In this post, I want to focus on how the IHME model treats the five states of the Upper Midwest: Minnesota, Wisconsin, North Dakota, South Dakota and Iowa. Importantly, IHME says clearly that all of its projections are “assuming full social distancing through May 2020.” For the reasons stated below, I don’t think that assertion can be true. Like others, the IHME model is opaque and apparently inconsistent.
Minnesota and Wisconsin have both implemented stay-home orders and closed most businesses, as the IHME site recognizes. IHME currently projects 442 fatalities in Minnesota and a similar number, 357, in Wisconsin. But now take a look at Iowa, North Dakota and South Dakota.
IHME projects 743 COVID-19 deaths in Iowa, considerably more than either Minnesota or Wisconsin. Iowa has around one-half the population of Minnesota and is more rural. It projects 369 deaths in North Dakota and 356 in South Dakota. South Dakota’s population is one-seventh that of Minnesota and the state is even more rural than Iowa.
What is going on here? IHME correctly notes, on its pages dedicated to Iowa, North Dakota and South Dakota, that those states have not implemented stay-home orders and have not closed “non-essential” businesses. One can only assume that the much higher per capita death rates that IHME assigns to these states reflects the absence of such measures.
So basically the models are suggesting that smaller and more rural states Iowa, North and South Dakota will all see much higher rates of casualties due to Covid-19 than Minnesota or Wisconsin. This assumption is build entirely off the assumption that stay at home orders and closing businesses down will have a very positive effect. But how is it been playing out?
- Wisconsin - 137 (357 predicted)
- Minnesota - 64 (442 predicted)
- Iowa - 34 (743 predicted)
- North Dakota - 7 (369 predicted)
- South Dakota - 6 (356 predicted)
Well not so well if you are the IHME from the standpoint of accurate predicting. But then again the IHME has been moving the curve forward so that pretty much all of the deaths for North and South Dakota will start sometime in the future and not hit their peaks till sometime in May. Apparently if you do nothing, the Covid-19 virus acts more slowly? Not sure how that makes any sense, but perhaps there is a reasonable explanation that escapes me at this point.
But let's be clear. The bulk of the businesses in North Dakota, South Dakota, or Iowa are much more likely to weather this storm being able to stay open and employees are less likely to fall behind in bills or have to dip into savings to stay afloat if they are being paid. Even if the IHME projections turn out to be true, would the total shut down of the economy be justified to "hypothetically" keep these numbers lower than the 743, 369, 356 projected?
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