“They came to a different policy conclusion, but based really on quite similar science.
“I don’t agree with it. But scientifically, they’re not that far from scientists in any part of the world.”
Sweden’s rate of virus reproduction – the so-called ‘R’ value – is thought to be at one, meaning that, on average, every case will cause one other infection.
In the UK, it is thought to be between 0.75 and one, meaning the virus outbreak is retreating.
While pointing out that the Sweden’s mortality rate is not declining in a similar way to other European countries, Prof Ferguson said: “Nevertheless, it is interesting that adopting a policy which is short of a full lockdown – they have closed secondary schools and universities and there is a significant amount of social distancing, but it’s not a full lockdown – they have got quite a long way to the same effect. That is something we are looking at very closely.
“Lockdowns are very crude policies, and what we’d like to do is have much more targeted controlled transmission going forward, which doesn’t have the same economic impacts.”
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