The Hallet Inquiry: lockdowns are a failed experiment, according to the Welsh First Minister

Language matters

The BBC reports that Wales' First Minister Mark Drakeford has said local Covid lockdowns were a “failed experiment.”

He could have said it was a failed policy or intervention, but Drakeford chose to say lockdowns were an “experiment.”

An experiment is a scientific procedure undertaken to make a discovery and test a hypothesis. 

However, at the time, lockdowns were a policy enforced by law.  

Mark Drakeford announced in May 2020 that the maximum fine for repeated breaches of the lockdown rules in Wales rose from £120 to £1,920. Up to 8 June, 2,282 Fixed Penalty Notices were issued for - as it seems now - failing to participate in an experiment. People in Wales were twice as likely as English to be fined for breaking lockdown rules—some experiment.

We are at a loss to explain how the people who set the laws can do so based on experiments. As for experiments, where was the consent procedure, where was the control group, and where was the evaluation?

The Welsh government's chief scientific advi…