Lack of transparency within SAGE

Indeed growstuff, who knows?

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?

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.

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

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

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/

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'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?

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

Why is this person a member of Sage? …

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demis_Hassabis

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

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.

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 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

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.

I know people on committees don't always agree, but Dominic Cummings isn't even a scientist. He's an advisor to Johnson, as are the members of Sage. Johnson and his government should then have listened to all his advisors and made decisions, balancing all the arguments.

What should not have happened was scientific advice being influenced by Cummings and then for the government to claim it was following "the science" and thereby using scientists as scapegoats.

I have no idea what Sage advised about quarantining people coming from abroad. Were there really half a million? (I don't know.) If the Sage committee advised quarantining, or at least screening everybody entering the country, but it wasn't practical, the government should have admitted that and not hidden behind "the science".

I've now watched all the 2 hour 40 minute "Independent Sage" YouTube video, which I found very interesting. They have come forward with some positive ideas on a range of issues and I look forward to future meetings. It was refreshing to listen to different scientists being honest and pragmatic and not influenced by government stooges.

PS. They were critical (as are other public health scientists) of the centralised, top down approach to contact tracing - and they didn't even mention the ethics of giving the £250,000 contract to one of Dominic Cummings' mates.

“Somebody claimed that Dominic Cummings argued for an earlier lockdown - if so, why isn't he shouting that from the roof now”

There are always differences of opinion on any committee, when a decision is taken you accept it, to publicly dispute it is likely to get you sacked - collective responsibility.

Following the science was not always practical, those returning to the UK from overseas ideally should have been isolated, with hundreds or a few thousands that can be done. There was possibly half a million returning, it became impractical, so rightly or wrongly everyone was allowed in and socially isolated like the rest of us.

The irony is that many were returning from safe countries like Australia or NZ and would have been safer remaining - with hindsight. The one action that would have reduced virus spread was to stop travel from China immediately but the WHO experts advised against it.

Link to Independent SAGE meeting …

www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7uBwyr0sdg

WARNING It's 2 hour 40 minutes.

MayBee70 I suspect you could be right, but also Marc Warner's company wouldn't pocket £250,000. The EU tracking app is subject to EU data protection laws - a UK app isn't.

Unfortunately, nobody told the Covid-19 virus itself that the UK has left the UK and it needs a visa (or a blue passport) for entry. The UK has to prove its exceptionalism.

Thank you maddyone. I really don't pretend to know the answers (I suspect there aren't any easy ones), but there's something not at all right about the government's handling of this. They all (including the so-called science gurus) look so shifty whenever they answer anything that it's difficult not to suspect that they're hiding something and not being totally honest.

Why can't we just use the app that other European countries are going to use? Do the government have to make a point of not doing anything the EU does? Even when it's in the national interest.

growstuff
Totally agree with your post at 20.29.

Faculty AI, which was awarded the government contract for the contact/trace app, is run by Marc Warner. He was involved in the VoteLeave campaign and data harvesting. I don't know about Alice Cummings.

Jane10 ... Some people will always put the most negative twist on anything they hear if it's said by someone or some organisation they dislike.
You 're counting yourself as one of those I assume? Anything to do with SNP on here and you immediately jump in with a negative comment ..as do some others .."you lot" ,does that apply to you too?

Please tell me that these guys are totally independent and there is no potential for a conflict of interest:

www.theneweuropean.co.uk/top-stories/vote-leave-firm-faculty-guardian-report-1-6637177

This is tax payers' money, so the public does have a right to accountability.