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Coronavirus: Lockdown could be eased further if not for 'shocking' care home epidemic, suggests Neil Ferguson

2015 Getty Images
2015 Getty Images

The risk of the pandemic returning would be lower if the government had not botched the fight against coronavirus in care homes, a former adviser says.

Professor Neil Ferguson said ministers would have “more wiggle room” as they ease lockdown restrictions – adding he was “shocked” by the failure to protect care home residents, not just in the UK but “around the world”.

Asked about the critical R reproduction rate – which remains close to 1, above which infections will rise again – the professor of epidemiology stressed that transmission in institutions and the community was “coupled”.

“If we had done a better job – did do a better job – of reducing transmissions in those institutions like hospitals and care homes, we would have a little bit more room, wiggle room as it were,” he told a parliamentary inquiry.

Professor Ferguson added: “The infections in hospitals and care homes spill back into the community – more commonly from the people who work in those institutions.

“So, if you can drive the infection rates low in those institutional settings, you drive the infection lower in the community as a whole.”

The comments come amid controversy over the lifting of some restrictions this week – on household-mixing and reopening schools – despite transmission remaining “high”, according to the official alert level”.

Boris Johnson admitted last month there was still “an epidemic” in care homes, even after the UK passed the Covid-19 peak, and they account for at least a quarter of deaths.

Professor Ferguson, who was forced to quit after his own lockdown breach, told the House of Lords science and technology committee: “I, like many people, am shocked about how badly European – or countries around the world – have protected care home populations.”

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