Do folks even understand how predictions work? They are based on what happened in the past and assume that what happened then will continue. With Covid, IF people act exactly as they did in the last 6 months, such and such will happen. If, instead, they all mask up, isolate, vaccinate and so on the something else will happens. And, if we go all "it's a hoax" something else will happen. The best one can do is learn from the past and use that to inform the future.

As a friend of mine, in fisheries, once said "All models are wrong but some are useful".