Britain’s chief medical officer admits government “overstated” dangers of COVID-19, causing too many people to lock themselves in their homes

10/04/2024 / By Arsenio Toledo

Chief Medical Officer for England Sir Chris Whitty has admitted in an inquiry regarding the United Kingdom’s response to the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) that the government “overstated the dangers of COVID.”

The COVID Inquiry was launched by former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson in June 2022, noting that the government’s actions during the pandemic need to be put “under the microscope.”

During testimony before the COVID Inquiry, Whitty discussed how the government early on in the pandemic struggled to properly communicate the dangers associated with COVID-19. He claimed that the balance in communicating the correct “level of concern” to the public was “really hard.” (Related: British cardiologist: There could be 50,000 people in the U.K. with MYOCARDITIS due to COVID-19 vaccines.)

“I was worried at the beginning. I still worry, actually in retrospect, about whether we got the level of concern right,” said Whitty. “Were we either overpitching it so that people were incredibly afraid of something where in fact, their actuarial risk was low, or we were not pitching it enough and therefore people didn’t realize the risk they were walking into.”

“I think that balance is really hard, and arguably, some people would say we, if anything, overdid it, rather than under at the beginning,” continued Whitty. “There’s certainly a range of opinions on that.”

“Confusion” caused people with COVID-19 to not seek medical attention

Whitty was confronted with the British government’s sloganeering during the early stages of the pandemic that people needed to “stay at home, protect the NHS and save lives.” The COVID Inquiry noted that the government’s emphasis on telling people to stay at home did not come with clarifications that health services were “open” and that people who suspected that they had COVID-19 should seek help with the closest National Health Service (NHS) facility.

The COVID Inquiry noted that this messaging resulted in fewer patients seeking Accident and Emergency services or calling 999 – the U.K.’s emergency number.

Whitty admitted this shortcoming of the government – that he and his colleagues were unable to make it clear to the British public that the NHS was open for use – and criticized the “confusion” that caused people to avoid seeking medical care.

He claimed that there was “never going to be a perfect balance” regarding the government’s messaging regarding staying at home and seeking help with the NHS. However, he admitted that “we didn’t get it across well enough” that people should continue to come to the hospital if they believed they needed help.

“I am confident what we didn’t do was to identify over and over again that the NHS was open, in particular, if there’s an urgent and life-threatening situation, you must go to (the) hospital,” said Whitty, citing data indicating that fewer people in certain emergencies – including people with heart attacks – sought NHS assistance.

Read more stories like this at Pandemic.news.

Watch this clip from Sir Chris Whitty’s testimony before the U.K. COVID Inquiry, featuring him admitting that the British government “overstated” the dangers associated with COVID-19.

This video is from the channel The Prisoner on Brighteon.com.