The stunning impact of the Imperial College report made Ferguson arguably the most important public health expert in the world. Yet he was neither physician nor virologist. His PhD was in theoretical physics, arguments about the structure of the universe that are something close to pure math. But he and the other Imperial College researchers appeared to believe a handful of relatively simple equations would predict the coronavirus epidemic. To be correct, the modelers would have to understand not only how the virus spread but the complex behavioral changes lockdowns would inevitably produce.
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