May 05, 2020 · by Milena Veselinovic, CNN

Professor Neil Ferguson, who is based at Imperial College in London, is one of the architects of the UK government stay-at-home strategy and was a prominent member of Britain's Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies SAGE which has been spearheading the coronavirus response.

In a statement to CNN, Professor Ferguson said he accepted he made “an error of judgement and took the wrong course of action,” and had therefore stepped back from his involvement in SAGE. “I 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 said.

“I deeply regret any undermining of the clear messages around the continued need for social distancing to control this devastating epidemic.”

May 5, 2020 - The Guardian UK coronavirus adviser Neil Ferguson resigns after breaking lockdown rules

Key expert in coronavirus response resigns from Sage after admitting ‘error of judgment’ Prof Neil Ferguson, the epidemiologist whose modelling helped shape Britain’s coronavirus lockdown strategy, has quit as a government adviser after flouting the rules by receiving visits from his lover at his home.

Ferguson runs the group of scientists at Imperial College London whose projections helped persuade ministers of the need to impose stringent physical distancing rules, or risk the NHS being overwhelmed.

In a statement on Tuesday, he said he was resigning his post on the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), over an “error of judgment”.¹⁾

Britain’s Covid experts are under attack, but they are just doing their jobs by Fiona Fox - The Guardian

NOTE - Fiona Fox was longtime Monsanto go to “science journalist” see GMWatch links October 2010 - More on Fiona Fox, the Director of Britain's pro-GM Science Media Centre, and her LM colleagues.²⁾ June 2013 Fiona Fox, the CEO of the (London) Science Media Centre, has today been awarded an OBE (Order Of The British Empire) for “services to science”³⁾

(select claims ) by Fiona Hill Those who attack Neil Ferguson and Sage’s pandemic predictions only expose their ignorance about science

t feels like open season on Professor Neil Ferguson right now. Sections of the media and several columnists delight in castigating the epidemiologist, or “Professor Lockdown”, for being “doomster in chief”, constantly predicting catastrophe and then backpeddling when the worst numbers don’t materialise.

Opponents of Covid restrictions blame Ferguson and his team at Imperial College London for persuading Boris Johnson to shake off his libertarian instincts and take us into lockdown. One presenter on new channel GB News described Ferguson as a “numpty” on air, and the very mention of his name attracts groans in some circles.

But the attacks on Ferguson often betray a fundamental misunderstanding of scientific modelling and, indeed, the way science works.

Lambasting epidemiologists for changing their minds is not the insult it may seem. “All models are wrong but some are useful” is a favoured saying of modellers. But it doesn’t follow that a modeller’s guess is no better than anyone else’s. They are not sitting gazing into a crystal ball; they are looking at numbers and using them to work out possible scenarios.

Critics often remind us that the worst-case scenarios in some of those early models suggested that there could be up to 500,000 deaths. But those numbers were reasonable with no vaccines or lockdown. In the end the number of deaths was thankfully lower than that – not because the modellers were winging it or the virus was less virulent than initially thought, but because the public generally accepted the need for restrictions, which bought the time to develop vaccines.

The other myth perpetuated by those who don’t like Ferguson is that he was the “architect of the lockdown”. While he is undoubtedly an influential scientist and much loved by BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, the reality of how science has informed decision-making is quite different.

The whole point of Sage and the Spi-M-O advisory group is that we don’t rely on individual models or views but develop a consensus of what the science is telling us which can be useful to policymakers.

It is right that scientists and evidence are scrutinised. The scientific endeavour is based on testing ideas and self-correction, and external challenges make science better. But calling scientists rude names and encouraging the public not to trust experts who revise their data and correct themselves is anti-science and anti-intellectual.

Fiona Fox is chief executive of the Science Media Centre (petrochemical PR)⁴⁾