Thread by @SGriffin_Lab

OK, why am I quote-tweeting myself and resurrecting PHE exercises that were conveniently lost/ignored/forgotten and so never made it to #Nervtag or #SAGE?
Well, frankly I'm pretty sick of the ridiculously polarising situation in the UK, which is largely due, imho, to Government.

https://twitter.com/SGriffin_Lab/status/1552015411230679041

Everything to do with the pandemic (& Brexit, Climate etc., but I'll "stay in my lane"😜) feels like this. I and my colleagues (but I am speaking for myself here) are often called such delightful things as "Lockdown Zealots" or some such, certain papers have the nerve to say I

have a "leftist" view of science...well, maybe I do if it means I don't like the thought of disadvantaged groups suffering, fine. I digress...
Equally, there are views from the opposite standpoint, and deliberate anti-vax aside, this is to be debated and reasoned, not just a

slanging match...now, there are always extreme views, and then there are the holier-than-thou "centrists" that look down on both sides, but at the end of the day, after 2.5 years, there should have been SOME common ground, right?
Well, back to my Alice tweet...I genuinely believe

that the lack of clarity and decision making from the top has acted like a giant cement mixer in all of this, swinging like a ridiculous pendulum between harsh restrictions and outright freedom.
Now, I know there are some points we might all never agree on, but hear me out...

First, let's all get one thing clear. NOBODY has EVER "wanted a lockdown"!!! Have there been scenarios where they have become necessary? Yes, in my view. Are these two things the same? No, of course not. What should we have done? Well, not what we did! My opinion is that there

only ever ought to have been the need for the first lockdown if we had stuck to prioritising public health over other things.
Now, this needn't mean we become New Zealand, and definitely not China, but if you read SAGE, and @IndependentSage minutes and documents since the very

early parts of the pandemic, all the tools were there, and it all goes back to what @DrMikeRyan said from the start...paraphrasing, you make a decision and act quickly, if it's right, great, lives are saved...if it's not, go again...
I always thought it was telling when Hancock

once said that "we no longer have to rely on lockdowns"...I think it was in relation to either vaccines or antivirals etc. However, whether this was a slip of the brain or genuine belief, it reveals dichotomous thinking that really has been an issue throughout...for one thing,

not all lockdowns are the same, but the ones we had in spring 2020 were the sort of extreme measure that is necessary when things are out of control.
This is important, because the longer you leave a fire to burn unhindered, the greater the effort and time needed to control it...

My view is that the Government has always been slow and reticent to put measures in place, but mustard keen to throw caution to the wind...I was actually encouraged by the 2021 roadmap that followed the devastation of Alpha, we finally had vaccines, it was data, not dates...but

sadly, even then, dates and data got reversed...
We are constantly told that the VoCs have undermined all the efforts, and "nobody could have foreseen" x, y or z...but c'mon...
Most agree (incl the committees last yr) that the UK should have locked down earlier and imposed strict

border controls (not a blockade, quarantine, test, trace etc) to prevent importation of cases in February and March 2020. We didn't.
Most agree that the messaging around the PM shaking hands, taking things "On the chin", and allowing e.g. Cheltenham and intl footy to continue was

NOT helpful.
I remember being on LBC one evening with a Dr from Italy, being warned that we were just a week or two behind, but I was under the impression that all imported cases were being IDd, chains were contained etc. I now feel naïve and foolish for believing that, a major

regret.
Then, we eventually locked down, full-on, and totally reliant on those who we later clapped, and then were denied a decent pay rise...
But, it worked. Cases came crashing down, albeit after a disastrous time in care homes and elsewhere...things started to relax in May,

summer followed and prevalence continued to fall...apart from places like Leicester, and other places that followed...we had been told, after all, that COVID would be sorted in a matter of weeks, or was it months...or was it by Xmas?
Yes, things were better, and we actually got

close to going below 10/100K, which could have led to elimination...this seemed sensible to many as vaccines and antivirals felt a VERY long way off at the time. Things became hashtags, all of a sudden things started opening again, we maintained distancing and masks, but most had

no idea about aerosols, filtering masks, etc. Nothing was put in place in this regard, and one of the PM candidates was pretending to be a waiter...
The point is, no matter how infectious a virus may be, if prevalence is low, as it was then, it doesn't take as much to keep it at

a low level, compared to when infection is rife. Outbreaks can be controlled, as it was in Leicester at first, but then measures softened, Manchester became a problem, and we started on the Tier system...
Now, this wasn't a bad idea in principle, but unless you restrict movement

between them there's very little point...this was the difference between controlling Leicester and not.
But, we carried on. It was clear by mid August that infections were on the rise again, and by September the UK had become fertile ground for SARS2 once more...SAGE recommended

an intervention - a circuit breaker, designed to interrupt the growth at early stages. The devolved nations later did this, but without England and mixing continuing, it was always an uphill battle.
SAGE were ignored, we are told, on the basis of alternative "scientific ideas" on

how we might control the pandemic...focused protection of "the vulnerable", everyone else infected, herd immunity by mass infection.
I won't repeat my views on this, aside from that viruses don't listen to declarations, long COVID, severity pyramids etc.
This is a brownstone imho

Through to November as cases climbed and EVENTUALLY action was taken...too late, paltry measures were put in place which, sure enough, slowed things down, but alas the virus had already made plans for Christmas shopping, so we stopped...
Unbeknownst to most, somewhere in Essex a

new breed of SARS2 had emerged, B117, or alpha as it became known, and this was seeded into the equivalent of volcanic soil covered in several tonnes of brownstone...this more transmissible and severe virus became a VoC and accelerated an already spiralling epidemic wave. Tiers

became 4. Bedlam trying to escape London before Xmas, people were less inclined to follow rules since a certain long distance trip to the opticians, it was a bloody mess. Schools opened for 1 day in Jan 21, then promptly closed.
Lockdown 3 was here...predictable, preventable. TBC

Again, harsh restrictions, all because of a failure to follow Dr Ryan's principles...
This, I believe, was one of the first times we heard the "nobody could have predicted" mantra...utter brownstone.
Of course, a dreadful toll followed, only a handful of vaccines had started to

become available, thousands more perished, became seriously unwell or developed long COVID.
But, there was a way forward - the vaccines had arrived!!! I think we all remember this, and it still makes me think that this WILL get sorted, but the problem is that these became silver

bullets.
We now had the roadmap. Data, not dates, we had learned the lesson from Alpha, which hadn't gone, but was certainly on the way down big-time, and the vulnerable started to get their vaccines in a truly astonishing operation from the #NHS. So confident did we become that

we went ahead with the whole Brexit thing in the middle of a PANDEMIC...safety in numbers, anyone? OK, but perhaps access to more Pfizer vaccines would have been nice...
Anyway, we had assurances that measures would be relaxed on the way to summer but ONLY when certain criteria

were met...data, not dates...hold that thought...
One of those criteria was the introduction of a new VoC...of course, this then ceased to matter THAT much, after all, it was only in a few northern towns, nobody was traipsing the virus around the country or anything...
Now, in

fairness, there were indeed delays to the roadmap, vaccines continued apace, but mainly in the older age groups still. BUT, in spite of Delta taking us from under 1K people in hospital in May 21 up to 5x that level by July, and 10x that level by October, "freedom day" happened...

OK, so not all restrictions were dropped, we still had testing, but the direction of travel was pretty clear...
the vaccine era now meant that prevalence didn't matter...after all, "most people" would be fine, those poor vulnerable types can test, wear face masks, or just stay

home...which many have done for more time than many deposed dictators spend under house arrest...effectively, we arrived at GBD-light by vaccine...
Was this too soon? Well, you'll know my thoughts on this, and if you watched last week's amazing briefing from @chrischirp and

@Zubhaque with @IndependentSage you'll know why. But, focusing on just the situation with the virus, we started to know that vaccines weren't sterilising, antibodies waned, and Delta gave us our first taste of immunoevasiveness and reinfection...should we have listened? I won't

answer that, other than with a knowing virtual nod and wink...
The levels of hospitalisations were seemingly acceptable, as were deaths, long COVID, children becoming sick more often...it was OK to relax protections in schools, after all 🤬💔. Delta was the evolutionary pinnacle

for SARS2, we were "coping", at least in the eyes of the government...who clearly hadn't visited an NHS hospital since 2020...
Then, as complacency crept in, Omicron arrived. It laughed at all but the highest antibody titres and spread literally like wildfire...it had a shift

in preference for the upper airway, making it ~50% less likely to cause severe disease IN VACCINEES compared to delta, but not the case in kids, and it also infected 10x as many people as its cousin...and has done so 3 times in the past 7 months with different flavours...just

where the hell are we now? Vaccine boosters might be tweaked, they're now in the over 50s, not over 70s...but there's nothing to "worry about"...prevalence is repeatedly ridiculous, and plateaus far higher than delta did...millions with #LongCovid, >200K dead...and yet we're told

the big calls were right...no doubt decided upon over a bottle of Bollinger...
We have no testing, no surveillance, no mitigations or protections...we are seemingly living with COVID...or not, depending what job you do, where you live and whether you're otherwise vulnerable...

OK, so what's my point...my point is that things COULD have been done more cautiously, for just that little bit longer, and we could have saved lives. We could have invested in ventilation, put sensible measures in place sooner, and avoided the pendulum of restrictions vs freedom

this isn't lockdown, this is actually intelligently "Living" with a virus. We have technology, we are researching antivirals and new vaccines, but every damned measure that's proposed is met with extreme reactions either way. Economically we are in trouble, and nobody can deny

COVID is a major cause for this. I know I'll probably get lambasted for this thread, and I know I haven't been as balanced as I set out to be, but we MUST recognise that sensible public health could have benefitted all over the last years, and it's just not there anymore...😥