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Jonathan Van-Tam ‘raised serious Covid concerns’ in January 2020 [1]
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Date: 2023-11
Former chief scientific officer Chris Whitty played down “serious” concerns about the emerging threat of coronavirus in January 2020 from a senior colleague because he did not believe there was enough evidence at that time to act.
According to a statement submitted to the Covid inquiry, former deputy medical officer Jonathan Van-Tam said he was “seriously concerned” by the novel coronavirus as early as 16 January 2020 – more than two months before lockdown.
“The date on which I recall first being seriously concerned about the threat that this virus potentially posed to the United Kingdom was 16 January,” he wrote. “By that date, it was clear this was a novel coronavirus, it was fairly clear that human-to-human transmission was occurring… My view was that this would be a significant pandemic.”
Van-Tam said this was raised with Whitty, his boss, but “to the best of his recollection” the response was “to wait and monitor developments”.
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The chief medical officer Whitty – who, unlike many of his SAGE colleagues, still has his job – defended the decision to wait, claiming that Van-Tam’s basis for concern at the time was a gut feeling.
“I don't see what I would have done differently at this particular point,” said Whitty. “Sir Jonathan… is quite instinctive in some of his decisions, very often rightly. He's a very able epidemiologist and thinker.
“But if l’d said to him: ‘OK, what’s the evidence on which this is going to be a pandemic and lots of other things aren’t?’, he would have said: ‘This just feels like that to me.’ That’s quite a narrow basis on which to make quite big decisions.”
Whitty says he “took [Van-Tam’s] view that this was a serious issue” but that he did not recall him saying it would become “a pandemic,” as opposed to an epidemic.
Whitty went on to say that he thought it would be a problem if the outcome of the inquiry was for large decisions to be made on a “hair trigger” rather than to “wait and see”.
Van-Tam will give his own evidence to the inquiry tomorrow.
Whitty had previously dismissed the idea he was more cautious than then chief scientific adviser Patrick Vallance when it came to enforcing rules to stop the spread of the disease.
“What I thought should happen is that people should be aware that without action very serious things would occur,” he said, “but the downsides of those actions should be made transparent.”
Difficult decisions
Whitty, in his hours-long appearance at the inquiry, also said that some ministers needed help to understand that they had tough decisions to make.
“I think that a few of them in the early stages needed some help to see that there was no option but for them to make the decision,” said Whitty.
Whitty also said that some MPs and political commentators “cherry-picked” advice from scientists.
He said there was “no doubt about it at all” that information was cherry-picked – but qualified that he did not mean this was done by senior ministers such as former prime minister Boris Johnson.
“There definitely were some who chose the science they wanted to hear – let’s put it that way,” said Whitty. “Undoubtedly, the political commentators whose view of science started with what is a political position and then derived from that.”
Whitty continues to give evidence and will appear again tomorrow in the inquiry’s second module, which examines political decision-making and governance.
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[1] Url:
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/covid-19-inquiry-chris-whitty-jonathan-van-tam-january-2020/
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