Your Planning is Unlikely to be Keeping Pace with COVID-19

Few seem to understand just how quickly the US' COVID-19 situation is deteriorating. On Sunday night when there were 56,800 COVID-19 patients in US hospitals I created three scenarios for how many would be hospitalized by the end of the month. The base case was 141k. The best-case was 108k, and the worst-case was 193k.

These forecasts may appear extreme, but in the three days since, the actual results match the worst case scenario. That's demonstrated in the attached chart where the actual results (white line) meets the red one.

For additional context, some European countries have recently experienced escalations more extreme than these.

Conventional forecasts haven’t kept up. The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation’s best case scenario for November 30 shows fewer hospitalizations than there are right now. The CDC’s month-end consensus forecast for COVID-19 deaths doesn't remotely reflect recent trends.

If the immediate course of this pandemic is critical to your planning, but its course is inexplicably outstripping your forecasts, then I can explain why and provide context and guidance to help you navigate these treacherous waters. Please feel free to email me at stephan@chaseintel.com to set up an initial consultation.