Rita Panahi: So-called experts indulging in outrageous scaremongering

In an effort to stay in the limelight a number of dial-a-quote experts are indulging in outrageous scaremongering and doomsayer predictions.

The pandemic has elevated a number of academics, medics and public health experts to celebrity status and some have evidently enjoyed the experience.

In an effort to keep their names in the papers and on interview lists for TV and radio stations, a number of dial-a-quote experts have indulged in outrageous scaremongering and doomsayer predictions.

Physician Kate Gregorevic summed it up nicely when she wrote: “It’s worth remembering at this point in the pandemic that many people have increased their profile by driving pandemic fear. Shortly we will be one of the most vaccinated countries in the world, and this group seem to be shouting more loudly than ever to avoid irrelevance.”

Sadly, some in this group are not only prominent in the media but have influenced government policy with dud modelling and health advice.

The coronavirus doomsayers have championed strict lockdowns and backed Covid-zero insanity. The OzSage group of experts have been so consistently wrong they have become the subject of mockery from some infectious disease experts.

Professor Raina MacIntyre wrote in mid-September that if Sydney eased restrictions and lifted mask mandates disaster would befall the state.

OzSage members have advocated for masking toddlers, vaccinating preppies and have, along with other hysterics, predicted calamity when Dom Perrottet reopened Sydney.

It’s been just over three weeks since Sydney emerged from lockdown and despite the alarmist predictions of the “expert class” its hospitals aren’t overwhelmed and people are not perishing in big numbers.

Let’s take a quick look at just a small selection of predictions that have aged like a glass of fresh milk on a 40C day.

“NSW reopening may lead to ICU collapse” reported ABC News in mid-September, featuring an interview with OzSage catastrophist Raina MacIntyre.

“Our model estimates there’ll still be numbers in the high thousands by the middle of October at the time we’re releasing restrictions,” Prof MacIntyre said.

Wrong.

Prof MacIntyre also wrote in mid-September that if Sydney eased restrictions and lifted mask mandates at 70 and 80 per cent double vaxxed, disaster would befall the state and the virus would “overwhelm the health system.”

Wrong.

Another OzSage expert Jeremy Howard was horrified by the prospect of people being allowed to ditch face panties.

“In an extraordinary step, the new premier of the Australian state of NSW, @Dom_Perrottet, has just announced that he’s dumping mask mandates in the middle of an outbreak,” he tweeted on October 7.

Not to be outdone, academic Rachel Heath shared this rather frightening prediction in late July which has since been wisely deleted: “At the present of ICU cases with total cases doubling every nine days, the NSW hospital system will have collapsed by the first week of October and bodies will have to be picked up from the streets like in India and Indonesia. All caused by the stupidity of LNP politics.”

Dr Norman Swan is another habitually wrong ‘expert’.

Dr Heath has form in this area sharing this prediction in mid-2020: “At the present weekly rate of increase in cases, NSW and Victoria may both have 48,000 cases per day by Christmas – is ScoMo and his medical ‘experts’ going to be our saviours? 48 deaths a day doesn’t sound like a good Xmas present – who’s for elimination?”

Those math skills are almost on par with the ABC’s Norman Swan, another habitually wrong ‘expert’ who continues to be promoted on the national broadcaster.

Dr Swan’s dud predictions began in March, 2020 with this gem: “1700 on Monday, 3400 on Wednesday or Thursday, 7-8000 by next weekend. True number by then 70-80,000 possibly. Primary school maths. Someone should go figure. No magic fairy will bring that down. 14-20 days behind Italy. Believe in maths not magic.”

And he hasn’t slowed down since with his pro-lockdown narrative and fearmongering about running out of ICU beds and Sydney being locked down until Christmas.

A man promoted as one of Australia’s leading health experts despite holding little more than an arts degree, Bill Bowtell, is another media favourite who’s bowled up more wrong’uns than Warnie.

In August Bowtell was praising the Victorian government and warning NSW it could not reopen regardless of vaccination rates.

Bill Bowtell.

“We cannot vaccinate our way out of this crisis. We have got to go back to Covid-zero,” he said.

In September he was praising New Zealand’s extreme Covid-19 position. “NZ response shows how it should have been done in NSW,” he wrote.

On Monday NZ reported another record day with 162 Delta cases (almost all in locked down Auckland) from just 19,135 tests, while NSW had 135 cases from 62,857 tests.

It wasn’t just the “experts” who were ramping up the fear, so were the far-left ideologues like Father Rod Bower. Last month the Gosford Anglican Church’s billboard read: “#LetItRip Dom will kill us all”.

Former Australian Democrats leader turned Labor MP Cheryl Kernot was another warning NSW reopening at 70 per cent would see “thousands of cases a day, with hundreds of deaths”.

As the country slowly reopens, let us hope that we see an end to Covid fear porn in 2022.