This is how big of an overshoot the COVID projection was

The last time I wrote about The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) COVID-19 Projections for the United States was in #FloridaMorons is trending on Twitter, so let’s take a look at the Florida Coronavirus trends on April 18th.

I said:

Models Misbehaving

I’m sure there will be no shortage of criticism of the models attempting to predict things like hospital resource us such as the COVID-19 Projections from Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) that were widely used. The model had many assumptions, as any model would, and sometimes models get it wrong. Keep in mind, this model assumed social distancing, too, so it wasn’t a model misbehaving from our success in flattening the curve.

Below is an image I saved on April 11th, already showing Florida hospital resource use was improving.

Here it is today. Their educated guesses overestimated resource use, though it wasn’t a big surprised to me, since I paid attention to the wide range of possibilities they illustrated.

How inaccurate were they?

On March 27, 2020 the projected infections was 259, 204, but the confirmed infections was 16,576.

The brown line at the bottom is the confirmed infections, the higher line is their projections.

COVID – 19 isn’t over.

It’s still spreading, but not nearly as they predicted.

Mike Shell is the Founder and Chief Investment Officer of Shell Capital Management, LLC, and the portfolio manager of ASYMMETRY® Global TacticalMike Shell and Shell Capital Management, LLC is a registered investment advisor focused on asymmetric risk-reward and absolute return strategies and provides investment advice and portfolio management only to clients with a signed and executed investment management agreement. The observations shared on this website are for general information only and should not be construed as advice to buy or sell any security. Securities reflected are not intended to represent any client holdings or any recommendations made by the firm. Any opinions expressed may change as subsequent conditions change.  Do not make any investment decisions based on such information as it is subject to change. Investing involves risk, including the potential loss of principal an investor must be willing to bear. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. All information and data are deemed reliable but is not guaranteed and should be independently verified. The presence of this website on the Internet shall in no direct or indirect way raise an implication that Shell Capital Management, LLC is offering to sell or soliciting to sell advisory services to residents of any state in which the firm is not registered as an investment advisor. The views and opinions expressed in ASYMMETRY® Observations are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect a position of  Shell Capital Management, LLC. The use of this website is subject to its terms and conditions.