Stuff | 6 May 2020
The scientist whose advice prompted Prime Minister Boris Johnson to lock down the country resigned from his UK government advisory position last night, as The Daily Telegraph can disclose that he broke social distancing rules to meet his married lover.
Prof Neil Ferguson allowed the woman to visit him at home during lockdown while he lectured the public on the need for strict social distancing to reduce the spread of coronavirus. The woman lives with her husband and their two children in another house.
The epidemiologist leads a team at Imperial College London that produced the computer-modelled research which claimed more than 500,000 people in Britain would die without the national lockdown. He has frequently taken to the media to support lockdown and praised the “very intensive social distancing” measures.
The disclosure of the “illegal” meetings will infuriate couples living apart whom the Government has banned from meeting up during the lockdown, now in its seventh week.
On at least two occasions, Antonia Staats, 38, travelled from her south London home across the capital to spend time with the 51-year-old scientist, nicknamed Professor Lockdown, who had only just completed two weeks self-isolating after testing positive for the virus.
