Thursday, April 2, 2020

making sense of chaos

It's what we do as humans - extrapolate from data in hand. Today it's being done from tiny amounts of data, which leads to very risky interpretations.

We always seek what's coming next, whether to make our fortunes or prepare for the worst. Clearly we didn't do that latter for a viral onslaught; today will probably put us at a million confirmed cases of covid-19 infection, and 50000 deaths. Big cities are easy to find by the red circles of infection, but it really has spread to nearly every corner of the globe. Greenland now has a few cases! People are rightly worried - but they seek answers that time has not provided yet. Pregnant women want to know how the virus will interact with their fetus; we all want to know, but sadly the test cases are still enwombed.

Another very common to forecast future data is a simple one: to know what to wear tomorrow. It's now April so the flowers are coming out, and cold-weather gear can be consigned to a deep closet.

Or not.
None of this is forecast to accumulate more than 1/2 inch. But the fact that it's early April makes it a small sample-size for predicting such things! Models for weather are far more developed than for a previously-unknown virus, however.

As always, we'll wait and see how it plays out.


The wait for snow is over; it did not happen. Perhaps a few flakes at 2AM but nothing ever appeared on ground or deck. As to the virus.. now over 1 million cases worldwide, and climbing steadily.