Scientists slammed over their ‘hysterical’ Covid predictions

FURIoUS MPs criticised scientists yesterday for ‘wildly inaccurate’ and ‘hysterical’ Covid forecasts that have created a ‘national scandal’.

In a heated Westminster Hall discussion about the pandemic, Conservative MP Bob Seely called for a debate on scientific modelling during the pandemic, accusing forecasters of wildly inaccurate predictions.

echoing Sir Winston Churchill, Mr Seely said: ‘never before has so much harm been done to so many by so few.’ He was joined by the Covid Recovery group deputy chairman Steve Baker, who accused modellers of bouncing no10 into restrictions throughout the pandemic.

Mr Seely, the MP for the Isle of Wight, described the use of ‘Doomsday modellers’, while Mr Baker, MP for Wycombe, called for ‘institutional reform’.

But a minister defended the use of models and argued they helped the government formulate policies, saying they are not intended as predictions, and ‘nevertheless past modelling has proved to be remarkably accurate in many cases’. Mr Seely said: ‘thanks to some questionable modelling, poorly presented and often misrepresented, never before has so much harm been done to so many by so few based on so little potentially flawed data. the use of modelling is getting up there for national scandal.’ Mr Baker said: ‘the Prime Minister was shown a terrifying model which proved to be wildly incorrect. He took away freedoms from tens of millions of people on that basis.’

However, several pieces of good news have nonetheless emerged in the UK as it continues its recovery.

A quarter of all Covid deaths are now patients who died ‘with’ the virus rather than ‘because of’ it, new figures suggest.

And the seven-day rolling average of new cases dropped below 100,000 for the first time since before Christmas – to 98,684. the UK government has also vowed to axe nearly all Covid restrictions by the end of the month after the omicron variant turned out to be a milder strain than first feared.

Professor Andrew Hayward, a member of the government’s Scientific Advisory group for emergencies (Sage), said: ‘It looks like the omicron variant has become less severe and we hope that’s the general direction of travel.’