Inaccurate Virus Models Are Panicking Officials Into Ill-Advised Lockdowns

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Misinformation is driving this mania. You have leftwing panicmongers like MSNBC’s O’Donnell predicting ‘millions’ will die if churches are ‘packed’ on Easter.

Inaccurate Virus Models Are Panicking Officials Into Ill-Advised Lockdowns

How a handful of Democratic activists created alarming, but bogus data sets to scare local and state officials into making rash, economy-killing mandates.

By Madeline Osburn, The Federalist, March 25, 2020

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As U.S. state and local officials halt the economy and quarantine their communities over the Wuhan virus crisis, one would hope our leaders were making such major decisions based on well-sourced data and statistical analysis. That is not the case.

A scan of statements made by media, state governors, local leaders, county judges, and more show many relying on the same source, an online mapping tool called COVID Act Now. The website says it is “built to enable political leaders to quickly make decisions in their Coronavirus response informed by best available data and modeling.”

An interactive map provides users a catastrophic forecast for each state, should they wait to implement COVID Act Now’s suggested strict measures to “flatten the curve.” But a closer look at how many of COVID Act Now’s predictions have already fallen short, and how they became a ubiquitous resource across the country overnight, suggests something more sinister.

When Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins announced a shelter-in-place order on Dallas County Sunday, he displayed COVID Act Now graphs with predictive outcomes after three months if certain drastic measures are taken. The NBC Dallas affiliate also embedded the COVID Act Now models in their story on the mandate.

The headline of an NBC Oregon affiliate featured COVID Act Now data, and a headline blaring, “Coronavirus model sees Oregon hospitals overwhelmed by mid-April.” Both The Oregonian and The East Oregonian also published stories featuring the widely shared data predicting a “point of no return.”

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer cited COVID Act Now when telling her state they would exceed 7 million cases in Michigan, with 1 million hospitalized and 460,000 deaths if the state did nothing.

A local CBS report in Georgia featured an Emory University professor urging Gov. Brian Kemp with the same “point of no return” language and COVID Act Now models.

The models are being shared across social media, news reports, and finding their way into officials’ daily decisions, which is concerning because COVID Act Now’s predictions have already been proven to be wildly wrong.

  • COVID Act Now predicted that by March 19 the state of Tennessee could expect 190 hospitalizations of patients with confirmed Wuhan virus. By March 19, they only had 15 patients hospitalized.
  • In New York, Covid Act Now claimed nearly 5,400 New Yorkers would’ve been hospitalized by March 19. The actual number of hospitalizations is around 750. The site also claimed nearly 13,000 New York hospitalizations by March 23. The actual number was around 2,500.
  • In Georgia, COVID Act Now predicted 688 hospitalizations by March 23. By that date, they had around 800 confirmed cases in the whole state, and fewer than 300 hospitalized.
  • In Florida, Covid Act Now predicted that by March 19, the state would face 400 hospitalizations. On March 19, Gov. Ron DeSantis said 90 people in Florida had been hospitalized.
  • COVID Act Now’s models in other states, including Oklahoma and Virginia, were also far off in their predictions. Jordan Schachtel, a national security writer, said COVID Act Now’s modeling comes from one team based at Imperial College London that is not only highly scrutinized, but has a track record of bad predictions.

 

 

So why is the organization or seemingly innocent online mapping tool using inaccurate algorithms to scaremonger leaders into tanking the economy? Politics, of course.

Founders of the site include Democratic Rep. Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins and three Silicon Valley tech workers and Democratic activists — Zachary Rosen, Max Henderson, and Igor Kofman — who are all also donors to various Democratic campaigns and political organizations since 2016. Henderson and Kofman donated to the Hillary Clinton campaign in 2016, while Rosen donated to the Democratic National Committee, recently resigned Democratic Rep. Katie Hill, and other Democratic candidates. Prior to building the COVID Act Now website, Kofman created an online game designed to raise $1 million for the eventual 2020 Democratic candidate and defeat President Trump. The game’s website is now defunct.

Perhaps the goal of COVID Act Now was never to provide accurate information, but to scare citizens and government officials into to implementing rash and draconian measures. The creators even admit as much with the caveat that “this model is designed to drive fast action, not predict the future.”

They generated this model under the guise of protecting communities from overrun hospitals, a trend that is not on track to happen as they predicted. Not only is the data false, and looking more incorrect with each passing day, but the website is optimized for a disinformation campaign.

A social media share button prompts users to share their models and alarming graphs on Facebook and Twitter with the auto-fill text, “This is the point of no return for intervention to prevent X’s hospital system from being overloaded by Coronavirus.”

The daunting phrase, the “point of no return,” is the same talking point being repeated by government officials justifying their shelter-in-place orders and filling local news headlines.

Democrats are not going to waste such a rich political opportunity as a global pandemic. Americans already witnessed Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and House Democrats attempt to take advantage of an economic recession with a pipe-dream relief bill this week. Projects like COVID Act Now are another attempt to play the same political games, but with help from unknown, behind-the-scenes Democratic activists instead.

Our community leaders, the mayors and the city councils, deserve better than to be swindled by a handful Silicon Valley tech bros. Our governors and state officials deserve better data and analysis than a Democratic activists’ model that doesn’t adjust for important geographical factors like population density or temperature. Americans and their families deserve better than to be jobless, hopeless, and quarantined because of a single website’s inaccurate and hyperbolic hospitalization models.

 

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felix1999
felix1999
4 years ago

DEMS running on fumes have to keep the panic and hysteria alive.
Their ignorant, emtionally driven base will eat it up. TDS must prevail!

Achmed Mohandjob
Achmed Mohandjob
4 years ago
Reply to  felix1999

It ain’t just Democrat Party members. Nohio’s governor, little mikki dawhiner, COMMANDED (yes, my lord) that all “nonessential” businesses be closed. And dawhiner is a Republican Party member.
It’s the cowardly populace, made up entirely of blithering idiots, of this nation that has allowed this.
Cowardly sheep being led by cowards.

felix1999
felix1999
4 years ago

I’d rather have him than who we have in NJ as Governor after RINO Christie. Gun shops are closed but dispensing cannabis is an essential business. NJ is very corrupt and always has been. There is no fixing it.comment image

Achmed Mohandjob
Achmed Mohandjob
4 years ago
Reply to  felix1999

Why are the cowardly sheep following mandates from socialist fascists?
I am ashamed to be an American.

felix1999
felix1999
4 years ago

I would never let others make me ashamed to be an American because of their behavior. I won’t give them that. I do understand where you are coming from. Collectively how others are is an embarassment.

NJ is totally trashed. RINO, Christie didn’t help by redistricting our township with garbage areas so our RINO was voted out and we have DEMS for Congress and the Senate now. Prior to Christie becoming Governor, when he was a state prosecutor, he could have easily DEPORTED people and enforced our laws and he chose to do nothing when it wasn’t so much of an issue. It came down to voting for the lessor of two evils and that is how he got in.

The demographics have also shifted from the usual corruptness to corruptness on steroids. We are crawling with people who need to be deported. Our invaders and illegals always vote for DEMS. NJ is also a sanctuary state so if you are an illegal or a criminal, we are a magnet for them.

Atleast three million of our tax dollars go to defending people up for deportation. Voters had no say in it. RINO Christie gave out scholarships to illegals to attend colleges/univesities and thought that was great and celebrated it.

This year, ILLEGALS now have drivers licenses and that too was allowed with no voter say and on and on it goes. Our representatives ignore us and over rule what voters want.

Hopefully we will be leaving in the near future before NJ becomes like California.

strangequark
strangequark
3 years ago
Reply to  felix1999

If I xeroxed your descriptive narrative of NJ and read it to my neighbor, he would conclude I was describing our state of WA…with one exception, we are “blessed” (cursed?) with Microsoft Billy.
Probably true of all blue states.

felix1999
felix1999
4 years ago

I would never let others make me ashamed to be an American because of their behavior. I won’t give them that. I do understand where you are coming from. Collectively how others are is an embarassment.

NJ is totally trashed. RINO, Christie didn’t help by redistricting our township with garbage areas so our RINO was voted out and we have DEMS for Congress and the Senate now. Prior to Christie becoming Governor, when he was a state prosecutor, he could have easily DEPORTED people and enforced our laws and he chose to do nothing when it wasn’t so much of an issue. It came down to voting for the lessor of two evils and that is how he got in.

The demographics have also shifted from the usual corruptness to corruptness on steroids. We are crawling with people who need to be deported. Our invaders and illegals always vote for DEMS. NJ is also a sanctuary state so if you are an illegal or a criminal, we are a magnet for them.

Atleast three million of our tax dollars go to defending people up for deportation. Voters had no say in it. RINO Christie gave out scholarships to illegals to attend colleges/univesities and thought that was great and celebrated it.

This year, ILLEGALS now have drivers licenses and that too was allowed with no voter say and on and on it goes. Our representatives ignore us and over rule what voters want.

Hopefully we will be leaving in the near future before NJ becomes like California.

Don39
Don39
4 years ago

Think of them as the enemy which would be acurate!

tedlv
tedlv
4 years ago
Reply to  felix1999

They are emptying the jails to make room for citizens exercising their first amendment rights of association.

Patriotic American
Patriotic American
4 years ago

If you were to ask me which businesses are truly “non-essential,” two on my list would be abortion clinics (obviously) and “transgender” clinics. Government has no business promoting and spreading dysphoric behaviors.

gfmucci .
gfmucci .
4 years ago

Add vaping, booze and pot shops.

Shadowfax
Shadowfax
4 years ago

He’s a megalomaniac who just HAS to be in political office. When he loses an office, he shows up somewhere else. He seems to believe he’s riding in on his white horse to save the day, but he is tearing this state to shreds. We’ve had some bad governors here, but this Republican is the worst ever. He will go down in infamy. With Republicans like him, who needs Democrats?

Achmed Mohandjob
Achmed Mohandjob
4 years ago
Reply to  Shadowfax

If you thought that Strickland was bad ….

Halal Bacon
Halal Bacon
4 years ago

packing heat in Church on Easter, what?

Achmed Mohandjob
Achmed Mohandjob
4 years ago
Reply to  Halal Bacon

I’m packin’ heat every Sunday-Go-to-Meeting.

Leonard Payne
Leonard Payne
4 years ago
Reply to  Halal Bacon

You better be!!!

tedlv
tedlv
4 years ago

“Dems are fear mongering on vapor.” Well, vaping has been shown to be dangerous! 🙂

Patriotic American
Patriotic American
4 years ago

So THAT’S the smoking gun. I’m not surprised, but I have bookmarked this page, and will certainly be citing these points to ANYBODY who tries to blackmail people with these COVID Act Now “statistics.”

And there’s a little error. What they’re putting out isn’t “misinformation.” It is deliberate DISINFORMATION.

stephen5970
stephen5970
4 years ago

Its the Al Gore technique. Come up with a chart and chicken little authorities (as if they actually are an authority) and get everyone to fall in line. All I know is that after 23 years of “global warming” and catastrophe the planet’s temperature has not risen, the oceans haven’t wiped out most of Oceania (no part, actually), the ice caps are still there, and the world is still spinning.

Just like the fear mongering of Gore, this group is doing no better, and its predictions are just as accurate. The only prediction they are doing is predicting and manufacturing fear.

Mark
Mark
4 years ago

Nbc is that fake media democrat shill Chuck Todd and Lester Holt channel. What a national broadcast comedy network.
I trust them as much as the Washington Post or the NY Times to tell the truth which is not at all.
Fear and sex sell unfortunately and right now they should be making fortunes.

John Acord
John Acord
4 years ago

Why would anyone use a private source for estimating impact of this disease.All The info need has been published by the CDC here: https://www.coronavirus.gov/

This is just another instance of Leftists making up facts they then sell to the LIbTards and those foolish enough to follow the Pied Pier into a Great Depression.

Leonard Payne
Leonard Payne
4 years ago

” Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer
COVID
Act Now when telling her state they would exceed 7 million cases in
Michigan, with 1 million hospitalized and 460,000 deaths if the state
did nothing.”

Yep, I left MI about 9 months ago ….. same reasons I left CA in 1971 …. abject STUPIDITY on the part of the States I quit.

Jen E.
Jen E.
4 years ago

One would think any governor with a brain who is not a Democratcommunist would recognize the similarity between the China Virus modeling and climate change modeling. Both tools of hysteria and panic used to control people.

cylde
cylde
4 years ago

We have one case in western Az. and they have closed down the state. Even the VFW and the Eagles, the Elks, the American Legion, and the Moose. Pure panic. we have a republican governor but he is most likely being guided by this fake study and fear of burgeoning numbers.

Don39
Don39
4 years ago

Only fools rely on models definitively! Humans create models, humans err.

Cauc-Asian Patriot
Cauc-Asian Patriot
4 years ago

THE SAD REALITY IS WE RIGHTISTS ARE IN TROUBLE NOW. THE GEORGE SOROS-IAN GLOBALIST BANKING CLIQUE IS WORKING TO DEFEAT US GLOBALLY! BET THIS ORG IS BEING FUNDED BY THEM!
A LOT OF THESE LOCK-DOWNS ARE A SHAM DESIGNED TO ESPECIALLY DESTROY REPUBLICAN AREAS AND EMPOWER DEM-RAT AREAS TO MAKE SURE THEIR DEM-WIT VOTERS VOTE! THEY WANT TO TAKE AWAY THE CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS OF MIDDLE CLASS, GOP VOTERS IN THE USA ESPECIALLY OUR MEANS OF SELF-DEFENSE!

Roland
Roland
4 years ago

Sounds like the predictions they make about global warming. According to the climatologist Ted Danson, in 1990 he told us the oceans would be devoid of life by the year 2000. Similar doom and gloom forecasts have also been proven wrong over the decades, yet we still listen to the “experts”.

Roland
Roland
4 years ago

I hate to say it, but they already know they are toast come November. This cacophony of wailing, gnashing of teeth and tearing of garments is going to extend far into the future. Call it the longest temper tantrum EVER!!!

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