If scientists can be followed, they can also be stitched up
■ Work and pensions secretary Therese Coffey is now saying ‘the science ience was wrong’ as the government responds to criticism over its ts handling of the Covid-19 pandemic (Metro, Wed).
The thing is, the vast majority of scientists never thought our initial strategy of using herd immunity and d not testing to contain the coronavirus was realistic. Instead, they agreed with the he World Health Organisation advice from March of test, test, test. The scientists who backed the government strategy are now finding that if you can be bought, you can also be sold.
M Reader, London
■ Therese Coffey (right) shares Donald Trump’s talent for blaming other people when things go wrong.
Martin Jenkins, London
■ Every evening we hear the decisions made by politicians on how we should live. They tell us their decisions are ‘led by the science’.
We are one of the worst performing countries in the world. I still can’t quite understand how our science differs so much from other countries and why the choices we’ve made appear to have been so wrong. I do know that Boris Johnson’s popularity has suffered – and with it he’s bringing down the credibility of our scientists.
Tony Howarth, London
■ Further to Therese Coffey blaming the scientists scientists, all expert advice needs sanity-check sanity-c questions. When the WHO was urging more testing and an UK experts advised restrictions, re who in government questioned that? And when frontline health workers say they ca can’t get enough protective equ equipment yet expert mana managers insist there is no shortage shortage, who questions that? Almost all dental services seem paralysed for lack of testing and protective equipment. Does our government have any sanity-checking?
Terry, London
■ Professor Neil Ferguson (above) and his team at Imperial College London seem to have a grip on the government when it comes to action on viruses. The government chose to follow the advice in his recent research paper on corona, and to ignore other scientists. But when you look at his advice on past outbreaks they are certainly controversial.
For example, in 2002 he published a paper on so-called mad cow disease predicting the worst-case scenario of 150,000 human deaths. There were 171. In 2005, he said up to 200 million people could be killed from the bird flu H5N1. The final toll was in
the low hundreds. For the 2009 H1N1 swine flu, one of his models predicted 65,000 UK deaths. In the end no more than 500 died.
In his 1961 farewell address, Eisenhower warned us that we must be alert to the ‘danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite’.
Geoff Moore, Alness
■ I am hearing Denmark used a lot as an example to promote children going back to school in England.
Denmark has had 548 coronavirus related deaths compared to England’s 27,432, as of May 7. If we compare Denmark with Scotland, which has a similar population size, Scotland has had 2,134 deaths. This suggests UK inaction on locking down earlier had a greater impact. The horse has already bolted.
Tony, Glasgow
■ Our politicians say they are ‘guided by the science’ and initially said there was no case for wearing face masks. Nicola Sturgeon eventually recommended people in Scotland could wear some kind of face coverings where social distancing was impossible in closed spaces. Boris Johnson followed suit.
The Chinese had imposed the wearing of masks in shared spaces because they were guided by ‘their science’, which said it reduced the risk of transmission by the mask wearer. So if you were masked in a shared space with one other person, would you prefer it if they were masked or unmasked?
Just Jack, Musselburgh