Henry Bodkin – Telegraph.co.uk June 2, 2020
Professor Neil Ferguson. Click to enlarge
The scientist behind lockdown in the UK has admitted that Sweden has achieved roughly the same suppression of coronavirus without draconian restrictions.
Neil Ferguson, who became known as “professor lockdown” after convincing Boris Johnson to radically curtail everyday freedoms, acknowledged that, despite relying on “quite similar science”, the Swedish authorities had “got a long way to the same effect” without a full lockdown.
Sweden has adopted a far softer approach to Covid-19 than elsewhere in Europe, introducing voluntary social-distancing measures and keeping restaurants and bars and many schools open.
As of the end of May it had recorded 4,350 deaths from Covid-19. By contrast, as of Monday there had been at least 39,045 in England.
Financial data released in May also suggested Sweden had so far avoided a heavy blow to its economy by shunning a lockdown, its GDP contracting just 0.3 per cent in the first three months of the year, compared to 3.8 per cent across the eurozone.
The UK economy contracted two per cent, the sharpest drop since the height of the financial crisis.
Prof Ferguson resigned from the main Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) committee last month after The Telegraph revealed that he broke social distancing rules to meet his married lover. On Tuesday, however, a witness at the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee revealed that he is still helping shape policy, leading a team contributing to one of the most influential Sage sub-committees.
Giving evidence to the same Lords committee on Tuesday, Professor Ferguson said he had the “greatest respect” for Swedish scientists.
“They came to a different policy conclusion but based really on quite similar science.”
He added: “I don’t agree with it. But scientifically, they’re not that far from scientists in any part of the world.”
Sweden’s rate of virus reproduction – the so-called R value – is thought to be at 1, meaning that, on average, every case will cause one other infection.
In the UK, it is thought to be between 0.75 and 1, meaning the virus outbreak should be retreating.
While pointing out that Sweden’s mortality rate is not declining in a similar way to that of other European countries, Prof Ferguson said: “Nevertheless it is interesting that adopting a policy which is short of a full lockdown – they have closed secondary schools and universities and there is a significant amount of social distancing but it’s not a full lockdown – they have got quite a long way to the same effect.
“That is something we are looking at very closely.”
The Telegraph do not allow comments on this article…I wonder why…
Of Ferguson is just a shill, paid to say what the government want Him to, giving it the cover of “science” for the tyranny.
No matter what anyone knows, or thinks they know, this “thing” has been statistically insignificant from the start, and Sweden has been there, from the beginning.
Good for them, one might assume intelligence and common sense somewhere in the rest of the world, especially with hospital beds being empty, and fatality rates being nowhere near predictions, but no. Will we ever catch on, or just keep throwing money at it, and completely destroy the world economy?
That this man and many others got it so wrong is frightening. That we bought it so easily is more frightening.
Even if one believes every single fatality attributed, there’s a little more than a 100k in the US, a country of more than 300 million. There’s supposed to be more than 7 BILLION people on the planet. How many have masks on right now?