Sunrise presenter David Koch has rubbished an economist’s prediction that a coronavirus pandemic could kill up to 96,000 Australians.

Leading economist and former RBA board member Warwick McKibbin has released preliminary forecasts which painted a bleak picture.

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He suggested a mild pandemic would lead to 21,000 deaths in Australia, a more severe pandemic would cause 53,000 deaths, with a “worst-case” scenario wiping out 96,000 Australians - or up to 68 million people globally.

Kochie slammed the “irresponsible modelling” on Sunrise on Wednesday.

“What a crock that is, that is just ridiculous. An economist? An economist?” he said to the panel including Sam Armytage, Nat Barr and Ryan Phelan.

‘The numbers’

Kochie told the group he’d “done the numbers” and they did not add up.

“China has 1.4 billion people and they’ve had just over 3,000 deaths from the coronavirus and he’s telling us we’re going to get 96,000 deaths out of 25 million people?” he said.

“Say (the deaths in China) are double what they are now. So that’s 3000 deaths a month.”

“So 3000 a month, 36,000 a year out of 1.4 billion people, and Warwick is saying up to 96,000 deaths out of 25 million in Australia?”

Kochie said the numbers were “irresponsible”.

‘Seems plausible’

McKibbin told 7NEWS.com.au the paper sets out “seven different scenarios”.

“They are the assumptions of different combinations of infection rates and mortality rate from historical pandemics,” he said.

The economist referred to the “regular flu” which killed 5,000 people in Australia in 2019.

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“Of the scenarios we explored, the one that we seem to be approaching is scenario 4 which would be 4 times the 2019 deaths from regular flu,” he said.

“Seems plausible to me.

“I guess David Koch didn’t read the paper.”