In evidence to the Science and Technology Committee in July 2020, Sir Patrick Vallance, said that SAGE advised the Government to implement the remainder of the menu of options for social distancing measures—in essence a full lockdown—on 16 or 18 March 2020: When the SAGE sub-group on modelling, SPI-M, saw that the doubling time had gone down to three days, which was in the middle of March, that was when the advice SAGE issued was that the remainder of the measures should be introduced as soon as possible. I think that advice was given on 16 or 18 March, and that was when those data became available. Looking 128 Q1003 129 Q1006 130 Q1293 Coronavirus: lessons learned to date 39 back, you can see that the data may have preceded that, but the data were not available before that. Knowledge of the three-day doubling rate became evident during the week before.131 On 16 March 2020, SAGE minutes show that the group concluded that additional measures, beyond those already in place, were required: “SAGE advises that there is clear evidence to support additional social distancing measures be introduced as soon as possible”.132 Sir Patrick explained that SAGE changed its advice on the basis that case numbers were doubling every three days, which was quicker than initially thought.133 Moreover, at the same meeting, SAGE considered a paper from Imperial College London academics, Impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) to reduce COVID19 mortality and healthcare demand.134 The paper concluded that “in an unmitigated epidemic, we would predict approximately 510,000 deaths in GB and 2.2 million in the US, not accounting for the potential negative effects of health systems being overwhelmed on mortality.”135 It was widely reported that this paper was a key factor in the Government’s decision to impose a full lockdown.136 SPI-M-O had also produced a consensus view that “general social distancing and school closures to case isolation, household isolation and social distancing o