Scientific Integrity: How many of the UK deaths are down to reckless political interference?

We now have the highest death  toll from Coronavirus in Europe.

The scientific integrity of the government advisory SAGE (Scientific Advisory Group) is becoming increasingly questionable as guidelines are deformed to fit in with political demands.

Attendees at an early Coronavirus SAGE meetings were  “shocked, concerned and worried for the impartiality of advice”, because of the interference  of Dominic Cummings, the government political advisor. Tory MP David Davies declared SAGE is about “getting scientific advice on the data, based on the best theories and models” “You don’t want outside influences, either direct or indirect, deliberate or accidental”

Yet Dominic Cummings was deliberately doing this!  His attendance is unprecedented, political advisors have never attended such meetings before.

The confusion that delayed the critical first few weeks of the pandemic, when Britain was ahead of the game and could have benefitted from the experience of Italy, was frittered away whilst “herd immunity” was debated.

Then when there were shortages of personal protection equipment, PPE, suddenly the government downgraded the Coronavirus so that just an ordinary face mask and plastic apron could be worn by NHS staff dealing with it.  Subsequently over a hundred NHS staff have died from the virus because of inadequate protection. People died because a political decision based on scarcity of PPE resources overrode scientific judgement.

The priority of testing for the virus is to inform the Coronavirus strategy, to discover where and how resources should be targeted. Matt Hancock set a target of 100,000 tests a day. This was to match the level of testing in other countries where it was integrated into their effective strategies.

In a manic panic to reach 100,000 by 30th April,  27,497 tests were mailed out by the Royal Mail and Amazon. The authoritative Health Service Journal commented regretfully  “it is just a massive one-day mission on the part of Amazon and the Royal Mail”.

No strategy, no purpose, just a desperate drive to get to 100,000 tests by the end of April.

Such ridiculous attempts to meet a self imposed target, with no reference or judgement as to  why such testing is so important, is both ineffective and dangerous.

Testing is the vital tool in attempting to control the virus. The NHS needs to know where the virus is prevalent, who needs to be specifically quarantined and which areas potentially could be released from lockdown. 

Compared with Germany, at least 20,000 additional people have died of the virus. The question must be asked – how many of those 20,000 deaths are down to this reckless political interference?

Andrew Milroy