Late lockdown fatal

Scientist says UK could have halved virus toll by acting faster

BRITAIN’S coronavirus death toll could have been halved by imposing lockdown a week earlier, one of its architects has acknowledged.

Professor Neil Ferguson, of Imperial College London, said thousands of lives had been lost because the government, and the scientists advising it, did not realise how many people were already infected in early March.

He also suggested a similar scale of deaths resulted from infections in care homes being four times higher than everywhere else, insisting that scientists had urged ministers at the time to test residents and staff.

Professor Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer for England, conceded yesterday the slow increase in testing capacity was his key regret about the epidemic.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson said it was “premature” to judge whether the government should have acted differently.

He said more was known now about the virus than in March and “we made the decisions at the time on the guidance of (the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies), including Professor Ferguson”.

Professor Ferguson was a member of Sage until forced to resign for breaking lockdown rules to meet his lover.

“The epidemic was doubling every three to four days before interventions were introduced,” he told the Commons science and technology committee.

“Had we introduced lockdown a week earlier, we would have reduced the final death toll by at least a half.”

Professor Ferguson said modelling of a lockdown had been given to ministers nine days before it was imposed.

Professor Matt Keeling, of Warwick University, who sits on a Sage subcommittee, agreed going into lockdown earlier would have saved lives.

Sir Patrick Vallance, the chief scientific adviser, said looking at what went wrong should be to learn lessons rather than allocate blame.