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Catching up with comments from Professor Andrew Hayward from SAGE. Told @BBCr4today this morning: “We can't turn back the clock but if we had chosen a 2 week circuit breaker at that time [mid September] we would definitely have saved thousands of lives...”
“... and we would clearly have inflicted substantially less damage on our economy than the proposed four-week lockdown will do."
That sets up a serious case to answer for a) ministers, given the public are effectively being told by one of the govt’s own scientists that their inaction has led to deaths and b) Chris Whitty, who when asked about this on Saturday replied there’s no “perfect” time for measures.
Ministers will say that there are other costs to lockdown that they were weighing up, which is true and too often forgotten. But by making a u-turn, it becomes much harder to make that point as now those costs are being borne anyway, with none of the benefits of acting earlier.
Hayward: “we’ve consistently underestimated Covid and done too little too late to control the virus and protect both lives and livelihoods.”
Is asked with what degree of certainty he says lives would have been saved with earlier action: “With a high degree of certainty, really.”
Is asked with what degree of certainty he says lives would have been saved with earlier action: “With a high degree of certainty, really.”
Should be said, Hayward is also a member of NERVTAG. He was speaking in a “personal capacity”, not representing either body.
