Covid Inquiry

maddyone

Whitty has apparently testified that he was concerned about lockdown because of the effect on people living alone.

He went further than that - as his position as CMO his concern was for those suffering deprivation, as well as the elderly, those living alone etc.

The scapegoating of Dominic Cummings seems to be coming unstuck to some degree in Whitty’s evidence, which is really interesting. It’s like a jigsaw with a million pieces trying to understand how the dynamics between individuals had such a great bearing on the decision making processes.

Iam64, I certainly wasn't looking to the government - to lead me anywhere. I was just despairing watching the incompetence, the delays and half measures - like a disaster movie in slow motion.

Why is 'unprecedented times' always trotted out as an excuse? We could all see what was happening around the world - yet, as the busiest international hub after Dubia (I believe) we allowed unrestricted travel for so long.

Of course, the most shocking thing was sending people from hospitals to care homes - unforgiveable.

Yes Whitewave, you’re right, he did include people living in deprivation and the elderly. Unfortunately although I heard what he said, when I came to write it, I could only remember the bit about people living alone. Apologies. My brain doesn’t always remember as well as it used to.

Why is 'unprecedented times' always trotted out as an excuse?

It wasn't totally unprecedented. While C19 was a new virus there had been other pandemics and one of the responsibilities of a government is to plan for emergencies of all kinds, including worst case scenarios.

What has emerged so far from the evidence given to the inquiry is that there was no useable 'plan' for the pandemic.

This was exacerbated by the fact that the NHS was running at practically full capacity, which didn't allow for a health emergency which would require vast numbers of extra beds and staff, and that, due to previous cuts and outsourcing to private enterprise, there was an inadequate stock of useable PPE.

Nor, also because of cuts, was there any capacity for increasing test and trace operations. A decade of tory cuts to public spending left the necessary services struggling to cope with a public health emergency.

As for the witnesses trying to evade blame, the barristers questioning each witness are carefully cross checking with other witness statements/evidence and challenging on contradictory aspects of them.

Aa someone has said, it's like a jigsaw. I don't envy the team which has to try and establish the facts.

Hmmmm

Looks as though Whitty agrees about the inadequate planning and cuts to the NHS

From twitter:

Chris Whitty, "The system was inadequate due to the erosion of public health facilities, which was continuous over a long period of time, how the NHS has been whittled away by different administrations over a long period of time.. And we didn't have a plan that was going to be useful"

Hugo Keith, "Why wasn't the governments flu plan sufficient?"

Chris Whitty, "Had we had a flu pandemic with a virus with a mortality of 1-2%, the plan would be woefully deficient. The plan wasn't designed to meet this particular need at all"

(I can check this in the transcript later)

I don't think Patrick Vallance
used 'bamboozled' incorrectly when he claimed Boris Johnson was bamboozled by the science. Bamboozle can mean 'cheat' but it can also mean 'mystify'.

Greta

I don't think Patrick Vallance
used 'bamboozled' incorrectly when he claimed Boris Johnson was bamboozled by the science. Bamboozle can mean 'cheat' but it can also mean 'mystify'.

I agree.

Bamboozle:
"to confuse, frustrate": it was not a person who bamboozled Boris Johnson, it was the science itself which confused him, as Patrick Vallance correctly stated.

I still think, in context, the word he used should have been baffled.

M0nica

I still think, in context, the word he used should have been baffled.

Let's face it, everything baffled Boris.

MaizieD I absolutely agree with you.

Any times are unprecedented times, we have never lived through them before. The problem with the future is always that we do not know what will happened and it behoves every government to have contingency plans for all likely emrgencies - and a pandemic of a disease with a high mortality rate should be high on that list.

As it happens I am currently doing a further education class in the the history of 'The Black Death' where the name of the course belies the fact that we are actually looking and studying pandemic diseases through time. The course makes it abundantly clear how these new diseases or old diseases in new forms sweep the world at regular intervals and are not one off events but re-occur over extended periods of time. Boris Johnson, as a classicist, should be only too aware of this.

There should always be detail plans for handling a pandemic disease with a high mortality. likewise major environmental disasters and infrastructure failures. Perhaps governments should be required to publish these plans, not in minute detail but in clear detail so that the wider public can judge for themselves whether they are sufficient.

While having no trust in Boris Johnson at all I am only glad that I didn’t know at the time the chaos that was going on behind the doors of Number 10 or I would have had even more sleepless nights. To hear Chris Whitty say that on reflection we did lockdown too late when many of us had already imposed our own lockdown makes me cringe. Seems Str Jonathan Van Tam was the only person amongst all the scientists and politicians who could sense that we would be threatened by the virus. I think he is due to give evidence next and it will be interesting to hear what he says.. Felt Chris Whitty was being very cautious not to offend anyone in power at the time and that the KC questioning him was getting frustrated with his answers.Is Chris Whitty trying not to tread on toes in order to keep his own job safe?

They all look out for themselves pieinthesky. To imagine otherwise would be naive.

Poor Jonathan Van Tamm. As if life wasn't hard enough for him during the pandemic without having to deal with death threats to him and his family

Who are these mindless idiots who think making death threats, death threats that they would never actually do - except that you cannot know. What do they get from it?

I look forward to the time when AI will mean that once such threats are forwarded to the police by the recipient, the police can use AI to immediately identify the sender and whizz them into court within days and slap large fines on them, which are collected with assiduity.

Iam64, I certainly wasn't looking to the government - to lead me anywhere

I have almost gone the other way.
If a government says one thing, I think the opposite is likely to be true.
Sad state of affairs.
But I actually take some guidance from doing the opposite. My opinion, of their collective wisdom, is that low.
I was quite horrified at how slavish[cant think of right word], people were to what they were saying.

Eat out to help out was clearly done without consulting Ballance, Whitty or Van Tam. A bad idea from Sunak.

I have absolutely no confidence in anything Sunak did, or does now!

Whitty did say that he'd told 'No10' about his reservations re Eat out to help out but this may not have been passed on. Civil servant didn't pass it on? If not who?

Telling 'No10' about 'reservations', (at what stage? After it had been announced?) is completely different from being consulted about the scheme. Whitty, Vallance and Van Tam have all said that they weren't consulted.

It was not the responsibility of civil servants to consult with the scientific advisors about a government decision of that nature Aveline, so no, Sir Chris Whitty definitely meant ministers when he referred to No. 10. Its is explained in detail here.
www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/chris-rishi-sunak-boris-johnson-dominic-cummings-england-b1122001.html

I read what he said. He just said No 10.

Can you imagine a scenario where all the witnesses in the Inquiry say that this was a purely ministerial decision, but actually a nameless civil servant had been charged by ministers with informing Sir Chris Whitty that such a huge policy decision had been made but that he wasn’t allowed to disagree with it? If you can, how disrespectful do you think that was? I don’t believe for a minute that’s how it was, Whitty definitely meant ministers when he said he hadn’t been informed.
This is corroborated by the civil servants as well as all the scientific advisers.
www.civilserviceworld.com/professions/article/eat-out-to-help-out-johnson-sunak-blindsided-covid-inquiry-taskforce-scheme

Is anyone still following the inquiry?

So far this week we've had Andy Burnham on Monday very, very angry because the metropolitan Mayors weren't consulted about decisions being made about their areas and were blocked from giving meaningful input. Also about having to stand down the local experienced and effective Public Health tracing operation in favour of the dire Test, Trace and Isolate programme

As Burnham was Health Minister in the last Labour government while the swine flu epidemic was ongoing. He has knowledge of dealing with epidemics/pandemics from both government and local government experience.

Then we had Michael Gove basically denying responsibility for the Cabinet Office, the office he was Minister responsible for...

Yesterday was Jennie Harris, who is now, unbelievably, head of the UK Health Security Agency, which has already been severely criticised by the Commons Public Accounts Committee (July 2023), who knew it wasn't safe to discharge people into care homes, but told us that it was fine, because the government told her to lie for them...

She was the one who told us at the time that children were unlikely to get covid, that mass gatherings were safe and that masks weren't any use..

Transcripts and videos here:

covid19.public-inquiry.uk/hearings/core-uk-decision-making-and-political-governance-module-2-public-hearings/

Jenny Harries didn’t actually say that it was fine to discharge people into care homes Maybee, she said that a decision was taken in light of a huge surge in admissions to hospitals, that the hospitals should be used to care for the most sick who would benefit from hospital care. The consequence of that was that people would be discharged home and to care homes who were less sick, knowing that some of them may have Covid.