Carry on Coronavirus: Architect of lockdown resigns after meeting married lover

You couldn’t make it up if you tried. The Imperial College scientist whose advice led to the UK’s tough lockdown measures to beat coronavirus has resigned from his government advisory role after breaking his own lockdown rules to meet his married lover.

According to the Daily Telegraph, the paper that broke the story, Professor Neil Ferguson, who is 51, allowed 38 year-old Antonia Staats (yes, really) to visit him at his home in north London home during the lockdown while simultaneously lecturing the public on the need for strict social distancing to reduce the spread of coronavirus.

The Professor had only just finished a two-weeks of self-isolating after testing positive for coronavirus before the couple enjoyed their visits. It is understood that Staats and her husband have an “open marriage.”

Staats, lives with her husband and their children in south London, and is believed to have travelled across the capital to visit Ferguson on at least two occasions.

Staats is a senior campaigner at avaaz.org, which claims to be a “global web movement to bring people-powered politics to decision-making everywhere,” and which organises on issues ranging from Facebook disinformation to climate change. She read Asian studies at Humboldt University in Germany, and then completed an Erasmus exchange at the School of Oriental and African Studies.

Ferguson, who is nick-named Professor Lockdown, is the epidemiologist who heads the team at Imperial College London which produced the computer-modelled research claiming that 500,000 people could die without stringent measures.

He was also a member of SAGE, the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, and it was his doom-laden warning which prompted the Prime Minister bringing in the strict social distancing measures on March 23.

In a statement last night Ferguson said: “I accept I made an error of judgment and took the wrong course of action. I have therefore stepped back from my involvement in Sage.”

“I acted in the belief that I was immune, having tested positive for coronavirus, and completely isolated myself for almost two weeks after developing symptoms.

Ferguson added: “I deeply regret any undermining of the clear messages around the continued need for social distancing to control this devastating epidemic. The Government guidance is unequivocal, and is there to protect all of us.”

It was Ferguson’s dire warnings about the highly infectious nature of Covid-19 that led to the government and its advisers dropping earlier plans to introduce a gentler form of quarantine into the community.

The Professor has taken a high profile media role during the pandemic, appearing frequently  on TV   to support the lockdown policy and praised the “very intensive social distancing” measures which have been taken.