One of the more bizarre of New Zealand’s Covid celebrities is Shaun Hendy.

Hendy is a mathematics educated computer modeller, who seems to have stopped being a de facto climate scientist and has cashed these chips in for a medical degree.

Hendy is the one who built a model telling us that 50,000 New Zealanders will die from Covid.

Seemingly undeterred from this biblical prediction being closer to a sci fi fantasy than any reality, he still is weighing in on the merits of our response to further community infections.

How this guy gets oxygen can only stem from the false credibility that anyone who dedicates their life to climate emergencies will garner from the media.

Hendy made a model that told us 50,000 New Zealanders could die from Covid. Based on the scientific studies done on the IFR rates we would require between 12,500,000 and 50,000,000 kiwis to get infected to reach these dizzying rates of fatality.

The more astute of you will see the flaw in this mathematical equation.

It is hardly surprising that a climate alarmist computer modeller would come up with such a prediction and shows us why computer models are useful tools, if left in the hands of people who know what the fuck they are talking about.

This 50,000 prediction even dwarfs the 2 million deaths in the USA that was predicted in March last year. Another prediction that is now widely inaccurate but did the damage in terms of driving the response. I.e. locking down the productive and not at risk population.

We are a year into our understanding of this virus. We know now that if you are under the age of 70 you will have far greater than a 99% chance of living through it. In fact it seems the only ones at risk are those who are at deaths doorstep. The same people who are at risk of virtually any viral or bacterial infection.

But just like the climate field that Hendy has left behind to pursue his fame in whatever crisis is getting the media’s attention. Once the propagandists get hold of the story then only the science that suits the daily rags will make its way to the laymen public.

Like shock Jocks that entertain rush hour motorists, we have celebrity scientists that crave the limelight more than resolving any challenge at hand. In fact the challenge becomes staying relevant and they fear the shadows that follow the end of the crises that shot them into fame in the first place.

Keeping the crises alive in spite of all data is the game that was typically solely in the the realm of climate science. But the pandemic has now had this propaganda fuelled information train jump from the field of climate to medicine, just like the Corona virus jumped from bats to humans.

Growing their own brand would be near impossible if the crises burned out. Siouxsie Wiles, Michael Baker, Shaun Hendy and even Ashley Bloomfield have shot into the limelight with the onset of this new flulike virus and just like the PM, they are benefiting from the media attention. They are public figures for a reason and the crises is the most important vehicle to get their faces on the tv screens, radio waves and pages of our magazines.

Whilst they tell us how to help rid ourselves of the crises they know that the end would spell the end of their own celebrity relevance.

Hendy in particular is at some point going to be a casualty of the end of the pandemic. He will go down in history as the modeller who predicted 10% of the population could die. How will this translate to his climate predictions when no one cares about Covid anymore.

More importantly, how did he make such an outlandish prediction? We all can punch some numbers into a computer to get any number we want. But if we want an accurate one we need to live in the real world. When I budget my income for the weeks financial requirements I could create a model that gives me a surplus of $2,000. Unfortunately real world data won’t take too long to show that when I pay all my bills there is Sweet FA left over.

If I could take a computer model to the bank then I could be driving an expensive sports car next week, but unfortunately the bank won’t take my model as a credible depiction of my financial well being.

I think we can place Henry’s models in that same category.

I find some of these Covid celebrities to be among the more odious creatures. Like politicians they manipulate the situation to best position themselves. They rubbish alternate learned theories to stamp down other scientists who may steal their thunder. It is akin to your doctor keeping you sick so they can see you every week. The cure is worse than the disease for Covid celebrities whatever way it arrives, and it’s a tragedy that the one thing we all want is the one thing a Covid celebrity fears more than all else.

Every time covid is in the news it seems Hendy isn’t too far away crying for more lockdowns. Lock us away with the telly being our window of information. Where we all sit waiting for the daily update from one of the politically driven celebrity Scientists. Ones that join our celebrity PM in feeding us our daily dose of self serving diatribe.

“Stay strong and be kind” gee thanks that will help keep the financial wolves from the door.

Remember when science broke away from being in the hands of the church leaders and was used for the good of man, seems it was just a trick for the politicians to get their hands on them instead.

To the scientists that still understand the scientific process I salute you all. To those seeking celebrity status, do us all a favour and let the real scientists take it from here.