It is impossible to have confidence in the government’s decision to overrule scientific advice
In the weeks after Boris Johnson made his lockdown television address on 23 March, and as the UK’s infection and death rates rose shockingly higher, it was widely recognised that ministers had acted too slowly, and that the pandemic’s severity might have been lessened had they grasped the nettle sooner. Many ordinary people – perhaps especially those predisposed, like their prime minister, to look on the bright side – felt they had learned a hard lesson in the spring. Sometimes it pays to expect the worst.
Yet here we are, after an appalling few months in which the UK topped European league tables of excess deaths. And with new infections running at 14,000 a day and hospital admissions and deaths once again climbing, there is no reason to believe that the government will avoid the same errors. Papers released on Monday night showed that on 21 September, ministers rejected a call by its Sage committee of scientific experts for a two-week “circuit breaker” lockdown to slow the virus’s transmission. That this was not disclosed until after Mr Johnson announced the new three-tier system suggests that he did not want to explain why.
