Here’s an early take on our two bumper select committee grillings over the last two weeks - Dominic Cummings and Matt Hancock. A thread...
There was more melodrama than normal but it is not possible to stack up the most sensational revelations without evidence. Today's new @Dominic2306 tweets show the PM's total frustration ('f***ing useless' etc.) but do not prove anyone 'lied.'
Personal accusations are of course the most media-friendly but should not expose the much more serious failures in the functioning of the state in a national emergency, including key revelations about both scientific advice/herd immunity and test and trace.
It’s clear ministers were only offered two extreme options - suppression (lockdowns) or mitigation (let the virus spread but protect the vulnerable). The East Asian middle way (close borders, hi tech test &trace) wasn’t modeled by SAGE until April when we were well into lockdown
Given that most East Asian countries had fewer lockdowns (in Korea's case no lockdowns) this was a serious failing in our structures, perhaps caused by a 'pandemic flu' mindset although to the credit of our scientists this did not extend to vaccine R & D.
This delay meant infections were > 2000 cases/day by the time T&T got going, much higher than in Asia which set it up to fail alongside other issues such as central rather than local contact tracing (which has now been sensibly reversed) & no blanket salary replacement guarantee.
I also think (I was part of this groupthink) we were over-focused on testing targets (100k, then 500k, then 1m/day) so didn't focus on the only metric that matters in a pandemic: proportion of potentially infectious isolating. At times 20-40% of those needed to isolate weren't…
Set against this must be our national vaccine triumph: not just in securing 400m doses before we knew they’d work, but a flawless NHS roll out. The paradox is that the biggest failures in the performance of the state will have to be balanced against its most stunning achievements
Our joint report will set out key lessons to be learned and I won't pre-empt. But for me two early lessons stand out: being as nimble, searching and pragmatic in our pandemic response as we were in our vaccine response is one...
It’s clear ministers were offered two extreme options - suppression (lockdowns) or mitigation (let the virus spread but protect the vulnerable). The East Asian way (close borders, hi tech test & trace) was not modeled by SAGE until April when we were well into lockdown.
Given that most East Asian countries had fewer lockdowns (in Korea's case no lockdowns) this was a serious failing in our structures, perhaps caused by a 'pandemic flu' mindset although to the credit of our scientists this did not extend to vaccine R & D.
This delay meant infections were > 2000 cases/day by the time T&T got going, much higher than in Asia, which set it up to fail, alongside central rather than local contact tracing (which has now been sensibly reversed) and not offering a blanket salary replacement guarantee.
I also think (I was part of this groupthink) that we were over-focused on testing targets (100k, then 500k, then 1m/day) so didn't focus on the one metric that matters in a pandemic: proportion of potentially infectious isolating. At times 20-40% of those meant to isolate weren't
Set against this must be our national vaccine triumph: not just securing 400m doses before we knew they’d work, but a flawless NHS roll. So the paradox is that the biggest failures in the performance of the state have to be balanced against some of its most stunning achievements.
Our joint report will set out key lessons to be learned and I won't pre-empt. But for me two early lessons stand out: being as nimble, searching and pragmatic in our pandemic response as we were in our vaccine response is one...
...and much earlier transparency on the scientific advice being given to ministers is the other, so we allow more peer-review and quicker course correction.
The public inquiry will have the last word, but realistically it will take at least two years to report. I hope our joint recommendations will give the govt some ideas to implement much earlier than that. Watch this space….
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