How effective are the daily COVID-19 Press Conferences?

[Yew]

Probably knew it was the last time people would see him - if things did turn bad, he gets to look like he knew stuff. If not, no-one will remember or care.

If things go well, then he warned us. If he's wrong, then we heeded his warning. It seems that being an epidemiologist has more in common with being a 'psychic' than I thought.

 

[Jamesrob637]

Shall we close this thread given that the final "regular" briefing took place today? The death toll was a little ambiguous - 171 is far lower than any previous Tuesday since mid-March however 110 historical deaths had been reported also stretching as far back as April - but given April was between 50 and 80 days ago that only equates to 2 per day even if you base things on just over 50 days.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Indeed, some pretty macabre doom-mongering from Prof Whitty!

He's right (and so right to say it on the briefing, he's just being honest). We are taking some whacking great risks, because to do otherwise would destroy the economy. This doesn't make the decision wrong (and so doesn't mean he criticised Boris on the briefing per-se), and we really should just be honest about it.

 

[C J Snarzell]

Prof Chris Whitty is definately a doom & gloom 'worst case' scenario scientist.

The final briefing yesterday saw him make presumptions that we could be in for further difficult times during the winter & into 2021.

There is absolutely no way this country can ever go into another full lockdown like we did in March and although Whitty & Jenny Harries are at the top of the game their role is to 'air on the side of caution' with everything they say at the briefings.

That said, my early point was to still ensure that the message of public safety still needs to be circulated daily & I find a regularly weekly Downing Street conference may help to assist this.

CJ

 

[Bayum]

Prof Chris Whitty is definately a doom & gloom 'worst case' scenario scientist.

The final briefing yesterday saw him make presumptions that we could be in for further difficult times during the winter & into 2021.

There is absolutely no way this country can ever go into another full lockdown like we did in March and although Whitty & Jenny Harries are at the top of the game their role is to 'air on the side of caution' with everything they say at the briefings.

That said, my early point was to still ensure that the message of public safety still needs to be circulated daily & I find a regularly weekly Downing Street conference may help to assist this.

CJ

His final remarks might have been a ‘doom and gloom’, but look around the world. We’ve got flares in countries where sustained transmission within the country had significantly reduced. Look at past outbreaks. Ebola continues to have flares here and there. Plague continues to flare to this day. Historically, we see the same sort of thing with previous pandemics and outbreaks. I’d go so far as saying it is a given that there is going to be some form of flare for us, and that’s before we even consider winter.
You’ve got to remember, this isn’t like any other SARS-like virus we have seen before. Both SARS and MERS previously failed to get to a point where sustained transmission was possible. Now that a virus has done that, it is right to be cautious and consider historic outbreaks of disease so that we can consider where this may go.

 

[Bantamzen]

Perhaps removing the press conferences and moving back to a more BAU in Parliament will help the media wean itself off it's obsession about individual pieces of data, and actually help to start to calm nerves amongst those in the population still peering nervously around their net curtains. The raw data is still going to be available here for the foreseeable future, so if people are interested they can still take a bit of time out to inspect it. But otherwise I think the conferences have run their usefulness, and Parliament can handle most of the detail.

His final remarks might have been a ‘doom and gloom’, but look around the world. We’ve got flares in countries where sustained transmission within the country had significantly reduced. Look at past outbreaks. Ebola continues to have flares here and there. Plague continues to flare to this day. Historically, we see the same sort of thing with previous pandemics and outbreaks. I’d go so far as saying it is a given that there is going to be some form of flare for us, and that’s before we even consider winter.
You’ve got to remember, this isn’t like any other SARS-like virus we have seen before. Both SARS and MERS previously failed to get to a point where sustained transmission was possible. Now that a virus has done that, it is right to be cautious and consider historic outbreaks of disease so that we can consider where this may go.

And you will continue to see flare ups now and into the future, that's inevitable given it's spread. But that doesn't mean more doom & gloom, lockdowns & terrified populations. The experts will always err on the side of caution, they know the effects getting something wrong can have. Predict it's all going away & it doesn't, they get blamed. Predict the end of the world and people call them nutters but then quickly forget. So its unsurprising why they take the position they do.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Perhaps removing the press conferences and moving back to a more BAU in Parliament will help the media wean itself off it's obsession about individual pieces of data, and actually help to start to calm nerves amongst those in the population still peering nervously around their net curtains. The raw data is still going to be available here for the foreseeable future, so if people are interested they can still take a bit of time out to inspect it. But otherwise I think the conferences have run their usefulness, and Parliament can handle most of the detail.

There's also this:

UKHSA data dashboard

Showing public health data across England

coronavirus.data.gov.uk

which provides graphs, albeit not quite the same as the ones on the slides so be careful to read the explanatory text.

 

[adc82140]

The press conferences ceased to be useful some time ago. The questions from the press and public were rarely answered effectively. It was mostly repeating soundbites. For some time I've just been viewing the datasets online, and the publication of these are continuing.

 

[AlistairCowell]

Jonathan Van-Tam was also a ‘doom and gloom’ deputy CMO, because he said ‘The virus will certainly be coming back’ at one of the press conferences. This scared me.

 

[bramling]

Jonathan Van-Tam was also a ‘doom and gloom’ deputy CMO, because he said ‘The virus will certainly be coming back’ at one of the press conferences. This scared me.

Van-Tam seems to be out of favour after his not-particularly-veiled criticism of Cummings’s escapades. I think I’m right in saying he’s barely if all been seen since.

Ultimately I think we shouldn’t dismiss what the medical experts say. There’s still a high rate of infection out there, and a lot of unknowns regarding exactly how the virus behaves both with regards to spread and immunity. I would be more concerned if these experts weren’t being cautious.

 

[Senex]

Van-Tam seems to be out of favour after his not-particularly-veiled criticism of Cummings’s escapades. I think I’m right in saying he’s barely if all been seen since.

Ultimately I think we shouldn’t dismiss what the medical experts say. There’s still a high rate of infection out there, and a lot of unknowns regarding exactly how the virus behaves both with regards to spread and immunity. I would be more concerned if these experts weren’t being cautious.

I got the same impression that he's dropped out of favour. I became more and more impressed with him as things went along. He did try to answer questions. He gave proper explanations. He was clear and concise. And as we saw on the Cummings day, he was perfectly willing to stand up for his own views. All this at a time when the CSA and the CMO were very carefully veiling their language so as to give no offence to their political masters. Those two seem to have become much bolder such van Tam disappeared off our screens, culminating in Whitty's very clear statement of his position yesterday. There's an interesting piece in today's Guardian listing his disagreements with the government: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...tty-diverged-from-uk-government-line-covid-19.

I found the politicians at all those press conferences, of which I saw all but three or four, uniformly dreadful, and I was very disappointed by most of the journalists too, especially those from the BBC who seemed very reluctant to ask or pursue difficult questions and those from the local press, when their people appeared on the scene, many of which were tediously long-winded and boringly local.

 

[Darandio]

Jonathan Van-Tam was also a ‘doom and gloom’ deputy CMO, because he said ‘The virus will certainly be coming back’ at one of the press conferences. This scared me.

Likely reality isn't doom and gloom. Van-Tam is one of the only people featured throughout this whole debacle that comes out with any credit.

 

[bramling]

Likely reality isn't doom and gloom. Van-Tam is one of the only people featured throughout this whole debacle that comes out with any credit.

Agreed.

He seems to be rather more effective at articulating his position than some of the others, and perhaps more effective in putting those views into a format which relates to joe public - which he does by attempting to explain in detail *why* he takes a particular line on an issue.

 

[Mag_seven]

Given that we are still in the middle of a crisis with our liberties constrained and having ever increasing job losses etc as a result of their actions, I think there should still be at least a weekly briefing where the government explains what the current situation is and why they are doing things. I would be happy to do away the "press questions" bit though. Scrutiny of government policy can continue through parliament.

 

[weastebusdepot]

Likely reality isn't doom and gloom. Van-Tam is one of the only people featured throughout this whole debacle that comes out with any credit.

I looked forward to the ones he did since there was a chance of actually learning something new, which was after all the purpose of the briefings. He didn't restrict his answers to soundbites, and even if he couldn't give the answers, explained the complexities and what was being done to try to get the answers. Even his now famous "Don't tear the pants out of it" quote was straight to the point.

 

[BJames]

Agree with all the above. Van-Tam is a very competent Professor, and he emerges from this with a strong reputation and he's not changed his position repeatedly. Some is doom and gloom but ultimately he is a medical professor and not a politician.

It will be interesting to see if/when they schedule another press conference, what type of announcement is made at the conference etc and whether it will be more "press announcement" rather than "conference" - I think they're fed up of answering journalists' questions on the breakfast shows and again by dinner time!

 

[Huntergreed]

I do think that a more appropriate balance is being struck now and that this was the correct time to end the press conferences.

The main thing I picked up was a balance in tone between the attending speakers. The minister attending now seems to be more focused on reopening the country and radiates a more 'calm' tone, whereas the advisor(s) attending tends to be more focused on the suppression of the virus and radiates a more 'cautious' and uncertain tone. In order to allow the economy to reopen whilst suppressing the virus to an acceptable level, there needs to be a fine balance between caution and reason, and I feel that this was what we were starting to see before they stopped the conferences.

I wouldn't be surprised if it's now purely Johnson, Vallance and Whitty that come out, and if the tone of the future conferences will remain similar to last night, yes we are reopening the country, but we still haven't got our mitigations (contact tracing app and system) fully ready yet, so we still need you to be cautious until we have this sorted.

 

[NorthOxonian]

I do think that a more appropriate balance is being struck now and that this was the correct time to end the press conferences.

The main thing I picked up was a balance in tone between the attending speakers. The minister attending now seems to be more focused on reopening the country and radiates a more 'calm' tone, whereas the advisor(s) attending tends to be more focused on the suppression of the virus and radiates a more 'cautious' and uncertain tone. In order to allow the economy to reopen whilst suppressing the virus to an acceptable level, there needs to be a fine balance between caution and reason, and I feel that this was what we were starting to see before they stopped the conferences.

I wouldn't be surprised if it's now purely Johnson, Vallance and Whitty that come out, and if the tone of the future conferences will remain similar to last night, yes we are reopening the country, but we still haven't got our mitigations (contact tracing app and system) fully ready yet, so we still need you to be cautious until we have this sorted.

The danger of having the politicians and advisors take different lines is that it politicises the crisis. At the start of the crisis, there was little difference between voters from the different parties when it came to their views on lockdown or social distancing. However, the current measures seem to be much more partisan. 59% of Conservative voters think the changes are happening at about the right pace, versus 26% thinking the changes are too fast, but the equivalent figures for Labour voters are 38% and 47%. We cannot have the idea of returning society to normal become a political football, and by having ministers present that side of the argument, we risk making our recovery political.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Agree with all the above. Van-Tam is a very competent Professor, and he emerges from this with a strong reputation and he's not changed his position repeatedly. Some is doom and gloom but ultimately he is a medical professor and not a politician.

It will be interesting to see if/when they schedule another press conference, what type of announcement is made at the conference etc and whether it will be more "press announcement" rather than "conference" - I think they're fed up of answering journalists' questions on the breakfast shows and again by dinner time!

I reckon it's more likely, going forward, that Bozza will address Parliament with any new plans, then later that day do one of his evening recorded "talk to camera" sessions.

By the way if you like watching the slides they continue to be published (Mon-Fri) here:

Slides, datasets and transcripts to accompany coronavirus press conferences

Slides, datasets and transcripts from press conferences at 10 Downing Street in response to coronavirus.

www.gov.uk

 

[BJames]

Ah yes, it's good they keep publishing the slides - yet another reason why we don't really need the conferences any more, all the detail is published anyway, and anything not related to the slides is announced in parliament. A good time to draw this to a close I think... Johnson is still questioned weekly by Starmer anyway (and a lot always comes out of those sessions) plus apart from Good Morning Britain, Secretaries of State are still doing the rounds in the mornings.

 

[Mojo]

At a risk of going off topic.

The Times newspaper have reported that from the autumn, the government plans to scrap the daily afternoon lobby briefings that are held behind closed doors to those specially invited (although the am daily session to continue), with a televised briefing with questions and answers at the end, as a sort of cross between the Coronavirus daily briefings and what happens in the USA White House.

Gov’t must have been happy with how these have gone! Or just want to upset special interests even more!

 

[C J Snarzell]

Is there a Downing Street press conference taking place later today?

I suspect Boris Johnson is going to deliver a message in anticipation of tomorrow (4th July) when pubs reopen and half the country will descend into a New Year's Eve mentality.

CJ

 

[Class 33]

Yes, there's another one today at 5pm.

 

[Huntergreed]

BBC today:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-53275395

The UK government is planning to introduce daily televised press briefings later this year.

The new format, similar to that used by the White House in the United States, is expected to come in by October.

Boris Johnson told LBC Radio the recent daily televised coronavirus briefings showed the public wanted more "direct engagement" with decision-makers.

It is understood an experienced broadcaster will be recruited to host the question-and-answer sessions.

Looks like they’re bringing them back, albeit in a slightly different format. Is this necessary at this stage?

 

[adc82140]

Don't think they are referring specifically to Covid here, the press briefings with deal with the issues of the day (anyone remember Brexit?)

 

[Mojo]

Don't think they are referring specifically to Covid here, the press briefings with deal with the issues of the day.

This is correct.

 

[scotrail158713]

Don't think they are referring specifically to Covid here, the press briefings with deal with the issues of the day

I think you’re right

(anyone remember Brexit?)

Ah yes, the good old days.

 

[AlistairCowell]

Boris Johnson will be using the press conference at some point tomorrow, in response to restrictions being reintroduced following a spike in cases.