Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty has finally conceded “we overdid it” on Covid restrictions. So why haven’t many of the architects of this disaster been held accountable, asks Isabel Oakeshott in the Telegraph. Here’s an excerpt.
Far, far too late in the Public Inquiry that took years to get underway, and still has no end date, Whitty this week acknowledged what so many of us could quite clearly see at the time: that the Government went way over the top in its initial pandemic response. Of course, he didn’t put it quite like that. What he actually said, giving evidence this week, is that “in retrospect”, he still worries about whether the Government “got the level of concern right”.
“Some people would say… if anything we over did it,” he conceded.
In a further remarkable concession, he went on to declare that in hindsight, ordering 2.3 million people to cut themselves off from the world entirely for 12 weeks may have done more damage than it prevented. He now says he is “unsure” he would go down that route again, because it caused “significant harms”.
Say what? This is extraordinary! If Whitty is no longer sure that the elderly and most vulnerable (around whom the entire response to the pandemic revolved) needed to self-isolate, what on earth is left of the case for anyone else locking down?
In his characteristically understated way, Whitty appears to have shattered the case for lockdowns. If even he wouldn’t repeat the policy, who would?
Sadly, it has taken so long to extract this confession that the significance is in danger of being lost. For just as the criminally wasteful public inquiry is finally starting to get interesting, most ordinary people have lost the will to live, and are no longer affording it any attention. …
What really rankles is that the architects of this historic disaster are all still sitting pretty. So far from the downfall they deserve, they have prospered. Knighted for his public service, Whitty is still in an almighty position of power, as Chief Medical Officer. Meanwhile his pandemic sidekick, former Chief Scientific Officer Patrick Vallance, is literally lording it, having recently been given a peerage to join Keir Starmer’s front bench.
Worth reading in full.
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In what way did he fail? Nobody has been held to account for the Covid scam and most people still accept that the actions taken were the best choice given the “knowledge” at the time.
I recall that in December 2021 just before he was knighted Professor Whitty in one of the Government’s regular early evening Covid update broadcasts was asked about the rising Omicron variant. He replied that we didn’t know much about it at that stage but what we did know was not good news. This statement of his was made a few weeks after South African medical experts, who had been analysing the new variant, deemed it more contagious than earlier variants but far less lethal. The South African view proved correct and the turning point in the so-called Covid crisis and the ending of lockdowns and other restrictions. Following Whitty’s ‘rubbish’ statement on Omicron he was awarded a few weeks later with a knighthood in the New Year’s Honours List!!
Witty and the rest should be hanged by the hoo-has and treated like a pinata.
Keep hitting – no sweeties yet!
Those who understood he was wrong were punished. I was threatened with formal complaints,referral to the GMC and losing my job as a doctor.
When I questioned the policies I was told:’ You’re only an Ophthalmologist not an Immunologist.’
Whitty, Valance and Hancock as well as all the others should be in jail.
What a disgusting thing for a police officer to say. Just wait till their sight goes, they might not be so sneering then. But then again., once a patronising [supply your own expletive] ……..
Police? I think you misread and misunderstood the comment!
Whitty has been Chief Medical Adviser to the UK Government since 2019.
Wikipedia states he has the following qualifications:
And he still got it wrong.
Surely there needs to be some lessons learnt! 🙂
It’s not that he made mistakes, we all do from time to time; it’s that he can never have listened to his critics, or discussed the issues. But then, participating in informed discussion is a critical part of being a Scientist and, instead, the country had ‘the Science’.
Dr Farr showed that epidemics don’t grow exponentially in 1840. The Common Cold Unit showed that masks make things worse in, perhaps, the 1960s.
Lessons were learnt and then idiots were employed.
Idiots or traitors?
But you were courageous and spoke up, you are in a minority, those who threatened and tried to silence you are the ones who should have their license removed.
Well said Hester.
“Whitty, Valance and Hancock as well as all the others should be in jail.”
At the very least.
The hounding of doctors who dared to speak the truth is a disgrace that is still playing out in the U.K. and around the world. The GMC is in my view entirely culpable for conspiring to destroy ethical medical practice.
Whitty, Vallance and Van Tam stood at the podium and blatantly LIED to us for two years.
They should be charged with Malfeasance in Public Office; be stripped of their completely undeserved “honours” and be jailed.
As I have said before, crime pays in the U.K. Murder, rape, steal (the latter you can do freely as many times as you like), you might do a bit of jail time, but after a couple of months you will be out to make way for political prisoners, be in Government take all the freebies you want and that’s ok in fact its part of the benefits package, force people to take the experimental injections of your friends thus making them billions, destroy childrens lives by locking them up (I mean we let paedophiles off with suspended sentences,) ruin an economy, and receive, honours. dare question, protest, then as a good guy you get to go to prison. So join the society of lies, deceit, cruelty and avarice, you will enjoy all its fruits and never have to pay. From the Prime minister to the illegal immigrant they all get a free pass.
Couldn’t agree more. Again well said.
And it’s taken him all this time to realise the multiple serious errors in the advice he helped formulate! A bit slow on the uptake then! Failing upwards seems to be richly rewarded in the ivory towers of the Establishment!