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Friday, March 29, 2024

UK government scientific advisor defends decision to allow Liverpool-Atletico match

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UK government scientific advisor defends decision to allow Liverpool-Atletico match
UK government scientific advisor defends decision to allow Liverpool-Atletico match

Angela Maclean believes at the time, attending the match was "not a particularly large extra risk".

RESENDING WITH UPDATED SCRIPT SHOWS: LONDON, ENGLAND, UK (APRIL 20, 2020) (UK POOL - ACCESS ALL) 1.

(SOUNDBITE) (English) DEPUTY CHIEF SCIENTIFIC ADVISOR, ANGELA MCLEAN, ON WHETHER LIVERPOOL V ATLETICO MADRID CHAMPIONS LEAGUE MATCH SHOULD HAVE GONE AHEAD IN MARCH, SAYING: "If we are at the bit of our recent history where we were living our lives as normal, in that circumstance going to a football match is not a particularly large extra risk.

However, once you get to a situation of our strange lives as we live them now, where we spend all our time basically at home, of course you wouldn't add on an extra risk of lots and lots of people all going off to the same place at the same time.

I think it will be very interesting to see in the future, when all the science is done, what relationship there is between the viruses that have circulated in Liverpool and the viruses that have circulated in Spain.

That is certainly an interesting hypothesis you raised there." STORY: Angela McLean, the deputy chief scientific advisor to the UK government, defended the decision to allow a Champions League football match between Liverpool and Atletico Madrid to go ahead in March.

Madrid's mayor Jose Luis Martinez-Almeida said over the weekend that allowing 3,000 fans to travel from Spain to the game was a "mistake" and "didn't make any sense".

On Monday (April 20), speaking at a media briefing, McLean said that at the time attending a football match was "not a particularly large extra risk", before adding that it would be interesting to see how people in attendance at Anfield for the match affected the spread in the cities of Liverpool and Madrid.

In the UK, 16,509 people have died because of the disease, but the daily rise of 449 is the lowest since early April.

(Production: Stefan Haskins)

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