| Summary: | In addition to the study published on March 16 (Ferguson, Laydon, et al. 2020), Ferguson personally advised the U.K. government's decisions as a member ofits SAGE (Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies) committee on COVID-19 and directly influenced a similar course taken by Dr. Anthony Fauci, the primary figure on the U.S. government's COVID-19 task force at the time (Adam 2020). PHILLIP W. MAGNESS AND PETER C. EARLE 0 ver the course ofjust two weeks in mid-March 2020, most ofthe world went into a state of general lockdown in response to the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). The ICL report's death-toll forecasts directly induced the governments of both countries to alter their pandemic-response strategies in favor of wide-scale lockdowns, Phillip W. Magness is senior research fellow at the American Institute for Economic Research. THE INDEPENDENT REVIEW ORIGINS AND PERSISTENCE OF COVID-19 LOCKDOWNS + 517 Conclusion The heavy (and arguably singular) reliance upon epidemiological simulations to guide NPI policies in the early portion ofthe COVID-19 outbreak came despite the simulations' poor pertbrmances and unproven track records in previous public-health crises involving pandemic spread.
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