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Professor Sir David Spiegelhalter Tells BBC That Covid Infections Were Dropping Before Lockdown and He “Really, Really Regrets” Not Having Evidence Sooner That Closing Schools Was Pointless

by Guy de la Bédoyère
7 December 2023 11:00 AM

At the Covid Inquiry we’re all being given the chance to see the Ideology of lockdown being wheeled out almost every day in what seems like a mission to make sure that ‘next time’ the only solution is a harder, faster and more rigorously enforced lockdown.

Back in 2020, like most of us I heard the statistician Professor Sir David Spiegelhalter being interviewed constantly. He struck me as one of the few professional scientists and commentators capable of nuanced thought and who also had a firm grip on the need for quality evidence and its dispassionate interpretation.

As it happens, I corresponded with him several times during those gloomy months that turned into years. He always replied and he always answered my questions carefully and considerately. For that I will always be grateful.

He was on BBC Radio 4’s PM programme yesterday. The presenter Evan Davies interviewed him. Professor Spiegelhalter came out with a line that ought to be resonating round the Covid Inquiry but doubtless won’t. In his view, because deaths peaked in early April 2020, thanks to the voluntary reduction in travel and social contact, infections must have been falling before the March 23rd lockdown kicked in. If so, then it must follow that the lockdown, which so many at the Covid Inquiry seem to be claiming should have been brought in earlier, would have made no difference. Or, am I missing something?

Here’s part of the exchange:

David Spiegelhalter: I think personally, the biggest most interesting thing is, which is in a sense unanswerable, is whether voluntary measures would have been enough because you know we know that deaths from Covid peaked in early April in fact, 2020, which means that infections must have been falling before the mandatory lockdown on March the 23rd.

Evan Davies: But hold on, run that past me again, so you were saying the deaths peaked at a time that would imply that it was already falling before the lockdown?

DS: The number of infections I think would have been falling before March the 23rd, probably about in the week beforehand because you know, the week before March the 16th there were lots of you know requests to reduce travel and all sorts of voluntary ..

ED (interrupts): We had a soft lockdown …

DS: Yes, we had a soft one and it’s always going to be an open question whether if that had been made harder but not actually mandatory what effect would have been.

ED: I mean, look, several years on now David, we talked to you all the time during the pandemic, sort of on-the-go commentary. What have you reflected over the years about what might have been done differently, better, or how you think about it?

DS: Well, there are some things that, you know, have been recognised, sending people back to care homes, and in particular the lack of testing for people not knowing what was going on, a huge amount was spent on Test and Trace and I always wonder whether that could have been done better, and in particular could have been evaluated better. I think there should have been far more experimentation. They finally got around to randomising schools, different policies for sending kids home in 2021. I found out they’d been sending kids home unnecessarily. And so as a statistician I really, really regret that there wasn’t more evidence being gathered about the effectiveness of what we’re all doing.

You can listen to the show yourself right here. Spin through to about 50 minutes in. I have heard enough of David Spiegelhalter since 2020 to know that he is a man worth listening to. But so often what matters more with someone worth listening to is having enough people prepared to listen.

Tags: BBCCovid InquiryCOVID-19LockdownThe Science

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50 Comments
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JeremyP99
JeremyP99
2 years ago

Watts analysis of US weather stations is at surfacestations.org. In it, using only verified rural weather stations, he finds the USA has been cooling for some decades. The number of stations used has been shrunk hugely, and many more are now urban than used to be. It is therefore clear that UHI plays a far greater part in modern “warming” than the Climate maniacs claim.

GlobalWarming&Cooling_1850-2016.png
65
0
MTF
MTF
2 years ago

Describing Antony Watts as a meteorologist is pushing it a bit. He studied meteorology at University but never graduated. However, that doesn’t mean he is wrong.

The USCRN

a) has a warming trend. The chart above is so busy it is hard to see it but see here. (first answer)

b) almost exactly matches the record for adjusted US climate record as a whole (actually it shows a slightly greater warming trend than the all stations record but the timescale is too short to read much into it)

In any case the US is only 2% of the earth’s surface area.

7
-30
Monro
Monro
2 years ago
Reply to  MTF

The point is that nothing much can be read into any climate records at the moment.

So the pursuit of ‘net zero’ seems to be being followed, very much like the eccentric young officer, simply out of idle curiosity.

And no cost benefit study has been done into the effects of pursuing ‘net zero’.

But, apart from that, political leadership the world over is going really well……not.

39
0
JeremyP99
JeremyP99
2 years ago
Reply to  MTF

Good news. Warming suits humanity far better than cooling, no?

32
0
JeremyP99
JeremyP99
2 years ago
Reply to  MTF

The heat death of the planet in one simple graph…

GlobalWarming&Cooling_1850-2016.png
16
0
MTF
MTF
2 years ago
Reply to  JeremyP99

Interesting chart – it doesn’t actually say what it is measuring but whatever it was it varied between -70C and +70C around 1880. Do you have the source?

1
-3
For a fist full of roubles
For a fist full of roubles
2 years ago
Reply to  MTF

As it is cooling/warming per century it looks like they are adding up all the annual anomalies for each 100 year period (on a running annual basis). That is the only way I can get anything remotely sensible from the figures, but I suspect it really shows the Met Office doesn’t understand what it is doing.

4
0
MTF
MTF
2 years ago
Reply to  For a fist full of roubles

Do we know the Met office created the chart?

0
-1
For a fist full of roubles
For a fist full of roubles
2 years ago
Reply to  MTF

The title refers to Met office data, so it seems a pretty fair conclusion.

5
0
JXB
JXB
2 years ago
Reply to  MTF

Warming trend? Not according to the complex scientific reading instruments either side if my nose.

6
0
nige.oldfart
nige.oldfart
2 years ago

Ref UK Met Office forecasts. If you are looking for a long range weather forecast from the Met Office, you will generally get two things,

1, is an overview of what might occur, in which, you realise that you could get anything that would be applicable within the forthcoming time period, for that particular time of year. Rain, sun, wind etc.

2 generally there is a reference to the temperature expectation ie above average or below average. However the Met Office does not identify an average mean temperature, but the average high and low temperatures recorded for that particular time of year. So when the Met Office states above average temperatures possible, it means it could be above the low average temperature, not necessarily the high average temperature.

The data presented by the Met Office is not generally misleading in itself, but its presentation is.

21
0
For a fist full of roubles
For a fist full of roubles
2 years ago
Reply to  nige.oldfart

Does anyone remember the predictions of snow and freezing temperatures over Easter a couple of months ago?

13
0
Occams Pangolin Pie
Occams Pangolin Pie
2 years ago

Some Easters it’s real shirtsleeves and ‘99 weather. This ain’t one of them. That’s data, my friends.

13
0
JohnK
JohnK
2 years ago
Reply to  Occams Pangolin Pie

Indeed. Assisted by the fact that it moves up and down the calendar, with just under 4 minutes a day difference in daylength.

2
0
richardw53
richardw53
2 years ago

for exactly the reason of all the issues surrounding surface temperature weather station datasets, I only ever really look at the satellite records from Dr Roy Spencer at UAH which seem to be the best way of eliminating many of these issues.

9
0
For a fist full of roubles
For a fist full of roubles
2 years ago
Reply to  richardw53

Seems the most sensible for “global” data since no other dataset gives adequate coverage of the southern hemisphere.

5
0
Mark S
Mark S
2 years ago
Reply to  richardw53

You’re right. The only reliable source of global temperatures is the satellite data. I think even with these though there have been attempts to “adjust” it.

I’ve followed Watts over the years and it’s incredible how the placement of these weather stations doesn’t seem to be a problem to the so called experts. The same in this country where many are located near runways and other potential heat sources.

In 2015, there was also a whistle-blower, ex NOAA climate scientist John Bates, who reported to media that NOAA were trying to deny the halt in the warming trend.

Some may also remember, back in 2009, we had the ClimateGate scandal at East Anglia University. Where scientists were found out trying to remove the inconvenient medieval warm period. Can we ever trust these climate scientists.

An article posted here 6 months ago was also interesting. Where Professor Nicola Scafetta was using the satellite data to assess the accuracy, well lack of, of climate models.

Satellite Temperature Data Show Almost All Climate Model Forecasts Over the Last 40 Years Were Wrong – The Daily Sceptic
Climate Scientists Manipulated Temperature Data to Fool Politicians and Public, Claims ‘Whistleblower’ (reason.com)
Latest Global Temps – Roy Spencer, PhD. (drroyspencer.com)

10
0
JXB
JXB
2 years ago

The climate system has warmed up from around zero to present day over about 12 000 years. It is non-linear with periods of sudden increase, sudden downturns, flatline.

The overall increase is so slow, so slight it cannot be observed or measured in real time. It can only be calculated retrospectively over periods of thousands of years. Any short-term analysis, decades or centuries, is meaningless.

This is why they invented the Global Mean Temperature Anomaly in the 1980s as ‘the only way to show global warming’. It purports to be able to show temperature changes of tenths and hundredths of a degree, using manipulated, averaged, whole number data of no such accuracy.

So.

Nobody knows what the Earth’s temperature or temperatures should be at the moment.

We have no way of measuring what it or they actually are.

Therefore it is impossible to say whether it or they are too high, or too low or just right.

It’s just junk science, filled with lies and corruption like the CoVid Fakedemic ‘science’. It’s all ideology and politics and money and evil.

34
-1
Covid-1984
Covid-1984
2 years ago

The truth always “outs” in the end, eh, Greta?

4
0
GMO
GMO
2 years ago

The humanity-caused Climate Change industry is very lucrative and they will not give up their power, control and riches without a fight.

2
0
SomersetHoops
SomersetHoops
2 years ago

I believe our government fund and direct the UK Met Office, so like they did during Covid’s reign they are lying to us and providing false or distorted information. It’s time we cleared them all out and found politicians who can form an honest government – if there are any.

0
0

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