We have just completed two of the most high-profile select committee sessions in memory – interviewing Dominic Cummings about his time in Downing Street and then Matt Hancock with his version of events. What have we learned about the pandemic – and about how our parliamentary democracy works?

I don’t want to prejudge the report the Health and Social Care and Science and Technology Select Committees are now putting together and any recommendations they choose to make.

Nor will I comment on the more sensational allegations made against certain individuals which remain unproven until any evidence is presented to back them up.

But away from the drama – indeed, melodrama – of some of the more extraordinary moments, it is clear we have now learned some important facts about what happened, particularly in the early stages of the pandemic.

Firstly the ‘herd immunity’ riddle. It is clear that up until the period when the first lockdown was announced on March 23 last year, scientists were debating two strategies for tackling the pandemic.

The first was essentially allowing the virus to spread while protecting the most vulnerable (described as a ‘mitigation’ strategy). The second was to try to stop the virus in its tracks (described as a ‘suppression’ strategy).

These were the two approaches modelled for SAGE by Prof Neil Ferguson’s Imperial team. The former was not so much wanting to let the virus rip, but a reluctant belief that the virus would only stop spreading when there was no one left for it to spread to – in other words, when we reached ‘herd immunity’.

And that was our national strategy – supported by a strong belief that any attempt to stop the virus would only lead to a bigger and more lethal wave that coincided with winter.

Then in the week of March 9 it because clear that long before winter the NHS would be overwhelmed. So very quickly first the scientists and then the politicians switched their approach to ‘suppression’ – hence the first lockdown.

What is deeply disappointing, as Matt Hancock confirmed, is that it took until May that year for us to consider the much more successful strategies pursued in Korea, Taiwan and Australia which led to many fewer deaths and much less economic disruption.

To take the best-known example, Korea has not had more than 40 deaths on any one day nor did they have a single national lockdown. Their approach was based on strict control of borders and a rigorous test-and-trace approach backed up with modern technology.

The fact this approach was not even modelled by SAGE until April – and not discussed until May – shows our system had a blind spot when it came to learning from the most successful countries in the world. That, surely, is the first thing we must put right looking forward.

Secondly it is clear the test-and-trace system failed in its primary objective, which was to prevent further lockdowns later in the year by isolating individuals quickly who could infect others.

This appears to have happened for a number of reasons, one of which may be that infections were already more than 2,000 a day when test and trace was set up – much higher daily case numbers than equivalent systems in Korea and Taiwan were having to cope with.

It may also have been because people were worried about losing income if they isolated and because we opted initially for a centralised rather than locally-driven system.

Against those early failures must be set the extraordinary success of the vaccine programme.

Nationally, nearly eight in ten adults have had one jab and nearly six in ten both jabs – only possible because of the nimbleness and foresight of Dame Kate Bingham’s vaccine taskforce last year that pre-bought 400 million vaccine doses from seven manufacturers even when they were still unproven.

But it wasn’t just buying the vaccines: distributing them efficiently to an entire population is a massive logistical exercise and the NHS delivered.

Here in South West Surrey 71,000 people have had their first dose, with more than a million jabs in arms across the Surrey Heartlands area, above the national average.

Massive congratulations are due to all those involved locally, especially the volunteers who were a picture of calm, friendly efficiency. The result across the country is we have vaccinated more of our population than anywhere else in Europe – and more than any country of our size anywhere.

The paradox – at this early stage – is therefore that some of the biggest failures in the performance of the state will have to be balanced against some of its most stunning triumphs – and that is what the joint select committees will have to weigh up in our report.

Whatever we conclude I hope we have shown parliamentary accountability at its best. The public inquiry will have the last word, and will, I am sure, make some important recommendations.

But it is unlikely to report for a couple of years – and if we are to be better prepared for the next pandemic we can’t afford to wait. Our report will come out this year and give us the chance to learn early lessons – and hopefully save many lives in the process.