Letters: Lockdown saved lives

Lockdown saved lives

Sir: Rishi Sunak presents an alarming picture of what happened during lockdown (‘The lockdown files’, 27 August) – and one echoed by lockdown sceptics who claim that Covid policy was a disaster, stoked by fear and based on questionable scientific advice. Worst of all, they cry, the trade-offs were not even discussed. But none of this is true. I know because I sat around the cabinet table as politicians, scientists, economists and epidemiologists agonised over the extent to which lockdown would devastate lives and livelihoods. It was not an easy decision for anyone. Looking back, it’s clear that the biggest mistake we made wasn’t locking down, but doing so too late.

I vividly remember the morning of Saturday 14 March 2020 when, as part of a small team gathered in the Prime Minister’s office, Boris Johnson was told the current plan to manage the pandemic was failing. Without urgent intervention the country’s healthcare system would collapse. The challenge facing us in that first wave was immense. We knew the NHS didn’t have enough beds and that there was a massive shortfall in PPE and a severely limited number of ventilators.

The initial modelling used for crucial decisions, we found out, was very wrong. A review by data experts recruited by Dominic Cummings had uncovered that, unless we changed course immediately, the NHS would be overwhelmed within three weeks.

The PM sat in silence as three scenarios were sketched out on a whiteboard. The first looked at no restrictions, the second at our current social-distancing measures and the third considered a national lockdown. Only under the last option would the NHS avoid collapse. But not until a week later did the PM declare a national lockdown: one that saved tens of thousands of lives.

What I don’t recognise is the idea that, as Mr Sunak suggests, lockdown’s trade-offs were never properly discussed.