Search icon

News

04th Jan 2022

New York Times lists Leo Varadkar’s prediction as the worst of 2021

Hugh Carr

leo varadkar predictions

The Tánaiste took the number one spot on the international list.

If we’ve learnt anything these past few years, it’s that it’s very difficult to predict what is coming around the corner.

Between pandemics, NFTs, and the changing weather, it’s hard to tell what tomorrow may bring.

But no matter how off your predictions are, you can thank your lucky stars that they haven’t made a list of the worst predictions of the year.

That is, unless, you’re Leo Varadkar.

The Tánaiste has topped a list of the worst predictions of 2021 published by the New York Times on Monday (3 January).

The article shares a quote from an interview in December of 2020, predicting that the Covid pandemic would be finished by 2021.

“With the vaccine, with mass testing and with the knowledge of how to prevent and treat this virus, I think the pandemic will end in 2021,” Varadkar said.

The Tánaiste made the comments following Margaret Keenan receiving the first Covid vaccine outside of clinical trials in December of 2020.

NYT writer Peter Coy described Varadkar as “daring to predict the course of a pandemic that has flummoxed the experts repeatedly”.

“To his credit, he did qualify his prediction with ‘I think.’,” Coy added.

Other questionable predictions for 2021 include a quote from the Suez Canal authority claiming that navigation through the canal would be improved in the new year.

The quote came five months before the Ever Given put a halt to all travel through the canal for several days in March.

Another prediction that hasn’t aged well was from Citibank analyst Tom Fitzgerald, who claimed that a single Bitcoin would be worth $318,000 by the end of 2021.

The cryptocurrency is currently worth around $46,000, over a quarter of a million dollars less than what Fitzgerald had initially predicted.

So be careful what predictions you make for 2022, or you might just find yourself on a list this time next year…

Featured Image: Sam Boal/RollingNews.ie

LISTEN: You Must Be Jokin’ with Conor Sketches | Tiger Woods loves Ger Loughnane and cosplaying as Charles LeClerc