[citation needed]

Afaik this was a lone study that might have been relevant only to the UK debate (and very late at that). Italy had already been in full lockdown for weeks before it was published, quite a few other European countries had gone in shutdown or closed borders, and obviously Asian countries had already taken countermeasures for months.

Being so cavalier with the truth is, of course, why intelligent people don't take seriously a lot of anti-science attitudes.

But I don't really blame Ferguson. If President Macron listens to him, or Alex Jones, or any other crank or random guy with an opinion and a model, instead of his own experts, he is the one to blame. I think the culture of the "safety principle" and excessive caution is also to blame.

https://www.lemonde.fr/planete/article/2020/03/15/coronaviru...

[0] https://metro.co.uk/2020/02/25/towns-italy-lockdown-coronavi...

As I said, "around the world" they were already taking countermeasures.

There is also a "control" group of sorts in us Swedes, as the Swedish health authority choose to act differently, initially. Their recommendation as of now is essentially equivalent to quarantine, except for non-adults. It's important to understand that it is really to instigate anything like a curfew in Sweden, at least unless we get attacked military by another country. The laws as they stand don't really allow that. So the government is also somewhat limited in what they can do.

The situation here is that urgent care has been overwhelmed for about a month, and a lot more people have died or been gravely ill than during even really bad flu seasons. We're also probably far from done yet, as it's much easier to get people to stay indoors when it's cold and rainy outside, and as its been getting warmer more people have been disrespecting the recommendations.

Its model for China predictions seems to be quite fitting.

So find a bug in the implementation which can invalidate one of their claims. Lack of tests, is not a bug.