Lack of transparency within SAGE

www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/05/just-273-people-arriving-in-uk-in-run-up-to-lockdown-quarantined

The Home Office is saying that there were 18.1 arrivals in the UK in the three months before lockdown was announced. Just 273 were quarantined, even though there were arrivals from places such as Italy, where the virus had already taken hold.

Priti Patel is claiming that the lack of screening and quarantining was following Sage's advice. (Told you the government would use Sage as a scapegoat.) The question is whether that was truly the "scientific" advice which was given or whether the government rejected the scientific advice because it wasn't practical. There's a difference.

The list of members:

www.gov.uk/government/publications/scientific-advisory-group-for-emergencies-sage-coronavirus-covid-19-response-membership/list-of-participants-of-sage-and-related-sub-groups

It is said that around a million Britons were overseas for one reason or another in February a massive number, many stayed put, many who had no job or money had to return. Because many countries stopped travel we had to organize a great many repatriation flights for those that could not get scheduled flights

The question is whether that was truly the "scientific" advice which was given or whether the government rejected the scientific advice because it wasn't practical.

Perhaps if they were to release the minutes of the Sage meetings (which is normal practice) we'd have a clearer idea as to what advice the government were given.

Yes, it's entirely possible that advice was ignored. This is not, in itself, reprehensible, but at least we'd know where the 'blame' lies.

The minutes will go the same way as the Russian report, and the Acuri report.

Why is this person a member of Sage? …

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demis_Hassabis

One of the people on the Sage list, Professor Susan Michie, is now a member of the "Independent Sage" group.

I've heard that using a different app to everyone else could cause problems if and when we're allowed to travel abroad again. Is this correct?

The massive numbers of people arriving in the country pre lockdown was one of the things that really concerned me. Can it really be true that the expert scientists were advising against quarantine at that time, and indeed still do today? People are still arriving into the country, albeit in much smaller numbers, and released from the aeroplane and straight into the country. They are coming from New York, Italy, Spain, and Iran aswell as other places. It seems inconceivable to me that scientists felt/feel that best practice was and is to release these people into the community. If that truly is the position they took, they are inadvertently responsible for the deaths of many people. I am truly disgusted by the way people from Covid19 hot spot areas were imported into our country and have consequently infected thousands.

I understand that most of the arrivals at UK airports are repatriations. I'd still feel more comfortable if they were at least quarantined.

WRT the app. An article here says that it probably won't work very well anyway because it depends on your phone running all the time. If it is 'sleeping' it won't pick up other phones in your vicinity

www.theregister.co.uk/2020/05/05/uk_coronavirus_app/

I ought to post that on the app thread, really...

Good article Maizie, which explained it all much better than I did.

Yes, you should post it there. I tried to explain, but I'm not very good at the techie language, so probably didn't make myself very clear.

maddyone It's certainly tue that the WHO was advising against blanket bans on international travel until the end of February 2020. However, I've read their announcements and it seems that they were expecting individual countries to take action as appropriate to their own circumstances. Nobody knows what UK scientists were advising as a result of the lack of transparency. It could be that they made a huge mistake or that they did advise the government to restrict immigration, but were overruled. Who knows?

Indeed growstuff, who knows?