** One year of #UKCovid19 policy failures *** THREAD

One year on here are some reflections for the record.

1/
Perhaps useful for a future government to stop the next pandemic. This government doesn’t seem capable of understanding the need to get ahead of the epidemic to prevent greater suffering, death & social & economic damage.

2/
Jan 2020 – total lack of attention, no preparation. Contrast with successful countries like Taiwan, which had already enacted many policies to start and stay ahead of the epidemic, safeguarding health and economy. https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1310613420501336066?s=20

3/
Jan-Feb 2020 – Boris Johnson ignored first 5 Cobra meetings instead. No proactive policy making. Numerous mistakes. This video painful to watch & such contrast to Taiwan linked above. Lockdown could have been avoided with proper planning in Jan-Feb.
https://twitter.com/ByDonkeys/status/1282915698604376064?s=20

4/
March 12th – key failure: stopping testing & contact tracing. Policy to let the virus spread unchecked towards herd immunity without a thought for lives or the economic impact of late action.

5/
March 23rd late lockdown means much longer lockdown too.

https://twitter.com/timcolbourn/status/1266609720313491458?s=20

https://twitter.com/timcolbourn/status/1255952455180877832?s=20

6/
April-May – so many die who need not have. Economic misery too as lockdown much longer than needed if earlier actions taken (see above).

Insufficient action on find, test, trace, isolate, *support for isolation*

7/
April-May: and why are masks still not recommended (see Taiwan above)
Good paper on masks here: https://twitter.com/trishgreenhalgh/status/1343804157342453760?s=20

8/
June-July – easing of restrictions. What is the plan to prevent resurgence?

9/
July: case numbers are low - time for the UK pivot to a elimination strategy and avoid huge health, social and economic costs over the next year?

10/
July 7th - independent SAGE release Zero Covid report: https://www.independentsage.org/independent-sage-on-achieving-a-zero-covid-uk-i-e-the-elimination-of-the-virus-from-the-uk/
Ignored by government. Govt appears to be driven by wishful thinking that it will just go away & not get really bad again

11/
July 14th - Academy of Medical Sciences releases report urging immediate preparation for challenging winter. https://acmedsci.ac.uk/more/news/prepare-now-for-a-winter-covid-19-peak-warns-academy-of-medical-sciences
This not heeded and we’re now tracking outlined ‘Reasonable Worst Case Scenario’. Good threads:
https://twitter.com/dr_d_robertson/status/1306631814849626117?s=21

12/
July 23rd - Lords Science & Technology committee recommendations: https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/2120/documents/19879/default/
also not heeded

13/
Aug - eat out to help out, no border controls, stop working from home, no preparations for safe school return, inadequate system for testing, contact tracing & especially support for isolation...

14/
Sep - test & trace breaks down under pressure that should have been planned for and does not function to control the epidemic. Cases rapidly rise, hospitalisations & deaths WILL follow.

15/
Sep 20th - decisive break with scientific advice. Sets us up for the next 6 months of death & economic misery.
https://twitter.com/timcolbourn/status/1340557327628419072?s=20

16/
Oct - ineffective Tier restrictions. Also what happened to the old 5 levels? https://twitter.com/dr_d_robertson/status/1321518539975598081?s=21
Where is the consistent medium to long term plan? Govt oblivious to what lack of early action will lead to in the winter.

17/
Nov 5th - another very late lockdown after failure to control the virus. More extremely costly reactive policy making. 4 weeks set duration also too short given cases allowed to reach ~700k beforehand: https://twitter.com/timcolbourn/status/1324994048202043393?s=21

18/
Where is the joined up forward thinking policy making? https://twitter.com/dgurdasani1/status/1325954546363981824?s=20

19/
Dec - new more transmissible B.1.1.7 variant in UK makes control even harder and brings the winter crisis forwards a few weeks. If the virus was kept under control then low chance of this happening.

20/
Dec - good news with vaccinations starting, but will be too late for many given epidemic allowed to get so out of control. So much virus circulating also risks a vaccine escape mutant.

21/
Dec – again, where is the plan?
https://twitter.com/CzypionkaThomas/status/1340103179753697281?s=20

22/
Dec 31st 2020 (today). The situation is awful: https://twitter.com/ICS_updates/status/1344303281774985216?s=20

Personal account from frontline: https://twitter.com/doctor_oxford/status/1343962495577419776?s=20

Misinformation is rife: https://twitter.com/doctor_oxford/status/1344586319536803840?s=20

Leadership is terrible.

23/
Key takeaways are that *proactive* well planned policy making to stay ahead of the epidemic is possible and has large health & economic benefits (e.g. Taiwan, NZ). https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4907

24/
Elimination could be the optimal response strategy for covid-19 and other emerging pandemic diseases

Michael Baker and colleagues argue that aiming for elimination of community transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus could offer important advantages over a suppression or mitigation strategy with...

https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4907
In contrast, Reactive piecemeal policy making has large bad health and economic consequences that could have been avoided.

25/
Corruption is also a huge problem in the UK and another failure of leadership in a crisis: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/12/17/world/europe/britain-covid-contracts.html

National audit office report: https://www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Investigation-into-government-procurement-during-the-COVID-19-pandemic.pdf

26/
Waste, Negligence and Cronyism: Inside Britain’s Pandemic Spending

In the desperate scramble for protective gear and other equipment, political insiders reaped billions.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/12/17/world/europe/britain-covid-contracts.html
Not learning from successful countries is also a huge failure.
https://twitter.com/MrMarkEThomas/status/1340352411643355138?s=20

APPG report & recommendations: https://twitter.com/AppgCoronavirus/status/1334854561220218882?s=20
will any of these be heeded?

27/
How do you plan against incompetence and, worse, corruption though? How can we avoid bad outcomes in a future pandemic when we have the ‘wrong’ government? If our leaders are incapable/ unwilling to proactively plan, mobilise & implement then what? #Covid19UK

28/END
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