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Headlines as expected despite Vallance saying "this is not a prediction".

• toyg 6y ago
  The Guardian at least says "could". Bit of a fumble from BBC.
• thu2111 6y ago
  Not a huge fan of journalists or the BBC but in this case what are they meant to report? Vallance saying "this is not a prediction" and then making a prediction just reinforces the impression that the UK's public health officials are trying to have their cake and eat it. He said: "If, and that's quite a big if, but if that continues unabated, and this grows, doubling every seven days... if that continued you would end up with something like 50,000 cases in the middle of October per day. Fifty-thousand cases per day would be expected to lead a month later, so the middle of November say, to 200-plus deaths per day. The challenge, therefore, is to make sure the doubling time does not stay at seven days. That requires speed, it requires action and it requires enough in order to be able to bring that down" If that's not a prediction but rather a pure hypothetical then why is he saying it? And why is he then using what he just said to justify a call for "action"? If it looks, walks and talks like a prediction then it's a prediction. The BBC are right to ignore his mealy-mouthed attempt to wriggle out of accountability by pretending it's not.