The Right Honourable Baroness Heather Hallett DBE terminates the COVID-19 inquiry following the submission of damming evidence (a fictional aspiration)

The Right Honourable Baroness Heather Hallett DBE terminates the COVID-19 inquiry following the submission of damming evidence (a fictional aspiration)

I have had three pieces of information recently submitted to me outside of this inquiry that trump all the evidence that has been submitted to date. I am afraid this evidence is damming of the futile and frankly stupid strategy adopted by the UK during the covid-19 pandemic. I would like to submit this evidence for the official record as it forms the basis of why I have terminated this inquiry.

1.      The myth of exponential growth

The Imperial College models, that were the foundation of lockdowns and other measures, are based on a constant or increasing growth rate. Here is a graph of the mortality growth rate during the early stages of the pandemic (source – UK Government Official mortality data).

Even someone with my limited epidemiological background can see that the growth rate was declining from virtually the start of the pandemic. There is no constant growth rate. Since this period incorporates the first lockdown, it is implicit that this radical intervention had no apparent impact as there is no deviation from a smooth downward curve. On this basis the modelling performed by Imperial College was entirely flawed. This fact was pointed out to Imperial College early in the pandemic by the Nobel prize winning Professor Michael Levitt. Also, given Imperial’s appalling track record on predicting the outcome of prior pandemics, I cannot understand how they, and in particular Professor Ferguson, have any credibility?

2.      There was no centre of transmission.

The modelling and premise of lockdowns is person to person transmission. This requires that there is a central point of an outbreak. Excess mortality peak data from Spain and the UK is in direct contradiction with this concept. Here are regional excess mortality pandemic peak date plots from these two countries:

From this data we can conclude that for the UK and Spain peak mortality dates were all within 3 to 4 days of one another and is in direct conflict with the modelling and the decision making that followed. Even if we accept that the person to person transmission model is correct then the only conclusion that we can draw is that the spread of the virus was so rapid that any lockdown measures were highly unlikely to stop its progress.

3.      There was no assessment of age years lost due to the impact of the pandemic and therefore the impact of any measures implemented could not be properly assessed.

I am persuaded by the point made by Lord Sumption that for any “grownup discussion” we need to assess age years lost when assessing the impact of a pandemic. This is the established means of assessment by the National Institute of Clinical Evidence (NICE) for the effectiveness of UK medicines. This data, that was available to SAGE, indicated that this was a highly age related pathogen and if we examine the covid-19 deaths to the normal profile there is almost a perfect straight line relationship both for the UK and the USA:

These graphs demonstrate that the risks to covid-19 were tracking our “normal” age mortality profile almost exactly with the exception that the very young were fortunately at less risk. Whilst the loss of any life is a tragedy, we must accept that death is one of life’s certainties. On this basis the decision to terrify the entire population and impact the young disproportionally had no foundation.

Conclusions

It would appear to me that the entire pandemic measures were a debacle based on misinformation from very eminent institutions. On a personal level this has undermined my trust in these institutions to offer advice with such far reaching consequences. I am also perplexed by the lack of interrogation and scrutiny that existed by academia and the main stream media? Is it any wonder than conspiracy theories have proliferated in the face of such lunatic behaviour? The undermining of the foundations of our democracy and the checks and balances that protect its fragile structure has been prolific during this period. I am ashamed that I have participated in such a farce of an inquiry and hope that this statement has some benefit for the future.