding of everything from how germs behave to how much time people spend on buses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cYear by year there have been improvements in forecasting models and the way they are combined to provide forecasts,\u201d said physicist Alessandro Vespignani of Northeastern University, a leading infectious-disease modeler.<a href=\"https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/2020\/02\/04\/two-scenarios-if-new-coronavirus-isnt-contained\/\">Related:&nbsp;<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/2020\/02\/04\/two-scenarios-if-new-coronavirus-isnt-contained\/\"><strong>Experts envision two scenarios if the new coronavirus isn\u2019t contained <\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That\u2019s not to say there\u2019s not room for improvement. The key variables of most models are mostly the same ones epidemiologists have used for decades to predict the course of outbreaks. But with greater computer power now at their disposal, modelers are incorporating more fine-grained data to better reflect the reality of how people live their lives and interact in the modern world \u2014 from commuting to work to jetting around the world. These more detailed models can take weeks to spit out their conclusions, but they can better inform public health officials on the likely impact of disease-control measures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Disease modelers gaze into their computers to see the future of Covid-19, and it isn\u2019t good At least 550,000 cases. Maybe 4.4 million. Or something in between. Like weather forecasters, researchers who use mathematical equations to project how bad a disease outbreak might become are used to uncertainties and incomplete data, and&nbsp;Covid-19, the disease caused [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,7],"tags":[28817,29011,13043,29032,29033],"class_list":["post-51212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","category-survival-2","tag-coronavirus","tag-covid-19","tag-modelling","tag-sharon-begley","tag-stat-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=51212"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51212\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51213,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51212\/revisions\/51213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=51212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=51212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=51212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}