I'm Dr. Saline Gounder and this is epidemic.

In this episode I speak with Michael Donnelly, whose background is in economic research, financial

policy, and data science.

He's worked in the US federal government in various research positions for six years and in

the private sector for almost seven years.

Last Wednesday Michael published an analysis to provide a broad sense of the scale of the crisis the country is facing.

He found that reported cases of COVID-19 in the United States dramatically understate

the current number of infected Americans.

The same week, Michael published another analysis, looking at the New York City metro area.

His results were startling.

The outlook for New York City in COVID-19 is bleak.

The policy

to meet the needs of the moment.

His analyses came just days before an Imperial College report

predicting high fatalities in the U.S.

if the country doesn't take extreme measures.

The place where I start with all these conversations is that I'm not an epidemiologist

and I'm not a public health researcher.

My background is more in economic research and financial policy and data science.

So prior to my current job as a data scientist in the tech sector, I worked in the federal government for about six years and in the private sector for about three years in financial policy research.

And to my specialties in all of this quantitative communication

and data science and forecasting.

...