An interview with Professor Neil Ferguson on the current 2019-nCoV coronavirus outbreak

[crickets]

posted to YouTube 02/05/20.

J-IDEA - Rapid response research centre to predict and prevent global health crises

Professor Neil Ferguson will serve as J-IDEA’s first director. The distinguished epidemiologist is well known for his advances in mathematical models of the geographic spread of emergent pathogens, including BSE, foot and mouth disease, SARS, MERS, pandemic influenza, Ebola and Zika.

Ferguson gives calm, measured, informative responses to a series of questions that cover most of the concerns people are probably wondering about. He does not try to claim certainty in his answers where there are no absolutes, nor does he sugarcoat the information in which he is confident.

[Laffy Kat]

1. Did I hear him correctly, "Up to fifty thousand new infections [of the virus] a day in China"?

I backed up and listened several times to be clear whether he said "fifteen" or "fifty" and I'm pretty sure it was fifty. Jesus.

[crickets]

2. It was. I also backed up and listened several times to make sure.

eta - I debated with myself about posting this video, but I do not hear a man scaremongering here. He is being honest and forthright. Truth is needed now. By lying to its citizens, the Chinese government made this much worse for them than it had to be. Now, along with hoping for the best for China, it's a question of what can be done to stem the spread so that we don't have the same situation elsewhere. Accurate information is our first best tool in doing that.