Ferguson ‘overconfident’ in Covid case claims, says top forecaster

ONE of the world’s most renowned forecasters has criticised Prof Neil Ferguson for his “overconfident” prediction that Covid cases could rise to 100,000 a day.

Nate Silver, an American statistician who rose to prominence after correctly calling the results of the 2008 US presidential election, said there were too many variables in the pandemic for anyone to be certain of the outcome. This week Prof Ferguson, of Imperial College London, said he was positive the pandemic would be in decline by the autumn, despite his earlier warning that it was “almost inevitable” there would soon be 100,000 cases a day, and possibly 200,000.

Writing on Twitter, Mr Silver pointed out that cases had since fallen to a seven-day average of around 30,000 per day. “I don’t care that the prediction is wrong, I’m sure this stuff is hard to predict. It’s that he’s consistently so overconfident,” Mr Silver tweeted. “Now he says he’s ‘positive’ the pandemic will be over by October. Well, probably. But there are downside risks: new variants, waning immunity, etc.”

The political science author Prof Philip Tetlock, of the University of Pennsylvania, agreed with Mr Silver, saying: “Expect even top forecasters to make lots of mistakes. When smart forecasters are consistently over-confident, start suspecting they’re not playing a pure-accuracy game, eg publicity or policy-advocacy games.”

Last night, the Government announced 27,734 new infections, up from 23,511 the day before. Although cases rose for the first time in seven days, infections have decreased 36 per cent in a week, with daily figures less than half of the mid-january peak.

Sajid Javid, the Health Secretary, who also previously warned there could be 100,000 cases a day, said it was important not to be too optimistic as nobody could predict what will happen next.

Speaking at a vaccination centre in Little Venice, west London, he said: “The truth is, when it comes to case numbers no-one really knows where they are going to go next.

“I hope that the falls that we’re seeing now are sustained. That’s of course what I want to see. But we’ve already seen with the delta variant, a new variant that emerged over the last year, that’s more infectious than the previous one, that things can change.

“And so, I think it’s important to remain cautious, not get too optimistic.”