Lockdown a week earlier ‘could have halved deaths’
INTRODUCING lockdown measures a week earlier could have halved Britain’s coronavirus deaths a former government adviser has said.
Professor Neil Ferguson, professor of mathematical biology at Imperial College London, told the Science and Technology Committee that bringing in the measures just a short time earlier could have cut the death toll – currently at more than 40,000 – by 50 per cent.
He said: “The epidemic was doubling every three to four days before lockdown interventions were introduced. So, had we introduced lockdown measures a week earlier, we would have reduced the final death toll by at least a half.”
Asked about the figures and what his biggest regret of the pandemic was, Boris Johnson told the latest Downing street briefing: “We will have to look back on all of it and learn the lessons that we can. A lot of these things are still premature. This epidemic has a long way to go.”
Prof Ferguson, who originally estimated deaths would unlikely exceed 20,000, did add that based on what was known about transmission and fatalities at the time, the measures were warranted. The UK was put into lockdown on March 23. Prof Ferguson also said that up to 2,000 coronavirus infections had been imported from Italy and Spain before lockdown.
He said: “Around about that time just before lockdown happened, the first two weeks of March, we probably had around 1,500 to 2,000 infections imported from Italy and Spain which we just hadn’t seen in the surveillance data.”
Mr Johnson announced that from this Saturday, single-adult households in England would be able to form a ‘support bubble’ with another household. The move could allow children in single-parent households to see one set of grandparents.
A grandparent living alone would be allowed to visit the house of their child and grandchildren. But the move would not allow a couple to visit both parents as neither household would comprise a single adult. Mr Johnson said all those in a bubble will be able to act as if they live in the same household. He also announced that zoos and safari parks could open their outdoor areas from Monday. That’s the date when it has been announced all shops can reopen and places of worship can be used for private prayer.
Sir Patrick Vallance, the UK’s chief scientific adviser, said the R rate across the country was below one but that the country would continue to have to demonstrate ‘caution’ in how it eased the lockdown.