Having more than one model and more than one modeling approach is useful to decision makers to help set boundaries and provide nuance to the specific outcomes that any one model predicts. The challenge, common to any decision making process in uncertainty, is to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the modeling approach, of the analysts using it and of the underlying data to assess both the course of action most likely to produce optimal results and the probability of unexpected outcomes and severity of their consequences. Forecasting the likely civic responses to the pandemic is, if anything, more challenging than forecasting the behavior of the virus itself. To a certain and very real degree, everyone is a decision maker in regard to the civic response to the pandemic from world leaders to local leaders to you and the person next door. While government and other leaders set rules and make recommendations, each individual decides to what degree they will comply and conform or not. Those decisions can accumulate to reinforce or undermine the boundaries that have been set. Fortunately, in terms of forecasting civic response, the behavior of large groups of individuals exhibits enough similarity to fluid dynamics, network dynamics, and various non-linear patterns that it can be modeled with fairly robust confidence using appropriate methods. Essentially, the behavior of each individual in a large group tends to consistently move the group as a whole in ways that can be forecast with some level of certainty. A simple example would be a flock of birds, where each bird is acting individually with no overarching communication amongst the group saying: “everyone turn left,” yet the flock does precisely that when the situation warrants. While our understanding of the processes and ability to model them at real world levels for human interaction is still evolving, we have reached the point where we can make surprisingly accurate predictions in a systematic manner. To a certain extent this is not surprising. We individually and corporately make such predictions everyday as we enact public policy, invest in stocks or businesses, choose careers or educational paths and make countless other decisions. The choices are made with varying degrees of thought and input, but, whether innate or considered, they are based upon precisely the same attempts to predict future outcomes that formal forecasting models attempt to replicate with more rigor and reliability. The greatest complication in evaluating likely civic responses to the pandemic comes from the role of certain key individual actors in roles that can have outsized influence on the outcome. Presidents, governors, business executives, faith leaders and other opinion leaders can change the direction of the group as a whole if their power and/or influence is sufficient. They effectively become additional exogenous variables. While group behavior can be modeled, individual behavior is still subject to unpredictable and potentially significant swings. When the individual is not constrained by the group dynamic to the same degree and exercises outsized influence on the group as a whole, that individual can literally change history. To use the same example, if the hypothetical flock did in fact have an absolute leader, they could potentially order the flock to turn right or fly straight through rather than turn left as it naturally would have and the group would obey.
∴ PROGNOSIS
28
Made with FlippingBook - Online catalogs