I think the Coronavirus-related deaths of 2020 represent the biggest disaster to have befallen the island since the Summerland fires. Given the terrible death toll that our island suffered, especially comparable to other island jurisdictions, I would hope that we could learn from the disaster and learn for the future.
Here are some of the issues to investigate:
1) Why was the Isle of Man Government arrogantly dismissing the risk of COVID-19 as “medium to low” in MARCH 2020 when there were 89,000 confirmed cases of the virus globally, and likely hundreds of thousands of more unidentified cases?
2) What caused the very wrong forecasts produced by the Isle of Man Government “experts” in Spring 2020 to so badly err in estimating the spread of the virus? Did the Isle of Man Government even use the right branch of mathematics for such forecasts? Why did the Isle of Man Government not listen to those of us who warned of this fundamental error at the time?
3) Who received insufficient financial support? Who missed out?
4) Who received too much financial support? Who didn’t need it?
5) How much financial support was lost to fraud?
6) Why did a business associated with the now Chief Minister repay COVID support in January 2022? What was the catalyst for the repayment of such funds? The repayment was made on 31 January 2022: what was different on that day, from, say, three weeks earlier on 10 January 2022? (Did the events of 21 January play a role, perhaps?).
7) Why did vaccinations in the Isle of Man start a month later than the United Kingdom? How many lives were lost in the early outbreaks of COVID in the Isle of Man in 2021 as a result of this delay?
8) Tens of thousands of COVID vaccine doses were sitting in fridges in the Isle of Man for much of the period from December 2020 to the summer of 2021. Was the decision to keep those vaccines sitting in freezers right? What were the costs and benefits of this decision?
9) Is it right that the Isle of Man Government kept its scientific advice secret? Was this a pandemic and global health crisis, or not? What is wrong with a scientist who keeps their advice a secret? What sort of “scientist” operates in such secrecy when people are dying?
10) The “experts” in the IOM Government said, in May 2020, that the virus could not be eradicated on the Island. Mere eight days later (!!!) transmission stopped on the Island, and the virus was eradicated on the Island. Who gave that advice? How were they held accountable for such a deep and fundamental error? Could such a fundamental error in the understanding of the spread of the disease have been averted?
11) Why was our legal system – comprising everything from legislators, to police, to prosecutors, to judges, to sentencing – so incapable of distinguishing between potentially evil behaviour (eg, wilfully evading isolation warnings) from misguided behaviour (eg, fleeing a drunken disturbance in a home at risk of domestic violence)?
12) When people in the community such as me highlighted the awfulness of #11 in October 2020, why did the Isle of Man Government not take corrective action?
13) Did the failure of the Isle of Man Government to take corrective action in response to #12 lead to a woman’s death in January 2021 from allegedly domestic violence as I predicted in October 2020?
14) Why did the Isle of Man Government change the law in January 2021, 3 days after the death of a woman allegedly in connection with domestic violence? Why did they not change the law when I highlighted the risk of a woman dying from domestic violence three months earlier?
15) What, if any, was the relationship between suicides and lockdowns on the Isle of Man? Why did suicides in the Isle of Man in 2020 rise, when many comparative jurisdictions (UK, USA, elsewhere) had either a drop in suicides or no change?
16) What, if any, were the costs to our children’s education from lost learning at schools and other educational institutions? How can we recover from this?
17) What was the total estimated cost to our community of lockdowns? What was the total estimated benefit to our community of lockdowns?
18) What policy changes do we think could have reduced the cost of lockdowns, while maintaining much of the claimed benefit of lockdowns?
19) What pre-existing plans were useful during the Covid pandemic? What can we learn from this about what will be useful for the next pandemic?
20) What lessons can we learn for other, non-pandemic, disasters?
