Lee Cain, Boris Johnson’s Director of Communications during the early stages of the pandemic, has responded to ex-Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s claim that the U.K.’s lockdown policy was based on fear and questionable scientific advice, with the trade-offs not even discussed. Writing in the Spectator, he says none of it is true, labelling it “Covid revisionism”.
I know because I sat around the cabinet table as politicians, scientists, economists and epidemiologists agonised over the extent to which lockdown would devastate lives and livelihoods. It was not an easy decision for anyone. We locked down because we knew the cost of ‘letting Covid rip’ was far more damaging to both the health and wealth of the nation. But as the pandemic fades into our collective memory – and critics try to rewrite history – it’s clear that the biggest mistake we made was not locking down but doing so too late.
I vividly remember the morning of Saturday, March 14th 2020 when, as part of a small team of advisers gathered in the Prime Minister’s office, Boris Johnson was told that the initial plan for managing the pandemic was failing. Without urgent intervention, the country’s healthcare system would collapse under the strain of tens of thousands of seriously ill patients. The challenges facing us in that first wave were immense. We knew the NHS didn’t have enough beds, there was a massive shortfall in PPE and a severely limited number of ventilators.
The initial modelling used for crucial decisions, we found out, was very wrong. A review conducted by data experts recruited by Dominic Cummings uncovered that, unless we changed course immediately, the NHS would be overwhelmed within three weeks.
The PM sat in silence as three scenarios were sketched out on a whiteboard. The first looked at no restrictions, the second at social distancing measures and the third considered a national lockdown. Only under the last option would the NHS avoid collapse. But it took the PM a week to declare a national lockdown. That decision eventually saved tens of thousands of lives.
What I don’t recognise is the idea that, as Mr. Sunak suggests, lockdown’s trade-offs were never properly discussed. Since the interview, other lockdown sceptics have used his comments as evidence of a failed policy. Mr. Sunak is an incredibly talented politician and Covid remains his finest hour. The furlough scheme provided a safety net for which millions remain grateful and ranks alongside the vaccine roll-out as the high point of the Government’s pandemic response. However, the suggestion that the trade-offs were ignored is simply false.
As a Government we asked a huge amount from the people of this country. For more than three months we told them to “stay home, protect the NHS and save lives” because, having analysed the options, we knew that restricting social contact was the best action people could take to keep themselves and others safe.
But the trade-offs were highlighted daily by Chris Whitty in our morning Covid meetings. They weighed heavily on everyone involved. But we believed that – morally, politically and practically – lockdown was the right thing to do. Yes, it was a flawed, blunt tool, but it was the best one we had in a very limited toolbox. We desperately needed more time to improve NHS capacity, buy more ventilators, develop drugs, purchase PPE. And, of course, create a Covid vaccine. Lockdown gave us that time.
Or, I should say, the public gave us that time. They trusted the government. They stayed at home. They applauded NHS workers. They made a difference. It wasn’t these actions we should regret – it was the weeks wasted by a government too pusillanimous to act. The truth is that we locked down late because we had become paralysed by the fear of the trade-offs.
Opponents still say lockdown was a mistake. What do these critics think would have happened to transmission rates – rising exponentially – if we had failed to lockdown? What would they have done instead?
Lee Cain may have been there, but so was Rishi Sunak. I suspect the argument over whether alternative viewpoints were allowed comes down to the fact that Cain is talking about March 2020 whereas Sunak is probably talking about the period between then and December 2021, when lockdown became a go-to tool, imposed for months on end to ‘control the virus’, and dissent was routinely crushed and even demonised. Sunak knows what he experienced at Cabinet meetings during the pandemic when he tried to suggest alternatives to lockdown, and we don’t have to take his word for it as we know that censorship existed at all levels during the ’emergency’, and continues to be exercised against sceptics. We also know that, whatever Chris Whitty might have been mentioning to ministers behind closed doors, no proper cost-benefit analysis was produced by the Government in relation to Covid lockdowns or restrictions.
But Cain’s argument here is interesting mainly because it shows that lockdown proponents are still stuck in March 2020 and no amount of contrary evidence will disturb the serenity of their self-congratulation. Cain repeats the discredited claim that “Covid’s exponential growth meant that for every day that decisive action was delayed, the magnitude of the problem would soar”. The Spectator even kindly printed immediately below Cain’s letter this week a letter from Edinburgh mathematician Professor Simon Wood, which sets out once again (as he has numerous times before, including in the Spectator) the clear evidence that new daily infections in England, far from “rising exponentially”, were already falling before lockdown on March 23rd 2020. This crucial point is shown in Professor Wood’s chart below, taken from his peer-reviewed study on the subject. Yet rather than conceding that his entire argument is built on a falsehood, Cain expanded his letter into a full-length article which the Spectator published Thursday morning and which repeats the demonstrably false assertion that lockdown was necessary to address “exponentially rising” infections. Why the Spectator editors have allowed him to publish the unsubstantiated claim (twice) without addressing the contrary evidence, which they have themselves published beneath it on the letters page, is frankly baffling. At what point does this qualify as spreading misinformation?
Professor Wood also notes in his letter that Imperial’s React-2 study, which asked a sample of those with Covid antibodies when their symptoms started, gave similar results.
Professor Wood is far from alone in making these observations. Already in April 2020, Oxford’s Professor Carl Heneghan noted in the Mail that by projecting back from the peak of deaths on April 8th it could be inferred that the peak of infections occurred around a week before the lockdown was imposed. Indeed, Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty himself told MPs in July 2020 that the R rate went “below one well before, or to some extent before, March 23rd”, indicating a declining epidemic. Yet Cain remains blissfully unaware of this evidence, still clinging to the falsified belief that without the “blunt tool” of lockdown, infections would have risen “exponentially” and “overwhelmed” the NHS, causing it to “collapse”.
Professor Wood points out that the modelling on which Cain relies for his counterfactual projections predicted that more than 80% of the population would be infected in the first wave of an unmitigated epidemic, whereas in fact no more than 10% were infected across European countries, including Sweden where no lockdown was used, irrespective of what restrictions were imposed. Modellers also assumed that up to 2% of the infected would require critical care, which was much higher than was actually the case, and so wrongly predicted an overwhelmed NHS.
Many published and peer-reviewed studies have looked empirically at the general question of lockdowns and found no relationship between restrictions and outcomes. Here is a sample:
- “Full lockdowns and wide-spread COVID-19 testing were not associated with reductions in the number of critical cases or overall mortality.” “A country level analysis measuring the impact of government actions, country preparedness and socioeconomic factors on COVID-19 mortality and related health outcomes” by Rabail Chaudhry, George Dranitsaris, Talha Mubashir, Justyna Bartoszko, Sheila Riazi. EClinicalMedicine (Lancet) 25 (2020) 100464, July 21st, 2020.
- “We find that shelter-in-place orders had no detectable health benefits, only modest effects on behaviour, and small but adverse effects on the economy.” “Evaluating the effects of shelter-in-place policies during the COVID-19 pandemic” by Christopher R. Berry, Anthony Fowler, Tamara Glazer, Samantha Handel-Meyer, and Alec MacMillen, Proceedings of the National Academy of Science of the USA, April 13th, 2021.
- “Stringency of the measures settled to fight pandemia, including lockdown, did not appear to be linked with death rate.” “Covid-19 Mortality: A Matter of Vulnerability Among Nations Facing Limited Margins of Adaptation” by Quentin De Larochelambert, Andy Marc, Juliana Antero, Eric Le Bourg, and Jean-François Toussaint. Frontiers in Public Health, November 19th, 2020.
- “Comparing weekly mortality in 24 European countries, the findings in this paper suggest that more severe lockdown policies have not been associated with lower mortality. In other words, the lockdowns have not worked as intended.” “Did Lockdown Work? An Economist’s Cross-Country Comparison” by Christian Bjørnskov. CESifo Economic Studies, March 29th, 2021.
- “While small benefits cannot be excluded, we do not find significant benefits on case growth of more restrictive NPIs.” “Assessing Mandatory Stay‐at‐Home and Business Closure Effects on the Spread of COVID‐19” by Eran Bendavid, Christopher Oh, Jay Bhattacharya, John P.A. Ioannidis. European Journal of Clinical Investigation, January 5th, 2021.
It’s well past time lockdown proponents were asked to address this contrary evidence and no longer given a free pass in making the unwarranted assumption that lockdown restrictions are necessary to control an outbreak or even effective at doing so.
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“The initial modelling used was wrong”, if Lee Cain believes that I’m going round his house posing as the wallet inspector. In all this doesn’t it boil down to a case of word Vs action? The human slime Cummings didn’t believe in any of it either, otherwise why drive up to Durham? These ppl are just such low life thieving scumbags that they can’t admit fault even when staring them in the eyes.
Remember when Hancock etc empowered Neil O’Brien etc to send Twitter mobs after eminent scientists speaking against the lunacy? Deep down they all know it was a total con. Btw Lee Cain comes across as a complete lightweight.
And remember Hancock’s commercial background. Who want’s an appointment with an estate agent when they are experiencing a health problem?
Cummings fled from London in panic because he’s a coward who’s always ready to inflict an arbitrary amount of hardship on anyone else but shies away from anything remotely resembling a personal risk. I mean, he literally hid with his parents(!). In more civilized time, such a creature would never have been tolerated among leaders of men. Nowdays, obviously, the only thing which still matters is he’s magically capable of designing successul election campaigns.
Indeed, the lockdown architects and propagandists managed to pull off one of the greatest deceptions in all of recorded history: the reframing of sheer cowardice as some sort of virtue, complete with all of the horn-tooting and virtue-signalling to match. FEH
Cummings was still not the very worst hypocrite of them all, nor even Bozo himself (though both were pretty bad), as that dubious honor goes to Neil “Professor Pantsdown” Ferguson, the sine qua non of this whole entire debacle. Though to be fair, Hatt Mancock is a very close runner up, and may actually be tied with Professor Pantsdown for first place.
The buck stops with the PM. His call, his judgement, his capitulation, his cowardice.
A “complete lightweight” is a perfect, yet rather polite, description that can be applied to all spin doctors. In addition, Cain doesn’t even have the brainpower to realise how stupid he is.
I find it frustrating that Parliament and our Courts have not adequately addressed any of the issues set out here. It is not healthy that debate and review of these matters appear to have been suppressed or censored by OFCOM. Threats of revenge or recrimination aren’t going to help us expose the truth either. We need a thorough, impartial review. I hope that the proposed public enquiry will not drop the ball. Our institutions have let this “issue slip through their fingers”. Shame.
The judiciary is mostly corrupt & will find in favour of the ruling class of the day, or whichever side they are bribed to find for; the police are just ‘following orders’ hence no progress or desire to uphold the laws of human rights & medical ethics but prefer to follow policy & guidelines presented as law.
Correct.
Did you ever see the video of this Israeli single father crying his eyes out on camera because his 16-year old son died of a COVID vaccine side effect? If you think the monsters who engineered this deserve impartialty, there’s something way off with your morale compass.
“But it took the PM a week to declare a national lockdown. That decision eventually saved tens of thousands of lives”. Will they explain how they know this to be true. The white board scenario’s don’t appear to include the repercussions from locking down healthy people, the lockdown was random, many businesses carried on, people mingled on beaches, the nightmare scenarios the Modelers predicted, Never happened. Plus why was the roll out of a vaccine which doesnt stop spreading or catching such a wonderful thing. Re the desperate shortage of beds, why were the NIGHTNGALE hospitals never used.
Indeed. Such a pack of lies that should have been bleeding obvious from the start. Oh, what a tangled web we weave…
The Exeter Nightingale Hospital is being used as a separate outpatient hub. Mind you, there’s no parking on site. Instead they have a ‘park & ride’ service which is inconvenient for most visitors. I had a CT scan there on 23 June. As it’s so empty, my appointment took place at the stated time. However, I received the report on 31 August. Isn’t our NHS wonderful?
Cain’s argument here is interesting mainly because it shows that lockdown proponents are still stuck in March 2020 …
Indeed. I recall back in late April 2020 becoming increasing exasperated that our great and good appeared to be learning nothing from the emerging evidence – and evidence was emerging rapidly back then, literally day by day. And it was the same in May, June, July … They just couldn’t seem to move on from March, as if they were paralysed.
They just didn’t want to know. And still don’t. One for the psychiatrists I suppose.
The historians can consider their own hypothesis: that someone was feeding the politicians a narrative, with ulterior motives, while those same politicians were mostly too stupid to ask any questions.
People go mad in crowds, but only recover one by one it seems.
Sorry but no. One for the criminal courts.
“Why the Spectator editors have allowed him to publish the unsubstantiated claim (twice) without addressing the contrary evidence, which they have themselves published beneath it on the letters page, is frankly baffling. At what point does this qualify as spreading misinformation?“. Careful. We need to be very careful here. They published an opinion; a false and incredibly dangerous opinion, but just an opinion. I understand the anger and frustration, but we cannot fall into their trap, we cannot ever question the right to an opinion – no matter how preposterous that opinion. Journalism is supposed to be about exploring every belief, every ‘fact’, and letting the people decide what is right. Censorship is what leads the lemmings to follow their brethren off the cliff. As soon as you start thinking “you can’t say that”, they have you. Checkmate.
Yep, the best way to discredit these people is to give them a platform and let them speak. (As long as you allow counter arguments of course.)
It seems to me The Spectator has two general duties here: first, to allow presentation of both sides of an argument; second, to ensure editorial standards in the quality of their articles.
I’d be very surprised if Fraser Nelson didn’t think like this. If so, there must be times when he has to sacrifice 2 in order to fulfil 1.
I maybe didn’t think like this a couple of years ago – I didn’t think The Spectator should publish garbage. But I can see now another side to the story.
I don’t think Will is suggesting that there should be censorship. But when one side of the argument is presented twice, the second time in the form of an article rather than a letter, it does look like the propaganda continues unabated.
The main reason so many people across the world have been on board with what is patent nonsense (you wear a mask to protect me, we both have to get vaxxed otherwise the vaxx doesn’t work, we must walk in one direction only, etc.) was because every single MSM entity cooperated with it, every public authority bleated the same thing and contrary voices were silenced and ridiculed. Joe Public just could not comprehend that this could be coordinated, so it had to be true and it was only conspiracy nutters who didn’t understand that.
Continuing in the same vein is not a step forward. The Spectator must now absolutely present an article – not a reader’s letter – that shows the contrary view, otherwise we are still in 2020. And indeed, let all the pro-lockdowners be put on the spot and explain all the evidence that shows they are full of it – explain Florida and Sweden, explain how Italy and Spain, that locked down earlier and much harder than the UK, in fact did worse. Show the cost/benefit analysis and if they do not have one, explain why not.
The burden should now be on the lockdown lunatics to prove they were right, with something more than ‘we saved lots of lives’, which they cannot possibly prove. They can also let us know what things would have been like if Western countries, which have rapidly aging populations coupled with a huge influx of foreigners, had ensured that their health care facilities kept pace with the requisite expansion, rather than having been decimating the health care system for the past 2 decades – an important issue very much ignored.
Spot on Jane. That’s more like it.
I’m not a follower of the Spectator, but haven’t they published a number of anti-lockdown articles? I’m merely pointing out that the dividing line between certainty of opinion and censorship is a thin one. We don’t want to cross that line because I believe, in general, the people on this side if the argument are morally superior.
Sorry but this guy isn’t stating his private opinion on something. He’s reiterating the same tired excuses for COVID government policy we’ve been hearing since 2020. This means he’s either disingenious, ie, telling the people DeSantis turned Florida into a mass killing ground because he hopes they’ll believe that, or an imbecile who actually believes this himself. Be it either way, he doesn’t deserve any kind of formal pulpit. I have no problem with him putting a stall someone in a pedestrian zone and trying to argue his case with whoever is willing to listen to him.
My vote goes to imbecile
Well said and seconded.
Criticism in this ATL article, and much elsewhere, of The Spectator for publishing such a shoddy piece.
Well yes, that criticism is fine as far as it goes.
But might The Spectator be doing a service here? In giving the likes of Cain the chance to publish this stuff aren’t they actually exposing the sheer vacuity of thought among our political classes which drove lockdowns?
And aren’t they highlighting the utter inadequacy of the civil servants and the like at the heart of government? Cain emerges here as a cerebral lightweight, utterly unfazed and even utterly unaware of his fundamental inadequacies – yet clearly driven by a huge ego and sense of career entitlement.
Most people will read Cain’s article in terms of evidence for the sheer lack of thought and analysis that preceded lockdown implementation. Interesting, but for me that’s a secondary point.
The far bigger and more frightening question is how our governments have become infested with inadequates like Cain in the first place.
Exactly. The emperor has no clothes and it’s only the blind that can’t see that. Let these morons hang themselves.
Indeed, if you give them enough rope, they will.
Top class.
Yr correct, by opening his mouth Cain has removed all doubt he’s either totally evil or a complete fool.
This ‘Director of Communications’ did not communicate very widely, ignoring other scientists and only listening to the chosen scientists sponsored by pharmaceutical companies.
There was no consideration of already-formed policies for dealing with pandemics. There was no consideration of the fact that covid-19 had been declassified as an HCID a few days before the first lockdown.
The list of uncommunicated information and lack of communication with a wider group of scientists really makes a nonsense of this title.
But I guess that is how things are these days. For ‘communication’ read ‘non-communication’. For ‘social distancing’ read ‘anti-social distancing’. For ‘smart’ read ‘stupid’. The list is endless.
I have been reflecting on words that are used to represent their opposite. I came across a ‘contronym’ or ‘antagonym’. Strictly speaking, this is a built-in opposite rather than a misappropriation by someone seeking to deceive.
In particular, I was looking for the opposite of ‘booster’ – a real misnomer for the follow-up jabs. It’s opposite could be diminisher, weakener, depleter, damager, decreaser, etc. The word ‘booster’ implies something beneficial. We know that it is no such thing.
The use of words is so important. Any suggestions for an antonym of ‘booster’?
Berstoo?
Degrader?
Hemmer, obviously, but that’s German and not easily translated into English :-). The meaning is roughly obstructing factor … hmm … obstructor actually exists but – as with all the others I found – it doesn’t quite match.
Also known as Orwellian newspeak or doublespeak.
Great article. Well said. Thank you!
This nonsense from Cain once more fans the incandescence that so many feel.
The plain fact of the matter is, as we have known for years, that the Prime Minister caved in to pressure from overseas on 21 March 2020, in particular from France. How very Churchillian….or not really:
‘On Friday evening, Johnson ordered pubs, restaurants, theatres, cinemas and gyms to shut their doors to slow the accelerating spread of the disease, days after other European countries put their citizens on lockdown.
French newspaper Liberation, citing sources in Macron’s office, said Johnson’s decision came after the French leader gave him an ultimatum on Friday morning, threatening an entry ban on any traveller from the UK if there were no new measures.
“We had to clearly threaten him to make him finally budge,” the report quoted an Elysee official as saying.
Contacted by Reuters, Macron’s office declined to comment. But a source close to Macron confirmed there was a phone call between the two leaders on Friday. “The way it’s presented is a bit harsh, but we were indeed preparing to close (the border),” the source told Reuters.’
Reuters 21 March 2020
And yet, unsurprisingly, Cain makes no mention of this. His comments are plain political mendacity, expedience; deeply unimpressive and particularly unconvincing
We know that there was no cost benefit analysis done because we know that Jesse Norman was the only person attending Cabinet in March to ask whether one had been done and the answer was silence.
Even the EUs own guidance regarding applying ‘The Precautionary Principle’ makes it plain that it should never be applied without a prior cost benefit analysis.
‘…the trade-offs were highlighted daily by Chris Whitty…’
The Chief Medical Officer has made it clear on many occasions that neither he nor SAGE were qualified or empowered to consider or discuss matters beyond their narrow medical brief.
From Cain’s comments, it is clear how far the standards of professionalism within the government of this country have fallen.
No wonder the entire nation is a state of complete shambles, for which Cain and the rest of the No 10 team are entirely responsible.
We are well rid of Bunter and that bunch of pathetic panicky pusillanimous and pernicious backsliding bunglers.
“We are well rid of Bunter and that bunch of pathetic panicky pusillanimous and pernicious backsliding bunglers.”
True, but are the replacements any better? Sunak and Truss both claim to be lockdown sceptics up to a point and this may be true, but I strongly doubt they would have resisted media and other pressure back in March 2020 – vanishingly few leaders of any kind anywhere in the world did – Sweden to an extent, Tanzania, Belarus, South Dakota are the only ones I am aware of.
We are about to receive chapter and verse on Truss’s backbone, competence.
It wasn’t the Swedish political leadership in any case but Anders Tegnell who showed that country the correct path to follow.
Nevertheless I believe you are correct. We know Whitty and Sage would have destroyed the country because they did, even without the autonomy of decision making powers vested in Tegnell by the Swedish system.
I particularly like the example shown by Ron DeSantis in Florida who corrected his State’s approach to Covid once he had been properly briefed.
The conduct of the British Government, in contrast, was uninformed in the round, spineless, illiberal and constitutionally improper; in parts shown, I believe, to have been illegal.
“We are about to receive chapter and verse on Truss’s backbone, competence.”
Not from me you’re not!
Agree it is Tegnell that deserves most credit, though you could argue that the politicians who followed his advice did show some backbone. There was definitely political pressure in Sweden to lock down more – I was there in Oct 2020 and some people I spoke to wanted more restrictions. I believe I read that their constitution would have stopped them but governments everywhere exceeded their powers so again the politicians deserve some credit for not doing so.
De Santis has been brilliant and highly proactive since – not just removing restrictions but actively discouraging people from imposing any of their own privately.
The Governor of South Dakota asked the legislature for emergency powers (she shouldn’t have, but at least she actually asked) and they voted her down by a big margin.
Indeed, they followed the Great Barrington Declaration long before it was known as such. Or, as it used to be called, “common sense” (a misnomer, as it is not very common at all it seems).
The USA, and indeed the world, would have been VERY different had Andrew Gillum won in the 2018 election for Florida governor. DeSantis threw a major monkey wrench in the Machiavellian machinations of the lockdowners, as did Kristi Noem (South Dakota) a fortiori in fact. Behold, “America’s Godparents”:
DeSantis grudgingly closed bars first, then schools, then grounded everyone over 65 for a month and partially grounded everyone else on paper at the same time, albeit with numerous exceptions, and even then only because he was under extreme pressure to do so. Then he reopened very quickly, vowed to NEVER lock down again, faithfully kept his word no matter HOW tough things got, and gradually removed the power of local governments to impose their own restrictions. Long before he had ever even heard of the GBD, he was already following it. The result? Florida got back to effectively 2019 normal LONG before the vast majority of the world, and their age-adjusted cumulative death rate was better than most lockdown states including California. Even after their trial by fire that was Delta last summer.
Noem was even less strict, had NO lockdown and barely had any restrictions at all, and then as of May 11, 2020, ZERO restrictions from then onwards. She also kept her word to NEVER backslide as well, let alone lock down. And while South Dakota got hit VERY hard by the virus in autumn of 2020, subsequent waves were so mild that they were barely even noticed at all. Even Delta had practically no teeth over there in terms of death rates much like was the case in Sweden, and they at least had partial protection against Omicron too. That’s the power of herd immunity. As for their cumulative death rate, they are not even in the top 20 worst states anymore, putting them within error bounds of the national average.
Well done Will. I do enjoy it when people like Lee Cain get an absolute battering and that’s what you have given him.
Lee Cain is either delusionally dishonest or Thick. Whichever he has no place to be involved in the running of this country.
Isn’t delusional dishonesty a side effect of being thick?
“We locked down because the cost of letting Covid rip was far more damaging to both the health and the wealth of the nation.” Spoken like a truly dodgy Mystic Meg! So they’re all still studiously ignoring the massive elephant in the room that is the very handy control, Sweden. Did Sweden suffer the largest mortality rate in the whole of Europe ( if not the world ) due to ‘letting Covid rip’? Were the kids clogging up the hospitals due to them keeping schools open throughout? And we’ve all seen the data on Sweden’s flu season from 2019, which saw a below average mortality rate, therefore there was the ‘dry tinder’ effect when Covid hit the frail and elderly hardest. The contrast in countries is stark. Not just to do with mortality but the after effects which are still being dealt with now. It would make about as much sense for the UK and other countries to introduce another lockdown this winter as it would for Sweden to introduce their very first.
But of course the influencial clowns in power are all going to defend their decision to lock down, in complete denial of all the evidence to the contrary ( not to mention the non-acknowledgment of the significant harms done ), and they will cling on to their feeble reasoning like a drowning man clings on to that last remaining plank of wood from his boat before he goes under. Its pathetic, transparent and the game’s up. More about the very sensible Swedish approach;
https://theconversation.com/did-swedens-controversial-covid-strategy-pay-off-in-many-ways-it-did-but-it-let-the-elderly-down-188338
Another cracking article by Will Jones. I’ll read the comments on Cain’s article in the online Speccie with interest.
A summary of the Speccie comments would be appreciated Jane, I’m sure. I cannot read it because of the paywall.
Quite a few hundred comments, overwhelming negative:
“Operation Reputation Protection…”
“rogue government of SPADs and technocrats..”
“you panicked..”
“inquiry will be an attempt to justify COVID policy”
“ignored the Diamond Princess…”
“Prof Simon Wood’s letter in the same issue who found controversial assumptions e.g ‘exponential growth of infections’ buried in appendices’…”
“tired LD vs ‘let it rip’ straw man …”
“Will Jones’ excellent counter to this in the DS…”
“LD saved thousands of lives: proof, please?…”
“Ok in March, but a second and third LD?..”
Much more in this vein, including the worst-case scenarios constantly being presented, ignoring emerging evidence from Sweden/Florida and much much more.
Thank you Jane. I posted my request before I got to this.
That’s encouraging Jane. Thanks very much.
Will Jones for Chief Scientific Advisor!
Seriously though, Will has been tireless in tearing this edifice down and deserves great credit.
I too would love a summary of speccy comments or just the general ‘flavour’ of them if possible. I tried logging in to it but I forgot I had cancelled my sub some time ago.
I really wish I had kept a diary of the developing situation. Everyone back-edits their memories one way or another, in a more heroic direction.
Was the fall-off in infections known at the time of lockdown, for instance, or was that only apparent a few weeks later?
Speaking for myself it was the creepy, paranoid behaviour of the public , clapping and disinfecting, and veering into hedges, that had me ask whether the government was going crazy too. But it’s hard to peer back through the rewrites and glosses that memory is prone to.
Was the fall-off in infections known at the time of lockdown, for instance, or was that only apparent a few weeks later?
The fall-off in rate of increase in infections was known about at the time of lockdown (23 March), and as each new daily data point emerged that picture was confirmed. This meant that the virus spread was already meeting resistance (it was no longer exponential), that the ‘pandemic’ was already approaching its limit, and gave the lie to Liar Ferguson’s model predictions.
Likewise, the daily Swedish data, and especially their ICU data, confirmed that they were not headed for covid meltdown. I recall back in April 2020 watching this data every day, and every day confirmed the picture: Even if ethical, lockdowns were not needed.
More than that, it appeared to me at the time, confirmed by subsequent analyses, that if anything lockdowns were making covid matters slightly worse.
And we’ve known for a very long time that SARS-COV-2 was here months before the stated February 2020. Which meant that all Ferguson et al’s spring 2020 model predictions were garbage, based on demonstrably false assumptions.
Never forget. Never Forgive. Criminals the lot of them.
I realised infections had already peaked before lockdown in July 2020 when I looked at the COVID helpline triage graph produced by the NHS. At the time I thought I had spotted something no-one else had (apart from the person who had produced the graph). I also produced a graph that compared COVID death trends between UK and Sweden and found they peaked at the same time. I tried to tell friends and family about my discovery and was ignored by all. Then, I found this site and knew I was far from alone.
‘Johnson likely to run for PM again once he builds up his bank balance’ reports Daily Telegraph
Sauve qui peut!
Spin doctor lies shock!
The NHS is something the government is responsible for. If said government is unwilling to or incapable of designing and managing a health system such that it can cope with perfectly expected events such as so-called flu pandemics, that’s a responsibilty it’ll have to shoulder instead of resorting to witch doctor cures like mass house arrest of the unessential and destruction of legal businesses with whose existence someone happens to be unhappy while exempting itself and its closer retainers from everything.
Cain may believe that he has a right to destroy my complete life and keep me from meeting my parents (who aren’t getting younger) for years on end in the name of some greater good. But I strongly suggest that he’ll never try to convince me of that face-to-face because the outcome of that would certainly not be to his liking. That’s not a matter of reasoned discussion, more of be prepared to be treated by those you believe to be mere underlings in kind. Abusers don’t get thanks.
“We locked down because we knew the cost of ‘letting Covid rip’ was far more damaging to both the health and wealth of the nation.”
He gives his game away right there.
He “knew” NOTHING. And has clearly gone out of his way not to learn anything.
In a court of common sense, the black cap would be coming out of the drawer.
P45 and “Taxi for Lee Cain”. Gullible idiot is too kind a word for that moron.
Of course they should’ve locked down a week or two earlier – then their useless & harmful strategy would have matched the natural bell curve and they could safely shout “see, we’ve saved you all”
Well it will take a long time for them to admit they were wrong (as they clearly were) for if they do they will have to admit the enormity of their errors, which will be too much for them to bear. I suspect deep down many are already experiencing this, they are just too scared to come to terms with their catastrophic folly.
“Data experts” recruited by Dominic Cummings predicted catastrophe and the Government went into panic mode. Interestingly the reasons Lee Cain gave for the initial lockdown could not possibly serve to justify subsequent lockdowns. He reveals in this article his ignorance and gullibility. None of these wild predictions of doom were ever going to come to pass. I could almost forgive a 3 week lockdown just to be on the safe side but it became this magic formula for keeping the plague at bay. Except that it wasn’t doing that. All of these so called experts and their fawning acolytes immersed themselves in flawed models based essentially on (poor) guesswork and as a result they could not see the wood from the trees.
“lockdown proponents are still stuck in March 2020 and no amount of contrary evidence will disturb the serenity of their self-congratulation.”
Exactly. For Cain it’s self-congratulation he can’t let go of. For Sean O’Grady it’s abject, unchanged (real or assumed) terror. Check out his latest rant here:https://archive.ph/9NASl.
‘We locked down because we knew the cost of ‘letting Covid rip’ was far more damaging to both the health and wealth of the nation.’
How did they ‘know’? Oh yes like they ‘know’ climate change will be catastrophic… computer models.
The dId know attributed death rate had peaked early March and was declining by the time lockdown was introduced, and they did know these individuals were infected weeks prior therefore viral activity had peaked and started to decline weeks prior.
So introducing lockdown – effective or not – was a case of shutting the stable door after the horse had bolted.
Lying toad!
There is no medical emergency. There has not been one for 18 months. It is about time our doctors speak up for themselves and their patients. Stop letting this incompetent government tell doctors how to practice medicine. Anyone else sick to death of the nonsense?