Shoddy science bounced Britain into lockdown

sir – Defending Britain’s Covid lockdown policy, Sharon NM Aldridge (Letters, August 30) writes that scientists advising the Government “were endeavouring to protect the public from a deadly virus”. This claim goes to the heart of the matter.

Before the vaccines, Covid had a mortality rate of roughly 1 per cent, skewed heavily towards the very old and already ill. After the vaccines, mortality fell to roughly 0.1 per cent. Despite this, the official line was that everyone was at risk. Why?

The Government was bounced into action by modelling from Professor Neil Ferguson, a scientist with a track record of faulty modelling. Why was this not challenged?

In collaboration with the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), the Government imposed blanket restrictions. The costs of this continue to filter through in inflation, broken supply chains, low productivity and inaccessible GPS. Why did Sage not produce a cost-benefit analysis or include representatives for education, mental health, economics and so on?

Alternative strategies were available, such as the “focused protection” advocated by the Great Barrington Declaration. Sweden showed that less coercive strategies produced similar health outcomes at much lower cost, and with less collateral damage to society. Why were these alternatives denounced without consideration?

The theory that Covid leaked from a lab in Wuhan was dismissed as crazy. Scientists linked to the lab campaigned to prevent investigation. Why did the scientific community permit vested interests to trump open inquiry?

I find the idea that Sage produced the only viable Covid strategy fanciful, and its implications for the future resilience of our country frightening.