by Dr. Eowyn
Neil Ferguson, 52, a quintessential beta male from the looks of him, is an epidemiologist and professor of mathematical biology at Imperial College, London, UK, and head of the college’s COVID-19 Response Team..
Ferguson specialises in the patterns of spread of infectious disease in humans and animals. He creates mathematical models to study and make policy recommendations on infectious diseases, including the ebola virus, HIV, swine flu, SARS and smallpox.
In February 2020, using statistical models, Ferguson sounded the alarm that cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) were significantly under-detected (only 10% detected) in China, and that travellers from China had started chains of transmission within the countries they entered, including the UK.
In March, Ferguson gained widespread media attention when his COVID-19 Response Team published projections that the UK could face hundreds of thousands of deaths from COVID-19 without strict social distancing measures, but that with “strict social distancing, testing and isolation of infected cases”, deaths in the UK could fall to less than 20,000. The article concludes that “Many more deaths will be averted through ensuring that [non-pharmaceutical] interventions remain in place until transmission drops to low levels.” By “non-pharmaceutical interventions” is meant “case isolation, the closure of schools and universities, banning of mass gatherings and/or public events, and most recently, widescale social distancing including local and national lockdowns.” (See “Report 13: Estimating the number of infections and the impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions on COVID-19 in 11 European countries“)
A government advisor on the UK’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) committee, Ferguson wielded great influence on the UK government’s policy on infectious diseases. As Toby Young of Spectator USA puts it:
The professor of mathematical biology at Imperial College London seemed to have bewitched successive prime ministers, blinding them with his brilliance. Whenever a health emergency broke out, whether it was mad cow disease or avian flu, there he was, PowerPoint in hand, telling the leaders of the United Kingdom what to do. And they invariably fell into line.
On March 23, Prime Minister Boris Johnson was persuaded by Ferguson’s COVID-19 mathematical models to impose a lockdown on the whole uk population, banning all “non-essential” travel and contact with people outside one’s home, and shutting almost all businesses, venues, facilities, amenities and places of worship.
So it is the height of hypocrisy and deceit that Neil Ferguson chose to violate the lockdown policy he himself had recommended by having his married mistress, Antonia Staats, 38, visit him at his London home during the lockdown. Ferguson is also married, albeit “separated,” with one son.
According to the Telegraph, Staats made her first visit to Ferguson’s London flat on March 30, twelve days after Ferguson, on March 18, announced he’d tested positive for COVID-19 and that he was self-isolating in his flat.
On April 4, despite having violated the lockdown rule Ferguson told listeners of “BBC Today” that the lockdown must continue at least till the end of May because that would “risk the epidemic getting worse.”
The following week, on April 8, Staats made a second visit to Ferguson’s flat, despite telling friends she suspected that her husband had coronavirus symptoms.
A native of Germany, Staats is a rabid leftist who campaigned against Brexit and for an end to fossil fuel subsidies. She has been praised by Al Gore and Martin Schulz, the president of the unelected EU Parliament. Staats lives with her husband, an academic, and two children in a £1.9 million ($2.35 million) house in south London, and reportedly has an “open” marriage. She told friends she does not believe her and Ferguson’s actions to be hypocritical because she considers their two households to be one.
Two days later, on April 10, again speaking on “BBC Today,” Ferguson insisted that the lockdown must continue, despite the “huge” economic costs, social costs, personal and health costs.
Like Staats, Ferguson also believes he did nothing wrong. He told the Telegraph that he’d “acted in the belief that I was immune, having tested positive for coronavirus and completely isolated myself for almost two weeks after developing symptoms.” He allowed that “I deeply regret any undermining of the clear messages around the continued need for social distancing,” and insisted that the lockdown “is unequivocal, and is there to protect all of us.”
On Tuesday night, May 5, Ferguson admitted he had made an “error of judgment” and resigned from his government role on the SAGE committee.
Not only is Neil Ferguson a hypocrite and adulterer, his computer models have been found to be grossly inaccurate.
As recounted by Toby Young, Ferguson’s computer model predicted that if the Swedish government continued to pursue its “reckless” non-lockdown COVID-19 policy, the Swedish healthcare system would be overwhelmed 40-fold. By May 1, 40,000 Swedes would die of COVID-19, and 96,000 would die by the end of the year.
As of the time of this post, the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Sweden is 25,265, and the number of COVID-19 deaths is 3,175 — 36,835 fewer deaths than what Ferguson’s computer model had predicted. (Worldometer)
Meanwhile, Neil Ferguson has become synonymous with hypocrisy.
If you search for “Neil Ferguson” on Wikipedia, you’ll be directed to Wiki‘s entry on “Hypocrisy”. LOL
~Eowyn