A former chief scientist has set up his own panel of experts to rival the Government’s in a bid to hammer out how the UK can exit lockdown.
Their discussions were made publicly available via livestream and the recommendations will be sent directly to ministers.
Sir David King organised the panel after slamming the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) for failing to be transparent or disclose their modelling or members.
He accused political advisors including PM’s top advisor Dominic Cummings of intervening in scientific decisions and “influencing” advice.
At the panel, Computational modeller and neuroscientist at University College London Professor Karl Friston said a second wave of infections could either be “embers which flare up” or a more “classic” 1918 Spanish flu-style outbreak.
He even suggested the Government could set out 5-10 day policy guidelines every night like a weather broadcast so the public knew what to do.
He said: ” There seems to be two different kinds of second waves, there could be a flare up or rebound that is an intricate part of the current outbreak… or a classic second wave of the sort we saw in the Spanish flu outbreak.”
He said if there was a bigger, “classic” second wave it would mean people had not acquired proper immunity to the killer virus.
Professor Friston said how well a second wave was managed would depend on strategic tools to keep infection rates down such as track and trace.
The best way to deal with exiting lockdown was with a rigorous test, track and trace programme, he said.
“My fear at the moment is we will lift the lockdown have too many cases and then we’ve only got a choice of another national lockdown which would hit the economy massively.”
Professor Friston said the UK’s failure to introduce lockdown measures fast enough meant there were too many cases and it may be impossible to get a proper contact tracing regime in place.
“Are we in a position where because we’ve let it run… can we put the cap back on? Can we get it back to a fine, track, test, trace, isolate, quarantine and social distance (method) so we can have at least a period of stability for the economy until a vaccine comes along?”
“I honestly don’t know what the answer is there.”
The panel looked at how the NHS had coped so far – but warned it could still risk being overrun after the worst of the outbreak was over.
Deputy Director Runnymede Trust Dr Zubaida Haque said: “I’m concerned about how we’re measuring things… I want to make sure there aren’t other deaths happening because of a disproportionate focus on COVID-19 – it’s right to some extent that the NHS is coping very well right now.
“We have just postponed all cancer treatments, all the urgent care, all the surgeries – that can’t be sustained in 3 months or 6 months time given that the pandemic is not going to disappear in a few months.”
Professor of Primary Care Diabetes and Vascular Medicine at the University of Leicester Professor Kamlesh Khunti echoed the concerns, saying “There’s been good data that shows after a natural disaster there is increased mortality down the line because everything stopped.”
Critical to developing a next phase of social distancing would ensuring social cohesion and a sense of community stayed in place, warned Professor of Health Psychology and Director of the Centre for Behaviour Change at University College London Susan Michie.
A No10 spokesperson said this lunchtime: “SAGE is happy to receive scientific input from any group, as it already does.
“There is only one official SAGE group which provides advice to the Government.”
