So the real scandal is: Why did anyone ever listen to this guy? He only released a heavily revised set of code last week, after a six-week delay. Ferguson declined to release his original code so other scientists could check his results. 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. In the end, swine flu killed 457 people in the U.K. 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, only 282 people died worldwide from the disease between 20. In 2005, Ferguson predicted that up to 150 million people could be killed from bird flu. In the U.K., there were only 177 deaths from BSE. In 2002, Ferguson predicted that up to 50,000 people would likely die from exposure to BSE (mad cow disease) in beef. He also predicted that up to 150,000 people could die. 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.
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