No single-biggest roadblock

"It is difficult to make predictions, especially about the future" — this famous quote is a great opening line when discussing infectious disease forecasting. I used it in my talk at the Australian Influenza Symposium (1-2 Nov 2017), as did a speaker in an earlier session. And there are many reasons why infectious disease forecasting is hard. There isn't a single-biggest roadblock to making accurate epidemic forecasts, and I was recently quoted about this very matter in "How Bad Will the Flu Season Get? Forecasters Are Competing to Figure it Out" (The Scientist, 28 Nov 2017).

I really enjoy the challenge of engaging with non-academic audiences, both as an end in itself, and also because it should help me improve my grant writing. And this isn't my first experience with the media. I've previously been quoted in articles about the link between climate and influenza transmission (Flu outbreaks are subject to humidity — not just heat, Cosmos, 1 Nov 2016), and our collaboration with the Victorian Department of Health and Human Services (Defence scientists' bio attack detector could predict flu outbreaks, Herald Sun, 14 Jul 2016).