Neil Ferguson hypocrisy

[Mintychoc1]

He’s been saying that if we’d locked down earlier it would have saved lives. Well maybe so, but it would also have saved lives if people hadn’t done things like meeting up with their married lover while we were meant to be locked down and isolating! I can’t believe he’s got the audacity to say this stuff.

Yes

Maybe he wanted to test his eyesight.

What an absolute bell end.

Beginning to take on a kinda Kelly-esque look about him.

He could be better advised to be looking for a good lawyer atm... if he had any sense...

Alas, he doesn't...

Cause he's a bell end.

I think he got pissed off that he fell and Cummings was let go for an even bigger offence. I would be pissed off in his shoes too.

I know didn't he say we would have 500000 deaths and also he was incorrect about mad cows disease

With his integrity who wouldn’t believe him?...

I agree op

Bit harsh. He didn't break lockdown, his friend did. He also thought he was immune because he had had it.

He did advise an earlier date - and some workplaces DID shut down from 16 March. It's just it was not compulsory,

Can't compare him to Cummings at all.

He had to resign.

Cummings didn't.

I imagine there probably is some (understandable) bitterness and point scoring.

We should have locked down earlier. The sage documents clearly stated at what point we'd need to start based on what we knew about community transmission.

The issue wasn't locking down too slowly as such. But not being aware how prevelant community transmission was quick enough.

And I say that as someone who started off championing and now constantly criticising the governments response.

If he was such an expert he’d have known that infection didn’t guarantee immunity. It never does - we all know someone who’s had chicken pox twice for example. That was just his get-out clause. He wanted to see his married partner so he saw her. At a time when the rest of us weren’t seeing our loved ones at all. He’s got a bloody cheek to crawl out from under his stone and moan that the government didn’t follow all his advice!

Personally I'm more outraged about the 25,000+ people who are dead because of government incompetence.

And the one who drove 250 miles in a virus filled car.

And Neil obviously wasnt seen as worth gaslighting the nation for..................unlike Cummings.

I'm a lot more pissed off that Cummings is still pulling the strings, probably more in charge than Boris

And Ferguson should have said his penis needed a test drive to see if it still worked after COVID !

@Mintychoc

I get that he’s been hypocritical, but that doesn’t necessarily invalidate his opinions. As for chickenpox, yes you can but it’s extremely rare.

Cummings is worse of course. But Ferguson has a bloody cheek too.

Ferguson resigned from Sage. He didn't resign from his job.

I'm sure he's right, and I think he was pushing for it at the time.

But he wasn't the only scientist consulted. The consensus was to not lockdown earlier.

Unfortunately that's sometimes how decisions happen.

@Deblou43

If we’d all carried on as though it were just flu (i.e. we made no changes to our lives) 500,000 deaths would have been a plausible outcome.

Criticising him for this prediction not coming true is a bit like complaining to a doctor that you didn’t need the antibiotics s/he gave you because you got better...

One thing almost all scientists agree on is that if you are going to lockdown,
doing so too late makes it much less effective - because of exponential growth

e.g. The modeller James Annan has investigated what would happen
if lockdown dates had been just 1 week different:

1. UK 1 week earlier
   ==> deaths 11k instead of 43 k (as of the date of his calculation)

2. Germany 1 week later:
   ==> deaths 34k instead of 9k

https://bskiesresearch.wordpress.com/2020/05/12/the-human-cost-of-delaying-lockdownn_/
https://bskiesresearch.wordpress.com/2020/05/14/why-cant-the-germans-be-more-like-us/

Oh FFS, I think he was an idiot but even the people saying there's no guarantee of immunity concede that it's likely at least a few months for those who were symptomatic, as it is for other coronaviruses.
If there's truly no immunity straight after recovery and with antibodies then we should really kiss all hope of a vaccine goodbye and carry on regardless.

Chris Whitty calculated the 500,000 independently of Ferguson as his "reasonable worst case" back in early March

He calculated 80% of the 67 million population with a death rate of up to 1%^

No responsible government could or should ignore such a warning from the CMO, especially with SAGE piling in with similar calculations
However, Boris dithered for many critical days before calling a lockdown

The delay - and exponential growth is very unforgiving of that - is why UK deaths were much higher than predicted

Of course, now we know much more about COVID which lesser measures than lockdown can stop it spreading, who is most at risk, better ways to treat patients,
but back in early March there was v little reliable data available about what else to do, just the carnage in N Italy.

So Whitty & co had to look at worst case

Nobody should be breaking the rules, because it's impractical to enforce rules just for those who haven't been infected and recovered

and also because those making the recommendations about rules should be the most scrupulous of all about following them

Imperial College said 500,000 deaths IF we never locked down and went for herd immunity.

As it was doubling every few days it’s very feasible that would have happened

He perhaps is a bit of a hypocrite but it makes him no less right.

He wanted to lockdown. He opposed easing of lockdown. He was forced to resign by a Telegraph story just before lockdown was eased.

Funny that.

My journalist friend says the Telegraph had the story for some time before it was published

This fuckin cretin is going to jail...

Make no mistake!

@BigChocFrenzy

Nobody should be breaking the rules, because it's impractical to enforce rules just for those who haven't been infected and recovered

and also because those making the recommendations about rules should be the most scrupulous of all about following them

Exactly. He was complicit in his girlfriend breaking the rules and quite rightly had to resign from SAGE.

Of course Cummings should also resign.