They did. Unfortunately, the inquiry that UK Telegraph piece helped prompt has been used to justify their totalitarianism, and to call for even more, harsher, stricter restrictions and mandates. For pandemics and virtually any public health emergency they declare. From today's testimony by former PM David Cameron. Who first brought the Science of Totalitarianism into the UK as the Behavioural Insights Team at the same time that Obama created the Social and Behavioral Sciences Team in the US. These are sister efforts; what happens in the UK is meant to happen in the US, as well. They are doubling down on totalitarianism and expanding the scope based upon his remarks to the formal inquiry:
" - He said more time should have been spent assessing the risk of a pandemic with asymptomatic transmission. “When you think what would be different if more time had been spent on a highly infectious, asymptomatic pandemic, different recommendations would have been made about what was necessary to prepare for that,” he said.
- I now believe, however, that it might have been helpful if I had delved into the pandemic influenza risks myself … This is not because I believe such a review would have been likely to lead to any significant improvements in our preparedness for a pandemic flu itself, but rather because it might have led me to question whether we were adequately prepared to deal with the risks of forms of respiratory disease other than pandemic influenza.
- David Cameron tells Covid inquiry pandemic planning under his government did not focus enough on non-flu threats
David Cameron is giving evidence to the Covid inquiry since 11am. He was prime minister from 2010 until 2016, and he said that although pandemics were seen as a “tier 1 risk”, there was too much focus on the risk of a flu pandemic, and not enough on the risk of another type.
He said he had been asking himself why that happened, and it was “very hard” to give an answer. He said:
This is the thing I keep coming back to, which is that pandemic was a ‘tier 1 risk’ – pandemics were looked at, but … much more time was spent on pandemic flu and the dangers of pandemic flu rather than on potential pandemics of other more respiratory diseases like Covid turned out to be. And, you know, I think this is so important because so many consequences follow from that.
And I’ve been sort of wrestling with … I think the architecture [to deal with large-scale emergencies] was good – the national security council, the national security adviser, the risk register, and also this new security risk assessment, which was perhaps a bit more dynamic.
But that’s where I keep coming back to … is, so much time was spent on a pandemic influenza and that was seen as the greatest danger – and we had very bad years for flu so it is a big danger.
But why wasn’t more time and more questions asked about what turned out to be the pandemic that we faced? It’s very hard to answer why that’s the case. And I’m sure this public inquiry is going to spend a lot of time on that."
Use of fear to control behaviour in Covid crisis was ‘totalitarian’, admit scientists
UK Guardian, May 14, 2021
https://web.archive.org/web/20210519003131/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/05/14/scientists-admit-totalitarian-use-fear-control-behaviour-covid/
Wow. They actually admit it.
They did. Unfortunately, the inquiry that UK Telegraph piece helped prompt has been used to justify their totalitarianism, and to call for even more, harsher, stricter restrictions and mandates. For pandemics and virtually any public health emergency they declare. From today's testimony by former PM David Cameron. Who first brought the Science of Totalitarianism into the UK as the Behavioural Insights Team at the same time that Obama created the Social and Behavioral Sciences Team in the US. These are sister efforts; what happens in the UK is meant to happen in the US, as well. They are doubling down on totalitarianism and expanding the scope based upon his remarks to the formal inquiry:
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2023/jun/19/rishi-sunak-boris-johnson-keir-starmer-privileges-committee-report-tories-labour-uk-politics-live?topics=PERSON%3ADavid+Cameron#key-events-carousel-desktop
" - He said more time should have been spent assessing the risk of a pandemic with asymptomatic transmission. “When you think what would be different if more time had been spent on a highly infectious, asymptomatic pandemic, different recommendations would have been made about what was necessary to prepare for that,” he said.
- I now believe, however, that it might have been helpful if I had delved into the pandemic influenza risks myself … This is not because I believe such a review would have been likely to lead to any significant improvements in our preparedness for a pandemic flu itself, but rather because it might have led me to question whether we were adequately prepared to deal with the risks of forms of respiratory disease other than pandemic influenza.
- David Cameron tells Covid inquiry pandemic planning under his government did not focus enough on non-flu threats
David Cameron is giving evidence to the Covid inquiry since 11am. He was prime minister from 2010 until 2016, and he said that although pandemics were seen as a “tier 1 risk”, there was too much focus on the risk of a flu pandemic, and not enough on the risk of another type.
He said he had been asking himself why that happened, and it was “very hard” to give an answer. He said:
This is the thing I keep coming back to, which is that pandemic was a ‘tier 1 risk’ – pandemics were looked at, but … much more time was spent on pandemic flu and the dangers of pandemic flu rather than on potential pandemics of other more respiratory diseases like Covid turned out to be. And, you know, I think this is so important because so many consequences follow from that.
And I’ve been sort of wrestling with … I think the architecture [to deal with large-scale emergencies] was good – the national security council, the national security adviser, the risk register, and also this new security risk assessment, which was perhaps a bit more dynamic.
But that’s where I keep coming back to … is, so much time was spent on a pandemic influenza and that was seen as the greatest danger – and we had very bad years for flu so it is a big danger.
But why wasn’t more time and more questions asked about what turned out to be the pandemic that we faced? It’s very hard to answer why that’s the case. And I’m sure this public inquiry is going to spend a lot of time on that."