Boris Johnson’s ‘dangerous’ coronavirus strategy will lead to more outbreaks and lockdowns, an ‘alternative SAGE’ panel of experts warned today.
The independent scientists say the PM’s aim of flattening infections and ensuring the NHS is not overwhelmed until a vaccine is ready is ‘foolish’.
This is because GPs and councils have no idea how many people in their community have the illness due to the Government’s ‘top down’ centralised approach, they say.
They are calling for local public health officials to be given the powers and resources to trace, test and isolate patients and prevent more waves of the virus.
The Independent SAGE group, led by former chief scientific adviser Sir David King, also slammed the new ‘stay alert’ message, saying it is ambiguous and confusing.
It has drafted a scathing report containing 19 detailed recommendations for the Government moving forward.
In it, the 13-strong group of experts:
- Blast the Government’s decision to stop testing and contract tracing in March and ‘allow epidemic to spread and build herd immunity’.
- Sharply criticise the ‘stay alert’ and ‘control the virus’ messaging, saying it is ambiguous and confusing.
- Accuse the Government’s daily statistics of being ‘inaccurate, incomplete and selective’ – and say the Office for Statistics Regulation should be in control of the data.
- Question why ministers have abandoned hand-washing and hygiene awareness campaigns and call for them to be re-implemented.
- Demand hospitals stop sending COVID-19 patients back to care homes.
- Tell the Government to address the disproportionate impact on older people and BAME communities.
- Urge ministers to promote 14 days quarantine for people with symptoms instead of the seven days.
- Warn it would be ‘foolish’ to bank on a vaccine soon, with ‘recurrent local outbreaks’ possible for at least a year.
- Urge ministers to give local public health teams the power and resources to track and trace every case – instead of being ‘bypassed’ in favour of private firms.
- Warn the existing mathematical modelling of the critical ‘R’ reproduction rate is ‘three to four weeks out of date’.
Sir David King, a former Government chief scientific adviser, led a press conference with his Independent Sage group today, slamming the Government’s ‘dangerous’ coronavirus strategy
Speaking at a virtual conference this afternoon, Sir David said: ‘Since the start of the Covid-19 epidemic, the government has told us they are ‘following the science’.
‘However, in the weeks and months that have followed, it has become increasingly apparent that this is simply not the case.
‘We detect ambivalence in the government’s strategic response, with some advisers promoting the idea of simply ‘flattening the curve’ or ensuring the NHS is not overwhelmed.
‘We find this attitude counter-productive and potentially dangerous. Without suppression, we shall inevitably see a more rapid return of local epidemics and face the prospect of further partial or national lockdowns,’
‘It would be foolish to bank on a vaccine soon – the Government must prepare to invest now in decentralised local healthcare systems.’
The report will be sent to the prime minister, the current scientific adviser, and the leaders of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
The report urges the Government to give local healthcare systems the power to run test, trace and isolate policies amid ciricism of Public Health England’s ‘control-freak’ centralised approach.
Professor Allyson Pollock, former director of the Institute of Health and Society at Newcastle University, told the conference today: ‘It’s a puzzle as to why contact tracing stopped on March 12.
‘We were given two reasons – that it wasn’t effective and there weren’t sufficient resources.
‘Contact tracing is the bread and butter of public health and it needs to be done locally by local communities.
‘It’s a great disappointment the Government hasn’t rebuilt [a team of tracers]. It’s not difficut to do contact tracing, but well need tens of thousands of workers.’
Public Health England (PHE) had fewer than 300 staff to do contact tracing operating out of just nine regional hubs covering 151 top-tier local authorities.
By 12 March, when all community testing and contact tracing was stopped, PHE had only contacted 3,500 people of whom around 125 were confirmed positive on testing.
Decisions on the timing of the loosening of social distancing rules are being informed by advice provided by the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE).
But SAGE is increasingly under fire not only over its approach to transparency but also over the advice it is providing.
Sir Davidset up his own ‘independent’ panel of experts to make their recommendations public and transparent.
He said the group was necessary because he feared government experts are deferring to ministers and are not ‘speaking their minds’.
Asked if that meant they were not free to speak out against the Government, Sir David told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme: ‘I believe that’s the case, yes.
‘I think there’s a very big difference between the situation today and the situation as it was in 2010-11, that is quite simply the permission to speak in the public domain has been changed.
‘I think the main point I’m making is that an independent science advisory group really needs to be dominated by people whose income is not determined by the fact they are working for the government.’
As well as Sir David, the group’s members include Professor Anthony Costello, a former director of the World Health Organisation (WHO), Professor Allyson Pollock and Professor Gabriel Scally, a pre-eminent epidemiologist at the University of Bristol.
The panel have called for the Government to address why poor people are expected to risk their lives ‘to get the economy going whilst wealthier people stay in the safety of their homes’.
It says the government should continue the furlough scheme in its current form for workers who cannot be guaranteed safe working conditions and transport.
The report also notes the risk of basing decisions on whether to lift lockdown on an ‘R number’ (the average number of people an infected person infects) based on data which it says has a four week time lag.
Boris Johnson was confronted with public frustration over his lockdown exit strategy announced on Sunday night.
The 13-minute televised speech aimed to set out the Government’s exit strategy from the lockdown which has been in place since March 23, but there was no mention of when people can visit their family and friends.
There was also no guidance on whether people should wear face masks and how Britons can go to work in sectors such as construction when schools are still closed and there are no childcare facilities in place.
Other remaining questions include how employers can encourage people to go back to work so soon without having seen the proposed new workplace guidance and having had time to introduce new measures.
There are further concerns over whether workers will be allowed to refuse to go to their workplace if they believe it is unsafe, and why the Government believes a quarantine for UK arrivals will be effective now.
Meanwhile questions remain over whether people will have to cram on to packed trains, buses and Tubes to get to work if they do not have a car or live within walking or cycling distance.
The Prime Minister said that more details of the road map would be published today in Parliament, but here is an analysis of ten queries the public may still have as they enter week eight of lockdown:
When can people visit family and friends?
Boris Johnson mentioned nothing in the speech about when people could see their friends and relatives. Britons have had to avoid meeting up with friends since March 16, a week before the full lockdown came in on March 23.
But there are now signs that things may be about to change. Asked if someone could meet up with their parents in a park, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab told the BBC today: ‘Well, you could if there’s two metres apart.’
He added: ‘If, for example, you are going to the park, and you want to – and you can stay two metres apart – you could meet up with another member of your own household.’
Boris Johnson used this graphic during his briefing, with Step 1 for this week, Step 2 planned for June and Step 3 for July
But Mr Raab spread confusion today by suggesting that people can meet two relatives such as parents in parks while maintaining social distancing, sending Downing Street scrambling to say that is not in fact the case.
Mr Raab had said that, under the new lockdown rules, people can meet different family members separately on the same day while maintaining social distancing.
He told BBC Breakfast: ‘If you’re out in the park and you’re two metres apart, we’re saying now, and use some common sense and you socially distance, you can meet up with other people.
‘The key thing is people want to get outdoors, particularly with this weather, particularly I think for mental health and, frankly, the frustration people feel if they’re cooped up for too long for protracted periods.
‘We want to make sure that that people can enjoy the outdoors more. But people must stay alert because the more we do some of the things that we want to do, the more we need to just be careful about this social distancing.’
Asked if someone could meet their mother in the morning and their father in the afternoon, he said: ‘Outside in the outdoors, staying two metres apart, yes.’
Mr Raab spread more confusion by suggesting that people can meet two relatives such as parents in parks while maintaining social distancing, sending Downing Street scrambling to say that is not in fact the case.
Should we wear face masks?
While the Prime Minister has insisted that social distancing ‘must be maintained’, he did not mention the use of face coverings during his address to the nation last night.
But workplaces are expected to be given new guidance on how to become ‘covid secure’, which is likely to include new rules on social distancing, wearing face masks, temperature checks and maintaining hygiene.
Dominic Raab told ITV News that makeshift face coverings ‘don’t really have much of an impact’ in protecting the wearer, but they can ‘provide an incremental mitigation’.
He added: ‘From Wednesday, in areas where you are worried you might be in enclosed spaces with other people… that we will encourage people in those circumstances to use a face covering.’
He insisted medical-grade masks should be kept for health and care workers.
One academic who has backed the use of face coverings for the general public, said that the use of masks – alongside hand-washing – could help the public ease out of lockdown more safely.
Trish Greenhalgh, professor of primary care at the University of Oxford, said: ‘The Government has yet to take a positive stance on face coverings, which – in addition to continuing handwashing – is probably the one public health measure that could enable us to ease out of lockdown more safely.’
Babak Javid, a consultant in infectious diseases at Cambridge University hospitals, added: ‘As more workers will be returning to employment, measures that reduce transmission such as use of face coverings or masks when commuting to, and at work, especially work indoors under conditions that physical distancing may be difficult would be welcome.
‘To have substantial impact, the majority of the population would need to comply in mask usage.’
Mr Johnson said last night that fines for breaching the rules would increase, adding: ‘You must obey the rules on social distancing and to enforce those rules we will increase the fines for the small minority who break them.’
The PM has dropped the ‘stay at home, protect the NHS, save lives’ slogan in favour of a ‘stay alert’ version – which notably has green edging instead of red
How can people go to work when schools are still closed and there are no childcare facilities?
Construction and manufacturing employees are now being ‘actively encouraged’ to return to work from Wednesday, although they will be expected to travel by car or bicycle rather than using public transport.
However, children are not expected to start returning to school in England from June 1 – while the majority of secondary school pupils will not attend class until September at the earliest.
This therefore presents major challenges for parents who are not key workers. Schools and colleges closed their doors to the majority of pupils, apart from the children of key workers and vulnerable youngsters, from March 23.
Boris Johnson said the start of June was the earliest possible date to consider the phased reopening of schools, beginning with some of the youngest pupils in reception classes, year one and year six.
The Prime Minister said that by June 1 ‘we believe we may be in a position to begin the phased reopening of shops and to get primary pupils back into schools, in stages, beginning with reception, Year One and Year Six’.
Questions have also been asked over whether someone who has been furloughed, and now cannot return to work due to childcare issues, will still be supported by the Government.
Which other employees, aside from those in manufacturing and construction, are expected to return to work?
The Prime Minister said last night that anyone who cannot work from home, perhaps those in construction and manufacturing, ‘should be actively encouraged to go to work’
Mr Johnson also said that the Government has been establishing new guidance for employers to make workplaces ‘Covid-secure’.
But there was no guidance on when those in other industries are expected to go back to work, with the Government saying people should continue to work from home if they can.
Workers in some elements of the hospitality sector, including cinemas, park cafes and restaurants with outdoor seating, might be allowed to go back to work if their businesses reopen in July along with churches and mosques.
But Mr Johnson said these moves would risk an explosion in the virus if taken now – and warned that the second and third phases could be delayed even by months.
Mr Raab was asked today if the Government’s new ‘stay alert’ slogan meant stay at home as much as possible, and he told BBC Radio 4: ‘Yes, but, for example … if you can work from home you should continue to do so.
‘But, there are vital sectors of the economy, like manufacturing and construction where people can’t do their job from home.
‘We now need to stress that anyone who can’t work from home, for instance those in construction or manufacturing, should be actively encouraged to go to work.’
How can employers encourage people to go back to work so soon without having seen the guidance and having had time to introduce new measures?
Boris Johnson called for all those in the manufacturing and construction industries to go back to work this week, but there are concerns for employees’ safety if social distancing is not maintained.
Union leaders have said all employers should have to draw up and publish risk assessments and state what measures they have taken to make work safe for their employees.
They have also demanded sanctions be imposed on rogue employers and call for government investment in health and safety inspections.
Business leaders have said their practical questions must be answered to restart the economy – and whether the Government programme to pay the wages of workers under furloughing will be extended beyond the end of June.
Mr Johnson is expected to reveal new new guidance in Parliament tomorrow for employers to make workplaces ‘Covid-secure’ – but it is unclear what this means and how it will be set out.
There are also concerns over how any subsequent increase in Covid-19 cases in workplaces will be monitored.
And questions have been asked over whether the Health and Safety Executive will be given more resources to check on the health and safety of workers.
Are workers allowed to refuse to go to their workplace if they believe it is unsafe, and will they be protected from being disciplined or sacked?
The Prime Minister told Britain to ‘stay alert, control the virus and save lives’ as he outlined his ‘road map’ to a new normality during an address to the nation yesterday.
But the UK’s biggest trade unions told him that they will not recommend their millions of members return to work unless the Government guarantees ‘the right policies and practices are in place to make workplaces safe’.
This has also raised questions over whether workers will be protected if they fear going back to their workplace due to a perceived lack of safety
Leaders of Unite, Unison, the General, Municipal, Boilermakers and the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers said significant numbers of their members have died while in essential work during the pandemic.
They wrote in a letter: ‘After years of cuts, the government must boost funding for pro-active monitoring and health and safety enforcement. And we need a public information campaign so rogue bosses face sanctions.
‘The trade union movement wants to be able to recommend the government’s back-to-work plans. But for us to do that we need to ensure that ministers have listened and that we stay safe and save lives at work too.’
It is not yet clear whether Mr Johnson believes workers and unions should be consulted before any return to work.
There are also questions over whether someone who works in manufacturing or construction is shielding should continue with this shielding – and whether they be supported.
Restrictions can ease when the transmission rate – ‘R’ – is well below 1 (left). It is currently between 0.5 and 0.9. The alert level graphic (right) rates the severity of the pandemic, with the level having been at 4 in recent months but now moving towards 3
Will people have to cram on to packed trains, buses and tubes to get to work if they do not have a car or live within walking or cycling distance?
Workers in sectors like construction and manufacturing are now being ‘actively encouraged’ to return to work, although they will be expected to travel by car or bicycle rather than crowding on to public transport.
However there was no guidance from Boris Johnson on whether people who don’t have a car or live within walking or cycling distance from their work will have to get onto public transport.
There are fears that the rail network, especially the London Underground, will quickly become overcrowded if a reduced level of service continues at the same time as workers begin to go back into the office.
Passengers at Canning Town station in East London this morning as commuters travel on the London Underground network
Will people be stopped from getting on to public transport because of the two-metre social distancing rules – and how will it be monitored?
Boris Johnson has said people who cannot work from home will shortly be actively encouraged to go to work instead of being told to only go if they must. But they should avoid public transport if at all possible.
However, there was nothing in Mr Johnson’s announcement last night about what those who do end up taking public transport will face in terms of upgraded social distancing measures.
These could include strict queuing systems in place outside stations to ensure trains do not become too busy and commuters are able to keep their distance from one another.
There have also been calls for hand sanitiser dispensers at all stations and for all commuters to wear face masks. But it is not clear how any of this will be policed – and what will happen, if anything, to people who flout new rules.
Some transport networks may follow policies put in place by UK supermarkets which have introduced queuing systems and one-way aisles to limit the interaction customers and staff have with one another.
There are also concerns over how social distancing on public transport will be monitored, although the Oyster and contactless card readers at Tube stations will give Transport for London accurate figures on Underground usage.
How the government’s DefCon style five stage alert system for the UK’s coronavirus outbreak could work
Why does the Government believe a quarantine for UK arrivals will be effective now, when they did not bring in such a measure before?
The Prime Minister has said it will ‘soon be the time’ to bring in a period of quarantine in order to stave off Covid-19 infection from abroad – but there are questions over why this has not been done sooner.
Addressing the nation, Mr Johnson said: ‘To prevent reinfection from abroad, I am serving notice that it will soon be the time, with transmission significantly lower, to impose quarantine on people coming into this country by air.
‘And it is because of your efforts to get the R down and the number of infections down here, that this measure will now be effective.’
Mr Johnson and French President Emmanuel Macron have agreed quarantine measures would not apply between France and the UK ‘at this stage’, according to a joint statement.
But consumer group Which? Travel has warned an imposed quarantine on people flying into the UK will add to the confusion of Britons trying to figure out their future travel plans. The situation has been described as ‘chaotic’.
Mr Johnson did not mention arrivals by sea, and he did not make clear whether it would include passengers on internal UK flights or on flights from the Republic of Ireland.
However, The Times has previously reported that travellers from Ireland, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man will be exempt from the quarantine.
It has also been reported that the plan is to impose a quarantine of 14 days, and Airlines UK said it had been told by the Government that the plan will be in place by the end of the month or early June.
A Government official said quarantine is ‘a few weeks away from happening yet’, adding: ‘What the scientific advice tells you is that when domestic transmission is high, imported cases represent a small amount of the overall total and make no significant difference to the epidemic.
‘However, this can change when the domestic transmission rate of infection is low and people are arriving from countries with a higher rate of infection.’
How and when will the Government get to the stage when it can ensure that hundreds of thousands of people are being tested every day?
Boris Johnson said last night that Britain was making great progess on testing, saying: ‘If we are to control this virus, then we must have a world-beating system for testing potential victims, and for tracing their contacts.
‘So that – all told – we are testing literally hundreds of thousands of people every day. We have made fast progress on testing, but there is so much more to do now, and we can.’
But there are questions over how the Government will check the level of testing, with Health Secretary Matt Hancock having missed his 100,000 testing target for every day for the last week.
Although Mr Hancock did meet the target on the deadline of April 30, his officials are suspected of boosting the figures that day by including tens of thousands of unused home tests.
It comes as Ministers admitted they had to send 50,000 coronavirus tests to America for processing following a glitch at one of the large British laboratories.
The samples are understood to have been airlifted to a facility in a southern US state last week after a ‘temporary failure’ in a UK lab.
When will the courts system get back to normal?
Boris Johnson’s only reference to the criminal justice system was that people ‘must obey the rules on social distancing and to enforce those rules we will increase the fines for the small minority who break them’.
He did not mention jury trials, but it emerged today that these will be resumed in England and Wales from next week, nearly two months after being put on hold amid the lockdown measures.
The Lord Chief Justice Lord Burnett has decided new jury trials will be allowed to go ahead in a few courts from next week – with special arrangements in place to maintain social distancing and other safety measures.
All new jury trials were suspended on March 23 due to the Covid-19 pandemic and work has been under way since then to investigate options for conducting trials in a safe manner.
The first courts where new juries will be sworn in include the Old Bailey in London and Cardiff Crown Court.
Public Health England and Public Health Wales have been involved in the detailed arrangements following recommendations from the Jury Trials Working Group, chaired by Mr Justice Edis, which has representatives from the legal profession and across the criminal justice system.
Other courts around the UK are being assessed with the aim of gradually increasing the number of cases when it is safe to do so, with the facilities at each location being ‘carefully considered’ in line with safety guidelines.