Science and policy in extremis: the UK’s initial response to COVID-19

Abstract

Drawing on the SAGE minutes and other documents, I consider the wider lessons for norms of scientific advising that can be learned from the UK’s initial response to coronavirus in the period January–March 2020, when an initial strategy that planned to avoid total suppression of transmission was abruptly replaced by an aggressive suppression strategy. I introduce a distinction between “normatively light advice”, in which no specific policy option is recommended, and “normatively heavy advice” that does make an explicit recommendation. I argue that, although scientific advisers should avoid normatively heavy advice in normal times in order to facilitate democratic accountability, this norm can be permissibly overridden in situations of grave emergency. SAGE’s major mistake in early 2020 was not that of endorsing a particular strategy, nor that of being insufficiently precautionary, but that of relying too heavily on a specific set of “reasonable worst-case” planning assumptions. I formulate some proposals that assign a more circumscribed role to “worst-case” thinking in emergency planning. In an epilogue, I consider what the implications of my proposals would have been for the UK’s response to the “second wave” of late 2020.

How did UK policymaking in the COVID-19 response use science? Evidence from scientific advisers

“…And yet some did indeed advocate particular policy options, such as a 'circuit breaker' lockdown in autumn 2020. It seems that 'minimal' was their considered preference, but some resorted to 'maximal' guidance in a short-term crisis of rising infection rates, a position defended on ethical grounds by Birch (2021).…”

When Is Lockdown Justified?

“…The Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE), the group that played a crucial role in the eventual implementation of lockdown in the United Kingdom, held their first "precautionary" meeting to discuss Covid-19 on 22 January, noting some evidence of person-to-person transmission, but also emphasizing the uncertainty surrounding almost all aspects of the virus (Birch 2021;SAGE 2020d). By the end of January, estimates of the basic reproduction number of the virus indicated sustained human-to-human transmission (Wu, Leung, and Leung 2020), "leav[ing] open the possibility for pandemic circulation of this new virus" (Riou and Althaus 2020, 3).…”

“…discussed in the field of "emergency ethics." While the level of threat here might not rise to the type of existential threat to society that theorists such as Michael Walzer (1988), in the context of war, argue can justify wide-ranging exceptions to normal moral standards, the widespread and societal nature of potential threat brings the situation closer to the types of societal threats that, according to theorists such as Walzer, might require extraordinary measures that go beyond what we appeal to in cases of potential individual harm (see also Birch 2021). The "imminence" of the threat also features heavily in discussions of "supreme emergency" (see, for example, Walzer 1988, 1).…”

“…The two conditions we are highlighting here-a threat of catastrophic harm and a lack of knowledge of the probabilities associated with various outcomes-are frequently identified as triggers for a precautionary approach aimed at preventing reasonable worst-case scenarios (cf., for example, Gardiner 2006). Indeed, Jonathan Birch (2021), on roughly these grounds, advocates a broadly precautionary approach to pandemic policymaking. There is, however, a third condition identified by Gardiner that is arguably not met in the case of the current pandemic-that the potential costs of taking precautionary measures are minimal compared to the catastrophic threat prevented (see also Rawls 1999).…”

What the COVID-19 pandemic reveals about science, policy and society

“…The careful, circumspect and sometimes even rather bland minutes of Sage meetings, for example, do not in retrospect seem likely to provoke the necessarily action leaders who were temperamentally disinclined to take it. Birch argues persuasively that extreme circumstances such as these justify scientific advisers offering “normatively heavy advice”, which includes specific policy recommendations that they would and should eschew in normal times [ 24 ]. This is all the more so when the character of policymakers is seen to be averse to the kinds of decisions advisers feel are warranted.…”