It`s little wonder that, as Anthony Costello tells us, "the public health community were perplexed" when the government, "informed by Sage", stopped "community testing and tracing" at a time when there had been fewer than 10 deaths in the UK and less than 500 confirmed cases of coronavirus (No 10`s secret science group has a shocking lack of expertise, 28/04/20). The only explanation has to be that another "political decision" was then made, but the depth of Cummings`s influence on the "science" leading the ministers` decisions will only be revealed when the minutes of all Sage`s meeting are published.
The bafflement of the public heath community can only have been compounded by the decision to allow so many flights to land in Heathrow throughout the lockdown from all parts of the world, including coronavirus hotspots like Madrid, Rome and New York, without any testing or quarantining measures in place. Government excuses like the virus "freely circulating", testing would have had little effect, ignore the point that, apart from urgent repatriation flights, all others should have been cancelled, as in other countries. Now that the country`s deaths total the highest in any European country, the government apparently intends to impose "quarantine restrictions on all arrivals at UK airports", (PM returns to face critics and talk of a "new normal", 27/04/20)!
Labour must demand those minutes are published!
Whilst it "would probably have been good", as Sir Patrick Vallance says, to "have published sooner" the names of all the people attending Sage meetings, the important point now has to be the immediate publication of the meetings` minutes (Cummings "could be briefing ministers on scientists` meetings", 28/04/20). The country needs to know whether the government has in fact been "following the science", as it has repeatedly claimed, or following a version of "the science" better suited to the political ideology of the right wing Cummings. The conclusions and recommendations of the Sage meetings have to be checked carefully, especially to ensure that it was their "science" which caused the delayed lockdown and the lack of testing, rather than a political adviser`s preference for a "herd immunity" approach!
The trouble is that we can all see our prime minister back in February, after having been handed four sides of A4 covering the main findings of the latest meeting of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, casting the report to one side, and asking Cummings for his conclusions (Revealed: Cummings sits on secret science advisory group, 25/04/20). It`s no wonder questions are being asked "about the independence" of the group`s advice, and Labour is absolutely correct to demand seeing the minutes of all of Sage`s meetings. Of particular interest will be whether the group advised some form of lockdown prior to March 23, and how it reacted to the WHO`s advice to "test, test, test". Could it be that the failure to "join an EU medical supplies consortium" was not the only "political decision" made in recent weeks, despite the government`s repeated insistence on being "led by the science" (UK government accused of cover-up over EU scheme to buy PPE, 22/04/20)?
No comments:
Post a Comment