Robin Swann, the Health Minister for Northern Ireland, has become well known for his end-of-time prophecies and claims of pending doom with regards to the COVID-19 pandemic that introduced itself to Northern Ireland in March 2020.
But has the scare-mongering been justified and just how close to Swann’s hysterical predictions have we gotten?
Robin Swann
Mr Swann was previously President and County Antrim Chairman of the Young Farmers’ Clubs of Ulster and lead the Ulster Unionist Party from 2017-2019.
He became Health Minister in January of this year at a time when the role was proving hard to fill.
Robin could not have envisaged the difficult and turbulent times that lay ahead in his new post with the introduction of COVID-19 to Northern Ireland just a few short months later.
Firstly, he’s told that the 14,000 deaths figure, which was based upon zero adherence to social distancing, was not, in the words of the scientists, a realistic scenario. An important detail, but not one that Mr Swann has every shared with the public
Conor Spackman – BBC NI Spotlight
Robin is advised by his Chief Medical Officer, Doctor Michael McBride, and his Chief Scientific Advisor, Professor Ian Young. These two gentlemen men would in turn take their direction and guidance from the World Health Organisation.
Robin’s predictions
19th March
Northern Ireland registered its first death related to COVID–19 on the 19th March 2020. That same day at a press conference with First Minister, Arlene Foster, Deputy First Minister Michelle O’Neill and Education Minister Peter Weir, Mr Swann spoke of an impending doomsday scenario:
The scale of surge coming towards us, is of biblical proportion
Robin Swann, Northern Ireland Health Minister, 19 March 2020
Mr Swann would then go on to claim that around 15,200 would die as a “reasonable worst case scenario“. That was based upon modelling assuming an ‘80% infection rate and a 1% mortality rate’ (remember this calculation as I’ll be coming back to it soon). He would later say that if the public followed the guidance and 50% of the population contracted the virus that the death rate could be brought down to 9,000. That again was on the 19th March.
20th March
The following day, 20th March, he would appear on the Stephen Nolan show and claim 14,000 people could die. That’s a reduction in 1,200 deaths in the space of 24 hours.
He would confirm these predictions on the BBC’s – “The View” on the same day:
It’s still unclear how Robin reduced his overall prediction by 1,200 in 24 hours.
Recall the 80% infection rate & 1% mortality calculation earlier? That was for 15,200 deaths. You heard Robin in the above video claim that 14,000 deaths would also be due to an 80% infection rate and 1% mortality. I draw attention to this because it’s important to note the clear panic that was engulfing the minister possibly causing him to hyper-inflate the already hyper-inflated data.
23rd March
Three days later, on 23rd March, there would be 1 further death associated with COVID-19 bringing the then total to 2. At this stage the public would witness signs of disdain and lack of trust from Minister Swann in their direction.
When we see the response of some people in the general public it’s what’s actually needed here in Northern Ireland, and we’ll have to enforce that (draconian measures against free movement).
Those draconian measures will save lives – it’s as simple as that.
Robin Swann, 23/3/20
In the same interview he would also label residents of Northern Ireland as “selfish” for flouting the guidance. The use of this type of language does suggest he was himself panicked by what was going on. However, as a government minister in a time of crisis you would assume it would be in his interests to bring the public along with him rather than alienate them, which I argue is what he has ultimately ended up doing.
On the same day Mr Swann would claim:
In a few short weeks, this onslaught could very rapidly dwarf the impact of the Troubles on our society.
Robin Swann, 23/3/20
There were 3,637 deaths related to the Northern Ireland Troubles. When Mr Swann made this comment there had been 2 deaths in NI related to COVID-19.
1st April
On the 1st April he revised those figures down again from 15,200 as “a reasonable first case scenario” to 3,000 deaths as “a reasonable worst case scenario.” According to the Irish News, Mr Swann claimed:
He said that in a worst-case scenario, 3,000 people could die over 20 weeks of a coronavirus epidemic.
Irish News 1/4/20
It would then be reasonable to ask how Mr Swann went from 15,200 predicted deaths on 19th March to 3,000, 2 weeks later. That sort of number manipulation reeks of tea-leaf reading and would suggest that the 15,200 figure was never expected to become a reality and that Mr Swann wished to scare people into believing that it would. As the figures started to become available he would have been forced into winding back his scaremongering’s. To be blunt, as the numbers of dead were at 44 on the 1st April how could he still have maintained the doomsday prophecy of 15,200?
The BBC would report the same day that the 3,000 death prediction was to be “in the first wave”:
10th April
On the 10th April he would activate “MACA” (Military Aid to Civil Authorities) which permits the military to help out civil agencies in a time of need. What the minister requested their assistance for was help in building a Nightingale Hospital at the old Maze prison site. The hospital would be able to hold 4,000 patients.
This idea never went ahead but it’s yet another example of just how out-of-control and deranged his thinking was, and indeed arguably still is. Of course he was freaked out. But it’s not a reassuring sign to see your Health Minister prophesying doom and gloom even as he was revising down his ‘biblical prophecies’ death predictions.
20th April
Mr Swann would again go on to revise this figure down even further, this time to 1,500 deaths “in the first wave” less than 20 days after his .
At this time there had been 207 deaths related to COVID-19.
Health Minister Swann also revealed that science experts have revised down the most reasonable worst case scenario death toll from 15,000 to 1,500 for the first 20 weeks of pandemic.
Robin Swann as per Newsletter, 20/4/20
Even as the expected death rates were being dialled back, at an alarming rate, this wouldn’t stop Mr Swann continuing with his hysterical scaremongering.
Recap
On the 1st April Robin Swann predicted 3,000 deaths in the first 20 weeks of the epidemic. Less than three weeks later he revised that figure by 50%.
That’s a 90% reduction in his original predictions just 6 weeks previous, which were of 15K+.
As of the time of writing this article, 18th September 2020, there have been 575 deaths according to the Public Health Agency.
Here is the Public Health Agencies graph showing the trend of the deaths in Northern Ireland since the pandemic began to date.
The slippery slope
At a Stormont Briefing on 18th August 2020, Minister Swann continued with his stark warnings and doomsday terminology. He spoke of a danger of going down,
a very slippery and treacherous slope
Robin Swann, Belfast Live
He goes on to say that’s it’s his job to be worried.
And I have to tell you that I’m as worried today as I have been for some time.
Robin Swann, Belfast Live
As noted above, i’s clear that Robin has been worried from the beginning which comes across in his language, warnings and end-of-time prophecies.
He’s worried because of a rise in “cases”, not hospitalisations (of which there was 20 on the day he made the claim) and not deaths (there had been 1 death in the previous 7 days). He’s worried because otherwise healthy and quite well people were testing positive for Coronavirus RNA which is not the same thing as testing positive for active SARS-CoV-2. His department were in essence telling healthy and well people that they were sick. I will discuss the PCR testing in an upcoming article but for now it’s suffice to say that the hysteria at this time was not science-based nor data based but because the health minister was worried. When we’re worried we make rash decisions and we scare those around us.
Swann wants to keep secrets
On the 1st April Minister Swann would go back on the Stephen Nolan Show to speak about recent developments. During that show Swann said:
When we went into this at the start, I said at the time that once we had Northern Ireland modelling available, I would make it available so that people could understand what we were actually looking at.
Robin Swann – Stephen Nolan Show 1 April 2020
Firstly, he’s told that the 14,000 deaths figure, which was based upon zero adherence to social distancing, was not, in the words of the scientists, a realistic scenario. An important detail, but not one that Mr Swann has every shared with the public. Preferring, as we’ve heard, to call it a “nightmare scenario”.
Conor Spackman – BBC NI Spotlight
Secondly, the leaked document shows how Mr Swann wanted to keep secret the scientist’s best case scenario, just 250 deaths, because in his words he doesn’t want to create “a false sense of security”.
Conor Spackman – BBC NI Spotlight
So after telling the Northern Ireland audience on the Nolan Show, on April 1st, he would “would make it [the modelling] available” Conor Spackman shows how in fact Swann had asked his Assembly colleagues to keep the paper a secret.
Put your tin-foil hats away – it’s you’re own fault
So let me address the doubters and critics in our midst. There will be some that accuse me of exaggerating the threat.
Robin Swann, Belfast Live
During this pandemic, I have repeatedly warned people not to get distracted by noise or conspiracy theories on social media or elsewhere.
Robin Swann – 16th September
How much more conspiratorial can one be than to claim 15,200 people could lose their lives only to 24 hours later revise that figure to 14,000 then to eventually bring it down to 1,500 and still be wrong by a degree of 260%? Add to that the minister requests that his Assembly colleagues also keep the scientific analysis a secret and away from the eyes of the public. That certainly has all the ingredients of a cracking conspiracy theory. So it seems that Minister Swann isn’t against all conspiracy theories – just those he didn’t espouse!
Keyboard warriors can sit safely at home and promote distorted agendas against vaccines and masks. I would ask to them to put their tin foil hats back in the drawer, but I doubt they would listen.
Robin Swann – 16th September
Questioning masks and vaccines are legitimate concerns. Is Mr Swann asking that we trust his judgement and just take the needle? Given how I have shown above how skewed and untrustworthy his judgement has been thus far, could you honestly say you trust his judgement? Is he asking that we ignore the decades of literature and science that have shown masks offer little more than a placebo effect in real-life scenarios with relation to viral spread? Is Mr Swann asking that we ignore real experts like Carl Heneghan, the Director of the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine at Oxford University? Here’s what he says on masks:
“If you have influenza in your household, a child, and you wear masks, at one week in the house you can reduce your risk of influenza like illness by about 10%. However, you have to completely adhere to the mask wearing for the whole week.”
Professor Carl Heneghan, Oxford University to Oireachtas Éireann
Bearing in mind that Professor Heneghan doesn’t wear tin-foils hats; has never been accused of wearing a tin-foil hat; and in fact, to my knowledge, has never actually been contradicted on what he says by anyone in establishment approved science. But if that isn’t enough, he goes a little further and lays it out in layman’s terms as to how unscientific the wearing of masks are in helping “Stop the Spread” of COVID-19.
“..it’s not clear they work and even if they did work, we reckon about 200K people would have to wear a mask fully for a week to prevent one infection. So, if you want to put a policy in place, that’s fine. But what you can’t do is say it’s evidence based.”
Carl Heneghan 2020 – to Oireachtas Éireann
So to address Mr Swann’s charges against those who are questioning his non-scientific yet mandated mask wearing regulations I’d suggest he looks at the real science as per Professor Heneghan. Or maybe listen to one of world’s most esteemed epidemiologists, Sweden’s Anders Tegnell:
Swann continues…
I am confident the people of Northern Ireland will not fall for their attempts to create confusion and hysteria.
Minister Swann is actually accusing those questioning his hysterical rantings of being ‘hysterical’ themselves. Such is the inverted times we live in.
My job is to do what’s best for the people of Northern Ireland.
What, like taking the vulnerable people out of hospitals and locking them down in care homes where hundreds went on to die? That kind of taking care of the people? And then to go on to blame the young people for everything else? Yeah, because that’s good for their mental health at a time of schools and universities reopening after having them locked up for the best part of the year.
Here’s graph from Mister Swann’s own Department, current as of 17th September. Note the 188 deaths in “Residential/Care Home”. But rather than acknowledge this massive failure the minister would rather hyperventilate at the public blaming them for being irresponsible by visiting their loved ones and, woe betide, maybe having some fun in between.
Conclusion
This article is much longer than I originally anticipated and I make no apologies for that. These are unprecedented times and Northern Ireland has a Health Minister that would rather blame the public for everything than to accept any of the blame himself. Recently he’s even taken to blaming the youth for…well…being young and trying to enjoy life. How dare they.
Originally the article shone a more favourable and understanding light on the Health Minister as I tried to view things from his perspective. But given his recent tirades on the young and anyone questioning his much discredited conspiracy theories and then asking the Assembly to keep the scientist’s findings a secret, I could no longer hold this position. I rewrote the article in a more honest, direct fashion.
That said, I had toyed with the idea of playing Devil’s Advocate and felt one could maybe argue that Swann’s reason for not sharing the results of the scientific modelling was justified and that he felt doing so would make people complacent and therefore possibly lead to an increase in deaths and hospitalisations. On the flip-side that shows, as I said at the beginning of this report, that from the outset he neither trusted nor respected the people of the North to adhere to the advice. This in itself leads to its own set of issues and creates fertile ground for conspiracy theories to grow.
When after a single death the Health Minister starts talking about “deaths of biblical proportions” it is neither rational nor justified. Instead it serves only to frighten the people even more than what they were already. One would imagine that as time went on and the same minister was forced to retract his nightmare scenarios that he would also dilute his tonality. Instead he increased his use of fire and brimstone language and this has lead to a huge divide between him, his department and the average Joe on the streets. If one scans social media they’ll soon learn that Robin Swann is not a trusted voice by the people of Northern Ireland. I’m told privately that the Public Health Agency has been “swarmed with FOI” requests. I’m also told privately that trust within his own department is so low that they were forced to leak documents to the BBC. I’ve news for Mr Swann, the public trust in him is as low as the number of deaths and hospitalisation from COVID-19. When you treat people with contempt they will hold you in contempt.
The fear-mongering kept sick people from going to hospitals or from having health concerns checked out as they were discovered. The analogy of being on a plane as it hits mechanical issues and needs to make an emergency landing, is helpful in explaining this. If the cabin crew began hysterical rantings about “deaths of biblical proportions” and “worst case scenarios” that would certainly not help calm the passengers down. It would, of course, have the opposite effect. Anyone who at any time has been on a plane in bad turbulence will be aware that it’s natural to look to the cabin crew for guidance and reassurance. Guidance and reassurance is not something the people of Northern Ireland received from the Health Minister and this is why I believe the document was leaked to the BBC.
I genuinely don’t believe that Robin Swann has set out to do any harm but harm he has done. I believe he’s tried to do his best and having no medical background and being fresh into the post he genuinely panicked. I can accept all that and go as far as to argue rationally in his favour, to a degree, at the beginning of the pandemic. What I cannot do is argue in his favour as he kept the fear mongering going, withheld vital data from the people and introduced further draconian measures devoid of supporting science.
Whilst Robin was warning us of “deaths of biblical proportions”, his predictions weren’t being borne out. The ‘overflowing hospital’s – were empty. The stretched NHS – was operational with empty beds and overburdened nurses – were making “TikTok” videos:
As were the ambulance staff:
So, during this global pandemic we were told hospitals were being overrun and that we should “Stay at home and protect the NHS”. Robin Swann echoed this scaremongering. Yet there were dozens of videos posted online of nurses, doctors and ambulance staff dancing, singing or making complete idiots out of themselves. Northern Ireland was, as shown above, no exception to that circus. So whilst people were suffering at home, afraid to go and see a doctor in case they died on the way, medical staff were having “very long breaks” (NI consultant told me this personally) and making dancing videos.
None of this is acceptable and none of you, residents of Northern Ireland, deserve to be treated with such contempt and dishonesty. Outside of BBC NI Spotlight, your media has played along with this dishonesty; compliant and afraid to ask questions. The questions that I have been asking and will continue to ask for as long as they remain muzzled (literally) by their editors.