[brooksby]

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/aug/24/sunak-says-it-was-a-mistake-to-empower-scientists-during-covid-pandemic

[quote]

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

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

[/quote]

Discuss.

Topic

[lonpfrb]

Awavey wrote:

Awavey wrote:

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

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

[lonpfrb]

chrisonatrike wrote:

chrisonatrike wrote:

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

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

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

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

Epidemiology is not a ‘Market’

[chrisonabike]

Awavey wrote:

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

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

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

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

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

[jaymack]

Good spot. Should I stoop as
Good spot. Should I stoop as low as to suggest that covid is proof that ‘death has a shadow’? Yeah, of course I should.

[brooksby]

The Sun’s take on it is

The Sun’s take on it is

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

[brooksby]

jaymack wrote:

jaymack wrote:

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

“Fuckwhit”?  You are Stewie Griffin and I claim my five dollars 😉

[Rich_cb]

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

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

Interestingly their response was led by a scientist too.

[Tom_77]

Covid restrictions were very

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

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

[AlsoSomniloquism]

Just another “the government

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

[jaymack]

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

[Awavey]

Sweden did didnt they ?

Sweden did didnt they ?

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

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

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

[chrisonabike]

Scotland also had higher

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

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

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

[IanMSpencer]

A couple of comments I made

A couple of comments I made this morning:

——

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

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

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

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

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

—-

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

[AlsoSomniloquism]

But the point he is initially

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

[Rich_cb]

Did any other countries keep
Did any other countries keep schools etc open?

How did they fare?

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

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

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

[Author]

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