Referring to the SAGE (Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies) members failure to consider the findings of the exercise, Professor Sridhar, chair of public health at Edinburgh University , said:
It feels like a lost opportunity…On the positive side it’s good that these exercises were conducted, because it meant that they were thinking beyond flu, they were thinking about coronaviruses. But on the negative side it’s surprising, it seems that SAGE (Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies) members were unaware or at least didn’t discuss this exercise in their thinking in January or February, which would have been crucial in making steps to actually prepare for an eventual outbreak.
An earlier report considering an exercise simulating pandemic influenza called “Exercise Cygnus”, which ran in England in 2016, was also not published.
This seems like further evidence that the idea of a 4 Nations approach, better together, of the kind favoured by Murray and Pennington, led by this dishonest, callous Tory administration, was always doomed to failure.
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
As we know the English have always been very adept at promoting themselves but their arrogance has never been more evident during this outbreak especially amongst the academic fraternity and the media who cannot see past the views of the ‘Oxbridge’ element in formulating Gov Policy and enthusiastically supported by the English media. The inference was foreigners are OK but they cannot teach us anything and are not a patch on our own which has resulted in firstly the widely exaggerated scope and potential effects of this pandemic and the manner in which it has been mis- handled by the UK Gov. The ‘we know better’ syndrome.
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Will BBC Scotland or the rest of the “Scottish” media ask why SAGE ignored the findings of this exercise?
Or will they wallow in their traditional parochial, finger-pointing whinefest.
“Bad Nats wot dun it “!—though not (never) Brit Nats, who don’t exist–no really!
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BBC Scotland of course did not mention that SAGE ignored the findings
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Or that SAGE, PHE and successive UK Govs had predicated their whole policy/strategy/response from Operation Cygnus onwards was predicated on the next pandemic being some form of ‘flu. Whereas Scotland had based their exercise, correctly, on the next pandemic being caused by a coronavirus. How prescient was that? Of course the BBC did not point that out either did they?
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When it became public knowledge that PM Cummings was riding shotgun on the SAGE express,much of their credibility was “shot”.
I am sure that they are very competent professionals but have had their thinking distorted by political considerations.
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They can’t ignore this?
https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/coronavirus-r-number-north-west-18370083
“The North West’s R number has now risen above 1, the M.E.N. can reveal, meaning it now has the highest rate of Covid transmission in the country.
Scientists from the Public Health England and Cambridge University have been tracking how the virus spreads – a number known as the ‘R’ value – throughout the pandemic and their latest analysis now shows every region hovering just below or just above the crucial 1 figure, the government’s crucial measure of whether the disease is under control.
It shows the North West now running above that at 1.01, up from 0.73 a few weeks ago when the data was last released and higher than anywhere else.
The South West is listed as exactly 1, although the researchers believe the number of new daily infections there is ‘relatively low’. It is followed by the South East on 0.97, London on 0.95 – a huge increase from its last value of 0.4 – and the East of England on 0.94.
It measures the number in the Midlands to be at 0.9 and in the North East and Yorkshire, which previously had the highest R value, at 0.89.”
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Can’t they?
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Nick Stripe. Who he? Head of Health Analysis and Life Events Division, Public Policy Analysis
@ONS
What does he say? He says a great many excess deaths in England are in care homes where dementia , ill defined condition or old age is noted as the cause of death.
“Most notably, they show v significant increases in deaths due to Dementia & Alzheimer Disease and for deaths due to old age & frailty (“signs, symptoms and ill-defined conditions”)
Deaths with these causes account for two thirds of all “non-COVID” excess deaths.”
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Sure, there are many scientific opinions out there, there are also many nationalities, but let’s not fall into the trap of presuming a national “attitude” colours their scientific approach.
What we don’t know is the extent to which SAGE advice was misguided and which was “nobbled” by political influence, even if the released minutes caused some experts a WTF moment or two. Most notable of all was the downgrading of Covid from high level in March (?) which dropped PPE standards and safeguards applicable.
Throughout this crisis few can dispute the political interference in reporting deaths in England, and distortions on what was happening by way of policy and circumstances in the UK were deliberately confused.
It is clear those politicians and adviser fully intend to get away with what they have done, the UK has become a very dangerous country to live in.
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