ADDED: I came across an article in the Washington Post, titled, “The weird things Rand Paul said about reopening schools”. So I went there and found nothing weird. He’s saying that the infection rates at schools is extremely low, they don’t transmit to adults, and their death rates “approach zero”. All of which are true, according to Swiss Studies and another study with many authors, which I’ve posted before. While Dr Fauci prevaricates and says “I don’t know”. Why is it “weird” for Paul to note that Dr Fauci is “extremely cautious”. He is! If we want anything decent to happen to our kids, we need to get schools open again. Maybe there’s risk. But it’s small. Rand Paul notes that if the lockdown of schools continues, the worst hit will be minorities. Again, what’s “weird” about that. He also says that this issue should be debated. To which WaPo says “weird”. Why? I don’t get it.Dr John Lee is a professor of pathology and consultant to the NHS. He’s the one who wrote an article stressing the difference between dying “from Covid”, i.e. that’s the main cause of death, and dying “with Covid”when the death may be due to another factor or a number of factors and Covid just happens to be in the mix. Critical difference. The most common is the latter.
Here he is again:
Writing in this magazine a month ago, I applauded the government’s stated aim of trying to follow the science in dealing with Covid. Such promises are easier made than kept. Following science means understanding science. It means engaging with rival interpretations of the limited data in order to tease out what is most important in what we don’t know. Instead, the government in the UK (and many other places) seems uninterested in alternative viewpoints. The chosen narrative – that lockdown has saved countless lives – has been doggedly followed by all spokespeople. No doubt is allowed. We have been seeing the groupthink response to a perceived external threat that Jonathan Haidt describes so lucidly in his excellent book on human moral thinking, The Righteous Mind.
It has now become a matter of faith that lockdown is vital. Not only is it believed to be causally responsible for 'flattening the curve', but it is feared that releasing it too soon may cause a second spike in cases and 'economic disaster' (presumably due to further huge numbers of deaths). On what evidence is this made?
Even if one could understand why lockdown was imposed, it very rapidly became apparent that it had not been thought through. Not in terms of the wider effects on society (which have yet to be counted) and not even in terms of the ways that the virus itself might behave. But at the start, there was hardly any evidence. Everyone was guessing. Now we have a world of evidence, from around the globe, and the case for starting to reverse lockdown is compelling. Here are ten reasons why I believe that it is wrong to continue with lockdown and why we should start to reverse it immediately and rapidly.
