Out of control: the moment Boris Johnson let Covid run rampant
In September, the PM ignored grave warnings and refused to take the UK into another lockdown. It was his deadliest error of the pandemic, says the Sage adviser Jeremy Farrar in an exclusive extract from his new book
While things were moving frantically on the international front in the summer of 2020, with hopes building for several successful vaccines, the situation in the UK was deteriorating swiftly. The autumn of last year was, without doubt, the lowest point for me during the pandemic. I seriously considered resigning from Sage, the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies.
The newly opened economy, buoyed by such schemes as Eat Out to Help Out, was slowly feeding the virus. Taxpayers effectively subsidised its spread.
From July last year onwards, the infection rates began creeping up week by week. During those holiday months of summer 2020 I felt very strongly that not enough had been done, particularly in terms of test, trace and isolate programmes (TTI), to prepare for
