On the 19th October, when Wales announced that it was going to have a Welsh national ‘firebreak’ lockdown, it seemed like a very good idea.
Covid positive test results, hospital admissions and deaths were all increasing across Britain and Boris was resisting calls from the Labour Leader Keir Starmer for a national lockdown.
As Wales headed into lockdown, on the 23rd October, the Welsh Labour administration, could justifiably point across the Severn Bridge at England, labouring under Boris’s tutelage – and ruefully shake their heads.
Now, however, the positions appear to have been reversed. England is a week into a 4-week lockdown and Wales has just emerged from a 2-week lockdown with Covid numbers, although ‘plateauing’, still too high. On the 5th of November, four days before the Welsh lockdown was due to end, an analysis by the BBC showed that of the Council areas with the 10 worst rates in the UK, 3 were in Wales, in 1st, 9th and 10th positions. This covered the week ending up to the 1st of November, 10 days into the Welsh lockdown.
The Welsh people could have been forgiven, for thinking it was an unwise decision to end the Welsh lockdown and puzzling that First Minister Mark Drakeford was at pains to emphasise that he would end the lockdown irrespective of the state of the pandemic or whether it had met its declared aim of getting the R number below 1. By contrast, Michael Gove announced to some howls of protest in England, only a few days after the English National lockdown commenced, that it would be extended if required.
The justification the Welsh Government gave for ending the lockdown before its success could be confirmed was that it would constitute a “massive breach of trust” not to end it as promised. But the Welsh Government had chosen the short length of the lockdown, knowing then it would be too short to evaluate its success and in fact opted for the 2-week option (17 days) rather than the 3-week option which were both advised. The Welsh Government had also put itself in the unnecessary position of making an arguably unwise promise in advance, to not extend the lockdown (even to the worst areas) – a decision not supported by any robust (published) science.
The contrast with Gove and England was stark – Gove emphasising the need to keep people healthy (and alive) whilst Drakeford was emphasising the need to keep their trust.
To understand Drakeford‘s position, it is necessary to look at the advice his Government received from their official advisors, the Technical Advisory Cell (TAC) in their paper “Behavioural Insights to support a post fire break Wales”.
The paper emphasises the importance of individual responsibility, fairness and clear and simple communications, and “building and maintaining confidence in Government”. The paper also emphasises the necessity of “strong cultural commitment to the collective” as populations struggle with the difficulties of lockdown.
TAC uses the example of attitudes in Sweden as the model that the Welsh people could follow. Whilst not directly referencing the Swedish policy on Covid it is perhaps unwise to reference the Swedish behavioural model at this time, given their Covid policy drew (and draws) extensive criticism for giving greater responsibility to the Swedish people for dealing with the virus and resulting in what appears to be a much higher death rate than their Scandinavian neighbours. (Note: The Swedish approach may yet be vindicated).
This debate about the more sophisticated “behavioural insights” rather than the cruder lockdown policies is somewhat reminiscent of the debate back in March when Public Health England was heavily criticised for putting forward allegedly non-robust behavioural studies – human behaviours being much more difficult to predict than that of the somewhat simpler organism, the Covid 19 virus.
https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-how-the-uk-government-is-using-behavioural-science-134097
It is arguable that there has been a lack of questioning of the Welsh Government either by the English/British media who are apparently uninterested in Wales (or suffering from complexity fatigue) and the Welsh media who seem to, perhaps understandably, simply take delight in Wales flexing its devolved muscles.
But when a country apparently strays from the scientific consensus in the middle of a pandemic, without having to adequately justify her actions, then that is not a very (literally) healthy state of affairs even if, as hoped, in the next week or so, the R Number has fallen below 1 and stays there – and the Welsh Government can say it has been vindicated.
It would be interesting to know if the Welsh Government has considered (virtually) sending any of the TAC to Ireland to see if any lessons there are transferable to Wales. The Irish are Celtic cousins after all and potentially have at least as much in common with the Welsh as the Swedes.
By way of comparison between the two countries, the Covid death rate per million of population in Ireland (Republic) is about 396 compared to Wales which is about 950.
Sin é.
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