Professor Tom Pike says his initial predictions underestimated the scale of the crisis
A leading scientist who predicted 5,700 Brits could die as a result of theProfessor Tom Pike says Britain is in a ‘dangerous state’ with daily deaths surging past his estimated maximum number just two days after his projection. The Imperial College academic said last week that the UK death total could reach 5,700 – but the number of deaths over the weekend forced him to rethink his forecast upper forecast to 30,000.
He had been assuming that the Covid-19 outbreak in Britain would follow a similar pattern to China’s Wuhan, where the outbreak began – leading him to project that that the country’s death toll would peak at 260 in a day. But that figure was reached on Saturday, which he suggests changes his forecast dramatically.
Professor Pike now has an estimate of around 30,000 deaths – but only if the UK follows expected patterns ‘Even if the UK immediately reconverges to China’s trajectory, this would project to a five times increase in daily and cumulative deaths, that’s a peak of 1,200 deaths a day, and 20 to 30,000 deaths overall.’
Professor Pike admitted the projections would ‘only be accurate if Britain maintains the same trajectory as China’.
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