Frequent commenter Orthomoyxo often cites the Imperial College model that touched off the worldwide panic. Now that the author of that model has resigned in disgrace, NR reports on how awful his record truly is. The whole article bears reading. Highlights:
Indeed, 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. Sweden now has 2,854 deaths and peaked two weeks ago. As Fraser Nelson, editor of Britain’s Spectator, notes: “Imperial College’s model is wrong by an order of magnitude.”
Indeed, Ferguson has been wrong so often that some of his fellow modelers call him “The Master of Disaster.”
Ferguson 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. He also predicted that up to 150,000 people could die. There were fewer than 200 deaths. Charlotte Reid, a farmer’s neighbor, recalls: “I remember that appalling time. Sheep were left starving in fields near us. Then came the open air slaughter. The poor animals were panic stricken. It was one of the worst things I’ve witnessed. And all based on a model — if’s but’s and maybe’s.”
In 2002, Ferguson predicted that up to 50,000 people would likely die from exposure to BSE (mad cow disease) in beef. In the U.K., 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 282 people died worldwide from the disease between 2003 and 2009.
In 2009, a government estimate, based on Ferguson’s advice, said a “reasonable worst-case scenario” was that the swine flu would lead to 65,000 British deaths. In the end, swine flu killed 457 people in the U.K.
Last March, 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. Ferguson declined to release his original code so other scientists could check his results. He only released a heavily revised set of code last week, after a six-week delay.
Ready to abandon your boy yet Ortho? I doubt it.
The most powerful part of this article is about how Ferguson got Sweden so terribly wrong. He said Sweden wold pay a huge price for no lockdown, with 40,000 COVID deaths by May 1, and 100,000 by June. Sweden now has 2,854 deaths and peaked two weeks ago.
Why is this important to us? Because Ferguson similarly predicted two million deaths in the US if there were no lockdown. When it is pointed out how wildly inaccurate Ferguson’s predictions were, Ortho always responds “but those were the ‘no lockdown” predictions!” Well, Ortho, his no lockdown predictions were also off by orders of magnitude.
Ferguson will go down in history as the greatest charlatan of all time in terms of money lost. He caused a panic that has cost the world literally trillions of dollars. I can’t think of anyone else who comes close to Ortho’s hero in the competition for “sheer economic destruction caused by one man.”