On Tuesday, Professor Neil Ferguson, of Imperial College London, whose bleak projections of future deaths from COVID-19 influenced governments around the world to institute massive lockdowns, <a href="https://dnyuz.com/2020/06/02/prof-lockdown-neil-ferguson-admits-sweden-used-same-science-as-uk-but-has-suppressed-coronavirus-without-tough-restrictions/">admitted</a> of Sweden, which did not institute harsh lockdowns, &#8220;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.&#8221;
Speaking before a House of Lords Science and Technology Committee, the man who half a million Britons could die from Covid-19 spoke of Sweden, whose 436 people per million mortality rate from the coronavirus is significantly lower than the UK’s 575 people per million. <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8379769/Professor-Lockdown-Neil-Ferguson-admits-greatest-respect-Sweden.html">The Daily Mail</a> noted, “As well as fewer deaths, Sweden&#8217;s GDP actually grew in the first quarter of 2020, suggesting it might avoid the worst of the economic fallout from the crisis
Ferguson admitted, “&#8217;There are differences in how science has influenced policies in different countries. I have the greatest respect for scientists there [in Sweden]. They came to a different policy conclusion but based really on quite similar science.” Asked why 4,000 people had died in Sweden instead of the 90,000 that had been forecast, he answered, “I think it&#8217;s an interesting question. It&#8217;s clear there have been significant social distancing in Sweden. Our best estimate is that that has led to a reduction in the reproduction number to around 1.&#8221; He cautioned, &#8220;It&#8217;s clear that when you look at their mortality, they are not seeing the rate of decline most European countries are seeing.”
He admitted, “But nevertheless it is interesting that adopting a policy which is short of a full lockdown&#8230; they&#8217;ve gone quite a long way to [achieving] the same effect,” while adding, “&#8217;Although there is no evidence of a rapid decline in the same way in other European countries. That is something we&#8217;re looking at very closely.” Then he acknowledged, “Lockdown is a very crude policy and what we&#8217;d like to do is have a much more targeted approach that does not have the same economic impacts.”
Ferguson added, “I suspect though, under any scenario that levels of transmission and numbers of cases will remain relatively flat between now and September, short of very big policy changes or behavior changes in the community. The real uncertainty then is if there are larger policy changes in September, of course we move into time of year when respiratory viruses tend to transmit slightly better, what will happen then. And that remains very unclear.”
The  <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/16/us/coronavirus-fatality-rate-white-house.html">Imperial College London model</a> headed by Ferguson surmised as many as 2.2 million Americans could have died from the virus if no action were taken. It also suggested 510,000 people would die in the U.K. without a lockdown and 250,000 if mitigating steps were taken.
<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/neil-ferguson-transformed-uk-covid-response-oxford-challenge-imperial-model-2020-4">Business Insider</a> noted, “In 2009, one of Ferguson&#8217;s models predicted 65,000 people could die from the Swine Flu outbreak in the UK — the final figure was below 500.” Business Insider also noted, “Michael Thrusfield, a professor of veterinary epidemiology at Edinburgh University, told the paper he had ‘déjà vu’ after reading the Imperial paper, saying Ferguson was responsible for excessive animal culling during the 2001 Foot and Mouth outbreak. Ferguson warned the government that 150,000 people could die. Six million animals were slaughtered as a precaution, costing <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/5454878_Economic_Costs_of_the_Foot_and_Mouth_Disease_Outbreak_in_the_United_Kingdom_in_2001" data-analytics-module="body_link" data-analytics-post-depth="60">the country billions in farming revenue.</a> In the end, 200 people died.”
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.  
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SWEDEN-HEALTH-VIRUS-WEATHER-FEATURE

Epidemiologist Who Triggered Worldwide Lockdowns Admits: Without Instituting Full Lockdown, Sweden Essentially Getting Same Effect

Neil Ferguson

Sweden

The married woman with whom U.K. professor (and professed coronavirus expert) Neil Ferguson had an affair, defying the lockdown order he imposed with his doomsday model projection that shut down the world economy, is not sorry for cheating on her family or breaking her country&#8217;s mandate.
The woman has been identified as Antonia Staats, 38, whom <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/world/uk-scientist-health-secretary-speechless-coronavirus-tryst">Fox News</a> billed as a &#8220;left-wing campaigner and activist who has a history of criticizing Prime Minister <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/category/person/boris-johnson" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Boris Johnson</a> and <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/category/world/world-regions/europe/brexit" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Brexit</a> on social media.&#8221;
Prior to Ferguson&#8217;s resignation from his government advisory position, Staats twice traveled from the home she shares with her husband and two children to visit the professor. According to U.K.&#8217;s Telegraph, Staats made the second trip even after telling friends her husband started showing COVID-19 symptoms.
The <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8292249/Scientist-Neil-Fergusons-lover-said-lockdown-strained-marriage.html?fbclid=IwAR1L4IQn0DN8b-vz7o95rYpCYCxMH5rLYgvN2T_tHmczE4JWo5sWZr1v4d0" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Daily Mail</a> reports that Staats had an &#8220;open marriage&#8221; with her husband and that she does not consider her actions hypocritical because she views the two houses as one. Speaking to a podcast, she said the first visit primarily stemmed from the strain the lockdown put on her marriage.
“I think it&#8217;s also a strain on – maybe strained has sounded too negative – but it&#8217;s an interesting relationship challenge, for Chris [her husband] and my relationship,” she said.
Ferguson, whose Imperial College Study model predicted up to 500,000 deaths in the U.K. and 2.2 million deaths in the U.S. without COVID-19 mitigations,<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-epidemiologist-behind-doomsday-model-resigns-after-breaking-lockdown-to-meet-married-lover-ferguson-responds"> expressed regret</a> for how his actions have undermined social distancing initiatives.
“I accept I made an error of judgment and took the wrong course of action,” Ferguson told The Telegraph on Tuesday. “I have therefore stepped back from my involvement in Sage [the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies]. I acted in the belief that I was immune, having tested positive for coronavirus, and completely isolated myself for almost two weeks after developing symptoms.&#8221;
“I deeply regret any undermining of the clear messages around the continued need for social distancing to control this devastating epidemic,” the scientist added. “The Government guidance is unequivocal, and is there to protect all of us.”
Matt Hancock, <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/category/world/world-regions/united-kingdom" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Britain</a>’s health secretary, admitted Wednesday he was left &#8220;speechless&#8221; and lauded Ferguson for resigning.
As reported by The Daily Wire&#8217;s Amanda Prestigiacomo, Ferguson has faced criticism for grossly inflating death toll numbers on virus prediction models.
“In 2009, one of Ferguson’s models predicted 65,000 people could die from the Swine Flu outbreak in the UK — the final figure was below 500,” <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/neil-ferguson-transformed-uk-covid-response-oxford-challenge-imperial-model-2020-4">Business Insider</a> noted, adding, “Michael Thrusfield, a professor of veterinary epidemiology at Edinburgh University, told the paper he had ‘déjà vu’ after reading the Imperial paper, saying Ferguson was responsible for excessive animal culling during the 2001 Foot and Mouth outbreak. Ferguson warned the government that 150,000 people could die. Six million animals were slaughtered as a precaution, costing <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/5454878_Economic_Costs_of_the_Foot_and_Mouth_Disease_Outbreak_in_the_United_Kingdom_in_2001" data-analytics-module="body_link" data-analytics-post-depth="60">the country billions in farming revenue.</a> In the end, 200 people died.”
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

BRITAIN-FRANCE-HEALTH-VIRUS-TRANSPORT

Married Woman Not Sorry For Love Affair With ‘Professor Lockdown’

COVID

A Swedish professor who was the <a href="https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/strategic-and-technical-advisory-group-for-infectious-hazards/members/biographies/en/index2.html">State Epidemiologist for Sweden</a> between 1995 to 2005, then served as the first Chief Scientist of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), blasted Professor Neil Ferguson, the British epidemiologist from the Imperial College London, who wrote a paper that convinced many countries, including the United States, Germany, France, and those in the United Kingdom, to impose lockdowns to deal with the coronavirus, saying Ferguson was “normally quite arrogant,” according to <a href="https://unherd.com/thepost/giesecke-stands-firm-swedish-death-rate-will-go-down/">Unherd</a>.
Professor Johan Giesecke was interviewed by the Swedish broadsheet Svenska Dagbladet. Referring to Ferguson’s <a href="https://unherd.com/thepost/imperials-prof-neil-ferguson-responds-to-the-swedish-critique/">interview</a> on UnHerd, he stated,  “I know [Ferguson] a little and he is normally quite arrogant, but I have never seen him as tense and nervous as during that interview.” Giesecke added, “Ferguson modified quite a few of the straightforward statements [from his report], but still seems to think that the lethality is somewhere at just under one percent, while I think it is actually much lower, perhaps as low as 0.1%.”
Giesecke had given an interview to<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfN2JWifLCY&amp;t=764s"> Unherd</a> in mid-April in which he was asked about the Imperial College report, which had suggested 510,000 people would die in the U.K. without a lockdown and 250,000 if mitigating steps were taken.  He answered:
<blockquote>I think it’s not very good, and the thing that they miss a little is that any models for infectious diseases —they’re very popular, many people do them — they’re good for teaching, they seldom tell you the truth because — I make a small parenthesis — which model could have assumed that the outbreak would start in northern Italy, in Europe, Difficult to model that one.  And any such model — it looks complicated, there are strange mathematical formulae, and integral signs and stuff, but it rests on the assumptions. And the assumptions in that article will be heavily criticized for — I won’t go through that, it would take the rest of your day if I went through them all. The paper was never published scientifically; it’s not peer-reviewed, which a scientific paper should be; it’s just an internal departmental report from Imperial. And it’s fascinating; I don’t think any other scientific endeavor has made such an impression on the world as that rather debatable paper.</blockquote>
Asked whether European countries instituting a lockdown to deal with the coronavirus was a misguided policy and whether it was doing more harm than good, he answered that he was worried about politicians assuming dictatorial powers: “Yes. I think so, on the whole. What I’m saying is that people who will die a few months later are dying now and that’s taking months from their lives so that’s maybe not nice. But comparing that to the effects of the lockdown… what am I most afraid of? It’s the dictatorial trends in eastern Europe; Orban is now dictator of Hungary forever; there’s no finishing that. I think the same is popping up in other countries; it may pop up in other more established countries as well. I think the ramifications can be huge from this.”
Giesecke said Sweden had not been “on our toes” to protect the elderly, acknowledging, “There are many things we could have done better a couple of months ago.”
He was asked, “What was it about this pandemic that was so different that has led to this global shutdown?” He answered, “New disease, lot of people dying, you don’t know really what will happen, and this fear of contagion is almost genetic in people. And showing political strength, decisiveness, force. Very important for politicians.”
As far as Ferguson’s projection that Sweden will see an increase in deaths from the coronavirus, Giesecke has countered, “No, on the contrary, I think the number will go down — although it may tick up slightly when we get an outbreak in West Götaland or Skåne [provinces of Sweden that have so far been less badly affected].&#8221;
In Great Britain, the initial government policy on March 12 was to pursue a “herd immunity” strategy against the coronavirus, but on March 16, Ferguson gave a 20-page paper to UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson that predicted 510,000 people would die by that strategy. One week later, the British government changed course, instituting a suppression strategy.
<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/neil-ferguson-transformed-uk-covid-response-oxford-challenge-imperial-model-2020-4">Business Insider</a> noted, “In 2009, one of Ferguson&#8217;s models predicted 65,000 people could die from the Swine Flu outbreak in the UK — the final figure was below 500.” Business Insider also noted, “Michael Thrusfield, a professor of veterinary epidemiology at Edinburgh University, told the paper he had ‘déjà vu’ after reading the Imperial paper, saying Ferguson was responsible for excessive animal culling during the 2001 Foot and Mouth outbreak. Ferguson warned the government that 150,000 people could die. Six million animals were slaughtered as a precaution, costing <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/5454878_Economic_Costs_of_the_Foot_and_Mouth_Disease_Outbreak_in_the_United_Kingdom_in_2001" data-analytics-module="body_link" data-analytics-post-depth="60">the country billions in farming revenue.</a> In the end, 200 people died.”
Some people ripped Ferguson for reportedly overestimating the potential death toll in the 2005 Bird Flu outbreak. Ferguson allegedly estimated <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/sep/30/birdflu.jamessturcke">200 million could die</a>, but the actual total was <a href="https://www.statnews.com/2019/02/13/bird-flu-mutations-outlook/">reportedly</a> less than 1,000.
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

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Neil Ferguson

Epidemiologist Who Triggered Worldwide Lockdowns Admits: Without Instituting Full Lockdown, Sweden Essentially Getting Same Effect

Married Woman Not Sorry For Love Affair With ‘Professor Lockdown’

Leading Swedish Epidemiologist Slams British Scientist Whose Paper Triggered Worldwide Lockdowns: ‘Normally Quite Arrogant’