IHME’s base-case forecast and the rapid-variant-spread alternative are barely distinguishable at the moment because the main forecast already factors in rapid spread of B.1.1.7, with the alternative adding in the South African B.1.351 variant. The increased-mobility forecast assumes all of that plus mobility moving “toward pre-Covid-19 levels” among those who have already been vaccinated, although it also probably works as a proxy for more widespread, if less sharp, behavioral change.
All in all, the IHME forecast seems like a pretty good starting point for thinking about the next few months. There’s good reason to hope that the worst is over. There’s also good reason to be extremely careful until vaccines are more widely available.
I have actually found myself becoming more cautious lately because I’d feel like such an idiot if I caught Covid mere weeks before becoming eligible to be vaccinated (I’m 57, so I’m thinking it won’t be long). A group of Danish political scientists and computer scientists want to encourage such behavior on a mass scale, arguing in a not-yet-peer-reviewed paper that public health messaging should now focus on “buying time with hope.” That is, the pandemic will be over soon in any case thanks to vaccines, but careful behavior can sharply reduce the intervening toll. The main tool of such messaging, they propose, should be charts similar to the one above. The pink line seems a lot more attractive than the gray one, right?
Justin Fox is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering business. He was the editorial director of Harvard Business Review and wrote for Time, Fortune and American Banker. He is the author of The Myth of the Rational Market.