Betrayal of Our Children Covid Inquiry Finds Lockdowns Halted Ordinary Childhood and School Closures Will Leave Lasting Scars
Childhood was 'brought to a halt' by draconian Covid lockdowns, the damning official inquiry found yesterday. Young lives were blighted even though the 'vast majority' of children were immune to the deadly virus, it added. Their education and wellbeing were sacrificed to save their elders. In her highly critical report, Baroness Hallett, chairman of the Covid-19 Inquiry, said closing schools and nurseries in early 2020 'were steps taken to protect the adult population – they brought ordinary childhood to a halt'. She added: 'For most children, the closure of schools, the inability to see friends and the requirement to stay at home, were of profound consequence.' Teachers and parents are now struggling with children who are slow to pass key milestones, due to the huge impacts of the unprecedented 2020 shutdown. In a landmark report into the devastating effects of the pandemic, Lady Hallett concluded: Last night Jacob Rees-Mogg, who served in the Cabinet throughout the pandemic, said the inquiry was right to conclude that children had been let down. Year eight boys wear face masks at Moor End Academy in Huddersfield on September 11, 2020 He told the Daily Mail: 'My view was that once we knew that children were at no risk from Covid we had no right to stop them socialising. 'It would have been much more sensible to allow the vulnerable to shield themselves and allow children to lead normal lives.'
In This Article:
- Schools Closed in 2020 and Ordinary Childhood Halted
- Dominic Cummings A Toxic and Destabilising Influence in Downing Street
- Keir Starmer And The Plan To Learn The Lessons
- The Courts Of Crisis And The 760-Page Verdict
- Economic Modelling And The Cost Of Lockdowns
- Scientific Advice, Groupthink, And The Oscillating PM
- Oscillating Johnson And Groupthink In The Cabinet
- Rule Breakers And The Image Of A Failing Government
- Vaccine Triumph And The Turning Point
- Daniel Hannan’s Blunt Verdict The Inquiry’s Prejudices And Sweden
- A Global Reflection On Excess Mortality And The Sweden Debate
- Vaccines First The Turning Point
- Sweden And The Lessons From A Different Path
- Vaccine Success A Turning Point For The Nation
Schools Closed in 2020 and Ordinary Childhood Halted
On March 18, 2020, the Government closed schools to most pupils, as part of nationwide lockdown measures. Baroness Hallett, a former Appeal Court judge, who has interviewed scores of ministers and civil service mandarins over two years, concluded in a 760-page report: 'The vast majority of children were not at risk of serious harm from Covid-19.' 'The decisions to close schools, and early-years provision, to most children, and to implement a lockdown, were steps taken to protect the adult population. 'They brought ordinary childhood to a halt. 'For most children, the closure of schools, the inability to see friends and the requirement to stay at home were of profound consequence.' The decision to close schools in 2020 – leaving huge numbers of working parents to school their children at home while holding down their own jobs – served to reduce Covid cases by as little as 10 per cent, according to Professor Patrick Vallance, the chief scientific adviser. Professor Sally Holland, former Children's Commissioner for Wales, said that 'if the opportunity to develop early skills is lost, it may be difficult to recover'.
Dominic Cummings A Toxic and Destabilising Influence in Downing Street
Dominic Cummings was a 'toxic' and 'destabilising influence' as Downing Street was grappling with the Covid crisis, the inquiry found. Baroness Hallett said there was 'cogent evidence' that the former senior No 10 adviser 'materially contributed to the toxic and sexist workplace culture at the heart of the UK government'. She branded Mr Cummings 'a destabilising influence' during a time of crisis who had 'poisoned the atmosphere in 10 Downing Street and undermined the authority of the Prime Minister'. Lady Hallett said Mr Cummings had undoubted abilities, and commended him for having steered a change in government strategy. But she said he had been at the heart of a chaotic culture and had used 'offensive, sexualised and misogynistic language'. Mr Cummings last night tweeted a fiery riposte on X characterising the inquiry chairman as 'Inspector Clouseau' and her report as 'a vast rewriting of history'.
Keir Starmer And The Plan To Learn The Lessons
Speaking to reporters on the plane to the G20 in South Africa last night, Sir Keir Starmer said: 'We are taking measures to make sure that, not just the NHS but the Government as a whole, is prepared for any number of eventualities because we have to learn the lessons of Covid and that's why we're looking very carefully at the report.'
The Courts Of Crisis And The 760-Page Verdict
On March 18, 2020, the Government closed schools to most pupils, as part of nationwide lockdown measures. Lady Hallett, a former Appeal Court judge, who has interviewed scores of ministers and civil service mandarins over two years, concluded in a 760-page report: 'The vast majority of children were not at risk of serious harm from Covid-19. 'The decisions to close schools, and early-years provision, to most children, and to implement a lockdown, were steps taken to protect the adult population. 'They brought ordinary childhood to a halt. 'For most children, the closure of schools, the inability to see friends and the requirement to stay at home were of profound consequence.' The decision to close schools in 2020 – leaving huge numbers of working parents to school their children at home while holding down their own jobs – served to reduce Covid cases by as little as 10 per cent, according to Professor Patrick Vallance, the chief scientific adviser.
Economic Modelling And The Cost Of Lockdowns
The 'drastic interference' put 'children at risk of harm', she added. Covid was the most momentous event in UK history since the Second World War, with millions ordered to stay at home during the series of lockdowns. Lady Hallett said: 'Had the UK been better prepared, fewer lives would have been lost, the socio-economic costs would have been substantially reduced and some of the decisions politicians had to take would have been far more straightforward. 'While the nationwide lockdowns of 2020 and 2021 undoubtedly saved lives, they also left lasting scars on society and the economy, brought ordinary childhood to a halt, delayed the diagnosis and treatment of other health issues and exacerbated societal inequalities.' The inquiry chairman blasted officials and politicians for their glacial reactions as the deadly disease spread from China in January 2020. She described February that year as 'a lost month' in which the UK could have made preparations that would have saved tens of thousands of lives.
Scientific Advice, Groupthink, And The Oscillating PM
Delay cost 23,000 lives ...claims Prof Lockdown Explosive claims by the Covid inquiry that 23,000 lives were lost because of a one-week delay raised eyebrows last night. Baroness Hallett stated in her executive summary that if the national lockdown had been imposed on March 16, 2020, instead of seven days later when it was actually implemented, the devastating death toll from the first wave could have been halved, according to 'modelling'. However, buried on Page 211 of her 760-page report, it reveals this estimate is based on analysis by 'Professor Lockdown' Neil Ferguson, the Imperial College academic whose terrifying predictions spooked Boris Johnson into adopting the draconian restrictions. Professor Ferguson, who quit as a Whitehall scientific adviser after being caught breaking social-distancing rules to meet his married lover, later faced claims from other epidemiologists that his dire warnings were overblown. Covid signs are seen on the closed gate of a primary school in East London on January 3, 2021 Among the conclusions in her damning report, Lady Hallett, the chairman of the £200 million Covid inquiry, found: Lockdowns might have been avoided The devastating lockdowns of 2020 and 2021 could have been avoided altogether if only the government had responded to the pandemic sooner. Lady Hallett said the first lockdown, which started on March 23, 2020, 'might have been shorter or not necessary at all' if restrictions such as self-isolating and social-distancing had been brought in earlier, even by a week.
Oscillating Johnson And Groupthink In The Cabinet
Later, when the second lockdown approached, Lady Hallett criticised Mr Johnson who 'throughout September and October 2020, repeatedly changed his mind on whether to introduce tougher restrictions and failed to make timely decisions'. She said the 'weakness of the restrictions used and Mr Johnson's oscillation enabled the virus to continue spreading at pace'. Lady Hallett said: 'Mr Johnson's own failure to appreciate the urgency of the situation was due to his optimism that it would amount to nothing, his scepticism arising from earlier UK experiences of infectious diseases, and, inevitably, his attention being on other government priorities.'
Rule Breakers And The Image Of A Failing Government
The inquiry chairman also addressed the issue of rule-breaking by ministers and advisers, saying that the 'very least the public should be entitled to expect is that those making the rules will abide by them'. She said several incidents, such as Mr Cummings's trip to Barnard Castle and Mr Hancock's affair, undermined trust in the government. Treasury failed to assess economic impact The report repeatedly condemns 'significant concerns' about the quality of economic modelling during the pandemic. The inquiry heard there was 'no meaningful model' of the devastating costs to the economy, unlike a large amount of scientific advice. Lady Hallett said: 'There was little evidence in each of the four nations of substantive economic modelling and analysis being provided to decision-makers. This inevitably hampered the ability of decision-makers to assess and balance relative harms.' Confusing rules and disproportionate fines Lady Hallett also took aim at confusing Covid rules and regulations. She said there 'was a growing public confusion regarding the numerous changes' and even the police were baffled about enforcing fines. She added that 'frequent and complex changes to the rules' undermined public trust, and Downing Street should have done more to ensure guidance reflected the law.
Vaccine Triumph And The Turning Point
Lady Hallett also praised Mr Johnson's government, saying: 'In December 2020, the UK was the first country in the world to approve a vaccine and commence a vaccination programme. 'Authorisation for the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine swiftly followed on December 30 and the Moderna vaccine on January 8, 2021. This was a remarkable achievement and a decisive turning point in the pandemic.'
Daniel Hannan’s Blunt Verdict The Inquiry’s Prejudices And Sweden
COMMENTARY BY DANIEL HANNAN The official inquiry into Covid-19 had made up its mind before it began. Its line of questioning presupposed that non-pharmaceutical interventions – masks, distancing, lockdown – were effective. The inquiry's sole interest was in why the government did not impose them earlier. Even before the first hearings, its prejudices were clear. When it started to call witnesses, it required them to take lateral flow tests before appearing. This was in the summer of 2023, long after the rest of the world had accepted that Covid was a disease we must learn to live with – and with which we had already learned to live. Sure enough, yesterday afternoon, in the hackneyed style which public bodies adopt when talking down to the rest of us, Lady Hallett's team declared that the government had done 'too little too late'. The effectiveness of harsh government crackdowns was assumed rather than interrogated. Britain was, according to the inquiry, too slow to enforce social distancing in February 2020, too quick to lift restrictions that summer and too slow to reimpose them later in the year. Chris Whitty, Boris Johnson and Patrick Vallance speak at Downing Street on March 3, 2020 At every stage, this interim report begs the question. The notion that the lockdown treatment might have been worse than the disease is, to the official mind, inconceivable. The idea that Britain was unprepared for a pandemic has been repeated so often that it has become received wisdom. In fact, we did have a plan, carefully worked out in cooler-headed times which provided for the gradual spread of the virus in a way that would prevent a spike, and so allow our hospitals to keep working. After three years of work, the bloated legal jamboree that is the Covid inquiry has published its second report, examining the decision making by politicians, civil servants and officials during the pandemic. At 760 pages long, it is certainly a weighty tome. But what it lacks in brevity, it more than makes up for in predictability. The conclusions could be seen coming a mile off. While many in Whitehall and the devolved administrations come in for stinging criticism, inquiry chairman Baroness Hallett mostly blames the Tories for fluffing the response. Boris Johnson, she says, responded with 'inexcusable' complacency to the threat, while hesitant ministers did 'too little, too late'. In perhaps the most damning finding, the report claims that imposing lockdown a week earlier could have saved 23,000 lives. Hindsight, though, is a wonderful thing. It's always easy looking back to condemn mistakes made in extreme situations and castigate those responsible for them. In the sterile environs of her courtroom, Baroness Hallett could have no sense of the unprecedented pressure cooker atmosphere of the pandemic in government. Amid all the confusion, conflicting reports and near hysterical demands for action, Mr Johnson had to weigh up suppressing the virus against the baleful economic and social effects of lockdown. Of course things would have been done better had the politicians involved known then what they know now. But how could they? In the heat of the worst health crisis the world had seen for a century, all governments were effectively flying blind. Full of contradictions, the report accuses Mr Johnson of dithering, while at the same time accepting that government scientists were telling him not to impose restrictions too early. Troublingly, Baroness Hallett's conclusions appear to be a ludicrous prelude to a future prime minister locking us down the next time a duck sneezes in the Far East. She admits lockdown 'left lasting scars', but this is a grotesque understatement. In almost every way, shutting down the nation was calamitous, causing severe and lasting damage to the economy, children's education, mental health, the poor and the NHS. For every life saved during the pandemic, there will surely be many others lost or shortened as a consequence of lockdown. Before embarking on the next phase of her inquiry, Baroness Hallett should heed the words of Anthony Hidden, the judge who investigated the 1988 Clapham Junction rail crash: 'There is almost no human action or decision that cannot be made to look more flawed and less sensible in the misleading light of hindsight.' In the event, that plan was junked after the publication of modelling by Imperial College, London. In an example of what economists call 'revealed preference', the author of that report, Professor Neil Ferguson, was later caught breaching lockdown rules in order to keep a tryst with a lover, which suggests he might not have been as worried as he made out. By then, however, some newspapers and broadcasters were in full panic mode. Why, they asked shrilly, had we not locked down in the way that Italy and France had? Why did Boris Johnson want to murder our grannies? Why were we letting people wander about the countryside? What, you might ask, would have happened had we not been stampeded into lockdown? Can we ever know whether our original plan would have worked? Actually, yes. Although we did not follow our own plans, Sweden did. The sensible Scandinavians took our carefully devised protocols and applied them more or less unchanged. In other words, Sweden stuck to the British plan. It did not do 'too little too late'. The Swedes did almost nothing aside from banning large meetings, urging the elderly and vulnerable to stay at home and asking everyone else to use common sense. What was the result? At first, it was difficult to answer that question, because different countries measured Covid fatalities in different ways. One clear measure, though, is the excess mortality rate, which can be calculated consistently across different countries. We know how many people died in any given nation over the previous three years and that gives us a rough estimate of how many should die the following year. It is the same measure everywhere. It can't be faked. What do we find when we compare Sweden's excess mortality rate to everyone else's? There are numerous studies, using methodologies which differ slightly from one another. Some show Sweden's excess mortality rate across 2020 and 2021 being a bit lower than the European average, others show it being a lot lower, and one shows it being the lowest of all – which is to say that Sweden, on that measure, had the lowest Covid death rate. Not a single ranking shows Sweden sticking out like a sore thumb with excess deaths – fear of which, of course, was the justification for imprisoning us all at home. Yet the lockdown obsessives saw Sweden, not as a reason to change direction, but as a public relations problem. In WhatsApp messages later leaked, the then health secretary, Matt Hancock, referred to the 'f***ing Sweden argument and asked officials to supply three or four bullet [points] of why Sweden is wrong'. No consideration of whether it might have been right. That, sadly, has been the attitude of Official Britain ever since, up to and including this farce of an inquiry. Decisions were made in 2020 on the basis of models. Made, I don't doubt, in good faith, but made speculatively nonetheless. Now that we have hard data instead of mere models, we should be asking only one question: did lockdowns work? But we can't bring ourselves to do it. The thought that we might have gone through so many indignities and agonies for nothing is too horrible to contemplate. Hence our amnesia about the direct cost of the closures. We blame the Labour government – as we previously blamed the Tories – for inflation and tax rises. Yet these things were the inescapable consequence of paying people to stay home for the better part of two years. And the direct economic costs are only the start of it. Lockdown introduced millions of people who had never claimed benefits to the idea of living on handouts. The number of people claiming to be too sick to work rocketed. Even among those still in employment, it is now considered outrageous to be asked to come to work regularly. Government employees, in particular, have made it clear that they will never return to the office full time, and their productivity is 7 per cent below where it was at the start of lockdown. Then we come to the non-economic harms caused by closed schools, the end of human contacts and the emergence of lives led online. Overnight, parents went from urging their children to switch their screens off to telling them to switch them on and finish their school work. How many mental health problems were incubated during those claustrophobic months? How many conspiracy theories were hatched? How many screen addictions formed? How many teenage minds poisoned? On some level, I think we know that we over-reacted. It is as if, waking with a bad hangover, we have a vague sense of having behaved foolishly, but can't bear to think too hard about what we did. Ninety-three per cent of us backed the first lockdown, 85 per cent backed the second and – incredibly – 71 per cent opposed Boris Johnson when he finally lifted the restrictions. As one of the single-digit number of columnists who opposed the lockdown from the start, I am acutely aware of how many people have backdated their views, and deny that they ever supported the idea. Rather than asking whether we played a part in making the country poorer, more pinched and more authoritarian, we look for a scapegoat. That much, at least, the inquiry is offering us. And at a cost of £200 million – which is somehow emblematic of what the lockdown did to our sense of fiscal probity from day one. Lord Hannan of Kingsclere is president of the Institute for Free Trade
A Global Reflection On Excess Mortality And The Sweden Debate
Not a single ranking shows Sweden sticking out like a sore thumb with excess deaths – fear of which, of course, was the justification for imprisoning us all at home. Yet the lockdown obsessives saw Sweden, not as a reason to change direction, but as a public relations problem. In WhatsApp messages later leaked, the then health secretary, Matt Hancock, referred to the 'f***ing Sweden argument and asked officials to supply three or four bullet [points] of why Sweden is wrong'. No consideration of whether it might have been right. That, sadly, has been the attitude of Official Britain ever since, up to and including this farce of an inquiry.
Vaccines First The Turning Point
To inquiry officials any notion that the lockdowns were worse than the disease is inconceivable COMMENTARY BY DANIEL HANNAN The official inquiry into Covid-19 had made up its mind before it began. Its line of questioning presupposed that non-pharmaceutical interventions – masks, distancing, lockdown – were effective. The inquiry's sole interest was in why the government did not impose them earlier. Even before the first hearings, its prejudices were clear. When it started to call witnesses, it required them to take lateral flow tests before appearing. This was in the summer of 2023, long after the rest of the world had accepted that Covid was a disease we must learn to live with – and with which we had already learned to live. Sure enough, yesterday afternoon, in the hackneyed style which public bodies adopt when talking down to the rest of us, Lady Hallett's team declared that the government had done 'too little too late'. The effectiveness of harsh government crackdowns was assumed rather than interrogated. Britain was, according to the inquiry, too slow to enforce social distancing in February 2020, too quick to lift restrictions that summer and too slow to reimpose them later in the year. Chris Whitty, Boris Johnson and Patrick Vallance speak at Downing Street on March 3, 2020 At every stage, this interim report begs the question. The notion that the lockdown treatment might have been worse than the disease is, to the official mind, inconceivable. The idea that Britain was unprepared for a pandemic has been repeated so often that it has become received wisdom. In fact, we did have a plan, carefully worked out in cooler-headed times which provided for the gradual spread of the virus in a way that would prevent a spike, and so allow our hospitals to keep working. After three years of work, the bloated legal jamboree that is the Covid inquiry has published its second report, examining the decision making by politicians, civil servants and officials during the pandemic. At 760 pages long, it is certainly a weighty tome. But what it lacks in brevity, it more than makes up for in predictability. The conclusions could be seen coming a mile off. While many in Whitehall and the devolved administrations come in for stinging criticism, inquiry chairman Baroness Hallett mostly blames the Tories for fluffing the response. Boris Johnson, she says, responded with 'inexcusable' complacency to the threat, while hesitant ministers did 'too little, too late'. In perhaps the most damning finding, the report claims that imposing lockdown a week earlier could have saved 23,000 lives.
Sweden And The Lessons From A Different Path
Hindsight says Sweden's approach led to a different outcome. The article notes that some studies show Sweden's excess mortality rate across 2020 and 2021 being lower than the European average, others lower still, and one showing the lowest of all. In other words, Sweden had the lowest Covid death rate by that measure. Not a single ranking shows Sweden sticking out with excess deaths – which was fear as the justification for imprisoning us all at home. Yet the lockdown obsessives saw Sweden as a PR problem rather than a reason to change direction. In WhatsApp messages, Matt Hancock referred to the 'f***ing Sweden argument' and asked for bullet points to argue against Sweden.
Vaccine Success A Turning Point For The Nation
In December 2020, the UK was the first country in the world to approve a vaccine and commence a vaccination programme. 'Authorisation for the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine swiftly followed on December 30 and the Moderna vaccine on January 8, 2021. This was a remarkable achievement and a decisive turning point in the pandemic.'
