Amid much gloom in Westminster over the threat posed by the new Covid Indian variant, Mr S was intrigued to hear a counter blast of optimism this morning from an unlikely source – Professor Neil Ferguson.
The epidemiologist appeared on Radio 4’s Today programme in which he said that this new strain appears to be less transmissible than some have previously feared as the ‘curves are flattening a little’ according to the ‘most recent data.’ Presenter Nick Robinson asked:
Transmissibility is this key thing that you’re looking to get the answer to. When do you think you will have that answer and is it really a case as we were hearing earlier on the programme which is if it is 50 per cent more transmissible this variant, that’s little short of a disaster, but 20 per cent we could kind of live with?
Ferguson – dubbed ‘Professor Lockdown’ last year after his modelling shocked Boris Johnson into imposing the first lockdown – responded:
So first of all it’s never all or nothing with science, you gain evidence as the data is collected.
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