Yes, Devi Sridhar, scientists advise and ministers decide (Don’t blame scientists for what went wrong with Covid – ministers were the ones calling the shots, 13 June). But there is still much for the Covid inquiry to inquire about. Did we have the best mechanism for obtaining the best advice? Did the scientists give the right advice?
What were we to conclude from the appearance of the chief medical officer, Chris Whitty, the chief scientific adviser, Patrick Vallance, and the then prime minister, Boris Johnson, at the 12 March 2020 press conference? When they told us we might need to lock down but not yet, was that the scientific advice or government policy? When the epidemiologist John Edmunds gave the same message to Channel 4 on 13 March, was he telling us scientific facts or straying into policy?
When over 500 scientists issued a “public request to take stronger measures of social distancing … with immediate effect” on 14 March, why did so few leading epidemiologists or virologists add their names? And yet, a year after lockdown started on 23 March, a study showed 20,000 lives would have been saved had it been a week earlier.
Bernard Kay
York
Looking at the pictures (18 June) of the parties held by the Tories during lockdown, I am struck by the sense that the people eating, drinking and making merry actually thought that they couldn’t get Covid. Like millions of people, I sheltered because I thought it was a sensible thing to do, backed by reliable information. But mostly because I didn’t think I was immune to infection.
It says something about those in the photographs: a complete absence of the recognition of human vulnerability, a state that they are clearly unable to recognise in those on whom they inflict their policies.
Mary Evans
Canterbury