Neil Ferguson Contradicts Trump's Claim That He Saved 2 Million Lives
President Donald Trump has boasted repeatedly that he saved 2.2 million lives from Covid-19, using a figure in a modelling study by epidemiologist Neil Ferguson to support his claim.
Ferguson, the lead author of the report , told HuffPost that’s not true. He added that the number of American lives ultimately lost to the disease will depend on what states do from here on out.
“Epidemics are not like hurricanes – you don’t hunker down for a few days (or for epidemics, weeks) and then they’re gone,” Ferguson said in an email to HuffPost. “The final death toll from this pandemic will depend as much on what policymakers in different US states do in the next few months as what they did since March.”
Trump compared Covid-19 to a hurricane last month.
“We made every decision correctly,” he claimed. “This was a hurricane, and it’s going to get better fast.”
It’s not getting better. Cases are up in the US and a number of states are smashing records for daily increases.
Ferguson estimates that hundreds of thousands of lives were likely saved in the US due to measures like stay-at-home orders, social distancing and quarantining of people who test positive.
But those measures were required by local authorities, not Trump. The president, against health experts’ advice, has held events with thousands of attendees, where few wear masks and there is no social distancing. Such precautions are recommended by the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention to help stem the spread of Covid-19.
The president and many White House officials also do not wear masks, or maintaining 6 feet of social distance.
“The policies adopted in the US over the last months undoubtedly saved many hundreds of thousands of lives,” Ferguson noted. “But unless transmission of this virus is kept under control, those gains risk being reversed.”
Ferguson was the lead author of a study at Imperial College London in March that was shared with the UK government and the White...
