With reluctance, I cannot vote to support the Government’s proposed national restrictions today.
I have not taken this decision lightly. The proposed lockdown should be based on substantiated evidence that is accepted in scientific circles. This evidence-led approach is essential for public confidence.
The proposed national restrictions would have a profound effect on public health and our economy. It is now apparent that the lockdown proposals are based on disputed evidence. Given that lockdown would impose draconian measures with unbearable long-term consequences, I cannot, with good conscience, support this course of action if the data underpinning the Government’s proposal is so widely disputed.
The proposed national lockdown is predicated upon the assertion that there could be 4,000 Covid-19 deaths a day if the lockdown is not imposed. This modelling has been heavily criticised. Professor Carl Heneghan, of the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine at the University of Oxford, has said that this forecast could be four or five times too high. This is because the model is based on there being an average of 1,000 deaths per day currently, when there were actually 174 cases per day between 27th October and 2nd November.
Many other leading scientists and medical researchers have also questioned Sir Patrick Vallance’s assertion that deaths could reach 4,000 a day in the absence of lockdown, such as Professors David Livermore, from the University of East Anglia, and Professor Tim Spector, from King’s College London.
We cannot get this wrong because the consequences of a lockdown are too severe. We must not enter lockdown on a limb, and I therefore cannot vote for national restrictions until the evidence base underpinning the lockdown decision is clarified.
Following the above, my decision today is not against any prospect of future lockdown, but I am arguing that lockdowns must be based on data which is widely accepted as right. I cannot vote for a lockdown if it is founded upon cherry picked data, because as outlined below, the public health and economic consequences are too grave.
The NHS staff and volunteers have been exemplary. Their heroic efforts have saved lives across the country. Whilst I appreciate that lockdown is intended to relieve pressure on NHS services, experts have identified that lockdown measures themselves negatively impact patients receiving treatment for non-Covid illnesses.
Illustrating this correlation between lockdown measures and non-Covid illnesses, in the first lockdown, essential diagnostic services such as endoscopies were suspended or operated at substantially reduced capacity. Additionally, the number of endoscopies performed in April, 2020 was 90% fewer than the number done in each of the first three months of 2020. These diagnostic services have restarted but at reduced capacities, and there is now a backlog.
The above example is just one factor as to why scientists suggest there could be 7,000-35,000 additional deaths caused by cancer within a year. Cancer is just one illness amongst many, and I question the effect lockdown has on other illnesses such as strokes, heart attacks and dementia, to name a few.
This is why we must be certain about the data before imposing lockdown. The long-term additional deaths caused by non-Covid illnesses will be the camouflaged tragedy of lockdown.
Suicide is also a key issue. Deaths from suicide in August 2018 (the most recent suicide data on record) are higher than COVID-19 deaths in August 2020. This issue will only worsen if a lockdown is imposed, because research shows that suicide increases in times of economic recession.
Moving to the economy, we are borrowing record amounts to offset the economic consequences of lockdown on the private sector. The March lockdown ripped out a quarter of the UK’s output and income. Businesses are therefore not hiring, and unemployment is increasing. Our young people are struggling to get jobs, and future generations will be riddled with the tax burden associated with the national debt incurred in this moment.
Yet despite this, most people who are infected will have relatively mild symptoms. We also now know more about Covid-19 than we did before the first lockdown. There are now medicines available to treat Covid-19, such as corticosteroids, and our improved knowledge has increased survival chances.
Furthermore, businesses are already well equipped to be Covid-secure. They have invested vast sums of money in protective equipment to protect the general public and their staff, which reduces transmission within a commercial setting.
Lockdown is also imposing closure on businesses in sectors with evidenced low transmission, and also businesses with a customer base at low risk of contracting serious symptoms. An example is gyms, where use should actually be promoted to improve public health. A national gym chain has identified that only 2.8 Covid cases were identified per 100,000 visits. In the same week, there were 150 cases per 100,000 people nationally. This low transmission is likely a consequence of Covid-secure safety measures. Lockdown would close businesses like gyms, which unnecessarily increases the Government’s business funding support required.
In the absence of verified Government data, we risk bludgeoning the economy by imposing a lockdown on the entire population, despite only a minority of people contracting serious Covid-19 symptoms. This does not mean we must completely ease restrictions, and we still must protect the most vulnerable against this deadly virus.
The Government’s evidence in its current unsubstantiated form is too unclear to support a national lockdown. More information should be in the public domain, specifically about the assumptions underlying the SAGE models.
In the absence of this verified data and due to the grave consequences outlined above, I cannot support a national lockdown in this vote.
Craig Whittaker MP
4th November 2020