By Ben Kerrigan-
Chief scientific adviser of SAGE, Chris Whitty has said that lockdown was a radical decision to make, adding that members of the advisory group were instructed to respond to radical social measures to respond to an emergency(The spread of Covid-19 ) lockdown in the Uk, and that the idea of a lockdown had to have been instructed from a senior politician.
Sir Chris suggested that committees work in their own silos until prompted by political or other leaders to focus on a single issue.
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“Between emergencies, there is no SAGE [Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies],” he says.
They are also unlikely to look at a radical social measure to respond to emergencies without being instructed to – such as lockdown.
Witty(pictured) says that while some interventions used during the pandemic date back to the Middle Ages – such as quarantine, isolation and closing schools – lockdown was a “very radical thing to do”.
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“The very big new idea was the new idea of a lockdown,” he says.
“I’m talking here very, very specifically about the state saying people have to go home and stay at home, except under very limited circumstances, a very radical thing to do.”
Sir Chris adds: “It would be very surprising without this being requested by a senior politician that a scientific committee would venture in between emergencies into that kind of extraordinarily major social intervention with huge economic and social ramifications.”
Science advice should be public by default unless it is national security related, Sir Patrick Vallance says.
“It took longer than it should have done” to publish SAGE advice, he says, which he described as a “regret”.
“It’s part of normal scientific practice and it’s the way in which science progresses” to have advice challenged, the former chief scientific adviser says.
“I see no reason why this can’t be the norm going forward,” he says.
Neil Ferguson, who was known as Mr Lockdown, during the heights of the pandemic in the Uk, is known to have been the one who pressured for prime minister, Boris Johnson to impose lockdown in the Uk. Mr Ferguson was also a chief adviser of SAGE.
Former health secretary Matt Hancock, ex-Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon and the chief executive of the UK Health Security Agency Dame Jenny Harries will be among next week’s witnesses at the UK Covid-19 Inquiry.
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