Dr. Fauci on Fox News tonight, on modeling: “I have always been and still am and will always be somewhat reserved and skeptical of models because models are only as good as the assumptions that you put into the models.” 1/2

2/2 I take him at his word, but you would not known of his skepticism from his and Dr. Birx’s comments at the WH Covid 19 briefing on 3/29, the day the president announced he was extending his social distancing guidelines another 30 days.

Yes, he spoke the familiar boilerplate about the uncertainty of models and their dependence on assumptions, but he also said he found the 100,000 dead number “extremely conceivable” if we didn’t do mitigation to the extent he was urging. But note this on mitigation from Birx:

Birx 3/29: “it’s anywhere in the model between 80,000 and 160,000, maybe even potentially 200,000 people succumbing to this. That’s with mitigation. In that model, they make full assumption that we continue doing exactly what we’re doing, but even better...”