Except just about nowhere is like northern Italy’s situation. It’s apples to oranges. There’s so much more to it all than a Reddit Excel graphic meme.

This entire thing has become a meme and it’s mainly wrong. It’s a serious issue but these kinds of data analysis are just super wrong. They are missing all context.

Italy is an awful model. Look to cities like NYC or London for realistic worst case scenarios as they’ve had infections just as long. And they are the worst case as most places don’t have anywhere near the foreign travel or social proximity.

It will get much worse than now (it’s not even bad yet almost everywhere in terms of ICU PATIENTS). But this ridiculous idea that the Italian situation is going to replicate in most places is bad analysis.

Sure, obviously, there's much more to it than this. But consider the HR manager who's looking at the latest CDC numbers showing a few cases in state and wondering why people like me are getting so worked up and begging executives to transition our offices to remote work as soon as possible.

For someone like that, I'm hoping this flips a switch and they get a glimpse of a troubling and increasingly dangerous future that's only a week or two away.

I'm reminded of the Daniel Kahnemann quote:

an algorithm that is constructed on the back of an envelope is often good enough to compete with an optimally weighted formula, and certainly good enough to outdo expert judgment

Unfortunately, the expert judgment in some cases may be from a decision-maker who takes their cue on current affairs from sports radio or, god help us, the President of the United States himself.

Why do you think it's a ridiculous idea that the US might follow in Italy's footsteps? (Honest question, I'd love for that to be the case)

I don't think anyone is suggesting that the situation in Italy is 100% accurately "going to replicate in most places". It's only an example to warn us of the kind of human tragedy that could happen if we don't get our sh*t together in the US.

No one cares if the theoretically more accurate number really should be 20K cases and not 50K cases in 10 days. The point is we need to act NOW rather than 10 days later. As Dr. Fauci said, it's probably better for us to be overreacting at this point than under-reacting. [1]

[1] https://thehill.com/homenews/sunday-talk-shows/487639-fauci-...

London or NHS barely tests and you can't get tested on request. I have been having pneumonia for the last days now and can't even get antibiotics for it. They don't let me visit my GP or the hospital.

I imagine their thought is that, it spread to Italy and the other big US cities at about the same time (we have just not done as much testing). And that we have not had the deaths they had.

Can't use case numbers in the US since we aren't testing unless you're dying of pneumonia.