Backlash over claim of 200k daily infections
HEALTH chiefs were accused of ‘extraordinary extrapolations’ last night as a furious row erupted over claims of 200,000 Omicron infections a day.
Health Secretary Sajid Javid used the figure on Monday when updating MPs on the UK Health Security Agency’s (UKHSA) estimate of the scale of infections.
But yesterday top statistician Sir David Spiegelhalter said it was ‘naughty’ of the Government to use this statistic without explaining where it comes from. He suggested the figure was not ‘plausible’.
Tory backbencher Sir Desmond Swayne accused scientists and public health chiefs of ‘twisting the fear lever’. His colleague Bob Seely pointed out in the Commons that previous predictions from Imperial College London had been derided as ‘hysterical’ and ‘substantially over-confident’.
Mr Javid replied that he agreed that many previous forecasts had been ‘completely off the mark’ – but that did not mean this was.
Yesterday case numbers for all types of Covid – not just Omicron – stood at 59,610.
Last night the Department of Health said the 200,000 figure was an estimate by the UKHSA. A spokesman said it was much higher than the actual current number of recorded cases because of a big lag between people getting infected and receiving positive test results.
But Sir David, of Cambridge University, told BBC radio 4’s World At One the figure appeared to be based on unpublished modelling.
He said: ‘It’s a bit naughty to give this number without having a justification behind it. This is something that’s supposed to be the case now – it’s not some projection about the future, it’s about what’s happening at the moment. We don’t actually know how many infections there are because we only see cases that are reported and there’s always a delay.
‘So this is based on some modelling. But it’s not based on the published modelling that came out from UK Health Security Agency a few days ago because they estimated that at the end of last month there were about 1,200 Omicron infections each day.
‘They had a model where they assumed they were doubling every two and a half days, which is incredibly fast.
‘But if you put that through their model it comes to 45,000 infections yesterday – which is high but does seem more plausible.’
In the Commons, Sir Desmond asked his fellow MPs: ‘Do you take seriously some of the extraordinary extrapolations that we’ve been given – particularly given the record of before?’