Since IB bankers always make a big deal about how fantastic they are at modelling and that it is one of the best things you learn from IB. Can bankers actually model the epidemy to forecast peak and mortality rate? Maybe given that they have some medical/epidemiology knowledge.
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Big difference between financial modeling and the type of modeling you're talking about
are you dumb or are you stupid
Yes. In addition to reading 10-Ks, bankers also all have Fauci-level understandings of the spread of infectious disease.
you cannot even find the raw excel data. so good luck. if you have a higher math and biology background, you can model some of the curves with basic assumptions but there are so many exogenous factors driving the curvature and variables like social distancing / masks that you cannot model. however if you get the data, you can get a sense what a logical curve may look like. try to get historical data by geography, you won’t find much.
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OP- here
kinda knew that was a stupid question but really wanted to extend to what extend the modelling skills are transferable outside of finance since they are so talked about.
I suppose I see what you're trying to ask, but I think it is worth recognizing that the financial models used in banking are not terribly complex in the grand scheme of things. A simple epidemiological model like an SIR model could definitely be created in excel, but for anything of legitimate scientific value you're going to want to work with a general-purpose programming language. At that point, you're well beyond the skillset that IB equips you with, and that's only considering the "tools" for creating your model. The math is a whole different challenge. That's not to say that there aren't bankers who are capable of that type of work – just that they didn't learn it from banking.
Wasn't a stupid question at all. All of the sheep who are falling over themselves to tell you how stupid you are to question experts, haven't read the experts' work. The experts come to wildly different conclusions and use logic that is in direct conflict with one another. Its exposed the fact that they can be experts in a narrow field and still not have the critical thinking and analytical abilities to properly assess a once-in-a-lifetime situation.
Anytime someone speaks up on this, the protests are immediate and aggressive. "Who do you think you are questioning the experts?!". Methinks the lady doth protest too much. I think we've got a lot of bankers out there who lack the courage and analytical ability to build their own model, so they shout down others who try. If you tell yourself that only degreed experts can have a view, you don't have to acknowledge that other finance professionals are smarter than you are.
The sharpest expert on this, in the minds of many, has been Dr. Scott Gottlieb. Who worked in IB before med school and barely practiced medicine before becoming a VC where he's spent most of his career. Gee I wonder what he'd say if we asked him whether a finance skillset has been relevant to forming his projections on Covid?
Consensus epidemiology said 500k-1m US deaths, and that's after our mitigations began. The expert predictions were several million deaths without mitigations, although one has to question why even bother making such a prediction.
You'll notice, the new number is now 100k-250k deaths in the US.
Watch it come down further, and watch all the sheep come out and say "yeah that's just because of the mitigation." No sheep, the mitigation was already built in.
Its takes time to build a good model. But if someone has the time, they should try. The experts models are rife with unreasonable assumptions, which is why they have to keep publishing new work to correct bad assumptions made by others.
Not sure why there are so many people dumping on this question. Epidemiologists are social scientists, so their papers and models are similar to what you might find in Econ or public policy circles.
Certainly different from financial modeling but not something that is so far removed as to be unrecognizable. I’d suggest the op simply google “covid-19 models” and take a look. Assumptions will focus on infection fatality rate, case fatality rate, rate of spread, icu beds per 1000 people, population demographics etc.
People are dumping on the question because they know they aren't smart enough to critically analyze the experts' work. So as a defense mechanism, they dump on anyone else who tries. Prevents them from having to admit to themselves they lack the drive and/or intelligence to do more with their skillset.
Know this is a quasi-troll post, but yes; most good analysts could probably build a decent (excel) framework to project viral spread, especially if they have some sort of econometric background. However, any model is only as good as its A) input data and B) assumptions, and those are both — to put it kindly — all over the place right now. So no, some bored kid at Citi isn’t going to produce a spot-on forecast, unless he gets really lucky with guesses for “A” and “B.”
You are correct, but that data limitation applies to the experts as well. When you look at their papers you see they're not working with anything the public doesn't have.
Yup -- didn't mean to imply experts currently have 'MNPI.' They've got better-suited forecasting tools, of course, but at the moment that's not the limitation.
Heads up to anyone in NYC who may have gotten overly optimistic after hearing governor's report today.
He reported a slight reduction in deaths, which is a good thing.
He also reported a very misleading hospitalization figure, that unfortunately is being read very incorrectly.
He reported that there were 574 new hospitalizations in NY yesterday, compared to 1,709 discharges. This number is NOT at all what it sounds.
574 is the net new additions to the hospital rolls. That's after accounting for anyone who's no longer a patient (including deaths and discharges).
So the true number of hospitalizations is 574 + 1,709 + however many people died in the hospital, which is probably damn near all of the 594 deaths. Grand total: over 2,800 people checked into the hospital with coronavirus.
I don't believe Cuomo did this on purpose; he clued me into the error with his own comment that "new hospital admissions were affected by discharges" which obviously makes no sense intuitively. I investigated further and am confident in the 2,800 figure after going through the official data.
So hospitalization grew by a net 574, which is a drop in pace and a good thing. Overall, plenty to be optimistic about in his report. Just want to clarify the hospitalization point, which is pretty far off.
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