Ask HN: Is Neil Ferguson's Pandemic Simulation code open source?
I guess the question is: Is Neil Ferguson's code any good?
Per his Twitter:
"I wrote the code (thousands of lines of undocumented C) 13+ years ago to model flu pandemics..."
Is the code tested? How was validation performed? Results published where?
Is it peer reviewed?
I ask because my state is applying even harder lockdown measures beginning tonight based largely on Mr. Ferguson's "2 Million US deaths" claim. If his code is buggy or outright wrong, I would like to know. I would also like to come to understand his liability for producing such software in the first place. A lot of people are out of jobs, emotionally shattered, and so on. If much of the decision making has been based on faulty models, we need to know right away. I guarantee that 13+ years ago nobody did testing for research model code, and i doubt the peers reviewed it. On the other hand, it should be easy to reproduce these simple models in any language, if you find his original publications