Sir David King led the response against the 2001 foot-and-mouth outbreak (Picture: Getty/Reuters/Rex)

The UK’s coronavirus strategy has come under fire from a former chief science adviser to the government.

Sir David King, who led the response to the foot-and-mouth outbreak of 2001, criticised the secrecy around the group of scientists advising the prime minister and suggested Britain should learn from Asian countries on the fight against coronavirus.

He told the Financial Times: ‘When it came to foot-and-mouth and Sars, we used to be the ones telling China how to respond, but now the boot is on the other foot.

‘The Asians are in the lead and they’ve responded well. We’ve done poorly.’


Sir David hit out at the secrecy shrouding the scientific advisory group on emergencies (Picture: Richard Gardner/REX/Shutterstock)

A team of experts known as the scientific advisory group for emergencies (Sage) is assembled for specific crises such as the coronavirus outbreak.



It does not disclose its membership beyond that it is chaired by the chief scientific adviser, currently Sir Patrick Vallance, and is attended by the chief medical officer, Professor Chris Whitty.

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Only a handful of members have publicly revealed their identities, leading to concerns as to which areas of science dominate decision-making.

It’s widely believed the UK’s strategy has been led by epidemiology, the study of infectious diseases, but there has been some controversy over the relative importance of sub-disciplines such as data modelling, virology and the logistics of managing diseases.

Sir David added: ‘I simply cannot see the argument for not knowing who the members of Sage are.’

There is also little indication of how much weight the group has placed on different models by rival teams of academics, or how the social and economic impact of the lockdown is being accounted for.

Sir Patrick Vallance has defended Sage’s anonymity as necessary for it to function properly (Picture: PA)

It has published a selection of key studies used as evidence for the lockdown and social distancing guidelines, but these are now more than a month out of date.

In response to questions from Greg Clark, a Conservative MP who chairs the science and technology committee, the current chief scientific adviser said Sage’s anonymity followed security recommendations and protected members from ‘undue influence’.

While some East Asian countries such as South Korea and Singapore have had relative success ‘flattening the curve’, there is widespread suspicion about the data China has published on its outbreak.

Authorities repeatedly changed the way it counted cases and deaths, and numerous Chinese doctors and journalists were reportedly silenced or disappeared after raising the alarm in the early stages of the outbreak.

Canada’s Macdonald-Laurier Institute published an open letter from 100 policy experts, lawmakers and academics primarily from Western countries on Tuesday accusing China of a ‘cover-up’ described as its ‘Chernobyl moment’.

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