They haven’t just been saying it for weeks.

[GoodTaste]

The timeline for the expression "They haven’t just been saying it for weeks" is:

About May 1 to today (June 11)?

Am I on the right track? Who do "they" refer to? The scientists? It is puzzling to me because if it refers to the scientists, saying at the timeline (May1-June11) seems pointless because the disaster has happened. Saying it early (to lock down) was meaningful at the time. I've got, linguistically, something wrong here.


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richard horton Retweeted (just now)
Carole Cadwalladr
@carolecadwalla
·
2h
They haven’t just been saying it for weeks.
@globalhlthtwit @devisridhar @richardhorton1 @Dr2NisreenAlwan
& many more said it *at the time*. Hundreds of scientists signed letters saying it. Yet still these voices in scientific community not being listened to now

Krishnan Guru-Murthy
@krishgm
· 8h
Prof Neil Ferguson saying tens of thousands have died of Covid 19 because govt did not lock down earlier (when Italy was already in crisis) should not come as a surprise given @Sir_David_King @globalhlthtwit @devisridhar John Edmunds and others have been saying it for weeks

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

It might mean that lot of people have been saying it for more than just a few weeks.

It's hard to tell from what you've posted.

 

[emsr2d2]

The people named at the end of Krishnan Guru-Murthy's original tweet haven't only been saying the lockdown should have started earlier for the last few weeks; they were saying it before that. They were saying lockdown should happen before the government decided to go ahead with lockdown.

 

[GoodTaste]

The people named at the end of Krishnan Guru-Murthy's original tweet haven't only been saying the lockdown should have started earlier for the last few weeks; they were saying it before that. They were saying lockdown should happen before the government decided to go ahead with lockdown.

The problem is that the people named at the end are the scientists, while it is not clear what "they" refer to at the beginning:

They haven’t just been saying it for weeks.
@globalhlthtwit @devisridhar @richardhorton1 @Dr2NisreenAlwan
& many more said it *at the time*. Hundreds of scientists signed letters saying it. Yet still these voices in scientific community not being listened to now