Thread by @faisalislam

This was the first on record reference to “herd immunity”, unprompted, by a Sage adviser, in an interview with the BBC, on March 11th 2020. Interesting context for @dominic2306 claims, denied by Govt, that the late push to lockdown last year reflected actual strategy:

https://twitter.com/faisalislam/status/1238097745971421184

two different things here:

Was herd immunity “policy”? - easy to disprove, because it is a scientific description of a state.

Did “herd immunity” thinking influence a 2-3 wk delay in actual lockdown that cost tens thousand lives, & resulted in worse econ outcomes? That= real q

To be clear, the motivation as I understand it for some of those pushing a herd immunity approach was that the public would get bored of a premature lockdown, undermining its effectiveness, and that in any second wave having let virus spread in first, there would be immunity…

But v senior people in field thought the approach was very influential in lockdown delays, and eg contacted me to say “they’ve got the wrong disease” ie any validity to such approach hinged upon models of influenza -this was a more transmissible coronavirus, with no quick vaccine

Same concerns were clearly being channelled at that very time to the likes of Jeremy Hunt and Rory Stewart - who went v public

https://twitter.com/faisalislam/status/1238223425967185920

other contextual issue then is Italy goes into national lockdown, doctors penning open letters to the UK from there saying to learn lessons, lockdown now etc… here’s a long read I did comparing G7 FIRST wave - NB when we update UK position will improve bbc.co.uk/news/health-53…

Mr Cummings himself pointing to the above interview with Sage member...

https://twitter.com/dominic2306/status/1396415862618435584?s=21

“advised approach seeks to avoid this possibility” - quote from what Cummings says is a COBR document from that same week last March

- ie allowing some transmission (the red line) avoids the green line second spike, because of non vaccinated immunity...

https://twitter.com/dominic2306/status/1396439990335311876?s=21