Yes all those Covid models that early on were suggesting that this could be a major pandemic and cause significant illness and death everywhere, not just in China. Those models that the WHO used to announce a pandemic. If you read the analysis it will tell you what sources of information they used what the possible errors are in those sources and what parameters are known vs unknown in the model. I am not aware of any politicization of model reporting unless you consider simply announcing the findings of a model to be an inherently political event.

Want to learn about epidemiological modeling? How it is done, what are the problems? A very well written article in The Atlantic is helpful

Want to look at how climate models did? It's in the journal "SCIENCE" And here is a comment from some organization called NASA Hint, the models have held up very well.

Future modeling from 40 years ago could not factor in the rise of electric vehicles, the enormous shift from oil to natural gas, nor the ban on CFC's. All of these have made a small downward shift in warming. Models often include a range of what the result will be given a change in CO2 or methane or industrial activity. Interestingly this worldwide slowdown from Covid will absolutely benefit the environment, which might if very prolonged, weaken the accuracy of predictions that could never have anticipated such an event. It will be interesting to see how much the CO2 measurements drop in the next couple months.

What bothers me is the OP’s insinuation that because Dr. Fauci’s early remarks differ from what has transpired and what he has said as this situation developed, that he is somehow less valuable or trustworthy. That he had to be precisely accurate from day one. Frankly, I prefer someone who, as more and better information becomes available, is quick and forthright in changing his position. That is what he has done. Hindsight may be 20/20, but that doesn’t make it right.

If you are asking Dr Fauci to have the foresight of a prophet, it’s not likely. I would guess that he went by the same misinformation we all heard from China in the early days.

Did you miss the part where I said "I like Dr Fauci and think he is doing the best he can"

The point of the post was too show that virtually everyone, early on, made statements that seem in retrospect a tad off the mark. The blame game as seen on this forum.

The only blame goes to China who hid the fact that this virus was passing person to person, highly contagious, and allowed 5 million Wuhan residents to travel all over China and the rest of the world, resulting in the situation we now have.