The Covid Inquiry
- Thread starter brogdale
- Start date
elbows
Well-Known Member
The combinations of Whittys oh so bloody reasonableness and unwillingness to even criticise things like Johnsons shit decision making abilities, and Hugo Keith getting caught up with questioning stuff at early January 2020 moments in time that werent actually when the mistakes were made is killing me with tedium right now.
The pacing of the inquiry is a bit dodgy in that they are rushing through the verbal questioning of witnesses to get through each module, I would argue, too quickly, so when valuable time is wasted in this way it winds me up.
The pacing of the inquiry is a bit dodgy in that they are rushing through the verbal questioning of witnesses to get through each module, I would argue, too quickly, so when valuable time is wasted in this way it winds me up.
elbows
Well-Known Member
The pace of today is a disaster. Its 3pm and they havent got beyond 4th Feb 2020 yet.
This sort of pace would please me if the time for this modules public evidence sessions was much longer, but since Whitty is supposed to only have to appear today they will end up having to skip over all sorts of other important periods.
This sort of pace would please me if the time for this modules public evidence sessions was much longer, but since Whitty is supposed to only have to appear today they will end up having to skip over all sorts of other important periods.
Kid_Eternity
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
He really is...
elbows
Well-Known Member
Loads of what ended up being discussed today really should have been done in module 1.
I mean I was pleased that a Whitty opinion mirrors my own, that the pandemic plan being a flu plan rather than a covid plan wasnt the central problem, because the flu plan would also also have been useless if faced with a severe flu pandemic. But spending time on that again today when it could, should and to some extent was covered in module 1, is a waste of limited time.
The real solution would be not to have imposed such narrow restrictions on the time allowed for this modules evidence, but given they chose those limits the likes of Hugo Keith needed to manage the angles of questioning much better than he has managed so far today.
I mean I was pleased that a Whitty opinion mirrors my own, that the pandemic plan being a flu plan rather than a covid plan wasnt the central problem, because the flu plan would also also have been useless if faced with a severe flu pandemic. But spending time on that again today when it could, should and to some extent was covered in module 1, is a waste of limited time.
The real solution would be not to have imposed such narrow restrictions on the time allowed for this modules evidence, but given they chose those limits the likes of Hugo Keith needed to manage the angles of questioning much better than he has managed so far today.
Sasaferrato
Super Refuser!
The enquiry will drag on interminably, and cost a fortune or two.
No one will be to blame.
Lessons will be learned.
The next time something like Covid happens, our arses will be just as exposed.
Rinse and repeat.
I honestly would have settled for 'We fucked it up, we'll try better next time', at a cost of 5p.
No one will be to blame.
Lessons will be learned.
The next time something like Covid happens, our arses will be just as exposed.
Rinse and repeat.
I honestly would have settled for 'We fucked it up, we'll try better next time', at a cost of 5p.
elbows
Well-Known Member
Even if you retain that degree of cynicism yourself and are happy to indulge in self-defeating ignorance that guarantees your prediction will come true, you cannot expect bereaved family members to settle for not getting a proper hearing of the details of the numerous mistakes and failings.
teqniq
DisMembered
Sensible people (and here I include myself haha) knew this was a mistake at the time, but it was of course all about the money and fuck the little people:
www.mirror.co.uk
Chris Whitty admits Cheltenham Festival and Champions League match were mistake
Chief Medical Officer Professor Sir Chris Whitty told the Covid Inquiry the Cheltenham Festival and Liverpool's Champions League match before lockdown should have been cancelled
www.mirror.co.uk
elbows
Well-Known Member
Unfortunately its not even as simple as tje moeny and crap priorities stuff, thats one dimension of those sorts of decisions, but the failings go beyond such dodgy priorities etc and into the area of flaws to do with narrow expert thinking.
Because at this inquiry the epidemiologists, epidemic modellers etc have spoken about how their honest view is still that such gatherings dont make a significant difference to the rise of epidemic waves directly.
What is acknowledged is only a different angle, that its not sufficient to only look at those direct epidemiological consequences, you also have to consider stuff like how it looks to the public, whether it sends entirely the wrong message about risk and how big a deal the disease is, and otehr stuff like that.
And this is why we saw with the first wave that the failures covered a much broader range of the establishment than jsut the politicians and people directly concerned with the economy etc. There was all sorts of expert failure too. Some of Whitty and Vallances attitudes expressed this week continue to demonstrate the ongoing nature of some of those failings, some flaws in the orthodoxy that I've moaned about for years that go beyond those we can attribute to things like free market neoliberalism etc, but I am currently too tired to give some other examples and explain them.
I also remember that when Scotland first banned mass gatherings, they had a different justification for doing so. That it freed up police and otehr emergency services to do other stuff in the pandemic rather than their usual role in mass gatherings.
Because at this inquiry the epidemiologists, epidemic modellers etc have spoken about how their honest view is still that such gatherings dont make a significant difference to the rise of epidemic waves directly.
What is acknowledged is only a different angle, that its not sufficient to only look at those direct epidemiological consequences, you also have to consider stuff like how it looks to the public, whether it sends entirely the wrong message about risk and how big a deal the disease is, and otehr stuff like that.
And this is why we saw with the first wave that the failures covered a much broader range of the establishment than jsut the politicians and people directly concerned with the economy etc. There was all sorts of expert failure too. Some of Whitty and Vallances attitudes expressed this week continue to demonstrate the ongoing nature of some of those failings, some flaws in the orthodoxy that I've moaned about for years that go beyond those we can attribute to things like free market neoliberalism etc, but I am currently too tired to give some other examples and explain them.
I also remember that when Scotland first banned mass gatherings, they had a different justification for doing so. That it freed up police and otehr emergency services to do other stuff in the pandemic rather than their usual role in mass gatherings.
mojo pixy
○-<{[°_°]}>-○
elbows
Well-Known Member
Even now, Whitty hasnt really abandoned some of the flaws in this sort of thinking:
You do have to consider those other issues he mentioned, and getting the balance right is not trivial or easy. But the aims arent really competing to the extent he suggests, there were demonstrations in some other countries of how, if you go early and appropriately, you can improve both sides of that picture. Because of factors such as not having to impose measures for as long or as hard if you stop the number of infections from growing to absurd levels in the first place.
I'm not happy with this 'both of those sides' stuff, because I dont think they are mutually exclusive at all. Same goes for his point about more people dying of causes not covid than covid at the height of the pandemic. At the very tip of the death peaks twice as many people were dying than normal, but rather than get hung up on quite how the split between covid and non-covid deaths looked at those moments, I'd look at it from other angles. Such as, if you dont let so many infections happen that your hospitals get full, health services for people not affected by the virus should be in a better shape and less of those people should die too.
According to Vallance notes, Whitty was still going on about the risks of going to early in fucking October 2020 when the UK government was clearly responding too late again, in response to the second wave.
Covid inquiry: First lockdown imposed a bit too late - Whitty
But England's chief medical officer tells Covid inquiry government had no good options at the time.
www.bbc.co.uk
You do have to consider those other issues he mentioned, and getting the balance right is not trivial or easy. But the aims arent really competing to the extent he suggests, there were demonstrations in some other countries of how, if you go early and appropriately, you can improve both sides of that picture. Because of factors such as not having to impose measures for as long or as hard if you stop the number of infections from growing to absurd levels in the first place.
I'm not happy with this 'both of those sides' stuff, because I dont think they are mutually exclusive at all. Same goes for his point about more people dying of causes not covid than covid at the height of the pandemic. At the very tip of the death peaks twice as many people were dying than normal, but rather than get hung up on quite how the split between covid and non-covid deaths looked at those moments, I'd look at it from other angles. Such as, if you dont let so many infections happen that your hospitals get full, health services for people not affected by the virus should be in a better shape and less of those people should die too.
According to Vallance notes, Whitty was still going on about the risks of going to early in fucking October 2020 when the UK government was clearly responding too late again, in response to the second wave.
elbows
Well-Known Member
The consequences of yesterdays shit pacing came home to roost today.
They started at an earlier time than normal, and Hugo Keith did better with the initial pacing today and managed to have a reasonable discussion up to and including the pre-lockdown and lockdown measures of March 2020.
But then it was fucked, there was no time for anything else so he had to deal with Eat Out To Help Out, other summer and autumn stuff, second and third lockdowns in a few questions over about 5 measly minutes. Terrible!
Whitty isnt quite done yet because now the legal representatives from various groups get to ask him a few questions each.
And there are still further knock-on consequences. VAn-Tam next, Angela McLean bumped to tomorrow morning, and Jenny Harries removed from this weeks timetable (though thats a silver lining in some ways!)
They started at an earlier time than normal, and Hugo Keith did better with the initial pacing today and managed to have a reasonable discussion up to and including the pre-lockdown and lockdown measures of March 2020.
But then it was fucked, there was no time for anything else so he had to deal with Eat Out To Help Out, other summer and autumn stuff, second and third lockdowns in a few questions over about 5 measly minutes. Terrible!
Whitty isnt quite done yet because now the legal representatives from various groups get to ask him a few questions each.
And there are still further knock-on consequences. VAn-Tam next, Angela McLean bumped to tomorrow morning, and Jenny Harries removed from this weeks timetable (though thats a silver lining in some ways!)
gosub
~#
Bad enough to be waiting for the Inquiry after this one?
elbows
Well-Known Member
Impossible to fully predict but quite possibly not, due to the large volume of written evidence they also have.
At the end of the Whitty session just now the chair had to apologise for the pressurised nature of todays session, and said that she expects that if she hadnt imposed such a tight timetable on the modules, Whitty could have given evidence for a whole week!
Whether this sort of thing becomes part of any basis to challenge the eventual findings of the inquiry and demand something more, will come down to whether various participants and interested parties end up feeling that some specific areas were not properly covered and judged in the end, and I wont make predictions about that at this stage.
Certainly I am keeping my own notes about lines of questioning and themes that I think the inquiry hasnt dealt with sufficiently to my liking, including missed opportunities to get to the bottom of subjects that I hold dear to my heart. I think it would be premature to go on about those in detail at this stage, and I wont really be sure until I see per-module conclusions in future, but perhaps a time will come in the meantime where I will discuss a few of them.
So far my rating would be 'OK'. They've missed some specific opportunities and the lead counsel has made some mistakes and fixated on the wrong things from time to time, but nothing that would enable me to shout 'obvious coverup' at this point. The pace has been understandable but somewhat unwise in my book. And they have at least not fallen for some of the crappest excuses that we could see certain people in government formulating during the pandemic. eg the idea that the plan was only bad because it was a flu plan not a covid plan hasnt washed with the inquiry. Excuses that we didnt know about asymptomatic infections have been shot down, which was one of Hancocks primary early excuses. The wider establishment failures havent been covered over by pointing at just a few crap individuals or departments. The blame for late action with the second wave has been correctly attributed to the elected government rather than the wider establishment failings of the first wave. And things like PPE and care homes get their own modules, so lack of depth of focus on those sorts of areas in the initial modules is not a guide that they will fail to uncover stuff on those fronts later.
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Serge Forward
Just enjoyin' my coffee.
Witty is a slippery obfuscating cunt. Van Tam, on the other hand answers properly and doesn't rattle on dodging the question.
elbows
Well-Known Member
During some of the pandemic press conferences, and at times in his inquiry evidence, I have agreed with him going into rather long-winded technical detail and have been prone to do similar myself.
But on other occasions I think he has tried to paint a picture about some approaches, plans and actions in response to the first wave that I dont believe, that does indeed involve obfuscation, and I am planning to pick that apart in a way the lead counsel for the inquiry didnt manage to pull off.
It might be a challenge for me to manage this without using too many words, as I do have a tendency to waffle on. I might end up making multiple attempts. I'm not going to attempt to do it fully now, but I will offer me first attempt at introducing which areas it covers:
Its about them trying to pretend that the plan all along was to get R below 1, and to make out that later modifications to the plan in mid March 2020 were just about realising the initial timing was wrong, and that more measures would be required to get R below 1 than originally envisaged. With part of this version of history involving the need to refute various things about herd immunity plans. Also featuring the fact that although he admitted that going on about fatigue at the start was a mistake, he tries to claim that he was talking about fatigue over the entire length of the pandemic, not in the first wave/first lockdown even though he wheeled it out as a justification for inaction at precisely the time when the original shit plan was coming under attack. Vallance putting his foot in it by going on about herd immunity also happened during the same period, funny that, not.
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elbows
Well-Known Member
On less technical matters, this is what a worm he was when invited to criticise Johnson, just to give one example:
Hugo Keith: There is clear evidence, although ultimately of course it is absolutely a matter for my Lady to determine, that there was a difficulty in -- the Prime Minister had a difficulty in reaching clear, consistent positions, ample evidence relating to oscillation or backing and veering, whatever have you.
Did you observe that? Because of course you were there.
Whitty: I think that the way that Mr Johnson took decisions was unique to him --
Keith: Now, if I may interrupt, that's a euphemism if ever I've heard it. What do you mean by that?
Whitty: Well, I mean, he has a quite distinct style, but I think lots of people have got quite distinct styles, and I do want to, in a sense, take your invitation not to make commentaries on individual politicians, I don't actually think that's my role particularly.
Keith: No, but you gave advice within the confines of SAGE and your role, of course, on the public health issues, and you expected the government to be able to respond efficiently, speedily. You've referred to the need for speed earlier. It must have been apparent to you that the government encountered significant difficulties in being able to reach collectively, through the Prime Minister or otherwise, decisions that it was then -- that they then stuck to and they consistently abided by? This degree of oscillation and chaos is apparent?
Whitty: That's correct, but I don't -- I think it's a matter of record that many other nations had similar problems, expressed in different ways, in this major, major international crisis.
From pages 97-98 of Tuesdays transcript https://covid19.public-inquiry.uk/w...-Inquiry-21-November-2023-Module-2-Day-23.pdf
Hugo Keith: There is clear evidence, although ultimately of course it is absolutely a matter for my Lady to determine, that there was a difficulty in -- the Prime Minister had a difficulty in reaching clear, consistent positions, ample evidence relating to oscillation or backing and veering, whatever have you.
Did you observe that? Because of course you were there.
Whitty: I think that the way that Mr Johnson took decisions was unique to him --
Keith: Now, if I may interrupt, that's a euphemism if ever I've heard it. What do you mean by that?
Whitty: Well, I mean, he has a quite distinct style, but I think lots of people have got quite distinct styles, and I do want to, in a sense, take your invitation not to make commentaries on individual politicians, I don't actually think that's my role particularly.
Keith: No, but you gave advice within the confines of SAGE and your role, of course, on the public health issues, and you expected the government to be able to respond efficiently, speedily. You've referred to the need for speed earlier. It must have been apparent to you that the government encountered significant difficulties in being able to reach collectively, through the Prime Minister or otherwise, decisions that it was then -- that they then stuck to and they consistently abided by? This degree of oscillation and chaos is apparent?
Whitty: That's correct, but I don't -- I think it's a matter of record that many other nations had similar problems, expressed in different ways, in this major, major international crisis.
From pages 97-98 of Tuesdays transcript https://covid19.public-inquiry.uk/w...-Inquiry-21-November-2023-Module-2-Day-23.pdf
wemakeyousoundb
hopefully not gimboid
a safe pair of hands right there
elbows
Well-Known Member
Whitty also remained proud of aspects of his work on the really shitty plan that was made public in early March, that didnt actually amount to very much more than the default flu pandemic plan that he didnt think much of when he read it earlier in 2020. This March plan was so bad that the likes of Ben Warner has already been quoted as having said words to the effect of 'this is a comms plan, where is the real plan?'
Van Tams attitude towards that early March plan is also fairly entertaining to quote:
Keith: Can I now raise just some separate disparate areas. That Coronavirus: action plan, of 3 March --
Van Tam: Yes.
Keith: -- did you have a hand, Professor, in its drafting or its promulgation?
Van Tam: I undoubtedly received a copy of it to make some kind of track changes and suggestions to it. In fact I think if you were able to kind of look at the email records you would probably see that that was the case.
It was another job to do. I was rather more focused on specific jobs I had to do connected with fighting the virus than writing about -- writing a glossy pamphlet about how I was going to, you know, play my role in it or how the government was going to do it or -- so I'll be perfectly truthful with you: it was another job that probably wasn't very welcome at the time, and, you know, I just thought well, you know, see it through.
Let others do it.
From page 182 of Wednesdays transcript https://covid19.public-inquiry.uk/w...211/2023-11-22-Module-2-Day-24-Transcript.pdf
Van Tams attitude towards that early March plan is also fairly entertaining to quote:
Keith: Can I now raise just some separate disparate areas. That Coronavirus: action plan, of 3 March --
Van Tam: Yes.
Keith: -- did you have a hand, Professor, in its drafting or its promulgation?
Van Tam: I undoubtedly received a copy of it to make some kind of track changes and suggestions to it. In fact I think if you were able to kind of look at the email records you would probably see that that was the case.
It was another job to do. I was rather more focused on specific jobs I had to do connected with fighting the virus than writing about -- writing a glossy pamphlet about how I was going to, you know, play my role in it or how the government was going to do it or -- so I'll be perfectly truthful with you: it was another job that probably wasn't very welcome at the time, and, you know, I just thought well, you know, see it through.
Let others do it.
From page 182 of Wednesdays transcript https://covid19.public-inquiry.uk/w...211/2023-11-22-Module-2-Day-24-Transcript.pdf
elbows
Well-Known Member
Sadly Van Tam was mostly kept away from number 10 and various political parts of government, except when he did some press conference preparation. So we didnt get his take on any of the shit involving Johnson & Co. He was put in the meetings Gove had with the devolved administrations, to offer technical advice if required, but he didnt have anything useful to say about those meetings during questioning today either.
Mind you, today he also went on about how he is a traditionalist who believes in the chain of command, and how he was content to be subordinate to Whitty. When I looked into his background, he is a long term army cadet bloke, hence the chain of command reference.
It was also revealed in this module and reiterated today that his instinct way back in mid January 2020 was that this was probably going to turn out to be a nasty pandemic. So he didnt suffer from optimism bias or a requirement to wait for ever more data to emerge before drawing his own conclusions. But from relatively early on his primary focus switched to vaccines, so we'll never know whether his personality and approach could have chopped more sense and sense of urgency into the ineffective senior civil service and elected government members at critical moments
Mind you, today he also went on about how he is a traditionalist who believes in the chain of command, and how he was content to be subordinate to Whitty. When I looked into his background, he is a long term army cadet bloke, hence the chain of command reference.
It was also revealed in this module and reiterated today that his instinct way back in mid January 2020 was that this was probably going to turn out to be a nasty pandemic. So he didnt suffer from optimism bias or a requirement to wait for ever more data to emerge before drawing his own conclusions. But from relatively early on his primary focus switched to vaccines, so we'll never know whether his personality and approach could have chopped more sense and sense of urgency into the ineffective senior civil service and elected government members at critical moments
elbows
Well-Known Member
We did get his thoughts on Eat Out To Help Out, but then even the likes of Whitty have allowed themselves not to be kind about that ridiculous scheme.
Keith: Eat Out to Help Out.
Van Tam: Yes.
Keith: Did you, Professor, were you consulted on that scheme? We've asked the same question of Sir Patrick Vallance and Sir Chris Whitty. Were you involved in that?
Van Tam: Absolutely not. The first I heard about it was, I think, on the TV.
Keith: I think that indicates what view you would have taken had you been consulted?
Van Tam: Say it again?
Keith: What view would you taken had you been consulted?
Van Tam: So had I been consulted I wouldn't have made any distinction between Eat Out to Help Out and any other epidemiological event that brought different households into close contact with each other for the purposes of socialising, eating and consuming alcohol.
The net epidemiological effect, you know, is kind of agnostic to what's on the menu, as it were. But I would have said, "This is -- this is exactly encouraging what we have been trying to suppress and get on top of in the last few months". So it didn't feel sensible to me.
Keith: Eat Out to Help Out.
Van Tam: Yes.
Keith: Did you, Professor, were you consulted on that scheme? We've asked the same question of Sir Patrick Vallance and Sir Chris Whitty. Were you involved in that?
Van Tam: Absolutely not. The first I heard about it was, I think, on the TV.
Keith: I think that indicates what view you would have taken had you been consulted?
Van Tam: Say it again?
Keith: What view would you taken had you been consulted?
Van Tam: So had I been consulted I wouldn't have made any distinction between Eat Out to Help Out and any other epidemiological event that brought different households into close contact with each other for the purposes of socialising, eating and consuming alcohol.
The net epidemiological effect, you know, is kind of agnostic to what's on the menu, as it were. But I would have said, "This is -- this is exactly encouraging what we have been trying to suppress and get on top of in the last few months". So it didn't feel sensible to me.
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elbows
Well-Known Member
There was also a section on that 'Moonshot' thing that Johnson bollocked on about for a while, because poor Van Tam was asked to go to some meetings about it, and had to try to offer constructive criticism even though he couldnt imagine how the idea would have worked. It seems it was a plan to mass test everyone on the same day, so the entire infected population could be detected in one go. But he pointed out that some people would have been infected the day before and wouldnt have tested positive on testing day, but would show symptoms days later. And we didnt have enough testing capacity to do everyone at the same time, and he made it clear he'd rather see the testing capacity used for situations such as care homes and hospitals.
When it came to mass gatherings I'm afraid his stance was just the same as every other epidemiologist and modeller the enquiry has heard from - they all remain focussed on new infections caused by such gatherings being a drop in the ocean compared to the broader infection picture, and so they continue to downplay how much difference banning them would have. This always makes me cringe because I still think every infection counts, no matter the big picture, and its also insensitive to individuals who are sitting in the inquiry who lost loved ones due to infections caught at specific mass gatherings in March 2020. The one thing they will concede, especially in recent days of evidence, is that the optics of keeping mass gatherings going was not good, and it sent the wrong message to the public about how serious the threat was and how they should behave.
When it came to mass gatherings I'm afraid his stance was just the same as every other epidemiologist and modeller the enquiry has heard from - they all remain focussed on new infections caused by such gatherings being a drop in the ocean compared to the broader infection picture, and so they continue to downplay how much difference banning them would have. This always makes me cringe because I still think every infection counts, no matter the big picture, and its also insensitive to individuals who are sitting in the inquiry who lost loved ones due to infections caught at specific mass gatherings in March 2020. The one thing they will concede, especially in recent days of evidence, is that the optics of keeping mass gatherings going was not good, and it sent the wrong message to the public about how serious the threat was and how they should behave.
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A380
How do I change this 'custom title' thing then?
No don’t be cynical it would actually be:
'We fucked it up, communication’s didn’t work, people didn’t talk to each other, we'll try better next time
gosub
~#
There's a bit after 1st lockdown (iirc)..we had R rate (eventually)Oxford & Cambridge were kicking arse ONS steps up and there's what looks like a fued (not doubting ONS made some smart moves later) but looks like there was fuel public data wobbled a bit and when it was a stream again calaclys looked dirty with regards R rate
Humberto
Margin (martian) margin
Does this make sense?
gosub
~#
Thank you for asking asking? I do seem to get barracked a fair bit
elbows
Well-Known Member
I've now read a chunk of one of Whittys written statements to the inquiry.
There was a lot of interesting stuff in there.
Plenty of it, especially dealing with all the periods after the first wave, has massively increased my existing sense of what a disaster the verbal questioning of him, and time allocated for that task, turned out to be.
Its completely unacceptable. And some of this complaint probably applies to a bunch of other witnesses too. I am in no position to make demands that will be listened to, but I will do so anyway for illustrative purposes:
Because of the effects of the timescale imposed on this module, this module has failed to properly probe a range of witnesses on events beyond the first wave and lockdowns. In order to fix this, the inquiry must create a new module that deals with political decision-making in subsequent waves and lockdowns. There were a few areas from the subsequent period that module 2 did manage to focus on in its public evidence sessions this time (such as Eat Out To Help Out and some problems with autumn local tiering system and the test & trace system), but so much else has barely been mentioned, let alone sufficiently probed. The written evidence of Whitty when contrasted with the verbal questioning of him demonstrates a need to explore periods such as Christmas 2020, the Alpha/Kent variant and lockdown 3 in much greater depth, to give just one obvious example.
There was a lot of interesting stuff in there.
Plenty of it, especially dealing with all the periods after the first wave, has massively increased my existing sense of what a disaster the verbal questioning of him, and time allocated for that task, turned out to be.
Its completely unacceptable. And some of this complaint probably applies to a bunch of other witnesses too. I am in no position to make demands that will be listened to, but I will do so anyway for illustrative purposes:
Because of the effects of the timescale imposed on this module, this module has failed to properly probe a range of witnesses on events beyond the first wave and lockdowns. In order to fix this, the inquiry must create a new module that deals with political decision-making in subsequent waves and lockdowns. There were a few areas from the subsequent period that module 2 did manage to focus on in its public evidence sessions this time (such as Eat Out To Help Out and some problems with autumn local tiering system and the test & trace system), but so much else has barely been mentioned, let alone sufficiently probed. The written evidence of Whitty when contrasted with the verbal questioning of him demonstrates a need to explore periods such as Christmas 2020, the Alpha/Kent variant and lockdown 3 in much greater depth, to give just one obvious example.
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