Britain’s Covid lockdown architect today denied ever calling for the first national stay-at-home order.
Professor Neil Ferguson’s terrifying March 2020 models warned that 500,000 Brits would die unless tougher action was taken to curb the virus’s spread.
It spooked Boris Johnson into adopting draconian restrictions that saw the country told they ‘must stay at home’. Vaccines — considered the only safe route out of the pandemic — were still months away from being deployed.
But Professor Ferguson, who quit his role as a SAGE adviser two months after being caught breaking social distancing rules to meet his married lover, today insisted he didn’t tell officials to plunge the country into a lockdown.
He told the UK Covid-19 Inquiry that the situation was ‘a lot more complex’.
The inquiry is in its second module, which is examining core UK decision-making and political governance.
Hugo Keith KC asked: ‘Do you feel that you did confine yourself to the provision of scientific advice, or did you become, despite your best endeavours, irrevocably involved in determination of policy?’
Imperial College London’s Professor Ferguson, nicknamed ‘Professor Lockdown’ for his infamous modelling, said it was a ‘difficult question to answer’.
He said: ‘I know I’m associated very much with a particular policy.
‘But as you’ll be aware from the evidence I’ve given in my statement and statements of evidence, the reality was a lot more complex.
