UK lockdown a week earlier could have halved COVID-19 death toll, scientist says

Introducing lockdown measures a week earlier could have halved the UK’s coronavirus death toll, a former government adviser has said.

The Independent  (UK) Professor Neil Ferguson, whose modelling helped shape the coronavirus response strategy, said thousands of deaths could have been prevented if the UK had acted sooner.

The newspaper added that the British Prime Minsiter refused to say whether he regretted not going into lockdown earlier in March during the Downing Street press conference, saying it was “premature” to make judgements while the pandemic was ongoing.

“The epidemic was doubling every three to four days before lockdown interventions were introduced. So had we introduced lockdown measures a week earlier, we would have then reduced the final death toll by at least a half,” Ferguson said.

“So whilst I think the measures … were warranted … certainly had we introduced them earlier, we would have seen many fewer deaths.”

Ferguson, a professor at Imperial College in London, produced a model which influenced Britain’s response to the pandemic, but later stood down from Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) after he was accused of breaking lockdown rules.

His comments echo those of another scientific adviser, John Edmunds, who said at the weekend that Britain should have gone into lockdown earlier.

Johnson said it was too early to say what regrets he had or lessons he could learn over the handling of the pandemic.

“We made the decisions at the time on the guidance of SAGE, including Professor Ferguson, that we thought were right for this country,” he told reporters.

Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty said the one issue he would choose to look at was how to speed up testing earlier.

“Many of the problems that we had came because we were unable to work out exactly where we were ..,” he said.

News and Media services reporting this story should attribute : Cd eNews – The Independent / Reuters