Steve Hanke and Kevin Dowd write about Imperial College’s long record of bad pandemic forecasts, and why we should be skeptical of worst-case death estimates:

The model’s major flaw is its assumption that people would be unresponsive to the dangers that accompany a pandemic. That behavioral assumption is unrealistic. If people are told they are in danger of catching a potentially lethal disease, most will take action to reduce their exposure. The Imperial team turned the world on its head with fantasy numbers about a scenario that could never materialize.
Before hurrying into panicked policy decisions, U.K. policy-makers should have been aware that Neil Ferguson’s Imperial College team had a history of defective modeling. With minimal effort, policy-makers would have quickly discovered that that team had a track record that makes astrology look respectable. . . .