August 13, 2021

expert comment about SPI-M-O: Medium-term projections, published today as part of the SAGE document publication process

The latest batch of SAGE documents, including the medium-term projections from SPI-M-O, have been published this afternoon.

(Not a third-party comment as Graham is Chair of SPI-M)

Prof Graham Medley, Professor of Infectious Disease Modelling, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said:

“The medium term projections have to be read carefully.  If incidence has been falling for the past few weeks, then they just continue that trend and don’t take into account that transmission might pick up again in the future.  On the other hand, even if transmission does increase and cases grow, the delays between infection and disease mean the admissions might continue to fall for a couple of weeks even though cases are going up.”

SPI-M-O: Medium-term projections, 4 August 2021:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/spi-m-o-medium-term-projections-4-august-2021

SPI-M-O: Medium-term projections, 28 July 2021: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/spi-m-o-medium-term-projections-28-july-2021

All our previous output on this subject can be seen at this weblink:

www.sciencemediacentre.org/tag/covid-19

Declared interests

None received.