  I discuss and criticize the use of "dual transformations" to calculate
"shadow moments" in the distribution of epidemic fatalities. I show how this
transformation is arbitrary and not only yields an unjustified functional form
for the distribution of fatalities but turns out to be highly unphysical (see
Fig. 1 in the manuscript). Therefore, the expected number of fatalities
calculated from the "shadow moments" approach lacks any theoretical support.
This is of fundamental importance to assess risk from pandemics. I argue that
the natural way to address this sort of problems in statistical physics is by
means of finite-size scaling.
