Michael Levitt, a Stanford University professor who correctly predicted the initial scale of the pandemic, suggested the decision to keep people indoors was motivated by 'panic' rather than the best science. .

Professor Levitt also said the modelling that caused the government to bring in the lockdown - carried out by Professor Neil Ferguson - over-estimated the death toll by '10 or 12 times'. .

Michael Levitt, a Stanford University professor who correctly predicted the initial scale of the pandemic, suggested the decision to keep people indoors was motivated by 'panic' rather than the best science .

David Richards, co-founder of British data technology company WANdisco said Ferguson's model was a 'buggy mess that looks more like a bowl of angel hair pasta than a finely tuned piece of programming'.  

Mr Richards said: 'In our commercial reality we would fire anyone for developing code like this and any business that relied on it to produce software for sale would likely go bust.'

After the model's grim prediction, the University of Edinburgh's Professor Michael Thursfield criticised Professor Ferguson's record as 'patchy'

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