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September 26, 2024 - 2:25pm
England’s Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty has acknowledged that the Government potentially “overdid” its response to Covid-19. Speaking early this afternoon at the Covid inquiry in central London, Whitty claimed that he “still worr[ies], in retrospect” whether “we got the level of concern [about the virus] right”, as close as he has come to an admission that lockdown rules were too strict.
Whitty today questioned whether politicians and health advisors were “overpitching” the level of threat, “so that people were incredibly afraid of something where, in fact, their actuarial risk was low”, or whether “we were not pitching it enough, and therefore people didn’t realise the risk they were walking into”. He added: “That balance is really hard and arguably, some people would say, if anything we overdid it rather than under-did it at the beginning.”
The epidemiologist has given evidence to the Covid inquiry several times since hearings began in June 2023. Last November, Whitty suggested that the first lockdown in March 2020 was imposed “a bit too late” and expressed his regret that mass gatherings hadn’t been banned sooner. He also claimed that the Government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) had discussed the “downsides” of lockdowns early in the pandemic.
During today’s appearance, Whitty also stated that “we have to assume a future pandemic on this scale will occur”, calling it “a certainty”. He admitted that “the messaging near the beginning [of Covid] was quite confused”, and this was because “it was not entirely clear who was ultimately responsible for making decisions in this fast-moving situation.” In his view, the situation leading up to the first lockdown was “catastrophic”.
Whitty’s testimony followed that of NHS advisor Kevin Fong this morning, who claimed that treating patients during the pandemic was more harrowing than his experience with victims of the 7/7 bombings in 2005. Fong cited a conversation he had with an intensive care doctor, in which the latter compared dealing with Covid-afflicted patients to “a terrorist attack every day”.
Speaking today, Whitty said he “fully concur[red]” with Fong’s evidence and suggested that the scale of the second wave of the virus, which lasted from the autumn of 2020 until the following spring, was “underappreciated” by the British public. Module 3 of the inquiry is currently underway, and will conclude at the end of November.
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“That balance is really hard and arguably, some people would say, if anything we overdid it rather than under-did it at the beginning.”
Well if nothing else at least they are admitting this now.
It is unusual for the government to over do anything so I suppose we should be grateful. Normally they can’t organise a p*ss up in a brewery.
Perhaps next time there is a similar situation, people questioning the government response could be allowed to do so without the ostracisation, insults, loss of employment, government up your arse type response?
This an excellent example of why freedom of speech is important.
Government overdoes stuff all the time, as long as it pleases the correct voters.
The question is, who was screaming for more controls.
Our government only over does the things that nobody has voted for. Like house price inflation, inflation everywhere really, they like a good war too. The immigration issue is like the elephant in the room. The NHS is always, always collapsing or costing too much, my whole life the NHS has been in crisis according to the news anyway.
It was more of global headless chicken panic I feel
The msm did not help.
Neither did the Internet police, nor some of the ‘science’ that wasn’t actually science in any sense of the word.
Nor did their handling of covid lockdown protests or the people that protested against mandatory vaccination.
If you were one of those people, that said no to mandatory lockdowns and vaccines, turns out you aren’t a lunatic after all. You may have spent some time wondering. You can relax now.
The mainstream media was screaming for control – I think they bear a huge responsibility for the savagery of the lockdowns, encouraged by doom-filled ‘modellers’
Not “Over did it”, but the policy was the inverse of the correct response, And don’t give me the line “it was too early to know…” A couple of months before the first lock-down we already had the worst case scenario demonstrated by the Diamond Princess cruise ship. Evolution 101: locking down the healthy population would promote the most debilitating forms of the virus, since concentration by hospitalisation became an effective vector (something similar happened with the 1918 ‘flu pandemic response).
I might have bought the early ignorance explanation, had the government taken the political cover of the Great Barrington Declaration [GBD] to end their insane policies. But instead they doubled down and tried to trash the GBD.
No! The policy was paramount and we were subjected to gaslighting and policy-motivated “evidence”. “Over did it” does not begin to cover the case.
I agree.
Having spent far too much time on the subject of everything that went wrong already though I thought I’d condense it to a sentence or two.
Listing the numerous and epic failures that occurred on global scale would take rather a long time.
Much of the US overdid things as well. Florida and Sweden had almost no lockdowns; other areas obliterated small businesses, and turned cities into virtual ghost towns. Even outdoor church services were banned.
Adjusted for age, Florida and Sweden fared better than California, where lockdowns were ratchet tight. New York never used their hospital ship, nor the MASH units in Central Park, nor the thousands of ventilators procured. Developing countries often suffered very moderate to low levels of fatalities – COVID-19 mostly killed people who were already very sick, or very fat.
The ventilators were probably deadly, as they inevitably turn one’s lungs into pathogen filled Swiss Cheese. Enormous fiscal stimuli (I banked mine, didn’t really need it) staved off recessions, but swelled the money supply and sent inflation soaring.
Worst of all, our government discovered it could use methods to combat “extremism” and “disinformation” to silence dissent. Entire organizations were formed at universities, think tanks, government agencies, and social media companies themselves to stifle any opposition.
Needless to say, shutdowns and isolation orders were ignored for Biden’s victory parties. And later for any local politicians fancy diversity balls.
Fiery but mostly peaceful lootings were allowed to continue, as “racism is a public health issue, too.”
I suppose police brutality is something of an issue, particularly if you’re an armed offender. Loan sharks, pimps, heroin dealers, and stickup artists broke out the bunting when some of our largest cities “defunded” the police, and DAs were elected who were “deprosecuting” misdemeanor crimes like aggravated assault and robbery.
Police resources seem to have been redirected towards citizens walking outside during lockdowns, or certain opposing political parties.
Great innovations were made in novel applications of the law, from the statute of limitations to borrower fraud.
So many new things from covid arose that had practically nothing to do with physical illness .
So many disastrous consequences that it surely begs the question – incompetence or plandemic?
Witless Whitty; at least he didn’t have a huge shareholding in a vaccine developer unlike his co-conspirator Vallance.
The whole scamdemic period still makes my blood boil. It was apparent from very early on, on the basis of impact studies in 6 different essentially controlled scenarios (2 cruise ships, 2 resorts and 2 hotels if memory serves) that the virus had a relatively low infectious mortality rate that fell away to almost zero if subjects were under 45. About 2,500 deaths below that age (in the UK) and 80% of those had co-morbidities, less than die every year from accidents. But hey, lockdown everything, create a massive mental health problem, beggar the country with huge debts and vaccinate everyone (including children) in sight with fundamentally untested vaccines. And never forget; whatever absurd restrictions and actions the government enacted the labour party was *always* calling for them to be longer and harder.
Rather than nationwide lock downs and closing schools they should have protected the care homes – but didn’t so those basically became death houses.
But there is one thing I agree with Witless on, there will surely be another pandemic, and next time it might even be a real killer, with say an infectious mortality rate of about 5% instead of 0.9% and then where will be be?
As for the Scottish Covid Inquiry there was no squeamishness about what was said about the Care Homes where patients were given excessive doses of Midazolam with DNR’s issued without relatives knowledge.
Also, water is wet and the sun once more rose in the East.
We tried to hurt China’s rise, and ended up shooting ourselves in the foot! Ouch! In fact, this accelerated the Chinese rise!
But, if you really want to regain your dignity and us to believe your legitimacy, let’s take what we’ve learned: we can all work from home now, so let us live in small towns and re-stimulate the economy there. A win-win situation, right? We do not need to sit in these ghastly buildings downtown just because your billionaires want us there. You can renovate them into housing…
Do not take too long but let us take what we learned and do better!
There is something to be said for thinking outside the box. As long as you don’t find yourself in a smaller box.
For one thing, the American government really needs to stop funding research in Chinese virology labs.
The Wuhan virology labs clearly had no grasp on how to handle deadly or at least fairly hazardous pathogens.
No one believes the contaminated food supply stories. Occasionally some people do consume bizarre things like dogs, cats, rhino horn tea, or various reptiles.
But bat or snake or pangolin viruses, like all animal viruses, don’t suddenly appear with human protein codes on them. Someone put them there – Covid was cooked up in a lab.
The lab was shockingly negligent, and infected the world with a brand new flu virus.
Heresy! Wash your mouth out with soap and water before the thought police come knocking at your door.
That co conspirator to the virus being zoonotic Kristian Andersen is still at it claiming it came from the wet Market. Apparently a raccoon dog was involved. He didn’t actually check to see no Bats were being sold as meat at all. I’m still convinced it wasn’t an accidental release.
That huge big New year party and then the internal Flights suspended but International flights allowed to continue. But I suppose that makes me a conspiracy theorist.
The hospitals were empty. You don’t choreograph complicated dance routines when you’ve got something to do.
As every fair-minded, rational person in the world realized at the time but were forbidden to say out loud on pain of social ostracism and possible legal sanction. Yes, we’re still mad. https://www.wsj.com/articles/covid-worsened-america-rage-virus-for-which-theres-no-vaccine-lockdown-vaccine-mandates-ron-desantis-stanford-masking-2670cd39?st=NhQM3d&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
This virus isn’t going away anytime soon so the dolts in charge at the UKHSA better start planning for future emergences and deaths. What I can tell you is the Public have wised up to the potential dangers of the mRNA technology that was not properly tested but given the nod after coercion from the US FDA.
They have ignored all the concerns about the Gene Technology and are ignoring the vaccine injured. Our MSM is even worse and I have only contempt for them following orders to shut down all comment.
What they should be discussing at that Inquiry is why the medical profession have abandoned their ethics, in particular do no harm. For those with a conscience to speak out, their profession is taken away from them, abandoned without trial Something is very wrong in this world today.
Over did it?
Governments and their Health Spokespeople cried wolf so loud it was heard in space!
Trust in medical institutions and those media co-dependent “experts” was lost; decimated for generations.
I am a medical professional myself and was aghast at the overeacrh for a mild illness for most (asymptomatic for 90 – 95%) with a 99.7% survival rate, an average age of mortality of 87 (with three co-morbidities) – all of which we knew in March 2020.
There are no words for the fury I felt at the time and thereafter.
The esteem and trust in which our industry was held is gone.
The first three letters in pandemic stand for panic. It will always be so. What was different about Covid-19 was that the panic was middle class-driven. They demanded safety (and governments responded accordingly) regardless of the consequences for others or for the long term consequences for society. Leaving aside the class element, as Boris Johnson tried to suggest but was essentially shouted down, life must go on in a pandemic. The only way to get through it is to live through it, to go to work through it and sometimes to die trying. Governments in the past would have said that but today’s governments live in a permanent state of fear of the media and, as a consequence, lack the courage to govern,
Great timing. Only admitting that he might have ill-advised the Tory government of the time after it has lost an election partly because of this.
Why we have a Public Inquiry and this opportunity to explain, reflect, learn.
Nothing on Unherd about the testimony of Dr Kevin Fong yesterday mind. Worth watching that. It’ll explain much of the public policy reaction during the first wave. And as someone who was working in that environment he captures it, to the extent when watching I sensed some of the repressed shock one experienced still v much there. Fabricating body bags from the best you could find and holding ipads up for relatives to speak to a dying love-one stuff you never forget even if you’ve tried hard to push to the back of your mind.
It is true though that the longer term consequences of Lockdown and other measures were not fully appreciated at the time, nor could they be entirely. What is clear is we went into a pandemic with a woeful level of critical care capacity in the UK and that explains much of why we were overwhelmed and desperate measures then appeared necessary.
In the first six or eight weeks the over-reaction and panic is perhaps forgivable. But there soon plenty of people pointing out the appalling likely side effects of the measures; alas shouted down by those civil servants and politicians only too happy to take control. If Whitty had expressed his doubts and initiated a debate the whole ghastly over reaction could have been reversed much earlier
I think much to be asked about Lockdowns 2 & 3, given we knew a bit more by then and had more time to plan. I suspect vast majority of public would have acted as if a Lockdown anyway at those points in time and the tension would have flipped to anger with those completely ignoring. We just can only imagine the counter-factual.
6-8wks though too short for the initial, in your phrase ‘forgivable’, element. I’ve kept all my notes from then – from the first Covid ITU admissions in March to June 90% of our capacity was taken up with the virus, thus removing that capacity for other emergencies and post op surgical stays for things like cancer treatment. The question is would an earlier lifting of the restrictions made little or no difference to that capacity crunch? Intuition has to suggest the greater mixing would have extended the crunch. You got to remember if a hospital can’t treat the next RTA arriving in an ambulance or critical cancer patient because it’s no capacity that’s a pretty difficult choice you’ve made.
Were we overwhelmed, really? The NHS is ‘overwhelmed’ virtually ever winter, pandemic or no pandemic. Remember all those Nightingale hospitals, hurriedly assembled never to see a single patient? There may have been some local pockets under serious pressure for a few weeks but overwhelmed? I don’t think so.
Existing plans for dealing with such outbreaks were hastily thrown out the window in favour of untried and untested lockdowns in a forlorn attempt to ‘stop the spread’. Anyone listening to a serious epidemiologist like Sweden’s Dr Johan Giesecke in the early days of 2020 (rather than a failed modeler with zero credibility) would have realised that the end result in terms of deaths would be much the same under any scenario. The only variable was timing.
Critical care capacity WAS overwhelmed. We went from 20 beds max to nearly 40 for extended periods of time. We coped because virtually all other diseases seemingly dried-up for nearly 18 months – people too scared to present to hospital, diagnostic clinics not happening, etc.
I think the 1st wave management did seem overblown in retrospect. The 2nd wave was just bloody awful – I still remember withdrawing care on 4 patients in a single shift. All died within minutes. The nurses were totally demoralised. I’ve never pulled-out on so many people in one day before. Strangely, my actual memory is very vivid, but in black-and-white!
I agree that most of the later lock-downs were too much, and stopping kids going to school was vicious.
We seem to have taught an entire generation of middle-aged people they don’t need to actually go into work. WFH has crippled the economy ever since!
The Swedes weren’t stupid, but they did have a bit of an advantage in that they had had 2 very bad flu seasons in 2018+19, so many who would have died and showed-up in the covid death figures were already dead; the so-called dry tinder theory.
And yes, there will be another pandemic. Probably a bird flu similar to H1N1. It will likely be much worse than covid19, which is actually quite puny as these bugs go. And it’ll be a s**t show once again.
We won’t learn – we’re human.
Of a completely different degree RM. And what we also forget is staff absence compressed available capacity too – not that unsurprisingly given a good number died after catching the virus at work. Tragically 4 in my own unit – still shocks me to even type that.
The Nightingale’s though vexed many of us. The politicians and NHSE leaders never seemed to grasp we don’t have the staff to send to them and were already massively short. The Army could have staffed some but you might have had to get a nurses uniform on and see how you got on with nursing patients full of the virus.
The death rates comparison all seem a bit daft. You can’t model what the rate would have been without these actions can you?
Nonetheless lessons to be learned for sure and certainly one big difference is what critical care capacity the NHS has available come the next pandemic. Will you be pushing for an increase?
As I have said previously at the start of the pandemic Asian Doctors were dropping like flies in the Hospitals. Their Vitamin D levels were non existent. It was Dr David Grimes that acquired thousands of Phials of Calcifediol from Italy, a body ready form of Vitamin D and were distributed among the Doctors /Consultants that saved their lives. The good doctor tried to raise the profile of vitamin D with the Health Authorities but was ignored.
Even today in the UK cattle can be given Calcifediol but not Humans. It works in the body within an hour, faster than an antibiotic, but we’re only allowed the form Cholecalciferol which can take 10 days to be fully active through the liver. Now you know what were up against with the Health Authorities.
Malter Whitty, a perfectly ghastly little man, and far more dangerous than he looks: One can imagine him in a certain pre war European country assisting with propoganda…
I know a few Public Health doctors well and they all say the same. At the start, it was like being told to climb a mountain in thick fog. You couldn’t see if it was Everest or a wee bump in the Cairngorms so, inevitably, many, if not most decisions were, inevitably, inaccurate. Much that was done in the early days could and should be forgiven. Even, as time went on, things were still unclear, so mistakes would be made.
However, two things should be said. First, the Public Health plan that was devised in a nationwide exercise a couple of years earlier and was already in place was foolishly set aside. Why? No idea, I wonder if the enquiry will shed light on this. Second, later on, some genuine mistakes were made; we’re only human after all, but other things happened that had more to do with politicians making politically self-interested decisions. These are not forgiveable.
To the best of my knowledge, in professional circles, Whitty has a good reputation.
Duh! What a clown and if I was harmed in any way by this dude’s decisions, I would lining up my barristers and take this no load to the cleaners.
Chris Whitty is one of good guys. He acted impartially based on the best evidence at the time. He is now demonstrating his integrity yet again by admitting to genuine concerns that he and others may have made mistakes. Well done him!
No
Simply not true. The “best evidence at the time” included a pandemic preparedness plan for respiratory viruses that it now turns out was broadly the correct approach all along.
He was one of those making the loudest calls for lockdowns and all that went with those terrible times. Good on him for his partial mea culpa but he should also make it clear that he pushed for all those measures even though he knew they were grossly over the top.
All I can say is that he hasn’t (yet) jumped ship to Big Pharma as Van Tam and Vallance did