With all due respect, Senator, you seem to be misunderstanding what COVID models are for. They aren't an answer. They're a tool. A test tube isn't the scientific method, either.
Part of what I think is getting lost here is that these COVID models are MEANT to change. That's the entire point. If they didn't take into account changes in human behavior and update results accordingly, they'd be useless.
A COVID model isn't a "prediction" in the sense of "I went to fortune teller and they told me I would meet a tall, dark stranger". Maybe a better way to think of it is like a flowchart. If you do X, then there's a pretty good chance Y will happen. If you don't, then outcome Z.
Another way to think about what COVID models are: They're a conversation we're having with ourselves. Not something chiseled into stone, handed down from on high. (Hey! Timely analogy! Happy Passover!)
The model shows a likely outcome under current conditions. We respond to it and, in doing so, change the conditions. Now we have new conditions, and a different set of likely outcomes. That's not proving the model wrong. That's using the model the way you're supposed to.
Also, yeah, none of these models are "right". @FiveThirtyEight wrote a whole story about that. But we have to make decisions, anyway. And (flawed, uncertain, ever-changing) models are part of that. Without them, we're left w/ even more-flawed guesswork.
fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-i…
fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-i…
