Has the third lockdown made a difference to infection rates? Credit: Wiktor Szymanowicz/Barcroft Media via Getty Images
Given that our Government claims to be led by science, last Saturday’s slide show was an insult to the public: the data was out of date, selectively used, and out of context. Ten hospitals were full above their spring peak level, yes, but the other 472 (not shown) were not. Also not shown: excess deaths are only just beginning to rise above the five-year average, and hospital capacity is currently at normal levels for this time of year in most areas.
Tuesday’s session of the Commons Science and Technology Committee was a grilling for the Government’s Chief Medical Officer and Chief Scientific Advisor. Professor Whitty and Sir Vallance were asked whether their projected figures for hospitalisations and deaths take into account the effects of the Tier system, which is only a few weeks old? The answer was evasive. They were asked why, in Saturday’s Press Conference, they had displayed poorly-labelled graphs implying that there could be 4,000 deaths a day if nothing were done. The research group who modelled that scenario had already revised it to a much lower estimate of 1,000 daily deaths.
After wondering whether it was “sensible or fair” to display a misleading graph that will have frightened a lot of people, MP Graham Stringer asked why SAGE never presents equivalent predictions or quantifications for other impacts of lockdowns, citing an April study that suggested they would cause 200,000 deaths in the long term. “I think the public would be very surprised to see that was the other side of the equation,” he observed.
It’s only right that the cobbled-together visual aids used in Saturday’s Press Conference come under scrutiny, both in the media and by the MPs who were asked to vote in new restrictions. The UK Office of Statistics Regulation (OSR) wrote to Sir Patrick Vallance and Professor Whitty, to remind them that data “should be published in a clear and accessible form with appropriate explanations of context and sources.”
“We welcome the fact that the sources for the data used in the slides were published,” noted the OSR in a simultaneous blog post, “albeit three days after the slides themselves.”
Despite continuing efforts to brand any objection to anti-Covid restrictions as a form of treason — some accuse dissenters of wanting to “Let It Rip” through the population — a space to discuss rational alternatives is emerging. Scientists and public health professionals are increasingly willing to distance themselves from arbitrary and counterproductive measures, like involving the police in contact tracing and isolation. The British Medical Association told The Register:
“For the test and trace system to be effective it needs to have the full confidence of the public, with transparency about the appropriate and secure use of their data. We are already concerned that some people are deterred from being tested because they are anxious about loss of income should they need to self-isolate – and we are worried should police involvement add to this.”
Professor Susan Michie of UCL warned the Huffington Post that the 10pm curfew had predictable consequences that would be counterproductive, calling it, “another example of a restriction brought in without a coherent strategy and without sufficient consultation with relevant experts and communities.” A campaign called Recovery has tabled “Five Reasonable Demands” (which I support) for a more balanced approach to Covid-19. The insistence that “there is no alternative” to lockdown, to use Boris Johnson’s words, is unravelling.
The Government's Covid scaremongering
And yet, on Wednesday Parliament voted in another lockdown, slightly less restrictive than the first, but one that has forbidden outdoor group sports for children, and closed golf courses and open-air swimming pools, bookshops and gyms. What is the evidence that these venues were a significant site for infections? Where is the modelling that shows the lives saved by preventing outdoor swimming outweigh the negative long-term health impacts? If they exist, the Government hasn’t seen fit to share them with the public.
Lurking behind this new lockdown is a difficult truth. Every winter, hospitals run close to, or at, their capacity, thanks to normal winter illnesses and the increased challenge cold weather poses to the frail. The added burden of Covid-19 could push that capacity to the point where, at best, non-emergency treatments are cancelled and postponed. At worst, people die untreated, whether from Covid-19 or other conditions.
The Nightingale Hospitals, which mostly stood unused in the Spring peak of the pandemic, offered beds but not doctors or nurses. One of the reasons they were so little used was that hospitals could only transfer patients there if they also sent staff. Their potential to take the strain now would rely on an influx of skilled personnel, and it’s hard to see where those people could be found in a chronically understaffed NHS.
This, at heart, is the justification for the second lockdown: shut down society to save our ailing health service from being overwhelmed, as it was in winter 2017/18. Tens of thousands of people had their treatments postponed or cancelled that year, as a bad flu season pushed demand above capacity. Those pre-emptive cancellations may have been designed to prevent a crisis like the one preceding it, in winter 2016/17, when overflowing hospitals had patients dying in corridors.
What has changed since 2018? There was no question of reorganising society around the needs of the NHS, even though 55,720 people in the UK fell victim to Excess Winter Deaths in that season. There were not even calls for people to avoid social interaction with the elderly, to wash hands more often, or to stay home if they had a fever. Those at risk were exhorted to get a flu jab, and the rest of us were left to get on with it.
Covid-19 is not seasonal flu. Left unchecked, it would spread faster, and kill more people. But we are not leaving it to spread unchecked. The Tier system of regional restrictions appears to be having effects already, with cases falling in the Northeast, and the R number shrinking back towards one since early October. Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty admitted to the Commons Science and Technology Committee that he thought Tier 2 and 3 regulations were having an effect, but that those effects were not included in the models used to justify a second lockdown.
The most profound problem with current Covid-19 policies, though, is this: the public, whom the measures are supposedly protecting, are now seen as the problem. The CEO and deputy chief of the NHS, calling on MPs to vote for the new lockdown measures, claimed that dissent within parliament would “reduce public compliance” with the measures. Writing in the Telegraph this week, Rishi Sunak reminded us scoldingly that “the responsibility for tackling this virus is personal as well as collective”, before issuing a plea: “however frustrating and difficult, I am asking everyone to follow the rules.”
Clearly, the Government doesn’t trust us. That’s why the press conference wheeled out misleading graphs to frighten us into compliance. The less we are convinced by arbitrary and ineffective rules, imposed without evidence or even common sense, the more the government resorts to threats. Our willingness to make sacrifices — in Spring, 85% of the public adhered to the “Stay Home” instruction — has fractured into mutual distrust. 53% of recently surveyed adults blame “The Public” for recent rises in Coronavirus cases (the only other option was “The Government”, with “Nature, Red In Tooth And Claw” somehow omitted).
Instead of cultivating the upsurge of altruism that drove millions to volunteer back in March, the Government has treated us as a volatile rabble, to be contained and kept passive. No wonder they are so willing to shut down public performances, shared sporting and religious activities, meetings and demonstrations, formal and informal social events. They place no value whatever on public life. All the things that make human life something more than individual survival or passive consumption of products, physical or virtual, in our isolated households, are seen as superfluous. The coming together of human minds and bodies to create new ideas, projects, experiences, relationships, is quantified only in terms of viral transmission.
It’s time we had a rational debate about balancing social measures to suppress Covid-19 against social harms. The evidence presented in support of the new lockdown is weak. Evidence that the resulting damage has been researched alongside the hoped-for benefits is almost non-existent. “There Is No Alternative” is not an argument, when not only livelihoods, but the fabric of society, is being devastated in the name of controlling the virus and protecting the NHS, which should be protecting us.
This debate needs to recognise the corrosion of public life that results from sweeping measures imposed with little or no evidence. And, most importantly, it needs to be a debate about public life that actually includes the public.
Timandra Harkness presents the BBC Radio 4 series, FutureProofing and How To Disagree. Her book, Technology is Not the Problem, is published by Harper Collins.
TimandraHarknes 
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SubscribeAn acid test of the new administration’s foreign policies will be its response to genocidal acts. Despite overall reluctance for foreign adventures Clinton was ashamed that he did nothing about the Rwanda genocide and when Serbia committed genocide against Bosnians he did act militarily albeit fairly minimally. The U.S. has in fact usually had moral dimension to its foreign affairs even when the overall policy is isolationist. I suspect that the Trump administration will continue this tradition although deterring genocide would obviously be best.
I think Rubio is an odd choice for a senior role in a Trump administration, simply because he has a mind of his own. That said, I don’t think he will be a bad choice. Assuming he is appointed, it will be interesting to see how long he lasts.
Speaking as one of America’s European allies, I am breathing a (provisional) sigh of relief. Trump’s America is not going to turn isolationist. Ukraine won’t be thrown to the Russian wolves. Neither will America’s allies in Europe, the Middle East or the Western Pacific.
That said, European toes still need to kept in the fire, so they do some serious rearming. That includes my country, Britain.
Yes, exactly. Europe can’t lose sight of the fact that Russia is a “now and forever” enemy.
There are different visions of what American power should and will look like in the next generation. There is still not a great deal of support for total withdrawal and isolationism. The only people in that camp at the moment are libertarians (who are basically always in that camp) and the people who are hung up on the ‘national debt’ and such financial indicators of national health and don’t believe America can afford to sustain it’s military commitments anywhere. These are not representative of most Republican leaders even in the Trump wing.
I expect the principal difference will be that America’s defense policy should actually benefit American citizens, not some nebulous notion of ‘global security’ or international trade in general. Rubio is only a hawk in that he understands China is a rival who was never our friend and who we enabled to become a peer rival. He’s far likelier to name the enemy outright rather than pay lip service to our economic relations with the Chinese. He’s far more likely to coordinate with the rest of the administration such that economic policy towards China begins to resemble and complement diplomatic and defense policy. If you currently have money invested in China or in companies that are heavily dependent on commerce with China, I’d say now is the time to sell, while you still have something to sell. I expect he’ll be more of a pragmatist regarding Ukraine and try to push Zelensky to negotiate an end to the war.
Overall, I expect more of the transactional, nation to nation, diplomacy that characterized Trump’s first administration. He will demand, and probably get, Europe to either increase its own defense spending on NATO, or pay for a continued American presence there in some fashion, either directly or through political/economic favors as a way to help pay for his reforms, some of which will not be cheap. He will use what’s left of America’s imperial might to extract whatever value he can from American vassal states while focusing his efforts at alliance building on places that actually matter like India, Japan, and southeast Asia, and where a significant manufacturing base to rival the Chinese is already being built. I do believe that overt military action will be rare and specifically targeted towards specific goals that advance America’s vital interests, such as the assassination of a terrorist leader or a show of force in the South China Sea. There will be no sending of the Navy to defend shipping lanes we don’t use from random terrorists. There will be an overall reduction in international peacekeeping forces and I wouldn’t be shocked if we close some foreign bases, especially in Europe. I also wouldn’t be shocked to see an overall cut in military and defense personnel on the periphery and in the military bureaucracy whether or not there are actual troop level is reduced.
Interesting analysis. Let me respond on a few points.
First, maybe your comments are geared mostly toward what Donald Trump will do rather than Marco Rubio, I couldn’t quite tell. But I don’t think Marco Rubio’s views are all that important here. Donald Trump is very hands-on, and more pragmatic and reactive than ideological. He’ll make the decisions, not Marco Rubio or any other secretary of state. We saw that with the North Korea negotiations in Donald Trump’s first term. That was all Donald Trump and not his secretary of state or national security advisor. For better or for worse, I think we will see the same with regard to Ukraine and China during his second term.
Second, I don’t think companies doing business with China will get out of the country. Take Apple, for instance. Apple can’t make its products here. We don’t have the manufacturing ecosystem to do it. There is a fascinating book called The One Device: The Secret History of the iPhone, by Brain Merchant. It paints a canvas that has plenty of dark tones on it (and his latest book Blood in the Machine is even darker, though it is not about China). But it does show how Steve Jobs could not have created the iPhone in the United States. Tim Cook now faces the same problem.
Third, I think we ought to treat the Chinese as a competitor rather than an enemy, and get competing. Look at electric cars. Apple decided to build an electric car and threw a lot of resources into an effort called Project Titan. After 10 years and $10 billion they had come up with a car that would cost at least $100,000 but would still be unprofitable for the foreseeable future. Apple shut the project down without ever getting close to production.
Compare that with China. Warren Buffett invested years ago in a Chinese company called BYD (Build Your Dream) that is now the world leader in electric car sales, selling twice as many cars as Tesla last quarter. Their cars are cheaper, in both cost and quality, but they are improving, fast.. BYD is a solid company internationally, not just in China.
But the big story is the competition in China. Unlike in the US, the barriers to entry in carmaking are low and specialist companies can jump in. While Apple’s car project failed mightily, a Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi took advantage of the vibrant carmaking ecosystem in China to design and build an electric car with mostly off-the-shelf hardware that it then integrated with its own infotainment systems.
The result? A luxury car with a stunning UX (user experience) that sells for $30,000 and does 0 to 60 in 2.9 seconds with 500 miles range. Ford’s CEO Jim Farley had one bought in Shanghai and airlifted to Chicago six months ago and he has been test driving it ever since. He loves the car. He says Ford’s competition in the future is not GM and it’s not Toyota. It’s China. And he’s right.
I’m sorry but no. China is a fascist state that treats their people like tools. They are the antithesis of American freedom at least as much as the Soviets or the Nazis were. They manipulate their own economy and have used the global economic order led by the US to serve their own nationalist ends. I don’t fault them for that. That’s what a national government is supposed to do, protect and advance the interests of their people. What I do fault and don’t forgive is the Americans who knew this was happening and aided and abetted the process for the sake of free trade orthodoxy, globalist delusions, or to line their own pockets. Even now, when it’s apparent what China is and always was, we have people like you and that Ford executive drooling over how great their manufacturing environment is and how it’s impossible to recreate. Maybe it should be impossible to recreate because we don’t have a totalitarian state and a command economy. They’re developing electric cars and monopolizing manufacturing sectors strategically as a means of waging economic warfare. I’m sorry but this economic efficiency and competition justifies everything attitude needs to end. Not compensating for political factors is one reason we have a broken, divided country and a hollowed out manufacturing sector. If you think this wasn’t part of the Chinese plan all along, you’re wrong. This is the war they started, and pretending it wasn’t a war is what got us here. I don’t care if their electric cars fly and cure cancer. Americans shouldn’t be buying them. Other countries can make their own choices. Frankly the government should confiscate that one the Ford executive bought and tell him if he can’t build one just as good, he won’t be enjoying that one. It needs to be made clear to every executive, every billionaire, every multinational corporation, that the time for equivocating is over. It’s bow to the CCP for the sake of their cheap manufacturing and don’t let the door hit you on the way out, or don’t bow, suck it up, and deal with the consequences like real Americans, by doing it ourselves or doing without. We don’t need to, and shouldn’t, get involved in any direct warfare with China. We shouldn’t be doing any business with them at all. It can and should be done gradually but the end goal should be to completely decouple our economy from theirs so that whatever is left of the ruling class and America’s manufacturing base will have no illusions about where their interests lie.
“A luxury car with a stunning UX (user experience) that sells for $30,000 and does 0 to 60 in 2.9 seconds with 500 miles range“. But does it have 500 miles range if it does 0 to 60 in 2.9 seconds at every stop sign and traffic light it encounters?
Good point. Giving 0 to 60 times for electric cars is purposefully misleading. As are range figures. The performance is not all that mindblowing, and the range figures are inflated beyond belief.
That said, thanks mainly to Elon Musk, electric cars have gotten a lot better a lot quicker than I ever thought they would when I first started working on them over 20 years ago. And they are getting better, fast.
It’s a fascinating time for carmaking. Electric cars, at least. Gasoline cars, not so much.
The problem with electric cars is now not so much the electric cars themselves (although they are still soulless), it is getting electricity grids to the point where everyone can charge them at home. That, and the cost of the things, and the lousy depreciation.
Marco Rubio is not an outstanding pick for secretary of state, but I can’t think of anyone better. He’s a solid if not inspired choice. But Pete Hegseth for secretary of defense? That’s just bizarre.
As is the creation of the “department of government efficiency” headed by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, which appears to be just a literal joke (DOGE being a cryptocurrency Elon Musk used to tout). It’s not even a government body, just some sort of private think tank that only exists until July 4, 2026 (the 250th birthday of the US) and has no authority to do anything.
George Washington had just four members in his cabinet — the secretaries of state (Thomas Jefferson), treasury (Alexander Hamilton), and war (Henry Knox), and the attorney general (Edmund Randolph). Over the years 12 more cabinet officers have been added, but they are not important as those big four.
Donald Trump has yet to pick a secretary of treasury or attorney general. Unless those are solid picks, I am not going to rest easy. I mean, Pete Hegseth? Really?
UPDATE: I just saw that Donald Trump nominated Matt Gaetz as attorney general. Can I have my vote back? I live in California. It still hasn’t been counted. I didn’t know that a vote for Donald Trump was a vote for people like Pete Hegseth or Matt Gaetz. JD Vance was bad enough, but this is ridiculous.
July 2026
Oops, my mistake, now corrected.
Did you actually even vote for Trump? What Republican would you have found acceptable for these positions? I mean if you oppose JD Vance but support Trump that makes no sense.
Sure, I voted for Donald Trump. I think he is a talented negotiator himself, and I thought he would pick qualified people for top roles. Like he did for the supreme court. The three new justices he picked have turned out to be solid soldiers, not as good as I hoped but certainly better than a lot of prior presidents’ picks. (Like David Souter, a poor pick by George Bush the elder.)
So for attorney general, for instance, I thought Donald Trump might pick someone like Mike Lee, a little controversial but clearly qualified. And JD Vance and Marco Rubio are the same way. But Pete Hegseth for defense secretary, Matt Gaetz for attorney general, and Tulsi Gabbard for director of national intelligence — these are all people unqualified for very important jobs.
I have nothing against any of them, but they are not the choices we need. If the Senate does their job like they should, not one of these three will be confirmed. Donald Trump has not even been sworn in yet, yet with these moves he has made a mockery of our government and shown that he will not be a serious president. I regret having voted for him.
“If the Senate does their job like they should….” What are the chances of this?
Chances are high. It’s tough to get nominations through the Senate even with the best of people. No president seems to get everyone they want. Questioning is public and tough. These three nominees — Pete Hesgeth, Matt Gaetz, and Tulsi Gabbard — will get grilled. Even if the nominees come off the grill alive, every senator knows these three are not qualified for their important posts. Senators will have to sacrifice their integrity on an altar before Donald Trump to vote for them. Some will, but I don’t think enough of them.
I have always liked the word “Czar” in this context. I have always understood it to mean “a person with ostensible power, but no real power, who we can blame when we fail”.
He’ll have his work cut out with the neocons dominating the State Department Blob, but good luck to him. If he can put an end to the Ukraine conflict and avoid starting any new ones he’ll have done a good job.
If he can put an end to the Ukraine conflict while ensuring that Russia stays bankrupt and militarily crippled for the next century, then he’ll have done a good job….
2025 will be a bad year for you Marty
We’ll see. Obviously the focus then becomes to kill as many Russians as possible before the war ends. After all, each Russian who dies makes the world as better place by doing so.
I do have a strong feeling that Vicky Nuland is about to be unemployed however…
Yes indeed…designating the Houthis as terrorists will work when the presence of the US Navy didn’t…
It’s symbolic, but it establishes that they are not a legitimate group that the US could or should engage with, regardless of their ability to wreak havoc on shipping lanes. Let’s be honest here. If the US Navy couldn’t stop the Houthis, who realistically could? Technology is such that a few cheap drones can’t be easily countered by warships that were designed to evade and counter Russian/Chinese/Soviet missile systems and act as a platform for other forms of power projection. That happens in the history of warfare. Machine guns made mounted cavalry obsolete. Aircraft carriers made battleships obsolete. Tanks and aircraft enabled blitzkrieg style attacks that broke the WWI dynamic of trench warfare. We need new technologies and tactics for this new era of drone warfare, and that’s something that may take time.
If stopping the Houthis at the current stage would require troops on the ground, we’ve been there and done that. I’ll pass on another repetition of Afghanistan/Iraq. The only thing to do is designate them as an enemy and treat them as such. Doesn’t mean we have to ‘do’ anything. It wasn’t our shipping that was threatened anyway. The Red Sea shipping lanes are not a vital interest to the American people or American commerce, hence the unwillingness of military leaders to use up all our stores of ammunition fighting them. It’s up to the countries who depend upon that shipping lane to handle the Houthis however they wish, either through negotiations or warfare. Beyond declaring them to be what they clearly are, we need not pay any attention to the Houthis.
The difficulty is that the symbolism is utterly meaningless, indeed counter productive.
The entire world knows that the USA cannot stop the Houthi attacks closing the Red Sea to shipping the Houthis designate as hostile.
The USA then says they are terrorists and won’t deal with them. Well they were never going to…until, of course they need to. It is always the case…the “ruling” power says “the other lot” are bad guys and we don’t deal with bad guys…but then the bad guys have something the rulers need them for. It may be help against someone else, or just to get some peace and quiet from them. And yes the rulers deal with them.
As you say, the USA has no interest whatsoever in the Red Sea being closed by the Houthis…but it did launch Operation whatever pompous name it was…and failed, as the world saw. The USA did “do something” and revealed its impotence
The problem the USA has is that it has passed the point of “peak power”, but its ruling oligarchy either doesn’t know, or possibly accept, it. I think the US people realise it because the economic reality impacts them.
Indeed in your comment you accept that the USA should only look after its own interests. And those interests cannot include picking conflicts which it cannot be seen to lose.
One must hope Rubio is a realist, not a fantasist, believing that the USA can impose whatever it chooses.
Rubio at State reads like a DC insider to head DC’s ultimate insider closed shop.
You say that as if it’s a bad thing….
You might say
“But with the reported nomination of Rubio and of Rep. Michael Waltz for National Security Advisor, it now looks more like a choice between those who were loyal and disloyal to Trump personally”
or you might say
“But with the reported nomination of Rubio and of Rep. Michael Waltz for National Security Advisor, it now looks more like a choice between those who share Trump’s political views and those who do not”
Small but significant difference.
I was thinking the same thing. He booted out two establishment Trojan horses who ultimately undermined his desired policy and then proceed to try to recapture the party for the old establishment, and replaced them with two actual independent minded populist leaning types who are endorsers of the party’s transition from what it was pre-Trump. He has learned from his mistakes it seems.
Or he has the ability to go his way because he’s now in his second term. May as well aim for the fences.
Excellent analysis
We can only wish him luck – Trump’s idiosyncratic personnel policy from his last term doesn’t guarantee he’ll even be in post come January.
I was and remain delighted at the defeat of Kamala Harris, but that has never meant that I was pleased at the victory of Donald Trump. His nominees for foreign policy positions are Israel Firsters, China hawks, and in at least some cases Russia hawks. His choice for Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, ticks all three boxes with gusto.
Therefore, on the pertinent issues, how would Harris’s nominee have differed from Rubio? How would her nominee for National Security Adviser have differed from Michael Waltz? How would her nominee for Secretary of Homeland Security have differed from Kristi Noem? How would her nominee for Ambassador to the United Nations have differed from Elise Stefanik? How would her nominee for Ambassador to Israel have differed from Mike Huckabee? One of those would have been Lynne Cheney, and all of them might as well have been.
We now await Trump’s nominations to economic policy portfolios. Again, expect disappointment for the young men and the black men, the self-organised working class and the Left, whose abstentions, third party votes, and votes for Trump, expanded him beyond his 2020 vote that, if repeated on its own, would have repeated the 2020 result. But again, whom would Harris have had? Stephanie Kelton? Hardly!
And everyone has always expected this. It has never been the point, which is that the marker has been put down. Young men and black men, Latinos and the Native Americans who voted for Trump by two to one, Muslims and Christian Arabs, the working class and the Left: you cannot win without those, it is probably now fair to assume that you could not lose with them, they are all now firmly in play, and whoever was the next President will be a first termer
«His nominees for foreign policy positions are Israel Firsters, China hawks, and in at least some cases Russia hawks» – Who do you want to surrender to first: Iran, Russia, or China?
Biden, if you look at his actions and not his rhetoric, is ready to surrender to any of them.
Fighting the next election already huh?
In which country?
I doubt Harris’ nominee for Secretary of Homeland Security would have been a puppy killer….