Covid-19: Great Barrington Declaration

Lord Robathan Excerpts

Tuesday 13th October 2020 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Robathan]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the Great Barrington Declaration on the (1) physical, and (2) mental, health impacts of COVID-19 policies.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord Bethell) (Con)]

My Lords, the analysis of the Department of Health and Social Care, the Office for National Statistics and the Government Actuary is clear. Mitigations have prevented more than 500,000 deaths and the associated heartache. As the Prime Minister made clear yesterday, it is right to look at alternatives, and I am grateful to the noble Lord for his Question. However, having looked at the Great Barrington declaration, we have decided that the idea of a great prevention is bad science and bad economics, and it is impractical. It would be an indefensible moral decision for any Government to take.

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

My Lords, the scientists from Oxford, Stanford and Harvard who are behind this declaration should surely be listened to as much as, for instance, the discredited Professor Ferguson or indeed SAGE. We know that NHS waiting lists are at an all-time high and that 3 million cancer screenings have been missed. We know that the average age of those dying from Covid is 82.4 years—higher than from other causes—and that a total of 313 people under the age of 60 and without comorbidities have died in English hospitals from Covid. Current policies are not working. Will the Government stop digging, get out of their hole and go back to first principles to determine the objective of their Covid policy, and then change tack to achieve that objective?

[The Lord Speaker (Lord Fowler)]

My Lords, I remind noble Lords to keep supplementary questions brief.