THANKS to pressure from Labour, the government has slowly released documents from the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), the government’s main source of scientific advice.

These show that government claims to “follow the science” are not really true.

The papers do not tell a simple story of government ignoring good advice — they also show that there were flaws in that advice. But they do show the government lagging behind, misrepresenting or ignoring some of the advice.

The first point is that, as the saying goes, advisers advise but ministers decide. The “science” is never one simple instruction. ministers decide which advice to follow, and how.

Sage typically presented menus of different variations on “lockdown,” giving ministers the ultimate choice. Sage’s March 4 statement on different “interventions” states:

“Sage has not provided a recommendation of which interventions, or package of interventions, that government may choose to apply. Any decision must consider the impacts these interventions may have on society, on individuals, the workforce and businesses, and the operation of government and public services.”

That said, Sage and its sub-committees were recommending much firmer action back in February, while Boris Johnson delayed taking action until late March.

Johnson’s stance on big sporting events, like the Cheltenham Festival in March, shows his tendency to misrepresent and trim Sage advice.

Johnson refused to ban Cheltenham, saying on March 12 that “the scientific advice, as we’ve said over the last couple of weeks, is that banning such events will have little effect on the spread.”

But a February 11 paper from Sage on the “question of banning major public events such as sporting fixtures” tells a different story.

Sage did indeed say that big public events were not the principle danger, but that’s because they were actually arguing that “samaller gatherings such as bars and nightclubs are higher risk as you can be in closer contact with others.”

Rather than arguing that the government should allow big sports events, they were actually arguing the government should shut restaurants and pubs.

In February, Sage papers said: “The impact of stopping all leisure activities, including public gatherings such as at bars and restaurant, would be expected to have a much larger effect on the population-level spread of the epidemic.”

Johnson only closed pubs, haphazardly, on March 20.

Johnson also absurdly undermined Sage’s advice. On March 3 Sage recommended that government issue “advice against greetings such as shaking hands and hugging.”

On the same day Johnson said at his press conference: “I was at a hospital the other night where I think there were a few coronavirus patients and I shook hands with everybody, you will be pleased to know and I continue to shake hands.”

He claimed this was in line with “scientific advice.” It wasn’t. Johnson subsequently became very ill with coronavirus.

Sage also took a firm stand in a February 26 paper, which makes clear that the “NHS will be unable to meet all demands” from an unchecked pandemic, and so measures should be taken to “delay” and “reduce the size of the peak” of demand.

The paper recommends “a combination of measures” from four choices: “closure of schools,” “home isolation of symptomatic cases, for 13 weeks, when enacted early,” “voluntary household quarantine for 13 weeks, when enacted early” and “social distancing for 13 weeks, when enacted early.”

The committee was not in favour of “combining all four measures” because this might restrict an outbreak so strongly it “would result in a second large epidemic once measures were lifted.”

Instead they suggest using “e.g. the first three” measures, which would include school closures.

But Johnson did not close schools until March 18, around 3 weeks later The form of “social distancing” recommended by Sage in the February 26 paper involved the “cessation of all activities outside the household (including social contact between different households) bar the essentials and attending school and work.”

They would have allowed work to continue, but as with the earlier paper, imply the immediate closure of bars, restaurants and gatherings — a move that would only happen weeks later.

It is easy to understand why Sage were worried.

On February 17 they estimated an unchecked coronavirus epidemic would probably mean “around 80 per cent of the population becoming infected.” On February 26 Sage made their first estimate of the “infection fatality rate” — which they put at roughly 1 per cent.

They feared hundreds of thousands of lives were at risk in an unchecked epidemic.

On March 2 Sage papers declare: “It is highly likely that there is sustained transmission of Covid-19 in the UK at present. It is almost certain that there will be sustained transmission in the UK in the coming weeks...” The epidemic was on.

Through mid-March, Sage papers become much less forceful. It may be that they bent towards government inaction. It may be Sage was partly won over to the concept of “herd immunity.”

On March 13 Chief Scientific Adviser Patrick Vallance said the government backed “herd immunity,” the mad plan to let the majority of the population catch coronavirus on the grounds that they would thereby develop immunity.

Sage papers include no formal adoption of “herd immunity,” but they do mostly talk about slowing the impact of coronavirus rather than stopping it altogether.

They also do not talk about a “test — trace — isolate” regime, the main traditional method of stopping any epidemic. So there may have been serious weaknesses in the advice, as well as government reluctance.

Finally on March 16 Sage toughened up again. A “consensus” paper by a Sage subcommittee says:

“It was agreed that the addition of both general social distancing and school closures to case isolation, household isolation and social distancing of vulnerable groups would be likely to control the epidemic when kept in place for a long period.”

The subcommittee “agreed that this strategy should be followed as soon as practical, at least in the first instance.”

As Sage recovered a firmer message, so too the government finally — four days later — began the full lockdown.