Neil Ferguson says he was probably infectious when he attended No 10 press conference

One of the government’s top coronavirus experts has had to self-isolate after developing coronavirus symptoms and revealed he was probably infectious when he attended a Downing Street press conference on Tuesday.

Prof Neil Ferguson, from Imperial College London, tweeted that he has a persistent cough and high fever, and had been forced to self-isolate in his central London flat for seven days.

Ferguson, head of the modelling programme at Imperial’s MRC centre for global infectious disease analysis, who has been working round the clock with a team of experts advising the government, tweeted: “Sigh. Developed a slight dry but persistent cough yesterday and self-isolated even though I felt fine. Then developed high fever at 4am today. There is a lot of Covid-19 in Westminster.”

Ferguson has been advising UK officials for two months and was one of the co-authors of a scientific paper published this week which led to the government drastically changing its strategy in the face of the global pandemic.

In the paper it was predicted that 260,000 people could have died if officials had not announced social distancing measures.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4 on Wednesday morning, he said he had developed a “slight cough” while being interviewed by the same station the previous day.

He said: “So I got a slight cough, actually while I was being interviewed by you [BBC Radio 4] yesterday.

“In the abundance of caution, I self-isolated then so I’m stuck in my flat on my own for seven days in central London. Then at four o’clock in the morning I got a high fever, which is somewhat better now but I still feel fairly grotty.

“I’ve been in so many meetings in the last few weeks, and a number of my colleagues from other universities who have been advising the government in those meetings have also developed symptoms.”

During the interview Ferguson, who has been in contact with the prime minister and his chief advisers, said he was not surprised that he had potentially contracted coronavirus, saying London was the current UK hotspot for the virus.

“I have to say central London is the hotspot in the UK at the moment. There almost certainly are thousands of cases in central London, so it’s not that surprising. I’ve been in lots of meetings and contacting lots of people,” he added.

Ferguson, went on to say that there was a potential risk that he had been infectious during a press conference in Downing Street on Tuesday.

He said: “We think there’s infectiousness for about a day before symptoms, and I was actually at a Downing Street press conference that day. I mean there is a slight risk I may have infected someone but that probably is quite slight.”