Attacks Against Covid Modellers ‘Undermine Future Pandemic Response'

Repeated attacks against the government’s Covid modellers threatens to erode public trust and undermine future pandemic responses, senior scientific advisers have said.

- Samuel Lovett

Several members of the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling (SPI-M) – a sub-committee of Sage – told The Independent they were concerned by the “knock-on effect” of the criticism they have received in recent weeks for their modelling of the Omicron wave.

Fellow scientists and MPs have accused the advisers of bouncing the UK into repeated lockdowns and creating a “climate of manipulated fear”. SPI-M members fear such attacks will weaken trust in the modelling and hinder decision-making in the face of dangerous new Covid variants or future pandemics.

Professor John Edmunds, a SPI-M member, said there has been both “wilful misinterpretation” and a “genuine misunderstanding” of the group’s recent modelling, which did not predict what would happen over winter, but instead provided a variety of scenarios for ministers to review, ranging from the best to the worst.

This explains why one of the scenarios showed that 6,000 people could die a day, with tens of thousands of daily hospitalisations, the experts said. “The newspapers tend to emphasise the worst-case scenario, so that’s the stuff that gets reported,” said Prof Edmunds.

Others scenarios showed up to 400 deaths a day and just under 3,000 daily hospitalisations if restrictions weren’t imposed – a projection which has come close to materialising over winter.

In light of the modelling, and despite calls from Sage for the reintroduction of “more stringent measures” in mid-December, the government opted to stick with its plan B restrictions – a decision that supporters feel has since been vindicated, prompting many to accuse the SPI-M experts of getting it wrong.