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Covid Scientist Sir John Edmunds: “We Didn’t Take Enough Account of the Economic Cost of Lockdown”

by Richard Eldred
4 February 2024 5:00 PM

In the Telegraph, Professor Sir John Edmunds, an adviser to the advisers during the Covid pandemic, discusses the Government’s response and expresses regret for not putting more effort into modelling the economic impact of lockdowns. Here’s an excerpt:

If asking someone how their pandemic was is a bit like asking “How was your war?”, it’s fair to say Sir John had a strange one. He is a modest sort – a scientist, not a natural talking head – but in 2020, he quickly became a kind of unlikely spokesman for science, regularly appearing on television and radio to give his take on the latest policy changes. He irritated ministers who felt he was using media appearances to push an agenda; that agenda appeared to change with the wind.

In an early interview with Channel 4 News on March 13th, he went head-to-head with Silicon Valley executive Tomas Pueyo who had modelled the virus’s spread and was calling for urgent lockdowns. Pueyo held his head in his hands as Sir John told presenter Cathy Newman: “The only way to stop this epidemic is indeed to achieve herd immunity.”

There were two possible strategies, he said at the time. “One: you can stamp out every single case in the world. Every single case in the world. And then, then you’re free. You can stop that epidemic without achieving herd immunity, but you must get every single case in the world. With a mild disease, that’s extremely difficult. 

“The next phase when the genie is out of the bottle and the virus is all around the world, is spreading. The next phase, the only other way the virus is going to come to a stop, is achieving herd immunity.”

When, later on, he lobbied for stricter lockdowns, he was deemed a flip flopping hypocrite. He was vehemently against Rishi Sunak’s “spectacularly stupid” Eat Out to Help Out scheme, and called for lockdown to be extended in the summer of 2020. Britain was “taking a risk” while cases were still high. Meanwhile the Government, he says, couldn’t settle on a sensible strategy to get us out of lockdown. “The big mistakes were made in the summer. That failure to come up with a proper strategy and understand it.”

In early 2021, he warned that easing the third lockdown would be a “disaster”. Perhaps hindsight is a wonderful thing then – last May, he appeared to tell a medical conference of his worry that Britain had relied too heavily on “very scary” Sage findings. He wondered if the knock-on health effects and economic harm done by lockdowns could “in principle” have been taken into account when modelling. “In practice they were not,” he said. “The epidemiological model is only one component [of decision-making]. And I worried that we’d had too much weight.” …

Easing restrictions that summer made perfect sense, he says. “That was the other horrendous alternative – to stay in lockdown forever. I didn’t ever think that was feasible or advisable. So I think yes, we did have to ease those restrictions.” 

But Eat Out to Help Out was a bridge too far. “That was actually spending Government money, and a lot of it – the best part of a billion pounds – actually stimulating the epidemic. For me that was absolutely obscene.” The scientists “had no sight of” Eat Out to Help Out before it was announced. “That was a shock to everybody, I think.”

Looking back, he regrets not putting more into modelling the potential impact of lockdowns. “I should have put more resources into modelling the macroeconomic effect. This was actually outside our official remit, though we did undertake some work in the area despite this and despite the enormous difficulties in linking epidemiological and macroeconomic models.

Worth reading in full.

Tags: Covid InquiryCOVID-19John EdmundsLockdown costNERVTAGPandemic Response

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36 Comments
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stewart
stewart
2 years ago

Incompetence. Yeah right.

That aside:

It remains to be seen what the Government or the Bank of England or the pensions regulator does about LDIs.

If they’re so incompetent, why are we expecting them to solve the problem of underfunded pensions with regulation?

The problem with pensions is that pensions were invented at a time when the retirement age was basically the same as life expectancy, and the population pyramid had lots of working people at the bottom and very few pensioners at the top.

`And now we have people living 20 years past retirement and a population pyramid with tonnes of pensioners and not enough working people to sustain them.

The problem isn’t a B of E regulation problem it’s an ostrich problem. When it comes to pensions our society, indulged by our politicians has been burying its head in the sand for decades.

Everyone knew full well this was coming but as a society we’re completely paralysed on this issue.

34
-4
EppingBlogger
EppingBlogger
2 years ago
Reply to  stewart

When private sector defined benefit pension schemes were launched the employer had much more flexibility. The pensionable age could be held down so the assets would meet the obligations, contributions holidays could be used and no accrual or catch-up payments had to be made. Regulations and therefore the operating costs of the schemes were far far lower – nowerdays even closed schemes cost a lot to keep in place.

HMG / politicians interferred without much understanding and very many good businesses have gone bust as a result. Note always that Parliamentarians, their staff and the civil service were never affected by all this.

20
0
stewart
stewart
2 years ago
Reply to  EppingBlogger

I have no doubt that successive givernments have made things worse with their regulations, as they always do.

19
0
RTSC
RTSC
2 years ago
Reply to  stewart

Not helped by Gordon Brown raiding private pensions so he could continue his spending incontinence.

9
0
Valerius
Valerius
2 years ago
Reply to  RTSC

Also not helped by Brown giving companies a pensions contribution holiday, because companies “were never going to need so much money in their pension schemes”.
Is it any wonder he sold the country’s gold at the bottom of the market?
.

3
0
Valerius
Valerius
2 years ago
Reply to  stewart

Not helped by the Pensions Regulator pushing company pensions into government bonds for over a decade, when the financial crash left them even further underfunded, rather than letting them use equities to close the funding gap.

Last edited 2 years ago by Valerius
1
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transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
2 years ago

Just a coincidence that this “incompetence” came on suddenly to coincide with a new PM who had selected a Cabinet some of whom threatened to behave like conservatives, with a budget that departed from the current accepted norms.

86
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NeilParkin
NeilParkin
2 years ago
Reply to  transmissionofflame

When ‘mistakes’ all favour one outcome over any another, they are in fact ‘decisions’…

33
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HumanBeing
HumanBeing
2 years ago
Reply to  transmissionofflame

‘Coincidence’ and ‘incompetence’ becomingly increasingly popular I see. As they have done for hundreds of years, with the same outcomes, from the same people.
Another coup to insert a more favoured son.

4
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Mr10Percent
Mr10Percent
2 years ago

The BoE was not just incompetent. They are complicit as well. What the BoE did not see coming as fast as it was – was the Pension LDI Derivatives. Where the complicit comes in is that these LDIs are all OTC (Over the Counter) and thus un-regulated.

How can the funding mechanisms for UK pension funds be OTC and have an exponential 3rd Party counter-risk?

BoE (and their independent shareholders) are driving the monetary policy (and it seems the fiscal policy) to a point-collapse at some juncture in time (of their choosing), so they can bring in CBDCs and UBI without resistance. The Pension LDI collapse was not convenient to their timing.

The BoE (and their Independent shareholders – who are the same shareholder over most international CBs i’d wager?) must, repeat must maintain control with the only solution when the resonance of multiple unknown Derivatives collapse at the same time.

The best game in town is to be the House, set the table rules and insist on being the monopoly solution (getting rich from chaos and THIER rules).

When it fails and it will fail shortly, we have to ensure the current people behind the scenes now are not selected to run a “new” and “improved” CBDC financial system. They have had multiple chances in the past and blown them all. We have to stop paying the price.

Last edited 2 years ago by Mr10Percent
26
-1
Monro
Monro
2 years ago

Oh, the regulator failed again……

As Beatty didn’t quite say at the Battle of Jutland:

‘There seems to be something wrong with our bloody regulators today!’

18
0
EppingBlogger
EppingBlogger
2 years ago

The detail may be of interest to future generations but all we need to know, and many have thought it since it happened, was that the various blobs contrived to get rid of Truss.

That is the long and short of it. Outrageous behavious by the blobs which they were conbfident of because they are used to determining who can be UK PM.

45
0
JohnK
JohnK
2 years ago

Or some might say (as at least one observer on GBN yesterday said) that the BoE won, and got rid of someone they didn’t like.

41
0
JXB
JXB
2 years ago

When she emerged as our new PM, I thought – bleedin’ ‘ell is that the best we can do?

Clearly it was. Can we have her back please?

32
0
huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
2 years ago

When Peston is on the side of ‘Incompetence’ it is an absolute certainty that Incompetence is not the reason for Ms Truss’s ousting.

The post I made on this matter on the 5th
does not therefore stand to be revised and with apologies to those who have already seen this:

Well, there’s no denying Toby’s eternal optimism given that he is falling for cock-up rather than conspiracy. Again.

This story reminds me of the inimitable Mrs Merton and the point in her talk show where she announces – “let’s all have a heated debate.” In other words a cover story has been put out to create yet another diversion. Is something afoot again?

To deny the fact that Liz Truss was deliberately ousted is simply ridiculous and it had nothing to do with the markets, that is complete BS.

Liz Truss, on being selected by the Conservative membership and immediately on taking office as PM acted to bring some economic stability to the country. Possibly her proposals would have helped but what is fundamentally assured is that her measures were completely contrary to the requirements of the WEFfers and the Davos Deviants. She was definitely not with the script and so had to go. Whatever shenanigans took place orders went out firstly to install Chunt – a man despised by his fellow MP’s, and reviled by the party membership – and once he had his feet under the table Truss was indeed to be forced “into a dark room with a glass of whisky and a revolver.”

In a pantomime version of an election all the ‘aspiring’ candidates somehow managed to fall by the wayside until only Fishy and Bozo were left – do me a bloody favour! Bozo of course graciously conceded and the Davos plant, still politically wet behind the ears, was installed. Very much in keeping with all the rest of the lies and deceit now infecting the country like, oh I don’t know – a virus.

There will need to be a much stronger body of evidence to persuade me that Liz Truss wasn’t ousted in the most blatant and grotesque example of a coup that I have ever seen in this country. To suggest she was removed as a result of ‘the markets’ is beyond farcical.

“It’s not always about what they say it’s about.”

Last edited 2 years ago by huxleypiggles
30
0
HumanBeing
HumanBeing
2 years ago
Reply to  huxleypiggles

Nailed it. Cognitive dissonance obviously doesn’t apply as long as you mention ‘incompetence’, ‘markets’ and as much gobbledygook as possible.
Most on here getting it though – apart from Tobes of course.

2
0
Mark Thornton
Mark Thornton
2 years ago

Truss was half unlucky – half daft
The UK doesn’t set its interest rates anymore
It follows the USA
We are reduced to the status of a poor European country
Crippled by social security costs
Funding day to day expenses by money printing
International lenders won’t lend to us as we are such a basket case
So when the USA raised it rates we had to also
or the £ would have collapsed further
This was compounded by the Pension Fund over borrowing
She was daft thinking she could spaff £65,000,000,000 on energy relief
The Tories are an irreconcilable blob
From Conservatives, Liberal Democrats + Progressives
But they have no balls (are so average)
So they stay secure in the Tory nest
Its not a good prognosis

5
-2
Pilla
Pilla
2 years ago

Toby, it’s nothing to do with ineptitude, it was entirely purposeful on the BoE’s part. How can you believe that the BoE would be inept?!! And you’ll put up with it or trust them to run things?

Last edited 2 years ago by Pilla
11
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Rose Madder
Rose Madder
2 years ago

From an earlier Moynihan piece in the Critic

One part of, but not all of, the case against the Bank has been cogently made by Narayana Kocherlakota, a well-respected economist and former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, in a Washington Post piece entitled “Markets didn’t oust Truss — the Bank of England did”. 

The question might be asked – Why? Could be the green finance rentier class did not like Truss freeing up fracking, which would have undermined their wind and solar investments. Was Mark Carney Bailey’s former boss? Have a look at Brookfield Asset Management, chaired by Mr Carney. $68bn in renewables https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/12/26/mark-carneys-investment-company-closing-major-octopus-energy/ And the Glasgow Financial Alliance For Net Zero.

7
0
SimCS
SimCS
2 years ago

Interesting. So the bottom line (for Liz Truss) was a bunch of economically clueless MPs panicking when the ‘markets’ hiccupped. Fundamentally, lowering tax rates was the correct move to stimulate the economy, which is the govt’s priority, not the markets.

It just strikes me that we’ve allowed the relationship between the economy and the markets to be reversed, i.e. let the markets control the economy. My gut feeling is that was a serious mistake, and the UK govt needs to reassert economic control.

5
0

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