Covid inquiry under fire after claim 23,000 lives could have been saved if lockdown was a week earlier

The controversy centres on the Inquiry’s Module 2 report into political decision-making which stated that a lockdown introduced on or immediately after March 16, 2020 “would have resulted in approximately 23,000 fewer deaths” in England - a 48 per cent reduction in first-wave mortality.

The figure was based on modelling by Professor Neil Ferguson’s team at Imperial College London, comparing a March 16 intervention with the actual March 23 lockdown.

The post, written by Oxford academics Professor Carl Heneghan and Dr Tom Jefferson on the Trust the Evidence Substack, is one of the most politically sensitive conclusions of the Inquiry that has shadowed the pandemic from the start: did ministers hesitate - and did that hesitation cost tens of thousands of lives?

That conclusion shapes how the first lockdown is judged, how responsibility is assigned, and how future governments may respond in the early days of another crisis.

The Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) has already raised concerns about how the figure was presented.

The watchdog warned that saying modelling “has established” something makes it sound like a proven fact.

But the academics argue the models do not prove what would have happened. They are estimates based on assumptions.

It also noted that while the full report used more cautious wording, the Executive Summary - the section most likely to shape headlines and public understanding - sounded much more definite.

Ed Humpherson, the Director General for the OSR, wrote: “There is a risk that the wording chosen for the Executive Summary is a misleading representation of the underlying analysis,” and that “the Inquiry’s Executive Summary of the modelling does not sufficiently communicate the level of uncertainty associated with the analysis.”

The Inquiry later accepted the wording could have been clearer and said it would take more care in future summaries.

However, it has not withdrawn the figure and maintains that earlier lockdown would likely have reduced deaths.

Prof Heneghan and Dr Jefferson argue the problem goes deeper than wording.

First, they say the model relies on assumptions that are uncertain and cannot be tested.

It assumes how fast the virus was spreading in early March 2020, how the public would have reacted to earlier restrictions, and how the NHS would have coped.

Second, they argue the model combines two separate effects - earlier legal restrictions and earlier voluntary behaviour change.

Data later showed that many people had already begun reducing travel and social contact before March 23.

Critics say this makes it difficult to isolate the true impact of simply moving the legal lockdown date forward by a week.

Third, they point out the modelling was not a peer-reviewed, replicated study published in a scientific journal.

It was a scenario exercise designed to inform policy. Presenting it as a firm historical conclusion, they argue, gives it more weight than it can reasonably bear.

They also highlight what they see as a contradiction. The Inquiry itself records that ministers misunderstood modelling during the pandemic.

It notes that “Ministers failed to grasp the distinction between model-based forecasts and scenario modelling.”

Professor Chris Whitty told the Inquiry that scenarios “were not meant to be predictions.” Sir Patrick Vallance similarly stressed that modelling can project possibilities, not certainties.

Yet the late last year the Inquiry stated that a March 16 lockdown “would have resulted in approximately 23,000 fewer deaths.”

“Scenario models are ‘what ifs’,” Heneghan and Jefferson write. “They explore the consequences of hypothetical actions; they are not predictions.”

They argue that turning such a scenario into a precise number risks creating an impression of inevitability - and blame - that cannot be proven.

The row comes against the backdrop of a broader national debate about how the pandemic should be judged.

In March 2020, ministers were acting in conditions of extreme uncertainty. Testing was limited. The true fatality rate was still being established. Scientific advice was evolving rapidly.

At the time, projections from groups including Imperial College London warned of very high death tolls without restrictions, shaping decisions not just in the UK but internationally.

Six years on, those early choices are being revisited with the benefit of hindsight and fuller data.

Former Supreme Court justice Jonathan Sumption has repeatedly argued that governments relied heavily on projections that were inherently uncertain.

He has warned that complex decisions affecting liberty, education and the economy were often reduced to the idea of simply “following the science.”

Others have similarly cautioned against allowing models - which are tools for exploring possibilities - to be treated as definitive historical verdicts.

The Covid Inquiry is one of the largest public investigations in British history and is expected to run for several more years.

Supporters of the Inquiry say modelling is a legitimate and necessary way to explore alternative scenarios.

Critics accept that - but argue that the limits of modelling must be clearly spelled out.