[petejh]

Nige I haven’t read that link yet. But what matters is what they knew at the time. There’s little use in judging past decisions on present knowledge. Lets see what they were being told at the time by SAGE and the WHO.
Future pandemics, great we can learn and hopefully remember it for the next one.

Yeah, I know all this is raking over old coals and largely pointless, accepted!

But I disagree about it only being a learning process for future pandemics. Seems a counsel of despair. We haven't finished with this one yet, not by a long way. And the same people that were making the decisions 7 weeks ago, are still making the decisions now (SAGE + HMG). To my mind something went a bit skew-whiff with our initial UK response (you may disagree?). If that was due to SAGE, then ideally lets see what they said, assess it, and swap in some folk who called it right to help us with the next bit. Or maybe set up an official "shadow SAGE" to offer an independent check / balance / confirmation? If it was political then ideally lets know about it now, find out where the bollocks were dropped, and get parliament to scrutinise things now they're back (seeing this in action now on for e.g. the app). Given where we are right now, we could really do with getting the timing and process of lifting the lockdown spot on. The current messaging and actions I see on that is not filling me with confidence to be honest!

Yes you're right we can't change the past, but to reverse your sentence, I think there is some use in judging present decisions on past knowledge. The time to improve our response is right now. I would much prefer that to waiting a few years for an inquiry and the solace that we might be OK in 50 years time. Given that we ignored Cygnus from 4 years ago I wouldn't hold out too much hope for that either tbh. Your point still applies btw i.e. what use is blathering about it on here?! I don't know. Hopefully we can go climbing soon.

 

Personally I think the biggest obstacle to any government choosing the most effective measures in emergencies like this is the noise created by the UK media.
 
But, I accept that the counter argument to that is it's our noisy UK media that holds government decision-making to account and keeps it honest. I don't agree, I think this argument would be valid with an honest public-service media, but I think much of our most influential media are fucking rotten and self-serving.

See current outcry over easing of the lock-down. Last week, it was media engineering an outcry about lack of transparency over the government refusing to talk about easing of lock-down measures ahead of time  /  this week it's media engineering an outcry over the government talking, ahead of time, about easing of lock-down measures.

It's a cynical game designed to sell copy. Which plays into the unfortunate fact that the public's attention-span and memory of what they're supposed to be upset about seems to be approximately 3 days.

[Offwidth]

Interesting, do you have a link that can be read free?

Shitty format but its still here:

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1251616775504113664.html

The government off course dismissed it all, based on a few small errors (all of which seemed reasonable to me in such investigative journalism that the government had refused to engage with).

This came out today as well:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/08/revealed-uk-scientists-fury-over-attempt-to-censor-covid-19-advice

Plus more on Cygnus wrt care homes (this article says the Guardian have obtained and published Cygnus but I can't sort out the link to that as yet).

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/07/revealed-the-secret-report-that-gave-ministers-warning-of-care-home-coronavirus-crisis

[Nigel]

Completely agree with all that RE media Pete.

[seankenny]

Completely agree with all that RE media Pete.

If you REALLY believe that “the biggest obstacle to any government choosing the most effective measures in emergencies like this is the noise created by the UK media” then put your money where your mouth is and never ever link to the U.K. media again. No cheating by linking to foreign media that used information or quotes sourced by U.K. media outlets.

This line absolves the incompetent idiots in the government of any responsibility. The U.K. media - some great, some fucking vile - has been with us for decades. Government as incompetent as this is a more recent phenomenon. And possibly its reasons are more complex than the Mail writing shite.

Edit: please excuse grumpiness. But lumping in everything from the FT to the National Enquirer together as “the media” which all exhibit the same errors, the same foibles, is what the Trumps and the Putins and the Xis want. (And also the Johnsons and the Corbyns, both incompetent, vain fools.) There are massive problems with some journalists and some outlets, at least some of the time. But portraying the whole of the media as the problem helps create distrust and doubt about information which we can use to hold our rulers to account. Rubbishing then entire media is doing the work of dictators and authoritarians for them.

[ali k]

Personally I think the biggest obstacle to any government choosing the most effective measures in emergencies like this is the noise created by the UK media.

I was going to reply to this but Sean summed up my thoughts pretty well. During emergencies like this a decent government is there to make decisions and implement policies on our behalf based on the evidence they’re presented with, regardless of what any sniping media have to say, surely? And a large part of their job is to take the public with them and get us to ‘buy into’ those policies - which would be a damn sight easier if they were more open and transparent with what they were basing decisions on.

What I see currently happening is a weak and indecisive cabinet (packed with Brexit loyalists at the expense of any experienced or competent* politicians) using the media to float ideas and gauge public opinion before they’re willing to pin themselves to any firm policies.
*with the exception of Sunak probably.

[petejh]

Sean, note that I did actually say a public service media is a good thing. Away from that model much of our media seems to be incentivised by a business model that rewards just being noisy.
But yes I agree there’s a scale from good to bad. Unfortunately the bad seem to be very successful.

And Ali that sounds great. The problem with your theory is when it meets reality.
Because ‘following the evidence’ means changing tack when new evidence suggests it wise to change tack. We don’t have a media sensible enough nor a population forgiving enough to allow this sort of behaviour by governments, without it being portrayed in large sections of the media as something very wrong and indecisive.
‘Decisive’ and ‘following evidence’ are probably incompatible states of mind. Maybe decisively open-minded..

[Nigel]

Completely agree with all that RE media Pete.

If you REALLY believe that “the biggest obstacle to any government choosing the most effective measures in emergencies like this is the noise created by the UK media” ......

Edit: please excuse grumpiness.

No need to be excused, you're quite right to pick up on that blanket statement! The truth is I started a more considered response to Pete, but when I left it for a bit my laptop died and it was lost. After that I decided I'd rather play guitar than have a big rant on the internet!

I suppose I agree with the underlying sentiment of Pete's post - I do regard the UK media as a huge issue, hence my blanket statement. That statement was badly expressed though, I don't actually "completely agree" that the media is the "biggest obstacle". On specifics then actually I align with your view that this government is uniquely incompetent, and the media is a mixed bag. My main gripe is always with the government and they would remain a disaster with or without the media's input. If it looked like I was excusing the government in any way then I can assure you that is not the impression I wanted to give! I guess in the context of that moment, having just seen the collected front pages of the right wing press and having had the wind taken out of my sails by losing my longer post, it was an easy thing to write.

And possibly its reasons are more complex than the Mail writing shite.

You're right of course, the reasons are complex. The structural problems with UK governance run deep. I suppose this is where the rant could start! In fact separate ones on both "biggest obstacle....(to competent government)", and "the media". I think I'll still choose not to bother for now as it looks like being a nice day and it would take forever to sum it all up.

[Nigel]

Returning to immediate current affairs - looks like virus measures at UK borders will be coming, in June. Along with test-trace-isolate (which still looks like it is "gradually underway"!) we seem to be moving towards all the measures that other countries took back in March. We seem to be learning, but those at the top of the tree are taking decisions in slow motion. Probably motivated by a desire not to be seen to take a screeching u-turn implying an admission of failure up to now.

We would be much better served if they could just fess up and get whatever needs to be done asap, regardless of the political fall out.

[ali k]

‘following the evidence’ means changing tack when new evidence suggests it wise to change tack. We don’t have a media sensible enough nor a population forgiving enough to allow this sort of behaviour by governments, without it being portrayed in large sections of the media as something very wrong and indecisive.

Only if the evidence is kept hidden. If new evidence is presented openly, together with an explanation as to why a change of tack is now sensible then it’s hard for the public or the media to portray it as anything other.

As an example let’s take the likely change of policy on quarantine of travellers. If the govt at the outset had said clearly something along the lines of:

“unfortunately for whatever reason the virus is now too widespread in the UK for travel restrictions to be any use and here’s the modelling from SAGE that shows it wouldn’t make any difference. That’s why we’re not doing the same as other countries. But if we can get the infection rate down then it’s something we’ll introduce at a later date”

I think the public and the media could buy into that. Just repeatedly saying “we’re following the science but you can’t see any of the science, sorry” leads to the (valid) confusion and questioning we’re seeing from the media this morning about the apparent U-turn.

[TobyD]

‘following the evidence’ means changing tack when new evidence suggests it wise to change tack. We don’t have a media sensible enough nor a population forgiving enough to allow this sort of behaviour by governments, without it being portrayed in large sections of the media as something very wrong and indecisive.

Only if the evidence is kept hidden. If new evidence is presented openly, together with an explanation as to why a change of tack is now sensible then it’s hard for the public or the media to portray it as anything other.

As an example let’s take the likely change of policy on quarantine of travellers. If the govt at the outset had said clearly something along the lines of:

“unfortunately for whatever reason the virus is now too widespread in the UK for travel restrictions to be any use and here’s the modelling from SAGE that shows it wouldn’t make any difference. That’s why we’re not doing the same as other countries. But if we can get the infection rate down then it’s something we’ll introduce at a later date”

I think the public and the media could buy into that. Just repeatedly saying “we’re following the science but you can’t see any of the science, sorry” leads to the (valid) confusion and questioning we’re seeing from the media this morning about the apparent U-turn.

That might work with politically engaged people who actually read full articles,  but everyone else, and probably a lot of media would be shreaking that the government had given up on us because it had got so bad. Now, the only thing most people will be listening to is 'can I go to Spain in August to get drunk on a beach '.

[TobyD]

What I see currently happening is a weak and indecisive cabinet (packed with Brexit loyalists at the expense of any experienced or competent* politicians) using the media to float ideas and gauge public opinion before they’re willing to pin themselves to any firm policies.
*with the exception of Sunak probably.

Michael Gove is neither weak nor indecisive, and hes certainly not loyal! I'm not saying that hes actually doing anything useful,  aside probably for himself by keeping as quiet as possible and hoping that Johnson screws it up so he can take over. 

[petejh]

As an example let’s take the likely change of policy on quarantine of travellers. If the govt at the outset had said clearly something along the lines of:

“unfortunately for whatever reason the virus is now too widespread in the UK for travel restrictions to be any use and here’s the modelling from SAGE that shows it wouldn’t make any difference. That’s why we’re not doing the same as other countries. But if we can get the infection rate down then it’s something we’ll introduce at a later date”

I think the public and the media could buy into that. Just repeatedly saying “we’re following the science but you can’t see any of the science, sorry” leads to the (valid) confusion and questioning we’re seeing from the media this morning about the apparent U-turn.

They did! Nobody remembers. People just remember the things they want to and the narrative pushed by the media they read.
As I pointed out to Nigel - the government CSO said in a public briefing in early March that a travel restriction was pointless at that time and would not have an impact on the spread (because it was already in the community). The WHO said the same thing at that time - and still says it.  The advice against travel restrictions is on their website.

So now we're going against the evidence according to the WHO. Or going with the evidence, as there is evidence both ways. No doubt the worse of the media will try to engineer another story about U-turns.

[Nigel]

They did! Nobody remembers. People just remember the things they want to and the narrative pushed by the media they read.
As I pointed out to Nigel - the government CSO said in a public briefing in early March that a travel restriction was pointless at that time...

I'd forgotten about that Pete - when in March did he actually say that?

[ali k]

As an example let’s take the likely change of policy on quarantine of travellers. If the govt at the outset had said clearly something along the lines of:

They did! Nobody remembers. People just remember the things they want to and the narrative pushed by the media they read.

The key word in what I wrote was clearly. For a govt so good at ramming messages home when they want to it's a cop out to blame the 'media narrative' or people's poor memories. The only message being rammed home at the daily press conferences is that of "following the science" while at the same time failing to present any of 'the science'.

[petejh]

He said it in the press briefing with Boris Johnson on March 12th.  It was the chief scientific officer saying it and he explained in basic terms some of SAGE's thinking behind it - the ineffectiveness of the screening measures where infected persons got through screening in the US; and he stated stats saying you needed to stop 95% of all inward travel originating from China to delay the spread by 1 day, but that realistically the UK could perhaps prevent 50% of all inward travel therefore it would be totally ineffective. It was in all the media the following day.
How clear do you want it?

It was not the politicians saying 'we're following the science'..

None so blind as those that refuse to see...


(let me get that for you: 31 minutes on 12th March press briefing)

[ali k]

He said it in the press briefing with Boris Johnson on March 12th.  It was the chief scientific officer(sic) saying it and he explained in basic terms some of SAGE's thinking behind it

It was also the same chief scientific adviser (Patrick Vallance) who defended the aim of "building up herd immunity" to the media the following day, because our response was an outlier compared with other countries. This aim was then rowed back on and the lockdown was imposed. But with little explanation as to why. And his comments were only clarified on the 5th May to the health select committee. I don't see that as clear messaging.

So is it any wonder that questions might be asked about other measures of ours which are outliers? And particularly if the models that the decisions are based on aren't released?

[petejh]

I see... So you started off saying that if only the government had explained their reasoning around travel restrictions:

If the govt at the outset had said clearly something along the lines of:
“unfortunately for whatever reason the virus is now too widespread in the UK for travel restrictions to be any use and here’s the modelling from SAGE that shows it wouldn’t make any difference. That’s why we’re not doing the same as other countries. But if we can get the infection rate down then it’s something we’ll introduce at a later date”

I think the public and the media could buy into that.

When it's pointed out to you that they actually did, you switch to a different tack and claim that the message wasn't clear nor was there any explanation of the science behind the policy:

The key word in what I wrote was clearly. For a govt so good at ramming messages home when they want to it's a cop out to blame the 'media narrative' or people's poor memories. The only message being rammed home at the daily press conferences is that of "following the science" while at the same time failing to present any of 'the science'.

When it's pointed out to you that you're wrong again - and that it was the actually chief scientific adviser giving the message about travel and that he also explained some of the reasoning behind the decision not to restrict travel - you switched tack again. Now you're trying to say that, 'well.. anyway whatever the chief scientific adviser said is going to be perceived as unclear, because he made another statement, about another topic, the next day and that turned out to be incorrect.. so why should we take on board whatever he said the day before'! And therefore: 'is it any wonder questions are asked'..
 

So presumably by this logic we should only listen to scientists who are correct first go and never change their mind.


And the modelling behind the decision to change from mitigation to suppression was well publicised by Imperial.
Questioning is all good provided you're prepared to accept answers.

[Nigel]

So presumably by this logic we should only listen to scientists who are correct first go....

That would be the ideal yeah! Wink emoji etc.

[ali k]

Hi Pete 

Come off it. There's no change in tack going on - as you well know it's not the way things are done on here to set out a complete argument all in one go. What you get is snippets back and forth in response to specific points made.

Having said that, just to clarify my position if you can be bothered to read it:

This govt from the very start has used the justification of "following the science" in an attempt to absolve themselves of responsibility, despite the fact that it's widely recognised there is no single direction that 'the science' points in. What they're doing is making political decisions based on (what should be) completely independent scientific input. They shouldn't pass the buck and claim they're deferring slavishly to the scientists. That's not feasible, and it's clearly not true. The govt have also made the claim that there is "maximum transparency" when it comes to decision making, despite the fact they're releasing only selective bits of SAGE advice, at a much later date, and in a heavily redacted form. So again, not true. And they also claim to be open and honest with the death rates and testing figures. Well, see David Spiegelhalter's take on that this morning: https://twitter.com/BBCPolitics/status/1259409480347004928?s=20

I won't go into the infamous '38 lost days' in Jan/Feb, nor the disregarding of the Cygnus recommendations, but needless to say the laissez faire attitude (to put it kindly) of the govt in the early stages has limited many available options from March onwards, with all the knock on effects we're seeing now. I also won't go into the shambles of the PPE fiasco, which is still ongoing.

You're right that the modelling in the Imperial paper is widely seen as the catalyst for the govt to switch to suppression (i.e. lockdown). But up until that point a strategy of 'herd immunity' was clearly the one they were pursuing. I don't believe for a second that a man with the background of Patrick Vallance would use the words 'herd immunity' by mistake. And the lack of any mitigation measures at that time supports this (no social distancing whatsoever, no ban on mass gatherings, etc). So the new Imperial modelling was publicised, yes, but correct me if I'm wrong - there's been no adequate explanation as to why herd immunity was being contemplated prior to that, or who was advocating it and based on what science. Just a fairly unconvincing denial that it was ever a strategy. Hence my comment about there being "little explanation as to why" and it not being "clear messaging" - and that's why the media were asking for clarification around that time, which wasn't forthcoming. If I'm wrong on that then I'm happy to be corrected?

But this lack of clarity and fundamental change in strategy at the outset is also why I'm not surprised that questions are asked down the line about other UK policies which are outliers compared with other countries. It's reasonable to wonder whether these will be reversed in a similar way. And it's incumbent on the govt to be completely clear and completely transparent as to why we've differed (hence my comment "is it any wonder questions might be asked..."). The truth is that on a number of policies we differed because our govt had fucked up from the start and were too late to the party. Nothing to do with any difference in science between countries. Just a logistical fuck up. But by not holding their hands up and admitting to that it leads to confusion at a later date.

We abandoned test-track-trace on 12th March because we didn't have the capability to do it (as a result of the govt doing nothing in Jan/Feb to get things moving). But the govt are only admitting to that now, almost 2 months later. Hence why people couldn't understand the reason we'd abandoned it when it was the central pillar of the WHO strategy and other countries were pursuing it ruthlessly. And also why it wasn't prioritised until 21 days later when Hancock set his 100k/day target, and the numbers didn't start to increase until around 20th April. That seems like an unforgivable waste of time given the mantra of 'test, test, test' the WHO advocated from the very start. See David Spiegelhalter again this morning: https://twitter.com/BBCPolitics/status/1259429980913782784?s=20
I also find it odd that by 12th March the proliferation of the virus had clearly exceeded our capacity to contain it by the test & trace strategy to such a degree that we abandon it, and yet lockdown isn't imposed for a further 11 days.

In terms of travel restrictions - yes, Vallance explained in the 12th March press conference the reasoning why it was virtually pointless at that stage. But not the fact that it was pointless because we'd let the virus get so out of control in the previous few months and we had no ability to test, track, and trace even if we wanted to. Hence the justifiable confusion around why we're bringing in travel restrictions now when we're "past the peak" but didn't do it sooner when we "had a chance to stop it" (just an example of many similar sentiments I've heard or read in the last few days and is a fairly intuitive stance). [[btw I'm not personally arguing for or against travel restrictions, just pointing out why not being completely transparent in the first place leads to confusion down the line]]

As a result of all of this it looks like we're on track to have the worst, or at least one of the worst, death rates in Europe by whatever measure you choose, but also have the least scope for safely relaxing lockdown measures any time soon given where we are relative to the govt's '5 tests'. So it's not going well.

TL;DR Government needs to stop passing the buck on decisions being made and mea culpa the mistakes that have been made. In the words of the world's greatest TV doctor Phil Hammond - they centralise praise and devolve blame.

[Offwidth]

Well said. 

Harry Cole from Mail on Sunday now attacking Boris for snubbing the Cabinet (printing the advice, recording half of today's 7.00pm announcement yesterday, all before the position is 'formally agreed' by Cabinet today).

https://mobile.twitter.com/MrHarryCole/status/1259416232987627521

Nicola Sturgeon says she doesn't understand what 'stay alert' means; what hope the public then?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-52605959

[mrjonathanr]

There are some variations in definition, but Cambridge dictionary has:

alert
adjective
quick to see, understand, and act in a particular situation

Perhaps there will be clarification of what particular situation we should be alert for and what action we should then take. Currently, it's meaningless, beyond the clear implication of changing the slogan that staying at home is no longer necessary.

What a mess.

[Nigel]

There are some variations in definition, but Cambridge dictionary has:

alert
adjective
quick to see, understand, and act in a particular situation

Given that definition, there is a certain irony to Mr Johnson telling *us* to stay alert. Do as I say, not as I do...

[spidermonkey09]

Brilliant post Ali. I'll be quoting that in my own rants.

[Nigel]

Jesus!

[Offwidth]