ABOVE: The cumulative sum of confirmed cases and deaths reported worldwide since the start of the outbreak in late December through March 12. Cases jumped in mid-February when Chinese authorities changed their criteria for recording COVID-19 cases.
SOURCE: ECDC
While politicians and the public obsess about how and when the coronavirus pandemic will peak, the scientists able to make such projections are struggling to get a grip on what’s happening right now. “Sorry, not doing any interviews at the moment so that we can fully focus on our local and regional response,” one leading US epidemiologist wrote in an email when contacted by The Scientist.
Like any other models, the projections of how the outbreak will unfold, how many people will become infected, and how many will die, are only as reliable as the scientific information they rest on. And most modelers’ efforts so far have focused on improving these data, ...
