Chapter 4: Modeling and the Covid-19 Pandemic: A Local Area Perspective

Modeling even simple aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic is more than challenging in the United States because of the sparsity of data (Stoto et al., 2022). There is no comprehensive testing (Hickok, 2020) and an active debate is taking place regarding the efficacy of testing (Brown 2020; DePillis & Chen, 2020). Adding to the uncertainty, we not only lack information on the total numbers infected, but we do not know if those who have been infected can be re-infected, the proportion of those who are infected who are asymptomatic, and when and how long they may infect others. In short, you have a forecaster’s nightmare.