Covid-19’s rebel scientists: has iSAGE been a success?

Before England’s “freedom day”—when the last of the covid-19 restrictions were lifted on 19 July 2021—an international group of scientists sounded the alarm. Scrapping restrictions was “a dangerous and unethical experiment” they wrote in a letter in the Lancet.1 A YouTube and Twitter livestream from the same scientists demanded the government halt its plans.2

Prominent among the signatories to the Lancet letter and the YouTube and Twitter presence were members of the Independent Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, a self-established body that came together near the start of the pandemic and quickly became a fixture of the UK’s covid-19 debate. The organisation, sometimes referred to as Indie SAGE, is abbreviated to iSAGE throughout this article.

Many have welcomed an expert counter voice to the government’s official advisers, and the group has collected more than 85 000 media citations, 160 000 Twitter followers, and 18 000 YouTube subscribers since the beginning of the pandemic. It has advised trade unions and had the ear of prominent politicians. But it has also made enemies for its confrontational style, blending science with politics, and its ties to an activist group.

Founded by David King, former chief scientific adviser to the Tony Blair and Gordon Brown governments, iSAGE comprises academics from mathematics, public health, virology, and behavioural science. Membership has changed slightly over time, but the number of members has stayed at 12.

The aim was to present the government with “robust, unbiased advice” and evidence based policies to tackle the covid-19 pandemic, King told the Times.3 It wanted “to open up the discussion for the public,” says Deenan Pillay, current chair of the group and professor of virology at University College London. iSAGE recognised that …