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The pub at the end of the road remains closed. My cousin, a teacher, tells of weaker students who ‘disappeared’ from online teaching. My 99-year old aunt’s dementia snubbed out the last flickers of recognition whilst she was ‘protected’ from the virus. The resulting damage is plain in daily life, let alone in data I review professionally. It is this world view – a deep scepticism of utopian policies adopted ‘on the hoof’ and enforced with a mixture of panic and zeal – that leads me to CG. There is a vast dislocation of society, unlike anything from the equally (or more) lethal pandemics of 1889-94 or 1918-19. Instead, what was done had an honourable intention (‘saving lives’) but has led to over-reach, suffused with hubris. That old 2011 plan was brutal but it did have the merits of being in touch with biology and experience. Politicians mouth the phrase but are nervous of the actuality. This is the messy reality of ‘Living with COVID’. Over time it’ll become one more common cold. Those of us longer in the tooth are given a useful shove in the right direction by vaccines. Children and adolescents will build a deep immunity as to other circulating respiratory viruses. Most of us will face a few rounds with the virus. COVID-19 is now endemic across Europe, the Americas, South and SE Asia, with remaining ‘Zero-COVID’ jurisdictions wobbling. Delta kiboshed the notion that the ‘R’ number could be reduced sufficiently to send COVID-19 the way of measles, polio, or smallpox.
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Might these halt the pandemic? If so, maybe the damage wasn’t in vain? Now, though, we’re learning that vaccines, whilst useful in preventing severe disease, are imperfect. The advent of vaccines, earlier than I expected, did give me pause. Observing these failures led me to co-sign the Great Barrington Declaration and become an active critic in the media. It achieved only the selection of the Kentish variant, which spread more efficiently. A second lockdown was justified by bogus modelling. Cases, hospitalisations, and deaths rose despite Track and trace, masks, and more draconian enforcement. Damage to civil liberties troubled me, watching police in riot gear lined up against innocuous protesters. The human and economic cost was daily clearer, whilst death trajectories remained similar in Sweden, with no lockdown the UK, with a moderate lockdown and France, with 1-hour exercise paroles.
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There is a vast dislocation of society, unlike anything from the equally (or more) lethal pandemics of 1889-94 or 1918-19.”Īs three weeks dragged into four months, my doubts hardened. “What was done had an honourable intention (‘saving lives’) but has led to over-reach, suffused with hubris. Three weeks to flatten the curve would give time to procure PPE. I doubted they’d do more than delay the inevitable, but maybe they were worth a try. Then – and blame whom you will – policy veered into the uncharted realm of lockdowns. In March 2020, the government began by following that plan. The 2011 Pandemic Influenza Plan, still current in 2020, stressed the desirability of keeping life as normal as possible. Even after swine flu in 2009, or Operation Cygnus in 2016, there was no suggestion that the world should be turned upside down in response. But, as then, there was a limited amount we could do. They thought us overdue for a pandemic.Īs in 1889-94, 1918-19, 1957-69, it would cause many deaths. Planning for respiratory viruses wasn’t my role, but I worked alongside those responsible. I worked for Public Health England from 1997 until 2018, directing its antibiotic resistance laboratory from 1998 until 2011.