States use models for choices

Politics mixing with science as officials make hard decisions

State leaders are relying on a hodgepodge of statistical models with wide-ranging numbers to guide their paths through the deadly coronavirus emergency and make critical decisions, such as shutting down businesses and filling their inventory of medical supplies.

During hurricane season, coastal states can trust the same set of computer models to warn of a storm’s track. During this pandemic, there is no uniform consensus to predict the toll and direction of the virus that is tearing through communities around the country.

With little agreed-upon information, governors and local officials are basically creating do-it-yourself sources of information with their own officials and universities.

The models have resulted in conflict in several locations.

About 75 protesters on Thursday called on Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine to reopen businesses and questioned the models used by his health director to continue the state’s shelter-athome order.

Critics have denounced an Iowa Health Department matrix as arbitrarily devised and yet being used by Gov. Kim Reynolds to rationalize her decision not to issue a stay-athome order.

The federal government and many states rely on a University of Washington model that’s the closest thing to a benchmark, but it is so imprecise that the latest projection for the death toll had a range of more than 100,000. In Washington D.C., health officials took the unusual step of publicly announcing that they didn’t trust the University of Washington’s updated model and embraced far more pessimistic predictions from a model created by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania.

Some states, including Alaska, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Minnesota and Louisiana, are incorporating the work of local researchers and other experts to fine-tune their models.

Some elected officials have cited the most dire forecasts in issuing stay-at-home orders. Others have seized on more optimistic figures from their models to justify their calls to loosen restrictions.

“We know now that a lot of the models out there are not accurate,” Missouri Gov. Mike Parso said in describing why he waited until Monday to issue his stay-at-home order.