SPI-M-O are at the Covid inquiry this week. They’re the shadowy group of mathematical modellers who contributed – more than most – to the evidence that backed up lockdown. On Monday we heard from Professor Mark Woolhouse of Edinburgh University. Surprisingly – for an inquiry that seems from the outset to be focused on the deaths of the vulnerable and how we should have ‘locked down sooner’ – Professor Woolhouse focused his evidence on the mistakes of lockdown.
Lockdown was ‘disproportionate, unsustainable and not as effective as was being claimed’, he told the inquiry. He also said they were ‘a failure of public health policy’. Blame lay with the government, who had simply failed to ask the modellers to come up with anything different.
Brits – like Swedes who avoided a full lockdown – kept themselves to themselves in response to the ever gloomy news from Italy and closer to home
Yesterday, it was back to script as Professor Neil Ferguson took the stand.
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