The author could be practicing a superforecasting exercise of coming up with probability estimates and grading them at the end of the year to calibrate, but this author doesn't show his work as to where these estimates come from.
For example:
> In hindsight the 70% prediction was somewhat overconfident, and a prediction of about 45% would have been better
That's a huge post-hoc adjustment, what factors were important? Just because a p70 event does not occur does not mean that it did not warrant a p70 at the time.
Edit: I don’t think the parent comment deserved to be flag killed. It’s entirely legitimate to point out that the author is not an epidemiologist or biologist or any other relevant -ist, and that early on you often need the domain experience to sift hype or panic from actual data. This is doubly true given the somewhat sensational tone here (“we’re f**ed”).