I think this is an important development:
This is hugely important. SAGE members rebelling & speaking out: too early to lift lockdown. The ‘clear science advice' is being ignored by the government. This is so critical. We cannot & should not trust the govt & we need clear independent alternative leadership https://t.co/fvlA9nhvxb
— Carole Cadwalladr (@carolecadwalla) May 29, 2020
The scientists have had enough of standing beside the government. They're now saying that the government is not following their advice.
The genie is out of their bag. They think that the scientific evidence suggests that lockdown is being released too early in the UK, just as we went into it too late.
And they're very clearly passing the buck. They're saying the excess deaths will not be their responsibility. The decision to unlock is political. The politicians will have to accept the responsibility for it.
My instincts are that they are right, based on what I read and hear.
This could, like so much else happening now, have horrid consequences.
There is more on this story in the Guardianon this story in the Guardian.
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It very much looks like a political decision to me as I discussed on my blog post yesterday http://www.progressivepulse.org/politics/covid-19-is-the-uk-response-improving. I fear cases and deaths will rise rapidly in the next few weeks.
Sean
Might I repost?
Richard
By all means. Very happy for you to do so.
Tomorrow
Agreed – Boris & Co were in denial when it first appeared and reacted slowly. They are now using the return strategies of other countries who have managed the virus better than us prematurely. Deaths will rise I’m sure as result. They will point out that too many people who should be isolating have not bothered to and that it is their fault (this was also reported in the Guardian yesterday).
Team Johnson has regarded the Covid 19 pandemic as an economic rather than health issue from the start.
Government priorities could not be clearer.
Johnson, Hancock, Gove et al have thrashed the scientific approach by being full political.
Those scientists fronting for the Govt must feel shame with what they have had to go along with. Shame on you for pretending to agree and being muted. Just walk away from SAGE if you don’t agree, be brave don’t let Johnson undermine the scientific method of empirical investigation and vigorous open and honest discussions. Uncertainty is the scientific method because science tries to estimate the level of uncertainty. Pretending “To follow the science”, “Do the right things at the right times” is nothing more than crass political slogan making.
As a professional scientist its been agonising watching the daily Govt briefing with the clear slant to protect Govt arguments.
Sir David King FRS and his Independent SAGE group at least shine some alternative narrative. Well done Dave.
There are so many red flags now flying that this government is not up to the task of dealing with the coronavirus pandemic yet the majority of the media chooses to turn a blind eye because it has vested interests in keeping this government in power contrary to the national need. The UK is a nation well and truly hoist by the narrow interests of the few!
I hope that the emergence of some spine continues. However I am not holding my breath. How many functionaries resigned over Iraq? Three or four?
[…] ignore the obvious fact that he’s stood by Cummings. And that he’s defended schools reopening when it seems very likely that this will push the reinfection rate above 1, and so start exponential spread of the virus […]