Dan is basically right here. It’s not that SAGE are going against the evidence, it’s that there isn’t any evidence to follow most of the time. 1/ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-8850815/DAN-HODGES-follow-science-scientists-havent-foggiest.html

There isn’t any evidence because tackling an epidemic by trying to control the social life of the entire population and printing money is a recent (insane) idea. 2/

In the absence of empirical evidence, we are left with hunches and intuition which SAGE have to dress up as science. That’s how you end up with Chris Whitty lobbying MPs for pub closures with data that is patently rubbish. 3/

If you read the SAGE documents, it’s obvious that most of the decisions have been made on the basis of best guesses and what it’s members believe is common sense. Estimates of how much a policy will reduce R are blatantly plucked out of the air. 4/

It’s all underpinned by the perfectly reasonable assumption that R can be reduced by reducing human interaction, but that’s as scientific as it gets. When it comes to deriving policy from this, you might as well ask the man in the pub. 5/

In fact, the man in the pub would make better decisions because, if it comes down to common sense, he has more of it than a bunch of out of touch academics. For example, he would have foreseen the unintended consequences of the 10pm curfew. 6/