Trump economic adviser's 'beyond stupid' COVID-19 projections will 'kill thousands': Paul Krugman

Trump economic adviser Kevin Hassett, who became famous two decades ago for incorrectly predicting that the Dow Jones Industrial Average would soon soar to 36,000, has come under fire for making yet another failed predictions about COVID-19 deaths.

The Washington Post reports that Hassett and the Council of Economic Advisers prepared a "cubic model" aimed at projecting the virus's spread that estimated the United States would see no new deaths from COVID-19 by May 15th.

Given that the United States is still averaging close to 2,000 deaths per day from COVID-19, it's highly unlikely that those totals will drop to zero in just the next ten days.

Nobel Prize-winning economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman reacted to this report on Hassett by flaying him for what he called "beyond stupid" statistical analysis.

"You could say that as an economist he doesn't know how to do epidemiology," Krugman writes. "But his data analysis in his own field is no better. Reverse engineering what he seems to have done, it's beyond stupid. And it will kill thousands."