Jane10
I'm not being spiteful. If these people had been the best available then surely they'd have been on the original SAGE group?
A couple of them were in SAGE, but they had concerns about the lack of transparency, which is why they set up a separate group. They're not in competition.
Originally, SAGE was reluctant to publish who was even in the group and had be forced to publish its minutes. Even now, they've been heavily redacted and are not complete.
There was also concern that Dominic Cummings and Cummings' friend, Ben Warner (a data scientist), attended meetings.
It was also felt that they were becoming puppets and scapegoats for the government, who claimed to "follow the science", but weren't.
From the start, Independent SAGE has had meetings online, which the public can view and they take questions from the public.
Maybe you watch the meetings Jane10.