Coronavirus: Warning about potential COVID hospital crisis was made a month before lockdown
On 27 February SAGE heard a worst case scenario would see 33 million people infected with COVID -19 in one or more waves.
Tuesday 5 May 2020 17:41, UK
Scientists were warning the government about the potentially catastrophic impact of COVID-19 on hospitals almost a month before the lockdown, according to a batch of previously secret documents.
The 16 documents - a mixture of consensus statements and emerging evidence - were channelled through the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) and were released under a new commitment to transparency. Membership of the committee was only revealed on Monday.
The documents show that on 27 February SAGE heard evidence that in a worst-case scenario 33 million people in the UK could be infected in one or more waves.
It said there were "no clinical countermeasures" and that more than 540,000 people would need ventilation in critical care units.
This was still early on in the UK's outbreak, a week before the first death was announced, around the time that Italian authorities quarantined 10 northern towns.
The documents date back to early February.
They show that at first scientists struggled with a paucity of data on the emerging coronavirus and based assumptions on the existing plan for a flu pandemic.
But the government committee rapidly realised that the coronavirus was potentially far more serious.
On 3 March the committee heard evidence that there was sustained transmission of the virus within the UK. At the time the prime minister said the country was "extremely well prepared", with "fantastic testing and surveillance".
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Over the following three weeks the virus spread rapidly and the alarm calls grew louder.
By the time the committee met on 23 March there had been more than 9,000 reported cases and 285 deaths.
The committee members were presented with a stark warning that intensive care units in London would be overwhelmed by the end of the month "even if additional measures are put in place today", with the rest of the country a week or two behind.
That evening the prime minister addressed the nation and announced a lockdown.
The timeline suggests scientists knew the threat posed by the COVID-19 at an early stage, but there were critical delays.
The Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling (SPI-M) had prepared the evidence that critical care units would imminently run out of beds on 20 March, three days before the meeting of SAGE.
At the time the outbreak was entering the exponential phase and a delay of just a few days would have had a big impact on the overall number of deaths.
Of course we now view these documents with the benefit of hindsight.
But questions will be asked of the government whether it had been listening to the evidence and acted with sufficient urgency.