Where are the models that predict how many people will have long term disabilities due to COVID-19? And another set of models that predict economic damage (in a variety of areas and dimensions) due to deaths and disabilities and shutdowns? The virus causes much more damage than just deaths, both human and economic, and it would be useful to have a picture of the total cost in multiple dimensions. In particular though, no one seems to have any idea currently how much disability is being caused, which seems like a very important thing to understand. I would have thought that epidemiologists would already understand this and would have had models ready to go for both the disability and economic aspects. There are probably other dimensions that could be modeled also, such as disruption to transportation, effects on climate, effects on wild life, effects on insects, effects on rodents, effects on agriculture, etc. Modeling just new cases and deaths provides a really limited view of what is going on.<p>Some dimensions might be tough to model in advance, especially if they depend on the specific characteristics of the disease, but we have some historical examples to work with. Maybe a higher level approach would help, build a model generator that produces models tailored to the specific aspects of a disease. Or create a set of building blocks that can be connected to create a tailored model.
They did adapt the models to predict number of ICU beds and ventilators needed, but the modeling of the repercussions of a pandemic seems to be lacking. Perhaps corporations are doing their own modeling (almost certainly) but the public needs this information too.<p>Edited to add: I did find this economic forecast, which isn't a model, just a sampling of opinions of economists:<p><a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/dont-expect-a-quick-recovery-our-survey-of-economists-says-it-will-likely-take-years/" rel="nofollow">https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/dont-expect-a-quick-rec...</a>