Britain’s
health secretary said Wednesday that national lockdown rules were “for
everyone,” after one of the government’s key scientific advisers quit for
receiving secret visits from his girlfriend amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Imperial College epidemiologist Neil Ferguson developed models that predicted
hundreds of thousands would die unless the U.K. imposed drastic restrictions to
slow the spread of the coronavirus. His advice was key in triggering Britain’s
lockdown in March. Under the rules, people are barred from visiting friends and
family that they don’t live with.
Ferguson quit the government’s scientific advisory panel late Tuesday after
the Daily Telegraph newspaper
reported that a woman he is in a relationship with had crossed London to visit
him at his home.
Ferguson said in a statement that he had “made an error of judgment and
took the wrong course of action.”
“I deeply regret any undermining of the clear messages around the
continued need for social distancing to control this devastating
epidemic,” he said.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock said Ferguson was “a very eminent and
impressive scientist,” but “took the right decision to resign.”
He told Sky News that the social distancing rules “are there for everyone,
they are incredibly important and they are deadly serious. They are the means
by which we have managed to get control of this virus.”
Ferguson has become a well-known figure in Britain, making frequent media
appearances during the outbreak. On March 18, he tweeted that he had a fever
and cough, symptoms of COVID-19, and that there was a small risk he had
infected others.
Ferguson is the second scientific adviser in the U.K. to quit after failing to
follow their own advice. Catherine Calderwood resigned as Scotland’s chief
medical officer last month for twice traveling from Edinburgh to her second
home.
As one of the founders of the MRC Centre for Global Disease Analysis at
Imperial College London, Ferguson’s work has been instrumental in shaping
public health responses to outbreaks including swine flu, Ebola and Zika.
Ferguson has long advised authorities including the World Health Organization
and national governments in Britain, Europe and the U.S.
On March 16, Ferguson and colleagues published a paper suggesting that even
with some social distancing measures, the U.K. could see 250,000 coronavirus
deaths and that the U.S. might have about 1 million deaths. In a worst-case
scenario, Ferguson predicted those figures could more than double in both
countries.
The following day, Prime Minister Boris Johnson advised Britons to work from
home if possible and to avoid all unnecessary social gatherings.
Source: Voice of America