Claims that the coronavirus lockdown should be introduced as late as possible to ensure people would not grow fatigued with the restrictions on their daily lives were not backed up by the government’s behavioural scientists, a member of the expert group has said.
In press conferences running up to the day Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced the nation would have to stay in their homes, government officials repeatedly said ‘behavioural fatigue’ was one of the reasons it made sense to put off bringing in restrictions.
However, the idea that people would grow weary of the measures prior to the peak of the virus had no backing from the scientists the government put together to advise on behavioural matters — the Scientific Pandemic Group on Behaviours (SPI-B).
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It comes amid suggestions locking down just a week earlier could have saved something in the region of 20,000 lives.
Professor Robert West, a member of SPI-B, told the BBC’s Newsnight programme: “This term behavioural fatigue seemed to have somehow emerged at a fairly early stage in the process. It certainly didn’t come from SPI-B, and it’s not a behavioural science term — if you look in the literature you won’t find it because it doesn’t exist.
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A customer has her hair cut outside at Blade Hairdressers in Soho in London
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Getty
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AFP via Getty
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A circus performer from the Association of Circus Proprietors in Whitehall, London. The association handed a petition to Downing Street to ask Prime Minister Boris Johnson to allow circuses to reopen
EPA
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Bamburgh Castle in Northumberland, which re-opened to the public after being closed due to the coronavirus lockdown
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PA
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PA
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Slackliner Sandor Nagy practices on the beach in Boscombe, on the south coast of England
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People visit Bolton Abbey in Yorkshire, that recently reopened following the easing of coronavirus lockdown restriction
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Police at the scene of an incident at the Park Inn Hotel in central Glasgow. Scottish police said armed officers shot dead a man after a suspected stabbing in the city centre left six others injured, including one of their colleagues. Several roads were closed and the surrounding area was cordoned off
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PA
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Action Images via Reuters
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Arsenal’s midfielder Nicolas Pepe kneels before the Premier League match against Brighton and Hove Albion at the American Express Community Stadium in southern England
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Players kneel, as well as, having ‘Black Lives Matter’ in place of names on their shirts prior to the start of the Premier League match between Aston Villa and Sheffield United at Villa Park in Birmingham. The league resumed after its three-month suspension because of coronavirus
AP
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Motakhayyel ridden by Jim Crowley, right, wins the Buckingham Palace Handicap during day one of Royal Ascot. This year, the flat racing’s biggest meeting, is behind closed doors due to the coronavirus outbreak
PA
45/50 15 June 2020
Queues form at Primark at the Rushden Lakes shopping complex after the government relaxed coronavirus lockdown laws significantly, allowing zoos, safari parks and non-essential shops to open to visitors
Getty
46/50 14 June 2020
A man kneels at a commemoration to mark the third anniversary of the Grenfell Tower fire in London. The fire claimed 72 lives on 14 June 2017
PA
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Protesters confront police in Whitehall near Parliament Square, during a protest by the Democratic Football Lads Alliance
PA
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A Black Lives Matter supporter sings to crowds who marched with her in front of the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square in London. The death of an African American man, George Floyd, while in the custody of Minneapolis police has sparked protests across the United States, as well as demonstrations of solidarity in many countries around the world
Getty
49/50 11 June 2020
Scouts show their support at the Lord Baden-Powell statue in Poole. The statue of Robert Baden-Powell on Poole Quay is to be placed in “safe storage” following concerns about his racial views
Getty
50/50 10 June 2020
Social distancing markers around the penguin enclosure at London Zoo. Staff have been preparing and are now ready for reopening next week with new signage, one-way trails for visitors to follow, and extra handwashing and sanitiser stations in place
PA
“There’s speculation about where it came from, but it was a potentially problematic term because it grossly oversimplifies what is quite a nuanced situation.”
Among those to have furthered the idea of behavioural fatigue was the government’s chief medical officer Chris Whitty — who told a press conference on 12 March “an important part of the science on this is actually the behavioural science, and what that shows is probably common sense to everybody in this audience, which is that people start off with the best of intentions, but enthusiasm at a certain point starts to flag”.
Professor West added: “There’s no science behind the idea of behavioural fatigue. There are some parallel situations for example in emergencies where after a period of time people kind of get used to being in an emergency situation, but that’s a completely different thing.
“As a behavioural scientist we’re quite used to people who aren’t behavioural scientists coming with ideas that seem perfectly common-sensical to them, and speaking in very loose terms about things that there is a scientific basis for.
“So I couldn’t blame someone like Chris for bringing up this notion of behavioural fatigue but I think at a very early stage the government should have said ‘actually that’s not a thing’ and that it was actually a phrase that was brought out of thin air.”
