Thread by @CommonsHealth

Our #COVID19LessonsLearnt session with @CommonsSTC is starting soon

Our first panel will hear from @devisridhar and @AlexGAThomas on the Government's communications and the use of strategies like lockdown to control the virus

Watch live: parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/2e…
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https://twitter.com/CommonsHealth/status/1330847314127282178

@devisridhar says it's clear that the UK has experienced more deaths from the pandemic and that much of this results from early decisions to treat the pandemic like flu, rather than treating it like a SARS-like event

@devisridhar welcomes the development of mass testing but says it has to go with a sustainable strategy made up of test, trace and isolate, very good communication with the public, and border measures to prevent importing of infections

@devisridhar says it feels like the UK was too late in using border measures and travel restrictions to catch cases on entry; that testing is improving but low compliance with isolation undermines it; and communications with the public have not been clear enough

@devisridhar says the consensus is that the UK locked down too late, and believes this was based on a false dichotomy between health and the economy - countries that chose to suppress community transmission with early, strict measures have had stronger economic recoveries

On Christmas, @devisridhar says the issue is that people want to hear reassuring messages, but the virus doesn't care that it's Christmas - mixing indoors, with alcohol, and with elderly relatives, is very risky #COVID19LessonsLearnt

@devisridhar says she doesn't believe the current restrictions were inevitable - she says over the summer cases were very low, if restrictions had been extended just a few more weeks and border controls maintained, this might have kept prevalence low

Asked about the effectiveness of the UK state, @AlexGAThomas says coronavirus has highlighted good and bad in the British state: the initial economic response was strong and rapid; testing has been ramped up significantly; and the virus was controlled in prisons

However there were issues, says @AlexGAThomas, such as the balance between central and local responses; the effectiveness of risk planning, which was too focused on flu and didn't feed into all of Government; and communications and decision-making has been weak at times

@AlexGAThomas agrees that there was an bias towards optimism at the beginning of the pandemic and the severe negative consequences were hard to imagine. He says the need to wait for consensus and compelling evidence became a weakness in the early phase of the pandemic

@AlexGAThomas says the way Govt has reorganised itself to respond has been positive but there are questions about the transparency and accountability of some of the recent appointments to senior positions. He believes appointments should be competence first and politics second

One of the lessons we need to look really hard at is the national risk assessment process and the extent to which it is interrogated and challenged, says @AlexGAThomas. It's clear that references to novel coronaviruses in risk register were too dismissive #COVID19LessonsLearnt

Over-reaction and a speedy response is always better than watching and waiting - because this virus has a low case mortality rate and affects predominantly older people, there was a hesitancy to act says @devisridhar

@devisridhar says fatigue is setting in – in other countries people got a pay off from measures taken, that they made a sacrifice but they got back to their jobs - and in Australia and New Zealand to their big rugby games. That hasn’t happened here

@devisridhar says it is clear from early SAGE minutes this was initially perceived as an uncontrollable infection that no country would succeed in suppressing; but then East Asian countries began to show that they were successfully controlling the virus

This, and the evolving situation in Italy where health services began to be overwhelmed, changed thinking and pushed us towards a lockdown, although there was always concern about the economic impact and the exit strategy says @devisridhar

@devisridhar says she has a lot of respect for @CMO_England and @uksciencechief as very senior professionals, but in the future we might need to look again at the emphasis on modelling and making sure we have the right experience on SAGE - such as public and global health

Asked about PPE procurement and public appointments, @AlexGAThomas says it's legitimate to act quickly during a crisis and make trade offs with value for money and risk of fraud - but a crisis becomes the new normal and procurement must be regularised to ensure public confidence

Thank you to our first panel @devisridhar and @AlexGAThomas.

We are now moving on to question @MattHancock - @Jeremy_Hunt opens by thanking him and his colleagues at @DHSCgovuk for all their work.

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Watch live: parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/2e…

Asked what a vaccine will mean for social distancing after Easter, @matthancock says it will depend on the same metrics as are being used now - the rate of transmission of coronavirus, the number of hospitalisations with coronavirus, and the number of deaths

@matthancock adds that after Easter he expects we will be getting back to normal if vaccines are approved - some interventions, like more handwashing, should become a normal part of life; but the more damaging aspects of social distancing should be able to be lifted by Easter

Asked about scientific advice, @matthancock says he was guided by the science but did not immediately follow it - and says he believes he had the best scientific advice available given we started from zero knowledge of coronavirus

On the decision to stop community testing in March, @matthancock says this was a consequence of having to focus the tests on people in hospital

@MattHancock defends the performance of the test and trace programme because it scaled up unbelievably fast and had broken the chain of transmission 'hundreds of thousands of times' in the summer. The problem was that the overall number of cases was going up due to other factors

On Operation Cygnus, @MattHancock says lessons were learnt and it had a positive impact on our COVID response, including the fact there was draft legislation ready; but it didn't ask what type of pandemic we might face, and whether we could prevent widespread transmission

Asked about SAGE, @MattHancock says that a wide range of expertise was listened to and objects to the suggestion that there was not enough public health expertise on the group

Asked about whether we should have locked down earlier @MattHancock says measures were put in earlier in the pandemic curve than other countries in Europe. On learning lessons from the first lockdown he highlights the efforts to keep schools open

On the decision not to enact scientific advice about a 'circuit breaker' in September, @MattHancock says the Government wanted to stay with a regional tiered approach because of the significant wider impacts of a national lockdown and low prevalence rates in some areas

Asked about efforts to enable Christmas to go ahead when other festivals such as Diwali were not, @MattHancock says he is sensitive to this but that the Government ultimately concluded that Christmas is a national holiday and is a special time for everyone in the country

@matthancock says he wants to see the 'massive diagnostic capacity' the UK has built up used in the future to cover people with symptoms of other illnesses. He also says he wants to see culture changes so that people don't 'soldier on' and go into work with a communicable illness

Asked about the logistics of mass testing including identity assurance, @MattHancock agrees that this is very important and says that this is currently being tested in the trials in Liverpool, and will then be rolled out to NHS and social care staff #COVID19LessonsLearnt

Asked about figures in the BMJ suggesting that rapid tests are less accurate in the field than in the lab, @MattHancock and Jenny Harries say that these issues have been considered and factored into how the tests will be deployed

@MattHancock defends the ‘Eat Out to Help Out’ scheme, saying supporting the hospitality industry was very important and over the summer the number of cases were very low

Asked about the economic impact of NPIs, @matthancock says tiered system was introduced to protect people in some parts of the country from more restrictive measures needed elsewhere in the UK. He says Govt feels the economic impact of these policies, but quantification is hard

@MattHancock defends decision not to publish Cabinet papers on economic assessment of measures unlike decision to publish SAGE scientific advice but agreed to discuss with the Chancellor

On visiting in care homes, @MattHancock says the Government has been working to enable this as quickly as is safe and says he is hopeful that the rollout will be available to all care homes by Christmas

Asked about the impact of coronavirus on people with learning disabilities, Jenny Harries says the true risk is not known because of issues with data quality and says data quality will be a focus moving forward. She says people with Down's syndrome have been a particular focus

@MattHancock says he will make it a priority to enable families to safely visit loved ones with learning disabilities

@MattHancock confirms that he has asked the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation to reconsider giving higher priority for vaccines to people with learning disabilities

Progress is continuing on clinical protocols to improve parents' access to neonatal units, says @MattHancock, and says testing will be a key part of this, but safety needs to be maintained

@MattHancock says his team is working on how to harness the positive developments in the NHS during the pandemic such as in technology and diagnostic capacity

On running pandemic preparedness drills in the future in settings such as care homes, @MattHancock says this is a good idea and that he will take it forward

@matthancock defends Government procurement during the pandemic and says responses to their open call for recommendations came from a variety of different sources and procurement process were always followed

Our latest #COVID19LessonsLearnt session has now finished. Thank you to our witnesses: @devisridhar, @AlexGAThomas and the Secretary of State @MattHancock.

Watch the session back: parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/2e…

Look out for the transcript 📜