But experts today questioned the pessimistic projection, with one of the country's most eminent statisticians calling the calculation into doubt.
Professor Sir David Spiegelhalter, from the University of Cambridge, told MailOnline: 'To get the figure of 200,000, they would need to assume a doubling time of 1.75 days, or a higher starting point.
'It is very frustrating, to put it mildly, that such high-profile and surprising numbers are given without any publicly available justification.'
Professor of medicine and consultant oncologist Karol Sikora added to the criticism, stating the Government was deliberately 'scaremongering' the population into getting booster jabs.
‘It’s alarmist and all part of a deliberate PR ploy to get people the booster,’ he said.
‘It’s not a bad idea to get the booster, but you could see yesterday the system creaked under the pressure.'
Professor Sir David Spiegelhalter, from the University of Cambridge, told MailOnline: 'To get the figure of 200,000, they would need to assume a doubling time of 1.75 days, or a higher starting point.
'It is very frustrating, to put it mildly, that such high-profile and surprising numbers are given without any publicly available justification.'
Professor of medicine and consultant oncologist Karol Sikora added to the criticism, stating the Government was deliberately 'scaremongering' the population into getting booster jabs.
‘It’s alarmist and all part of a deliberate PR ploy to get people the booster,’ he said.
‘It’s not a bad idea to get the booster, but you could see yesterday the system creaked under the pressure.'
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