Unlike the U.S., Britain has decided to launch an independent public inquiry into the country’s response to Covid. It has been holding hearings and interviewing witnesses since June.
Its initial evidence presents a disturbing picture of just how then-prime minister Boris Johnson’s decision to lock down the country on March 23, 2020, might have been made. The United States was strongly influenced by Johnson’s move, and six days later extended its own national guidelines recommending people stay home and away from one another. Many states then went into lockdown — sometimes for months.
Britain’s Covid inquiry has shown that Johnson’s instincts were against lockdown, but he was influenced by a highly flawed model from Imperial College London that lockdowns would avoid 1.7 to 2.1 million Covid deaths in the U.S. A new study co-authored by Steve H. Hanke — co-director of the Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise at Johns Hopkins — has found the actual reduction in Covid deaths associated with lockdowns was 4,300 to 15,600.
Britain’s Daily Telegraph reports the Covid inquiry has received a batch of WhatsApp messages between government ministers that shed light on the actual decision process at No. 10 Downing Street. Simon Case, who has been the prime minister’s cabinet secretary (the top civil servant in the government) from August 2020 to the present (before then, he was permanent secretary) described the Johnson government as looking like a “terrible, tragic joke” in its handling of Covid. He even lamented that Boris Johnson’s new wife, Carrie, appeared to be “the real person in charge” at Downing Street. The Telegraph concludes that the prime minister appeared to be “making decisions on Covid restrictions based solely on the wishes of his wife.”
Lee Cain, who was Johnson’s director of communications during 2020, agreed and in a WhatsApp message, said Carrie “doesn’t know wtf she is talking about.” Sir Patrick Vallance, the chief scientific adviser to Britain’s government during the crisis, described Johnson’s decision making as “bipolar” in a private diary he has given the Covid inquiry.
My sources in London report that far from “following the science,” the British government might as well have been making Covid decisions based on “a seance” held by informal Johnson advisers. They note Johnson’s dependency on unreliable advice isn’t news. Last week, it was reported that Marina Wheeler, who was Johnson’s wife until their divorce was finalized in February 2020, has just switched parties to work with Britain’s opposition Labour Party.
Case will likely be called on to give testimony and explain his written words from 2020 and 2021 before Britain’s Covid inquiry at the end of this month. Break out the popcorn for that session.