Did you read it? It basically says the government give us the thing to work the modelling round.
I read it, three times, to try and understand what people were getting excited about but I think it comes down to interpretation.
My interpretation is different to yours though, so I’ll try and say it how I read it -
I see a man who is involved in modelling for emergency response (that point is very important) simply saying ‘we model for worst case scenarios because they are the ones that will require action, and drive policy. We are asked ‘what will happen in a worst case scenario? Tell us so we can be prepared to create policy around mitigating IF we look like we are heading down a path towards worst case scenario.’
and
‘ we don’t need to waste time focussing on best case scenario outcomes and the government don’t want us to, because in those scenarios we do nothing. No action is required. Nothing is learned from looking at the path where no action is required. No policy discussions are needed if there is no action required’.
I hope that makes sense?
I think Fraser understands that and he knows exactly what he is doing. I mean he’s got lots of publicity for his paper and lots of people sharing the (non) story on Twitter and social media such as here. So he’s done his job.
But I fail to see how there is anything sensational or newsworthy in what Medley says, unless it’s misinterpreted.
I hope that makes sense?
Anyway, fingers crossed for good news from SA in the coming days. I’ve had a quick look and data from some of the other provinces looks like it *may be hinting at following Guatengn and peaking. Still early days but keeping everything crossed
Weekend reporting means probably 4 or 5 days before worth properly looking at it.
As Andy says, I don’t think we are far away from knowing one way or the other regarding severity, hospitalisations etc, maybe just a matter of a couple of weeks more data should provide enough to be able to paint a slightly clearer picture