Think about human-caused climate change: projections of climate change are based on some of the most complex models run on some of the fastest computers in the world. The climate is the most complicated biogeophysical system on the planet, affected by factors as varied as the output of the sun and tilt of the earth; the composition of the atmosphere; the behavior of winds, clouds, and ocean currents; interactions between the oceans, land, and atmosphere; and the behavior of plants and animals.
Scientists are now building models to try to understand and project the path of the pandemic. How many people will get sick or die? What will be the consequences for society and the economy? How will different public policies, medical choices, and personal decisions influence the outcomes? The models will continue to improve based on our developing scientific understanding of the infectiousness of the virus, the survival rate of the virus in different environments, the reaction of individuals to infection, the role of pre-existing conditions, the effectiveness of medical interventions, and much more.
The takeaway here is that we shouldn’t dismiss one model just because it offers a widely different picture of the future than another. Don’t look at the divergent projections from these models and conclude the models are bad. These models are critical to help us explore the most effective actions to take to minimize what we care about: deaths, illnesses, and a damaged economy.