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Sunak says it was a mistake to ‘empower scientists’ during Covid pandemic (gRauniad)

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/aug/24/sunak-says-it-was-a-mis...

Quote:

Rishi Sunak has claimed that it was a mistake to “empower scientists” during the coronavirus pandemic and that his opposition to closing schools was met with silence during one meeting.

The Conservative leadership candidate believes one of the major errors was allowing the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) to have so much influence on decision making such as closing nurseries, schools and colleges in March 2020.

Discuss.

If you're new please join in and if you have questions pop them below and the forum regulars will answer as best we can.

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31 comments

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Awavey | 2 years ago
1 like

Im not here to be anyones proxy to take on to be challenging the government of the past 2 years, or any period, you disagree with them, you take it up with them at the ballot box next time you vote.

so Im tapping out of this as clearly people only want to challenge the messenger and not the message.

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Secret_squirrel | 2 years ago
5 likes

Why dignify this as anything more than it is?  A last desperate throw of the dice in the Tory hustings to be the next Prime Minister.

Unfortunately Truss got in with her lies earlier so he's screwed. 
 

Don't give these fraudulent creeps any more screen time.  Just keep your fingers crossed we're into the last 2 years of their shit.

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Samtheeagle | 2 years ago
3 likes

What definitely didn't help was spaffing out Billions (nearly 2.6) on PPE items “not suitable for the NHS”.

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brooksby | 2 years ago
0 likes

The Sun's take on it is

Quote:

Rishi Sunak admits the Government ‘was wrong to scare people’ during the pandemic

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Tom_77 | 2 years ago
6 likes

Covid restrictions were very harmful, but without them a lot more people would have died. The prediction was that over half a million people in the UK would die - https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanmic/article/PIIS2666-5247(21)00029-X/fulltext

I think the biggest mistake was waiting too long to bring in restrictions. An earlier lockdown would have been much shorter and less damaging.

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Rich_cb replied to Tom_77 | 2 years ago
2 likes

Given Ferguson's track record over the rest of the pandemic I wouldn't give that prediction much credence now.

At the time it was shocking though.

Wales locked down earlier (in pandemic terms). It made no difference.

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Rich_cb replied to Rich_cb | 2 years ago
1 like

For those interested in the actual figures for Wales and England's respective COVID mortality.

There is a lengthy article here:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-52380643(link is external)

I've taken a screen shot of the most pertinent table.

All figures are ONS figures and easily checked.

I'd trust these over an individual with a history of making up blatant lies.

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IanMSpencer | 2 years ago
2 likes

A couple of comments I made this morning:

------

"Asked if Britain could have avoided lockdown completely, like Sweden, he replied:

I don’t know, but it could have been shorter. Different. Quicker."

So Sunak's had enough of experts, but when asked he admits he doesn't know the answer, then adds some meaningless word salad to make his ignorance sound plausible.

Meanwhile a scientist would also admit they didn't know, but would go on to explain their reasoning and their expectations to justify their recommendations - an entirely different concept of uncertainty: ignorance against considered reasoning.

I've heard little to convince me that the politicians knew better than the scientists. But then, I'm not a signed up Daily Mail reader.

----

Scoff till you Cough in retrospect was a disaster. I wonder who's sticky fingers were on that policy? Politician or scientist? Which politician?

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David9694 replied to IanMSpencer | 2 years ago
1 like

We were all hanging on scientists' every word in 2020. How was it spreading, where? How fast? How do you catch it? how ill does it make you, what's the treatment?

It was obvious in February '20 that this virus was spreading, fast and there was nothing standing in the way of it. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but as has been said, we could in the UK have avoided the worst of lockdown had we acted sooner. We could also have delayed Brexit by 2 years, but we chose to plough on.

In early 2021, the first large scale testing and the vaccines came - not a silver bullet for Covid, but a high degree of protection for people. Tell me where and when the vaccines are being done and I will be there, sleeve rolled up. 

 

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Rich_cb replied to David9694 | 2 years ago
1 like

Wales locked down earlier than England, in pandemic terms.

Wales had a far worse second wave as a consequence and over the course of the pandemic so far has derived no discernible mortality benefit whatsoever for the earlier lockdown.

The idea that an earlier lockdown would have helped us 'avoid the worst' is just not supported by the data.

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Rich_cb | 2 years ago
2 likes

Did any other countries keep schools etc open?

How did they fare?

Harsh restrictions don't necessarily translate into lower death tolls.

Wales had stricter and longer restrictions than England but ended up with, unadjusted, mortality figures that were higher.

There's also the lag effect of restrictions. People are dying now of cancer that was diagnosed late due to COVID restrictions. That will continue to be the case for many years for many diseases.

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AlsoSomniloquism replied to Rich_cb | 2 years ago
2 likes

But the point he is initially making was when it was an unknown in March 2020. So when we can see what is happening in Italy, we have no medical fixes, severely limited PPE and an infection rate that exponentially grows when exposed to standard public, we should still send all teachers/lecturers in and say, "hope you survive?"

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Rich_cb replied to AlsoSomniloquism | 2 years ago
3 likes

As Awavey mentions above I think that's exactly what they did in Sweden.

Older pupils switched to home learning but, I believe, normal lessons continued for younger age groups.

Interestingly their response was led by a scientist too.

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AlsoSomniloquism replied to Rich_cb | 2 years ago
1 like

Although didn't sweden have four times the deaths of its nearest neighbours whilst only having double the population. And both of its neighbours did lock down. I chose them just because of location so local weather climate etc is hopefully not a factor. 

Of course other factors might be at play then just climate or lockdown and some stats might show it was better then the others, but Swedens "good" start to Covid swiftly diminished. 
 

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Rich_cb replied to AlsoSomniloquism | 2 years ago
1 like

I think only comparing Sweden to its neighbours is flawed.

Norway is a complete outlier in terms of wealth, 6th highest GDP per capita in the world, so will distort any local figures hugely.

Sweden performed well compared to European mortality averages and that relative performance is only likely to improve as the mortality lag effects of lockdowns etc become apparent.

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AlsoSomniloquism replied to Rich_cb | 2 years ago
0 likes

I wasn't looking at GDP (not a tory), just that I would imagine similar population makeup, living arrangements and climate compared to say Italy or Spain. And I also included Finland as the other neighbour being as they are all on the same massive penisula. So just pointing out that out the three, one didn't lockdown and was heralded as the way it should have been done early on by people around the world. Yet deaths were the worst of the three. Like I said earlier, simplistic but to point that the Swedes did it right with theirs early as they didn't lock down schools is still very early to call.  

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chrisonabike replied to Rich_cb | 2 years ago
1 like

Scotland also had higher mortality at points despite less relaxed rules.  And apparently more compliance.  However I believe Scotland has had worse underlying health (much worse in some parts) for a long time.  Likely connected to socioeconomic issues.  Apparently the UK figures overall look pretty similar once compared to the global variation.

https://www.ft.com/content/0eccfeef-2913-43a7-9518-6728f15e556e

I agree that the other health impacts - not forgetting mental health / impact on children - may be felt for a much longer time.

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lonpfrb replied to chrisonabike | 2 years ago
2 likes
chrisonatrike wrote:

Scotland also had higher mortality at points despite less relaxed rules.  And apparently more compliance.  However I believe Scotland has had worse underlying health (much worse in some parts) for a long time.  Likely connected to socioeconomic issues.  Apparently the UK figures overall look pretty similar once compared to the global variation.

https://www.ft.com/content/0eccfeef-2913-43a7-9518-6728f15e556e

I agree that the other health impacts - not forgetting mental health / impact on children - may be felt for a much longer time.

As a politician with a Finance association, I'd much rather that he didn't make Public Health decisions. Science and Engineering before English, History, Philosophy and Economics, which are the staples of the political 'elite', because we must deal with uncertainty correctly not emotionally or with an eye on popularity..

Epidemiology is not a 'Market'

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Awavey replied to Rich_cb | 2 years ago
1 like

Sweden did didnt they ?

I think the grauniad are misrepresenting him somewhat by cherry picking that quote, the whole original interview is at https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-lockdown-files-rishi-sunak-on-wh...

what Sunak is saying is the Sage group got to decide by themselves if the country should lockdown or not, not simply present their scientific opinion, but its the government/cabinet ministers who are elected to run the country, yet were totally excluded from that discussion/decision process and werent allowed even internally to question how Sage were coming to their decisions, not that they ever explained them apparently or minuted any dissenting opinions, or were allowed to raise points about the knock on effects.

it seems a perfectly reasonable thing to say that was not the right way to run government in any crisis.

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jaymack replied to Awavey | 2 years ago
0 likes

The Tories are bad at Government because they believe Government is bad. Perhaps it would have been better if they'd simply left it to the market and let even more people die?

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AlsoSomniloquism replied to Awavey | 2 years ago
6 likes

Just another "the government of the past two years did this wrong and I would have done it differently, but forget I was part of the Government" from Truss, Sunak and the other candidates to appeal to the very small percentage of people who could elect them. 
 

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chrisonabike replied to Awavey | 2 years ago
2 likes

Awavey wrote:

what Sunak is saying is the Sage group got to decide by themselves if the country should lockdown or not, not simply present their scientific opinion, but its the government/cabinet ministers who are elected to run the country, yet were totally excluded from that discussion/decision process and werent allowed even internally to question how Sage were coming to their decisions, not that they ever explained them apparently or minuted any dissenting opinions, or were allowed to raise points about the knock on effects.

it seems a perfectly reasonable thing to say that was not the right way to run government in any crisis.

Whether SAGE got this right (clearly they'd never get everything right) is one thing.  However there seem to be lots of different sources reminding us "er - it's the politicians who make policy" e.g.:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-62664537

Trivial example - we had different restrictions and timings in different regions of the UK.  On first blush this interview does rather come over as trying to do a similar thing as Grant Shapps was doing with his pronouncements.

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lonpfrb replied to Awavey | 2 years ago
1 like
Awavey wrote:

it seems a perfectly reasonable thing to say that was not the right way to run government in any crisis.

It seems entirely appropriate for the elected representatives to delegate responsibility to the experts chosen for their life long dedication to science and public health. Thus the politicians can make the correct decisions understandable to the electorate and continue to be accountable as expected.

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IanMSpencer replied to Awavey | 2 years ago
2 likes

Given that Sage were never in power, the only reasonable interpretation is that this is a criticism of Johnson failing to implement collective responsibility and choosing himself to follow the science rather than allowing the cabinet to dissent, therefore although dressed up as a criticism of scientists and the science, it is actually a criticism of Johnson.

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Rendel Harris replied to Rich_cb | 2 years ago
1 like

Rich_cb wrote:

. Wales had stricter and longer restrictions than England but ended up with, unadjusted, mortality figures that were higher.

Stone cold lie, Wales deaths with covid on death certificate, 10,597 ( UKGOV figures https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/deaths areaType=nation&areaName...) in a population of 3.1 million, England 170,528 in a population of 60 million (UK GOV figures https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/deaths?areaType=nation&areaName=... )

3,100,000/10,597 = 292.5 per 100,000

60,000,000/170,528 = 352 per 100,000

 Just stop lying, please.

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Rich_cb replied to Rich_cb | 2 years ago
0 likes

For those interested in the actual figures for Wales and England's respective COVID mortality.

There is a lengthy article here:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-52380643(link is external)

I've taken a screen shot of the most pertinent table.

All figures are ONS figures and easily checked.

I'd trust these over an individual with a history of making up blatant lies especially one who has now produced two completely different figures for COVID mortality in Wales in the space of just a few hours.

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AlsoSomniloquism replied to Rich_cb | 2 years ago
0 likes

But aren't the adjustments needed? I'm assuming as Covid was so deadly among the elderly, the adjustment takes into account if the population is older then the one you are comparing against? Or is that not what it is there for?

 

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Rich_cb replied to AlsoSomniloquism | 2 years ago
0 likes

It is important to adjust the data for accuracy.

That's why I specifically mentioned that the data I was referring to was unadjusted.

However age is not the only adjustment needed for COVID, although it is probably the single most important one.

Ethnicity has a huge impact on COVID mortality and Wales and England have very different demographics. Eg Wales is >95% white. Population density also plays a role, Wales has a far lower population density than England.

If we could adjust the data for all appropriate variables I suspect Wales would do slightly worse than England overall.

The fact that the difference is marginal though does undermine the argument that an earlier lockdown in England would have saved lives over the entire course if the pandemic.

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jaymack | 2 years ago
4 likes

For the Populist politician the problem with science is that it's true irrespective of whether or not you believe it. One can only assume from his remarks that Mr Sunak is auditioning to be the fuckwhits' fuckwhit.

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brooksby replied to jaymack | 2 years ago
6 likes

jaymack wrote:

For the Populist politician the problem with science is that it's true irrespective of whether or not you believe it. One can only assume from his remarks that Mr Sunak is auditioning to be the fuckwhits' fuckwhit.

"Fuckwhit"?  You are Stewie Griffin and I claim my five dollars  3

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