Testimony to the COVID Inquiry of an ex-theoretical physicist

Earlier in November the UK COVID inquiry heard from Dr Ben Warner. Warner was a special advisor at No. 10 from December 2019 through to spring 2021 I think. So he was inside No. 10 for all of 2020 and so saw, and participated in, No. 10’s response to the pandemic. His background is interesting. He did a PhD in computational condensed matter physics, then went on to work as data science consultant. I presume his job involved analysing data for corporate clients and adviseing them on how to analyse data for the company make the right (most profitable) business decisions. Also, as he was brought in by Dominic Cummings, he was also essentially an outsider, and so had an outsider’s perspective on the No. 10 operation (civil servants, etc).

He gave evidence for about two hours. A couple of observations that struck me as I listened to his testimony:

1. In February 2020 and early March, the top of UK government (No. 10) seemed only to be considering “mitigation”, i.e., relatively small measures, not a lockdown. This was despite China having already imposed stringent lockdowns, and Italy imposing a national lockdown on 9th March, with regional lockdowns starting 21st February. Warner came from the world of data analytics consulting in the private sector. He may have been used to CEOs demanding models of several/all-reasonable scenarios, in order to maximise the chances of success of their company. So although he was, very reasonably, cautious about what he said, he may have been pretty shocked that the government of a nation state of 60 million people had one only (relatively sketchy as far as the briefings to No. 10 went) plan. This plan involved the majority of these 60 million people becoming infected by COVID-19, and over half a million deaths. On the face of it, if this is your plan A, then thinking of a plan B would be a great idea, and very doable given: i) you’re the UK government and so have more resources than any company, and ii) other countries were already implementing other plans. Eventually the government did develop a plan for, and then implement, UK lockdown. But with infections increasing exponentially, time is critical, and developing a plan earlier would have been better.
2. Warner also said some, I think, very sensible things about Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions (NPIs), such as social distancing, masks etc. For example, in September 2020 the infections were rising but the economic and health costs of lockdowns were clear. Then I think he argued for what I would say is the obvious approach: to work out what combination of optimised NPIs would bring the reproduction number down to around one, while causing the lowest social and economic cost. By optimised he meant things like whether going from 2 m to 1 m social distancing in restaurants could allow a partially functioning hospitality sector at the cost of only a small increase in the reproduction number of COVID-19. Of course Johnson’s government did not do this, they waited too long and then imposed a hard lockdown at the last minute.
3. It was also interesting to see his insights as an outsider to No. 10. It was not a pretty picture, with a dysfunctional No. 10 headed by Johnson not using to their full potential, or often listening to, the scientists on SAGE. It was apparent at the time (2020), that the government often just parroted that they were “following the science” while ignoring what many scientists were saying. But Warner at the inquiry made another point, that there was another problem: to fully exploit scientific expertise and data analysis, there needs to be a dialogue between the decision makers (here Johnson and others) and those doing the modelling. SAGE or other groups can’t answer questions the politicians weren’t asking. In the absence of leadership from No. 10, SAGE suggested possible courses of action, without knowing what Johnson’s government wanted to do. This is far from optimal, and I assume is far from the best practice Warner was used to when working for companies.

The pandemic killed around 200,000 people in the UK. Different decisions made by No. 10* would have changed this figure. It is very likely that an earlier lockdown in March 2020 and a rational workable strategy in autumn and winter 2020, would have saved tens of thousands of lives. One major contributor to the dysfunction in No. 10 was that Boris Johnson was unsuited to being Prime Minister** but that was not the only problem, the structures No. 10 has for accessing expertise could also be a lot better. Improving them should result in a future, more suitable, Prime Minster being able to make better decisions.

* And the devolved administrations in Scotland and Wales.

** I am not sure how the UK COVID inquiry can make any recommendations for the problem of the British electorate electing a wildly unsuitable person to a position of Prime Minister. A position that requires life-and-death decisions. We can vote for anyone we like.