Patrick Vallance, who led the United Kingdom’s scientific response during the pandemic as the government’s chief scientific adviser, testified before the covid commission on Monday. For more than five hours, he drew on notes from his private diary, written during the hardest months of the crisis. He described a leadership vacuum, criticizing the government for failing to make timely decisions that could have curtailed a surge in infections and deaths.
Vallance said Johnson repeatedly showed difficulty grasping statistical details and sometimes appeared confused when interpreting graphs or data. He noted the former prime minister’s background, highlighting his classics degree from Oxford and suggesting it did not prepare him for complex scientific information. “The Prime Minister wonders if we overestimated lethality and vacillates between optimism and pessimism. He sometimes seems unsure about the relevance of different tests,” Vallance wrote in notes presented to the commission.
irregular decisions
According to Vallance, decision-making by Johnson and his ministers moved slowly, contributing to public disappointment. He criticized the heavy influence of the media, some outlets openly opposing closures, and pointed to a lack of clear directives as a key flaw of the early response. The former adviser also condemned the health secretary at the time, Matt Hancock, accusing him of making remarks without scientific backing and saying that the statements were delivered with conviction despite a lack of supporting data.
Vallance also criticized the then chancellor, Rishi Sunak, for adopting a stance he described as dogmatic about reopening the economy. In his notes, Vallance included remarks attributed to Johnson’s former aide Dominik Cummings, who alleged that Sunak believed “letting people die” could be justified. Vallance noted that the “Eat Out to Help Out” scheme, designed to stimulate dining and hospitality, may have contributed to a rise in infections in the latter part of 2020.
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