‘Very misleading’: Scientists savage Rishi Sunak for attacking SAGE role in Covid crisis

Professor John Edmunds is a fellow infectious disease modelling expert at LSHTM, and was a member of SAGE during the pandemic.

He said: “It is not well understood, but SAGE’s role was quite narrow: to review and assess the scientific evidence to help inform the decision-makers.

“It did not consider the economic aspects — it was not asked to do so and was not constituted to do so.

“There may be some truth to the argument that the scientific evidence often outweighed the economic data; however, the answer is not to get less scientific evidence (or ignore some scientific evidence), but to build up a clearer picture of the economic and wider impact of different policies, using the best evidence available at the time.

“I am not aware of this happening in a systematic, open, peer-reviewed way. Where, for instance, was the equivalent of SAGE and all its subgroups on the economic side?

“Was there an army of economists in universities and research institutes across the country working night and day to collect, sift, analyse and project the possible impact of different policies?

“And if not, why not? As the Chancellor of the Exchequer Mr Sunak could have set up such a system, but did not.”

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Article source: https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/1660625/rishi-sunak-scientists-pour-scorn-on-pm-hopeful-swipes-sage-role-during-covid-19