Introducing lockdown measures in the UK just a week earlier could have halved the country's coronavirus death toll, a former top government scientist has said.
Professor Neil Ferguson, whose original modelling helped shape the government's lockdown strategy, said tens of thousands of deaths could have been prevented if action had been taken sooner to shut the country down.
He told the Commons science and technology committee today: “We knew 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.”
Professor Ferguson resigned from his key position on the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) in May for breaching lockdown rules.
Today he was quzzed by MPs about why the UK's death toll is so much higher than scientists had originally thought it might be - and compared with other countries.
He said: "Whilst I think the measures, given what we knew about this virus in terms of its transmission and its lethality, were warranted - I wouldn't want to second-guess them at this point - certainly had we introduced them sooner we would have seen many fewer deaths."
Despit major warnings from countries like Italy and Spain - who were going through the peak of their epidemics in March - Boris Johnson's government delayed going into full lockdown until March 23.
Prior to this - on March 16 - he had urged people to stop non-essential contact and to work from home where possible.
There are real fears that by not acting sooner, as other countries did, many more thousands of people were infected and died with Covid-19.
Office for National Statistics data suggests that the UK death toll from coronavirus is now over 50,000.
