The Precautionary Principle

Statistics are one thing, reality something else

(Kazimir Malevich, Sportsmen)

The working group on mathematical modeling of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus epidemic in Ukraine on May 28, 2020 announced during an online Facebook press conference in Kyiv that the worst of COVID-19 is behind us.

"We can say that we avoided the peak, if we understand it as a very sharp rapid growth. But we did not avoid it, if we talk about the peak as a maximum. We had a plateau phase, it lasted about two weeks, we overcame the plateau phase. From the point of view of mathematics, the phase of the plateau is the peak when there is a maximum number of cases. There was a peak, and we overcame it." - Ihor Brovchenko, Deputy Director for Research at the Institute of Mathematical Machines and Systems of Ukraine’s National Academy of Sciences, PhD of Physical and Mathematical Sciences (Mechanics of Liquid, Gas and Plasma)

Lest you get the impression the Brovchenko thinks scientists use computer models because they can magically make ideas correct and not because…