UK Inquiry Module 2: Decision-making & political governance

[elbows]

Pages 181-184:

Q: But during the course of the week there was a debate about the need to plan for a London lockdown?
A: Yeah.
Q: There was an agreement that an announcement would be made between the Prime Minister and the Mayor of London? Yes.
But that press conference was called off, was it not?
A: It was.
Q: It became apparent that even if a lockdown were called for, the arrangements for shielding were not yet sufficiently developed?
A: They weren't on that week of the 15th, no.

Q: By the end of that week, the Prime Minister was still taking the view, was he not, that the measures announced, if properly implemented, would be enough?
A: I don't think that was the Prime Minister. I think that was the scientific advice that he was getting.
Q: What was the Prime Minister's view?
A: I don't think he'd have his own independent view of the impact of the measures. I think he -- that was ... at every stage I think he was hopeful that each measure would be effective, and if you read the minutes of SAGE through that week, they don't say that the measures of 16 March are not enough.
Q: The Prime Minister actively resisted, did he not, a decision to impose a lockdown? He didn't want a lockdown?
A: He definitely didn't want a lockdown, no.

Q: And even though the evidence was mounting that the NHS would be overwhelmed, it's what you had been debating for a week or ten days, against hope -- or in hope against expectation, perhaps -- it was thought these measures, the measures of 16 March, would do the trick, they would suffice?
A: That was the advice that the Prime Minister was getting from the scientific community, if the measures were properly implemented, and the "if" is the key element there, and through the course of that week we got increasing amounts of data on the level of reduction in social contact, for instance, and the realisation that the measures weren't enough, because there wasn't sufficient population change to be sure that we would bring R below 1.

Q: The Prime Minister didn't want a lockdown because he believed, at least in part, that the consequences would be so damaging that, given that large numbers of people would die anyway, there was no point?
A: I don't recognise that. I think he was extremely concerned about the other harms that would be caused with a lockdown in terms of --
Q: There was a --
A: -- non-Covid health, sort of people -- deprivation, education, all of these sort of incredibly important issues, alongside the incredibly important issues of protecting people from Covid.
Q: And the no less important issue of death and harm?
A: Yes, and I think -- I can't remember exactly when the Chief Medical Officer started to sort of categorise it, but he has quite a clear way of sort of demonstrating how death and harm can be caused through lots of different routes, of which direct Covid deaths is just one of those routes that you need to worry about.

Q: On 19 and 20 March, the Prime Minister met the Chancellor of the Exchequer on at least two occasions. Perhaps they were meetings or phone calls, but ...
A: Probably. I don't have the full record.
Q: Could we have INQ000146636, please. This is your diary, your notebook, at page 92, halfway down the page we can see "CX bilat". Is that a reference to a bilateral meeting between the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer?
A: It is, yes.
Q: In quotes: "... 'we're killing the patient to tackle the tumour'.
"- large ppl ..."Numbers of people?
A: Yeah.

Q: "... who will die -- why are we destroying [everything] for people who will die anyway soon."
A: I think that says "economy". Sorry, it's my own handwriting.
Q: Sorry, "[destroy] the economy for people who will die anyway soon."
Mr Shafi, who said those words?
A: I can't say for sure. I think it was the former Prime Minister.

 

[elbows]

Pages 185-186:

Q: In your statement, you accept that it's reasonable to ask whether, knowing what the government knew at the time, the full lockdown could or should have been announced ahead of 23 March. And you agree, do you not, that there were very real -- as is obvious -- difficulties faced by the government? The costs of the lockdown were of course enormous, and understood to be so; there was a genuine scientific debate about whether the measures of 16 March would suffice; and SAGE had itself not called for, not called clearly for, a lockdown.
But why, Mr Shafi, were the insights, the understanding of that week, or maybe the week before, the week of 2 March onwards -- that control had been lost, that there would be a massive effect on the NHS, that nothing short of a lockdown would suffice -- why was that understanding, that insight not understood earlier?
A: I think I understood it. I think a lot -- quite a few people understood it. It took it a while to get through the system.

Later a question is asked about how he wrote in his evidence that it was possible to see how a collective mindset developed. on page 187 his answer includes:

A: I think I'm referring there to the mindset that the only approach was mitigation rather than more draconian measures, and that wasn't really challenged in February in the way that I think, in hindsight, it ought to have been.

Later on that page and onto the next page there is a question about care homes (which will be dealt with in its own inquiry module. His response includes:

I believe it was raised in the meeting with Simon Stevens on 12 March, but very much in the sense of we needed to have generous discharge packages to allow people to move from hospital into care homes. The question of the risk of infections going from hospitals to care homes wasn't really discussed at that meeting.

And on page 188:

Q: Then -- and I'm conscious of the time and also that this is an issue which, of course, has been put and will continue to be put to other witnesses -- the consideration of the circuit breaker in September 2020.
Your own notes describe the Eat Out to Help Out scheme, in the words of somebody else, as "Eat out to help out the virus". I think the Chief Medical Officer described the Eat Out to Help Out scheme to you as "Eat out to help out the virus"; is that right?
A: That's correct.

Carrying on from that and onto pages 189-190 :

Q: There was obviously a high level of concern in government at the beginning of September as to the rise in the infection rate?
A: Yes.
Q: And a number of documents were prepared, a Covid-19 winter strategy document, there was a meeting on 20 September with the Prime Minister, a further meeting on 7 October and 8 October, a strategy meeting in Chequers on 25 October. But in general terms, although SAGE had recommended positively for more stringent action to be taken from September onwards, thePrime Minister resisted implementing the full effect of what was being suggested; there was a tier system, no circuit breaker, and then finally a belated lockdown. Is that a fair summary?
A: Yes.

Q: The Prime Minister decided that there had to be a lockdown eventually at the end of October, he received an advice from the Covid-19 Taskforce dated 28 October which made plain that the situation had continued to deteriorate; correct?
A: Yes, if that's what the advice says, yeah.
Q: But, as your statement recognises, the rise in infections and the risk to the NHS had in fact followed more or less the trajectory that the Chief Medical Officer and the Chief Scientific Adviser had warned about since at least 21 September 2020?
A: Yes.

Q: And there was a general understanding, was there not, that local restrictions would be unlikely to work but were worth trying, but it quickly became apparent that they weren't working?
A: Where do you get the reference that they were unlikely to work?
Q: From the chronology, from the imposition in October of the tier system and the fact that --
A: So, but in September there was a debate about whether they could work or not. I think the -- what October teaches us is that they didn't work --
Q: They didn't work, precisely.
A: -- to the effect that they should do, but that doesn't mean that they couldn't have been made to work in September.
Q: But they were allowed to continue not working for the whole of October until the lockdown decision was made at the end?
A: Yes.

 

[elbows]

A little bit on what I said earlier about the lead counsels faulty narrative and an example of its correction:

Pages 142-144 :

Q: Why, Mr Shafi, did the government, so Number 10, the Cabinet Office, SAGE, SPI-M, spend so much time worrying about the strategic issue: shall we suppress and risk a spring back, an uncoiling of the spring, or shall we mitigate? As opposed to asking itself the question: whichever way you cut it, the loss of life and illness is going to be massive and we must take steps to deal with that?
A: So I don't think there was a proper discussion in February about suppress or mitigate. I think the system, Number 10 included, defaulted into accepting that the pandemic flu pan approach, which is more of a mitigate approach rather than a suppress approach, was the right way forward. In hindsight there should have been advice with different options presented to ministers on: you can go this way and the costs and benefits are as such, and you can go this way, the costs and benefits are as such.
And even at a point where lots of things were uncertain, I think, given that some other countries took an alternative approach, I think it's a reasonable question to ask why we didn't frame the choice in that way to ministers.

Q: In essence, give them practical options: this is the problem, we are going to be overrun, what can be done to control it or to regain control or to deal with the death and illness? As opposed to this doctrinal or strategic debate?
A: So I don't think there was a strategic debate.
Q: There are many, many emails, WhatsApps, from the Prime Minister saying, "Have we won the argument on herd immunity? Is it suppression or mitigation? Reports" --
A: But that's in the middle of March. So what I'm saying is I don't think there was that strategic debate in February.
Q: My mistake. There was a debate in March, it just wasn't in February?
A: Yes.

Q: Why, when the virus, it was plain, had already come to these shores at the beginning of March, was time spent on this doctrinal or strategic debate, which of course culminates in a realisation on 13 March, "We're doomed"?
A: I think large parts of the system thought there was no alternative to the current plan in the first week of March.
Q: No alternative to ...?
A: The current plan, the plan to mitigate.

We have yet to see those messages from the PM asking if they had won the argument on herd immunity, but I expect when we get to those there will be plenty of opportunity to shout about them.

 

[elbows]

Pages 146-147:

Q: Let me put it bluntly to you: a great deal of time and energy appears to have been devoted to drawing up the action plan, talking about delay and mitigation and suppression and, in the event, behavioural fatigue and herd immunity, whilst all the time it was known that the infection fatality rate was 1%, the hospitalisation rate was 6%, and you knew there was no means of controlling the virus's entry into the United Kingdom. Why was the focus not on that stark reality, rather than debating the whys and wherefores of herd immunity?
A: I think that's a very good question, and I think it's one to put to the senior experts on the pandemic.
I think one of the things that we were missing in the early parts of March was just even a simple, "Here is the path of the infection and here is NHS capacity", and putting those two lines together. Now, you could say you should have been able to just work that out with a pen and paper, and when you reflect back you probably should have.

Q: You didn't need models to know --
A: Exactly.
Q: -- that the NHS would be overrun.
A: But it was only once we started to see just how stark the gap was between the likely path of the pandemic, even with mitigation, and how many beds were available, that I think it became clear to people in Number 10, including me, just how unprotected the NHS would be and just how many people would die under a mitigation approach.

Speaking of that, there are some charts from todays evidence that I need to try to find now.

 

[elbows]

Here we are, NHS England bed demand modelling from 9th March 2020:

INQ000146571_0001 - Extract of COBR Brief titled 'NHS Bed Demand for Covid-19: RWCS modelling', dated 09/03/2020. UK Covid-19 Inquiry Archives

Extract of COBR Brief titled 'NHS Bed Demand for Covid-19: RWCS modelling', dated 09/03/2020.

covid19.public-inquiry.uk

When I wanked on endlessly about things being a numbers game at the time, this sort of thing is why, and why eventually even the government machine came to terms with these numbers and the extent to which, even if they had not fucked up the timing of when they thought the peak would arrive (and fuck that up badly they did), the original mitigation approach still left rather insane levels of expected demand and a staggeringly huge gap between demand and supply:

With no mitigations, NHS England will have a deficit of c. 780,000 beds at the peak of the epidemic, including a deficit of c. 75,000 intensive care beds, increasing excess mortality over and above the direct disease effects.

This is what the measures (mitigation not suppression) they still spent the rest of that week trying to hint at and sell to the public and journalists in their press conferences (until this plan died on the 13th and we found that out over the subsequent few days) were expected to achieve at best:

Non-pharmaceutical interventions reduce this deficit. If symptomatic cases home isolate, the NHS bed deficit reduces by c. 240,000 at peak and intensive care beds by c. 25,000. If household isolation is introduced (in addition to home isolation for symptomatic cases) this peak deficit will reduce by another c. 170,000 beds including c. 16,000 intensive care beds. Combining social distancing for the over 65s, home isolation and household isolation leads to the most dramatic reduction in the deficit of NHS beds at the peak of the epidemic, by a total reduction in deficit of c. 540,000 beds including c. 56,000 intensive care beds, ie a peak deficit of c.240,000 beds including 19,000 intensive care beds.

This is also why I continue to be extremely rude to know-nothing pandemic fuckwits who never understood the scale of this pandemic without lockdowns etc.

Its also why I continue to be rude about a short-lived 'keep calm and carry on' piece of shit that Nick Triggle wrote for the BBC in the early hours of Friday 13th March.

 

[elbows]

I was hoping to quote more about certain periods of wasted time in February, including a period where there were no meetings or emails etc with the PM about lockdown. The point was made by the lead counsel that this coincided with half term holidays. But I have now run out of time, perhaps its just as well.

So the only bit I'm going to quote follows on later in February, and I'm making it because of an excess death management point.

Pages 155-156:

Q: On that occasion, on this -- in this COBR on 26 February, if we just scroll forward we can see that COBR was concerned with "Health advice for travellers and schools", "International response". Under "HMG preparedness", even though the reasonable worst-case planning assumption looked close to becoming the reasonable planning assumption, a debate took place on the Covid-19 legislative policy, excess death management, and there is a recognition there that, on the reasonable worst-case scenario for pandemic influenza, 800,000 deaths, being the reasonable worst-case scenario, would greatly exceed ordinary capacity.
So there all the links are joined up, are they not? There is human-to-human sustained transmission in Italy, where lockdowns have been imposed. There are links to the United Kingdom. It's coming, there's no means of control. Excess deaths under the reasonable worst-case scenario -- which is now looking more and more like it's going to be the outcome -- is 800,000. And the debate focuses on excess death management and legislative policies?

A: Yeah, so I think on the previous page it said it's still unsure whether -- if it will come to the UK in great scale, so I think there was still a level of uncertainty there. But I think you're absolutely right that alarm bells should have been ringing at this point that had -- did we have the detailed plans in place to sort of respond to this were it to come into the UK. And as you say, the medical advice was that it was becoming increasingly likely that it was going to be a pandemic. And that's one of the things that I was trying to push to get sort of more detailed plans for the Prime Minister on, what happens in that scenario.

Q: And you personally do push, I make that absolutely plain, but the government as a whole was in the position, was it not, in which the alarm bells were not being rung loudly enough, there were no real plans, it was bogged down in a doctrinal debate about suppression and mitigation, and there was no focus on what would happen?
A: I think there was too much focus on excess death management and not enough focus on preventing those deaths in the first place.
Q: Quite.

Note that the lead counsel was telling the same wrong story about 'doctrinal debate about suppression and mitigation' in February again, although he wasnt picked up on it this time, unlike the occasion I quoted previously. In any case I quoted from this section not to givew another example of that, but rather because of the bit I've put in bold, that the focus at that time was on excess death management not preventing deaths. As I always say this is really about standard cold calculations, UK business as usual, as highlighted by old Guardian articles like this one which I bring up a lot When it comes to national emergencies, Britain has a tradition of cold calculation | David Edgerton Which in turn is why all the way through I've believed it was the hospital numbers game and how that would end up looking, rather than the deaths numbers game, that eventually forced them to change the plan.

Also note that the lockdowns in Italy he mentioned were some local ones, not the national one (their national one was later, around March 9th I think).

 

[elbows]

Bits I failed to mentioned on Monday included some more on the levels of misogyny within government. Will give this topic a more thorough look if more evidence angles for that shit emerge in the coming weeks.

And also a reference to the old Cummings 'bring in weirdos and misfits' plan that was notorious at the time, in the months after the election and before the pandemic fully hit home...

Page 37:

The other dynamic I would say during this period is a sort of unease with some of the messaging and actions taking place. So it was during this period that we were talking about the appointment of various -- and I use quotes here -- "weirdos and misfits" and bringing in very different people into Downing Street, and we had the case of Mr Sabisky, who you'll remember is an adviser brought in who had unusual views on eugenics and after three days he had -- he resigned.

(reminder of what that was all about at the time Boris Johnson adviser quits over race and eugenics controversy )

 

[elbows]

I'm sticking screenshots of the most sensational written evidence on the thread in the UK forum for now, soon after it appears on the feed. I will revisit much of it here later on. #130

Cummings is just starting to give evidence now.

 

[elbows]

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.

Fuck me Hugo Keith is doing this again today, now its Cummings that has had to correct him repeatedly. Infuriating.

 

[elbows]

Cummings and Cain were no exception to the theme of the inquiry continuing to fill in ever smaller gaps in regards the detail of what happened during crucial Feb-March 2020 periods, and again that autumn/winter.

As such there is less I will feel the need to quote from this. Especially given that the media will pick up on most of the interesting stuff.

So when I get round to processing todays stuff, expect me to only focus on a small handful of areas. I dont know how many of the screenshots to bother with repeating here either, maybe I will just link to the start of the moment in the UK thread where they arrive, and some of the media coverage:

#130

Boris Johnson thought old people should accept Covid fate, inquiry told

The former PM's handling of the virus comes under attack over six hours of testimony by aides.

www.bbc.co.uk

Read the private Covid WhatsApp messages from inside Downing Street

"Meltdown", "liar", "embarrassing" - messages lay bare Downing Street divisions during the pandemic.

www.bbc.co.uk

Covid inquiry: Key points from Dominic Cummings and Lee Cain evidence

Two former key advisers to Boris Johnson discuss how Downing Street worked during the pandemic.

www.bbc.co.uk

Eight shocking revelations from Cummings and Cain at the Covid inquiry

From foul-mouthed rants about colleagues to ‘appalling neglect’ of vulnerable people, those close to Boris Johnson revealed workings of government at height of pandemic

www.theguardian.com

‘Nastiness, arrogance and misogyny’ of No 10 exposed at Covid inquiry

WhatsApp messages also reveal Boris Johnson’s dismissive attitude to millions of old people at risk from the virus

www.theguardian.com

Areas the media dont appear to be doing a good enough job on so far in relation to todays evidence include certain civil service failings, Sedwills Chicken pox party shit, and the gap in progress caused by the Feb 2020 half term break. So Those are some of the things I will pick on using the transcript when I have time.

 

[elbows]

The Scottish WhatsApp story rumbles on:

Scottish ministers to release 14,000 Covid WhatsApp messages

Scotland's deputy first minister says the unredacted information will be handed to the UK Covid Inquiry.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[elbows]

I've got no idea how or when I might try to process evidence from Cummings and others in my usual way on this thread.

In the meantime I did quote some bits from Helen McNamara today in the other thread, and then on the next page of that thread I started having a look at Cummings written statement and found plenty to take screenshots of beyond what had been fully discussed in recent media articles: #179 onwards.

 

[elbows]

In regards the shit September 2020 meeting with some pandemic shitheads, look at the following detail regarding Sweden.

We had one or two 'why dont we do what Sweden did' shitheads on this forum at the time, who wanted to cast Tegnell as a supporter of their cause, but I assume they've long since moved on from this subject, shame.

From page 95 of Cummings written statement to the inquiry ( https://covid19.public-inquiry.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/31180752/INQ000273872.pdf )

 

[elbows]

Still having some migraine problems and issues with the volume of information being generated by the inquiry hearings. So have mostly been restricted to posting the more obvious and sensational stuff in the UK forum thread. I've also been reading the written evidence submissions instead of the transcripts, which has revealed various areas the inquiry have chosen not to focus on with specific witnesses.

Nosocomial and care home spread came up in some of the evidence today, so I am going to post about that here, using written evidence rather than todays transcript.

Below are extracts from an email chain, full document at https://covid19.public-inquiry.uk/w...07181355/INQ000198046_0001-0002-0003-0004.pdf

It starts with Ben Warner expressing concern about this issue on 13th April 2020. Becomes clear cabinet office doesnt have anyone looking at it. Which then leads to this:






At some point I became aware of the 'R not below 1 in care homes and hospitals' so its likely that either Whitty or Vallance mentioned this in a press conference at some point. It also showed up in the news when certain hospitals had large outbreaks, at a time when we could clearly see the numbers falling in the wider community. My own local hospital was one that had an obvious outbreak that was big enough to show up in data, and I commented on it at the time.

The department for health and social care have come up in numerous ways in this module so far as not being impressive, to put it mildly, but this is one of the most specific, obvious and deadly examples so far.

 

[elbows]

I decided to cross-reference the timing of that nosocomial spread conversation with what the public were told in press conferences and what was being said in SAGE.

It turns out that Vallance, in answer to a question from a journalist at a covid press conference on 13th April 2020, actually made reference to R probably being below 1 in the community but not necessarily below 1 in hospitals and care homes. So that was the evening before the 14th April 9.15am meeting that last email refers to. Those Vallance comments were mentioned on this forum at the time, on the 13th.

As for SAGE, their minutes reveal that they started to flag nosocomial spread issues as something to look at urgently quite a bit earlier - I've seen it as early as a March 23rd meeting and then throughout April its discussed in more detail, some studies and reports are done, a working group for that issue is setup, and concern starts to increase as data analysis starts to suggest that hospital infection numbers are rising.

By the April 14th 2020 SAGE meeting, things had reached this sort of stage:

 

[elbows]

And to give a few SAGE examples from the period before the 13th-14th Jan conversation the enquiry evidence showed:

2nd April 2020:


7th April:



9th April:

 

[elbows]

I'm still not in shapoe to go through session transcripts, and when looking at witnesses written evidence instead for the most recent few weeks, I found quite a bit that doesnt get covered verbally in the sessions.

So documenting the module in high detail here will probably have to become a longer term project for me instead, probably once this modules evidence sessions have finished and I can tackle things at my own pace with the benefit of knowing how much repetition and overlap there is from different witnesses.

In the meantime I'll continue to cherrypick the most sensational material each day, over on the UK forum thread about the inquiry, the latest page of which is: The Covid Inquiry

There were no evidence sessions this week. There was supposed to be a preliminary hearing for module 2B today, which is the Wales version of this module, but it was cancelled for reasons 'beyond their control; that I dont know.

The provisional timetable for next week has now been published:

 

[elbows]

Fucking Nick Triggle is at it again. I put some details here: #270

 

[DaveCinzano]

Mordaunt's brought her jerry can to the party now

...she found not only that it seemed to be missing but that she could find no messages to or from Johnson between March 2018 and March 2020...

...Her private secretary “kept pressing the No 10 security team for an answer...After some time it was suggested to us that because of a security breach the PM may have deleted all his messages and switched off his phone. However, this was portrayed to me as speculation on the part of the No 10 security team and would not explain why I had some messages and not others.”

Baffled at what might have happened, and being told that a third party could not delete messages, Mordaunt said she sought a meeting with Dan Rosenfield, Johnson’s chief of staff.

“From memory, we asked 14 times for a meeting with him, but had no response from his team, despite my office chasing this,” she said.

“I offered to have my phone forensically examined if this would help. I was told, after some chasing, that they would be happy to do this, but as my phone was my own personal device the CO [Cabinet Office] would have to charge me for this.

“The estimated bill was approximately £1,000 per day for six weeks’ work. I did some research with the government-approved cybersecurity contractors as to their rates and an initial interrogation of my phone would have costed approximately £1,000.”

The statement said that in January 2023 Mordaunt received a letter from the National Cyber Security Centre. “This was highly significant as this was the first time I had received any confirmation that no official advice had been given to the prime minister to delete his messages,” Mordaunt said.

Saying that two further sets of messages had gone missing involving Michael Gove, the then chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Mordaunt ended: “I would be content for my phone to be examined by the inquiry if it is thought this would assist.”

Penny Mordaunt: Boris Johnson’s messages vanished from my phone

MP tells Covid inquiry that then prime minister’s chief of staff ignored repeated attempts to discuss matter

www.theguardian.com

 

[existentialist]

Mordaunt's brought her jerry can to the party now

Penny Mordaunt: Boris Johnson’s messages vanished from my phone

MP tells Covid inquiry that then prime minister’s chief of staff ignored repeated attempts to discuss matter

www.theguardian.com

The plot thickens

 

[elbows]

Although I covered the more sensational stuff from the later witnesses in Module 2 over on the thread in the UK forum, I obviously stopped documenting things in great detail here. In some ways I learnt less of note from the more high profile witnesses that gave evidence during that period, because there was more obfuscation and political weasel words, and because we already got a sense of a lot of the key periods, and what would and would not get properly covered, from previous witnesses. There were still things that should have gone here, but I dont know if I'll ever get the time to fish them out and put them here. At some stage I will probably still try. The pacing of the module and the ability to properly probe all witnesses in all important areas seemed to me to decline from Whitty onwards, so I wasnt very impressed with some of the oral evidence sessions during the period I missed. I am more likely to fish things out from certain witnesses written evidence than I am to revisit the evidence session transcripts.

Public hearings for module 2A, the Scottish version of the module we just had for the UK, have begun today. As with previous modules, they started with a harrowing film of victims and relatives of victims talking about the pandemic. Then moved on to opening statements from core participants.

I dont have as much time available to watch and cover proceedings as I did previously, so I'll probably only end up commenting only the most obvious attention-grabbing stuff. This module only lasts till 1st February, and I dont think there are any really high profile witnesses this week.

 

[elbows]

Completely unsurprisingly by now, plenty of the harrowing victim stories from the opening video featured people whose relatives caught covid in hospital.

Unlike the previous videos, they found more people with various disabilities to talk about the pandemic/pandemic measures impact this time.

 

[elbows]

Lots of the focus of the Scottish module so far, especially in the press, has been about all the deleted messages. Which is rather understandable, and in this respect the Scottish establishment behaved more like we'd expect the establishment to behave in terms of covering their informal message tracks. Sounds like a fair bit has still been made available despite the deletions though, via other parties to the conversations.

I have only been able to tune in to a small proportion of the evidence sessions so far but I note that one important topic is being explored today. I noted at the time, back in summer 2020, that Scotland had adopted the language of 'zero covid', elimination, total suppression. I supported that sort of approach but I would have been skeptical at the time that Scotland would actually manage a sincere and genuine attempt at that, for all sorts of reasons including the wider UK approach being very far from that. And so ultimately the result would be a bigger gap between the Scotland governments rhetoric and what they were doing in practice.

Anyway today Devi Sridhar has been giving evidence. And this has shed some light on why Sturgeon etc ended up taking that stance and using that rhetoric - Sridhar managed to get Surgeons ear and develop friendly direct communication with her. Devi Sridhars pandemic stance is rather well known via many articles in the Guardian etc so I wont try to characterise it but its totally in line with attempting maximum suppression/zero covid etc at that time.

Anyway they are getting into the detail of this matter right now and I'll probably try to quote from the transcript of this session at some point.

Whats certainly clear is that people who supported the principals of zero covid or maximum suppression at the time were able to repaint this stuff later in a way that seems more plausible and realistic, now that we know when vaccines actually became available. ie you arent trying to actually eliminate the virus globally and completely forever, you are just trying to minimise the number of cases until after vaccines have become proven, manufactured at scale and widely deployed. ie what actually happened in countries like New Zealand. I'd put myself in the same camp by the way, supporting zero covid type approaches but not feeling like I could frame them in the vaccine context back in summer 2020 due to a lack of certainty about if/when vaccines would come to the rescue. And that certainly made it harder to sell the original zero covid idea back then, there are all sorts of reasons why people would be skeptical of it, and there were never real indicators that the UK establishment bought into that approach, Scotlands rhetoric for a time stood out in stark contrast to the policy realities. At leas the inquiry have noticed all this!

 

[elbows]

Plenty of witnesses not looking impressive in their words and deeds so far. eg:

Jason Leitch denies giving Humza Yousaf Covid rule 'workaround'

Prof Jason Leitch told then-health secretary to keep a drink in his hand to remain exempt from mask rules.

www.bbc.co.uk