RICHARD ORD: Call that a worst-case scenario! Where’s the killer shark?

Lockdown 2, much like Sharknado 2, isn’t going to be as good as the original.
A killer shark yesterday.A killer shark yesterday.
A killer shark yesterday.

And while I’m no epidemiologist (though, like many Facebook users, I have enough clinical knowledge gathered from social media and overheard conversations at bus stops to take a decent stab at it), I was slightly perturbed as to the reasoning behind this particular decision to shut down the country.

As was revealed last weekend by the experts (yes, them again!) apparently the Covid-19 problems were rising faster than even their ‘worst case scenarios’.

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That, I’m afraid, is a sad indictment of the scientific community.

Of all the professions, I had the scientists down as the ones to produce the most hair-raising of worst case scenarios.

Maybe there is a knowledge gap in the scientific community. They’re spending too much time with their eyes peering through microscopes rather than relaxing in front of lowbrow TV.

I mean, after just two minutes thought on the subject, I had attempts to obliterate the virus with over-sized lasers result in an unintended laboratory explosion which opened a portal to hell from which three-headed skeleton creatures wielding tridents emerged before running amok in the frozen food aisle at Morrisons.

Now that’s a proper ‘worst-case scenario’.

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I blame The Daily Mail. Sir Patrick Vallance and Professor Chris Whitty are the experts advising the government. You’d have seen them on the TV with their graphs and serious faces. After outlining the serious nature of the pandemic, the Mail dubbed them Professor Gloom and Doctor Doom.

Bit harsh. I mean, they might be a laugh if you were out on the town with them, but given the circumstances, they could perhaps be excused for putting their humorous anecdotes to one side when addressing the nation on rising coronavirus levels. Not in the Mail’s eyes.

On September 22, MailOnline was demanding to know where the pair of non-joker so-called experts got a chart warning about a predicted rise in cases from. The suggestion was that the figures were inaccurate, and they produced a number of academics to debunk their gloomy prediction. The prediction? If nothing is done, we could be facing 200 deaths a day by mid-November!

Maybe at the next briefing, Professor Doom and Doctor Gloom could produce a graph containing shark-filled tornadoes and, with a wink to the camera, assure the public that things aren’t as bad as their ‘worst-case scenario.’

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