The then Secretary of State, Matt Hancock MP, made the same point regarding the difficulty of challenging a scientific consensus.148 On 28 January 2020, SAGE said that testing asymptomatic individuals would “not be useful”.149 However, at the same meeting, SAGE went on to say that there was “limited evidence of asymptomatic transmission, but early indications imply some is occurring.”150 Matt Hancock told us that he thought asymptomatic transmission was occurring, but he found it difficult to challenge the scientific consensus: I was in a situation of not having hard evidence that a global scientific consensus of decades was wrong but having an instinct that it was. I bitterly regret that I did not overrule that scientific advice at the start and say that we should proceed on the basis that there is asymptomatic transmission until we know there is not, rather than the other way round. But when you are faced with a global consensus, and you do not have the evidence that you are right and the scientific consensus is wrong, it is hard to do that.151 146 For example, see “Coronavirus cases have dropped sharply in South Korea. What’s the secret to its success?”, 17 March 2020; and comments by Prof Balloux and Dr Groppelli, 10 March 2020 147 Q1008 148 Q1302 149 GOV.UK, SAGE 2, paragraph 16, 28 January 2020 150 GOV.UK, SAGE 2, paragraph 16, 28 January 2020 151 Q1302 42 Coronavirus: lessons learned to date We also note that Nobel Laureates Sir Paul Nurse and Sir Peter Ratcliffe wrote to the then Secretary of State to warn about asymptomatic transmission and the need for testing in April 2020. However, they did not receive a substantive response until July and only then from a correspondence clerk rather than the then Secretary of State.152 We continue to await a response from the Department on why action was not taken on asymptomatic transmission and testing earlier.153