Sir Patrick Vallance and Professor Chris Whitty have come under fire over slides used during the weekend announcement of the second Covid-19 lockdown. Today, the pair hit back.
A chart suggesting there could be up to 4,000 deaths per day by December under a reasonable worst-case scenario was described by Oxford expert Carl Heneghan as ‘now proven to be incorrect’. The modelling on which the chart was based appeared to be out of date, indicating that daily deaths would have already hit 1,000 a day. In fact, in the most recent stats yesterday, the UK saw 136 coronavirus deaths.
Despite this, Vallance insisted the purpose of the graphic was ‘not to frighten people’. While Whitty, the Chief Medical Officer, told MPs at the House of Commons Health Select Committee that the projection is ‘not intended to happen’:
‘There is a danger with these extreme forward projections that people misinterpret them as ‘this is going to happen’ and…get unduly worried about something that is not intended to happen.
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