Covid inquiry live: Boris Johnson to be questioned over impact of pandemic on children | Covid inquiry
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If Boris Johnson takes a similar approach Chris Whitty Yesterday, then, we could probably expect the former prime minister to say that decisions made during the pandemic inevitably had some negative impacts on young people and children (which they knew in advance), but that the worst-case scenarios they imagined showed that without intervention the impacts would be much worse.
It’s hard to know in advance how political Johnson’s evidence will be. Government collapses in July 2022 after chancellor Rishi Altar and health secretary Sajid Javid They issued damning resignation letters within minutes of each other. Johnson remains an MP until June 2023. He resigned suddenly in disgrace after it was revealed that he had misled parliament in the investigation into the Partigate scandal and recommended a lengthy suspension from the House of Commons. Johnson’s hindsight is that he is still quite aggrieved by the end of his parliamentary career.
Whitty defends closing schools in Covid investigation
Yesterday England’s chief medical officer was under investigation Chris Whitty He suggested that decision-makers at the time faced a series of “very bad” choices, some “somewhat worse, some much worse”.
He defended the closure of schools as follows:
I’m confident in saying that if schools had not been closed, and then based on the evidence we have, and I don’t think the subsequent evidence undermines that, the peak of the pandemic would have been higher and that would obviously have had a direct impact on deaths from Covid in the first wave, but it would have increased the risk of all the indirect impacts from health services not being able to work.
Therefore, I think that not closing schools will have a material impact on making the epidemic much worse.
At this point we’ve done this with the Alpha variant [January 2021]The numbers were already incredibly high, and to triple or quadruple that was an extraordinarily dangerous place for us to be.
So waiting for it to double a few more times to see what happens would be potentially disastrous in my view. And that was really the basis of the decisions that were made at that time.
If you want to remind yourself of some of the decisions taken during the quarantine, the Institute of Government this is PDF which shows A timeline from March 2020 to December 2021.
This research briefing A report from the House of Commons library published in September 2021 Comprehensive guide to measures taken in parliament It has something to do with the epidemic.
There’s also an interactive timeline we published twelve months into the pandemic, described as “a year-long journey of announcements, U-turns, lockdowns, denials, testing and more than 100,000 deaths.”
Today’s hearing will discuss the impact of the epidemic on children and young people.
The inquiry’s hearings have been divided into different modules focusing on different aspects of the UK’s response to the Covid outbreak. tentative outline of the scope of today’s hearing covers:
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The extent to which children and young people are considered part of any preparations and planning for the pandemic
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The extent to which children and young people are taken into account by the UK government and devolved administrations in the implementation of Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions (NPIs) and the impact of these decisions
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The impact of the pandemic on the education of children and young people and their early years opportunities (including further and/or higher education, apprenticeships)
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The impact of the pandemic on children and young people’s physical and mental health, well-being, development, family life and access to health services
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The impact of the pandemic on children and young people in terms of access to and interaction with social care services and other agencies with a role in supporting children’s safety
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The impact of the pandemic on children and youth in contact with the criminal justice system, including those in juvenile custody, juvenile defendants and offenders, and those whose parents or primary caregivers are in custody during the pandemic
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The impact of the pandemic on children and young people in contact with the immigration system
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The impact of the pandemic on children and young people in terms of access and use of the internet, social media and online resources
To aid understanding, there are also documents that summarize the scope of the investigation in a simpler form. children under 12 years oldAnd children over 12 years old.
The version for younger children explains it this way:
The Covid-19 inquiry in the UK is a major inquiry into understanding what happened during the pandemic and what we can do better.
We examine how the pandemic is affecting children and young people from diverse backgrounds across the UK. This includes children who need extra help at school, in life, or who are new to our country. We also want to hear from teachers, parents and carers about what children’s lives have been like during the pandemic and what they wish could have been different.
We want to find out how the pandemic is affecting children and young people and what can be done to help them if it happens again. We also want to help decision-makers understand the needs of children and young people in case of a new epidemic. We want to make sure we understand how the pandemic is still affecting children and young people right now, so we can learn from it.
Welcome and opening summary…
Welcome to the Guardian’s live broadcast England’s Covid investigationwith Boris Johnson He will appear to testify this morning.
The inquiry is currently gathering information about the impact of the pandemic on children and young people, which will be the focus of questions put to the former prime minister today.
It is worth noting that initially health was a devolved issue and therefore England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland responded differently during the pandemic. The Covid investigation is UK-wide. scotland holds own Covid investigation delegated response and Senedd debated this year Wales’ own report on how prepared it is for the pandemic.
Today Martin Belam is blogging for you and you can reach me via email at martin.belam@theguardian.com.
