Ruth Etzioni, a population health scientist at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and affiliate professor of biostatistics, says, "It's so gratifying in a way to see modeling in the news everyday," adding that quickly changing data about COVID-19 can be confusing.

Elizabeth Halloran, a biostatistician at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and University of Washington, told Business Insider that New York City probably has a two-week delay in reporting deaths, but even then some deaths won't receive a proper diagnosis.

Nearly 20 years of cumulative follow-up of the Women's Health Initiative (WHI) Dietary Modification trial turned up something new. For the first time there was a significant reduction in deaths due to breast cancer in the dietary intervention group

"But as modelers, we have a responsibility. We have to be humble. We must make sure that the key caveats and uncertainties that are the nature of our work find their way into the headlines and are not relegated to the fine print." – Ruth Etzioni, affiliate professor of biostatistics and Fred Hutch researcher

Many of us trust the tests we take, and believe the yes-or-no results they return, writes Affiliate Professor of Biostatistics and Fred Hutch researcher Ruth Etzioni. But we need to be more curious. In the fraught deliberations about the optimal path to re-opening the U.S., one theme that has emerged louder and clearer than any other: testing, testing, testing.

"If I had to put my nickel on it, we don't have very high herd immunity in this population currently," said Elizabeth Halloran, a professor of biostatistics at UW and a biostatistician at Fred Hutch. "What we've done is reduce our transmission, and every model shows that if we open things up now, we will just have a rebound."

As we face critical decisions about whether and how to resume our daily lives in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, we are being tempted into making the wrong comparisons writes Affiliate Professor of Biostatistics and Fred Hutch researcher Ruth Etzioni.

Affiliate Professor of Biostatistics and Fred Hutch researcher Ruth Etzioni writes that not all COVID-19 models are created equal. There are key differences between the models that are currently being used to guide the national conversation — differences that should be understood by the public.