If the prediction is "we can expect a serious epidemic once every 10 years", then we have something definite that we can plan for, or at least discuss the costs of planning for. There's no way to discuss the costs of planning for "this will happen, some time in the future" without more detail.
Which has largely happened in a lot of areas...
except for the people who think the correct response is to ignore any prediction that isn't perfectly specific?
That would be nice, yes.
> except for the people who think the correct response is to ignore any prediction that isn't perfectly specific?
If a prediction isn't giving you any useful, actionable information, you can't act on it.
That doesn't necessarily mean you do nothing. If our public policy decision is "well, we don't really know how often epidemics like this will occur, but just to ballpark, let's plan on one every 10 years and see what we would need to do to prepare", that's fine. Just don't say we need to do that because the experts made a prediction. It's just a best judgment call based on very incomplete information.
Yes it is, if taken seriously.