WhatFinger


Professional doomsayer

COVID Modeler Helped Ruin the Economy



Neil Ferguson is the British academic who created the infamous Imperial College model that warned Boris Johnson that, without an immediate lockdown, the coronavirus would cause 500,000 deaths and swamp the National Health Service. Ferguson's model also influenced the US to make lockdown moves with its shocking prediction of over two million Americans dead. 1 Johan Giesecke, the former chief scientist for the European Center for Disease Control and Prevention, has called Ferguson's model 'the most influential scientific paper' in memory. He also says it was sadly, 'one of the most wrong.'

Ferguson's Imperial College model has been proven wildly inaccurate

Ferguson's Imperial College model has been proven wildly inaccurate. To cite just one example, it saw Sweden paying a huge price for no lockdown, with 40,000 COVID deaths by May 1 and 100,000 by June. As of July 12, Sweden had 5,536 deaths. Indeed, Ferguson has been wrong so often that some of his fellow modelers call him, “The Master of Disaster.” He was behind the disputed research that sparked the mass culling of eleven million sheep and cattle during the 2001 outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease. 1 In 2002, Ferguson predicted that, by 2080, up to 150,000 people could die from exposure to BSE (mad cow disease) in beef. In the UK, there were only 177 deaths from BSE. In 2005, Ferguson predicted that up to 150 million people could be killed from bird flu. In the end, only 440 people died. 2 Ferguson admitted that his Imperial College model of the COVID-19 disease was based on undocumented, 13 year old computer code that was intended to be used for a feared influenza pandemic, rather than a coronavirus. John Fund asks this pertinent question: “So the real scandal is: Why did anyone ever listen to this guy?” 1 The real blame here is not on Neil Ferguson, but on the people in government that made multi-million dollar decisions enforced in law based on an unverified model, especially given the creator's previous record. 3

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Real blame on the people in government that made multi-million dollar decisions enforced in law based on an unverified model

Government leaders were not forced to use any model as a basis for their decisions. The US does its own virus computer models, and they also look at the two or three dozen other models that are created. Yet, American officials said the report, which projected up to 2.2 million deaths in the United States from the virus, influenced the White House to strengthen its measures to isolate members of the public.4 Most folks did did not realize Ferguson had made all those errors. Most people had never heard of the guy before all the coronavirus news. Ferguson played a role in the system. He told people what they wanted to hear—or at least, what some people wanted to hear. Maybe he played the role of professional doomsayer. 5

References

  1. John Fund, “Profess lockdown modeler resigns in disgrace,” nationalreview.com, May 6, 2020
  2. James Sturcke, “Bird flu pandemic could kill 150 million,” theguardian.com,, September 30, 2005
  3. Anthony Watts, “Reminder: world's worst computer modeler ruined the world economy,” wattsupwiththat.com, June 6, 2020
  4. Mark Landler and Stephen Castle, “Behind the virus report that jarred the US and the UK to action,” nytimes.com, March 17, 2020
  5. John Fund, “So the real scandal is: why did anyone ever listen to this guy?”, statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu, May 8, 2020


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Jack Dini -- Bio and Archives

Jack Dini is author of Challenging Environmental Mythology.  He has also written for American Council on Science and Health, Environment & Climate News, and Hawaii Reporter.


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