UK Inquiry Module 2: Decision-making & political governance

[elbows]

Pages 66-68:

Q: The papers produced by SAGE, in particular the minutes, weren't really minutes, though, were they, they were more of a consensus document bringing together a final concluded position?
Do you think that worked? Do you think having a consensus document was a good thing, because it gave the government a clear understanding of a final position, or perhaps was undermined by or flawed by the tendency of such an approach to conceal nuance, to conceal the width of debate?
A: I think that -- you know, I think you could probably have done both, have a consensus statement and then have maybe fuller minutes or something, so if you were interested you could see the -- how the debate went.
But as it was, it was just this very terse, short document with a consensus.

Q: Was the information flow with government one-way or two-ways?
A: No, it was one-way. It came from us, through Patrick and Chris -- sorry, Patrick --
Q: Sir Chris Whitty and Sir Patrick Vallance.
A: Yeah, Sir Chris Whitty and Sir Patrick Vallance to -- to central government. We didn't have any -- we didn't play any role in that.
Q: So that there is absolutely no question about it whatsoever, there is nothing to suggest that they conveyed the information from SAGE to the government other than properly, faithfully, and --
A: Oh, I'm absolutely sure they would have done. And it didn't come back. I mean, they're consummate professionals, of course, and so they -- we didn't know what the government was discussing -- you know, they didn't report on that, of course they didn't. So it went one way. That's how it was.

Page 72:

Q: More on SAGE. The Inquiry has heard evidence from a number of attendees on SAGE that because the government never told SAGE what its strategies were, what its overall objectives might be or, in essence, what it wanted to achieve, when providing advice SAGE was to some extent shooting in the dark, would you agree?
A: Yes, I think -- I think I said in my statement it's very -- it's very difficult to plot a course when you don't know what the destination is.

Page 73-74:

Q: What did SAGE make of the government's mantra that it was, at crucial times, "following the science"?
A: Well, you know, the government couldn't and shouldn't ever have just followed the science. That was only one aspect of the -- it's only one aspect of the epidemic.
And so they had to weigh advice or -- you know, on various aspects, whether it was economic or social or, of course, operational, as well as the scientific aspect.
So I thought that that was always, I could see why they were doing it, they were doing it so they could hide behind us, I think, so when difficult decisions had to be made, they could hide behind us.

Q: Is science ever certain?
A: No.
Q: Can it ever be?
A: No.
Q: Is there ever one piece of science which can be followed?
No. That's the -- so that was -- exactly -- so that's why we tried to represent the level of uncertainty in the statements we were making at these sorts of meetings. Because, of course, especially at the beginning of a pandemic, of a completely novel disease, I mean, uncertainty is huge.
Q: Why did SAGE, or perhaps you, feel the government was trying to hide behind you?
A: It's what they do. It's convenient, isn't it?

Then there is some stuff about the details of models, what they actually do, how sections of the press misrepresented them, which I'm unfortunately finding too long to quote from effectively. The fucking Daily Mail is used as an example of shit.

 

[elbows]

Pages 96-97 , mid way through a discussion about mass gatherings:

Q: So if answer to a question that in fact my Lady put to an earlier witness, if you attend a mass gathering event, there is a risk you will become infected and it's a risk that you wouldn't otherwise have run?
A: Yes and no, depends what you would do if you hadn't have gone to the event. So if you'd have gone to the pub instead, then maybe the risk in the pub was greater than being at the event, if the event is outside.
Q: All right. But at a micro level there is obviously a risk for the individual?
A: Yes.
Q: But if you look at it on a population modelling level, there is a tendency, isn't there, to overlook the significance of that risk?
A: Because of the population level, it's tiny. It makes a tiny contribution to the entire -- yeah, your analogy is a very good one.

Q: So, in truth, by relying upon modelling in order to answer the question, should we ban mass gatherings --
A: It's the wrong -- you're really -- you're asking the wrong group of people, you should just take a decision about it. And, you know, there's a lot -- this is -- you know, there's lots of reasons why you might -- might -- why you might want to do it even though it might not have an effect or a very small effect at a population level. One we just talked about, an individual risk. Two is the optics, it doesn't necessarily look good. You know, imagine the situation if we'd had our schools closed and the football was still going on. I don't think anybody would have accepted that. It would have looked a bit strange.

Then there was a discussion about how laggy the data was, how they realised they were looking at an out of date picture, even more out of date than hoped. And that once they started testing a wider group of people they were finding all sorts of sporadic, unconnected cases that they hoped not to be seeing at that stage. And that these cases were an alarm signal. Again sadly a bit too much to quote all this.

The theme that modellers cannot predict what spontaneous behavioural changes the public might engage in even when the government werent imposing restrictions also comes up a few times, including in the context of worst case figures where over half a million deaths were indicated.

Then a bit later on pages 109-11:

Q: In your statement you say, recognising that some observers have indicated that SAGE appeared to be too slow to recommend action during the early weeks of the epidemic, that you have some sympathy with this view and that you had become increasingly anxious yourself?
A: Absolutely.
Q: Is that because you say that this understanding of the sheer number of deaths and hospitalisations and the impact on the healthcare system in the United Kingdom should have been understood earlier or --
A: I mean, it was, I mean, everybody, I mean, I saw you inter -- well, Mark Woolhouse's evidence from a few days ago, and, you know, he did this sort of simple back-of-the-envelope calculation based on the reproduction number -- and he had done it back inJanuary, based on the reproduction number and guestimates of case fatality ratio and come with very
big numbers. We'd all done the same calculations back in January and early February. This was the -- this and when -- and Neil's was -- and Neil was -- Ferguson was doing the same, you know, in parallel doing -- looking at similar things. This was when we had kind of -- it had gone through the formal modelling kind of process and those numbers were coming out and they were -- they were truly horrendous.

Q: And that should have been understood earlier, is what you're saying in your statement?
A: So I think our broad -- if you want -- so we didn't know -- the last piece of the jigsaw was related to hospitalisation. It was difficult to understand exactly what fraction of people would be hospitalised, because in the early days, particularly in East Asia, and even here as well, early cases were hospitalised whether they needed it or not. So they were hospitalised for public health measures -- reasons, so that they wouldn't spread. This was in the containment phrase. Yeah?
Q: All right.

A: So it was difficult then to know exactly what fraction would need to be hospitalised for clinical -- on clinical grounds, and how long they would have to be hospitalised for and what fraction might need intensive care. So that was the last bit of the jigsaw. I mean, you could get a guesstimate at it, and a reasonable -- and as February moved on that became more clear, but we didn't have a -- I would say we didn't have a solid estimate of it until really that meeting on 1 March, on the Sunday, 1 March, when we really -- we had a meeting with colleagues at Oxford, Imperial obviously, and the NHS, and then we got a much clearer idea. So that was the final bit of that jigsaw. But you didn't really need the whole jigsaw, I mean, you could see the picture was pretty obvious from -- from, you know, much before then.

 

[elbows]

Then as we move into the period where several SAGE modellers start to get nervous about the approach, we see the occasional suggestion that Whitty was part of the problem.

Pages 116-120 :

Q: Around this time, in fact about a week or so later, we will see your emails at the beginning of March, you began to form the view, did you not, that we, SAGE, had to take much more radical measures -- or perhaps the government had to take much more radical measures to mitigate the epidemic?
A: Yes.
Q: Could we have, please, INQ000212036 on the screen. It's a12 March email. If we can go down to the--if we can go to the next page, and an email at -- I think maybe one more page, to 22.22. Yes, thank you very much. Towards the top of the page, at around about 10.30 on Thursday 12 March from John Edmunds:

"1. The data are crap and hopelessly out of date, so we have little situational awareness. The daily figures are a joke and the [guesstimate] of 5-10,000 cases is probably too low.
"2. The measures just announced ..."
Were those the measures announced by the government? "... will do very little. Not quite sure just how
many cases will escape, but I suspect a fair few.
"3. We will have to do a lot more to manage this epidemic. The current plans will overwhelm the NHS almost straight away. We need much more stringent
control measures if we want to slow it down. Not necessarily now, but soon. Very soon."

So you plainly raised the alarm there. And if we look, please, at INQ000212 -- sorry, no, perhaps if we could go back to the second page, we can see that the debate develops between yourself and Professor Ferguson, and Professor Farrar, Jeremy Farrar.
You debate what NHS England is likely to say on the issue of whether it can cope, and then if you go back, please, to the first page -- this is the email that, my Lady, Professor Ferguson was asked about.
"I think the message got across. I still think part of the issue is Chris hoping it won't be as bad as we say."
So, between you, you're essentially debating the emergency, whether or not the government understands the position, and of course what can be done.

Q: If we could scroll back out, perhaps, and go to the second page, we will see there an email from Jeremy Farrar:
"Are you both comfortable with the plans [the UK Government] have [got] ..." It says "not", but we think it's "got". "... in place, the pace of actions and the changes they are making?
"Good if we could talk again before SAGE." Back one page, please.
John Edmunds: "NO I AM NOT."
Jeremy Farrar: "Main concerns?"

Then the "data are crap" email. Then back up the page. Neil Ferguson emails about the "actual surge capacity of the NHS", and is that to the point that you were addressing earlier about what the impact would be on the NHS of these figures and of course whether there was a surge capacity to be able to deal with it?
A: It was never very clear what the surge capacity was, but in my mind, whatever it was, it wasn't going to be able to cope with the kind of numbers we were talking about.
Q: Is that why you therefore say at the top of the page:
"The potential surge capacity is absolute bollocks. The level of demand at the peak, even with the mitigations planned, are an order of magnitude higher than the NHS can cope with."
A: Yeah.

Q: In this trilogy of emails, all with the same genesis, INQ000212038. The debate continues between the three of you, about whether or not:
"... the [Prime Minister and Health Secretary] are ... more aware of what's coming. But there is [still] a lack of urgency in some quarters ..."
Professor Ferguson says:
I think we might push for rapid contingency planning for potential escalation of social distancing -- likely cessation of all out of home leisure activity, working from home where possible, school closure.
"Oh and surveillance is a mess. So we don't really know what is happening." That's a fair summary?
A: That's what we were talking about time, yeah.

 

[elbows]

Than an important topic as it was clearly one of the failings:

Pages 120-122
Q: The debate between yourselves and also at SAGE at that point focused to some extent also on what the consequences would be of trying to completely suppress what you knew to be the first wave of the pandemic; is that right? And on what the dangers would be thereafter of suppressing a wave, whether it would come back as an uncoiled spring --
A: Yeah.
Q: -- and so on. SAGE debated whether or not the measures which would have to be contemplated would have the result of completely suppressing a wave in a way which meant that it would bounce back later. I've mixed my metaphors, but you understand the point?
A: That was the concern, yeah.[/QUOTE]

Q: Mr Halpern, who is the director of the Behavioural Insights Team in the Cabinet Office, at INQ000188731, page 16, paragraph 73, comments on the nature of that debate. He says:
"... during the meeting [and he is referring to a meeting of SAGE] Stephen Powis and Patrick Vallance questioned the modellers on why they were so sure that suppression of the virus ... was not viable. The response from Graham Medley and John Edmunds was that suppression was not viable because as soon as a lockdown was lifted the virus would spike back up, implying there was no point. Graham Medley and John Edmunds, both stated that they were 100% sure about this. This gave
me great concern ..."
He expresses the observation that this may have indicated an over-confidence in the model, and so on.
Was SAGE clear that if the first wave was to be suppressed, inevitably there would be a second wave, it would re-emerge like an uncoiled spring and have the obvious consequences?

A: Yes, because there was no -- if you just, you know, stopped the circulation of the virus for a while and then stopped doing that, of course it would come back. There was no kind of magic about it. Especially if we implemented a lockdown relatively early, which is what we were talking about here, then you wouldn't have a lot of immunity in the population, it would be very few in the population who would be immune. So the -- when the epidemic came back, which it surely would -- yeah, it surely would -- then it would increase then at more or less the same rate as before because there would be very few people who would be immune.
What we didn't anticipate was the huge changes in behaviour that -- we couldn't predict the huge behaviour changes, so were we right that it would bounce back? Well, clearly we were, because it did. And not just did it do it here, but it did it everywhere, because, you know, everyone who did it and then eased the restrictions, it came back.
So were we right in the big picture? Yes. I think it came back slower than I was anticipating, I think possibly many of us, because we didn't know how behaviour would change when restrictions -- I think everybody expected when, you know, the pubs were opened again, they would be packed, and they weren't.

This discussion then carries on in ways that are too long-winded for me to quote from, including some discussion about herd immunity and why a segmentaed approach wouldnt be viable.

We get a glimpse into his thinking about what lockdown timing on page 126:

Q: But as a matter of scientific analysis, do you say in your statement that 16 March was the first feasible date that a decision to go into lockdown could have been announced in a way that was consistent with the scientific knowledge that had then emerged and could have been justified by virtue of that knowledge?
A: I thought that that was the date -- by that time we had enough data to -- we knew -- we had seen a glimpse at how bad it was in terms of the cases -- you know, so I think it was the first date where you could have made a -- it could have been backed up by the evidence.
You could of course have made a decision before. Many countries did go into lockdown without reams of epidemiological data and modelling advice and so on. But I think -- so it's certainly possible to do that. Many countries did. But I think if you wanted to make evidence-informed decision-making, I think it took us to about that time, about that meeting of 13 March, to have the evidence to say, "This -- you know, this is where we are".

And then a return to the previous theme, pages 126-127:

Q: There was, after the first wave, in fact in the autumn, a meeting of SAGE, I think a "What did we get wrong, if anything?" meeting. To use a terrible modern expression, a wash-up. And at that meeting did you say to your colleagues that perhaps too much time had been spent by SAGE worrying about the second peak and the debate about the flattening strategy?
A: Yes. I felt there was a huge wave of infections just around the corner, and that's what we needed to deal with, not worry too much about what may or may not happen in the winter.

 

[elbows]

I'll return to his and other evidence tomorrow.

Something I meant to quote from Catherine Noakes evidence earlier:

Pages 25-26:

Q: If I can just ask you specifically about the Eat Out to Help Out scheme. How does that fit with your understanding of transmission at that time?
A: So just to clarify, EMG were not asked to consider it.
Had we been asked, I think we would have had a concern that encouraging people to get together indoors, and only on perhaps three days of the week, which perhaps encourages crowding, was not necessarily a well designed approach.

 

[elbows]

Bollocks, tried to look at more transcripts and ended up triggering a migraine. Not the first time this has happened. Probably need to change my whole approach, the days of quoting lots of thunks of the transcripts are probably over. WIll have to be more choosy with which pits I pick up on, and more screenshots from documents rather than quotes from the transcripts. Amd probably more of me broadly describing sessions in my own words rather than quoting.

A lot of the themes I'm going to miss out on from the missing week will likely come up again plenty in future. WIll just find three or four to do now as I'll need to rest completely tomorrow and then a new round of evidence begins on Monday.

Missing from the rest of Edmunds stuff is mostly his attitude later on, how unhappy he was with the approach taken from the summer 2020 relacation into the second wave. And the meeting with Heneghan etc which has already been covered a fair bit.

 

[elbows]

So, only a very few bits from Neil Fergusons evidence session.

Transcript of October 17th: https://covid19.public-inquiry.uk/w...740/2023-10-17-Module-2-Day-11-Transcript.pdf

Pages 143-144:

Q: These were self-evidently matters of life and death. The government did not start contemplating the possibility of the top control measure, the lockdown, mandatory NPIs, until around about the 13th, we'll put it in a broad way, the 13th to the
16 March?
A: I wasn't actually aware of what the government was considering and wasn't considering at the time. I mean, in terms of what was going on within COBR, I had no visibility of COBR.
Q: But you had hitherto not been averse to emailing your thoughts on policy matters to the CMO, the GCSA, Professor Edmunds?
A: I mean, the CMO and GCSA, there was a complete Chinese wall between SAGE and COBR, so it was not as if SAGE meetings started with a readout from COBR about what the government were thinking and planning to do. We had almost no visibility of that. In terms of operational planning.
It wasn't clear, for instance, that exceeding healthcare demand, NHS capacity, was an absolute red line, really until, I would argue, 14 March. In terms of what we -- had been communicated to us as independent members of SAGE.

Pages 144-146:

Q: But that elapse of time from the end of February to14 March is a passage of time which plainly can't be got back, but it was plainly not desirable, it was not inevitable -- you describe in your statement your regret at the fact that it took five weeks to get these figures bottomed out -- and then there is another two-week gap or delay before practical measures are started to be contemplated. How can that possibly have happened?
A: I mean, I think I may put it in my recommendations for learning lessons for the future. The artificial divide between scientific advice and then operational planning and response was a hindrance. We had very little visibility of what was going on in terms of preparedness within government. I would occasionally, at the, you know, margins of SAGE meetings, hear a little, but nothing definitive. I think even more so was the lack of visibility of what government red lines were, what were the absolute constraints that policies had to adhere to, you know, never -- I mean, red lines is one way of putting it. Objectives would have been nice as well.

Q: Why, as an expert professor in mathematical modelling and epidemiology, why -- if you'll allow me to say so -- as a plainly intelligent human being, why, as a human being, do you need to wait for the government to tell you what its red lines are before you raise the alarm in the greatest way you possibly can?
A: It depends what -- I mean, what do you mean by raise the -- I mean, I think I was clear in communicating the magnitude of the threat, in public pronouncements and private pronouncements. But it may be
Q: --Well --
A: You elaborate.

Q: At the 5 March meeting of SAGE, at which you were a participant, there was a debate about whether there were scientific grounds to move away from containment efforts in the United Kingdom, there was a debate about large gatherings. SAGE concluded there was no evidence to suggest that banning large gatherings would reduce transmission. There was a debate about what the figures were, the IFR, the IHR, the CFR, but there doesn't appear to be the clearest of messages to the government saying: our figures now show that the number of deaths and hospitalisations are so massive that the NHS and the healthcare system will be overrun.
A: I mean, that was about the same. It is not minuted, you're completely right, but that was about the time where both John Edmunds and myself got concerned about the slight air of unreality of some of the discussions and did start talking in the margins of -- to members -- well, let's say government attendees at SAGE, saying, you know, "Do you know what this is going to be like?"
I mean ...

Q: So are you saying there was this debate but it wasn't minuted? In which case, my next question will be --
A: There was a --
Q: -- how -- how -- Professor, could something of such import not be minuted?
A: I mean, I am not the person to ask.

 

[two sheds]

doing an excellent job elbows sorry to hear that, hope it lifts soon.

 

[elbows]

Note that I gave in older posts my overview of some of Fergusons evidence at the time, including press reports and the other witness from that day, Steven Riley, who gave some indication that he was trying to sound the alarm during the crucial period and that Ferguson was pushing back against his stance in some ways. I wish I could quite Rileys evidence more but here is just a glimpse:

Page 20:

Q: You were, as we shall see, centrally involved in the discussions at SPI-M-O that led towards that decision, and in fact again, as we shall see, you proposed the pivoting to a policy of suppression right at the beginning of March, and that is what we will look at now.

Page 22:

Q: Dropping down a few lines, the crux of it, you describe, is that you pointed out that a rapid wave, similar to the realistic worst-case scenario, could lead to 464,000 deaths. But by contrast, you were positing that if there was a successful policy of immediate suppression, that could reduce it vastly to only 148 deaths?
A: That's right.
Q: So was that your sort of core thinking at that stage, you were simply --
A: Yeah.
Q: -- positing those two alternatives?
A: And it -- I mean, as you present those numbers, it looks strange, in -- I mean, it felt strange to be writing that at the time, and it still looks a little bit strange to be reflecting on it.

Page 23:

Q: Now, you go on to describe, in summary, Professor Ferguson's sort of negative reaction to this report, and you actually quote him, you say:
"Professor Ferguson's view at the time was that 'everyone in policy circles' knew that R could be brought below 1 ..."
Pausing there, do we mean they knew that this suppression policy was a possibility at the very least?
A: Yeah, so in the crudest level of success that you could -- if your restrictions were severe enough, you could make the incidence start to decline.

Q: Yes. And then reading on:
"... but that there was no appetite for the draconian measures that would be required."
Presumably no appetite amongst those people in policy circles, that's how we take it, is it?
A: You will be speaking to Professor Ferguson later today, so ...

Q: You say: "Professor Ferguson also commented that we were currently driving UK preparedness and planning and that we were trusted by the government."
So I think the "we" must mean the -- Professor Ferguson and his science colleagues?
A: Again --
Q: All right, we'll ask him.

As it happens I think they went on to do a bad job of probing Ferguson about this stuff when they questioned him.

Page 26:

Q: You say: "I agree with the neutral Institute for Government that the desire of ministers to avoid a lockdown framed the advice commissioned from SAGE, and contributed to the delay in considering and implementing [suppression] measures."
So again, is that something you picked up from Professor Ferguson, and maybe it's linked to what we were talking about a moment ago, that there was no appetite for lockdown-type measures early in the pandemic?
A: Yeah, and I think it's based on -- I went back and -- you know, when that opinion from the Institute for Government was put to me, I went back through the emails to see if I, you know, did have useful evidence, and I've put in that paragraph, you know, a specific example of how that statement does make sense.
Q: So stepping back to your earlier observation that the February was a wasted month point --
A: Yep.

 

[elbows]

Then they discuss an email he sent after hearing a radio report on March 9th that the PM would consider social distancing measures at a COBR meeting.

It included all sorts of stuff including this from pages 29-30:

Q: If we look at the second paragraph down, we see you stating:
"It is my considered scientific opinion that we should implement school closures and working from home where possible and any other social distancing measure we can for the next three weeks. Starting as soon as possible."

Q: In the next paragraph, you explain the basis for this suggestion, in effect what's become described as NHS becoming overwhelmed.
A: Yes.
Q: You say that:
"... business as usual [in other words, without those measures] will likely lead to the (at least partial) collapse of our health service within that time."
And I think you mean three weeks, that's the time period that you're talking about in that context?
A: Yes.

Pages 33-35:

Q: At the bottom half of that page there is a response from Professor Medley, and if we can just look, there's a paragraph starting:
"We have a choice now: Full or Partial."
By which he means, to use the slang, full or partial lockdown, doesn't he?
If we can see the two lines below that he's talking about the full lockdown option, but he says:
"... we will have saved lives but at enormous cost (health, economic etc)."

This is one of the points which we will come on to see again and again, but the objection to a lockdown on the basis of economic impact, and with that in mind, if we can look up at the top of this page, and your response back to Professor Medley, there's a paragraph starting "To be honest", you say:
"To be honest, I have not seen any economic analysis of an ..."
Then you describe I think an unsuppressed pandemic. But you say:
"... but it keeps being implied to me by Neil and others. I am happy to go sit in a room somewhere and review that evidence or to give an opinion on email. An awful lot of our decisions seem to rely on the idea that the above scenario has some kind of economic advantage over the alternatives."

Are we seeing here, and I think we see it in other emails, Professor, a level of frustration on your part about assertions being made relating to economic impacts without any evidence being provided to support those assertions?
A: Yes, that's correct.
Q: Was that a problem which, in your view, continued?
A: Yes.

Things move on and there are more emails and proposals from Riley, and him sounding out other expterts, and more negativity from Ferguson.

Pages 47-48:

Q: Then if we can go forward, please, or scroll up to the next page, within less than an hour, we see Professor Ferguson's response, which is not a positive one, Professor. I wanted particularly to pick up on the third paragraph, where he says:
"I do feel strongly that we should focus on providing an evidence based assessment of what the policy choices are and their likely impacts, rather than advocate for a particular policy. At least in our role on SPI-M."
Professor, this is a point that you expand on in your witness statement, the issue about scientific advocacy or scientific evidence. What was the difference of opinion here and what was your take on it?
A: So I think we should be very careful describing a view as advocacy and another view as evidence-informed scientific opinion, and I think -- I don't think I say so explicitly here or in the other evidence but I think I probably show, I felt that I had an evidence-based opinion that covered recommendations on interventions.
As I've mentioned before, our scientific discipline includes the study of interventions and I had an evidence-informed opinion for one intervention over another.
I think here Professor Ferguson has chosen to describe my view as advocacy, and by implication the view of others as being more valid or more based in evidence. And I think that's what -- that's my understanding of what Professor Ferguson is saying here.

 

[elbows]

And one more set of that sort of thing, pages 49-51 :

Q: Then I want to come to -- thank you -- this one, which -- we can see we're now on the next day, it's 11 March now, and so the first paragraph is the continuing debate about exactly what your role is or the role of you and Professor Ferguson and SAGE and the government and so on. But I want to come particularly to the second and third paragraphs, where
Professor Ferguson said:
"I would also note that there is now significant momentum behind the current strategy. A huge amount of effort is going into operational planning right now. Government is aware of the projected incidence, health system demand and mortality impact. Though I ... would like to be reassured that the Cabinet is aware of what that will look like in reality." Then this:
"The current view is that -- with difficulty -- this can be handled. Policy will not change unless we can demonstrate convincingly (rather than rhetorically) that the strategy will fail, and/or propose a concrete 'better' alternative. There is limited appetite for intense social distancing policies -- it has taken considerable work to move the government to the likely current strategy."
The first point to be made is Professor Ferguson is not keen to move away from the mitigation policy. What did you understand by his language of, as it were, having in the first place moved the government to that strategy?

A: I honestly can't remember focusing on that at the time. I understood -- so, through February I didn't know what the government would do when the virus arrived, and, you know, it wasn't clear that they weren't considering really stringent interventions. To me. So it was -- during the very end of February and the beginning of March it became more clear that they were -- that the government was focusing much more on mitigation. So I didn't really know whether there had been a move or a change -- or I didn't -- I didn't know what had gone on at higher levels during February at all, and I didn't -- I didn't notice that at the time.
So with all due respect, you can ask Professor Ferguson.

Q: Yes. Just one other point on this, before we move on, the paragraph above. He says:
"Government is aware of the projected incidence ..."
So that's the anticipated mortality rate of the mitigation strategy.
And also "health system demand". The inference there is that, on the one hand, you're saying an awful lot of people are going to die and the health service is going to be saturated; Professor Ferguson seems to be saying the government know that but they want to do the strategy anyway?
A: That's correct. What you're saying is correct.

And another one, pages 52-53:

Q: He (Ferguson) says:
"I understand your view. But just bear in mind the Treasury advice is that 6 months of intense social distancing -- sufficient to achieve R<1, is predicted to drive deep recession and massive business failures and job losses."
Then he refers to talking to someone from the US federal interest committee, and so on.
Do we see here again an example of the economic impact of lockdown being used to challenge that possibility?
A: Yes, we do, and can I comment on my --
Q: Yes.
A: -- response?
Q: Yes.

A: People who were supportive of lockdown did not for one moment think that it wouldn't have lots of massive negative consequences, but the point I make here in reply to Professor -- to Neil is that we don't have a counterfactual, we don't -- there seems to be an unstated implicit assumption that if we don't do something we're going to have a better economic outcome and a better outcome across all those other different dimensions, and I -- I didn't know why people assumed that.
Q: So there are two points, perhaps. The first is the one you've made, which is that it's all very well to say that a lockdown will be very costly, but how expensive will that turquoise unsuccessful mitigation policy -- or even the successful mitigation policy be?
A: Yep.
Q: But the second is: did you actually see these Treasury forecasts or Treasury modelling that you occasionally are being told about?
A: That's correct, yeah, that's another point, yes.

 

[elbows]

Ouch, it hurt my head to post that, but I thought it was important and revealing, cast Ferguson in a different (bad) light and made me think much more highly of Riley.

Last bit from Rileys evidence that Im quoting, finishing off that economics theme, page 54, initially speaking about an email from some weeks later, the end of March 2020:

Q: ...you go on to ask:
"Is there a treasury team to whom we can send a plausible set of scenarios and ask directly how much better one scenario might be than another? We have a little bit of time and this question has arisen many times."
So did you get an answer to that question as to whether there was a Treasury team you could engage with?
A: I don't think that I did. I think I may have put in my statement that I searched and was unable to find any answer. Or it may have been a slightly different email. But I don't think -- I don't believe I did.
Q: Moving away from this particular email, your general experience of that time when you were sitting on SPI-M-O as an academic scientist, did you ever find the answer to this question of: where was the economic modelling that you could look at to help understand your advice on policy change?
A: No, I did not.

 

[elbows]

My last set of quotes for now, 18th October session when they heard from James Rubin, a member of the SAGE Behavioural group:

Transcript https://covid19.public-inquiry.uk/w...-19-Inquiry-18-October-23-Module-2-Day-12.pdf

Im only picking on one Important topic because it was one of the main excuses wheeled out during the shit press conferences from the final week before the initial shit plan went in the bin. Whitty wheeled it out, and none of the behavioural scientists that are hearing from will touch it with a bargepole...

Pages 57-61:

Q: Professor, I would like to move on and now ask you about two separate behavioural science issues that attracted some debate during the course of the pandemic. The first of those is the issue of behavioural fatigue.
This issue arose, did it not, from certain observations made by the Chief Medical Officer, Chris Whitty, during Downing Street press conferences on 9 and 12 March 2020?
A: Yes.
Q: We will all recall that that was the week during which, behind the scenes, pressure was mounting for a change of tack away from the mitigation strategy towards the suppression policy. We heard plenty about that from Professors Riley and Ferguson yesterday.
His comments, which we'll look at in detail, were made in the context of the first of those, the mitigation policy, because it was before the announcement of the lockdown had been made. That's right, isn't it?
A: Yes.
Q: In particular, as we will see, Chris Whitty's reference to behavioural fatigue was made in the context of justifying and explaining a delay in imposing NPIs until what he would have described as close to the peak of the epidemic?
A: Yes.

Q: Let's look, if we may, at precisely what he said, first of all, and as I've said, there were two press conferences a few days apart where this language was used.
If we can go first, please, to look at a transcript of what the Chief Medical Officer said on Monday, 9 March, it's helpfully on the screen. Let's just follow it through. He said:
"... it's not just a matter of what you do it is also a matter of when you do it because anything we do we've got to be able to sustain once you've started these things we will have to continue through the peak and that is for a period of time and there is a risk if we go too early people [will] understandably get fatigue and it'll be difficult to sustain this overtime so getting the timing right is absolutely critical to making this work ..."
We see the reference to fatigue within that excerpt. Thank you, we can take that down.

Q: So that was on 9 March, on the Monday. On the Thursday of the same week, Chris Whitty returned to the same theme. We don't have a transcript of this so I'm just going to read out what he said. At one point of the conference he said:
"If people go too early they become very fatigued." Later during the same press conference he said this: "An important part of the science to this is the behavioural science, and what that shows is probably common sense to everybody in this audience, which is that people start off with the best of intentions but enthusiasm at a certain point starts to flag. If you start too early and then people's enthusiasm runs out just at about the peak, which is exactly the time that we want people to be doing these interventions, that's actually not a productive way to do it, so we do need to do it at the last point it's reasonable so that people will maintain their energy and enthusiasm to get through what will be quite difficult things to do."
So that is what he said on that occasion.

Q: Now, we'll go into this in a little detail, Professor, but in summary, first of all, we saw in that last quote that Chris Whitty referred to behavioural science in the context of these remarks. Were his remarks based on advice given to him either by you or by your committee?
A: No.
Q: Do you know the source of Chris Whitty's understanding about behavioural fatigue?
A: No.

Q: Have you ever discussed it with him?
A: We -- we discussed it -- after he made the comments on 12 March, we raised it in SAGE the following day. We discussed whether there was a basis within the behavioural science literature for the -- and in fairness to Sir Chris, I don't think he used the word "behavioural fatigue" in his statement, I think he referred to fatigue, you're right, or loss of enthusiasm. We discussed those issues and came to the conclusion that first of all this hadn't come from SPI-B, and secondly we didn't think it was a valid reason to delay the lockdown or delay implementation of measures that were necessary. So that was where we discussed it, it was in the SAGE meeting the next day.

Q: Right. And you've made it clear, I think, in the context of that answer, that certainly your committee's view was that his remarks were not supported by behavioural science?
A: No, we had discussed individual behaviours, self-isolation or shielding, we had discussed the challenges that people would face in doing those behaviours, but we hadn't come up with any kind of general overarching principle of fatigue or loss of enthusiasm, and we wouldn't have done. Individual behaviours have individual factors that feed in to them.
It would have made no sense to say it's all enthusiasm, and it will wane at around about the time of the peak either, we wouldn't have been able to be that specific even if we had said it. So, no, it wasn't us.

 

[elbows]

On page 63-64 they quote from someone elses written evidence:

Q: "SPI-B was not asked for our views on the notion of 'behavioural fatigue'. Had we been, the response would have been that there was not such is a concept in the behavioural science literature, not in published evidence nor in theories of behaviour nor in measurement. SPI-B never mentioned this term apart from a discussion I recall concerning its source and use.
The source of the introduction of the term ... into discussions around Covid-19 is unknown, but it certainly did not come from SPI-B."
Q: Again, I take it from what you have said you would endorse those observations?
A: Yes, I would.

Q: Can I just ask you about one more passage in her statement, then, and it's over the page, subparagraph (e) there, please.
Professor Michie here is listing the consequences of this reference by the Chief Medical Officer to behavioural fatigue, and here she says:
"In my opinion it caused behavioural scientists to be blamed for the delayed first lockdown which cost many lives. For example, in a private meeting with MPs on 16 June 2021, Matt Hancock was reported in the press as having blamed unnamed behavioural scientists for their advice about managing the pandemic, saying that they had 'got it wrong'."

Q: I don't know whether you know about that particular incident with Matt Hancock, Professor, but in general terms, can you help us with this idea that the use of that term in those press conferences led to behavioural scientists generally being blamed for the delay in the first lockdown?
A: Yes, I think it was to an extent. I did discuss this -- there was an email exchange between myself, Patrick Vallance and Chris Whitty and I think a few others on 14 March where we discussed this issue, and this reason led to me wanting to put forward into the public domain a document explaining what SPI-B was actually doing, because it wasn't this. And as part of that, Patrick commented that he wanted to be clear that SPI-B or behavioural science advice had not resulted in the delay to lockdown, and would not in the future result in a delay to lockdown. So certainly from his perspective I felt he understood it wasn't behavioural science that was underlying this. But I agree, I suspect others did think that.

On page 65 there was a reference to an open letter by other people that was published by March 16th, which included this bit:

"If 'behavioural fatigue' truly represents a key factor in the government's decision to delay high-visibility interventions, we urge the government to share an adequate evidence base in support of that decision. If one is lacking, we urge the government to reconsider these decisions."

They also discuss some email that David Halpern, the director of the Behavioural Insights Team, sent on Friday March 13th where he was trying to find any evidence that could support the crap Whitty had come out with. He found some paper about the 1918 pandemic that included:

"Regarding the effectiveness of [NPIs], one of the difficulties was public compliance. Compliance was seen to wane with time (when the preliminary wave of fear declined), for environmental reasons (keeping people indoors on hot nights), for reasons of psychological stress due to isolation or quite simply once they were no longer compulsory."

On pages 70-71 the witness gives his take on this:

So these emails came following the SAGE meeting of that day. We had been discussing Chris's point at the podium about behavioural fatigue being a thing that was influencing the decisions about when to implement lockdown. We had pushed back on the idea, but, as you can see, conversations continued as to: actually, is there any evidence base for what Chris had mentioned?
I think David was providing something he thought might support it. In terms of why I don't think it does actually support it, as I understood it, and one of the challenges around this, is the kind of -- how nebulous the term Chris used was in terms of fatigue. The reason it's not used within behavioural science is because there are a wide range of factors that affect behaviour, and to merge them all together and stick the label "fatigue" on it is just not helpful. That's not how it works. It's kind of going 50, 70 years backwards intime in terms of behavioural science.
In terms of David's email, you can see within that a range of different factors that might have been affecting behaviour during the 1918 pandemic, including the weather, including governments not putting into place the legislation to maintain lockdown, including potentially a loss of motivation, but a whole range of different things. And to stamp all that and say, "Well, we can call all that fatigue", it's not right and it's not helpful. So I don't think it did support his point.

When they were kicking the idea around to see if it did actually have any legs, James Rubin did mention the swine flu pandemic, and public not caring so much in subsequent waves, but concluded that this was not a good parallel because public attitudes towards that pandemic were affected by people having later realised that the risk from that pandemic was not high.

We also have this on pages 71-72:

LADY HALLETT: Can we go back to the SAGE meeting when you made the points that you're making now. Was any basis put forward at the SAGE meeting for the rationale of behavioural fatigue or fatigue?
A: I think Chris raised the point around risk perception, that -- so one of the drivers of behaviour is whether you perceive yourself to be at risk, and as risk perception goes down, as people feel more comfortable and no longer perceive themselves as being at risk, you would expect behaviours to reduce as well, which makes sense. I think Chris raised that as a point that might support his argument, but again, for the same reasons I'm saying here, I wasn't sure that was completely valid. I think risk perception might have stayed quite high for quite a long time during the pandemic precisely because it was going to be quite severe for a lot of people. But that was the argument that was advanced.

Since this stuff continued to cause a stink in the press, theres also a later bit where David Halpern is complaining about being chased by a journalist, and is keen to point out that his Behavioural Insights Team wasnt the source either.

Pages 73-74:

Q: So David Halpern emails you, we see at the bottom of this page, talking about a "particularly persistent journalist pushing on the behavioural fatigue stuff". He says:
"We're really in the thick of it on trying to make ... testing and tracing work ..."
Mr Halpern, I should say, is coming to give evidence to the Inquiry in a couple of weeks' time, so we'll be able to ask him about all of this.
He then says: "They seem to be pushing us partly because there are SPI-B members saying that BIT ..."
That's the Behavioural Insights Team?
A: Yes.
Q: Mr Halpern's organisation.
"... gave the line on 'behavioural fatigue' (I'm sure not you!). Perhaps you could politely remind SPI-B members to be cautious in their remarks."
A recurring theme. But then he says: "As you know, not only did the fatigue line not come from me or you, BIT actively pushed Patrick and Chris for earlier, more specific implementation of social distancing measures!"

 

[elbows]

By the way I think it was mentioned somewhere in the evidence from one of the modellers I was skimming through that although the overall infection fatality ratio was estimated to be 1%, for the over 70s it was more like 7%. So yeah, as per the point I quoted in my previous post, yes no shit the 'risk perception might have stayed high for quite a long time'.

This is the basis of me having little hesitation in telling the pandemic idiots to fuck off.

We were certainly lucky to get vaccines as quickly as we did.

 

[two sheds]

So among all the rest. The government stressed the prohibitive costs of shutdown when trying to delay it, but never actually had those costs estimated. That is pretty fucking fundamental if you're trying to decide which course of action to take, particularly when so many deaths are involved and the risk of overloading the NHS. And they stressed the risk of behavioural fatigue if they shut down too early (an idea which seems to have arrived perfectly formed in Chris Whitty's mind or after discussion with other people unless that's a bit conspiratorial?) when either way this seems to have been a load of bollocks?

 

[elbows]

We dont know for sure from this evidence whether they did cost estimates, we just know that if they did, they didnt share them or the workings out with science advisors. So if they did do them, they couldnt be judged by the public in the way SAGE advice could, and the SAGE scientists couldnt factor them in.

As for Whitty, one of the problems with roles like the Chief Medical Officer is that you are a part of government, and are expected to mostly toe the line and sell the current policy. You might be able to rock the boat privately, but you arent supposed to rock it much in public.

Also if there is a problem with the orthodox approach, which there most certainly was at that stage of the pandemic here, you'd expect the CMO to have a large collection of orthodoxy beliefs baked into their thinking.

Likely those two things combined at that stage in the pandemic in a way that meant that when the government were still sticking to the shit original plan, the likes of Whitty and Vallance would end up saying things in the press conferences which were very much part of the failings, part of the problem. I was able to rate them a bit more favourably later on, once the original plan had gone in the bin. And certainly by the time of the second wave looming, it was easier to see from the outside that they were concerned by the Johnson governments approach.

We'll have to wait for further evidence and questioning to see if we learn any more about Whittys beliefs on this and other matters. At the time he struck me as someone who was very concerned about balancing different factors, whose comfort zone was grounded in the traditional approach to pandemic thinking in this country, with all the compromises and cold calculations that go with it. Including pragmatism that suffered from a poor level of ambition because of the operational realities of the NHS etc. We've heard some evidence that he may have also been part of the problem when it came to not believing the true possible scale of the pandemic that the modellers (and also even more simplistic calculations that anyone could perform) were indicating. I certainly hope to learn more about that, and for now this mostly just shows up via one modeller witnesses opinion.

We also know that when Cummings was talking to Johnson on the weekend when the original plan went in the bin, even Johnson remarked that "CMO and CSA are wonderful men but they are both in new territory".

In any case I certainly file this stuff as part of the same scene that made me rant about the orthodoxy for months after it became clear just how much this country had fucked up its response. And the orthodox approach was formed over very many decades, so there are some limits as to how much blame I can attribute to one cog in that machine.

 

[elbows]

More signs that members of the Scottish government deleted their WhatsApp messages as they went along:

Nicola Sturgeon's Covid WhatsApp messages were deleted - newspaper report

Former first minister Nicola Sturgeon is reported to have deleted messages relating to the pandemic.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[elbows]

The BBC live updates from the inquiry, which will help me to cut down the amount of stuff I focus on:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/health-67243378

Of note so far today was the chair starting off with a complaint that evidence is being leaked to the media before its come before the inquiry and been officially published. I havent seen any articles containing info fromt hese leaks yet, anyone got any links?

I note the chair has tissues and has made some nose-blowing noises etc at times today.

Mark Reynolds is a typically tedious senior civil service witness. They grilled him about various failings, about how much he actually bothered to look into the pandemic details himself. And there was also a disvussion about a WhatsApp group he setup, and how he turned on a disappearing messages function for that group in APril 2021, around the time a public inquiry was being discussed. He claims he cant remember why he turned that function on, and keeps trying to suggest that that group was just for copying & pasting info to the PM that is still available via other paper and email records.



There was also something else shown that related to attitudes towards WhatsApp once thoughts of an inquiry started to emerge:

 

[elbows]

Reynolds continued to waffle and shift blame. At one point the lead counsel had to go for the 'answer yes or no' approach, with only limited and brief success.

As usual the inquiry questioning was especially scathing of the wasted month between mid February and mid March 2020.

The different style of Raab compared to Johnson (when Johnson got sick and Raab had to cover for him) was discussed. Raab liked a rigid structure and daily timetable, Johnson was 'more fluid'.

Just before lunch break they reached the stage of Johnsons return from illness, and the evidence from various sources that he was still oscillating over various big decisions.

And I quote... “He wondered whether he should be regarded as the mayor from the Jaws film”.

 

[elbows]

Reynolds continued to be slippery and to rely on 'I dont remember' on some particular issues.

Never mind, we got some interesting evidence from other people on the screen, including much material about Johnsons shit flip-flopping, and some interesting stuff about masks too:










A few of the Vallance ones are in relation to dodging a press conference once the shit was hitting the fan in regards Cummings Barnard Castle stuff.

 

[elbows]

The chair doesnt sound well at all. Hope my prediction that this module might become a bit of a farce at times due to rising covid prevalence levels doesnt come true.

Just to describe todays first witness properly, it was Martin Reynolds, former Principal Private Secretary to the Prime Minister.

We are now onto the next witness, Imran Shafi, former Private Secretary to the Prime Minister for public services. The timetable for todays evidence has slipped quite badly, Reynolds overran massively.

 

[elbows]

They have indeed had to push back one of todays witnesses till tomorrow, Lee Cain, Former Director of Communications at No. 10. Which means Cummings is now up second tomorrow, not first.

Imran Shafi is a less tedious witness as he does not waffle or prevaricate. A lot of the same ground is gone over but with a bit more emphasis on why the penny didnt drop sooner between mid Feb and the eventual death of the original shit mitigation plan around March 13th. Mostly for all the usual reasons we've heard, not just failures in data and understanding and joining the dots, but also the fact that various areas of government were locked pretty tightly into traditional flu pandemic plans that just involve mitigation.

For the first time I heard a bit of proper acknowledgement that concerns really started to rise when they heard about the outbreak in Itary, around 22nd February. I will probably return to this later and be self-indulgent about it, since I made a post on u75 about Italy on that very date that has remained etched in my mind ever since. And I do like to compare what we are learning about the timing inside government with where we were out from an outsiders perspective at the time.

 

[elbows]

Quite a lot more time was spent going over the extent to which the penny did and didnt drop in the latter part of February once Italy had caused alarm. This theme continues into March and there is additional stuff such as numbers from the DHSC and NHS which indicate the huge extent to which hospital capacity would be overwhelmed.

There was more detail os who took various positions in the weekend meeting that happened the next day after the original plan went in the bin on Friday 13th March 2020. I will have to quote some stuff about this once the transcript is available.

A London lockdown really was discussed, and planning went as far as to pencil in a joint press conference with Johnson and Khan! Obviously this didnt happen, they decided against it, decided to drag their heels, wait for the economic support package to be in place and to do it nationally.

Johnson not being a fan of lockdowns comes up. As does some note about a comment along the lines of 'why are we killing the economy for people that are going to die anyway'. I will quote from that when the transcript is available too.

This witness also made a note which revealed that at some point Chris Whitty called the notorious scheme 'Eat Out to Help Out the Virus'.

 

[elbows]

As for Whitty, one of the problems with roles like the Chief Medical Officer is that you are a part of government, and are expected to mostly toe the line and sell the current policy. You might be able to rock the boat privately, but you arent supposed to rock it much in public.

I was reminded today by this story, that has nothing to do with the pandemic at all, that in this country the toe the line stuff is labelled 'Collective Responsibility'.

People do need to remember this factor in future, since back in the first months of 2020 a few people were falsely reassured that this countries plan must have been reasonable because the likes of the chief medical officer backed it. Thats just not how this stuff works when you are an official part of government, unfortunately, so you cant construct reassurances on that basis.

( the unrelated story Paul Bristow: Ministerial aide sacked after call for Israel-Gaza ceasefire )

 

[elbows]

A Guardian article from the week before the break, which picked up on some evidence I didnt really latch onto at the time. In regards people commenting on various newspapers motivations for promoting mask wearing and ending lockdown, desperate for sales of their newspapers to workers. Later it moves onto a topic I did cover the other day, of the claims about fatigue having no basis in behavioural science. But the Guardian have only looked at one piece of written evidence on this, they havent quoted from the questioning of another witness that made it clear the context was a press conference claim by Whitty back when the original shit plan was still in effect and being badly pitched.

Covid inquiry: Daily Mail wanted people back at work to revive sales – Johnson aide

Document reveals James Slack’s messages about article prompted concern from Matt Hancock

www.theguardian.com

 

[elbows]

The BBC summary for their live updates page for today ( https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/health-67243378 ) contains something that I disagree with:

He said original lockdown plans were changed constantly, as the government couldn't decide whether it should aim to contain the virus, implement herd immunity or mitigate it

No, the suppression plan (= lockdown) didnt exist at all until it was hastily cobbled together in mid-March. There was some disagreement about the exact details then, and further wasted time, but by then things had already gone well past a mitigation and herd immunity approach, that original plan died on March 13th. And apart from the week after 13th March when further time was wasted before going ofr full lockdown, all of the wasted time that was discussed today was well before that stage, all through February and into the first half of March. Only the shit mitigation plan existed then, as demonstrated in all sorts of ways including the government putting out a really poor and thin document about their 'contain, delay, mitigate' (completely traditional plan and terminology) on March 3rd. Note that the original shit mitigation plan did involve a few social distancing measures, but only to be done the flatten the very peak, which they spent weeks getting the expected timing of completely wrong. And nothing like as strong as the measures we actually experienced once a rather different plan superseded the mitigation plan.

The BBCs mischaracterisation of this also somewhat mirrors a mistake the lead counsel kept making today. He has various core narratives that he often uses to bring lines of questioning back into focus, and once or twice in this inquiry he has got the substance of those wrong, and then had trouble modifying them when returning to the same theme later, ending up repeateing the same mistake.

In this instance the KC kept trying to frame the situation to a witness as being along the lines of 'time wasted in February and March on getting bogged down in a debate between mitigation and suppression'. The witness repeatedly had to point out that no, there was no such debate at all, because there was no suppression plan on the table at that stage. There was only the original, classic mitigation plan (a plan that was the core focus of inquiry module 1 because its the only proper pandemic plan the UK had crafted before this pandemic arrived). That remained the case right up until the week ending Friday 13th March, when that plan finally went in the bin.

 

[elbows]

The lead counsel also indulged in his other common narrative error today, one that he made a lot in module one as well. He is fond of going on about how test & trace wouldnt be needed in a flu pandemic because people show symptoms. He persists with this falsehood about flu even though some witnesses have described how asymptomatic flu is well known. The actual reasons why test & trace is usually not considered for flu pandemics has also been discussed already in the inquiry - its because the time between catching flu and becoming infectious is thought to be much shorter than for covid, reducing the chances of success, the time available to trace contacts etc and break transmission chains. Frankly I'd also say its because in the modern era we also havent had a flu pandemic that was bad enough that the powers that be actually considered having to try to suppress it, although sadly I dont think they inquiry have really picked up on that possible factor properly in either module 1 or 2.

 

[elbows]

Todays transcript: https://covid19.public-inquiry.uk/w...506/2023-10-30-Module-2-Day-14-Transcript.pdf

I just be will be quoting from 6 or 7 themes from the 2nd witness when I get a chance later this evening.

 

[elbows]

Sorry for the snippets and the lack of full context, I cant go through the whole sections of relevant transcript, just a vague flavour.

Bits from the meeting the day after the Friday 13th March Cummings etc meeting.

Pages 176-179 :

Q: This led to a meeting on Saturday 14 March attended by the Prime Minister, the Chief Scientific Adviser, the CMO and the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, and there was a debate, was there not, about what needed to be done?

Q: After the meeting, you itemised a list of things to be done?
A: Yes.
Q: INQ000136751. You can see at the bottom of the page:
"We require a cross-Government signed-off package on shielding the vulnerable and elderly by Wednesday lunchtime ..."
You need more information about who the vulnerable groups are, you need advice, the Prime Minister wanted advice on what we do on mass gatherings.
Mass gatherings had not yet been prohibited, had they?
A: No.

Q: "How we could implement further social distancing ...
"The near-finalised approach on household isolation for announcement by Monday ..."
Despite the meeting with Mr Cummings on Friday night, and despite the recognisation that the NHS would be overwhelmed if there was to be no lockdown, the government at this meeting on Saturday 14 March did not decide to impose a lockdown, did it?
A: No.

Q: In your notebook, INQ000146636, at page 64, your notebook shows that one of the matters being discussed was the possibility of planning -- or the need to plan for a lockdown in London, because London was ahead of the epidemiological curve, was it not?
A: I can't -- oh, yeah, right at the bottom. Yes.
Q: "... need to do in next 72 hours to avoid NHS lockdown."
Who is that?
A: That's Dom.

Q: "Matt [Hancock] -- explain plan into Sunday. "... everyone should stop unnecessary social activity."
So they're at odds as to what should be done.
PM Johnson, "PMJ"?
A: Sorry, that's "PM" and a squiggle, just to --
Q: Oh, it's just a squiggle.
-- to mark ...
"... Government must define vulnerable. We are on war footing now. We need detail of what mean ..."
"... what mean by social distancing."

Q: Ben Warner?
A: Yeah.
Q: "... need plan to lock down London on Saturday." And then this:
Q: "MG." Who is that?
A: Michael Gove.
Q: "... why not tomorrow?"

Q: "[Dom Cummings] -- tell the media today -- SAGE for the ..." Work, week?
A: SAGE thinks we're further than we thought.
Q: Oh, "further"?
A: It's a new situation, accelerating through the plan, where this is going over the next seven days.
Q: "Gove: Go now!"
Exclamation mark, underlined. He said it with some degree of force, did he not?
A: He did.

Then some discussion about how that meeting didnt decide to lockdown, but that later they ended up having too because the hospitalisations and deaths data was laggy so they wouldnt find out in time if the initial measures had been enough. And that some details about movement by the public indicated that behaviour was showing signs of not having shifted enough.