Carl Heneghan and Tom Jefferson run a sceptical eye over week two of the Hallett Inquiry. Apparently, the precautionary principle and groupthink trumped the best available evidence when responding to the pandemic. Shock!
The UK's pandemic plan was clear that lockdowns were not to be used and ethics was to be central. Both of these were ditched in March 2020, says Dr David Seedhouse. Yet the Covid Inquiry has shown no interest in why.
Damning evidence continues to emerge of the harms of lockdown for children, with recent research finding rising numbers with eating disorders and social anxiety, and who are self-harming and dropping out of school.
Sweden, having famously refused to follow the world in imposing lockdowns and mask mandates in 2020, had the best Covid pandemic record in Europe, a new analysis by the BBC shows.
Government "groupthink" meant it only planned for an influenza pandemic that would "inevitably spread like wildfire" and failed to see that early quarantine would have stopped Covid in its tracks, Jeremy Hunt said today.
Ex-Chancellor George Osborne surprised many at the Covid Inquiry today by coming out as a lockdown sceptic while ex-Chief Medical Officer Sally Davies said "awful" lockdowns had "damaged a generation".
Prof Carl Heneghan has been called to give evidence to the Covid Inquiry, but wonders what the point is if it has already decided critical questions such as the efficacy of mass Covid testing.
It doesn't look good for balance or evidence when the COVID-19 Inquiry is asking for lateral flow tests and face masks, says Laura Dodsworth. No inquiry would be better than this inquiry.
The Covid Inquiry has been accused of wasting time and resources by inviting input from two-thirds of the members of the pro-lockdown, Left-wing lobby group Independent SAGE, led by Communist Susan Michie.
The Covid Inquiry hopes to rebrand lockdown as a noble cause, led astray by guilty men. In this way it seeks to revive the moral case for restrictions, and, still more, the moral case for the civil service.
