{"id":208293,"date":"2020-06-04T07:28:33","date_gmt":"2020-06-04T07:28:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=208293"},"modified":"2020-06-06T05:54:42","modified_gmt":"2020-06-06T05:54:42","slug":"prof-lockdown-neil-ferguson-admits-sweden-used-same-science-as-uk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=208293","title":{"rendered":"‘Prof Lockdown’ Neil Ferguson admits Sweden used same science as UK"},"content":{"rendered":"

Henry Bodkin \u2013 Telegraph.co.uk June 2, 2020<\/strong><\/h1>\n
\"\"<\/a>

Professor Neil Ferguson. Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n

The scientist behind lockdown in the UK has admitted that Sweden has achieved roughly the same suppression of coronavirus without draconian restrictions<\/strong><\/span>.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Neil Ferguson, who became known as \u201cprofessor lockdown\u201d after convincing Boris Johnson to radically curtail everyday freedoms<\/strong><\/span>,<\/a> acknowledged that, despite relying on \u201cquite similar science\u201d, the Swedish authorities had \u201cgot a long way to the same effect\u201d without a full lockdown.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sweden has adopted a far softer approach to Covid-19<\/a><\/strong><\/span> than elsewhere in Europe, introducing voluntary social-distancing measures and keeping restaurants and bars and many schools open.<\/span><\/p>\n

As of\u00a0the 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<\/strong><\/span>.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Financial data released in May also suggested Sweden had so far avoided a heavy blow to its economy<\/a><\/strong><\/span> 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.<\/span><\/p>\n

The UK economy contracted two per cent, the sharpest drop since the height of the financial crisis<\/strong><\/span>.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Prof Ferguson resigned from the main Scientific Advisory Group\u00a0for Emergencies (Sage) committee last month after The Telegraph<\/em> revealed that he broke social distancing rules to meet his married lover<\/strong><\/span>.<\/a>\u00a0On Tuesday, however,\u00a0a witness at the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee revealed that he is still helping shape policy<\/a><\/strong><\/span>,\u00a0leading a team contributing to one of the most influential Sage sub-committees.<\/span><\/p>\n

Giving evidence to the same Lords committee on Tuesday, Professor Ferguson said he had the \u201cgreatest respect\u201d for Swedish scientists.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThey came to a different policy conclusion but based really on quite similar science.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

He added: \u201cI don\u2019t agree with it. But scientifically, they\u2019re not that far from scientists in any part of the world.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Sweden\u2019s 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.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the UK, it is thought to be between 0.75 and 1, meaning the virus outbreak should be retreating.<\/span><\/p>\n

While\u00a0pointing out that Sweden\u2019s mortality rate is not declining in a similar way to that of other European countries, Prof\u00a0Ferguson said: \u201cNevertheless 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\u2019s not a full lockdown – they have got quite a long way to the same effect.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThat is something we are looking at very closely.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Virus arrived earlier than expected<\/h2>\n

Continues \u2026<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The \u2018expert\u2019 whose advice led to a draconian lockdown — and who was later forced to resign after breaching his own guidelines — admits that Sweden \u201cgot a long way to the same effect\u201d without jeopardising so many jobs and businesses <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[61,105],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-208293","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Commentary","category-coronavirus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208293","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=208293"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208293\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":208296,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208293\/revisions\/208296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=208293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=208293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=208293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}