Lockdown lover Neil Ferguson risks undermining Britain’s coronavirus exit strategy

Professor “lockdown” Neil Ferguson is no longer a Government advisor, he’s a very naughty boy! The epidemiologist, who leads the team at Imperial College London that produced the computer-modelled research that led to the national lockdown, was forced to resign after the Telegraph exposed that he broke the rules to see his married lover.

Whether he was right to resign is now a live debate, and I understand those that contend that his expertise is needed during this emergency whether he made a mistake or not. However, across the country people are feeling the strain under the lockdown and as this intensifies and we approach a loosening of the rules there is risk of a breakdown in discipline. If he had stayed in post it could lead to further flouting of the rules, especially when they’re relaxed and people begin to test the limits.

The British public have lived under severe restrictions for seven weeks and have still not been told how and when they will be lifted. For Neil Ferguson to break the rules and violate the spirit of this national effort undermines the whole thing. He has been across the media voicing support and giving explanations for the lockdown and social distancing measures. He had to go.

It’s all very well to say that he is immune, has been tested and has isolated. If we could ignore lockdown rules whenever we thought common sense allowed it than we’d all be a lot happier. The lifting of lockdown measures is going to be hard enough, I mean how can you tell people they can go into an office or take kids to school but must distance themselves from everyone else, including friends and family?

The last thing the government needs is a prominent adviser and advocate of the lockdown remaining in post after brazenly breaking the rules to meet his lover. It may seem like common sense that an emergency pandemic is not the time for moralising, but there are wider implications and it’s entirely to do with the hypocrisy and undermining of the lockdown than anything to do with judging the professor for the relationship he’s in.

In-fact, I understand the professor, this is hard isn’t it? There are people across the land desperate to meet up with their lovers and partners, not to mention their friends and family. This is why those people who downplay the negative consequences of the lockdown are so wrong, for many it’s a difficult, painful experience causing isolation, unhappiness and reduced quality of life. For many others it’s far worse than that.

For people not getting vital medical treatment because of the lockdown, for those sinking into depression because they’re desperately lonely, for those women feeling even more trapped with their abuser, for every Briton champing at the bit to get out there and experience life and embrace their relatives, for the integrity of the lockdown that he himself insisted was necessary, the professor had to resign.

A resignation was the only real way of drawing a line under this and moving on. This is a crucial week. It has never been more urgent for the public to understand when and how the lockdown will be lifted and when we can get our lives back. This cannot endure for much longer. We need a strategy for ending this, and common-sense policies for how we go forward with some elements of social distancing in the future without placing unrealistic long term restrictions.

The decision-making process regarding how to map out a route out of lockdown is a delicately balanced and hazardous mix of data, estimations and politics. The Government was criticised for not locking down sooner, so the question of when to lift the measures is fraught with risk and depends on the compliance of the public. If Neil Ferguson can meet his lover because he’s had a test, then how can we tell people who have had the disease, or had a negative test or are in a low risk age group they must continue to endure the most severe curtailment of their rights since the Second World War?