This @FT analysis of the mistakes leading up to lockdown makes the same mistake the Sunday Times analysis did — it assumes the critical error was not locking down earlier. https://www.ft.com/content/aa53173b-eb39-4055-b112-0001c1f6de1b

It takes it for granted that the no of cases was increasing “exponentially” in the w/c March 16, even though it also criticises the Govt for suspending mass testing — so how do the authors know cases were increasing “exponentially”? It’s just asserted without any evidence.

As Professor Carl Heneghan and others have pointed out, deaths peaked on April 8 and there’s a three-week lag time (on average) between infection and death, so daily cases likely peaked on or around March 18, *before* the full lockdown was imposed.

The authors also don’t consider the international evidence that lockdowns are ineffective — the fact that Sweden and Belarus have experienced fewer deaths/million than the U.K., ditto the seven U.S. states that didn’t lock down, and have all seen a comparable decline in deaths.

There’s one line in this @FT report that jumps out and which should have provided a clue as to where they should have looked: “Only Jesse Norman, a Treasury minister, raised any doubts, asking whether there had been any cost-benefit analysis of the economic and health impacts

of lockdown or consideration of less onerous alternatives.” This was at the Cobra meeting where the decision to place the country under a full lockdown was taken. “Around the room there were blank looks: the decision had been taken.” The implication of this is that no such

analysis had been done. It was a panicky, last-minute decision, not one based on a careful weighing of the evidence. *That* should be the focus of the public inquiry, and the longer it’s delayed, and the clearer it comes that the lockdown did more harm than good, the more

likely people will be to focus on that. In the meantime, I’d like to see at least one serious newspaper do a forensic analysis of whether the lockdown was effective, rather than take it for granted it was and criticize Boris for not imposing it earlier. It can’t be left entirely

to one-man bands like me. Oh, and well done @Jesse_Norman. You were the only person in the room when the lockdown was proposed to ask the right question.