Thread by @thesundaytimes

The same mistake.

Our Insight investigation charts how the government increasingly diverged from the advice of its own scientists in the run-up to the second wave of the outbreak. thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/4…

Our investigation found that the road to the second lockdown was littered with a series of ministerial decisions to help the economy, which were taken without consultation with key scientific advisory committees.

The decisions also flew in the face of advice from leading international public health experts that the virus had to be kept under control before the economy could thrive.

Failing to do so would leave the country in the worst of all worlds

After a meeting in Downing Street, Johnson continued with a series of weaker measures to contain the virus for six more weeks until — as the scientists predicted — the number of infections rose so high that his hand was finally forced into bringing in a national lockdown

As a result, more than 1.3 million extra infections are estimated to have spread across the country

We heard evidence that one intensive care ward in Manchester became so overwhelmed that patients were left to die without the life-saving care they needed

In its latest investigation into the government’s handling of the pandemic, Insight asks whether the PM’s decision to prioritise the economy over ‘following the science’ led him to repeat the errors of the spring

Read the full report here: thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/4…