Why Does the UK Have Over 100,000 Deaths Attributed to Covid?

 

Conclusions

  • By allowing the virus to become endemic in January-February 2020 and, even today, failing to have a working policy to reduce imported infections a whole year after the pandemic started.
  • By focusing too narrowly on protecting the NHS whilst failing to protect the vulnerable from getting infected and still following this strategy today.  The data available in February 2020 clearly demonstrated the link between fatality and age (see: Review of IC's Infamous Report-9); however, this wasn’t acted on.  This was a major failing by both the advising scientists and policymakers.
  • By failing to re-purpose the NHS during the summer of 2020 so as to have enhanced capacity to treat people in the winter (rather than the smaller capacity, now).
  • It is clear that the poor are probably the second worst casualty, through a combination of living conditions, diet and general health.  Are we surprised?  Couldn’t this have been predicted and acted on?
  • In the beginning of 2020 the UK found itself in a crisis with an inexperienced Prime Minister with minimal to no science background and limited ability to cope with details.  The crucial Department for Health & Social Care had new inexperienced Ministers, neither with science backgrounds.  Not what you would choose going into a crisis.

Recommendations

  • Ensure emergency processes and plans exist to minimise the seeding of infectious bugs within the country, plus the rapid identification and control of infections, within the country.
  • With Covid, the original data showed the elderly were most at risk and the simple logic would be to immediately isolate the elderly as the top priority, quickly followed by all other vulnerable groups, including the poor.  This didn’t really happen in 2020 (it’s not happening in 2021 either) and is probably the most significant failure.  The government should have provided maximum resources in order to prevent all vulnerable people from getting infected, rather than predominantly scrambling to “protect the NHS”.
  • The government’s science advisory team (SAGE) and Chief Scientific Officer (CSO) failed, particularly in the early stages and has had too narrow a perspective giving rise to the failed policies.  SAGE is not fit for purpose.  This element has contributed significantly to the large number of fatalities.  It’s debatable whether a different CSO would have managed SAGE more effectively and produced better advice to the government, or not?  Better, consistently high quality, independently peer reviewed science is urgently required, together with the most competent persons to synthesize this into integrated workable policy option recommendations.  SAGE cannot work independently of economics; it must be integrated, in order to provide any advice to the government.  It is not acceptable for SAGE to ring-fence their science from government policies; they must be equally responsible for the end results.
  • Having reviewed some of the science used by SAGE and found it to be poor quality (for example: Review of SAGE Summary on Vulnerable ), we have also come to accept poor quality governance, even to the extent of accepting incompetence as the “normal level”.  This is a dangerous place to be.  Our democracy needs to be reformed to ensure every government has the necessary competencies starting at the top with the Prime Minister.  And, it would appear the all-important Civil Service has shed a lot of competence.  Here’s some ideas on how to improve the apparently poor standards within government:
    • To be able to stand for election as an MP you must have been actively employed, outside government, for at least 15 years.
    • To be promoted to a Junior Minister position you must have worked in the respective Ministry for at least 3 years and be able to publically demonstrate your competence.
    • To hold a Ministerial position you must have worked as a demonstrably successful Junior Minister, preferably within the Ministry, or in a different Ministry, for at least 3 years.
    • To be available for election to be the leader of a party you must have been a successful Minister at either the Home, Foreign, Health or Exchequer for at least 3 years.

 

Lastly, you’re the Boss and you find yourself in an existential crisis, which you don’t understand and you’ve never managed this business before (let alone any business).  What’s the likelihood of success?

An experienced manager would look for the most relevant experience and proven competent people, some of whom do actually exist in the government, but haven’t been called upon. Step forward Jeremy Hunt.

As the PM said today, “We did all we could”.  Well, no you didn’t. What the government did was poorly thought-out as a result of having poor, narrow advice from SAGE and the CSO.

It’s time for me to get my coat and head for Sweden, again.

March 2021: Here's an interesting read on behind the scenes in the UK government during 2020: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-56361599

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