MAY 5, 2020
THE LASTING ICON OF THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC will likely be the graphic associated with “flattening the curve.” The image is now familiar: a skewed bell curve measuring coronavirus cases that towers above a horizontal line-the health system’s capacity-only to be flattened by an invisible force representing “non-pharmaceutical interventions” such as school closures, social distancing, and full-on lockdowns.
How do the coronavirus models generating these hypothetical curves square with the evidence? What roles do models and evidence play in a pandemic? Answering these questions requires reconciling two competing philosophies in the science of COVID-19.