The Government’s scientific advisors are finally losing their grip
Events in the Christmas and New Year period reveal that the Government’s scientific advisors are finally losing their grip.
It seemed at one time that our weak and malleable Prime Minister would forever be at the grip of SAGE and their scary graphs, causing a perpetual cycle of lockdowns. However, events in the Christmas and New Year period reveal that the Government’s scientific advisors are finally losing their grip.
As we are aware, throughout every stage of the pandemic SAGE’s modelling has been woefully off the mark. This seems to have been a fact that went over the heads of ministers, but in recent weeks there has reportedly been a much larger question mark placed over the reliability of data presented to the Prime Minister. Dr Jenny Harries was revealed to be the source of a false claim that the data lag between cases and hospitalisations was seventeen days when our existing data shows it is no more than ten – the claim hitting the headlines of The Telegraph. Even lockdown fanatic Neil Ferguson admitted he oversimplified things when it came to his dire predictions of doom.
The use of only worst case scenario and negative models (and no models showing positive trajectories), inevitably forcing restrictions, is something lockdown sceptics have known for a long time, but this was lost on ministers who are only just discovering that their trusted advisors might have an agenda of their own. This is a great relief, with Christmas and now New Year’s safe from pointless and overblown rules that would have been imposed for a variant that is evidently less pathogenic than previous variants (something those with a keen eye knew even when the Prime Minister was claiming that we couldn’t yet make that determination).
However, the picture isn’t all rosy. After New Year, there may be a spike in hospitalisations due to the sheer number of omicron cases that will spread like wild-fire, owing to the variant’s transmissibility, which will yet again reignite the NHS and SAGE to lobby the Government for another lockdown.
Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have already began imposing measures, how long until England’s so-far sensible decision to keep things open begins to stand out too starkly? We have learnt that the PM is easily swayed, and although this time the polls show most Britons won’t put up with restrictions, if the headlines say they will ‘save the NHS’ once again, how long will that last?
