Role

SAGE is responsible for ensuring that timely and coordinated scientific advice is made available to decision makers to support UK cross-government decisions in the Cabinet Office Briefing Room (COBR). The advice provided by SAGE does not represent official government policy.

Find out more about SAGE (PDF, 101KB, 4 pages).

Membership

The group is co-chaired by the Government Chief Scientific Adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance and the Chief Medical Officer, Professor Chris Whitty, and includes experts from within government and leading specialists from the fields of healthcare and academia.

View the full list of participants of SAGE and related sub-groups.

Expert groups

SAGE relies on external science advice and on advice from expert groups. During COVID-19 this includes the:

• New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (NERVTAG)
• Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling (SPI-M) (Department for Health and Social Care)
• Independent Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Behaviours (SPI-B)

These groups consider the scientific evidence and feed in their consensus conclusions to SAGE.

Scientific evidence supporting the government response to COVID-19

The national and global response to the spread of COVID-19 continues to develop quickly and our knowledge of the virus is growing. These statements and accompanying evidence demonstrate how our understanding of COVID-19 has evolved as new data has emerged.

Introduction to the evidence

• Coronavirus (COVID-19): scientific evidence supporting the UK government response

Current understanding of COVID-19

• SPI-M-O: Consensus statement on 2019 novel coronavirus (2 March 2020)(PDF, 104KB, 4 pages)

Behavioural and social interventions

• Potential effect of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) on a COVID-19 epidemic in the UK (26 February 2020) (PDF, 156KB, 3 pages)
• SPI-B insights on combined behavioural and social interventions (4 March 2020) (PDF, 193KB, 4 pages)
• Potential impact of behavioural and social interventions on an epidemic of COVID-19 in the UK (9 March 2020) (PDF, 267KB, 8 pages)
• SPI-M-O: Consensus view on behavioural and social interventions (16 March 2020) (PDF, 43.4KB, 1 page)

Behavioural science

• The role of behavioural science in the coronavirus outbreak (14 March 2020) (PDF, 178KB, 3 pages)
• SPI-B: Return on risk of public disorder (25 February 2020) (PDF, 153KB, 2 pages)
• SPI-B: Evidence list (6 March 2020) (PDF, 116KB, 4 pages)

Self-isolation and household isolation

• SPI-B: Insights on self-isolation and household isolation (9 March 2020)(PDF, 168KB, 2 pages)
• SPI-M-O: Consensus view on the impact of mass school closures (19 February 2020) (PDF, 289KB, 4 pages)

Mass gatherings

• SPI-M-O: Consensus view on public gatherings (11 February 2020) (PDF, 90.2KB, 1 page)
• SPI-B: Insights on public gatherings (12 March 2020) (PDF, 168KB, 3 pages)

Modelling inputs

Emerging evidence about COVID-19

• Emergence of a novel coronavirus (COVID-19); A protocol for extending surveillance used by the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) Research and Surveillance Centre (RSC) and Public Health England (PHE)
• Early dynamics of transmission and control of COVID-19: a mathematical modelling study
• Inferring the number of COVID-19 cases from recently reported deaths
• Feasibility of controlling COVID-19 outbreaks by isolation of cases and contacts
• Estimates of the severity of COVID-19 disease
• Novel coronavirus 2019-nCoV: early estimation of epidemiological parameters and epidemic predictions
• Estimation of country-level basic reproductive ratios for novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) using synthetic contact matrices
• A spatial model of COVID-19 transmission in England and Wales: early spread and peak timing
• The efficacy of contact tracing for the containment of the 2019 novel coronavirus (COVID-19)

Reports from Imperial College London

• Epidemic size estimation in Wuhan City
• Epidemic size estimation in Wuhan City - update
• Transmissibility of COVID-19
• Severity of COVID-19
• Phylogenetic analysis of SARS-CoV-2
• Relative sensitivity of international surveillance
• Infection prevalence estimated from repatriation flights
• Symptom progression of COVID-19

The models

• BBC dataset
• POLYMOD

Specific pieces of modelling on interventions provided to SAGE

• Impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) to reduce COVID-19 mortality and healthcare demand