A top infectious disease modeler and epidemiologist said there is misinformation going around about his research on the expected coronavirus death toll in the United Kingdom.
Neil Ferguson, an Imperial College London professor, said his original estimate, which showed the coronavirus would kill 500,000 people in the U.K., remains true, while a new model reading reflecting the influence of lockdown measures saw that estimate shrink to 20,000 or fewer.
“I think it would be helpful if I cleared up some confusion that has emerged in recent days. Some have interpreted my evidence to a UK parliamentary committee as indicating we have substantially revised our assessments of the potential mortality impact of COVID-19,” Ferguson said in a Twitter thread posted Thursday.
“This is not the case. Indeed, if anything, our latest estimates suggest that the virus is slightly more transmissible than we previously thought. Our lethality estimates remain unchanged,” he continued.
“My evidence to Parliament referred to the deaths we assess might occur in the UK in the presence of the very intensive social distancing and other public health interventions now in place,” Ferguson said. “Without those controls, our assessment remains that the UK would see the scale of deaths reported in our study (namely, up to approximately 500 thousand).”
Ferguson, who tested positive for the coronavirus, said Wednesday the coronavirus death toll is unlikely to exceed 20,000 and could be much lower if lockdown measures in the U.K. stay in place, noting that he is “reasonably confident” that the health system can handle the burden of treating coronavirus patients.
His initial March 16 report that showed the disease could cause up to 510,000 deaths in the U.K. also projected up to 2.2 million deaths in the United States from a similar spread. That report, which said social distancing practices might be needed for as many as 18 months to avoid catastrophe, is credited with inspiring more extreme measures to have the public self-isolate to stem the spread of the coronavirus.
Ferguson’s new evidence prompted critics to pan his initial “doomsday” study as alarmist.
Earlier this week, Stanford scientists wrote an opinion article suggesting that estimates about the coronavirus mortality rate may be too high and questioned the need for any universal quarantine, noting it “may not be worth the costs it imposes on the economy, community and individual mental and physical health.”
There have been around 542,788 confirmed coronavirus cases around the world, 124,351 recoveries, and 24,361 deaths, according to the latest reading by the Johns Hopkins University tracker. In the U.K., there have been 11,816 cases, 150 recoveries, and 580 deaths.
