The aftermath of the first lockdown in 2020 was an opportunity to make choices, to learn from the global experience of the first months of the pandemic, and to plan for the coming winter. Serious people all over the world were working all hours to understand what had happened, what was happening then, and what could happen in the future under various public health measures. The emerging evidence from the Covid inquiry shows that this seriousness did not make it into Britain’s government.
Testimony from members of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), the former chief scientific adviser to the government Patrick Vallance, civil servants, and Boris Johnson’s chief adviser Dominic Cummings reveal that the UK was governed by people making up policy as they went. The government ignored much of the evidence assembled by its own scientific advisers, turning to those outside the consensus when it didn’t like the conclusions. Their testimonies reveal a government that didn’t foresee issues that were eminently foreseeable, that didn’t learn lessons that were eminently learnable.
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