Best model to follow for Stanislaus County’s possible surge? Stay at home

If you’re wondering when COVID-19 cases might hit a peak here in Modesto and Stanislaus County, join the club.

In every coronavirus briefing on all levels across the country each day, it seems, experts are asked a similar question. It’s natural to wonder when the worst will come where we are, as if we’re bracing for a volcano to erupt, or a hurricane to hit the mainland.

We want to know when this slow-moving nightmare that has caused so much pain — physically, in dozens of our own people, and economically to so many more — might ramp down. We want to know when we might return to our regular lives, if that’s even an option.

Models are supposed to help with that.

Models provide us with a scientific forecast, one based on data instead of emotions or hunches.

Here’s the problem: there simply are too many coronavirus models out there.

The White House relies on one, California another, North Carolina yet another, and so on across the nation. One leans heavily on the recorded surge where the virus originated in China; another prefers numbers from Western Europe, where government reaction might be closer to that in the United States. Some factor in the weather, or distancing compliance, or hospital and ventilator capacity.

If the various models told the same story, the mystery would be much less intriguing. But they don’t.

IHME model from University of Washington

For example, experts in our nation’s capitol, Washington, D.C., put their faith in modeling that forecasts a peak there about June 28, and a need for 1,453 ventilators. The White House, however, relies on a more optimistic model from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, which predicts a D.C. peak next week — April 16 — and a need for only 107 ventilators, according to The Washington Post.

“When it comes to predictions, statisticians have a favorite maxim: `All models are wrong, but some are useful,’” The Post reports.

Here in Stanislaus County, leaders have discussed a University of Pennsylvania model showing that our hospitals and their combined 1,200 beds (in Modesto, Turlock and Oakdale) would be swamped with very sick people as early as next week, if people were ignoring stay-home orders and flouting the 6-foot rule in public. Reducing contact 40% could push the peak to mid-June, a subsequent model shows, giving authorities more time to set up surge overflow facilities like the one underway at the former Scenic hospital, which has room for an additional 110 patients.

But we’re not ignoring directives. Most of us are behaving, making the early model inaccurate.

Stanislaus County leaders work on new models

County leaders say they’re working on a new model that could be ready in a week.

Is there a model we can count on? That will satisfy our morbid curiosity, and allow us to plan our lives?

When will this scourge finally body-slam us?

The answer to that question isn’t known.

Here’s what we do know: Hunkering down is working. Keeping our distance has helped to keep our numbers low — no Stanislaus deaths, as of Thursday morning. Wearing masks when we do venture out is helping to slow the spread.

The answer is to stay the course, stay committed to doing our part, and stay home.