Summary The toll of deaths and other consequences Deaths per day New cases per day UK "Global Death Comparison" chart UK nation and regional comparisons Poor UK Government decision making NHS/PHE labs are being denied testing reagents Unspecified case location in 70% of UK cases Problems with the covid-19 science Problems with the media and covid-19 Reasons to be concerned Reporting delays in Liverpool for covid-19 tests Action needed Elimination of the virus ("Zero covid") Elimination successes Population ("herd") immunity Countries with the best covid-19 control: half-lives of 5 days When to end the UK lockdown Predicting epidemics - Q and A R values, doubling times and halving times Data sources Data sources for covid-19.php Seven principles of public life in the UK Myths and misinformation About
Evidence, charts and analyses on the covid-19 pandemic
Web pages summarizing the evidence on the covid-19 pandemic, focussing on
- the UK's disastrous response
- the current precarious UK situation
- the action being taken and action needed
The UK has been badly hit by the pandemic - worse than most other countries
The UK has had a high death rate and a severe economic impact - both worse than most other countries, as the chart shows. More
The UK's poor outcomes could have been avoided by good decision making
- the messages were mixed
- the interventions were carried out too late
- the testing and the tracing of contacts has been very poor
- infectious patients were discharged back to care homes
Since April, poor decision making has continued
- the lockdown was too weak and stopped too soon
- the messaging has been wrong - it implied that the virus had been dealt with
- the UK Government has persisted with the centralised test and trace system despite its failures
UK science failures
- the Government is not giving clear explanations
- a fringe group of scientists has proposed an unworkable solution of population immunity more
- in the absence of clear government information, there is much poor quality science, misinformation, and pseudoscience online
UK political failures
- there has been no honesty about the failings during the first peak
- there was no enquiry into what went wrong
- failing systems have not been replaced
UK media failures
- some media reporting has been misleading e.g. Tweets by Andrew Neil
- media reporting has not highlighted the best in the world
- media scrutiny of the Government has been poor
UK citizen failures
- much misinformation has been repeated on social media - the worst of which has been that a choice has to be made between protecting health and protecting the economy
- the standard of debate has been very poor
- much poor "science" has been posted online e.g. on partisan websites rather than being published in a peer-review journal where it can be checked, and be subject to post-publication challenge and retraction if necessary
- citizens could have been more sceptical of Government promises and explanations
The current precarious UK situation
- there has been no apology and no recognition of error
- there has been no change in personnel or decision-making procedures
- the virus has not gone away - many countries are experiencing a resurgence of the first wave, and in the UK, there are increases in reported cases more, admissions to hospital, and reported deaths.
- there is a possibility of a further 150,000 deaths this winter, and the Johnson Government has no plan to prevent it.
Non-government action being taken
- to work towards better policies e.g. the Independent SAGE group advocates elimination of the virus from the UK more
- the Good Law Project
Non-government action needed
- to publicize the errors made
- to protest at the errors made
- to improve the standard of public debate
- to counter myths and misinformation more
- to work towards better policies, especially elimination of the virus from the UK more.
First published: 21 Mar 2020
Last updated: 10 Nov 2020
Summary The toll of deaths and other consequences Deaths per day New cases per day UK "Global Death Comparison" chart UK nation and regional comparisons Poor UK Government decision making NHS/PHE labs are being denied testing reagents Unspecified case location in 70% of UK cases Problems with the covid-19 science Problems with the media and covid-19 Reasons to be concerned Reporting delays in Liverpool for covid-19 tests Action needed Elimination of the virus ("Zero covid") Elimination successes Population ("herd") immunity Countries with the best covid-19 control: half-lives of 5 days When to end the UK lockdown Predicting epidemics - Q and A R values, doubling times and halving times Data sources Data sources for covid-19.php Seven principles of public life in the UK Myths and misinformation About