New Scientist reports that the scientific data and other documents guiding the UK's COVID-19 response and the minutes from the meetings in which those decisions are made won't be released until after the pandemic is under control.
In a letter to the chair of the House of Commons science and technology committee, Patrick Vallance, the UK's chief scientific advisor, said details from the Scientific Advisory Group on Emergencies' meetings would be released — including who is part of SAGE — when it is no longer convening on the crisis. New Scientist notes that some information on research discussed by SAGE has been released, but not all.
About three dozen researchers argued in a letter to the Lancet that this information should be publicly available. "[W]e request that the government urgently and openly shares the scientific evidence, data, and models it is using to inform current decision making related to COVID-19 public health interventions within the next 72 h and then at regular intervals thereafter," they wrote in the letter. "Time is a luxury we simply do not have as we face this critical public health crisis."
"We ought to know who is advising the government," adds Newcastle University's Allyson Pollock, a signatory of the letter, at New Scientist.