On Saturday, May 9, 2020 at 8:56:10 AM UTC-4, b4soaring wrote:
What the predictions said was "if we do nothing, something bad will happen, but only if we do nothing.

Something is then done.

Something bad doesn't happen, at least not quite so bad.

It doesn't mean the predictions were wrong, just that the worst case scenarios were prevented:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqzicvDVcKg


On Saturday, 9 May 2020 01:04:01 UTC+1, wrote:
I think in this specific case, however, Neil Ferguson has a bit of a reputation for getting it not only wrong but way wrong. For example:

He was behind research resulting in the destruction of 11 million sheep and cattle during the 2001 outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease. He also predicted that 150,000 people could die.

Predicted in 2002 that up to 50,000 people would die from mad cow disease in beef. In the U.K., there were only 177 deaths from mad cow.

Predicted in 2005 that up to 150 million people would be killed from bird flu. Reality was that only 282 people died worldwide from the disease between 2003 and 2009.

Ferguson’s advice in 2009 said a ‘reasonable worst-case scenario’ was that the swine flu would kill 65,000 Brits. Reality was that swine flu killed 457 people in the U.K.


Bingo. Just like the Y2K "bug" was not a hoax, rather it was resolved by proactive investment of billions.

Funny how many of the same people who want nothing done about pandemics are perfectly OK with trillions spent, and civil rights trampled, as long as it is perceived as a military response to a human, not natural, threat. The Soviet Union never attacked the US, does that mean those who advised to build the weapons were totally wrong?