Professor Neil Ferguson has made it harder to keep faith in our public health experts

Dodgy boffins

IT is getting harder and harder to keep faith in our scientists and public health experts.

Professor Neil Ferguson hasn’t helped with his brazen legover-over-lockdown strategy. Hypocrisy doesn’t, of course, also imply scientific incompetence.

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But such a career-ending misjudgment does shine a light on his previous ones.

Like the apocalyptic foot-and-mouth forecasts used to justify the mass cattle cull of 2001. Or the prediction in 2002 that 150,000 of us could die of BSE . . . when the actual figure topped out at 177.

Or when he said in 2005 that 200million worldwide could die of bird flu. Actual figure: 455. Or when his modelling predicted 65,000 UK swine flu deaths in 2009. Real total: 457.

Ferguson forecast that, without drastic action, half a million Brits could die of Covid-19. And here we are, in lockdown.

The bonking boffin is not the loss to the nation his allies make out. And how much faith can we still have in the rest of his Sage colleagues? Or Public Health England, who assured us the risk to care homes was negligible?

How much of their hallowed advice is hunch dressed up as science? Can kids infect others? Some international studies say No. Britain says Yes, so our schools cannot go back.

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Do masks make no difference or a worthwhile one? We have heard both from the same experts.

Are van drivers REALLY safe if a passenger sits behind but not next to them?

Any Government must heed its experts. Imagine the outcry had Boris Johnson’s not done so. And their strategy did succeed in protecting the NHS.

But why — if it was as well-planned, well-timed and evidence-based as the scientists make out — are our new infections and deaths still so stubbornly high after weeks of being locked down?

Boris will ease the restrictions on Sunday, but not enough to prevent them destroying more jobs. And while we have not joined with those obsessively picking holes in his tactics, The Sun has to ask:

Do the PM’s experts know what they are on about?

Probe China

HOC/JESSICA TAYLOR

BRITAIN and the G20 must back an independent probe into China’s role in this deadly virus that shredded our economies.

We understand the sensitivities, with us still sourcing so much PPE and medicine from Chinese firms. But their government must pay for its negligence.

And Boris Johnson must pull the plug on Huawei’s involvement in our 5G.

Already dubious, it’s now unthinkable.

Not WAG’s bag

FORMER Man Utd flop Angel di Maria’s WAG Jorgelina loathed living here:

“Anywhere but England. The food’s disgusting and the girls are weird.”

At least our tourism board can stop looking for a new slogan.

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