SPI-M-O: Worst-case projections, 7 January 2021
Paper prepared by the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling, Operational sub-group (SPI-M-O).
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Paper from SPI-M-O on COVID-19 worst-case projections. It was considered at SAGE 75 on 7 January 2021.
These are an assessment of the evidence at the time of writing. As new evidence or data emerges, SAGE updates its advice accordingly.
These are not forecasts or predictions, and cannot reflect recent changes in transmission that have not yet filtered through into surveillance data, such as hospital admissions and deaths. They do not account for the impact of future policy or behavioural changes that might reduce transmission, nor seasonal effects that may affect transmission. They are based only on the observable trends and data available at the time the projections were produced.
These do not represent the most likely scenario, and should be considered a counterfactual. They represent a worst-case scenario in which the national measures implemented in England in January 2021 did not change the trajectory of the epidemic, and the epidemic continued to follow the trends observed up to 4 January.
Find out more on the medium-term projections.
These documents are released as pre-print publications that have provided the government with rapid evidence during an emergency. These documents have not been peer-reviewed and there is no restriction on authors submitting and publishing this evidence in peer-reviewed journals.