How Covid cases slipped off the government’s “ doomsday chart ”

The government said that until 9 a.m. on Sunday, he was there Another 12,872 laboratory confirmed cases of coronavirus in the United Kingdom, Although the number is likely to tilt lower due to the late reporting at the end of the week.

According to the worst-case scenario, there would have been over 40,000 confirmed cases. Daily casualties should rise by another 37,128 from Sunday’s total to 50,000 by Wednesday, October 13, as suggested by the model.

The government said Another 65 people were killed Within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19 as of Sunday, it is less than a third of the total expected by mid-October in the worst-case scenario.

Experts accused the officials of trying to “terrorize people” into admission New closing restrictions To contain the virus.

Professor Carol Secora, former Director of the World Health Organization, suggested,Unbelievable“The infographic damaged the public’s confidence in the government and said,“ If you try to scare people with the worst case scenario, it will not work. Instead, they think the whole thing is ridiculous and lose confidence in everything else that you say.

“I can’t see any value in this graph at all. The higher the test, the more cases found – and of course testing is prioritized towards areas with higher infection rates. We need a reasonable discussion of the risks posed by the Coronavirus, not the doomsday scenarios over The basis of a vibrating science. “

It later emerged that the government’s suggestion that infections double every seven days (one of the scenarios illustrated below) was largely based on studies with just a few hundred cases rather than large-scale testing data.