Zeynep Tufekci says that’s not what they’re for:
“So if epidemiological models don’t give us certainty—and asking them to do so would be a big mistake—what good are they?” writes Tufekci. “Epidemiology gives us something more important: agency to identify and calibrate our actions with the goal of shaping our future. We can do this by pruning catastrophic branches of a tree of possibilities that lies before us.”