You ought to ask that of our doctors and scientists who devised our strategy.
Yes, I think it is time that this aspect of our strategy was examined.
It has been very clear, from the experience in Wuhan that a swift lockdown acts to rapidly reduce transmission rate and therefore casualties in any CV-19 outbreak. Only a fool would deny that - and Whitty and Vallance aren't fools. I have little doubt that they presented that evidence to the government. But the fact is that this is not a scientific decision, but a political decision. It has to be. I suspect that the government took the opinion that the economic consequences of such a course would be undesirable (to say the least) and decided that this was an unwise course. This is not something I condemn them for - given the damage now being wrought to many peoples' livelihoods it is perfectly sensible -
if you have a reasonable alternative strategy.
So the question becomes "What is a reasonable alternative - and did the UK follow it?" The experience of China, HK, Taiwan and South Korea have shown that with mass testing and contact tracing, coronavirus transmission can be very effectively curtailed. We didn't follow that strategy either. Why I'm not sure - perhaps we'll never know. Perhaps the people advising the government understood that we couldn't ramp up testing to the degree required.
Instead, we chose what was in all but name a gamble: that we could shield those who are most vulnerable and let the epidemic burn through the UK to attain herd immunity, hoping its progress would be sufficiently slow that the resources of the NHS wouldn't be overwhelmed. This strategy ignored the data showing the CV-19 was a highly contagious disease capable of spreading very rapidly through a vulnerable population. An overwhelmed NHS and mass deaths were all but inevitable.
Johnson, to his credit, changed course once credible modelling data was produced showing his course would mean hundreds of thousands of deaths (though it still took a full week after Ferguson's study was published for a full lockdown to be implemented). What I do most definitely criticise Johnson for is the lack of any exit strategy. There are no plans over what to do after lockdown. We can't go with this lockdown for long. At the moment, we have no strategy to prevent a second peak once restrictions are relaxed - and there will be one. The one strategy we know works is the mass testing, quarantine and contact testing done by China, S. Korea and Taiwan. We have only a few weeks to implement this, time is desperately short, but we're seeing nothing of substance emerging from government. As things stand, I fear that the most likely outcome is that we'll experience
both the economic damage of the lockdown, coupled with the mass deaths of a resurgent epidemic thereafter.
This is not politics. This is beyond politics. I want Johnson to get a grip and a strategy, and stop this directionless thrashing around. There is far too much at stake to descend into party politics. We need action from the Johnson government. Not promises that can't be met. Do you not understand that?
