Right. That's not unique to Ferguson, epidemiology doesn't understand respiratory virus dynamics and doesn't seem particularly curious to learn anymore (I read papers from the 80s which were very different and much more curious than modern papers, not sure though it that's indicative of a trend or just small sample size).
Other models I checked didn't have the same software quality issues though. They tended to use R rather than C and be much simpler. None of them produced correct predictions either, and there were often serious issues of basic scientific validity too, but at least the code didn't contain any obvious bugs.
Other models I checked didn't have the same software quality issues though. They tended to use R rather than C and be much simpler. None of them produced correct predictions either, and there were often serious issues of basic scientific validity too, but at least the code didn't contain any obvious bugs.