Basic errors corrode public confidence
At yesterday’s Covid press conference, the head of NHS England, Sir Simon Stevens, said that the graphs the Government shows us can be overwhelming. We can reveal that they can also be inaccurate. The graphs used at last Saturday’s press conference – rolled-out one after another to hammer home the case for an England-wide lockdown – used the wrong figures. They appeared to show that deaths in the second wave would overtake those recorded in the first. This has been downgraded. The projection for hospital admissions has also been cut by a third.
The numbers remain high and, in the judgment of some readers, might still justify the tougher restrictions – but the error will fuel suspicions that the Government is picking the data that support its actions rather than designing its actions based upon the data. Many are, rightly, asking: “What is the science behind each measure?” What justifies closing golf courses, for instance, or a ban on tennis? As for the economy, anyone who has had to shutter a small business will look at this latest error in sheer disbelief. Decisions are being made that could wreck lives. The least one can expect is accuracy and transparency.
“There is light at the end of the tunnel,” said Boris Johnson yesterday, citing advances in treatment and the new testing regime being trialled in Liverpool. But how long is the tunnel? The current lockdown is scheduled to last 28 days, yet the Chancellor has now extended the furlough scheme until the end of March. The cost of that move will be enormous and the implications frightening: does the Government believe we will be slipping in and out of lockdown for five months? What are its data to prove this? Are we to infer that this lockdown might flatten the curve but that, when it is lifted, infections will rise again to levels that justify further intervention? In which case, are we actually preventing deaths or delaying them?
The rationale behind the lockdown was made explicit by Sir Simon: to protect the NHS by reducing pressure on beds. This is pressure it should have been much better prepared for given the experience of the first wave and the many months it has had to act since then. Basic errors, be they in administration or the presentation of data, undermine public confidence at the very moment that the Government is asking us to sacrifice the most.