The Telegraph 20210514 Use of fear to control behaviour in Covid crisis was ‘totalitarian’, admit scientists.pdf

Scientists on a committee that encouraged the use of fear to control people’s behaviour during the
Covid pandemic have admitted its work was “unethical” and “totalitarian”.
Members of the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Behaviour (SPI-B) expressed regret about
the tactics in a new book about the role of psychology in the Government’s Covid-19 response.
SPI-B warned in March last year that ministers needed to increase “the perceived level of personal
threat” from Covid-19 because “a substantial number of people still do not feel sufficiently
personally threatened”.
Gavin Morgan, a psychologist on the team, said: “Clearly, using fear as a means of control is not
ethical. Using fear smacks of totalitarianism. It’s not an ethical stance for any modern government.
By nature I am an optimistic person, but all this has given me a more pessimistic view of people.”

PUBLICITÉ

Mr Morgan spoke to author Laura Dodsworth, who has spent a year investigating the Government’s
tactics for her book A State of Fear, published on Monday.
Ministers have faced repeated accusations that they ramped up the threat from the pandemic to
justify lockdowns and coerce the public into abiding by them – a claim that will be examined by the
forthcoming public inquiry into the pandemic response.