And again, based on the 2nd (winter) wave of the pandemic ahead of us, and given that we currently stand around 10k deaths, the projection of 30k deaths by February seems reasonable. Note my earlier tweet about 2:1 ratio of 2nd to 1st wave in 1918/1919.
What's impressive to me in IHME is the forecast that we would/could save 10,000 Canadian lives in the months ahead with a national mask mandate. This, again, seems reasonable, based on best available data.
Mask mandates stand as an easy win. I think we are seeing them bear fruit right now in Ontario and Quebec. While both provinces have high case counts, growth is slower than would have been expected.
IHME, as with any model (our model, for sure) is imperfect. Canadian deaths r strongly driven by outbreaks in LTC facilities and (need to dive more into their supplementary materials) I don't think that can be captured in a nuanced way in a project of that scope.
The seasonal component is also really interesting...we'll only know post-hoc if that's right. But the model stands as a monumental achievement, and I think order-of-magnitude on deaths is correct.
Again, as @enkimute has noted, the spring wave was all about the virus, and this wave is all about us, and the choices we (and our leaders) make. We understand this beast well enough to control it if we choose to.
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