| Topic: | Re:Cure worse than the disease? | |
| Posted by: | Andy Riley | |
| Date/Time: | 14/04/20 08:45:00 |
| From an article by Dr John Lee in the Spectator online: "...we have now suffered three weeks of the most severe disruption our society has ever suffered, outside of wartime, with hardly any assessment of the side-effects on public health, let alone the economy. We are placing a huge amount of weight on modelling predictions, created with not much evidence, and untested assumptions. And in the certain knowledge that exactly this approach – the early modelling of pandemics – has been wildly wrong in its predictions before. There has been nowhere near enough discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of the model being used, or about whether the direct and indirect harms caused by our response to Covid-19 may outweigh the harm caused by the virus itself. ... It is time for us to return, critically and calmly, to a rounded and robust scientific debate that generates a range of views about the severity and significance of this virus. And for our politicians to weigh these differing views extremely carefully against the clear and manifest harms of lockdown. It is for ministers, not scientists, to decide whether, in the light of changing evidence and understanding, our response to the virus is proportionate - and how to take us forward." |