UnHerd with Freddie Sayers Prof. Sunetra Gupta: The lost lessons of lockdown
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Nov 22, 2025 Prof. Sunetra Gupta, a leading theoretical epidemiologist from Oxford and co-author of the Great Barrington Declaration, critiques the UK COVID inquiry, calling its conclusions an "insult" to public intelligence. She questions the validity of modelling that suggests lockdowns saved lives, highlights the ignored evidence from Sweden, and argues for a focus on alternative explanations like herd immunity. Gupta emphasizes the ethical costs of lockdowns and champions a focused protection approach for the vulnerable, urging scientists to consider broader societal impacts in their advice.
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Modelling Isn't Proof Of What Would Have Happened
- The UK inquiry's headline that an earlier lockdown would have saved 23,000 lives rests on modelling, not established facts.
- Prof. Sunetra Gupta argues modelling cannot definitively prove exactly how many lives a different policy would have saved.
Cases Fell Before Lockdown, Suggesting Other Drivers
- Evidence shows cases began falling before mandatory UK lockdowns, challenging the claim lockdowns caused the decline.
- Gupta considers herd immunity plus seasonality a simpler explanation than assuming lockdowns were decisive.
Policy Reversal Was A Natural Experiment
- Lifting lockdowns in summer 2021 did not produce the predicted explosion in cases that some modelers expected.
- Gupta says that failure should have been used to discriminate between hypotheses about what drives epidemic waves.
