SAGE thinks it should continue with forecasts of covid and with plenty of advice to carry on testing and tracing and enforcing various limitations on freedom to try to reduce the spread of this particular disease. They think people trust them more than the government.
I seem to remember in the run up to last Christmas SAGE offered strong advice to keep us in lockdown for longer, planning to damage economic recovery and undermine Christmas . When I and others argued that Omicron appeared much milder from the South African figures and experience SAGE responded that was not established and the UKĀ might be different anyway. It turned out an importantĀ difference with South Africa was we had more people vaccinated which increased protection for many. SAGE have subsequently come round to the view that OmicronĀ is a lot milder than previous variants, and established that the vaccines offer good protection against it.
It is time to return to normal and to repeal the emergency legislation which Parliament allowed when we were faced with a new dangerous disease without vaccines or medicines to combat it. It is great that skilled scientific researchers and doctors have pioneered vaccinations and treatments quickly which greatly reduce the incidence of fatal disease. It is time to reap the benefits of these advances.
It is of course true as SAGE advises that some people with other medical conditions, and the elderly and infirm are more at risk than others from the latest variant of this disease. It is also true they are more at risk from other diseases like flu and other lung infections where we did not remove the liberties of others in the past to try to contain transmission. It is also true many are more at risk of early death from the backlog of treatments for other conditions which need to be addressed. Of course our public health and careĀ settings need to work away at infection control and protection of the vulnerable. Those who feel at risk should be helped by employers to work at home where possible, be helped by friends and family to limit risky social contact and provide alternatives, and to use on line shops and entertainment where possible to cut risks from social contacts.
February 13, 2022
Good morning.
The list of participants in SAGE is very long. But a cursory viewing of those involved, or have been involved, suggests that not all of them are best qualified to advise HMG. I could only find one virologist, one who was an expert in respiratory illness and two experts in tropical diseases and two in immunology. There were plenty of statisitions. So on the whole I do not think that this advisory committee is best placed to offer the same failed advise. Much like most government creatures, it can, if not properly controlled, take on a life of its own.
Amen to that !
February 13, 2022
Oh, and before I forget, one of those who advise the government is an excerpt in ‘Obstetrics ‘. Google that if you want a chuckle.
February 13, 2022
Not to mention a fair amount of communists and fellow travellers.
SAGE should be disbanded immediately.
February 13, 2022
SAGE are now a protected species. A man is jailed for some horseplay with Whitty in a London Park.
Yet you can enslave someone for decades and have them living in a shed and you get a suspended sentence.
February 14, 2022
Indeed; SAGE has failed us and must be killed off. If not we can expect ever more, mostly unjustified, interference in our lives.
February 13, 2022
You don’t fancy being PM do you John? You’d do a much better job than Johnson. I’m pleased to say that my life is totally back to normal now. I never think or worry about Covid now.
February 13, 2022
I think being PM is an awful job. Can’t think why anyone would want to do it. Living a life with (metaphorical) daggers behind your back cannot be good for one’s sanity and general well being.
February 13, 2022
Mark B. They do tend to age very quickly.
February 13, 2022
Of course it wants to keep a big government role.
They are control freaks, (named e.g. deleted Ed)
Then we have people like xxxx who has a track record of getting every one of his predictions wildly wrong, yyy is the same.
The government website lists the participants of sage and all its related sub-groups. I gave up counting after 100! Just how much are they costing the taxpayer?
That said, there are two big questions?
1. How many people would vote for the likes of them to be part of, what is supposed to be, a conservative government?
2. Why are none of the equally and more qualified professionals who have a differing opinion in sage?
No science is settled, when you gaslight alternative scientific opinion.
And all Johnson, Hancock and now Javid have demonstrated in claiming it is settled, is that they are definitely working to an agenda that is not in the best interests of the country, its people and the economy.
February 13, 2022
Parliament is supreme.
The Tories have a majority of eighty.
Whatever happens is 100% down to them, not to SAGE.
February 13, 2022
In this policy area, the government has had a majority of about 470. Starmer’s Labour ‘opposition’ have usually voted with the Tories to bring in the restrictions called for by SAGE.
February 13, 2022
Utterly irrelevant.
February 13, 2022
Ah, I see I’m over the target!
I wonder if Labour would have so consistently voted with the Tories on lockdowns and the various restrictions if Jeremy Corbyn had still been party leader. I see he recently voted against compulsory jab for NHS staff and vaccine passports, while Starmer and his crew voted with the government. He also voted against the ‘Plan B’ restrictions, supported by Starmer. In 2020 he voted against the tiers nonsense, while Starmer & co. abstained, and in March 2021 voted against maintaining the Coronavirus Act, again supported by Starmer’s lot.
Starmer is the leader of no opposition.
February 13, 2022
Sage are correct.
Most people do trust them more than they do the Government.
The bar could not be lower on the other hand.
February 13, 2022
Interesting. You have never noticed the Government always states ‘ they are guided by the science’.
Pay more attention Martin at the back.
February 13, 2022
They can state what they like.
They lie and are proven liars.
February 13, 2022
SAGE misrepresent cleverly, choice of words, dissimilar comparisons, old data, focus on tiny timeslice etc
February 13, 2022
Yes but it is a metaphor for a wider problem. āThe vulnerable and elderlyā are the collective nouns used wherever there is a vocal group resistant to change.
Sage, encouraged by a government in an invidious position, became portentous, overcome by its own self importance with its pronouncements not challenged sufficiently by Ministers or the press.
I recall the weak Javed meekly accepting some wildly inaccurate numbers before backtracking. The Sage brand is broken in the eyes of the public, indeed they were in front of HMG before Christmas.
A good time to wind them down/integrate them into a more generic advice structure.
February 13, 2022
Well, I think we must give certain ministers the credit for standing up to SAGE more recently. Possibly even Johnson himself.
February 13, 2022
When and about what?
February 13, 2022
In December, about bringing in another full lockdown as SAGE wanted, rather than Plan B . As reported in the DT, Sunak and Rees-Mogg persuaded Johnson to reject SAGE’s ‘advice’. It sounds plausible to me.
February 13, 2022
ah…if in the DT I wouldn’t have read it.
February 13, 2022
I am concerned that many people in public office, MPs and members of Sage for example, may be influenced by outside organisations with vested interests.
How many advisors received ‘gifts’ from big pharma during the covid pandemic ? And if they were financially compromised, how can we trust their judgement to be impartial ?
February 13, 2022
It would be easier to list the ones who do not receive ‘gifts’.
February 13, 2022
and the gongs already given ,or will be shortly ‘for Service to xxxxxx’
February 14, 2022
+1
February 13, 2022
+1
I looked too at the numbers and gave up after wading through so many people that one could be considered relevant to the needs of a government tacking a pandemic.
February 13, 2022
The government’s incompetent response and refusal to accept SAGE advice to follow the science resulted in GP’s recording the Chinese plague virus on 180,000 death certificates. This is the root cause of public outrage over Johnson’s partgate problems. Undeniably, the lockdowns saved thousands of lives by breaking the chains of transmission of the virus.
The gross failure of government transport policy allowed the virus to become established here in the first place. There is no guarantee that the next variant will not be more dangerous and we should not be seduced by the apparently “milder” nature of the Omicron variant. The pubic is still dying at the rate of 250 a day. Caution is still warranted.
Reply Look at excess deaths where there are 30 countries with worse figures than the U.K. Many of those did longer lockdowns.
February 13, 2022
An alternative view
1. There are many comparative research papers from across the world that show that lockdowns achieved nothing in terms of virus transmission. Conversely they have added a great deal to human misery, from mental illness to loss of livelihood to death. If you look at the latest figures for deaths by the ONS, deaths in England and Wales in private homes are still 18% above the 5 year average, but below in all other settings. This completely refutes that idea that the lockdown saved lives – it did the opposite. SAGE got it wrong.
2. It should be a well known fact now that there is a difference between people who died of CV19, than those who died within 28 days of having a positive test for SARS-CoV- 2, or any other relevant intervention. I believe it has now been estimated that the total number of those dying of CV19 is around 17,000 up to January 2022 . To put that in some context, in the week ending 28 January 2022, 13,985 deaths were registered in the UK, 9% below the 5 year average. I have not heard the latest SAGE witterings, or indeed any of their models pointing out these crucial pieces of evidence. But then I don’t believe the models SAGE use are based on empirical evidence – they are predictions, which we can all see now are were very wrong.
3. The anger over partygate is because the people in No 10 made draconian rules, many of them cruel and disproportionate, enforced by huge fines and the police, that they did not feel they had to follow themselves. They thought they were above the law !! They were also, obviously, not as fearful of ‘the virus’ as they thought the public ought to be. Maybe they read the SAGE predictions in a different way??!!
4. Transport policy??? Did the virus arrive from China with a train time table?
5. If you listen to any ‘honest’ person experienced in virus behaviour, they will tell you that viruses mutate, and that the pattern of mutation is usually to become less dangerous, but more transmissible – they want to survive not kill the host. Therefore, there is no reason to think any further natural mutations will be more dangerous. In addition, the latest thinking is that two thirds of the UK population have now been infected with the virus: that together with previous levels of natural immunity, will mean that herd immunity and protection will see off further variants. I don’t believe many on SAGE meet the initial criteria above with regard their views on variants.
6. The latest figures from the ONS gives deaths INVOLVING Covid-19. That is not dying from covid 19. And how many at this time of year die of flu, cancer, road traffic accidents??? SAGE do not build context into their models, or thinking, or advice !!!
I’d suggest that a good number of the public have, from experience, no trust in SAGE whatever. What is more the ‘political’ pronouncements and behaviour from several should disqualify them from holding any advisory role to Government ever again. Unless, you wish to be constantly mislead, I’d advise doing your own research, it really is not hard to seek out different opinions and weigh them up for yourself. That is what education in a democratic country is for !!!
February 14, 2022
+1
February 13, 2022
Not sure where the idea came from that the government didnāt follow SAGE advice at the beginning of the pandemic, they absolutely did, it was SAGE who recommended delaying lockdown and that there was no point closing the border, itās in the minutes, so that the virus would spring back less strongly when the lockdown was lifted. This turned out to be good advice, Poland locked down fast and hard and sealed their borders in early 2020, schools were closed for months and they had very few deaths in that wave. But all those deaths and more were simply shifted into the Alpha and Delta waves which were harder to manage – look at their deaths now, much worse than UK.
February 13, 2022
SG. Oh for goodness sake. Many of those deaths registered didn’t die of Covid. There was much unecessary scare mongering within Sage and the media.
February 14, 2022
+1
February 13, 2022
There are a hundred and ninety-four countries in the world, and the UK finds itself in the bottom thirty.
So there are a hundred and sixty-three countries with better figures than the UK.
It’s not quite the strongest defence of policy that I’ve heard.
reply There are many countries in the world that did not test extensively to detect covid or had a different approach to defining death on a certificate. The U.K. maximised covid deaths with the with covid approach and mass testing.
February 13, 2022
a bit like protesting at countries who murder citizens outside their homeland……Would Russia make it into the list?
February 13, 2022
Please provide the evidence lockdowns work, because all I can find is evidence to the contrary.
And sorry sunshine, 180,00 didn’t die from covid. Where did you get that 180,000 stat from? The reason I ask is because following a FOI request to the ONS, it released the following, over a 22 month period less than 17,500 have died from covid. So exactly what would have locking down the country more severely, achieved? No covid deaths? Aye right…
Notwithstanding, your figure will include all those who had been jabbed within 14 days of testing (and are classed as unjabbed), or rushed into hospital due to traffic accidents etc, untreated final stage cancer, heart attacks etc. It also includes those who died in care homes, who were not tested and autopsies in 99.8% of the time, were refused.
And why after the official photo shoots evidencing the Johnson regime meeting people from all parts of the World, on multiple occasions, without any isolation period, testing and mask requirements, do you still persist in your lockdown fanaticism? Because, from where I am standing, the evidence strongly suggests, there has not been so much a ‘pandemic’ as a scamdemic and the big questions is why?
I know three people who went into overdrive to follow all the rules, to the letter, (including my brother who lives less than 5 miles away and didn’t want to meet for a year and even then, at a distance). Each have had every jab offered. Following the third jab all three have been ill, with one not fully recovered. They each tested multiple times and the results kept coming back negative. So do the covid tests work or not? Do the covid jabs work? If they do, what keeps making them ill, if its not this ‘dangerous disease’ with a 99.7% survival rate, that keeps showing up as a negative test?
Could it possibly be the third experimental gene therapy jab, which the Johnson regime keep pushing for everyone to have…? And just what difference would your preferred more severe draconian rules achieved with this outcome? Answer is none. I dare you to provide any evidence to prove me wrong.
February 14, 2022
Well said indeed.
And speaking of FOI, why don’t we hear more about the FOI to borough councils requiring them to provide figures for the number of burials and cremations over the past five years, ie since 2015? It can be clearly seen that in most places there were fewer, even in 2020. (In 2021 there was a higher number of excess deaths. I wonder why?)
February 13, 2022
SAGE members have had their ‘time in the sun’ ….time now to put the light out.
February 13, 2022
Well put, Mickey!
February 13, 2022
+1
February 13, 2022
Yes it is time to return to normal, and NO, we do not trust SAGE to get anything right. Their extrapolated high numbers designed to scare us along with models that only create more false stories were never necessary.
Get rid of SAGE and the Nudgers, so that we can try and forget the horrors of the last 2 years.
Then, Instigate a thorough review of the activities and data provided by SAGE, so that we do not fall into this trap again!
February 13, 2022
SAGE is a direct threat to our most fundamental freedoms. It acts politically as we can now see but also acts to promote the vested interest of Labour’s unionised public sector.
The left have profited massively from Covid politics. The public sector and its unions have never been so powerful, so over-funded and so politically influential. And our freedoms removed to the point of opposition to the Covid narrative labelled misinformation. It’s positively fascist in nature when terms like misinformation are being used.
Of course the real danger is a Tory party that is now CAPTURED by the left. Most on here respect Mr Redwood but he cannot deny and refuses to admit that he belongs to a party that is now passing laws and aiding the left in their mission to reorganise the very foundations of the UK. This Neo-Marxist realignment will destroy this nation.
Covid has been a gift from god for the left and their outriders and the Tory party have once more turned a blind eye to their activities across the nation simply for fear of being targeted themselves
Stop rubbing our noses in the politics of Neo-Marxist diversity
February 13, 2022
Really important topic. Lockdowns have in many respects been catastrophic.
Get rid of SAGE, and do an autopsy on how in the future government should pick advisers and to what extent it should feel bound to follow their advice. It has often seemed like the tail is wagging the dog – one only has to think of the press conferences with āadvisersā centre stage, and the whole mantra of following ātheā science (itās preposterous to suggest there could ever be complete consensus about such a variety of issues).
The Danes seem to have done a better job about user a very diverse group of advisers, who were prepared to change their minds about things when circumstances changed or the facts proved them wrong.
Conservative Woman ran a fascinating four article investigation into the vaccination lobby, which has been active well before Covid. Itās worth a read, some figures who have become familiar in the last 2 years pop up in surprising places.
February 13, 2022
There is no problem-free solution to a catastrophe such as a global pandemic.
February 13, 2022
Should SAGE stay, perhaps in a very, very much smaller form.
Should we stop test and trace, certainly we should stop trace, but I think the offer of free lateral flow testing should be available for some time yet, to try and encourage people to be responsible for themselves, to test before they enter a crowded indoor venue where close contact is inevitable (theatre, airplane, cruise ship, restaurant, etc)
Better to test before you go, and thus knowing you are not putting others at risk.
All of our group of friends test before we meet up with any reasonable size groups of others, and has certainly we feel proved useful, and yes it has picked up a few positive results on people who had no obvious symptoms.
The Covid App has proved not to be accurate or sensitive enough in its present form, as Party Walls between houses are deemed not to be a barrier.
Agreed no more lockdowns.
February 13, 2022
As we have seen with Omicron, test results bear no relation to disease, serious illness or fatalities. All we are doing with tests is keeping the fear going. People are always going to catch colds, just as they always have. Vulnerable people will tend to be careful and avoid risks, just as they always have. You and others are not responsible for my health, Alan, and vice versa.
February 13, 2022
What’s the point of issuing graphs and figures no-one except the academics are interested in? Even the BBC now, when reporting deaths say some will have died of other than Covid. I am firmly of the opinion that in order to lock us down etc. the government wanted high figures but once they became too high and started to look embarrassing, they wanted to back pedal, but were on a hook and especially now that they want to end restrictions. If people don’t know how to keep themselves safe now after 2 years of daily doom and gloom, they never will and the SAGE people should go back to their previous jobs and only be formed again if necessary. The expense of such a large body must be significant.
February 13, 2022
One of the best things to come out of the pandemic, and it will become increasingly apparent, is the public realisation as to just how wrong all these experts have been. And how damaging have been the hysteria whipped up and the lockdown policies adopted. Doubtless the experts of SAGE and elsewhere were all well-meaning and doubtless they are well qualified people. But they were wrong. Weāve seen one devastating study from JohnHopkins and Lund universities. There will surely be many more. The prognoses of doom were bogus and lockdown a massive error. The denigration of other experts with alternative views, such as the authors of the great Barrington declaration has been a disgrace.
The public will increasingly see that lockdown and zero covid were foolish and damaging polices. Next up: net zero, promoted by many of the same types using many of the same tactics – extreme statist interventions on the back of whipped up public hysteria. Unfortunately itās playing out over a much longer timescale.
February 13, 2022
There is nothing wrong with the idea of having a group of scientific advisers helping the government understand problems and make decisions. The problems with SAGE could be very easily fixed with just three tweaks:
i. The membership of the group should be chosen by the PM, and should be based on proven SUCCESS. Anyone who makes a mistake should be kicked OUT. Advisers should be experts who can be trusted. If someone gets it wrong he can no longer be trusted. I simply do not understand why SAGE retained modellers who got it wrong. How can Boris be so stupid???
ii. Members of the group should sign a confidentiality agreement so that their names are not known (so they can’t be lobbied) and they NEVER speak in public. Their advice must be comply private.
iii. Make sure there is always a ‘red team’ to challenge the consensus and thus to avoid groupthink.
With these three changes the existence of a group of scientific advisers would be a very good thing.
February 13, 2022
I think points ii. and iii. are very good suggestions, X-Tory. The difficulty with point i. is who gets to choose the new membership (definitely not the prime minister we have now IMO. Perhaps a selection panel containing a good number of Nobel prize winners would be a good start.
In the end SAGE membership might not be all that different from now, once the clear failures are removed. As long as there is a ‘red team’, as you say, things might work well. A different red team could be appointed in respect of each particular crisis, from people who disagreed with SAGE. We saw with Covid that there were such people, who should have been listened to.
February 13, 2022
A person who makes a forecast with a significant margin of error has not made a mistake, if reality turns out some way off-centre in the spread of possible outcomes, which might be very wide indeed.
He has been proven correct.
The anti-Enlightenment Right will always misrepresent science however.
February 13, 2022
I strongly suspect we would do a lot better if SAGE did not exist! I am sure Winston Churchill was right to speak of ‘Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics’.
In fact, why does it exist? What does it do the rest of the time, when there was no Covid to pontificate about?
Of course we should cease forecasts and testing and tracing. Also there should be NO mandatory masks, jabs, domestic passports, anywhere. It is about time all the scaremongering stopped and everyone realised that there is no LIFE without risks of many kinds.
YES Repeal the Coronavirus Act. Stop the ridiculous test, trace and imprisoned contacts.
RETURN TO NORMAL in all respects.
February 13, 2022
I think SAGE does a good job. COVID-related deaths are high, as are infections. In an update as recent as 4 Feb., Wokingham Borough Council wrote:
“With infection rates dramatically rising again, you may have seen in the news that Wokingham Borough currently has the third highest Covid-19 cases in the UK. As a community, we must continue to work together to bring this number down.”
We need people who have COVID to stay at home for a few days.
Use of face coverings in shops, on public transport, and in crowded places seems a prudent precaution. Thankfully, some supermarkets have their own guidelines regarding face coverings, and I hope they will keep them for the time being.
February 13, 2022
Why did SAGE allow themselves to be coerced into attending the TV daily brief alongside politiciansā¦.all creditability went and people soon realised that they where only after glory & prestige and self promotionā¦.and they got it in bucket loads
Disband the freeloaders
February 14, 2022
Surely, if they’re to continue in any form, they should rebrand themselves ”SAG”. The ”E” seems to be entirely redundant now.
February 14, 2022
I don’t think we can say we trust the Government more than SAGE on COVID . Not sure we can really trust either on the COVID issue. The general public now has a reasonable understanding of COVID and we don’t need a special department for COVID. Any ongoing management of the infection should come under the existing health departments for the control of infectious diseases even if perhaps they may need extra staff for the next few years. We now know that vaccination protection wares off in a matter of months, does not stop the spread of the infection but probably stops you getting really sick. Masks are the only protection that does reduce spreading the infection but does not stop you being infected. On-going Lock downs, isolating and testing do not show a real health gain over economic damage. They may have help initially to delay the spread in order to give more time to prepare hospitals and vaccines but we are now prepared and aware. So just have to live with COVID like we live with flu. So now no need for SAGE and any mandatory COVID restrictions or required actions. Wearing a Mask in confined spaces is still a good public gesture of concern for others
February 14, 2022
SAGE is the “think tank” of the Globalist UK Establishment and no way will it be removed until the whole system is changed. removed. That will not be far off now.
February 14, 2022
….changed/removed.