The oldest trick in politics is blame- shifting.
Recent comments from Rishi Sunak and others about the role of scientists in the management of the Pandemic are an example of re-writing the history of the disease. They don't pay attention to the role that the political classes and their followers have played in the crisis. I would like to correct the record.
It was an unknown virus when it appeared on the radars of governments. It had spread globally in 2003 and probably killed 9% of the people it was related to. There is a stock of similar viruses waiting to cross into humans from animal hosts and many are potentially more deadly than Sars-coV-2
Governments and scientists were aware of this. In the UK, we practiced scenarios of a disease that's on the rise. It wasn't in the public consciousness because politicians believed that the public could have been frightened. We were unprepared. The decision to go into lock down was based on the best evidence and saved many lives.
Senior politicians were aware of the risks of Pandemic disease and other national threats. The budgeting process doesn't usually include the costs of creating resilience. Terrorists and defence have more political traction than other areas. Successive governments haven't made the case that we need to pay a cost to have these risks mitigated.
Every scientist is trying to stop bad things from happening and come up with remedies to reduce risks. There will be times when major problems occur. We can deal with an emergency if they are rapid and severe. The early weeks of 2020 were when the sars-coV-2 spread.
The UK's system for responding to emergencies has been used many times and has worked well. Within 30 minutes of an emergency being declared, a cabinet committee can meet. Depending on the nature of the emergency, the advisory structure varies. The science advisory group for emergencies is part of the structure.
Sage was not there to make decisions. It was there to present the best picture it could to politicians who were making extraordinarily difficult choices
A standing committee is theSage is not a standing committee Its expertise is tailored to the specific issue, which is why it was formed from every emergency. The chief scientific adviser chairs it. The minutes are published after the emergency is over. Nobody is interested in the dry advice given by the scientists.
There was a change in territory with Covid-19. The emergency was long and complex. More scientists were needed to cover all the relevant expertise. It meant that the public was interested in it in new ways.
The subgroup that met between the meetings to do the grunt work of running epidemiological models was called the Sage subgroup. The scientists were not paid to be on the show. Hundreds of others were working behind the scenes to build a picture of how the Pandemic was progressing and trying to project how it might move forward.
The person was not there to make a decision. The best picture it could give to politicians was present there. The picture began as a fuzzy one, but with time and careful work it became a well defined one. Within a few months, it was possible to give advice with more certainty than at the start.
When you are trying to clarify a blurred picture of a disease and its consequences into pithy advice for stressed politicians to absorb, some important points can get lost in translation.
When Sunak decides to shift the blame for what happened during the course of the Pandemic on to scientists, I think he needs to take a closer look at the process and morals of those involved. Many people were educating their kids at home while others were suffering. They kept going with the job.
The whole subgroup dedicated itself to trying to understand what the long-term effects of lockdowns would look like is nonsense. The topic of excess deaths was being discussed.
The people who attended the meetings were aware of the trade-offs associated with certain actions. The deals were included in the uncertainty that was expressed in the advice given to politicians. It is not acceptable to blame scientists for the failure of a political class to respond to their messages for many years.
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