In all the focus being (unsurprisingly) on Johnson, there was also him pointing out that in a crisis when we needed facts, we had a health Secretary who was a habitual liar who would literally make things up on spec

mattsccm

We lost relatively few people.

Relatively few as opposed to a nuclear detonation?

The figure is around 200,000 people. I’m not sure I see that as a pretty good result frankly. Hearing what a mess the government was in and how badly the response was handled, it’s likely that 10,000’s of those people might have lived but we will never know.

Each of those 200,000 had a family. Then you have those forgotten thousands still contending with long Covid.

What we do know is that the government was at war with itself when it should have been at war with Covid.

Is anyone else perturbed by the extent to which Vallance’s testimony is contradicted by the evidence of the SAGE minutes? I’m talking specifically about the mid-March issues right at the start. When did he decide that the doubling time was 3 days (rather than the 5-7 they had previously thought) and when did he decide a proper lockdown was necessary?

He claims this was around the weekend of 14-15 March.

The SAGE minutes of the 16th and 18th March tell a very different story.

I wonder if anyone involved in the Inquiry has actually read these (short, simple) documents?

Have you got any links, I’d have a read.

Well, as thecaptain didn’t send any links, I went and looked myself, and they’re right, the SAGE Minutes from the 16/3/20 do say a doubling time of 5-6 days.

Am I perturbed. No, not really. I’ve sat in enough business meetings, including some with Gov, to know that what is finally in the distilled down official minutes is not the same as a transcript of the conversations that lead to the final minutes. So it’s entirely within reason that PV may have been advising that he thought the doubling time was faster but talked down / convinced / in line with decision that the 5-6 was what should be in the minutes

He’s said today that he was in disagreement with CW over the impact of lockdowns, with PV harder on the effect of the virus and CW more concerned by the overall health impact. That’s what you want happening in these meetings, challenge and criticism of positions to find the best overall outcome. I’d suggest too as a scientist that keeping notes and diaries isn’t that odd, Observe and Record is a basic skill. He also said that he considered resigning over various aspects of his role at that time; I speculated at the time that it must be hard to stand up every night and support positions he didn’t always agree with but that’s the nature of the advisor to minister relationship, you disagree in private but in the end the minister should listen to advice and decide what to do with it. Both he and Fauci have reflected as well – faced with an alternative of walking out and being replaced by who-knows-who, felt was better to be inside providing appropriate guidance than outside.

[edit – just remembered the horror on the face of the specialist stood there as Trump was talking about injecting bleach or something…… how she didn’t resign on the spot IDK]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-52407177

The figure is around 200,000 people. I’m not sure I see that as a pretty good result frankly. Hearing what a mess the government was in and how badly the response was handled, it’s likely that 10,000’s of those people might have lived but we will never know.

Each of those 200,000 had a family. Then you have those forgotten thousands still contending with long Covid.

The ‘Covid wall’ across the Thames from the Houses of Parliament had a figure of 231,000+ at the weekend. Quite perturbing seeing it all.

Sorry for not replying faster @theotherjonv. I wrote it all down in longer version a couple of years ago when Vallance similarly misled the parliamentary select committee on science and technology:

https://julesandjames.blogspot.com/2020/07/patrick-vallances-faulty-memory.html

I realise that most people don’t care about the truth and don’t care that the govt’s chief scientific advisor is misleading these inquiries. It matters to me that scientists are honest and accurate in their work and in their advice. SAGE failed quite significantly during this important period and if any lessons are to be learnt, they must be based in reality rather than wishful thinking.

Vallance was the most senior member of SAGE (don’t know if he was formally the chair, but he’s always first on the list of attendees). The idea that he, and all the other SAGE participants we’ve heard from, were sounding the alarm from 14-15 March onwards and believed the doubling time to be 3 days, and then got together in a room as SAGE on the 16th and again on the 18th and agreed that everything was hunky-dory and the doubling time was 5 days or longer, is risible.

But let’s follow your line of logic a little further. You want to believe that Vallance was indeed sounding the alarm from 14-15 March onwards, but the official committee of scientists charged with providing advice to the Govt was directly contradicting him, not just once but twice after that weekend. Why has the Inquiry not addressed this issue? If true it would indicate a substantial problem with the process. No scientist has commented on this curious state of affairs. How can the Govt be blamed here for a delay when SAGE was specifically recommending it?

Don’t you think Vallance would have mentioned this, if he had been worried sick about the imminent collapse of the NHS but SAGE was saying calm down, nothing to worry about? Note that in his testimony to the Select Committee, he specifically said SAGE (and not just him personally) recommended lockdown on the 16th or 18th. THat’s directly contradicted by the minutes.

But like I said, no-one cares about the truth, they just want to score political points and scapegoat someone else.

I can tell you (first hand) that he was raising the alarm on the 14th of March. What the rest of SAGE were doing? I have no idea. But 14-15th March is the right date. I wasn’t on SAGE at that point. 

But the upshot of all of this  (the Enquiry) is going to be: That had we locked down earlier, more lives would’ve been saved.
Regardless of what any of them say now; that’s the obvious conclusion that’s obvious to everyone and a lot of what’s going on at the enquiry is the normal face saving and attempts or deflecting blame to some-one else at the time, and that’s going to be as true about the science advice as it is about the politicians.

 if he had been worried sick about the imminent collapse of the NHS but SAGE was saying calm down, nothing to worry about?

I don’t think they were saying “nothing to worry about”, I think they were worried that from a health perspective; lockdowns would make it hard for very ill people to get medical treatments so we need to pay attention to that, and Whitty was specifically worried that people wouldn’t follow the advice or would only do so for a limited time.

The real anger in this thread and inquiry should really be directed at the actions surrounding the second lockdown. That killed in excess of 30k people unnecessarily at a time when the levers of policy and their effects on infections, admissions and deaths was well-established. The first was definitely in the fog of war, the second was not. I’m still angry about it.

That had we locked down earlier, more lives would’ve been saved.

The real value is to understand why we didn’t.

I think they were worried that from a health perspective; lockdowns would make it hard for very ill people to get medical treatments so we need to pay attention to that

Well, there’s a possible lesson right there, is reform of how people receive treatment required if we’re to be ready for another pandemic in the future?

Whitty was specifically worried that people wouldn’t follow the advice or would only do so for a limited time

An assumption shared by many, but based on absolutely nothing.

An assumption shared by many, but based on absolutely nothing.

It wasn’t helped by the significant comments and “opinion columns” of the time stating that Covid was nothing to worry about, look at Sweden, think of the economy, it’s just a cold and so on.

Coupled with a very vague response from Government and ever-changing instructions about what you could and couldn’t do (alongside “recommendations” – the classic one being Gove’s comment about “1hr of exercise” which got completely misappropriated and used to vilify anyone who’d been out for more than 1hr)

People started to take all that on board and just bend the rules a bit, then break them entirely, then get arsey with everyone else.

I can tell you (first hand) that he was raising the alarm on the 14th of March.

In what way, and to whom?

It’s one thing to say, there’s a big wave coming, we need to prepare. I’m sure everyone expressed worries about how bad it might be going to be. It’s another thing entirely to say that we now think the doubling time is much shorter, the situation is more urgent than we thought yesterday.

It was the evening of the 13th, straight after the SAGE meeting on that day, that Edmunds gave his horrific interview on Channel 4 during which he positively sneered at the suggestion that the doubling time might be as short as 3 days and that we needed to take action urgently. I’m sure you don’t need to watch it again but here’s the link:

I remind you again that in his evidence to the S&T committee, Vallance very specifically stated that he changed his mind after the SPI-M meeting at which the doubling time mistake was corrected. He claimed that this change of mind took place on the 16th or 18th of March, but the SPI-M meeting is clearly documented to have taken place on the 20th March.

The real anger in this thread and inquiry should really be directed at the actions surrounding the second lockdown.

Exactly this. Its totally understandable that mistakes were made when huge decisions had to be taken, where there is literally no rule book and you’re making it up as you go along under huge pressure.

But to then repeat the very same mistakes, having apparently learnt absolutely nothing, represents a literally criminal level of incompetence and negligence.

We now know, through the evidence that we’ve all been listening to, that this was due to total and complete ****-wittery in the case of Johnson and Hancock and cold, hard, totally uncaring intransigence in the case of Sunak

Not a great look, either of them, are they?

Have you sent any of this [edit – your blog info which I have read for the first time] to the enquiry? Seems reasonable to be asking them directly?

I know it’s not a court in the sense of cross-examination, but in times of exponential growth these discrepancies can have significant impacts.

If you don’t mind me saying your blog is written in a way that seems quite biased against the scientists involved. I’m interested in challenging and finding the truth but your position seems quite anti-  – is there any reason why that would be, if it’s possible to say?

@TiRed

The real anger in this thread and inquiry should really be directed at the actions surrounding the second lockdown. That killed in excess of 30k people unnecessarily at a time when the levers of policy and their effects on infections, admissions and deaths was well-established. The first was definitely in the fog of war, the second was not. I’m still angry about it.

Indeed, and by all accounts there was little to no learning from those in charge.

From what I’ve read they were like gamblers doubling down on their ideology every time in the hope that they’d luck out with a win before they went bankrupt.

Cummings’s evidence supports that Vallance was changing his mind over that weekend – that was when he agreed with Cummings to bring Gowers and Hassabis into the SAGE meeting on the 18th. Cummings said it was after this meeting and he (and maybe Vallance and no doubt others) realised that they had to act and the SPI-M models were largely irrelevant to this process.

However, I agreed with you there are plenty of inconsistencies in the evidence by Scientific Advisers which have not been teased out by the lawyers and the Inquiry does not seem interested in investigating this area rigorously.

@binners

 where there is literally no rule book and you’re making it up as you go along under huge pressure.

Not quite true about there being a rule book.

This was a novel situation, but there was plenty of data about the best ways to deal with a pandemic.

For example, the idea that lockdowns need to be balanced against the economic hit, is an ideological cover in order to resist doing what needs to be done. My understanding is that there was good data prior to this that early intervention is better in the long term for the economy.

The problem now is it’s become such a partisan issue, that it’s almost impossible to find the truth for the noise surrounding it.

However, I agreed with you there are plenty of inconsistencies in the evidence by Scientific Advisers which have not been teased out by the lawyers and the Inquiry does not seem interested in investigating this area rigorously.

I assume there’s opportunity to call them again once evidence is gathered and inconsistencies identified?

Not quite true about there being a rule book.

This was a novel situation, but there was plenty of data about the best ways to deal with a pandemic.

Indeed. In fact, ISTR that they’d done a tabletop exercise on a pandemic (having had SARS and MERS and whatever else, it was pretty clear that one day there would be a pandemic that did majorly affect the UK) – but the learnings from that, such as stockpiling PPE in preparation had just been ignored.

In what way, and to whom?

Posted my plot here on March 12th showing two day doubling time. Neil Ferguson presented it to Patrick Vallance on the 13th or 14th, first email from him asking the implications of a two day doubling time that day. Having spent ten years as his advisor in my day job, he probably recognised my name 😉. I joined SPI-M in early April.

I did make myself available for the inquiry but wasn’t needed. I presume my email conversations were submitted. And for the record (well STW record), I never once used WhatsApp!

For example, the idea that lockdowns need to be balanced against the economic hit, is an ideological cover in order to resist doing what needs to be done. My understanding is that there was good data prior to this that early intervention is better in the long term for the economy.

Chris Whitty has just used an interesting phrase about ‘people changing or twisting ‘facts’ to suit their agendas’

The politicians procrastinated and faffed around with their heads in the sand and locked down far too late, then apparently having learnt absolutely nothing, they did exactly the same again. Its yet another thing we have to thank these libertarian right-wing loons for. Its very apparent that at the forefront of this was our present Prime Minister. Our then Prime Minister was simply an idiot, out of his depth on a damp pavement, but Rishi knew full well what he was doing and didn’t give a ****. Its bordering on psychopathic

so far all im hearing from the inquiry is confirming what I thought at the time.

so other than some lessons learnt and some strong words, will those that were so incompetent and contributed to excess deaths, whilst setting their chums up with ppe contracts and having parties face any actual punishment?

Will they bollocks.

We reward failure and corruption in this country, not punish it, as the recent appointment of Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton as foreign secretary demonstrates. Its with spirit-crushing inevitability that we all know he’ll soon be joined by Lord Johnson of Shagshire

The 4 or 5 mins of Whitty’s testimony on Radio5 was interesting. He obviously didn’t want to say anything negative about individuals.

The “other countries struggled too” narrative was wheeled out a few times.  Given his clear scientific communication during the crisis, this foray into semi-obfuscation was surprising. He got pulled up for a euphemism too.

Weird

Sir Chris Whitty agrees with Hugo Keith KC that in general terms differences of opinion in Sage “were not, as a rule, reflected in the minutes”.

He adds that what was provided to ministers was a “central view, not a consensus view” from the meetings.

From BBC reporting

I think that the fundamental problem is that when an ideology fails, such as communism, or the Chicago school of neoliberalism the incentives that are in place encourage denial of reality rather than reform of the ideology.

My experience has been that in all walks of life, people talk a good game in private, but in public very few are actually prepared to pay the cost of challenging the status quo, one of which is often not being promoted to positions of authority.

The denials start off small, but as they become dogma, they’re inevitably amplified. After a while you get a professional political class who know no other way. The truth cannot be true because if it was it calls into question their whole identity and raison d’etre.

This phenomenon happens both on the left and right, especially as they drift away from pragmatic centrism and towards populism.

We had a cabinet that was chosen purely based on their ideological purity towards Brexit.

The fact that it was an emergency would have made things even worse in terms of their cognitive ability. When we’re stressed, blood supply is decreased to the frontal cortex, which is the thinking part of the brain. At such times we tend to react instinctively and then justify it after the fact.

We had a bunch of people in leadership positions who’d never really been tested, and who had been chosen on their ability to follow dogma above all else. Is it any wonder that they then struggled to comprehend an inconvenient reality?

@theotherjonv

I’m interested in challenging and finding the truth but your position seems quite anti- – is there any reason why that would be, if it’s possible to say?

Perhaps it’s a character flaw, or perhaps it’s the normal result of a long history of being faced with denial, obfuscation, evasion and excuses when I present a fairly obvious but unwelcome truth. I’ve been saying this for a few years now, it gets old dealing with the same old merry-go-round of sealioning, tone policing, ducking and weaving over semantics.

Those who’ve known me a long time will have seen this process play out a number of times in a number of different spheres. I’d be very grateful if you could stick to the topic rather than focussing on my style.

@TiReD, you specifically said you knew that Vallance was sounding the alarm from the 14th. Your follow-up comment does not support that very strong claim in the slightest – asking you for some more data suggests he was somewhat curious in what you had to say, but your arguments for a short doubling time were very clearly rejected by SAGE on the 16th and again on the 18th March. This is directly contrary to Vallance’s claims made to the S&T committee, where he specifically said that *SAGE* (and not just he himself) changed its mind by these dates.

If Vallance was really sounding the alarm from the 14th March, and SAGE was over-ruling him twice in the following week, doesn’t anyone think he would bother to mention this in his testimony? Who in SAGE has the authority to over-rule him anyway? It’s a nonsensical idea.

This phenomenon happens both on the left and right, especially as they drift away from pragmatic centrism

You seem to be confusing being a centrist with being pragmatic as opposed to just having an ideological position in the centre. A mistake made by many ideologues.
There is also the problem when you look at the key players the claims about them being ideologically brexiteers doesnt really add up.
It was just a pragmatic means to an end for them.
Johnson just wanted to be king of the world and failing that pm.
Cummings had his nuts dreams and the disruption caused by brexit plus the removal of some of the constraints was what attracted him to it.
Hancock had supported remain and I dont think there is any evidence for a damascene conversion vs a pragmatic switch in position. Certainly in the leadership contest against Johnson his position was a lot more moderate.
and so on.

will those that were so incompetent and contributed to excess deaths, whilst setting their chums up with ppe contracts and having parties face any actual punishment?

For the umpteenth time, this enquiry is not intended to punish anyone.

If evidence emerges of criminal activity, the Police will look at it. Maybe.

Whilst meeting notes may seem inconsistent, challenging the accuracy of a statement made by the guy providing the actual data at the time as to what was being said/discussed by him seems to a bit of an odd hill to fight on.

Those who’ve known me a long time will have seen this process play out a number of times in a number of different spheres. I’d be very grateful if you could stick to the topic rather than focussing on my style.

Will do. I’ve googled you now and can see the history you refer to and can well understand why you’re bored of it by now!

I didn’t mean to criticise tone, and certainly not content – as a scientist myself, albeit one in the foothills compared to some around here, I’m interested in the facts as well. To me those facts include why there may be differences in eg: PV’s thoughts at that time vs what SAGE minutes say, but equally there is a difference and it hasn’t absolutely been answered (or questioned even yet). It was an observation, that’s all, noting that on first reading (and i confess, second and maybe third too before actually taking time to understand the issue) that your position comes across like that and runs the risk of being “another anti-scientist view”. One I retract, completely, just to be clear.

 Who in SAGE has the authority to over-rule him anyway? It’s a nonsensical idea.

Wasn’t there, can’t comment. SAGE is a consensus committee not a chairman’s forum. But PV was clear about the doubling time after my first communication with him (and it wasn’t the only communication that week). That the news was reporting a 5-6d doubling time on the Tuesday was pretty incredulous to me (and you too). I imagine turning the SAGE groupthink tanker was a challenge. To be fair, one member of SPI-M also conducted a nice comparative analysis using Italian data to come to the same conclusion about the UK a week later.

Most of my time on SPI-M was spent challenging the status quo of SEIR-based epidemic modelling in the absence of immunity data, notably in the first few months.

Thank you very much for your kind comments @theotherjonv. Perhaps I’m also a bit sharper than usual because I really expect better behaviour from scientists.

I’ve just read some of Vallance’s written testimony. The reference to the SAGE meeting of 16 March is a bit of a zinger. He quotes from the summary:

1. On the basis of accumulating data, including on NHS critical care capacity, the advice from SAGE has changed regarding the speed of implementation of additional interventions.

2. SAGE advises that there is clear evidence to support additional social distancing measures be introduced as soon as possible.

3. These additional measures will need to be accompanied by a significant increase in testing and the availability of near real-time data flows to understand their impacts.

and uses this to bolster his claim that SAGE was basically recommending lockdown. It does sound a bit like it, don’t you think? However, he omits the very next point from the summary, which is:

4. SAGE will further review at its next meeting whether, in the light of new data, school closures may also be required to prevent NHS capacity being exceeded.

Note the *may also be required*. That is, far from being something close to lockdown, the *additional social distancing measures* that SAGE were recommending at that time were more minor even than school closures! I wonder how many people would realise that when they read his testimony that only quotes points 1-3 above?

Two years ago when he was being asked about this same period, he was very insistent that SAGE’s change in position (from mitigate/delay to suppress/lockdown) was driven by their change in the estimated doubling time. Now he is claiming that they were asking for lockdown (that fell short of school closures!) a week before they accepted the shorter doubling time.

Though, of course, he doesn’t find the space to address this curious discrepancy.

I’m not going to try and defend the govt decisions. The only part of it done well was the vaccine rollout. Everything else was cack.

However, we have to appreciate the UK just doesn’t have the mechanisms to successfully implement lockdowns. Obviously, it was too much for the Police to handle. So, local councils? We just don’t have powerful regional or local officials who can implement and enforce such a measure.

Compare it to China where there have  always been members of govt on every street corner. That’s oppressive in ‘normal’ times, but effective in helping with lockdowns.

Again, closing borders – the UK is a major international air hub and an island with several seaports. We have never checked anyone or anything for pests/diseases at ports of entry. Imagine trying to shut all of this down overnight.

The enquiry is a foregone conclusion. Nothing will change as a result of it.

We just don’t have powerful regional or local officials who can implement and enforce such a measure.

In the main, very little “enforcement” is required, it’s more about supporting people.

If Vallance was really sounding the alarm from the 14th March, and SAGE was over-ruling him twice in the following week, doesn’t anyone think he would bother to mention this in his testimony?

I think he testified that the advice (that there might need to be a lockdown) wasn’t received well by senior civil servants; from his testimony yesterday reported in the Guardian

Questioned by Andrew O’Connor KC, Vallance said he had been reprimanded for calling in meetings around mid-March for action to be taken immediately, agreeing that at least one official had been “incandescent” with anger.

This had, he said, been Chris Wormald, who was and remains the top civil servant at the health department, as well as Mark Sedwill, then-cabinet secretary, the UK’s most senior civil servant.

Had we had a flu pandemic, with a virus that had a mortality of, for the sake of argument, 1% to 2%, which is what we were thinking of at this point in time, it would also have been woefully deficient.”

This was interesting – so anything more than a pandemic of the common cold and we’d still have been stuffed.

That’s the level of planning and preparation that was in place by a government whose priority should presumably be the safety and well being of the population.

That’s the level of planning and preparation that was in place by a government whose priority should presumably be the safety and well being of the population.

despite

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-pandemic-preparedness/exercise-cygnus-report-accessible-report

Vallance completely busted, explicitly describing a 5 day doubling on the 16th March, which according to his recent testimony was *after* he had seen the data that convinced him that the doubling time was 3 days:

He’s reinventing history to make himself look good.

I think he testified that the advice (that there might need to be a lockdown) wasn’t received well by senior civil servants; from his testimony yesterday reported in the Guardian

The likes of Wormald and Sedwill were never part of SAGE, it was scientists with a couple of govt observers. If the argument is that SAGE’s recommendations were spiked by civil servants, to the extent that they even put fraudulent numbers into the minutes that the SAGE members didn’t agree with, this would be incendiary stuff. However he’s never so much as hinted at anything like that, and neither has anyone else involved in SAGE. It doesn’t seem a very plausible idea.

That’s always the problem with trying to reinvent history, when there is real documentation. You end up having to create epicycle after epicycle to explain away every inconsistency. At some point surely it’s easier to just accept the simple truth which is that SAGE – including the chair Vallance (it’s mentioned in his testimony that he has this formal role) got it wrong right up to the 23rd March. Specifically, they thought the doubling time was 5d and the peak was some way off, until after the SPI-M meeting on the 20th (Friday) which is the first time 3d doubling appears in the minutes, and then the next SAGE meeting was the 23rd, and the rest is history. I suspect his mistake might have started out by him conflating the two weekends, the 14-15th where there was some initial concern from some people like @TiReD and I believe some other modellers and probably Cummings too (which was all airily dismissed by SAGE) and then 21-22nd where there really was an Oh Shit moment.

But no, he has to be a hero and pretend he worked it out a week earlier, which then forces all sorts of bizarre contortions that just aren’t remotely plausible, and are totally incompatible with the written evidence.