Mick Hartley

A good piece in Spiked by John Lee, a former professor of pathology and NHS consultant pathologist. Worth reading in full, but here's his conclusion:

And in the end, will the government’s Covid control strategy work? I don’t think it will. The history of trying to find a coronavirus vaccine is one of failure. And it seems likely that even if a vaccine is found it will rapidly lose efficacy when deployed on a population basis as the new selective pressure causes the virus to mutate away from control.

The correct course, visible for months, is to let people go about their lives normally in their own way, while advising the elderly and infirm of the risks, but letting them make their own decisions about what makes life worth living for them. The level of risk to the population is much lower than that which, in a truly liberal democracy, can justify compulsion on any reasonable assessment. Our institutional response to this crisis is deeply dysfunctional. It is not, surely, a role of government to tell us who we can hug.

We will have to learn to live with this virus. We may in fact already be quite close to collective immunity, and anyway that is where we are going to end up whatever we do. But in the meantime it is a tragedy that the witch’s brew has led to well-meaning but excessive actions by government, causing totally avoidable harm. Bold leaders often have to take difficult decisions. In this crisis boldness will require breaking the spell, and will consist in letting normal life resume, not in increasing restrictions.